Writer and comedian Emerson Dameron considers Los Angeles his “spiritual home.” The city doesn’t care about you or whether you succeed — and that’s what he likes about it. Read an excerpt of his thoughts, or listen below:

“I’ll begin with a quote from one of my city’s great ambassadors, and one of my person heroes. That’s Greg Dulli of the band The Afghan Whigs: ‘12 million people don’t live here because it sucks.’

If you want to be wildly successful or homeless, move to Los Angeles. Watch a few hours of network television and you’ll realize there’s no clear line. Most of the millionaires in Los Angeles have more ridiculous jobs than the panhandlers. Over the holiday break, an arsonist set an estimated 50 car fires in one Los Angeles neighborhood, some spreading to nearby buildings and causing, all together, about $3 million in damage. Even one of Jim Morrison’s former homes took a hit, wounding his ghost.

His associate Mr. Mojo emerged unharmed.”

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Correction: Even though the host of the Paper Machete identifies Dameron as an “L.A. native,” the writer was actually born in Marion, North Carolina. But “Los Angeles is my ‘spiritual’ hometown,” he says, “the only place I’ve ever considered myself ‘from.’”