Cincinnati, USA.

As you cross over the Ohio river, the city shines in the distance. It looks like a beautiful jewel rising from the banks of the water.

Then you get downtown.

Burnt out.

Desolate.

Wasteland.

So you drive a bit west.

Homeless people on street corners. Hookers. Crack pipe littered streets.

So you go out to the suburbs.

Dennys. Dunkin' Donuts. Desolation. Despair.

It all smells like a meth lab and feels like a sharp kick to the teeth.

Go reds, Go!

Los Angeles, USA.

The Mondrian Hotel. Los Angeles.

It seems as though skulls are "in" for 2006. Every single person at every single restaurant and bar on the sunset strip is wearing some variation of the skull motif on their clothing.

Skulls haven't been this popular since the Khamar Rouge was in power in Cambodia.

I don't understand it. Why is it cool to wear a picture of a skull?

I think that it has to do with LA's perpetual inferiority complex. It's all about the need to appear to be tough and "real". It helps counter the clearly false image of being a town full of cocaine-fueled stick-insect wannabees and balding escort-service clientelle.

Come on. You know that nothing says "I'm hardcore" better then having a picture of a skull on your $700 thrift store jeans as you slowly sip a latte through a sifter as you look up Botox clinics on your blackberry.

It's all about the appearance of toughness. Unfortunately, Los Angeles ain't that tough a place.

Imagine if cities had fights with each other.

Omaha, Nebraska would kick Los Angeles's ass.

A mob of methed-out goons from the cornfields would wreck havoc with the local population. The people here wouldn't know what had hit them. Pitchforks weilding maniacs would be driving tractors down La Cienega in no time.

Dallas, Tokyo, Atlanta, Mumbai, and Quebec City would all kick Los Angeles's ass.

Oh. And Detroit would kick Los Angeles's ass.

Pick any five guys from Detroit. Any five people. I don't care if they're crippled, old, weak, amputed, it doesn't matter. They could realistically take over southern California within a week.

When you say AK-47 in LA, people think that it's a clothing line.

At least there would be matching skulls.