These days, people are quick to see tarnish on the Golden State. Overly glossy images of Lotusland have given way to overly dire visions of gloom. The truth, of course, lies in between. : California Dreaming

A h, the Golden State. Sunshine and bliss. Convertibles and hard bodies.

Right?

Times staff writers try to pop or at least deflate some of the myths and misperceptions we live with.

Perception No. 1: Californians Are Airheads

Ever since Frank Lloyd Wright gazed west and said it seemed as if the country had been tilted on its side and all the loose screws had tumbled here, many have assumed that Californians can’t think.

That their brains, melted and corroded by sunshine and salt air, have been rendered incapable of intellectual activity.

Um, like, no way .

So what if our academics don’t hang out in cafes wearing wire-rimmed glasses and bow ties? They’ve been busy inventing things of great historical import: the seat belt, the wet suit and 40 varieties of strawberries. As for the rest of us, well, at least we buy a lot of books.

Residents in the L.A.-Long Beach area are second only to New Yorkers in the amount of money ($265.6 million) they spend on books annually, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce’s most recent figures.

High school grads who enter the University of California system are smarter than most freshmen around the country.

In 1992, their mean SAT scores (503 verbal, 596 math) were 22% higher than the national average.

Moreover, the UC system includes 236 members of the prestigious National Academy of Sciences and has produced 29 Nobel laureates--many in physics, chemistry and medicine. UC doctors were the first to successfully perform fetal surgery.

Beyond the campus, some believe California thinkers might come to dominate American intellectual life.

USC professor and author Kevin Starr suggests that our films (such as “Boyz ‘n the Hood”) might offer the best method, superior to written analysis, of thinking through difficult social problems.

In addition, serious and well-funded Southern California thinkers at the San Diego-based Salk Institute and Brentwood’s Getty Center will be paving the way in AIDS, leukemia and artistic cultural research.

Says Starr: “The whole question of the Getty and what it’s going to do will make Los Angeles the new Alexandria, an ‘ecumenopolis’ on the Pacific Coast.”

Perception No. 2: California Is the Cult Capital of the Country

True and false. In terms of actual numbers, California does have the most cults, but the distinction of most cults per capita belongs to Arizona, according to Gordon Melton, director of the Institute for the Study of American Religion.

California earned the nickname “Cultifornia” for a couple of reasons: First, the proliferation of “unconventional religions” is largely an urban phenomenon, and California is the only state with three major urban areas, Melton says. Second, most cults are imported from Asia, Melton says, and this is their logical starting-off point. The best-known is the Unification Church, whose members are frequently called Moonies after founder Sun Myung Moon.

But there are home-grown varieties, as well, such as John-Roger’s Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness.

Do more Californians join cults? Nobody knows. But the Chicago-based Cult Awareness Network says it fields more calls from California than any other state (or nation) except Illinois, the network’s home.

Perception No. 3: Californians Are Healthier and Better-Looking Than Everyone Else

Standing on the Venice boardwalk on any given summer day, watching the scantily clad hard bodies skating by, the scantily clad hard bodies recumbent on the sand and the scantily clad hard bodies pumping iron, it’s easy to conclude that people here are much healthier and better-looking than people almost anywhere else.

Are they? Better looking, maybe. Healthier, no way.

When insurance researchers ranked states in order of general healthiness two years ago, California finished--ready for this?--22nd, based on such factors as access to primary care, public spending on health and infectious-disease rates. (Hawaii, where 96% of the population has health insurance, ranked No. 1, according to an insurance company survey.

Part of the problem is that, while we may pay homage to the idea of working out, eating tofu and juicing (the latest health-food fad), we aren’t always so great at following through.

When it comes to health, says Woodland Hills chiropractor Dan Fry, Angelenos “want the quick fix, but they don’t want to take (long-term) responsibility. . . . They come in for advice, but it’s like you are talking to a brick wall.”

To make matters worse, spending more time exercising outdoors doesn’t always help.

According to the American Cancer Society, California leads the nation in incidence of skin cancer. About 3,800 cases of melanoma will be diagnosed here this year; about 850 residents will die of it.

The disease usually turns up in older patients--those who grew up thinking of tans as healthy--but doctors have also seen a number of teen-agers “who have been surfing every day since they were 9 or 10,” says Dr. Ronald Reisner, UCLA professor of medicine/dermatology.

OK, so we aren’t all that healthy. Aren’t we at least better-looking than people in other places?

Maybe, but we’ve had a little help. The number of plastic surgeries performed in California is far greater than any other state. Of the nation’s 109,000 liposuction procedures in 1990, for example, Californians accounted for 21,400, according to the American Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons.

The standard of external beauty is so rigorous here that one local surgeon says attractive women often are sent to him by their agents (or husbands). These women may have no desire for plastic surgery, but their agents have promised them better roles if they get smaller noses or larger breasts.

Says Dr. Malcolm Lesavoy, associate professor of plastic and reconstructive surgery at UCLA: “I tell them to send their agent in and I’ll give him bigger breasts.”

Perception No. 4: The Automobile Is King in Southern California

These days the car is just a lowly serf--at least in comparison to other states. Although California ranks first in volume of cars sold, it’s 22nd (way behind No. 1 Delaware) in new cars and trucks registered per 1,000 residents.

And when used cars are thrown into the mix, the Golden State sinks further, to 34th, says John Rettie of J.D. Power and Associates, an Agoura Hills market research firm serving the auto industry. Topping the list are Wyoming, Idaho and South Dakota, all of which have more vehicles than people.

At least some Californians can claim a better caliber of vehicle. Nearly one-third of the Mercedes-Benzes sold in the United States are bought in this state--and more Porsches are on the road here than in Germany.

And, even at 34th in the ratio of autos to humans, there are still plenty of cars to go around. Los Angeles County, for example, has 6.2 million registered vehicles, but only 5.6 million licensed drivers.

Subway? What subway?

Perception No. 5: Everyone Used to Want to Live Here; Now Everyone Wants to Leave

You know the stereotype: Driven west by April snowstorms and incredibly high heating costs, suitcase-laden cars with rusting undercarriages disgorge Easterners by the kajillions into our state every spring. And that, Grandpa tells Junior, is why these darned freeways are so crowded. Right?

Wrong.

According to the 1990 U.S. Census, California continues to experience huge population growth, more than twice the national average.

But the increase in the state--as well as in Los Angeles County--has far less to do with transcontinental migration than with the high birth rate and foreign immigration.

From 1980 to 1990, the county population grew from 7.4 million to 8.8 million. During that period, the Anglo population dropped 8% and the African-American population grew by a single percentage point. The Latino population, however, surged 62%, and the Asian population fairly exploded--119%.

Recently, according to driver’s license records, more people are departing Los Angeles than are arriving from other states. Now it is Angelenos who are searching for bluer skies, craning their necks primarily in Nevada, Washington, Oregon, Arizona and Florida.

But we’re still waiting to notice the effect of all the departures on those darned freeways. According to Commuter Transportation Services, the average one-way commute in the five-county area--Los Angeles, Ventura, Orange, San Bernardino and Riverside--is 36 to 40 minutes to go 17 miles.

Perception No. 6: L.A. Has No Rivers

There are several misconceptions about the Los Angeles River. Pick one.

* L.A. is a river basin.

* L.A. is a basin and a river runs through it.

* L.A. is a basin and a river ran through it but doesn’t anymore.

The truth is that there was a river running through Los Angeles and, technically, there still is a river, but it’s real different. Some call it a concrete ditch.

In the beginning, it was “a typical Southern California river--dry in the dry season, wet in the rainy season,” says Lewis MacAdams, founder of Friends of the Los Angeles River. From the confluence of the Bell and Calabasas creeks near Canoga Park High School in the San Fernando Valley, the L.A. River flowed through the Hollywood Hills, downtown L.A. and several suburbs out to the sea.

It also rose periodically and flooded its banks--an inconvenience to modern settlers--so in the late 1930s it was--bit by bit--channelized (forced into a narrow channel) and concretized (paved). Now water flows to the sea quickly, making the banks less likely to overflow. In fact, more water travels down the river than ever before, MacAdams says, because “95% of the Valley is paved now,” and the water can’t stop and sink in.

The L.A. River (if that’s still the right word) is 58 miles long, “all but 13 in concrete,” says MacAdams. But those non-paved sections--a couple of miles in the Sepulveda Basin, eight miles from Griffith Park to downtown, another few miles at Long Beach--are thriving natural habitats.

Not surprisingly, their future is uncertain. There’s some official discussion of putting up 10-foot-high concrete walls to increase the river’s capacity and protect L.A. from the Big Flood that is as sure to come as the Big Earthquake. And there was some talk (from state assemblyman-turned-L.A. mayoral candidate Richard Katz) of turning the whole riverbed into an automotive expressway.

Perception No. 7: Los Angeles Has the Worst Smog in the World

Breathe easier, folks. At least five other cities on the planet--Mexico City; Beijing; Cairo; Karachi, Pakistan, and Seoul, South Korea--have more serious problems than L.A.

We’re still the worst in the United States, of course, but it’s no longer considered polite to say so. Everyone is very careful.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, for instance, doesn’t even rank cities, grime-wise. Instead, areas are measured against a federal standard allowing no more than .12 parts per million of pollutants in any measure of air. Those that flunk are put in five “non-attainment” classifications--marginal, moderate, serious, severe or extreme.

The L.A.-South Coast area is the only one that “non-attains” in the “extreme” category. And thanks to some smog spillover, the desert areas surrounding Los Angeles are classified as “severe” (along with such areas as Chicago/Gary, Ind.; Houston; Milwaukee, and New York/New Jersey).

Given our position in extremis, however, we have until 2010 to clean up. The marginals must make the federal standard this year, the moderates by 1996, the serious by 1999, and the severe by 2005 or 2007.

We might make it. According to Claudia Keith, spokeswoman for the South Coast Air Quality Management District, pollution controls have already cut our smog from .68 parts per million in the 1960s to today’s .30. To some extent, we can thank emission controls on cars: It would take 10 to 15 new cars to equal the pollution created by one 1978 model.

Perception No. 8: California Is the Mellowest Place on Earth

By now, most people know that even if Californians smile more than other people, they probably don’t really mean it.

“There’s a whole literature about being sad on the shores of Southern California,” says USC professor Kevin Starr.

The strip from Santa Barbara to Orange County alone holds more psychiatrists per square mile (2,000) than 48 states, and that doesn’t include the psychologists and counselors. Many of them are dealing with people who are not as happy as they think they should be.

Ever since the 16th Century, when Hernando Cortes described our sunny shores as a terrestrial paradise--even naming the area after Queen Calafia, fictional ruler of a romantic and happy place--California has lured immigrants expecting a land of escape and repose.

As it turns out, the happiest people here are California natives, people who never had expectations that could be shattered later. According to Starr, many pilgrims become disillusioned. Instead of a natural paradise, they find a tenuous existence in a desert that has been artificially transformed by acts of engineering. They find colleagues and neighbors unusually competitive. And they find that their escape into privacy is not as satisfying as the family and community life they left behind.

All this has produced an opposite but equal reaction--the myth that Californians are isolated and lonely.

True, it is more difficult to connect with other people in our sprawling metropolis. But therapists say Los Angeles is not alone.

“It’s not clear that Los Angeles is dramatically different from anywhere else,” says Dr. Michael Gitlin, who practices in West Los Angeles and at UCLA. “That’s a struggle everywhere in the Western World.”