Wednesday, May 4, 2011

NY: where stuff is.

Time for a tirade on New York.  I was born in Chicago and I think the first thing the doctor said to me was, “heard of New York?  You will”.  Someone posted this: “Philadelphia is like the Toon version of New York.”  NYC must be the single most egocentric place on earth and it has no right to be.  Philly is not a mini-version of New York, it’s the oldest city in the fucking US.  I’ve been in Philly for 3 years now, and although I have no loyalty to it and want to punch a Phillies fan just as hard as you do, it is a city that is probably 10 times as great as NYC.  In fact, every city I’ve ever been to is better than New York.  I’m a city snob, and I only count about 10 US cities as real cities, Boston, Philly, Miami, Chicago, San Francisco, LA, Atlanta, a few others; so my list is considerably shorter, but they are literally all better than New York. 

If you chose a color for every city, Green for Boston, Red for Philly, some color you’ve probably never heard of for San Francisco, you know what color New York would get?  Brown.  New York is what happens when you start a coloring book and then monster a few pixie sticks and go ape shit with the box.  It looks like shit, it feels like shit, but yes, you did it, all the colors are there.  How novel.

Now, I’m the first to admit the relevance and necessity of NYC.  I get it, it’s fun as hell to go out in, it’s got everything you could want, it’s the functional epicenter of the US, arguably the Western World.  I would live there in a heartbeat.  But that’s because I have a short list of cities.  Cleveland is not on my list of cities.  If I had a choice of living in Cleveland or New York, I’m not suicidal; all of my mental faculties are in place.  I would be in New York.  But if it’s New York or Miami, someone order me something bright and frooty.  I would live there because it’s a real city and I need to be in a real city, not because it’s the tits. It is not even one tit. It’s a shit hole.  It’s greatness is only because everyone is there.  It has no intrinsic value.  It’s bland and messy.  It has no character.  If we could just get everyone to get up and go somewhere else, then we could finally stop talking about it.  But we can’t.  So fuck it.  Someone get me a slice of mediocre pizza and an overpriced beer, I’ll be in Brooklyn if you need me.

4 comments:

Larsen said...

Is Europe included in your Western World?

As someone who's never been to the US, I kinda see NY as beautiful and shiny from the sky, but smelly and grey from the ground. Wish I could go there and see if it's accurate.

Meat, M.D. said...

Europe is definitely included. I don't mean that it is the epicenter, it just gets viewed that way. London is a much more impressive, much better city with an equally massive amount of people and much more history. Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin are all cities I've been to that are significantly better. And there are many more I haven't been to, but i'm sure they are better.

Unknown said...

I don't value your opinion because you didn't grow up inside one of your cities. You grew up in a suburb of Chicago. Then you went to college in a suburb. It sounds like Philly is your first real city experience.

Green said...

New York has no character? That's rich. This may be one of the worst blog posts of all time. Of any blog.