block club

Les Misérables: At least we’re not literally blue

Posted on Thursday, February 18th, 2010

by bunjamin

The Avatars are invading St. Louis. They should get a pass for this fact alone.

Ughhh. I don’t know what to say when I see articles like this. To be defensive borders on whiney, and to play devil’s advocate seems redundant. Furthermore, what the people in the Forbes Empire––Forbania, east of Decatur I think––don’t know about Buffalo could fill pages, no volumes, of magazines. But of course they won’t sell, so here we are again: Buffalo is a miserable city. No shit. That’s because people like this goofy man keep telling us we’re miserable. (And guess what? He’s not so pretty either.)

What I find interesting about this “article”––the shallowness of which a gnat couldn’t swim in––is that the cities on this list of 20 “most miserable” in the United States are called out for the same few repeating reasons. Miami and Kansas City have crime? You don’t say, Columbo. Detroit and Buffalo, a half-century after their industrial foundations’ demises, are still trying on new hats to wear? Well I’ll be…

I hate to take sides here, especially as being combative and defensive just won’t help matters. But what do these rankings really tell anybody about these 20 cities which we didn’t already know about them? I’ve never been to Stockton, Calif., and I know I’m going to get shot there. Probably while outside cleaning up a highway with a group of orphaned puppies, too. And Cleveland? Yeah, I’ve never put that on my “Where Should I Summer This Summer?” bucket list. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to learn more about these towns, if for no other reason than to confirm what I suspect about them. Maybe I’ll be surprised to find something that doesn’t make me miserable being in their presence. Just like how people learn things about Buffalo, like that we’re cold and warm at the same time, and that we invented the single best appetizer besides Doritos.

It’s such an arbitrary classification to say a town is miserable, which as far as I last checked was a subjective distinction. Might as well have been Most Reasonably Unsatisfactory Cities-in-Decline, Depending on the Day, and Neighborhood, and Who You Ask and Whether or Not the Sun Was Out at the Time. Then at least we’d know that somebody had thought these entries through. And by somebody I don’t mean a room of monkeys.

I would tell you to look through Forbes’s list, but you’ll just be reading the same few labels over and over, mainly that sports teams make sad citizens, especially in St. Louis, whose Rams have won 8% of their games in the last three years; and that 82% of the citizens of Canton, Ohio are technically stupid. Makes me feel better about not passing through. I might make them uncomfortable with all of my nuclear-physics babble. And Rockford, Ill? Cheer up, you lost the pennant but made Rosie a star!

One more: Ohio, you apparently are the suckiest pace on Earth, with not one but THREE entries on this list! Not even a Dakota ranked!

Miserable may be subjective, but with these hard facts, I might want to ask a few more people before I start traveling through these parts. I may not enjoy my time in Canton, Ohio any more than Cantonites apparently aren’t, but that’s good considering it sounds like they hate it.

I’ll be sure to pack my bullet-proof Uggs.

If this photo of a Cleveland bridge was taken in July, then I understand.