Tuesday, June 14, 2005
Bangkok Shakes, Saigon Quakes, Cleveland Rocks
I'm having a bit of a High Fidelity moment here folks so bear with me. I present my all-time top five most (and least) favorite cities.
Favorite:
Astoria, Oregon/Reno, Nevada (tie): Both are small towns (Astoria being significantly smaller), both with their own unique culture and attitude. To tolerate either city you need to have a certain fortitude. Being on the Oregon Coast isn't all kite flying and Haystack Rock, you have to be able to handle some hurricane-like storms as well. Reno's 5000 feet up and seemingly positioned directly under the sun and trust me when I say at this altitude, the sun has a bit of an attitude problem. I haven't spent a winter here yet, so I don't have anything to say about that - yet. I've always maintained that crazy people in small towns are far more nuts than crazy people in larger towns-Portland, Oregon being the exception as the whole damn city is off their rocker. Astoria and Reno have proven themselves true to this theory, something I find infinitely charming.
Cleveland, Ohio: I cannot stress enough how nice the citizens of Cleveland are. Scarily nice. So nice that one starts to ponder what dark secret they must be hiding, because surely no city can be that nice all the time-it has to be a ruse. Do they eat tourists? Is there something to the abundance of hot wings and the noticeable lack of chicken farms? What's in Lake Erie? During my stay there I remained vigilant, afterwards I spent hours on the internet conducting searches looking for clues. I am happy to report that my efforts were fruitless, the citizens of Cleveland are not part of a vast conspiracy, rather they are actually truly nice people.
Seattle, Washington: I lived in Seattle for about nine months, and if weren't for Molliwogg calling me out of the blue, I'd probably still be there. Bumpershoot is cool. The Vogue is Cool. The Hurricane Cafe is one of my favorite places to eat in the country. Just about the only bad thing I can say about Seattle is what they've done to my former neighborhood, Capitol Hill. The Yuppie machine has taken a once quirky neighborhood and turned it into another sterile shopping/mixed-use nightmare. You used to be able to walk down the street and see gutter punks standing next to grandmas standing next to drag queens, it was beautiful. Now the main drag just looks like a pin-striped nightmare. Gross.
Portland, Oregon: I've lived in Portland the longest-off and on since I was eighteen. Certainly not the most perfect town in the world, for every positive thing you can say about the place there are at least three negatives. But it's been home for the most part. It rains a lot, the summer's are unbearable, at times it seems everyone is an alcoholic and the cops have this nasty habit of shooting unarmed black people. At the same time, it's one of the greenest places you'll ever see in your life, it's close to Astoria and some of my best friends live there. You take the good with the bad and you call it home.
Ashland, Oregon: I'm cheating here as I have not spent much time Ashland, but I defy anyone to drive down the I-5 corridor through Ashland (Southern Oregon in general really) and not fall in love. Rolling hills, a sea of green in the summer, amber and red in the fall. It's awesome.
Least Favorite:
Phoenix, Arizona: In the three months I lived in Phoenix the following events happened-I was almost arrested for starting a gang fight/riot that not only did I not commit, but was rather innocently talking to my girlfriend in Alaska a full half-block away at the time. I was stopped by the local cops for such nefarious crimes as walking down the street and running up to the Circle K to get a soda. I was assaulted by a crazed relative of my roommate, caught in a bizarre love triangle between two of my bosses who wanted to sleep with me, followed by countless skinheads, yelled at by old people for painting my jacket in the local mall as well as a dozen or so other incidents. I would rather walk around naked in Detroit with an armful of hundred dollar bills than ever go back there.
Anchorage, Alaska: I grew up in Anchorage and I'm still working my way through the damage that did to my psyche. In second grade one of my friends hung himself off the jungle gym at school and while you may not think it possible, things got progressively worse from there. On the other hand I met Molliwogg in high school in Anchorage and we've been married going on six years now, so I guess there are positive things to say about the place.
Portland, Oregon: See above. I've got a bit of a love/hate thing going on here.
Yakima, Washington: Nothing against the people of Yakima-I'm sure they are all fine citizens. It's just that I got food poisoning here once after seeing Lollapalooza in the Columbia Gorge. For a solid week I had all sorts of nasties spurting from every part of my body, one of the handful of times I thought I was going to die. For you road-weary travelers out there, stay away from the Taco Bell, they put the yak in Yakima.
Albany, Oregon: You can smell this town from five miles out while driving down I-5, I don't know how the residents stand it. There's some kind of wood-processing plant off the side of the highway belching out the foulest potpourri known to mankind, it's like a cross between dead skunk and feet.Labels: Cleveland, Lists, Personal, Portland
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