Philadelphia Tales
Wednesday, December 17, 2008 at 3:44PM
Uglidelphia: Tales from an Aesthetically Challenged Metropolis
When you call a shit hole like Philly your “Weekend Escape”, living as I do in the lenient yet extremely dangerous prison of Camden, New Jersey, casual rationalization becomes an outright lie.
The “City of Brotherly Love” is not wholly without its charms however.
It boasts a rich history in the establishment of the nation, the country’s best cheese steaks, the current World Series champs, a lively international community of artists, chefs, musicians, writers and businesspeople, some truly fabulous restaurants and a “can do” attitude- as long as that “can do” is not a major pain in the city’s ass or budget.
And that’s the funny thing. It knows it’s a big city. Its problems are big city problems. Its strengths are big city strengths. Its singular glory is its uniqueness. Its culture is diverse and strong. It’s large as hell and its crime is manageable. The people are relatively friendly and easy going as long as you watch yourself. Yet, they always live in the shadow of New York and remain relentlessly bitter because of it.
Take the Philadelphia Art Museum for example. I visited it for the first time this past weekend. Say what you will of food, sports, shopping, nightlife or the ease of getting a decent hooker or an eight ball in the wee hours of the a.m., but the way a city portrays its art defines its nature.
And ay, the rub, my fellow travelers.
It was not a lack of quality pieces or presentation. Nor was it a want of historical perspective or grandness of aesthetic celebration. Certainly a lack of prominent Philadelphians in the artistic mix was of no issue (the Thomas Eakins collection is outstanding). It was that the parking lot was something out of the ruins of late 1945 Berlin, the building’s ongoing construction felt as if it was abandoned in the early nineties, the docents were loud and obnoxious and the security personnel were phoning it in (actually they were going about their personal business, yakking it up between themselves, talking on cell phones, cracking jokes, eyeing the visitors with disdain and wondering what the fucking allure a few Picassos, Pollocks, and Cezannes held for the wandering assholes in their presence).
Everything was, well, a bit cheap and damning.
In some areas, the museum felt neglected and unkempt; an historical treasure, beaten and rendered insignificant, like a formerly beautiful woman reduced to motherhood and endless housework by an abusive husband. Those wife beaters, MOMA and The Metropolitan, lurk some 90 miles to its Northeast.
Overall, there seems to be a lack of concern here; a “why bother” attitude.
I’m surprised the crack in the Liberty Bell doesn’t have a shit stain on it.
If it did, the city workers would probably refuse to clean it.
And don’t get me started on the fucking Parking Authority.
What Philadelphia needs is painfully obvious. A better sense of self-worth, a Super Bowl win (with a thinner coach) and a cheap makeover on some new reality show called The Biggest Loser: Metropolis Style.
What this hole lacks is beauty, from the infrastructure on down to the citizenry. There are some stone-ass ugly freaks in this town. And I’m talking “throw hydrochloric acid in my eyes because I may not be able to gouge them out in time” ugly.
New York is not without its eyesores. Boston has some of the most visually repulsive housing you will ever see. D.C., outside of the national landmarks, is a gaping asshole of a city. Miami is so gaudy and tacky it looks like someone vomited a tropical drink on it. Houston is six hundred square miles of strip malls and pop-up stores, many parts of L.A. look like the festering wound around a tummy tuck that went awry, Detroit is a clogged sewer in the seventh ring of Hell and Atlanta’s soul would be sick, if the city actually had one. It tries instead to be the New York of the South and manages, barely, to be Atlanta.
But there ain’t no ugly like Philly ugly.
Dennis Miller, once an intelligent, funny comedian before he had children, turned reactionary and became a shameless shill for the Bush Administration (How‘s that going, Babe?) used to have a bit about the physical differences between people from the two coasts. He pegged west coasters as tanned, fit, natural beauties who drove sleek, fast beautiful cars. He then recalled his rides on the New York subway system where he likened its denizens to “something out of a Romero film”.
How unfortunate that he must now smile while drinking Bill O’Reilly’s sperm once a week.
But he was right on. Philly is filled with those zombies. There was more beauty on a cattle car to Treblinka in 1944 than a current train to Market Street here.
I’ve gone and gotten a bit long winded again. I keep forgetting the first rule of blog posts… brevity, damn it, brevity.
Chalk it up to excitement about my new environs.
I will further regale you with tales from the City of Brotherly Love soon. And we’ll get real specific about the “UGLY”.
Until then.
C.
Reader Comments (3)
Why is Philly rated as one of the seven best towns to live in? C.A you're spoiled from living in the beautiful mecca of Tallahassee. Certainly, Syracuse wasn't that beautiful.
I was glad to see that some one other than me saw through that shameless fuck Dennis Miller (but having children I understand that taking like a man is sometimes what you have to do, soowee, sooowee)...like Mary Poppins that cum sucking shill will change his tune now that the wind has changed.
Nice to hear from you Alleyosh. I thought you might be strictly an "E-How To" memory.
Yeah, I even watched a stand up performance from Miller from 2004-5 and it was like watching an old friend die from Alzheimer's. The jokes ranged from global warming slams to "kill all the Akbars" racism, filled with a lot of "America's boot up somebody's ass" jingoism and "fuck the French" nonsense.
Say it ain't so, Dennis.
Screw it, he's got to live with that career choice. I don't think too many fans who jumped off the Miller train will be hopping back on soon. He went full bore over to the dark side and alienated nearly all his original supporters in the process.
He used to have a bit about Pat Buchanan's 1996 RNC speech saying he "liked it better in the original German."
For the past eight years, he would have gladly sat down and ate "freedom fries" with the guy and discussed how to keep the wetbacks out.
What a total ass.
He forgot the main rule of comedy.
Conservatives are only funny ironically.