Quote:/font1h,121b,121Oh and i forgot asians in my list. How can i forget this fucked up thing called Korea town...lol.b,121 b,121b,121h,121
font class="post"1 b,121b,121Lemme guess. You either don't like to eat or some fools rolled up on you? I'm sorry your experience was not the most memorable.
Quote:/font1h,121b,121/font1Quote:/font1h,121b,121Buffalo's not that bad. Like someone pointed out, even the grubbiest Northeast rust belt burghs have history. Shittiest to me would be some southern McMansion Stepford Hootie Blowfish golfworld bland plastic nightmare hell like Cary, NC. b,121b,121h,121
font class="post"1b,121b,121thank you. Buffalo has got major problems (and cold winters) but its also got a ton of great old buildings, heavy history and great cultural institutions (if you do some research and know where to look) and its literally 50x easier to live in than most cities (assuming you find work of course - admittedly a problem). there is also a growing arts and music community that weathered the Rustbelt Dark Ages (roughly 1970-1995) and is now rebounding slowly but surely. Add to this a slew of big (and decently planned) municipal projects finally coming online after 20 years of red tape and id call it a city with a future. Plus its the HQ (both corporate and manufacturing) of New Era Cap! b,121b,121h,121font class="post"1b,121b,121Yeah, I just got back from Buffalo )wedding-related) and it really wasn't bad. It did have a bit of a ghost town feel though, like 70% of the people that once lived there just up and left.
Quote:/font1h,121b,121/font1Quote:/font1h,121b,121/font1Quote:/font1h,121b,121/font1Quote:/font1h,121b,121b,121b,121you Houston Hatteurs better batten down the hatches once the one Harvey_Canal gets a load of this thread! b,121b,121h,121
font class="post"1b,121b,121LET DEM GRIDBOYS HATE. b,121b,121h,121font class="post"1b,121b,121Seriously, for tourists, Houston sucks. Get down with some locals next time. No doubt though, the city is fusking ugly. b,121b,121How anyone can say Dallas is better than Houston is beyond me. b,121b,121h,121font class="post"1b,121b,121I spent four summers working at the U of H, my best friends in college were from Houston so I spent a lot of time there on the weekends from school, etc., I would go to shows in Houston, play shows in Houston, I was engaged to a girl from Houston so I would spend time there visting her family, I have spent a LOT of time in Houston...dont like it all b,121b,121h,121font class="post"1b,121b,121b,121Hater!b,121b,121I love Houston with all it's grit, humidity, questionable individuals, greasy politicos and sports teams that will never do anything besides break your heart. I ride for this city. img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/green30sv.gif" alt="" 21b,121b,121Houston has shitty suburbs but Dallas is one large one. Terrible place, sorry guys at least there's some serious culture to enjoy. b,121b,121Phoenix, now that's a shitty town.
Quote:/font1h,121b,121 /font1Quote:/font1h,121b,121Oh and i forgot asians in my list. How can i forget this fucked up thing called Korea town...lol.b,121 b,121b,121h,121
font class="post"1 b,121b,121Lemme guess. You either don't like to eat or some fools rolled up on you? I'm sorry your experience was not the most memorable. b,121b,121h,121font class="post"1b,121b,121I love to eat, that is why i was even happy to be in a multi-cultural city like L.A.b,121Granted, it was before I experienced restaurants...I ended up going to Whole Foods to cook my own shit. The few restaurants I tried in Koreatown was serving vomit as soup. Shrimps look like fossiles and the taste was, ahem, horrible. Of course somebody could have took me to a good place, but if it take a friend to show you the decent spots, then it's not worth the trip. Plus, I almost died twice because of those white van drivers. They don't have a licence in the first place. They switch lanes like they flip noodles, meaning they don't pay attention. I almost killed a driver over there but the cops did stopped me on time. Mofockers are just reckless drivers, period. And FYI, I had worse experiences past Western Av. Believe me...lol. Nobody rolled up on me, nowhere, even in Watts. But still, I didn't find nothing good to appreciate over there. And record stores, wow...Feels like Bangladesh. A third world country. I was really missing Chicago when i was there.
Dudes...b,121b,121Hartford, CT and Orlando, FL are my clearcut runaway winners for soulless awfulness. Hartford, known as the 'Capital of Insurance,' is also home to the world's largest direct mail center. Between those two blights, that is going to be tough to recover from.b,121b,121Places like Phoenix, LA, Vegas, are just so horribly developed as to be tragic; I had a lead on an LA thing going for a minute, and when I mentioned it to my wife, she started crying.
I had some funny moments too, but overall, the bad times predominate. I was with wifey and my new-born, maybe that didn't help. L.A. is not a family-enclined city. I saw like 5 babies in a stroller in 6 months...lol.b,121I had a trial with my landlord at the Small Claim Court in Beverly Hills, crackheads stalking wifey, gang bangers trying to break in my house, bad food, ignorant peoples all over the place, racist bank tellers, got arrested by po-po while hanging outside eating tacos at 2am, etc...I sware i could write a book.b,121b,121And ii have to agree with Phoenix, AZ. Another fucked up city.
I meant to cosign Hartford somewhere upthread... that is one miserable place to find yourself.b,121b,121I found myself posted up in Hartford for two weeks straight for a training course, back when I worked in insurance. EVERY night we got completely demolished and had rolling hotel parties, I hooked up with three different girls from the company... There was nothing - and I mean NOTHING - else to do. After 6pm and on weekends the city is completely empty. We drove down to NYC on Saturday and back up the next day just because we were so bored.b,121b,121After it was done I tried running around the black neighborhoods looking for records. That was equally depressing.
I was going to try to stand up for Dallas, but the shit isn't easy. b,121b,121There is a lot of good shit going down here on many levels, but you really have to know the city to find it. It's fusking huge and spread out, and you're not usually going to stumble into some cool shit unless you have a guide. It is here though, I promise.b,121b,121But, no records in Dallas.
Quote:/font1h,121b,121b,121I found myself posted up in Hartford for two weeks straight for a training course, back when I worked in insurance. EVERY night we got completely demolished and had rolling hotel parties, I hooked up with three different girls from the company... There was nothing - and I mean NOTHING - else to do. After 6pm and on weekends the city is completely empty. We drove down to NYC on Saturday and back up the next day just because we were so bored.b,121 b,121b,121h,121
font class="post"1b,121b,121b,121That's funny. My wife's from Glastonbury CT and her family's still there so we fly into Hartford all the time. We got together with an old college friend of hers and went into Hartford to a comedy club. It was something we could all agree on, and from the looks of things, there wasn't much else to do, as JP said. The place was fuckin desolate after dark. b,121b,121I can see why places like New Haven and East Hartford are crime hotbeds. Dudes just end up going stir crazy at some point.
Quote:/font1h,121b,121/font1Quote:/font1h,121b,121Holy shit... haha... how do you know about Pocomoke? I used to live pretty close to there. Most of Rural Eastern shore MD is pretty shitty though... Crisfield and Snow Hill are pretty sitty too. b,121b,121h,121
font class="post"1b,121b,121I missed this somehow...b,121b,121anyways a few years back i had to travel to Wallops Island to do some testing. got put up in a motel outside of pocomoke, where the biggest attraction was the giant wal-mart. and the chicken plucking plants. and the mosquitos. and wallops island was bullshit too, and really that other island with the ponies wasn't any better. yuck. b,121b,121h,121font class="post"1b,121b,121Haha.... Assateague is the other island. There is a really rich culinary tradition on the eastern shore if you know where to look. Overall though.... those are some lost cities... and any city that revolves around chicken plants and shit like that is terrible. I grew up in Berlin MD... where the biggest factory thing was a dogfood factory... the whole town stunk as a result... pretty much all the time. It was disgusting. b,121b,121You should have gone to Smith Island or something... they speak their own crazy dialect thats unique to the island because they all intermarry and never leave the little island. Its some crazy crazy shit.
YNOTin a studio apt mixing tuna with the ramen 417 Posts
/font1
Quote:/font1h,121b,121You're right. Orlando is a fusking terrible place. b,121b,121h,121
font class="post"1b,121b,121For people listing this give some resons to back up your suggestion. What's so bad about Orlando? I cram to understand.
Yea Orlando is kind of boring... but its safe... I found plenty of cool and nice people. There was good concerts at the Social and the Back Booth. Miami wasn't too far off... all the crazy beach towns were just a short drive away. Lots of cheap booze. I agree that its got a disney brainwash vibe... and that central florida redneck vibe... bit of that Florida Pharmaceutical vibe...b,121b,121But shit.... Mushrooms are legal in Central florida... I remember people bringing trashbags full of fresh shrooms by my apartment when I lived there.
HarveyCanal"a distraction from my main thesis." 13,234 Posts
Major Texas Cities ranked:b,121b,1211. Austin b,121b,121Pros: scenic gateway to the hill country, still relatively easy to drive through, awesome food, decent people, good music all over, higher learning-centric, Longhorn sports, etc. b,121b,121Cons: Too many non-Texans moving here, old Austin losing its character by the day, too many festivals to the point of annoying, dimwit cops, blazing hot/dry summers (I don't mind them), etc.b,121b,121b,1212. Houstonb,121b,121Pros: great fishing, semi-decent surfing, awesome food, better-than-decent people, quality museums, Rap-A-Lot/Screwed Up Click, Rockets, Astros, Comets & Texans, Astroworld, Mardi Gras in Galveston, etc.b,121b,121Cons: heat/humidity (I don't mind it), sprawling traffic, too many cookie-cutter neighborhoods (yes, even those considered as "upscale"), hurricanes, industrial ugliness in widespread places (Baytown, LaPorte, Pasadena, Texas City, etc), etc.b,121b,1213. Corpus Christib,121b,121Pros: Great fishing, decent surfing, have I mentioned access to the ocean yet?b,121b,121Cons: Rednecks in Corpus are really rednecks (for the most part, I miss them at this point of being in Austin pretty much without them for so long...but yes, they would surely scare/irk you), a little too industrial a city without much else going on, etc. b,121b,1214. San Antoniob,121b,121Pros: River Walk, Spurs, Sea World, decent food, etc.b,121b,121Cons: SA is first and foremost a military town, sprawling traffic, Spurs, etc.b,121b,1215. Dallas/Forth Worthb,121b,121Pros: Cowboys, Mavericks, Rangers, Cotton Bowl/State Fair, 6 Flags, club scene has always been cool, etc.b,121b,121Cons: An Oklahoma city shouldn't even be on this list, not so decent plastic people, way too sprawling and thus over the top on the stripmall tip, Mavericks, etc. b,121b,1216. El Pasob,121b,121Pros: By the time you get there you're glad you finally made it, access to Mexico, just about everyone I've ever met from El Paso is cool as hell, etc.b,121b,121Cons: By the time you realize you're happy to get there you are ready to get the Fusk up out of there, it's in the desert by golly, etc.b,121b,1217. Amarillob,121b,121Pros: It exists.b,121b,121Cons: You don't really have any reason to care that it exists.b,121b,1218. Beaumontb,121b,121Pros: I gotta guess that the fishing is good, UGK is from Port Arthur, I would imagine that the Cajun food is good, etc.b,121b,121Cons: Overwhelming industrial ugliness, cancer, hurricanes, Vidor is only up the road a piece, etc.
Quote:/font1h,121b,121I meant to cosign Hartford somewhere upthread... that is one miserable place to find yourself.b,121b,121I found myself posted up in Hartford for two weeks straight for a training course, back when I worked in insurance. EVERY night we got completely demolished and had rolling hotel parties, I hooked up with three different girls from the company... There was nothing - and I mean NOTHING - else to do. After 6pm and on weekends the city is completely empty. We drove down to NYC on Saturday and back up the next day just because we were so bored.b,121b,121After it was done I tried running around the black neighborhoods looking for records. That was equally depressing. b,121b,121h,121
font class="post"1b,121b,121But..but..butb,121img src=http://www.hartford.gov/purchasing/Hartford Rising Star.jpg1b,121b,121LOL b,121You have no idea how many friends I have with the exact same story, there's tons of business training done in Hartford. Place is a fusking ghost town after business hours. b,121b,121I guess my vote's for Worcester MA as well. I just despise that place. b,121All the cities in CT are hella weak too.
Quote:/font1h,121b,121I had some funny moments too, but overall, the bad times predominate. I was with wifey and my new-born, maybe that didn't help. L.A. is not a family-enclined city. I saw like 5 babies in a stroller in 6 months...lol.b,121I had a trial with my landlord at the Small Claim Court in Beverly Hills, crackheads stalking wifey, gang bangers trying to break in my house, bad food, ignorant peoples all over the place, racist bank tellers, got arrested by po-po while hanging outside eating tacos at 2am, etc...I sware i could write a book.b,121b,121And i have to agree with Phoenix, AZ. Another fucked up city. b,121b,121h,121
font class="post"1b,121b,121Well if you had all those bad experiences in ANY city, I bet you wouldn't have fond memories! b,121b,121 /font1
Quote:/font1h,121b,121And record stores, wow...Feels like Bangladesh. b,121b,121h,121
just for curiousity's sake... are you guys not mentioning Baltimore out of respect for The Wire? b,121b,121I love this city, but I could imagine people who haven't been here since the 90s posting it in this thread for many of the same reasons other cities have been roasted.
Quote:/font1h,121b,121I like Baltimore.b,121b,121There's decent grub, culture, nightlife, character, history. b,121b,121h,121
font class="post"1b,121b,121believe, I feel the same way! It's just interesting to me how over the last 10-15 years the city's national image has changed from a lawless post-industrial hellhole to a hip place... in part due to television shows about drugs, street violence, and political corruption.
True story, the first few times I ever went to Baltimore I had never seen a single episode of The Wire. Actually, after a couple times through a friend mentioned "hey you ever watch The Wire? If you like Baltimore you'll probably like that show."b,121b,121I am not sure that the "hip" rock, art, performance type communities is drawn from it though. I'm not seeing a lot of crossover there, although there is surely some. There's definitely more Wire influence among the former hip-hop DJs that went headfirst into club music; I'm sure some of them probably would've dissed the stuff a decade earlier.b,121b,121More than anything though it seems like a lot of shell shocked cities made a come-back in various scenes over the last few years. A lot of folks who would've migrated to NYC for the various arts scenes are setting down roots in cheaper cities that have a slightly more rough-around-the-edges vibe.
Quote:/font1h,121b,121b,121 /font1Quote:/font1h,121b,121And record stores, wow...Feels like Bangladesh. b,121b,121h,121
font class="post"1 b,121b,121No records? b,121b,121h,121font class="post"1b,121b,121I didn't mean no records, I meant bad records, common records, out-of-price records, frisbee-records, etc...i just found one spot. And of course, I'm not talking about Amoeba and shit like that, but a good second-hand store with nice oldies. I know there's some nice spot in L.A. but i didn't find them. And usually, out of all the cities i've been to, I always found the spizzots...
Quote:/font1h,121b,121b,121b,121I am not sure that the "hip" rock, art, performance type communities is drawn from it though. I'm not seeing a lot of crossover there, although there is surely some. There's definitely more Wire influence among the former hip-hop DJs that went headfirst into club music; I'm sure some of them probably would've dissed the stuff a decade earlier.b,121 b,121b,121h,121
font class="post"1b,121b,121I'm not saying that the Wire influences the local hip music scene, just wondering how much people's love of The Wire influences Strutter's perception of Bmore. b,121b,121The Wire is one of the most talked about things on this site, people don't talk about Bmore club as much as they used to -- and unlike on Pitchfork and (I assume) indie-rock discussion boards, I don't see people here talking much about Dan Deacon, Beach House, Celebration, Ponytail, Thank You, and other Bmore rock bands. b,121b,121So instead of hipness, maybe think "street cred" -- is Baltimore getting a shitty-city pass from the Strut because our beloved tv show (about how defeated and shitty the city can be) comes from here?
I used to go to Baltimore every year during my childhood and early teens to visit family and I went back in my early 20s on a road trip and made a pitstop on another road trip a few years ago. I love it there - I have great memories** of the place. I have yet to go since having seen The Wire, but like most fans, can't say the show has deterred me form wanting to visit (again).b,121b,121**Great, but not necessarily all pleasant. I held my first gun there - my cousins were showing it off after having bought it when my uncle got mugged on his doorstep. I also got pushed down by one of my cousins after sending a bunch of his skateboard wheel bearings through the porch planks. Up to that point, he was my hero. Later, on the roadtrip, I got into a screaming match outside a record store with my BF at the time because he bought a record he knew I was looking for and would not give it up. But yea, I heart Baltimore.
cool, I'm glad to know people actually like bmore. Back in the 90s when travelling if I told someone I'm from here, the 3 reactions were generally: 1)"where?" 2)"why?" or 3)look of pity.b,121b,121at best you might get 4)"oh cool, John Waters is from there, right?"
Quote:/font1h,121b,121 Later, on the roadtrip, I got into a screaming match outside a record store with my BF at the time because he bought a record he knew I was looking for and would not give it up. But yea, I heart Baltimore. b,121b,121h,121
Quote:/font1h,121b,121/font1Quote:/font1h,121b,121b,121b,121I am not sure that the "hip" rock, art, performance type communities is drawn from it though. I'm not seeing a lot of crossover there, although there is surely some. There's definitely more Wire influence among the former hip-hop DJs that went headfirst into club music; I'm sure some of them probably would've dissed the stuff a decade earlier.b,121 b,121b,121h,121
font class="post"1b,121b,121I'm not saying that the Wire influences the local hip music scene, just wondering how much people's love of The Wire influences Strutter's perception of Bmore. b,121b,121The Wire is one of the most talked about things on this site, people don't talk about Bmore club as much as they used to -- and unlike on Pitchfork and (I assume) indie-rock discussion boards, I don't see people here talking much about Dan Deacon, Beach House, Celebration, Ponytail, Thank You, and other Bmore rock bands. b,121b,121So instead of hipness, maybe think "street cred" -- is Baltimore getting a shitty-city pass from the Strut because our beloved tv show (about how defeated and shitty the city can be) comes from here? b,121b,121h,121font class="post"1b,121b,121Oh right. Well, I can't speak for others... I've always dug the city. I've been to plenty of burnt out urban shitholes with not one iota the personality and substance of Baltimore... the aforementioned Bridgeport and New Haven CT spring to mind!b,121b,121By and large I have a hard time dissing any Major American City with any real history.
Comments