11.17.2008

Meet Melpomene, the muse of tragedy


Hi there. You may remember me from my brilliant and incisive comments on this blog under the clever and obscure pseudonym “anonymous.” But you may not remember me, so I thought it would be proper to introduce myself and tell you why I hate D.C.

Unlike other metropoli in our fine country, many of which were highly populated by Native Americans before the white man arrived to seriously fuck their shit up, D.C. isn’t a natural city. It’s a contrivance -- a faux city built on a random swamp so the tenuous compromises between the northern and southern states could persist in the early days of our country’s infancy. So, D.C.’s main problem, the fact that it is fucking soulless, kind of makes sense. When our Founding Fathers decided to fix the seat of government up in here, it wasn’t exactly the best way to plant community roots. I think D.C. was probably the Columbia, Md., of the late 1700s, but with fewer crappily constructed townhouses. (I mean, let’s face it, a lot of the older townhouses we’ve got are at least pleasing to the eye.)

But obviously, the city happened, right? And here we are on the east coast in what’s supposedly a large cosmopolitan city, and shit is set up so you might reasonably expect it to be a cool town, like there’s museums and restaurants and universities and major media outlets and a subway and everything, but yet, something is missing. And I don’t think it’s just the lack of thousands of years of history that’s preventing me from enjoying this place. We all know what the main problem is, haters. Modern-day D.C.’s issues stem from one central and inescapable tragedy: the majority of people in or near the city limits at any given time are a bunch of self-important, self-entitled, douchetastic assholes.

We have stupid tourists who visit here, stupid tourists who live here, a bunch of fucking wonks who don’t live here but do work and get wasted here, and enough air-headed rich sorority girls that we’re getting our own terrible reality show about their ridiculous lives. Every time I leave my apartment (which, at this point, I do as little as possible), I have some bullshit encounter with an idiot and/or asshole. It’s usually small things, like passive-aggressive tourists harassing me because I politely ask them to stand to the right on the escalator when I’m running late, or some clipboard-laden teenager screaming “BUT WHY DON’T YOU CARE ABOUT THE ENVIRONMENT?! DO YOU HATE TREES??” at me as I politely decline to chat with him on my goddamn precious free time, or some drunk asshole throwing the remains of his beverage at me from his car while I’m innocently walking home on a Saturday night (?!). But, you know, over time, repeated exposure to minor incidents of assholitry take a toll and turn a girl into a bitter, crochety, hostile old lady.

So, that’s me. And that’s my take on why D.C. is tragic. I’m on my seventh year of living in this crapfest of a city, so I do speak from experience (unlike my predecessor Liz, I suspect). Of course, the soullessness and the assholes aren’t the only problems we have around here -- you know, like, for example, pretty much everything from Metro to jury duty to taxis to social issues is dysfunctional in the extreme -- but the soullessness and the assholes are the ones that make me lose my will to live (or at least my will to live here). All the eye-pleasing architecture and quality building materials in the world can’t make up for the douchebaggery living in those Georgetown and Dupont Circle townhouses. My tragic encounters with those and other jackoffs are what I plan to describe to you in my contributions to this blog, although I hope I never have any material again, but alas, I doubt I’ll be that lucky.

12 comments:

  1. THE 1970S, THE 1980S AND THE 1990S WERE A FUCKING BLAST IN THIS TOWN.

    WHERE IN THE HELL WERE YOU AT BACK THEN?

    THE ENTIRE 2000S DECADE HAS PRETTY MUCH SUCKED ASS BUT HERE THE SAME THING CAN BE SAID ABOUT ANYWHERE ELSE TOO

    NYC, LA, SAN FRANCISCO ETC... ARE ALL NOT WHAT THEY USED TO BE EITHER

    YOUR 7 YEARS EXPERIENCE BASICALLY MEANS NOTHING TOO.

    2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 AND 2008 HAVE ALL BEEN SHIT

    NOW HAD YOU SAID YOU HAD BEEN HERE DURING 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993 ETC... WELL THEN MAYBE JUST MAYBE YOU WOULD HAVE GAINED SOME CRED FROM ME

    THE YEAR 1991 ALONE SHITS ON THE ENTIRE 2000-2008 TIME PERIOD

    DONT BELIEVE ME.

    JUST WALK UP TO ANYONE WHO WAS LIVING HERE BACK THEN AND ASK THEM.

    AND NO IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH OUR RECORD SETTING NUMBER OF HOMICIDES TAST YEAR EITHER

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  2. who are these 50 year old commenters? my dad doesn't even know what a blog is.

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  3. I know. Totally. I love the 50 year-old locals who get offended by this. I'm glad I wasn't here in 1991 and, someday soon, I can say I'm no longer here at all.

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  4. 3 reasons why the 2000s suck. 1)Gen X are no longer in their 20s and Gen Y 20 somethings for the most part are lame. The nightlife scene is DC is one big joke now.2)Higher cost of living. One could buy a nice unattached home in the DC suburbs for around 120k back in 1990. Try seeing what 120k will get you now. ^ Nothing. 3)Too many damn latinos are moving here. There have always been latinos living around here but recently their numbers have been getting way out of hand.

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  5. I think I'm going to like you. Jusr remember when you speak of hating DC, talk only about DC, nor Arlington or Bethesda... The suburbs like to call themselves DC for status and notoriety. But they're NOT DC.

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  6. I would NEVER judge an entire city based on just a 10 year span or worse yet just a 7 year span of living there.

    Similar to saying Notre Dame's football program is garbage because they have not won a national chmpionship in 20 years when we all know as a whole, Notre Dame's football program is LEGENDARY and I am not even a Notre Dame fan.

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  7. What offends me is the DC haters on this blog and elsewhere who comlain about DC but have plans to help solve the problem. All I read on this blog is "I hate DC and can't wait to leave".

    It offends this near 50 year old who takes the time to attend PSA meetings to learn about the crime and safety issues that affect my neigborhood and to report such crimes and safety issues. This not only helps to protect me, but also the whiny sniffly little bloggers on this sight who will probably be leaving soon to whine in another city.

    Now the douchebaggery of the city is a different matter all together.
    Let us all agree to hate them together.

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  8. HAD I JUST MOVED TO DC IN 2001 I PROBABLY WOULD THINK THAT DC SUCKS TOO.

    IN ALL FAIRNESS, THERE ARE PROBABLY SOME PEOPLE OUT THERE WHO THINK THAT 2006 WAS THE GREATEST YEAR IN HISTORY

    THERE ARE ALSO PROBABLY SOME PEOPLE OUT THERE WHO THINK "DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE" ARE THE GREATEST BAND IN HISTORY

    I WOULD NEVER THINK THAT SHIT THOUGH

    WHY?

    BECAUSE FORTUNATELY I HAVE LIVED IN OTHER DECADES AND LONG ENOUGH TO HAVE SEEN OTHER BANDS

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  9. I don't know, if someone hasn't found something good about a place in 10 YEARS, I think it might be time to cut one's losses and get out. I don't get this, "hey, wait, you can't judge a place in 10 short years!" business.

    *Speaking as a former 10 year resident of DC who finally got out, that is (take heart, it is possible!)*

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  10. The 2000s suck because Generation Y is not capable of creating anything new and exciting. They just ripoff and steal from times past.

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  11. Dude - The 1820s were the bomb in DC. The Brits had just burned it and we all loved it.

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