By Jeff Moss
DetroitSportsRag@GMail.com
March 24, 2015
Can we be honest here for a second? Imagine for a moment that money wasn’t an issue. That family concerns weren’t an obstacle. Let me ask you a question …..
Who the fuck would live in Detroit or Southeastern Michigan if there weren’t some umbilical cord keeping us tethered to this area?
If there were a draft of all the places one could live in the United States, not only would Detroit and the suburbs go unselected, nobody would touch this area as an undrafted free-agent. Shit, we wouldn’t even get practice squad or D-League heat.
We basically have nine months of winter. Downtown Detroit is improving but there still isn’t much at all to do other than attending sporting events. City leaders even fucked up the location of the casinos. We don’t have great theater or restaurants and our greatest claim to fame is the Eight Mile strip clubs.
Hell, I live in an area with a heavy concentration of Jews and I can’t even get good CHINESE delivered to me. Meanwhile, DSR managing editor Justin Spiro lives in a place (Chicago) where he can get HOOTERS chicken wings dropped off at his front door.
HOOTERS. Delivers. I mean, the only reason to eat at that joint is to ogle decent-looking chicks in skimpy outfits and THAT place offers home delivery. Meanwhile, I can’t get an order of Moo Goo Gai Pan in WEST FREAKING JEWFIELD.
This place sucks. Deep down, beneath their parochial subconscious, if Detroiters actually had their druthers, the entire state would be as barren as the Joe Louis Arena was last weekend during the Big Ten hockey tournament.
Now, there are a lot of folks who are in denial about this. They are the provincial morons who actually want you to believe that they’d rather live in DETROIT than in Miami, NYC, Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Austin, Dallas, Denver or in any of the other preferable locales in the USA.
These are the dummies who are up in arms with Madonna’s recent comments about the place where she grew up. A couple of weeks ago, Madonna did a long-form interview Howard Stern and said the following ….
“Have you ever been to Rochester, Michigan? … I just didn’t want to go back. I can’t, no, I can’t be around basic, provincial-thinking people.”
Being a Stern junkie, I was listening to the interview live when Madonna uttered those words and two things popped into my mind ….
1) She’s absolutely right. People in this area are EXTREMELY provincial.
2) She is going to get annihilated for having that opinion.
I found it incredibly ironic that Madonna chose to open that can of worms in an interview with the King of All Media considering there is no better illustration of this area’s regional thinking than the fact that Stern went to #1 in every market in America EXCEPT this one — which was somehow dominated by the talentless Drew Lane.
Because content doesn’t matter to this bunch of local mouth-breathers as long as you know Faygo pop, Better Made potato chips and every pothole on the Lodge between Wyoming and Canfield.
And who can forget how the local media embarrassed itself while attempting to prop up the ill-fated Detroit-centric dramas Detroit 1-8-7 and Low Winter Sun. For a while there, the utterly forgettable Erin Cummings had Kid Rock’s high profile and was praised as though she were the second coming of Meryl Streep.
And do we even need to discuss how the city’s anthem is a song that mentions a place that doesn’t even exist (South Detroit) and, even if it did, it would be in a FOREIGN COUNTRY? But hey, Detroit’s mentioned so let’s all lose our collective shit!!!
Detroit…where clannishness meets neediness!
Most of the inhabitants of this godforsaken hellhole want to convince you that they WANT to live here are in some sort of deep denial. You live here because your ancestors migrated to this area decades ago — before air conditioning was invented (which meant they didn’t ALL go to Florida) — and now you are either stuck financially or hooked because of your family.
I am just honest about the reason I live here and not in Fort Lauderdale.
Meanwhile, Madonna is being blasted by the mayor of Rochester and Debbie Dingell for doing what everyone with a billion dollars in the bank would do…Never come back to Detroit except for weddings, sporting events, Bar Mitzvahs and funerals.
Are we seriously going to debate her provinciality comments? There is actually a casino in Las Vegas with a Detroit motif. Can you imagine? Who the fuck would want to go to Sin City to eat a coney island or dine at Andiamo? Shit, I don’t eat that lousy Italian food when I am HERE.
I am surprised that Detroiters haven’t petitioned Disney to open a Leo’s or Olga’s at Epcot Center’s “World Showcase.” Welp, I probably just gave them an idea. Expect this on Facebook within days.
And the provincial behavior spreads to our sports teams. 90% of the fans who root for the Tigers, Lions, Red Wings and Pistons don’t want to hear ANYTHING negative about our teams.
All they want is sunshine and rainbows, which is why websites like “Bless You Boys” thrive while this place will NEVER be anything more than a niche home for the discerning minority because [Trout] forbid anyone criticize anything Motown-related.
This place stinks, man. You can’t get a good meal after 9pm because everything closes prematurely. Except Meijer. Which is open 24 hours. And boy, do Detroiters love Meijer because … why? Who the hell knows except that it originated Michigan.
When I was a kid, I thought I would never want to move away from this area because I was so dependent on the Detroit sports teams. But with the Sunday Ticket, NBA League Pass, NHL Center Ice and MLB.com plus the advent of the Internet, where you can actually read the Freep or News on your phone, there is ZERO reason to stay here.
Southeastern Michigan might not be as depressing as the poor, small village Eva Duarte grew up in was, but there is a reason why Evita yearned for Buenos Aires and I can’t wait to find my own personal Juan Peron one day.
Madonna was right. This place is extremely provincial and, for the most part, it stinks.
Sometimes the truth hurts — even if it is being said by a Kabbalah-obsessed weirdo from Pontiac who has a British accent.