These city ranking things (see current DP article: here) always crack me up. Denver has always had a kind of complex about playing second fiddle to other cities, especially when it comes to lifestyle and fitness. “Least Obese in the Nation!” is a badge Coloradans love to flaunt. So it should come as no surprise when Mile High folks take umbrage at being named #8. Especially when the reasons have more to do with “bowling costs” and “proximity to the beach” than with waistlines and exercise habits of local residents.
It ain’t bowling, but it’ll have to do.
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I’ve been to most of the 100 places named in this list. <Notable exceptions include Honolulu (#1), Anchorage (#62) and Laredo (#71).> I’ve lived for a time in a bunch of them, including Chicago (#2), Denver (#8), Sacramento (#16), Los Angeles (#25) and Colorado Springs (#33). <And we won’t even mention the 12 weeks I spent in Plano (#68) back in the late 80’s, okay?>
Bottom line, any ranking is dependent on the ranking’s methodology. At least the authors of this one (WalletHub) spell theirs out in detail, here, so you can draw your own conclusions. Or, as one DP commentator put it so pithily:
Back in the days before Uber and Lyft, I used to drive a SuperShuttle van out of LAX. This was not long after the ’84 Olympics were in LA, and at the time, SuperShuttle was just getting started. The Supershuttle “bus barn” – where we picked up our vans – looked just like the set of the old TV show “Taxi” starring Judd Hirsch and Danny DeVito with Tony Danza and Marilu Henner – plus the incomparable Andy Kaufman. Of course, I always saw myself in the Judd Hirsch role because at 6’4″ nobody was ever going to mistake me for Danny DeVito. But mostly I just loved the freedom of being out on the open road, feeling like I was my own boss. Because – other than getting pickups from the dispatchers – we pretty much were.
The bus barn was located on Century Boulevard just outside LAX. It was right next door to a strip joint called “NUDE NUDES!” (Hey, you can’t get any more NUDE than that, right?) I loved starting my daily shift at 4AM, just about the time the dancers from next door were going off shift. They mostly were bundled inside down jackets (hey, it gets cold in LA at 4AM) while wearing very short cut-off jeans (exotic dancers, after all). They also wore the same kind of comfortable white basketball sneakers that I did, and carried their red stiletto heels strapped together and slung over one shoulder. I remember them talking and laughing with each other, snapping their gum, heading home. Meanwhile, I kept my head down and carried a brown paper sack with my lunch in it. Not everyone is destined for greatness I suppose.
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More than anything, though, I loved talking with my passengers. Most were just business people going on business trips, or regular people going to visit family for the holidays, or maybe headed somewhere on vacation. But some were actually famous – or, at least, semi-famous.
For instance, I took Doc Severinsen’s Band to a gig, complete with all their equipment. The drums took up most of the space in back. Doc, of course, was just as much of a snappy dresser in real life as he was on The Tonight Show.
Doc, with trumpet, & neon purple jacket.
I took the LA Clippers basketball team (well, some of them) to a home game at the LA Sports Arena – this was before there even was a Staples Center. And let me tell you, the 7-footers had a heck of a time folding into the back seats of my Dodge RAM van. But I did get to drive down underneath the Sports Arena to drop them off right outside the locker room door. So, that kind of made up for no tips. I said kind of. Tips are always very important to service people and drivers. Remember this.
I once took Jimmy Buffet’s sister to Jimmy Buffet’s house for Thanksgiving dinner. She flew in from New Orleans and disdained everything about LA – including all the people with plastic surgery, and the relentlessly balmy weather in late November. What was her problem, anyway? Miss Margaritaville much? Need a Tummy Tuck? How ’bout a Face Lift? Hmmmmm?
You won’t find Margaritaville on any map, but it is taking over the globe.
Carlos Santana’s drummer once had me wait for him outside a liquor store while he went inside and stocked up for Christmas eve. I remember that trip mostly because he tipped me fifty bucks. This was even before he cracked open the whiskey. I’ve been a huge Santana fan ever since.
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Most interestingly, perhaps, I took Larry Linville home from the airport to his house in Redondo Beach one time. Who is Larry Linville, you ask? Fans of M.A.S.H. will remember him as the ferret-faced actor who played Major Frank Burns. And yes, he was as much of a sourpuss in real life as he was on TV. Life imitates art, I guess. Either that or the M.A.S.H. casting director really knew her stuff.
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HEY, I SAID SEMI-FAMOUS, ALRIGHT?
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Nowadays Uber and Lyft are the new kids in the on-demand transportation block. Practically nobody (except me) takes SuperShuttle to the airport anymore. But drivers talking with passengers? That hasn’t changed one bit. Here’s Charger running back Melvin Gordon talking with his Uber driver in Baltimore the day prior to the Ravens-Chargers AFC Wild Card match up – won by San Diego, BTW. Gotta love it.
“It’s not the ‘Bird Box’ challenge. I just can’t stand seeing the news anymore.”
It may say something about the fragile state of my mental health that we’re already almost a week into 2019 and I still can’t bring myself to post anything other than New Yorker cartoons. I did send an email to a friend with a New Yorker cartoon showing Linus and Sally and Charlie Brown and Snoopy waiting outside at night – not for the Great Pumpkin, but for Robert Mueller. But then my friend wrote back saying that Mueller humor was “too scary” for her to stomach lately. So, I suppose I’m not alone in feeling like I’m walking on eggshells when it comes to topical humor these days.
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After my wife sent me a link to a story titled “Why Reading is Good For You” along with the comment “Well, duh!” I did (briefly) consider starting a new category on my blog called “Well, duh!” This would feature links to stories of the blindingly obvious, written in a tone somewhere between Dave Barry and Andy Borowitz. But then I decided, Nah, I’ve already got that tone down pat. Let’s let Dave and Andy have their fun, OK? Plus, you probably don’t need to hear about how someone has recently reinvented the wheel. Or how someone else has suddenly decided that smoking cigarettes or having lead in your drinking water is really not good for you after all…. Well duh! If you want those kind of stories, trust me, you can get them off the Internet without even breaking a sweat.
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As I drove today across the American West for 4th time in half as many months it also occurred to me (briefly, somewhere around Elko, Nevada) that I could do a post on My Favorite Books. But then it started to get complicated. Should there be different categories, like Fiction and Non-Fiction? Should Murder Mysteries be separate from Bodice Rippers? <I have to admit, I’ve never really read a Bodice Ripper, but they do have interesting covers.> What about Poetry? <Billy Collins!> Short Stories? <Flannery O’Connor!> Cookbooks? <Moosewood!> But in a family like ours, Cookbook Disputes can take on the importance that Systematic Theology holds in the families of certain clergy <You know who you are!>. Then there are genres like YA fiction <that’s Young Adult fiction for those of you not in the know> that I have never touched and couldn’t care less about. But please, please, PLEASE don’t mention this to either of my daughters since they both are big into YA fiction and they probably both already think I’m an unreconstructed Neanderthal… but I digress.
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Anyway, the New Yorker cartoon genre is tried and true so I’m sticking with it. It’s also a truism that I don’t listen to the news any more – either with or without a blindfold. Besides, there are many worse things than a New Yorker cartoon. And just in case you have any complaints, I’ve outlined a few of those worse things above.
Oh, BTW, if you have no idea what “Bird Box” refers to, get yourself a subscription to Netflix and have at it. You don’t actually have to watch the whole thing to get the gist of it. “Bird Box” is so heavily promoted on Netflix that you’ll understand the reference just from seeing the trailer every single time you log in. Not that I’m complaining, mind you. And thanks for that Netflix subscription, Ben. Without it, I’d be as clueless about “Bird Box” as I am about YA fiction.
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Please read disclaimer from Netflix here. O Good Lord!
