I’m putting on the foil

Jump to Comments

I am sick and fucking tired of the town where I was born being portrayed in the national media as some kind of Dickensian slum.

I just watched a report on NBC Nightly News with a reporter following Obama through Pennsylvania. This asshole stood in front of a bunch of dead trees and run-down houses (of which you could really only see the roofs). Of all the places to stand in the city or outskirts of Johnstown, surely there would be one spot that didn’t look like it needed to be put out of its misery.

Then thanks to Kristophrenia, I saw this piece of shit at the NYT (might require registration). Apparently there’s no one under 40 in J-town and no one who isn’t beside himself with gloom about the economy. Here’s how they say “This shithole is full of racists and rednecks” without saying it:

Peter Contacos, 42, the fourth generation of his family to own and operate Coney Island Lunch, a downtown Johnstown business that survived two floods and the loss of thousands of regular customers when Bethlehem Steel eliminated 15,000 jobs in the 1970s and ’80s, will not vote for Senator Barack Obama, “because his name is Barack Hussein Obama — case closed.” Mr. Contacos, an avid hunter who proudly displays pictures of himself with a magnificently maned lion he killed in Botswana, said he considered Mr. Obama “a terrorist.”

And then to reiterate what a run-down mess our county is, this non sequitur appears at the end of the article:

“This area, it’s like they wrote it off,” said Mr. Swope, a retired electrician. “A billion dollars a day for the war, and when a bridge collapsed over here,” he said, mentioning a nearby hamlet, “they didn’t even bother fixing it.”

The 116-year-old bridge carried State Route 1012 over Clearfield Creek in the town of Dysart. Investigators said it collapsed moments after a snowplow crossed on Dec. 11.

WTF does that have to do with “the weary electorate?” Nothing.

So I’m pissed off that we’re being portrayed as the place where you’d stick the hose to give Pennsylvania an enema. Johnstown is the largest city in our county and it’s where I was born. When the weather is a little better, you can bet I’m going to grab some photos of Johnstown to show at least some of the world what there is to see around here. Of course it has run down parts, problems with crime, etc. but any city does. In fact, any town of any size does.

On top of all this, some asshole wants to remake Slap Shot. A remake of Slap Shot! WTF? Why? You wanna remake a Johnstown movie, do All The Right Moves and get rid of Tom Cruise.

I’ll end on a postive story that was also on Kristophrenia: Shrunken Rust Belt City Climbing Back

10 Comments

Filed under Bumblefuck, I Hate People, That’s fucked up, Tom Cruise Has Gone Nuts

Tags: Bumblefuck