So I’m relaxing by the fireplace in my luxury home the other night, reading my latest issue of Philadelphia Magazine. And by reading, I mean flipping through 200 pages of ads for handbags and Stephen Starr and looking at pictures of rich white people. Now keep in mind, it took a while for me to even get the magazine open, because I couldn’t stop staring at Kevin Bacon on the front cover, sporting the worst haircut I’ve ever seen on an actual human being. He looked like a 15 year old girl in 1994. Anyway, I’m trying to make up my mind about whether or not to read some article about Chaka Fattah’s wife (ok, ok, so they occasionally cover rich black people) when I saw a sidebar about Jessica Pressler’s infamous Sixth Borough article.
The sidebar was headlined, “How Not to Take a Compliment”. They talked about the sixth borough article, about how Philly is finally acceptable to New Yorkers and so they are moving here. They then said, “What praise! A potential boost to our economy! And of course, a perfect opportunity for Philadelphians to poop on themselves.” They then took a number of comments from Daniel Rubin’s Blinq page, starting with one in which I said “…we don’t like it when people talk s*** about our city.” First of all, I didn’t poop myself when I read the article. I haven’t pooped myself in over three months. Secondly, the quote was taken way out of context. The commenter (is that a word?) directly before me wrote that “Philly is a great place to live if you have no ambition…philly sports teams never win…nyc and dc drains all the talent from philly…those who remain are very defensive insecure.” I responded thusly, “Philly is a terrific place to live if you have ambition. if you wanna work in a fortune 500 company, then no, you’re right, this isn’t the place to be. but if you wanna get your own thing started (other than that damn Business Privilege Tax), then it’s ideal. not too big, not too small, and the community is quick to embrace people who are trying to make things happen. As for our sports teams never winning, i seem to have forgotten what the Giants and Redskins records were last year. can anybody help me out? sorry, but i was too busy cheering my team to the super bowl to notice the teams with 5 or 6 wins. as for ‘defensive’, i’ll take that as a compliment. no, we don’t like it when people talk s*** about our city, so instead of hanging our heads in shame, we come out fighting. that’s why i love this place.” As you can see, I was directing my quotes at the commenter before me, and it had absolutely nothing to do with the article by Pressler. Sloppy journalism by Philly Magazine. Go figure.