there are three things i’ve always wanted to be.

because of my acid reflux, two of them (a fireman on the set of a soft p*rn flick, and a pass first point guard on team earth when we play the martians) aren’t in the cards anymore. but, getting an award for best writing in a blog means that i finally have a decent chance at being number three…

…overrated

seriously, think about the overrated upside. you have to possess some actual talent and ability for people to even bother rating you, as well as something special that’s made them think unnecessarily highly of your better than average but not quite spectacular self.

you can keep your analog wanna be underrated and under the radar ass asses. in these tough economic times, what can be better than having people think that you’re smarter, better looking, and more important than you actually are?

this brings us to today’s topic, a subject that’s perhaps the most overrated and overhyped thing in our country’s history. because i have such admiration for a place that can stay on top of the overrated heap for so long, i’ve decided to bless the vsb pulpit today with the six most overrated and overhyped things about new york city, while also hoping everyone ignores the irony of a native pittsburgher talking sh*t about another city

1. the notorious b.i.g.

when you take away his feud with a much, much, much, much more popular and transcendent tupac and his relationship with the black simon cowell, can someone tell me what separates big poppa from big punisher? i mean, they both were great rappers who each were able to release two very good (nope. not classic) albums with a couple classic singles before their deaths, but one is perpetually memorialized while the other is just “that fat puerto rican n*gga who could rhyme”.

the answer: because diddy and the new york mixtape hype machine created a prevailing image of an oversized man carrying an entire coast on his shoulders, even though dying after releasing an album called “life after death” is the most notable thing he ever did. as always, jadakiss was right

2. the idea of harlem

makes the cut for basing its mystique on a renaissance hijacked from the hill district, for being so completely gentrified that liz and liz’s boobs aren’t even scared to live there anymore, and because at least six of the ten worst human beings i’ve ever met were made on its fraudulent streets.

3. its relationship to basketball

new rule: if your nba team hasn’t won a championship in 36 years, your city hasn’t had an ncaa division one champion in 59 years, and if seattle f*cking washington is currently producing more relevant nba players than you are, you can no longer refer to yourself as “the mecca of basketball”

4. rudy giuliani

i picked rudy’s adulterous ass, but i could have just as easily picked any other nyc area politician who was thought to be virtually assured a seat in the oval office just because they happened to get elected in a city where the rats outnumber the people

5. new yorker pride

a google search of proud new yorker shows 63,800,000 results, a little under four times more than proud canadian (17,400,000), a little over 2,000 times more than proud philadelphian (30,300), and 63 million times more results than “lil cease”.

thing is, while new yorkers are undoubtedly proud and arrogant and assholes, they’re actually no more proud, arrogant, or asshole-ish than anybody from any other major city. you wanna talk about resilience and fortitude, forget new york and gimme the guy who’s lived in dover, delaware his entire life, just for the simple fact that he’s spent his entire existance in a place called “dover, delaware”.

6. actually living there

between the cost of living, the traffic, the chinese, the tendency for disasters to occur, the crime, the dipset, being governed by a blind jiggalo, and the fact that its more densely populated than jakarta, if i want diversity, good food, great entertainment, bad sports, and tons of different dialectics and dna, i’ll just move in with frankie and neffe

people of vsb.com, the carpet is yours.

do you agree, did i miss anything, and who else wants to join me on the overrated train? there’s plenty of room.

—the champ