New Yorkers who suck

April 7, 2004 1:08 PM

The New York Press lists the 50 most loathsome New Yorkers. Time to get your hate on! Here's a sample to get you started:#18 Moby Musician IT WAS BAD enough when Moby started singing; now he's singing and talking at the same time. When not crooning school-girl poetry (see "We Are All Made of Stars") or desecrating classic punk songs between hissy fits on stage, the techno prophet cum vegan ethicist of the early 90s is schooling credulous fans on a wide range of contemporary issues. Between lessons in Nicaraguan history and tales of Rummy's early-80s holidays in Baghdad, Moby pontificates in prose that would make even DJ Spooky cringe ("We're so inherently locked into our temporal and corporeal selves that we're irrevocably locked into subjectivity") and Michael Stipe wince ("cos at the end of the day peace is better than war, right?"). We're thankful for "Go" and the car commercial songs on Play, but mister, please put your space helmet back on, get in your space ship and don't stop till you hit Pluto.
posted by vito90 (41 comments total)

They should have included themselves at the top of the list for writing this garbage.
posted by The God Complex at 1:17 PM on April 7, 2004

So, in order to be "loathsome", you don't have to, like, steal from orphans, buy politicians, be a slumlord or punch out a few cops? You just have to have be successful, maybe pretentious or invidiously advantaged, and/or a personal style and a take on public discourse that a few people don't like? Damn, if these are the most loathsome New Yorkers, it must be a beautiful place indeed.
posted by George_Spiggott at 1:36 PM on April 7, 2004

On the money:
When girls think another girl is beautiful, but guys know she isn't, call it the Sarah Jessica Parker syndrome.

Otherwise, feh.
posted by mr.marx at 1:36 PM on April 7, 2004

Not to mention Moby has knocked boots with Natalie Portman, while I, to date, have not. Jerk.
posted by keswick at 1:39 PM on April 7, 2004

Kinda grinds on to be included as humor. Just a whiny fit of tantrum throwing. I second God Complex's suggestion
posted by edgeways at 1:43 PM on April 7, 2004

The list is absurd, cruel, unjust and fucking hilarious.

But what's with the eyebrows on those illustrations? They look like they belong on women in old samurai movies.
posted by gwint at 1:47 PM on April 7, 2004

... aren't we making New York an even darker, nastier place? Nope. Like the matter of the universe, loathsomeness can be neither created nor destroyed.

I'm rubber and you're glue. Whatever you say bounces off me and sticks on you.

Lame.
posted by 4easypayments at 1:54 PM on April 7, 2004

In the next issue of the NY Press...:

"Why won't people just get over themselves! Hate lists SUCK, MAN! Assholes!"
posted by tittergrrl at 2:05 PM on April 7, 2004

With thousands of songs from my iPod at my polished fingertips, I can now walk through life effortlessly, angelically, shielded by the anodized aluminum of my futuristic listening device.

Sounds like envy to me.
posted by botono9 at 2:14 PM on April 7, 2004

What !?! No Letterman?
posted by norm111 at 2:25 PM on April 7, 2004

Hate filled? Probably. But as someone proudly a non-NewYorker, I couldn't agree more with their number one pick:

Rudy Giuliani
Businessman

FOR RUNNING AROUND the streets of Lower Manhattan without visibly crapping himself, Giuliani was elevated from the world's most hypocritical goon to He-Man, Master of the Universe. Forget his violating federal handicap laws, his wars on rent control and community gardens, his refusal to test DNA rape kits until the five-year statute of limitations was up, or his corporate real estate giveaways—Rudy is now considered a Great and Heroic American Mayor.
posted by Wulfgar! at 2:29 PM on April 7, 2004

I don't know, I think Choire Sicha is really funny, and his blog his fucking dope.

But otherwise, this is hilarious. "Suck our cancer sticks"...genius...
posted by Sijeka at 2:36 PM on April 7, 2004

Don't like Lost in Translation, therefore the director is "loathesome?" Talk about an ad hominum attack, huh? I understand Sofia Coppola is a pleasant person and is trying to get a non-Hollywood movie production facility started in Tribeca. She didn't go to college. So her character did, you blame the artist? So her dad helped her, are you claiming she has no talent?

V
posted by vaca at 2:55 PM on April 7, 2004

...please put your space helmet back on, get in your space ship and don't stop till you hit Pluto.

Don't they mean, "til you hit Sedna?"
posted by bingo at 2:56 PM on April 7, 2004

Agreed. Hardly seems like their definition of 'loathsome' equals mine. The Ferry captain? maybe. Drew Barrymore? Did I miss where she killed people?
posted by John Kenneth Fisher at 3:23 PM on April 7, 2004

42
i-Snobs

THE BLINDING WHITE cords flowing out of my sublimely waxed ears say it all: I'm in no mood for talking, and my income bracket makes cumbersome CDs so unnecessary, so Second Wave. With thousands of songs from my iPod at my polished fingertips, I can now walk through life effortlessly, angelically, shielded by the anodized aluminum of my futuristic listening device. I can strut with confidence and disinterest past those in my chosen path. I'm cut off from your dirty world by my ear buds and their enhanced sound and noise-suppression features. I'm a creature of advertising, a walking cliche with 25-minute skip protection and Volkswagen dreams. Shit, my profile even resembles the faceless, platonic form in the billboard.

To me, this is akin to people who hate people with cell phones. "Fucking self-important bastards who like to be able to be reached at any time!" Or those pricks who choose to ride in cars when everything's really within walking distance, if you have the time. I second the "jealousy" vote (even though...let's be honest...you don't hear that much vitrol for people with Walkmans.).
posted by ColdChef at 3:28 PM on April 7, 2004

Drew Barrymore? Did I miss where she killed people?

No, you missed the part where celebrities are supposed to keep their public displays of affection to an extreme minimum. Didn't you see the edict?

Hate filled? Probably. But as someone proudly a non-NewYorker, I couldn't agree more with their number one pick:

Yeah, but most of the list is so off-the-mark that it doesn't even matter.

Also, wasn't Coppola lauded after The Virgin Suicides? She's two for two in my books, but I don't write hate-filled, boring lists. I thought it was deadly ironic they accused the hilarious David Cross of not being funny in the midst of their wholly unentertaining, shallow list.
posted by The God Complex at 3:31 PM on April 7, 2004

Wow. So there is a magazine more smug (and with less reason) than Time Out London.
posted by Hogshead at 3:35 PM on April 7, 2004

Jesus. It's a freaking humor piece, people. It's not like they just compared chicken farms to the Holocaust.
posted by gwint at 3:39 PM on April 7, 2004

It's more self-description than humor piece, IMHO. This sentence is supposedly about David Cross (#19), but strikes me as a perfect summary of the article: "Call it humor for slow hipsters: [the New York Press] is condescending, meandering, undisciplined and...not funny"
posted by Zonker at 3:49 PM on April 7, 2004

It could have been so much better (too many jerks are missing from the list.) But I totally agree with the Guiliani slam.
posted by amberglow at 3:57 PM on April 7, 2004

From Moby's journal at moby.com:

i couldn't be more proud...
new york press has named me one of their 50 most loathsome new yorkers!
other people on this years list are sophia coppola, dianne sawyer, david cross, jeffery sachs(prominent aids researcher, involved in getting billions of dollars in government assistance for the aids epidemic in sub-saharan africa), janeane garofalo, and rudy giulianni, among others.
i do hereby gladly accept being named #18(ha ha, good pun!)on the list of the 50 most loathsome new yorkers.
thanks ny press!

OK, so I work for his record company, but good for him. What a ridiculous article. I'd have been much more interested in a TRULY Loathsome New Yorkers piece -- spend a little time looking into the more fraudulent, corrupt, and sometimes murderous pasttimes of prominent NYers, rather than picking on people whose clothes you don't like...
posted by logovisual at 3:58 PM on April 7, 2004

I did have to agree with their assessment of the AirTrain. Its supreme awfulness makes JFK one of my least favorite airports.
posted by Alison at 3:59 PM on April 7, 2004

I can't forgive them for including Chuck Klosterman, the only music writer worth reading.
posted by jonmc at 4:33 PM on April 7, 2004

offtopic
Actually, I've really enjoyed the AirTrain so far. The NYPress is talking out their ass when they say it takes the same amount of time as the shuttle bus -- I spent forty-five minutes on one of those goddamn things once, with a sweaty businessman's ass in my face, while the AirTrain has gotten me from the A train to Terminal 6 in under ten minutes three times now. And while $5 is an outrageous rip-off, everything else about it has done pretty much exactly what I would've wanted it to.
/offtopic

I also live across the street from Fab & Drew, and while I see them all the time, I can't say I've ever felt the urge to slice them into bloody ribbons...
posted by logovisual at 4:40 PM on April 7, 2004

The quote from Janeane Garofalo is great. Even though I do hate her. " "Evil is in the face of every frat guy that ever raised a beer cup and went whoo-hoo."
posted by abcde at 4:56 PM on April 7, 2004 [1 favorite]

Those caricatures are really ugly, totally off-point, and I don't understand the eyebrows either. ("I am the man who draws everything with hot dogs for eyebrows!") As for the writing, I don't know, I got bored after the second page and started listening to my iPod.
posted by furiousthought at 4:58 PM on April 7, 2004

Prior to actually trying to read it [I wasn't being purposely ironic, just wanted something to read at lunch], I tried loading the print version into my iPod using Pod2Go and it wound up omitting large parts and not inserting the "previous" and "next page" links. It's like the NYP made it unmungeable on purpose. At least they're thorough.

I bet this magazine's main sponsor is Haterade.
posted by britain at 5:19 PM on April 7, 2004

Everyone in NYC is a jerk apart from all the people I know. (And 'all the people I know' includes all the folks who will be at the MeFi International NYC Meetup at the end of May *whoop*).

In any case, Bangkok beats NYC, London, Paris et al for the title of 'World's Best City' as any fule no... ;-)
posted by i_cola at 5:57 PM on April 7, 2004

Your favourite New Yorker sucks.
posted by John Shaft at 6:00 PM on April 7, 2004

just an FYI: it's a weekly newspaper, sort of a secondclass Village Voice, and in my opinion, is only good for Signorile's columns (altho there used to be a good weekly column by a guy going blind--don't know if they still run it).
posted by amberglow at 6:19 PM on April 7, 2004

[/troll]
Just closing my earlier [troll] tag ;-)
posted by i_cola at 6:28 PM on April 7, 2004

Couldn't agree more with 50 Cent. Either be 'dangerous', or be a teen pop star. Pick one.

But I totally agree with the Guiliani slam.

Amberglow, I am surprised, no, make that shocked, that you would agree with the selection of the biggest republican on the list! Will wonders never cease?
posted by Dennis Murphy at 1:35 AM on April 8, 2004

Over the years, despite the apoplectic tone of many of the editorials in the NYPress, it has turned out to be, well, an actual alternative. Yah, quite a bit of the ink is spent on depressive diatribes and radically subjective (read: negative as all hell) screeds, but hey. You can hate on the haters if you want.

Here's some more NYers who supposedly 'suck', a classic summary of a particular NYC industry as of April 2002. This piece wouldn't make any other paper as such unmediated truth, because, in my view, many of the Op-Ed pieces and even the straight journalism on the linked subject tend to end up cracking down the individuals involved into The Unknowable Other, a monolithic force that is concerned, necessarily, by all the same issues and is of one opinion. The linked article is a window into confusion. You *should* be confused after reading it.

So that might be one reason why some folks read this paper: every so often, it just nails its target perfectly. The rest of it I could do without most times. The posted article was good for a few laughs, but y'know, the suggestion to push one of the 'winners' in front of the 9 train was a bit...nasty. And that's what this paper does often.
posted by attackthetaxi at 3:17 AM on April 8, 2004

Moby and natalie portman ?
There's hope for us all then.
Isnt moby canadian anyway ?
posted by sgt.serenity at 3:41 AM on April 8, 2004

In any case, Bangkok beats NYC, London, Paris et al for the title of 'World's Best City'

Nah. If you've got the cash, no place beats Singapore. There must be some public law that unattractive women are banned like chewing gum or something.

Or maybe they've got some Logan's Run thing going on... "Santuary! Santuary!"
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 6:21 AM on April 8, 2004

Hi again. I really can spell sanctuary.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 6:22 AM on April 8, 2004

Actually, I've really enjoyed the AirTrain so far.

Bah. It's awful. The concrete is already cracking. It's cheap-looking. It's expensive. The ticket-buying is lame, lame, lame. The people standing around to tell you which train is going where should be replaced by electric signs.

You wanna see how to do a rail-to-plane system? Go to Newark.
posted by Mo Nickels at 7:42 AM on April 8, 2004

C_D Naaaah. I like Singapore but it's AsiaLite. BKK's the real thing.
I like the Logan's Run idea tho' ;-)
posted by i_cola at 5:36 PM on April 8, 2004

BKK is like the Asian version of Jamaica's hedonism parties, which are fun if you're under 25 and sad when you're over 40. You've also got Cambodia, which offers up its vices like the Wal-Mart of Southeast Asia. But for sheer variety of food and the sophistication of their society (no other place besides Hong Kong feels more like living in the future), I'd still take Singapore over the inevitable roofies overdose from a psycho ya-ba'd up girlfriend.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 4:20 AM on April 9, 2004

C_D: [Example 1] [Example 2]. Case dismissed!

Sounds like you spent too much time in Patpong or Thanon Koh San ;-)
posted by i_cola at 4:31 PM on April 10, 2004