The World-Class City

This time we talk about Civic Inferiority Complexes...

Tomorrow the Kansas City Chiefs play the Miami Dolphins and the Chiefs have been somewhat inconsistent this season so not much is going to surprise me, but no matter what happens (even if Taylor Swift breaks up with Travis Kelce on the 50-yard line at halftime) it’s been a good season because anytime you make the playoffs, you did OK.

Just in case you need reminding how lucky Chiefs fans are, according to the internet:

The Detroit Lions have gone 32 years without a playoff win so whatever happens on Saturday we should still be grateful that the Chiefs have gone to three of the last four Super Bowls, won two of them and if I counted right, been in the playoffs nine straight years because when I arrived in Kansas City in the early 1980s the Chiefs were pretty awful (just three winnings seasons that decade). So bad that even though the Kansas City Star had season tickets, nobody wanted them and on more than one occasion I got TOTALLY FREE CHIEFS TICKETS which I was happy to use because back then Arrowhead Stadium was a nice quiet place to relax and read the Sunday paper.

Further research (which makes it sound like I did more than look at a website) reveals that between 1971 and 1986 the Chiefs did not make a single playoff appearance so we ought to be grateful for the hot streak they’re currently on which will end at some point and then these will be the Good Old Days and if you don’t believe me, just ask Bill Belichick.  

One more time:

NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS ON SATURDAY THE CHIEFS HAD A GOOD SEASON AND OUR FOOTBALL TEAM’S PERFORMANCE DOES NOT DEFINE KANSAS CITY.

Which gets us to the point of today’s essay: Kansas City’s totally unnecessary Civic Inferiority Complex.

Some semi-brief local history

I’m not trying to be a dick (it comes effortlessly) but when you grow up in California – and everybody who lives there is absolutely sure it’s the best state in the Union – you don’t dream about someday moving to the Midwest to enjoy freezing-ass winters which are broken up by the smoking-hot summers. Also, snow without mountains to ski on seems like bad planning by the Almighty – like nipples for men – and yes, I stole that joke from Time Bandits.

In any case, being a California boy, no freaking way I was going to spend my life in Kansas City even though the longer I lived here the more I liked it.  

It’s a city with a fascinating history – Civil War battles, Western gunslingers, gangster shootouts and All That Jazz – plus a great collection of dive bars and restaurants, it’s relatively cheap to live in (which local real estate developers are doing their best to change) has easy commutes (which the elected morons who tore out the street car system in 1957 and have now decided needs to be reinstalled are making much worse) but despite its many advantages the locals I ran into often seemed faintly embarrassed that Kansas City wasn’t New York or Paris or Rome and all I can say is:

Thank God for that.

More on that in a moment, but like it or not, it’s now time to once again talk about Taylor Swift and I’ll do my best to have these two subjects meet up before we’re through for the day.

The Remora Fish Media

So here’s the deal on Taylor Swift:

She’s got approximately eleventy-bajillion fans so all kinds of media people have been talking about her (that clearly includes me) because just maybe some of her fans will read your article or listen to your podcast or watch your TV show and none of it has to make  a damn bit of sense because that’s not the point:

The point is to get her fans to build up your numbers.

The media currently has the same relationship with Taylor Swift that a remora fish has with a shark and if that image doesn’t work for you, try “tick and German Shepherd” or “Sonny and Cher” or “George W. Bush and Dick Cheney” and I’ll let you figure out which one was the shark in that relationship.

If you’re in the media and want to cash in on Taylor’s popularity, claim she’s distracting the Kansas City Chiefs (Skip Bayless) or she’s secretly gay (some dipshit with the New York Times) or she’s possibly a Pentagon Asset (two knuckleheads on Fox News, which doesn’t narrow down the possibilities all that much); just say something controversial about Taylor Swift and whether they’re happy or mad, wait for her fans to show up and increase your numbers.

And now we finally arrive at the World-Class City portion of our program.

The Kansas City Star semi-recently ran an article about Taylor Swift and how she’s helping the local economy and how KC businesses are “leaning in” to the Taylor Swift excitement and I really wish writers who use that term would “lean out” an upper-story window which would make things a lot easier when someone my age decides to give them a push.  

The Economic Development Corporation of Kansas City (which also wants to take advantage of Taylor’s popularity) said Swift’s presence had opened up more conversations with businesses that might relocate and “20-somethings” (the age group most likely to do something really fucking stupid) now see Kansas City as a “cool” place because of Taylor Swift and might want to live or do business here.

Timeout for Common Sense

Right now would be an excellent time to ask yourself what kind of moronic business owner would move his business to Kansas City because Taylor Swift went to some football games and I have a bet with a Taylor Swift Fan that if Taylor is still dating Travis at this time next year, I owe the Swift Fan lunch at the restaurant of her choice, but if they break up, the Swift Fan owes me lunch and I like my odds because in no particular order, Taylor has dated and broken up with:

Harry Styles, Taylor Lautner, Zac Efron, Joe Jonas, Jake Gyllenhaal, John Mayer, Tom Hiddleston, Eddie Redmayne, the 101^st Airborne, Adam Young, the entire bullpen of the New York Mets, Cory Monteith, Connor Kennedy and the University of Michigan marching band (woodwinds only).

And now a word about that list

I got it off the internet so who knows if it’s anywhere near accurate and that person at the New York Times speculated Taylor might be gay because Taylor hangs around with a woman friend and her songs are filled with “clues” regarding her secret gayness.

And as we all know, clues in songs are the best source of information because Paul McCartney is definitely dead and has been replaced by an uncanny look-a-like who was forced to learn to play guitar left-handed and to keep up the long-running hoax, has continued to produce new songs for the past 60 years.

As someone who isn’t an imbecile pointed out, Taylor hangs around her female friend because if she gets within a quarter mile of an eligible male, people start speculating about impinging nuptials and if you think I actually meant “impending” nuptials you missed the joke and probably aren’t married.

But even if Taylor actually dated each and every one of those guys listed, I’m all for it.

Because when you’re young you should date and if they’re sponge-worthy (a Seinfeld reference and you can’t have too many of those) bang as many people as possible because those are the people you’ll fantasize about when you’re stuck having man-on-top-get-it-over-with-quick sex with your spouse who, twenty years after you first laid eyes on them, is:

1. 50 pounds overweight and has hair growing out his ears, or…

2. Has started wearing granny panties large enough to show home movies on.

But those are the problems of a long-term relationship which gets us right back to Travis and Taylor.

Note of possible interest: according to at least one psychologist whose name I can’t currently recall, when you name a couple you’ll name the person most important to you first, so in my case it’s “Travis and Taylor” not “Taylor and Travis” because Taylor Swift has not made a significant play for the Kansas City Chiefs this entire season and if you check the stats, her YAC – Yardage After Catch – is horrible.

Now take a minute and start naming couples you know and you’re about to find out which half of that couple means more to you and come to think of it, has anyone ever said “Yoko and John” and not “John and Yoko” and John Lennon wrote a song about their relationship and called it “The Ballad of John and Yoko” so even John realized he was the important one and if you disagree just go ahead and name a Yoko Ono song she wrote and performed without John’s help.

Anyway…

According to the Star story, the Economic Development Corporation feels that Kansas City is well on its way to becoming a “world-class city” and Taylor Swift is helping make that happen and once again I feel an urge to say (much like Taylor being the cause of the Chiefs losing football games) that’s not very likely.

Here are some world-class cities, followed by the population of their metropolitan area: 

• New York City: 19.6 million

• Buenos Aires: 15.6 million

• Tokyo: 13.9 million

• Rio de Janeiro: 13.8 million

• Los Angeles: 12.5 million 

• Paris: 12.2 million

And…

• Kansas City: 1.7 million

Anything jump out at you?

Unless Taylor Swift convinces approximately 11.2 million people to move to KC we’re never going to be a “world-class” city and THAT’S A GOOD THING.

One of my sons lives in LA and he says it’s filled with interesting places that you’re never going to visit because with that many people living there it takes most of a day to get anywhere and back, which was demonstrated the time we decided to drive to San Diego for lunch and an hour later still weren’t out of LA and decided to give the fuck up and head back to Santa Monica.

According to the internet, an average of 1,400 people live on every square block in Manhattan and the first time I visited New York I realized why they have so much night life: people are living on top of each other like cockroaches or lab rats and have to get out of their over-priced apartments before they go crazy.

To get back to where we started:

The upside of being just a regular-old-Midwest city is cheap apartments (or at least cheap-er) relatively short commutes and the ability to get a restaurant reservation without performing oral sex on a maître d’ or go to a ballgame without first auctioning off your first-born male child, but the people who run things aren’t satisfied with that.

They want to a be a Really Big Deal so when they attend a national convention of mayors or economic development flacks, the other attendees don’t burst into laughter when they say they’re a Really Big Deal…in Kansas City.

Even though Kansas City is already a great place to live and that won’t change no matter what happens on Saturday and we’re all going to be just fine…as long as you don’t go outside because it’s currently 16 degrees here and everything froze up overnight and you could hold the Ice Capades on my front steps.

Just remember how lucky you are to have a team you actually care about and don’t live in a World Class City because World Class Cities sound like a giant pain in the ass.

Now enjoy the game and stay warm.