Most Dangerous Cities in America: A Comprehensive Guide to Planning the Worst Trip of Your Life

"We'll call you when we get to Macon!"

While doing some research at work about the worst places in America (quickly turned my residual pride from the 4th of July into deep, deep shame), I discovered some very troubling facts. For instance, did you know that in 2010 alone there were 223 documented murders in Baltimore, MD (a tidbit noticeably absent on their tourism pamphlet)? That means that in order for The Wire to have been truly accurate, they would've had to have one to three people arbitrarily shot in the background of every single scene. No small task.
In any case, seeing such facts made it clear to me that I should share my knowledge with my readers, lest they unknowingly plan a vacation of doom. So here's the rundown on the most dangerous cities in America. Enjoy!

Compton, California- Apparently all of Dr. Dre's ringing endorsements were true.
Stockton, California- The tempers here are shorter than the purple shorts of their namesake.
Washington, DC- Come for the cherry blossoms, stay for the aggravated assault.
Atlanta, Georgia- It's not all roller rinks and peaches, there's also a lot of blood.
Macon, Georgia- The three headlines that come up on Google News are murder, brawl and dismemberment, in no particular order.
Orlando, Florida- Sure Mickey Mouse only wears shorts, but you can bet your balls he's hiding a switchblade in them.
Gary, Indiana- Boasting the childhood home of the Jackson Five, Joe Jackson was responsible for 73% of the crime from 1950-1960.
New Orleans, Louisiana- Most murders per capita = A new city nickname: The Big Easy To Die Here.
Flint, Michigan- Hard to believe there would be so much crime in a city with such an uplifting motto.
Detroit, Michigan- A city whose primary exports are cars, blind rage and alcoholism.
St. Louis, Missouri- That trademark band-aid under Nelly's eye isn't a fashion statement, it's from the repeated face stabbings he endures each time he goes home.
Camden, New Jersey- Looking down their noses at those pussies in Philly since 1828.
Newark, New Jersey- You'd really expect more from the home of the Devils.
Trenton, New Jersey- Home to Thomas Edison State College, and their infamous mascot, the Soiled Pants.
Albany, New York- State capital of New York. U.S. capital of savagely beaten, drunk college kids.
Poughkeepsie, New York- Come see the leaves change on the Hudson and witness the great southern migration of the five-tooth crackhead.
Cincinnati, Ohio- Statistically, if you steer clear of the Bengals you should be fine.
Cleveland, Ohio- What LeBron really took to South Beach was his desire to be able to leave his panic room.
Youngstown, Ohio- They were going to call it Oldstown but everyone there either moves or is killed before the age of 25.
Houston, Texas- Ever since the arrival of that Chinese giant, the whole city has been up in arms.

So please readers, use these facts wisely when planning your next vacation. Heck, maybe even just spend the week at home and have yourself a stay-cation. Just don't call it a stay-cation, because that makes you a fucking asshole.

Caught a bad case of the Vegases

When you see this you have got to feel sorry (or sorrier) for anyone who was actually born in Las Vegas, because apparently it's SO widely accepted that their hometown is an unstoppable cesspool of disease that it's completely acceptable to just throw it on a billboard. I mean, consider this, wouldn't it suck if you were from Topeka and you'd casually just hear people saying: "You just came back from where? Topeka? Better get your dick checked..." That's exactly what residents of Vegas have to deal with, and if that's not harsh enough now we're plastering their flaws on three-story high ads. You don't see any billboards touting New York as the bum-piss capital of the world, or Tampa Bay as having the nation's only 3-to-1 stripper to person-with-a-soul ratio, yet we treat the City of Lights with such careless disregard?
Ouch. Sorry Vegasites... Vegans... Vegasians? Whatever the hell you are. Sorry.

Coors Light: Official beer of the NFL, and Satan

Yummy as a bag of buttholes.

Recently, I spent my day tweeting away about the evils of Coors Light and their unholy marketing strategies only to see, not even a week later, that yet another horse shit ad campaign had been unleashed upon us. Now Coors Light was offering a label that would not only tell you when your beer was cold, but also inform you that "Oh, guess what, this beer is now Super Fucking Cold" (or some shit like that). And not only were they telling you when your beer was "Super Cold," but they were doing so with genius commercial spots featuring Ice Cube arguing with a bottle of Coors Light (FYI Ice Cube, you lost the chance of anyone ever thinking you're "cold" again when you made "Are We There Yet?").
Anyway, I decided that since my Twitter rant had evidently gone unnoticed (there's no blow to the ego like realizing a massive corporation doesn't follow your microblogging habits), it was time to reach out to world with a full-on blog post. One that will hopefully bring Coors Light to its knees once and for all.


An open letter to the soulless bastards at the Coors Light marketing department:
- A wider mouth + color changing label mountains + a view window on the box + a home draft pack + Super Cold Activation + some giant silver train that somehow rips through the streets without ever running someone over = Congratulations, you have mastered the creation of gimmicks. Now consider putting that same effort into deciphering the brewing process, because your beer is unspeakably terrible.
- A temperature cannot double as a marketing initiative. Claiming to brew the world's coldest beer is like Campbell's telling us we should eat Chunky because it's the world's hottest soup. It makes no sense. Besides, everyone knows we should eat Campbell's Chunky soup because Donovan McNabb's mom says so.
- A taste as cold as the Rockies? News flash, cold is not a fucking taste, it's a feeling. And on that note I know my beer is cold when I feel it with my hand. I don't need some paint-by-numbers label to help me crack the case. Even on a blind test I'm confident I'd know if it's cold or not, and on top of that I could even figure whether or not it's Coors Light based on whether it tastes like a Budweiser that has already gone through, and subsequently been peed out of me.
In summation, the only gimmick that will ever get me to drink your "beer" is if every 18-pack came with twenty bucks, and even then, I really can't say for sure. So enjoy your impossibly awful, tasteless, albeit freezing cold beer, then promptly choke on it and die.
Yours in Christ,
TK


Now hear me citizens who don't believe we deserve to be pandered to by some shit-eating marketing reps who think we'll gulp down any worthless swill as long as it's nice and chilly, and join me in boycotting the most God forsaken adult beverage in all the land (and yes, that absolutely includes this). So pass this post along to anyone you know who loves drinking beer and hates drinking cold urine, and especially to the poor souls who have fallen victim to the vicious brainwashing of the Silver Bullet. Who knows, this may even make its way to a Coors Light rep and shine light upon the horrible error of his ways. 
Regardless, we must band together and bring an end to this evil regime, so stay strong, demand quality suds, and just say no to ice cold Coors Light.

What else are you gonna do... NOT riot??

Since the city of Vancouver erupted following the game 7 loss by their Canucks last week, I haven't been able to shake the feeling that I've seriously been missing out.  There's just something so inherently intriguing and eerily beautiful about the beast that is the sports-induced riot... and I want in.

"And this is me in front of Vancouver's famous raging street fire."

I want so badly to know what it's like to be swept up in the whirlwind that is a mass group of people simultaneously flipping some primal switch in their brains that leads them all, you included, to the same undeniable conclusion; "Flipping cars and arson is definitely the logical way to go here." Then, as if controlled by the mob itself, you proceed ransacking and/or destroying everything within reach until you are ruthlessly beaten into submission with a billy club.
Now I know that may not sound like fun to some of you, but imagine the unbelievable rush it must be to want it so badly that you do it in spite of knowing how it will end.  It's basically like having sex even though you know you might wind up with a baby. Speaking of which, these people found the best of both worlds in Vancouver (Side note: If you're reading this 9 months from now, you live in Vancouver, and your name is Stanley... these are your parents) (Side side note: If you're reading this at 9 months old you are some kind of record-setting baby genius who will inevitably rule the world with an iron fist and I'd like to preemptively pledge my loyalty and servitude to you, baby Stanley).
In the end, it's not a question of how logical or illogical rioting is. It's just a matter of me living my life never having been happy or angry enough about anything to turn over some helpless bastard's Camry, and that my friends, just isn't living at all.

The Truman Show: Rated X

While flipping through the channels the other day I stumbled onto The Truman Show on TBS (I guess I caught the two hour block that day where they weren't peddling some unspeakable Tyler Perry abomination) and every time I watch it I am even more impressed by what a truly good film it is. But this time, something else, something very different, struck me about it.
I thought to myself, with the unbelievable amount of reality TV churned out and napalming our brains each year, how far off are we from a real-life Truman Show? Honestly, I'd give it maybe two, three more years before some psycho heads to the office of a development exec and pitches a show that secretly tapes a baby for the entirety of its life. And don't act like you wouldn't watch it. If you soak in six hours of Teen Mom every week, you'd watch this. But this notion struck me with another, much more troubling question; just how much gratuitous self pleasuring must there have been in the taping of The Truman Show?!

"I swear I can feel their eyes on me..."

Think about it, throughout the film, tons of loyal viewers are shown glued to their television sets, addicted to even the smallest minutia of Truman's life. Now think back to ten or so years earlier, when Truman was but a budding young man in the frenzy of pubescent transformation. Now, if Truman is anything like every other boy in the world, around age thirteen his most prominent pastime quickly shifted from after school cartoons to just completely annihilating himself, often several times a day. And if in fact this was the case, logic says that for a large chunk of years in the long-running 24/7 broadcast of his life, the viewers were watching young Truman come home from school, lock himself in his room, and work over his not-yet-fully-grown wang like he was pumping it for information (and what the ratings did in said years would really say a lot about who the show's core viewership really was).
For shame you fictional perverts, for shame.
Anyway, sorry for ruining The Truman Show for you, but if I have to deal with these questions, so should you.

The Texas Mind Police

What do you get when the FBI and your state police force follow up on a tip about a serial killer's dumping ground that contains dozens of dismembered bodies? Confidence in your well being and the peace of mind of a citizen who knows their law enforcement is fully committed to keeping them safe, that's what. Wait... what now? They got the tip about this mass grave from a psychic? Oh. Well... shit.
Are state police and the FBI really spending thousands of tax paid man hours searching for a place that fucking Miss Cleo told them existed? Why not just spend a week or two scouring the wardrobe for Narnia while you're at it?

"Something terrible has happened... a massive waste of tax dollars."

This story seriously floored me when I saw it, and considering the amount of retardedness (yeah, it's a word) carried out by law enforcement officials that's saying a lot. This is literally the real life embodiment of an episode of South Park where Cartman serves as the psychic liaison to the local police (sidenote: watch this episode if you never have, it's friggin hilarious), only the South Park police aren't quite as stupid, because they're fucking fictional cartoon characters.
So what's the lesson here, you ask? If you live in Texas it's high time you move the hell out, because your cops are taking their investigative cues based on the hunches of this guy.

I guess Shaq was okay...

After spending all morning in my car cursing the existence of LA Lakers fans, I had to get it out. And what better way to do so than on a seldom read blog (What should I confront someone for real? I don't think so, this face is my moneymaker)?
Anyway, since the news of Shaquille O'Neal's retirement (his new nickname: The Big Thing On The Couch) from the NBA after 19 years, Los Angeles radio has been abuzz with reactions. Except here's my problem, half the fans have made me want to drive the car up onto the sidewalk and start mowing down anyone wearing purple and gold.
Lakers fans are for the most part the most spoiled bunch I have ever encountered. And their reactions to the Big Diesel's retirement have proven that beyond a shadow of a doubt they are also the douchiest fans in the NBA (way to do the impossible and out-douche bandwagon Heat fans). Here are the main arguments (or heinous mouth-diarrhea storms) I've heard about Shaq's departure:

"The balls in my shorts dwarf this thing."

- He was great, but he wasn't what he could've been: Are you FUCKING kidding me??! The guy won you three straight championships, all three of which he was the MVP! And he probably would've won you more if your backdoor-sex happy shooting guard didn't drive him out of town. A three-peat. What more do you want? Kill yourselves.
- He never cared enough to learn how to shoot free throws: Why does everyone assume shooting free throws should automatically be simple just because you're in the NBA? The guy is 7'2", which loosely translates into hands the size of fucking frisbees. A basketball is like a softball to him. Try shooting a softball into coffee can ten feet high from fifteen feet away and see how many times you make it. The guy is an ogre. It's bad enough he can't pet a puppy without snapping it's neck, do we really have to crucify him for his lack of touch from the charity stripe too?
- He was lazy: Really? Was he lazy when he was averaging 30+ in the Finals and dominating the paint like he was playing pre-schoolers? Give me a friggin break. Lakers fans have just become so insanely infatuated with Kobe that they think anyone who doesn't make this face is a lazy player. Sorry, that's not intensity, that's intense assholery (and where was that face last year in game 7 when Ron "Dangerously Unstable" Artest had to carry your ass to a championship?) Shaq was a beast. Plain and Simple.

Shaquille O'Neal was one of the most dominant players ever to hit the hardwood and any Laker fan who doesn't revere him like black Jesus with a basketball is a fucking moron. And by the way, all of this is coming from a huge fan of the Orlando Magic, the teamed he spurned so he could make cinematic masterworks like Steel and Kazaam, so this isn't a bias issue either. Give credit where credit is due and stop acting like you weren't happy as a pig in shit that Shaq left Penny Hardaway to play with Nick VanExel you spoiled fucking jerks.