Fourty things I have learned living in Philadelphia

1. Hoagies are a cuisine, perhaps an entire food group, unto themselves.

2. It is in fact possible to run an entire city on a volatile combination of inertia and corruption.

3. All mafia jokes aside, when you're in trouble, it's good to have friends among the South Philly Italians.

4. Mafia? There's no mafia. I don't know anything about that.

5. You know that cliché, "Streets so clean you could eat off them”? Whoever first said it was not in Philadelphia at the time.

6. Real Philadelphians never leave Philadelphia.

7. There is absolutely nothing to do at The Shore.

8. Nobody in Philadelphia vacations anywhere but The Shore.

9. No matter how hard they try, the Eagles will never be good enough for their fans.

10. New Jersey is an all together nicer state than anyone gives it credit for. The reverse is true of Delaware.

11. The stuff you get from the tap is pronounced "wudder."

12. You got a problem with that?

13. It may be spelled "Schuylkill," but it's pronounced "skoo-kul."

14. C-Y-N-W-Y-D is a perfectly acceptable way to spell "Kenwood."

15. Even in a town that is home to some of the best beer in the country, many people still drink Coors Light.

16. Even in a town that is home to some of the best beer in the country, many people think that Yuengling is the good stuff.

17. What do you get when you take Philadelphia and Pittsburgh out of Pennsylvania? Mississippi.*

18. Pennsylvania proves that there is at least one state in the Union that has a worse government structure than California.

19. New Jersey proves that there are at least two.

20. You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.

21. There is no point in using perfectly good road names like "Roosevelt Boulevard," and "I-476" when you can use Mapquest-defying colloquialisms like "The Boulevard," and "The Blue Route."

22. Mapquest often does not work well in Philadelphia.

23. Asking directions often does not work well in Philadelphia.

24. Even Philadelphians are confused by their crazy, poorly marked road system.

25. You got a problem with that?

26. Watch out, there's dog poop right in front of you on the sidewalk.

27. And there also. Sorry.

28. With a few exceptions, everything Billy Joel has ever written is hopeless crap.

29. With a few exceptions, everything that Bon Jovi sings is crap. But it's fun crap.

30. There are still radio stations that play the crap written by Bruce Hornsby.

31. The recycling collectors get to decide what they will take from the curb and what they will arbitrarily leave behind in a big messy heap.

32. The Liberty Bell has pretty much nothing to do with the American Revolution, or anything much to do with Liberty for that matter.

33. Oh, and the crack is actually kind of fake too.

34. The Park Service security around the Liberty Bell is tighter than TSA security at the Philadelphia Airport.

35. There are few airports in the country that suck more than the Philadelphia Airport.

36. Remember your luggage? Kiss it goodbye.

37. Buying alcoholic beverages in Pennsylvania is an Orwellian nightmare.

38. Owning a business in Philadelphia is a privilege. **

39. Philadelphians complain incessantly about their city. But you better say only nice things.

40. You got a problem with that?


* I say this, of course, merely for Ironic Effect and I mean no disrespect to my friends in Mississippi, which is obviously somewhat more sophisticated than the non-urban part of Pennsylvania, which even its residents refer to as "Pennsyltucky."

** If, of course, one believes the city government, which levies the unbelievably onerous "Business Privilege Tax," making Philadelphia the only city that taxes both gross revenue and net profit.