It happened again on my blog this week (www.thatguysonheroin.com)… I posted something quasi-positive about Baltimore City and just like that the fucking buzz-kill brigade descended on my Facebook page to spread their own miserable views of Baltimore City which, I definitely did not fucking ask for.

Listen… I run a blog which makes some pretty snarky remarks about heroin addicts in my city. I taunt my city and our inability to remove such an obvious social cancer from plain view of the hard working people who make this city run. I do it in jest. I do it for fun. I do it because I know we can do better.

I don’t do it because Baltimore City is beyond repair. In fact, I live in Baltimore City and see it is just the opposite on a daily basis. And it’s not just that Baltimore is growing and developing, it’s growing with high paying jobs.

Baltimore is among the top five metro regions in growth of high paying jobs.

[http://www.forbes.com/pictures/fiek45fhh/no-4-baltimore-towson-md/]

You can’t possibly flood that much money into a metro area without positive development spilling over into the most densely populated area of the region, and as a result we see new developments occurring at a rate even the believers never imagined in the city.

[http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bs-md-rodricks-0415-20140415,0,4417275.column]

All of this is good news right? Well read the comments on that article above. You’ll see that any good news, development, article, or so on towards Baltimore City is met with rabid hatred almost immediately. Let’s take Harford Bob’s comment…

This is pathetic. Anyone who would ever want to live in the city is supporting failure. They should be punished for this and for making us pay for everything.The bleeding heart ***lovers are living in a zoo. I don’t know why we should support it.

So one dude writes a blatantly racist, outwardly hateful comment about Baltimore City… in a publication which is for the people of Baltimore City. This wouldn’t be so bad if there weren’t 72 similar comments along with it.

The surprising glee that so many people take in the failures of Baltimore is disturbing, but the complete lack of acknowledgement for our success is completely unacceptable. For most, like Mr. Bob it’s strongly rooted in the city’s perceptions as a black city.

Small side note about race…

Yes, black people live in Baltimore City. Get the fuck over it. Lot of different cultures live in Baltimore City. It’s part of that “diversity” that white people love to pretend to embrace, but move away from the moment they have kids (and if you’re white and don’t move away, get used to this question — “What about the schools?!” — with a real concerned look on their face, like they’re going to have raise your kids or something…).

You could do what Mr. Bob does and assume that all others not like you are equivalent to zoo animals. However, if you actually take the time to TALK to your neighbors — regardless of race — you’ll find that they’re probably just as concerned about the same things Mr. Bob is concerned about: crime, schools, trash, etc.

The inability of people like Mr. Bob to see that just shows you how little interaction he’s had with people outside of his own race, and what a sad, small life he’s been living.

Back to the point…

You fucking whiners have no idea what you have.

Bitching about Baltimore has gotten to be a pastime of sorts, and I guess I’m really writing this to let you know it’s fucking lazy. It takes no effort to point out the bad things in life. We all have something we can complain about, and to be honest YOU DON’T REALLY HAVE IT THAT BAD!

Baltimore is affordable, has GREAT neighborhoods, has great paying jobs, you are a 2.5 hour train ride from NYC and 45 minutes from DC, is developing like crazy and crime has been going down for almost a decade straight… AND STILL YOU BITCH.

I wish I could banish the people who bitch about Baltimore to Buffalo, NY for a year every time I read them publicly whining on one of our news outlets. After the year you have to write me a three page essay on why you won’t take the good things in this area for granted to get back in… and I’m a tough fucking grader!

Here are some comments which will get you a one way ticket to Buffalo:

“I left my laptop, iPhone, TV, iPod, rolled up wad of $100 bills, bar of gold, and original Renoir in the back of my Honda Accord parked in a residential neighborhood for three weeks with the dome light on… AND SOMEONE BROKE IN MY CAR!! WHAAAAAA!!!!”

“Our completely safe, walkable, and extremely amenity-filled neighborhoods downtown have BAD PARKING!! I can’t have my two SUVs in front of my home at all times and still live in the downtown district of a major east coast city!! WHAAAA!!!”

“But we only have TWO Whole Foods, and one of them is SMALL. WHAAA!!!”

Fuck all of you.

You’re surrounded by good things and only choose to see the bad. Sure, just like anywhere in the world things could be better. Work for them. Make them better. Complaining solves nothing and is the cheap way out of doing anything about the problems.

You have so much. More than most cities will ever have and only slightly less than the cities that you strive to be. Honestly, this city is like that spoiled rich kid in school complaining that his parents only bought him the Boxster and not the 911 for his 16th birthday…

Grow the fuck up. Get the fuck out. And when you realize that this city wasn’t making you miserable, YOU were making you miserable, maybe you can come back.

Maybe. But not before writing three pages… single spaced.