Spartan Daily - Serving San Jose State University since 1934

Issue date: 2/28/08 Section: Opinion

Angelo Lanham

For as long as I can remember, people have been bitching and moaning about how dull it is to live in San Jose, and I, for one, have had enough.

OK, so it's not the epicenter of anything particularly amusing, but it's not exactly a one-horse town with a watering hole and John's Pig Market either.

Besides that, it's the Silicon Valley. The world is following in our footsteps, and here we have our 20-somethings complaining about what? Not enough bars with tube-top floozies?

This is where I particularly have to draw the line. San Jose has plenty of spots with neon lights, plenty of pretentious lines wrapping around plenty of toolish clubs, which are guarded by plenty of beefy gorillas with tattoos on their eyelids.

San Jose has the beginnings of a skyline, and some nice smog to back it up.

So what is it places like San Francisco, New York City and Los Angeles have that San Jose doesn't?

I think I know what it is. Even though San Jose is geographically bigger and has a higher population than San Francisco, the population is spread out. The complainers want people on top of other people. This is what makes a city interesting.

Obviously, get enough living, breathing organisms into a small space, and it will be fascinating. Right? Because there's nothing like being forced to inhale the stench of your fellow humans.

For proponents of density, just think how much you'd be bitching about a place like Alaska, where ice fishing is presumably the main form of entertainment.

There must be something invigorating about the inability to turn one's head without one's nose hitting someone else's ear, but I don't see it.

Hanging around denser, more valid places like San Francisco, I've stepped in enough urine puddles, been rammed into by enough little men in power suits and been on enough stinky trains to know that living in a lower-concentrated big city does not make me any less elite.

What makes Los Angeles so cool anyway? People wearing sunglasses at all times of the day and night, regardless of lack of light and weather conditions? Millions of "actresses" on the brink of discovery mulling their days away waiting tables in restaurants? Rock star hopefuls practicing their worldly scowls as they bum cigarettes from guys in suits? Or perhaps the ability to drive into a mountain because the smoggy haze hid it from view until it was too late to swerve?

Continued...

Page 1 of 2 next >

Article Tools