Yeah, yeah - Louisville is cool. We’re, like, the next Portland! Yuck. There’s a lot to hate in Louisville and I’ve whittled my list, with difficulty, down to ten things. Don’t hate me, Louisville - hate these lousy things about our town.
1 - Too Much Food
There’s . Every time I want to go out and get a meal I struggle to find a place to eat - there’s so many places I haven’t visited yet! If we could slim down the amount of unique eateries to one or two per neighborhood, I’d be happy. I would also like to see a few more Chili’s or Red Robin’s around town since we don’t have enough of those. I don’t know about you, but there’s only so much unique and interesting food I can stand.
2 - Too Many Events
Okay, I can handle a or a year. Maybe farmer’s market, at the most. But Louisville? We’re not content to just pack the entire town into one event that moderately caters to a boring portion of the population, we have to create a different event for ! And like the food, It’s nearly impossible to hit all of them - lots happen on the same weekends and I’m forced to split my time trying to get to all the stuff I want to see. I don’t like this, so I propose eliminating all events that don’t include elephant ears.
3 - Not Enough Big Box Stores
In Germantown, The Highlands, Downtown - anywhere aside from the aesthetically perfect Mall St Matthews area, really - the focus is on and . This would be fine, but what if I want to get my groceries, ammunition and top 40 CDs all in one place? I have to drive clear across town! We really need to put a WalMart or Meijer on Bardstown road, preferably with a massive parking lot. Maybe we could take out that block with ValuMarket on it - no one shops there, right?
4 - The Amazing Arts Scene Makes Me Feel Incompetent
We have our own , several great (both and ), tons of talented artists featured in some great galleries, and a music scene that puts anyone else to shame. All of the boundless talent in town makes me feel so incompetent that I want to curl up in the fetal position and never leave my house. Everywhere I go I’m reminded of the intense concentration of talent that Louisville boasts, and with every new gallery visit or show I go to I just grow more and more bitter. Can’t we get a few third-rate bit players around town to water the pool down?
5 - What’s With The Fantastic Parks System?
If you drive just a few minutes from town, or even inside the city, you’re likely to bump into one of . We have the Jefferson Memorial Forest all the way down to tiny little Gnadinger. We have Cherokee Park, which is so big I got lost in it and spent twice as long on its cool trails and open spaces then I planned on. I was tired and warm and I had a good time, but I really wanted some food. Once I finally found my car I had to spend another hour deciding what to eat! Let’s turn some of these unused spaces into another big box store, or just add a Bennigan’s to one or two of them.
6 - History Overload!
Ugh - Civil War, Revolutionary War, The Great Flood, the list goes on! How am I supposed to appreciate the new KFC 11 when I’m constantly distracted by trying to match up intersections to U of L’s massive historic photo archive ? And all these gorgeous just make me bitter about my shotgun house. Just going downtown is enough to make me have a history geek induced panic attack. This is no way to live.
7 - Friendly People
Louisville folks are really friendly, which is all well and good, except that it isn’t. When I first moved here and told people I was new to the area, everyone was all “Oh, welcome to Louisville! Here’s this thing for free,” or “Oh, do you need to know anything about the area?” Where I come from we don’t do that unless we’re the weird old lady at the Salvation Army. Even then she’d probably just scowl. Can’t we be more like Minnesota and just be passive aggressively nice and secretly hate each other behind our backs? It’s much easier and requires less effort.
8 - The Mild Climate
Last winter was “harsh,” according to my sources - if you think that was a bad winter, you haven’t seen anything. It’s pretty obvious that the mild, friendly climate we have here in town has made us all weak and unable to handle extremes (aside from intense humidity and an overabundance of sunshine), so thankfully we have that polar vortex thing to worry about next winter. With any hope we’ll be battered by ice and snow to balance out our warm and sunny summer, forced to drip our faucets and cover our windows with Toy Story blankets and saran wrap. You’ll thank me when you can walk outside in negative ten degree weather in just a sweatshirt, I swear.
9 - Louisville Is Obsessed With Louisville
Maybe it’s all of these horrible things I mentioned, but Louisville is absolutely obsessed with itself. The people here constantly try to improve every bit of every neighborhood, be it with unique shops or locally-owned and interesting restaurants. There’s preservation efforts everywhere, and people going out of their ways to do something nice for their neighbors. Everyone I talk to seems to love living here, and doesn’t hesitate to tell you. Louisville worship is pretty strong in every corner I find myself lost in, and it’s a unique phenomenon in places I’ve visited. Yeah, people in Michigan like Michigan, but the praise this town receives from residents is over the top.
10 - In All Seriousness, The Traffic Sucks
Seriously. Get it together.
Photos courtesy of:
Why Louisville
Kentucky Public Transit
The Galt House
Thadellet Plumbing
Insider Louisville
Wikipedia
Harvest
Kentucky Sports Radio
The Cardinal Connect
