The City that Hates You Back
On The Wonder Years, Alec Bohm and letting the hate flow through you
On January 26, 2010, The Wonder Years released The Upsides a pop-punk sort-of concept album (in the same way Springsteen albums are concept albums) about recovering from breakup and heartbreak, overcoming sadness and moving on with your life as you go from college to the real world. The album starts and reflects upon a refrain of “I’m not sad anymore, I’m just tired of this place.”
On January 26, 2010, I was 17 years old and starting my last semester in high school. Like most suburban-bordering-rural kids, I really felt like I was tired of this place—”this place” being my hometown of Camp Hill, PA. I had outgrown what I felt it had to offer me and my friends, and was ready to move to my next stage in life: beginning college at Temple University and life in the big city.
The Upsides kicks off with “My Last Semester,” which starts with that much-repeated line about not being sad anymore, just tired of this place. I’d listen to it, and the lyrics that followed about all the closed-mindedness, bro culture and shittiness in vocalist Dan “Soupy” Campbell’s environment and think, “Hell yeah. That’s just like what I’m going through. Once I’m out of here things will get better.”
The irony that was totally lost on me was that the “this place” Campbell was tired of was Philadelphia. And that semester he named the song after was at Temple University.
I, of course, got none of that at the time.
My interest in The Wonder Years waned with each subsequent album and as I got older. Philadelphia, too, welcomed new waves of younger pop punk and emo-adjacent bands that referenced landmarks in their songs.
The Wonder Years gave way to The Menzingers who gave way to Modern Baseball.
No matter how much Philadelphians will complain about the city, their ears still perk up when they hear a street or subway stop or neighborhood referenced in lyrics.
It’s been more than 10 years since that album came out, and I haven’t been able to shake geographic tags from The Upsides.
I hear “They turned on the fountain today in Logan Circle / I felt something in me change” when the weather gets warm enough and they do, in fact, turn the fountain on. I hear “We rode our bikes over to 6th Street to Washington Square Park” when I do, in fact, ride my bike over to 6th Street to Washington Square Park. I think of “Melrose Diner” when I do, in fact, see the Melrose Diner.
When I moved to Philly in 2010, there was one lyric that stuck out to me as weird. In “Logan Circle,” Campbell talks about setting off fireworks on his street.
“Maybe I’ll bow off a piece of the city I hate.”
“Why would you hate this city?” I thought at the time. For me it was some great blueish and gray Oz. It had everything.
Remember, I had just left a place that at the time I disliked due to what I deemed an overabundance of cows and (now) “Let’s Go Brandon” signs. Not to mention the lack of skateparks.
“If you do hate this city, why don’t you move somewhere else?” After all, I had just left my former home. How hard could it be? Why would you choose to stick around a place that seemingly makes you so miserable?
Now, more than ten years later, all of which I’ve spent living and working and drinking and getting hit by cars and voting and paying taxes and watching baseball in Philadelphia, I understand that hating Philadelphia is just part of the deal if you really want to stick around. It’s not a hate that would make you pack your bags and fuck off somewhere else. You could. People have. People will. But that’s a different kind of hate and that’s something Philadelphia would label you as a coward over.
Earlier this month, Phillies third baseman Alec Bohm committed three errors in a short period of time, and as he trudged back to the dugout to the sound of tens of thousands of hometown fans booing him, the cameras caught him saying “I fucking hate this place.”
After the game, he was asked about it back in the clubhouse. The reporters no doubt expected him backpedal and say some “I was saying Boo-urns” equivalent.
Instead, he confirmed that’s exactly what he said and that’s how he felt in the moment. Phillies fans ate that shit up and gave him a standing ovation during the next game.
There’s so much talk about what makes a “Philly” athlete. There’s this weird romanticizing of a blue collar work ethic for sports heroes here, likely left over from seeing “Rocky” too many times. You have to have that “lunch pail mentality” even if you grew up privileged. It’s all about grinding through adversity because Philadelphians expect adversity as the default at this point. You’re not going to be one of those pampered athletes in Los Angeles or Miami!"
For the most part, I’ve always found it stupid to put so much stock into something so amorphous and unimportant to on-field success. What do they actually mean by a “Philly athlete?” For a while it felt like the Supreme Court definition of pornography—I know it when I see it—but now it’s a little more clear.
You have to hate it here, at least at times.
You’re going to fucking hate it here. But it’s how you hate it and how you react to hating it here that matters.
In that moment of emotion and embarrassment, Bohm was a “Philly Guy.”
You’ll hate it here, but that hate shows that you love it here.
They say to become a New Yorker, as in not someone who merely lives in New York, you have to live there for 10 years. I think to become a Philadelphian, you don’t have to live here for 10 years. You can live here for 10 months. But to become a Philadelphian, you have to one day sigh real big, look up at nothing and say “I fucking hate this place” and mean it. At least in that moment.
But, after you say you fucking hate this place, you don’t leave. Ben Simmons hated this place in a different way, and that’s why he’s not around anymore.
I’ve said I fucking hate this place more times than I can count. When I hit a pothole. When the schools look like shit. When the rain is coming down sideways and I’m waiting for a bus that’s 10 minutes late. When I get mugged and then get more mad at the cops I have to deal with.
The funny thing is that I never hated my hometown in that way. I wanted to leave it, sure, and I certainly don’t want to live there now. But I never felt the need to say “I hate this place.” To hate something is to feel that strongly about something, and maybe I just never felt that strongly about it.
I and countless others in local bands, on the field at Citizens Bank Park, and just on the street, feel strongly enough about Philadelphia to say they hate it. And by saying we hate it it means we care about it. It’s a fucked up, backwards, probably unhealthy relationship. It’s patently stupid, but it at least concisely sums up what I think a lot of Philadelphians expect from their athletes, artists, politicians, etc.
When you hate this place, and in that moment really fucking hate it, you are a true Philadelphian. No matter how many bands’ shows I went to when I moved here. No matter how long I’ve loved the sports teams. No matter how much I truly loved Philadelphia as my adoptive home that I’ve now had for the entirety of my adult life, I wasn’t a Philadelphian.
It came when I accepted that sometimes I fucking hate this place. But it’s my place to hate and try to make better in some way. Or, at least, I can accept that I hate it and try to do something to make myself feel better while I’m here.
The Wonder Years are still here, too.
Bohm’s comments came in a moment of intense frustration in a very public forum. Campbell’s lines came from probably the worst time in his life. All of this backlit by the Philadelphia skyline.
Philadelphians are depicted as these beasts who kill hitchhiking robots and ruin basketball players’ confidence. Maybe we’re actually the ones just in touch with our feelings enough to let off some steam? Hell, maybe we’re the healthy ones. We grow up and realize that despite the hardships placed in front of us, we can control our own reaction to it. That’s just maturity.
There’s merit in lionizing resilience. Philadelphia at large expresses that in a supremely dumbed-down and argumentative way, which is why it has that reputation for hoagie mouthed screaming. But, I think there’s a lesson in there deep down that you eventually teach yourself after enough time here. I think I’ve taught it to myself a little. And the Wonder Years hinted at it, too.
To again quote “Logan Circle”:
I was thinking about how we all feel,
But the world's not such a shitty placeWe just can't blame the seasons,
The Blue Man Group won't cure depression,
I can see we brought it on ourselves with bad attitudes
Or maybe I’m just another Philadelphian romanticizing a volatile relationship with my city, and leading a constantly combative existence against my environment and everything in it while battling some form of Stockholm Syndrome with a city that wants me to suffer.
Whatever. Go birds I guess.
Today’s Snakes and Sparklers musical guest is Say Sue Me.