He can get the job, but can he do the job?

Driving into Newark, NJ, is an interesting experience. The closer you get as you pass through Florham Park, Livingston, South Orange, and Maplewood, the greater your loathing of humanity grows. As you pass into Newark at last, just blocks from where a gang recently killed three university students for no reason greater than boredom, you start to reconsider your decision to get out of bed every morning. The area would be nice if anyone cared, but the charming old houses are in disrepair, the lawns are neglected, and the people wander the streets in a sweaty daze. Then you're sitting in the car, outside a thrift shop and across the street from a strip club, and the heat is unbearable and some person in the thrift shop (an employee? a customer?) is yelling at some other person in the thrift shop, and you ... what? What can you do?

I think that should be Newark's new tourism slogan: "It's Newark. What can you do?"

I think that was the first time "Newark" and "tourism" appeared in the same sentence. Oh, poor Newark. I think it was the NY Times last week that described Newark as the one major city in the US that steadfastly refuses any attempts at improvement. There were riots in 1965 that frightened the middle class away and the city never recovered. You'd think in forty years a city would have turned itself around, at least partially, in some neighborhoods ... but nope, not Newark!

To be fair, there is one good thing about Newark: leaving it. In a miraculous reversal, the farther you get from Newark, the better you feel. You start driving and twenty minutes later the housing prices are astronomical and you're feeling ... well, you still loathe humanity, but it's a kind of loathing that doesn't include suicidal depression. An hour after that, the editor-in-chief tells you she'll bring up your salary requirements with the publisher next week, and if he ok's it then you've got yourself a job. And now you just have to find yourself a place to live ... I'm thinking somewhere with a low amount of humanity-loathing would be nice, but I'm not picky.