Reader Comment of the Day

I think I may just turn this site into a message board with all the great comments lately:

What's with the Scottsdalian "weiner dude" attitude? I think they've been sucking on too many Der Weinerschnitzel hot dogs to even bother to say hi to their neigbors.

If you want social interaction in Scottsdale, it's limited to one of several garden variety nightspots (i.e. cheap clubs) where the drinks are anything but cheap.

Sure, you might find a hot chick or two to talk to you--after you're stone ass drunk--but once they find out you're really a roofer or a tile layer or construction worker, you're toast (but not before leading you on and suckering you in to buy them a few more brewskis on your maxed out credit card).

So there you have it! In order to socialize you've got to hang out at some dumb-ass Scottsdale bar and fork over your hard earned minimun-wage-and-a-half hourly salary for some drinks to impress the loose chicks, who are only out to shake you down for free drinks and lead you on...to nowhere!

Watch the way they scam and sheist you, then move on to the next sucker. They fall down with their legs up so you can see their panties: 40 something MILF wannabes baring their pendulous breasts & ample silicone cleave in fading hopes of scoring a real rich dude.

Hint: no real rich guy with an ounce of class or self-respect is going to fork over the bucks for drinks to get a crack at your fake, wilted flower bosoms...trust me!

That brings me probably to one of the biggest issues of Scottsdale that people either avoid outright or try to brush under the rug: CLASS!

Scottsdale prides itself on being the best biggest little city, the jewel of the desert, magnate to the rich and desirable, home of the beautiful, but it has no class!

You're going to tell me because a B- chain Chinese food restaurant on Scottsdale blvd., named P.F. Changs, is high class because it has two giant plaster 20 ft. Stallion horses, posted as centurians at the gate of the restaurant, that this makes it friggen' high class? By the way, the new P.F. Changs near the Fasion Square Mall in old Scottsdale just shut its doors (see my comments about fleeting restaurants below).

People from any relatively sophisticated or cosmopolitan city, say New York, Chicago or San Francisco will laugh in your face!

You think a few fake Olympic fire torches in front of your faux Greek restaurant with paper mache Doric Columns or fluted arches makes your joint classy and Mediterranean? How about cheesy?

Which brings me to another point: CHEESE! Scottsdale slaps up these cheesy, fly-by-night, trendy restaurants that fade into bankruptcy once the shallow people get easily bored with it and move on to another dive for brief folly and entertainment.

So, the pressure is on to scam as much money from your customers as possible, while amusing them into thinking their having a good time, before you have to fold your Beduin tent and pack it up for somewhere else in the desert!

In the Bay Area, you've at least got restaurants that are handed down to the next generation! Fiore de Italia in San Fran. has been there since the 1800s.

Just more proof that this is a boom and bust city getting ready for the collapse of the overinflated, Adjustable Rate Mortgage, McMansion housing bubble fiasco.

I'll have more to say in future posts, believe me.

Comments

[keith]

The whole resturant "scene"... what a joke. When they opened yet another PF Changs in Peoria, we joked that it was "PF Changs China Outlet", but really, they are all the same - Panda Express with plates. I think there is more class at Panda Express - mostly people with actual jobs stopping in for lunch.

My wife and I constantly struggle to find appropriate dining in Az, especially North Scottsdale, where all the " high class " places are. Yet, go by any of these places on Saturday night - North, Ocean CLub, PF Changs,Maggiano's, etc - you know the list - and you find 50 people waiting outside for a table, all in their best flip-flops and tank tops, showing off their tribal tatoos. Why would anyone with any class at all find it acceptable to A) - wait outside in 100f heat for 40 minutes to eat ANYWHERE ( what is this - the Soviet Union?) B) eat amoung these slobs at all and - C) WHY IS EVERYONE SO DAMN LOUD _ I DON"T WANT TO HEAR YOUR PERSONAL SOAP OPERA WHILE I EAT!! We went to Morton's at Kierland a few months ago and the place was packed with sloppy little Scottsdale families with ill-behaved little brats, all in swim wear, Mom in her NS bimbo attire and Dad in flip flops and an un-tucked, bleached out T.B. shirt with the requisite backwards hat - I thought the waiter was going to up and quit when Barbie Bimbo was interogating him as to why there were no chicken fingers on the menu for the kids...I've been to Morton's in other cities - yes, it is a chain, but they aren't like this anywhere else.

We have really looked hard for some nice places and have now found some in the older parts of Scottsdale/Phoenix - we look for the older, family owned places and the older resorts that still cater to actual affluent guests - AKA - NOT trendy -and we find better food, better service, better atmosphere and a better class of people. Too bad you have to be Jim Rockford to find any class in this town - trust me, it's well hidden.

[Frank Rumbauskas]

Keith, you're not kidding

The best part about moving away from Arizona is that we can go out to dinner, whether it's a high-end place or just a regular affordable restaurant, and we're no longer surrounded by loud-mouthed jerkoffs in T.B. shirts and low-life dirtbags in wifebeaters with tribal tattoos.

When we did live there, we loved nothing more than a great Mastro's steak (and we still do - luckily they have several locations in CA) but we got to the point where we refused to go to Mastro's or Ocean Club any longer. The crowd is as low-class as you can get. Thank God for Drinkwater's City Hall down on Camelback. They still get a little bit of the Scottsdale riff-raff, but thankfully it's mostly upscale tourists from the Phoenician and Royal Palms who are referred by the concierge.

A great restaurant you might want to try is Phoenix City Grill at Bethany and 16th St. It's got top-notch food and desserts and reminds me of what Arizona used to be. Tutti Santi at Northern and 16th St is the best Italian restaurant I've ever been to and I'm from the NY/NJ area! (They do have one up at Greenway and 64th St but guess who's dining in there.)

Phoenix does have some good dining options as long as you avoid Shittsdale and all the low-life scum that goes with it.

[war_shu_duck]

This is for those who have never been to Scottsdale Arizona or are pondering moving here. I feel the need to explain some Scottsdale speak used here to help readers who many not believe or completely understand what they are reading.

1) Neighbor- Contrary to what a neighbor maybe in your community its not the same in Scottsdale or the greater Phoenix metro area. Your neighbor wont be someone who is friendly or wants to get to know you. Feel no need to keep any eye out for their property because they wont be doing the same for you. Dont worry about disturbing or waking your neighbors because they wont mind disturbing or waking you. If for some reason you ever find yourself assisting your neighbor in some way dont feel that its a mutual situation because it wont be.

A neighbor in Scottsdale is probably nothing like what you have in the current state your living in. Its a carpetbagger who will know the value of everything except peace and quiet. They will stick around for about 2 years and then put the for sale sign in their yard when they think their home has gone up 20-50 thousand in value. Having the same neighbor here for 5 years is like having the same neighbor for 15-20 years anywhere else. There is little to no sense of community.

2) A good neighborhood- A good neighborhood here has nothing to do with good people, stable home values, quality of life or well built homes. A good neighborhood in Scottsdale Arizona means the most recently plowed up piece of desert with well advertised stucco and chicken wire shacks for sale to the highest bidder. You would be a nobody if you dont buy a home here (until next month when they finish the ones a miles up the road).lol

3) A hot chick- What many people classify as a "Hottie" in Scottsdale has little or nothing to do with a woman being attractive. A " Scottsdale Hottie" wont be the kind of woman you want to marry or even bring home to mom. Very few of these women have an attractive or pleasant face. Its more about a female who has all the accoutrements of whoredom: Bitchy attitude, fake breasts, tattoo above her ass, thinks its vogue to claim to be bisexual, and has the class and loyalty of an alley cat.

4) Career- a career in Scottsdale or the entire state of Arizona for that matter means any job you hold for 2-3 years. Dont expect to get paid anymore than about 32-38 thousand a year if your just moving here and dont plan to work anywhere any longer than 5 years. Its a right to work state and your employer can and will fire you to hire a cheaper employee at any give time.

5) Friendship- Dont expect to make any real friends. Finding someone who can grasp the concept of friendship in Arizona will happen to you about as frequently as winning the lotto. Its probably not going to happen. What you will find are preditors who want something you have or who see your kindness as weakness. If you dare to make any friendships be prepared to be the host to the preditor!!! Just being a decent human being isn't enough there has to be something in it for the average Scottsdale resident.

6) Relationships- These are not your traditional relationships here. Being in a relationship beyond 3 months is quite an accomplishment. I do not recommend getting involved with 99.9% of the people here. Much like the friendships are preditor/host so too are the relationships with more dire consequences. I know more than a handful of guys who have got involved with a "Scottsdale Hottie" and ended up in financial ruin. I gather there are females who can report equally destructive experiences as well.

7) Aspirations- In most communities people aspire to aim high, to have goals, hopes, dreams, travel the world, to have a family, ect ect. In Scottsdale thats not the case. They aspire to be Mr or Ms/miss Scottsdale as describe here in this website.

Thanks for listening and good luck!!!

[Ryan Clintworth]

last week in LA was the most liberating time of my life. i've always had an affinity to the los angeles-area (appropriately coined "the creative capital of the world"); even tried my hand at it after graduating from ASU in 2003. unfortunately, i let other circumstances in my life cloud that experience and insisted on re-investigating arizona.

for 3 years now, i've been investigating the mystery: why doesn't phoenix-scottsdale seem to "work" right? (sadly, i even let the "confusion" known as scottsdale influence my own self -worth, -esteem, -respect.....silly ry!). well, it's settled. as of now, i am no longer in pursuit of a definitive answer. nor will i question which side of the fence i'm on. as a whole, this place is completely void of creative/intellectual capital, and therefore, hasn't been able to function properly. it is not compromised of minds, only bodies. and the mindless bodies keep flocking here! when the rare spirited mind arrives, it usually leaves shortly thereafter. this ever compounding cycle leaves us empty - lacking identity and substance.

i humbly concede to the fact that this is the shallowest city on the west coast - straight up! forget the thousands of lost souls squandering throughout this city, i alone am too deep for this muddy puddle. (which presents the real challenge and test of my manhood.)

before going any further, i must confess and defend the following:

i do work in real estate. you might question whether admitting, and drawing attention to, these truths about phoenix-scottsdale is best for my business/profession and local market. well don't; because i know what i'm about, what my business aims to achieve, and the value we offer when all is harmoniously paired. furthermore, i was born to work in/on/with the built environment (aka real estate). anybody who knows me, knows that that has been my truth since childhood. so my career choice has not been subject to chance, market conditions, or any local trends.

these claims come as a precursor to recognition of, and response to, a local website phenomenon and sadistically honest blog.

the phenom: www.dirtyscottsdale.com

i'm not sure whether this site is attempting to humor its readers by making fun of the scottsdale lifestyle or if it's simply exploiting scottsdale's character/personality as a means to find acceptance within it. either way, there's no creativity or originality to be found. if anything's funny about it, it's in the irony of its purpose.

the truth: www.scottsdale-sucks.com

it's sad, but true.....sooooo many good comments in this blog! i find myself reading in disgust and displeasure, with a devilish smirk and snicker creeping up and out every so often (justified by the recent revelation that nothing's been wrong with me all these years....my intuition's been right on since day one....i'm an "enlightened" human living amongst a second-hand, brainwashed, robotic consumer class.)

this willing, personal - and potentially fatal - submission was garnered, and is being solicited, on the premise that to improve upon and positively change our state of being, we must first recognize and accept our shortcomings. (and destroy any notions that Dirty Scottsdale and what it represents is cool, funny, or unique........wake the fuck up!!!!!!)

i'm no coward or quitter and wholeheartedly stand by my commitment to inspire some real humanness in this town (at least for a few more years).

Clintworth

ps, this statement of mine applies to the big picture, only when i look at it all collectively. this is not an attack on any one individual; so friends, don't take any of this as a personal insult. individually, i love each and every one of you.