Opinion/Streetalk

ThiS Modern World by tom tomorrow

What makes you irate?

Asked at the Yellow Submarine, 920 Holman Way, Sparks

Mike Hancock

Production supervisor When NBC changes the hockey game from one channel to another, but the DVR doesn’t pick up the change, and I miss the game. That makes me rant. I’ve done it regularly when I get home, and my game’s not there because they moved the channel from NBC to MSNBC or CNBC or NBC Sports, and it’s not where it’s supposed to be.

Michelle Howe-Stark

Business owner There’s so many things. People who have no sense of humor. They make things much less fun for the rest of us.

Reno 334

We’re embarrassed to say that we’ve spent an inexplicable amount of time in this office talking about whether Reno needs to “rebrand.” We’ve actually gone to experts and asked. We’ve sponsored roundtables to discuss the issue. We’ve read innumerable Facebook fury postings regarding imagined slights by pop culture websites, news sites and G-rated movies. We’ve heard the lyrics in songs that make us either a haven for thrill killing or impossible dreams.

Reno has an image, and we love it.

It’s awkward. It’s tacky. It’s sophisticated. It’s outdoorsy. It’s libertarian. It’s liberal. It’s scholarly. It’s anti-education. It’s spiritual. It’s irreligious. It’s outdoorsy. It’s pristine. It’s polluted. It’s industrial. It’s August through June. It’s Artown.

Artown, which runs through July, is emblematic of what we’re talking about. Very little about Artown is Artown’s. In other words, similar cultural events go on every single day in Northern Nevada. Artown just places them in the shade of its umbrella for the month of July and publicizes them.

But when you go down to those events, you’ll see Reno’s fetid groin, and it’s as beautiful as any plié. You’ll see the homeless, the hipsters, the hippies, the burners, the vaqueros, the soccer moms, the deadbeat dads, the bankers and banksters rubbing shoulders with the hoity and the toity.

That’s Reno. That’s Reno all the time. But it illustrates the problem with promoting a unified image for Reno. For every single person who knows the real Reno, there is one who thinks Reno has one great art month. Are we saying we think Artown is bad because it fosters an inaccurate view of Reno’s culture? No, although there are those who will, as usual, claim that pointing out an issue is being part of the problem. It’s sort of like when David Sedaris came to the Pioneer on April 29, 2013. He got the big bucks to be there, and it was a fundraiser for Artown. Sedaris immediately left and took a giant dump on There are those Reno, suggesting that people in Reno who were willing to pay to see his who will, as lecture were somehow unsophisticated. usual, claim that And yet, he had no problem returning to take the money of the scores of pointing out an people who showed up at a book issue is being part signing at Sundance last week. That’s the truth of the matter: Some people in of the problem. Reno wear Count Chocula shirts, but our money still spends. We’ll no doubt continue this image debate here in the office and in the paper because it’s important if ineffectual, and eventually someone will come up with a mulligan’s stew metaphor that not only incorporates the seedy (as in grimy), but the seedy (as in locally grown). But put this newspaper in the category of fans of Reno who actually like Reno’s image. Just keeping it real. Ω Jessica Aguiar

Sandwich maker People’s ignorance to each other. That’s what really gets me because I feel like everyone can be friends. People take each other for granted.

Richard Messmore

Business owner The Obama administration and the growing government he wants and everything he does wrong with the bringing in of the illegal aliens.

Angela Christensen

Baggage handler I don’t really get irate. I guess when people are mean. I don’t like it when people are selfish and mean.