COMMENTARY: Superior needs new nickname

I'm sure you're convinced by now that I love Superior. So don't get me wrong when I say in all sincerity that Superior needs a new nickname. All the more so now that Milwaukee has been dubbed America's Drunkest City. Clearly, our dearly beloved sobriquet Soup Town is so five minutes ago.

It occurs to me that Our Fair City could do as the diamond industry has done in the face of the terrible truths about blood diamonds and mount a multi-million dollar worldwide PR campaign to make people believe that our nickname Soup Town is really about Chicken Soup for the Soul. But I don't think people would buy it any more than the diamond industry's bull____.

No, Soup Town has to go. Our new epithet needs to be hip. It has to be hot. Muy, muy caliente. It needs to be current. It needs to say, "We're a city that is so now." My suggestion for our new city slogan is, Superior: the city of brotherly shove.

I came up with this new appellation when a friend got an eviction notice recently. This woman's significant other (note use of current hip terminology) started beating her up (note current hipness of violence) and she called the police for protection. Twice.

Following proper procedure based on Our Fair City's duly enacted ordinance, the police notified the landlord that there was a problem and the landlord gave the victim of domestic violence two weeks notice to vacate.

It is so now to punish the victim. And it is so even more now to do it in such a sophisticated way. Superior culture is so "stylin" it makes hate an official policy and procedure. Jay Leno once joked about a Phoenix hate crime saying it was okay because, "It was a dry hate." Is Our Fair City classy or what? If Our Fair City keeps working at it, we might get airtime on Leno yet.

Maybe the news clip about an upstanding citizen having sex with a dead deer among local trees would get us on Leno's newspaper clip segment.

Pardon the digression here, but is it me, or was it totally déclassé for the Duluth News Tribune to play that story on the front page? That Duluth, they sure seem to love having lowbrow neighbors.

But, then again, they do seem to have lowbrow neighbors don't they? I hate to admit it, but is there anywhere else on the planet where the public discourse includes arguing about the propriety of sex with a dead deer?

Now, if the deer had been alive, or a sheep, or Anna Nicole Smith... that would have been totally offensive.

Okay, maybe I'm being a little crude, a little too harsh. I wonder where this negative energy is coming from? I know Superior means well. I should dial it down a little. Okay, think Mike... What would be a good slogan for Our Fair City? Hmmm...

How about: Superior: where we don't stone women or burn them at the stake any more? That's cumbersome. This slogan business is tougher than I thought it would be.

Chicago has it easy. The Windy City is so simple. Elegant really. Superior is a hard name to sloganize. Superior, we're inferior wouldn't be good for our self-image.

Other Wisconsin towns have cool nicknames. Baraboo is the Circus City. Stockbridge is the Sturgeon Capitol of the World. Ripon is the Birthplace of the Republican Party. (Now that's a self-image wrecker, especially after last November 8). New Holstein is, big surprise, Cow Town. Green Bay is, inappropriately, Titletown USA. Seymour is, The Home of the Hamburger. Milwaukee used to be Brew Town. Madison is Mad Town.

Why does everyone else get all the nifty nicknames? Eagle River is The Snowmobile Capital of the World. We could claim Superior: domestic abuse capital of the world, but there I go again with the negative energy. Sorry.

I like Salt Lake City's nickname, Honkeytown. But that's pretty pejorative. Gotta keep this hip and cool. Can't be hipper than Detroit. Motown. How cool is that? The Big Apple... ultra hip, as is The City that Never Sleeps.

Hmmmm. How about, Superior: the city that never weeps? Wow, this is turning into a real bummer. This is what happens when Duluth picks on us.

Got to turn this around or My Fellow Citizens might get to warming up the old tar and plucking the feathers. Think positive, Savage.

Hmmmm. How about Superior: We're positive? Now we're getting somewhere. It's upbeat. It's happy. It's optimistic and confident. I like it! How about, Superior: We positive we don't like women, but deer molesters may be okay?

Boy, I'm getting the feeling this new nickname business is a losing battle. Usually I'm much more optimistic. Clearly there's a major battle between good and evil going on here. I cite the Satan not welcome, turn around sign recently posted at the city limits. What kind of double message is it when even poor old Satan can't get a break in Soup Town?

All righty then. Clearly this downer energy is strong. If only Luke Skywalker or Frodo were available to help. But, alas, it is just me, a humble humor columnist against the evil world. I give up. I can't come up with a nifty new nickname or even say something nice today. So heeding the hallowed words of me sainted mother, "Mike, if you can't say something nice, shut yer yap."

Life is good. Let's make it better. I'm Mike Savage, and I'm done.

Mike Savage is a Superior-based author, publisher and radio commentator. Reach him at mail@savpress.com or see his Web page, www-

.savpress.com.