Utah Sucks… If You Are a Mormon

When I lived in Utah and was a practicing Mormon, I couldn’t wait to get out. It drove me crazy. The provincialism, the denial, the hypocrisy. I know a lot of people who are Mormon who feel this way. It’s strange to hear them now that I’m a non-Mormon homeowner who enjoys living in Utah.

If I have to live in a suburb of Los Angeles (and by suburb I’m talking Palmdale or similar) vs. where I do now, I’d pick here every time. I loved living in West Hollywood. It was fantastic. Homes in that hood were something like $450k to start, and that usually meant no off-street parking and no yard; a very very good reason to buy a home in the first place.

Benefits:

  • Traffic, Schmaffic
  • Sure, I have to buy booze from a state-run liquor store with less than friendly weekend hours, but it's not Texas or Alabama.
  • Salt Lake is, depending on which numbers you believe, 50% - 60% non-Mormon. Which means that I'm surrounded by people just like me; pissed off about another Bush in the White House.
  • All the passive-aggressive narcissistic apocalyptic millennialism is now just quaint and weird, as opposed to anger-inducing.

It’s kind of nice not to have all the churchy weirdness to get angry about every week. I’m just happier now. Pass me my Maker’s Mark.

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  • http://www.digitalcatharsis.com the mighty jimbo

    $450? geez. that’s a 2BR condo and a positive STEAL at that.

    shit.

    i need to move to utah. i hardly ever drink anyway.

  • http://www.suburbanbliss.net Melissa

    I think you might be just as happy anywhere. What with the great wife and the baby on the way.

    Utah sounds lovely though.

  • http://blab-o-rama.com beerzie boy

    but no ocean nearby. hmm…

  • http://www.weather.com/outlook/driving/local/USUT0225 Dave

    With about 300 inch of the freshest powder this side of the Canadian border who needs ocean. — eh!

  • http://yahmdallah.blogspot.com/ Yahmdallah

    It’s cool to hear that. I was a Mormon for dating purposes once, so I know that horror of that cha-cha. And a buddy of mine and I visited Zion park once, and the Utah experience, especially the one we had at the bar, kinda freaked me out. (There was a sign on the wall saying “American is only X miles away — I don’t recall the exact number, but it was the Utah border.) It’s nice to hear it’s not as overwhelming as it seems whilst visiting. Guess I’ll visit again.

  • http://www.realityremixed.com Keith

    After reading Dave’s comment, the only thing running through my head is Charles De Mar’s line from “Better Off Dead”: “This is pure snow! Do you have any idea what the street value of this mountain is??”

  • http://www.realityremixed.com Keith

    Oh, and yes, SLC does have another thing to boast — I definitely think that X96 is a better radio station than KROQ.

  • http://www.mrjerz.com/ mrjerz

    Growing up with SLC as the nearest real shopping destination, I learned that it had a big time punk scene. Is that still true. I always found that ironic, but with those numbers you just gave, I guess it isn’t THAT ironic.

  • http://www.blurbomat.com patatomic

    Just to clarify, not all active/practicing Mo’s like Bush. And yeah, I’d take the mountains over the ocean any day. So much more to do.

    I went to lots of SLC punk shows when I was in jr. high and high school (in the mid-eighties). I doubt that it’s as strong today as it was then.

    I hate both X-96 and KROQ. Give me NPR or sports talk.

  • http://www.agirlandaboy.com Leah

    Yes, it’s true, I’m Utah born and bred too (say hi to my peeps in West Jordan, yo). Since I deserted to California, I must say I’ve found the Beehive State much more amusing than upsetting and neck-breakingly annoying; distance has helped more than therapy ever could, I’m sure. But I still don’t think I’d want to live there ever again.

    Thanks to you and Dooce for being rebel ambassadors to the state.

  • Chuck Cheeze

    Having just returned Saturday from SLC and the Macromedia MAX conference, I have a lot of new opinions on things there.

    First of all, I was at the Monaco and even right in downtown there were like, barely any cars. And if I even glanced toward a crosswalk all the cars stopped well before the painted lines. And how about those flags for crossing the street. No one steals them!

    By the end of the week every person I looked at was Mormon. I was sure of it. So white, so whitebred. So tucked in and buttoned up and no pants hanging to your knees. No homies, no bubb rubb and no l’il sis.

    What it DID have was the UofU playing fucking fight songs at 7am Friday morning in the snow outside my hotel window. Luckily my dad went to UofU or I would have pee-d on them from the 12th floor.

    It is a beautiful town and I could certainly learn to love it. Especially with my new skis.

  • bdk&e

    It only sucks when your several friends who are no longer LDS know that you have affiliations with the Mormon Church. They assume you are a certain way and that’s that. I end up misjudging people as well, thinking that they will see us that certain way, and that certainly doesn’t help. But that is only the surface. The longer we are here, we realize that it doesn’t really matter if you are LDS or how LDS you are. People who want to know you end up getting to know you for who your are, not which God you happen to believe in. –Now that you will be a parent, it ends up being a lot about things like, Do you and your friends parent the same way? Are your sons getting on their nerves (again)? I started making my friends not based on religion, but if they had children and if their children were the same age as my own? It is a less philosophically complicated situation that way.–Don’t get me wrong, I still bitch about my fat LDS brother who eats way to much red meat and won’t allow me to bring Diet Coke into his sacred home on the Bountiful Hill.

  • http://www.blurbomat.com dj blurb

    It’s nice to look at Utah with different eyes; my perspective has changed drastically since I lived here last.

    I think it’s hard sometimes to be in a majority.

  • http://playit.blogspot.com sean

    Um, Blurb-O M.,Palmdale as L.A. suburb is pushing it. But pushing it is what suburbs do, right? Sprawl. I’m a resident of Orange County, driving today, south on the 73 toll road, and it was clear with a slight haze, but damn the sprawl is beautiful. All decentralized and unwieldly.

    And the only time the powder is REALLY worth riding in Utah is January through March.

    Remember the moral of the Southpark Mormon story: “Mormon’s are nice (except for that Bountiful dude who won’t allow his bro to bring DC into the house), but they believe weird stuff.

  • http://www.pumpkinjuice.com Jenny

    I’m another SLC dweller who’s right there with ya. Don’t ya love being part of the 50–60%?

  • http://www.senters.free-incest-stories-pics.com/ Free Lander

    Jeeess… =( And I have to move to Utah quite soon… Thx for the promotion…

  • http://www.wild-n-free.com Beever

    Yeah? Well if you don’t like Utah, you can move directly to hell…

    What’s the fuzz anyway?

  • blah

    Beever, you’re a dumb-ass. Some people don’t like a place but need to go there for work related reasons. That doesn’t mean they want to go.

  • anon

    “With about 300 inch of the freshest powder this side of the Canadian border who needs ocean. — eh!”

    Big deal, it has snow and mountains. So do a lot of other places. So it’s good for skiing and that’s about it. You can go fishing, mountain biking, camping and hunting (and yes still skiing) in a lot of other states in the US. Utah is just cheap that is all.

    Oh, let’s see what’s the other pro that’s blathered about, Utah High tech?
    For every high tech company in utah you can go down to arizona and find 5–10.
    I know I have lived in both places and a number of other states, and I’ve never heard of another state dissed the way utah is. Just do a google or something on the net to proove that to yourself (oh and BTW, do a google for “mormons suck” also–similar results).

  • http://gfmorris.com/ Geof

    “Sure, I have to buy booze from a state-run liquor store with less than friendly weekend hours, but itís not Texas or Alabama.”

    Hey, Alabama’s liquor laws are loosening. I can even purchase on Sundays in Huntsville now. [That passed when people realized it was better to let folks buy beer–presumably to consume at home–than it was to limit their on-demand consumption to restaurants and bars, which put people who had alcohol in their blood on the roads.]

    Comparatively, the liquor laws in the Northeast amuse me.

  • The Rev

    The snow in Jackson, Wyoming is 200% better that the wet snow in Utah. Utah has the most narrow minded, nieve shitty drivers I have ever seen or met, mormon or non mormon. I have lived here breifly and am getting the hell out of this god forsaken state. There is a huge punk scene here, and also the “mormon mafia” or straight edge kids, but most of them are just MTV emo kids.

  • mark hager

    hi i used to live in seattle before i got married and moved to this god-forsaken landscape they call utah. im a musician and the music scene is cool but i hate the ridicule i get from the locals here. this state can kiss my ass and i wished i could still go back to seattle where everyone is alot more down to earth and not so judgemental.
    but life is what you make of it right? this state is tollerable and cool at times but it is nothing like home.

  • matt

    The rev needs to shut the fuck he is a dumb ass mother fucker who needs to get a life. Utah isnt as bad as what people say it is. Most people just listen to what other people say and they dont want to feel dumb so they agree with them. I live in utah and i truly think it is a pretty cool place to live. In the summer it isnt to hot to skate, and in winter we get enough snow so i can go snowboarding.

  • http://heaven Mary

    UTAH is the worst place i hae ever been to because of the RUDE, UNFRIENDLY people. The drivers are the worst. tailgators!!! Robots. Stuffed shirts, morons

  • Mattsadummass

    Matt, you’re the DA. You live in UT. Have you even lived anywhere else? If so, then you’d know it’s not that big of a deal. Yes you get snow and there are 4 seasons. Again, big deal. There are plenty of other states you can do the same damn thing in the west in, not to mention the east. You think it’s all that beutiful or something? Try a vacation in west nevada, norther California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana and so on. See my point yet? Plenty of other places that have snow and nice scenery as well with plenty of outdoor activities. And that’s not even addressing the plethora of states in the east with some of the same stuff. Go visit south Missouri or the ozarks. 100x more beautiful than ANYHTING you will find in UT. Here’s the fact: Utah is a desert by definition. It’s in the top 3–5 driest places in the whole country. And even in the phoenix/AZ valley area, there is more rainfall in the summer months from the monsoon patterns.
    It’s fine if you live in UT and think it’s great. But what is stupid is thinking it is so much better than most of the other places in the country, and a lot of UT natives (no not the Indian natives) think just that.

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