Nurse the Hate: Hate Captain America

I have never been a fan of Captain America.  I say this with great confidence even before the filming began here in Cleveland of the latest shitty Captain America movie, a film geared towards this planet’s Moron Majority.  Captain America always seemed like a desperate reach of a character that was a way to show the patriotism of Marvel Comics while not quite admitting that they already came up with all their good ideas.  Once you get past Superman/Spiderman/Batman, the characters get pretty flimsy, don’t they?  Who’s down with The Green Hornet?  Anyone?  Ghost Rider?  Let’s just agree that all of it is pretty fucking stupid and a total waste of time.

My beef with Captain America is not focused on the slightly dangerous nationalism the character feeds.  It is also not based on the fact that I couldn’t sit through 20 minutes of the movie even while captive on an American Airlines flight while crammed into a window seat next to an enormous hairy Turk.  No, my hatred of captain America is based totally on the fact that City of Cleveland officials decided to close one of the major roadways into the city to allow the studio to film for two weeks.  My sort of annoying daily commute has now become a nightmare commute for two weeks all so we can add one more horrible movie to the regrettable canon of Hollywood comic book movies?  Fuck this.

Even now someone is probably preparing to send me a nasty little note about how “Hollywood is bringing in all sorts of tax dollars and money into the city!”.  Really?  You mean like the Casino and Browns Stadium?  Why after the windfall of cash those two shakedown schemes brought in, it’s hard to believe that every road I drive on within the city limits looks like it was recently shelled by militants.  Perhaps after this financial gift we won’t have feral dogs and homeless wandering around beautiful “Midtown” like it was the zombie apocalypse.  I don't own a hotel or a restaurant.  I'm not going to make a dime off of this fucking thing.  It's also not going to reduce my City Taxes.  It's all just a major hassle.

The city approved at $9.5 million dollar tax credit for the filming.  In theory, the trade off in having the studio not having to pay the same taxes I have to pay for “the privilege of working in the city” (as a tax official once explained to me) is that they will inflate the economy with so much money to over compensate for this upfront expense.  This is further explained as paying lighting, costume, crews, and extras.  That’s great news for anyone you know that has been involved in regional theater productions, because apparently the next time you see them they will be drinking out of a jewel encrusted krunk cup whereas before they were moonlighting in a bohemian coffee shop.  Those security guards standing around roadblocks must be making so much money; I wish I owned a Porsche dealership so I could take in some of their windfall down the line.  And here I was thinking that people traveled in for the work...  Here we are with a bunch of unemployed movie whiz kids ready to leap into action!  Thank you Hollywood!  No need for you to pay taxes like everyone else!  I noted that the last film shot here, parts of “The Avengers”, made $1.5 billion dollars (with a “B”), so why should the studio pay taxes?  Those people are barely eking out a living creating triumphant statements like “Captain America: Winter Soldier”.  Cut ‘em a break!     

The good news is that Hollywood cares.  Sunday Chris Evans, the lead in this cinematic endeavor, sent out a message that he was sorry about the traffic hassles, and how much he loves us.  Of course he does.  I saw that a local restaurateur immediately sent out a Tweet (which in itself is annoying) about how “not all of us in Cleveland mind the traffic” and rideyourbikeCLE#.  Yeah, I guess I wouldn’t give a shit either if I was catering dinners out the ass for these people and making a mountain of money off of them.  And by the way, I live in the real world and can’t ride my fucking bike 20 miles to work while wearing dress clothes.  Look around.  Most of us are in the same boat.  Get a clue Hipster.  Hash tag.

Let’s be honest here.  The only reason anyone green lit this obvious civic madness is because it is a movie, and people love the idea of celebrity.  The population gets tingly between their legs thinking they just might run into a major talent like Chris Evans, star of such impactful works as “The Nanny Diaries” and “Not Another Teen Movie”.  Even the off chance that they might see a cast member walking out of a restaurant gets folks giddy with excitement.  “I saw Kevin Costner walk out of that Starbucks over there.  I was like, “Dude, that’s Kevin Costner” and my buddy was like “no way” and then it turned out it was!”.  This story or one just like it will be repeated for decades.  That is the tradeoff for allowing these pirates into the city to rip us off and fuck with everyone that has to drive in to a “real” job.  They get to waste 10+ hours of my time, and I get to say “Yeah, did you ever see Captain America: Winter Soldier?  You didn’t?  Oh, well part of it was shot in town here.  It was that car chase that looked like it was in Germany?  You don’t remember?  Oh.  Well, that was shot here in town.”   

Fuck you Captain America.