John Waters, Divine, Frank Zappa, David Byrne...need we say more? Well, it was Baltimoreans who elected, then quickly grew to love, long-time mayor-turned-Maryland-Governor Willie Don Schaefer, who was famous for wearing silly costumes, making funny faces, and, well, inserting his wing tips into his mouth on more than one occasion. If that's not enough, we direct your attention to such homegrown Baltimore phenomena as painted screens, tire planters and formstone. And if you're still not satisfied with the quirk quotient, we remind you that Baltimoreans find it perfectly reasonable that their city is home to a museum of art created by crazy people (The American Visionary Art Museum), a museum dedicated to... er... human waterworks (The William P. Didusch Museum of the American Urological Association), and yet another museum showcasing George Washington's choppers (The National Museum of Dentistry). Sadly, the American Dime Museum, home of a fake of a fake of Lincoln's last poop, closed down in 2006 (we hope they remembered to flush!), so Baltimore's coprophiles must now go elsewhere to get their fix of famous waste products.
Perhaps Baltimore's most famous son is Edgar Allan Poe, known as the father of the modern mystery story. He even died mysteriously, collapsing on the streets of Fells Point while dressed in someone else's clothing. Another man (or possibly woman) of mystery is the "Poe Toaster" who left a birthday tribute of cognac and three red roses at Poe's gravesite in the Westminster Burying Grounds for 60 years. The Green Mount Cemetery is also home to much weirdness; while the haunted statue of Black Aggie that spooked generations of Baltimoreans has since relocated to DC, where it is now largely ignored by boring bureaucrats, local connoisseurs of the macabre still leave pennies on the supposedly unmarked grave of John Wilkes Booth and make pilgrimages to visit the Ouija-board-shaped tombstone marking the occult inventor's final resting spot.
None of this hoity-toity farm-to-table stuff here - in Baltimore, it's strictly factory to table, but that factory must be a local one. Hot dogs and bacon have got to be Esskay (although the meat packing plant is no longer located in the Baltimore Highlands neighborhood, it's still nearby in Towson), potato chips have got to be Utz (OK, they're from Hanover, PA, but still that's reasonably close), the dessert of choice is the iconic fudge-dipped Berger cookie, and of course absolutely everything tastes better when sprinkled with Old Bay seasoning.
Baltimore sports teams have their ups and downs, but true Baltimoreans stick by them thick or thin, even to the point of holding a decades-long grudge. When the Baltimore Colts football team decamped in the middle of the night to Indianapolis in 1984, the whole city was up in arms, and even legendary Colts quarterback Johnny Unitas was outraged. Johnny U, whose statue stands outside M&T Bank Stadium, was a regular on the sidelines at Ravens games once football finally returned to Baltimore in 1996, and the crowd went nuts every time he showed up on the Jumbotron. As for Baltimore's other sport - well, the Orioles haven't brought home a championship, or even posted too many winning seasons, since 1983, but they did give us Cal Ripken. The Iron Man is so beloved in Baltimore that if he were to go on TV advertising liver-flavored edible undies, everyone in town would run right out and buy a few pairs.
Unlike neighboring DC, where everyone speaks standardized mid-Atlantic newscaster English, Bawlmer has a very distinctive accent all its own complete with a flattened "o" that sounds more like "ew". Baltimoreans call their baseball team the "O's", they count to a "hunnert", they "worsh" their hands in the "zink", if they want to know if you've had dinner they'll ask "jeet?", and in summertime, instead of heading to the beach, they go "downy ocean" (or "ayshin"). And of course, whether or not they like you, they're bound to call you "hon".
Virginia may be for lovers, but Maryland is for crabs, and no place is crabbier than Baltimore. While tourists go for crabcakes at Obrycki's or Phillips, true Baltimoreans prefer to pick up a bushel of jimmies at Lexington Market and take them home to steam. Nothing says summertime in Charm City like a pile of crabs served up on a newspaper-covered table...just grab a wooden mallet, whack 'em, pick 'em, and dig right in. Now that's good eatin', hon!
Down in Washington everyone's got some kind of gummint job, but in Balwmer folks actually work for a living. While Baltimore's manufacturing industry has declined from its post-WWII heyday when it employed nearly fifty percent of the city's workers, many Baltimore residents still work for manufacturers, including Northrop Grumman, Black and Decker, Danko Arlington and the Domino Sugar refinery (we hear this last one is a real sweet gig).
Baltimore does love its beer, and no beer says Baltimore like National Bohemian. While Natty Boh is no longer brewed in town and the original brewery has been repurposed as a luxury apartment complex, this beloved beverage is still the beer of choice at local taverns and sporting events. The handlebar-mustached, one-eyed mascot, Mr. Boh, makes frequent appearances at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. He's quite the busy Boh, also serving as the official team mascot for the Baltimore Bohemians soccer team.
Back in 1987, former Baltimore mayor Kurt Schmoke started Baltimore on an exercise in wishful thinking by adopting the slogan "The City That Reads" and plastering it all over local bus stops. While this slogan didn't succeed in boosting city literacy rates to any great extent, it did lend itself to numerous parodies. First and foremost among these was "The City That Breeds", a reference to the fact that Baltimore, then and now, has been among the leading cities for teen pregnancies. In 2012, Baltimore girls aged 15 to 18 had a rate of 46.9 live births per 1000, as compared to an average rate of 29.4 births per 1,000 for the U.S. as a whole.
Baltimore also has a justifiable reputation for violence. The nickname "Mobtown" dates from the 1861 Pratt Street Riot when local Confederate sympathizers attacked members of the Sixth Massachusetts Militia who were en route to D.C. Popular media, particularly TV shows like Homicide and The Wire, have cemented the city's bad rep, which is borne out in real life by the fact that Baltimore consistently ranks at or near the top for homicides nationwide. Even one of the city's sports icons, former Ravens linebacker and Super Bowl MVP Ray Lewis, once stood trial for murder.
