Of course, there are drawbacks, too. Living in a big city means crowding, traffic, higher costs of living, and usually more crime.

In a perfect world, the advantages dwarf the drawbacks. Here on Earth, that’s not always the case.

Forbes recently compiled its list of America’s most miserable cities, surveying the 150 largest metropolitan statistical areas in the U.S. (Population 378,000 and up.) Communities were rated on nine factors: Commute times, corruption, pro sports teams, Superfund sites, taxes (both income and sales), unemployment, violent crime and weather.

Who fared the worst?

Here’s the list:

1. Stockton, Calif.

2. Memphis, Tenn.

3. Chicago, Ill.

4. Cleveland, Ohio

5. Modesto, Calif.

6. Flint, Mich.

7. Detroit, Mich.

8. Buffalo, N.Y.

9. Miami, Fla.

10. St. Louis, Mo.

What makes these towns such challenging places to live and work? Visit Forbes to get the skinny.

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Metallica

Jeff Beck

Run-DMC

Bobby Womack

Little Anthony & The Imperials

Wanda Jackson

Spooner Oldham

Bill Black

DJ Fontana

Source: Rolling Stone

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Hip Hop group Run-DMC, heavy metal band Metallica and musician/songwriter Bobby Womack are among nine nominees vying for five spots in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Guitarist Jeff Beck, disco and R&B band Chic, rock and roll singer Wanda Jackson, doo-wop group Little Anthony and the Imperials, rock band The Stooges, and the California funk band War were also nominated.

Artists become eligible for the Hall of Fame 25 years after the release of their first single or album and are represented in an exhibition at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, Ohio.

The list:

Run DMC — More than any other act, Run-D.M.C. took hip-hop from the streets of New York to the national stage. The group gets deserved credit for its combinations of rock and rap from their early use of guitars on tracks such as “Rock Box” to their ground-breaking collaboration with Aerosmith on their 1986 cover of “Walk this Way.” But even more important was how Run-D.M.C and the late Jam Master Jay set the template for modern hip-hop, from their everyday-teenager style to their blazing live shows to a catalogue of classic songs that few rappers have matched: “It’s Tricky,” “My Adidas,” “Peter Piper,” “It’s Like That,” “Sucker MC’s” and many more.

Metallica — Rising from the Los Angeles metal underground in the early 1980s, Metallica quickly rose to become the most successful and acclaimed heavy metal band of their era – a position they’ve consistently held for over a quarter century. Founded by vocalist James Hetfield and drummer Lars Ulrich, the group discovered a potent formula by combining the thrash metal of Motorhead with the industrial sound of Killing Joke. By the late 1980s, mainstream tastes were shifting over to metal and Metallica found themselves with a string of hit singles and sold-out stadiums across the globe. This month the band released Death Magnetic, a metal tour de force in the same vein as their landmark 1980s work.

Bobby Womack — In a class with Sam Cooke and James Brown, his two older mentors, Bobby Womack’s career spans over 55 years, back to sibling group the Womack Brothers.  Cooke signed and renamed them the Valentinos, whose first two Womack-penned R&B hits became signatures for the Rolling Stones (“It’s All Over Now,” their first #1 UK hit) and J. Geils Band (“Lookin’ For A Love”).  Womack is a triple-threat: prolific solo artist, landmark session guitarist (Sam Cooke At the Copa, Aretha Now, Lady Soul, Elvis Presley’s “Suspicious Minds,” Sly’s There’s A Riot Goin’ On, the Rolling Stones’ “Harlem Shuffle,” and many more), and master songwriter (Aretha’s “Chain Of Fools,” Wilson Picket’s “I’m a Midnight Mover,” Janis Joplin’s “Trust Me,” and countless others.

Jeff Beck — One of the most influential guitarists in rock and roll, Jeff Beck, was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992, as a member of the Yardbirds. After his 18-month stint (1965-66) in that band, he formed the first edition of the Jeff Beck Group (1968-69, with Rod Stewart and Ron Wood). In the four decades since, Beck’s work has encompassed deep explorations into instrumental jazz fusion, blues, a tribute to Gene Vincent, and much more, always underpinned by his hard-rock roots.

Chic — Chic’s founding partnership of songwriter-producers Nile Rodgers (guitar) and Bernard Edwards (bass), abetted by future Power Station drummer Tony Thompson, rescued disco in 1977 with a combination of groove, soul and studio smarts. With their out-of-the-box chart smashes “Dance, Dance, Dance (Yowsah, Yowsah, Yowsah)” and “Le Freak,” Chic raised the bar and hooked a generation. Since then, artists such as Sugar Hill Gang and Diddy have turned to Chic for beats and samples. Rodgers and Edwards (before his death in 1996) followed their five years in Chic with careers as top-flight producers for an A-list of megastars.

Wanda Jackson — When Elvis Presley sang “wear my ring around your neck” – it was Wanda Jackson’s neck. And she still has the ring. The “First Lady of Rock and Roll” started recording in 1954, and was 18 when she graduated high school and played her first package tour with Elvis in 1955. He convinced her that rock and roll was the way, and she grabbed onto the rhythm like a dynamo. Wanda had the respect of Gene Vincent, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, and every musician who ever shared the stage with the “Queen Of Rockabilly.” A perennial star on tour in Europe and Japan, Wanda’s career revived back home in the ’90s, thanks to true believers like Elvis Costello.

Little Anthony and the Imperials — After singing in high school doo-wop groups, Fort Greene, Brooklyn’s Jerome Anthony Gourdine joined a quartet called the Chesters, which included tenor Ernest Wright, Jr. and baritone Clarence Collins. The fivesome signed to George Goldner’s End Records in 1958 as the Imperials featuring Little Anthony. His boyish vocal (redolent of Frankie Lymon) clicked with “Tears On My Pillow” and “Shimmy, Shimmy, Ko-Ko-Bop,” boosted by one of the most energetic stage shows around. Other hits included “I’m on the Outside (Looking In),” “Goin’ Out of My Head,” and “Hurt So Bad” that forever immortalized Little Anthony and the Imperials.

The Stooges — The “Big Bang” that became punk, alternative, heavy metal, new wave, grunge, hardcore and industrial music, could very well have been the advent of Iggy and the Stooges in Ann Arbor in the late 1960’s. Immediately embraced in New York, London and Los Angeles for the nuclear-powered simplicity of their music, the ironic nihilism of their lyrics, and the persona of Iggy himself, the Stooges have become icons in the history of modern music. And if there is a national anthem for the far side (the underside?) of our rock and roll universe, it is certainly “I Wanna Be Your Dog.”

War — The six founding members of War – the late Papa Dee Allen and Charles Miller, survivors Harold Brown, B.B. Dickerson, Lonnie Jordan, and Howard Scott – were gigging around L.A. for nearly a decade before hooking up with Eric Burdon (ex-Animals) and Danish harmonica player Lee Oskar in 1969. Burdon and producer Jerry Goldstein named them War and they backed it up with a steamy Afro-Latin R&B groove that rocked their debut hit “Spill The Wine.” Less than two years later, Burdon dropped out and War went their own way in 1971. A long string of Top 10 pop/R&B crossover hits established War’s status through the ’70s, always with a social message grounded by their distinctively breezy Southern California vibe.

Five of the nine nominees will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The inductees will be announced in January 2009. For the latest information on inductee announcements, ticket packages, events, and other programs, fans can sign up for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame newsletter at http://www.rockhall.com/induction2009.

Source: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

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That’s rough enough when your hard-earned dollars go to support a championship team, or at least a respectable contender. At least you are getting the hoped-for bang for your buck.

But what if you are shelling out all that dough…and the team you’re rooting for stinks?

That, unfortunately, is the case in too many towns, and the folks at Forbes have noticed. That’s why they came up with their list of “America’s Worst Cities To Be a Sports Fan.” Forbes weighed median income against the cost of a trip to the stadium or arena to determine which town’s fans were getting the rawest deal.

Of the terrible 10, here are the bottom seven, in reverse order:

10.  Pittsburgh

  9.  Cleveland

  8.  Tampa

  7.  Charlotte

  6.  Kansas City

  5.  Cincinnati

  4.  New York

To check out the Top 3, and to see a slideshow about all 10, visit Forbes.com.

More and more Americans are cutting out the time and expense of commuting in favor of working from home. If your job doesn’t allow for that kind of luxury, finding a good town to get around might be a priority.

Forbes recently tried to identify the best cities for commuters, weighing items such as public transportation, carpooling efficiency, bottlenecking and insufficient capacity, and more.

From their list of 10, here are the bottom seven:

10. Richmond, Va.

9. Cincinnati

8. Kansas City, Mo.

7. Hartford, Conn.

6. Cleveland

5. Pittsburgh

4. Oklahoma City

Who are the Top 3? To find out, and to read about the entire list, check out Forbes.

Mancations are nothing really new. We used to call them fishing trips. But these days, you don’t have to sit on a lake all day for a good mancation. Manliness is many-faceted and the world is full of ways you and your buddies can meet up, catch up, hang out and be guys together. It hardly matters what you do. It’s about the bonding, buddy.

Some mancation ideas that don’t necessarily involve sleeping in the woods:

Create a sporting ritual: Some guys travel to get together for the opening game of every baseball season. Some wouldn’t miss their college alma mater homecoming game. Rituals like these can start at any time. Pick a game, any game, and make it yours.

Arizona’s Cactus League has a comprehensive web site for planning a trip to cheer your guys during spring training trip. Companies such as PrimeSport sell packages to sports events of all kinds, including the Super Bowl and other big deal games.

Play like a kid: Golf and skiing are classic mancations, but how about mountain biking or whitewater rafting? An adventure outfitter can tailor an adventure for everyone’s comfort and you can sleep in a bed that night.

Santa Fe Mountain Adventures has a menu of hiking, biking, rafting and more and can customize your gang’s adventures for a few hours, a day or longer.

Tell friends back home that you’re going mountain biking and rock climbing and then check into Red Mountain Spa, where you can do both and more with experienced local guides. Finish your days with a soak and massage.

Be urban manly: There’s nothing sissy about a city.

Maybe Chicago, the Windy City of the Big Shoulders, for beer, brats Cubs and Sox and Bears. And the Web site 10Best directs you to the city’s best sports bars.

Or Memphis, for blues, BBQ and The King, of course. The official Elvis site has Memphis music packages that include Graceland, Sun Studio, Stax museum and more.

Or Cleveland for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and chili.

And we don’t have to explain Las Vegas, just behave yourself.

Invent a quest: A goal can give direction to your travels. Choose a local specialty and seek out the best, or create a theme for the trip. Debate, argue, create a rating system, do that competitive thing men do so well.

Texas Monthly assesses the 50 best barbecue joints in Texas, so if that’s your plan, start here.

Route 66 is a road trip icon. Explore America’s mother road with the help of the Route 66 Dining & Lodging Guide – 12th Edition.

The best bar in New York City? Depends on what you’re looking for, but New York magazine has recommendations to get you started. Pace yourselves.

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