In a college town with roughly 50,000 people in the 18-to-34-age bracket, it just doesn't make any sense that there's barely a hip-hop scene in State College.

Even the suburban white kids who grew up listening to Eminem and Jay-Z should produce some percentage of amateur rappers, no matter how small, yes?

For anyone who's been to a good hip-hop show, it's apparent that rappers are infinitely more likely to exert a great stage presence than one of the hordes of cover bands in the downtown State College area, all playing their own personal versions of "Don't Stop Believin'."

See, I'm bitter.

When I go home for Thanksgiving break this weekend, I want to have one standout big-time event of the break.

Looking at our two-page spread on concerts in the major metropolitan areas near State College (pages 20 and 21), there's one show that I'm almost positive would bring down the house: Ghostface Killah. But after scanning Facebook to find fellow Ironman fans, I found almost no one. There are but 72 Penn Staters who have Ghostface mentioned in their profiles, and one of them is named Ghostface Killah.

Only six are listed as being from the Philadelphia area and none of them are my friends. What is it about Penn State students that they can't identify with lyrics like "All around the world today, the kilo is the measure (whoever got the kilos got the candy, man)?"

Ghostface's 2006 release Fishscale was one of the best hip-hop albums to come out this decade.

But two weeks ago, I stormed out of a party because someone put on Soulja Boy's "Crank That" four different times over the course of a few hours.

It was all I could do to keep from bringing the ruckus.

Look, the dance is not funny, clever, amusing or entertaining in any way, whether sincere or ironic.

The song is even worse. The flow is Federline-esque. The lyrics rival only Aaron Carter's.

Songs like "Baby Got Back" or "Funky Cold Medina" have their novelty value because the rhymes are at least somewhat clever.

"Crank That" is the worst song ever released, period. It's not "so bad, it's good"; it's "so bad it makes me want to run a potato peeler down my eyeballs."

Songs like "Crank That" are to hip hop as "Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy)" is to country.

They're the reason some people still say "anything but rap," as though the artists that make up an entire genre are all automatically bad because the most popular song in that genre is terrible; that logic is akin to saying The Beatles suck because of how terrible Nickelback is.

But it's always seemed to me that State College suffers from a chronic case of "everything but."

I used to sympathize with the rap haters until I realized I've lived through some of the greatest lyricists in music history. I used to sympathize with the country haters until I realized Johnny Cash invented gangsta rap.

Now, people who say "everything but" might as well just tell me they don't like anything. Those people will, to quote comedian Patton Oswalt, "miss everything cool and die angry."

Me, I'm going to see Ghostface Killah next week, and he's going to be the epitome of cool. And I'm going to go to bed happy that Wednesday night, and I'll wake up to a day of football and turkey.

No Thanksgiving Day could get illa.