No wonder Grups like today’s indie music: It sounds exactly like the indie music of their youth. Which, as it happens, is what kids today like, too, which is why today’s new music all sounds like it’s twenty years old. And thus the culture grinds to a halt, in a screech of guitar feedback.
I think I have a headcahe…
Happiness is a shiny, sparkling, clean Oldsmobile. I’m really looking forward to having my own driveway and my own hose. I’d forgotten just how nice it is to be able to wash the car properly.
Yer Humble Host, twenty-five years ago this week. I was mopping the floor at the now-departed McDonald’s in Greensboro’s Four Seasons Mall. I’m very happy that the words “McDonald’s” and “mall” are pretty much no longer in my vocabulary, and that “mopping” is only a peripheral part, at best.
What the photo doesn’t show is that I’m about to hit the little brat over the head with my mop handle for walking across my just-mopped floor. I’m also very happy that the words “hit the little brat over the head” are still very much a part of my vocabulary.
Aspartame apparently doesn’t cause leukemia and lymphoma as some had previously suspected. That’s a comforting thought as I chug down my Caffeine Free Diet Coke this morning. Really. It is.
Note that the link above is to the CBS News website, mainly because that’s the first link I found to the story in question. It’s ironic that today’s journal entry was originally going to be about the utter irrelevance of the “big three” networks’ evening news given the hoopla over Katie Couric’s new job as anchor at CBS. But Tim Goodman at the SF Chronicle said it better than I ever could: “CBS just spent a lot of money to put an iPod in its Edsel.” That pretty well covers it.
I have to go buy a new windshield and a new tire or two now. And maybe an iPod for my Edsel…
One size no longer fits all. I was thinking of this while posting to a message board I frequent from time to time. My post was specifically about supermarkets, and my assertion was that there basically is no such thing as a “one size fits all” supermarket chain anymore. This turns out to be true for many other aspects of pop culture today too.
When I was a kid, there were certain aspects of popular culture that almost everyone shared, among them shopping, entertainment, and phone service. The segregation that lingered into the 1960s was over, at least in theory, and the stifling conformity of the 1950s Tea and Sympathy era had been somewhat minimized (the subject of yet another rant I’m working on), but some things were still dang nigh universal.
As late as the 1980s, the vast majority of people in the vast majority of places shopped at one of two or three largely indistinguishable chain supermarkets. Each of them served more or less the same demographic, that being shoppers who needed groceries. There were some mild variations in selection and price, but nothing that really set one apart from the other. You could get what you wanted at any of them, and it would all end up costing, smelling, and tasting pretty much the same.
That era of grocery retailing is over. Now, we have high-end chains like Whole Foods (and numerous regional variants) and low-end chains like Wal-Mart Supercenter. In between are any number of steps specializing in produce, meat, prepared food, or whatever. There are ethnic-oriented supermarket chains and small retailers like Dean and Delucca. Going to the store has taken on extraordinary layers of complexity.
The trend has carried through to other retail as well. The large regional malls of my youth were sort of one-stop shopping centers, where people could purchase most of their necessities. There was invariably at least one supermarket on the periphery, and the mall itself always contained a drug store and a dime store in addition to the department and specialty stores. All bases were covered.
That’s not how malls work anymore. The large regional centers which have survived (many haven’t) are almost exclusively focused on “upscale” boutiques now. There is nothing mass-market, like a cafeteria or a drugstore. It’s all high-end clothing, with the occasional high-end housewares or gadget store thrown in. Malls are no longer places where the daily necessities of life are acquired, and they are no longer places where you see a cross-section of society. Customers tend to be younger and well-heeled; the only old folks you see are the ones who come there to walk before the stores open.
I talked about the irrelevance of the big three networks’ evening news shows recently. You could pretty much extend that classification to the big three networks’ programming in general. No one cares anymore; I couldn’t tell you what comes on what night anymore except for the Fox animation block on Sunday nights. Those three or four networks just don’t stand out very much in world of 200-channels plus video-on-demand.
Narrowcasting with respect to music is even more severe. There once was something called top 40 Radio in America. It wasn’t what everyone liked. It may not have been what anyone liked. But everyone was familiar with its contents. Through the 1970s, the top 40 was so ubiquitous that almost no one, young, old, black, white, or brown wasn’t at least familiar with a large proportion of it.
That’s not the case anymore either. Sometime in the mid-1980s, things started getting almost obsessively genre-specific, most likely as a result of the increasing portability of non-radio music devices. There’s still a top 40 and I’m sure a few people still care, but it’s a very specific demographic based on marketing now rather than a merging of multiple genres and demographics based on overall popularity. Most radio stations now spend more on-air time defining their formats (”KZAZ, Z-100. Always seven songs in a row, all upbeat lite rock, with no rap, heavy metal, or songs written by people from Arizona, Maryland, or Georgia.”) than actually playing music.
There’s no more Life Magazine that everyone from hippies to grandmothers reads. AT&T is no longer a universal annoyance. Our automotive choices are no longer limited to GM, Chrysler, and Ford. And a “Congressional consensus” on anything is an oxymoron.
I’m not complaining about all this choice, mind you. I think it’s a good thing, and I’d be hard-pressed to live my life without it. I like not having to listen to crappy music just to get to one good song. I prefer not having to watch “American Idol”. I like that there are carnicerias and other assorted tiendas latinas nearby. And I like my Wal-Mart Supercenter, by god.
A sociology text I read a couple of years ago suggested that increased options and choice, particularly in the form of mobility, had been responsible for many of the ills of urban America in the past fifty years, not to mention our “loss of community”. I think that’s hogwash. I’m all about individualism and I have little use for the term “community”, particularly as it’s generally (ab)used. Choice generally is good, even if it’s sometimes exhausting.
I wonder sometimes, though, how much more fractured our society will ultimately become, and if there are any ill effects involved. As much as I prefer to avoid it myself, people do have to relate on occasion, and a little common ground can be helpful.
I have a commitment coming up which will require me to be somewhere every weekday for three and a half weeks. No, it’s not a full-time job, alas. But I’m thinking of getting out of town for a few days next week while I still can.
I’m torn between the following:
Any suggestions from those of you who are in touch with what I like to do on road trips? Note that I’m not looking for people to hang out with. In fact, I don’t really want to have any plans of that sort at all. I’m just looking for some semi-informed opinions on which direction to turn when I get on the freeway.
By the way, if you’re wondering why someplace like Cincinnati or Norfolk would be on the list to begin with, you probably don’t quite “get” my road trips and you should probably spare me your feedback anyway. Thanks.
Y’know, The Wall is a great album and all, but I really didn’t need to be listening to it through the wall from an adjacent apartment at midnight last night. That’s just a little too much of a Saturday night stoner cliché, isn’t it? And did they have to skip around and only play the “hits”?
I like my car. Despite the bad shocks, disintegrating paint, and a few cranky moments during the past year (most of them, alas, while we were in the process of driving cross-county), it’s been the most dependable car I’ve ever owned. And it’s very happy when it has new tires and I take it on a little road trip like today’s drive up to Winston-Salem.
My 1991 Corolla already had more than 50,000 miles on it when I bought it nine years ago, and I’ve upped that total to nearly 160,000 now. It survived eight years in The City of Doom. It’s taken me cross-country in 1997, 1998, and 2005, from one end of California to the other (and everywhere in between) on numerous occasions, to Portland and Seattle and Vegas, and more. And it’s only given me real trouble a few times: requiring a major tune-up in San Diego, a new muffler in Fresno, and a tiny rubber o-ring in the middle of Texas. Other than that, it’s all been routine maintenance, tires, and brakes.
I’m not the sort who feels the need to express myself through my choice of vehicle. My penis is of average size, but it’s large enough that I don’t need a monster truck to make me feel better about it. I’m very materialistic, but that’s more about “stuff” than about expensive cars. And while I like a nice, comfortable car, a hand-me-down Oldsmobile or Buick would be quite sufficient. And you couldn’t pay me to drive an SUV, because they’re ugly as shit and handle like tanks — and use almost as much gas.
My car looks like hell, and the shocks are pretty much gone, as is the radio. I guess it’s probably not realistic nor cost-effective to fix these things, but I can’t help thinking it’s got another five or ten years left in it all the same. Either way, I admit I’m going to be a little sad when its time finally comes; I’ve had the damned thing almost as long as I’ve had this website, and several years longer than I’ve had Mark, although I have to say I like him better.
I stopped. I looked all over. I just couldn’t find anybody having one.
I hate misleading signage.
Is it wrong to reject a house just because it’s on a street with a really stupid name? I just couldn’t quite imagine telling people I lived on Billie Sue Drive.
I’m leaving in the morning and I still haven’t decided exactly where I’m going. I’d sort of decided on Cincinnati and then I realized I’d miscalculated the time — and found a glitch in Yahoo Maps — and I realized I didn’t really want to drive quite so far for a three-day trip.
But if you don’t hear from me for a few days, it probably means I ended up somewhere.
I didn’t decide where to go on my road trip until the morning I left. I wanted a big change of scenery with a relatively short drive, so I ended up going pretty much due north on I-77, straight into the midwest, to a city I’d always been curious about.
One interesting sight on the way up was one of the only stretches of the new I-74 that is actually signed as such in North Carolina, with no “future” signage nor any other disclaimers added. It ended almost as soon as I realized it had begun, after which I was in Virginia on a westbound highway that, per the signs, was really going both northbound and southbound. I was confused.
I was also confused as I drove through Bluefield, West Virginia, mainly because once I took the exit, no matter how many miles I drove, I always seemed to be between two and three miles from town. Finally, I found the elusive burg, and I was much impressed with the level of sheer decay, despite the numerous people living in the midst of it. Of course, that pretty much sums up just about all of West Virginia.
I braved the West Virginia turnpike, where they ask you for $1.25 every thirty miles or so, and wondered how damned hard it would be for West Virginia to just have toll plazas at the entrances and exits like they do in New Jersey and other states. I stopped for gas in Pax, where the “Highway to Heaven” re-runs never end, and I drove around Charleston a bit, thinking it might be worth a longer visit sometime.
Eventually, I made it to Columbus. It was too late to do much of anything other than go to Meijer for snacks, which I did. I like Meijer. It’s a much more pleasant shopping experience than a Wal-Mart Supercenter. It was nice, however, that I was also staying right across the street from the Wal-Mart with the cheapest gas in all of central Ohio.
I grabbed a quick breakfast and set out in search of the real Columbus. Turns out it’s a fairly nice place. It reads a little like a cross between Richmond, Minneapolis, and Sacramento. In other words, there’s sort of a state-subsidized vitality about the place, which makes you think there might not be much of a city there if it weren’t for the presence of the state capital and a big university or two. It’s distinctly urban, but not overwhelmingly so.
I did the obligatory Highway 40 tour, from one end of town to the other. I’ve driven many chunks of US 40 between Baltimore and San Francisco, and I think I’ve decided that I like this historic road better than Route 66.
On the southern and eastern edges of downtown, I found myself in some surprisingly scary neighborhoods. I shouldn’t have been surprised; if there’s a scary neighborhood, I’ll generally find it. But for some reason, I didn’t think Columbus had a lot of ghetto of the boarded-up buildings and drug dealers on street corners variety. I was wrong.
I was also shocked by the white trash. I’m from North Carolina. I know white trash. But central Ohio seems to have produced a hardcore, super hearty, antibiotic-resistant strain of white trash. I’m not sure if it’s transplanted farm-grown stock or a breed native to the city, but it was some scary stuff, this central Ohio white trash. Maybe it has something to do with all the asbestos siding.
North of downtown along High Street, there was a “midtown” fringe area full of old buildings that would have been lost to urban renewal in almost any other city. I’m glad they made it through the 1950s and 1960s here, especially since they managed to pick up some of the more interesting aspects of subsequent decades as well. There’s creeping cutesiness and gentrification, but it’s not quite nauseating just yet.
An area called Victorian Village is adjacent to this strip, and I can only imagine that it looks very much like Brush Park in Detroit must have before the decay set in, with blocks and blocks of heavy, dark brick and stone Gothic architecture. Farther north is the OSU campus.
And then there’s Michael’s Goody Boy with its pork tenderloin sandwiches. My friend Bob in Indianapolis taught me to love this deep-fried and flattened midwestern bun full of joy, and I’m glad they have them in Ohio too.
Downtown Columbus is a bit pockmarked. It seems that it may once have been much more dense, but that it lost an inordinate number of buildings to the twin demons of urban renewal and surface parking. I was somewhat obsessed with the carcass of the Lazarus store, which closed a few years ago and is now apparently being converted into some sort of educational complex. I’m surprised, frankly, that the store lasted as long as it did; it doesn’t look like the creepy ghost mall across the street was much help.
A lot of the remaining buildings are very interesting, and I was amused to see one of the last surviving Planter’s Peanuts stores in the world, complete with a neon Mr. Peanut. I amused myself for a couple of hours walking around downtown.
And then there was the pilgrimage to the very first Wendy’s. It was entertaining, if not a real religious experience or anything. The staff was surly as hell, but the museum display was fun. I, of course, sat in the section that was decked out like an original 1960s-1970s Wendy’s.
Evening brought dinner at the MCL Cafeteria. I realized as soon as I saw it that visiting the place was a necessity. I knew I’d be disappointed (and I was) because midwesterners just don’t quite get the concept of a cafeteria like southerners do. The entrees were just sort of bland and boring, and the vegetables were just sort of, well, not vegetables, but things like baked beans and assorted starches under cheese. The desserts just looked scary. But new cafeterias must be visited, as I said, even when okra is not on the menu.
I drove around a bit more, and finished the evening with a snack from White Castle and a Diet Coke nightcap from the convenience store where the clerk (who was surprisingly geeky white trash) really liked my iMac t-shirt.
Breakfast at Frisch’s. If there is an active Big Boy franchise in a city I’m visiting, it is mandatory that I eat there at least once.
After breakfast, I made my side trip to Zanesville and McConnellsville. The visit to McConnellsville had been one of my prime motivators as there’s a tiny, ancient, but still open Kroger there that I had to see. And I saw it, along with the IGA.
Zanesville was just an interesting town along the way. I had lunch there, at a place called Nicol’s, where the special was beef with noodles. I didn’t realize that the beef and noodles would be served on top of mashed potatoes. This whole midwestern starch thing was starting to get to me by this time. It’s like I spent the whole trip in the midst of a giant carb crash.
Back in Columbus, I found a couple of decent used bookstores, and stumbled upon the 1940s-1950s neighborhood where the betrothed and I would probably crave to live if we ever moved to Columbus — in the vicinity of Indianola Avenue and Cooke Road, if I recall correctly. I spent a little more time around OSU and Upper Arlington and then went back to the motel for a while.
I didn’t really have a dinner agenda and nothing really “spoke” to my need to avoid anything involving noodles or potatoes, so after a long drive, I ended up at a nondescript Chinese place in a nondescript shopping center in a nondescript suburb. It was pretty good, I must admit.
Had a quick oil change and a quick breakfast before heading out of Columbus on US 33. I decided it might be nice to take a drive through Lancaster (birthplace of General Willam T. Sherman, who burned Atlanta) rather than staying on the by-pass. Big mistake. I had no idea the whole fucking town was under construction. I’m serious: every major road in or out was either blocked or reduced to one lane and absolutely choked with traffic. I’d always wondered where hell was. Apparently, it’s about 30 miles southeast of Columbus.
On the way home, I also saw Nelsonville (with another Kroger, no nearly so old or tiny as the one in McConnellsville) and Athens, a surprisingly cute college town. I had lunch at a Long John Silver’s there, not realizing that if I’d just waited fifteen more minutes, I would have found one of the last remaining Arthur Treacher’s locations. Oh well.
It all became a blur after I stopped at the mountainside Kroger near Charleston. I remember I got gas in Virginia because it was cheap. I think I may have eaten dinner in Statesville. But I’m not sure. I think all the starches finally got to me.
You’re about to experience the hottest day of the year so far, with a high of 89. You’re about to die from all the pollen. You’re worn out from a long trip. Your betrothed, who is even more heat-sensitive than you, is coming home home tonight after being in a cooler climate for three weeks. The next event in this cycle is what?
Problems with the air conditioner, of course…
In case you’re tappped out after paying your taxes, or looking for a way to spend your refund, Becky’s having a sale.
I remember when I used to get refunds.
Sorry for the long absence. There’s been a LOT of stuff going on for me lately, much of it positive. We’ll talk soon.
And yes, I really am planning to post those Columbus road trip pictures eventually.
Today, some very good things are happening for me, which I’ll talk about at some later point.
But I’m also very sad. Jane Jacobs, who was without question the past century’s most important voice on urban planning and other issues died this morning in her adopted hometown of Toronto. It’s difficult to express how much her ideas and writings have influenced the way I think about cities. And I think about cities a lot, so she was a pretty major figure in my world. Jane Jacobs was one of those few famous people on earth I would really like to have met and talked with at some point in my life. In fact, she was probably number one on that list.
This paragraph from The Death and Life of Great American Cities, originally composed in 1961 to describe the destruction wrought by the urban renewal programs of the previous decade, rings even truer today:
But look what we have built with the first several billions: Low-income projects that become worse centers of delinquency, vandalism and general social hopelessness than the slums they were supposed to replace. Middle-income housing projects which are truly marvels of dullness and regimentation, sealed against any buoyancy or vitality of city life. Luxury housing projects that mitigate their inanity, or try to, with a vapid vulgarity. Cultural centers that are unable to support a good bookstore. Civic centers that are avoided by everyone but bums, who have fewer choices of loitering places than others. Commercial centers that are lack-luster imitations of standardized suburban chain-store shopping. Promenades that go from no place to nowhere and have no promenaders. Expressways that eviscerate great cities. This is not the re-building of cities. This is the sacking of cities.
She was equally comfortable fighting leftist utopian and right-wing anti-urban foes. She stood up to Robert Moses and won, something no one had really attempted before. She wrote a book that should be — and now, finally, is — required reading for anyone entering the field of urban planning. She just “got it” in a way very few people ever have.
The world needs a Jane Jacobs in it as much (or more) today as it did forty years ago. She will be very much missed.
If you’d told me ten years ago that I’d be faxing a purchase contract today to buy a 3000 square foot ranch-style house in Winston-Salem, North Carolina with a boy from Fresno, I’d have told you that you were out of your mind.
I’d have been wrong.
We’re home…
Random thoughts for a Thursday afternoon:
Gosh darn it, y’know what we need? We need us a Constitutional amendment to protect The Star Spangled Banner. Yup. That’s just what we need. Uh huh. That’d fix everything.
So I’m moving away from Charlotte again. I did it once before, in 1989, and once again in 1991, if you count that two-month temporary gig here as a period of residence, which I don’t.
It’s not like my flight from San Francisco. I’ve never left Charlotte because I hated it here. I like it, all in all. In fact, we had a real estate agent in both Charlotte and Winston-Salem until just a few weeks ago. It just always seems to end up making more sense to be someplace else. In 1989, it was because I was going back to school full-time in Greensboro. This time, it’s because we’ve found a house and an environment we like in Winston-Salem, which also has the benefit of being both cheaper and closer to my family.
I’m not severing any emotional ties this time around. I don’t really know many more people here than I did last June when we arrived, so I’m not particularly broken up about leaving. There are some things I’ll miss, of course, but it’s not like I’ll be all that far away anyhow. I can be at Gus’ Sir Beef or the Landmark in about 70-80 minutes, depending on the condition of I-85 through Salisbury.
Last year, we moved from Neilsen DMA #6 (SF) to #27 (Charlotte). And now we’re off to Greensboro (#47) which falls right between Albuquerque (#46) and Las Vegas (#48). Stay tuned. It’s May Sweeps. You never know what other surprises I might spring on you so I can compete successfully with the finale of “7th Heaven”, and of The WB itself, for that matter…
