The inspiration from this post came from the atrocious parking job I witnessed as it occurred in Cameron Village yesterday. I was standing outside enjoying some complimentary frozen custard when a huge black Lexus SUV crept into a parking spot with a blatant disregard for the painted guidelines, leaving its rear passenger side corner hanging about a foot over the line. Now it doesn't bother me when an automobile is a bit crooked, which is only human, but when a portion of a vehicle protrudes beyond the painted boundary into the neighboring space, my blood begins to boil in response to the total lack of spatial ability and complete disregard for other motorists who wish to park or have already parked in adjoining spaces. And as if I weren't irritated enough already by this abomination, I then observed the offender exit the vehicle. It was a classic rich Raleigh mom with her hell-spawn in tow.
I despise these loathsome creatures so very much.
Believe me, I know the species well. This animal attends college with the goal of sinking her claws into a pre-med or pre-law student (after multiple drunken one-night-stands in her sorority house, of course), and as soon as he starts earning a six-digit salary, she quits whatever dead-end retail job she has, brow-beats him into buying a huge house, and then completes her life's ambition by popping out 2 or 3 children who essentially amount to expensive house pets, as they do nothing to contribute to the household (Lupe takes care of cleaning and Manuel does the yard work) while consuming the father's resources.
So on this particular Sunday, after implementing the weekly brainwashing known as "Sunday School," she changed into her atrocious "mom shorts" from Talbot's (the kind that reach her knees and do nothing to flatter what's left of her figure after 3 pregnancies), neatened up her $100 haircut, smeared on some makeup to disguise the premature aging resulting from her disregard for medical experts' cautions against prolonged sun exposure, threw on the jewelry her overworked, undersexed husband gave her in hopes of receiving a blowjob, and paraded her wretched little accessories in public to take up space and finger the merchandise in the shops, her ultimate goal for the afternoon being to broadcast nonverbally to the world that she has a rich husband who pays all her living expenses and bought her a $60,000 car in which she shuttles the snotty little monsters from one pointless activity to another, where they are socialized from birth with other over-privileged children while she makes mindless chatter with the other equally insipid mothers about how damn terrific it is to have a rich husband who foots the bill for their little hobby, all in an effort to keep herself busy enough that she doesn't hit the bottle out of boredom. Interestingly enough, the provider of resources was not in sight. Perhaps she'd mercifully left him alone for an hour to masturbate or just enjoy the peaceful absence of his shrill issue while drifting into a reverie about how his life would have been different if he hadn't called back that sorostitute he nailed after that mixer, who was now out shopping for a $600 stroller at Beanie & Cecil Kids.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Thursday, August 20, 2009
In Praise of Averageness
There was a very long time during which I held a contempt for people who appeared average and nondescript. People who wore boring clothes, shopped in boring malls, drove boring automobiles, and were overall instantly forgettable filled me with disgust. I used to want to shout at them that life is too short to be boring. As an act of defiance, I wore all manner of unusual garb, purchased an unusual vehicle, listened to unusual music, and in general made every effort to stand out as a unique individual who was too good for whatever pleased the masses. What was I afraid of, or trying to accomplish, by sticking out like a sore thumb? Sometimes it felt good to rattle people's cages with outlandish attire and an ex-cop car. Maybe I was afraid I would become stupid by succumbing to the lure of the mainstream, or that my creativity and individuality would be stifled by looking like everyone else.
My personal aesthetic is taking a turn in completely the opposite direction. I've taken to wearing very traditional, classic items, such as polo shirts, slacks in muted earth tones, and button-front shirts, while clinging to my youth with a college baseball cap. Shirts and trousers by Brooks Brothers, fine wrist watches by Cyma and Baume & Mercier, nice but not exorbitantly priced footwear such as classic Sperry boat shoes, and other hallmarks of the well-to-do "preppy" set have made their way into my everyday wardrobe. Perhaps it's a means of connecting with something I was denied in my formative years. Growing up in a family with exquisite taste but limited financial means meant that while I attended the same schools as the preppy set, I didn't participate in the same extracurricular activities. The glamorous preppies would spend several weeks at Camp Seagull (the very definition of the preppy summer camp), then finished their summers at family vacation homes in quaint seaside locales such as Wrightsville and Morehead City, returning with their coveted souvenir t-shirts from Dockside, Sanitary Fish Market, and Salty Dog. I, on the other hand, went to a secluded house at Myrtle Beach, the Las Vegas of the Southeast, and went to a sweaty camp on an artificial lake in a hicktown up the highway from Raleigh.
Like I've posted before, I made the wrong choice in an auto-mobile last year, as it draws too much unwanted attention from authorities. I'm still looking for the ideal vehicle for me. I've expanded from just 4runners into the possibility of a Toyota Avalon or Camry, a 1990s Lexus LS sedan, or a Ford Explorer. It's a difficult choice. Logic would steer me toward a sedan that's economical on gas, but another part of me loves the high ride and privacy windows of an SUV. I kind of want a black 2003 Explorer ('02s had shitty transmissions) with spotlights and a push bar for an aggressive off-road look. A '90s SUV would fill me with '90s nostalgia every time I get behind the wheel and crank up the Barenaked Ladies hits. Unfortunately, '90s gas prices will likely never return. Whatever car I purchase must complement my new blend-in-with-the-scenery aesthetic, the goal being to look decent and respectable but forgettable.
I'm coming to understand the advantage of modes of dress and outward appearance that blend in with the scenery. There's a measure of comfort and safety to be found in camouflaging oneself. No one looks twice, makes comments, or suspects malice. As soon as they see you, they've forgotten you. In a way, I feel empowered by my anonymity, for if I ever had criminal intentions, from shoplifting to carrying a concealed weapon, I wouldn't draw the slightest suspicion. The only looks of contempt come from the emo-types who hang around outside Barnes & Noble despising so-called "conformists" while they wait for their moms to pick them up in their minivans. No matter, the respect of a person who gets no respect himself is meaningless to me.
My personal aesthetic is taking a turn in completely the opposite direction. I've taken to wearing very traditional, classic items, such as polo shirts, slacks in muted earth tones, and button-front shirts, while clinging to my youth with a college baseball cap. Shirts and trousers by Brooks Brothers, fine wrist watches by Cyma and Baume & Mercier, nice but not exorbitantly priced footwear such as classic Sperry boat shoes, and other hallmarks of the well-to-do "preppy" set have made their way into my everyday wardrobe. Perhaps it's a means of connecting with something I was denied in my formative years. Growing up in a family with exquisite taste but limited financial means meant that while I attended the same schools as the preppy set, I didn't participate in the same extracurricular activities. The glamorous preppies would spend several weeks at Camp Seagull (the very definition of the preppy summer camp), then finished their summers at family vacation homes in quaint seaside locales such as Wrightsville and Morehead City, returning with their coveted souvenir t-shirts from Dockside, Sanitary Fish Market, and Salty Dog. I, on the other hand, went to a secluded house at Myrtle Beach, the Las Vegas of the Southeast, and went to a sweaty camp on an artificial lake in a hicktown up the highway from Raleigh.
Like I've posted before, I made the wrong choice in an auto-mobile last year, as it draws too much unwanted attention from authorities. I'm still looking for the ideal vehicle for me. I've expanded from just 4runners into the possibility of a Toyota Avalon or Camry, a 1990s Lexus LS sedan, or a Ford Explorer. It's a difficult choice. Logic would steer me toward a sedan that's economical on gas, but another part of me loves the high ride and privacy windows of an SUV. I kind of want a black 2003 Explorer ('02s had shitty transmissions) with spotlights and a push bar for an aggressive off-road look. A '90s SUV would fill me with '90s nostalgia every time I get behind the wheel and crank up the Barenaked Ladies hits. Unfortunately, '90s gas prices will likely never return. Whatever car I purchase must complement my new blend-in-with-the-scenery aesthetic, the goal being to look decent and respectable but forgettable.
I'm coming to understand the advantage of modes of dress and outward appearance that blend in with the scenery. There's a measure of comfort and safety to be found in camouflaging oneself. No one looks twice, makes comments, or suspects malice. As soon as they see you, they've forgotten you. In a way, I feel empowered by my anonymity, for if I ever had criminal intentions, from shoplifting to carrying a concealed weapon, I wouldn't draw the slightest suspicion. The only looks of contempt come from the emo-types who hang around outside Barnes & Noble despising so-called "conformists" while they wait for their moms to pick them up in their minivans. No matter, the respect of a person who gets no respect himself is meaningless to me.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
The world I knew is slowly disappearing
My elementary school was torn down this summer.
In its place will be erected a monstrosity of an institution, designed to house thousands of youngsters, many of whom are the offspring of transplanted yankees, invading my beloved Raleigh and spreading their demon seed. It will bear the same name, but it will never be the same school.
I have so many cherished memories of that place. Mind you, the old building wasn't much to look at, either, a shining example of bland 1950s suburban school architecture, but it had character. I made great friends there, one of whom I'm still in constant touch with 20 years later. I had excellent teachers who actually gave a shit about teaching, far different from their modern-day counterparts, who count down the days until retirement while receiving a weekly pittance to act as babysitters.
Every October, the school hosted the Fall Festival, a Halloween-themed event with games and activities. One of the trailers was converted into a haunted house, where I got scared shitless by a chainsaw-wielding zombie surgeon. The girl I had a crush on grew up to be kind of a bitch.
I remember getting dropped off right outside the trailer where my 5th grade class was—in those days the school wasn't all paranoid about security and didn't force the parents to drop their children off in one area. My 4th grade class was in a trailer as well, as the city was just beginning to feel the strain of overcrowding. It was a quaint little box, clad in corrugated metal, with a wooden access ramp. I remember one day when a freak sleet storm hit, and my friend was sliding down the ramp over and over. My 4th grade teacher was awesome. She would read aloud and do a voice for each character. She held trivia games where the class was divided into two teams. She brought in a drama coach now and then for a fun diversion. 4th grade was the best, and I got to be a 9-year-old during a time when kickass cartoon shows were in abundance and no none knew just how terrible for you sugary drinks and cereals were.
I dislike change. Change means that what I know and is familiar is going away, never to come back.
A couple months ago I drove past my old grade-school chum's house where he had lived from about 1983 until his parents sold the place last year. I had spent countless thousands of hours of my childhood and adolescence hanging out there on lazy Saturdays. The place was comfortably furnished with plush chairs and a bigass leather sofa I loved to stretch out on while watching TV. In high school and into our college years, our routine was for me to show up around 12:30 on Saturday, bum around town, go to movies, rent movies with titillating nude scenes, go to bookstores, and come back for a great supper his mom and dad had fixed. Then we'd chill out with more TV and new & exciting websites, and I'd finally drive home at midnight.
The formerly well-manicured grass is now knee-high. The house is dark, with not a stick of furniture. The cat doesn't traipse about the yard anymore. The green metal outdoor chairs are gone. The driveway sits empty. A huge chunk of my childhood has vanished.
My wife is not immune from this epidemic, either. Every house she lived in as a child has either been demolished or altered to the point of being unrecognizable. The private school she attended has been built up so much that it no longer even closely resembles what it used to look like.
Other shit that has changed around Raleigh which I dislike:
1. The redesigned Cameron Village. Removing the upper parking deck above Bailey's really fucked up my sense of direction around there for a while. And just what was so bad about the blue & white bubble domes? At least you could read the signage clearly from the street, since it was all white type set on blue, illuminated from behind. Now it's a bewildering hodgepodge of every typeface and color imaginable. Some may call it charming, I call it a fucking typographic nightmare.
2. Rite-Aid taking over Eckerd's. It was enough of a shock when Eckerd's bought out nearly all the Kerr Drug stores in the area, now this? The Rite-Aid at Cameron Village feels like a wasteland compared to the former Eckerd's. They put in glaring linoleum tile floors where sound-dampening carpet once lay. The layout of the checkout counters was rearranged, and there are far fewer displays and aisles of merchandise to excite the senses.
3. The complete ass-fucking of Hillsborough Street. Seriously, people? Traffic circles? 25mph speed limit? Fuckin'-A, man, they're ruining a quaint, historic street. Part of its character is its seedy, run-down, college-town atmosphere. Parking always sucked around there, and I don't see this project making it any better. Traffic moved just fine without a bunch of damned traffic circles. We had traffic lights and that was good enough.
4. The vanishing of Brothers Pizza. It was a venerated Hillsborough Street institution for 40-odd years. Everyone my age had at least one birthday party there as a child. The wood-paneled walls were festooned with NCSU athletic memorabilia, and they always had the city's best sweet iced tea. At least I took my wife there once, so she got to see it before it disappeared. I like the new restaurant, Melvin's, that took its place, but it's yet another part of my childhood dead and gone.
5. Teardowns and McMansions. It's a disease that spread to my parents' neighborhood a few years ago. Charming 1940s and '50s houses were deemed not big enough for soulless, gotta-have-it-all yuppies who swooped in, razed them, and erected 10,000-square-foot monstrosities that block out the sun. Well, I guess little Dylan does need a 16x20-ft playroom, and of course you can't live without a closet bigger than my bedroom. And the gourmet kitchen the size of a concert hall with 8-burner Viking stove, two convection ovens, and Subzero fridge is a must for all those home-cooked meals your alcoholic wife will never make.
One thing I actually like about modern-day Raleigh is the new North Hills mall. Sure, I'll always have a special place for the old indoor dinosaur it replaced, but I'll concede that its time on this earth had passed. The new one kicks ass. The re-opening of Fayetteville Street to automobile traffic also has my approval. The pedestrian mall was one of Raleigh's greatest blunders.
Population growth around here is getting out of control. Too many god-damned people are invading and nesting in the Old North State. Can't we just turn them away at the border like California did to the Okies? Why can't I just wave a magic wand and freeze Raleigh in the year 1999? Seriously, folks, it can't really get much better than it was before 2001. Even my wife expressed a longing for the Clinton years. I heavily disliked Bubba back then, but comparing him with his successors, I'd re-elect him tomorrow.
In its place will be erected a monstrosity of an institution, designed to house thousands of youngsters, many of whom are the offspring of transplanted yankees, invading my beloved Raleigh and spreading their demon seed. It will bear the same name, but it will never be the same school.
I have so many cherished memories of that place. Mind you, the old building wasn't much to look at, either, a shining example of bland 1950s suburban school architecture, but it had character. I made great friends there, one of whom I'm still in constant touch with 20 years later. I had excellent teachers who actually gave a shit about teaching, far different from their modern-day counterparts, who count down the days until retirement while receiving a weekly pittance to act as babysitters.
Every October, the school hosted the Fall Festival, a Halloween-themed event with games and activities. One of the trailers was converted into a haunted house, where I got scared shitless by a chainsaw-wielding zombie surgeon. The girl I had a crush on grew up to be kind of a bitch.
I remember getting dropped off right outside the trailer where my 5th grade class was—in those days the school wasn't all paranoid about security and didn't force the parents to drop their children off in one area. My 4th grade class was in a trailer as well, as the city was just beginning to feel the strain of overcrowding. It was a quaint little box, clad in corrugated metal, with a wooden access ramp. I remember one day when a freak sleet storm hit, and my friend was sliding down the ramp over and over. My 4th grade teacher was awesome. She would read aloud and do a voice for each character. She held trivia games where the class was divided into two teams. She brought in a drama coach now and then for a fun diversion. 4th grade was the best, and I got to be a 9-year-old during a time when kickass cartoon shows were in abundance and no none knew just how terrible for you sugary drinks and cereals were.
I dislike change. Change means that what I know and is familiar is going away, never to come back.
A couple months ago I drove past my old grade-school chum's house where he had lived from about 1983 until his parents sold the place last year. I had spent countless thousands of hours of my childhood and adolescence hanging out there on lazy Saturdays. The place was comfortably furnished with plush chairs and a bigass leather sofa I loved to stretch out on while watching TV. In high school and into our college years, our routine was for me to show up around 12:30 on Saturday, bum around town, go to movies, rent movies with titillating nude scenes, go to bookstores, and come back for a great supper his mom and dad had fixed. Then we'd chill out with more TV and new & exciting websites, and I'd finally drive home at midnight.
The formerly well-manicured grass is now knee-high. The house is dark, with not a stick of furniture. The cat doesn't traipse about the yard anymore. The green metal outdoor chairs are gone. The driveway sits empty. A huge chunk of my childhood has vanished.
My wife is not immune from this epidemic, either. Every house she lived in as a child has either been demolished or altered to the point of being unrecognizable. The private school she attended has been built up so much that it no longer even closely resembles what it used to look like.
Other shit that has changed around Raleigh which I dislike:
1. The redesigned Cameron Village. Removing the upper parking deck above Bailey's really fucked up my sense of direction around there for a while. And just what was so bad about the blue & white bubble domes? At least you could read the signage clearly from the street, since it was all white type set on blue, illuminated from behind. Now it's a bewildering hodgepodge of every typeface and color imaginable. Some may call it charming, I call it a fucking typographic nightmare.
2. Rite-Aid taking over Eckerd's. It was enough of a shock when Eckerd's bought out nearly all the Kerr Drug stores in the area, now this? The Rite-Aid at Cameron Village feels like a wasteland compared to the former Eckerd's. They put in glaring linoleum tile floors where sound-dampening carpet once lay. The layout of the checkout counters was rearranged, and there are far fewer displays and aisles of merchandise to excite the senses.
3. The complete ass-fucking of Hillsborough Street. Seriously, people? Traffic circles? 25mph speed limit? Fuckin'-A, man, they're ruining a quaint, historic street. Part of its character is its seedy, run-down, college-town atmosphere. Parking always sucked around there, and I don't see this project making it any better. Traffic moved just fine without a bunch of damned traffic circles. We had traffic lights and that was good enough.
4. The vanishing of Brothers Pizza. It was a venerated Hillsborough Street institution for 40-odd years. Everyone my age had at least one birthday party there as a child. The wood-paneled walls were festooned with NCSU athletic memorabilia, and they always had the city's best sweet iced tea. At least I took my wife there once, so she got to see it before it disappeared. I like the new restaurant, Melvin's, that took its place, but it's yet another part of my childhood dead and gone.
5. Teardowns and McMansions. It's a disease that spread to my parents' neighborhood a few years ago. Charming 1940s and '50s houses were deemed not big enough for soulless, gotta-have-it-all yuppies who swooped in, razed them, and erected 10,000-square-foot monstrosities that block out the sun. Well, I guess little Dylan does need a 16x20-ft playroom, and of course you can't live without a closet bigger than my bedroom. And the gourmet kitchen the size of a concert hall with 8-burner Viking stove, two convection ovens, and Subzero fridge is a must for all those home-cooked meals your alcoholic wife will never make.
One thing I actually like about modern-day Raleigh is the new North Hills mall. Sure, I'll always have a special place for the old indoor dinosaur it replaced, but I'll concede that its time on this earth had passed. The new one kicks ass. The re-opening of Fayetteville Street to automobile traffic also has my approval. The pedestrian mall was one of Raleigh's greatest blunders.
Population growth around here is getting out of control. Too many god-damned people are invading and nesting in the Old North State. Can't we just turn them away at the border like California did to the Okies? Why can't I just wave a magic wand and freeze Raleigh in the year 1999? Seriously, folks, it can't really get much better than it was before 2001. Even my wife expressed a longing for the Clinton years. I heavily disliked Bubba back then, but comparing him with his successors, I'd re-elect him tomorrow.
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