Category Archives: Travel

The entire city is watching TV right now (9:09 pm Monday, Central Time)  Why?  Monday Night Football is on the tube.  Madden and Michaels. 

I just came from a workout in the exercise room at this hotel and on all three televisions was the game.  There were five of us there, getting sweaty, running on treadmills, lifting weights, doing the stair thingy.  Everyone else was glued to (I think…) Washington Foreskins vs. Philadelphia Eagles (?)  I probably have the teams wrong as I don’t follow stick and ball sports, but the other four were so intent on the broadcast that I was sure they were going to televise an execution later.

Texas is football mad.  High School, Pop Warner, College, Pro…don’t matter.  There may be more people who watch baseball, or soccer, or badminton, or Formula 1, or NASCAR, but here, near the Redneck Riviera and the Gulf of Mexico, Football is King, Queen, Jack and Ten.

It is probably the gladiatorial image of the sport.  The “effort”.  “Giving 110%”  “Accomplishment” “Sacrifice” “Team” and “Winning”  These are all manly clichés.  Many of which stem from warriors going back to the Romans.  Is it a metaphor for our warrior-within?  Who gives a shit? 

Football players are steroid crazed giantized freaks who delight in hitting each other.  If they were true warriors, they would dispense with the helmets and pads and guards and wear not much more than a cup and a pair of shorts.

So, football is a simulacrum metaphor for warrior-nation-state.  It is American and America.  We want to fight, but with protection.  We want the glory of battle, without the gore. 

Look at the historical battles of great import:  Culloden comes to mind.  A few thousand Celts, going toe to toe, with axes, spears, maces and swords.  Dead, decapitated, dissected humans laid four deep on the battlefield from the most grievous of wounds.  That is battle. 

Football is a game.

I know I haven’t written much about September 11, 2001.  The reason is straightforward.  I haven’t come to grips with what I feel about it, until about now.  The facts are obvious and have been stated thousands of times:  Four planes, three buildings, around 2,100 souls. And the most grievous mortality: Our innocence.

Until that day, bad things happened in distant lands or randomly as part of the wheel of life.  On that Tuesday bad things happened to all of us.  Most of us sat there with open mouths not believing what we were seeing.  The not knowing and not understanding, then the sudden realization that ‘they’ wanted to hurt us.  As bad as the monster under the bed, or the anonymous ‘them’ out there, ‘they’ terrified us and then scarred us forever.

Now, the senseless, violent, randomly brutal, gory and visceral fear that so many other humans live under every hour of their lives, is here, at home, inside of all of us.  We wait for the next shoe to drop.

That fear is, at its heart, the aim of a terrorist.  To make everyone fearful of their next step.  It is why the IRA or Hezbollah uses car bombs, or armies use land mines, or a mugger has their hand thrust in their pocket.  It is the potential of violence made real to us.

I’ve thought about this for a lengthy while.  My conclusion is actually simple.  I refuse to be afraid.  This is how we defeat ‘them’ or ‘it’ or whatever name you care to call it.  If they can’t make us afraid, then they’ve lost and we’ve won.

To that end, I also choose to cherish every day and every minute, without being afraid of anything or anyone. 

I can’t think of any other way to honour the innocents who perished, except by going about my business, unafraid.  We win.  They lose.  Now, let’s go and find the perpetrators.  Then kill them.  Simple as that.

If it took the fall of the World Trade Center for the world to see that New York City has a heart, then Chicago only needs a hangnail. 

To a person, including the street guy who wanted me to give him 10 bucks for a room for the night, Chicagoans are universally nice people.  Doormen, servers, street sweepers, counter people, doesn’t matter.  They’re just nice folks.  They don’t mind giving you directions, or sending you on the right path.  They don’t seem to mind idle chitchat to pass the time.  They also don’t seem to take themselves that seriously.  Baseball, Football and Basketball are Serious.  But the rest of life is more relaxed. 

New York City, in my pre-9-11 experience, was an essentially grumpy place.  There was a move afoot to change the state motto on the license plates from “Empire State” to “You’ve see it, now Fuck Off”  NYC also had too many people per square foot for my liking.  Chicago is just as population dense, but it doesn’t seem as oppressed by it. 

Downtown is a skyscraper canyon like NYC.  A few zillion folks commute in every morning and zoom out every night, but the attitude is more of we want to work here, not we MUST work here.

There is a way to see how the global economy is doing.  It’s almost infallible and works in any economy that has a Yellow Pages type of book for their phone system. 

So far, in the cities that I’ve visited on the trip I occasionally check the Escorts pages.  Now, not because I want to book these professionals, but the number of pages of display ads tends to tell you about how the economy is running.  If the whores are busy, then people have enough cash to buy some professional boot polishing. Which means the economy is doing OK.

When escort display advertising is down, then folks are hoarding their money and even promises of luscious things can’t convince them to part with the coinage.  Ergo, the economy is in the shitter.  It works in every city except known convention towns like Vegas and New Orleans, where there is always a market for trouser hoovers for salesmen from Dubuque, Iowa in town for the “Sheetmetal Screw 02” convention.

The next time you’re on the road, scope out the poontang pages and see the real economy in action.  Greenspan would never testify to a Senate committee that this is the real measure of an economy.

I broke down and did the Mall of America on Sunday.  Forgive me all: I did it for Marylou, who wanted, at least by proxy, a visit to the biggest, baddest retail environment in the US of A.  So, I went and looked at it.  I even bought some stuff I needed.  I walked all four floors of this colossus, all four corners. 

It is set up as a retailing environment around an amusement park in the middle.  Each floor has, like any other mall, a target audience and a programed feel to it.  Upscale women’s clothing followed by jewellery, followed by shoes and more fashions, then something for the teenage daughter.  Men?  Not unless you count The Gap.  I walked for nearly five miles in the mall proper looking for a men’s store, as I wanted to buy some golf shirts and underwear.  Nope.  I have to be a teenager or a woman, unless I want a t-shirt that says “I’m old and I smell.  Get over it.”

The Amusement part of Mall of America consists of a lame ride or three and the more dangerous, “Cereal Adventure”  Here you can, courtesey of General Mills, learn about breakfast cereal, but only if you’re under 16.  Adults are only welcome if they are accompanying their youngest, immobile infants.  Otherwise, General Foods wants you kids, alone.  Judging by the number of unescorted yard apes, Mom and Dad had no problem parking the issue for a couple of hours to be indoctrinated into the Capitalist Brotherhood. 

I couldn’t go in, (no kid with me) but I did notice the blending station, where young consumers can choose the percentage of varior cereals to be mixed in their box.  The proportions start with 99% sugar and go up from there.  I’m certain any child choosing the low-sugar option (cardboard off-cuts from the packaging line) would be swiftly whisked off for reprogramming while being forced to watch the animatronic Farmer Brown one more soul-scarring time.

Rides? Ferris wheel, Pirate ship and “The Giant Axe”  I think its a sort of Paul Bunyanesque tribute without mentioning Paul Bunyan or Babe the Blue Ox.  Oh, there is also the Underwater Adventure, which as best as I can tell is a big aquarium and the sole tip of the hat to ‘edjacatin’.  Is West Edmonton Mall bigger?  Hell yes and has a decent amusement park at the expected usurious ride rates.  West Ed also has a Hooters and more restaurants that offer food you actually can eat.  Mall of America has the biggest selection of Poppy Wokky Popeye BK McD Orange Julius Nathans than any retail environment needs. 

There ARE upscale fooderies here.  Planet Hollywood and an Italian place that looks almost respectable, but noboy eats there.  There is more than one fork and the napkins aren’t in a fiberglass clown, therefore it is dangerous to Midwestern sensibilities.

Is Mall of America a success?  Of course it is.  It rakes in buckets of money every day.  Based on my eyeball survey, each consumer was loaded down with at least $100 worth of stuff.  Not counting the drinks and snacks and nibblies that they needed to sustain themselves for the marathon. 

Is Mall of America a societal success?  Of course, it gives the consumer miles of aisles of what they want in an environment that forces the shopper to part with cash.  And the whole place feels like The Stepford Wives Go Shopping.  Anesthesia and Retail.  The perfect mix.