RIP bakeries, the latest casualty of crap

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/independent-bakeries-are-a-dying-breed-185447965.html

Ha! I knew it.

"Families used to come by Sapienza’s shop and order a pound of biscotti or cookies to take home for the week, never questioning whether they had any trans fat or contained gluten, a wheat protein that gives dough its elasticity. These days, one in four U.S. households report at least one family member who eats gluten-free products, despite the fact that only 1% of Americans are considered to be allergic to it."

People are sheep. The end.

I love traditional bakeries. I was sad to read my favorite Italian bakery in Somerville shut down a few years ago. At least I was able to go for cannolis a few last times when I was in the area. Screw you Starbucks, designer cupcakes, and people who must be "gluten-free" despite not being allergic to it.

Somehow, everything I write is interconnected. The death of good. Is there any way back from this? All I want is real music, real food, real news and a real life not lived on fucking Instagram. And trees. Lots of 'em.

Wow... http://www.upworthy.com/the-real-reason-they-still-play-mrs-robinson-on-the-radio

This pretty much sums up what I was trying to pinpoint in one of my previous entries, about why things seem so different from the 80s now in really awful ways. In handy chart form, even.

"In 1983, 90% of American media was owned by 50 companies. In 2011, that same 90% is owned by 6 companies."

Does that make anyone else feel like they got kicked in the gut by like, some sneaky financial ninja? When did this HAPPEN to us? Why did we LET it? Did we even have a choice? And do most people even care?

Well, I care. This doesn't just apply to media either. It goes right along with what I was saying about stores too, like Macy's, the big fish eating all the other fish. This much conglomeration is not good. And here is the proof, not that proof was needed. This kind of change is evident all around us if we pay attention, but it's scary to see it laid out in such stark terms. My childhood really was better in a lot of ways; it isn't just nostalgia. Our culture really is going to hell right under our noses.

I don't want my child to grow up in a world with only 6 things. :(

I am cursed with hating the time I live in, and trying my hardest to find joy where I can. I think this is part of why I enjoy abandoned places so much. Echoes of the past I think was better. Heck, it was better.

So, I am spending my evening watching vintage footage of the place I grew up in which is now homogenized like every place else. (And most of the non-homogenized parts are trash.) There used to be like, 10+ different department stores around. Now there're two, Macy's and the Other Macy's That Took Over that Other Store. Oh, three if you count the Sears Nobody Shops At except... old people, I guess? Everything these days is like the giant fish that eats all the other little fish. It sickens me. Who wants to live in a world with just one fish? Not me!!

I'm also watching old commercials. Remember when commercials had a jingle with the product's name in it, so you could actually remember what they wanted you to buy? None of this artsy fartsy crap where you don't know if they're trying to sell you a car, a watch, a cologne, or some electronic thingy that will be obsolete so fast it probably wasn't even worth writing a jingle for. No, it was O-S-C-A-R and double your pleasure with doublemint gum and chow, chow, chow! Simple and to the point. No, "what the hell was that? was that in German?" Not only does it suck, it's bad advertising! No wonder the economy is in such bad shape! BRING BACK COMMERCIAL JINGLES! And while you're at it, bring back TV theme shows too. "Come and knock on our door, we've been waiting for you..."

I live in hope that someday, something will be good again. That everything that is grand, and wonderful, and interesting hasn't been digested by the big fish. Enough people must realize that life isn't good homogenized. Life doesn't exist on twitter, it exists in the souls of the things we create. Like classic buildings. Please, stop tearing everything down to build another same-old-same-old. I feel quite desperate about this.

You know what i think did it? I was watching a video of LA in the 60s, and realized the LA of the 80s I grew up in had more resemblance to that than the LA of today. You might say, the 80s we're a long time ago now. But I see it as things are changing more and more rapidly than ever, and not for the better, and why? For what? To keep satisfying the big fish? Progress is not eradicating the unique, the iconic, the mom and pop stores, the five and dimes, the corner hobby shop with the paint smell I remember to this day. Who exactly thought this world would be better? Are people happier? No, they are not. I think people are much less happy. They just text all day so they don't notice what's missing.

So this is for you, Westchester Antique Faire, Carl's Hobby Shop, the Broadway with the cool display windows, and all other casualties of progress and giant hungry fish. You may be gone, but I hope someday to again live in a world that's worthy of you.



I don't want to live in the past, far from it. I want a present and future with some surprises left in store. You turn a corner and see something you've never seen before, because it's local and run by someone with a first name, like George or Carl. I want color and whimsy and unpredictability. I want fancy box displays with ridiculous mannequins and Christmas decorations. Not, "Gee, I wonder if the Macy's at the mall 5 miles away has anything different than this one, or the last one." It's kinda like those old cartoons like the Flintstones where they'd run and the same scenery would loop by 100 times, except it really is the same scenery repeated 100 times.

What I meant to do last night: watch a few videos on youtube, finish my graphic requests, go to bed

What I actually did: read sites about abandoned malls and theme parks til 5AM. Damn you, internet, for being so interesting!

It started as a simple search for my beloved Old Towne Mall dark ride, which I do periodically to see if anything popped up. I wonder if that mall was still around, unchanged, would it mean as much to me or would I just take it for granted? (You don't know what you've got til it's gone, etc.) I think it would, because I never got tired of going there as a child, and I'm even more of a kid now than I was when I was a kid. :D I love to visit the few places from my childhood that are still around as much as I ever did. So it's not just the nostalgia, it's something truly special and unique that's been lost to all but memories. There aren't even any pictures of the ride, at least not online or in my mom's huge collection.

I realize nostalgia is kind of a fluid thing - no matter when you grew up, you'll feel nostalgic for what was around at the time. People who grew up in the 50s or 60s probably find 80s nostalgia about as ridiculous as I'd find nostalgia for the sad state of today. But the 80s were my era, and it was still a simpler time. Bad things were afoot, like greed, drugs and rap music, but most of the music still sounded like music, the clothes were wonderfully naive in their attempt to be cool (and I loved the colors!), and we had movies like Ghostbusters, Back to the Future and Pretty in Pink. The 80s were fun. I look back and see them in amusement park lights and colors.

So I wonder, what would be nostalgic now? Will the kids of today one day be pining for the homogenous target-best-buy-wal-mart-old-navy-home-depot strip malls? Maybe they will, if that's all they know. But that's kind of sad. Even true nostalgia is being bought out. I mean...



which one of these is more interesting? Which one is more likely to capture a child's memories forever? Or an adult's, for that matter? Will kids today have the chance to dream of magical carousels and hazy, low budget dark rides? Or will all their memories be of video games? The world is... shrinking. And not in a fun way like Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. I read that the beautiful carousel still exists somewhere in the country, so that's something. But it should be in CA! That's its HOME, dammit.

Something cool I found that made me smile: http://irodephantasmagoria.blogspot.com/
This was another dark ride from my childhood. I remember this one much better because I was older when I rode it. We probably went to Bell's in Tulsa about three times, and I rode this ride twice every time. It had a big yellow school bus that would pop out and honk at you (AHHHH IT'S COMING RIGHT FOR US!!! every single time!) Bell's also had an awesome wooden roller coaster, called the Cyclone I think. So... I too rode Phantasmagoria! I never knew how to pronounce it. I still don't. But damn, what a cool ride.

Finding things like this is like finding little pieces of my childhood on the internet, pieces that other people I don't even know share. It's pretty awesome. But damn, 5AM comes too soon.

A cool video of a guy exploring a "lost city," who says pretty much everything I feel about the past, present and future.

Soooooo

I was writing up a post entitled "the sweet sweet valley of sanity," about how things seem to be going to these ridiculous mountains of extremes and my search for, well, the sweet sweet valley of sanity. It occurred to me that I mostly write about stuff I don't like on here, and my only really "fun" posts are my T&T posts, which I also don't like but at least I can snark the crap out of. It's weird because I'm really not a negative person, more of a walking MST, taking life's absurdities with a sort of non-aggressive mocking stance.

The reasons for this negativity are my SA obviously, and how this place serves as a refuge when I'm feeling particularly wretched. Maybe not so fun to read, but therapeutic. But beyond that there is what I see as the growing negativity in the world, which was exacerbated by my ill-fated interest in politics. We have a generation coming up that relates to the world through text messages and tweets and I wonder, do they feel the world? Do they ever think about where they came from, what's around them? I see humans becoming more desensitized and less connected every day. The world is always changing, and there have been some fantastic advances in the last 30 years, socially and technologically, that I wouldn't change for anything. But there are also really noticeable and disturbing changes that have taken place since I was a child that I don't think are beneficial or even natural.

Chiefly ~ the strip mallification of America. We've always had chain stores and there's nothing wrong with them, but it wasn't always like this. Everywhere you go in this country it's exactly the same, the same handful of stores that have driven out the unique regional culture. I mean, the only way you can even tell where you are anymore is what kind of trees are growing there.* Sometimes I come upon one of these monstrosities and I feel claustrophobic, I actually can't breathe. These big companies are strangling the life out of this country, and nobody seems to care. I mean when I was a kid we shopped at the "big" stores sometimes, but we also shopped at other places for variety. I guess somewhere along the line, people stopped doing that. They said fuck it, I wanna get tires and chewing gum and lawn furniture at the same damn place, every single day, no surprises, no soul, no problem. In and out and back home to watch tv and go to bed for another day of supporting the endless grind. Do they ever wonder what else is out there? Do they ever remember how things used to be, what still lies beneath the plastic surface?

*on the bright side, at least there are still trees.

The thing is, I think most people forget their childhood. They disregard it as something to "move on from." And with each generation, even children have less and less true childhood wonder (the kind that isn't manufactured in Japan). I think adults should celebrate their childhoods without shame, not in a way that's dwelling on the past but keeping alive what's important and interesting NOW, and preserving it for the future. This is what we are losing, our sense of preservation. Somewhere along the line, everything started becoming disposable. This is not progress, this is waste.

So, I will write my sweet sweet valley of sanity post another time, and end with this before my next post of STUFF THAT MAKES ME HAPPY DAMMIT. The reason I'm becoming so enamored with abandoned places (and other people who appreciate them) is not only because it's fun and creepy and damn interesting to explore the past but because it makes me feel less alone in my sensibilities. Other people are drawn to something besides what's presented to them as a consumer, other people CARE. And mostly, to preserve these things in some way before they're swept away forever to become something soulless and counter-intuitive to humanity like an office park.

Sure, looking at cool things in a state of decay can be sad, but at least it's an interesting kind of sad. It makes you think. It makes you feel. And somehow, they seem more alive and less decayed than the Everytown Big Store Consumer Depots of Hell. The old remnants are somehow alive, their souls remain. They speak to me. I also find them beautiful and sometimes, oddly, positive. It's less about what's gone than what's still there, the ruins and the memories.

Maybe it's sad that exploring the past has become more appealing in some ways than the present, but one astute Youtube commenter said it best in a video entitled "Last Day at Kiddieland" (which is pretty much also the title of my life), about the closing of a beloved children's amusement park. From the description: "Started in 1929, the suburban Chicago Kiddieland survived the Great Depression, a World War and countless other challenges only to fall to a family dispute. One small branch of the family wanted to sell the land. The other, larger branch wanted to keep the park alive. Money won. Doesn't it always? Another big box retailer, a Wal-Mart or a Costco or something similar will replace Kiddieland..."

Commenter: you know....what made america, america is slowly dissapearing

Yeah... that's pretty much my whole post in one amazing sentence. Did that leave anyone else feeling gut-punched and winded like it did me? This is actually HAPPENING, and it's happening less and less slowly as we become more and more fast-paced and disposable and me me me and now now now and more more more. I mean, my favorite song "Big Yellow Taxi" was written in 1970. Before I was born. The warning signs were there even 40 years ago, but instead of paying attention we've just let more and more iconic things die. And for WHAT? For NOTHING! For profit, which means absolutely nothing in a world with nothing left to spend it on but... more profit. "If I die with the most crap, I win the world's biggest and most pointless game of Monopoly!"

These things that make up the fabric of our country are not things you trade in like a car or a computer. They don't need an upgrade, they're fine the way they are. And when they're gone, they're gone forever. And so is an important piece of who we are.

What makes humans, human is slowly disappearing.