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Where To?

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:

  • Cincinnati, with a stop in Knoxville.
  • Nashville, with a stop in Knoxville.
  • Norfolk, with a stop in Richmond.
  • Jacksonville, with or without a stop.

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.

The Wall

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”?

My Car

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 Hate This Apartment

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…

Jane Jacobs: 1916-2006

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.

We’re Home

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…

Randomly Thursday

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Random thoughts for a Thursday afternoon:

  • Moron of the week: Timothy Dwayne Carter of Reidsville NC, who decided that he couldn’t survive his trial on drug and domestic violence charges without carrying a dozen vials of crack into the courtroom with him.
  • Anyone who really believes there will be no changes at the San Jose Mercury News under its new owners has obviously never spent the 45-50 seconds it takes to read the same owner’s Oakland Tribune on the average day.
  • There hasn’t been a first-run episode of The Andy Griffith Show since 1968, but it’s apparently still essential to the ongoing profitability of CBS. I’m not sure if that says more about the strength of Andy or the weakness of CBS.