Fast Food Nation
Walking to meet Alpha yesterday, I was totally creeped out by how many empty storefronts there are in the village now, and even more creeped out by the fact that every new store I’ve seen open up in the last 6 months has been a chain. It gets me all riled up because I thought there were supposed to be zoning boards or something set up to keep this from happening. I always figured New Yorkers could justify paying the rents that we do because it’s worth any price to escape whatever suburban hell we came from to live in the most diverse, exciting place on earth. But the proliferation of these giant franchise stores is neither diverse nor exciting. Their crushing sameness ruins the landscape of my evening walks and makes me feel like I’m living in the middle of a giant, mean, dirty, mall. Maybe it’s just being presumptuous to assume that people don’t want it this way though. If they keep succeeding there must be a reason. Last night at Mike’s 30th birthday party, held in the back of an immaculate gay bar on 10th ave, Anya’s friend was pleasantly chatting us up about how her three fave restaurants in New York are Outback Steakhouse, Red Lobster and The Olive Garden. Seriously. I waited for the ironic laughter to follow, but it never came. I guess these bland nightmarish places are just giving the people what they want, but it’s hard not to just stand in the middle of the street sometimes and shriek at the top of my lungs, “STOP! YOU’RE FUCKING RUINING EVERYTHING!!!”