The Big One
Finally, in one place for two nights in a row.
I'm in my corporate housing, a huge development among several other huge developments in a small town that's getting bigger just outside of Providence. You can see the construction everywhere--car dealerships, medical buildings--all the signs of a community that's turning from a Village into a Bedroom Community. These cookie-cutter apartments are another sign.
The place I'm actually staying in is fine. Quite nice, actually. I've described it to people as the nicest doctor's office that I've ever stayed in. It's all off-white and every single fixture in the apartment feels Standard. All in all, not a bad space in which to kill a few months.
The rest of the drive here was fun. Some of you may have read in the news that while I was blogging in Tulsa, Oprah Winfrey was also in town crashing some weddings for her show. Presumably we weren't in the same hotel or if we were, I didn't see any signs of her.
Oklahoma is pleasant enough to drive through. I've stopped here before, at the memorial for the Oklahoma City bombing victims. The memorial is well done, as far as those things go. It's 151 empty chairs, one for each victim, standing along a reflective pool between two gates marked with 9:03 and 9:04. The idea being, of course, to demonstrate what can change in one fateful minute. On the day I visited, it was virtually empty and deathly quiet until a moment when a nearby church's bells sounded and it all finally seemed to live its purpose.
The state of Oklahoma has a lot of which one can make fun. There's their senator, Tom Coburn, who is a doctor and once advocated the death penalty for his colleagues who perform abortions. There's the musical which painted the people here as a bunch of simple hayseeds. There's the fact that Oral Roberts has his name on one the state's most respected institutions of higher learning. Anyway, there's enough so that when I saw multiple billboards along I-44 advertising winery tours in Oklahoma (Barrels of Fun!), it didn't faze me that much.
As I thought about it, though, urban sophisticates like you and me give Oklahoma a lot of shit for being a rural backwater. It seems to me that a move toward developing a taste for so-called "finer things" like wine is something we should admire about Oklahoma. Making fun of Oklahoma wine basically puts them in a no-win situation. We make fun of them for being country rubes, then make fun of them for trying to grow wine grapes in a dust bowl. It isn't fair. We have to pick one or the other. I say we make fun of them for being country rubes and leave the wine alone.
Missouri wasn't as interesting, but it had some moments. At one point, a truck carrying large rolls of sod lost one of them on the highway. It fell in such a way that it unfurled perfectly onto the asphalt. Cars started driving around this little patch of beautiful lawn in the middle of I-44. There's a metaphor in there somewhere.
The other thing I'll remember about this trip through Missouri is the eighteen different billboards with the single word "JESUS" on them. They were all in different fonts and designs, which led me to think that there were eighteen different sponsors buying the ad space. But there was no message--just "JESUS."
What's the point? Is it a reminder? ("What was that guy's name again? J-something...Oh, yeah!") A brand awareness campaign to keep people from patronizing the other deities advertising in Missouri? It just seemed like a huge waste of money to me. If you're the kind of person who's so insecure in your faith that you actually need to see the name of your god every 4.6 miles, you really have to re-examine your religious choices.
Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia. All exactly as I remember them.
I will say this about West Virginia, though. It's astoundingly gorgeous. The whole thing is amazing. You want to talk about a state being misjudged, let's talk about West Virginia.
They're desperately poor, near the bottom in everything from education to indoor plumbing. They've been shit on by companies who have raped their resources for two hundred years. They've been ridiculed as Appalachian sister-fuckers (if I was the governor of West Virginia I'd declare a fatwa on the entire cast and crew of "Deliverance"). It's still achingly beautiful.
Huge, lush mountains with rushing rivers and unbelievable views every direction you turn in. Drive through, and every time you come to the crest of a hill you're treated to a landscape painted by God. Then you go up to the next hill and there's another one that's even better. As I spent a few hours gazing at all of this majesty, I couldn't take my mind off of one thing.
Palm Springs.
Palm Springs is the ass end of the earth. There's absolutely no reason why anyone in their right mind would spend a single second more than is mandated by a federal statute there. The only positive thing about it is that they've harnessed wind power there, and even that is a sign of how bad things are--they literally reap the whirlwind.
The fact that they waste the water to grow golf courses in Palm Springs is crime against humanity. In twenty years, we're going to be selling Washington state to Canada for clean water, but Palm Springs is sucking us dry so that people can golf in 115 degree weather.
The amount of wealth in Palm Springs could probably buy and sell West Virginia ten times over. For what a Palm Springs condo complex costs to build, you could buy half of Wheeling. There is no justice in this. None.
Anyway, I got to see my family in Washington, which was great. My cousin's totally counter-intuitive new boyfriend seems like a nice guy. I got to Providence the next day, despite a two hour delay through New York City on the George Washington Bridge. Nothing to do except sit and stare at the Bronx. Yup, heaven.
So I'm here now and I thank all of you for your patience. I'll be writing regularly again, so please pipe up with any...thing.
I'm in my corporate housing, a huge development among several other huge developments in a small town that's getting bigger just outside of Providence. You can see the construction everywhere--car dealerships, medical buildings--all the signs of a community that's turning from a Village into a Bedroom Community. These cookie-cutter apartments are another sign.
The place I'm actually staying in is fine. Quite nice, actually. I've described it to people as the nicest doctor's office that I've ever stayed in. It's all off-white and every single fixture in the apartment feels Standard. All in all, not a bad space in which to kill a few months.
The rest of the drive here was fun. Some of you may have read in the news that while I was blogging in Tulsa, Oprah Winfrey was also in town crashing some weddings for her show. Presumably we weren't in the same hotel or if we were, I didn't see any signs of her.
Oklahoma is pleasant enough to drive through. I've stopped here before, at the memorial for the Oklahoma City bombing victims. The memorial is well done, as far as those things go. It's 151 empty chairs, one for each victim, standing along a reflective pool between two gates marked with 9:03 and 9:04. The idea being, of course, to demonstrate what can change in one fateful minute. On the day I visited, it was virtually empty and deathly quiet until a moment when a nearby church's bells sounded and it all finally seemed to live its purpose.
The state of Oklahoma has a lot of which one can make fun. There's their senator, Tom Coburn, who is a doctor and once advocated the death penalty for his colleagues who perform abortions. There's the musical which painted the people here as a bunch of simple hayseeds. There's the fact that Oral Roberts has his name on one the state's most respected institutions of higher learning. Anyway, there's enough so that when I saw multiple billboards along I-44 advertising winery tours in Oklahoma (Barrels of Fun!), it didn't faze me that much.
As I thought about it, though, urban sophisticates like you and me give Oklahoma a lot of shit for being a rural backwater. It seems to me that a move toward developing a taste for so-called "finer things" like wine is something we should admire about Oklahoma. Making fun of Oklahoma wine basically puts them in a no-win situation. We make fun of them for being country rubes, then make fun of them for trying to grow wine grapes in a dust bowl. It isn't fair. We have to pick one or the other. I say we make fun of them for being country rubes and leave the wine alone.
Missouri wasn't as interesting, but it had some moments. At one point, a truck carrying large rolls of sod lost one of them on the highway. It fell in such a way that it unfurled perfectly onto the asphalt. Cars started driving around this little patch of beautiful lawn in the middle of I-44. There's a metaphor in there somewhere.
The other thing I'll remember about this trip through Missouri is the eighteen different billboards with the single word "JESUS" on them. They were all in different fonts and designs, which led me to think that there were eighteen different sponsors buying the ad space. But there was no message--just "JESUS."
What's the point? Is it a reminder? ("What was that guy's name again? J-something...Oh, yeah!") A brand awareness campaign to keep people from patronizing the other deities advertising in Missouri? It just seemed like a huge waste of money to me. If you're the kind of person who's so insecure in your faith that you actually need to see the name of your god every 4.6 miles, you really have to re-examine your religious choices.
Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia. All exactly as I remember them.
I will say this about West Virginia, though. It's astoundingly gorgeous. The whole thing is amazing. You want to talk about a state being misjudged, let's talk about West Virginia.
They're desperately poor, near the bottom in everything from education to indoor plumbing. They've been shit on by companies who have raped their resources for two hundred years. They've been ridiculed as Appalachian sister-fuckers (if I was the governor of West Virginia I'd declare a fatwa on the entire cast and crew of "Deliverance"). It's still achingly beautiful.
Huge, lush mountains with rushing rivers and unbelievable views every direction you turn in. Drive through, and every time you come to the crest of a hill you're treated to a landscape painted by God. Then you go up to the next hill and there's another one that's even better. As I spent a few hours gazing at all of this majesty, I couldn't take my mind off of one thing.
Palm Springs.
Palm Springs is the ass end of the earth. There's absolutely no reason why anyone in their right mind would spend a single second more than is mandated by a federal statute there. The only positive thing about it is that they've harnessed wind power there, and even that is a sign of how bad things are--they literally reap the whirlwind.
The fact that they waste the water to grow golf courses in Palm Springs is crime against humanity. In twenty years, we're going to be selling Washington state to Canada for clean water, but Palm Springs is sucking us dry so that people can golf in 115 degree weather.
The amount of wealth in Palm Springs could probably buy and sell West Virginia ten times over. For what a Palm Springs condo complex costs to build, you could buy half of Wheeling. There is no justice in this. None.
Anyway, I got to see my family in Washington, which was great. My cousin's totally counter-intuitive new boyfriend seems like a nice guy. I got to Providence the next day, despite a two hour delay through New York City on the George Washington Bridge. Nothing to do except sit and stare at the Bronx. Yup, heaven.
So I'm here now and I thank all of you for your patience. I'll be writing regularly again, so please pipe up with any...thing.
posted by Matthew at 8:39 PM
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