The Jukeboxes of Clarksville, Pt. 3

Welcome to Moe's!

This is the story of a man who woke up one morning with a song stuck in his head. A classic tune about feeling good, sharing the love and doing your own thing. His “thing” happened to be food. Southwestern fare, with a special appreciation for the form and function of a tortilla. He experimented with fresh ingredients and had an appropriate name for each creation. He opened a restaurant, and made it known loud and clear that no matter how many times a day he had to say it, everyone who came through the door would feel welcome. And if you stuck around long enough, you’d probably hear that song that helped make a man, a legend. -- from the Moe's Southwest Grill website

Perched on the corner of a strip mall, Moe's Southwest Grill gives you two walls of windows instead of just one. The spacious feel is accentuated by the open "industrial style" ceiling in place of the usual dropped acoustic tile ceiling. The walls are covered with commercial counterfeits of “outsider art”, fake Southwestern geegaws, and pseudo-quaint coinages such as “If you don't have fun saying guacamole, you're probably not saying it right”. The menu on the wall tags their burritos with names such as Triple Lindy, Joey Bag of Donuts, Art Vandalay, and so on. Their tacos go by names such as the Overachiever and The Funk Meister. As the door swings open & you breach the threshold, every employee in the joint yells “WELCOME TO MOE’S!” at you. You imagine the ones who don’t get fired. You immediately become more than a little annoyed with the tool who came up with that idea. You immediately become more than a little annoyed with Moe's faux feel-good 60's hipster/hippie-isms.

The typical Moe's burrito isn't exactly haute cuisine, or even particularly memorable, but at least it (seemingly) isn't the same evil processed shit you encounter at a burger joint, or Taco Bell. Moe's seems to be at least a faltering step in the right direction of real food with fresh ingredients. As such, Moe's flaunts the assumption of a kind of base-level superiority, which happens to eerily echo the assumptions of base-level superiority the Boomer generation itself has. These assumptions manifest as an easy-going hubris, which is not the less annoying for its good nature.

The playlist at Moe's is classic rock, natch. It would be virtually indistinguishable from a normal over-the-air classic rock station if it had adverts and announcers. The playlist generally eschews the rowdy side of rock (light on the biker rock) in favor of the more mainstream hippie mainstays: The Byrds, Jim Croce, "Cat's in the Cradle", "And I Love Her", etc. It also is not afraid to stray outward to such touchpoints as James Brown, Frank Sinatra, Big Band, the Bee Gees, INXS (?!), Ray Charles, and so on. Like most any classic rock station, if you are a fan of rock music of any kind, and you listen long enough, something will play that you like. Taken singly, most of the songs are just fine. Taken as a whole, and taken as part of the hipster/hippie context, the playlist is annoying.

Moe's burritos are just dandy, all things considered. I even applauded when they took a step back from the "all things good for you" aesthetic and added pulled pork to the menu (not a bold move, considering swine's position in the sacred foodie pantheon). The thing is, Moe's is not selling burritos, Moe's is selling the sixties. You know, the sixties that is FUCKING EVERYWHERE in the media these days, the sixties that is politely waiting for The Great Generation (WW II) to die off to finally have a full monopoly of the American landscape. Indeed, Moe's is selling the sixties, Dennis Hopper is selling the sixties on behalf of some hedge fund, Viagra is selling the sixties, every bank and insurance company, EVERYBODY is selling us the sixties. And why is everybody trying to sell us the sixties? Because almost every single Boomer is completely convinced of the moral, intellectual, aesthetic, emotional, even physical superiority of the New Great Generation. And being totally, irrevocably convinced of the superiority of the New Great Generation, all they have to do to sell us their great ideas and concepts is to let us know that they are coming from THE SIXTIES.

The sixties were dying a slow toxic death in the mid-70's when the capitalists started to get involved . . . or rather, when the "revolutionaries" decided to become capitalists. The selling of the sixties began around that time, when the salesmen decided that a little hair of the sixties dog would cure that seventies hangover. The selling began in earnest when the New Great Generation self-analyzed their guilt over being capitalists almost into oblivion (almost! They still are just guilty enough to have to rationalize everything they sell by pointing to its inherent goodness, which of course is owed to its being a product of their own imaginations/toils, which means it derives its goodness from the Boomer's own inherent goodness). It started with The Beatles, the Summer of Love, tie-dye, rock -n- roll (not the same as The Beatles), and sex, and eventually evolved into the mask of total superiority that we have to deal with today. Perhaps most annoyingly they sell the sixties as youth culture, and expect it to be EVERYBODY ELSE'S youth culture as well . . . repackaged, degraded simulacra of the events that were more myth than reality to begin with. They expect their hippie-isms to be hip . . . and that's not just wrong, that's pathetic. Everyone is entitled to play with their juvenile identities as much as they wish, but ultimately, a tie-dye shirt is as defective a cultural marker as a Playboy bunny or a Nike swoosh.

I have to admit that I, too, am a fan of the sixties. I love loud guitars and feedback. I love crazy, insistent drums and singers who believe what they say matters. I love bangs. I love sunglasses. I love left-wing politics. I love all those black power free jazz guys (and even a few gals) pushing every limit thrown in front of them, including good sense. I love fast, loud cars driven in a homicidal/suicidal manner. I love the saturation of sex. I love wacked-out Marxist European intellectuals who actually believe revolution is imminent. I love wacked-out European intellectuals who think that Marx has long been passé. And yes, the sixties do mark the point that America began to awaken from its parochial slumber (a process still in its infancy, unfortunately). Without the sixties, we would not see a generation of the most socially conservative, fundamentalist Christians now coming into power that care almost as much for environmental and poverty issues as they do about eliminating abortion and gay rights. Above all, I love the sixties for the idea that you can CHANGE THE WORLD.

Yet it's clear that such monumental turmoil pulls much in its wake. The sixties are about narcissism as much as they are about anything else. There is something about "newly-won freedom" that devolves from wonder, power and excitement on down to hedonism to bottom out in a kind of solipsistic dissolution. The grand victories in civil rights lead everyone to see themselves in some way as a repressed minority so that they may personally share in the "rights" revolution, so that they too belong. Today, the civil rights battle for people repressed because of race, sex, religion, nationality, income, and sexual preference has to share media time with pathetic degraded civil rights-styled nonsense such as "airline passengers' bill of rights" and "consumers' bill of rights". It is a tribute to the leveling effect of the "everything is everything" sixties fake equality mindset that mainstream news media can equate the complaints of consumers with the Bill of Rights completely without irony. Ultimately, the legacy of the sixties is massive and ambivalent, unlike the unambiguously hip goodness its shills present to us with brain dead smiles.

And so the violent tumult of an entire decade gets degraded like faulty mimeographs into small empty talismans of commercialism. I like Moe's burritos just fine. I could switch up my choices enough so that I could eat there several times a week and not get tired of the food. Their trademark salsas are actually pretty damn good in spite of the ridiculous names. I like most of the music that is played over the speakers. And indeed, unlike the corporate fast food along the
Veteran's Parkway/Lewis and Clark Parkway mall corridor, this food doesn't seem specifically designed to kill me (even if it is still a long jog away from being healthy). But, the New Great Generation's sales job gives me indigestion. That, and the fact that some poor sucker could be called to account for not yelling "Welcome to Moe's" every time that damn door swings open.

The Jukeboxes of Clarksville, Pt. 2

The Long John Silvers is Evil & Rockin’

Long John Silvers could kill me. That wretched grease-soaked fish is like an RPG smoking straight toward the arteries, yet I (used to) eat it willingly, even joyfully. There was something about eating rice, beans, peanut butter, and popcorn all the time that had you heading for Long John Silvers when payday hit.

Down here in the “’Ville” (as the university sports department’s marketing wing calls it) I momentarily let my love for fried fish get the better of me. Not only the real deal, like the Fish House off of Barrett and Winter, but the chains big & small. A particularly lethal nexus was the Moby Dick just off the Mellwood ramp onto 64 East. Days when I was hanging down by the floodwall, the Moby Dick was the only joint within a quick stroll, & there was a paper box out front . . . a nice leisurely lunch with the CJ, a First Mate on rye with fries and pups and plenty of tarter sauce, hot sauce, malt vinegar . . . two huge slabs of cod with extra-crunchy cornmeal breading . . . well, it’s a wonder I still walk the earth.

Clarksville has its two poles of fried fishiness as well. Not far off 65 on 131 is a Captain D’s. I used to eat there often since it was easy walking distance from work, but I had to stop. It became more than borderline disturbing: I rarely saw anyone slimmer than myself, and at 6’ 2”, I tip the scales around 250. I’m not exaggerating when I say this. I was definitely the skinny of the bunch.

The other pole, down in front of the old Kroger along with a Frisch’s and a Rally’s, is that broke-assed classic, Long John Silvers. Not too long ago (I don’t remember exactly when) they underwent a facelift. Seems they really wanted to nail down that FISH/SEAFOOD thing, so they went for a funky surfside look – rustic “aged” “wood” paneling, fish shack adverts (“The Beachcomber”, Charleston SC, “Sea Lion”, Galveston TX, “Castaway”, Mobile AL, etc.), references to corrugated tin roofing, booths upholstered like ‘50’s car bench seats (heavy on the turquoise) – the whole mid-century schtick. The food, of course, has remained pretty much the same forever, or at least since the strategic roll-ins of chicken and shrimp onto the menu. They’ve recently added some NON-FRIED fish, but they’re not fooling anybody.

The thing about the LJSs is that they rock. I mean, if not exactly the hard edged Charlie Feathers-as-King royal lineage, then still pretty rockin’ . . . Mitch Ryder, Spencer Davis Group, “Memphis” by Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Everly Brothers, leavened with the likes of “Don’t Be Cruel”, B J Thomas’s “Hooked On a Feeling”, “Beyond the Sea” by Bobby Darin, and so on. Or, was it simulations of real rocking? Sometimes I had to listen really closely to make sure I was hearing the real thing. Now, granted, I’m going to know the real “Space Truckin’” in three notes, whereas my Mitch Ryder exposure is somewhat more limited, but for chrissakes, I really wasn’t sure about “Don’t Be Cruel”, and how many times have I heard that damn song, especially since I had the single when I was a kid?

The Long John is insidious. You go for the fish, but is it the fish, or is it the saturated fats coursing through your blood, soothing your body into a warm, wooly, almost hallucinogenic food coma after a couple weeks of struggling down rice and beans after another lousy paycheck? You know that the wood is fake, you suspect the fish is barely fish, you even question the validity of songs you’ve heard a million times. In the end, you don’t even know if the simulacra are a real problem.

Comes a time in a man’s life when he needs to take that nutrition shit serious. The Long John Silvers is out of rotation. Like McDonald’s, it’s dead and gone, goner than the Rally’s, which can still suck me in for the occasional barbecue bacon double cheeseburger (topped with a big, fat, deep-fried onion ring!). It’s gone like the Burger King, gone like Fazoli’s, gone like the Captain D’s. In the event that I need fried fish, it’s the Fish House, or the Moby Dick, who can do fish right.

The Jukeboxes of Clarksville, Pt. 1

I was saving this to get published somewhere else, but it doesn't seem to quite fit anywhere I'm looking to put it. Besides, it's not like I'm going to get paid for it.

This is a fairly extensive rework of a previously posted blog. This first part should look familiar to people who follow my foolishness, but the next couple installments are substantially new.

Oh, and sorry about double posting the poem, but I decided to leave it in even though it's already here.


The Hut on the Trail West

The Pizza Hut on Lewis and Clark Parkway stands largely silent. In the J-Town Pizza Hut, the jukebox spews top songs until someone ponies up some change to play something different. Here, however, silence is the rule rather than the exception, and the austerity is matched by the empty tables – no grated cheese, no crushed red pepper, no salt, no pepper.

The jukebox is one of those modern CD jobs, 4 plays for a buck, 25 for a five, filled only half full. Lots of cowboy hats, lots of classic rock, that's what this Clarksville jukebox has. Kenny Chesney, Tim McGraw, Fleetwood Mac, Bob Seger, Martina McBride, John Mellencamp, John Mayer, and lots and lots of cheap compilations – rap, r & b, rock, country, all straight off the radio . . . the only thing that would earn a worn dollar bill from my pocket is Johnny Cash's 16 Hits.

A couple of the employees are hanging with friends at a corner table. They are loud, but not obnoxious. They are older than average pizza jockeys (this being late afternoon, the kids are in school), of ambiguous age somewhere between a hard-rode 35 and a weathered-but-youthful 48. I jump a little when, from out of nowhere, the jukebox springs to life. It's some generic manicured cowboy hat. As suddenly as the jukebox blares awake, it again falls silent. In the three times I've eaten there, I've heard three songs: two cowboy hats, and one hippie lite jam which I imagine was Dave Matthews . . . it seems no matter how many times I hear Dave Matthews, I never can register how he really sounds.

Driving back to the store at the end of my break, I think about those soldiers who go in before the bombers fly and "paint" infrared tags on the selected targets. I think about calling in an air strike. I am not in a good mood. There's something about Clarksville that makes me feel like Céline (and I don’t mean Dion). It's not like Anderson, which is getting progressively poorer, damaged, displaced, and desperate. Clarksville's not this thing in decay; it's just this thing. There's something about Clarksville that puts my gut on the boil.

Corporate Corned Beef Could Be a Lot Worse Than an Arby’s Reuben Sandwich

It's not as if there's a kosher deli in Clarksville, IN. Far as I know, the closest top-notch deli is Shapiro's in Indianapolis. The Arby's reuben has soggy, processed "marble rye", stringy sauerkraut, flavorless swiss cheese, and corned beef that can be pretty nasty at times. Nonetheless, more often than not, it hits the spot . . . besides, corporate food rules the Lewis & Clark Parkway, so there's not much in the way of competition.

The Arby's also stands out because, unlike most of the other joints on the strip, it actually plays a normal over-the-air local radio station in the dining room. Of course, "local" needs to be segregated out with big-ass quotation marks, since commercial radio is no longer local. The only hint of local flavor is in the advertising, making it local in the crassest of ways. So, you’re sitting there chilling with your reuben, and there's irrepressible chatter, commercials, commercials, commercials, and (theoretically, at least) music. I'm not sure exactly what is what, because it's all woven together in a white-noise-invisible tapestry of blandness, like the swiss cheese and sauerkraut on the reuben. This is what seems to be called Easy Listening (a step blander than Adult Contemporary), though it should be called "I Don't Want Anything Even Remotely Involving to Pass Through My Earholes".

Besides the reubens, the main reason I come to the Arby's is the big front window. It's a grand window, from tabletop to ceiling, with minimal interruption from support pillars or dividers. I chill in the booth with my books, notebooks, sandwich, fries, unsweetened ice tea, and look out the window . . .

And, friends, it is a bleak view indeed. Down at the southwest corner of the dining room, looking up to the northeast, the massive white block overpass of 65 marks the horizon. The rest of the tableau spreads forth like a perspective exercise in an intro to drawing class: streetlights, signs – Hooters, Denny's, Home Depot, h h gregg – concrete, and a wire-crossed sky vast and indifferent. I have often tried to capture the emptiness in words, and even with a camera, but the void escapes my expression.

I have written a chapter of a detective novel staring out the window of Arby's. It will more than likely never be finished, but in it, I (the detective) am a voyeur spying on a banal lover's tryst in the Don Pablo's across the street. The lovers disappear into static air. In reality, everything gets swallowed up & disappears in this landscape.

One day, as I stared out the window, a Dodge Neon pulled up in the lot & kicked me out of my reverie. The Neon was sort of a dust-brazed dull gold color, and it had a spoiler, and a HUGE white Playboy bunny decal taking up most of the back window. A skinny white boy (about 20) rolls out, sporting a wife beater, baggy jeans, and a medium-thin gold rope. He seemed like a nice kid and all; he had his 20 year old wife with him, and a little girl, and he treated them both with obvious love and uncommon respect, but the symbol was still jarring . . . that fucking Playboy bunny, blaring incongruously from the back window of a sad little Neon, an aspiration to a goal simultaneously worthless & unobtainable, a playaz desire to be what his disguised handlers say he should be (though what he really be is cannon fodder in the culture wars), filed & forgotten by the true playaz populating the capitol of this country, a lost boy doomed by a defective cultural marker . . .

Ah, Clarksville. I resist accelerating this strip of mall of a town into a symbol, but it keeps reaching out to me, positing itself as type . . . and it promises nothing but oblivion.

I slouched down to Louisville Derby weekend of '97. I've lived in the Highlands; I now live in Butchertown. The majority of the last ten years I've worked in Clarksville. I’m not slow: it hit me between the eyes as soon as I showed up. From '98:

SPRING, NEAR THE KENNEDY

Rain ankle deep
soaks through holes in shoes.
They're dealing morphine at truck stops in Clarksville -
it's not news, friend,
nothing surprises, and little lives here.
This, then, is the promised land:

cancer as connective tissue,
a facile denial of what is, followed by the
disappearance of is:
a map spread across the passenger seat . . .

here, by this cigarette burn,
an anonymous junction of Interstate 65.
Hell is there, or hell is not.
Stories are told, rich at a dime a dozen:

and a filmist’s manufacture,
an oncologist's atmosphere . . .

and this, the promised land,
blurred with opiates
dispensed like potato chips in the Bigfoot.

I’m not wrong about this.