The Unintended Consequences of the Dollar Menu

Last week I went into the McDonald’s Express on 7th Avenue, not because I had any particular craving, just because I’ve come to recognize the McDonald’s (and the even more ubiquitous Starbucks) logo as the international symbol for “public restroom.” At the Express, the menu’s focus is the dollar menu. Now, in a large city, this draws a very specific demographic from the lower end of the economic spectrum. The place was populated almost entirely by sad old folks who are unwilling or unable to shop and/or cook for themselves, and by the apparently homeless and/or just plain crazy. I’m not saying it was like visiting the set of The Fisher King, but it was not your average fast food crowd.

Because I’ve learned my lesson not to use a business’s bathroom without buying something[1], I bought a $1 burger and Coke and sat down to eat (the line for the bathroom had two older ladies in front of me). An older gent sat down next to me and greeted the lady to his right with familiarity; apparently this McDonald’s is the neighborhood cafeteria, or more like the local bar for people whose drinking days are behind them.

Having seen the film version of Fast Food Nation, I’m always aware that there is a reason why the meat costs $1. I don’t eat at McDonald’s often enough for it to matter to my health[2], but it scared me to imagine that these poor souls do. And as fewer young people seem to know how to cook these days, the number of individuals on this particularly sad trajectory will only increase[3].

I’d like to blame McDonald’s or capitalism or whatever Big Evil people like to shoot at, but really it comes down to the individual’s choice of convenience. Cooking a meal requires grocery shopping, pots and pans to wash, and the time and labor of cooking. The only way out of this mess is to get people to enjoy cooking a meal or at least view it as something that must be done, like brushing your teeth. My crackpot scheme would be to change public schooling such that Home Economics is a senior-level, yearlong course; because everything I learned in Home Ec, I forgot by the time I went to college. Nutrition education needs to be expanded in there as well; kids need to know that McDonald’s should be the gustatory equivalent of candy – something that is not to be consumed in large daily quantities. But then there are a lot of things I’d like to change about public schools…

And so it goes.

1.) In ’06 I was locked in to a restaurant over near 48th street after I was seen using the restroom without buying something.
2.) I get the jones for a quarter pounder with cheese about once every three months, milkshakes one month.
3.) I am reminded of a defendant in my dad’s court whose justification for writing hot checks to Burger King was “I had to eat, your honor.” My father then informed the accused of the wonders of the grocery store, particularly the produce aisle.

The Week in Photos

I haven’t done much today, but I did run some errands up the street, which allowed me to take some pictures of the antique store and some interesting neighbor’s yard. There’s also a guy on Court Street who sits in the small window of what appears to be a shop of some kind, but I can’t see past him, and I’m not sure which door is his. I’m afraid to take his picture. I’ll have to figure that out some time.

Last night I went out to The Tea Lounge, which is a great little jazz venue and tea shop on Union in Park Slope. After that I went to Joe’s Pub to see the always delightful Mike Viola play. No pictures, sorry, because the weather was warm enough for me that I didn’t need my coat. Listen to his tunes, though. He’s like a happier Crowded House.

I guess most of the latest pictures are from last Saturday. Lauren and I went to the Knitting Factory to see Edan and Prince Paul, who together gave me my first truly revelatory hip-hop show. Edan is a virtuoso – he’s an MC, a DJ, and guitarist (with the fancy chords, no less!). Sometimes all at once.

Earlier in the day I wandered around Manhattan, taking pictures of whatever jumped out at me: the cat at Bleecker St. Records, Rebel Rebel music store, traffic, the famous Chelsea Hotel and its attendant guitar shop, and various sundry flea market items.

Oh, and here’s a picture of Rob Riggle from The Daily Show, who apparently decided not to use my footage this last week. Maybe they’re saving it for next week, but here’s footage that was taken that day.

The Internet Isn’t All That Big

Amy IM’d me this evening to tell me about this group she’s been listening to. I checked out their myspace page, and read their amazing bio – two musicians who were fans of each other, met up, and eventually married. What a neat coincidence for them, I thought. Then I scrolled down to their comments section, and the most recent comment was left by none other than my friend Elizabeth!

My other recent coincidence was meeting my new friend Lauren via Flickr. I just happened to add this picture of her to my favorites because I found it on Atticus‘s favorites list. She sent me a message, and it turns out we live in the same neighborhood, work in the same neighborhood, and we both did a semester abroad in London, where we lived on the same street three years apart.

My life is beginning to resemble on episode of Lost. Actually I feel more like Richard Dreyfuss, staring at his mound of mashed potatoes, going, “this means something.”

Guitar to the Rescue

I stayed home from work today because everything below my esophagus is kaput. OK, it’s not that bad, but my digestive system has caught the office bug, in addition to suffering almost 3 weeks of nervous stress. I’ve been on edge every day, not sleeping well, and assuming it will go away as I get a better handle on things. But as I get a better handle on things, I realize how much is in front of me.

I’ve always been the type of worker who has a personal stake in my performance. I want to please people, and when they’re not pleased, I internalize that. But I need to let it go. I need to separate the business from the personal. So today I got some rest, and tried to get my mind off work. I tried meditating, but I’m not good enough at it to completely clear my head. Tonight I was reminded of what works for me: guitar practice. I haven’t really funneled heavy stress into practicing in a long time. I played for about two hours and it really helped. In addition to helping me let go of everything, it also improves my chops. My Eric Johnson strat is a great guitar for practicing like this because it’s not so easy to play. It puts up a fight, and that’s even better.

I can’t say the stress is gone for good, but I can say that I’ve found a workable way to decompress. I don’t know how you regular humans do it without a musical instrument.

October 2006

The seeds of my current shift in residence were planted in October of 2006, when Tara, Joe and I took a trip to New York. I knew that I wanted to see the Zappa Plays Zappa tour, and figured it would come nowhere near Arkansas, so catching them in New York on Halloween seemed like the best idea. Little did I know that the places I would go and people I would meet would eventually cause this massive upheaval in my life.

This morning I realized that the pictures that I took during that trip were never uploaded to Flickr, so I uploaded them just now. If you were here for the travelogue, then you’ve seen the pictures.

It only took me a year and two months since that trip to get here.

I’ll Be on TV in Two Countries

Union Square is an interesting place. It’s apparently the epicenter for TV crews looking for man-on-the-street footage. Walking to Quizno’s this afternoon I was asked by a Japanese TV crew to tell me about movies I would watch for Valentine’s Day. I said The Apartment, because it is romantic even though it’s not your traditional romantic comedy. Then they asked for something more recent, so I just said Almost Famous, because it’s a movie that has some things to say about love, and it’s a movie I always have to make sure gets seen by those who haven’t seen it.

Just after that, I turn around, and there’s Rob Riggle from The Daily Show, asking people who they’re voting for and then shooting them free t-shirts from his t-shirt cannon. I wasn’t sure if they were staging something so I just stayed out of the way and took a picture. I went on to Quizno’s still impressed by my contribution to Japanese televsion.

On the way back, Riggle was still there, this time asking for volunteers so I stepped up and said I was voting for Obama. Truthfully I hadn’t actually decided between him and Hillary, but it was the first thing that popped into my head so it must be my preference, right? It’s not like I’m actually voting in the primaries anyway.

So it looks like I’m going to be on The Daily Show! I don’t know when; I’m not sure what the turnaround time is on the correspondent segments, but I’ll post the link as soon as I see it on www.thedailyshow.com.

Oh, and the shirt? It’s grey and says “Will Work for Freedom.”

A Revelatory Walk to the Grocery Store

It’s cold out, and I need to save money, so I only left the house once this weekend, and that was to go to the grocery store. It’s only a few blocks away, and yet I kept finding things worth photographing. The sky was clear, the light was perfect, and the dreary neighborhood just seemed to come alive. I started to notice the subtle differences between my neighbors’ doors; each one told a different story: one classy, one grumpy, one…trying too hard? I even noticed the peculiar remainders of windows past above the dentist’s office. Even the overbearing condos seemed pretty.

My neighbors are a widely varied bunch. Elephant figurine collectors live alongside people with unfortunate dietary habits. And of course, the recently departed eccentric Vinnie Russo, with his Styrofoam crosses, I Love Hawaii stickers and peculiar taste in yard ornaments.

Down Smith Street, even the scrapyard held my interest. I found a happy fire hydrant and an unhappy phone cradle living along the Gowanus Canal, in the shadow of the mighty green Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.

I have to say that I was quite proud of my work that day.

Attention New York Musicians

Stop using the word “bear” in your bands’ names. I was just perusing a recent issue of The Deli, and there were two features right next to each other of the young bands Bearclaws and Bear Hands. A few pages later a two-page spread on Lucinda Black Bear. And there’s a band from New England called Big Bear, in addition to Brooklyn’s Grizzly Bear, who I think can safely be credited with starting this thing. Stop the madness!

Interestingly enough it took an Arkansas band to make me sensitive to this trend. Bear Colony, whom I’ve written about for Localist, chose their name after their previous moniker, Brothers + Sisters, was already taken.