Discovery, now in my underwear

Less than 2 months into my diatribous blog about this sure-to-be lifebranding year and I'm already re-riffing on riffs already riffed upon. But once again, I find myself mourning over a local small business closing: not just an indie record or bookstore but the mom & pop diners that are evaporating at an alarming place (there's nowhere to nosh after last call anymore except for drivethru fastfood) and now the big army/navy store in Tampa Bay is no more.

But is the army/navy just a holdover of my formerly alterno funky DIY vibe? Finding a decent pair of combat boots in any new city I moved to was always the top of my to-do, whether it was in an innocuous Tampa Bay stripmall or a rundown part of downtown Atlanta. New York City used to be lousy with army/navys and thrift shops - I still have a canvas military camera bag that was dyed a wild blue (everything was dyed back in the '80s. That's how we recycled and marked up).

I understand the concept around military surplus and how the plan to sell reasonably wellmade items to the general public has probably lost its curb appeal. Thrift stores continue to prosper, as everyone has more crap to unload than they can hoard. And, of course, their sad evil cousins -  pawn shops - are popping up like Amscots and We Buy Gold on every corner. Why does this sting so much more than it should, since the de-evolution of retail really shouldn't bother a postmodern guy like me, but I miss the days I would wander aimlessly on a Saturday, discovering new and exciting corners of a city. Rolling down to the Target through miles of endlessly under-construction Pinellas County roads does not suffice.

In the '80s I lived for a time across the East River from Manhattan in Astoria, Queens. The elevated subway ride was short and I'd look forward to solitary Saturdays exploring the city beyond (after thorough research through the arts section of that week's Village Voice). My train would plunge underneath the river and I'd find myself in a maze of steamy passageways until emerging into the bright light somewhere around Central Park South. I'd spend the entire day straddling Broadway block after block, numbered streets counting down to historic names by sunset. Along the way, I'd enjoy a huge bookstore or two (one off of Times Square specialized in nothing but plays and theatre books), sometimes standing in the discount theatre ticket line for a matinee that had no stars, just enthusiastic understudies. If not, I'd settle on an art film or - before the happiness of home video - what was known as a revival movie house. This was in the days before Disney gentrified 42nd Street, so I stayed away from the more sticky moviehouses until I got down to the Village later on in the day. In the meantime, there were little record shops on Carmine St. to explore and the holy mecca of Tower Records to wile away the time. A bookstore on 8th St near a Haagan-Dazs, a respite in Washington Square watching the skateboarders, another bookstore on Spring Street, maybe the endless shelves of the Strand. Along the way I got to partake the bounty of tiny Chinese kitchens, pizza by the slice, stalls on St. Mark's selling jewelry and sunglasses until ultimately joining a sleepy crowd and pool game at my favorite bar.

By the mid '90s I found myself living in Atlanta without a car, but easily finding a way to reinvent solitary Saturdays - although now with less independent stores and more chains. I still remained discerning, still experienced the excitement of the possibility of discovery. A Waxtree records, indie bookstore, and Junkman's Daughter in Little Five Points was an exotic destination some weeks; the MARTA up to Lenox Mall in Buckhead to catch a movie, hit the Tower Records, HMV, two-story Borders, and a veggie sandwich at California Pizza Kitchen on others. 

Today I spend solitary Saturdays right here in front of my Mac mini, perusing used books on Amazon, rediscovering old music on iTunes, streaming forgotten film on Netflix. It's not the same, certainly -  not by a longshot. Not merely the lack of exercise or a chance meeting when you turn the corner at just the right moment. There's nothing remotely romantic nor cutting edge about shopping in your underwear. I don't know what Saturdays were supposed to be when this time of my life rolled around. I do not know what everyone else does. I know something's lost when there's less reason to leave the house and find adventure. 

First Person, on the Prairie

Like most people under 50, I didn't grow up reading first-person accounts of orphans in Dickensian London. Whether this was once a practice to make spoiled American children feel better about themselves is open to debate, but the concept that some people were compelled to share what made them evolve into the person they eventually became was a fascinating concept, especially those memoirs rich in detail about another time, another place.

I got on this kick thanks to a grade school teacher who would calm our class, drained from a lunchtime in the tropical heat, by reading aloud the exploits of that frontier rebel, Laura Ingalls, and her constantly on-the-move clan. I discovered through her books innumerable life lessons: how homes could have lawns for roofs (how sustainable!); how you could make dessert by draining a maple tree's syrup onto a bowl of fresh snow; and how - suddenly - your sister could go blind. Life was tough for Laura, but she spared no detail about her little houses, and eventually, little towns.

This was the reason I began my first series of memoirs, using my own family's frequent moving to bracket my 1970s exploits ("Little House by the Orange Grove"?) But, of course, I hadn't done any actual growing up during my growing up, so there wasn't much material to draw upon. Maybe I didn't actually create anything more than design the book covers for each volume - less a writer-in-hoping than a marketer-in-waiting.

Caveat about the TV series: it appeared just as I was old enough to grow a bullshit meter concerning Hollywood's attempts at audience manipulation, so I was not a viewer, preferring the more Eastern philosophies, of, say, Bosom Buddies and Soap.

I wound up spending the remainder of my growing-up years stumbling upon other guys growing up and writing it all down, even if there was little factual about it: Holden Caulfield, Sal Paradise, the fabulously freaked-out Berrys and Louis de Lioncourt all entranced me with palpable first-person narratives until I reached the end of my education in 1985 with the minimalist percussion of Clay's trip home from Bennington. Only then was I ready to begin recording and reshaping my own recollections of what I'd learned (or clearly hadn't) in my young life.

As an adult, I have rarely gone back to fiction for escape, instead continuing to seek out that rare glimpse of wide-eyed, sober detail that only someone who has been there to tell the tale can give me. (I remember girls in college carrying around Anais Nin's diaries when they should have been perusing Frida Kahlo's) I defy anyone to get through either Chris Rose or Joshua Clark's blow-by-blow of life both during and right after Hurricane Katrina without burning their own diaries and journals in envious disgust. Published letters are a particular vice as well, reviving both an archaic means of communication while mining the daily decisions of artists like William Burroughs and Tennessee Williams. 

So, what happened to my own cautionary tale? Like many young writers, I first attempted to disguise fact as fiction in order to protect the innocent while adding flourish to what was usually mundane. By the time I got back to memoir, it had became more of a self-analytic exercise, not something for others to read. (When I transitioned from the written word to the image, I wondered if I would compose self-portraits or vistas of my favorite "thinking spots". I did not.) I await, I suppose, a decidedly meaningful event to occur and hope I'm in the right place, time and state of mind to make sense of it, render its painfully scented details and be prepared to present myself in the process of growing up.