The Collegian Court

There's really nothing I like better than to wander into a restaurant with good food and a perfect atmosphere.

This feels so "Stuff White People Like" to say, but yeah, there is something really great about authenticity, or at least the ILLUSION of authenticity. About going somewhere that feels untouched by time-- not like you're stepping back in time, but as if you are stepping OUT of time. And time passes differently. You are so entranced with the music, the lights, the wallpaper, and the speed that your decrepit old waitress moves, that you can't tell if it's been an hour or ten minutes since you ordered.

Well, I went someplace like that yesterday. It's a Polish restaurant in Chicopee, MA called the Collegian Court. My friends who'd been there before said it was necessary to go, so 7 people piled into a Buick, drove to Chicopee and tried to find this restaurant. It was a grey, wet day and the brick buildings and empty streets of Chicopee seemed so sad. There were a few men zooming down the street on scooter wheelchairs, a couple of kids walking alone, and a group of younger men in suits standing awkwardly outside of a church. It took us a really long time of driving in circles to find the restaurant, but when we did, it was so worth it.

We walked inside into a dark bar/lounge area. I think there was an elderly couple sitting there. Past that was the empty dining room, where two old waitresses squabbled over where we could sit. The first thing I heard anyone say was "that table is reserved for the funeral!" The other waitress led us to a circular table and said "she's confused. Isn't this perfect? Seven chairs, seven people. Isn't this a good table?"

My friend Jennifer, always ready to converse with seemingly odd people replied, "yes! I really like how it's a circle." That seemed to satisfy the waitress and she went away.

The funeral party arrived and sat at the far end of the dining room from us.

As if the situation wasn't Lynchian enough, Bobby Vinton was playing over the speakers. "Mr. Lonely" and "Blue Velvet." The old waitress came back to give us coffee. It was painful to watch her move around the table so slowly. "I'm not a waitress," she told us.

Our waitress, it turned out, was an extremely frazzled young woman who kept forgetting what we'd ordered and almost overcharged us to an absurd extent.

The food was excellent, but like I said, I have no idea how long we waited for it. Bobby Vinton was replaced by traditional Polish music. They never refilled our coffee or gave us more water. It didn't really matter. It was a cool place. Even the funeral party seemed to be having a pretty good time. Only thing is that I kept hearing the voice of a child, but couldn't spot one in the restaurant, which didn't make much sense because the only people there were my party and the funeral party.

I got a loaf of pumpkin bread to go. We got back into the car and left. As we drove away from the Collegian Court, I wondered if I'd ever be able to go back. If I'd be able to make it back to Chicopee and find my way to that street corner. I wondered if it would still be there and I left the sad town of Chicopee for Northampton and realized why I hate it here.

Northampton must have looked just like Chicopee once, another New England town full of laid-off factory workers, before those fucks pumped so much money into it and created this monstrous pseudo-utopian post-hippie, socially liberal, Asian fusion loving, organic food buying, hemp wearing bubble of bourgeois denial. How many laid-off factory workers do you think found jobs at the vegan restaurant, the fair-trade cafe, at the Buddha statue peddling Orientalisms 'R Us, at the vintage clothing stores or cheap "ethnic" chachki gift shops?

Northampton is just as sad as Chicopee, but even moreso, because here they pretend there's nothing wrong. And restaurants like the Collegian Court can't exist here, because they're so old and depressing. Because the waitstaff can barely move. Because the service is awful.

And where are the old people here? Not the ones protesting the war, but the REAL old people. The sad old people. The ones who go to early bird specials and stare at eachother. I miss them.

So I guess that's all there is to say. I hope to find more pockets of pure weird beauty in Western Mass. Chicopee gave me hope. Northampton still disgusts me. Maybe it will change my mind.

why yes, in fact, we CAN

The first memory I have of an election is of going to a Bob Dole rally in 1996 with my friend Dita and her family.

I asked my dad one day in the car what the difference was between a democrat and a republican. He explained that democrats cared about poor people, while republicans cared about rich people getting richer. I have since realized that it's a bit more complicated than that, but I was seven years old and I don't blame him for trying to simplify things for me.

Oddly enough, I don't remember the actual 1996 election, just the elephant shaped fireworks at the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda and my father's clarification of the two party system.

The only presidential elections, before tonight, that I had ever really experienced were those of 2000, at the beginning of my political consciousness, and 2004, when that consciousness had developed. I watched my young hopes crushed by the same dumbass twice in a row. I guess that's just what I thought presidential elections were and would always be: disappointing and sometimes crooked.

This presidential election, I was determined not to make the same mistake. I voted for my main man Representative Kucinich in the primary and refused to take a side in the Clinton v. Obama debacle. I even managed not to hear Obama speak until he accepted the nomination at the DNC. It took considerable effort, especially considering that my parents have been supporting him since he announced he was running. By the end of the primaries, I knew I was going to vote for him, but I didn't want to get emotionally involved.

Well, I heard that DNC speech and bawled. He had me there. The man can speak, what can I say?

Tonight I do not regret my emotional involvement. I wasn't the only one looking for a reminder of what the American ideal is.

At 11 PM Eastern Standard Time, just as my dad predicted would happen, Barack Hussein Obama was announced the president elect of the United States of America.

It was, as we have heard so many times, a historic moment for African Americans and all marginalized ethnic groups, a historic moment for persons of multi-ethnic backgrounds.

I don't need to say that electing Barack Obama does not mean that we have finally overcome racism. I think that's pretty obvious.

Tonight's victors are the world's idealists. We who see that things are really really fucked, but nonetheless have hope.

Thank you Mr. President-Elect. Thank you for helping us have that hope.

For the first time in my life, lying in my dorm room bed wrapped up in a sheet and listening to Chuck Berry, my love for my country makes perfect sense.

When holidays fuck you in the face

Maybe it's just a part of growing up, but I don't enjoy holidays as much as I used to.

When did birthdays start to suck?

When did Christmas become so unbelievably depressing?

When did Halloween turn into "let's do what we do every weekend except we're in costume and we'll get even MORE fucked up"?

Maybe all of those childhood memories build up impossible expectations. Maybe I think that if I do the holiday just right, I'll be able to go back somehow to that idealized time that never was. That feeling of autumn excitement when it's actually becoming fall and you need to start wearing a jacket, that strange, wonderful feeling of being publicly in costume, the anxiety on the way to school that maybe you messed up somehow and it's not really Halloween, and then the relief when you see the other kids in their monster masks and angel wings. Trick or treating or handing out candy while watching scary movies. Even in high school I had a lot of fun on Halloween. Sure there'd be substance abuse, but there would also be movies. The spirit was still there.

This Halloween was a disaster. My plans for a horrorfest went to shit because I couldn't connect the projector to my computer and no PCs would recognize my external harddrive. There were no movies, only drunk girls in costumes dancing on my beloved, now deceased, glasses.

November 1st and July 8th were always my least favorite days of the year. The day after Halloween and the day after my birthday. Now they've become a day when I can breathe. Phew, a whole year until I have to deal with that ordeal again.

Next up is Thanksgiving. Good thing I never liked that holiday.

Still, I have hope. I have a whole year until the next Halloween. Maybe I'll get it right this time...