It’s summer in America and something stinks. No, it’s not The Jonas Sisters. (Although, I’m sure they’re somehow part of the problem). It’s the creeping death of small town America, and it’s happening right now on the outskirts of a town near you at every day low prices.

Sonic Burger and Family Dollar. KFC and Wal-Mart. Big Box Chain this and über-strip-mall that… Businesses that don’t care about the unique histories of the communities they profit from are swallowing up cheap land just off the interstate and establishing a flavorless beach-head of mindless consumerism. As far as I’m concerned this is a cultural hate-crime in which the victims exchange their silence for a shot at the guaranteed lowest price on a tub of margarine.  Here’s where some people stop reading and turn into armchair economists and citizens for The Availability of Less Expensive Baby Formula.

“People have the right to shop wherever they want, Mussolini!”
“Hey T-Shirt Man, these chains provide jobs and inexpensive goods to people trying to save money!”

True. The following is also true: Pakistani Madrases provide free meals and education to children in need, and it would be cheaper to manufacture most US goods in China.  Yes, I just invoked terrorism and communism to make the following point: the quality of our future experience is sewn in our near term choices and deserves more consideration than a knee-jerk reaction to economy and convenience. Our dollars are leaving our communities as profits and the jobs these big boxes create are usually at the expense of better paying jobs that were cannibalized in the process.

And as far as the frugality of the average American is concerned, penny pinching predates the shopping mall by more than a few millennia. The caveman managed his pebbles and Marian Cunningham clipped her coupons. Indeed the human compulsion to bargain and economize is nothing new. What is new, however, is the apathy the American populous displays in the face of driving an extra mile to patronize a local book seller or in thinking twice about giving money to businesses that, in the great corporate roll-up, view our small towns as just another column on an endless spreadsheet.

I’ve seen it for a thousand miles: small towns suffering blight because a mere ten miles away, right next to I-Whatever, squats a mega-sprawl of towering plastic signage and black asphalt, funneling local dollars into bottomless beige boxes in exchange for an average thing of average quality. When our local landmarks fall down, when these businesses die, so does a large part of our individual histories and the experience of our unique geography. Towns start to take on the same proportions, dimensions, color and purpose. Small Town America is fast becoming Same Town America and that sad, broken place you have to drive through on the way to somewhere else.

Despite this tide, I have to think that a higher understanding of our unique experiences will prevail in the end. That people will choose Hodad’s over McDonalds, Lou’s Records over Walmart and Pappy & Harriet’s over Applebee’s. Not because they saved a dollar and the parking was ample, but because they’ve found a higher value in the sharing of something unique. Because in the end when all is tolled, it will be our experiences that will matter most, not how much we saved in the process.

From somewhere out there,
Gabe

T-Shirt farming might be a glamorous profession, but even the most dedicated scout needs the occasional break from its glory and fame. So while HQ was busy not considering my vacation request, I was busy packing a bag for a little nine day cattle drive I heard about just a few days travel from Austin, TX. This event is unique in that it encourages the full participation of novices in the hands-on herding of bulls and steers. No experience necessary. No liability waiver required. And as if one needed extra incentive to participate in such a thing, the hosting town suspends the drinking age for the event and allows the bars to stay open 24hrs. Heaven? Close. Welcome to Where the Sun Also Rises. Greetings from Pamplona, Spain.

No one is exactly sure when this bad idea officially began, but fools have been gladly plunging head-first into its unique form of madness since the 13th or 14th century. I, for one, find comfort in knowing that, despite all we have learned as a species in the last 600 years, the primal need to prove our stupidity to our fellow man can still trump our better judgment.

Indications: Marinate a few thousand people in alcohol. Let simmer in the Spanish sun. When sufficiently pickled, pour mixture into a narrow and sangria stained, cobble-stoned street prior to sunrise. Add two parts fear, one part confusion, thirteen parts horned beast, a pinch of adrenaline and serve without warning. Consume with chaos at a dead sprint.

One can learn a tremendous amount about one’s self in 20 Spanish seconds. And while some of this self knowledge will not be flattering, its truth grants the holder a certain degree of forgiveness and clarity. Knowledge. Truth. Forgiveness. Clarity. This is the stuff of of the first confession—absolution coming on the heels of a stampede.

A brave man died this week on a Spanish street slick with the spoils of celebration. To those watching from the safety of the barricades and flowered balconies, he was just another fool who got what he asked for. I even get the feeling that some here welcomed his fate as it provided the missing justification for a morning spent as a spectator praying for a blood letting, instead of a participant desperately trying to avoid one. I don’t know what it is in man that drives him to choose between these two stations. Risk and venture seems to be our evolutionary mandate. We left the cave, took to the seas and even lassoed the moon. Each of these steps gravid with peril. Maybe it’s the lure of comfort and the false hopes of security that have bent us to the point where we’re more comfortable watching the trials of the world from our couches and behind barricades than from the cobblestones where we expose ourselves to uncertainty and the all-fateful mistake.

The only thing I am certain of is that as humans we will always crave the experience; whether it be our own or the vicarious residue of another’s. The pursuit of love unrequited. The thrill of a death cheated. The unknown turns of an open road. I guess that is why I traveled half way around the world to run scared and why I choose as my profession to wander America. Viewed in their pieces it may appear to some that I am lost, but from a fair distance and with the right kind of eyes one can hopefully see the deliberate design of a life and its purpose: to one day die an interesting man.

From somewhere under the Spanish sun,
Gabe

The road I travel in pursuit of what I seek quite often takes many a strange turn. Some turns bear fruit, some dead end and others just meander for miles, past strange houses and towns with no names. And so it was with the turn that lead me to the The Deep Eddy Cabaret on a hot and humid afternoon in Austin, TX. I went to meet a man who had spent years meticulously documenting all that lurks inside the road houses, dive bars and taverns of the Texas Hill Country and would know more about what I needed in this town than any man for five hundred miles. He would impart this knowledge to me freely at The Deep Eddy but would not come alone. This is how I came to be inducted into The Deep Eddy Men’s Club.

Their number was five. A father, two sons, a cousin and an old friend. There was even a woman among their ranks, which speaks to the sublime nature of their order. The problem with men’s clubs has always been the presence of too many men. Read on…