So, yes, my son was born week before last. If there's one thing about birth stories I've learned over the last ten months of anticipation and anxiety, it's that they're all distressingly unique. At one extreme you have folks who are in labor for 52 hours with 21 hours of pushing, ending in a C-section and emergency quintuple transplant operation to save the baby. On the other end, you have dain bramaged women who head for the bathroom stall to pass the most massive, squalling, squirming dump of their lives. They swear they didn't know they were pregnant. I would believe this less if I hadn't experienced first-hand a women sitting on a plate of KFC chicken bones for an evening and not noticing until she got up to take a leak. But I'm not going to bore you with our own little birthing drama… at least for now.
No, this week's installment is a simple rant. Just in case you might think that witnessing the miracle of my son's birth has in some way depleted my supply of bile, I'd like to write about something that's bugging the crap out of me.
The Bug Up My Ass: who really cares whether or not San Jose is a "city"?
What is it with San Jose's inferiority complex? Why are politicians and developers constantly trying to dump gazillions of dollars into attempts to "revitalize" downtown San Jose so that it can be a "real city"? Other than inflating the egos of politicians and developers, what's the point? Other than an attempt to fatten the wallets of a few politicians/"consultants" and developers, and give yuppie drones yet another Starbucks to lay down their ill-gotten six bucks for burnt-bean juice, what's the point? If I wanted to live in a shithole piled high with vandalism, trash, urine-reeking homeless folks, way too many chic clubs and restaurants, and criminally bad parking, I'd move to San Francisco where I'd get to pay as much as I do now for my suburban box so that I could sublet a room with a latent lesbian and her psychotic cat. No thanks.
There's something about living in such surroundings that tweaks the mind. Have you ever noticed how, when city-folk meet for the first time, there's a whole territory-establishing, butt-sniffing thing that goes on?
"So, where do you live?"
"34th and Robber Baron Street."
"Oh really? I live in the Armpit, 72nd and Sixties Activist Way, but the rent is great."
"Yeah, I had to shag the landlord's pet goat to get my studio, but there's a very chic Thai-Ugandan fusion place around the corner and my car gets broken into only every other week."
No thanks.
What is wrong with accepting San Jose for what it is: a vast suburban wasteland with the merest bump of a downtown? Hell, we can't even keep our symphony in business. This past season San Jose was the soccer capital of the United States, but that's like saying Hämeenlinna is the softball capital of Finland. Nobody cares.
There are a few things that I really enjoy about San Jose: riding the light rail from my doorstep to just about anywhere I need to be in downtown, the awesome library system, the used bookstores, and the fact that it's not San Francisco. The world already has a South San Francisco. It doesn't need another one in the heart of Silicon Valley.
To those who find themselves stuck in San Jose and bemoaning the lack of big city character, I say get the fuck out and wallow in your urban sty of choice. Let me shop at Home Depot in peace, dammit.
Pakeha