Magic Jewball

all signs point to no

 

Another travelogue

Filed under : America,Travel
On March 30, 2006
At 8:33 pm
Comments : 2

Tomorrow I jet off to…steam off to….argh, I’m taking the train to Baltimore. Charm City. Of course you knew that it’s called that, didn’t you? I know you think charming when you hear Baltimore. Well, I’m here to tell you that it is. The other name for it, that is when I was in college, was “The City That Reads.” This was plastered on park benches and the like. The running joke was that the tagline should actually be “the city that breeds” since it had the highest teen pregnancy rate in the country. Everyone was so proud.

Once, when I lived down there, someone had defaced the sign on the bus that said “For your safety, please ride behind the yellow line” to instead state its case in Bawlmawrese, so it read, “Fo yo safety….” Yes, this is Baltimore, where even vandalism is clever.

Sadly, my favorite radio station, WHFS, is gone. When I first arrived at school, it was free-form. And when “Enjoy the Silence” by Depeche Mode came out, I called to request it and they laughed at me and hung up. Well, that’s not precisely true. First they told me they had already played it that day. Can you imagine a radio station today only playing something once a day? Ye gods. So I asked, “Could you tell me what time you’ll be playing it tomorrow?” That’s when the laughter and hanging up commenced.

And then there was that Nine Inch Nails show in 1990 at Hammerjacks. It was so crowded you didn’t need a bra. Other humans kept your breasts afloat. I think Hammerjacks is gone too. Pity.

As you can guess, I worked at the record store when I was in college, down at the Inner Harbor. There, in the boredom of selling overpriced CD’s to tourists, we honed our snappy answers to stupid questions. A sample:

Q. Do you have Ice Tea?
A. No, we’re a record store, we don’t sell drinks.

Q. Do you have Anthrax?
A. How could I be talking to you if I did?

Q. Can you show me your 12 inch section?
A. Um…..

And so forth. Hilarious.

Yes, these were the days when I couldn’t use an ATM because the minimum was $20 and I never had that much in there. So I’d write a check to myself for $7 and cash it at the teller’s window. Good times, good times. I think I’ll buy a diamond when I’m down there. With cash.

BTW, I am terribly sorry that I couldn’t figure out the comments function until today. They’re all up there now and thanks for your kind thoughts. Just to bring this full circle, I notice that some of my readers are in college. Rock on! Please take heed to the time I blew an unexpected windfall on kamikazes for myself and my buddies and ended up spending the night on the floor of my bathroom so I could hang out near my dear friend, the toilet. So if you drink, drink responsibly – near a bathroom.