Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Post
  • Reply
Coolguye
Jul 6, 2011

Required by his programming!

there's a couple places like this in the Great Empty between places in kansas, one or two of which have the temerity to self-describe as a 'gentlemen's club'.

one of my day trip ideas is to unironically hang out in one of them just to see how weird of an experience it is.

to be clear, i'm not trying to pretend like i don't belong in horny jail for this post. but after seeing both the best and worst of what strip clubs have to offer in four major cities i find myself unable to quite visualize what to expect from one in the middle of nowhere. does it adhere to the small town america standard of "aggressively average, but also overtly sad and lovely" or is it the horrifying tribute to depression and decay that defines "downtown" in most of these towns

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Coolguye
Jul 6, 2011

Required by his programming!

we used to call these 'tank towns' in the south because the only way you know the name of the town half the time is it's pasted on the water tower tank


Tarkus posted:

I think Americana is pretty interesting in a way. It's like a memory of a memory of a culture that once existed that is now mass produced in China or sold piecemeal at Michaels. Nothing new created, just a slavish adherence to an aesthetic that is comical in its mimicry.
disagree. china and large corporations have relatively little to do with it. a lot of the reason why the small town americana patchwork has a lot of pathos is because it is, in a lot of theoretical ways, the original affluent society that people sometimes romanticize with hunter-gatherer tribes and poo poo.

the assumption goes something like: everyone knows each other. life is simple and uncomplicated. everyone has enough to eat and drink and has access to community medicine and recreation. there's enough space to go around, but there's also an ok number of people present, so nobody is either too crowded or too lonely. nobody works too hard, but nobody is too lazy, either. everyone pulls together in this wholesome little mini-society.

the reality, of course, is that much like the hunter-gatherer tribes of old, there's lots of deviations from all that which makes it at best a quaint delusion and at worst a vicious lie. with hunter-gatherer tribes it's just straight violence, because it turns out that tribes of a couple hundred people will fight each other over food/water/tools/women on a nearly yearly basis and it's hard to have an 'affluent society' when your chance of being murdered or abducted as raid loot on a yearly basis is a double digit percent, and that's even assuming if you're fine with getting a grass poultice for a cut rather than neosporin and gauze.

americana's deviation is that it turns out that it's insane to expect every person to slot nicely into the huxleyesque top-down vision of what the wholesome mini-society is and should be, and whatever finely checked and balanced micro-economy you had going during the golden decade of GAYS ALABAMA is most probably not going to exist in another 15 years when little bobby and shelly grow up. and that's assuming that your mini-society isn't implicitly reliant upon the big crazy world you're seeking to escape in the first place, like the coal towns of west virginia that collapsed when the world decided they didn't need to set their lovely rocks on fire anymore.

this is also why americana is so goddamned funny despite having the underlying aura of decay and tragedy. everything is kinda lovely because it's built on a delusion and a stubborn refusal to change, but the delusion is generally so obvious to someone who's thought about the ramifications for more than a few minutes that it seems impossible to think that the idiots who bought into it didn't see it on some level or another.

e: i feel like it's important to be clear that americana in this context is specifically Smallville USA poo poo. city living is completely different, suburbia is completely different, actual country living is completely different. specifically talking about these tiny towns of a few thousand souls that don't really have a reason to exist but keep plodding on through a twisted combination of momentum, welfare checks, and fear of the unknown.

Coolguye fucked around with this message at 21:13 on Dec 28, 2020

Coolguye
Jul 6, 2011

Required by his programming!


for whatever reason getting this from google maps is giving me a weird chromatic aberration when it screengrab it, but this scrap heap is actually a casino. when i was going through college like 15 years ago i'd make weekend trips down here to play blackjack because it was the only casino lovely enough to not catch you counting cards.

i shouldn't say the only one. there's a lot of other warehouse casinos around this part of oklahoma. but it's the one i found first on a map.

https://www.google.com/maps/@36.9211558,-94.8370936,3a,75y,147.82h,94.42t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sZv9bD4VbWuBP2HIdWeNNHg!2e0!7i16384!8i8192

Coolguye fucked around with this message at 22:08 on Dec 28, 2020

Coolguye
Jul 6, 2011

Required by his programming!

Enfys posted:

that sounds nice :3: chicken shows are similar

chicken shows are loving hysterical in the most wholesome way. just a bunch of rednecks who know they are rednecks laughing their asses off at how their beloved birds are acting like stupid assholes and putting their stupid rear end in a top hat birds into stupid rear end in a top hat situations.

it's like a pet island goon meetup.

Coolguye
Jul 6, 2011

Required by his programming!

Tarkus posted:

Somebody felt the need to post a picture of their meal.



There are other pictures from that casino of some of the grossest meals. Are the meals free or cheap there?

[edit] I guess looking at it, it's not that bad but everything there is slathered in syrup or gravy with everything cooked on a dirty flat top

that's basically it. the food in all of those places is just standard slop that's mostly made with a toaster and a microwave. then you drench it in something that covers up how bland and utilitarian the actual food is and hope the cat you're selling it to is too dumb or distracted to notice. which is actually a pretty safe bet, we're talking about a warehouse casino in backwater oklahoma. only the stupidest rednecks and the most degenerate gamblers end up there. i saw a lot of body hair, red-rimmed eyes, and soulless faces in my time there, and much more than the hellish grind of sitting there doing mental math for hours on end, that is what kept me from ever going back once my tuition was paid and i didn't NEED to count cards anymore.

as for the price, i couldn't tell you. the smell in that place was always enough to kill my appetite to the point that i'd have starved before eating a drat thing. which wasn't entirely the food's fault to be fair, but it sure wasn't helping.

usually when i went down to get paid, i'd stick to big chain companies for my food and shelter because i didn't feel like i would get botulism for just walking in the place. it's kind of why i always get a chuckle whenever people lament the loss of mom and pop stores. i get that they provide some unique culture and exclusive selections in the yuppie corner of suburbia, but in small towns the small, independent motels are the ones that have been infested with roaches and bedbugs for months on end, and the corner eateries are way more likely to season their sandwiches with salmonella and heap on the hepatitis than they are to give you your very own deep digestive discovery like you saw on diners, drive-ins, and dives.

pile on the fact that the people owning these joints are rarely the sweet, passionate, kindly old men and women that yuppies envision and are more often arrogant, bloated, red-faced Boss Hogg wannabes or self-entitled scumsucking harpies that are used to people kissing their asses because they're the only option in town for X, Y, and Z and real quick you start preferring the cold corporate machine of holiday inn express and arby's.

Coolguye
Jul 6, 2011

Required by his programming!

ClamdestineBoyster posted:

Man that’s a harsh review. Sometimes when I go to small towns I start freaking out thinking everyone is borg, but then I realize they all know each other because like 4000 people live there and people say different words from what other folks say. :tinfoil:

i do have good things to say about small towns, but it all kind of wilts when you realize that when your entire life is a couple thousand people, there's no reward for working hard and being good at what you do. if you've got any kind of ambition at all beyond fitting in with your community and having a low stress life, small town americana's rose-encrusted, gold-gated enclaves end up being thorn-rimmed prisons where your fellow inmates paint molten brass on the rusting bars and rotting hinges so they can keep telling the passers-by it's gold.

Coolguye
Jul 6, 2011

Required by his programming!

Enfys posted:

I don't doubt what you say and don't think I'd enjoy living in one of these towns, but fitting in with your community and having a low stress life sounds pretty nice tbh

it is. anyone who says that small town americana is without its appeals isn't being completely honest. there's lots of things you can just do in small towns that would be weird enough to be unacceptable. a good example is just like, neighbor favors. example: i personally hate going to the grocery store. even if it's nearby, it's just the most unproductive, boring waste of time i can think of. so i just cut a deal with my neighbor that i'd mow his lawn while i was out doing mine if he'd pick up my grocery list when he went to the store and slip me the receipt so i could get him back on the money. it worked out great, especially in my small town, because the store was 15 minutes away and even above and beyond the time you spend shopping, i saved 30 minutes of my life just driving there and back. spoilers, with just THAT time i was almost done with the lawns.

in suburbia, this sort of arrangement would fill most people with anxiety because there's a bunch of corollary questions. can i count on you to do an acceptably good job with my lawn for the HOA and standards of the neighborhood? what if i get the wrong brands for you at the store? how do i know you're going to pay me every week? this crap goes on and on until you finally just throw up your hands and decide it's not worth the trouble, at which point you've abandoned that connection with your neighbor and also accepted this stressor as part of your life to be 'normal'. welcome to suburbia! none of these things come up in small towns because even if standards are higher than the normal mediocrity, that's known to everyone and there's known ways to handle any misunderstandings. it's just not as hard as a lot of these intrapersonal relationships can be in urban and suburban life.

the problem, of course, is that that's all the further it goes. that's where the value proposal ends. on one hand, working lovely jobs leaves you with more bandwidth to do things you want, but those things you want are ultimately gonna be pointless due to how few people there are around. working at a corner gas station in tinytown usa left me with tons of time to write short stories and refine my skills in isolation; much more so than corpbrand kum-n-go or retail hell in suburbia (i did the latter working at RadioShack a bit later, which is the first time i heard 'time enough to lean, time enough to clean', and the sentiment made me want to snap my manager's worthless neck). but after i had written those stories, there was nobody to share it with and grow beyond that, so if i ever wanted to build beyond that dabble, i needed to be elsewhere. same goes with being a truly good anything - cook, programmer, doctor, lawyer, whatever. these places are mediocrity traps and the slow decay and ebbing elegance is basically by design due to that. you end up with less stress and more time, but you sacrifice all ability to do anything productive with it.

so, like, if that's all the more you want - more time to smile at and feel connections with people, less time worrying - then yeah, small town americana is a fantastic fit. i do know a bunch of people who are all about that. but if you've ever felt bored in your life, it probably isn't because that boredom will incinerate your psyche from the inside out.

Coolguye fucked around with this message at 19:27 on Dec 30, 2020

Coolguye
Jul 6, 2011

Required by his programming!

BrigadierSensible posted:

Here's a question regarding small town USA.

In Australia, most country towns, no matter how tiny, have a local Chinese restaurant. Run by a Chinese immigrant family, onto which the locals vent their outright racism or their "you're one of the good ones" passive racism.

Is it similar in America?

the actual answer is complicated, but the simple food and culture answer is "yes, with offer less valid the further north and east you go," while the simple racism answer is "not really, but offer is more valid the further south and east you go."

as a for example, in kansas and missouri there will be a lot of chinese restaurants in little towns that are actually run by, for example, vietnamese people who put up a chinese restaurant because it's easier to sell chinese food than their native cuisine, and most hicks can't tell the difference in preparation styles or asian ethnicities anyway. the racism portion is very different in the US because unlike Australia, asian immigrants have a wide scale reputation of being a 'model minority' so racist old fucks are substantially less likely to get their bigoted hackles up when around them. not that this stops a lot of particularly lovely people from thinking the 'one of the good ones' diatribe is a compliment and letting it hang out from time to time.

Coolguye
Jul 6, 2011

Required by his programming!

Zugzwang posted:

Wifezwang and I once ate at a "Chinese Restaurant" in some tiny-rear end eastern Utah town that was staffed entirely by white folks and also served spaghetti, lasagna, hamburgers, and macaroni and cheese.

Scans. Anyone dumb enough to ask what the gently caress is up is probably in for a racist rant.

Coolguye
Jul 6, 2011

Required by his programming!

Fozzy The Bear posted:

You had these on display in your kitchen for years before they broke?

"Hey everyone look at these racist figurines! Aren't they just awful? Tell your friends to come over so they can look at at all these racist things I own! Wow, these are just sooo racist. Maybe I can hang a Nazi flag up behind them, wouldn't that just be so awful?"

is there a goal behind assuming the absolute loving worst you possibly can of someone, then taking it a step beyond to assume that they are in fact worse than you initially imagined? because i've always been curious about the game theory behind posts like these, they are absolutely everywhere on the forum and they have never been funny, helpful, or constructive. i honestly don't get it.

Coolguye
Jul 6, 2011

Required by his programming!
i'm a pretty big fan of the distant and gormless looks on every face in this picture

Coolguye
Jul 6, 2011

Required by his programming!

Tip posted:

I took this photo a couple years ago.



IM AT SOUP

Coolguye
Jul 6, 2011

Required by his programming!

CommieGIR posted:

Never driven through Kansas or Missouri? There's signs like this in nearly every other corn field.

yeah any time i venture into the Great Empty outside of Kansas City i see this poo poo all the time

Coolguye
Jul 6, 2011

Required by his programming!
Unlike a lot of the other insanely millennials naming zoomers names, Leviathan has an out where if it ends up being an unfortunate name because the kid is small, dumpy, or otherwise doesn’t fit, you can always revert to calling him Levi and nobody will look twice.

God help the poor fuckers named poo poo like Odin or Apollo (definitely met a few kids like that). They are never getting away from those names.

Coolguye
Jul 6, 2011

Required by his programming!
That kid is awesome

Coolguye
Jul 6, 2011

Required by his programming!
i was about to ask if "Fresh pasties" was a mistake and then i got to the 0069 and boobs cars and i was like "nope pasties was entirely intentional"

Coolguye
Jul 6, 2011

Required by his programming!

yes that is definitely how that is generally used in backwater usa

Coolguye
Jul 6, 2011

Required by his programming!

SweetMercifulCrap! posted:

This is pretty fascinating to me. Main streets like this are all over rural and small town US, and 95% of them are hollow husks or barely used now.
it turned out that pretty much the only thing they were good for was those pictures, because they sure as poo poo weren't good for trading or building a dynamic society.

Coolguye
Jul 6, 2011

Required by his programming!

Pigsfeet on Rye posted:

Here, have a gorilla.

It's on a corner of a ghost town called Picher, Oklahoma.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/G...9!4d-94.8322329

Picher and it's environs are part of the Tar Creek Superfund site, condemned as one of the most polluted places on Earth. Unrestricted lead and zinc mining left about 85% of the town undermined and ready to collapse into toxic water, and the lead and zinc contaminated mine tailings cover thousands of acres.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picher,_Oklahoma

https://www.google.com/maps/place/P...6!4d-94.8307844

A true piece of Americana

ed: Why the gorilla exists:
https://www.roadsideamerica.com/tip/42466

God, I urbex’d Picher a little bit during one of my trips down to Miami county to count cards. There’s still a few holdouts in the decaying buildings, just living there stubbornly despite the fact that the town could basically go at any moment. They don’t give a gently caress. “I was born here, and I’m gonna die here.”

It’s easy to laugh at the obtuse stubbornness that is absolutely going to kill these people after lord only knows how many years of pointless and preventable hardship and suffering, but encountering it face to face and seeing the lovecraftian cocktail of all the stages of grief except acceptance pouring out of every pore is...well, affecting, to say the least. It’s a slow motion tragedy and there’s no helping it. I imagine it’s a bit like how Cassandra felt in the Iliad.

Coolguye
Jul 6, 2011

Required by his programming!

Outrail posted:

Hold up, the only state that explicitly outlaws booby traps is Alabama?

it's more that only in alabama is an explicit law required

Coolguye
Jul 6, 2011

Required by his programming!

other people posted:

Did you miss this paragraph immediately above the chart?

i'm also curious how it incorporates tobacco-adjacents. having been to mexico recently i flatly do not believe a smoking rate of 1/3rd of the usa's. cigarillos or just full on cigars are more of a thing than your standard marlboro but smoking is five thousand percent a more culturally accepted thing there than in 95% of america.

Coolguye
Jul 6, 2011

Required by his programming!

Big Beef City posted:

This is the laugh at chintzy Americana thread, not 'what the gently caress is WRONG with america am I RIGHT or WHAT you guys' thread.
gently caress off.
Same to euro goons who love to barge into every thread possible demanding that Belgium is a workers paradise and always has been or whatever.

The Napoleon complex just wafts off that post like anxiety sweat it’s kinda great

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Coolguye
Jul 6, 2011

Required by his programming!
Honestly I just saw “hey guys I know this is a bad idea” and then like 4 paragraphs of text and went “if you knew this was a bad idea why’d you do it”

Just really needed to get that one out I guess, bad look but you do you

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply