It's funny, what gets shaken loose and what does the shaking. I recently found myself in Myrtle Beach, SC, in a prefabricated tourist village called Barefoot Landing, a place of gift shops and ice cream parlors and yardstick daiquiris, a place designed to make children insane and their parents drunk. I was delighted, though, that even in the developers’ attempt to create a veritable no-place, a bit of regionalism can’t help but seep in. We were in the south, after all. There, I witnessed families dressed in matching color schemes, paunchy men in golf shirts whose bellies draped over their belts, bricks of small talk and dad jokes so obtuse you could build a rival village out of them. I encountered entitlement masquerading as “friendliness,” your very person perceived for the pleasure of an elder white interlocutor to practice their observational comedy upon, a human laugh track you must be.
The northeast has its touristy beach towns, replete with your lobster rolls, t-shirts shops, and saltwater taffy, etc. But the thing that struck me is how different the vibe is. This evening in Myrtle Beach smacked of a misguidedly supportive open mic on a cruise ship run aground. In New England the vibe, even on vacation, is overtly hostile. Go out for a clam bake and there is still an air that you might get your ass kicked if you sit at the wrong picnic table. Comb the beach and veer too closely to a stranger’s towel and be ready to remove your hoops and throw down. We watch the sunset through onyx-colored glasses. Whereas I watched these southerners wait docilely in long lines, I witnessed not a single complaint. New Englanders would have generously lobbed our favorite descriptor: “hahrabble.”
It is no small coincidence that after departing this sea of pastels and sunburns that I began blabbering to Scott about Building 19. What is Building 19 you ask?!?!
Building 19 is a modest Massachusetts retail franchise of acerbic, proudly awful stores from the late 20th century that sold literal crap—irregular, expired, broken goods (bads) ONLY. This place was the epicenter of all that is proudly shitty and grouchy. New Englanders love a bargain—see: Filene’s Basement, the Christmas Tree Shops, Spag’s, Ocean State Job Lots—but Building 19 was the subterranean-most floor. If your parents told you you were going to Building 19 that day you would gnash your teeth and rend your garments. A most withering junior high insult was that you bought your clothes at Building 19. At Building 19, you could purchase a calendar from five years ago and a remote control to nothing. Once Brooke’s aunt joked that the steak they were about to eat was from Building 19 and she cried.
But what made Building 19 memorable was its ethos. A mascot called Jerry (a cartoon rendering of proprietor Jerry Ellis, who boasted that he’d created “America’s laziest and messiest department store”) was a cranky old man proud of the crap he peddled, and ridiculing toward you for being there in the first place to purchase it. That’s right, he made fun of YOU for liking HIM AND HIS WARES.
I mean look at the signs:
(pics nabbed from the brilliant norwoodthenandnow.com)
These are indigenous artifacts of a land where misery is currency.
Building 19 swam up to the shores of my consciousness to remind me that one need not sand down the edges of oneself to wait blithely for nothing much and laugh politely through interactions that could take place at a church coffee hour. I recounted Building 19 in a fit of manic laughter. And then I ordered some t-shirts.
(That’s human blood on my shoulder.)
This is all a long way of saying I recommend: take pride in your deeply discounted, slightly irregular, off-brand personality.
Might I also recommend:
Cunk on Earth: Can’t believe I slept on this gem, a perfect show to eat lunch to.
This hilarious and devastating article on life as a luxury wedding planner by Xochitl Gonzalez.
The Guest by Emma Cline: sublime.
June Diane Raphael on ambivalence re Ozempic and beauty standards on my fave podcast, The Deep Dive.
“The One Thing That Can Save America” by John Ashberry.
Purple Crayons by Ross Ellenhorn: Wept throughout, my new go-to gift book.
Rebecca Traister’s evisceration of RFK Jr. Interview with the vampire, for real.
I really need to talk about The Idol!!!! What in the world are the many visual references to Basic Instinct (one of the greatest films ever made, how dare they) supposed to convey?! If you watched this very important show please get at me!!!!