schweblog

I went to Scottsdale this weekend to help a friend move into her new apartment. Even though I arrived on Friday evening, the moving van didn’t get there until Sunday afternoon. As a result, we were left with a weekend in Scottsdale to do whatever we pleased. Unfortunately, in Scottsdale, having an entire weekend free doesn’t amount to much. But why?

Scottsdale is a large suburb of Phoenix. It has grown quite rapidly in the past few years and has ended up becoming the snooty part of the greater Phoenix area. This is where the creme de la creme* of Phoenix hang their hats. It’s the Beverly Hills of the region. And it is god-awful.

There is no culture to the region. Chain and franchise stores line the streets–locally owned businesses are an anomaly in a universe of corporate branches. Frank Lloyd Wright, the famous modern architect, retired to Scottsdale in his later days. In memory of him, they named a main street after him. How very quaint. In a city that attempts to honor an architect that was ground-breaking by naming a street after him, somehow pre-fabbed homes are a dime a dozen–the status fucking quo. They may as well just pull up Wright’s cold, stiff corpse and hang it in the town square to serve as a public restroom. That would be more respectable than shitting on his legacy by throwing up entire neighborhoods of houses that all look the same.

Finally, the people of the city amaze me. I saw five people–and that’s a liberal estimate–that were overweight. My bets are that they were tourists. Everyone has a great body, skin tanned to perfection, and hair bleached to oblivion. Standing in line at the Starbucks feels like you’re perusing the “blonde” section of the RealDoll store. And, from the conversations I overheard, the people would be just about as interesting as the RealDolls.

Having escaped the city on Sunday afternoon, I cruised into Albuquerque and opened up my window. Clunkers on the street were almost as numerous as transients. There were more overweight New Mexicans than you could shake a stick at. There was graffiti on the overpass. I knew that if I stepped into Starbucks I’d be behind a homeless guy with terrible BO, begging for coffee. And I love my city for all of it–it has soul, character. Flaws. It isn’t an airbrushed suburbia that’s worried about how it comes across to people going through. It is real and raw and dirty and I love it. I love this city.

I stepped out of my car and could have kissed the pavement. Thank god that this is home.

*In other words, the rich yuppies.

Filed under: travel by Jesse