places that are gone – The Boring Old Man

Well, That Was Weird…

Today I had an unusual experience. Not unusual like an alien abduction or a religious experience or anything fun like that. No, just a wave of nostalgia combined with a shock to the system based on current data and a tinge of a glimpse of a bizzaro world future dystopia.

Where, you might ask, did this odd interconnected experience happen? Why, “The Mall” of course!

As it happened on this fine Saturday, I was running around taking care of various odds and ends, and I happened to have about an hour to kill before my next engagement. It was hot, I needed to take a leak and I just happened to be a few blocks away from a shopping mall, so I figured I’d make a pit stop there rather than find some grody gas station bathroom and sit in my hot (black) pickup for an hour. And who knows, maybe treat myself to an Orange Julius drink – it’s been years!

Now this particular mall, now called “Westfield Valley Fair” has been around a long time. In fact, my personal history with the place goes back to some of my earliest memories as a child, when it was two separate shopping centers (Valley Fair and Stevens Creek Plaza) across the street from each other. The fondest memories of the place were going to the book store there – the book store had TWO floors – and when you’re 4/5 years old, that just seems to be an astounding amount of books! Both my parents read a lot, and often gifted books as presents, so that was a place we frequented. Though to be honest I was so young when we started going there I don’t even know what the name of the place was, we just called it “the bookstore”. The other very vivid memory I have from way back, is taking my paper route earnings, riding my bike the 4 miles or so down to the Macy’s at that mall and buying Levi’s 501 jeans and some store-brand knock-off “Polo” shirts, as it was my intention to re-invent myself as a “preppy” kid going into my Freshman year of High School. Yeah, that didn’t exactly work out for me, turns out lower-middle class kids from the “wrong side of the tracks” don’t exactly fit in that world. But that is a story for another day… I can still remember the 501’s were $12.50 then. The shirts were about 10 bucks. 3 pair of pants and two shirts – one red, one blue – cost me about $60, which is just a little less than I made in a month of schlepping newpapers. It’s weird how things like that stick in your mind. I guess when you’re 14, buying your back-to-school clothes with money you had to earn yourself, you pay more attention to what things cost. This would be the summer of 1982.

Fast forward a couple years and both those shopping centers were bought out by a big company and the place was “re-developed” into one, continuous, two story indoor mall now simply called Valley Fair. It re-opened in 1986 and it was the quintessential 80’s mall. Back then in my general area, which was essentially what we could reach on our bicycles, we had three malls. The one right down the street from my house – Westgate – was known amongst my cohorts as the “dirt mall”. Across town we had Valco, which was the “nice mall”, they had a McDonald’s AND an ice skating rink – the perfect place for kids to hang out back then. (And secretly, I LOVED to go into the Sears there and check out all the Craftsman tools!) But when Valley Fair reopened, it was quickly and decisively known as the “rich mall”. Naturally myself and my friends couldn’t BUY anything there, but we loved to hang out there, ‘cuz that’s where all the cute, rich girls hung out! Later, my bandmates and I would go down there and pass out fliers for our shows and bumper stickers to pretty girls that had “the look” of the type that might like our music… But I digress. I guess what I’m trying to say is I have some really fond memories of the place, going back to maybe 1972 or so.

Then from say 1988 until 2018 I only stepped foot in the place a handful of times, when I was after something very specific from a particular store. Usually a gift of some sort. Around 2020 I was driving by the place and noticed that once again they were doing a massive remodel of the mall, from one end to the other. The construction went on for I’d say at least 3 years. It was a massive undertaking. I hadn’t been there from at least 2018 until this past April, when once again I visited Macy’s to buy a suit for my daughter’s wedding. But at that time, I didn’t actually go in the mall, just Macy’s – in and out. That pretty much covers the nostalgia part of the tale.

Well today since I had an hour to kill, I decided to walk around just to see what the “new” mall is about. Holy. Crap.

As you might have guessed, I’m not exactly the mall type. Other than concerts, for which I will gladly suck it up, I am NOT a “crowds” kinda guy. They set me on edge, big time. And let me tell you this place was PACKED. Like, it’s 12 hours til Christmas morning, packed. It was unreal. And it was literally just a Saturday afternoon in August! I cannot imagine what that place would be like in a holiday shopping rush, but I don’t want to be within 5 miles of there from Thanksgiving til Valentines day!! It was beyond shocking, the sheer volume of people.

And the people? Look, I recognize my hometown (sadly) turned into Ground Zero of Silicon Valley and it’s always been “diverse”, but I’d be grossly exaggerating if I told you 10% of the people there were Anglo. My rough, purely non-scientific, off-the-cuff estimates based on my own observations – keeping in mind I didn’t venture into a single store or restaurant – would say the clientele was 70% Asian of one faction or another (I’m including Indian here), 15% Middle Eastern, 10% Hispanic, 4% Anglo and 1% black. It was wild. I’ve never seen such lopsided “diversity” in one place. And again, not being a mall kinda guy, I was really taken aback by the frenetic pace at which everything was moving. We used to go the the mall to hang out, to chill. There is NO chill left in the place. It reminded me of those crazy scenes you see in the movies of some bazaar in Calcutta or something. Everyone scurrying around, bumping into each other. Security guards evetywhere. And the din? Goodness gracious! It was SOOO flippin’ LOUD in there. The cacophony of dozens of different languages, each trying to be heard over rhe other, was dizzying. Like a mild roar, never ceasing, in the background. It was unsettling to say the least.

But the thing that really blew my mind was the stores in there nowadays. Like I said earlier, it was the “rich mall” even back in the day cuz they had a Macy’s and Nordstroms as opposed to the Sears at the nice mall or JC Penny at the dirt mall, but now it’s become some grotesque monument to consumption that honestly made me wonder if I’d slipped into another dimension. Every name-dropped brand name from every hip hop record in the last decade had a storefront. Gucci, Fendi, Balenciaga, Bvlgari, Burberry, Rolex, Cartier, Prada…the list goes on and on. All kinds of brands and stores I’ve never even heard of. Additionally there were a bunch of clearly Asian stores with names I couldn’t pronounce. I don’t know what to make of a place like that. This is flippin’ San Jose, not Beverly Hills or Manhattan. It was so alien and frankly grotesque to me. That kind of crass consumerism really gives me the creeps. And what really hit me was that earlier that day, less than a mile down the road from all this excess, I’d stopped at a 7-11 for a cup of coffee and had to dodge a homeless dude sleeping on the sidewalk while also being accosted by another for some money to “get something to eat”.

I’ll be the first to admit that I do not “fit in”, I’m one of the least tendy people you’ll ever meet, and not only do I not care about “name brands”, I’ll generally cut the labels off of everything (a holdover from my early punk rock days surely). I simply cannot understand the appeal of this type of “culture”. That so many people are drawn to this spectacle that absolutely repels me just boggles my mind. Hence, the shock to the system.

As for the dystopia? Aa I mentioned, the sheer volume of people and the frenetic pace was almost too much for this boring old man the bear…but what really troubles me is that within a couple miles if this place, in every direction, enormous, soulless housing developments are popping up. I don’t get to this part of town often, and driving around today I was really overwhelmed by how many of these monstrosities were under construction. Traffic around here has been absurd for a long time, wait times for everything from medical appointments to a haircut get worse year after year, the job market is BRUTAL, everywhere is just crowded, the homeless shanty towns are all over the place…and “they” are building thousands of new housing units and packing them in like sardines. I moved to this area just before my 5th birthday and spent my youth running around the orchards and open fields, which were around every corner. Even as things slowly developed, it was still a great place to live and we still had a sense of community. But the last 10 years have been like a runaway train and all this “progress” has turned my hometown into an overcrowded, disjointed, ugly mess with greater and greater disparity between the haves and have-nots, and I fear they’re just getting started. I’m reminded of the old song lyrics “We gotta get outta this place, if it’s the last thing we ever do!”.

And to add insult to injury, the mall doesn’t even have an Orange Julius anymore!

Thanks for stopping by.

Unearthing Treasure…

Lately I’ve been on a bit of a trip down Memory Lane musically, rediscovering a lot of music from my youth. The stuff I was into before I discovered college radio and got weird in the early 80’s. The staples of FM rock radio, what would be deemed “classic rock” these days.

My very first album as a kid was Aerosmith’s “Toys in the Attic”, followed up by Cheap Trick, Boston, Foreigner, Styx and the like and for the past few weeks I’ve been digging back into those oldies but goodies.

In the course of doing this I got to thinking about how amazing it is these days that you can hear a new song or read about a new band and within minutes (seconds?!?!) have their entire catalog of work at your fingertips. It is phenomenal when you stop to think about it.

For any youngsters out there reading this, you may not know, but up until 25 years ago music acquisition was a LOT different!

Every mall had one, or one just like it!

Up through the 1980s, pretty much the only way to hear new music was either on the radio or weekly TV shows like American Bandstand or Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert, maybe Saturday Night Live. MTV was around, but not everyone had it (nor cable TV!) and they were terribly guilty of HEAVY ROTATION, so it was like the same 8 -10 songs on repeat, for weeks on end. Radio was not quite as bad but new music was slow to break and you might only hear a song you were interested in once a week, if that. From time to time you’d hear a song that grabbed you, but have no idea who it was or what it was called unless the DJ happened to come on and announce the song, which was hit or miss. I probably heard “Walk on the Wild Side” 20 times before I ever heard the name Lou Reed. Which reminds me of another thing about the “old days”…

Every once in a while you’d hear a song that just knocked you out, and you’d save up your money and head down to the record store in hopes they’d have the record. If you were lucky, they would have it and you’d plunk down your hard earned cash and rush home to the turntable to listen to the album. If you weren’t so lucky, you might have to hit 2 or 3 different shops to find it. (No small feat when you’re a kid on a bicycle and the shops are miles away from each other!) Then you’d make the horrible discovery that while the ONE song was great, the rest of the album was trash. THAT was a heartbreaker! Especially if there were two records you wanted, but could only afford one! If you picked the dud it might be a couple weeks before you could scratch together enough coin for the other one.

Between the ages of 10 and say, 23 or so I surely spent in excess of a thousand hours in record stores, pouring through the stacks, trying to whittle it down to which few records I could actually purchase at any given time. And unless you’d already heard the entire record through a friend, every single time it was a crap shoot! Sometimes you get burned – like with that Lou Reed album I mentioned, sometimes you strike solid gold, say London Calling by the Clash.

Now, thanks to the wonders of technology, you can overhear a snippet of a tune, whip out the Shazam app and know what the song is and who’s doing it within about 10 seconds, click a link to Spotify and have their entire catalog right there. Then head over to YouTube and see every video they’ve ever done. Then hit Wikipedia and learn all the details and history of the artist. Nothing could be easier. It really is like having the entire world of music at your fingertips, practically for free!

Now of course, all this awesomeness is a double edged sword. For one thing, it has basically destroyed the music industry. Ironic but true. Unfettered access and free music everywhere has made it so musicians can’t actually make any money with record sales. Well, a few still do I suppose, but most bands these days make more money from t-shirt sales than records. It still costs money to make a record – studio time, engineers and producers, art work and pressing costs for physical product all get paid up front before a band sees a penny. And of course the musicians still need a roof over their heads and a meal every now and again, but I digress.

I might also add that frankly it takes a bit of the mystery out if it all, which was also part of the fun.

But what really inspired me to write all this in the first place was the discovery aspect. While hearing new bands or songs that turn you on is fantastic, recently I’ve been doing that with OLD stuff and that never would have happened without access to all this technology. Even a dinosaur such as myself that still listens to terrestrial radio from time to time will only hear so much “classic rock” – basically every hit song from 1964 to 1990 on an endless loop. There are no more “deep cuts” picked out by DJs, no full side plays like they used to do on Sunday nights (for the kids – late Sunday nights my local station would play Side A of an album straight through, do a commercial break and a station ID, then play Side B of the record all the way through),there is no discovery. Lately, I’ll read an article about somebody Im interested in and they’ll mention an influential musician they grew up with and I’ll go head down that rabbit hole. Or maybe someone will mention someone I’ve heard of, but have never heard. It’s been really cool to learn of new music, even if it’s 30-40 years old. If I’ve never heard it, it’s good as new to me! Just in the last few month I’ve “discovered” half a dozen artists that have been making records nearly my entire life that I’d never laid ears on, it’s been spectacular!

I’ve been lamenting these last few years on the sad state of music and how you must wade through mountains of garbage to find a gem these days, but recognizing that there is a boatload of as yet unheard music waiting for me has been invigorating! Not that I’ll ever stop looking for new, new stuff (honestly there have been a few “new” artists that have given me some hope for the future of music – looking at you Magic City Hippies, Qveen Herby, DesRocs, KFlay and others!) but discovering something 20, 30, 40 years old that resonates with your soul? That is treasure my friends. Go out and find some for yourself!

Thanks for stopping by!

Places that are gone. The first in a series.

I have lived my entire life in Santa Clara County. I spent about half a year bouncing around Santa Cruz County, but never had a permanent address, so I don’t really count that as a place I “lived”.

If you mention Santa Clara County to anyone NOT from around here, the general response is “where is that?”. But despite growing up in the shadow of world famous San Francisco, Santa Clara County is equally famous, it’s just better known by its nickname “Silicon Valley”.

We moved into what is still my parents’ house shortly before my 5th birthday, where I stayed until 19.

As you might imagine, the place was a LOT different back then.

I got my first taste of “growth” in 1st grade, when it was announced that my school was closing. It was the first school built in the district, and they tore it down to build condominiums. The beginning of the end…

Since 1972/73, we’ve lost so many orchards, vineyards, schools, local-legend restaurants, night clubs, shops, etc. Really, you can’t even recognize the place anymore.

So in this series, I plan to document some of the “places that are gone” from my youth.

It’ll probably only be interesting to me and any other “townies” that happen to still be around. (Which are few and far between – every single friend I had up until my 20’s has moved out of the area or out of the state completely.) Nonetheless, I thought it might be good for me to relive some fond memories of days gone by. That is the hope anyway.

Today, I’ll kick things off with one of my all time favorite haunts, Guitar Showcase in San Jose.

The first time I stepped into Guitar Showcase, Im guessing 1980, but I may be off by a year either way, I was immediately enamored of the place. It was a pretty funky, older building, and the drum “department” was incredibly small, stuffed into a corner on the ground floor.

My buddy Patrick and I used to haul ourselves down there on our 10-speed bikes, about a 5 mile jaunt. And we’d stay for hours, looking at EVERYTHING.

One of the things I always appreciated about GS, was the friendliness of the staff. I’m positive two 12-year-old boys hanging out in your store must have been annoying as can be, yet we were never hustled out of there, never treated poorly. I wish I could say the same about other music shops…

I saw my very first electronic drum in that store – the Syndrum. I got to check out all kinds of “futuristic” synthesizers upstairs in the keyboard dept… I learned how PA systems are set up. I saw my first paisley Telecaster and held my first left handed guitar, which I didn’t even know existed at the time! (It would be 40 years later that I bought my first lefty, after considerable time trying to overcome the difficulties of playing a “standard”, right handed guitar.)

Many years later they’d open an annex across the parking lot, with studios for lessons and a rental shop and a used-gear showroom. At that point, the place had an intractable magnetic pull on me, and I couldn’t seem to drive down the road without pulling in.

We don’t live too far from the shop, and I still pop in on occasion, so you can imagine my dismay, ney HORROR as I drove by last month and saw chain link fence surrounding the entire main building.

I literally felt sick to my stomach when I saw it, and involuntarily shouted “Oh NO, Look!!” to my wife… She tried to be reassuring, saying maybe they’re just going to remodel, bring things up to date… This calmed me down a little, as it COULD be the case. The building was old, and I sincerely doubt it met with current building and ADA and fire/life safety codes. There was a really narrow, creaky stair case to get upstairs, so that alone could get you shut down, should one prick lawyer get a wild hair up his azz and decide to sue.

So, I waited to see what might transpire. I decidedly chose NOT to look into it, as I didn’t want any bad news. Sadly, just a few weeks later I drove by and that funky, creaky, weird smelling but delightful old building was nothing more than a pile of rubble.

I nearly cried, I kid you not. Even writing about it now has me choked up a bit. I haven’t had the heart to tell Patrick, whom is still one of my best friends 40+ years later. He moved away for college and never came back to SJ to live, so he doesn’t have the deep connection to the place I do but you can bet he’s still got some fond recollections of the place.

After witnessing the tragedy (part of me wanted to stop and take a picture, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It would be like photographing the corpse of a loved one.) I decided to look into the story, which was a good news/bad news situation.

The “good news” is the shop says they will remain open in the old annex building. The bad news is the property was sold to an “affordable housing” contractor, and leased back to Guitar Showcase.

It’s great that they’ll keep the doors open, for a while anyway, but I see the writing on the wall. I foresee one of two things transpiring in the near future. One, even though they say they’ll remain open “during construction”, it’s going to wreck their customer base. It’s a small plot of land, barely half an acre, so when the heavy equipment rolls in and the tradesmens’ trucks take up every available parking space for half a mile, the customers will stop dropping in, revenues will drop and BOOM!, outta business. Or two, they manage to keep the doors open until the lease expires, and the owners will NOT renew, so they can tear down the annex and cram more stuff onto the lot. The firm building the new housing isn’t a local outfit, so I can all but guarantee they do not care one iota about the history of this place. Goddamn vultures.

Either way, I’m afraid their days are numbered.

To be perfectly candid, I feel at least somewhat responsible for the shop doing poorly. As a “starving musician” in my earlier years, you had to find the very best deals you could and GS, being a small, independent shop couldn’t put out the heavy discounts some of their competitors could, due to sheer volume.

Then came along eBay and Craigslist, and then Reverb.com, so the online used gear market just exploded! Great for poor musicians, terrible for retail establishments. Nonetheless, I did buy from them, and often, but usually the smaller stuff like drum sticks and heads, cables and mic stands, stuff like that.

There is certainly no way the remaining staff at GS knows how much they’ve meant to me these last 4 decades or so, but I will miss them when that final note carries into the wind and the doors close forever.

If, by some tiny chance, should someone from the shop actually see this, I want to say thank you. This shop was at least partially responsible for a dorky, awkward kid finding his true passion in life and getting to have adventures that he never would have dreamed of without music.

From the bottom of my heart, a GIANT THANK YOU to the Guitar Showcase staff, past and present!

Thanks for reading!