This is not a puff piece.
The city of Phoenix shouldn't exist.
For practical reasons, this city was built in the middle of a fucking desert. A desert, ladies and gents. There is no water here. The Colorado River, which is no doubt tens of thousands of miles away, is the source for this city's water. They (SRP?) truck the water in from tens of thousands of miles away to the Valley of the Sun, where it's consumed by the wide-set Mexican women and sense-of-entitlement white males which seem to comprise an unacceptably large percentage of the city I call home.
Phoenix. Pronounced "Feenix." Is it here where I reside?
I've had an on-again, off-again relationship with this bitch of a metro-fuck, but I've seen one all-encompassing trend: most people tend to move here because they're running from something else. My family was running from the shit-train which was the South Side; I know my "rags-to-bitches" tale from lower-middle-class to middle-middle-class has been repeated far and wide across this one-to-two-story urban fuckscape which claims us all.
So, what does this mean for we the bitches and princesses of this modern-day Dust Bowl? It means that Phoenix is the repository for people who know where they don't want to be, but have no idea where they actually want to be:
"Honey, Indiana sucks. Let's leave here!"
"Where should we go, dear?"
"Hmm...let's go to...Phoenix!"
"Phoenix? Why?"
"Um...it's not Indiana!"
"I'm sold!"
Millions of families across the Midwest no doubt had the exact same conversation between the years of 1989-2005. And, in the good-ol' American Tradition, they moved West, young man! Only to find oddly-placed cacti and the errant javelina in the same-old suburban settings they knew so well eighteen hundred miles away.
And for those of us, fortunate or unfortunate, to be born in this place, two options remain; stay here, get married, and work for Intel, or...leave. I know no-one who works for Intel (thankfully), but I have known many Native Sons and Daughters who have left, and to them I say good luck. I have already left two cities in my life, and have found both choices to be bold and educational. I wish the same to any of those who have dared to leave this great, topsoil-less wasteland.
This city is a collection of malcontents, of emigres, from distant lands. We are a people dissatisfied with where we came from, but without a sense of purpose strong enough to forge a place where we do belong. Phoenix reeks of the mass-produced because her citizens have grown homesick, but for a home which does not exist. What sense is a solitary young person to make in such a managarie of illusion?
Like I said, two choices. Intel...or leave.
If I've learned anything since my arrival on the fair shores of Phoenix at the young age of fifteen (going on sixteen), it's that this city is the South Side, except with more money. Instead of being dirty, disappointed, and with few material possessions, Phoenix is somewhat clean, still disappointed, but with more material possessions (unless the economy has passed you by; in that case, welcome to Kedzie and 147th, motherfuckers). There is nothing on this tangible earth which will better illustrate the proverb "money can't buy happiness" than the City of Phoenix.
Since I don't know a shit's worth about computers, I think it's time to blow this pop-stand.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
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4 comments:
Phoenix is a city, by design, a city without identity, like you said. It's the epicenter of people going somewhere else, and to be born in such a place is to be born in a train station - often pretty.
San Francisco always sounded good, or the Pacific Northwest, but Sarah's grown allergic to clouds and I can't convince her of going north of California. Still, San Fran sounds right.
I remember being seven and living in Oregon when my mom told me we were moving to Phoenix. I couldn't fathom a place like this existed. She told me we'd be moving because of my dad's job and that, "a lot of people just get placed there". I can't hate on Phoenix entirely since I spent my years growing up here, but the shit has gotten stale. The only thing I dislike about school not being over for me is that regardless how useless a degree actually is I don't have a cheaper alternative to go anywhere else with my mom working at ASU.
When all is said and done I am intending to move back to Portland, but hell, even San Francisco sounds like paradise.
It's frightens me how fast I'm forgetting mundane shit about Feenix, but this post brought it right back. I do miss some aspects of life there, but mostly, you hit the nail on the head. Thinking about an Intel life is like staring down the barrel of a gun.
I don't think I could leave Chicago for a place like that. I'm in the city now-- parents are still along 147th... and I don't think I'd be as aware of everything without that background.
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