The Debowlerization of America

             I've had the burning desire to go bowling over the past month, but this or that thing tends to appear out of nowhere and I ended up not going. On an otherwise uneventful Tuesday night, I decided the wait had to end, I wanted to go bowling and nothing should stand in my way. There's plenty of bowling spots in the city such as the Bowlmor franchise, but I was looking for a real old fashion bowling alley. The new age bowling places have turned into trendy lounges and clubs that cater to corporate outings and collar-up sweatervest bachelor parties which goes against the whole idea of a bowling alley. These lame alleys have bouncers in the front like its some fancy hotspot. A bowling alley should have a dented front door in which the glass is cracked. The inside should stink of body odor, chalk, and cigarettes. The lighting should be dim; not because of design, but because a few of bulbs burnt out. The rental shoes should be worn out and the once white shoelaces need to be graying and about to snap. The bowling balls themselves should be chipped, cracked, and the weight number should be faded out so you can't tell how heavy the ball is. The only food options should be microwavable mozzarella sticks and greasy shoestring french fries. The bathroom must be absolutely atrocious and the toilet unusable under any circumstance. That's a bowling alley!!

             With the number of real bowling alleys rapidly shrinking over the past twenty years, my options were very limited. There used to be two locations very close to me, but they're both gone now. There is another not too far from me, but it doesn't fit the description above I was seeking in a properly looking and smelling bowling alley. The only location that was somewhat holding onto the old tradition of rancidness as far as I knew was located up in White Plains. The last time I was there was probably about 2005. I didn't know the exact street name the place was on or what the name of the alley even was, but I remembered how to get there. It's by the Westchester County Center, the place I visited for the Toy & Train as well as the Cat Show about a year ago. I drove up there all ready to bowl, but there was one small problem: I didn't see the alley anymore. In thinking perhaps I passed by it without noticing a sign, I went back and drove by again, and still there was no trace of it. Was this place another victim of the debowlerization that has been occurring in this country over the last two decades? As of 2008, New York was leading all states with 410 listed bowling alleys, while other parts of the country, such as Washington DC, had zero. The number of bowling alleys have been decreasing and the ones that still exist are morphed into "scenes" like Bowlmor or are a part of an overall entertainment zone that also features arcade games, laser tag, go-carts, batting cages, etc. Ralph Kramden and Ed Norton grabbing their bowling bowls to go out with the guys used to be part of American culture. Bowling on a Friday or Saturday night was a piece of fabric in society such as going to church on Sunday. The question becomes; why are the alleys disappearing and why don't people bowl anymore?

             The two parts of this equation are the human beings needed to bowl and the buildings for the humanoids to bowl in. With the large amount of options for programming to watch on cable or satellite television, as well as the unlimited amount of destinations to browse on the internet, there's less of a need to venture outside the household for entertainment when there is so much amusement to be done at home or in the palm of a hand. Whatever human contact is able to survive the lure of Amazon.com and "Doomsday Preppers" is fragmented by the constant need to consult a small handheld device to check email and text messages, or see what's been posted on Facebook (like ZEIsSIT World blog posts). The idea of pure human connection without internet access somewhere in the midst is all about gone and the desire for activities that live outside the gigabyte world are less ingrained on the human soul than it was forty or fifty years ago. Not only have bowling alleys been victimized by this, but other social venues such as pool halls, clubs, arcades, sporting events, and church have either totally evaporated or have been severely watered down. One might say there's millions of clubs in existence, but the response back should be a second consideration if the place is really a club by definition. The clubs of today have become a beacon of the pretentious with thousand-dollar bottle service and leather couches that highlight the importance of wealth. The end result of focusing on wealth instead of the plight of the people has brought a crumbling musical expressionism which of course is fed back into the same venue which continues the trend of a lowered quality of music.

             The original idea behind a club was for the poor to gather and promote the music which speaks of the social ills or humiliates of the day. The small stages of the late 1950's were the roots for Bob Dylan and The Beatles(in UK), the discos of the 1970's brought Donna Summer and The Bee Gees to life, the dingy spots of the 1980's produced Madonna and The Ramones, and although music was headed downwards at this point, the rugged halls of the late 1980's to early 1990's put Tupac Shakur, Jay-Z, Puff Daddy, Biggie Smalls, all on the map. The boom of cable television in the mid 1980's began this watering down of humanity, eventually leading to the losing desire for places like bowling alleys and the lost ability to recognize quality music. The internet explosion of the mid 1990's sealed the deal so much so that by this month and year in 2013 here are the current Billboard Top Ten Artists and Songs:

1. Thrift Shop by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis Featuring Wanz
2. Locked Out Of Heaven by Bruno Mars
3. Scream & Shout by will.i.am & Britney Spears
4. Ho Hey by The Lumineers
5. I Knew You Were Trouble by Taylor Swift
6. Don't You Worry Child by Swedish House Mafia Featuring John Martin
7. Daylight by Maroon 5
8. Suit & Tie by Justin Timberlake Featuring Jay Z
9. When I Was Your Man by Bruno Mars
10. Beauty And A Beat by Justin Bieber Featuring Nicki Minaj

(Here is the Billboard Top Ten during this month in 1965 when there was no bottle service or iPhone and alot more bowling alleys!!!)

1. You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin' by The Righteous Brothers
2. Downtown by Petula Clark
3. The Name Game by Shirley Ellis
4. This Diamond Ring by Gary Lewis And The Playboys
5. Hold What You've Got by Joe Tex
6. Love Potion Number Nine by The Searchers
7. All Day And All Of The Night by The Kinks
8. My Girl by The Temptations
9. How Sweet It Is To Be Loved By You by Marvin Gaye
10. Shake by Sam Cooke

             Of course everyone is entitled to their own taste in music and opinion what is good or not, but for some reason I have a hard time being convinced "Beauty and A Beat" is anywhere on the same planet or even in the galaxy as "My Girl". The scary thought as the continued trend goes on is what will the Billboard Top Ten look like in the Year 2050. Sporting contests are still part of our culture, but this current version of fans simply aren't into them as they once were. More than half the audience are entranced by their handheld device that they barely watch the action on the field. Crowd participation has filtered out and fans are hardly into these games anymore. As a cheap attempt to make up for the lack of real fan support, the popular thing to do today is to berate athletes on their Twitter accounts or to gang assault fans who wear the jerseys of opposing teams in the parking lot. The caliber of people who can't detect the lack of depth in today's music and spend two hundred dollars on a ticket to a game, only use that time to stare at their iPhone instead of the game itself, in the long run aren't going to be the type of go to the bowling alley. With the loss of customers, its understandable why the bowling alleys were on their way to extinction. There's also the other half of the problem which has brought the rapid loss of these once treasured places to socialize and have fun. Corporations and their chains have been eating this country alive over the past two decades. At every turn, Best Buy, BJ's, Target, Walmart, Kmart, Pier1 Imports, and alike has been grabbing every piece of available land to increase their footprint. In addition, a growing population and the ever present housing market will always influence land owners to build apartments or condos. The formula is to first raise the rent on a struggling bowling alley so it can finally go out of business, then they'll be space to build a new Ikea or an ugly row of generic condos. The majority can't take notice because they're busy watching a Maroon 5 music video on their iPhone during the 9th inning of a tied ballgame.

             After a while driving I finally realized this bowling alley had been swallowed whole from a rotting humanity and there would be no bowling for me on this chilly night. My mind soon turned to food as the goal for the evening and I kept going down this road until I was to encounter a restaurant appetizing enough to try out. My eyes caught one establishment called La Manda's, but since I had to also pay attention to the road, I really couldn't make out if the place was Italian or Mexican cuisine. I figured I would drive for about another ten minutes, and if I didn't see anything else, I would turn around and head straight for La Manda's. By this time I was entering the Village of Elmsford with its numerous seedy hotels and motels near the border. I would come upon one of the bigger hotel chains and there must have been some type of emergency because there was about ten twelve firetrucks and police cars out front. The building looked very familiar to me and it took awhile for me to make the connection. In early 2004 I attended a job fair there for selling final expenses insurance. I don't remember the company's name, but they rented out a large conference room in the hotel and invited about fifty candidates, including myself, to explain what they do and to find future salespeople. The job would essentially involve going to the homes of usually older people and to get them to buy an insurance package that would one day pay for their final expenses. I sat down for a one on one interview with a company recruiter, but I guess I didn't have "Final Expenses Salesman" written onto my face because they didn't call me back afterwards. Reminiscing on it now, the guys who were running the conference were rather creepy looking and its better they didn't want me to join them. I made this hotel my turning around point and I went back from where I came. I parked in front of La Manda's and once I saw the word "pizzeria", I realized it was an Italian restaurant.

             There's a bar as soon as you walk in and towards the right are tables for groups. Two people were already at the bar, so I figured I take my seat there and join the party. The restaurant had an old fashion look to it which was a welcoming sight after suffering the pain of a dead bowling alley. La Manda's Pizza has been around since 1947, and the bathroom probably never changed. The door to the toilet is something out of an antique show and offers little privacy, but in all I was really liking the environment. At the bar there was an elderly gentleman dressed up in a suit. From the way the bartender and other workers spoke to him, it seems like the guy is in there at least five nights a week. The time was about 6:30 pm and the dinner crowd kept coming in. One couple sat up at the bar, some waited in the front for take-out orders, but most were seen to a table. No matter who they were or where they sat, either the bartender or a worker knew who they were and patrons were greeted like family. I was the real unknown entity, everyone else knew each other. Perhaps there's not many options in the area, so everyone goes there to eat, or maybe there's some other type of charm which has kept the place in existence since 1947. In a fast pace world that caters to rancid music and five million Best Buy locations, it was refreshing to find this place where nobody is a stranger. My go-to lately for Italian restaurants has been veal parmigiana. So I ordered that up with a side of spaghetti and a small bottle of white wine. The veal came out in less that ten minutes from when I ordered it, so that raised a reg flag in my mind. The cheese looked like it was tossed on real fast and it was hardly melted into the veal the way it should be. The sauce and the veal itself was a little flat in the taste department, not terrible, but certainly nothing to instill the urge to rush back and have it again. Perhaps La Manda's is more of a pizzeria and in that area is where they shine.

             The bartender offered the dessert menu and of course I had to take a peek. Originally I was thinking of a treat somewhere else on the way home, like a diner. One of the options was Italian cheesecake which I've seen before on menus, but never tried. Since I was already seated at nice cozy place, why go somewhere else for dessert? I went with a slice of the Italian cheesecake and a cup of coffee. I was curious what the difference was between an Italian cheesecake and the more common New York-style, and the answer is all in the texture. Whereas the New York cheesecake is firm, the Italian version is softer and has a cottage cheese look about it. Also it tasted more like a plain cookie than that sweet-cheese essence I have been accustomed to. Having experienced both styles of cheesecake, I'll lean with the original New York-style any day of the week. In all I can't say I was blown away by the food and dessert of La Manda's, but any gap in the taste department was more than made up for in environment. It's worth going there just to sit down for a while and watch the television set at the bar. For patrons who need to go outside to smoke, there's even an ashtray on the telephone pole out front. I was certainly bummed out that I couldn't go bowling on that night, but at least the loss of the bowling alley allowed me to find an old fashioned world like La Manda's.

             There's still little traces of humanity left, but you have to dig deeper to find them.....

The Only Idiot Still Parked There

             Whereas once I considered the Fourth of July holiday to be better than Christmas for fact I would enjoy lighting off fireworks to blow stuff up, in latter years I've found it to be more of a noisy nuisance I would prefer to be without. Not wanting to be in the neighborhood to listen to continuous pops and bangs all day, I pondered the thought of a one-day getaway to escape the headache. A couple of summers ago I did the same thing on July 4th and went out to Red Bank, New Jersey. It is a quiet town located before the shore points of the Jersey coastline. The item that surprised me on that day was that the roads and highways getting there were virtually empty on such a major summer holiday. Not wanting any traffic this year as well, I picked Jersey again for the mini-vacation, but this time the more lively area of Seaside Heights. In the nature of waiting till the last minute to finalize my decision, I actually didn't book the hotel room until the morning of July 4th.

             Just as it had been a few years ago on the Fourth of July, the highways were light in traffic, starting off with the Cross Bronx, the New Jersey Turnpike, and finally the Garden State Parkway. It must be due to the fact that people with July 4th plans must already be wherever they're going to be at by July 3rd. I had been to Seaside Heights before not too long ago during the summer. It wasn't July 4th, just a regular Saturday, but the traffic was torture the entire way and leaving at 12:00pm from the Bronx, I didn't get there until about 4pm. This time around, I also left about 12:00pm, but reached the a little before 3:00pm. There wasn't one lick of traffic or cars slowing down whatsoever; it had to have been a new world record. I actually could've gotten to the hotel sooner, except I was lost after getting off the ramp because there aren't many normal street signs to look at. Instead of the normal street corner sign that is usually high up on a pole and colored in green or blue, in Seaside Heights most of the street labeling is done on white wooden pikes that stick out of the ground. I actually I to pull up to an ambulance dispatch garage to ask for directions and I was getting a little nervous when a driver mentioned there was only one hotel on the street I was looking for, and it wasn't the Travelodge I booked online. I was able to follow there directions and it turns out I was only about seven blocks off, but it turns out the hotel used to be called The Village Inn, but it was recently bought out by the Travelodge franchise, that I never heard of before. Parking in Seaside Heights is very tough, and since there were no free spots at the hotel left, I had to used a pay municipal machine and park the car around the corner.

             My room was located up on the third floor which gave a good view of the bridge which leads cars back towards the Garden State Parkway. Most Jersey shore motels and hotels are on the dumpy side, unless you spend top dollar, but my room was manageable. After the horror of the awful Motel 6 room I had a few weeks ago in Washington, DC, this one was the Waldoff Astoria. It would've been nice to have a latch to chain the door to for extra security, but there was a bolt, and they provided way more towels than I really needed which were folded very neatly. After I was settled in, I headed for the one thing I mainly had on my mind during the sunny drive down, that was the beach. The hotel was located four long blocks from the boardwalk and beach area, so it took about ten minutes to get there. Admission to the beach is five dollars and your given a wrist band which allows you to re-enter throughout the day in case you want to venture on the boardwalk for a healthy meal like salt water taffy, a philly cheesesteak, or an unnecessarily large slice of pizza. If you think you can use your wrist band to forgo paying the next day, you can't, they change up the color/style to something else each day. The beach was very crowded in the sand as well as in the water. Even seagulls were getting into the act by dive-bombing onto the waves to catch fish. The water didn't look as rough as it's Atlantic Ocean counterpart Jones Beach, in Long Island, New York, I encountered about a week ago. When I got into the water it was one of those rare moments when the temperature was just perfect, which is quite difficult for chilly Northeast waters. Plus, with the water not being as rough, it was easier to swim out more and not worry about getting washed out to sea like would probably have happened at Jones Beach that day. It was a little annoying to not be able to swim freely with a million other swimmers around, but the warm water was good enough to just be in it.

             By 5:00pm, quite rudely the lifeguards shut it down for the day and even got on a bullhorn and told people to get up and leave the beach. As hoards of beachgoers left, the seagulls swooped in to feast on the potato chips and pizza crusts that stayed behind. Naturally, with all the birds swarming around one managed to aim one of its droppings onto my beach blanket that I had to wash off in the hotel room. Within fifteen minutes the beach was emptied out and I found myself on the boardwalk. Just about every other stand is a 3 Brothers from Italy Pizza franchise, and since I didn't have a lunch yet, I had their hot sausage with peppers and onions hero with a gigantic cup of tangy lemonade to feast on. Even with the big drink, I was still thirsty afterwards and stopped by a Kohr's stand for one of their original orangeade drinks. There is a sky ride which elevates over the boardwalk and takes you from one end to the other, and at only five dollars for a round trip, it seemed like a bargain, so I purchased the two-way ticket (its three dollars for one-way only). Turns out going solo on this thing isn't a great idea. With me leaning on one side in a seat by myself, this thing started shaking and I had the feeling I was about to drop at any second. It doesn't go extremely high up and you're mostly over the sand, but there's definitely the opportunity for a broken leg and getting knocked out cold. My only chance was to remain absolutely still so as I wouldn't cause the seat to shake any further. Getting to the other end of the boardwalk was taking forever and I couldn't wait for this ride of terror to end. I think I realized I really hate heights now and breathed a deep sigh of relief once I was off. I had the other part of the ticket for a ride back, but in no way was I getting back onto that thing, a nice walk was fine with me.

            Once I got back to my hotel room to shower off from the beach and clean the bird dropping on my beach blanket, I recalled my first Seaside Heights visit and the best veal parmigiana I ever had in my life. This, along with the beach, was another reason I chose Seaside Heights for this day. The restaurant had the word "spaghetti" somewhere in the name, and I kind of had an idea where it was located, but wasn't completely sure. After getting dressed and heading out, I found a block that looked semi-familiar of where the place was located, and in no less than two blocks, there it was on the corner of Boulevard and Blaine Ave., On Top of Spaghetti. It was quite busy and I was fearful they wouldn't want to sit just a party of one, but there was a small table inside they put me at. The restaurant has homemade family-style Italian dishes and the inside is decorated like some old Italian grandmother's house. I let the waitress waste her breath by telling me their specials of the day while the whole time I had my mind on one thing, the veal parmigiana. For an appetizer I ordered up some fried mozzarella which came out in two patties and the sauce on it was absolutely wonderful. My meal came with a salad which the waitress didn't ask me about, otherwise I would've waived it off, but since she put it in front of me I left bad just having her come back and see it wasn't touched. The trick with salads is that with the thin leaves, you can pile one half of the salad onto the other half, leave one leaf on the vacated side so it doesn't look too perfect, and you can trick your server into thinking you actually ate some of it. She completely brought it because instead of asking something confrontational like, "You didn't want it?", she asked, "Can I take this away now?".

             A few minutes after the unwanted trick salad was removed from my table, they brought out the veal parmigiana with the spaghetti in the same dish, covered in tomato sauce and hot melted cheese. The smell was the same as it was a couple of years ago, and happily the taste was still there too. I had some regrets that the fried mozzarella, plus the sausage hero a few hours earlier, might've hindered my ability to finish my plate, but it turned out I finished it all with ease. I still believe not a better veal parmigiana can be located anywhere else but at On Top of Spaghetti. The waitress came over and asked me if I would be interested in dessert. I had two options; I could have dessert there, or, get something on the boardwalk later that night when I would be there for the 9:30pm fireworks show. Knowing boardwalk snacks offer the unhealthiest of the unhealthiest temptations such as funnel cakes, zeppoles, taffy, fudge, and cotton candy, I felt the restaurant dessert would at least be more sensible and keep my stomach away from those other deadly options. What I had then was a glass of cut strawberries with cannoli filling and topped off with whipped cream and a piece of cannoli shell. In no time I was done with my dessert and back up onto the boardwalk where crowds were gathering for the fireworks display. Although I was escaping fireworks for the day, this was going to be colorful stuff bursting into the air over the waters and not bottle-rockets setting off ten different car alarms at once. I wasted some time by checking out the Fun Town Amusement Park located on a pier and all the different death-defying ride I wouldn't even fathom trying out. There was a red harvest moon rising from the sea level, for a moment I though it was Mars. Other people where joking that it was a meteor heading towards Earth. The fireworks show started about on time and it was a good ten minute onslaught of flowers, mortars, and sparklers launched from the beach and shot over the water. At times it seemed like I was in the middle of a war the way the pounding was non-stop. The crowd was impressed and gave a large applause at the end.

             The crowd dispersed after that, but there were still tons of people on the boardwalk that it felt as dense as walking through Times Square. I also walked through some of the side streets and came upon one interesting setting when there was what sounded like a young woman crying in a dark hotel parking garage. I couldn't see her, but some guy was going towards her to console it appeared. Then at the nearby corner a small crowd had gathered and there was the unsettling feeling like a fight just occurred a few minutes previously by the way people were talking. Also, for some reason the corner smelt like vomit, as a passing by lady pointed out. I never found out what happened, but there was other chaos going around. Police were napping teenagers left and right trying to conceal alcohol in water and Gatorade bottles. There were at least two darkly tanned middle-aged women taken into police custody for being too drunk to stand straight. Another lady tripped at a street corner and needed an ambulance to come pick her up. It was certainly a wonderful night at the Jersey shore. I saw lightning bolts in the air and felt some drizzle come down, so I figured this was a good time to return to the hotel. Hundreds and hundreds of cars were lined up forever trying to flee Seaside Heights and I was happy I was staying the night and not having to sit through those tedious hours of horn-honking. The only downside of the night was the skies completely opened before I was halfway back and by the time I reached my room, my clothes were drenched and it looked like I just swam in the ocean. To make matters worse, I had to go out again to put more money in the machine since its for 24-hour parking. The water-soaked bills kept getting rejected by the machine as the rain poured down, and it wasn't until I flipped the bills over to a dryer side that the machine finally accepted them.

            Originally I was going to leave in the morning after checking out and hoped to be back in New York by midday, but after experiencing how nice the beach water was, I needed to stay around longer for another dip. Once I was done with the hotel, I had the option of getting into the car to look for a parking space more conveniently closer to the beach. Then I wondered, what if there are no good spots there, then I would be wasting time and just end up back where I was. For that reason, I decided to put more money in the machine and just left the car where it had been standing. I set out for breakfast and walked towards the boardwalk area to find a place. Of course, just about every parking space near the beach was open if I had gotten into my car and moved it, but I didn't mind the long walks back and forth. I came upon an establishment called Just Breakfast, and they do.......just breakfast, closing at 1pm. The inside is fixed up with wooden booths and old pictures and movie posters along the wall. I asked for a belgian waffle with hot blueberry preserve, and with expecting alot since the place seemed to be a breakfast specialist, the food was quite mediocre. If that wasn't bad enough, the waitress never asked me if I wanted a refill on my coffee, which is like a waitressing cardinal sin. I was seated at a large booth by myself (its not very big inside), and when a large group came in to be seated, they gave me the bum's rush to get me out of there so they could use my booth for the group. I could see if I got a good waffle out of it, but it tasted no better than an Eggo's, so the whole experience was rotten. With coffee goals unfulfilled, I had to resort to a Dunkin Donuts stand on the boardwalk for a medium iced coffee. The hit MTV show "Jersey Shore" was filmed in that area and I would've like to have seen the infamous house they used, but there just wasn't time for that.

             Another five dollars was invested after a long walk back to the car to get my beach stuff so I could have another beach sampling before heading back to New York. There was another breakfast place around called Jimmy's Breakfast that had my name all over it and they probably treat you like a human being, unlike Just Breakfast, that I regretted not seeing before. Since it was earlier in the day (about 11:00am) compared to when I was there the afternoon before, the water wasn't fully warmed up by a whole day worth of hot sun, so it was chillier this time around, but still pleasant. The good news was that this time around there weren't as many seagulls around to leave a present on my blanket. Another good thing was that there weren't nearly as many other swimmers around in the water, so I was able to move around more without worrying about bumping into someone. I took about three to four trips into the water, took in some sun, collected sea shells near the coastline, and was ready to head back home. As I was walking towards my car I noticed that there were still open spots around the blocks near the beach and I was about the only idiot who had my car parked as far as I had it. I first opened my car door to remove the parking receipt from my dashboard, and the sun was so powerful that it actually burnt the white paper and turned it brown. Furthermore, when I sat down to get myself organized before leaving, I felt a slight itch on my leg. When I looked down I noticed a small green bug had jumped on me. It looked like a grasshopper or a cricket, but when I saw the two front legs standing up in a kung-fu position, I realized it was a baby praying mantis. I hadn't seen one out in the wild like that for many years. I think its illegal to kill them because they're so rare these days, so not wanting to face a New Jersey courtroom on murder charges, I whisked it off my leg and it eventually went outside the car.

               I was hoping it wasn't standing under my tire by the time I drove off, but at least there was only one car there it had to worry about dodging.....