Five Song Friday #108: The Old Man and the Mall
This Week: Nasty Little Piggies, Soft Towels and Dancing Punks
Not long ago I visited two of the biggest malls in America on purpose.
I realized two things:
Malls are alive and well and full of young people.
And I have lost another domain.
Today, I am the old man at the mall.
I am the tired grownup in fresh skate-boy sneakers who stands alone outside the funky fashion stores and does crossword puzzles on his smartphone waiting for the ladies in his life to finish browsing.
I look at the other old people and don’t see my peers. I still feel young inside. Deep down inside, underneath all the aches and stiffness.
I still feel young until I catch a glimpse of myself reflected in the heaving bosom of a lingerie billboard wall.
My first thought? Time can be so cruel. Look at these wrinkles. I’m closer to my death than my birth now.
My second thought? I can’t be standing here looking at this giant lady in half a bra. This will be hard to explain when my wife gets out of that other store.
Life as an adult is so much more complicated.
I’m not asking for your sympathy as much as I’m remembering people who should have had more of mine.
Because many years ago, if you were a grown man like me in a mall like this?
I was your worst nightmare.
A hormone-addled, uncomplicated oaf with no concept of empathy or consequences.
I was an awkward teenage boy who rolled four dorks deep. We whooped and hollered and ran when we were told to walk. Feral miscreants high on adrenaline and sugar.
Most Saturdays, I was part of an overconfident posse of misshapen boys in corduroy short shorts with white socks pulled up to our knees.
We entered the revolving brass doors in slow-motion like some kind of Reservoir Dogs version of Revenge of the Nerds.
None of us owned the mall, but we all acted as if we did.
We were young. We were dumb. We had nothing better to do.
One thing we rarely did was shop.
We rummaged and loitered and lived like kings with pockets of crumpled paper money. We were masters of the aimless hang.
As adults we don’t hang much these days.
Today, the only reason I come to the mall is if I need something.
Get in and get out.
This time, I bought some clothes.
And while standing in line to checkout, I stared at the giant ad screen above the cashier. I watched it cycle through a fashion shoot of stunning, skinny young men in big ridiculous pants and cowboy boots.
There were backwards ball caps, tattoos and tank tops and pursed lips aplenty. They looked like an ethnically-diverse gang from a bad eighties flick about radioactive zombies and the rollerblade apocalypse. Mad Max 90210.
I wanted to laugh, but then remembered I was in line.
Clearly, something about the Benetton b-movie boy band worked on me. Was I holding a armload of clothes hoping that some fly new pants would make me one of them? Maybe.
Was I here amongst the pre-distressed skinny jeans and leather bomber jackets with lace-up sleeves in an effort to recapture some lost magic of my youth? I honestly don’t think so.
One, because there isn’t much magic to recapture.
And two, because leather jackets with lace-up sleeves was never a thing ever.
(And don’t tell me it’s making a fashion statement because the only statement lace-up leather jacket sleeves makes is “I’m dumb and don’t understand how sleeves work.”)
I don’t think I’m attracted to malls because they remind of the good old days.
These places feel different now, like ghost towns caught in limbo.
I worked in a mall food court in the eighties. I remember watching the people walk by and it looked like AMERICA. In my mind, I can still see the montage of prosperity and unbothered optimism set a Pointer Sisters song.
People ate frozen yogurt and tied sweaters around their shoulders and if I had a nickel for every Members Only jacket I saw, I’d be writing this with a fancy pen made of solid gold!
It was a glorious time of ignorance and bliss! We drank smoothies made with orange juice and milk! We believed in our souls that it could not get any better!
But if I told any of those 1980s people that I just spent time in a mall with 2.4 million square feet of shopping space? They would say, “What are you talking about Willis!”
I would say, these malls are so big now, it’s like the Appalachian Trail with perfume kiosks! They have entire living rooms set up so people can rest from all the walking! They sell handbags worth more than you make in a year and the jeans are sold WITH holes in them!
They would stare at me in disbelief with their big mustaches and feathered haircuts and ruffled collars, but I would swear it was true!
But when they asked if the people of today are happier and more unbothered? I’d have to say no.
Because when I sit on those comfortable chairs in the mall living rooms (after dodging a lotion sample bully and a polite pitch for some church that believes that God is lady), I watch the world go by through a different lens.
I don’t see a happy parade of humanity anymore.
I see clusters of harried shoppers who look pinch-faced and sour. They carry heaving bags of overpriced shoes and high-end stretchy pants and they look… pissed.
Maybe the pace of the 21st century is grinding them down. Maybe the high price of everything leaves them broken and bitter.
Whatever the case, nobody looks as carefree as they did back when Orange Julius was king of the food court.
And I hate to be that guy. The guy who looks backwards in time through the hazy clouds of nostalgia and lets out an obnoxious sigh.
So I’m not going to be that guy.
I’m not going to say malls were better back then, because they weren’t.
They were just as stupid.
We’ve evolved by leaps and bounds in science, technology and television shows, but I can report confidently, that when it comes to shopping malls, we haven’t learned anything in forty years.
So as I sit here on the mall sidelines, I just see blank empty faces.
Like this one old guy who just locked eyes with me.
What’s his deal? What makes him look so angry and sleepy?
Oh jeez… that’s just my reflection.
In ANOTHER giant underwear mural.
Time for me to leave.
Five Song Friday 108
“i get lost” - Swelo, Harrison Sands
The tone gets set early in this song with the line, “If you’re coming to my house, take your shoes off.” This is a shoes-off song. If you’re going to listen to this song, please have a pair of clean socks ready. Nobody wants to look at your gnarled and nasty bare feet. If you do not have socks on? Please do not listen on an airplane. Please do not listen in a restaurant. Please do not listen anywhere your little toe and my eyeballs could possibly cross paths. Otherwise… enjoy!
“Digital” - Joy Division
Despite this band’s reputation for edgy darkness and moody melancholy, this song will end up in a commercial for fabric softener. Mark my words.
“Sizing You Up” - Wonderful Broken Thing
If you’re looking for a bunch of songs that sound like classic Violent Femmes without that pesky familiarity, Wonderful Broken Thing have two albums worth that were recorded in the late eighties and dusted off in the early aughts. Great music for driving your friends to the beach in your convertible Cabriolet!
“Flash-Bang Grenade” - Light Beams
“Ain’t a single living breathing creature want to die alone.” Damn, Light Beams. Way to lighten the mood. Aside from the occasional super-heavy knowledge drop about love, death and the vast coldness of the universe, this is a fun jam from some DC dance punks who have a self-admitted mission to “physically move people.” So after you contemplate what needs contemplating, feel free to shake it like a Polaroid picture.
“Woman” - Karen O, Danger Mouse
She doesn’t come right out and say it, but we all know for damn sure that Karen O brings home the bacon and fries it up in a pan.
“The weak are the most treacherous of us all. They come to the strong and drain them. They are bottomless. They are insatiable. They are always parched and always bitter. They are everyone’s concern and like vampires they suck our life’s blood.” - Bette Davis (Born April 5, 1908)
Thanks for reading!
Sincerely,
DJ CrankyPete