Return to Alabama

Last week I returned to Alabama for the first time since I left in August. I was there for a week and had a pretty good time.

Over the last five months, when I've told people that I lived in Alabama for the previous two years, they're quick to point out the obvious: "living in New York City must be a lot different than Alabama."

Well duh.

But the differences are not what people think.

The major difference between a small town and a big city is that in a small town almost everything shuts down by 10:00 PM. While there are still some places open past 11:00 PM and even as late as 2:00 AM, there are few late evening activities. Even if you're not going out much late at night, the fact that you cannot affects the feel of the whole town -- it feels more sedate.

The other major difference is that in places like Montgomery you cannot walk anywhere. Even a drug store you have to drive to. When you consider the fact that drug stores provide life saving medicine, it's pretty remarkable that in Montgomery you have to have a car to have access to this resource.

Another difference is that the cost of food, especially produce, is actually cheaper in New York and Philadelphia. At a place like West Side Market of Fairway, produce runs about 50% cheaper. Even Florida citrus is cheaper in New York.

Further, in Montgomery, the 10 percent sales tax applies to food. Having to pay not just tax on groceries, but 10 percent, is easily one of the top 3 craziest things about Alabama.

There were a few food products that seemed to be cheaper in Montgomery. One was wine -- prices were several dollars less than New York and Philly -- and Chobani yogurt, despite the fact that Chobani is made in upstate New York!

One thing New York and no other major west coast or northeast city has is Southern cooking. I did a lot of eating during my trip, and the highlight was my favorite restaurant: Red's Little School House. Their fried cornbread is amazing, as is the fried chicken livers and gizzards.

I also made it to another favorite restaurant -- Micheal's Table -- where the "WTFOMG Fillet of Beef" (five-year gouda grits, potato latke, bacon, olive oil poached egg, hollandaise sauce, garlic greens) was back on the menu after a year-long absence. Sadly, I only had time to swing by El Ray's for a margarita (which are better than most up north).

Parting Gift from the South

While living in the Deep South for the last two years I haven't come across too much blatant racism besides the Civil War deniers who claim that the War of Northern Aggression was fought purely over taxation.

The other day movers were at my house taking my stuff away, and one of them asked me if there had been any problems in the neighborhood. I said no and asked him why he was asking. He said he was wondering because he had seen a lot of "colored folks" around my street. I tried to ignore the comment and not engage in conversation.

My co-worker came up with what should have been my response: one of those colored folk is my mother.

And a few minutes later, I could hear the guy talking to another one of the movers saying "colored folk" over and over again.

I suppose it's a good think that this guy didn't realize that I was Jewish. I assume like everyone else down here, he thought I was Italian, and thus, connected.

Red's: The Final Meal

As my time in the south rapidly comes to an end, I put in my final meal at Red's -- my favorite southern comfort food restaurant.

Much of the fun of going to Red's is the drive there -- it's in the middle of no where: 20 miles down a state highway into farm country, then another 5 miles on county roads (so two lane roads, sometimes you go off the GPS map).

By far the best thing they make is their fried corn bread. I'm sure it's like 500 calories a piece, but it's amazing.

A friend bought me their cookbook so I could make the corn bread myself, and I was surprised to find that that secret ingredient is buttermilk, and apparently, buttermilk is used in everything, including fried chicken. Who knew? (everyone but me).

Why Women Shouldn't Vote

So the local conservative weekly rag, The Alabama Gazette, printed the below Op-Ed (it's a must read):



Here's my exchange with the paper about it:

From:
To: alabamagazette@yahoo.com
Sent: Friday, July 15, 2011 4:27 PM
Subject: re: "The People's Voice: In God We Trust," July 8

To the editor:

You should be ashamed for publishing Ed Jone's misogynist diatribe ("In God We Trust," July 8). His claim that women are uninformed voters, that they are swayed by the looks of candidates and not their policies, that their votes have harmed our nation, and thus, giving women the right to vote was a mistake, is offense, unpatriotic, and anti-American.

If there is anyone who is an uniformed fool, it's Jones. In his column he repeatedly says that The Twentieth Amendment established womens suffrage. The Twentieth Amendment is the "lame duck" amendment. The Nineteenth Amendment gave women the right to vote.

The "Gazette" owes its readers an apology.

-Seth

-----

On Fri, Jul 15, 2011 at 5:35 PM, Loretta Grant <alabamagazette@yahoo.com> wrote:

Seth,

Thank you for your response! Response is what I want from our readers!

'This is a "think" for yourself publication. If only we would all stand up

for our beliefs and issues that just "make up mad".
We are the "People's Voice" and YOU are a thinking reader.

I am a woman. I read this, and knowing Ed as I do, I know he simply thinks

men and women are just made different. I agree! We do think about issues

differently. I am a free thinking woman or I would not own this newspaper.

This did not offend me. I did not completely agree with his slant on the

women voting issues, but it does make us examine ourselves to

find out what makes us vote for a particular person. Most people go to the

polls and "don't have a clue", or are told how to vote! Think...think...think.

Be more informed! That's the point!

Thank you again. Please keep reading The Alabama Gazette and feel free

to comment at any time!

Loretta Grant

Publisher/Managing Editor

From:

To: Loretta Grant <alabamagazette@yahoo.com>
Sent: Monday, July 18, 2011 9:34 AM
Subject: Re: "The People's Voice: In God We Trust," REPLY

- Hide quoted text -

Mrs. Grant:

You may know Ed, but I'm guessing most of your readers, including me, don't. All we have to go by is his printed word, and that tells a very different story than the man you may know personally.

I'm also curious that you have no comment on the fact that he repeatedly named the wrong amendment (and that fact checkers did not pick this up).

Respectfully,

-Seth

---

Seth,

I will print this email out for him. He does not personally operate a computer.

Thanks for your comments!

Loretta Grant

Seaside, FL

This past weekend I went to Seaside, FL where The Truman Show was filmed.



Seaside is a master-planned community designed to be an idealized 1950s beech community.



Despite the extremely high level of kitsch, the town is pretty cool -- I'd vacation there.

Seaside is quite compact (there's very little space between homes), it's modeled to be a garden city with trees and brush all over the place, the architecture is diverse and interesting, and it's all very self-contained with lots of retail and restaurants in the town center.







With the exception of going to the supermarket, while there you could park your car and never have to drive -- everything you would need is in walking distance.



(Sand paths like this cut through the blocks so that people can walk from their homes to the beach in bare feet.)

There is one major flaw with the design of the town. Virtually none of the homes have parking on the property line (e.g. a garage or parking space). As a result, all of the streets are lined with cars, and they screw up the picturesque look of the town.



It's either a major oversight, or they grossly underestimated how many cars per home there would be. This website implies that the on-street parking provides a buffer between the street and sidewalk. While this is done in places like NYC -- it goes sidewalk, bike lane, parking, traffic lane, so that the parked cars protect the bike lane from traffic -- unlike NYC, people aren't zooming down the streets of Seaside at 40 mph. Most people were driving slower than I walk.

One other planning mistake was that they didn't put in bike lanes -- and lots of people bike around town.

More pictures:



On the way to Seaside I drove by this mega condo, Emerald Grande:



It's an interesting contrast to Seaside. Both have the same goal of being a self-contained vacation community -- it has its own mall, restaurants, marina -- but its design philosophy is part of our mall culture -- the building is pretty much a stationary cruise ship.



I can understand why some people will like that, but its huge size means it's always going to be congested with people.

The biggest difference between it and Seaside is that there is no where to walk -- walking is a major component of Seaside experience.

I also think buying a unit in a condo like this is a bad investment. Eventually someone is going to build a newer, glitzy condo tower, and next thing you know, you own a unit in a second rate building.

Finally, I spotted this disaster waiting to happen:



This putz is going to get someone killed. What does he think those clam shell type looking things everyone has on their car roofs is for?

36 Hours in Central Alabama

A friend was in Alabama for a day and a half, so in the spirit of the New York Times travel section's “36 hours in…,” here’s an accounting of our whirlwind day and a half.

Saturday

9 a.m.
1) Selma

First stop was the tiny but historic city of Selma. We did the usual – walked across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, went to Brown Chapel and strolled by the homes in the historic neighborhood – and as a first for me, went to Live Oak Cemetery which is a picturesque southern Gothic cemetery overflowing with Spanish Moss.







12:45 p.m.
2) Mobile

Our pursuit of authentic southern food led us to The Brick Pit. It was simply the best Bar-B-Que I’ve ever had. The ribs melted in my mouth.





According to the menu: "We Smoke our chickens for 6 to 8 hours, our ribs for 12 hours and our pulled pork for up to 30 hours all over a blend of Hickory and Pecan."

2:00 p.m.
3) Dauphin Island

On impulse we decided to drive as far South as you can get – Dauphin Island. I’ve been before, but a first for me was going into Fort Gaines. If you’ve seen one Civil War fort you’ve pretty much seen them all, but the exhibits there depicted its role in the Battle of Mobile Bay, and the Fort’s latrine used the tides in a pretty clever way to remove waste.





Here's a fun little plaque about the cause of the Civil War.


Last time I was at Dauphin Island I noted how many oil rigs you could see. This time not only could I see more, but they appeared to be even closer to the island – only a mile or so away.




4 p.m.
4) Mobile.

Back in Mobile we walked around Dauphin St.



6 p.m.
5) Monroeville



For the second year in a row I attend Monroeville’s community product of To Kill a Mockingbird. Last year I sat in the balcony during the courtroom scene (which is staged in the Monroeville courtroom); this year I sat on the main level. While I wanted to go back to the balcony, because it filled up fast so I was forced to sit down stairs. However, I felt it was a more involving experience sitting in the main level. At times it felt like I was watching an actual trial unfolding in front of me.

Sunday

9 a.m.
6) Montgomery

In the morning we hit the highlights of Montgomery: Civil Rights Memorial, Dexter King Memorial Baptist Church (where MLK was pastor and organized the bus boycott), Court Square (site of the city’s slave market), Capitol Building steps where Jefferson Davis was sworn in, and Hank Williams’ grave.

11 a.m.
7) Red’s Little School House




For an early lunch we went to Red’s where I got in my once a month serving of fried chicken, fried corn bread, fried livers and fried gizzards.

1:30 p.m.
8) Downtown Birmingham

On the way to the airport we swung through downtown Birmingham. As always, I was impressed with its many well preserved turn of the century buildings. If there is any Alabama city that could have a vibrant downtown comparable to a northern city, it’s Birmingham. The infrastructure is there, but people and businesses just need to relocate downtown.

Alabama has a cockfighting lobby?

Sometimes Alabama lives up to its reputation and there is no way to defend the state:

Cockfighting lobby likely to derail bill that would stiffen penalties for crime

Published: Friday, April 15, 2011, 8:00 AM
By George Altman

Alabama's cockfighting lobby appears to be on the verge of blocking yet another bill that would impose stiffer penalties for the crime, the bill's sponsor said.

State Rep. Jim Barton, R-Mobile, said that while House Bill 74, which would elevate the offense from parking-ticket levels to hundreds and possibly thousands of dollars in fines and potential jail time, has passed through committee, it probably won't be considered by the full House.

"The sentiment of the House - particularly a lot of the northern Alabama representatives - (is that they) do not want to deal with it," Barton said. "I think there's been a lot of pressure on those guys."

The pressure, according to Barton, has come from the Alabama Gamefowl Breeders Association, which has helped derail similar bills in recent years.

"Alabama has more important things to worry about than cockfighting," said D'Renda Lewis, the association's secretary.

Not only are the $20 to $50 maximum fines for cockfighting currently on the books sufficient, they shouldn't even apply to most cockfights in Alabama, which are not held in public places and are, therefore, legal, according to Lewis.

"The majority of people who participate in cockfighting in Alabama are not doing anything against the law," Lewis said. [more]

Philly Invasion

My local Fresh Market supermarket carries Di Bruno Bros. cheese spreads. Incredible!



I saw the containers from a distance and they looked familiar. When I got in close I was blown away. This is Di Bruno Bros. in Ala-freakin-bama!

I'm going to have to talk to the manager about stocking other Di Bruno Bros. food products.

Doo-Nanny

This past weekend I went to Doo-Nanny. It's an "outsider art folk show" in the middle of nowhere in Alabama (which I define as 40 miles off the interstate).




Artist Butch Anthony hosts it on his 80 acre farm. At the end of the night there is the Doo-Nanny Burn which is modeled after Burning Man.

If it sounds familiar, the New York Times wrote an article on it last year.

It was pretty easy to spot the tourists like me and the people who were really into the spirit of the event.



The permanent exhibit on the compound was the Museum of Wonder.



It featured arrangements of found objects, which I suppose is the definition of "outsider folk art."





There were too many people going in and out to take in all the details. If it wasn't for the fact that it is 1.5hrs away, I'd like to go back.

Elsewhere on the grounds there was the art show which I felt was more people peddling their junk than actual art show. I say junk because for the most part, it lacked the wit of the pieces in the Museum of Wonder.



Perhaps the main attraction of the show is the Doo-Nanney Burn.

Here's the effigy that they burned (yes, it's what you think it is):



Here's Anthony's explanation (from the Times article):

“There’s a 100-foot vagina we’re fixing to burn,” Mr. Anthony remarked recently while filling a garbage can in the back of his battered truck with water, a precautionary measure, one gathered, in case things got out of hand.

But why a vagina? “They’ve got a burning man, why not have a burning woman?”

I didn't stay for the burn because I didn't want to spend the entire day out there -- I got there at 1:30 pm; the burn ends at midnight. And I lacked the motivation to load up my car with food and camping equipment.

This was definitely one of the more interesting uniquely Alabaman experiences I've had.

All of my pictures:



Oh. On the way there, I passed sections of forest that looked to have been hit pretty hard by forest fires.

It's not racism, it's herritage...and denial aint just a river in Egypt

This past Saturday the Sons of Confederate Veterans celebrated the founding of the Confederacy by reenacting the swearing-in of Jefferson Davis on the Alabama State Capitol steps (where Jefferson Davis was sworn-in 150 yeas ago).




Predictably, their message was that the Civil War was about States Rights and that they were honoring the brave men who fought for this noble idea.

I was thoroughly creeped out from being surround by all of these lunatics -- I was less uncomfortable when I visited the gas chambers at Dachau. I'm not kidding.

Maybe it would be unfair to label them all as racists, but who puts stickers like these on their cars?:



No one threatened me, but one guy came up to me and said, "do they know a Yankee is here?" I wasn't wearing anything to indicate that, but I obviously didn't fit in.

The most lunatic speech came from this guy:



Besides bringing up Harry Potter, he compared his plight -- a white man who is maligned by liberals because he speaks the truth of what the Civil War was really fought over -- to the Civil Rights Movement. He told the crowd that like Rosa Parks, it was time they stood up from the back of the bus and walked to the front. So I guess he must feel like he's living in an apartheid state. And there's no doubt that Rosa Parks' name was invoked because we're in Montgomery, AL, home of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and only several hundred feet away from MKL's church where the boycott was organized.

I was happy that Bill Maher focused on this event in his New Rules segment on Friday's show. My local friends weren't happy that Bill attacked all Southerns, but my response to them is that even though the Sons of Confederate Veterans do not represent the majority of Southerns, the majority is complicit by never speaking out against these Civil War revisionists. There should have been a counter protest, but there wasn't one. And while these guys obviously have a Constitutional right to assemble and say whatever they want, I don't think the State should have allowed them to hold the event on the Capitol steps given that they are slavery deniers.

All my pictures from the day:

Someone really likes 'The Dukes of Hazzard'

I spotted what appeared to be a near perfect replica of "The General Lee" in town today:





The confederate battle flag was on the roof and "01" was painted on the doors. The only apparent dissimilarity was that the doors did not appear to be welded shut.

Alabama Gov. to non-Christians: Go to hell

Our new Governor, on his first day on the job, speaking at an MLK day event, at MLK's church, had this to say about his non-Christian constituents:

"So anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, I'm telling you, you're not my brother and you're not my sister, and I want to be your brother."

While there is some context to the statement, it's pretty scary that when writing the speech no one thought someone might take issue with telling non-Christians that the Governor is not their "brother."

The good news for the Governor is that there aren't many Jews in Alabama, and I doubt any of them voted for him.

Unsealing Revelation's Mysteries

I received this in the mail the other day:

Unsealing Revelation's Mysteries

Unfortunately I've been out of town during some of the early seminars, but nothing is going to keep me from missing "How to Postpone Your Funeral."

It turns out that this church is local and they have podcasts. Listen to this one and be sure to listen for at least a minute. You'll see why.

Panic at the Supermarket

An inch or so of snow and some freezing rain was predicted for Sunday through today (Monday), and sure enough, on Friday people began clearing out certain items at the supermarket, most notably bread.



It doesn't take much snow to legitimately shut things down here in Alabama -- neither the city nor state have many plows or really any salt stockpiled.

But what I don't get, is the level of fear that is induced when people hear that it could snow.

People react like they're going to be trapped in their homes for days, maybe weeks, and will be completely shut off from food.

Let's pretend for a second that this really could happen. Why is that people think they can subsist on sliced bread? There are a lot of other things in the supermarket that have substantially greater nutrional value as well as a longer shelf life, like canned fruits and vegetables. If I thought that a snow apocolyspse was really imminent, I'd stock up on canned foods, not wonder bread.

The Check

Here's a cultural difference I've noticed between the Dixie and the North.

When a group of people receive the check for a meal up north, it's always a single check. In the South, probably 65 to 75 percent of the time the server either asks the table if everyone wants separate checks, or they go ahead and do it without asking. And this seems to be indicative of the people in the South. When I'm out with people and the server gives the table a single check, someone always ask if the table can have separate checks. Up north I find it is very rare that someone asks for separate checks -- almost everyone seems find calculating what they owe.

While I suppose that always having separate checks does make it a lot easier to calculate what you owe, especially when everyone at the table has ordered a lot, there's something anti-social about it. When you ask for the separate check, you're pretty much saying that you don't trust the people you're dining with to properly split the bill.

There have certainly been times where I knew someone calculated wrong and I had to over pay by a few dollars, but my philosophy is that it will all even out in the end. So maybe the folks up north are actually more friendly than people in the South?

Alabama: Where Pontiacs go to Die

I’ve been traveling a lot in the last two months, so I haven’t had time to post any new updates. But right now I’m on a long flight with a baby that won’t stop screaming, so now seems like a good time to review my first year in Dixie.

When I think of the last year living in Central Alabama, three things come to mind: college football, sunglass chums and Pontiacs.

College football

The obsession with college football goes beyond the degree to which Eagles and Giants fans vicariously live through their respective teams. When two people in Alabama meet, within 5 minutes someone will say: Auburn or Alabama?

On Saturdays everyone is at home watching football. There are a few restaurants in Montgomery where you actually do need reservations, especially on a Saturday night. If Alabama or Auburn is playing at night, the restaurant is empty. And when I say empty, I mean it’s the bartender, the wait staff and me.

My theory with the obsession is that people view it as a form of social mobility. By going to either the University of Alabama or Auburn University, you’re part of a special club, and you maintain your membership by being a vocal fan – it’s how you let everyone know you went to one of the two schools. It’s like how people tie their identity to a country club. And what’s really wild about it, is that the only thing the schools are known for (whether deservedly or not), are their football teams. Let me try and explain it this way: when pretentious assholes like me brag they went to an Ivy League school, we’re trying to showoff that we’re smart, or at least people should think we are smart. When people say that went to the University of Alabama, they’re bragging about the football team – and people here are impressed that they went to a school with such a good football team. People are so obsessed with the teams that it’s not uncommon for parents to tell kids that they can only apply to one school.

On the upside, Alabama and Auburn fans are much more pleasant than Philadelphia sports fans. No one is throwing batteries, puking on children, or beating people to death.

Fashion

There are some fashion trends that are distinct to the Deep South, most notably sunglass chums.

All the locals wear them – everyone from construction workers to attorneys. I think that people believe it communicates ruggedness. I think they look ridiculous. I bought one and tried it out to see if I was missing anything. I wasn’t.

Pontiacs

Have you ever wondered why you see so few Pontiac cars on the roads up north? It’s because they’re all down here. While most people have at least one SUV or pickup truck, the sedan of choice is by far a late model GM P.O.S. Pontiac (completing the trifecta of gas guzzlers).

The 1980s time warp

In many respects, Alabama is still in the 1980s. While there are surprising number of restaurants that are into only using locally grown and raised organic food, they are up against a culture that believes a meal should not cost more than $10. New restaurants have a very hard time convincing people that it’s reasonable to charge $20+ for an entrée.

But more emblematic of the 1980s culture is the lack of urban redevelopment. The major cities – Montgomery, Birmingham, Mobile, etc. – all have vacant downtowns. There’s no retail, and few restaurants and bars. The problem is urban sprawl.

Here’s what city planning in Alabama amounts to: someone builds a new planned community in the outskirts of the city, and strip malls are built nearby to provide retail and food for the people living in the community. A few years later someone builds another community even farther out – being surrounded by pastures is selling point. A new strip mall or two is built near them. The process then keeps repeating itself over and over again. The homes in the old communities are obviously not as nice as the ones in the newer, so people in the older communities move out to the new ones. As a result, people are increasingly moving out of the city center to the city limits, and the geographic footprint of the city is increasingly expanding so there is still wide open land for new planned communities to be built on. The old homes and strip malls then become dilapidated.

The most cynical I’ll get is that people here have unknowingly chosen to live in mediocrity. No one has figured out the connection between paying little in taxes and having roads that have not been repaved in a two decades, public schools that are only surpassed in failure by Louisiana and Mississippi, and an inadequate number of police officers. As ass backwards as Philadelphia can be, Montgomery makes it look like the most efficiently run city. In Philadelphia, if you call in a pothole it will typically get repaired within 24 hours. There are heavily used roads down here that look like Dresden after the bombing.

But to give you a real idea of the mediocrity, there is no curbside recycling. While every city in America is moving to single stream recycling and expanding the various waste they recycle, the Mayor of Montgomery decided to get rid of curbside collection because he said it costs too much. Now this is total bogus because the dumping fees for recyclables are less than waste. Further, there is already twice a week trash collection. How about eliminating one day of trash collection – if people have curbside recycling they’ll have less trash, and won’t need twice a week collection. I feel like I’m the only person in the city who realizes this.

And the whole recycling thing gets better. The city has drop-off sites where you can leave your paper and cardboard, and one or two of the sites will supposedly accept glass and plastic. Nobody uses them because it’s a pain in the ass to drive out to them. Even the Mayor has acknowledged that the recycling rate has plummeted since he eliminated curbside. So what’s his solution to this? Add more drop-off sites that are not used. I’m going to find out where he lives and leave my recyclables on his lawn – turn it into a drop site.

Alabama National Fair

Last night I went to the Alabama National Fair.







Yes, it's a national fair. Nothing on the website seems to indicate why exactly it is a national fair as opposed to a state fair, but I assume it's because the contests at the fair accept entries from non-Alabamans.



Anyway, it's a pretty typical state fair with livestock, competitions, food, games and rides.











The major attraction at the fair was Krispy Kreme's Donut Burger.







These things have been around for years up north (a google search produces hits going back to 2006). It's simply a bacon cheese burger with a glazed donut for a bun (aka "The Luther"). It contains nearly 1,100 calories and 67 grams of fat. Of course I had to have one and document the experience:







It tasted like a burger with a donut. And it was delicious.






Something more unique to the fair was pig racing.



Unfortunately, it didn't quite live up to the hype.



For each race the MC rambled for about 5 minutes and then the actually race took about 15 seconds.



But this one race was pretty good.







Instead of going around the track the pigs had to swim through a water obstacle. Notice how far the last pig manages to jump.