time travel breakfast. Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin West.
journey to the center of the Sun City.
Monday, 9.24.01
Got up later than usual on account of the nice boys buying me vodkas all night. By 10 drove up Camelback Road to the Original Pancake House, which is tantamount to breakfast in a midwest diner in 1962. In fact the staff looks bused in from a midwest diner in 1962. The first clue is the deluge of signs redundantly advising in no uncertain terms that cell phones are not permitted. One sign on every table, six or seven at the door. The second clue is the bouffant-totin' hostess/cashier wasn't even mildly interested in acknowledging the presence of yours truly. Hilarious! I love games... is it my casual road attire? Dirty backpack? Long hair? Does she also think I'm Mexican? I get friendlier as these people get stupider because it annoys them.
We wove through an assortment of older gentlemen in suits sitting alone and engaged in crossword puzzles. The table of four black college students next to me were also unpopular with the staff. The waitress told one of them the owner wanted him to shut off his phone, while he was in the middle of using it. I mean really, what difference does it make whether he's talking to someone next to him or someone in another building. The food and coffee were pretty good but it's difficult to enjoy eating in this kind of atmosphere.
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The road slowly winds through a portion of the school's 600 acres of desert floor, leading to a small paved area close to the gift shop selling upscale Wright-related books, art, and tickets for the tour. Bought a ticket because it's the only way to see the grounds and talked with two other tour-takers, a pair of older English women - sisters - who were visiting from DC and somewhere in England.
The tour of Taliesin West is completely engrossing, if you happen to have a thing for architecture and wrote your thesis comparing Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier. Those of you who don't fall into this category would also find it interesting, but you probably wouldn't take so many pictures.
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A petroglyph-inscribed rock rests at the entrance to the grounds. Workers pulling stones off the mountain to build the school found the carved stone and brought it to Wright, who admired the image of two lines entwined like clasped hands, interpreting it as a symbol of friendship. From this image designed centuries ago by native inhabitants comes the now-familiar Frank Lloyd Wright logo which I'd reproduce here to show you if it wouldn't get me sued by the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation over copyright infringement. Drove back into town for late lunch; Lonely Planet's Southwest guide recommends Baby Kay's Cajun Kitchen, which sucks. The Scottsdale location was closed (bad sign), so I drove downtown to the other one farther west on Camelback Road. At 2:30 I was sitting in what might result if the Louisiana bureau of tourism raped a Bennigan's. If the proprietors spent less time shopping for eclectic Cajun memorabilia they might learn that gumbo is not a thin soup. The only thing more shocking than the third-rate cafeteria-quality imitation Cajun crap food is what I had to pay for it. Changing gears for a moment, last night at BS West I heard about Sun Bowl Plaza, a strip mall made up entirely of thrift stores, selling vintage clothing at astonishingly low prices. It's no coincidence this magical place exists in the heart of Sun City, the northwestern-most part of Phoenix and one of the largest retirement communities in the country. See, when residents of Sun City... well... die... all their stuff goes to Sun Bowl Plaza and gets sold for cheap and then people like me get to wear dead people's clothes and pretend we're funky. I had to get to Sun Bowl Plaza. But I made two mistakes. One was passing on the highway in favor of Grand Street, a major road that diagonally bisects Phoenix and the worst example of stoplight timing I've ever seen in my life. The second mistake was assuming that anything would be open after 4pm in a retirement community. The entire strip mall was closing up when I arrived at the late hour of 3:58pm. It didn't help that I had to drive the last hour at 15 MPH. Honestly of all places I can't imagine why you need to slow to this speed in an entirely flat, open grassy neighborhood populated by old people. I mean it's not like anyone's going to come charging across their lawn on a suicide tear and throw themselves in front of your vehicle before you have time to react. I sadly caught a glimpse of 2 dollar pants, and shirts by the pound as the gates to the magic kingdom closed. I solemnly retreated back to Scottsdale. I met up with my friend and that night we ate at some random Mexican place where the food was decent, but didn't even remotely resemble real Mexican food. Then it was off to Roscoe's, a --get this-- gay sports bar. If you remember Champs in New York you'll most likely assume, as I did, that Roscoe's would be a campy tribute to sports bars. But this is an actual sports bar filled with gay men wearing actual sports jerseys and watching actual sports on television. Apparently Monday isn't their big night, so I won't hold it against Roscoe's that it wasn't anywhere near as fun as BS West. Did hear a weird story though. I was entertaining people with the story I read back home about the gay fight club that meets once a week in a New York bar. You know... with the bare-knuckle fighting and the pummelling and so forth. I got one-upped by a story about a group of local guys that meet for extreme poker, invitation only. Bets include activities like branding and genital piercing and if you lose the winner performs the action to you on the spot. Yeah, I wish I lived in Phoenix.
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