Saturday, January 23, 2010

Little Capitol on the Prairie

Mr. Sullivan and Junk Thief drove over to Sacramento today. As we zipped east of Davis, Mr. Sullivan turned and asked, "Do they have skyscrapers in Sacramento?"

"Well, they're more like sky 'reachers'. They don't reach quite high enough to actually scrape the sky."

Not unlike Chicago...or Des Moines...or Omaha...or Kansas City...or Indianapolis -- suddenly on the horizon of the prairie, the Sacramento "skyline" appeared.

"Oh, dear," Mr. Sullivan exclaimed. "They're not exactly structures of juicy proportions."

"More like squirty proportions."
The tour of Sacramento began at 16th and Broadway in the Tower District which is now something of a mausoleum of retail chains past.
It was here that the original Tower Records morphed out of the Tower drug store. Thus, the original sign references cosmetics and film in the plural form.
Mr. Sullivan appraised the extant Tower Theater. Though he found the structure's spire to be appropriately virile, he was dismissive of the surrounding palm trees. "Though fully erect, they are not indigenous. All landscaping should think of aboriginal foliage and fauna."
Within the tombs of the original Tower Records and Books are now R5 Records and just plain Records which were next door to each other. The former had a wretched selection and the drugged out goth staff ignored the sole visiting customer since they considered talking about last night's drug use of higher importance.
The latter was even more disheveled, but the drugged out staff were friendly, and there was a resident cat that reminded Junk Thief and Mr. Sullivan of a Valencia Street used book store. There were DVDs, VHS tapes and records haphazardly strewn about the floor. They had an impressive collection of not only vintage jazz LPs but also of 78s!

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