tippity-bounce

…even though some of these things aren’t Americanisms at all. Deplane (no. 5) is used in both countries and predates commercial air travel. Scotch-Irish (no. 13) is a perfectly acceptable genealogical term that means something decidedly different than Scots-Irish. And “where’s it at?” is acceptable in a variety of English dialects both here and across the pond, since the “can’t end a sentence with a preposition” rule is a load of crap anyway.

British English speakers are apt to dismiss any lexical feature they don’t like as an Americanism. White speakers of American English often do the same thing, but blame it on African-Americans, on politicians they don’t like, or on regional dialect. It seems curmudgeonly and wrongheaded to oppose language change, but everyone does it, even me—and I studied sociolinguistics in undergrad and am a firm believer in the danger of language prescriptivism and of trying to inhibit languages from evolving. Personally, what gets me is the use of obfuscatory business-speak and psychobabble. Issues instead of problems. Core competencies instead of skills. Leverage instead of use, as a verb. Interface. Touch base. Solutions.

Even worse are the cutesy diminutives appearing everywhere: veggie, rezzie (reservation), sammie, EVOO, yummo/yummers, fro-yo, sesh (session), rela (relationship), adorbs, jeals/jelly (jealous), preggers, bestie, hubby, ciggie. You all sound like a bunch of children. Not everything has to be cute all the time.

…and let’s not forget about good ol’-fashioned hyperbole. Orgasmic, foodgasm, amazing, cooked to perfection, transcendent, abundant, special, beautiful. Love where you just intend to like or enjoy. Hate where something moderately irks you. You call it expressive; I call it gushy. It’s a variation on the “euphemism treadmill” by which toilet became bathroom became restroom. Mark my words, by the time I’m 50 it’s going to be called something even more circumlocutory. How are we going to express actual intensity if all of our “intense” words have been reappropriated for routine feelings of slight pleasure and discomfort?

Meanwhile, if you live in a place with distinctive regional dialect words (and everyone does, unless you live in one of those placeless places like Phoenix, McKinney, or Cape Coral that sprang up out of nowhere in the post-TV 20th century), keep using them and celebrating them, in the face of late capitalism’s intent to have us all speaking a bland flavorless mouth-mush. Minnesotans, don’t be embarrassed by hotdish, rubber binder, or gray duck. Bostonians, keep saying wicked and frappe and rotary over the protests of New Yorkers (who should themselves be proud of stoop and bodega and stand on line). And northern Californians, say hella, no matter how much it annoys your SoCal neighbors.

I was incredulous when I first heard the rumors, but it looks like they’re true: Steak ‘n Shake is coming to New York City, with a location in Midtown Manhattan right next door to the Ed Sullivan Theater. Just like when I heard the Neely’s Bar-B-Q Upper East Side opening announcement that I discussed five months ago, I should be ecstatic, but I’m not. It’s just more poaching of regional specialties to swell heads in the City of Big Egos. It was bad enough finding Garrett Popcorn on 34th Street just weeks after Macy’s muscled its way into Chicago and wiped out Marshall Field’s. What’s next, Ted Drewes Frozen Custard at Grand Central Station? Voodoo Doughnut at Columbus Circle? Something definitely gets lost along the way when my favorite regional treats become little more than brand names in the middle of Big Apple touristland. 

Also, this announcement confirms what I’ve long thought to be the case: that Sardar Biglari, the 80s-style corporate raider who acquired Steak ‘n Shake in a hostile takeover in 2008, has turned this beloved Midwestern institution into a silly caricature. Biglari has closed locations and cut hours, especially in small towns across the Midwest where Steak ‘n Shake was the only non-fast-food establishment open past 10pm. At the same time, he’s been opening up locations that seem like little more than publicity stunts, including the one in NYC and one inside a Las Vegas casino. He took the headquarters out of the Midwest and plopped them down in San Antonio, Texas, a city that didn’t get its first SnS until earlier this year. He’s taken some of the choice off the menu (gone are the more interesting shake combinations, as well as the customizable dinner platters) and given in to gimmicky food trends by introducing “steak franks” (ordinary hot dogs), dry, flavorless miniburgers, and a ridiculous thick-cut bacon that overpowers the classic steakburger. He even ripped off Culver’s by adding a “Wisconsin Buttery Steakburger” to the menu. Soft drinks, which used to be served in real glassware, now come in hulking green plastic Coca-Cola-branded tumblers, while a junior-size milkshake comes in a humiliatingly cutesy plastic kiddie cup. To top it all off, a creepy, cultish picture of a smiling Biglari now greets you at the entrance to every restaurant, and there are rumors that the real china and table service will soon be dropped in favor of a “Five Guys”-type counter service format. Bah humbug.

Biglari’s clumsy retooling of Steak ‘n Shake, along with his opening of locations in such theme-parkish locations as Midtown Manhattan and Vegas, has diluted my once-warm memories of the place. For me, Steak ‘n Shake will always be a road-trip classic; it’s the bright light beckoning off the freeway around dinnertime, the feeling that hits after three states’ worth of cornfields and billboards for Indian casinos, when you’re fueled only by beef jerky and energy drink and your favorite playlist interspersed with NPR and you could probably go a hundred or so more miles before you collapse onto the bed at the Comfort Inn in Cape Girardeau. Sitting amongst the $15 margaritas, T-shirt vendors, and neck-craning tourists of Midtown Manhattan, it’s just… out of its element.

mariadiaz:

Alternatively: a list of the best songs ever recorded.

Also, I do remember when z100 went alt-rock. Those were the days, man!

Who remembers LovePhones with Dr. Judy?

maura:

1983: The Police - “Every Breath You Take”
1984: Prince - “When Doves Cry”
1985: Wham! - “Careless Whisper”
1986: Patti LaBelle ft. Michael McDonald - “On My Own”
1987: Atlantic Starr - “Always”
1988: George Michael - “One More Try”
1989: Bon Jovi - “I’ll Be There for You”
1990: Madonna -…

Z100 was the soundtrack of my 20-mile, 45-minute ride to and from school every day from 3rd grade to senior year, first from Hawthorne, then from Upper Saddle River to Englewood, New Jersey. As I remember it, the changeover to alternative rock and back to Top 40 was pretty gradual, so much so that I didn’t realize it happened until someone told me a couple years later.

Even as far as local top-40 stations go, Z100 was a pretty weak one. It was probably the worst during the top-40 dark ages of about 1998-2000, when it was all Britney Spears, 10 bajillion Destiny’s Child soundalikes, Celine Dion, and boy bands. The Morning Zoo became monotonous after Elliot left for DC, and the afternoon guy, Paul “Cubby” Bryant, was an annoying doofus. As a geography nerd I also couldn’t stand the insufferable charade of saying that the station’s studios were at the top of the Empire State Building, when they were really broadcasting out of Newark with an antenna atop the ESB. When I could pick them up , I listened to “fringe” stations instead, usually 104.7 “K-104” from Poughkeepsie or 97.5 (now 94.5) WPST from Trenton.

Z100 still has heavy nostalgia value for me, although Elvis Duran is probably my least favorite radio host with the exception of the talk-radio conservatives. I’ll always remember Pete Toriello’s traffic reports, the obsession with Party of Five/Felicity/Dawson’s Creek, call-in segments that seemed to attract only middle-aged women from Long Island with ridiculously broad accents, and most of all, contests in which whatever high school got the most votes would get a free concert from a boy band. The winner was always an all-girls Catholic school like Immaculate Heart Academy or Holy Angels, usually by some ridiculous margin in the thousands of votes. Them girls were crazy.

Apparently, it’s a sort of fundraising dinner unique to the suburban New Jersey county where I grew up. A bunch of people get together in a large room and gorge themselves on all-you-can-eat beef tenderloin, french fries, and pitchers of beer. The tenderloin is served on pieces of “Italian” bread, which are not eaten, but are stacked up on the side of the plate (the bread serves as a sort of “scorecard” to tally the number of slices of tenderloin you’ve eaten, and the most gluttonous individual at the end of the evening wins a prize). I had never heard of the beefsteak before today. Sometimes, it’s combined with a sort of raffle called a “tricky tray,” another unique-to-New-Jersey tradition which I had never heard of.

Wait…a…sec… obscure regional thing? (check) From a place I knew quite well? (check) Relating to food? (check) Why didn’t I know about this before, and why did it take a couple of Brooklyn hipsters from Connecticut, of all places, to inform me?

It probably has a lot to do with my upbringing in Bergen County. I grew up Jewish with liberal parents in Upper Saddle River, a town that was overwhelmingly Christian and Republican. I attended a private school 25 miles away, kept to myself, and didn’t play sports. I spent my weekends going into New York City, rather than hanging out at Garden State Plaza mall. My sister, who went to public school, had lots of friends in the surrounding towns, and played basketball and field hockey, may actually be a little more familiar with this tradition than I am. The beefsteak, as it seems, was (and still is) the bulwark of the Republican, Christian county establishment, the kind of people who hang out in Elks Lodges and keep people like Scott Garrett (New Jersey’s answer to Paul Ryan) in power.

It’s a shame, though, because I simply love the idea of an event that is basically a cross between the Stone Cutters and a Brazilian churrascaria. Just don’t use the sacred parchment as a bib.

(Barbecue bliss: A full order of dry ribs with beans and slaw from the Rendezvous, and a jumbo chopped pork sandwich from Payne’s.)

Anyone who knows me well knows of my love of Memphis barbecue. From an early age, my father, a food-loving Brooklynite, and my mother’s vast, pork-and-shrimp-eating Southern Jewish family introduced me to the joys of the cuisine during the long summers I spent in Memphis. I grew up eating dry ribs and smoked sausage plates at the Rendezvous, chopped-pork sandwiches at Payne’s, and the occasional plate of BBQ spaghetti (yes, you read that right) at Interstate. My travels have introduced me to other excellent barbecue traditions, like the beef brisket and thick, vinegary sauce of Arthur Bryant’s in Kansas City or the rib tips and hot links cooked in an “aquarium-style” smoker at Honey 1 in Chicago, but I’ll always place Memphis above all others.

As a Memphis barbecue lover whose immediate family lives in the New York City area, you’d think I would be delighted that Pat and Gina Neely, the telegenic stars of the Food Network’s Down Home with the Neelys and owners of two Neely’s BBQ restaurants in Memphis, are opening a barbecue restaurant, Neely’s Barbecue Parlor, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

Not so much.

Why? Well, first off, Neely’s, despite its Food Network stardom, isn’t exactly the best barbecue in Memphis. I’ve had Neely’s, and neither its ribs nor its sandwich can hold a candle to the best that Memphis has to offer. Second, New York just isn’t a barbecue town, especially not the hyper-bourgeois part of Manhattan where the Neelys plan to open. Generations of New Yorkers, like most Northerners, have been taught to expect and demand fall-off-the-bone, “meat jello” ribs and dry, flavorless pork sandwiches, thanks to the popularity of eateries like Blue Smoke and Dinosaur.

So what, you might say, another crappy BBQ joint in a city that’s already teeming with them. Nope, this one is different. There’s no question that the Twitter/Yelp hype machine, blogosphere, and foodie press will be all over Neely’s the way they are when Tyler Florence, Bobby Flay, or Danny Meyer open a new establishment. For much of America, thus, Neely’s will come to represent Memphis barbecue, and this is bad. The more people are exposed to what promises to be a so-so interpretation of the style, the more they will associate it with the style as a whole. For an example, just look at Chicago-style pizza, which suffers from a poor nationwide reputation due to the crappy product of its main proponent, the national Pizzeria Uno chain. Trust me, Chicago pizza is much better than all that. A visit to Lou Malnati’s or Giordano’s should have you convinced.

There’s also the problem that the appearance of another lesser-known regional specialty in New York is helping contribute to New Yorkers’ hubris and provinciality. The more New York manages to poach various regional specialties from their homes (Mile End’s Montreal-style bagel and Whitman’s Jucy Lucy are two examples I can think of off the top of my head), the more it reinforces many New Yorkers’ strident insistence that their city is the center of the universe and that no other place could ever have anything to offer. “Why do I ever need to travel?” I once read in a post on Fark, “I live in New York. The world visits us.” C’mon, New Yorkers, dial down the ego just a bit. It’s not all uncharted wilderness beyond the five boroughs.