Silicon Alleys
WE OFTEN HEAR examples of inferiority hang-ups when people from San Jose visit a more celebrated city. It’s the “Why can’t we have this in San Jose?” complex. You hear this all the time. People usually say or think such things whenever they come back from having a good day on the town in San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Monterey, Carmel or La Honda. Whenever they visit a distinctive world-renowned place, they come back frustrated and depressed because their hometown will never be as awesome as those other locales.
A damning but not-too-far-off analysis might be that these people basically have a pathological lack of self-worth, an eternal dissatisfaction, not just with the city of San Jose, but with themselves and with life in general—the epitome of suburban apathy. Since I’ve harbored such wasteful thoughts off and on for years, at least now I manage to laugh at myself whenever they emerge. One particular time about eight years ago, over way too many drinks, I even coined a lyrical term to describe them: ornery ennui. Say that one five times fast if you’re apathetic. Whichever syllable you place the emphasis on, it just has a good roundabout kind of flow to it. (In fact, you can just picture two old French dudes with large gray mustaches, carrying on in a Paris cafe, raising their eyebrows and waving their hands to the rhythm of their speech while discussing the plays on words: Do you have ornery ennui, Henri?)
But I digress. This has only now come up again because I am temporarily off to extracurricular business in Kansas City, Mo., where I will be apathetically situated as you read this. You see, Kansas City—otherwise known as The Heart of America, the City of Fountains, the Paris of the Plains or the Jazz Capital of the World—provides a simultaneously pleasant and furious launching pad for any conversation centering on the “Why can’t we have this in San Jose” complex. But this can be fun if you just get creative about it.
For example, legendary jazz saxophone pioneer Charlie “Bird” Parker is one of Kansas City’s most favorite sons. Parker forever revolutionized jazz by essentially taking swing and adding zonked-out multinote improvisatory pyrotechnics that would eventually cross over into the Beat literary movement. Like any world-class city would do, Kansas City immortalized him with an epic 17-foot-tall bronze statue of his head, designed by Robert Graham—that’s right, the same artist who designed the poop statue in Plaza de Cesar Chavez. They got Bird, we got poop.
Also in Kansas City, America’s 39th largest city with a population of 450,000, one finds a raging monthly event called First Fridays in the Crossroads Arts District, an entire mile-wide neighborhood where more than 60 art galleries and eclectic shops stay open late. It has become one of the nation’s largest art walks.
Studios, galleries, coffeehouses, salons, theaters, retail units, banks, residences and just about every imaginable configuration that would lend itself to displaying artworks join together on the first Friday of the month. Restaurants have specials and thousands descend upon the neighborhood, which began as a grassroots effort by local artists who worked with the city to convert old buildings into galleries and live/work studio spaces. And now artists of all disciplines—photographers, architects, graphic designers, furniture makers and more—comprise an overwhelming majority of the live/work population.
San Jose’s First Fridays event should not be slighted, of course not, as they’ve accomplished much in a short amount of time. But I really do wish we had Kansas City’s version. As a result, I have no other choice but to continue this dissemination next week. Part two will recap the September First Friday event straight from the Heart of America.
I prefer looking at this from a positive perspective. San Jose is a great place to live and raise a family. We have our (usually) excellent weather (I’m originally from Chicago, so even this heat is better than what I grew up with). Within an hour’s drive, we can be at the beach or in San Francisco. A couple of hours gets you to some of the best wineries in the world. Four hours—Yosemite or Lake Tahoe, need I say more? That’s why I choose to live here.
Could we use more local attractions, events and activities? Sure. But we shouldn’t sell ourselves short on what our city already offers.
Yep, we’re the best place to go somewhere else from. Or something like that.
Gary, thanks for the column. Regarding the “pathological lack of self-worth,” I’m convinced that those who constantly whine about our downtown fall square into that category.
BART to Downtown… whine; Valley Fair… whine; Santana Row… yet more whine. I was born and raised in San Jose and I damn well like it, warts and all.
Gary, as I’m sure you’re aware, the San Jose Earthquakes defeated Kansas City, 2-1, last Saturday. The Quakes are a great cure for ornery ennui.
KC’s intrastate neighbor has it worse then we do. I read a St Louis-focused blog and some comments today about how the Rams may skip town. There is a lot of mourning about how far the city has fallen and that people there are living in the past. It’s interesting to see how prevalent this moping is.
In reality, most cities have it. Even San Francisco, held by rubes as the pinnacle of this region, is insecure. That’s why they constantly come down on us. A robust population and economy suddenly makes them worry, just like it did when Los Angeles began to draw their fog-drenched ire many decades ago.
You almost have to be a self-absorbed, image-obsessed place like LA or Miami to not covet a bit of everything from everywhere. The grass is always greener…if you’re looking.
Here’s that STL blog, by the way:
http://www.stltoday.com/blogzone/talk-of-the-day/talk-of-the-day/2008/07/after-anheuser-busch-should-we-brace-for-the-nfl-rams-departure/all-comments/
It’s not so much whining about San Jose, it’s a depression that sets in once you realize that a fair number of the City staff – at all levels – have a ‘this is my job, not my city’ mentality. How many times have we seen a project, complexity aside, that could have used just a once of of forethought to make things better? For example, I was walking down the street and some recent sign poles were installed, but they weren’t installed towards the edge of the sidewalk. A small, simple thing, but what are we saying to those people in wheelchairs? People pushing strollers? When you start looking around, more questions get raised on all levels. Where is the pride from City Staff? Someone mentioned the pavillion…has anyone seriously looked at the ‘art’ that is next door in the park? The ice skating history exhibit was once cool (couldn’t help myself on that one), but now the embedded displays are cracked, damaged, and looks pathetic. This is how we greet people who come to one of the ‘gems’ of San Jose. Here’s some art honoring some of the great sports figures of San Jose. “Oh, we don’t maintain our history, we install it and forget about it.” As a citizen of San Jose, I am embarrassed. If I were Kristi Yamaguchi or one of the others being highlighted in the exhibit, I’d demand my name to be removed altogether.
More examples of this abound everywhere – I am fascinated when I travel to other cities and I see how innovative and creative they can be with art, traffic, zoning, crowd control, nightlife, etc. It’s not hard to see what works and what doesn’t, our leaders just need to get out of our comfort zone a little and take ownership of the great city. Question the status quo, don’t be afraid to try new ideas, and overtime San Jose could become that great city that some think it is. Otherwise, we’ll always live along the fringe and in the shadows of other great cities.
Well, of course we have issues about insecurity. With all this talk on the local blogs about Chuck Reed’s depressed state, we should be feeling insecure.
Ornery ennui?
I guess that’s better than “Milpitas envy.”
“The Quakes are a great cure for ornery ennui.” That’s only if you’re a fan of MLS; not a negative comment, just the truth (I suppose watching indoor lacrosse is also a cure for some). I do agree wholeheartedly with #1 PW, but yes, we could use a lot more local attractions, events, and activities.
San Jose is a loser town. Can you believe Kansas City is better than San Jo? Kansas City has the Power Light district right next to the new Sprint arena which is fabulous. What does San Jo has next to HP Pavilion, a parking lot! I recommend moving to Kansas City because it’s a much better city San Jo, and it has a killer art scene. By the way, the one bedroom apt. is going for $380 a month, which many of them are located close to downtown Kansas City.
Tom Mellon (#7),
I bid you farewell… don’t let the door hit you on the way out!
It’s funny that #7 brought up the new arena there. Their only tenant is an arena football team. We have NHL and NLL on top of that, plus more musical acts.
KC also has the quite excellent Steamboat Arabia Museum, which I highly recommend if you’re in the area. It’s interesting to see what kind of Tech they had in 1856.
We have better weather than Kansas City, and we’re closer to the beach.
I’ve heard KC is a great place for BBQ, but I bet we have more variety of affordable ethnic restaurants.
It’s nice that they honor Charlie Parker, but he didn’t develop his career there. There were a number of great jazz players out of KC. But most of them made their name in NYC.
SJSU just unveiled a nice arch honoring Cesar Chavez. And Lenzen Park is slated to open soon. We could do more along these lines—like restore Pellier Park! When is that happening, Tom?
An interesting article in Vanity Fair by Christopher Hitchens about the value of Bohemias:
http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2008/07/hitchens200807?printable=true¤tPage=all
It doesn’t sound like he has been to SF in quite a while. But he brings up some interesting points.
SJ attempted to have a Bohemia in the 1980s, but it was soon quashed by the city.
West San Carlos would be a good place to develop a Bohemia, since the tattoo parlors are already in place. Let’s get that developer who wants to put 200+ apartments and 22000 sq ft of retail at the corner of Meridian and San Carlos, and force him to put in work/live art studios, a basement coffee house with poetry slams, a jazz club and a skateboard park.
And since this is Silicon Valley, maybe something to do with robotics and computer games.
I don’t see the argument as “San Jose doesn’t offer anything”, but that San Jose, for a city of its size and importance, doesn’t offer what it should. Ennui settles in because we (rightfully) expect there to be more, and know we could do better. People aren’t simply whining about San Jose; they’re just recognizing its unfulfilled potential.
#2—Yep, you hit the nail on the head.
Many people, like #1, feel that the best way to desbribe San Jose is in terms of how quickly you can get somewhere ELSE.
Is that the mentality you want from a potential city councilmember?