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A Day at Oxmoor Center.
or, the first time Jon writes a non-gimmick article in the history of the world
written by Jon - may 11-2004
I work in a mall that is dying. And there aren't many things more disheartening than a mall that is dying.
Once, it was Louisville's mecca of shopping indulgence. White people from all over the East End, and even some West End black people who weren't struck down by the snipers at the gates of our glorious Aryan East End enclave, would flock to Oxmoor Center. But in recent years, the East End has become even more easterly and even more white, and Oxmoor is an abandoned shell whose remains is testament to the scorch-and-retreat-from-the-dreadful-minorities tactics employed by the well-to-do Caucasians of Louisville. Slowly and warily, the less well-to-do peoples have begun to creep their way into our doors.
Is this what saddens me? Well, not really. Fact is, black folks are some of the nicest folks I know, and as an added bonus, most of them can juggle. I'd much rather see one of them walk into my store than yet another pregnant-looking bespectacled middle-aged white guy (PLBMAWG) who talks down to me like I'm stupid.
PLBMAWGs still roam this mall rather consistently. They're kind of like the stragglers of Sherman's Union army as it ravaged eastward; they fell off the conquest bandwagon and loitered around to pick through the ruins and rape the women. There are two main types of PLBMAWG.
1: The snobby douchebag
Me:
Hi, how's it going?
PLBMAWG: (shoves a
battery at me)
Me: ...Thanks!
PLBMAWG: (annoyed) I need this.
Me: OK, just a
minute. (finds battery) ...OK, this should work.
PLBMAWG:
"Should" isn't good enough. How about you get me the right one.
Me: This is the right
one.
PLBMAWG:
(shoves ten dollars at me)
Me: Thanks.
So is it a boy or girl?
PLBMAWG:
(shoves me down flight of stairs which suddenly just appeared in the store)
2: The oblivious ignoramus
Me (2:01:00):
Hi, how's it going?
PLBMAWG (2:01:02):
Uh, I need a....a, uh...
Me (2:01:03):
(stands)
PLBMAWG (2:01:33):
a uhhhh...
Me (2:01:34):
(stands)
PLBMAWG (2:02:05):
uhhhhhh...
Me (2:02:06):
OK, well let me know if I can help--
PLBMAWG (2:02:07):
It's a...it's-it's like an adapter... and it... uhhh.....
Me (2:02:15):
Well, what are you trying to do?
PLBMAWG (2:02:16):
uhh...well, I...it's like...uhhhhhhh...(walks zombie-like over to cell phone
cases)
Me (2:02:46):
...Need a cell phone case?
PLBMAWG (2:02:47):
No, I need a, uh...
Me (2:02:49):
(stands)
PLBMAWG (2:03:04):
uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh........
Me (2:03:05):
All right, well, these aren't cell phone cases. Why are you looking at the
cell phone cases when you want a fucking adapter? *snaps fingers* COME OUT
OF IT!
PLBMAWG (2:03:05):
(stands)
Me (2:03:10):
DAMN IT, TALK! TALK, YOU WRETCHED FUCKING CUBICLE-DWELLING PACK-MULE!
I DESERVE CAPACITY OF THOUGHT!
PLBMAWG (2:03:04):
GRAAAA.....(falls
over backwards. Entrail-laden imp-geist rips hole through stomach, looks
around, scurries away)
Me (2:03:12):
WHOA! ! ! WEIRD
That's
really neither here nor there, though. In a few weeks I'm going to leave this fair
city, and one of the places I will miss most will be this mall. Or this
"center", pardon me. I'm getting pretty damn tired of this nonsense.
The architecture of this mall has been put together over the last ten or fifteen
years, and has been made to look as if it wants the status of "classically old"
already. This seems to be the prevalent theme regarding all new building
projects since around 1992, when my family and I moved to a city
community named
Towne Lake. It
was a brand new area. No building within a five-mile radius was more than
three years old. Yet every subdivision was named shit like
MARKET SQUARE or
YE OLDENE TOWNE PLACE-E, as if
it were built by their ancestors with rocks and mortar and faux-wood siding in
fucking 1694. Children were born here, and today we see 14-year-olds running
around with T-shirts heralding old NES games that they aren't old enough to know
anything about, and this is why.
On the plus side, at least they aren't spelling it "Centre". But then again, maybe the mall really is older than I think it is. Observe the sporting-goods superstore below.
GALYAN'S
Yep, those are real trees in the store. Sixty-foot-tall branchless, barkless trees. You'd think that maybe they're used to support the ceiling or something. Nope! My theory is that they erected this fair establishment before tree-cutting-down technology was commonplace, so they had to build around them.
Another holdover from times gone by is a rock climbing wall. As far as I'm concerned, if a store has a bunch of trees and a fucking wall made of rock in it, it's certifiably hardcore. One time, my regional manager (my boss's boss's boss) came to visit my store. He said, "You know, the Galyan's on the other side of the mall here gets a lot of traffic. It's a great place to shop. What do we need to do to be like them?" I told him that we needed a rock climbing wall. He thought I was serious, and he tried to save me in front of everybody with, "Well, heh...yeah, that's thinking creatively, I like that." I was at such a loss for words that I ate my shirt, right then and there.
OXMOOR SMOKE SHOPPE
If Galyan's isn't enough to convince you of Oxmoor Center's old-timey credentials, this will surely show you the error of your ways. It's a shame that they didn't just go all the way and call it YE OLDEN OX-MOORE SMOKE SHOPPE AND PILLORY-CRAFT. Nobody under 18 is allowed inside, and they discourage minors from entering by posting a scary-looking wooden jester near the front door.
Look at that shit. They intentionally put a sign in front of him so it looks like he's peering menacingly at you from behind it. They say that if you turn your back to this guy, he'll chase you down and knaw your face off. That's why they stuck Injun Joe there; he's there to save the day by cracking him upside the head with his peace pipe or teepee or sacred cow or whatever the hell.
GLASSCOCK
lol
Oxmoor Center is sort of a small mall. A common misconception is that once you've conquered a cliff face and been stalked by a pot-bellied wooden jester, you've seen everything that Oxmoor has to offer. Not so! At Oxmoor Center, there is always...
STUFF THAT YOU CAN DOaw shit
It's a store full of comic books and model tanks and the like, but I think it probably garners most of its money by serving as a tourist attraction. Senile old folks flock from all across Kentuckiana to stand outside the store, look at the sign, say WHOA THERE IS A STORE CALLED SOMETHING TO DO, and go home to access the Internet and successfully program their VCRs.
I managed to catch up with a PLBMAWG of the second variety, who happened to be oozing his way about the store.
Me:
Hi. Mind if I ask you a few questions?
PLBMAWG: uhhh...just
looking at, uh..... uhhhhhh...
Me: Looking at the
tanks?
PLBMAWG: yeah
Me: So what brings you to a fine establishment such as this?
PLBMAWG: uhhhhh.......
i uh...
uhhhhhhhhhhhhh.......
...
...
...
Me: Shit. Gestation period is almost over, it'll soon become hostile. Time to go back to my store.
...whew, that was a close one. Next time I'll be more--
OH SHIT IT FOLLOWED ME
PLBMAWG: GRAAAAAAAA
FIELD OF DREAMS
This might be my favorite store in the mall. Which is a shame, because I'm at least fairly certain that I'm the only person who has ever walked in it besides the people who work there. It specializes in sports memorabilia, and features something that I want more than anything else in the entire mall.
That's then-45-year-old pitching god Nolan Ryan. Bo Jackson had just finished smacking a baseball into his mouth at like 100 miles per hour. Lesser men would have gone straight to the clubhouse, but Nolan Ryan spat the blood onto his shirt, stayed in the game, and lived to sign the photo. It's such a powerful image that one can't look at it without saying AW JEEZ and puffing their mouth into weird shapes to make sure that all the teeth are still there. Just below this picture on the wall are wooden stand-ups of George Brett and Sammy Sosa as they observe the bloody picture.
aw fuck aw jeez
Field Of Dreams does have a selection of non-sports memorabilia as well, however. Take, for example, this censored photo of Eminem giving the finger.
The nice folks at Field of Dreams took the liberty of covering up the obscenity with a piece of paper. The guy saw me looking at it, and he said with a grin, "You know, he's really giving the finger in that picture." I said, "Neat!" But would I should have said was, "Oh shit, I thought he was giving the piece of paper that's taped onto a photo of him. THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN SOME TWILIGHT ZONE SHIT RIGHT THERE."
At any rate, the fact that they're selling that autographed Craig T. Nelson photo to the right at half the price of the Eminem photo was enough for me to choke on my corn dog and get resuscitated by Moonlight Graham. Anyone who didn't get that reference needs to leave the store immediately.
MODELLE'S CUSTOM TAILORS
There's really only one item of note here, which is a poster in the front window that says POWERFUL CLOTHES FOR POWERFUL MEN.
This poor guy is under the impression that in order to be a POWERFUL MAN one has to grow pubic hair on one's head and bleach it, as well as possess a trophy wife who is being smacked in the head by a piece of window glare. On top of that, he also lacks any financial sense, as a suit like that costs at least 50 dollars. That's enough for a video game, or bullets for your rifle, or a new tire for your car! I'd like to note that any male who thinks that clothes make him powerful is a large faggot.
JON MILLARDS FRAMING GALLERY
Essentially's Jon Millards Framing Gallery is a starving artists' exhibit. The thing about starving artists is that they can't paint things like melting clocks or people with faucets for eyes, because if they do they'll have to live off tree bark. To have any sort of money at all, they have to paint copies of famous photographs. It also helps to sell out and paint whatever happens to be important in that given community. Here in Louisville, there are really just three things of note: the Kentucky Derby, Muhammed Ali, and the Louisville Slugger Bat Factory. So in order to not starve, these artists have to stop being artists and start being manual printing presses. I don't fault them, but this isn't art. It's EART. You don't know what EART is? You haven't seen those commercials of Tom Stuart talking about EART? Well then TAKE THIS FREE ENJOYABLE EART TEST AND DISCOVER THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF EART.
This is a prime example of the artistic prostitution that is exhibited in this eart gallery.
Sorry it's kind of a shaky shot; I was forced to avert my eyes. It's called LOUISVILLE'S WEB SITE. It features Spider-Man swinging from the Louisville Slugger Bat Factory.
...I think we're done here.
SOME NAMELESS STORE FULL OF HIPPIE JUNK
This is, without a doubt, the worst store in the entire mall. Maybe I'm just biased, because it's a place that sells quirky home decorations, and I'm not the sort to ever spend money on decorations, ever. The occasional melting-clock painting and bloody Nolan Ryan aside, it pains me to spend money on things that don't serve a utilitarian purpose. As far as I'm concerned, a dollar spent on a singing fish is a dollar I could spent toward putting gas in my car or building a factory.
The poor soul that ventures into this steaming vat of gay is greeted with this sign:
Note the yellow sign on top. When you take the minority influx into account, it's easy to see why this store is doing so horribly. Well, that and the fact that black people are generally too smart to spend 300 fucking dollars on washboards with the Beatles painted on them.
No, this is the haven for backwards, dorm-dwelling flower children who decorate their living spaces with lyrics from Jimmy Buffett songs that are older than they are.
Just like the trees in the sporting goods shop and the old-timey spelling of the Oxmoor Smoke Shoppe, this is a testament to peoples' yearning for things gone by. Our lust for nostalgia is spiraling dangerously out of control. In twenty or thirty years, when the time comes to reminisce on our decade (which we don't even really know what to call in the first place), we'll have nothing to look back on but 9-11, the War in Iraq, the Second Korean War, President Clinton experiencing hot flashes during her inaugural address, and a whole bunch of reminiscing on decades past. Damn it, we should get cracking on making our own style, not stealing from the past.
Well, here we are! Finally, something my utilitarian sensibilities can relate to!
Yep, it's a hammer that has GODDESS PEACE painted on it. At first I was happy, then I came to the conclusion that Feminazis are already obnoxious enough without us giving them hammers. Although, now that I think about it, giving a woman a hammer is kind of like giving a pedometer to a quadriplegic.
My disdain for this store is probably rooted a little deeper than all the worthless shit that clutters it. You see, when I first moved to this fair city, this place used to be Just For Feet. Just For Feet was the coolest shoe store in the world, mainly because it featured a basketball goal and miniature basketball court. Whenever my brother and I would get bored of fucking around in Radio Shack or Electronics Boutique, we'd go and shoot some hoops.
Now it has been transformed into Faggot Central. The only way it could possibly get any gayer is if the L.A. Lakers played on it.
This mall is going to die. I don't know, maybe it deserves to.
"I...I just don't understand." An oddly out-of place Spider-Man stood by the window inside an electronics store, gesturing emptily.
"This mall was once poised for greatness. Did you know that just a few years ago, one of our restrooms was ranked the second-best woman's restroom in the country?"
"Yeah...I heard that." Spidey and I scanned the south wing of the mall, where Pete Rose and Muhammad Ali once sat to sign autographs. It was nearly empty, save for a couple of old mall walkers and a man stopping to try a sample from the nice pretzel lady.
"I wish there were some shoplifters or something for me to apprehend."
"Me too, Spidey. Me too. Guess how many customers we've had today?"
"Shit, I don't know. I'm a statue, I can't exactly walk over and check it out. Let me guess, thirteen?"
"Twelve."
"Well, hell. I was close."
We glanced down the other wing and admired our reflections in the glass of the many permanently closed shops.
Spider-Man shook his head. "You know what's the worst? You'll see these shops in the days before they close. The manager will stand outside and wring his hands, and you know he's the manager, because he looks crestfallen. He was once proud of his store, his labor of love. And it's almost disrespectful to look at him. He's baring his shame, and everyone knows it, because the CLEARANCE! EVERYTHING MUST GO! banners aren't doing anything to hide it. Should he be ashamed? Well, not really. He attempted to scale the mount of small retail success, and that can never be taken away from him."
"They've got to be able to do something about this. I mean, it's ridiculous. It's just sad."
Spidey threw up his arms once more.
"Like what, I wonder? These are not empty stores, they're bunkers long abandoned by the retreating upper class. The premier shopping is now further east. And the people who now shop here do not deserve this fate. I converse with them daily, Jon. They should resent being reacted to as an advancing, consuming horde. But you know what? They don't. And that's why I love them. That's why I will never leave until the day they disassemble me and pack me in the wooden box they brought me here in."
I turned and smiled for all the things that were still right with this mall.
I took this picture last December. The mall was completely saturated with people from all over town who enjoyed saying things ad nauseum such as DID YOU KNOW THAT THE DAY AFTER THANKSGIVING IS THE BUSIEST SHOPPING DAY OF THE YEAR and TIS THE SEASON and DO NOT POINT THAT CAMERA PHONE AT ME PLEASE. A mall in December is something that can only be truly experienced by those behind the counter, since the mall public blacks out and turns into a massive gaggle of thoughtless automatons once it walks through the door. It's chaotic, exhausting, overwhelming, invigorating, and beautiful all at once. I really get tired of punkasses complaining about the commercialism and hollowness of Christmas. For the last three years, Oxmoor Center has been my home. I have endured months upon months upon months of leaning against my old glass counter and desperately hoping for someone to walk into the store, and watching as my baby became a veritable ghost town. Come Christmas, all the thousands of the mall's mommies and daddies came in to make it what it was supposed to be all along, and it was happy. Someday, the people will come and cut down the mall so that they can make a boat and sail away, and then they'll come back as old people and use the stump as a place to sit down.
You sons of bitches.
- Jon
Jon@progressiveboink.com
AIM: Boiskov