When I leave North Carolina on Tuesday evening (Bear Force One believers – take note! – although frankly I’m not sure what the impact of the market is supposed to be), I will have been away from my beloved Palo Alto for nearly two weeks. For a homebody like me, this is a epic-long time to be away. Having enjoyed my stay here, I had a few observations about the culture at large, particularly drawn from sixteen hours of driving from Durham to Myrtle Beach to Atlanta and then back to Durham again (a car trip big enough that you could hand me a globe and I could visibly draw it out with a Sharpie). In no particular order:
- Guilty! – There is a tremendous amount of mindshare dedicated to the fact you are a SINNER and you need to be SAVED by JESUS. Giant billboards (often with red letters against a yellow background) insist upon your relying on Jesus to save your sinful ass from eternal damnation. One billboard in particular shows what appears to be a highway exit ramp, with one direction leading to hell and the other leading to glory. I seriously have no idea what these people have to feel so guilty about. I didn’t see anyone doing anything bad, except for the occasional obnoxious driver on the freeway (who was, 100% of the time, driving a Dodge Charger).
- Just Sign Here – Relatedly, there are signs everywhere, and I do mean everywhere, with little sayings and phrases to help you get you through the day. I get the impression that a lot of folks, particularly in rural areas, are endlessly and persistently miserable and in need of a constant verbal pick-me-up. At the last place I filled my car with gasoline, there was a huge sign that said “THINGS ARE GOING TO GET BETTER.” Of course, 95% of these signs were in front of churches, but there were plenty others at filling stations, fast food franchises, and even adult bookstores.
- Your Back Hurts. Right? – Oh my GOD, besides the billboards telling you what a sinner you are, all the rest of them are from scumbag personal injury lawyers. These guys must have incredibly huge businesses, because they can afford countless signs hawking their services. The larger firms have a fetish for easy-to-remember repeated numbers (like 999-9999). I can only imagine the lack of ethics and sliminess that goes on at such places. California makes it much harder for ambulance chasers, so you really don’t see this kind of thing.
- Jesus! – In some parts of this area, every third building is a church. Many of them have buildings that are maybe the size of a living room. I seriously have no idea how these places stay afloat. Teeny little towns would easily have a dozen churches (all of them with the aforementioned signs, usually with a Bible verse or some kind of attaboy saying).
- Me So Horny – As polite as most of the people are around here, they LOVE to use their car horns. I thought that was more of a Manhattan kind of thing. Why are people honking their horns in this gentle part of the country? I don’t like it.
- No Palo Alto Discount – I had assumed that during our stay here, I’d enjoy much more reasonable prices at restaurants. I was convinced there was some kind of Palo Alto Premium I was paying all this time. Nope. The bills I am getting from restaurants are just as crazy-high, almost to the penny, as I pay in my home town. And the presumed tips (22% these days, and often a 5% tacked on as a “living wage fee” or something) is there too.
- Pimp That Ride – Since land is virtually free here, and even destitute people working at the Dollar Tree seem to have neatly-manicured one acre plots, everyone has a riding lawnmower. Where I come from, I would seriously guess that, out of 100 people, maybe one actually owns a lawnmower of ANY kind, let alone the riding kind – – because in Palo Alto, my third acre is considered enormous.
- Yes, Your Circumference! – The people who are big here are really, really big. And the sad part is that their kids don’t have a chance, because they not only are they genetically predisposed to obesity, but they are fed the precise kind of crap at home that made their parents obese in the first place. So they’re pretty much doomed right from the get-go.
Beyond all this, of course, my overarching concern is whether my return to the Silicon Valley will spoil the marvelous weakness we’ve seen in the market. With all due respect to Bear Force One, I think the wind is blowing at the bears’ backs now, and September should be a good month.