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A new forum for Birmingham
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Here's a testimony to the small-timeness of Burminham: Huntsville had it's own dedicated forum
before the supposed hub of the state did!
Birmingham isn't and never should be proclaimed a "great city." It is neither "great," nor is it a true "city."
Granted, Birmingham indeed has its inarguably distinct (perhaps great) attributes: stellar medical and banking sectors, football mania, barbeque, and
O so many rolling hills! -- to name a few. But B'ham is widely regarded locally, regionally, and nationally as a bastion of mediocrity, hopelessly provincial, simultaneously libertarian and entitlement-dominated politically (a caustic brew, contrary to progress). B'ham is homogenously homogenous and curiously meek and deferential in relation to its regional rivals such as Atlanta and Nashville.
Note: The endless waves of rolling hills are a bit mind-numbing -- one after another after another after another, up and down, up and down... when not moving through the labyrinthian sinews of Burminham Lanes and Roads and Ways, one is left feeling miserably cloistered within a bizarre urban paradox of so-called "metropolitan city life" yet you're always an ominous ridge-crest-and-valley away from an abutting 'hood... all the while no sidewalks, and no public transportation to speak of, no real bookstores, no real libraries, no modern cultural offerings... driving through the area -- which one finds oneself doing often in order to compensate for the sprawling nature of the Godforsaken metro layout -- leaves one wondering, Was that a car ride through Birmingham or a virtual trip through the Mindbender at Six Flags whilst in a car meandering through the Ham?
Mix in a river (not a creek), a lake (not a muddy dammed pool), a bay, ocean, mountain, desert, spire, canyon -- VARIETY PLEASE! DAMN THE MONOTONY!
Birmingham might have deserved designation as a city at some point in time: during the vibrant Sloss years as a bustling crossroads sung about in pop songs -- speaking of, back when Erskine Hawkins roamed the streets of Ensley during the Roaring 20's of swangin' Tuxedo Junction fame... or back when the "Heaviest Corner on Earth," and adjacent downtown corridors had a buzzing nightlife and crowds of people spilled out of downtown retail and hotspots ( and I'm not talking for three days out of the year during City Stages) -- back when the Heaviest Corner was something more than an oversized paperweight for Jim Reed's stack of forgotten memories (of a forgottable city, ironically) and rare books (this, in a city where the average person might read at the Hardy Boys level, IF he reads a'tall).
Birmingham, during my grandparents lifetime, was a place to be. It was a major force of the Southeast, for the nation for that matter. Today it is barely a leading force within its own state. Can you imagine Macon, GA getting its own City-Data forum before Atlanta?
The B'ham of today is waaay too small time, bereft of a pulse, car-centric, suburban-dominate, urbanophobic, homophobic, xenophobic... too khaki-wearing, sports hero worshipping, truck driving, and basically countrified to be considered a viable city -- a modern 21st century city. Any city whereby the population is led like lemmings down the primrose path
en masse by the likes of media hacks such as Paul Finebaum and James Spann is beyond repair and groupthunk to death.
Yes indeed, Birmingham once was the "Magic City." But that was then:
when Norwood was a thriving community of decent folks and not a haven for gang-tagged crack houses;
when Ensley was a working class 'burb, not a suck-off-the-government-tit waste land;
when Highland Avenue was bustling with streetcars, movers-n-shakers, REAL artists, and actual tourists -- not the dog walking, pseudo-hipster, oxymoronic mainstream-alternative midtown drag that it is today;
when Legion Field and Rickwood housed great sporting contests out on the west side and the neighborhoods came alive on game day -- whereas today the neighborhoods rarely come alive for anything save the happenings beyond the iron fences of Birmingham-Southern or some snake handling revival behind the walls of a a crumbling besteepled house of worship;
when the city was a city... when bedroom communities were communities of homes and not isolated pods-n-garages merely sharing zip codes... when farmland was farmland -- not idyllic stretches of grass and junkyards and low-rent warehouses on the way from this up-n-coming community to that one.
See Rock City! Get yer Git-R-Done T-shirts Here! Jeezus Saves!
Birmingham circa 2008 is more an amalgam of burghs and townships, of otherwise bucolic winding roads dotted with strip malls, golf courses, and SUV dealerships... with a mere semblance of a city center: sparsely populated, underwhelming in architectural stature and scale, and severely lacking in edginess, creative spunk, and of course ~ViBe~ -- Over hyah! Over hyah! In the flats! (surrounded by blighted and ghettoed warzones, by the way). The Burminham motto:
Come downtown: Ain't nuttin' round hyah nowhere!
Today Ba-ba-ba-Burminham is the magic-less "Tragic City" abutted by
magical hamlets featuring WASPy soccer moms and polo-shirted financiers -- none of whom ever venture inwards for anything save a court appearance or an American Idols on Tour show at the BJCC. Driving, always driving -- even when the distance is less than 0.1 miles down the street from Zoe's Kitchen to Savages Bakery. Driving down the driveway to pluck the mail out of the mailbox, I'm sure, happens more than many will admit. Gas guzzling, grocery-fetching: put those Nikes to the metal, sista! Turn up the A/C and feel the wind through yer hair! Don't forget to work out, mamma! -- Hubby gon' want that tight bod. So drive yer butt down to the yoga shop (never mind that walking there and back might would do the same trick and for free).
The Tragic City and its
O-so-pristine heavenly hamlets!... and then of course there's the not-so-heavenly havens of the have-nots, read: Centerpoint, Trussville, the Dales, Calera, Alabaster, and most of Cookie Cutterville (remember, the blighted city's refugees gotta take root somewhere, and it just so happens to be on the skirts where the country-come-to-towners find their Valhalla):
We got Home Depot, Logan's Roadhouses, and goooood skools! Ha Glory! (Reality check: They can shop locally for pure crap with which to augment their otherwise dilapidated ranchers; they can eat Grade D beef -- but hey it beats Mickey D's; and the sofistikated edumacation be reel good for reinforcing the construction-based local yokel economies. The wheels on the bus go round and round...
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New Ham Forum!!!!!
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