2005jan22. I am reporting live from the National Association of Music Merchants show in sunny, horrific Anaheim. Home to Disneyland, Anaheim has become a surreal cultural black hole of donut/hamburger shops, theme parks, and not much else. Through some odd non-debilitating stroke of good luck or simply because we had cruised every single street in the city, we were able to find what a local weekly had rated the “best dinner joint” in Anaheim that also featured waitresses on rollerskates. Not the best dinner joint with waitresses with rollerskates, the rollerskating bit was not considered for the final rating. Anyway, NAMM is like every other convention but now imagine you’re standing in an aisle and the enormous drum area is to your left and the enormous guitar area is to your right and millions of musicians are testing drums and guitars over and over again and then add in every other instrument you’ve ever seen including some you haven’t like the V-Accordion and you start to get some sort of idea of how large an ideal pair of earplugs would be. I saw a small child sitting down at the NAMM cafeteria wearing a giant pair of headphones, but that didn’t protect him from the wrath of Aramark. “You’re trapped like animals. Aramark.” That’s their slogan, I swear this to be true. I had a substance somewhat resembling a turkey sandwich and my friend ate his $1.50 apple while we sat at a table with a pasty businessman and a semi-rastafarian and we all came together over the amazing shittiness of this lowest-bid food service company. In summaration, Anaheim is a cancer that is somewhat contained by more interesting surrounding areas. Aerial bombing would provide the citizens a way to band together and improve their community once it is razed, or they could just put little ribbons on their cars, either way. (see Massive NAMM fotojournal)
