Adieu, Kohl's

I'm a little sad the Kohl's on East Wash closed, not (unlike some of the other Kohl's) to be replaced. That's my old 'hood. I used to live at Victory Arms apartments across the street, and Kohl's was where I did all my grocery shopping. I liked the people who worked there. I liked the deli counter. I liked to look at Men's Workout magazine (rrrr) in the magazine rack. Now it's all gone.

That's a strange, troubled neighborhood. Maybe it will improve after Cathy Dethmers opens her new nightclub there.

Where's everyone around there going to buy groceries now? Maybe they'll get wise and take the bus down to the Willy St. Co-op. Nothing like a little transitional produce to take your mind off the unfair realities of late capitalism.

Pedal steel

Spotted in a gay Nashville chat room.

I dug out an old MAD magazine last night. I used to have a bunch of these, but the collection seems to have dwindled down to this one, from April 1968.

I think this was an especially fruitful period for MAD, which was anti-establishment when anti-establishment wasn't cool; and this issue, the cover of which sees Alfred E. Neuman bedecked in flowers and love beads, is as scathing about hippiedom as it is everything else.

This issue also has no small amount of feeble shtick, but then that was always true of MAD. Still, there's something comforting in knowing that even as we grew older and came to favor more sophisticated satire, MAD stayed (and stays) about the same.

Here's an excerpt from the April 1968 issue that I found particularly hilarious.