C.J.'s Lament

Over at Up for Anything, CJ has a commentary on "progress," and how "progress" has cost us many of the finer things in life.

Like Show Biz Pizza.

Dude. It was like the shit to go up to the Foothills Mall and go to Sho-Biz, and eat pizza, and watch the stage show. Skee-Ball? They had the good Skee-ball machines, with the wooden balls.

I always thought it was the greatest thing in the world that after you'd order your pizza, they'd give you a number, and when your number came up on the TV screens at the corners of the room, you'd go get your pizza. (I was five....get off my back).

And there was the barn that you'd climb up in and slide down the little yellow plastic slide? It was just a slide, but all the kids would go retarded crazy for that slide. It was just like five long, and you'd climb up in the little barn, and slide down. Maybe it's that the slide was inside....that juxtaposition for my little five-year-old mind.

I think they had to take the slides out. I think a handicapped kid wasn't able to play on the slides (because of the stairs you had to climb), so in order to avoid a ruckus, they were removed.

They took most of the good video games out when I was eight or nine. Too many teenagers were coming in and just playing video games, and ruining the family atmosphere.

Yeah.