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Forget it, Jake
The Occidental Tourist · November 1, 2000

What a week of travel hell. The Tourist ended up with back-to-back treks he wouldn't wish on the modern equivalent of Hitler. (Today, that would be a tobacco industry executive.)

Try two places that the Tourist never wants to visit: San Jose and Atlanta. Both metro areas represent the very worst in societal devolution, with ludicrous excess in housing, lifestyle, and mind-numbing traffic. Why in the world do people chose to live there? Well, as the old Roman Polanski cinema masterpiece went, "Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown . . . ."

Anyway, here's how the trips went, from the Tourist's barstool perspective.

In Silicon Valley, the Tourist's dweeb detector went ballistic. This looks like a swell place to live. Essentially, techheads are paying half a million dollars for a small house, to brag that they live in what's essentially a large office park.

Oh, and the gadget-laden fashion statements: How many blinking, chirping objects can one possibly fit on a waist? It appears that a guy can't function in the valley without at least a cell phone, a beeper, and three other gizmos that require Cisco-engineering certification to identify.

And the Tourist puts special emphasis on the gender reference here. At a luxury hotel bar -- where he was stiffed with $7 beer charges -- he looked around and saw no less than six men for every woman. Now, even if the playing field was 50/50, these guys couldn't get action at a grain alcohol party hosted by Catholic boarding school girls. Given the gender imbalance in the valley, the Tourist is confident that perhaps four male residents will score sometime within the next presidential administration.

Oh, the Tourist was really thrilled with his stay at the super-priced Westin there in Santa Clara. What exactly did he get with his nearly $300 a night room tab, in technology heaven? Well, the television in his room needed an engineer's service to get working. He wasn't able to check out via the TV menu option, and the front desk was too busy to let him do it over the phone.

And if you expect your room to be cleaned and made over anytime before 2 p.m., you've apparently set quite a high bar of expectation for the housekeeping staff. The Tourist returned to his room at 1:30 p.m., looking to rest, only to find his bed still unmade. Upon a call to the manager, he was told that if customers want their rooms taken care of before noon, they're supposed to call for special "express" service.

"Oh really?" the Tourist replied. "As a frequent business traveler, I have another term for 'express' service when I stay at practically any high-end hotel. It's called 'standard' service. And I never have to call the front desk to get it when I stay at Hyatts, Hiltons--or even Holiday Inns, for that matter."

In Atlanta, more misery and sorrow.

If you were planning to launch a boom town, and you were looking to do everything wrong in the process, then look no farther than this alleged jewel of the South. Sure, the economy is great. And, in all honesty, there are in-town neighborhoods and nightspots that are as good as any in the nation. But greater Atlanta is a region, not just a town. And the big picture is scary.

It boils down to this simple, mathematical concept: Limitless development of McMansions in an ever-expanding radius plus a sad excuse for a public rail system minus any practical application of a broad, geographic approach to economic and residential planning equals a sad mess. If you enjoy spending three hours a day in your car and raising a family in the isolated, American Beauty-styled suburban landscape, then, by all means, Atlanta is a swell place to live.

And visiting as a Tourist? Stay in town or else. Once outside the city, you'll be subject to inane, cookie-cutter surroundings and always jammed thoroughfares. For sure, you'll need a sense of humor. Try this, from a former colleague who's now a journalist in Atlanta: "Heck, sprawl itself should be the tourist attraction. Visit Spaghetti Junction! A montage of concrete and overpasses the [Department of Transportation] chief calls a work of art. Spend hours idling over the Chattahoochee River on one of the many expressways that cross it! And then there's the Downtown Connector! It provides a grand view of the downtown skyline, especially for lingering looks." And plan to linger for a long time.

Forget it, Jake. It's Atlanta.

The Occidental Tourist is a magazine writer in Washington, DC. He writes for Maxim, POV, Capital Style and ABCNews.com. His column appears on Tuesdays. E-mail him at tourist@ticked.com.