RSS FeedBoardwalk Cats
A while ago, I got an email from someone who had a site (or at least a page) dedicated to the famous Boardwalk Cats. But, like so much else, the page was writ in water–I checked my link yesterday and saw it was down. Bummer.
Looking for more information on the Boardwalk Cats online, I found this possibly unintentionally ironic paragraph on everything2.com:
Today, Atlantic City is slowly rising back into a classy resort town. The city is still accessible by several NJ Transit buses as well as one train running from 30th Street Station in Philadelphia to the Convention Center on Baltic Avenue, not to mention the entire fleets of charter buses that make daily excursions (there’s so many that it’s its own industry to Atlantic City) from the nearby metropolitan and suburban areas. The jitneys are still in service, though the trolleys no longer exist. There are currently a dozen casinos operating (discussed later). The beach is a public park owned by the city, and there is no charge for entrance (unlike most places in the state during the tourist season).
Yep–fleets of charter buses is what makes a town “classy.”
Then there was this elegaic prose poem to the Atlantic Ocean:
Where the noise never stops
Inside an Atlantic City casino, if you haven’t prepared yourself by hanging out in Grand Central Terminal during rush hour or a steel mill, the noise can be overwhelming. It’s all civilized and artificial noise. Nervous gamblers clacking their chips hand-to-hand or on the table; blackjack dealers reading off the value of hands in an affectless monotone; waitresses asking “Coffee? Soda? Juice?” every few tables as they walk; and the constant metallic brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrring of the latest slot machine to pay off big.
But the funny thing about Atlantic City is that it’s extremely close to the ocean of the same name. The casinos are all built to turn their backs on it, but it hasn’t gone away. And if you walk out of the back door of the Tropicana–as I did before dawn this morning when my poker game broke up–the ocean is waiting for you.
Not a hundred feet away from where Chinese businessmen exhort their hands to come right and American retirees complain about the service, the overwhelming noise is the endless hiss and roar of the surf. It was there long before mankind invented the slot machine, and it will be there long after the last roulette wheel rusts to a stop forever. Long after Donald Trump and his works are forgotten, and the boardwalk is covered under drifting sands, and the hotels house nothing but rats and squirrels, the ocean will still be there.
The ocean has nothing but time.
That last sentence was so gnomic that I stopped looking for the Boardwalk Cats and just contemplated time. I’ve always hoped that, if I traveled to a post-apocalyptic future Absecon Island, I’d realise I was back home when I came across an abandoned Mr. Peanut statue sticking out the sand. According to this guy, I’ll have to jockey with rats and squirrels to get a room.
Speaking of gnomic and pithy, I bought a DVD of Space Ghost: Coast to Coast the other day, and I was blown away by this bit of wisdom, which I think came from Judy Tenuta–if not her, definitely Space Ghost or Zorak:
“Friends are just enemies who don’t have the guts to kill you.”
That, and Sonny Sharrock’s music, made the DVD a worthwhile purchase.
Posted in atlantic city
March 15th, 2006 at 2:54 pm
Liked the article, Dave. The cats all seem to be well taken care of. It’s funny that I’ve always worried about them (briefly) with the weather and the cruel city, but never the bums of Atlantic City, who I always figured they somehow deserved their fate, and could change their situation, but not the cats, their fragile lives, at the mercy of heartless monster kids of the city. Yet, they seem to make out well. There was this 1 who had 3 legs at what was then Burger King, now Colisimo’s Pizza. Haven’t seen him around the last couple of years.
I always figured the eventuality of Atlantic City 1000 years from now: the site will be 10 miles out to sea. Will any towers be left sticking out way out there?
Note: I’m posting this for Guy from Delaware, who had trouble posting it.
March 16th, 2006 at 1:17 am
I think that you’re being overly generous calling that gnomic and pithy. The contrast wasn’t that well drawn, the wording was rather generic, and it had the ring of fatuous sentimentalism for me. But oh well, I’m the pessimist. I tend to see a post apocalyptic future more as trash floating around and the scooting scurries and disquieting shrieks of whatever may be left to breed.
March 16th, 2006 at 8:47 pm
Quote from Kamitwi: “I tend to see a post apocalyptic future more as trash floating around and the scooting scurries and disquieting shrieks of whatever may be left to breed.”
That’s what I see now. THAT’S pessimism.
Sure, it could have struck a more poetic chord in our hearts–but keep in mind that it was probably limited by a grade-school-level style, accessible to more people. If it was written in high-falutin’ language, think how many would never even have the chance to examine the “noise of the ephemeral” juxtaposed with the “noise of the eternal”.
March 17th, 2006 at 10:50 am
[...] And my readers who thought that the prose of Mr. “The ocean has nothing but time” was disappointing will have a field day with this un-named correspondent’s stylistic choices. The fun never ends. Filed under: Bizarro World News by Dave | [...]