RE: Highway Hangouts:Eat and Run
Wed, 07/23/03 5:53 PM
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permalink)
I found this information on the web site of Randy Garbin who took
part in the History Channel show. Very interesting read.
Highway Hangouts: Biting the hand
For those of you that missed it, the History Channel
aired a third installment of its Highway Hangouts
series last week. Entitled "Eat and Run," this show
focused on roadside eateries, including the "great
American diner."
The show also included shots of yours truly as one of
the several "experts" on roadside culture. The program
also included Peter Genovese, Brian Butko, Jim
Heimann, and a smattering of the folks that actually
operate some of the roadside attractions featured as
examples of the genre.
Given the show's pedigree as a commercial program on a
low-budget cable network, we shouldn't expect much.
Riddled with cliché, rife with incongruent supporting
video, and narrated by the 84-year-old Mason Adams,
who's down-home voice now sounds like a thick coat of
frosting on a bucket of saccharine, the program yanked
just about every nostalgic string it could grasp
during its two-hour run.
OF COURSE, the producers just had to show diner
waitresses speaking "diner lingo." OF COURSE we had to
see people sitting in '57 Chevy's. And OF COURSE, we
had to devote a quarter of the program to Route 66. I
guess people drove along no other road in this
country, though I faintly recall reading a few things
about something called the Lincoln Highway which
actually stretched coast to coast.
I did learn a few things. The show spent some quality
time with a few attractions that haven't had much of
their own publicity, including the Clam Box and the
Java Jive. Also, seeing Harold Kullman of Kullman
Industries and Jack Mulholland of the Mayfair Diner
talk about their respective businesses of building and
operating diners gave the diner segment most of its
credibility. In fact, I wish the producers spent more
time with folks such as these and less with the
talking heads. After all, those in the trenches of
this culture have much more interesting stories to
tell, and in fact, provide all the source material
anyway.
The show also lavished considerable screen time to
John Margolies and Michael Stern. Margolies has
authored nearly a dozen books on the subject of the
American roadside, covering everything from mini-golf
to travel brochures.
Michael Stern constitutes the male half of the
RoadFood royal couple along with Jane, his wife. The
pair write books and articles that have appeared in
many major magazines and newspapers, which have
established them the nations preeminent over-the-road
dining mavens. I've previously called the Sterns to
task for their snide, condescending, almost nasty
commentary about local food and the people that work
the business. Seeing them trotted out as experts on
diners frankly does a tremendous disservice to their
readers and especially to the diner industry.
I give the couple credit for shining the spotlight on
many deserving gems. But too often they bestow their
praise in snotty, backhanded fashion delivered high
from their Fairfield County perch. On the radio, the
drawling whine of their voices could only find fans
among those who'd rarely risk leaving their Hummer H2
to chance a mingling with the lowly plebeian regulars
in such places. But if Jane and Michael says its okay,
then it's time to go slumming.
At least Stern has a palatable on-screen persona. The
producers of this program nearly shot themselves in
the foot by allowing Margolies to get so much face
time on this program. Is it just me, or did you also
squirm every time the camera cut to this guy?
John Margolies is one of several authors of the past
decade who has churned out book after book that I
would describe as "gee whiz" displays of their
personal collections of photographs and ephemera. In a
sense, these books -- which also include those by Karl
Michael Witzel -- do some good by calling the
mainstream's attention to threatened roadside culture
and enterprise.
While it's generally easy to dismiss Witzel's efforts
out of hand as pandering, poorly researched, badly
produced, albeit pretty picture books, Margolies has
established a notable career for himself as the New
York Times puts it, "America's premier chronicler of
architectural kitsch." He's currently an Alicia
Patterson Foundation Fellow, which has awarded him a
one-year grant of $35,000 to pursue independent
projects of significant interest and to write articles
based on his investigations for the APF Reporter. The
Highway Hangouts series is based largely upon
Margolies's body of work.
Yet Margolies may have based his career on a false
pretense as well. When Witzel published the otherwise
awful American Diner, he used a great deal of the work
of a photographer named Pedar Ness. Ness's photos of
diners and other roadside gems dated from the 1960s
and 1970s, a period when only a handful of people
recognized the value of this type of architecture. I
met with Ness three years ago when I traveled to Los
Angeles, and he claims that his early photographs
provided Margolies with a kind of visual reference
from which to base his own work. Ness had claimed that
he sought to publish a book of his photos and happened
to submit his proposal complete with original slides
to an agent who also worked with Margolies.
According to Ness, the agent rejected his proposal,
but his slides came back to him in complete disarray
-- as if someone had pulled apart the portfolio to
make copies. Some time later, Margolies had published
his first book and began presenting slide shows using
photos identical to Ness's, except, as Ness explained
it: "He cleaned up the scene. Swept away the trash."
Ness says he later attended one of Margolies's slide
presentations, but when he introduced himself,
Margolies wouldn't so much as look at him.
It's a sad irony that some of the most successful and
notable chroniclers of this proud and honorable aspect
of our history and heritage -- rich with tales of
honest, hard working folk struggling to do something
good for themselves, their families, and their
communities -- have fashioned careers upon such thin
or dubious credentials.
With that in mind, I look forward to seeing Rick
Seback's next production due out next summer. As I
write, you can find Rick roaming the country visiting
large buildings "that look like something else." Rick
has already produced an impressive body of work for
his station WQED in Pittsburgh and for PBS with
programs such as the "Pennsylvania Road Show," "A Hot
Dog Show," "The Ice Cream Show," and "Pittsburgh A to
Z." While not exactly scholarly, the programs are
honest, and at least I know that Rick really loves
this stuff.
And so it goes.
Randy Garbin
