September 2, 1999

PEWAUKEE, WI--Now I know what it's really like to live in the middle of nowhere.

I was sent up here late Tuesday night on a business trip, to check the press run of a magazine before it's published. Wednesday I arrived to emptiness and nothing. No movie theaters, no clubs or bars, no music stores or even Blockbusters. Not a Starbucks or Gap in sight. Nothing.

In downtown Waushau, all the teens are punks and skaters, as if the culture has taken so long to reach this backwater burg that being "hip" means gleaming a cube and headbanging to the Ramones.

To live here is to only experience the world through mainstream conduits: cable television, blockbuster movies, smash hit records. They feed off only what becomes big enough to reach their small corner of the world. There is no "alternative" here; it's all sameness.

I can't wait to get home.