Patio Man: Posted for the sheer pleasure of it.

The following is an excerpt from a book that is bringing me great joy these days.   It's David Brooks' book, On Paradise Drive: How We Live Now (And Always Have) In the Future Tense.

In the section entitled "The Grill-Buying Guy," Brooks describes the mental visions of a single typical suburban man (known as Patio Man) as he stands at the checkout counter of Home Depot buying his overly equipped grill:

In his mind's eye, Patio Man can see himself cooly flipping the garlic-and-pepper T-bones on the front acreage of his new grill while carefully testing the citrus-tarragon trout filets simmering fragrantly on the rear.  On the lawn below, his kids Haley and Cody frolick on the weedless community lawn that is mowed twice weekly courtesy of the people who run Monument Crowne Preserve, his townhome community.

Haley, the fourteen-year-old daughter, is a Travel-Team Girl who spends her weekends playing midfield against similarly pony-tailed, strongly calved soccer marvels such as herself.  Cody, ten, is a Buzz-Cut Boy whose naturally blond hair has been cut to lawnlike stubble, and the little that's left is highlighted an almost phosphorescent white.  Cody's wardrobe is entirely derivative of fashions he has seen watching the X Games.  Patio Man can see the kids playing with child-safe lawn darts along with a gaggle of their cul-de-sac friends, a happy gathering of Haleys and Codys and Corys and Britneys.  It's a brightly colored scene--Abercrombie & Fitch pink spaghetti strap tops on the girls and ankle-length canvas shorts and laceless Nikes on the boys.  Patio Man notes somewhat uncomfortably that in America today the average square yardage of boyswear grows and grows, while the average square inches in girls' outfits shrinks and shrinks.  The boys carry so much fabric they look like skateboarding Bedouins, and the girls look like preppy prostitutes.

Typically, I'm not interested in books or films that poke fun at one person (or people group) for the sake of a laugh.  So it should be noted that Brooks' book satyrizes not just the cavernous existence of suburbanites, but of all different types of Americans.  The truth that is hitting me is this:  the shallowness of our existence is not reflected in where we choose to live, but in the decision Americans tend to make, whether Artsy Hipster or Patio Man, to surround ourselves with people who are the same as us.

Comments

[Wow]

No - no. We're not making fun. But I did run into one of the Charlie's Angels at Hungry Heart the other night. She's groovin' on the Madonna Video and was very friendly. :o)
Great Post, P.

[studio beerhorst]

I think if we start walking with Jesus and really begin to follow him anywhere, things are gonna get pretty uncomortably dissimilar because he seems to delight in mixing it up, which often leaves us not knowing the cultural language everyone else is conversing in so fluently. We are left feeling like a new immigrant seperated from the fold with a lot to say but not knowing how to say it, and it is this precise predicament which becomes the perfect place of once again needing divine intervention, "God Help!" I think Patio Man or Art Opening Man.....need to find out who they are and be willing to be lost for awhile in order to learn to be at home anywhere.