The Pixies

Three kids in rock tee shirts are drinking colas at the outdoor cafe table beside mine as I try to pull these notes together. They don't look a bit out of place in their alterna-rock duds even though they're a hundred miles from any radio station worth listening to. There's no rock club here. There's no hip record store. There's just the modern fabric of life in America in which MTV has set the tone and alternative rock has provided the content for the homogenization of the world. It's a monochrome Gap wonderland from sea to shining sea and any attempt at dressing "alternatively" is immediately co-opted by some New York designer who plasters the same tortured individuality across a two-page advertising spread in Vanity Fair or Details or Q. In fact these kids could just as easily be on a photo shoot for unisex cologne as be rock n roll fans. Meanwhile, there's a huge Fuji dirigible flying overhead and a wonderstruck old woman is pleading with passers-by to look up. "Come on!", she implores, "That's not something you see everyday!" But undoubtedly it is because no one even notices her, let alone the flashing and blinking flying machine hovering like the future above them.