September 17th, 2018

On exactly why I will always choose small towns over cities.

    I traveled and lived in a lot of places in my life, and I'm sorry to say, that there isn't a single American city I've ever been to that I've thoroughly enjoyed. Now, European cities, especially London, Amsterdam and Paris, these cities are an entirely different story. But, I don't live there. So... they simply can't count from where I'm sitting.
    My love of small American towns is just an emotional reaction to where I come from. I am simply, hard-wired for them and mostly all they embody. You see...

...there's almost an emotionally-charged-push-back involved here for me, as when I grew up, the city I grew up near, was a dark, grey, dirty, broken, decrepit place and for some reason, we spent a disproportionate amount of time there. So, I suppose this has much to do with the choices I have made in my life and the type of environments I am naturally drawn to and have chosen to live my life in since. It's just how I feel. Small towns here in WNY,  New England, Sonoma and Sonoma County, California and the gorgeous Capay Valley (look it up), would be HARD for anyone to deny. They all possess an inherent super-high quality of life for the rich, poor or mid-income folks who live in them. It's like the John Mellencamp song, "I was raised in a small town and I can breathe in a small town...". As simple as that in in all ways. There's just something about a small town that speaks to all that I am and want out of life and my career. Small towns make my heart happy in contrast to cities where I just wanna get through them and get outta them as fast as I can, there really isn't a small town that doesn't make me want to pull over, get out and explore and find out how it got there, what's it all about and why people chose it over anything else? Yes, there are thousands upon thousands of small towns now, that have been simply gutted by the Walmarts, Targets and Dollar Generals of the world and are left with ghostly, boarded-up, reminders of what once was. But you see, they STILL mostly, have those great bones intact just sitting there for a new generation to pick up the legacy and get to work reinventing it. And for the cheap too! Which is why you have seen this entrepreneurial shift away from big cities to small towns. They offer amazing, real-world, have-it-now opportunities to allow you to truly live your dream and not die broke in the process like millions do in the big cities. There are literally hundreds of beautiful reconstruction stories out there about how some broken down town has now resurrected itself out of the ashes of the hold of the corporatocracies we are all imprisoned by now. So, it can happen and IT IS happening. More and more, as we all burn out on mass-consumerism/commercialism and the deeply cold, depersonalized living that has inherently left us continually, broke and starved for some real, authentic connection and community again. More and more people are starting to wake-up and turn to small town life once again. Before the burbs, most people lived, worked and died in small towns, but once the terrorizing effects of the car took hold, it's all just become a decentralized, soulless mess. But, we are returning to a better, more place-orientated, more heart-felt life. Life is about place and definition and that is something mega-corps cow-tow too every day now to try to fight the flight, but they are NOT built for that and it's a rouse. They simply can't reach that type of authentic small scale anything. It's like a ten-story-tall giant picking up a human scale needle in the grass. They may be powerful and seem omnipresent and omnipotent and scary, but they're inherently top-heavy and fall hard and fast once you find their Achillie's heel. And that heel is????.... Small scale everything! They can't touch it. They weren't made for it and don't understand it in any way, shape or form and will inevitably die and be crushed under their own weight. It's simple-small-scale-economics. You can ONLY grow so big... before you faulter, fail and fall. Megastore corps that have gutted tens of thousands of small towns everywhere, simply cannot reach for something so small and fragile and honesty, heartfelt, timeless, genuine and true as traditional small-scale, small town, neighborhood life. It's simply out of their view, site and grip. Something so preciously fragile has and will always will break in their mighty hands. You see? And in contrast to what most modern mass media outlets will have you believe now days, small town America is very much alive & well and it's my mission here to show you just how alive and well, as together, we discover the great small towns of America and all that they have to offer and share a few tales along the way! I am working hard to bring you this show in time for 2021 and beyond. See 'ya then! ~AA