2: Pop! Goes the Culture

 

Like television, the Web was seen in its early days as a wondrous new world. A little glowing box in every home would dispense a wealth of educational, scientific, and cultural content. It would be a universally available resource, accessible to the masses at an affordable price. But, as with television, much of the Web's content devolved into, shall we say, less-than-intellectually-stimulating topics. In this chapter, you'll witness firsthand the decline and fall of Western Civilization, illustrated by the following sites:

Here are a few samples.

 

Project: Denny's

If you don't have the time or the money to take a real vacation, you can always take a virtual vacation via the World Wide Web. Take, for example, the fellow who has made it his life's mission to visit as many Denny's restaurants as possible. Read on.

Jason Pfaff's fascination for the Denny's chain of 24-hour cheap eats can be only partly explained by his grandfather-chaperoned visits there as a wee lad and by his year working as a Denny's waiter. No, his problem is deeper: his stated goal in life is "to visit as many Denny's as possible before I die." At Project: Denny's, he chronicles his travels to Denny's throughout the land.

Here, then, for the morbid and the bored, is a complete list Denny's restaurant outlets visited by Mr. Pfaff in his quest. The dozens of branches are carefully organized by chronology, geographic region, and Denny's franchise number. Each visit is documented with photos, descriptions of waitresses, list of items ordered, and which of Mr. Pfaff's hapless friends were in attendance.

To heighten the challenge, Mr. Pfaff has two sub-goals during each Denny's visit. First, he tries to scam free stuff; usually, he says, "the wait-person is so relieved to have someone friendly to talk to for a change, s/he will just give me something." (Sample trophies: Denny's tie clip, Breakfast Values menu, Coke Pin, Lunch Basket Promotional Poster.) Second, at each Denny's visit, the author seeks to prove a pet theory: that every Denny's manager looks like the comedian Weird Al Yankovic (who, for the uninitiated, is "a tall scrawny guy with a dark mustache, silver rimmed glasses, and big curly black hair.") Mr. Pfaff says he's "a bit lenient on the specifics (i.e., the hair doesn't have to be curly, and the glasses can be a different color, and the employee doesn't have to be a manager), but there has to be a strong resemblance overall." Surprisingly, the majority of the Denny's documented on this Web site do indeed feature a Weird Al lookalike.

We can only wish good luck and godspeed to Mr. Pfaff and "Das Büs," the secondhand schoolbus he travels in. Who says today's youth lacks ambition?

 

The Museum of Bad Art

The Museum of Bad Art is an actual collection of actual bad paintings based in a Boston basement. But MOBA is so much more than a basement; this beloved institution has become been repeatedly reinvented as a CD-ROM, a newsletter, occasional exhibitions, and even a book, so that ever more bad art fans can cherish this deliciously pathetic collection.

As Scott Wilson, the curator, notes, "The pieces in the MOBA collection range from the work of talented artists that have gone awry, to works of exuberant artists barely in control of the brush. What they all have in common is a special quality that sets them apart from the merely incompetent."

As celebrators of the worst of the Web, we, of course, toast MOBA's efforts. And we encourage you to stroll its virtual gallery online, drinking in works like Lucy in the Field With Flowers ("What is Norman Mailer's head doing on grandma's body, and are those crows or F-16's skimming the hills?"); Eileen (stolen during an exhibition; "Mr. Wilson, the museum's curator, has offered a $6.50 reward for any information leading to the safe return of Eileen to the MOBA walls"); and Suicide ("Bloody cloudbursts in an otherwise clear sky, frothing nostrils as the bovine beast dives, lemming-like, and misses the phosphorescent, oily swimming hole").

 

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