My Town
The following clip is of Steve Carell on the Daily Show… of a segment he filmed in Mechanicville. When I talk about “my townhouse,” this is the town that it’s in. I’d like to say it makes the city (yes, the one square mile that is Mechanicville is, in fact, a city) look bad because they only film old people and drunks — but 90% of the city’s population is old people, drunks, and old people who are drunks. Ms. L and I often joked that we were the youngest people in Mechanicville with jobs and without kids. It really wasn’t a joke though.
I saw this originally the day after it aired. The bar that Steve Carell goes to is called Costanzo’s. I have ordered pizza from there but it remains the one bar in Mechanicville I have never had a drink in. Primarily because I’ve always thought it was kinda shady and, from the stories I’ve heard, it’s been shady since my grandma’s day. The bar is this far from my townhouse. It’s the closest to me and I’ve never gone there. Unfortunately, if I ever did happen to move back it’s one of the only ones left in town. The bar where my 30th birthday was held has shut down. Another has become a parking lot for a nearby motorcycle repair shop. A third is for sale. A fifth relatively historic one has been flattened and the land is stuck in a pissing contest between a-holes. A sixth tried to charge me a cover last time I was home and seems to be out of place considering the surrounding population. Not good times in the city of Mechanicville.
In my defense… this wasn’t my town growing up. Mine was the next town over.