Generica

Chandler commanded a spotlight at the far end of the stage at Picker’s Supply Concert Hall downtown last Friday night. There, he was loudly ranting about a commercial wasteland he called the “United States of Generica.”

The valley areas are split up into regular grids of stores and restaurants, and you're never more than a five-minute drive from a Starbucks or Borders or Baby Gap, the building blocks of Generica.

It is generica that plagues the outskirts of every medium-sized city with its strip malls and fast-food stops and traffic lights; it is generica that always persuades me to drive off quite confidently in the wrong direction.