Fuck the Sherman Oaks Galleria!

Fuck the Sherman Oaks Galleria. Every time I go there I say it's the last time I'll ever do so, because I have such a shitty experience. I need to stick to my guns, but it does have the closest movie theater to my house.

Back in the 80s, the Galleria was the mall de rigueur. It was so de rigueur that every 80s teen film was shot there (Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Valley Girl, etc.). Hell, even a couple Arnold Schwarzenegger films were too (Commando and T2).

But something happened. Business went bad, so the mall shut down.

One Third Street Promenade and one Grove later, the Sherman Oaks Galleria reopened with a major facelift. It became an outdoor mall, sans Main Street U.S.A. choo-choo train. No department stores and why should they? The sort-of-recent Sherman Oaks Fashion Square had all that. What the Fashion Square lacked was a multiplex, Tower Records, and Cheesecake Factory.

I guess I should get to the point of my thesis: Fuck the Sherman Oaks Galleria.

Here's why.

Parking.

Parking blows at the Galleria. It's not for the dearth of spaces. There are plenty to go around. What pisses me off is that every space is designed for a compact car, yet every vehicle in there takes two spaces, since they are all mega-SUVs who don’t even attempt to park in between the lines.

The Movie Theater.

Yeah, the Pacific Cinemas 16 has nice screens, great sound, first run movies, and all that jazz. It also ties for worst customer service at the mall (more on that later). I have now resorted to using the automated Kiosks to purchase tickets, since the punks at the ticket window do not know how to greet people.

I do not know if there has been any research done into the matter, but the audiences at this theater are the worst in America. I cannot tell you how many times my movie-going experience has been tainted by assholes at this theater. Actually, I can -- every time.

Whether it was the family bringing their three children under 5 to the last thirty minutes of Domino, or the Harry Knowles wanna-be on his PDA device during Hostel, nary have I had a pleasant movie-going experience at the Sherman Oaks Galleria.

Then there's Tower Records.

When I was 16, I used to love driving to my local Tower Records in Northridge. This was before iPods mind you. This was also the days of the CD longbox. Remember those? The CD case came in a long rectangular cardboard box, which was very ecologically uncool. I think R.E.M.'s bitching and moaning helped spell the demise of this phenomenon.

Tower Records was also the spot, cause you could buy concert tickets there. There was no ticketmaster.com. If you wanted to see Lollapalooza, you had to wake up early on a Saturday, wait in line, and pray for a good wristband.

And the people that worked there were cool. They were post-New Wave and pre-hipster. And they usually asked how you were doing when you went up to the register.

Not so at Tower Records at the Sherman Oaks Galleria.

I went in there this weekend to buy CDs for a friend’s birthday. When I first got in there the line was obscenely long, but after I selected his CDs there was no line. Excellent.
I walked to a couple feet in front of the counter, where I saw two employees working. They weren’t exactly busy, nor were they exactly attentive to the fact that I was standing in line. One would ask the other one questions (possibly work-related), but I could not fathom that neither one of them asked if they could help me. So I said, "Fuck this" and put the CDs back and huffed off.

What the fuck happened to customer service? I realize most of their customers are too busy with their Blackberries, Sidekicks, and iPods to pay them much attention, so they figure why bother? Now I know why Tower Records has had so much financial trouble recently, and I now vow to do all my music shopping online or at Amoeba.

Don’t even get me started on the people at Starbucks. Yes, I go to Starbucks, cause there’s no other fucking place to go in the valley!

Customer service, not so bad. Customers, atrocious. I had my iPod on at a comfortable listening level, yet I could hear the entire conversation of this guy and his tranny-looking girlfriend (or was it his mother?) next to me. She was apparently in bad financial states, while he rambled on about his watery bowel movements. I could hear this, even with my Guns N Roses playing on my iPod! They were so loud and obnoxious that I relocated to one of the outdoor tables, even though it was 90-something degrees.

It's malls like this that make me miss San Francisco.