It's been a year or more since White Castle launched
their pseudo-social networking website, Craver Nation. At first glance, and to
the uninitiated, it seemed like a colossally dumb, if not completely insane,
idea. Social networking sites are ways to reconnect with, and to meet, people
with common interests. They require a considerable investment of time and
energy on the part of the user, and who in their right mind would devote that
much energy and time into connecting with people who, for example, also likes
their Big Mac with extra Mac sauce and no cheese?
But the reason why the idea isn't completely insane
is that we're not talking about McDonald's. This is White Castle, the only fast
food restaurant with a bonafide cult following. A cult that exists not despite,
but perhaps because of, the terrible violence these burgers inflict on our
digestive systems.
Which reminds me of conversation I had in high school
with one of my fellow students, who partook of various illicit substances, one
of which was peyote. He explained to me that the first time you take peyote, no
matter who you are, you will throw up. And it will be the worst vomiting of
your entire life. The second time is a little better, and the third time, a
little better than that. I had trouble understanding why anyone would subject
themselves to that, and then he said, it's exactly like White Castle. And that
made perfect sense, because at that time I was eating White Castle about six
times a week.
Now, I never tried the stuff (peyote, I mean). I
never tried any stuff, because education remains the only high I need. I have a
visceral dislike of drugs and alcohol, and for that reason I don't particularly
enjoy stoner movies, nor do I support them by going to see them at the theater.
But I was there opening day for Harold and Kumar Go
to White Castle. And that's because it was White Castle. I wouldn't have gone
to see Harold and Kumar Go to McDonald's, because first off, they already made
that movie, it was called Mac and Me and it was terrible. But secondly, I don't
care about McDonald's. There is no "McDonald's type of person",
because everyone goes to McDonald's. But there are White Castle people. There
are Cravers.
The movie captures this pretty well. There's a scene
where an employee of another burger joint, played by Anthony Anderson, waxes
rhapsodic about "those tender little White Castle burgers, with those
little itty-bitty grilled onions that just explode in your mouth like flavor
crystals" before flipping out because the burgers he serves just don't cut
it. And people who don't know about White Castle might think that scene is exaggerating,
that no one would talk that way about a fast-food burger. But I swear to God,
I've heard Cravers talk like that. I've talked like that.
And though I've never been compelled to think of arson
when denied my burger of choice, I have gone to pretty extreme measures at
times. This is a story that people who know me have heard at least a dozen
times. Of course I'm talking about The Time I Risked Getting Shot By the Secret
Service to Get White Castle.
It was the summer of 2000. Election year in these
United States. And Vice-President (and Democratic nominee) Al Gore was in my
hometown of Dearborn, eating at Dmitri's, a Greek restaurant on Telegraph Road.
Their food wasn't great (their opa was decent though) and they went out of
business earlier this year. Now as it was then, my local White Castle was right
smack-dab next-door.
Now, I didn't know that Gore was in town, or that he
was eating at Dmitri's. All I knew at the time was that I wanted White Castle,
and that traffic approaching the White Castle was down to one lane, that lane
being the one farthest from that side of the street. The other three lanes of
Telegraph were closed down. There were some cones, and some limousines. And
standing at the Dmitri's lot were a few dudes with short haircuts, sunglasses,
and black suits. (I assume there were more inside.)
There was no way to get to the White Castle. A sane
person would have just went somewhere else. There was a McDonald's several
blocks down. Heck, there was an Arby's just across the street. So I did a
Michigan Left and pulled into the Arby's lot.
And then I made a mad sprint across Telegraph.
Sometime after I got to the median one of the Secret Service guys must've seen
me. As I ran across the rest of telegraph, darting between the cones and
limousines, I became aware of the fact that one of them was power-walking in my
direction. I poured on the speed, my body in agony.
I got to the door of the White Castle. I stopped,
taking huge gasping breaths. I turned my head. The Secret Service guy had
stopped moving in my direction. He let his hand wave downwards in a "just
let him go" kind of motion: the kid just wants a sack of ten.
The point of all this is that White Castle isn't just
a fast-food restaurant. It's a sort of nerdy hobby, like comic books and board
games, that demands and rewards the same kind of investment. If anyone can make
a social networking site work, it's them.
Now I have no idea if the Craver Nation site is actually
any good. Thirteen years ago I was living on White Castle: at thirty-nine cents
a pop, I could have a meal for two bucks and some change. Since that time, I've
gotten married to a woman who is wonderful in every respect, save that the
charms of Castle-fueled flatulence are hopelessly lost on her. I'm no longer a
Craver, no longer the kind of person who gets up at three in the morning and
says, you know what, I want to have the flux all day tomorrow, thank goodness
White Castle is open twenty-four hours a day.
So I no longer have the passion that would lead me to
devote any of my time to a social networking website for hamburgers. When the
site launched, I logged in to get a coupon for free burgers, which I never
actually got around to using before it expired. In practice, the site could be
a dismal failure. But conceptually? I think it's kind of brilliant.
