SGV Connect 122 Interview : Chris Interviews Adam Cousins, Memes of Glendora
Chris Greenspon 0:00
Okay
Adam Cousins 0:00
Is this a hit piece, sir?
Chris Greenspon 0:02
I was going to ask you the same thing. Okay, so I'm out here at the Glendora Metro platform in utero right now. It's looking more platform-like. It's got, couple of awnings, some pillars that are going to have art affixed to them. And a little underpass down the way... and I am with Memes of Glendora, known to the people who love him as...
Adam Cousins 0:34
Adam Cousins.
Chris Greenspon 0:36
Adam, what do you do with yourself when you're not meming?
Adam Cousins 0:39
I am a writer and producer. I mostly work out of South Pasadena, California. But every once in a while I have to go down to Orange County or in Hollywood or something, but for the most part, it's either Glendora or somewhere else along the 210.
Chris Greenspon 0:56
And how long is it exactly that you have memed Glendora?
Adam Cousins 0:59
Oh, we had our one year anniversary back in October said probably be about a year and a quarter at this point.
Chris Greenspon 1:07
Now what drives a man to make memes... about Glendora?
Adam Cousins 1:11
Well, I didn't make memes before I made them about Glendora. So it kind of all happened at once learning how to do it. And having a subject matter to do it about. I was just going for a walk one night with my wife and kids. And I saw this intersection of the streets Buckboard and Buckboard, where they crossed into each other and it reminded me of that old Seinfeld episode where Kramer's at the corner First and First he's like, this is the nexus of the universe. And so I pretty much just stole that. And I just made it for myself in my phone. And then I thought I wish they were somewhere like a post this. And then I remember I had like an Instagram burner account that I was using, like spying on an old friend of ours. And I was like, I'm tired of spying on that person. So I just converted over to memes like Glendora and started using the hashtag Glendora and people started following it.
Chris Greenspon 2:01
Hit us with your best memes.
Adam Cousins 2:03
Oh, it's a visual medium. People like it when you kind of play into like current events stuff. So like, you know, we did some Super Bowl stuff recently that people really enjoyed. People always like it when I make fun of the old gas station on Lone Hill. It's just if you're not familiar with it, it's an old gas station on Lone Hill. It should have been torn down years ago but like from what I've heard, there was like oil leaks or something underneath it. So like it's, you can't really tear it down. There's a lot of logistical stuff that goes into it. So people like to make fun of that. Or I like to reference like the Denny sign that when you drive by on the 210 like you see like a Denny sign just poking its head over the wall. And that's really unless you come to Glendora that's really all you know about us is there's a Denny's sign and there's a good donut restaurant in town.
Chris Greenspon 2:50
Sort of like the Denny's sign on the way down to San Diego...
Adam Cousins 2:53
San Clemente Denny's sign: that's a rip off. All right, we don't... No... That's a cheap imitation of the Glendora Denny's sign, good sir.
Chris Greenspon 3:01
So it sounds and it seems like people really enjoy these memes or has there been any blowback against the memery?
Adam Cousins 3:08
Well, I don't know if you know a lot about Glendora. We're a very protective, tight knit little community. But we also love to fight each other on just about everything. Politics is a big thing here. And so I've gone out of my way to be intentionally apolitical. Every once in a while I'll post something that, to me was a completely apolitical, non argument causing topic, but yet they find things to fight about in the comments. I used to. I used to have a little disclaimer about like, you know, be cool, be positive or delete it, but then I get rid of that because I don't really care that much. But yeah, I think one time I've made fun of this lady I actually know very well, we're friendly, but she was running for city council and I made a joke that Memes of Glendora was gonna run for city council and I pretty much just took her image and put the Memes logo over her face. And then people thought I was taking a shot at her, and I'm like, "no, no, no, no, I just I didn't have anything else to post that day." Give me a break.
Chris Greenspon 4:09
Well, your account seems to strike a lovely balance between ribbing Glendora and loving Glendora. What is there to rib and what is there to love?
Adam Cousins 4:19
Oh, man, it's a really -- for being this kind of, you know, white bread, suburban, Middle America town. It's got so many funky things in it like we got a -- Did you know there's a castle in Glendora?
Chris Greenspon 4:37
Rubel Castle.
Adam Cousins 4:38
Rubel Castle. There's a man made castle at the top of the hill completely made out of old like freeway part like when they're building the freeway back in like I want to say a 40s 50s I don't know what years those were, he and his buddies would go down there and they just steal scrap wood and built it out of bottles and crap at the top of the hill. And so they do did that and like presidents have come to it and like kings have visited, Hitchcock used to hang out there back in the day. Like why does that even exist? We have we have peacocks here. I mean a lot of them got... did you hear they got rounded up recently they had some... Glendorans got all grumpy and they took a bunch of the peacocks away. But we got peacocks here we got those. You know that people used to claim that John Wayne Gacy's mom lived in town. And so people would like vandalize her house. I think it's just like a strange old lady. But people used to like do that. And there's also like a couple of colleges like we're right in this Claremont, Pomona, Azusa, you know area where there's, I don't know if this is true, you probably know better than I, I remember hearing that outside of Boston, the San Gabriel Valley has more like colleges per square mile than anywhere else in the country outside of Boston. So it's actually despite it being -- I think the perception is it's like a boomer retirement community here -- it's actually quite a bit younger than you would think just due to all the colleges and people around.
Chris Greenspon 5:59
Yes, I saw a youth skateboarding earlier and thought, "go radical!"
Adam Cousins 6:03
There's the one, yes, there he is our skateboarding friend.
Chris Greenspon 6:07
Okay, so now to a topical topic. We're at the Metro Station. What do Glendorans make of the Metro Station of the gold line, the A line, the L line, the future name they're going to give it in like two months -- What do they make of it? Do they like it? Are they into it? Are they scared of it?
Adam Cousins 6:24
Oh, no, they hate it. They don't want this thing to come to town. It's change. They're scared of what they don't know. And you know, they have some realistic fears in their mind that, oh, it's gonna bring all this crime and it's gonna bring people who are, you know, just making their way into town and hopping off and wandering around, transient if you will. And they're just nervous about it. But honestly, like, I don't have the data in front of me, I've just ridden the train off and on for years. And that's never really been the case in my mind, like people get off where, where they want to get off, they don't get off where they don't want to get off. And so I don't think that's going to be that significant of a difference. I do think it is going to be a little bit of a pain in the butt when you're when you're trying to drive through town. And then like the like the train things come down. You got I mean, what are those called? Like the little flat
Chris Greenspon 7:14
Quad gates.
Adam Cousins 7:14
Quad gates is the official term, not the things. When the quad gates come down that'll be a pain when you're already stuck in like some bad traffic coming home from Pasadena or something. And then you'll be like, I gotta deal with the train now. But I'd say overall, it's just a lot of worry and hand wringing and just concerned about like, "Oh, this isn't the old town. It used to be, Oh, they got rid of the ice cream shop. And now the trains come to town," stuff like that.
Chris Greenspon 7:39
What do you think is going to be the long term impact?
Adam Cousins 7:41
The long term impact? I think it's actually going to let people learn about our sleepy little town and realize that it's a lot cooler than the general, you know, county wide perception of us might be like, there's a lot more stuff to do here. The downtown's been revitalized a lot in recent years, like there's still a lot to do like it's still a lot of like real estate offices and lash salons, you know, but it's coming together. There's a lot of a lot of my friends from you know, South Pasadena, Arcadia, Monrovia, like they're starting to move out this way. Because they're realizing they can still get into Pasadena, they can still get to Hollywood, they can still if they really needed to get out to Santa Monica. And so people are moving their way out this way. A lot of more families are moving over here. And it's just becoming like a more young fun community than it was even 20 years ago when I started dating my wife who was right here.
Chris Greenspon 8:36
Okay, so to wrap it all up, as I've mentioned a time or two we're staring at the platform, one of the great Glendora activities. What memes is this situation pregnant with?
Adam Cousins 8:49
The train station, and I'm probably just gonna be ripping off any movie with a train scene edit. You know what might be like some Harry Potter stuff coming up or? I don't know --
Chris Greenspon 9:00
You went for the lamest --
Adam Cousins 9:01
I've never actually seen Harry Potter. I just know that there's a train involved somewhat. I was gonna have to do some homework on it. Alright, we'll do Trainspotting! we'll have some people laying in between the tracks. You know, put some pennies down. What's a famous train? Casey Jr.? That's from Dumbo as little lamer than Harry Potter. What's a good train? Okay, we got Back to the Future III, that's got a good train. All right, you know what? Cancel everything I said earlier, erase all of that. Alright, are you gonna do that for me, Chris, all right, and we're gonna put the train from Back to the Future here. Well, like the doc from the Back to the Future three with the locomotive and doc Emmett Brown hanging out another Pasadena guy. And yeah, that'll be good. We'll get like 20 likes.
Chris Greenspon 9:43
All right. Memes of Glendora, thanks so much for coming on SGV Connect.
Adam Cousins 9:47
Oh, appreciate you having me.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai