Ice Cream Man, On My [Friggin'] Street ...

May 5, 2008 6:28 PM

"Are ice cream trucks sacred like fresh apple pie and high school football or are they unwelcome nuisances we tolerate?" You can weigh in here.
posted by Mayor Curley (70 comments total)

if we can "weigh in" there, why would we discuss it here?

just wondering...
posted by HuronBob at 6:33 PM on May 5, 2008

Yes.
posted by DU at 6:34 PM on May 5, 2008

Haha. Cue that Jonathan Richman song, both cloyingly sweet and annoyingly repetitive. [As well as regionally relevant.]
posted by eustatic at 6:35 PM on May 5, 2008

I am totally in favor of ice cream trucks in Portland, Maine.

As for you kids, get off my lawn.
posted by GuyZero at 6:37 PM on May 5, 2008

actually, high school football is unwelcome... which makes it difficult to weigh in given the parameters of the choices given.

now I'm looking for a weigh out.
posted by HuronBob at 6:38 PM on May 5, 2008 [2 favorites]

I'm a way bigger fan of ice cream trucks than I am of high school football. There was one parked by the early voting line in my town last Friday, and it was sweltering, so I got a rocket pop. Which was kind of gross, but in a nostalgic way.

Also, childhood obesity? Since when does "the opportunity to buy ice cream" translate to "automatic fatness"? Hey, you even have to chase the trucks sometimes!
posted by showbiz_liz at 6:39 PM on May 5, 2008 [1 favorite]

"All you people who don't live in Portland, kindly chill out. No one asked _your_ opinion."

Rufus T. of Portland would like to request that we NOT weigh in there.
posted by showbiz_liz at 6:42 PM on May 5, 2008

How does Rufus T., if that is his real name, expect us to "chill out" if our ice cream trucks are being threatened.
posted by clearly at 6:47 PM on May 5, 2008 [1 favorite]

FUCKIN' SACRED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ice Cream Man

(there is no relation between those two lines)
posted by caddis at 6:48 PM on May 5, 2008

Dude, freakin' Maine? Ice cream trucks are a mild annoyance in Maine. I challenge you to last a week --- an agonizing, haunting, heat-soaked week --- suffering the biblical proportions of the ice cream truck in Queens. Especially if you spend a lot of time in playgrounds. Where can we weigh in?

Oh and by the way why the fuck to the damn trucks have to play that one same song?
posted by DenOfSizer at 6:59 PM on May 5, 2008

It took a few weeks for the rules silencing non-moving trucks to be enforced in my neighborhood, but now that they are I'm much happier. From 4 blocks away (and 20 floors up!) it sounded like the damn truck was right outside our bedroom window, at 11 at night. Who the fuck buys their kid ice cream at 11p?

So, Portland should definitely silence their ice cream trucks the next time I visit.
posted by These Premises Are Alarmed at 7:04 PM on May 5, 2008

They were welcome when I was a kid -- more than welcome. A white truck, with a white-gloved, uniformed gent behind the wheel who gently pulled a cord in the vehicle that rang the silver bells that were lined up above the windshield. We heard the bells, and ran.

Today, as a parent, I kinda sorta resent the cranky, unintelligible ass who drives at snail's pace with bad speakers blaring "La Cucaracha" (nice selection, Akbar) up and down the streets. His "season" begins when the last snow vanishes, and ends when the Christmas lights go up. He short-changes the kids more often than not, is short with them, and has awful timing.

Kids love the ice cream, regardless.

Snark+
posted by VicNebulous at 7:10 PM on May 5, 2008 [1 favorite]

The Sushi Truck trolling around my neighborhood makes all the kitties yowl.
posted by Dizzy at 7:12 PM on May 5, 2008 [2 favorites]

Portland is awesome. I ate my very first whole lobster there.
posted by jock@law at 7:16 PM on May 5, 2008

I'm in favor, but only if we replace them all with helados men. Who doesn't love that little bell, or chile-flavored mango fruit bars? Helados helados helaaaaaaaados!
posted by vorfeed at 7:39 PM on May 5, 2008

Also questioned by Portland City Councilor Kevin Donoghue:

Sex: Fun or just annoying?
Sugar: Sweet or just something we pretend is sweet?
Alcohol: Ingredient in cocktail, or just a science project gone wrong?
Cherries: Fruit or obnoxious red bomb?
The sun: Source of life or annoying glowy thing?
Democracy: The great American experiment or just a bunch of people shouting nonsense?
posted by Astro Zombie at 7:46 PM on May 5, 2008 [5 favorites]

Speaking of Portland, anyone for some Gritty's??? Ed should get a truck and roll around selling ales.
posted by VicNebulous at 7:47 PM on May 5, 2008

Mmmm... helados.

I had grown to love the familiar ice cream truck jingle. In the last few weeks a more nefarious ice cream "song" has been playing near my office. It begins with a strangled woman's voice creaking out "Hello" then plays a nauseating tune complete with rhythmic dog barks and squishing sounds. It disturbs me to no end, and would never entice me to buy ice cream, no matter how cool the bootleg painting of Donkey Kong on the side is.
posted by yellowbinder at 7:47 PM on May 5, 2008 [1 favorite]

Too true, yellobinder!
There must be a state law that every damned ice-cream truck in New England play that hellish "Hello" song.
Damned Kevlar uniforms.
posted by Dizzy at 7:49 PM on May 5, 2008

Mmm. Now I want some ice cream... or at least Los Ice Creams, sons of the legendary Ice Cream.
posted by jtron at 7:52 PM on May 5, 2008

I've got no problem with ice cream trucks. It's the damn rolling billboard trucks that piss me off. Christ, how irresponsible is that? A big ugly truck burning up gas and clogging up streets and the only reason for it to exist, much less be moving around, is to show off some billboard for hemorrhoid cream? For Christ's sake, why not just buy advertising on the side of the bus?

But ice cream trucks, nah, good for them.
posted by Naberius at 7:53 PM on May 5, 2008

In my neighborhood, we have a Fruit Truck Guy who sings his wares into a loudspeaker.

"I got piiiineapple
I got or-an-ges
I got the man-go
I got bananas"

rocket pops be damned.
posted by eustatic at 7:54 PM on May 5, 2008 [2 favorites]

My wife loved the ice cream truck that rolls up and down our street all summer long...until she took a close look at the plastic cup her sundae was served in and realized it was a hospital denture container, complete with "PATIENT NAME, ROOM #, etc." emblazoned on the side. Yum!
posted by The Card Cheat at 8:02 PM on May 5, 2008 [1 favorite]

It depends on whether they're the kind with the nice little bell or the kind with the blaring goddamned PA system like yellowbinder already described.

The blaring ones are agents of Satan, I swear. I had one of the those stuck in heavy traffic outside of my apartment for an hour or more during a local event one year. The landlord and his brother were in the hall working on something (breaking something, probably, but it wasn't my apartment) and after a while they were singing little songs about exactly what they'd like to do to the ice cream man.
posted by dilettante at 8:11 PM on May 5, 2008

Card Cheat, the owner probably just bought them surplus. Don't be prejudiced against repurposed plastics.
posted by sonic meat machine at 8:20 PM on May 5, 2008

I had an ice-cream truck parked outside my house for fifteen minutes, playing a mangled version of "Greensleeves" at oppressive volume. We were trying to get the baby to sleep.

I went down and told the guy to turn it off. He offered to turn it down, and said that "nobody else was complaining". I just gave him a look that said Turn It Off Or Die.

He turned it off.

So that was nice.
posted by AmbroseChapel at 8:35 PM on May 5, 2008

They are no joke in NYC. As These Premises Are Alarmed asks, who is buying ice cream at 11 pm? There is something very odd about the whole thing. Payoffs, organized crime -- something. How can one man in one truck keep 4,000 people on two city blocks awake all night with attracting some prohibitive attention? The fact that no one throws a molotov cocktail into his little cockpit to watch he and his truck burn (and believe me, no one in the neighborhood would snitch) is a tribute to the essential civility of New Yorkers.
posted by Faze at 8:39 PM on May 5, 2008 [2 favorites]

WFMU has a collection of ice cream truck songs here and here.

Yesterday a truck on my Harlem block played Jingle Bells, O Tannenbaum, Silent Night and Home on the Range before getting around to the Mister Softee theme (it was not a Mister Softee truck).
posted by plastic_animals at 9:02 PM on May 5, 2008 [1 favorite]

What yellowbinder said!

Was there some kind of sale on half melted 8-track tapes that day, or what.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 9:05 PM on May 5, 2008

Oh, and I forgot to mention that the first WFMU link contains the "Hello" jingle, listed there as Ghetto Ice Cream Truck Song.
posted by plastic_animals at 9:12 PM on May 5, 2008

Our local icecream truck guy is a total arsehole. The kids hate him, and he hates the kids. No one ever buys off him, so I'm amazed that he's in business. I commented this fact to my wife who remarked, "well, at least he's not a pedo"
posted by mattoxic at 9:15 PM on May 5, 2008

I always assumed they were fronts for drug dealing. Although I guess you'd be a little conspicuous with the INCREDIBLY LOUD ANNOYING SONG, who would suspect the ice cream man of selling some chemical bliss along with the orange sherbet?

Well, who would suspect other than me, that is.
posted by winna at 9:28 PM on May 5, 2008

If they outlaw ice cream vans, I'm going to move over there and run a lobster taco truck ... you know, while I still can.
posted by redteam at 9:43 PM on May 5, 2008

Ugh. They circle McCarren Park all day. Which means that there is literally no point on a nice warm day when you are out of earshot of the trucks while within the park.

I'm not inciting sabotage or anything, but I DID accidentally discover where they all dock for the night...

They're pretty good about moving on if you go down and ask them, at least.
posted by [NOT HERMITOSIS-IST] at 9:50 PM on May 5, 2008

He short-changes the kids more often than not, is short with them, and has awful timing.

Always give your kids exact change for the ice cream man.

I have to say, though, that this makes me want to find an old three-wheeled bicycle at a garage sale, paint it pretty and weld a cooler to it, and ride down my street once a weekend during the summer giving away free ice cream.

However, I would likely terrify everyone into thinking I was trying to steal their children, so I would have to add jump seats for my kids, and have my kids do the handing out.

on preview: I totally need to do this. does anyone in los angeles want to sell me a three-wheeled bicycle or small electric neighborhood vehicle cheap?
posted by davejay at 9:56 PM on May 5, 2008

I drove a Safety Clown Ice Cream van from hell one summer after freshman year. TIt was a long, steamy summer with no air-conditioning and sunrise to sunset operations were mandatory 7_Days_A_week. he previous Safety Clown was arrested for dealing. I had some very interesting customers.

That aside, it was somewhat amazing how weighted the demographics of my best customers were to their poverty levels. This meant I spent much of my time in the low-end apt complexes and duplex farms of an air force town.

I became a surrogate dad to about 10 or 12 extremely neglected 6-10 yr olds. I handed out most of my profits in 50-cent Bomb Pops and provided (likely) some of the only adult "supervision" these kids saw all summer-day long. It was depressing to see many absent, single moms leaving their kids with a can of Krylon and a paper bag. Huffing tends to mellow an 8-year old right_the_fuck_out.

A child is born
with no state of mind
blind to the ways of mankind

god is smilin on him
but he's frownin too
because only god know what you gon do

You'll grow up in the ghetto
livin second rate
and your eyes will sing a song of deep hate

the places you play
and where you stay
look like one great big alley way

you'll admire all the number book takers
tha dust pimps da playas and the big money makers
drivin big cars spending twenties and tens
and you wanna grow up to be just like dem
huh
smugglers, scramblers, burglars, gamblers,
pick-pockets, peddlers, even panhandlers

you say, "I'm cool, hah, I'm no fool"
but den you wind up droppin outta high school
now you's unemployed
all non-void
walkin round like you Pretty Boy Flloyd
turn stickup-kid, but look what you done did........
Got sent up for an 8 year bid

I would not even drive through these places at night anymore. Those kids are in their late 20s now and if they're not lost, dead, or in prison I pray at least one of them made it out "alive".

/Debbie Downer
posted by HyperBlue at 10:02 PM on May 5, 2008 [2 favorites]

Oh, and I used to play the beginning of YYZ by Rush on the bell (this was before the annoying megaphones/muzack they use now).

And, just in case you are wondering... lonely housewives buy ice cream by the case;)

Lastbutnotleast: Safety Clown says, "Look both ways and cross at the rear!"
posted by HyperBlue at 10:10 PM on May 5, 2008

Those wishing to become agents of satan men of good humor may wish to begin their journey here.

But lest you think your new profession is all summery parkside pied piperish fun, it might behoove you to read up on the Glasgow Ice Cream Wars.

Now that I think about it, the Pied Piper wasn't much fun either.
posted by flotson at 10:17 PM on May 5, 2008 [2 favorites]

City official takes a few minutes out of his day to ask his constituents what they think about an issue that came up because he's genuinely curious about how people feel about it. It's actually a good question.

But fully half the answers are along the lines of "vote this guy out of office, what is he wasting our tax money on something like this for, if he wants to show how anti-business he is why doesn't he just close everything, better get a burger while you still can!!!"

And people wonder why elected officials don't pay attention to them.
posted by George_Spiggott at 10:23 PM on May 5, 2008 [1 favorite]

My friend had a summer job as an ice cream truck driver in Sweden. One day the truck developed a steering problem that couldn't be resolved right away. It made the truck weave from side to side a lot. Twice the police pulled him over and gave him a breathalyzer test. The truck went into the shop after a couple of days.
posted by redteam at 10:26 PM on May 5, 2008

Well as long as we have trucks driving around delivering ice-cream to random neighbourhood locations, could we at least cut down on the carbon emissions by removing all those pesky corpses from the plague that have piled up while we're at it?

Because we all know that places with refrigeration facilities are so scarce that it makes sense to have gas-powered vehicles trolling the boulevards in hopes of attracting the pennies of the benighted citizens so sadly deprived of all-night convenience stores on their very own stoops.

Talk about leveraging your investment. Hell... put Cheney in charge, change to the tune to 'bring out your dead", export the business-model to Iraqwhile outsourcing the contract to Blackwater, and the frikken war on terrorism will turn into a profit center in no time.
posted by PareidoliaticBoy at 10:40 PM on May 5, 2008

I bet you're fun at parties.

The article was about mobile ice cream salesmen.
posted by redteam at 11:36 PM on May 5, 2008 [1 favorite]

My ice cream man was a relative of Peter Palagi, who started in 1895. They had these great old 1930's ice cream trucks they used for 50 years.

http://palagisicecream.com/Yesterday.htm
posted by jfrancis at 12:10 AM on May 6, 2008 [1 favorite]

This is a good spot to link the Glasgow Ice Cream Truck Wars.
posted by By The Grace of God at 1:28 AM on May 6, 2008

Trucks? How stupid! When I was a boy, the ice cream came in a push cart, with a few bells. And they sold something called a "7-Up Bar", which was frozen heaven. There was this fat kid in my class at school, and he got one of those carts one summer. LOL, oh, err, wait, he wasn't so fat, after that summer.
posted by Goofyy at 1:38 AM on May 6, 2008

The local ice cream van driver is my nemesis. Every day he plays that fucking advertising jingle at 100+db repeatedly as he drives around, so if I'm listening to music, or watching a movie, or just trying to hear myself think, I have to stop and wait for him to go away.

We wouldn't accept it for any other business. If I set up a mobile shop which played advertising music very loudly every single day for months on end I'd end up getting lynched, but somehow it's acceptable if you're selling ice cream.
posted by Freaky at 2:20 AM on May 6, 2008 [1 favorite]

I always assumed they were fronts for drug dealing.

If you're ever strolling down my street you want the one with the Match of the Day theme music.
posted by vbfg at 3:36 AM on May 6, 2008

Sacred.
posted by rokusan at 4:02 AM on May 6, 2008

When I was a kid, there were ice cream trucks...but then there was Mister Softee All others were really just mere popsicle trucks. Foolish pretenders.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:12 AM on May 6, 2008 [1 favorite]

I'd just like to comment that the commenters at MaineToday are not (I hope) representative of Mainers. Every time I read the comments there I get very depressed. What a bunch of idiots.
posted by miss tea at 4:35 AM on May 6, 2008

Around these here parts, back before the war(s), Mr Whippy reigned supreme in his beige van with "Greensleeves" ringing tinnily out, bringing joy to all suburban children's hearts.
posted by h00py at 4:44 AM on May 6, 2008

I was an ice cream truck driver for three days, as a fill in for a buddy of mine. Forget the kids, they were small potatos on my route. Every day from 12-1 I would visit the local industrial parks, and the workmen on their lunch break would buy tons of the stuff. I would make more in that one hour than I would in the rest of the day winding through suburbia.

And the truck played "Pop Goes The Weasel". All day.
posted by genefinder at 5:52 AM on May 6, 2008

I'll second miss tea's comment above. Every time I read the comments there I am reminded of the tar pit theory of website commenting:

when you add a public discussion forum to your site you are placing your site on a big slab of plexiglass which floats around on the Tar Pit From Hell. As long as no one actually uses the discussion forum, you are safe. But the more people pile on to use the discussion forum, the deeper your site sinks into the Tar Pit From Hell. There are various measures you can take to slow your descent into the Tar Pit From Hell, but none of them deal with the fundamental problem, which is the fact that your site is sinking into a damn tar pit.

I try to never read the comments there. Once, there was a story about a woman trying to organize a movement to encourage people, once a month, to maybe think about trying a different way of commuting (bike, bus, walk, etc.). At five comments in she was a hippie communist wanting to outlaw cars.
posted by mikepop at 5:57 AM on May 6, 2008 [1 favorite]

ColdChef twittered about this and I agreed with him: when they ARE on a street with children, who have money and WANT to buy ice cream, they inevitably drive too fast, thus leaving crying children wailing in their wake.
posted by misha at 6:59 AM on May 6, 2008

Interestingly enough, the WFMU "Ghetto" truck song linked by plastic_animals isn't the same "Hello" song I know. Although it is the same "Hello" voice. My song is much worse.
posted by yellowbinder at 7:18 AM on May 6, 2008

My mom worked as an RN in a pediatrics ICU when I was growing up. She had so many children in who were hit by cars when chasing after ice cream trucks that I was taught to dislike them. I've never bought anything from an ice cream truck and even found myself walking by making spiteful, angry comments under my breath one day. These days, the horrible inescapable music encourages that attitude (Turkey In The Straw, anyone?).

MetaFilter, please help: have I skipped childhood?
posted by lostburner at 7:44 AM on May 6, 2008

A couple of years ago i ran across a list of shared childhood beliefs in which children said they were told by their parents that when the ice cream truck was playing music, it meant they'd run out of ice cream. I still laugh at that one. A bit wicked, I know.
posted by mireille at 8:03 AM on May 6, 2008

MetaFilter: "A bunch of people shouting nonsense."
posted by Standeck at 8:26 AM on May 6, 2008

Woah, I just had a crazy flashback from my youth:

There used to be an Ice-Cream truck that cruised my neighborhood, and it played Pop Goes The Weasel as it's soundtrack. The only problem is that it never got to the actual Pop part of the song (it was just the instrumental music, but this is how it played in my head);

All around the mulberry-bush
The monkey chased the weasel
The monkey thought 'twas all in good sport
... (long pause, song restarts)

All around the mulberry-bush
The monkey chased the weasel...

It was enough to drive a person fucking crazy. I mean, who the hell cuts out that part of the song? And it would go on and on and on like this, for as long as it was in ear-shot.

I could just feel it ratcheting up the tension in me. Hell, just thinking about it now makes me want to punch someone.

So I suppose that in the grand tradition of finding a conspiracy where there is none, well done Ice-Cream truck! Your psychological conditioning experiment was a complete success. You did create at least one madman as a result of your efforts.
posted by quin at 8:36 AM on May 6, 2008 [3 favorites]

My experiences in Los Angeles suggest that any time the ice cream truck is out at 11 PM, he's probably selling drugs. We had a few busts in my ex-girlfriend's neighborhood for that sort of activity, which in retrospect should have been obvious to me. In addition to the drug money, I'm sure that pot smokers make up a substantial market for late-night Super Pops.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 8:40 AM on May 6, 2008

MetaFilter, please help: have I skipped childhood?

Yes, yes you have. Quick, run after that ice cream truck and get yourself a Creamsicle.
posted by caddis at 9:06 AM on May 6, 2008

I always assumed they were fronts for drug dealing.

That thought never occurred to me until I saw this episode of Adam-12. Ever since then I have always viewed the ice cream truck with a little suspicion.

Still, ice cream. (=
posted by djeo at 9:16 AM on May 6, 2008

Wow. It's weird to see my hometown poltiics from the outside. Kevin Donogue is actually my city councillor (yes, I did vote for him). He's kind of an idiot. A well-meaning idiot, to be sure, as opposed to the time-serving hack he replaced, so I'm still happy with my choice. He tends to go off on strange tangents, and do things like attempt to ride his bicycle to Augusta for meetings because he doesn't believe in cars. Much of the "vote this guy out of office" in the MaineToday comments is probably a result of he and another councillor recently interfering in a long-ongoing and contentious school development process, and a number of other issues facing a city that is clearly
in th middle of tough times and big changes, after a fairly long period of resurgence.

Basically, there's a lot of hidden history in here, and very little actual ice cream truck related content. Those newspaper site comments are more like the family holiday argument about who has to clean the dishes which is really about who had a secret abortion and who used to be having an affair but claims it's over. That sort of thing.

Small city politics are fascinating and horrifying, in equal measure.

About the ice cream trucks themselves, they come and hang out at the ferry terminal at boat-appropriate times, so I'm all in favor.
posted by rusty at 9:31 AM on May 6, 2008 [1 favorite]

For quin:

POP GOES THE WEASEL!

Feel better now?
posted by Atom Eyes at 9:38 AM on May 6, 2008

well go to the goddamn library you don't wanna hear it muhfuckah and be quiet in there muhfucka
posted by Uther Bentrazor at 10:20 AM on May 6, 2008

You want a noisy neighborhood distraction? There's a bunch of people around here who built a big fucking tower on their clubhouse and installed giant chunks of metal in the tower windows. And every day at dawn, at various times throughout the day, and even well into the night, every damned day of the week (even on weekends!), they hammer these chunks of metal together so everyone in town has to hear it. I'll take the ice cream trucks.
posted by pracowity at 10:21 AM on May 6, 2008

The ice cream guys in my neighborhood play some slightly jazzed up version of Turkey in the Straw. Annoying as all hell, but you can't hate the ice cream man.
posted by electroboy at 10:22 AM on May 6, 2008

I associate "The Entertainer" with the ice cream man.
posted by Mayor Curley at 11:07 AM on May 6, 2008

Back when the Exorcist was being re-released, we got in to the preview screening the night before it opened. As we were watching, the film sort of disintegrated before our eyes and we all went outside to smoke while they fixed it. At like 1:30 in the morning, off in the distance was the ice cream truck playing its hellish "Hello" song. I fucking hate the ice cream man.
posted by khaibit at 1:10 PM on May 6, 2008 [1 favorite]

mireille, that reminds me: The first time I saw the ice cream truck on my street, I ran to my mother (who was on the phone) and shouted, "Mom! Mom! It's the ice cream man!" (whom I would not have recognized, if his truck hadn't said THE ICE CREAM MAN on the side) and she scolded, "I'm on the phone, and there's no such thing as the ice cream man anymore." This must have been around 1988. My mother couldn't remember seeing a "Good Humor man" -- in her mind, only Good Humor men were licensed to sell ice cream from trucks -- since she had left the East Coast 20 years before.

Sadly, I was too young to have any pocket change of my own, and while my mother talked on the phone, the ice cream man drove away. But he came again the next day at exactly the same time,* allowing me to prove that I hadn't been crying wolf after all. My mother's expression when she saw the truck flitted from incredulity to remorse and back, then gave way to excitement as she lunged for her purse and went running out the door. (We shared an orange two-tone pop.)


*This event was a pillar of my childhood theory that all human activities, just like the appearances of the sun and moon and stars, recurred on a rigid and regular timetable, albeit one that was in some instances difficult to figure out. I thought that if I were only clever enough, I could discover a formula which would allow me to predict with perfect accuracy which song would be played next on the radio. It never occurred to me that the DJ's spontaneous decision was involved. Many years later, in high school, I still thought that if I saw a pretty girl behind the counter in some shop, I could return at the exact same time one week later and be sure to see that pretty face again. "Ah," you may think, "well that's true, because many clerks do work a regular shift -- so it's not such bad science after all!" Do you think it worked? ... as if one could stumble on the same pretty face twice.

posted by aws17576 at 2:42 PM on May 6, 2008 [1 favorite]