The last neighborhood we tried to gentrify ended with the success of the neighborhoods unorganized resistance of constant coldness, racial threats, yokings, and dead bodies on the doorstep. Bushwick brooklyn won the battle, but not for long. As we moved out the final death blow moved in; some young white rich hipsters bought out an abandoned building and turned it into a club, nail in the coffin.
So we fled, went back to the safety and familiarity of my alma mater, lived like one of "those people," the ones that just can't leave. The truth was we were also running out of money, and I needed a place to stay for free while I could climb up from the $50-$150 a job rung to the now $150-$250 a job rung. We had a good time though, had a great time actually. I finally got to enjoy college, have fun, talk to my peers.
Anyway, the semester ended and we were going to be homeless. Things just fell into place for me to couch/tatami hop all summer. I was in Idaho for 2 weeks, 2 nights on a TV studio floor where I couldn't leave and had to cook my soup in a coffee pot, then 3 days on a horrible short film couch, then 2 night with some summer school friends, then 8 nightmarish days in an upstate cabin shooting a horror feature, 1 more day of summer school, then 2 months in Japan hoping around with Maiko (she's my girlfriend, 3 years, Japanese).
We never saw the appt. before we moved in. I showed up having no idea what to expect and pulling up in a cab at 10PM and watching the eyes on me wasn't a good start. But, we love the place, the view of downtown Manhattan from 15 stories up (16th floor with no 13th due to superstition), nice people, good building, fantastically safe neighborhood. Sure, there are drug dealers in plain sight on the corner of the supermarket, but they are the good drug dealers. They peddle weed "taxi, car service" and we see their customers in the stairwells just chillin' or trying to escape from their mothers, fathers, step parents, broken homes. Point is, it's just rough looking enough to keep the hipsters out.
We went to Williamsburg to Moby's birthday party. Long story short, I hated the place and breathed fresh air when we hit 125th st. Williamsburg is like some art schools frat party spilled onto the streets. The sheer youth of the place makes me embarrassed to be there. It's a place to flaunt, here you hide. I like to hide.
So, I tell everyone I live in Harlem and watch their faces look in skepticism at my obvious boasting. At the moment there is some hopping spanish music party going on below, people shouting, bass thumping, beers being thrown 12 stories down to shatter and set off car alarms. Poverty on holiday, forgetting the hard truth that tomorrow starts the grind again, the wearing down of the lower class. And here I am, blogging for the first time, helping oil the machine that keeps all these people I know love as neighbors down.
Welcome to Harlem and On.
-Idaho Bob-
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