The Hick on The Hood
Looking for a place to live is a bitch. For the last couple of weeks, MG and I have been up to our pearlys in this moving shit. Both of us up late at night with our laptops, alternately switching from Craigs List to Google Maps: "Where the fuck is Ditmas?" "Hell if I know... Wait. There it is. Shit. Are there even trains out there?" The more we look, the more we realize we're fucked unless we want to live in Bed-Stuy, Bushwick, East New York, Crown Heights... Any of the neighborhoods otherwise known as The Hood.
What is it about The Hood? My feelings on the subject are complicated. A mixture of fear, ignorance, and guilt, I guess. I'm no urban anthropologist, but it seems to me that the more a bunch of Park Slope rejects like myself move into traditionally working poor neighborhoods, the more landlords see dollar signs in their eyes and the more rents go up. And as those rents increase, I wonder where do these working poor (who have suddenly been priced out of what can be still be considered blighted neighborhoods) go to live? Uh... I don't know. All I know is I want a coffee shop, a Brooklyn Industries, and someone to pick up all this fucking garbage. NOW!
Also, (ouch) I'm scared of The Hood. I'm not sure why. Maybe it was my rural Texas upbringing (I didn't shake hands with a black person until I was 17 - not out of choice, I just never met a black person until I got to college); maybe it was my year of living dangerously in the Tenderloin in San Francisco (smoked so much crack I thought my head was gonna fall off); maybe I'm just an idiot. Who knows? I'm too old and too fucking slow to do the hard math that answering that kind of question would entail. Suffice it to say, The Hood scares me.
But, goddam, have you seen some of these apartments? Shit, once they get the poor people moved out, they do a regular fucking overhaul. New everything: new hardwood floors, fixtures, appliances. Want a garden? No problem. What's the most you want to pay for two bedrooms in an historic brownstone? $1200 you say? Welcome to the neighborhood. "Shit, honey, let's get this place cleaned up! We got white folk coming!" I feel like a douchebag for even getting off the train in these neighborhoods. Meeting a realtor on the street and walking around looking at places that most of the people around me still could have afforded five years ago when it was an unrenovated shithole is damn near unbearable. What with my faggy plastic glasses and messenger bag, I couldn't be more obvious. More yupped-out vanilla and Dial-soap fucking WHITE. Fear and guilt. Wicked combo. Still, those floors are beautiful and is that mahogany on the mantle...
Another reason for me to not want to live in The Hood is the fucking retard hipster whiteys who already live in these fucking neighborhoods who wear their willingness to pretend they're not exploiting the shit out of the racism inherent in a dynamic like gentrification like it's some badge of fucking honor. "Don't fucking move here, man. There's already too many of you people. Keep it real, man! For the real people!" What? Fuck you, clowns. You're just as guilty as any of us for the rents going up and Starbucks moving in. Fucking landlords don't care if you're in some band or you're an artist or an anarchist or whatever the fuck you wanna call yourself. They only know one thing - you'll pay more than the last people who lived there. A lot more. And when you're gone, the people behind you will pay even more than that...
I guess I'm just an asshole. I don't want to be. I mean, I don't want a bunch of poor people to get priced out of their neighborhoods. But what about my poor ass? I can't afford the fucking Slope anymore, that's for sure. Where am I supposed to go? Bay Ridge? Bensonhurst? Coney fucking Island? Fuck it. Maybe I should just go live in the South Slope, Sunset Park, someplace where the music has an accordion and the tortillas are fresh, somewhere where everybody's a recent arrival... I'm down with brown... Ay, guey...
What is it about The Hood? My feelings on the subject are complicated. A mixture of fear, ignorance, and guilt, I guess. I'm no urban anthropologist, but it seems to me that the more a bunch of Park Slope rejects like myself move into traditionally working poor neighborhoods, the more landlords see dollar signs in their eyes and the more rents go up. And as those rents increase, I wonder where do these working poor (who have suddenly been priced out of what can be still be considered blighted neighborhoods) go to live? Uh... I don't know. All I know is I want a coffee shop, a Brooklyn Industries, and someone to pick up all this fucking garbage. NOW!
Also, (ouch) I'm scared of The Hood. I'm not sure why. Maybe it was my rural Texas upbringing (I didn't shake hands with a black person until I was 17 - not out of choice, I just never met a black person until I got to college); maybe it was my year of living dangerously in the Tenderloin in San Francisco (smoked so much crack I thought my head was gonna fall off); maybe I'm just an idiot. Who knows? I'm too old and too fucking slow to do the hard math that answering that kind of question would entail. Suffice it to say, The Hood scares me.
But, goddam, have you seen some of these apartments? Shit, once they get the poor people moved out, they do a regular fucking overhaul. New everything: new hardwood floors, fixtures, appliances. Want a garden? No problem. What's the most you want to pay for two bedrooms in an historic brownstone? $1200 you say? Welcome to the neighborhood. "Shit, honey, let's get this place cleaned up! We got white folk coming!" I feel like a douchebag for even getting off the train in these neighborhoods. Meeting a realtor on the street and walking around looking at places that most of the people around me still could have afforded five years ago when it was an unrenovated shithole is damn near unbearable. What with my faggy plastic glasses and messenger bag, I couldn't be more obvious. More yupped-out vanilla and Dial-soap fucking WHITE. Fear and guilt. Wicked combo. Still, those floors are beautiful and is that mahogany on the mantle...
Another reason for me to not want to live in The Hood is the fucking retard hipster whiteys who already live in these fucking neighborhoods who wear their willingness to pretend they're not exploiting the shit out of the racism inherent in a dynamic like gentrification like it's some badge of fucking honor. "Don't fucking move here, man. There's already too many of you people. Keep it real, man! For the real people!" What? Fuck you, clowns. You're just as guilty as any of us for the rents going up and Starbucks moving in. Fucking landlords don't care if you're in some band or you're an artist or an anarchist or whatever the fuck you wanna call yourself. They only know one thing - you'll pay more than the last people who lived there. A lot more. And when you're gone, the people behind you will pay even more than that...
I guess I'm just an asshole. I don't want to be. I mean, I don't want a bunch of poor people to get priced out of their neighborhoods. But what about my poor ass? I can't afford the fucking Slope anymore, that's for sure. Where am I supposed to go? Bay Ridge? Bensonhurst? Coney fucking Island? Fuck it. Maybe I should just go live in the South Slope, Sunset Park, someplace where the music has an accordion and the tortillas are fresh, somewhere where everybody's a recent arrival... I'm down with brown... Ay, guey...
posted by Guts at 5:10 PM
3 Comments:
that's some hilarious shit Guts. i dunno man. new yawk... don't think i could pull it off. i hope you find what you're looking for out there man. if i ever do sling through the neighborhood you'll be the first to hear about it tho. they got decent book stores in that shitdump? 'spoddedly. you know, for a small hovel of a wanna-be town, seattle seems to have the hightest density of bookstores of any place i ever remember having the pleasure of rolling through. i remember this one little alt press type of establishment, walked in, crammed to the rafters with shit right? fuckers had three shelves of chinaski, like a whole wall of black sparrow books... i was like.... WOW... try that at barnes & borders & danielle steele. course, cashier chick with pierced forehead and a tattoed tongue appeals to my inner giggle and you know you can't go wrong in a joint like that... not so sure about new yawk tho... 400 square miles of rabid humanity... decent feeding grounds for a writer tho i imagine. i'll cede you new yawk... just give me the chick with the tattoed tongue and the pierced forehead... and thro in a pacific ocean please. to go and thank you. oh and put it on my tab good man.
Hey man, there's always Hoboken, New Jersey. I mean...you can find yourself a nice shack there with an attic with one of those pittoresque antique hooks attached to the ceiling. I mean...if you ever get so sick of looking that you feel like hanging yourself, that is.
sweet little story dude.
Found your blog through your comment at Forksplit.....I like your writing style.
Good luck on your apartment search.
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