Dark Thoughts...

City Paper is, of course, the original source of my rage. Hence, the whole “Parochialist” blog. But as I’ve gone on in doing this, I feel as though I have uncovered darker and darker truths about the city in which I live. Darker and darker forces that have threatened to turn Charm City into something I could never love. I’m talking about gentrification.

I have been promoting a show (Sidebar, June 11! And if you miss that…The Metro Gallery, June 14!) and as I walk around what used to be a dark outpost of Baltimore, Charles Village, has become a yuppy haven, complete with Starbucks and useless boutique-type stores. This is not news, we have all seen this (at least those of us who live here). But what is different now is a city that I used to love for its’ laissez-faire approach, its’ “as long as you’re not killing anybody we’ll leave you alone” attitude, is now falling in line with the Nazi-esque zero-tolerance attitude that is prevalent in other places. We have to make the city safe for Hopkins students, Yankees fans, and people from D.C. Fuck the people who’ve been living here all along.

Okay, I’ll admit: this little rant is coming about because just the other day I was stopped by the police for putting up a flyer and threatened with arrest if I did not take all my flyers down. All I could think the whole time I was keeping my mouth shut and letting Officer Hassle spew forth cop clichés was “really?” I have been flyering for a long time now and I have never, ever had anyone say one word about it. But because I did it in broad daylight, downtown, directly across from the Washington Monument, in what has become a pricey and increasingly unlivable area for normal folks (ten years ago many of my friends live in this area, and now they can’t afford it), I was stopped because I was apparently “trashing the city.” Whether this is true or not, all I could think was that this used to be a city where no one ever, ever gave a shit what you did. Cops left you alone because they had better things to do. But now…

Maybe I’m making too much of this. But all I know is that City Paper has been co-opted, Baltimore is getting sold out, Yankee fans and Red Sox fans are more important that Orioles fans who live here and suffer here, and if I get caught putting up flyers to promote myself, I am fucked. We’re all fucked.