The Poverty Jet Set

Just came across this interesting urban artifact on Cecil B. Moore and Front St. in Kensington.

My good buddy Marc Brodzik just launched a new online video channel called Scrapple.tv. It’s a site bringing fresh, interesting and off-the-wall videos from the Philly underground art & music & political scenes.

Marc’s been churning out some amazing shows all year, and his new project is sure to entertain. He is quite a character. I think the Philly Weekly put it best when they said, “Interviewing Marc Brodzik of Scrapple.TV is like wrestling a Tasmanian devil covered in baby oil.”

Here’s the first episode of one their new series called Back2Basics:

I love this town.

Sadly, I haven’t made that statement in quite some time, though it remains extremely high on my list of lifestyle priorities. Over the past year, I’ve worked too far from home to effectively bike. Recently, my company moved to a suburb a *little* closer to my house, so after some prodding by my friend Stellargirl, a gorgeous sunny spring morning and an overwhelming need to get my blood pumping, I gave it a whirl today. Just shy of 12 miles according to Google Maps. And boy did it feel good. Now, as I sit and type this on my lunch break, I realize - oh shit. I have to bike all the way home again! My legs are still sore.

If I did this every day, though, I can tell you I would be fit as a fiddle. And I like the sound of that!

Coincidentally, once I got to work, I discovered that this is Bike to Work Week thanks to my pal Sara. Cool!

Last night, Audrey were already in bed early. Probably 11pm. Sometime around the witching hour I get woken by loud banging on our door. Still groggy, I crack my eyes open to see our room flooded with flashing red lights.

“Uh oh,” I think. “Something ain’t right.”

Sure enough, I stand at the window in my boxers and see what appears to be our whole house surrounded by fire trucks. Oh boy.

“Audrey, wake up! Get your clothes on!”

I throw on some jeans and a t-shirt and run downstairs. The following thoughts ran through my mind:

1. my wife gets dressed hella slowly, even in an emergency
2. I’m glad they made me buy that home insurance
3. funny, I don’t feel that warm in here
4. wouldn’t it be wild if flames started coming out my closet
5. if our house burns down, we’ll move to India
6. that’s not so bad. could be worse.

So while I’m outside checking out my neighbor’s house on fire and smoking something fierce and the firemen putting it out and the campfire smell when there isn’t a campfire and the cold, damp night, I think, dang we’re lucky it’s been put out.

As one of the firemen are walking past back to his truck I say, “boy it’s great you guys came so quick.”

He laughs knowingly. “Yeah, we’re the ones who will always come. We always come when you call.”

I smiled and almost asked him if he read my blog last week.

My friend David tools around Philly on one of these bad boys (albeit an orange one), and man have I been salivating over this one on eBay. Hot damn.

‘Tis the season to be buying less gas, right?

Our house is across the street from a small park. Most of the time, I really enjoy this fact. I run there. I shoot hoops occasionally. I watch the people playing games. Our bedroom window has a vaulted view of the playground, and we often stand and watch the neighborhood energy.

However, once in a while, watching the park has a dark side. Like the other night when we watched two kids in the shadows, shooting up.

Or like last night.

Audrey and I were getting ready for bed. It’s about 1am. I happen to look out the window and notice commotion. Some screaming. A big group of young people scattering. A white SUV screeching to a halt, then gunning towards people. Then smashing into and through someone’s backyard fence adjacent to the park.

I’m not sure what’s going on. We watch, stunned. The SUV is snagged on the fence and is revving in reverse to get out. When it finally does, it squeals it’s tires and speeds away, barely missing a girl who presses herself up against a cinderblock wall to avoid being crushed.

The crowd reconvenes near that fence. It become clear that the SUV had intentionally run someone over. Smashed into them like a weapon. These idiot kids are picking that someone up by his limp shoulders and ankles, dragging him to the basketball court, under amber street lights. We think he’s dead. We call 911.

“Hello, 911.”

“Yeah, someone just got run over by a car near our house.”

“On Cedar and Lehigh? Yeah, we got it.” *click*

Okay. Minutes pass and no police show up. The crowd of older teenagers are screaming. More neighbors are coming to see what’s going on. The kids, circled around the boy on the ground, pick him up again. Two or three bigger boys drag him (he’s alive, but clearly barely conscious, he cannot walk) across the park and towards our house. I get a clear view of this kid as they cross under our window. He’s messed up. The kids drag him down the small side street.

“This is ridiculous. I’m calling 911 again. Why are they moving him when he is so hurt?”

“Hello, 911.”

“Yeah, someone just got run over by an SUV and the cops haven’t arrived and now some kids have dragged his barely concious body away from the crime scene.”

“Oh really? Well, he must have wanted to leave.”

“What?”

“Was he dead?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Well, what do you want me to do?”

“What the? Are you emergency services or what? They just dragged a barely concious kid away from a crime scene!” My heart is racing and I’m getting agitated by the flipant tone of the 911 operator. Now I see police pull up the crime scene. They shine flashlights all around. Only neighbors are there anymore, the kids are gone.

“Do you want to give a statement?”

“Yes, please, I just witnessed the whole thing. But I’d really like the cops to find this kid and make sure he’s all right. They’ve all left the crime scene, dragging a semi-conscious kid with them.”

“Look, buddy, there’s nothing we can do about that. What’s your address, I’ll send the cops over to talk to you.”

And that was that. I went outside to wait. Nothing. Not a peep. No cops, no ambulance. Nothing.

So then Audrey and I went to bed. Shaken.

And I dreamed about mountains.

[photo guayaba]

Norm and I spent two hours and probably close to twenty bucks playing Big Buck Hunter on Saturday night at Paddy’s Well in Fishtown. I’m telling you, this is the best arcade game in the world. Anyone who wants to play soon, you’re on! Cheap drinks, good buddies at a dive bar with fun arcade games. You really can’t beat that for a late night weekend.

Man, we have been so crazy busy of late, it feels like time has flown by. This weekend, Audrey and I finally got a chance to mellow out, plant some tomato plants and herbs and relax in our new backyard. Yes, we have a hammock in our yard. And yes, it’s fabulous.

And much to my chagrin, she still doesn’t have a blog! So I’m reposting this great story she emailed her friends last night. By the way, she lives in the Mission in San Francisco, for geographical context.

today was also the day of crazy homeless and/or cracked-out people being nice to me. i crossed the street on a red today, because it was a one-way, and i could clearly see that there were no cars coming, for blocks and blocks, and HOLY SHIT! flava flav was totally also doing the same thing, coming toward me. so flava stopped, frantically spread out his arms, looked both ways and he stood in the road and pretended he was stopping traffic for me. pantomime. hugely hammed up.

i gave him that point-the-finger-at-you-cause-i-represent coolness, and nodded with a smirk, and he was all “AH HA HA! you have a nice day!!!”

i was like, you too, buddy.

you think i am making this up, but there is a cracky homeless guy who patrols our neighborhood looking EXACTLY like flav, and he must know it, because not only does he look just like him in the face area and body area, but he appropriates his style of dress by wearing the humongous clock around his neck and generally wearing oversized jackets and stupid sunglasses. (sans the spendy gold grill, of course,) the resemblance is kind of eerie, but then you think, well, how many times have i thought that the ACTUAL flava flav looks just like some crackhead in my neighborhood? and then it all makes sense.

yes. that special street person chose me today, out of thousands. and i was damn glad.

i don’t know what it was about me today, but even the cops who stand at the top of the escalator in the light rail system, checking for people who don’t have transfers, in order to give them $150 fines (because it is ridiculously easy to hop on the trains through the back door and get a free ride – until!), but even they were, “i hope you have a transfer, cause we don’t wanna give you a ticket, little lady. that’s a nice smile you got.”

then the small policeperson complimented my purple plastic seashell belt. the one my brother says looks like a stick-em-up-on-the-wall air freshener, which, in fact, when we were children were indeed called “stick-ups.” i remember the commercial, and it must have affected me deeply. (I just checked with google, and they’re still called that.)

Stay Kool. Be true. And watch out for the devil, people.

(Shot last night at the Penn Treaty Market on the corner of Girard & Frankford)

After a rollercoaster of a house-buying, mortgage-getting, Fishtown-loving, Fishtown-hating, cold-featin’, day-dreamin’ process, we FINALLY closed on this beautiful house this morning. Here’s me, pretending to sign one of the 1,000,000 legal documents signing my life away:

So Audrey and I are officially homeowners. Who’da thought! Us hippies. Crazy. We’ll have you all over for a fun party to celebrate very soon!

I just dumped some photos from my iPhone that have built up over the last couple months and remembered about these cool sets of photos I took. Different views of Philly. I threw together a whole set of scenics here.

From the sky:

And from the highway (no, I probably shouldn’t be taking photos while driving in traffic, but…):

My pal Anna and her friend Shannon have been doing some pretty awesome social anthropology research on young male humans in Philly. They’ve got a couple diagrams of guys with different styles. Oddly, they seem to have drawn me in the diagram for ‘Fishtown Dude‘! LOL!

The other afternoon, Audrey and I went over to this new indie tea cafe around the corner from our house called “The Random Tea Room” at 4th and Brown. We drank a pot of, hands down, the best chai I have ever had (save the first time I ever had chai - homemade goodness in Northern Thailand - but that’s a long story for another post). They’ve got a big, warm pot brewing all the time, full of some intense spice love. If you’re a fan of the creamy darkness, best high tail it over there soon!

The independently-published student paper The Temple (University) News just did a nice interview piece about our Illadates Show. Pretty cool they found us. Jimmy Viola did a great job reporting. Reminds me of my ol’ Penn State Daily Collegian days as an Arts Beat writer.

We haven’t yet started thinking about doing a Season 3, but apparently at least a few people are interested. That is flattering to see. In fact, there are some days I miss making the show. It sure was fun to get paid to go on dates! Have you watched all the episodes? Dang, kid, there are 24 of ‘em! What are you waiting for?

An aside: I’m interested in seeing how the Illadates media lives on after we’ve done making it. Will people continue to watch? Will people discover the shows a year from now and email me saying hi? What happens to a web series after it retires but before it gets pulled down offline?

[UPDATE! We got it! It's ours!]

It happened real quick (and it ain’t over yet), but Audrey and I just bought our first house! It’s a super fine lil’ abode on the edge of Fishtown in Philly. It was sold to us by a stylish and lovely woman and fellow blogger. We’re very, very excited about it! Closing in a few weeks. Cross yr fingers for us. And then come join us for what will be one heck of a house warming party! Yeeee-haw!

(and see more photos!) & (more…)

Just took this photo on my lunch break. Strange how something so ugly can be so beautiful.

My sister Anneke, the cutie that she is, just scored the cover of Lehigh Valley Style Magazine. How cool is that? It’s not every day you get to have yr face on the cover of a old media mag. Sa-weet!

(more…)

One of my favorite travel blogs Intelligent Travel just did a fantastic interview with author Robert Neuwirth. He writes SquatterCity, a blog that covers the plight of impoverished people in urban areas. He’s also coming out with a book Shadow Cities: A Billion Squatters, a New Urban World which “is an attempt to humanize these maligned settlements.” In the interview, they talk about how to go about visiting these parts of the city, why you should and why it’s good.

I have a special place in my heart for downtrodden urban areas of the world. Not only do I live on the fringes of some of the worst neighborhoods in my own country, but I’ve been to others in my travels around the world. They are certainly sad places to be, but important for us not to ignore. And certainly not places or people to fear. Seeing the way people live in urban poverty compared to rural poverty is always striking, and I think we can learn so much from the contrast. About the cost of globalization. About human dignity. About the true price of material wealth.

This article also brings to mind a daring documentary I saw at a couple film festivals last year, “Ghosts of Cite Soleil“. It tells the story of some of the gangs in Haiti who struggle with control and survival in the big shantytown of Port-au-Prince. Not sure if it’s been released theatrically, but when it comes out on DVD, I highly recommend it.