The wild Ones

October 28, 1998

I was reading an article in the Village Voice the other day which lamented the "demise" of Greenwich Village and other "bohemian" parts of New York City. What were formerly artists colonies and radical redoubts have become--or are quickly becoming--"gentrified." That was not the first article I'd read on the topic.

When enough professional, responsible, law-abiding people with money move into a shitty tenement neighborhood, the rents go up, the poor folks leave (taking their drugs and crime with them), and the streets become safe. That is gentrification.

I ask, "What is wrong with that?"

There is a fascination--an obsession--among self-proclaimed bohemians in lower Manhattan to celebrate the most common level of life. Central air-conditioning, nice clothes, and gym memberships are regarded as bourgeois, while existing in a ten-by-ten, unventilated, roach-infested box on Avenue C is considered "being real."

Somehow being real is associated with true artistry. That's absurd.

When one doesn't have money, one thinks about how to get money. When one is hungry, one thinks about food. When one is living in squalor, one thinks about getting out of squalor. The poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free are not thinking about writing a memoir or painting a landscape, they're thinking about how to stop being poor, huddled, and yearning.

Only the leisure classes have time to think about the softer things in life. They sit atop Maslow's Pyramid and experience angst for the fun of it. As students, they go slumming downtown for four years and hang out in nasty little dives amongst the "real" people, all the while comforted in the thought that soft feather pillows cushion every corner of the world around them. Visions of sugarplums and houses in New Canaan and trips to Vail dance in their heads. If things get a little too "real" while they are seeing how the other half lives downtown, they know that they can always retreat to the suburbs and the soothing balm of Father's cash.

Which is fine. Just acknowledge it. Acknowledge where you came from and where you can always go back to. Don't insult the poor folks who really are stuck in shitty neighborhoods and have no pleasant world to retreat to. You dishonor them by pretending to understand them. You fuck them when you have your dad pay $2000 a month for rent in their neighborhoods when you're enrolled at NYU, thus forcing the rents up and the downtrodden out. To where? God only knows. Only God wants to know.

Why am I going on about this? Well, sometimes I think my generation is so silly that it makes me ill.

Last night I was at a party at a bar on Manhattan's lower east side called Baby Jupiter, surrounded by a bunch of people being real. Privileged young folks--all residing within the 212--circled about with drinks in their uncallused hands, pausing to gab about the gay theater and liberal politics and the latest diet book. While they all profess to feel the pain of the poor and downtrodden, there wasn't a hungry belly among them.

Then, absurdity happened. Five figures wearing black ski masks burst into the room and ascended the stairs to the DJ booth.

They identified themselves as members of the Dance Liberation Front and they were there to protest Mayor Giuliani's tough restrictions on the granting of cabaret licenses. (In New York, a bar must have what's called a cabaret license in order for patrons to dance legally. For reasons I am not really sure of, the current administration has cut down the number of cabaret licences that it issues. My guess is that it has something do with public safety.)

Anyway, these guys in black ski masks looking like Zapatista rebels from southern Mexico rambled on for a couple of minutes about "What's next?! No kissing?! No laughing?! No drinking?!" The crowd cheered with each declaration. "Fuck Giuliani!" someone shouted.

"Fuck Giuliani!" is quite a strong statement, especially since the cause of such anger is whether one can stomp their feet or not at a particular bar. Past calls for Administrations to fuck themselves have had a little more meat on them.

"Fuck Johnson for expanding the war in Vietnam!"

"Fuck George Wallace for keeping blacks out of the University of Alabama!"

"Fuck King George for his tariff upon tea!"

Today, there is no war to protest, there are no segregated water fountains to abolish, and there is no taxation without representation to speak of. The best the kids of my generation can come up with is condemning a good mayor for curbing dancing in some clubs for what are probably public safety reasons.

"What are ya rebellin' against, Johnny?"

"Whad'ya got?"

As Americans, we're descended from rebels and antagonists, but there's nothing really to rebel against right now. So we seem to get angry for anger's sake. Hence the black ski masks and the calls for Giuliani's demise. The whole scene was absurd and I was quite embarrassed to be counted among those in the room.

So I left. I went home to boring, un-hip Hoboken and enjoyed the company of my dog, Jack.

I've had enough of the Angry Young Man. Angst is way overrated. At this point in time, it is passe and uninspiring. It is insincere and silly. At it's core, it is a selfish existence.

I feel that something very bad is about to befall my generation. Whether it be another world war or another great depression, I do not know. But we're long overdue for some sort of moral tempering. I'm not talking about some apocalyptic end of the world, just some kind of catastrophe, the likes of which, history shows us, befalls every generation. We've been living on borrowed time for a while now. Soon, there will be some real issues to get angry about.

It was said of the Spartan's that they were a people so obsessed with war, that they could not enjoy the peace. The same can be said of Americans. We're always upset about something. Well, not me. I'm going to tend my garden as the French commentator Voltaire instructed. I'm not poor, huddled, nor yearning and I thank God for it. While things are going well, I'm going to enjoy the simple, pleasant things of life: music, reading, writing, my dog, sex, sex with my dog. (I'm just joking. I don't read that much.) Being angst-ridden just isn't any fun--nor, at the present time does it have any intellectual grounding.

"Whad'ya rebellin' against, Johnny?"

"Whad'ya got?"

"Fuck you, Johhny. Get a life."

		The Wild Ones
		October 28, 1998 I was reading an article in the Village Voice the other day which lamented the "demise" of Greenwich Village and other "bohemian" parts of New York City. What were formerly artists colonies and radical redoubts have become--or are quickly becoming--"gentrified." That was not the first article I'd read on the topic. When enough professional, responsible, law-abiding people with money move into a shitty tenement neighborhood, the rents go up, the poor folks leave (taking their drugs and crime with them), and the streets become safe. That is gentrification. I ask, "What is wrong with that?" There is a fascination--an obsession--among self-proclaimed bohemians in lower Manhattan to celebrate the most common level of life. Central air-conditioning, nice clothes, and gym memberships are regarded as bourgeois, while existing in a ten-by-ten, unventilated, roach-infested box on Avenue C is considered "being real." Somehow being real is associated with true artistry. That's absurd. When one doesn't have money, one thinks about how to get money. When one is hungry, one thinks about food. When one is living in squalor, one thinks about getting out of squalor. The poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free are not thinking about writing a memoir or painting a landscape, they're thinking about how to stop being poor, huddled, and yearning. Only the leisure classes have time to think about the softer things in life. They sit atop Maslow's Pyramid and experience angst for the fun of it. As students, they go slumming downtown for four years and hang out in nasty little dives amongst the "real" people, all the while comforted in the thought that soft feather pillows cushion every corner of the world around them. Visions of sugarplums and houses in New Canaan and trips to Vail dance in their heads. If things get a little too "real" while they are seeing how the other half lives downtown, they know that they can always retreat to the suburbs and the soothing balm of Father's cash. Which is fine. Just acknowledge it. Acknowledge where you came from and where you can always go back to. Don't insult the poor folks who really are stuck in shitty neighborhoods and have no pleasant world to retreat to. You dishonor them by pretending to understand them. You fuck them when you have your dad pay $2000 a month for rent in their neighborhoods when you're enrolled at NYU, thus forcing the rents up and the downtrodden out. To where? God only knows. Only God wants to know. Why am I going on about this? Well, sometimes I think my generation is so silly that it makes me ill. Last night I was at a party at a bar on Manhattan's lower east side called Baby Jupiter, surrounded by a bunch of people being real. Privileged young folks--all residing within the 212--circled about with drinks in their uncallused hands, pausing to gab about the gay theater and liberal politics and the latest diet book. While they all profess to feel the pain of the poor and downtrodden, there wasn't a hungry belly among them. Then, absurdity happened. Five figures wearing black ski masks burst into the room and ascended the stairs to the DJ booth. They identified themselves as members of the Dance Liberation Front and they were there to protest Mayor Giuliani's tough restrictions on the granting of cabaret licenses. (In New York, a bar must have what's called a cabaret license in order for patrons to dance legally. For reasons I am not really sure of, the current administration has cut down the number of cabaret licences that it issues. My guess is that it has something do with public safety.) Anyway, these guys in black ski masks looking like Zapatista rebels from southern Mexico rambled on for a couple of minutes about "What's next?! No kissing?! No laughing?! No drinking?!" The crowd cheered with each declaration. "Fuck Giuliani!" someone shouted. "Fuck Giuliani!" is quite a strong statement, especially since the cause of such anger is whether one can stomp their feet or not at a particular bar. Past calls for Administrations to fuck themselves have had a little more meat on them. "Fuck Johnson for expanding the war in Vietnam!" "Fuck George Wallace for keeping blacks out of the University of Alabama!" "Fuck King George for his tariff upon tea!" Today, there is no war to protest, there are no segregated water fountains to abolish, and there is no taxation without representation to speak of. The best the kids of my generation can come up with is condemning a good mayor for curbing dancing in some clubs for what are probably public safety reasons. "What are ya rebellin' against, Johnny?" "Whad'ya got?" As Americans, we're descended from rebels and antagonists, but there's nothing really to rebel against right now. So we seem to get angry for anger's sake. Hence the black ski masks and the calls for Giuliani's demise. The whole scene was absurd and I was quite embarrassed to be counted among those in the room. So I left. I went home to boring, un-hip Hoboken and enjoyed the company of my dog, Jack. I've had enough of the Angry Young Man. Angst is way overrated. At this point in time, it is passe and uninspiring. It is insincere and silly. At it's core, it is a selfish existence. I feel that something very bad is about to befall my generation. Whether it be another world war or another great depression, I do not know. But we're long overdue for some sort of moral tempering. I'm not talking about some apocalyptic end of the world, just some kind of catastrophe, the likes of which, history shows us, befalls every generation. We've been living on borrowed time for a while now. Soon, there will be some real issues to get angry about. It was said of the Spartan's that they were a people so obsessed with war, that they could not enjoy the peace. The same can be said of Americans. We're always upset about something. Well, not me. I'm going to tend my garden as the French commentator Voltaire instructed. I'm not poor, huddled, nor yearning and I thank God for it. While things are going well, I'm going to enjoy the simple, pleasant things of life: music, reading, writing, my dog, sex, sex with my dog. (I'm just joking. I don't read that much.) Being angst-ridden just isn't any fun--nor, at the present time does it have any intellectual grounding. "Whad'ya rebellin' against, Johnny?" "Whad'ya got?" "Fuck you, Johhny. Get a life."