You live in a bad neighborhood #s 1 & 2

This was to be first in a comical series of examples about my neighborhood and my inability to discern a quote-ghetto-unquote from anything short of a subdivision where the median income is $200k/yr. I was here for half a year before I realized that I was living in what most people would consider a ghetto– and only because someone said, “Dude, you live in a bad neighborhood.” This is nonsense: there’s no such thing as a bad neighborhood. The entire idea is a subtle form of racism and/or classism. If anything, I live in an up-and-comer waiting to be gentrified by the slow crawl of plasticine actresses and scumbag directors. I’m probably their shock corps.

Anyway, once you’ve tasted the apple… On my own, I wouldn’t have looked for examples but now I do, and I thought some blog hilarity might be had via the circumstances of the human comedy. About two weeks ago I got off the Metro and there was an awful, awful smell in the air. Fire. I couldn’t figure out where from, so I kept walking towards my apartment and there, down a side-street, it was: a burning car. Firefighters were already on the scene.

I didn’t have my camera, which I immediately regretted. But reality’s got my back: the burned out hulk has been sitting in the same spot ever since. So this was going to be my first jokey post– images of the burned out car & a you know you’re living in a bad neighborhood when… they’re torching cars. Totally awesome!

Only problem: the car is parked in front of the neighborhood drug house. I’m 80% certain that the guys who torched the car are the same guys always in front of the house. Then I had a visionary moment: holy, this is like a salt and pepper set. You know you live in a bad neighorhood when they’re torching cars… and the car’s too close to a drug house to take pictures! #1 & #2.

Huzzah.

– cataloged as hollywood –


One Response to “You live in a bad neighborhood #s 1 & 2”
  1. Darleen Rivera Says:

    You know you live in a bad neighborhood when your 6 month old grandson gets mugged.
    I live in a large apartment building in Miami, Florida. There is a long hallway and we brought the baby a walker and everyday when I take the trash out he walks with me, I quickly throw the trash away before he gets to the door. Today however a young male about 16yrs old got off the elevator while I had the door open blocking my view and my grandson started screaming, I looked and pick him up thinking he was just scared by the stranger as sometimes happens with young children.
    As I was walking to the door the baby would not calm down, so I reached down to pick up his toy phone (a very old broken cellphone) and oops it was gone. He wasn’t scared he was mad.. someone stole his toy.
    I do know the kid that took it, will deal with him tomorrow when I’m a little calmer but man, mugging a baby, that’s really really low.





 
"And you will know manhood as something that you have reached only when it has passed. Childhood can never leave you, because it does not exist... Death is an illusion that a drunkard dreamt in his delirium. A man never dies." — René Le Corbier, Deceit and Lies, 1951.