TJ's Place

I see and hear a lot online, and offline about the disease known as Gentrification.  Oddly enough most of what I hear comes from non-New Yorkers who have a very limited perspective on it.  Would you like to hear what a New Yorker thinks about it?  Read on my friend.

As a native New Yorker I’m one of the victims of gentrification.  I’m a victim!  Not a beneficiary.  The only beneficiaries of gentrification are the City of New York, and the people who are causing the problem:  Yuppies, hipsters, developers.

It offends me that people move here because it’s “trendy”.  It offends me that these people move here for the culture when what’s really happening is they’re effectively forcing the culture to move out.  And it offends the shit out of me that these people treat the local color like animals in a petting zoo; nice to look at, nice to interact with, but not all that important to the ecosystem.  They subsume the local culture and the local flavor, and turn it into something cold and soulless.  They regard their surroundings very much like a fashion hog regards their clothing—something nice to wear and enjoy and show off and exploit for their own selfish, vain benefit…

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I like browsing around and looking at what’s-what online.  Especially when it comes to art.  I like seeing other graphics gurus and photographers, and I love when I see somebody’s work that speaks to urban roots, or old school style.  But sometimes it feels like I’m swimming in a sea of yuppies/hipsters.  A lot of people are playing artist, and a lot of those people are playing “urban roots” artist, and the ecosystem that supports them is all about exploiting the urban culture, not celebrating it as it is, and sure as shit not preserving it.  But that’s the game you gotta play if you wanna make it in the art/photography business.  You have to pander to the yuppies, and the hipsters, and their new school sensibility.  But fuck that!  I’m too cool for the new school.  Or maybe I’m getting too old to leave the Old School.  Maybe I’m stupid.  Maybe I’m stubborn.  Maybe I’m too damn sentimental.  But whatever it is, I can’t bring myself to abandon who I am, or cover up what I am just to get a little freakin recognition in a new school culture that has no soul.  I love who I am.  I love where I come from.  I’ll die broke before I betray that.  ”Tim Haines…keeping it old school”…till the day I die, baby!  

Good Times was great!  The Evans Family; a family living in a Chicago ghetto.  It follows moments in their lives, shares their troubles, and shares their laughs, like what you’d expect from good ol’ sitcoms of the era.  I didn’t live in the projects, but I could still relate to a lot of what I saw on Good Times.  I had an older sister (Thelma) a tall, skinny older brother (J.J) and a little brother (Michael).  And the Evans siblings reminded me a lot of my own siblings.  Also, we didn’t have a lot of money, we had to watch our spending, and we lived in Brooklyn.  As far as I knew the Evans lived in Brooklyn too (I didn’t know they lived in Chicago until I was older).  The Evans’ real-world inner-city trials and tribulations were things I was familiar with (either personally by extension).  Even the problems they faced that I couldn’t relate to somehow seemed familiar to me.  Maybe it was the roughness and toughness of city life, or maybe it was the visuals, or maybe it was the characters, I don’t know.  But Good Times was one of those shows that spoke to me.

I think Good Times is one of the most under-appreciated shows of all time.  It was a REALLY funny show.  The writing was great, and the acting was so classic.  I think John Amos (James Evans, Sr.) was my favorite.  He was so funny to watch; such a great actor!  He was kind of over the top, which is how I always related to comedy.  In my mind I live in a cartoon lol.   I liked JJ, too.  JJ was freakishly like my older brother in a lot of ways.

I think every city kid has probably done some growing up watching Good Times.  You gotta love it!  It may not be cut out for “mainstream America” in the suburbs (or maybe so).   But I think it ranks right up there with Cheers and Gimme a Break.  Good Times, man…one of the best shows that ever hit the airwaves.

The Futile Stretch

In winter when the trees are bare, the branches always make the trees resemble huge hands coming out of the ground, desperately reaching up to Heaven. They stretch, and they reach, but they will never achieve Heaven. They try, and they fail. Yet they try anyway; almost as if through their efforts they are able to forget that their reaching is all in vain. Through their efforts they are able to convince themselves that there is some hope behind their dreams. So they stretch, futilely to Heaven. They try, and they fail. And they try, and fail. They would rather try and fail than to resign themselves to the truth—that they can never break free of their roots.

So, too, do we. We reach, and stretch to attain the rewards of our blind, and often selfish ambitions. We desire those rewards because we believe they will make us feel whole, and secure. We try, and we fail, yet we try again, and are never happier for our efforts. We try anyway, convinced that through our efforts there may be some hope that this time we will stretch and we will reach, and we will have what we are searching for. We would rather try and fail than to resign ourselves to the truth. And the truth is this; that what we are really stretching for is wholeness, and a satisfaction of the void deep within ourselves, but all the money, sex, power, or material items in the world will never do that for us.

But unlike the trees we are not doomed to the flesh-and-bone nature of our bodies. We are not the slaves of our mortal impulses. We are not decaying matter, destined to become nothing more than dust. We can reach for Heaven, and attain it. Because we are more than our earthly forms, and we are more than our mortal impulses. How different would life be if we were as resolved as the trees to reach Heaven? For us it is not a futile stretch.

You couldn’t grow up in the 80s in my neighborhood without hearing two very common terms; “Respect your elders!” and “Park it!”

“Park it” meant “Sit down” and these days I notice it’s like Japanese to kids.  I’d like to say “Park it!” to the Mayor of New York–him whose name will not be spoken.  I don’t mean “sit down” I mean it more metaphorically…get a grip on reality when it comes to parks in New York City.  I don’t know what’s going on with the parks department but someone, somewhere decided that parks should be more like museums than areas for kids to play, and adults to relax and socialize.  Photography is strictly forbidden unless you pay for a permit.  They’re talking about abolishing smoking in parks, and whether you’re a smoker or not, you can’t deny that parks are public property and smoking is not illegal (not to mention parks are in the open air).  As I get around and notice parks throughout the city, they don’t look like the urban playgrounds that they once were.  They seem more tailored for tourist jaunts and suburbanite retreats.  And, much like a museum, you feel almost afraid to touch anything, or do anything….

I was taking a picture in a  park once (yes, I broke the law!) and I moved a garbage can out a few feet over to get it out of the frame.  Man, you should have seen how people reacted!  You would have thought I was setting fire to a tree.  ”Are you allowed to do that?” someone asked.  Are you kidding me? I’m moving a garbage can.  Relax.  Sure enough a parks department worker interrupted me, taking issue with the fact that I had moved the garbage can.  Get that!  He completely overlooked that I was shooting without a permit, but he was concerned that I had moved an empty freakin garbage can all of three feet to the left of where it was.  Priorities, I guess.  Hey, if you ask me it looked better where I put it anyway.

On another day I was walking through a park I use to hang out at as a kid.  I noticed all of the wooden park benches were replaced with colorful plastic/metal ones.  I know this sounds petty but for some reason I don’t feel comfortable sitting on colorful plastic/metal park benches.  There’s something cold and synthetic about them.  They distress me, physically, emotionally, and visually.  And again, like a museum, I’m afraid to touch or sit on one because they almost look like they’re meant to decorate the park rather than to provide a place to sit and rest and relax.   That same day I heard a parent scold one of her kids because he was climbing on the Jungle Jim (I know them as monkey bars) with a little dirt on his sneakers [pause for laughter].  The monkey bars, like the benches, were made of shiny, colorful metal.  They’re meant to be climbed on, and worn out, but this poor woman was obsessive about the fact that her kid was getting dirt on it.  Yeah, maybe she was crazy.  But noticing that same kind of obsessive behavior throughout the “New New York City” I’m inclined to think she wasn’t crazy, she was just a product of the new urban conditioning.  Frankly, it’s pathetic.

I know, I know…parks should be respected.  I get that.  I’m all for that.  But they should also be a place to let go and relax.  I don’t want to obsess over who may pull me aside for taking a picture, or who may scold me for moving a garbage can, or who may look at me like I’m some monster because I’m smoking 20 or so feet away from them.  And I certainly don’t want to have to ask myself “Is that a bench, or is that a decoration?”  And you know what…I won’t.  I won’t do any of that.  When I see  park, brother I’m gonna park it!  I’ll leave the obsessive compulsions to the bureaucrats trying to find new ways to criminalize the existence of ordinary people.