After three miserable years of having my ass handed to me in a wife-beating relationship with the City of Baltimore, even my tits are drooping from the depression that consumes you when you make a life here.
After three miserable years of having my ass handed to me in a wife-beating relationship with the City of Baltimore, even my tits are drooping from the depression that consumes you when you make a life here. After enduring the blizzard of the century, I’ve finally dug out my shit, packed up, and am ready to ship out and kiss Baltimore’s dumb ass goodbye.
THE LAND OF PLEASANT LIVING
At heart, Baltimore is still a mean, struggling working-class town. It’s a port city that was raised from the bayside at a time when our grandpas slaved from dawn ‘til dusk on the docks shleppin’ tar and shit. Over the past 50 years, it has stumbled on some of the more lovely parts of American kitsch, which is why it is often deemed “The Land of Pleasant Living,” like it says on every bottle of Natty Boh, our prized cheap-ass beer that we can no longer afford to make here.
There’s the flamingo, most often seen as permanent lawn installations, made popular by John Waters’ Pink Flamingos. There’s the show Ace of Cakes, which kind of lends itself to Baltimore’s official dessert, the cupcake. You’ve got Edgar Allen Poe, whose poem “The Raven” inspired our very own pussy-as-balls football team (also called the Ravens), who are the only national sports team to be named after a goddamned poem. But even with these faint glimmers of life, there’s no fronting on the overbearing culture of death here: It’s drugs, drugs, drugs and blood, blood, blood. It’s murder on every other block. It’s fourth-generation family heroin rackets. It’s political corruption vs. capitalism. It’s just not quite the quirky vintage utopia you see in John Waters films.
What truly makes our little section of the world go round, as depicted on The Wirewith pathetic accuracy, is the epitome of prejudice that was supposed to have been beaten out of you during fourth-grade cultural studies — it’s black vs. white.
I don’t even see people’s skin colors because I’m going to pretend that I’m a bigger person and that I’ve really transcended all that. But Hairspray really disillusioned me into thinking all happy, tubby, dancing white girls could end the race war and be accepted by all the retro, jive-talking people of color on a human plane. Not so much.
Everywhere I go, I’m still pinned as a li’l white girl in the wrong part of the hood, and it seems nobody will let it go. Walking down the street, I am constantly told about my whiteness. I’m begged, followed and conned into giving poor people change. Sometimes I’m even asked if I’m lost when walking from my car to my house. I’ve been hustled for money and drugs, officially robbed, fully harassed, threatened, lost two best friends and was even put on trial for felony theft by best scene, and sure Dan Deacon, Animal Collective, and Beach Houses make Baltimore look charming and progressive. But really you’re only being exposed to the strongest members of a group of about 850 – 1000 mostly white, interchangeable 21-to35-year-old kids who all knew each other at one point, who get mad at each other at different times of the year, but are all so young, dumb and free that they get more drunk than you’ve ever been and forgive each other later when they see each other at one of the eight bars they can go to without being shot at. They comprise the gauntlet of self-important “artists” and their posses who (even more ironically than their hipster vendettas) give the city something to shine about.
It’s a subculture like no other, full of people who are into making art and music at cut-rate, living cheaply and dirty, and investing in the incubation of this “happening” scene. It’s people who enjoy being bourgeois and “timeless,” even though the crass amount of them are being groomed at the local art school while their pay medium-to-high rent for overgrown art college students to live in real, bonafide ghettos, weigh their shit and call it “art”, and ride fixies up gigantically retarded hills. It’s a really exclusionary club, and it’s very hard to break into unless you know somebody. But it’s also kind of nice to know you can always go to some dank, nasty, warehouse and see people making noise that other people will find fascinating for no particular reason.
It’s the only reason to ever consider moving here really.
And the fact that we can throw down a party harder than the ground you’ll slam your ass on when you fall down drunk ’cause your feet are the only legitimate public transportation you’ve got. (See the part about drugs, drugs, drugs.)
THE ICING ON THE CAKE OF THIS SHIT PICNIC
People have no real intention of being good, being heard or wanting to “make it.” Their performances are these ego-free, but calculated attempts at swimming in shitpools of expression. People will shit in public, pray naked, stand still for eight hours — whatever to be kooky, but it’s this brass-balls approach that seems to be the entire point. In one sense it’s rather insulting because the people expect you eat this shit up. But in the other sense, it’s inspiring that they are creating in any and every capacity. You gotta hand it to ‘em.
What really makes Baltimore “so different” in effect is that there is no social standard here. Every white kid has a machine drum, and every black kid has a machine gun. Since we don’t have an upper class, people can do whatever they fucking want and that’s the status quo. You can be a tranny, you can be ugly, you can be fat, you can be a whore. Everyone can find a place in here — it’s just that everyone else who isn’t in your sub-niche will in fact look at you funny. But that’s part of it. In an NPR Interview Dan Deacon or one of the other Whammers said, “Everyone else’s ‘different’ is Baltimore’s normal.” For all the brazen bullshit that I have succumbed to here, it’s a pretty poignant place to find yourself. You can be anything you want here. You are the purveyor of your white destiny through the winds of change and oppression.
You have to get over the mindfuck of hipster nation, the stench of rotting dead bodies in the harbor, the likelihood that you will be mugged, shot at, witness to organized crime rings, robbed and that you will try heroin at some point. But if you can find joy in the finer things, like the music, the sweaty summer crowds, being able to count on drinking in public …
… and the BEST Saturday karaoke night at the Bloody Bucket …
… I guess the bitch ain’t so bad.
It’s like any city. It’s just a helluva lot rougher. But if you’re willing to fight the depression, walk a lot and if you make friends with a damn good bartender, this can truly be “The Greatest City in America.”
While I wouldn’t quite claim myself a fan, the following well-placed YouTube video is the kind of shit parade I have been yammering about. Caleb Stine (the better half) and Saleem (who the dumb fuck ever) have devised a song that so acutely describes the “quintessence” of Baltimore in so many words. It’s a misplaced k-rap (folk-rap) ditty about how much shit happens in Baltimore and how ironically poor everyone is.
(Hat tips: Joel Bobeck, good photos; Jean Carson, riot girl and bartending goddess.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formstone
played a show this summer at the punk house shown with people spilling out of it. Had an encounter with the great BLAK. changed my life maaaaan, as much as partying in a wet basement to a metallica cover band with a tubby black teenager with crutches can.
i’m having a tough time figuring out what you’re whining about.
This is poorly written.
I prefer London.
I started to like this, then I started to wish you had run it by an editor more than I started to like it.
You can also probably find Karaoke scenes that look just like that out west, in places like Barstow, Bakersfield, Henderson, Truckee, etc. The list goes on and on.
if you can dressed up like those kids drinking beer in the park, and still live to see tomorrow, it can’t be that tough of a town
kind of made me wish i lived in baltimore, no joke. good job
I grew up about 10 minutes away from Baltimore and everyone around me wouldn’t shut up about how tough they were. And then when they actually went into the city itself, they would freeze up and act shocked when a homeless guy named John (who seemed exactly like Tyrone the Crackhead) would approach them. It was so stupid, especially when they were proud that Sisqo was from Baltimore. I don’t care much for the place.
@drippy dog dix and cum bubbles or something.
Don’t forget Fresno.
This reminds me of that Bloomington scene report from a long time ago, except it’s about a city instead of a town.
‘good job’
@J.F.C. – Oh for sure. And San Jose, Hemet, Lake Elsinore… Let’s keep this going.
all of this reminds me of oakland.
and yet another article written specifically for the white perspective, from the white perspective. (although, the part about you being robbed and fucked with for being white very much has a lot to do with the story)
MC Lytes not..well, actually it seems kind of cool
@no.thanks <–hates being white
boston sucks
homeless – oh come on, where else in America can you see authentic North Korean architecture?
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/800px-Boston_City_Hall.JPG
I like that fat girl in the black dress at the bar having a Big O off a beer bottle during karaoke. Squeal piglet!!!
I remember going to the inner harbor once early in the morning and all I could smell was fresh crap. And then this homeless guy was walking across the square about 100 yards away with this monster stain on the back of his pants like he had sat in a cake. That is one tough town all right. HAHAHAHA
That karaoke scene looks exactly like this one bar I always go to in Reno. One time a guy asked me to burn off a mole on his back with my cigar. I complied, the smell was awful.
BOSTON SUCKS? come and say that in BOSTON ya fucking pussy
boston sucks
what exactly was the moral of this story? that there are cool “scenes” in even the shittiest cities? hasn’t everybody who doesn’t aspire ( however subconsciously) to be on vh1 realized this by the 11th grade?
You have a group of pretentious friends in your otherwise trash-heap of a city? Great.
I liked this article. If you hate balti so much then move the fuck out to tame and pristine brooklyn. you daft cunt!!!
amirite
Yeah, this sounds pretty much exactly like Oakland, although you still don’t have to live in the guh-hetto to pay nothing for rent.
we’re glad you’re leaving, LB. bmore doesn’t appreciate haters. and how in the world have you, in your short time living here, been mugged/robbed/attacked so frequently? god, you’re a big girl, and so am I and i’ve lived here for 21 years, been to all 8 of those bars you referred to AND partied in those warehouses, and yet I’m still here in one piece… it’s an amazing, thriving, creative city, and sure it’s got its downfalls, but try and recreate its authenticity in brooklyn, i dare ya.
i’m a white girl and i’ve lived here my whole life in the CUTT and not once have i ever been mugged… but other than that this article was pretty accurate.
this place is fucking beautiful, and if you can’t take it you can just go ahead and leave, Baltimore doesn’t need/want you.
everywhere is exactly like nowhere. and we all live nowhere anymore. j.g. ballard has precisely articulated our new reality in his fiction.
yea leave n stuff
stop stealin my beer too
the only reason I would ever go to baltimore is the good heroin and I can get that in jersey.
there’s some cogent thought in this article, but the editing nearly obscures it at points. i guess they just posted a rough draft of what you’d written? sheesh…
anyway having lived in the baltimore area for the better half of a decade in and out of the city i can understand your sentiment. crime is endemic and i really resented feeling like being the victim of a *violent* crime was an inevitability (after numerous friends/coworkers were robbed at gunpoint, pistol whipped, and in one case nearly carjacked and kidnapped!). it’s no way to live. but a lot of people do live that way and have been putting up with it for a lot longer than i ever did.
i think that the whole john waters concept of baltimore is a great thing as a movie watcher, but when you live there, you realize that it’s sort of just a suburban fantasy of inner city poverty. which in turn has developed into a pathetic way for the city to “market” itself to outsiders and sell the gentrification of certain neighborhoods to the moneyed folks moving in!
from my perspective, baltimore is a very provincial, locals-oriented place. being an outsider if you ain’t from there or didn’t go to mica is one of the prices you have to pay for the cheaper-than-other-east-coast-cities rent and zany hyped-up art scene that seems to be pulling some many youngsters towards the city these days. honestly, what i know about that whole crowd is more or less tangential, but the notion of baltimore having serious hipster cache seems to be a much more recent development. it’ll be interesting to see if it maintains it’s status as a “cool” place once wham city and beach house et. al eventually dissipate. i wouldn’t hold my breath.
Most white people are the laughing stock of the universe.
I like how reporting that you’ve been assaulted and repeatedly hassled for being white makes you a “hater.”
i kinda liked this article. i agree that baltimore does have some legit stuff coming out of there and living in the ghetto sucks balls because niggers are robbers and everyone knows that. thing is though, pretty much all the top 15 biggest cities in the US have a scene that’s equally if not more thriving with pretty much the same shit going on; ie music, art, partying and drugs. austin, new york, portland, philly, nashville, la, chicago, atl, bay area, etc etc etc etc, just move to a whiter one and you might be happier. the ghetto would be great and shit if it weren’t for all the blacks.
i totally agree, you should get the fuck out of the city. You seem to lack personality and i never enjoyed talking to you.
FACEBOOK ME!!!
^ Street cred
i don’t know what those locals are talking about. i mean, with their anonymous bitching on the internet. classy broads. at least homegirl had the balls to put her name on this article. and i find it fair. but i guess the locals have spoken for themselves. they’re so nice here.
“Anonymous Says:
I like how reporting that you’ve been assaulted and repeatedly hassled for being white makes you a “hater.”
”
why would you bother being anonymous bro everyone knows it you
come to detroit. it’s a lovely place.
Wait, this was written by a guy? I thought from the tone it was a grrrl. But then I make that mistake about young white hipsters all the time lately… Anyway, I grew up in Baltimore, lived there half my life, have lived the other half… somewhere better. A lot of what’s described here was true 20, 30 years ago. Baltimore really is its own tiny blue-collar universe. It really is outrageously crime-ridden. Every old car I owned and every crappy apartment I rented was broken into, every girl I dated assaulted, I and several friends were held up at gunpoint somewhere along the line, other friends shot, raped, beaten half to death, etc. Its politicians and bureaucrats really are extremely corrupt. Its white folks and black folks really don’t mix well. At any point in its last 50 years it’s always had a little arty “scene” that struggled and then faded away, supported by the 2 or 3 hip venues that also struggled and closed. It’s a cheap, lazy, drug-addled and boring little burg, but as duly noted, it does have a few charms (you forgot steamed crabs, raw oysters and pit beef) that help it not totally suck. Once I got out I didn’t look back. Proud Baltimorons scream and curse every time I critique the joint, but that’s because they know it’s all true and they’re stuck there.
@ ex-baltimoron
it’s a girly girl girl, the tubby one in the photos. and where did you move to pray tell?
Oh good.
NYC, a long time ago. I don’t say that around Baltimorons unless specifically asked cuz they SO resent NYC. Only place they hate on more is DC. With good reason in DC’s case. What a crap town that is. Makes Bawlmer look good.
Anyway, I do think a lot of what you wrote is true. Bawlmer has some funny, wacky, and really endearing elements that make its boring, parochial, ignorant, racist (in both directions) and eternally small-town and small-time elements easier to put up with, but still.
this chick seems like she hated baltimore because she’s mad xenophobic and maybe a little old-fashioned racist. baltimore rules. go move to some other town you saw in a movie. …and what’s up with this part? “the following well-placed YouTube video is the kind of shit parade I have been yammering about. Caleb Stine (the better half) and Saleem (who the dumb fuck ever)” really? “who the dumb fuck ever”? enjoy idaho, idiot. one hint: river pheonix is dead and keanu reeves lives in la.
uh, bmore is one of the biggest cities in america. it only feels like a small town to hipsters because there are only like 10 hangouts that hipsters go to so you see the same dumb fucks all the time.
and dude, are you trying to say that if you like black people they won’t mug the shit out of you you? because all muggers are black. all of them. mica makes you real smart-like.
we don’t smash inside but we love smashing stuff; gotta say we do
Still can’t believe they killed Omar. I mean after Wallace on the first season, we knew nobody was safe. But damn, Omar? Really, they had to do that?
@white power. thank you.
good things about baltimore:
you can call some of the wham city dudes pretentious, and i don’t disagree. some of them are pretty insufferable. but there are so many gems. so many people making good music out of love! ed schrader! liz king! the motherfucking death set!
there’s so much good cheap food. good jamaican. good ethiopian. good diners. good bagels too.
yeah yeah, there’s a huge racial divide, and the art school kids don’t really mix with the kids from the wire. really, the gentrification of baltimore is less bad than in, say, new york. i feel worse walking around williamsburg, knowing that my presence there, my spending habits and cultural choices lead to poor people not being able to live there. it’s easier (and less white-guilt-inducing) to be young/poor in baltimore. neighborhoods have changed because of the influx of young white people. but the change is much less drastic. there are still no richies in baltimore’s hoods, with the exception of an overpriced loft or two in hampden or charles village.
here’s my advice: stay! carve out your own little city. explore it. find your favorite bodega. walk around a random neighborhood on the map. make it your own. it’s a city with problems, but maybe that’s what makes it such so compelling too.
I’ve lived in Baltimore most of my life. You just put on a mean face and walk through the racial divide like it doesn’t bother you. People will say shit to your face and you just give it right back because they aren’t going to respect you one way or another. Ignore those people because they’re worthless. But the more people (I’m not going to say “white” because the city just needs more people of all ethnicities becoming creative and open minded) COME instead of GO is better because it proves that those attitudes are just fleeting immaturities. New York is expensive; I spend over a $100 to party there in one night; shit I brought beer from Maryland and still spent $100! Philadelphia is mostly the same as Baltimore except more depressed and the art scene is spread out and divided. DC is like New York except even more gentrified and uninspired. The corporate influx into that city has even shut Ian MacKaye up. I’d rather live in cheap art filled hate then expensive corporatized peace, because one way or another you’re being forced to spend your money.
this is ridiculous! if different is Baltimore’s normal then what’s with all the broad brush strokes. it was hard to even read though this and yeah if you don’t like it here then MOVE!!!!!
I’m going to go ahead and blame your sloppy writing on your fat, fat fingers.
love it or leave it.
wow well don’t blame baltimore because you used music groups and music videos to select a town.
wow is this a racist site? i’m starting to wonder???
I (surprisingly) liked this article. I love Baltimore, and always will. Born and raised in B-mo.
But you make some extremely valid points, and I like that you’ve challenged many locals to answer you (however angrily). I’ll forgive the editing, and we can just call this piece “stream-of-consciousness”. You’ve captured Baltimore in all its beauty, hideousness, chaos, and fury. Call it as you see it.
clearly your bitter – which is a B’more staple!
go wherever you wish – your taking that shit with you – so now you can’t leave!!! LOL
this from a native
This article is racist and untrue!! “Every white kid has a machine drum, and every black kid has a machine gun.” Wtf?? This article claims that the only positive aspect of Baltimore is the white hipster minority which is not a positive at all in my opinion…
baltabore is a worthless shit pit and this article is gay (not in a good homo way, just gay in an extremely irritating self-applauding kind of way)
I’m in Baltimore now and every black person a black boy black gal black middle aged executive, teacher, old black men old black women they are all hopelessly racist and violent and since Baltimore is around 75% black (new census figure) It’s so hostile as a white man just to be on the subway or a bus you can literally feel the hate.
Like the white women who was beat up close to death on a bus by 9 black kids coming home from school.
These things happen all the time in Baltimore. On a bus Black girl ‘Why u looking at me whitey. etc. We who live here know the truth
I knew this would stir up some fucking racist BS fuck this artical!
spending habits and cultural choices lead to poor people not being able to live there. it’s easier (and less white-guilt-inducing) to be young/poor in baltimore. neighborhoods have changed because of the influx of young white people. but the change is much less drastic. there are still no richies in baltimore’s hoods, with the exception of an overpriced loft or two in hampden or charles village.
here’s my advice: stay! carve out your own little city. explore it. find your favorite bodega. walk around a random neighborhood on the map. make it your own. it’s a city with problems, but maybe that’s what makes it such so compelling too.
03.20.10 at 6:20 am
Greg Says:
I’ve lived in Baltimore most of my life. You just put on a mean face and walk through the racial divide like it doesn’t bother you. People will say shit to your face and you just give it right back because they aren’t going to respect you one way or another. Ignore those people because they’re worthless. But the more people (I’m not going to say “white” because the city just needs more people of all ethnicities becoming creative and open minded) COME instead of GO is better because it proves that those attitudes are just fleeting immaturities. New York is expensive; I spend over a $100 to party there in one night; shit I brought beer from Maryland and still spent $100! Philadelphia is mostly the same as Baltimore except more depressed and the art scene is spread out and divided. DC is like New York except even more gentrified and uninspired. The corporate influx into that city has even shut Ian MacKaye up. I’d rather live in cheap art filled hate then expensive corporatized peace, because one way or another you’re being forced to spend your money.
03.20.10 at 11:10 am
Monster Says:
this is ridiculous! if different is Baltimore’s normal then what’s with all the broad brush strokes. it was hard to even read though this and yeah if you don’t like it here then MOVE!!!!!
03.20.10 at 6:34 pm
Face Says:
I’m going to go ahead and blame your sloppy writing on your fat, fat fingers.
03.21.10 at 5:41 am
LOCALS ONLY Says:
love it or leave it.
03.24.10 at 6:53 am
Anonymous Says:
wow well don’t blame baltimore because you used music groups and music videos to select a town.
04.03.10 at 11:31 pm
Anonymous Says:
wow is this a racist site? i’m starting to wonder???
04.03.10 at 11:32 pm
Shureen Says:
I (surprisingly) liked this article. I love Baltimore, and always will. Born and raised in B-mo.
But you make some extremely valid points, and I like that you’ve challenged many locals to answer you (however angrily). I’ll forgive the editing, and we can just call this piece “stream-of-consciousness”. You’ve captured Baltimore in all its beauty, hideousness, chaos, and fury. Call it as you see it.
04.04.10 at 11:36 pm
MPistol Says:
clearly your bitter – which is a B’more staple!
go wherever you wish – your taking that shit with you – so now you can’t leave!!! LOL
this from a native
05.22.10 at 11:06 am
Anonymous Says:
This article is racist and untrue!! “Every white kid has a machine drum, and every black kid has a machine gun.” Wtf?? This article claims that the only positive aspect of Baltimore is the white hipster minority which is not a positive at all in my opinion…
05.31.10 at 1:31 pm
chidawg Says:
baltabore is a worthless shit pit and this article is gay (not in a good homo way, just gay in an extremely irritating self-applauding kind of way)
06.18.10 at 5:15 pm
A J Soch Says:
I’m in Baltimore now and every black person a black boy black gal black middle aged executive, teacher, old black men old black women they are all hopelessly racist and violent and since Baltimore is around 75% black (new census figure) It’s so hostile as a white man just to be on the subway or a bus you can literally feel the hate.
Like the white women who was beat up close to death on a bus by 9 black kids coming home from school.
These things happen all the time in Baltimore. On a bus Black girl ‘Why u looking at me whitey. etc. We who live here know the truth
07.04.10 at 9:44 pm
urapoophead Says:
I knew this would stir up alot of ignorance
08.23.10 at 9:55 am
YOU FUCKING PIECE OF POOP Says:
I knew this would stir up some fucking racist BS fuck this artical!
Hey there, Lori Bess –
I remember that pic. It seems like ages ago we hung out.
Hope you are doing well.
-J