Brooklyn: Unite!!

 

 

I’ve been doing some thinking – Yes, that’s what that smell is.

 

Through various conversations I’ve had recently both as a result of this blog and utter randomness, I have come to the conclusion that I have no one to fault but myself when it comes to choosing to exclude myself from various artistic events happening in the BK. Yes it is certainly true that half of the reason I avoid most of these things is because they’re generally swarming with hipster wanna-be Brooklynites who make my skin crawl, but looking past their dirty-on-purpose vintage store rags and Ray-Bans, some of these fuckers may actually have decent taste in art. I realize this statement may be met with major criticism from my fellow native BKers, but I will stand by it – for now, at least.

 

I have, in-fact, attended various artsy happenings in gentrified Brooklyn in which I actually had a decent time and got to take a peek at some interesting stuff happening. There’ve been readings, film-screenings, and various gallery-events that were not completely dominated by an unimaginative trustrafarian’s attempt to be the next Andy Warhol. I realize they are few and far between, but the reality is that they do exist and by avoiding the gentrified areas of Brooklyn, which unfortunately is where the bulk of the events are, all I am doing is robbing myself of whatever good I may be able to find in Brooklyn while I am still here.

 

My days here are numbered. That number may be high right now, but it’s certainly not infinite and I intend to, at minimum, attempt to grasp on to whatever fun can be had here while I’m still around. I’m met with a couple of roadblocks when I enter this thought pattern. As previously mentioned in a few of my posts, I don’t have a very exposed social circle. This leaves me with a limited amount of folks to which I can forward an event happening with the hopes that they’d be down to join me. Second, and this one really angers me to throw out there but I realize that I may actually be the minority at these events and it does leave me feeling a tiny bit uneasy in terms of having a go at it on the solo tip.

 

The uneasy feeling of facing these events alone brings me to a memory I have of Daniel and I at a rooftop party in Bed-Stuy this past summer. Hipsters love to take advantage of rooftops. When I was a kid, rooftops were used for taking the sun with a visor but these days anywhere north of Brooklyn’s Mason Dixon line which I might go so far as to say sits somewhere between Dark Slope and Sunset Park, rooftops are used for parties, bbqs, and late night movie screenings. Daniel and I ventured out to this event and I was literally the only non-hipster type there, save Daniel (although I am beginning to wonder about this). At some point up on the roof, the I-pod shuffled its way over to Biggie Smalls’ Gimme the Loot. This being one of my all time favorite Biggie tracks enabled me to get my bop on in a serious way. My Kitty emblazoned doorknockers bounced about freely while the beat filled the air and with my fast flow was re-mark-able as I threw out word after word along with Frank White. Daniel knew every word too, and he joined me in the little sing-a-long. We volleyed the verses like Serena and Venus – and our energy was on some serious love shit. I have to admit, I was kind of diggin’ it. Looking around me, I saw Brooklyn to the left and right. I was on a rooftop in Bed Stuy enjoying the likes of one of the very reasons I am proud to be a Brooklynite; good hip-hop ala The B-I-G. All was great and dandy until I noticed that all around me these pasty skinned, too concerned about what every other person at the party thinks about them, daddy-pays-my-rent mother fuckers, were giving me dirty looks! I mean, it wasn’t at all something I needed to figure out here, they were completely giving me the up and down eyeball thing while probably commenting inside their pigeon holed minds about my obnoxious behavior. Man, this is Biggie Fucking Smalls. This is a rooftop in Bed-Stuy Brooklyn. You want to move here and party here? Celebrate Brooklyn. Fuck another person’s opinion. Live it, be it - Rock out to Biggie – Now, I realize there is a great chance that Gimme the Loot may have been a foreign thing to the rest of the attendees. They were probably much more familiar with Juicy or Big Poppa – but don’t be giving me dirty looks cause I know my shit – you fuckers. Shortly after my realizing what was happening, my tone for the remainder of the evening changed. I announced to Daniel that I was pretty much ready to go. He wasn’t, so I went downstairs grabbed my shit and waited on the front stoop until he realized I was gone. About 20 minutes later, after at least 4 sewer rats walked by the stoop as I sat on it in the dark, the tunes of Brand Nubian and Tribe Called Quest filling the summer air around me, he finally came out. We called it a night shortly there after. He never fully understood what had changed and why I needed to get out of there – but you, my native Brooklynites, I trust you get it and that I don’t even really need to decipher the situation.

Fuck all that noise.

 

So, from that warm night with Biggie and a bunch of douche bags comes a bit of an idea. As I mentioned, I was digging the overall tone of the evening. I had my borough around me and aesthetically the night was beautiful. I really want to be able to experience these types of evenings but I want to experience them with my kind of people in tow. This means going out to events – not necessarily those that are completely hipsterfied, but going out to events that give me that same general feeling of ‘I dig this’. Artsy environments do this for me. Being around folks with brains does this for me. Unfortunately, I have a hard time finding things in my part of the BK that satisfy the need for culture and in order to get my fix, I’ll need to venture a bit North.

 

Who Is With Me?! Who’s with me?!? Who – Is – With – Me?!  (Jerry Maguire, anyone?)

 

Are any of you readers out there down with the idea of starting a Real Brooklynites meet-up type of group, in real time, where we can scout out events that may be to our liking and head on over to take advantage of whatever the evening is offering? I am talking about film screenings, poetry or spoken-word readings, (no pansy hipster shit), gallery viewings for mixed media art events, concerts, hiphop nights at bars/clubs, etc., and all other things Brooklyn history and the likes. I am contemplating creating an aggregator – or, at minimum my myself becoming an aggregator, of events that I feel us native and real Brooklynites would be attracted to and I’m thinking of including it as a feature on this blog.  What comes out of it will shape the future of the blog itself but I really believe this may be something that is needed for ‘us’.

 

Let me clarify, too, that a “Real Brooklynite” is not necessarily someone who was born and raised here like us natives. You may have moved here at 10 or even 15 and experienced Brooklyn during its more authentic period. This would constitute you a Real Brooklynite in my opinion. Anyone who did not move to Brooklyn because it was socially expected of them to do so would probably be on the same level of thought as me and those I keep company with. It’s not about geography – it’s about so much more than that. It’s about a state of mind and of consciousness. It’s about having an opinion and sticking to that opinion. It’s about expressing a thought and not being easily wavered when someone chooses to challenge that thought. It’s about being real – and being tough.
 

It’s about being about Brooklyn – not being about the social status being about Brooklyn will bring to you. Do you get that?! If you do – and you want to venture out and experience many of the things that have been somewhat hijacked by the hipster-holes, comment back to this posting and lets see what we can create.

 

Creation, hipsters. Creation. Try it on for size. I bet you an egg-cream it will look better than your too tight jeans.