11.19.2008

Do your worst

So in just about two months, this site has gone from zero bloggers to five. Damn. It'll be fun to see what happens.

I'm Dave, and here's my little fluff piece about who I am, and why I'm writing here. Aside from the fact that I must be a self-important asshole because I write for (multiple) blog(s).

I've been reading this site for a few years now. I rarely comment because I have a strong dislike for Blogger and all the little hoops you have to jump through to leave comments. But, I bit the bullet and activated this account so I could write here. I think I had a Blogger account back in 2001, but no one knew what a blog was back then.

Anyhow, I'm Dave and I don't come from small town America. I came to DC from the wasteland that is the unaffluent suburbs of Chicago, Illinois. You know how Barack Obama did community organizing in the areas that lost all their jobs because steel mills shut down? Yeah, that's the next town over (and the city of my birth!). Sure, people in my town mostly work in the city and still have jobs, but it's not some fancy pants area like McLean or Chevy Chase.

I came to DC in 2002 for school, and attended a university completely full of the people I hate (aside from the roughly 20 people I would consider friends). Going to such a place, though, provides a somewhat decent introduction to what life has in store if you stay in D.C. Sure, there are "cooler" parts of town, but pretty much the same people. And I think the non-asshole/asshole ratio (20/~10,000) holds up across neighborhoods.

I've been in DC ever since, and have done various things at various times. I've had a couple decent jobs, and I've done the whole, life falls apart, work retail and at a rock club gig. For some reason, mostly beyond understanding, I'm still here. There are a lot of things about this city that piss me off, and I figure I might as well write about them. I'll attempt to offer some sort of constructive criticism, because I have a feeling the people in the Wilson building have nothing better to do than read blogs. Fenty probably gets email updates from this blog on one of his 20 Blackberries.

I'll be writing mostly about D.C. Government, and I'll probably be bashing WMATA a bunch as well. This town is falling apart, much like the rest of the country right now. There's a moderate chance we could see some actual changes here in DC in the next 4-8 years, even maybe getting a vote in Congress. Personally, I'd prefer just to be exempt from income tax instead, but hey, whatever. But unless all this shit that's broken now gets fixed, an actual voice in Congress isn't going to do anything, for anyone.

I'm going to bring this fluff piece to an end now, but I'll have some real red meat for you soon. In the meantime, I'm going to remind everyone, since it's been a while since Rusty had talked about it...

Estimated cost to the District of Columbia for Nationals' Park: $769.6 million
Estimated cost to the District of Columbia to buy every man, woman and child in the city a Glock 30: $382.4 million

I'll end each and every post with a ridiculous comparison such as that one.

Cheers.

27 comments:

  1. WOW! ANOTHER FUCKING NEWJACK!

    YOU HAVE BEEN HERE SINCE 2002. THE YEAR THE CAPITAL CENTRE WAS DEMOLISHED. THE YEAR OF THE BELTWAY SNIPERS.

    BUT IN YOUR DEFENSE. THIS IS A FREE COUNTRY SO RANT ON.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I second the nomination of CAPSLOCK ANONYMOUS OLDGUY for guest blogger here.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hell yeah!

    If you wanted to see a dysfunctional city, you should have tried walking your poodle and your frappuchino through Logan Circle in 1986.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I do not even live in DC, but I am sure if I visited the place and met caps lock dude I would hate the place fairly quickly....

    ReplyDelete
  5. can you help make the blog pretty again?

    ReplyDelete
  6. "I rarely comment because I have a strong dislike for Blogger and all the little hoops you have to jump through to leave comments."

    Ummm.. you mean, type in your comment, select "anonymous," or "name/URL," and click "Publish your Comment?" Jesus. This is the easist blog on earth to comment on, it works with anonymous, name only, your gmail account, or open ID. Everything.

    I can only imagine the suffering you must have endured to create an actual BLOG POST if submitting a comment was such a burden.

    And you think DC is "falling apart," huh? Oh yeah - but you've only been here 6 years. You have no idea about such things as the Mt. Pleasant Riots, and the shotgun stalker, the sniper, and the hell that was "downtown" (see, we used to call that Chinatown, or just "uhh, what?") which is now where you probably watch sports at the ESPN zone instead of dodging bullets. As recently as when you moved here, Columbia Heights (home of DC's only Target) was nothing more than tumbleweeds and a gang war battlefield. Yeah... let's go back to those days before DC was "falling apart."

    You are a moron. Please return to your small town, maybe you'll run into Liz there.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I can take a stab at it, though I haven't played with Blogger templates in a long time. I'll use The Google to figure out how all that works.

    You got any ideas on what you'd want it to look like?

    ReplyDelete
  8. @jamie,

    i was here for the sniper, thankyouverymuch.

    i just like to pick on blogger for sucking. clearly i am able to deal with it, as i am posting and leaving comments!

    as far as whatever other litany of things you mention that occured before i lived here: hey great awesome a lot of shit happened.

    i don't know where you get the idea of 'going back' to some previous time when things were wonderful. perhaps before the '68 riots, but you probably weren't here for those. neither was i, because i hadn't been born yet.

    the city has been falling apart for a while, and while some 'improvements' have been made, there's a lot of work to be done. projects are started but with no follow through, the government is just about as inaffective as the previous setup (no home rule at all).

    maybe you live in logan circle, and can talk about how wonderful it has become in the last 5 years. i don't know, but i think we're aiming low if we think what we have now is amazing and we would like more of the same.

    so yeah, and as recently as last year i lived in the part of 'columbia heights' that is still a wasteland of gang stabbings and so on and soforth. and as recent as this past summer, one of my best friends was killed in a motorcycle accident in southeast.

    so don't tell me for a minute that i should go drink my latte at espnzone while reading a banana republic catalog.

    but other than that, thanks for your feedback.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I got street cred, yes I do! I got street cred, how 'bout you?!?

    ReplyDelete
  10. I think both Logan and Columbia Heights are both overrated. They're both a lot safer today than they once were - with a ton more ammenities - but they're also now full of jackasses who once never ventured further than Farragut North.

    Trust me, Columbia Heights may be sketchy today; it was a HELL HOLE ten years ago. White kids moving there to be hip and near the action would have been foolish at best, and closer to suicidal.

    I wish to god that there was a single transplant blogger out there who would be wiling to admit that they could possibly learn anything about Washington. This assumption that the city was formed upon their moving to town is kind of insulting. The fact is that as screwed up as D.C. is today, the quality of life here was a nightmare in the 1980's and most of the 1990's. It was a disaster.

    Very sorry about your friend.

    ReplyDelete
  11. i'm fascinated by the history of the city, and spent time doing research on the history of dc (esp. 70s and onward) when i wrote a city politics column for a campus newspaper.

    while i didn't live here, nor i was i alive for, a lot of things... i am familiar with them. the mt. pleasant riots, the 'revitalization' efforts across northwest... the rebuilding of 14th street, and u street, etc.

    clearly there have been improvements, but i think it's very important that people who move here take interest in making it even better. i've voted in every election in dc since i moved here in '02. i take interest in whats going on.

    i don't live in a bubble, like a lot of people who come to dc do. i've experienced being out of my element, living in a less-than-ideal part of town and doing less-than-ideal work.

    does it mean i've dealt with riots or horrible poverty? no, i haven't. thankfully! but i feel like it's important that going forward not to just blindly thank the powers that be that i can go to target in columbia heights, and walk down the street to a 'gastropub' and that means everything is super.

    ReplyDelete
  12. "clearly there have been improvements, but i think it's very important that people who move here take interest in making it even better."

    This is the single most novel thing that has ever been written by a blogger on this site. You, my friend, are the first to ever have expressed any interest in being part of the solution. Do you realize that? (SO much easier to complain and feign indignance).

    Really interested to see how this perspective guides your writing.

    ReplyDelete
  13. while i didn't live here, nor i was i alive for, a lot of things... i am familiar with them. the mt. pleasant riots,

    N*GGA PLEASE.

    WHEN THAT SHIT WAS GOING DOWN YOU WERE PROBABLY WATCHING TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES ON YOUR PARENTS TELEVISION IN THE SAFETY OF YOUR WEALTHY SUBURBAN CHICAGO NEIGHBORHOOD

    ReplyDelete
  14. Dave:

    First off learn to use the "shift" button. Only stupid h@ckerz d00dz and e e cummings don't capitalize the first word of sentences and proper nouns. At this point you have the credibility of a 13 year old.

    "the city has been falling apart for a while, and while some 'improvements' have been made, there's a lot of work to be done. projects are started but with no follow through, the government is just about as inaffective as the previous setup (no home rule at all)."

    You need to google "Marion Barry."

    Of course there's lots of work to be done. It's a fricking urban environment with tons of poor people and crime and all that stuff that comes with every city other than Emerald City. But to describe DC as "falling apart" shows such utter ignorance of the recent history of this place it's offensive.

    Life here has improved noticeably every year in the nearly 20 years I've lived here. The population is increasing annually after decades of decline. Vast areas of this city (like U street, for example) that were boarded up 15-20 years ago are now thriving.

    Get a clue. I'm glad you are interested in making things better, but show a little respect for all of those who stuck it out and worked to make things better back when things REALLY sucked. Back when your parents would not have let you move here because DC's reputation was so bad.

    And yes ... I am acting like a self-righteous douchebag because this is why.i.hate.dc. It's nothing personal.

    ReplyDelete
  15. @jamie

    maybe my shift key is broken!

    anyhow, it was not my intention to say that because things are still bad they haven't improved. if that is how you read what i posted, then perhaps i should have been more careful in choosing my words. point taken.

    i am more than pleased that you've been here for a long time, and have stuck it out. clearly people who stay here and have an interest in making things better are the ones that have indeed made things better. obviously.

    my chief concern is that much of the revitalization effort might not be sustainable, and that the last 20 years of 'improvements' could quickly fall apart. we'll see, and maybe they will... but this will be a good test of how sustainable the new 14th street corridor is, or u street, or h st. ne.

    i don't take anything here personally, as no one here even knows me beyond the 300 or so words i wrote this morning.

    don't get me wrong, i've seen improvements, just in the six years i've been here. but i think a lot of things are being neglected.

    i simply don't think it's ignorant to say that the city is in trouble. or that it's falling apart. some pieces are back together, while others continue to fail. point of disagreement i'm sure, but i'd like to see some real discourse on how to knit together the entire city. there's likely going to be a huge revival in urbanism in the coming years, and we should be preparing for that. expanding transit to the neglected portions of the city, encouraging development that provides resources for all residents... not just swanky organic markets and restaurants.

    dare i say spread the wealth around a bit. not that there's a whole lot of wealth in this environment, but you can see what i'm getting at.

    progress is happening, but it's very fragmented.

    ReplyDelete
  16. WANNABE HIP, TRANSPLANT POVERTY TOURISTS FROM WELL TO DO SUBURBAN FAMILIES ABSOLUTELY DISGUST ME!

    MOVING INTO URBAN AREAS SO ONE CAN BRAG AND GAIN CRED FROM THEIR FRIENDS AND FAMILY BACK HOME IN THE MIDWEST

    (((((telephone call back to kansas)))))

    "HEY MEAGAN! WHAT UP GIRL?"
    "ARPIL, CHAPMAN AND I ARE TOTALLY SLUMMING IT RIGHT NOW IN BROOKLYN NYC. NEXT MONTH I AM MOVING DOWN TO WASHINGTON DC. I WILL TEXT YOU AND SEND YOU SOME PICS WHEN I ARRIVE. HOLLER BACK AT ME ON MYSPACE OK? LATER."

    ^ GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE WITH THAT BULLSHIT!!!!!

    I CAN SPOT YOU FUCKERS FROM BLOCKS AWAY WHEN I AM WALKING DOWN THE STREET.

    I AM SURE THE STICK UP KIDS CAN TOO.

    ReplyDelete
  17. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  18. i'd like to see some real discourse...

    Seriously dood, if you knew this blog 1/100th as well as you claim to know DC, you'd not have expressed that wish in this forum.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Lets not forget that a significant chunk of the recent upward revisions on the cost of Nationals Stadium has to do with the city's poor choice to finance the project with bad CDOs that have been battered by the downward swings in the credit markets. Sort of like the idiots who choose bad ARMs to finance their homes.

    Feel free to pile on, but pile on properly.

    ReplyDelete
  20. i don't particularly brag when people i know get shot in my neighborhood.

    but that's just me.

    c'mon, i'm not from cape cod. i'd say there are just about as many shootings in my neighborhood (reed-cooke) as there are in my hometown.

    its funny, because where i grew up (cook county, il) i experienced what happens on the other end of gentrification. when the projects in the city got torn down, they built new section 8 housing in my town. the demographics swung wildly, and a lot of the working class whites threw a hissy fit. they complained that something had to be done, now that the high school was nearly 40% black.

    while i grew up in a place that wasn't washington dc in the 80's, i saw how things can change, fast. it's what happens anywhere when you start displacing people who have lived in the city for a long time a push them out to the 'burbs.

    so just as it's fair to tell someone growing up in arlington that they have it easy, try telling the same thing to people growing up in pg county. all suburbs aren't created equal.

    ReplyDelete
  21. "expanding transit to the neglected portions of the city, encouraging development that provides resources for all residents... not just swanky organic markets and restaurants."

    Aw come on. This blog isn't the place for that kind of discourse. You want to discuss gentrification, transit, all that crap, go talk to the urban institute.

    And go do some research. Expand transit to neglected portions of the city? The whole city is pretty well served by buses, so are you talking metro? Do you have any idea what it costs to build a new metro station, much less an entire line? Metro operates at a loss overall, and generally serves the most densely populated areas of the metro region. It would be idiotic to expand metro coverage to areas where you'll have 50 people a day using the station.

    Methinks you need a good mugging to smack down that idealism. You don't "solve" problems like inequality, poverty, gentrification. Spread the wealth around? Are you some kind of communist? DC already has the highest local tax rate in the entire nation, and a lot of that money goes for very generous entitlement programs for poor people in this city.

    You didn't really say you live in Reed-Cooke. As if that gives you some kind of old-school DC street cred. Jesus. You live in Adams Morgan. The only thing worse than that is Lanier Heights.

    ReplyDelete
  22. the google ..heh

    everyone's anonymous here huh?

    AND BLIND!!
    I love DC btw ..as a tourist ..

    ReplyDelete
  23. Having met Mayor Fenty, I think you are problably about him getting email updates to this blog. When constructive criticism is offered, he will have one of his minions act on it within two minutes after he receives the update.

    Delores

    ReplyDelete
  24. Dave and JAMIE real WASHINGTONIANS not just tourists. Whish I could say that about previous bloggers and some commenters. You know who you are.

    Delores

    ReplyDelete
  25. holy shit. i started reading this blog early this year, and found it amusing. it pointed out the fucked up shit going on here in a hateful hyperbole that was more amusing than anything. now this blog, especially the comments are just full of pointless hate.

    the locals may be worse than us newbies thinking that they have the corner in the market on shitty cities. talk to me when you have lived in detroit for a year. target in the D, ha! try finding a fucking grocery store. and yes, i grew up in the burbs of detroit which are about as entertaining as le enfant. but im white, and my parents werent crazy enough to live in the city.

    ReplyDelete
  26. I am not a real Washingtonian. I am a tourist who got a work visa.

    Marion Barry is a real Washingtonian.

    ReplyDelete
  27. Marion Barry is a real Washingtonian.

    He's no Washingtonian. He's just a tourist who got some voters to drink the Koolade.

    Delores

    ReplyDelete