Monday, November 14, 2011

Creative Wurlitzer (NYC + DC)...What's next?

I haven't showed up here @ Creative Tectonics in quite some time and there have been certain things that have transpired which have tried to slow down the Creative Wurlitzer. Previously we've covered a whole slew of stuff that resonates and reverberates within the Intelligentsia, that being said, this is the first entry since leaving the East Coast. 150,000 miles away...safe to say. The reasons that I left are many, some of which I am not at liberty to enumerate. While on the East Coast I was in New York City and Washington D.C. both of these cities served as inspiration and as purposeful sounding boards for myself and for the Intelligentsia at large. 



Gotham is as 'Metropoli' does.


I have ended up the in West Coast not as the nostalgic urban homesteader nor as the hippy in redux i.e. the half-hearted skater looking to form a rap-rock band. (grin) Here I have accumulated a little time to write on non-military matters and to really look at what's under lady liberty's mini-skirt. The poor, tired, and hungry seem to have accrued a level of angst and hate towards the establishment. The 2% reprieve by the Fed Reserve has been touted as the great ballyhoo but will still leave the 99% looking for solutions that extend beyond the social tremors that marketeers see in the glimmering eye of  the über-hip foodie or the quasi-intellectual; and beyond the glazed over eyes of the disenfranchised high-schooler who chimes to themself "what's the point?"  and the old retiree who wonders if the Social Security Administration forgot that they to enjoyed the Summer of 1969. All cynicism aside, Americana from the outside in reminds us why Ugly Betty kept her braces on so late in life. These obvious cries for attention are not obtuse. That being said there needs to be a remedy to offer the disgruntled 99%, the misguided yuppy rhetoric that has been packaged for a post Madoff world is hollow- a caricature of Hope. Mr.Bernake 2% just won't due- ponsy propagators need not apply. 

Washington D.C. is more of a convoluted metropolis that served me well despite being racially divided and somewhat narrow minded in a post-antebellum sort of a way. It has an undertone that is littered with Southern euphemisms which undermine the word growth. The city itself serves as border-town for Virginia and Maryland, where Hatfield and McCoy agree to disagree. Gentrification and Re-vitalization are also a sticking point within Washingtonian sensibilities. As a native New Yorker (read: Yankee) you tend to see through the veils of normalcy that Washingtonians tend to propagate with some regularity. Homelessness is as bad here as it is in San Francisco and Los Angeles, while HPV, AIDS and Hepatitis C--are not as bountiful, it still lacks the ability to grow into the heterogeneous city that it's blue collar bureaucratic roots have emanated from. Arcane laws and misguided policies have left Anacostians holding the brunt of the resentment and leaves D.C. unable to articulate itself as a community that can prosper.  

Bums, vagabonds and the mentally-ill litter Union Station and wander only two blocks from Congress while the "high" powered elite floss in the rhetoric of the latest Huffington headline or Twitter micro-blog.  Yep. My mind has once more become a pea... D.C. really needs to grow and recover from the Fenty high and the early appointment faux pas of the Gray administration. Despite the horrific displays of homelessness there are other parts of the city that are getting better. Everything above U Street smells of re-vitalization as the emerging Central American and Mexican American communities take East Coast strides looking to be counted alongside the (invisible) Ethiopian and Senegalese communities. 

In New York City, the intelligentsia still demands more than what the nation's micro-papers provide. More so than any other city it really is a measure of national resolve. Not as liberally accommodating as say San Franciso per se but it is not as negligent to disease as say the Tenderloin, however- it is still a testament to 5 borough grit. New York as megalopolis has to continue to be a guidepost for economic strength and might, it is still the fourth largest government in the United States and, as such, needs to consulted in the Super Committee discussions that have been ongoing since August of this year. The 1.2 trillion dollar, ten year fiasco that we have to participate in was not co-signed by those entering the work force for the first time and it was not co-signed by globalization within the shrinking digital sphere. 

New Yorkers are clear that Wall Street needs fixing and that the welcome table is set for us all. The Chinese population in NYC are enjoying a political potency that the Puerto Rican and Dominican "young" Turks ushered in over the last decade. The only difference is that they have not been corralled into traditional districts and have not lost themselves in the campesino rhetoric that has diluted  Latino clout in the Bronx, Brooklyn, and upper Manhattan. Many of these districts have had to mend and accommodate homesteaders eager to partake in cheap rent and the limelight that NYC can produce. As such there is delicate a free-associative riff that needs to be addressed amongst the citizenry of NYC to keep it a world-class city.  

If we add the 'flair' of the Occupy movement, then one might say we've overextended our might despite the need for meaningful (read: inclusionary) dialogue abroad. Those shockwaves have not been dealt with here in their totality, the 2% from the Fed is a 'soft' hint that the economy is stuck and the 2% from the European Central Bank is also a cute gesture, but quite frankly- it is not enough. Alas, the wanks, weirdos, patsies, posers, jocks, fags, hippies, skaters, actors, baristas, models, fashionistas, students, programmers, nabobs and nerds are all on board. The real question(s) become what's next? and How do keep one slick finger on the trigger while holding lady liberty's majesty up high?  Hit me... 

 +JO. 





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The next stop for all of this that we have experienced and are living in is probably a book outlining the dominions, opinions,  travels, and travails that make us all part of the Intelligentsia. The East is a far cry from out here, but I am here…out West for now.  ADOREMOS! **Also as an aside DELL thanks for inclusion in the Times Sq. campaign.
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The rest is for latrines and lime...#

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