{"id":47421,"date":"2013-07-03T08:50:02","date_gmt":"2013-07-03T07:50:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/a-view-from-south-philly\/47421\/"},"modified":"2013-07-03T08:50:02","modified_gmt":"2013-07-03T07:50:02","slug":"a-view-from-south-philly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/a-view-from-south-philly\/","title":{"rendered":"A View from South Philly"},"content":{"rendered":"

South Philly<\/a>\u2019s Friendly<\/a> Lounge<\/a> is close enough to my door, I can crawl out of there in a brown out state of mind and still end up on my steps, curled up, if not in bed. The other day I went there to show the bartender, Don, what I had written about Camden<\/a>, since Don was born in Camden<\/a>, and his son, Dominic, works for ABC Bonds in Camden. Bail bonding is, without a doubt, Camden\u2019s most steady commerce and one of its largest employers. If you want to open a small business in Camden, don\u2019t think food or retail, no fashion boutique or sushi boat lounge, think bail bonding or, perhaps, a funeral home, though be forewarned that many corpses go unclaimed there, meaning they won\u2019t get dressed up in your sparklingly new memorial chapel, but are simply burnt.<\/p>\n

Before I could even say \u201cYuengling\u201d to Don, however, I heard \u201cYo\u201d from George. This was George Chan, 64, retired insurance executive living in a Blue Bell country club. (I\u2019ve modified George\u2019s last name, to protect his privacy, and also that of his famous son.) So what was this globe-trotting, four-rounds-of-golf-a-week multi-millionaire doing in this bums\u2019 hangout? The Friendly Lounge was once even a skanky strip joint, but the down-an-outers here didn\u2019t tip enough, and there wasn\u2019t even a brass pole, so the G-strings were quickly tossed into the trash can, and we haven\u2019t seen any perfunctory or inspirational flashing since. Well, not really. I can\u2019t really remember. Felix<\/a> Giordano, whose family has lived in this neighborhood for three generations, sums up the Friendly Lounge this way in his one Yelp review, \u201cas a reguler, i would appreciate it if all the pbr drinking hipsters would stay the fuck out of this bar.as they have ruined all the other dive bars in this area of south philly for me.thank you for understanding.now fuck off.\u201d<\/p>\n

I live in the Italian Market. My landlord is from Calabria. Two doors from me is probably a Mexican whorehouse, for I see too many anxious young men ducking in there after dark, and occasionally also women who dress like, well, prostitutes, though it\u2019s getting harder to tell these days, for the street walker look has gone mainstream. Ditto, the gangsta aura. It\u2019s no longer surprising to see even a third grader march down the street decked out like a hooker or a gang banger, with drive by shooting and prison stories to relate.<\/p>\n

A block from me, there\u2019s this tiny barber shop that has two haircutters, its Chinese owner plus a Mexican lady who handles Spanish speaking patrons. They split the proceed 60\/40, with less for the house. This sort of flexibility typifies the Third World, where petty regulations and rigid norms, whether commercial or social, are much less common. That\u2019s why poorer countries can appear so chaotic to a more domesticated, more programmed and more properly dressed (according to Gap or Benetton, etc.) visitor. In Saigon, I saw a male pedicab driver wear a female hat, not because he was a cross-dresser or wanted to make a fashion statement, but, most likely, simply because it was handy. His wife probably didn\u2019t need her flowery headwear that day. A while ago, a Vietnamese-born Philly street vendor even made it onto the news for selling panty hoses at his fruit salad stand. Nearly all of his customers were already women, he figured. Hence, panty hoses.<\/p>\n

Soon enough, your neighborhood will resemble mine, for the United States is becoming ever more Third World economically and socially, but this, the Italian Market, is hardly a benchmark. We\u2019ll go further, much further. Outside its richest, gated enclaves protected by armed guards and, surely, combat robots and drones, the US will devolve into a society of rooming houses, day laborers and peddlers, not to mention street urchins and part-time prostitutes. You too will live down the street from a jumpin\u2019 whorehouse. To buy a mess of pig\u2019s knuckles, you too will elbow somebody out of the way. Already, I\u2019ve overheard a neighborhood Italian fart grumble, \u201cShit, this place is becoming like Chihuahua,\u201d but one can retort that it\u2019s not all that different than Naples, really, minus the much better pizza and architecture. The first time I showed up in Napoli, I thought, \u201cGood grief! Was I born here? This place is almost as crazy, dirty and exciting as Saigon!\u201d<\/p>\n

In my neighborhood, you can buy a ten pound bag of chicken wings, a live duck, goat meat, not bad chorizo or a decent hunk of pecorino. Jojo, from Ghana and owner of a variety store, sighs, \u201cI don\u2019t know, I don\u2019t know, it\u2019s getting bad. Where is the money?!\u201d But native-born Molly still chirped, \u201cIt\u2019s OK, I don\u2019t see any difference,\u201d even as she switched from selling used books to health food, then back to yellowing books. People march right by her boxes out front offering free record albums and junk paperbacks. Running past a newly open taqueria, a bunch of junior high kids scream, \u201cUSA! USA!\u201d The Presbyterian church offers services in English, Indonesian and Vietnamese.<\/p>\n

OK, OK, let\u2019s get back to the Friendly Lounge, for I need a beer and a shot. Felix probably composed the above review drunk, lying on the floor, since the Friendly Lounge really is friendly, though perhaps a bit cornered at the moment. Another regular writes, \u201cPlease, God, keep all the hipsters and assorted trendy douche bags away. Let them stay above Carpenter and be happy over there. In your mercy, let the Friendly remain just as it is.\u201d In any case, what was millionaire George doing in there?<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s meet George, then. Though loaded now, George had a modest beginning. Born in China, he was raised in Hong Kong, and came to the US at 19 to attend the University of Iowa, majoring in math and business. Graduating in 1972, he was hired by an insurance company in Des Moines, with a starting salary of $9,000 a year, before taxes. Here\u2019s where George\u2019s story becomes curious, and instructive. Instead of leaving work at 5PM, like all the other new hires, and head to the bar to relax and socialize with them, George routinely stayed until 8PM, to learn more about the business while doing extra work, unpaid. This quickly earned George a reputation as a nerd, dork or even a brown nose, but when the first promotion came six months later, guess who had separated himself from the rest of the pack?<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were all white, you see, so as the only minority of any kind, I had to cover my ass. I couldn\u2019t take any chances.\u201d<\/p>\n

So what we have here is a kind of initiative stoked by anxiety, if not outright fear. This anxiety also led George to become bizarrely frugal, to the point of living outside instead of a $100 a month apartment. He bought a sturdy yet cheap tent and pitched it in the camping area of a public park. He had a hibachi grill to cook hot dogs and an occasional steak. The public bathroom was right there, and as for bathing or doing his bits of laundry, George used the recreational pond late at night or very early in the morning. Three months later, however, George was caught in flagrante by a park ranger, \u201cWhat are you doing with that soap, son?! You\u2019re going to kill my fish!\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, our homeless are also camping on public land and bathing in our creeks, but this was 1972, and George wasn\u2019t homeless, but a fully employed white collar guy, on his way up, yet George wasn\u2019t sure, for he saw himself at the bottom of the totem pole, in the corporate world and society, so he needed to stash away every extra buck. By the time George was 30, however, he had become a general manager, and the only non-white executive in that entire company, and at 35-years-old, he was made vice president.<\/p>\n

George traces his success to being aggressive, though he often says \u201caggression,\u201d as in, \u201cYou need aggression to be successful. No one is going to give you anything. Whatever you\u2019re selling, you need to knock on every door, because no one\u2019s going to knock your door.\u201d Obviously, George doesn\u2019t buy into the better mouse trap proposition.<\/p>\n

George married an Iowa school teacher, later divorced her, but their son, 24-year-old Sam, is now a YouTube singing sensation, with a worldwide audience. This, after graduating Magna Cum Laude from Yale, majoring in classical Greek. Money is also rolling in for Sam. Besides selling songs on iTunes, Sam gets $1,600 per tweet when he mentions certain brands. Finding all social media to be a huge waste of time, I\u2019m not on FaceBook or twitter, but of course no one is paying me a nickel to endorse anything. I don\u2019t even like the concept of advertising, don\u2019t care for networking, so of course my bills are ignored as I sit here tinkering with my stupid mouse trap. I can barely give my words away, which is fine, actually, for these are my own foolish words, not slogans, jingles, jingoism or sales pitches dumped into my (uninsured) mouth by the bossman. I don\u2019t need to shoehorn what I think into any mold, for a \u201cprogressive\u201d cookie cutter, a la Common Dreams or Guardian, is just as deadly as a conservative strait jacket, for they keep you ballin\u2019 on the same weed infested court with its broken backboard and bent hoop. Supporting my verbiage, readers do PayPal me 5, 20, 50 or 100 bucks, and for that I thank them. George would laugh at my small time racket, for in his world view, \u201cMost people are Indians, while some are chiefs. Not everyone can or even want to be a chief.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve found that chief types often talk in clich\u00c3\u00a9s. Take the President of the United States, for example. All of his statements are catch phrases and slogans glued together by clich\u00c3\u00a9s, and since he is also a politician (not to be confused with a statesman, mind you), every breath of his is also a spin, fudge or shameless, transparent lie. Chiefs don\u2019t get ahead through subtle yet well-anchored language, but through relentless aggression and a fierce fixation on their goals.<\/p>\n

George clearly wanted to be a chief, and he has managed to retire at 55, with a swank home in a gated community, plus a spacious Upper East Side condo. His new girlfriend is a Hong Kong executive for Hitachi, \u201cShe\u2019s very smart, maybe even as smart as me, but still very traditional. I told her right from the beginning, I don\u2019t want you to show me up when we\u2019re together. We\u2019re not equal. I don\u2019t want an equal woman.\u201d<\/p>\n

George must be on top, you see, for he\u2019s a chief, though once a week, he\u2019ll hobnob with us Indians at the Friendly Lounge, for this dive bar happens to be near his favorite Oriental supermarket, where he goes to buy not just noodles and bok choy, but pig intestines, chicken feet and all the funkier stuff you won\u2019t find in blue blood Blue Bell. In person, George is genuinely personable and down to earth. It also doesn\u2019t hurt that he buys drinks for just about everyone. \u201cNine out of ten silver spooners are assholes,\u201d he shared. Then, \u201cMy son is not letting his success goes to his head. He still drives the car I bought him, a regular Toyota, and he dresses like a regular kid. He was raised right.\u201d The monomania that has allowed George to succeed does rear itself as self absorption, however. I\u2019m not even sure he remembers my name.<\/p>\n

Now, I\u2019m not telling George\u2019s story as a Horatio Algers allegory, but mostly to point out the weird and even illegal resourcefulness anxious, uncertain or desperate people will resort to, as in driving a gypsy cab, converting a kitchen into a restaurant, a garage into a hair salon, or peddling T-shirts or sodas without a vending license outside a baseball stadium. It can also means bizarre living arrangements. George got weird on this way up, but many of us will get freaky on our way down. In this worsening economy, how many of us are dwelling in storage units, I wonder? Recently, a New Jersey mother was discovered living with her two sons in a 5\u2019 x 10\u2019 unlit unit, and last year in Utah, five 10\u2019 x 10\u2019 units were found to be inhabited, with a three-year-old child in one. Entire families dwelled in these tiny sheds, with some even furnished with a television and microwave oven. They pissed into bottles.<\/p>\n

Most of these stories never make it to the news, but from a self-storage forum, I also found these:<\/p>\n

5\/1\/12\u2013\u201cWhen I first started in storage 4 years ago, I found 1 woman living in her unit. She was immediately given 48 hours to vacate the premises. I spoke with her that day. She had been living in the space for over a year. The nights that she didn\u2019t sleep in the unit, she was sleeping in a porta-potty near her job! She would use the restroom outside our office to wash up as soon as we opened in the mornings. She didn\u2019t have a car to sleep in. She rode around on a bike.\u201d<\/p>\n

5\/3\/12\u2013\u201cWe have had several instances in the past 4 years of people trying to live out of their units [\u2026] We have a rule at our complex that states no tenant can be inside of their unit with their door fully down. Outside doors can be half way down if the weather is bad to prevent wind or rain entering the unit, but by having this rule we can tell people we suspect of sleeping in their unit that they MUST have their door open at all times.\u201d<\/p>\n

10\/7\/12\u2013\u201cMy new assistant told me they thought this guy was living there, but werent sure\/old manager didn\u2019t care [\u2026] I would check the security system and find him walking around the building. I also had an issue with him being in the bathroom for 2-3 hours straight. Finally I confronted him. I brought him a copy of his lease and informed him of the rules he was violating. I was planning on this being a warning, but he threatened to shoot me, so the police were involved and he was promptly evicted.\u201d<\/p>\n

10\/15\/12\u2013\u201cMy wife and I both have had this happen over the 5 years of running self storage facility. It was worse in the Dallas area where they offered electricity lights inside the units. [\u2026] They will always come in after you close and leave before you open. It is necessary not to let them stay on the property. We lock our rest room after hours to discourage this. Also if a unit had a smell of urine around it then someone close by is probably living in a unit there. They seem to not go far from their unit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Think about that for a second, a woman with a job sleeping all night in a porta-potty! First of, it\u2019s safer than lying outside, since she had a door she could lock, and it\u2019s also warmer, but of course, the smell, but stench and squalor are no strangers to those at the very bottom, for the dirtiest works are often their lots. The poor already handle everyone else\u2019s shit. They clean rich people\u2019s unclean areas and sometimes must kiss them. In Savannah<\/a>, an ex prostitute told me about a judge who liked to have his balls meticulously washed by his hired lady. Drunk, we then sang, \u201cI like to have my balls washed, y\u2019all. I like to have my balls washed, y\u2019all.\u201d OK, OK, it\u2019s not that funny, but it was hilarious then.<\/p>\n

To escape the cold, many Americans also sleep in dumpsters. It sounds like an urban legend, but in the last three years, news stories have recorded dumpster sleeping Americans being crushed or run over by garbage trucks in Allentown<\/a>, Fort Worth, San Antonio, Oklahoma City and Terre Haute. In New York, Americans dwell in subway tunnels, and in Las Vegas, in the drainage system.<\/p>\n

We have an unprecedented number of empty houses and apartments, yet more of us are sprawled outside than ever, but this is inevitable since home prices are deliberately pumped up, again, with wages deliberately tamped down. Still, you have to stash all of these old or broken bodies somewhere. In their wisdom and mercy, our ruling classes will soon relax their laws to allow for storage unit apartments and dumpster condos, all made available with an adjustable rate mortgage from your nearest mega bank.<\/p>\n

A future ad: Foreclosed dumpster. Great location behind busy Burger King. Lots of free, half eaten food. Ragged and grizzled neighbors, though not unfriendly. Move in now with only 3% down!<\/p>\n

Another: Slot on time-share bed. Choose from Midnight-8AM, 8AM-4PM or 4PM to midnight. Undiseased applicants only. Bathroom not included.<\/p>\n

George was young and hopeful when he roughed it, but many of our urban campers and squatters have long seen their best days, just like our unmoored nation, destroyed not by foreign terrorists, saboteurs or spies, but methodically imploded from within. It is the 4th of July again. With each birthday, we become sadder, with less vigor or clearsightedness, only an unfocused or misdirected anger. Dread lurks behind each or our grin or drunken laugh. Racked by anxiety, we reassure ourselves that everything on television still looks more or less the same. As our flag turns sinister and becomes a worldwide symbol of violence and hypocrisy, we slap it on our heads, chests, crotches, buttocks and bumpers. Celebrating its permanent coupling with the never silent gun, we drape it on ourselves as if we\u2019re already dead. As the flag gets gigantic, the country itself shrinks to nothing. Lift up that flag, lift it!, and see for yourself what\u2019s left.<\/p>\n

Linh Dinh<\/b><\/em>\u00a0is the author of two books of stories, five of poems, and a novel, Love Like Hate. He\u2019s tracking our deteriorating socialscape through his frequently updated photo blog,\u00a0State of the Union<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Republished with permission from: Counterpunch<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

South Philly\u2019s Friendly Lounge is close enough to my door, I can crawl out of there in a brown out state of mind and still end up on my steps, curled up, if not in bed. The other day I went there to show the bartender, Don, what I had written about Camden, since Don […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-47421","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-breaking-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47421\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}