By
Jay Fox
Brooklyn,
NY, USA
One of the great problems that
arises when writing in chaotic times is that what you write quickly becomes
dated and irrelevant, especially if what you are writing tries to be topical
and of the moment. As I write this, Hurricane Irma is moving out of Florida
and
beginning to bring floods to southern Appalachia; Steve Bannon's face is all
over the media because of his recent interview with 60 Minutes; and new
sanctions are being levied against North Korea by the United Nations for the
hermit kingdom's reluctance to submit to a global paradigm wherein only the
most powerful and (it is reasoned) responsible nations are allowed to have
nuclear weapons. Meanwhile, in Washington, there is an odd detente between
Congressional Democrats and the White House, and some news outlets are starting
to think that maybe the Trump administration is going to try to get its act
together to achieve a legislative victory that both is bipartisan and doesn't
fail spectacularly from being overly severe or ambitious.
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| Jay Fox |
By the end of the week, any
commentary on any of these subjects will be old news. Or boring. Something else
will have happened to send the media into another frenzied cycle wherein the
word “bombshell” is thrown around more than in a war zone, and the bombshells
of today will be considered no more useful than spent casings. John Oliver will
likely make a joke on his Sunday show about how long ago the previous Monday or
Tuesday feels because, holy shit, these other fifteen things happened in the
interim. (Oh yeah, and Ted Cruz had to live through every 13-year-old boy’s
worst nightmare. The entire world just caught him jerking off.)
Events happen in such rapid
succession that even Hurricane Harvey, which will possibly go down as the
costliest natural disaster in the history of the United States, already feels
like a distant memory even though it was still ravaging Texas two weeks ago.
News of the horrific massacre at the Ariana Grande concert in Manchester,
meanwhile, feels like it belongs in a history book.
Because I don't know when this will
be published, I can't write about things that will be tied to the news of
today. I have to focus on a larger trend.
This is actually a good thing.
Becoming overly focused on individual events can lead one to inflate the
importance of some while undermining the severity or significance of others. It
can also pervert one's view of what is actually happening. For example, a crime
reporter who has to write about the terrible things that happen in this city on
a daily basis may begin to assume that the city is a festering cesspool of
criminality, and that things are not getting any better. This type of thing
seems to happen with police officers, too. If you inform them that the
statistics tell a very different story, your position is dismissed as being
foolishly roseate. Clearly, they reason, there is some manipulation of the data
because their experience tells them that crime is rampant.
Unfortunately, this type of myopia
and conspiratorial thinking is becoming increasingly common beyond the realm of
law enforcement and crime reporting. There is a belief that society is breaking
down because each and every day there is yet another story about something
terrible happening, and those who are intently focused on all of these
individual events begin to fall into a state of permanent indignation or
anxiety or fear. Blame social media, blame the shortening of the news cycle,
blame the president. It doesn't matter. It is all commodified outrage.
This is not to say that these
emotions are necessarily either ersatz or feigned. However, it is true that
stories that evoke these emotions are being turned into commodities measured by
clicks and views, which are the metrics used when websites sell advertising.
Because stories that cause outrage and indignation among readers generate more
clicks and views than wonky or unbiased reporting, they have become the prominent
means of conveying information on the web. As the web is the primary means
through which many people get their information, these titillating pieces are
the source materials that define the opinions of many Americans. Furthermore,
it explains why most opinions that people share on Facebook or Twitter read
more like “Page 6” and less like the Foreign Affairs.
If one thinks of the media as a
Darwinian system, one wherein information is equivalent to genetic material,
this need to make everything explosive and shocking and immediate is entirely
rational. The more provocative a piece of information is, the more likely it
will be given attention, which will increase its chances of being passed on
(shared, retweeted, etc.) to another consumer of news. There's good reason to
describe such pieces of media as viral.
It goes beyond national politics
and international espionage, too. In fact, one of the most viral subjects of
all is gentrification. Virtually every day there is some story about it that
receives national attention, whether it's Bodega, a startup that hopes to
provide people with a sterile vision of the bodega in the form of a glorified
vending machine, or Summerhill, a bar in a gentrifying neighborhood that
thought it'd be fun to put fake bullet holes in the walls and sell bottles of
40 oz. Rose in paper bags.
While both ideas are stupid and
misguided, the latter one seems particularly appropriate for this era. This is
because it is trying to accomplish something that is common with a lot of bars
and restaurants and other brick-and-mortar establishments that have recently
sprung up, and it's this: It seeks to provide an experience. It has converted a
gimmick into a component of its brand identity. Unfortunately for the owner,
this brand identity is now associated with cultural appropriation, racial
insensitivity, and just all-around douchebaggery.
Regardless, I’ve always found this odd
when bars try to do this. Bars are not supposed to offer predetermined
“experiences”; they are platforms for experiences either with your friends or
strangers who you meet there. The bar is supposed to be a public space (hence
the reason so many are called public houses or pubs), one that allows patrons
the freedom to dictate their own experiences. In a way, this is one of the
things that pisses so many people off about gentrification: It is limiting. It
is exclusive. It tries to smooth over the bumps and edges that make life
interesting in the name of brand management.
To me, a bar may signal that
gentrification is taking place if it suddenly appears in a neighborhood where
people are being displaced, but if it seeks to provide inclusive space to the
community, then it’s a benefit to the community. In other words, a snooty wine
bar or a cocktail lounge where drinks start at $14 and beers at $9 is prohibitively
expensive and, therefore, exclusive. A bar that sells good beer, but also has
cheap options, is more inclusive. If there's also a space where people from the
neighborhood can come for events, including everything from playtime for kids
and babies to rock shows, so much the better.
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| The Footlight |
One such bar is Queen's The
Footlight (465 Seneca Avenue, Ridgewood). On top of having a good selection
of tap beers, cocktails that are moderately priced, community events, and,
every once in a while, a guy who sells food from a table in the corner,
Footlight is also becoming one of the city's best venues for smaller acts. The
stage is large enough so that you’re not tripping over your bandmates, the
people running the soundboard actually give a shit about how everyone sounds,
and the booking agent for the venue gets some great bands to play. Chances are
you’ve never heard of any of them, but you won’t be disappointed.
Either way, the reason that I’ve
liked playing there with my band High Pony is not just because of the drinks or
the sound quality. The reason I’ve always enjoyed Footlight is because the
owner doesn’t rely on gimmicks or bullshit marketing or brand identity; she
just opened a space and tried to do things to attract good-natured people. There
are no pretentions about it. It is a bar. It has a stage.
While it may be a new bar, one that
evinces that gentrification is happening in Ridgewood, it doesn’t impose itself
on the neighborhood. Rather, it seems like it has tried to work its way into
the fabric of the community by staging events for all kinds of people and
serving drinks that pretty much anyone can afford.
The only thing that I don’t like
about it is that it’s next to impossible to get there from where I live.
