But, having been in Baltimore for a while now, and having been treated so well by this city, I just had to let all those wonderful Ravens fans know how I feel.
Even though most of the people in this city are very ill-read and thus have no idea why the team is called The Ravens, this game is a huge damn deal for the residents of Bawlmer. Yes, it's even bigger than the annual Cigarette Appreciation Day Parade. Everyone smokes here, and no-one seems to have seen a computer -- ever. It's 1969 all over again, except without hippies. Walk into any of these row houses and you'll probably see an old CRT teevee with rabbit ears. Look! Cronkite's still doing the news!
Getting used to the snow was easy. What I can't get used to is the total lack of ambition. There's nothing wrong with making nine bucks an hour, but these people simply cannot visualize any goal greater than making ten or eleven bucks an hour. No-one is making apps. No-one asks you to read his screenplay. How weird is that?
And yet I'm starting to acclimate to these uncivilized surroundings. The locals (or "the fauna" as we call them) now recognize me as that scary guy you should never, ever talk to. At last, we understand each other.
16 comments:
When the people of Baltimore see the words "laissez faire," they think it's a place where you get cotton candy and deep-fried Snickers bars.
-- Ms. Vandal
How much 'ambition' is there in Watts or other poor areas of LA?
More than there is here. I taught art in Watts briefly. Several of the students formed the ambition to kill me.
The Bible is quite explicit on the sinfulness of ambition.
We call rugby "egg chasing". Feel free to appropriate this term for American "Football".
Read a screen play, huh?
Why did that remind me of Get Shorty?
Any way, the Pope of Trash called Bawlmer home so it can't be as devoid of talent as you think.
That movie concerned a Super Bowl nuclear bomb attack, which I'll assume isn't art presaging life if only because Ben Affleck was the worst Jack Ryan of the three (imho).
I hope even the discovery of a lack of ambition in those people there doesn't warrant getting '[their] hair mussed up' in such fashion as shown. Not to mention the impact would extend to the MLBB Baltimore Orioles as well, oh noes!
XI
Mike, as I may have mentioned before (and surely will again), back home in L.A., everyone -- EVERYONE -- wants to write screenplays. The guy who came to my home to fix the water heater asked me to read his script.
That happened TWICE.
Not joking!
Joseph;
Will you read my script?
Ben
Aw, thanks Ben. Almost like being back home.
Get used to the....snow?? I'm sorry, how does this post end? I was laughing so hard I teared up. The snow dusting here you can sweep off the stoop. Try living in Boston, where you spend hours struggling to pile the snow up over your head to have barely enough room to walk one's hell hound through the narrow icy tunnel.
John Waters, one of our nation's greatest talents, never needed no stinkin' scripts. He just filmed Baltimore raw. Pecker is flawless.
Wish me luck (I'll need it)...I have an interview at an arts-curriculum charter school this week. :) There are people trying to instill ambition in Baltimore's kids.
The game was awesome... even if I did watch it a safe distance from the city!
Zee, I wish you luck on the interview. And...seriously...is there ANOTHER position open there? One that my ladyfriend with an art history degree might be able fulfill?
She is now working in a position unrelated to her passion and very much beneath her talents. If you can help, I'll...hell, I promise to write a whole column filled with nothing but nice things about Baltimore.
In defense of the poor, if no one you've ever known has made more than $9/hr, well $11/12 IS a dream job.
As far as the not knowing why they're team is the Ravens, FOX(TV not News) has a new show called The Following that is all about this serial killer who worships Poe.
And the way the show continues to over explain Poe references is bugging the shit out of my partner, The not-very-well-read Sailor. I have to keep reminding him, not everyone knows all about Poe, so yeah you have to explain "Nevermore".
I, a resident of Lou-Uh-Vul, KY, have to continually explain to my fellow residents the real reason why Muhammad Ali threw his Olympic medals of our 2nd Street bridge is not because he hates America, but because after he won those medals he was denied service at a restaurant in HIS OWN HOMETOWN.
lol, Joseph, check for email.
Baltimore sounds a lot like my experience of Chicago, where any ambition was associated with a belief that the ambitious one thought he was better than everybody else.
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