{"id":642,"date":"2010-04-15T08:31:28","date_gmt":"2010-04-15T13:31:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.greatsociety.org\/?p=642"},"modified":"2018-10-30T17:29:14","modified_gmt":"2018-10-30T21:29:14","slug":"a-reply","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/?p=642","title":{"rendered":"Always Coming Home"},"content":{"rendered":"

I do understand that condemning 8407 on their opening night<\/a> is pretty cruel.\u00a0 Though I don\u2019t think opening night jitters makes up for canned ham sandwiches and bartenders who don\u2019t know how to tend bar, I do understand that one has to be somewhat forgiving.\u00a0 Silver Spring is a growing community, in the process of a wild and vibrant rejuvenation, and at a time in its development where some care must still be taken. And that\u2019s where I have an issue.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I\u2019m probably just blinded because I\u2019ve been to many openings and re-openings in Silver Spring and they were all flawless experiences.\u00a0 I\u2019ve watched this town grow, and I\u2019ve seen it do some things wrong and some things right, and I\u2019ve come to feel when a place is right.\u00a0 When a place has staying power.\u00a0 When a place actually enriches the community in some way.\u00a0 And that\u2019s the key.\u00a0 Catering to Silver Spring\u2019s history \u2013 and it is a rich one \u2013 instead of catering to the warped and, hopefully, temporary fantasyland of the gentrifiers.<\/p>\n

But I\u2019m biased.\u00a0 Don\u2019t even bother commenting.\u00a0 You see, here\u2019s the thing:\u00a0 I hate you.\u00a0 I really do.\u00a0 I go to places like 8407 and I look around and I see you muppets prattling on about your sad lives and it makes me want to vomit. Your clueless, saccharine faces barely hide the misguided evil of your white-bread, sanitized world.<\/p>\n

I know what you are. You\u2019re the enablers of darkness.\u00a0 You\u2019re the shadow on the wall that whispers to would-be dictators, you\u2019re the destroyer of worlds. You reshape towns into your sad image.<\/p>\n

A few comments have asked why I still live in Silver Spring if I have so much hatred for the place.\u00a0 They\u2019ve missed the point.\u00a0 I\u2019m here because it\u2019s my hometown. And it\u2019s my family\u2019s hometown.\u00a0 And we\u2019ve lived and died here.\u00a0 We\u2019ve made and lost fortunes here, we\u2019ve struggled and loved here.\u00a0 We\u2019ve broken bones and scraped knees and drunkenly cavorted down these streets.\u00a0 I bought my first record at Roadhouse Oldies, my first comic at Geppi\u2019s.\u00a0 Three generations of my family have drunk themselves silly at the Quarry House. I love this town.\u00a0 It\u2019s home.\u00a0 Do I not have a right to defend my home against invaders?<\/p>\n

I define gentrification as a slow, relentless economic war against a town\u2019s culture.\u00a0 Racism and classism given license under the guise of development, renewal, and sometimes nostalgia.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t want Silver Spring to become Bethesda.\u00a0 The old buildings erased to make way for high rise condos, pretentious bars and restaurants, chain stores\u2026soullessness as the giant Apple logo glows down artificial outdoor plazas.\u00a0\u00a0 I don\u2019t want Silver Spring to go the way of Wheaton, squeezing out the old and the weird in favor of the illusion of safety and renewal.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t pine for the crime and empty lots and deserted buildings of old Silver Spring.\u00a0 I don\u2019t ask for it to return to the train town heyday. I just simply want the renewal to embrace the town\u2019s history and culture. To be aware of it.\u00a0 Again, praise for Jackie Greenbaum, who preserved the Quarry House<\/a>, who understands what the town needs with her new Sidebar<\/a>. We can all be mindless yuppies if we want to be, and I don\u2019t really hate \u201ctransplants,\u201d but let\u2019s, at least, be classy about it. For the love of god, let\u2019s be weird.\u00a0 Let\u2019s enjoy ourselves.\u00a0 Let\u2019s love what used to be a strange little town.<\/p>\n

Silver Spring is changing. Change is unavoidable.\u00a0 We all know the roadmap for the grand plan to rejuvenate the community.\u00a0 And we all know what direction that\u2019s going to take in the days ahead when the transit center is complete and the radius of dramatic change will inch even further out.<\/p>\n

And anyone who has lived in Silver Spring for more than a decade should see this, and should understand the right way to do things, and we all should rally.\u00a0 We need to rally, to organize, to speak for the town.\u00a0 Our historical society is led by lunatics and armchair conservatives. They spend years working on a \u201cheritage trail\u201d and do little to preserve the heritage. Compared to the active and occasionally militant historical societies in the surrounding suburban towns, the Silver Spring Historical Society is a laughable straw man, wildly out of touch with what the town could and should be.<\/p>\n

The revolt against the empty people must begin with what remains of the true Silver Spring community.<\/p>\n

And, so, I will condemn places like 8407.\u00a0 I will continue to do so.\u00a0 And, if you care about this town, you will too. If you want a night out, take your money to Jackie\u2019s Sidebar.\u00a0 Take it right around the block to Piratz Tavern<\/a>, to the Quarry House, or even to McGinty\u2019s<\/a> on the dreaded Ellsworth strip. Go and explore the weirdness of the Golden Flame<\/a> bar on Fenton. Go to the Lotus Caf\u00e9<\/a> in South Silver Spring, built on the ashes of the old My Le. A fantastic happy hour, a great bar, and an outdoor patio to die for.<\/p>\n

These are places that have been created with Silver Spring\u2019s uniqueness in mind, or have somehow managed to survive through the decades thanks largely to that tradition. We are not a town of wine bars. We are not Gallery Restaurant (and my heart soared to see them go out of business).\u00a0 We are not the chain stores of Ellsworth.\u00a0 They can surround us with new high-rises, they can inundate us with the traffic of the transit center, they can squeeze an endless parade of snooty fucks into cramp, overpriced condos. But they cannot, and they will not, steal our souls.\u00a0 We have a responsibility.<\/p>\n

And if you don\u2019t feel that way\u2026then why are you still in this town? If you want to create the sad new world that I\u2019m railing against, or the safe and saccharine way of life, then I suggest you investigate Gaithersburg, or Kensington, or Bethesda. Wheaton\u2019s sure to be something in a decade or so \u2013 talk about not having any sort of moral center. Maybe that\u2019s the town for you in the near future. Or all those lovely townhomes and condos they\u2019ve poured into Forest Glen in what I can only describe as a wild experiment in horror?<\/p>\n

But, of course, I\u2019m being just as bad as you when I say things like that.\u00a0 Instead, I\u2019ll welcome you fucks. Come and drink with me in those more human establishments. Let\u2019s crawl up and down Georgia Avenue together. Let\u2019s explore these streets and see what once was, and what could be. Let\u2019s love this town like the strange and bizarre mistress it is \u2013 love it on its own terms.<\/p>\n

I believe that you can wake up from your demented dreams.<\/p>\n

And if you don\u2019t, then I\u2019ll take your eyes.<\/p>\n

(I’ve sort of been keeping track of Silver Spring’s slow demise and the Death of Wheaton in the forums. Follow this link.<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I do understand that condemning 8407 on their opening night is pretty cruel.\u00a0 Though I don\u2019t think opening night jitters makes up for canned ham sandwiches and bartenders who don\u2019t know how to tend bar, I do understand that one …<\/p>\n

Always Coming Home<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[72,74,75,73],"class_list":["post-642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-meanwhile-in-silver-spring","tag-72","tag-bars","tag-drinking","tag-silver-spring"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}