Seeking A More Authentic New York? Try Brooklyn

There's a stock market doohickey that came with my iPhone; you click it, and have instant access to incomprehensible statistics. It came with the thing, along with a calendar and a web browser, and as such, can't be deleted. I've been using my iPhone mostly to read Moby Dick -- which cost me 99 cents and is deletable -- and I was mildly offended that Apple now considers it a no-brainer that I would want to check my stocks every two minutes, as I do my email, while waiting for the train. I loathe the market-statistic culture -- it's like hanging out with a guy obsessed with baseball stats who's done a lot of coke -- except this guy makes me feel bad about myself for not being a math Jedi, and bitterly resent him for always getting to fly business class.

In the past couple weeks, though, the stock doohickey has come in handy. I'm working on a record, and between takes I've been checking the market and gleefully reporting to my cello player the current status of its down-the-drain-ness. That's right, gleefully. I'm one of those New York artist people that fervently hopes, in spite of myself, that an economic catastrophe will bring an inversion of Travis Bickle's rain -- a cleansing tsunami that will wipe all the money and the hedge funders from the streets of this city, which I came to at a time when all the girls you met in bars wanted to be Debbie Harry, not Carrie Bradshaw. We fools actually believe that widespread financial doom will magically reset the clock to 1990, Basquiat will rise from the grave, and we can all triumphantly return to cheap space in Williamsburg.

I'm not one of those guys that pines for the charms of a Times Square rife with porn and crime. The internet may have killed the porn palace, but as yet, to my knowledge, you can't buy rock cocaine on eBay, and thus, if you seek grit and squalor, it's still out here somewhere, you may just have to take a different subway. I really am no longer suited for the edgy, paranoid city of my youth -- my paranoia enhanced by the drugs I was taking, in which I'm unlikely to be indulging again, even if that laundromat on 7th St, or the guys on the stoops on 10th St resume their avocations. I mean, despite my glee, my heart hopes for Bloomberg's third term, on account of his promise to build bike paths.

It dismays me to hear other artists entertain this delusion that a recession will restore their scary city, and by extension make them 19 again. The meaning of avant-garde is the vanguard -- we're supposed to be blazing a trail. To me this means embracing change, for better or for worse.

Still, if I can calm my desire to seek revenge on the moneyed crowd blowing us out of our old neighborhoods, I am nonetheless left with a desire for a just correction. Maybe a little Schadenfreude for people that bought million dollar lofts in Bushwick, for crying out loud, but mostly a hope that the young artists eager to join our energy are able to. I now live pretty far out in Brooklyn, where there's nothing to do but walk in the park and eat jerk chicken, but that's my vibe anyway. I see young artists here and there moving in, and I really hope that if they put up a new Williamsburg out here, it won't just be cleaning up a little for the office commuters to come.

Maybe, with a little forced sobriety in our economy, this dream of a mixed-race neighborhood that could at once be an artists' enclave and a reliably cheap place for New York's minority working class could be realized. Gentrification, contrary to appearances, is not an eternal force -- it didn't exist before the 70s. Also contrary to appearances, there isn't a bottomless barrel of recent MBAs who want parquet floors and wine bars. Artists, take heart; we may never get downtown back. But there's a whole lot of Brooklyn left.

Comments

[randomness1]

Remember Mike, those office commuters are the ones who allow you to be a fed artist! Who do you think is going to your shows and buying your musak?

Just because we work for the man and can afford expensive real estate doesnt make us bad people.

;-)

[quids]

Yes, it does make you bad people. Your comment is offensive, and you, yourself, are too sterile to understand the concept of someone wanting a break from ca$h-in-hand urban ecology, in order to give people who have priorities other than money, a place to flourish.

[Snarf]

The rubber on the bubble can only take so much trouble. In Chicago there are few benches and many opportunists. There are houses in my neighborhood for $400,000 who has that money? I don't know but it aint' me honey.

[gilliang]

i don't know what i enjoy more mr doughty, the stuff you say or the way you say it. so thrilled to see your words in a broader context i just joined huffington post on your account! keep on sharing...your unique expressions of experience, strength and hope are heard, and appreciated.

[rachelbug]

Mike, I am so glad to see an article from you on HuffPo. Please write more! I love hearing your views on various and sundry situations.

Also, keep on keepin' on with that new album. I eagerly await its release!

[Weiwuwei]

My brother-in-law would agree with you about Brooklyn, but I think he'd rather all forms of cocaine be available via Ebay. Myself, I'm just satisfied if there's still a White Castle for me to partake in when I go for a visit.

[yourmisfortune]

Mike, your view on the world around you is fascinating. You have such a talent for making people see things exactly the way you intend for them to. I made my first trip to Brooklyn last year, and I was pleasantly surprised by the town itself. I have been there one other time,back in the Spring, and I think the town is very interesting. It is kind of cool to live on the edge of the bustling city. A very excellany read Mike.

[lucky13judy]

absolutely! I see this entire "meltdown" as an opportunity for us to take inventory of our insides. Having just moved out of an overpriced space in a neighborhood full of paranoid neo-hipsters with half milion dollar lofts and into a neighborhood that is cool because it never tried to be, I envy and celebrate Brooklyn (the non parquet ).
I also walk to the park a lot because (hallelujah!) there isn't much else to do.

To embracing simplicity...and the pre- Carrie Bradshaw NYC.

well said brother

[DoItBarefoot]

My friend this article couldn't have come at a better time! I'm an artist/teacher/student and just today signed my lease to move into Clinton Hill! (Shh don't tell my parents it's actually closer to Bed-Stuy) I've been working in Brooklyn for a few years now and am finally submitting to it's charms.

[drjane33]

Schadenfreude is my favorite when we're talking people who breathe and bleed dollars. I made my first trip to Brooklyn in October 2007. I was pleasantly surprised by the atmosphere. I kinda like being on the outskirts of things anyway.

[LordBuckley]

i also understand the "desire for a just correction" but unfortunately, all the good things we value stem from the money, to some degree or another - if only in the sense that you're living in a world with a decimated health system, plagued by, well, the Plague, when you're crawling through the mud, scrabbling for scraps of food you don't have much time to listen to the music, or read the book, etc. See the Dark Ages.

let's hope for those with money and power, get a stiff smack to the back of the head and a little humility.

[snapppy]

mike doughty, good to see that you're still writing publicly.
what i like about you is that every time i read something you've published, i need to break out my miriamwebster and find out what you mean by something like travis bickle's rain and schadenfreude. and i also like that you don't mind if the city fiscally implodes, though when it happens that stock gadet might cease to be entertaining. and ultimately, i can't picture the artists flocking back to the north, mccarren park's got nothing over prospect.

[FASM4]

ya dig!

[kaylouone]

I don't live anywhere near NYC ... but I can still relate to the "desire for a just correction." I'm feeling pretty ripped off by the current state of things, and I'm sure there are plenty of people who feel the same. Well said, Mike Doughty!

[natethreepointoh]

That's why Philly is the place to be right now. Well, if you over look all the murders. But the arts, man. Theatre... music... it's boiling down here and ready pop.