Remember inhaling those chalk candy cigarettes? We pretended that we were grown, I would cross my legs and grab my grandfather’s florsheim wing tips. For added pretense I would get his hat and pretend puff that candy cigarette.
I had grown conversations repeating what I may have overheard grown folks say. I could mimic the cadence of adults, but we could barely keep a straight face. We would draw on the smudge mustache and make a deep voice. None of it was real, but because we all pretended with each other… It became real.
Welcome to Portsmouth Virginia, a city of 95,000 souls where at last count less than (50) principal actors are parading in oversized grown folks clothes as if the “entire city” is having a real conversation. They are play walking in my grandfather’s wingtips.
A disproportionate amount of the actors are on location and in pretend sets located in what could be “Burbank Studio in the fifties. Im entertained by satire. I always have been a fan of dry sarcasm, obscure witticisms and jeopardy champions.
Our Burbanks Studio is Olde Towne. Our (50) Principal actors are like civil war reenactors. Perhaps they are talking lessons from our 1# sponsored actor Colonel Crawford himself?
I think my Olde Towne clique are naturals they way they absorb almost all the light from the entire City and the way they pose and position themselves at star-like angles to get the best shot …
Olde Towne has gotten the best shot at almost everything. Almost every new idea is somehow co-opted and almost every new energy person is suddenly “embraced” until Olde Town has eaten them and their idea/energy with its Olde love.
It’s almost feudal how desperate the “new initiates” are to be recognized by the Olde Towne circuit trainers. As much disdain as Olde Towne has for the Pastors who run the African American community , I find the parallels between Olde Townes elite centralization of power and the Pastors -too good of a comparison to pass up.
I won’t make any friends writing this, but at the height of my so called friendships with “Olde Towners” not one actually legislated for any issue regarding my community. I think I got a couple of “likes”. For three and one half years I covered every single Olde Towne event, took thousands of picture,wrote a story and promoted it in IGUIP. I basically ran a marketing company with Olde Towne as 1# client for free.
I found out the hard way- that giving of myself did not necessitate that the Olde Towne clique advocate for my community issues in return. I discontinued the service in 2014 and to my surprise the Olde Towne clique decided that it would no longer support me after all of the effort and energy I had given it.
Oh, sure they are good for hot dogs, turkeys and guest appearances at ghetto charity events, but these appearances are as self serving and useful photo -ops to them, as their presence was to me.
No surprise there- it’s politics. I am after (5) years a-politic unabashed jaded and insensitive of any ones “agenda” at this point other than my own community. I think by fallout can be characterized by four words: PRHA. The PAC the politicians and the dummies support its wholesale (75) year destruction of African Americans. The confederate monument issue showed me a level of ADVOCACY for an inanimate object that I cant get Olde Towners to feel about black dead children 5 minutes away. We used to support each others causes – There used to be true liberals. Once upon a time.
In other words fuck Olde Towne. In the most friendly and non-confrontational fucks – this may just be the lazy spooning 2 am fuck, but not the make up sex sweat stroke fuck. I’m not that passionate about this fuck. I still love dozens of the people “individually” but not as a clique collectively. I totally believe that they together are incapable of recognizing or rectifying the many mistakes that has Olde Towne diminished to a shell of what it was or could be.
Literally I just don’t care about the who, what, where, how and when of the past. (5) years have passed and not (1) of my Olde Towne clique has ever called me to arrange a meeting about how they could help me “LEGISLATE” “ADVOCATE” and accomplish something I was passionate about. There is a selfishness – a center mass of Olde Towne that this article aims for now.
There are no Teddy Bears on poles in Olde Towne. It may as well be the Hollywood walk of Fame as far removed, protected and insulated as it has grown. It is beautiful. It may as well be annexed by Norfolk for all the resources we have squandered to make it transcend its natural boundaries.
I’m on my (7th) outside civic engineer firm/city planner PDF for Olde Towne. (7th) I have read. I think there has been 200k paid in PDF plans drafted by civic engineers hired to boost us with new ideas. Im counting 10 million in Sports Hall of fame subsidies. A million paid out to the lawsuit for the Church. The actual cash list of blunders and proposals that flopped is so massive that I wrote an article saying that we could have built an “aircraft carrier” with the money invested into Olde Towne with no ROI.Olde Towne is a money -pit and a sinkhole for revenue.
I remember when my first article dropped about Marketing, food trucks, Murals, the Arts district and the People of Portsmouth PAC. Yes, I wrote the first articles on all (5) of these topics to raise awareness in my attempt to advocate for these issues and initiatives. The wonderful world wide web proves this irrefutably.
I was ignored publicly, but writers influence. It’s like Olde Towne has to put its own face on issues to push them. That face no matter how beyond the curve I have been has never been my face- nor should it have been. Im at this point looking back and feeling kind of stupid for giving so much effort to “Olde Towne” and getting no recognition or support in return. Coincidentally, I lived in Olde Towne for (6) years.
It’s not racial or a “black thing” – it’s more of a co-op thing. I think Olde Towners want the credit or prestige for basics things that are not even groundbreaking. Anything that seems to be “breaking” Olde Towners swoop in and create their own “Arts Council” or their own PAC. Yes Olde Towne “OWNs” The People for Portsmouth PAC and the centralization of the PAC and the centralization of the core issues the PAC advocates for has no choice , but to revolve around Olde Towne- which segues into the rest of this articles funnybone.
Portsmouth has become , (to me) the satirical capital of Virginia in full bloom. Our follies and our (2016) supporting cast’s shortcomings would be hilarious except for the teddy bears on poles. Those faded dirty ruffled bears on poles with the dead glass eyes are strapped upright, but seem to slump with the two fuzzy arms limply holding on to the strap like we are holding on to the memory of the decedent.
Other than the numerous grim reminders of the doubling of murder victims in (2015) I’m ecstatic actually -” what a time to be alive” ( sarcasm). These Teddy bears are silent sentinels scattered around sections the City’s most troubled areas could be a crime tour designation markers. Like the blue signs with the arrows we see directing our dwindling tourist to destinations.
Have you ever seen a movie set where everything looks so realistic and then the actor walks through a curtain and appears on the next movie set while stripping their wardrobe to reveal new period clothing that matches the new set?
The actors speak the lines as if they have transcended time while giving you a glimpse of the gaffers and camera make-up crew. This is today’s political climate that seems perversely centered in Olde Towne. I cant help but see everyone in pilgrim attire when they speak.Everything is exaggerated and everyone seems concerned with Police budgets without the same concern for the vicious cycle on repeat in Southside.
The actors – all are now “tough on crime” because it is politically correct. It’s all so ironic and pretend to me. I cant find one PAC member or one Council member -or one City official who has stood by us – as I asked for job programs this summer. I see people whose deep values and tastes are anti – progressive and mimic republican dispassion for my community. These satirist are strangely reminiscent of Republicans who cut safe nets then point to crime and the need for bigger Police budgets. In our case – There is actually no conversation for the issues I hold dear.
Maybe I am the satirist in this article exposing the problems and the contradictions in who is dominating the conversation. I often ham it up. I like to clown for a cause. I’m not a fan of the “black hole” Olde Towne becomes for people who want to be recognized. It sucks in- its pull of gravity is hard to resist but it costs you your very identity. Many people who get absorbed by Olde Towne forget who they were before and what their own issues were. Im looking at pictures of people smiling being accepted inside of the jaws of a selfish monster.
The evolution of Olde Towne from a drunken fisticuff Navy bar crawl and military socialite setting – the disenfranchisement of black merchants in the 1980’s the grand plans and reckless spending of the late nineties and the collapse of real estate and the failing of the Ntelos and Renaissance to produce the feet on the street rhetoric that dominated the early 2000’s is now replaced with a desperation to control the political landscape to the detriment of the rest of the entire City.
Olde Townes clique shouldn’t have a disproportionate voice in a PAC over Churchland, Port Norfolk Cradock Mount Hermon Simonsdale or any other part of the City. Yet with this election we have already seen a conglomerate of voices who revolve in and seek approval of Olde Towne only.
It’s like every bad storyline and gag is being recreated by these (50) actors recreating the big hollywood fight in the last scene of Mel Brooks Blazing Saddles. Have you seen these people brawling on the interwebs recently? Its just May. These people have already broken through the “fourth wall” and I am just the humble scribe telling you what I am seeing on set.
Quiet on the set!!
Alex~
This The magic of behind the scenes is what captivates me. What makes it tick?
giovanni8000 