After the jump, David Chadwick of Golden Ball learns in words and pictures that you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.

a week ago was also tuesday, a postulate i can no longer prove, but let it go for now - because it was at melange, a party that only wants to prove that when enough truly wicked people are pressed up against each other, they can find the beat in anything - i have a particular fondness for extricating myself from a sticky sticky spot, and i was coming down quite gently, walls breathing in threes with a hint of ginger, discussing in earnest with manders his master plan, which mostly revolved around recording mark e smith reading the dictionary for unlimited posthumus sampling potential - we both agreed this was a supremely worthy endeavor, and had wound ourselves towards that particular koan upon which we contemplate the sound that cannot be manipulated in pro tools - but it was all prelude to a sartorial sweeney moment of hitting me up for a high life - and disoriented as i had become in wondering how many more i owed him (quantifying is an underrated hazzard) errors in judgment rapidly approached the inevitable

east kensington monday 4:45am - dauphin street (god i love saying doh-feh to the locals) rolls out its long hot august tongue, and i find myself in a scene of decadent repose of roman proportions - thirty-some-odd freshly minted hipsters unconscious in various states of undress, strewn about the asian rugs and pillows of the grand salon of one jeffrey carpineta, avant garde artist and curator, investor and agent, purveyor of such tawdry and transient thrills as equity growth and urban renewal - and there was the man himself, resting peacefully in his high-backed armchair, head nodded slightly to one side, fingers wrapped tightly around two dozen agreements of sale - these signing parties will surely begin attracting the wrong kinds of attention soon - we could probably start the kensington cosi grand opening date pool now - october, 2028 looks like a good bet

he looked so peaceful, but i was now a journalist and as such was supremely entitled to his information - “jeffrey, i need you to tell me whether i still live in kensington or not” - this elicited no movement and so i quickly resorted to red herring (because that’s always more fun) - “um… my wife and i are looking for something in the low $300’s” - i thought i saw some eye movement, and i could definitely tells he was breathing now - “but why would anyone want to live near the blight of the el?”

he uncoiled from his throne in an instant and was on me like a bear - pinning me to the floor amongst the first-time buyers, hands squeezing my neck, howling the words into the predawn stillness as the darkness swallowed me - “the el is the wellspring of the small-business-driven local economy! when all of this neighborhood is bought and sold, the el is where everyone will want to be!” - and thus was i brought the knowledge

it’s a well-established fact in these parts that the houses across frankford from me used to serve as the set of the television show “cops” - each night the actors would stand along the border shouting their hilariously exaggerated dialogue, building towards a ritualized crescendo in which the smallest child would stand in the intersection, arms spread wide, twirling in circles, bellowing his adorable catch phrase “take me back to b block!” - at which point the laugh track would swell and softly crossfade into the credits theme - what’cha gonna do indeed - no one parked their cars on frankford then - now, only a couple of years later, cops mercifully cancelled, and it’s tough to find a spot out front - instead, bellicose, bitter and viscious, the glowering shrews of blair street and their slow children at play stare back at me across a dmz carefully landscaped and maintained by the cdc - they witness daily the deep-pocketed urchins spewing forth from the portal above circle thrift who mirror with such irony the spawning shad that once teemed up the delaware to give lower south kensington its then new name - and sure, the olive schoolbus eventually drops the crustiest ones off at 45th and baltimore, but they know that some stay to work on the whispering campaign - “blair street is in fishtown… the whole triangle between front and frankford and york is fishtown now”

it seems my heresies to the contrary had slipped out too often, and i was summarily bound and gagged and brought before their leader - and there i knelt in rocket cat before emmitt himself, perched gracefully in his high chair, attendants at his side, a swarm of asian tiger mosquitoes floating above their heads - i could learn to say i live in fishtown, i thought - it’s such a small thing really, compared to the loss of one’s thumbs - thankfully the late afternoon heat sneaking its way in the front windows of my house on frankford chose that particular moment to rest me from his evil clutches - lunch at brenda’s always requires sleep afterwards - though it’s really too far to have to walk to get a cooked meal - norris street cafe’s been not quite yet open for as long as i’ve lived here - there’s rumor of a fresh grocer coming to frankford and dauphin -
but bob’s happy hour has been on the market a long long time with no takers, so i’m not holding my breath - i made my way upstairs only to find whimsy had posted a clue for me - “be the cheesesteak danny, neh-neh-neh-neh-neh-neh-neh-neh-neh” - ah whimsy you wonderful fop! always taking the heart of the matter and serving it tartar on a chilled plate with half a braised pear and a glass of port - yes, whimsy, ich bin eine cheesesteak - swallowed in noisy gulps by this city of self-fulfilling prophets, full on cheesesteaks, full on themselves and their power to rename themselves fishtonians

premise reality as an amalgam of perspectives, perspective a projection of belief, belief an oft-repeated thought, thought a series of words/triggers sprung reflexively from desires and fears, ergo to call this place fishtown is to relive that twentieth century panic - when the panic came over fishtown they abandoned frankford avenue, but the boundary remained, and the word kensington became the trigger for remembering the trauma of that panic, until the place kensington embodied that fear - thankfully words continue apace on their deconstructive wheels, and kensington is a fairly sweet-sounding name

there are few things in this city right now more inspiring than the frankford arts corridor plan - trenton street a tree-lined promenade of cafes and galleries? - yeah, okay i’m down with that - developing the land between the wall at the bottom of trenton and the back of the berks el station that can only be accurately described as “rape field”? - sounds pretty good to me - and yeah, the plan does nothing about the fact that so much land is still zoned g2, which means it can be used for just about anything short of nuclear power production - so perhaps it is just a nice thought that aspires to prophecy - who knows which way that fried onion-laced wind will blow? - but as jeffrey muttered between with sideways-glancing musings on the state of the eyesores littering scores of cars along trenton and weilding hidden muscle too dangerous to confront, “i’ll tell you one thing - when the casinos come, i’ll rather be in kenzo”

…

david chadwick says he lives in fishtown, but he really lives in kensington
Myspace: David Chadwick
Myspace: Golden Ball

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 22nd, 2006 at 12:18 pm.