From the pages of:
The City from Another Universe
by Paul Juser
June 2012
If you're here with me in Binghamton, you may have gotten yourself involved with the flap surrounding the graduating Binghamton University senior who, in a Pipe Dream editorial, gave the city a nasty parting shot on her way out of town. The article circulated Facebook like a flu, with endless rebuttals and insults to let this young lady know we will be watching to make sure she never needs to drive through Binghamton again. I'll admit, I didn't read the full article. I skimmed for highlights, and I do think the piece was better written than she has been given credit. But my initial reaction was disgust. How dare she focus on a nightlife that exists on one single vomit-smeared street while poo-pooing or ignoring everything else the city has to offer? Nearly all of my online friends and acquaintances agreed, and the conversation even found its way into real life. Much of the anger came from her comments about the "creatures north of Main Street." At first, this turned me red as well, but was the comment that also changed my thinking. If I had a nickel for every time I talked about mutants and creatures walking the city streets, I would be able to cover Mayor Ryan's bar tab for a full week.
Have you not seen the shambling examples of misshapen human beings wandering through Downtown? We have our own cowboy, and he's one of the biggest celebrities in town. There have been multiple cross-dressing homeless, and I'm not talking about the bald guy wearing miniskirts and high heels at Flashbacks. Did you know raw sewage used to dump directly into our rivers? That's why you see so many giant carp when you cross the bridges, and any other fish that comes out of the water are covered in open sores.
Our turn-of-century buildings were majestic before absentee landlords in Long Island and New Jersey left them empty to rot for years. Now, most aren't even fit for the homeless colonies hiding within, jacking power illegally off the city grid. Less than five years ago, the building on the corner of the busiest intersection in town collapsed from within, only one block from city hall. When I worked next door, we'd frequently need to warn customers to watch for broken glass tumbling from upper windows as the plants inside shoved their way to freedom. When the building was demolished (shutting down the intersection for months, killing several businesses that recently opened), hundreds of pigeons that had never seen the light of day flooded the city streets. While this was great news for our famous family of peregrine falcons that can be heard screaming atop the Security Mutual building, it meant plenty of new guano for the rest of the bipedal residents. Looking ever-backward, preservation groups fight to keep these buildings standing until that date they can no longer support their own weight and kill a passerby upon collapse.
Endlessly I hear comments about all the things there are to do in Binghamton. Truth is, on any given night, anything not targeted toward children and families involves drinking or shopping. Sometimes the bars will feature an innovative new band, but if the drunk sound guy doesn't make the music sound like crap, the band members will all have formed new bands next week anyway. Every month, First Friday presents a collection of artists that shuffle between the galleries, but the stagnation in new blood has made numbers dwindle each month, and if it wasn't for free Franzia and Yellowtail, First Friday would have faded away years ago. There is a theatre scene, and if you manage to find a show not written by Neil Simon, you will be treated to a collection of lines as the actor remembers them, or even better, as an actor improvises them to cover another actor's flub.
When I was part of the line-flubbing scene, new writers would constantly blame audiences for not understanding the play they saw. No matter how much I stressed it was always the writer's fault and never the audience, new writers would repeatedly blame viewers for not seeing what I could see was not present. One aspiring writer even suggested the audience would need to read the play before watching so they could understand what they saw. I never explored if I should be distributing scripts at the door and allow for a silent reading period, or contact potential viewers the night before. As the play was ultimately a group of actors sitting in a circle reading a play, I deemed 'Hamlet' it was not, and the story never saw the stage.
I've seen this poor BU student slandered with every insult imaginable, and repeatedly told to go back to her home down-state. Is she from Westchester? Long Island? Don't know, don't care. I do agree that the sense of entitlement this girl and many students display is disturbing, and the fact that Binghamton is Long Island's used condom is one of our biggest problems. Does that make this girl wrong in assessing the rest? This is the opinion outsiders have when they pass through town. Is that their fault? When they see a shirtless man buying drugs on a busy downtown street in broad daylight, what are these kids expected to think? How about when they find out he is on city council? We shouldn't be angry for the students that judge us by our actions, we should be angry with the rednecks picking fights behind the anonymity of the Internet, angry at parents feeding Mountain Dew to infants, angry with the politicians with bigger drug problems than even the welfare crowd is accused of. A promise was made to restore the city's pride, and as term limits will soon push that administration out of office, I don't see where that promise was fulfilled. If we are going to be angry about this student's opinions, we should be angry with ourselves because she hit the nail on the head.
Have you not seen the shambling examples of misshapen human beings wandering through Downtown? We have our own cowboy, and he's one of the biggest celebrities in town. There have been multiple cross-dressing homeless, and I'm not talking about the bald guy wearing miniskirts and high heels at Flashbacks. Did you know raw sewage used to dump directly into our rivers? That's why you see so many giant carp when you cross the bridges, and any other fish that comes out of the water are covered in open sores.
Our turn-of-century buildings were majestic before absentee landlords in Long Island and New Jersey left them empty to rot for years. Now, most aren't even fit for the homeless colonies hiding within, jacking power illegally off the city grid. Less than five years ago, the building on the corner of the busiest intersection in town collapsed from within, only one block from city hall. When I worked next door, we'd frequently need to warn customers to watch for broken glass tumbling from upper windows as the plants inside shoved their way to freedom. When the building was demolished (shutting down the intersection for months, killing several businesses that recently opened), hundreds of pigeons that had never seen the light of day flooded the city streets. While this was great news for our famous family of peregrine falcons that can be heard screaming atop the Security Mutual building, it meant plenty of new guano for the rest of the bipedal residents. Looking ever-backward, preservation groups fight to keep these buildings standing until that date they can no longer support their own weight and kill a passerby upon collapse.
Endlessly I hear comments about all the things there are to do in Binghamton. Truth is, on any given night, anything not targeted toward children and families involves drinking or shopping. Sometimes the bars will feature an innovative new band, but if the drunk sound guy doesn't make the music sound like crap, the band members will all have formed new bands next week anyway. Every month, First Friday presents a collection of artists that shuffle between the galleries, but the stagnation in new blood has made numbers dwindle each month, and if it wasn't for free Franzia and Yellowtail, First Friday would have faded away years ago. There is a theatre scene, and if you manage to find a show not written by Neil Simon, you will be treated to a collection of lines as the actor remembers them, or even better, as an actor improvises them to cover another actor's flub.
When I was part of the line-flubbing scene, new writers would constantly blame audiences for not understanding the play they saw. No matter how much I stressed it was always the writer's fault and never the audience, new writers would repeatedly blame viewers for not seeing what I could see was not present. One aspiring writer even suggested the audience would need to read the play before watching so they could understand what they saw. I never explored if I should be distributing scripts at the door and allow for a silent reading period, or contact potential viewers the night before. As the play was ultimately a group of actors sitting in a circle reading a play, I deemed 'Hamlet' it was not, and the story never saw the stage.
I've seen this poor BU student slandered with every insult imaginable, and repeatedly told to go back to her home down-state. Is she from Westchester? Long Island? Don't know, don't care. I do agree that the sense of entitlement this girl and many students display is disturbing, and the fact that Binghamton is Long Island's used condom is one of our biggest problems. Does that make this girl wrong in assessing the rest? This is the opinion outsiders have when they pass through town. Is that their fault? When they see a shirtless man buying drugs on a busy downtown street in broad daylight, what are these kids expected to think? How about when they find out he is on city council? We shouldn't be angry for the students that judge us by our actions, we should be angry with the rednecks picking fights behind the anonymity of the Internet, angry at parents feeding Mountain Dew to infants, angry with the politicians with bigger drug problems than even the welfare crowd is accused of. A promise was made to restore the city's pride, and as term limits will soon push that administration out of office, I don't see where that promise was fulfilled. If we are going to be angry about this student's opinions, we should be angry with ourselves because she hit the nail on the head.
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