I really wish there was a way to reverse gentrify the Lawrenceville neighborhood of Pittsburgh. Could we make it more shooty/stabby again so as to chase away the drunk white people that are there to party? Or maybe send a few Steelers players over from the South Side to start some bar fights to clear these idiots out?
Years ago, I would venture to Lawrenceville to see shows at Coolpepper's Hot House and without fail there was always some sort of violence nearby that would interrupt the show. It was the kind of rundown neighborhood that was the end result of industry having left the city and the leaders at all levels of government abandoning the neighborhood. Empty storefronts, condemned houses and people that were down on their luck. It was a tough neighborhood but as long as you didn't walk around acting like an asshole looking for trouble, trouble more than likely wouldn't find you. And there was ample parking.
Over the years, the cheap real estate brought in speculators and gentrifiers to turn Lawrenceville into an urban playground for twenty-somethings with disposable income. I knew the gentrification was complete when houses were selling to property management companies for hundreds of thousands of dollars and there was an open-air cornhole court on the corner of Butler St. and Stab-A-MoFo Ave.
Now the neighborhood is packed end to end with overpriced bars and restaurants and there is absolutely nowhere to park because all of the young professionals are out on the town. The sidewalks are overrun with outdoor dining tables and people standing around like lumps trying to figure out where they are in relation to their car service.
I wandered down there for the first time since 2019 to see my friend's band play some Clash songs and to take some pictures while they did it. It didn't dawn on me until way too late in the evening that this show was also the Halloween party for a local radio station so it wasn't going to be the usual crowd that ventures out to a Punk show. These were people looking to party and cut a rug while trying to win a prize by wearing unconventional costumes. These were also people that would have never gone to Lawrenceville without the years of gentrification to make it safe and friendly for them.
Getting into the venue should have been the first clue that it was going to be a rough night. The bouncer at the door gave my bag a more thorough search than any other club I've gone into and wouldn't let me out of his sight until he confirmed with the box office that I was on the list for a photo pass. He wanded me down twice with the metal detector before he let me walk in which was definitely odd. I don't know if I fit some sort of profile in his head or what his issue was but I was somehow registering as a threat for this guy.
When I'm taking pictures most of the time I can dip in and out of a crowd to get my coverage and I'm more concerned about lighting than catching elbows. I was hardly able to navigate around the clusters of drunkards dancing in each others general direction like Elaine on Seinfeld and would get blank stares from people when I tried to step around them. I guess there's some sort of unwritten dance club etiquette that I am not familiar with and could give less than two shits about.
The weirdness went off the charts just before Anti-Flag went on. A guy standing to the far right of the stage decided he no longer wanted to hold onto the contents of his stomach and heaved all over the place. I was on the opposite side of the stage and was well outside of the splash zone so something finally went my way. The staff collected the guy, showed him the door and went into action to clean up his mess.
As the band was about to walk out, I moved up to an empty spot in front of the stage. It was at this point that a stereotypical drunk white girl felt the need to yell at me to not touch her girlfriend. I said I was only there to take pictures and then I'll be out of the way. I always try to figure out what Drunky McDrunkface wants to hear as soon as possible so they'll go away and leave me alone but every so often that doesn't work and this was one of those nights.
She continued to yell that she didn't care what I was doing there and that I shouldn't touch her girlfriend or she was going to hit me. I looked around to see if I could determine who this friend was that she was referring to but there was no one there. I guess that I may have been occupying the space she had reserved in her head for her imaginary friend. I have no idea. Between my earplugs and my lack of giving a shit I really couldn't make out what she was saying. That's when her boyfriend, who was dressed like the Joker from that shitty Joker movie with the dance number on the steps, came over to gather her up and apologized to me. He in turn got an earful from her for the next five minutes and that's when I tuned them out.
It's situations like this that I have a really hard time dealing with people. I try my best to politely defuse the situation by being diplomatic and ending the interaction as soon as possible but sometimes drunk assholes latch on and don't want to let go.
I see most of humanity as a swarm of insects and want nothing to do with them so I ignore them. I just want to hear some music, take some pictures and go home. I don't think that's too much to ask but sometimes the swarm of insects can't handle their booze and end up thinking that I want to be involved with them. The reality is that I don't care about them at all whatsoever and when the wrong person has the right amount of booze in their tum-tum they get offended that I don't care about them and won't engage with them so they decide to make it my problem.
Luckily, the band started playing so I got my pictures from that part of the stage and got the hell out of there without further incident.
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