Thursday, March 04, 2004
WHAT REALLY IS DEVOTED TO DJ RIX?
My eviction has ironies, providing a larger meaning & form to twelve years of inter-related prose writings that had eluded me. I came to Rahway NJ in late 1990 after being evicted from an apartment in nearby Linden that was being renovated, then to Irving St. when my previous residence was foreclosed upon - through a combination of high mortgage rates & then a property value deflation when the Reagan bubble burst - it ruined the life of the woman who "owned" the house with three apartments.
The issuance of the Elvis Presley postage stamp led to my writing over one-hundred short pieces for a local weekly newspaper. & that inadvertantly turned me into an "unofficial poet laureate." Those pieces - on a wide variety of topics of which perhaps 1/3 are about Rahway - are the core of a book.
I coincidentally became the only artist living in Rahway's designated "Arts District," an area re-zoned for retail artisans, not artists, & an attempt by commercial property owners to speed up the gentrification process. Fortunately, this gentrification has so far been thwarted by an influx of Latinos, largely from Mexico, into the neighborhood, & by the stores & restaurants they opened across the street from the renovated theater known as "Union County Arts Center." It is being stalled farther downtown by black-owned & other businesses serving people with modest incomes. Let's be blunt.... Rahway's gentrification depends upon white consumers, & benefits mostly white businesspeople - who cannot but hope that the black barbershops & beauty parlors relocate elsewhere, & other businesses not fitting the master plan just go away in time.
(Rahway does have a private Swinger's Club for couples on Main Street that attracts a lot of very expensive cars to an entrance on the parking lot at the rear of a nondescript building. How nice it would be to get more of these affluent folks & their credit cards into the local restaurants for some pre-swingin' dinners or apres fun 'n' hijinks drinks & snacks. )
Now, the only artist living in Rahway's so-called "Little Soho" gets kicked out by a businessman who actively promoted the establishment of an "Arts District." No matter where I go, I won't be staying in this part of town. So that ties up rather neatly time-wise the domestic autobiographical portion of the book tentatively titled "Devoted to DJ Rix."
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"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
My eviction has ironies, providing a larger meaning & form to twelve years of inter-related prose writings that had eluded me. I came to Rahway NJ in late 1990 after being evicted from an apartment in nearby Linden that was being renovated, then to Irving St. when my previous residence was foreclosed upon - through a combination of high mortgage rates & then a property value deflation when the Reagan bubble burst - it ruined the life of the woman who "owned" the house with three apartments.
The issuance of the Elvis Presley postage stamp led to my writing over one-hundred short pieces for a local weekly newspaper. & that inadvertantly turned me into an "unofficial poet laureate." Those pieces - on a wide variety of topics of which perhaps 1/3 are about Rahway - are the core of a book.
I coincidentally became the only artist living in Rahway's designated "Arts District," an area re-zoned for retail artisans, not artists, & an attempt by commercial property owners to speed up the gentrification process. Fortunately, this gentrification has so far been thwarted by an influx of Latinos, largely from Mexico, into the neighborhood, & by the stores & restaurants they opened across the street from the renovated theater known as "Union County Arts Center." It is being stalled farther downtown by black-owned & other businesses serving people with modest incomes. Let's be blunt.... Rahway's gentrification depends upon white consumers, & benefits mostly white businesspeople - who cannot but hope that the black barbershops & beauty parlors relocate elsewhere, & other businesses not fitting the master plan just go away in time.
(Rahway does have a private Swinger's Club for couples on Main Street that attracts a lot of very expensive cars to an entrance on the parking lot at the rear of a nondescript building. How nice it would be to get more of these affluent folks & their credit cards into the local restaurants for some pre-swingin' dinners or apres fun 'n' hijinks drinks & snacks. )
Now, the only artist living in Rahway's so-called "Little Soho" gets kicked out by a businessman who actively promoted the establishment of an "Arts District." No matter where I go, I won't be staying in this part of town. So that ties up rather neatly time-wise the domestic autobiographical portion of the book tentatively titled "Devoted to DJ Rix."
Add YOUR comments here
