i've been reading this vietnamese writer who spent much of his life in america, since he was living in phila, and he always has interesting things to say;


In a recent article, “Smashing Culture,” I briefly described a scene in Philadelphia from 30+ years ago. Sitting in McGlinchey’s, I was drinking Rolling Rock.

This trivia triggered a most curious yet telling response from a commenter, “Rolling Rock? – really? Were you listening to the Eagles too? Nice street cred attempt, but it’s either ‘While knocking back a few beers’ or ‘While drinking a Guinness’ – Rolling Rock just makes you sound like, well, another pretentious art fag.”

It never occurred to him I was simply telling the truth. To establish “street cred,” I should have come up with something way cooler. It’s all about one’s image, you see.

With social media, everyone is a microscopic celebrity, the undisputed global star on his own cellphone, so online preening has become a universal obsession. Compulsively, they make duck faces while quack quacking bon, not really, mots.

Enjoying such a fabulous virtual life, they miss out on a real one, however, so “street cred” must be established, to mask the fact that they’re never on the streets, even when they’re on the streets.

Occupy Wall Street erupted in New York on September 17th, 2011. Four days later, I took a Chinatown bus from Philly to see what’s going on, and for the duration of this movement, I kept a pretty close eye on it. Besides the Occupy camps in Manhattan and Philly, I also visited those in Harrisburg, Trenton, Atlantic City, Washington, Raleigh, Savannah and Orlando.

Living in tents like urban savages, these protesters suddenly had a tactile and smelly existence inside a community, so despite the cold, rain and absence of indoor plumbing, they were soothed. Night after night, there were no brick walls between their bodies.

Their movement fizzled out, however, because it degenerated into an endless display of narcissistic posturing, with everyone making self-important speeches about his or her pet cause, to an audience of fifty, tops, which is not how a revolution is ever made.

Had Samuel Adams showed up, he would have had to squeeze his truncated speech in between, say, an animal right manifesto and a black reparation sermon.

Still, it was fun to fancy yourself a Mao, Che or Comandante Zero, even if your thundering cosplay was immediately canceled by the next, completely unrelated yet equally forgettable, performance............read more...........