Don't Dive Into the Fun Zone

Another 10hr day between the jobs. Fierced Jelly's Open Stage at The Pepper Jack where my new gang of urbanesque hipster nerds played a game of Ultimate Frisbee in the parking lot below the shadow of the Lister Block. Blasting the new Rapture and Junior Boys record on the stereo.. tell me of any other town where you wouldn't get nabbed for this at 12AM? So we had to avoid a little glass from a broken 40 of Steeler? We just call that the Fun Zone. Please wear shoes in the fun zone.

So I think I've figured out why I'm so crazy about my home town's downtown. It's pretty simple really. It's ours. I mean sure there are crack heads and lots of gentrification dotting the outskirts. But in the thick of this old weather worn Victorian boom town... it's ours. The streets, squats and apartments. We put on the shows, warm the bar stools and fill the walls of art galleries. By some strange happenstance I find myself amongst a very large, but tight knit, group of people who are just sorta doing things to entertain each other. And we have a lovely old playground to do it in.

Thus far the super rich want little to do with the area downtown and around Jamesville. There's not a single Star Bucks, Gap, American Apparel or H&M downtown. The sub-urban malls and big box parks that destroyed this place still have that domain. There are no glass condos with stupid names. But people are converting old warehouses, banks and department stores into legitimate lofts because that's what's affordable.

I know, I'm a broken record. But it's rather exciting watching this happen. I wouldn't want to be anywhere else in the world right now.