Again With the Incorrectly Placed Photo of the Day?
Apparently, The Skipping Hippy has once again gotten into his car and made a day trip to Baltimore to take photos of our city and submit them to the DCist Flickr Pool, and DCist has once again opted to feature one of the photos on a site that is supposedly about D.C. or at least its suburbs.
This time, DCist did not feature a photo of Hampden and inform its readers that said photo was “near” Baltimore. Instead, it was a photo of the promotional Polish Sausage adorning the rooftop of the Polock Johnny’s on Washington Boulevard, except the poster, EK Eckert, neglected to mention Polock Johnny, as obviously she has never heard of the establishment and has absolutely no familiarity with the history.
But who cares, right? Why would DCist bother to familiarize itself with Baltimore’s cultural history. It isn’t like Baltimore has anything to do with its city. But then again, why would DCist feature a photo of Baltimore on a site about D.C. if the cultural context from which it is derived is irrelevant to them? I can almost see the little hamster wheel in her head spin when she saw the photo attached to their Flickr Pool, "’OMG, WTF?,’ something culturally distinctive, kitschy and with character... it’s time to temporarily condescendingly pretend to appropriate Baltimore to compensate for the fact that D.C. is an imaginary, cultureless, featureless and colorless wasteland.”
The picture inspired several comments, two of note:
and...
“KStreetLawyer.” I absolutely love that this commenter opted to sign in this manner, as if to say, “I’m fucking SOMEBODY. This city revolves around my ass, the world revolves around this city and consequently, my ass is the center of the fucking Universe!” KStreetLawyer, for better or for worse, you are the quintessential Washingtonian. To some degree or another, every Washingtonian, whether a lobbyist, lawyer, pizza delevery person, bicycle messenger, homeless person or Ist blogger, views the world through the same smoke of delusion as you do. You represent your city perfectly. Lemme guess, when you meet a stranger, the first thing that goes through you head is “How is this person going to prove that they are worthy of my attention?” Well, you’re not alone. Every Washingtonian does that.
KStreetLawer, to your credit, at least you’re not deluding yourself into believing that you’re being charitable and inclusive, unlike sarahlucy. Ms. Lucy, Baltimore may or may not be the “weirdest city in america.” We certainly take more pride than any other major American city for our inherent weirdness; but how exactly does our weirdness qualify us for either inclusion or association with D.C., a city with as much flavor as boiled water stew? Perhaps we only think we have more color than any other city because we are the only city that is geographically juxtaposed against the only city in America that has absolutely no culture or character of its own (again, I’m speaking specifically about the white people in D.C., which, judging from the pages of DCist, is 95% of the city. But what do I know about D.C. from all the way up here in Baltimore? Perhaps DCist just isn’t representative of its city as a whole). Although it is your opinion that you have got to show us some love, I can assure you that you don’t have to show us anything, as in our opinion, D.C. isn’t worthy of eating the polish sausage bits out of our shit.
Now, this is Elizabeth Eckert’s first foray into the cultural imperialism of our institutions, so I opted to go soft on her. Hell, I didn’t even take to obvious route and invite her to take a trip up to Baltimore to eat our collective Polish sausages, or our Hebrew frankfurters, or our German liverwurst, or our Italian sausages (either hot or sweet), or our juicy Greek Gyros, or our giant lake trout subs. But I can assure her, after the first offense, I start to get mean. I recommend that she, like the rest of DCist, would be better off concentrating on correctly representing their own city before they incorrectly and unjustifiably try to represent ours.
This time, DCist did not feature a photo of Hampden and inform its readers that said photo was “near” Baltimore. Instead, it was a photo of the promotional Polish Sausage adorning the rooftop of the Polock Johnny’s on Washington Boulevard, except the poster, EK Eckert, neglected to mention Polock Johnny, as obviously she has never heard of the establishment and has absolutely no familiarity with the history.
But who cares, right? Why would DCist bother to familiarize itself with Baltimore’s cultural history. It isn’t like Baltimore has anything to do with its city. But then again, why would DCist feature a photo of Baltimore on a site about D.C. if the cultural context from which it is derived is irrelevant to them? I can almost see the little hamster wheel in her head spin when she saw the photo attached to their Flickr Pool, "’OMG, WTF?,’ something culturally distinctive, kitschy and with character... it’s time to temporarily condescendingly pretend to appropriate Baltimore to compensate for the fact that D.C. is an imaginary, cultureless, featureless and colorless wasteland.”
The picture inspired several comments, two of note:
Why does DCist post photos from Baltimore? Baltimore is not worthy of being on DCist.
[4] Posted by: KStreetLawyer | May 9, 2007 7:01 PM
and...
for reals, bmore is certainly worthy of being on dcist. the weirdest city in america, in my opinion, we gotta show it some love.
[6] Posted by: sarahlucy | May 9, 2007 7:31 PM
“KStreetLawyer.” I absolutely love that this commenter opted to sign in this manner, as if to say, “I’m fucking SOMEBODY. This city revolves around my ass, the world revolves around this city and consequently, my ass is the center of the fucking Universe!” KStreetLawyer, for better or for worse, you are the quintessential Washingtonian. To some degree or another, every Washingtonian, whether a lobbyist, lawyer, pizza delevery person, bicycle messenger, homeless person or Ist blogger, views the world through the same smoke of delusion as you do. You represent your city perfectly. Lemme guess, when you meet a stranger, the first thing that goes through you head is “How is this person going to prove that they are worthy of my attention?” Well, you’re not alone. Every Washingtonian does that.
KStreetLawer, to your credit, at least you’re not deluding yourself into believing that you’re being charitable and inclusive, unlike sarahlucy. Ms. Lucy, Baltimore may or may not be the “weirdest city in america.” We certainly take more pride than any other major American city for our inherent weirdness; but how exactly does our weirdness qualify us for either inclusion or association with D.C., a city with as much flavor as boiled water stew? Perhaps we only think we have more color than any other city because we are the only city that is geographically juxtaposed against the only city in America that has absolutely no culture or character of its own (again, I’m speaking specifically about the white people in D.C., which, judging from the pages of DCist, is 95% of the city. But what do I know about D.C. from all the way up here in Baltimore? Perhaps DCist just isn’t representative of its city as a whole). Although it is your opinion that you have got to show us some love, I can assure you that you don’t have to show us anything, as in our opinion, D.C. isn’t worthy of eating the polish sausage bits out of our shit.
Now, this is Elizabeth Eckert’s first foray into the cultural imperialism of our institutions, so I opted to go soft on her. Hell, I didn’t even take to obvious route and invite her to take a trip up to Baltimore to eat our collective Polish sausages, or our Hebrew frankfurters, or our German liverwurst, or our Italian sausages (either hot or sweet), or our juicy Greek Gyros, or our giant lake trout subs. But I can assure her, after the first offense, I start to get mean. I recommend that she, like the rest of DCist, would be better off concentrating on correctly representing their own city before they incorrectly and unjustifiably try to represent ours.
posted by dcistgohome at 9:25 AM
4 Comments:
KStreetLawyer probably hasn't even BEEN to Baltimore. I work on K street myself and take shit daily because I live in Baltimore and TRUST ME--none of them have ever been past Camden yards or the Inner Harbor.
But wait a second, I thought one or two visits to Camden Yards or the Inner Harbor gave them an unquantified and complete understanding of Baltimore and its culture. After all, Sommer Mathis did explain in her post about dcistgohome that, since she had been to the Aquarium and had seen The Wire on cable, that she and those like her were more than qualified enough to understand us. She even threw in a “Hon” to show me how down was.
Shit, I totally get it now! Since I once went to Williamsburg on an elementary school trip, and have suffered through a Dave Mathews album, I’m practically a Virginian! Well shut my mouth, pour me a glass of sweet tea and barely register me a firearm, I’m a Dixie!
By this example, I guess it is safe to assume that any AL East fan from Boston and New York are also Baltimore experts. I guess since I’ve been to tourist spots in New York and Boston, I’m an expert about those markets, too.
Unfortunately, I actually have done my time in D.C., and have known enough KStreetLawyers to know of what I speak on that matter. I’ll take a little ribbing from a New Yorker or a Chicagoan, as they are Global Cities. But a Washingtonian? Ha! They can kiss my real, colorful, culturally distinctive ass.
Lemme guess, when you meet a stranger, the first thing that goes through you head is “How is this person going to prove that they are worthy of my attention?” Well, you’re not alone. Every Washingtonian does that.
This post, and for that matter, this site, does not prove that they are worthy of my attention.
Thanks, the bird, you’re a wonderful point reinforcer. But just so you know, people of character don’t run around expecting the people to prove their worth to them. I can assure you, you’re not special enough to bother, whomever you are.
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