(e:matthew) and I got in a big fight about Main Street. I have a hard time discussing things with him because he yells and then I yell and then we start hating.

So here is my problem. I am scared of Main Street at night time (sometimes even in the day), should I pretend I am not? Should I pretend that when I go to the Utica subway stop that I am not harassed and that I don't freak out reading the emails I get about Canisius Students and Roswell workers getting robbed in broad daylight.

I feel like I should be interested in it's revival it but on the other hand I don't feel like it is my responsibility. I feel like I didn't create the problem, I have no degree in Urban Planning or Sociology and I am a middle class, athiest, white gay man. I seriously doubt that anyone who lives across Main Street even wants my opinion on the issue.

I really believe the only way neighborhoods can change is from the inside. Something that I feel religious groups and large scale investors (jobs, etc) can help with. However, outside of economic and spiritual investment in a community, both of which I am not able to offer as an individual - outisde change seem so forced to me.

If I go to someone else's neighborhood and start cleaning trash off the street, what am I saying about the people that live there. Maybe they want trash on their streets, maybe their live suck enough where trash isn't even really an issue. If it was me I would be offended. I mean how would you like it if someone just want to your neighborhood and changed it to conform to their standards.

I feel like the situation is out of my control. Everyone talks about the divide and that it exists. And everyone aggrees that it is wrong but what is the answer? At least I am buying a house in the city and contributing $5000 in taxes each year to the city instead of to some gated suburb.

What is the answer? Thinking about it all angers me so much. I guess that is why people move to the suburbs, lol.

I wrote about gentrification when talking about Grant St a while back (e:paul,3819) - I agree (e:mike,505) that while it appears good for the people moving in, it doesn't always fair so well for the people being shoved out.

I really don't know what to do about the situation but I know that it is weird living next to the most segregated wall I have ever seen. Has anyone noticed that other cities are not quite as segregated as Buffalo?

We also make fun of people for being scared of the city but my aunt mentioned the other day that her brother never comes to the city because he is scared from when he was "driven out of his neighborhood." At first I though she was just referring to him feeling uncomfortable or being racist but then she explained more that as their eastside german neighborhood became a black neighborhood people even threw bricks through the windows and generally drove them out. That is a scary scenario. I have no idea what it was like in the 80s. but something was different because the mansion we rent now, which is like 6000 square feet and would go for about $250,000 now cost our landlords only $26,000 in 1986 according to the Historical Society.

Was anyone around in the 80s who can say what it was like?

Like like at UB there is a faculty member who documented the race riots of the summer of 1967.

Can anyone at UB get ahold of that for us?

Besag, Frank P. (Graduate School of Education)
17/F/146
Race riot interviews, 1967. Transcriptions of taped interviews with neighborhood people, store owners, and police immediately after the race riots in Buffalo in the summer of 1967; and paperback book ANATOMY OF A RIOT: BUFFALO 1967, based on the interviews. The interviews were part of a survey commissioned by State University of New York at Buffalo president Martin Meyerson.

The Allentown Art Festival is getting so crazy. It is bigger and bigger each year. It actually feels like you are at some big city festival. I think Buffalo is really growing. At the same time, having it so big seems almost detrimental to shopping. You seriously feel like you are holding everyone uo when you stop for a second.

(e:holly) said taking pictures of people's art is stealing. I don't really agree but it made me feel paranoid about filming the stuff.









The freakin' scientologists have littered the streets with their trash.

::Download Flash Video::

::Download Flash Video::

::Download Flash Video::

We had my Dad and Uncles Birthday Party today. It was much colder than last year. While there we went to a garage sale and got some furtniture for real cheap. The kid who was working the sale asked me if I likes sports. I said not really. THen he asked, "well do you like to read?" So anyone, who knows me can guess my answers. He was actually trying to sell me a book about sports









This photo was an accident. I can't believ how scared my aunt looks. It is so funny.


Story Time
We watched a bunch of old family films. It was great to see everyone so young. Even Nonna was in the films, all of which were shot before I was born.

I couldn't believe it when shooting the squirrels randomly came up after writing about it this morning (e:paul,4428) Does anyone else remember Mr. Barry from Kenmore Middle?

::DOWNLOAD SOUND::

The fun of amphetamines

::DOWNLOAD SOUND::

Syphoning Wine

::DOWNLOAD SOUND::

My mother has a robotic animal fetish. She bought this robotic singing pink flamingo for my aunt. They are best when the batteries start to die and they get the satanic voice. This one only gets the voice when it turns it's head to the left.

::Download Flash Video::

I was pretty moved by (e:byllic,5). I reminded of all the crazy animal cruelty kind of things I saw in my life. It seems that animal cruelty and railroad track's/urban rural strecthes go hand in hand. I remember seeing numerous dead and butchered animlals behind the grain mills on Military Rd near the end of Tremont Avenue in Kenmore.

Back then it was always blammed on the Satan worshippers. Does anyone else in Kenmore remeber the wave of "Satan worshippers" from the 80s. What was up with that? I wish I was old enought to know if they thought they were real or if it was the adults perspective n the goth kids. I remember my best Friend James' babysitter got murdered back there too.

Yet I remember spending lots of time there because it was a combination of remote from the eyes of our parents and dangerous. It also had the entrance to the sewers which which played by and inside of plenty. As far as I was concerned it was as close to being in Goonies as I was gonna get.

As an industrial wasteland, I am sure it killed many more people than the satan worshippers ever did (e:paul,397)

The most graphic memory I have was going fishing with my Dad at Buckhorn State Park. I actually spent a lot of time there because the metro bus would take us to grand island, or because we would walk over the nasty bridge from kenmore. It was pretty far. I think Grand Island was one of the only places I ever hitchhiked in Buffalo. I remember it seemed so rural to me as a kid.

Anyways, I kept seeing fur in the water floating down the river and eventually followed the floating chunks to their source. A black garbage bag full of a large chopped up dog. Who chops up a dog and sticks it in a garbage bag at a state park? That image haunted me for a long time.

(MAP TO: BUCKHORN)

As a kid, I too was repsonsibile for a bit of the cruelty. I distinctly remmebr dresing up like "indians" and making bows and arrows out of sapling branches and heavy duty rubber bands. Then me and my friends would shoot the freakin' squirrels. I remember hitting the first one and feeling like it was really wrong.

I think it was because back then all the adults I knew hated the squirrels and talked about shooting them. Eiother way it was wrong and I feel guilty now.

The contracts have arrived.

This morning I saw the Orchard Park Police on Main Street, what's up witht that?



I started out the evening with (e:enknot) at his friedns house, but there was a cat. Then we went to the square and (e:mike) showed up and I decided to walk around a bit.

::Download Flash Video::

Metropolis Mike


(e:mike) also suffers from allergies like me


This guy has a belt made out of bullets. I think its is gross.


I entertained myself with the Satan worshippers.

There were so few protestors this week and only one sign.





(e:libertad) and I felt bad for the cute one. He needed some liberation. (e:libertad) tried to give him his phone number but the kid asked him if he was a homo and wouldn't accept it.

Hotty McJesus










Watch this video - this man goes nuts on the "christians" and then the police pull him off them at the end.

::Download Flash Video::

(e:libertad) and the Hotty McJesus

::Download Flash Video::

I have a thing for Hotty McJesus

::Download Flash Video::

::Download Flash Video::

::Download Flash Video::

Some babble.

::DOWNLOAD SOUND::

Here I am at Thursday in the square again. It was so hard to rip myself away from the computer as I am getting closer and closer to my master creation javascript user interface library.

Okay I am ready to forget about it for a bit.

This week, I have recoded my years worth of javascript functions and objects into a beautiful, name spaced, inter-dependent, object oriented library that will make new stuff so much more exciting to program and extend. Unfortuantely, I now have to go through the process of retrofitting everything I previously created with the system.

Luckily, I moved all the javascript code out of my documents and into external js files years ago, so there is no having to go through lots of markup to deal with inline tags that are burried deep within. Most of the stuff shall convert nicely and now I never have to worry about namespace conflicts ever again and will never have to track down little code snippets.

Surebert is no longer surebert but the surebertCom library which has a communicate object to replace the old surebert 1.6.

None of this probably means anything to anyone, but I want to note this day for when I look back.

I will make the library publically available at some point in the near future.