The economic repercussions of Amendment One

Professor Richard Florida speaking about his “Creative Class” ideas at Creative Cities Summit 2.0. 

I’m glad Amendment One passed in North Carolina.  You’re probably wondering why, especially after I just wrote a post about how gays are decent people.  I was basically forced to come to North Carolina by a whole lot of deception and coersion, and my life here has been three and a half years of living hell.  To be honest, I fucking hate North Carolina, largely because of being forced to come here, and then because of constant manipulation that has kept me from making a living.  I’m glad Amendment One passed because it will cost the state tens of billions in lost business and development over the next few decades, and will help keep North Carolina from thriving for a generation or more.  I find this particularly amusing because the politically-oriented Christian “conservatives” who run this state consider themselves pro-business.  Yet passing Amendment One is one of the most anti-business moves the state could make. 

In the video clip above, Professor Richard Florida talks about how the thriving cities of today are highly creative places.  In his series of books on the concept, The Rise of the Creative Class, The Flight of the Creative Class, Who’s Your City, and The Great Reset, Florida explains how his research has shown that the main economic driver today is human creativity, not physical resources, access to ports, or and industrial base like earlier times.  One of the signs of a highly creative city is an openly gay population, as well as artists, a great music scene, and high tech and entrepreneurial scenes.  Having worked in the Hollywood entertainment world for several years, I can tell you that the gay community is highly creative, highly entrepreneurial, and highly organized.  I’m not sure why, that’s a question for sociologists to answer.  But in a highly creative region, the gay community is one of the key scenes. 

Years ago, a lesbian friend decided to come out, and asked if I’d accompany her to a gay bar since she didn’t know any other lesbians at the time.  With thoughts of a possible threesome in my mind, I said, “Sure.”  The next week she wanted me to come to another bar, then another.  These days, I’d be referred to as a dyke tike.  I met a lot of lesbians, a few gay dudes, and got a look at this sub-culture I would never have seen otherwise.  Let me tell you, if I was looking for a job with the police, Federal Express, or UPS, I’d go hang out at lesbian bars, because that’s where a lot of them worked.  And Hollywood, of course.  Eventually I hooked up with one of her girlfriends, and she had enough new gay friends to go clubbing without me, thank God.  It was an interesting study in human nature for a while, but hanging out with lesbians was getting old.  Within a few months she became a police dispatcher, and later moved into CSI, making a lot more money than me.  How did she find and land those jobs?  Through her gay club friend network.  At one party she took me to, I met a guy who made $75,000 a year walking people’s dogs.  He was able to make that money walking dogs for a bunch of high income, mostly gay, entrepreneurs and business people.  For whatever reason, the gay community is a pretty upscale bunch, and they create a lot of jobs.  Whatever your thoughts on gay people in general, if you want your city or region to thrive, you want a gay scene there, as well as an art scene, a music scene, an entrepreneurial scene, a high tech scene, and other creative types. 

A couple days after Amendment One passed, I was sitting in a McDonald’s having breakfast, when two men who appeared to be in their late 60′s started discussing the passing of Amendment One.  An article in the paper that morning showed that most rural areas in North Carolina voted for Amendment One, and most of the major cities voted against it.  One old man commented that “the rural folk were voting for God.”  As he said that, it occured to me that the rural counties that voted for Amendment One are the same places that have the highest levels of poverty and unemployment.  That’s no coincidence.  The more fundamentalist an area is, the less friendly it is to people outside the norm.  Like it or not, the weird people, the people outside the norm are the ones who start businesses and eventually create jobs.  Now tell me, if this guy went to a small, highly religous town in North Carolina, and sat down at a local diner, people would be making rude comments before he even got a menu.   But if that guy said he was opening a costume shop in town and hiring 100 people to make $20 an hour, most of those same townspeople would race down to fill out an application. 

To all the people who voted for Amendment One, if you want to keep your town, the city of Winston-Salem, or North Carolina highly socially conservative, then get off your ass, start a business, and create lots of  jobs.  The simple fact is that the main business plan here is kissing ass to get government contracts, not actually creating new ideas and stuff.  Amendment One has pretty much insured that the creative communities of this region and state will remain stunted.  North Carolina’s most highly creative people, gay or straight, will continue to leave and go to a place where they can be thenselves and try to do the work they find interesting and inspiring.  North Carolina will suffer for decades because of this outflow of talent and creativity.  I find the irony of this utterly amusing. 

Now, as much as I love talking shit about North Carolina, I’ll ante up and tell you how to actually start reviving your economy.

1.  Legalize marijuana.

2.  Legalize gay marriage.

3.  Use some of those abandoned warehouses to build skateparks like this, and bike parks like this.

4.  Use some more of all those empty warehouses to create a small movie studio like this, and an artist colony to go with the movie studio.

Those four things would make Winston-Salem a place where talented people from around country and around the world would want to come to.  Seriously.  It would create a great synergy with the city’s attempts to attract biotech and other high tech.  But the people running this state (for now) are just way to out of touch to ever let any of these things happen, aren’t they.

Amendment One

So in a near 60/40 vote, the people of North Carolina passed the so called “Amendment One,” the state constitutional amendment that says a marriage is only between one man and one woman.  A lot of the fine Christian people of this state voted for the amendment because “the Bible says a marriage is between one man and one woman.”  Unless, of course, you read the part of the Old Testament about King Solomon, said to be the richest and wisest man in the ancient world.  King Solomon had 300 wives and 700 concubines.  King Solomon is also quoted as saying “It is better to live on the corner of the roof than with a nagging wife.”  Proverbs 25:24, Good News Version.  As we all know, the Bible says a lot of things, and we’re supposed to ignore most of them and only listen to the verses being preached about at that particular moment.

Let me tell you a little story that happened when I was staying at Samaritan Men’s shelter about a year and a half ago.  We were sitting on the back bench one afternoon, about a dozen of us, just hanging out until it was time to go in.  A couple guys were talking, and one redneck started getting mad about “them damn faggots everywhere.”  The funny thing was, the two openly gay guys staying in the shelter at that particular time were sitting right there, and he didn’t realize it.  Being a California with a sarcastic, punk rock sense of humor, I pointed out to the homophobe that there were two gay guys sitting right there, both of which he often talked to and seemed to get along with.  He back peddled a little, saying that he only hated some faggots, which made him look pretty stupid.  Open mouth, insert feet, chew readily.  A big discussion ensued about being gay, and why God kept making gay people if he (or she) did, in fact, hate them so much. 

My whole point was that the homophobic redneck routinely talked to gay people, and didn’t have a problem with them if he didn’t know they were gay.  Hypocrisy bugs me, it always has.  Being a straight guy from California who’d worked with several gay people over the years, I mentioned the statistic that it’s believed at least 10 % of all men are gay.  One of the gay guys laughed out loud, saying, “It’s more like 30 or 40%.”  The two gay guys, by their own admission, regularly hooked up with “straight” guys here in North Carolina, and in other states they’d lived in.  I asked them just what percentage of men in North Carolina were really gay, in their experience.  They believed the number was AT LEAST 20%, and probably higher. 

The point is, that all of you fine, upstanding Christian folk, who voted for Amendment One, deal with gay men and women every day that you don’t know are gay.  If you go to an average sized church, say 100 men and 100 women, about 20 of those men, and 20 of those women IN YOUR CHURCH ON SUNDAY ARE GAY.  Do you go to a mega-church, with 1,000 people (let’s say 500 men and 500 women)?  Then sitting in your church are about 100 gay men and 100 gay women.  Yes folks, them faggots are the people in your neighborhood, and they always have been.  Heh, heh, heh.

So is it your job to humilate them, tell rumors and sabotage their lives, or to cleasne them from their “evil ways?”  A lot of people who call themselves Christians think so.  And a lot of people who call themselves Christians don’t think so.  When Jesus said, “I give you a new commandment, love thy neighbor as thyself,”  did he forget to say, “well, except for the faggots… and the niggers, and the beaners, and the kikes, and the white trash, and…”  You get the idea.

Like I said, I’m a straight guy who grew up in small rural towns in Ohio, going to a Lutheran church on Sundays and living a pretty normal life.  Then I got into BMX freestyle, which took me to Southern California, where I was exposed to just about every kind of people you can think of.  Including gay men and women.  In my experience, most gay people are quite honest, intelligent, kind, and have a great sense of humor.  The vast majority are people I’d be happy with as neighbors.  That’s a lot more than I can say for most of the people I’ve met in North Carolina. 

My point here is that the gay people that 61% of you hate so much are the people in your neighborhood.  Most of them you’ll never know are gay, yet you deal with them every day.  And, of course, the people who protest the loudest about gays are usually gay people who can’t admit that they’re gay, even to themselves.  Look at how much trouble J. Edgar Hoover at the FBI caused half a century ago. 

I’m not telling any of you what to believe or who to like or dislike.  I’m simply pointing out that this state just passed a state constitutional amendment that made a strong statement against a group of people who, in my personal opinion, are generally pretty good people.  By the way, this is the Bible Belt, 61% of voters is all you could muster?  That also says a lot about the current make-up of North Carolina.  Times they are a changing.  In the next post I’ll go into the business implications of Amendment One.

And now for a gay dude you like even if you hate gay dudes…

In honor of the fine, upstanding, Christian people of North Carolina passing “Amendment One,” here’s the late, flaming homosexual Freddie Mercury of Queen singing “Fat Bottomed Girls.”  He had one of the great voices in the history of rock& roll.

The Copper Crusader

Last weekend while driving my taxi around downtown Winston-Salem, I saw one car after another getting pulled over by the police.  At one point, early on Friday night, it seemed the police were pulling over about one out of every three cars leaving downtown.  Seriously.  It started to remind me of California… in a bad way.

I saw a new copper-colored, unmarked Dodge Charger making one traffic stop after another.  By the end of the night I dubbed that car the “Copper Crusader.”  Copper as in the color, not as a term for police.  Anyhow, for reasons unknown to me, the Winston-Salem police have drastically ramped up the number of cars being pulled over in the downtown area in recent weekend.  And they have multiple unmarked police cars doing traffic stops.  There’s no reason you need unmarked cars for regular patrol duty, I think that’s a totally chicken-shit tactic.  I understand the need for unmarked cars in undercover investigations, and I understand that detectives, police chiefs, and other city officials will have unmarked Crown Vics or Chargers, some with police lights, for their use.  But there’s no reason for unmarked cars doing traffic patrol. 

While I’m on my soapbox… whose bright idea was it to specifically target taxi drivers for traffic stops on New Year’s Eve.  I saw two taxis pulled over early in the evening, and heard about two others being pulled over.  On NEW YEAR’S FREAKIN’ EVE!  Yes, I realize that taxi drivers are mostly losers, and considered a necessary evil by many people, but on New Year’s Eve you need every taxi driver you have.  Seeing the police specifically targeting taxi drivers just  added to my stress level that night.  But it was a busy night, so that was good. 

Don’t drive drunk, people.  Have a designated driver or take a taxi home.  And watch your driving on the weekends.  DUI/DWI’s really suck.

Goodbye Urban Artware

I dropped someone off in  my taxi near Trade Street today, and I was kind of bummed at life in general.  Living in North Carolina does that to me.  So I decided to wander into my favorite gallery downtown, Urban Artware.  I wasn’t sure if it was open, but the door was unlocked, and I wandered in.  Usually Millicent, the owner, is busy doing something, or on the phone, and I usually give her a wave and wander around checking out what’s new.  But I didn’t see anyone. 

“Are you open?” I asked.  From behind a cabinet came a voice.  “Uh we’re closed.”  It was Millicent, sitting on the floor working on some piece of art.  I told her I’d take off, and she said Urban Artware was now closed for good.  I was totally bummed.  I’m a Californian, so if you need a translation, that means I was emphatically depressed at the loss of the most quirky, interesting, and original collection of artwork in Winston-Salem.  she told me to go ahead and take a last look around, and we talked a bit.  I had no idea she’d been working elsewhere to keep the gallery open.  I thought it was pretty much self-sufficient.  I told her how bummed out I was, because in my time here in Winston-Salem, I thought of Urban Artware as the one redeeming grace of a city that’s long past its best days.  I saw Urban Artware as hope that this town might actually turn into a really cool scene at some point.  But that gallery, like all indie art galleries, comes from the blood, sweat, and tears of a dedicated owner/operator. 

Millicent said it was cool, time to move on.  And she had a lightness to her that I hadn’t seen before, but instantly recognized.  A big burden was being set aside so she could devote her time to other things.  She seemed happy at the prospects of the future, and I told her good luck. 

Millicent Greason has been a big part of the Winston-Salem art scene, and Trade Street in particular, for… well, I won’t date her, but for a long time.  She was one of the Renegade Ninja Cowgirls, and I don’t know what else.  And while Urban Artware is now closed, she’ll still be around and part of the Trade Street scene.  Thanks for creating such a cool, funky gallery Millicent, and good luck in whatever else you do.  See ya ’round.

Turkey anyone?

Driving down 52 from the Rural Hall area yesterday I saw some big black lump on the side of the freeway. I thought it was part of a truck tire that had blown, all curled up. Nope. As I passed I realized that it was a road kill turkey. Yes, a freakin’ wild turkey! I’ve seen a lot of weird stuff driving a taxi. In California I saw coyotes all the time, and even a mountain lion once while driving my cab. But I’ve never seen a road kill turkey.

It’s on the southbound side just south of Germanton road, in case anyone’s hungry. Hey, Christmas is just around the corner…

Leaf peeping

Well, the leaves are changing colors, Halloween is right around the corner, and the chill of Fall is here. The maple trees are already bright orange, yellow, and red most places, but a lot of the other trees are still mostly green. Here are the best places I know of in Winston-Salem to see great fall colors:

A drive down Reynolda Road or Robinhood Road will show you plenty of fall color, though there’s still quite a few green leaves.

The trees lining Business 40 on the way to Kernersville are very rustic in golds, yellows, and some orange.

The prettiest grove of trees in the fall that I know of is on the corner of University and Shattalon, kaddy corner from the CVS. These big trees, maples I think, all turn into brilliant orange and yellow trees at the same time. It’s a great place to take a pic of the kids with the trees in the background.

There are also some small maple trees across Peter’s Creek from the Wal-Mart, in a church parking lot. They alternate between orange and dark red, with evergreens in the background.

So have the kids put their ipod buds in their ears so they won’t have to listen to you, then put the family in the car and drive around checking out the great fall show. I recomend ending the day with a cup of hot apple cider with a cinnamon stick in it. That’s what we did when I was a kid in Ohio. Do you guys do the hot cider thing here? If not, you’re missing out. And if gramps is cranky, throw a couple shots of whiskey inhis cider to mellow him out.

Girls gone Wild?

I’ve seen the Girls Gone Wild tour bus parked on Peter’s Creek for a couple days now. It must have broke down, because there aren’t too many wild girls here. As a former taxi driver in Huntington Beach, California, and now a cabbie here, I can say that with authority.

I think I’m done…

First a couple public service announcements:

1.  TURN SIGNALS!!!  All the cool kids are using them.

2.  Everyone here needs to learn how to merge on a freeway smoothly.  I’m tired of swerving around idiots who slam on their brakes at the end of the on ramp.  The on and off ramps here are really short and do suck, but you can still merge smoothly most of the time if you try.

OK…I started this blog when I was starting as a taxi driver, figuring the blog would help me get a few taxi fares, and that I’d be able to show people some of the weird and interesting bits of Winston-Salem.  Taxi drivers see a really weird part of society, both in physical locations, and in people.  I thought it’d be fun to pass that on.  But the reality is that I’m sitting in the taxi waiting for rides 14 to 17 hours a day, and sleeping the rest of the time.  I don’t have my own computer, I use a library computer to blog, and I just don’t have the time to sit at the library an blog, because I might miss taxi rides.  Plus I kinda got stuck in Winston-Salem, and to be honest I don’t really give a damn about this town.  I’m just trying to save up enough money to get back home to California.  My 2 1/2 years in North Carolina have been a living hell, and I just want to get away from this state as fast as I possibly can.  I’ve met a few cool people here… and a whole lot of liars and idiots. 

 

If the taxi business here REALLY picks up in a couple weeks when the college students come back, then I might have the time and interest to get this blog going again.  But that’s pretty unlikely.  I don’t think I’d ever be able to make a living here, and I just don’t want to.  I was forced to North Carolina by outside forces, including family, and I’ve been trying to leave since I got here.  If I could actually make decent money here, I could hang out for a while as I got my life back together, but that doesn’t seem possible.  I need to just save up a couple hundred bucks and hop a bus back to California.  Being homeless in California is better than anything that could possibly happen in North Carolina.  Seriously. 

If you got anything out of this blog, I’m stoked.  A few people actually check it out, mus to my surprise.  But I’m just not interested in Winston-Salem enough to keep going at this point.  Bye for now, maybe forever.

The super mega Ibrahim explosion

Jews and Catholics playing at the Super Mega Ibrahim explosion

Like I may have said before, I’m an old BMX freestyle rider and former BMX/skateboard industry guy. Bike riding was my life for a huge chunk of my younger years, and I stopped only when I wound up a taxi driver and proceeded to get to fat to ride. Hopefully I’ll get my life going again in the near future and put more riding time in. Inthose many years of riding for hours every day, I had hundreds of near misses with cars who weren’t paying attention. And one hit. I got tagged by a Jeep who ran a stop sign once, and should have died. I blacked out for about half a second, and next thing I knew I somersaulting across the pavement. Can’t explain it, but I somehow bounced out of the way, even though the Jeep hit my bike in the dead center of its bumper, and taco’ed both rims. Something was looking out for me that day. I got a taste of true adrenalin that day, and was literally twitching from it for about eight hours. I spent a long, long time thinking about why I survived that incident, and my lucky bounce that day became part of my story, and was one of many incidents and insights that changed the way I view the world.

So when I heard about Ibrahim’s accident and severe injuries, I wanted to help out a little. Obviously, he has a lot of friends who also wanted to help him out. I don’t know Ibe, but I’ve seen him cruising around town. As a fellow bike rider who survived an accident I shouldn’t have, I did a bit to help his cause, and attended the Super Mega Ibrahim Explosion, along with several hundred other people. As a taxi driver, I’m pretty much always working and couldn’t stay that long, but hung for a while. The event seemed to be a great success. I heard later they raised about $19,000 for Ibe’s various expenses, and I heard he is improving, though still in serious condition. Get well Ibe, and it was cool to see so many people coming together for a good cause.