5.08.025

I think a cool idea for a TV show set in Chicago would be to have a character who just stays in one apartment and every episode the neighborhood is completely different. Like they go outside and some things look familiar but the locals are speaking a new language and there’s a whole new dynamic and style to everything.

That’s how it felt from 1999-2015 anyway, wherever I lived or worked in that city. Since then I’ve been a lot of places and what they all have in common is that everything feels always in flux.

Wherever I show up the locals are all, hey you should've been here two weeks ago when it was authentic and we all had needles sticking out of our shoes. Then they charge me $90 for a coffee and tell me I’m ruining their neighborhood. If I protest that I’ve never had money and I didn’t know where else to go they tell me I should have stayed home. Then I get called a carpetbagger and I remind them that unless they can trace their lineage back to the fucking Clovis their people came here from somewhere too and now the air is bad and it's time to pack my bags again.

If you want to avoid criticism, you stay in the exact spot where you were born. I could return to Alma, Michigan, roll out a sleeping bag in the neonatal unit, bug a nurse for the wi-fi password and I bet even then someone would have a problem with that.

Anyway nobody in Montreal gives me shit for being here. At least to my face or slowly enough that I understand.