COFFEE TALK, YOU'RE SUCH A FAG (WARS)

it's in. "flag wars" is an eighty-six minute lesson in the contradictions of columbus, ohio. the 2003 documentary on the gentrification of olde towne east won a peabody award -- as well as the esteem of all of the queers who rented at video verite on mississippi avenue in portland after the surrounding neighborhood had been gentrified -- but nearly a decade later it doesn't even seem to have made it onto the radar map of the city where it was shot. it is -- and anywhere -- as the (increasingly drunker) real estate agent who is depicted as the flag bearer of the charge to move the homos into the neighborhood says: it's about money. and the african american homeowners who were left in the neighborhood after the white flight of the mid-twentieth century don't have it. in other words, they do own their big, old houses, but they can't pay to fix them up and make the neighborhood expensive again like the homos.

[a pause to appreciate the ironic timeliness of the release of "premium rush" as the trailer speeds past the cops on tv.]

a longer pause. because i'm thinking again about having heard that the drag shows at the gay bar on parsons (the one that was featured in "flag wars") are getting more and more popular with the fixed gear kids that hang out around impero and one line. columbus is progressive, they say, and i think that i probably would have agreed until a year ago. the capital is definitely the most progressive city in the state. but the city that once joined new york and san francisco in protest of the police invasion of the stonewall inn in 1969 appears still to be only the follower, but now not even occasionally in line with any radical minority. columbus, says a recent gay transplant from raleigh, is remarkably segregated. and of course it's no longer a question of gay. or, rather, it's the gays that have been the first wave anywhere (and the richer the better). and as "flag wars" does well to point out, it isn't as if neighborly concord is furthered by the anti-gay religious values often shared among the "indigenous" population of olde towne east. but maybe it's all been moot since "flag wars" got popular out of town(e)...and maybe it's just a matter of time (and gentrification) until the movie gets in with the cool crowd in its hometown. then again, for a city that is home to one of the top interdisciplinary art centers in the world, there persists a resistance to art at the fringe (and all that leaves is a bunch of mediocre middle west stuff).

but then there's also that one line i overhear at one line (and i'll admit that i would probably be at the new bakery on oak in olde towne east if they had decaf). yoga pants and louis vuitton asks the urban outfitted barista (complete with republic bicycle locked outside) which coffee bar in new york this reminds her of. "you know, that one in new york," she says before she wanders to the back of the place to wonder what the roaster is for. "i couldn't say," comes the response. "there are, like, hundreds of coffee bars in new york. it's a really progressive city." so excuse me. because apparently i'd confused my terms. good thing i'll have a chance coming up to visit and get back behind the curve. start spreading the news. it's in. that's why progress invented 4g. just don't ask who lived here before that.

it's time for a new cool, faggots. but it absolutely won't help if we tell each other where to look.