JLSC 4 - The Philly Goo Goo Violence Report

I saw the fireworks over the Philadelphia Museum of Art this year. I walked the crowd, enjoyed the music.

Now for The Philly Goo Goo Violence Report: When I was at the Parkway, and while the Goo Goo Dolls were onstage, I saw a whiteboy near me get pushed into his homey's arms by a brother who felt like ole boy got too close to bruh's girl. Whiteboy stayed limp for the entire three minute tirade. I think the whiteboy was drunk. I don't know whether he did anything to bruh's girl or didn't, but bruh didn't sock him, he just pushed him, warned him, and turned back to watch the Goo Goo Dolls.

Mind you, I was not hoping anybody would get punched, but I would be lying if I said I hadn't wished something would occur somewhere to force the Goo Goo Dolls to stop performing. I don't think you're supposed to get sleepy at a July Fourth fireworks extravaganza, but dem Dolls were straight Ambien with theirs, in my view. I left the scene. I ate pizza, drank fruit juice, people-watched on Chestnut and 21st. I abandoned my cigar-smoking tradition in favor of doing a half-year reflection on what's gone right so far in the year, in this case, 2010. (Lots has.)

So that's my violence report. Now it's July 5th. I watched the news today, and oh boy...

All too predictably, the report was of violence at the celebration, by teenagers. "Teenagers took over Broad Street," said the local ABC news anchor. Video showed lots of anonymous people deep in numbers as Market Street is wide, walking up that main drag from City Hall. I think I was supposed to see a mob or an angry mob. Not a flashmob, the anchor made clear, because that implies social media (facebook, twitter) would have been used to call the mob to disorderly conduct, and there was no proof of that.

Then the station cut to what goes for proof, I infer: an eyewitness - maybe blonde, maybe brown-haired, maybe grey-eyed, maybe simply blue-eyed - saying from under his baseball cap, "I was just walking down the street from the fireworks. Then I heard somebody say flashmob. Then I saw someone get punched. Then they started coming toward me." Mind you, he was not - what's the word? - caught or overwhelmed by the, um, mob. He was not touched! He was looked at.

Somebody looked at me before. And I certainly have felt like people have moved in my direction before, and I'll say more: once, they were black people. And teens (mind you, I teach them). Finally, I have owned baseball caps, and I mean lots of them. Phillies, Pirates, Red Sox, Yankees, Michigan, Ohio State: aw man, I loved that red and gray Ohio State hat I used to have. And you know I was sporting the Cavaliers hat with the thin-V and the cross-swords under it when everybody else was wearing the more boxed-out-letters type logo. Oh, yeah, man, I wore it on a college news broadcast with some Jams pajama pants, once. Remember Jams? I loved my purple janks.

I digress. Back to the thing.

People have seen me, moved toward me, hatted, hatless...I want to be on the news. So, that's number one.

Number two: Proof, good reporting, that's what I was getting at, right? Where's the person who was punched? Where's the puncher? Where's the story? The one I'm supposed to do something with today because it has information, or because it is information. Because it's news. Community news by and for community members.

Consider the source of the eyewitness report, and deliverers of ABC's report (the anchors). Well, what's to consider? What do we know?

Full disclosure from this here blog-source: For those who might not know, things happen to me, and often I see things. This July Fourth experience (the Goo Goo / pushing incident) was less dramatic than the time I took the Zipcar that turned out to be a guy's actual car (had it for, what, five hours?) to my daughter's softball game, and I cruise coolly back to the parking garage to return the vehicle, and the guy comes over saying, "How's that car drive? You like it?" And I go, "It's great!" (It was a mini Cooper convertible, handled well, Scorpions CD was in the deck, rockin'!) Guy said the cops were on their way, and I said, "Why?" He goes, "That's my car."

True story. For another blog. (Post a comment, if you want to hear that whole tale.)

Did I digress again? Violence, teens, civil society's fear of both: I think I'm trying to talk about that. Point is, I'm a source! Source of what: that's a valid question, right?

Remember Aunt Bunny who comes to Eddie Murphy's family cookouts, and Eddie's drunk father's comments: Why everytime you come to my house, you have to break the stairs, Bunny? And she throws her head into the fish tank, and lifts out a live one, and from between her bare teeth, she says, "Gooney goo goo!"

Man, that jank cracks me up eh ver ree time!

Everytime.