B-more

I went to Baltimore last night y'all... and I survived! It's funny, but despite their close proximity, DC and B-more don't really gel like that. It's only a 40-min. drive north, but you might as well be driving to a whole nother world, yo.

First off, downtown Baltimore looks like a bomb hit it. There's hella potholes in the street (though, being a driver in DC, this is nothing new), mad abandoned buildings and houses, there's a spotlight and street camera on damn near every other block... and on top of that, don't look at anyone the wrong way or you just might get shot, lol. To my people that watch The Wire, I am not exaggerating when I say it is EXACTLY like that in B-more

Ordinarily I wouldn't be up there without a reason. Luckily, I had my trusty 'hood-navigator P with me, who still has friends up there from when he went to Morgan State. With P onboard, I got a nice little tour of Baltimore's seedy underworld. Just kidding, we drove around some neighborhoods and he pointed stuff out

Stuff we drove past (cautiously):

• Tupac's (and that hoodrat Jada Pinkett's) old stomping grounds. P pointed out a playground in B-more that Pac feautured in some video of his... it was full of cracky-looking people when we drove by it
• Coppin State University, which I had never heard of, but is smack dab in the middle of the 'hood
• Druid Hill Park. If that name sounds at all familiar, the R&B group Dru Hill took their name from that park
• A lot of really obvious drug deals. I guess those surveillance cameras aren't working too well, lol...

As hoodtastic as downtown B-more is (P informs me that East and West B-more are the worst parts of the city), as soon as we drove slightly Northeast, things started looking a little safer. Nice houses and lawns, less potholes. What a difference a few miles makes! We noticed these benches out there...

... and LOL'd. Baltimore seems like a depressed city to me. I mean, besides drugs, what other means of income does the city generate? There's no federal government like in DC, no huge tourist draws like Miami or LA or NYC. I think Philly is the same way: a lot of crime and abandoned buildings and whatnot. Sad.

Anyways, P says THE place to check out in B-more is this area called Fell's Point. It's supposed to be B-more's version of Adams Morgan: a lot of bars and a party-in-the-streets type atmosphere. And of course, there's always Baltimore Harbor and the National Aquarium (though it's tourists galore); I used to visit those places every summer when I was younger.

Anyways, one of P's buddies from DC who now makes B-more his home says B-more cats feel the same way we (DC peeps) feel about them: SHOOK, lmao. That's how serious it is! A 40-min. drive makes a WORLD of difference here. Keeping that in mind, I might give B-more another chance, if only to check out this Fell's Point P speaks of.

I wonder what other cities across the US have the same weird-ass relationship DC and B-more do (quite a few, I'm sure)...