Baltimore, June 18, 2016

Like I wrote in my previous post, I did other things in Baltimore besides take pictures of cosplayers next to a fountain that has since been closed down. I took a little walk around the downtown area, starting with these police motorcycles parked outside the Baltimore Convention Center.

These street drummers outside the PNC Bank building could be heard throughout the surrounding blocks.

This marker shows where a series of riots took place in Baltimore during the Civil War. Maryland was one of those border states that nearly seceded to the Confederacy until Abraham Lincoln offered a compromise where Maryland could still keep slavery legal in exchange for the state remaining in the U.S. Had Lincoln not done that and Maryland became a Confederate state, Washington, DC would’ve ended up being in the geographically awkward position of being the U.S. capital located inside of the Confederate States of America.

I briefly stepped inside Harborplace but there are so many empty storefronts in both pavilions that I no longer make a special shopping trip there. These days I only go to Harborplace if I’m in the Inner Harbor area for a different reason and I feel the need for some food, drink, or to use the restroom. There are just a few stores left that I felt was worth photographing, such as McCormick World of Flavors.

I also stopped briefly at the giant candy store It’s Sugar, which sold sexy underwear for both men and women made from candy.

It’s Sugar also sold some election-themed stuff like party masks and toilet paper featuring Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. I had sticker shock when I saw that each roll of toilet paper costs $6. (I could buy a 12-pack of toilet paper at Aldi for $1 less than that.)

Like I wrote before, there are a lot of empty store spaces in both Harborplace pavilions. Someone tried to cover one of the spaces with this nice looking ceramic art.

Across the street from Harborplace is The Gallery, which is yet another shopping mall. The Gallery has more stores than Harborplace but most of the stores are chains (such as Game Stop) which already have stores located closer to my home so I don’t really need to drive all the way to Baltimore to shop. The Gallery had this interesting vending machine that I’ve never seen before—it sells rollable flats. That’s right, it’s a vending machine that sells shoes. I thought it was pretty interesting but I don’t know if it’s the sort of thing that will catch on in other shopping malls in the Baltimore-Washington, DC area.

There are a couple of interesting sculptures at the fountain that’s located near the entrance to The Gallery.

Walking north of the Inner Harbor one can find some interesting things to photograph.

I walked along East Baltimore Street until I hit The Block. Historically that area was a place where burlesque performers did their striptease act while comedians performed there as well. By the 1950’s The Block became a full-fledged red light district with strippers who took all of their clothes off replacing the more demure burlesque performers and X-rated movies replacing the comedians. It was and still is the epitome of sleaze. As a child I can remember my father once loaded up the car when some relatives from Ohio came to visit and he gave a driving tour around Baltimore. He drove through The Block, which was lit up at dusk, while my Ohio relatives just oohed and ahhhed. He didn’t stop the car in The Block because even then it was way too sleazy for families to walk around in.

I had a misadventure at The Block when I was 19. I was attending Anne Arundel Community College as a freshman at the time and things between my then-boyfriend and I weren’t going too well. My boyfriend’s best friend, whom I’ll just call “John,” who was also a student at the same college, suggested that the three of us check out The Block. So we all loaded into his car and drove down East Baltimore until we hit that area.

John took us around to a couple of strip bars. The strippers weren’t all that attractive and I remember one of them looking like she weighed at least 250 pounds. We also checked out some peep shows, which were porn movies that were shown in individual booths. Basically you dropped a quarter into this slot and you saw the movie for about a minute or two then it would stop. If you wanted to see more of that same movie, you dropped another quarter, then another quarter, then another until you reached the end of that movie or you’ve had your fill of it (whichever came first).

At the time the legal drinking age was 18 so I drank a few beers and got drunk in the process. I remember the last thing we did was to go into these individual rooms that had a glass partition that was covered with a curtain. There was a phone next to this pay box that asked for a quarter. I picked up the phone receiver, dropped a quarter into the box, and the curtain was drawn to reveal this scantily-clad woman on the other side. I was totally blasted by then and all I could do was laugh hysterically. The woman was pretty patient about seeing this drunken teenage girl just laughing her ass off like a hyena and I think she asked if I was okay and having a good time. The curtain abruptly closed after a couple of minutes and I staggered out of that room.

I was totally hung over the next day. My boyfriend and I went our separate ways, I transferred to the University of Maryland at College Park the following year, and I basically focused more on my studies and campus life in general and less on visiting red light districts. When I was married I think my then-husband may have driven briefly through The Block once or twice on the way to someplace else in Baltimore but I don’t remember.

My devout Roman Catholic grandmother used to tell me that good girls don’t go to The Block. My grandmother is now deceased along with most of my older relatives, with the exception of my mother (who’s currently struggling with multiple sclerosis), so there’s no one around to warn me to not to venture near The Block because I’m a good girl. Heck, I’m divorced so I don’t have to worry about protecting my virtue and innocence anymore since it’s all gone, baby, gone.

I haven’t really explored The Block since my brief misadventure when I was 19 and seeing it now just looks sad. The X-rated movie theaters and peep shows are now gone (thanks in large part to the advent of home video and the Internet). There’s strictly an emphasis on live performances by strippers and selling sex toys. The Block is also way smaller than I recall. (The Wikipedia says that at its height The Block stretched several blocks long. I think I remember The Block being around two or three blocks long when I was there at 19. Nowadays The Block is literally one block long.)

These buildings on the edge of The Block are being renovated into office buildings although, to be honest, I can’t imagine any corporation or medical practice or any kind of straight-laced businesses (like insurance companies or travel agencies) wanting to put its offices next to strip clubs and sex shops. But, then again, Disney did take a risk in New York City when it decided to pour money into renovating the historic New Amsterdam Theater in Times Square, which led to other companies following suit and ultimately pushing out the strip clubs, peep shows, porn theaters, and sex shops. Maybe that’s what Baltimore is hoping: Disney or some other straight-laced company decide to invest in that area while leading other straight-laced businesses to relocate to The Block and ultimately purge the area of its burlesque and porn past. Maybe it’ll happen once the ugly memories of Freddie Gray and the Baltimore Uprising recedes further into the past but that’s going to take a very long time. (LOL!)

Around the corner from The Block is The Grace and Hope Mission. That’s right, it’s a Christian church and/or mission that probably caters to the people who work there. If one considers the fact that Jesus reached out to the prostitutes and other societal outcasts in his day, one can say that The Grace & Hope Mission is really being very Christian by emulating Jesus.  If one were to look at the upper left corner of the photograph below, one would see what looks like apartments or condominiums. (The balconies are a definitely giveaway.) I’m not sure if I would even want to live so close to The Block given the fact that it’s a very high crime area. I would be especially afraid to go to or from my apartment/condo at night.

The crown jewel of The Block is the historic Gayety Theater. Not only did burlesque performers like Blaze Starr performed there but comedians like Jackie Gleason and Red Skelton used to have shows there whenever they came to Baltimore. It has a lovely facade that was restored not too long ago.

Today the Gayety houses Larry Flynt’s Hustler Club, which features entertainment that’s a far cry from Jackie Gleason’s comedy routines of yore.

The Hustler Club also has a sex shop that not only features all kinds of sex toys but there are even signs advertising something called “the official pleasure collection” that’s inspired by the controversial Fifty Shades of Grey book trilogy and movie.

I came across something that I didn’t expect to see at The Block. Apparently the Hustler Club had something called “WTF Weekend” that featured Mama June from that controversial TV reality show Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, which was abruptly cancelled by TLC despite its high ratings a few years ago after Mama June left the father of her youngest daughter, Honey Boo Boo, for an old flame. Except it was revealed that this old flame had just finished serving time in prison for child molestation involving a young girl. Worse, before he was arrested and convicted for that molestation, he was accused of sexually abusing Mama June’s oldest daughter, who was a child at the time. Basically Mama June threw away her well-paying job as a reality TV star for hooking up with a convicted child molester despite having minor daughters still living at home (including Honey Boo Boo) while alienating her now-adult oldest daughter in the process. So now Mama June is reduced to making a living by doing live appearances in sleazy places like The Block with Little Sassee Cassee, a two-foot tall woman who’s billed as The World’s Smallest Entertainer. That event had just passed a week before I showed up yet that poster was still up.

The whole area of The Block just looked like a sad shadow of its past self. Unlike my last extended visit at 19, I didn’t even bother going inside any of the buildings because I had a feeling that the interiors would look even sleazier and more depressing than what I saw on the outside. Plus the people who were going inside and outside these buildings just looked like the kind of people I just don’t want to make even small talk with. Some of these people just oozed sleazy vibes on first sight. You’re definitely not going to find anyone like Richard Gere’s suave wealthy character in Pretty Woman. (Hell, I can’t imagine anyone from the 1% venturing anywhere near The Block, especially when they have the money to pay for a high-priced escort service to make house calls.) It was just as well that I didn’t go indoors because I was spared what goes on in these establishments, as described in this article.

Not only did I not bother with entering any of the nightclubs on The Block, I didn’t even bother with entering the few non-sexually oriented businesses either, such as Subway. (Shoot, I don’t even remember any corporate chain fast food places on The Block when I went there at 19.)

The 2 O’Clock Club is one of the few original businesses left on The Block. Blaze Starr got her start as a burlesque performer there and she even owned the place at one point. She sold it and retired from her burlesque career when The Block went from being an area that featured burlesque shows to showing porn movies and peep shows. That place was the site of a brutal murder not too long ago.

I can remember when the neon signs on The Block would especially stand out at night. Given the crime that frequently goes on these days, there is no way in hell I would ever walk in that area at night to see the lights in their full glory, even if I was with other people.

Right where The Block ends is a carry-out place called Mandi Kitchen that serves Halal dishes.

Right next to The Block is a police station. Seriously! Anyone who becomes a crime victim on The Block would only have to walk a few feet to get a police officer for help. It’s been said that the police station is there so the cops can keep a close eye on The Block, although given the crime that still goes on, I can’t say that they are watching that area too closely.

Across the street from the police station is a building that probably had a business that was once a part of The Block. The side edge of this building still says “KS Film Game Room,” even though that business has long since closed.

The building now houses offices of a business that specializes in retirement savings plans.

I have to admire The Block for still tenaciously hanging on when red light districts in other U.S. cities (such as the intersection of 14th & U Streets, N.W. in Washington, DC and Times Square in New York City) have long since fallen to gentrification, home videos, and Internet streaming. But The Block seems like a cancer or AIDS patient who is still alive but the body has dwindled to skin and bones and the patient is mostly bedridden. Only time will tell whether The Block will still be around for the turn of the 22nd century or if it will ultimately be something that one only reads about on the Wikipedia.

I got away from The Block and I walked past the historic Shot Tower. This particular photograph has some very subtle delicate cloud formation in the sky.

I briefly walked into Little Italy but I only walked about a half a block in the area when I felt my feet getting really tired. I managed to stay long enough to admire some of the building facades but I decided that I’m going to have to explore Little Italy another day.

I walked back to the Shot Tower Metro Station and took the subway to Lexington Market. I thought about going inside to get a soda but I arrived 20 minutes late because the building had already closed for the day by then. I ended up taking a photo of the outside before walking to the Lexington Market light rail stop. I took the light rail train out of the city and to North Linthicum, where my car was parked.

May Day Protest in Baltimore (May 1, 2015)

A few weeks ago I mentioned that I was going to eventually do a proper blog post expressing my feelings and impressions of the day that I participated in the May Day protest in Baltimore (which is now known among some circles as the Baltimore Uprising). Since I didn’t originally start this blog as a news blog (other than news about what I’m doing regarding my arts, crafts, and photography), I decided to just link to the photos and videos I had taken in that previous entry while taking my time to digest what I had witnessed before writing this post for posterity.

That May Day protest was one of many that were called in the wake of the murder of Freddie Gray by six Baltimore City police officers. A few hours before the protest happened, the chief prosecutor Marilyn Mosby announced that the six officers will be indicted. While that was good news, the protest still went on as scheduled because there was a 10 p.m. curfew that was still in effect (which was ultimately lifted on May 3) and there were still a bunch of issues that the protesters also wanted to focus on like police brutality against young African American men, and income disparity. Here is my own personal story of what I saw and photographed on May Day.

The night before the protest, I created a protest sign where I used this famous saying of Holocaust survivor Pastor Martin Niemöller.

Unfortunately I learned the hard way that it was hard for me to hold the sign while taking pictures at the same time. On top of it, my sign had a lot of words that required people to stop and read while the other protestors had signs with simple slogans that one could read in two or three seconds. Well, that’s a learning experience for me. (LOL!) I ultimately put that sign back in my recyclable Aldi shopping bag that I brought with me.

I drove my car to the North Linthicum light rail stop. The next photo shows the light rail pass I purchased. I decided against driving all the way into Baltimore because I feared that finding affordable parking would be a problem.

Once I got off at the Baltimore Convention Center stop, I decided to take the Charm City Circulator bus towards the far end of the Inner Harbor. On my way to the nearby bus stop, I saw the first of many police officers wearing riot gear on the corner of South Eutaw and West Pratt Streets.

I ultimately got off at the stop closest to the Power Station. I originally intended to treat myself to a meal at Phillips Seafood Restaurant because I hadn’t eaten there since before my husband walked out on me in 2011. But then I saw that all the stores and restaurants in the Power Station were closed earlier than usual on a Friday.

I decided to walk back towards Harborplace. I passed the Baltimore World Trade Center where I saw more police officers in riot gear guarding that building.

I shot the next two photos of these giant barriers next to the World Trade Center—which were erected to deter car bombs—that had flowers planted in them.

I eventually walked across the street where I found a Shake Shack that was one of the few businesses in the Inner Harbor area that was still opened. There was a sign posted on the door stating that it was going to close earlier than usual due to the 10 p.m. curfew that was put into effect just a few days earlier in the wake of the rioting following Freddie Gray’s funeral. At least I got to eat dinner (which was very good, by the way).

After dinner I walked back across the street towards Harborplace, where I saw more police officers in riot gear and police cars parked everywhere.

Both pavilions in Harborplace were totally closed, which is very unusual for a Friday that didn’t fall around a major holiday (such as Christmas Day).

The whole area was totally fortified with a phalanx of Baltimore police officers, Maryland state troopers, and members of the Maryland National Guard. It was totally surreal.

What was also surreal was the police from other parts of the state also helping out in Baltimore as well.

One of the vests in the next photo said “Laurel Police.” I happened to live near Laurel so I know how far these particular officers had to travel in order to get to the Inner Harbor.

When I first arrived in Baltimore, I felt a little bit intimidated by all these armed police officers and National Guard people, some of whom had their guns out and looked like they were ready to fire their weapons at any moment. I initially took my photos from far away using the zoom function on my smartphone.

But then I took some minor risks where I took closer photos. Then I took photos that were closer. As I took the photos, nothing happened. The armed people basically ignored me as I took these pictures.

When I recounted this to an African American friend at my Unitarian Universalist church two days later she said that I was ignored because I am a white woman. Then I finally realized the full extent of white privilege. For the last few years there have been dedicated activists at my UU congregation—both black and white—making a dedicated effort to wipe out racism while examining the phenomenon of white privilege. For years I secretly protested the idea that I was even using white privilege in any way because I usually gone to great lengths not to have a ME! ME! ME! entitlement personality.

But after what happened in Baltimore, I realized that there’s more to white privilege than white people acting like they have a ME! ME! ME! entitlement personality and expecting special treatment because of being born with white skin color. It’s also how others react to your presence. Even though I tried not to act as if I was entitled while I took those photos, it was the people in those photos who decided to ignore me because I was a white female. If I was an African American man the same age as Freddie Gray, I think there’s a strong chance that the outcome would’ve been different. Ditto if I had been a Middle Eastern man with a bushy beard.

White privilege is multifaceted because while I can control myself in not acting in an entitled way, I can’t control the actions of others in how they perceive me anymore than Freddie Gray could control how the police officers decided to treat him because he was a poor young African American man. The only person I can control is myself.

I know it’s not fair that I managed to emerge from taking photos of people with weapons unscathed because of my race and gender while a male person of color wouldn’t be so lucky like I was. Unfortunately I don’t have any answers.

I finally found the protest rally that was gathered at McKeldin Square next to Harborplace.

At first the protest rally seemed relatively small until another contingent from other protest marches that were held elsewhere in the city earlier in the day arrived to McKeldin Square and the protest rally suddenly surged in number.

At one point I even shot some video of the whole march. I ultimately spit the video into two short videos. This video focused on the phalanx of armed people guarding the Inner Harbor, the rally in McKeldin Square, and the initial march down East Pratt Street past Harborplace and the Inner Harbor. It’s raw footage with minimal editing.

Once everyone was gathered the march started. The protesters initially walked down East Pratt Street.

At one point the protest march turned left on to Gay Street. I was in the back of the crowd, which wasn’t so bad because I found Britney Girl Dale, the same person whom I saw along Ritchie Highway during my massive day-long tour of Baltimore and Glen Burnie last summer. Since that time she had become the subject of a new short documentary. It was just pure luck and chance that I happened to come across Britney Girl Dale and her friend, Anthony (who’s also in the documentary), as they were flirting among the police officers who were watching the protesters while following the march route.

The protesters kept on walking along Gay Street while passing the outermost perimeter of Baltimore’s notorious red light district known as The Block.

The marchers kept on Gay Street until we reached City Hall, which was a mix of protesters, media people, and all kinds of security people with their guns drawn. For added measure, there were even cars passing by while the drivers were honking their horns. It was surreal to say the least.

In case the still photos don’t do enough to convey how surreal the scene was, here’s the second of the two videos that I shot on that same day. Like the other video I posted earlier in this entry, this one also consists of raw footage with minimal editing. This video begins with Britney Girl Dale getting a photo with one of the police officers providing security during the march up Gay Street. Then there is the scene of City Hall that’s filled with a mix of protesters, Baltimore police officers, Maryland National Guard people, media people plus cars passing by while the drivers were honking their horns. The video ends with three musicians playing John Lennon’s “Give Peace a Chance” while armed National Guard people are standing nearby.

Located just across the street from City Hall is the historic Zion Lutheran Church. I had only been there one other time and that was to check out the Christkindlemarkt that was held there last November.

The gates were locked this time but there was a maypole with a little tree on top indicating that the church did the traditional May Day ritual of dancing around the maypole.

There were a few dedicated protesters who wanted to continue farther north all the way to the intersection of North and Pennsylvania Avenues (which was Ground Zero for where the riots broke out after Freddie Gray’s death just a few days earlier). I briefly thought about it but I decided against it because I was already tired. I had already done a lot of walking—starting with that one block walk I made from the Baltimore Convention Center light rail stop to the Charm Circulator bus stop. From there I took the bus to the far end of the Inner Harbor. I walked over to the Power Plant, saw that it was closed, then opted to walk along the Inner Harbor back towards Harborplace and McKeldin Square. Once the march started, I walked along Pratt Street then followed the crowd up Gay Street until we reached City Hall.

There was also talk via Twitter of protesters staying out past 10 p.m. and defying that curfew. As for me, I decided to obey the curfew for two reasons: 1) I drove my car to the North Linthicum light rail station and took public transportation the rest of the way into the city because I was uncertain about available parking. I made the right decision since there were cop cars and military vehicles parked all over the place around the Inner Harbor and City Hall. But if I wanted to get back to my car, I had to take the light rail and I was afraid that service would’ve ended earlier than usual because of the curfew. 2) Money is pretty tight with me now and I’m not sure if I could even afford a decent lawyer to get any charges against me dismissed. (It turned out that 50 activists were later arrested that evening outside City Hall for defying the 10 p.m. curfew.)

Basically I ended my May Day protest by resting on one of the benches outside City Hall for a while then I started to walk along Fayette Street towards the nearest light rail stop (Lexington Market). In the process I walked past two Baltimore Metro stops, which I didn’t know too well compared to the light rail line. (I later learned that I could’ve saved myself some walking time had I simply taken one of the Baltimore Metro trains to the Lexington Market stop then transferred over to the Lexington Market light rail stop. D’OH!) All that walking made me tired and sore for the weekend and I didn’t feel fully recovered until Monday. But, on the other hand, thanks to my walking along Fayette Street, I managed to take a few more photos showing the effects of that 10 p.m. curfew and how bad Baltimore has gotten in terms of deteriorating buildings.

The last three shots show a coffee shop with a recently busted front window. I have no idea if that window was broken by looters in the wake of the Freddie Gray incident or if it was simply an unrelated robbery done by a criminal taking advantage of the situation in Baltimore to steal some money and valuables while the cops were busy dealing with violent protesters. I also don’t know why anyone hadn’t tried to clean up the debris from the broken window. Leaving broken glass on the ground like that is a potential health hazard.

Throwback Thursday: The One-Year Anniversary of My Day in Divorce Court

Somehow it seems very fitting that the one-year anniversary of my date in divorce court falls on a Throwback Thursday. That’s right, one year ago today I had to make an appearance in divorce court because my husband really wanted out of our marriage so he made the filing. Our case was the first one on the docket and it began at 9 a.m. The trial itself lasted about 15-20 minutes. My husband brought a witness, who turned out to be a friend of ours who was NOT the other woman, who testified that when she visited my husband and the other woman soon after they moved into their new townhouse in July, 2012, she saw no evidence that I had moved in with my husband. That witness also happened to be my lawyer’s next door neighbor, which I now find amusing in retrospect.

(For the record, I still speak to that person every now and then. I don’t hold it against her that she testified on my husband’s behalf. I think she just got snagged into my husband’s mad plan to divorce me so he could marry the mentally ill friend of ours that I now suspect that he was having an affair with long before he even left me.)

On that day the judge granted something called a Provisionary Divorce while another signed decree announcing that the divorce is final wouldn’t arrive until June.

I drove home after I left the courthouse. I remember that it was unseasonably hot (the temperature went up into the 80’s, which was unusual for an April—fortunately the weather this year is more in line with what it’s usually like in April). In fact the clothes I wore to court was very hot so the first thing I did was to change into lighter clothes. It was still morning yet I felt so wound up and stressed out that I couldn’t stay home alone.

So I got back in my car and made the trip to Baltimore where I spent a very full day. I initially went to one of the Harborplace pavilions where I discovered that a McCormick World of Flavors store had opened.

I ate a late lunch at a Johnny Rockets then went to the relatively new Ripley’s Believe It or Not Odditorium where I saw all kinds of interesting exhibits such as this model, made entirely from matchsticks, of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry from the Harry Potter books and movies.

After visiting the Odditorium I continued to walk around the Inner Harbor area where I took pictures such as one of this artist at work.

I also walked around the perimeter of the notorious red-light district known as The Block. I took this amusing photo of a church (note the cross-shaped sign on the upper left of the photo below) that’s located directly around the corner from one of the less-than-reputable businesses located in The Block.

I eventually went on the Charm City Circulator bus, which I took it until I reached Fells Point. I stopped by my favorite music store, The Sound Garden.

Afterwards I ate dinner at Brick Oven Pizza then walked on to a nearby event that was put on jointly by members of Occupy Baltimore and Luminous Intervention where it unveiled a video game called Tax Evaders, a Space Invaders-like game that was also a satire of those rich mega-corporations who have gotten away with paying little to no taxes. The game was shown on the back of a Bank of America building with overhead equipment and someone had rigged a Microsoft XBox Kinnect so people could play the game using their whole bodies. I shot a short video showing what it was like that night.

I would’ve loved to have given that game a try myself but, by that point, I was very exhausted from the long day so I just basically stuck around watching others play until my feet grew very tired and sore. I soon walked to the nearest bus stop so I could take a couple of Charm City Circulator buses back to the nearest light rail stop so I could take the light rail back to the North Linthicum stop where I had parked my car. I later played the Tax Evaders game myself online and it’s still there a year later so you can play it anytime for free.

For Throwback Thursday I posted just a few of the photos I took one year ago today in Baltimore mainly because I’m too lazy to repost the same photos that I posted last year. To see more photos from that day, see the longer blog entry I wrote last year.

In the year since my day in divorce court I had to go through all kinds of emotional turmoil and I’m only now trying to get back to being the person I was before December 28, 2011 (the day that my husband came home from work, announced that he was moving out even though he didn’t indicate that he was the least bit unhappy in the marriage, and bolted out the door before I had a chance to respond). I rarely see my ex-husband these days and several of our longtime friends have told me that they also rarely see him or his second wife (he married the other woman just four months after our date in divorce court last year).

As for this one-year anniversary, I also found it fitting that it falls on the regular Thursday night meeting of my support group for people who are separated or divorced. I’m going to observe this by going to that meeting tonight. It’ll be a far cry from all that walking I did in Baltimore last year but it’ll be okay because I’ll be among sympathetic people tonight instead of throngs of urban strangers.

I’m just going to end this Throwback Thursday post with a lovely song that I would like to dedicate to my ex-husband on the one-year anniversary of our appearance in divorce court.

 

Baltimore, Maryland (April 10, 2013)

April 10, 2013 will be one of those monumental days in my life but not for happy reasons. As I wrote in a previous entry, I made an appearance in court to witness the end of my marriage first-hand. The judge granted something called a Provisional Divorce while I would eventually get a divorce certificate via mail at a later date. The whole procedure started at 9 a.m. and it ended around 9:20 a.m.

I was pretty sad. I drove home and stayed there for a couple of hours but I felt restless. I decided to get in my car and just drive. It was only after I was on I-95 that I decided to head to Baltimore. It was the city where I was originally born and I lived the first five years of my life until my parents decided to move to nearby Glen Burnie (where I spent the rest of my childhood and teen years until I went to the University of Maryland).

I drove to the North Linthicum light rail station and took the light rail into the city. (It’s cheaper than the parking garages in Baltimore.) I initially went to Harborplace where I ate a late lunch at a Johnny Rockets then walked around, where I took these pictures. I hadn’t been in Harborplace in several months but I was pleasantly surprised to find a store that’s dedicated to McCormick’s spices. While I can get most of the spices in my local supermarket, there were a few spices I hadn’t seen before like cocoa chili powder.

Harborplace also had this general store that engaged in a bit of seafood humor.

I saw these interesting egg people in the windows of H & M.

I can remember when the second floor of the Light Street Pavilion used to be full of mainly fast food outlets (some were national chains like Subway while others were locally owned yet provided quick meals like hamburgers and fried chicken), small boutiques, and Hooters restaurant. That pavilion has been renovated and only Hooters remains in its original place. Everything else that was on the second floor has been replaced with just two businesses—the second floor of the H & M store and a new attraction that has opened at Harborplace over the past year: Ripley’s Believe It or Not Odditorium.

I can remember when I once visited a Ripley’s Believe It or Not museum that is located on the Boardwalk in Ocean City, Maryland a few years ago. I went with my now-ex-husband, his sister, her then-teenaged son, and one of her son’s friends who came along with the family on that trip. We went to the museum on a night when we planned on visiting the Boardwalk but it rained so we decided to go to the museum instead. Since I saw the Ocean City one, I decided to check out the Baltimore version just for the heck of it.

Like its Ocean City counterpart, the Baltimore location has a main museum (known as the Odditorium) that features all kinds of oddities. I took a photo of a few of them but there were a lot of oddities that were crammed in that museum. The one advantage of visiting the Odditorium on a weekday afternoon during the school year was that it was mostly empty so I was able to help myself to the hands-on activities that the museum provided. (I can imagine that those activities would be crowded with kids on weekends and during the summer.) I had a good time viewing all of these oddities, including the ones I photographed.

This large statue of a penny was created using actual pennies.

The giant green circle in the next photo is an actual jade coin! The sign invited the public to touch it for good luck. I did so in the hopes that my current bad luck will change for me soon.

The next photo shows a typical room in the Odditorium. As you can see, each room was crammed with an oddity. By the way, that statue of the tyrannosaurus rex dinosaur in the center of the room was made from the foil that wraps Pop Tarts.

The most memorable part of the Odditorium was the numerous models of buildings that were created from matchsticks. Those matchstick buildings included Hogwarts Academy (from the Harry Potter books and movies), the Sydney Opera House, the World Trade Center in New York City (prior to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001), the St. Louis Gateway Arch, the Eiffel Tower, and the Washington Monument.

The entire Ripley’s attraction had three components. I only saw the Odditorium one since it’s the main part of the facility. There is also a mirror maze and a 4D moving movie theater but those other features cost extra so I didn’t check them out. (I’ll probably check out the 4D moving movie theater at a later date since you can visit that one separately without having to tour the entire Odditorium again.)

After the Odditorium, I walked over to the Pratt Street Pavilion where I visited It’s Sugar, which is basically a candy store on steroids. There are so many different types of candy on sale there that anyone who’s a total sugar addict could easily drop a lot of money buying huge amounts of candy.

It’s Sugar also sells candy and treats in giant sizes, which would appeal to parties, large families, or people with huge appetites. One example is this giant 2 pound version of Rice Krispies and marshmallow squares.

The store had underwear made from candy.

It’s Sugar had a few non-edible items on sale, such as these teddy bears from last year’s R-rated hit movie Ted.

After visiting It’s Sugar I walked out of the Pratt Street Pavilion and towards the Power Plant, where I saw this artist at work.

I also saw a display announcing the creation of a new monument in Baltimore dedicated to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.

After a brief stop at the Barnes & Noble store in the Power Plant, I walked on towards the nearest bus stop on the Charm City Circulator’s Green Route. I walked towards the area where Baltimore’s long-notorious red-light district known as The Block is located. One pretty amusing irony: There’s a church located just around the corner (note the cross-shaped sign on the left side of the photo below) from one of the less-than-reputable businesses located in The Block.

Here’s another shot of The Block. I have to admit that The Block has managed to maintain its seedy reputation while other cities have managed to eliminate their red-light districts through urban renewal. (For example, if you really want to know what Times Square in New York City was like before Disney, Sanrio, and other companies moved in, I highly recommend that you rent either Urban Cowboy or Taxi Driver.) The porn theaters and strip clubs managed to stay in business all these years despite the rise of home video and Internet porn.

The Charm City Circulator’s Green Route was located just a stone’s throw away from The Block. I saw this one woman waiting at the same stop who dressed like she was a hooker. (I had no idea if she was a prostitute who had just gone off-duty and was waiting for the bus to take her home or if she was a woman who was just wearing a sexy outfit for the heck of it. I had no intention of asking her either.) Eventually the bus that I was waiting for arrived and I boarded it. I rode it until it reached Fells Point, where I got off.

It has been at least five or six years since I last visited Fells Point so it was really nice to be able to visit the area again. I knew I was in Fells Point when I saw the sign for Bertha’s, a seafood restaurant which is an institution there. (It’s not unusual to see cars in the Baltimore-Washington area with bumper stickers that says “Eat Bertha’s Mussels.”)

I was happy that I had another chance to visit the Sound Garden, a music store that has gotten write-ups in national publications like Rolling Stone magazine. At that store one could find not only current hit CD’s but also music from relatively obscure artists. The store also sells vinyl records and DVD’s. I used to tell my husband “One of these days I gotta get you to the Sound Garden.” (I’ve visited that store previous times on my own.) I knew he would’ve loved that store. However we never got our act together so we never visited Fells Point together so I never got a chance to introduce my husband to that store. Now that we’re divorced, I’ll never introduce him to that store. Oh well. It’s his loss since he’s the one who wanted this divorce.

The next two signs are of an art gallery (charmingly named How Great Thou Art) that had a cool looking sign and an outdoor art piece dedicated to the Baltimore Orioles baseball team.

Another art gallery displayed this painting on its outside wall next to the gallery entrance. It’s Edgar Degas’ Before the Race. It’s pretty unusual to see a painting permanently hung outdoors.

I walked past this empty storefront that had this sign that made me glad. Kilwin’s is opening in Baltimore soon. I’ve visited the Kilwin’s that’s located in Melbourne, Florida when I visited the area twice with my ex-husband and I wrote positive praises of the place each time. (You can read them here and here.) When I saw Kilwin’s for the first time, I assumed that it was a locally-owned Melbourne store. I first realized that there was Kilwin’s in other places when I went to the shopping area in Annapolis and I saw a Kilwin’s there. (Since I took that photo below, I learned that a new Kilwin’s had just opened near the church where I attend my weekly support group meeting for people who are separated or divorced. I can now visit Kilwin’s without having to travel to Melbourne, Baltimore, or Annapolis. I now have a new temptation to resist each week. LOL!)

I ate dinner at Brick Oven Pizza, which probably ranks among my favorite pizza parlor. It’s a locally owned mom-and-pop place and what’s really cool is that you can order pizza with all kinds of toppings, including ones that aren’t commonly found in other pizza places (such as spam). I used to tell my husband about this place and how I loved for the two of us to eat one meal there. My husband once even toyed with the idea of the two of us spending a weekend in Fells Point where we would go shopping, eat at local establishments, and go drinking in some of the many bars and pubs in the area but I only heard him mention the idea once or twice and we never acted on it. Now that we’re divorced, my ex-husband will have to go there on his own (or with that other woman he left me for) if he wants to experience the place.

After divorce court this morning but before I headed to Baltimore, I changed clothes into something more casual including this t-shirt that I purchased at Katsucon two months ago that says “Hedgehogs: Why Don’t They Just Share the Hedge?”

That t-shirt was a definite conversation starter at Brick Oven Pizza since the woman who took my order noticed it and we ended up in a conversation about our pets (including my hedgehog and her dog and cat). She had so many funny antecdotes about the antics of her pets that I suggested that she start a blog about them. I think she would get readers, especially if she included photos.

After dinner I walked over towards the Broadway Market where there was an announced meeting I learned via Facebook. Members of Occupy Baltimore and Luminous Intervention announced this joint action where they were doing a public debut of this new video game called Tax Evaders. People were instructed to meet about a block from the place where the video game would be debuted in order to not arouse the suspicions of the local authorities. One of the organizers pointed where we would walk to once the organizers finished with setting up the equipment. That person pointed in the direction of this wall mural that looked so nice that I took a photo of it.

A portion of the wall mural spilled over to this Bank of America building, where we would ultimately meet.

Once the equipment was set up, we walked over to the parking lot in the back of the Bank of America building where activists had set overhead equipment where the video game was shown on the side of the building. The location was selected because Tax Evaders skewers those rich mega-corporations who have gotten away with paying little to no taxes—including Bank of America.

The activists managed to rig the video game with the X-Box Kinnect so people can play the game using their whole bodies as the controller.

I saw the video game in action and I was impressed. I was too tired to play the game myself because of all the walking I did plus showing up in divorce court early in the morning. I took a few still photos with the Canon camera but then switched to the video camera in my smartphone because I realized that video was a better way to show how the whole display worked. Here’s a short video of what the whole set-up was like.

If you like what you see in both the photos and video, you can play the video game yourself online right here.

After seeing that video game, I walked a few blocks to the nearest stop on the Charm City Circulator’s Orange Route. I boarded the bus then got off at a stop that was closest to a light rail stop. I then took the light rail back to the North Linthicum stop (where my car was parked) and drove home. I was totally exhausted and drained by everthing that went on that day so I basically went to bed when I got home.