TAKE IT TO THE STREETS!(this is not a hiphop thread(except, of course, it is))

my town? streetlife=commuting. a crass generalization yes, but

actual hangin' out on the street (outside of consumer activities like in-line-fer-the-show, or-coffeeshop-smokebreak, or oncampus-cuteness-watch(yay summer)
is province mostly of the un(or illicitly)-employed poor.
case studies at two poles:

A)my friends in Vigo, Spain. the axis of their boy-girl-segregated same-age social networks (of all classes) is the particular, choice secluded park stairway or alley.

b)my (urban, mind you) Minneapolis friends are tied to geography in a much different way. the vague unplanned meetuphangout out points are in our homes, coffeeshops and increasingly as we all reach booze-age--- in demographically-appropriate bars.
fragmentation.

one of the reasons to accept Britishers' claims to punk as their own is this, i think. a broader segment of pop culture is played out on the streets, so the fetishization of urban life acctrue**m**s makes more sense.
( tho the alienating-british-suburban environment is as much a part of the punXor mythology/ i suppose).
i'll avoid using the word 'authenticity' but you see wat i'm implying, no?

here, unless you really do live out on the streets, the display comes across as something closer to roleplaying.
the street is for transit. standing still makes us-and the police- vaguely anxious, and when we're on the sidewalk being ne'erdowells (looking sideways at the audience) i feel like i've stepped out of history.

for all the talk about pop 'reflecting life on the streets', mostly we have competing totalizing myths about streetlife. there are no black people in um, that one madonna movie w/ that Arquette grl, and there are no white people riding jeeps in the desert with dre. (ack terrible examples.)

i'm romanticizing Europeans by underestimating their capacity for self-consciousness a little, right?

and i'm paraphrasing the bends, probably now. shit.

um this is sloppy, but um, what?

*

hey what are you staring at!?

i've decided to stake out this mental territory for the summer.
and my wearable battery-powrd amplifier is nearly complete so FEAR ME

p.s. why am i asking ILE this question?
le tigre says ILE should GET off the INternet!
note that there is no appropriate sub-category in Culture> to put this thread in.