Song of the Day: "Out in the Street"

A column about music, and about writing about music, or not. See the previous songs HERE.

"Out in the Street"

The Who

from The Who Sings My Generation

1966

Ever since I drank my way through a fantastic qualitative research class in the fall of 2022, I've been enthralled with the idea of an ethnography. It's a branch of anthropology that studies individual cultures explores, mostly from the point of view of the subject of the study. I love it because it gets really messy and personal sometimes—it's tough to research something while becoming part of that thing, since your inclusion in it alters the research and results. Answers have never appealed to me more than questions, so I like the additional questions that the messiness entails.

You can do an ethnography for anything. You can stand in line for a hoagie at Wawa and call that a micro-culture and write from the perspective of someone who waits 20 minutes for Italian classics w/mayo at Wawa. There are no wrong answers. There are, however, better answers than others. Documenting observations during a humdrum lunch break might be interesting but ultimately lack long-term value. But say you were to write an ethnography for an event that happens rarely ever, maybe a handful of times in a lifetime. That would be pretty cool! You can't let such an opportunity pass you by!

This is how I found myself slipping on my sneakers at 10:30 PM on a Sunday night and starting the car. I didn't want to drive into the cold, firework-ablaze horizon, but I did it, because I want to know more about the culture into which I was born and raised. And this wasn't going to happen too often. It had only happened twice before in my life, and there was a non-zero chance that this would be the last time it would ever happen before I left this mortal coil. I'm talking about a major Philadelphia sports team winning a national championship. The Eagles crushed the Chiefs on Sunday night in the Super Bowl. For the first time, I witnessed the game in my hometown, and for the first—and, c'mon, probably last—time, I was close enough geographically to Five Points to head on down to this cultural center of my neighborhoods and check out the scene.

This is what we do when we win championships. "We" meaning Americans, I guess. We gather, in public. Don't listen to the naysayers or the police or Fox News—these gatherings are largely nonviolent. There is an energy to the gatherings that doesn't always manifest as peace and love, but there are also never fights and very little destruction. Everyone is there in collective joy. A team that they care about did well. They did so well that it then becomes compulsory that we compliment that team, in public, out loud, arm-in-arm with peers are also making their feelings known in public and out loud.

I think the reason that I haven't actively pursued the art of ethnography in the past two-plus years since my qualitative research class ended is because I have an enduring fear of being perceived as an "outsider," and the act of inserting yourself in a culture and studying that culture is, by definition, outsider behavior. I do fashion myself an observer. I believe that I have a curious mind. I don't have a problem with detaching myself so to better be positioned to ask the big questions. But I also get extremely uncomfortable when it becomes clear that I do not belong, even if it's only clear to me.

And, most importantly (to my particular situation), there wasn't much of a gap between learning about ethnographies and getting sober. Note that the first ethnography I did was under the guise of drinking. It was an excuse to get fucked up during class, with permission. The act of "observing," in public, seemed to require some liquor to quell the discomfort of not-belonging. Which is fine! I mean, we've been over this so goddamn much on this blog. My relationship with alcohol was unhealthy and blah blah blah. I've spent almost two years now attempting to get better at meeting life with a clear head, despite the vague unpleasantness of being in a heavy-drinking scenario while not drinking.

I'm only bringing it up now because I felt out of place at Five Points, and I can only surmise that this is the reason why. It wasn't that I didn't love watching the Eagles win, because I did. I'm not the world's biggest Eagles fan but only because the idea of "biggest fan" is relative, and I live in the passionate football-culture city of Philadelphia. I was happy that they won. I know enough about the Eagles and about football to know that it made me happy that the Chiefs lost. I say FUCK Patrick Mahomes in the same way I said FUCK Tom Brady all those many years ago (and also many times on Sunday night too). I had my Eagles hat on, just like everyone else, and yelled the six letters and exchanged "Go Birds!"s with strangers. No one noticed me, and if they did, they weren't thinking "this man doesn't belong."

But there was a disconnect between the reality of my situation and what I could feel about it. I felt like a fraud, like I didn't belong. I felt like an observer, which fucking sucked, because this is my city and my football team too, and I should be able to feel like this was my victory, our victory, all of us Philadelphians together. I didn't feel it.

So let's be honest here, without any judgment whatsoever: a gathering such as the traditional Five Points post-championship gathering is inherently a binge drinking activity. There's nothing wrong with that, obviously. To say there is would be a criminal act of projection on my part. Drinking is a problem for me. Drinking can be many positive things for most other people. Here is proof of that, as I witness hundreds of people from all over my neighborhood gather together at one large intersection and raise their aluminum cans in celebration for our Philadelphia Eagles and their great, final victory.

It's a vicious cycle, the feeling out of place. You feel like you don't fit in, and that makes you react uncomfortably in those situations, which affects your behaviors and betrays the fact that you don't fit in, which adds to the fear that you'll be exposed for not fitting in, which affects your behavior, and so on and so on.

I parked probably four blocks away from Five Points because I didn't want to get stuck in standstill traffic, which means I walked four blocks there and four blocks back when I was finished. And every step of the way involved my fellow Northeast Philadelphians facing me directly and yelling "Go Birds!" in my face. This is a friendly interaction in this context. This is an attempt to reach out to a stranger and hold close the one thing that you know for certain is the thing that you have in common in that moment. I know this. I know each moment was a happy one, under the umbrella of a happy night. And yet, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't fall under the night's spell. I was stuck being an observer, separate from my peers, not fitting in.

I begrudge absolutely no one for the situation, because this is the reality of such a gathering. A celebration is free and uninhibited, and the alcohol is a crucial part of the equation, and it fucking feels good. This is not one of those "I wish I could drink this sucks I'm such a fuckup!" posts either; while I am a fuckup, I didn't really feel any compulsion to drink at any point on Super Bowl Sunday. I was offered beers by those whom I knew there, and the response of "no thanks" came automatically and without much residual grief or regret. 

I think I just have regrets that I would love to be the observer in this situation, the ethnographer, the man with the mindful eye who sees the world in a new light and is able to relay those emotions to the reader of his report, but I can't due to limitations that are my own fault. Had I been one of a thousand drunk NEasters on Sunday night, I could've ingrained myself and studied the culture. As it stands, due to circumstances that are now by design beyond my control, I cannot participate in the ritual, and thus cannot ever know it fully. Which sucks, and makes me feel disconnected from the city that I try so hard to be a part of.

On the other hand, maybe this is all proof that an ethnography isn't necessary in this particular situation. Yes, this might be the last time in my life that this number of people gather at this particular location for this specific reason. But I already know the Who and the Why. There's nothing to observe that I haven't observed my whole goddamn life. There's nothing new here that I haven't already lived personally. I wandered around City Hall and witnessed the insanities and got bullied by riot police in 2008. I walked all the way up Broad Street in 2018 with great friends and a bottle of vodka. I've felt the beer-fueled catharsis of communal celebration. The specific location of the Northeast's intersection of Rising Sun and Cottman and Oxford makes it slightly special, but not overly so.

I know this culture because I've already studied it. And I don't think that it's worth getting upset that I can't participate fully in the culture anymore. I can still stand on the outer edges and look on, and remember, and yell "Go Birds!"