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It’s not often that I get embroiled in a Hollywood celebrity scandal (and honestly, that’s not really what’s happening now) … but somehow … someway … I was way ahead of the curve on this one.

If the one and a half of you who read my articles may remember, I mentioned going to Luv-It Frozen Custard a couple of times in yesterday’s post.  Not only did I mention it, I did indeed, go.

This morning I woke up to a few emails in my inbox regarding this establishment.  Apparently, my blog comments foreshadowed a controversy surrounding this very custard stand.

Before going any further, I need to make it crystal clear that I am not exaggerating when I say that I do not own a television.

I honestly do not.  I have not had a television in approximately two years.

I do stream certain shows and events via YouTube, Hulu, etc … but I really have no idea what is going on in the world of mainstream entertainment as a whole.  I kind of bowed out of popular culture and stopped paying attention to it about 5 years ago.  I hadn’t even heard of Taylor Swift until her little tiff with Kanye West screamed across news headlines, and I’ve yet to hear a single Jonas Brother’s song.

At 13 years old, I was already getting pummeled in the pit at Bad Brains and Minor Threat shows.  I don’t understand the tutti-fruity s**t the kids listen to today, and I’ve never seen 90% of the TV shows that most people make reference to.

Ironically, one of the few modern shows I am familiar with is “The Office”.  I was in LA during the pilots and I was part of a focus group that got to see it before it went to prime time.

It’s a fine show for what it is … a mainstream sitcom, and I don’t really have anything particularly insightful to say about the show itself.

What does have the city abuzz, however, is a remark made by one of the characters from the show.

Apparently, I am not the only one who has been to Luv-It Frozen Custard lately.  Mindy Kaling, the Indian chick (dot not feather) who plays Kelly in “The Office” also made a recent trip to the stand.

She relayed her trip to Craig Ferguson while she was a guest on his television show, saying “We went to this frozen custard place in I believe the most dangerous and sketchy neighborhood I’ve ever been to in my entire life”.

She went on to say that she saw drug addicts, a man without pants, murderers, and undercover cops.

View the video for yourself here:

Here’s the thing … I live in this neighborhood.

As a matter of fact, I walk to Luv-It all the time.  I also walk to Dino’s, The Stratosphere, The Sahara, First Friday, 7-11, Walgreens, and the White Cross Pharmacy.

This particular actress did not imply, rather she outright called the area in which I dwell “The most dangerous and sketchy neighborhood I’ve ever been to in my entire life.”

Am I offended like some of my geographic peers?

Of course not.

Why?

First of all, she’s not necessarily wrong.  We don’t know where she’s been.  Compared to Glendale or Santa Monica, we probably are “sketchy”.

The slab of pavement between Luv-It and Olympic Garden is a well-known place to buy street drugs.  One of the dealers has taken a real liking to my dog, and I always have to stop and let him rub my mutt’s stomach when I walk him north on the Boulevard.  The dealers don’t bother me, but I can see how someone like Kaling might find them disconcerting.

After the sun goes down, the area is pretty rough.  While I was putting gas in my Porsche the other night at the 7-11 at Oakey and LVB, a large, disheveled black guy began yelling at me from the nearby bus stop.  His exact words were “Hey white motherf**ker, I’m going to kill you”.

Fortunately, he was just nuts, and he didn’t kill me … although how he found out about my mother and I, I’ll never know.

This is also a huge prostitution area, and many of my neighbors actually participate in the trade.  I see them all day, every day … and more so at night.  You can always find a streetwalker at the corner of LVB and St. Louis, and everyone knows it.

I’ve seen people getting blown behind dumpsters, I have to step over used condoms quite often, I’ve seen numerous police sweeps, I see helicopters with spotlights circling the area at least once a month, and I get panhandled on a daily basis.

There is gang graffiti everywhere, as well as shoes tossed over telephone lines.

The area centered around LVB and Charleston has a violent crime rate 11.7 times that of the national average, and overall crime is 12.1 times that of the national average.  Statistically, we are well within the definition of “dangerous”.

Even as a resident, I will fully concede that the area around Luv-It is not that great.  I’ve lived at 14th and Florida in DC, 138th and Brook in the Bronx, and adjacent to “Skid Row” in Los Angeles.

This is most definitely not “the most dangerous and sketchy neighborhood” I’ve ever been to, but it’s far from the best.

Assuming Kaling is reasonably sheltered, she very well may have been telling the truth.

Among the people who are upset over her comments are several “professional” (as in occupation) residents of the neighborhood.  Some of them are actually calling for a boycott of the show (thus depriving us all of seeing Dwight’s latest hi-jinx).

My “professional” neighbors have been quoted in the local newspaper as saying that the neighborhood has a large number of long-time, quality residents.  They have stated that the neighborhood has a strong sense of community.  This is also very true.  Our area is made up of people from all walks of life, most of the people are good yet weird, and it’s fairly cohesive.

In my opinion, the positives of this neighborhood far outweigh the negatives.  This is why, despite all the drawbacks listed above, I am very fond of the place.  So fond that I decided to live here.  I think it is the greatest neighborhood in all of Las Vegas, and I would not want to live anywhere else in the city.

This doesn’t mean, however, that I am oblivious to the risks and realities.  I liked DC and New York as well, but I took reasonable precautions, and I would never have advocated that someone naïve to the area walk to my home at night.

On the whole, I think that some of my neighbors are being dishonest assholes.  They are spewing bullsh*t for the sake of property values.  As a matter of fact, one of the “outraged” people is a realtor who sells properties in the area.

While those in groups will almost certainly be fine, it is patently irresponsible to inform rural and suburban tourists that walking from The Stratosphere to Luv-It is a safe endeavor.  While we think it’s fine because we are familiar with the area, this place does look foreboding to outsiders.

Failing to understand why the Kaling lady felt as she did is intellectually dishonest.  The so called “professionals” who stepped up to decry the comments are either lying for the publicity, or they are just  outright perceptually deficient.

While I traverse the stretch of road nearly every day, I can certainly understand how Las Vegas Boulevard from Baltimore to Fremont could look foreboding to someone from out of town.  Especially after dark.

If my fellow residents cannot see that, then they are clearly not being objective.

For Christ’s sake, Luv-It Custard is only a few blocks from Naked City.  Would anyone encourage tourists to patronize that area as well?  Please, be reasonable.

Sure, we have plenty of nice homes mixed in with the dumps, but all of the nice homes in my area have gates around the outside, bars on the windows, and guard dogs in the yard.

Trust me, none of the neighborhood “professional” yapping heads would leave their front door unlocked at night.

Aside from the custard stand, I’m not even sure how much face-time they actually get with the area.
Believe me when I tell you this and take it to the bank … it’s very, very, very rare to see “white professionals” walking around my neighborhood sidewalks after dark.  Hell, they are hardly around during the day.  As a matter of fact, as I type this, a man is pushing a shopping cart underneath my window and is stopping to dig through bags of trash.  I haven’t seen a white “professional” walk by in the last hour.

I have, however, seen plenty of nice, shiny, expensive cars drive by in the same amount of time.  99% (if not more) of the “professionals” in the community drive out of the neighborhood in the morning, drive home in the evening, pull into their driveways, shut the gate, and do not emerge again until the next morning.  They bunker down.  The people who swear that the area is “safe”, are the people who see the neighborhood at 25mph or greater.

From 11pm to 5am, I would need a scorecard to count the number of prostitutes that walk by my home.  To count the “professionals”, I wouldn’t even need my hand … I could count them on my penis (of which I have three).

I believe that these neighborhood “advocates” (for lack of a better word) are overstating their own experience on the local streets, and are being less than forthright with their assessments.  I would be willing to bet that I spend far more time actually walking these streets than they do.

Maybe the comment hit a little too close to the truth.  People are always angriest if they think a comment has merit.

For example, if  I were to say that Summerlin was a place where wild buffalo run loose in the streets, presenting a hazard to everyone nearby … nobody would take offense.  They don’t have any inkling that it’s true and they would present no defense to my claim.

However, were I to say that Summerlin was full of xenophobic California ex-patriot douchebags who are upside-down in their mortgages, I would prepare for an angry response.

The truth hurts.  At least a little.

Will anything bad happen to you if you walk from the Stratosphere to Luv-It?

It’s quite unlikely, but the probability of it happening here is 1,000 times higher than taking a walk of similar length in Santa Barbara.

I’m far more offended by the faux-outrage of my friends and neighbors than I am of the actress.

When you feel the need to defend our neighborhood from the comments of a bit player in a goddamn sitcom, you make us all look like delusional idiots.

I like our neighborhood.  It’s the greatest neighborhood in all of Las Vegas.  It’s one of the only real neighborhoods in the State of Nevada.  But … it’s an urban neighborhood, and by west coast standards it’s absolutely an inner-city neighborhood.  With that designation, you have to take the bad with the good.

We’re not The District, and Mindy Kaling would not feel comfortable hanging out here.

I don’t personally consider this a bad thing.

Neither should you.

Besides, the homies are already on the lookout should she come back.

Beverly Green-Southridge represent, Biyatch!

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