F%cked up places youv'e been.

[RCMerchant]

The Bronx. I was born in the Bronx. I also lived-and went to school there in 1980.
I was the only white person. I hung out with a guy from Brazil and drank booze in Poe Park. In school-A big black guy sed if I didnt do his homework he would beat my ass. This happened in the front of the classroom. The teacher was a cow. I sed-"f**k you." The guy ended up being my "protecter". Nobobody f**ked with me after that.
I could buy booze anywhere.I was only 17. But NYC is weird. No one gave a f**k. I had a couple bucks-they'd sell it. I had a job working on a garbage truck.
I saw an old woman take a s**t on a subay platform. I got in a fight with a street gang with my brother Glen. I passed out at Port Authority and fought 2 motherf**kers for my shoes.
NYC is f**ked.

I usta sit on the porch of this motherf**ker and drink. I was 17 years old.



This is at Poe Park.

[Psycho Circus]

Middlesbrough:


The North East of England. I was working up there with this guy and we were fitting show homes on new estates with blinds, curtain, shelves, doors etc...But when we got into Middlesbrough it was like a nuclear bomb had just hit. The sky was the dullest, greyest sky I have ever seen and if you took a total 360 look at the surrounding scenery there was nothing but huge factories billowing smoke in every single direction, in the distance behind every house. The houses themselves were all boarded up, most had roof's that had collapsed but people were still living in them! Stray animals roamed the streets and we even saw some kids no older than 10yrs old steal a car! Whenever we drove off site to get supplies, no matter what store we visited, the car park would always be full of broken glass and traces of blood. Middlesbrough is the worst place I've been in this country and it was even voted the worst place to live in the UK in a recent poll.

Bahrain:


I went with my mom & dad for a holiday to visit family over there. I was 9 years old at the time and it was about a month before my parents actually divorced. On the surface Bahrain is a beautiful place, especially the coastal areas which are like something out of a movie - pure paradise. But in certain areas and in particular, at night, the country is a scary world to be in. There's patrols crawling all over the place and violence breaking out, thieves and con-men so you have to watch your back. I remember vividly one night we got lost in this place that was like the middle of some desert and we got stopped by guys with machine guns wanting to check the car. Nothing bad happened but my mom, dad & I were pretty shaken up. There was always men in restaurants trying to offer money to my dad so they could have sex with my mom. This happened right infront of me, they didn't care. On the last night of the "holiday" my aunt and mom had a bust up and they threw us out. We had to sleep in a garden somewhere, as we didn't have any money or possessions and the police would not come out to resolve the situation. I don't remember the details of that night fully, but it sucked big time.

[Doggett]

The North.

Everything Circus says is true.

[RCMerchant]

Wow. I'm speechless,Circus. That's amazing.
I love true life stories.

[Leah]

A beautiful city with a horrible rep, New Orleans. Born and raised here (well, most of the time- 4+ months living in Houston during Katrina  )

[lester1/2jr]

RC- I don't think that people around the country/ world understand what Guliani did in NYC. I think if they had he would have done a lot better in 08.

[Killer Bees]

I've never been anywhere truly messed up.

The worst place I've been is a suburb here in Brisbane called Fortitude Valley (The Valley to locals).  It's on the city fringe and is a weird mish mash of cultures.  It's basically a Chinatown.  There are ethnic supermarkets and all the usual shops and banks you get everywhere in the country.  Strip clubs and sex shops abound.  A methodone clinic takes up a shop front right in the main street. There's a huge pub with live music that houses a backpackers hostel and there are always foreigners of every kind around.  There's also street markets and poshy clothing stores and second hand charity clothing stores as well.  Also, lots of nightclubs with that stupid techno doof-doof type music.

It's also where the dregs of humanity live:  homeless people, drug addicts, drunks, massive wandering indigenous population who suffer from all three of those afflictions.  There are police everywhere.  It's pretty scary when the cops are wandering around wearing surgical gloves  

By weird contrast, because it's right next to the city, there are apartments that cost a bomb to live in.

I used to work there and dodging the unwashed masses got really old after a while.  I was never really  scared for my safety, but I did get yelled at by random losers.  Once a drunken aboriginal guy shouted at me "I'm sorry that we have better skin that you guys."  I shouted right back, "don't worry about it, I didn't ask."  

As a general rule, I tend to avoid places that might result in me ending up damaged in the hospital.

[indianasmith]

Probably the Philippines in the 1980's.  Everything and everyone was for sale,  families sold their daughters into prostitution at age 12 to feed themselves.  I was a pretty puritanical young man, and I was nauseated at having to literally push my way through throngs of hookers at the gates of the Navy base just so I could go on liberty . . . I even got propositioned by a GUY when I tried going to a movie! (It was George A. Romero's MARTIN, I still recall that).  He came to the urinal next to mine, glanced down, and made his offer!  Yeeech!!!

[Rev. Powell]

I even got propositioned by a GUY when I tried going to a movie! (It was George A. Romero's MARTIN, I still recall that). 

Wow!  A fictional character came on to you? 

[Andrew]

Over 15 years ago I was lost in NYC around 2 or 3 in the morning the night.  Never sure where exactly where I was, but I believe it was the Bronx.  One block was surreal.  Saw packs (yes, I'd call them packs) of young men, burned cars, and some woman beating the living crap out of her dog in the middle of the street.  It was like being stuck in a real life "Escape from New York" world.

In Korea we drove through hours of wet, cold, stinking rice paddies.  There was nothing but mud.  Even the trees and few dwellings looked like they were sinking into it.

[claws]

I've been all over Europe but I've never been to any bad places except for this filthy rest stop in France near the Spanish border.
The men's toilet was gross, kind of like when they show gross toilets in movies: flooded with water, TP and urine, clogged sink, broken mirrors and windows.
They also had a small bistro there selling beverages, snacks and hot food. There was dirt and trash on the floor and flies circling the food, yet a few guys sat there eating. Yuck.

[Raffine]

Probably the Philippines in the 1980's.  Everything and everyone was for sale,  families sold their daughters into prostitution at age 12 to feed themselves.  I was a pretty puritanical young man, and I was nauseated at having to literally push my way through throngs of hookers at the gates of the Navy base just so I could go on liberty . . . I even got propositioned by a GUY when I tried going to a movie! (It was George A. Romero's MARTIN, I still recall that).  He came to the urinal next to mine, glanced down, and made his offer!  Yeeech!!!

We recently had a Filipino restaurant open here. I usually like food from diffrent countries and ethnicities but that Filipino food was really disgusting! It's supposed to be very authentic - according to the staff. It seems to be mostly burnt, chewy pork you dip in cold vinegar, a mushy version of kim-chee, and slimy chicken.  Bleh.

The fried bananas were good and some of the stews look promising but I doubt if I'll try it again.

As far as places I've been I've never seen anything scarier than some of the very rural regions of north Alabama and Tennessee, the area where I 'born and raised'. DELIVERANCE was a Disney-fied documentary compared to some of the places I've seen, particularly in some of the almost forgotten family 'hollers'.

[macabre]

THE SOUTH!
EVEN DOGGETT CAN LIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Criswell]

The Earth, there's a lot of messed up stuff here.

[WildHoosier09]

I grew up in Elwood, Indiana which was only moderately f*cked up when I was a kid there (no horror stories forthcoming, since this post opens with the 1980's Bronx anything I put here would make my childhood look like Disneyland). Notoriously it is the home of the Klu Klux Klan, but honestly I never actually saw any in person despite living less than a quarter a mile or so (as the crow flies) away from their purported main hangout which was a neglected cemetary in the woods (in another post I mention how where I grew up was a haunted area because it was remote). The one Klan rally they did have in town a bunch of mothers brought out their kids too because the cops brought horses to keep the crowd (all half-dozen of them) from getting out of hand. The mom's wanted their kids to get a chance to see and pet the horses so the Klan rally turned into a petting zoo. That was pretty much the end of any visible organized Klan activity in Elwood, they had just lost all power as they squawked their random hate messages in the megaphones while mothers ignored them and held their kids up to the cops horse to get a better chance to pet them.  Elwood now is really f*cked up because of a complete lack of any economic activity. Just drug addicts/bums are the only ones left in the town proper itself anymore and almost anyone with any marketable skills moved away to find work (including myself, yes I am part of the brain drain problem).

Jamaica in 2000 in Mountainside/Blackriver as a teenage missionary was a bit f*cked up but not nearly as bad as if I had been in Kingston. Jamaica however makes you appreciate infrastructure because although it is poor it is overall very well run as a country, they have drinkable running water, reasonably well established agriculture/fishing, some electricity, just no money. Crime was rampant though and we spent nights in a barred up manse for our own protection.  I went back in 2010 and as we drove through the same area and I didn't even recognize it. Where Jamaicans were walking barefoot (carrying files to rub off calouses) down roads in 2000 they were now zipping along in airconditioned cars in 2010. Where there was just empty fields they now have factories and some economic acitivity going on. Man did Jamaica change in 10 years for the better.

I've heard others from New York say the same thing as what Lester posted earlier that it's completely different than what it was like in the 80/70's. I don't know if RC ever went back to the Bronx, but you may not recognize it anymore.