Today I biked passed past one of those loft-style condo buildings. It had raw exposed beams and edgy brushed stainless steel doors. The sign outside read, “Blowtorch Flats.” I thought about what it would be like to buy artsy credibility with a $350k condominium; imagined parking my Mercedes in the climate-controlled parking garage and going up to my “Blowtorch Flat,” where the closest I would get to metal sculpture was putting the Pottery Barn flatware into the Finnish dishwasher.

I didn’t like the decomposing artist loft that Dre and I shared in 1999, but the faux-lofts that are so popular now scare me even more. I felt like a poseur in our loft (what writer needs forty feet of natural lighting? The glare on my screen was something fierce), but at least it was cheap and, well, real.

It was a nasty, uninhabitable place where people suffered for their creative space…10 of us shared one bare-bones bathroom. We cooked on hot plates. The ceiling continually sifted onto the floor, which was a torn clutter of six-inch long splinters. There was a four-lane double-decker freeway on-ramp outside our windows. The electric supply company on the ground floor burned fiberglass that gave the air a strange smell. The neighborhood was awful. It was foul, but I’m sure in a few years the floors will be refinished, the area will be “revitalized” by the near-by sports stadiums, and someone will pay $350k to live there.

Being a member of the shock troops of gentrification was weird. It’s even worse to be somewhere that’s already gentrified.