SOLOLEVELING

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[soh-loh lev-uhl-ing] / ˈsoʊ loʊˈlɛv əl - ing /

Verb.

1. To gain experience and level up in a video game without a dedicated group, or by yourself.

Existing in your twenties feels like a ubiquitous time in early adulthood—every space feels conquerable, every space unique—as a young person, every day spent around the city is a novel and singular experience. The world feels made for you as you chart the unexplored, but you’ll learn the place you choose to do that charting will influence the self you try to build.

In my early twenties, Phoenix was a fresh new pair of proverbial lips to kiss every night. It’s been an interesting place to watch evolve over the past ten years. New buildings erected out of old, new businesses came and went, people you see every day disappear as mysteriously as they arrived. Trunk Space, new and old Jobot, that giant warehouse on Grand, Valley Bar, Lux, Urban Beans, storage unit shows on the southside, The Grand before it was a club and was open 24 hours, Gracie’s pre-patio extension, Lost Leaf, Grand Ave Pizza. In this Phoenix, no Bacanora, no Club Contact, no Savauge, no Valentine. No Highball. No Churchill. Cobra didn’t have a line and Roosevelt was desolate for the most part.

Phoenix is a place that can make you change, and the only place where your employment can add or take away from your celebrity as clout works differently here. It’s a social hierarchy that lives outside of usual measurable scales, but usually what’s “scene cool” in Phoenix is lagging behind the next largest nearby cultural hub—Los Angeles, Mexico City, and sometimes, but less so, New York City. Everything originates elsewhere, then you start to see it pop up here five or six months later in some freaky, watered-down, less transgressive form, to appease the simpler taste of the desert city. Phoenix’s only cultural identity is consumption. The same bars every weekend. The same faces smiling and sour. The same drama, what’s-his-face with what’s-her-name. Someone lying. Someone acting. Everyone performing. A deeply unserious place where even the most vile can influence and the losers will have their say, the city is one of sycophants where the only safe position is to watch. Phoenix is a bot lobby.

But, there is something charming about being from somewhere with a borrowed sense of self, because it leaves room for genuine self-expression somewhere in the cracks—and when you see it, it feels authentic like it’s the first time. A city that doesn’t know itself allowed me a cover to stay unknown and I learned that lesson slowly, and by the time I understood it, I had built an entire life around the distance it offered.

I’ve spent the better part of eight years trying to find my place within Phoenix, going to all the events, all the restaurants, all the shows. From it was born a half-baked idea for a magazine focused on art, and then this blog. The first iteration of Tyler Has A Gun, if some of you may remember, was dedicated solely to Phoenix history and interesting local characters. For the curious, here are all the places I’ve lived in the last ten years and how much the rent was, excluding my most recent move.

2016-2017, $550 - $675
5145 N 7th Ave APT 200 Phoenix, 85041

2017, $500
8439 E Roanoke Ave Scottsdale, 85257

2017-2018, $1300
1701 N 7th Ave Apt 10 Phoenix, 85007

2019, $1000
1014 E. Clarendon Ave #A Phoenix, 85014

2023, $2200
207 W Clarendon Ave 2G Phoenix, 85013

2024 - 2026, $1750
1110 W Roosevelt St Phoenix, 85007

I wanted to be proficient on the history, an authority on the architecture, I wanted the lore—I wanted to know everyone’s secrets, I wanted to be keen on the drama but not be in it. Being a bartender allowed me to do that. It was the perfect position for me as I had unconsciously decided that proximity was a safer option than exposure. Over time it became more and more glaringly clear that it was hard to get to know a place when it didn’t know itself.

I felt myself get more and more introverted and more reserved then I allowed myself to slowly leave local orbit. Phoenix runs on surveillance and I told myself I wanted this, and that it was okay because it let me stand aside and save my genuine feelings for those far removed from the city.

I don’t know if I actually ever wanted to fit in. The closer I got to others, the clearer it became that I don’t think I liked anyone very much. That’s not to say I didn’t find my people—I did, and they held it down for me through change and loss. They allowed me to be raw and expressive. But they existed largely outside the framework I projected onto everyone else. I’ve quietly exited the small amount of space I’ve occupied and I’ve found myself more whole, more fulfilled. I’ve found love and family. True friendship and partnership that allows for growth free of judgment but still holds you accountable. I found what I’d desired my entire life, inside that same framework I designed and then grew to resent.

Maybe it was never Phoenix, and it was always me. That’s probably half true. I have felt a calling from somewhere far away from the desert. Somewhere I can exist outside of preconceived ideas and opinions—somewhere the watching hasn’t already started before you walk in the door. I know I’ll always come back, to see my parents and brothers, my friends and extended family. But I’m afraid when I do return, Phoenix will be exactly how I left it.

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