Let Us Poor Have Brooklyn | July 22nd, 2008
I realize, in terms of skin, that I’m the color of the invading horde responsible for the gentrification of Brooklyn … but white isn’t the color responsible, it’s green, and despite my exterior, I’m in Brooklyn because I’ve got less green than the bourgeoise whites gobbling up real estate and jacking up rents. I’m in Brooklyn because the idea of paying over a grand a month for an apartment is offensive to me, particularly when employers don’t pay their charges what would pass for a living wage in this city.
I’m saying that I’m not the enemy and, by and large, the people in my neighborhood realize that, but there are plenty of people with the same color skin as me who are the enemy: my enemy and the enemy of anyone who is living in Brooklyn because it is (or at least was) affordable. No one wants to be driven out of their homes and see the character of their neighborhood washed away by the sterilizing process of gentrification. I only just found out that Mooney’s Pub closed. I used to live around the corner and go there often. Since I moved to a different neighborhood, I didn’t get there as much and now it’s gone.
Mooney’s is gone.
Gone to become something like Franny’s or another reflection of new money trumping old character and historical significance. Brooklyn is being whitewashed and eventually it’s going to spread to Borough Park and Bensonhurst and Sheepshead Bay where, yes, the people are already white, but they’re not rich like the new Golden Horde. Once they’ve completely gobbled up all of the neighborhoods nearest Manhattan, they’ll set upon the next ring, Brownsville, East New York, Mill Basin, Canarsie and so on until there’s a line of Starbucks along the shores of Jamaica Bay, which will be littered with the bodies of those too unfortunate to be able to meet the so-called “fair market value” of their properties.
Manhattan is a sanitized playground for the rich. Even things that used to be affordable, like kebabs at Bereket, have inflated to a degree that belies the simple nature of its ingredients. Katz’s has always been a joke. I could stack a package of Oscar Meyer bologna between two pieces of white bread and it would be a better sandwich than the crap they offer. Has no one any perspective? Why doesn’t anyone realize that what is happening to this city is a catastrophe? It’s the opposite side of the 1970s coin. Then, it was a plague of crime, now it’s a plague of prosperity — but only for a small minority — that threatens eviction for anyone who lives below a stratospheric level of income.
This city needs a vigilante, but not necessarily a Batman fighting petty thugs to keep the streets safe for the poor citizens, this city needs someone who can stem the rushing tide of eviction and who will protect those who struggle to live decent lives on the pittances they eke out of their jobs. There are a great many people in this town who work hard at least five days a week, some of them work six or even seven days, trying to make an honest living in a place where the bulldozing machine of “progress” cares nothing for their plight. It’s about time someone with the power to effect change took on the cause of those who aren’t rich because the poor are the vast majority in this city and once they’ve been forced out of their homes, the rich will have no one left to do their menial bullshit.
No, Dad Got Hosed | June 24th, 2008
This commercial is classic:
And it perfectly sums up what happened to me today.
Today it was proven to me that no matter how hard I work and how fantastic is the amount of my output and the quality thereof, if I do not placate the egos of those in the position to better my financial situation, I will get hosed.
That whole adage of biting the hand that feeds you is very prescient, but it must be recognized that, when the hand is so judicious when it comes to handing out food that the person being fed is bordering on starvation, how can that starving individual be expected to be anything but angry and resentful? It’s like expecting a prisoner to be grateful to their jailer for providing merely enough sustenance to subsist, despite performing all of their jailhouse duties adeptly and with alacrity. Why cannot the great effort and the undeniably positive result of one’s work be worth a commensurate reward? Why must unparalleled quality be mitigated by the personal vendettas of those who feel their boots weren’t licked quite enough?
In short, why in bloody fuck can’t there be some goddamned fairness when the fiscal year rolls around?
You do and do, and do it very well and in the end, all you have to show for it is the financial equivalent of a bottle of ‘letric Shave.
Dad got hosed, indeed.
Gone, Baby, Gone | June 7th, 2008
I was down in one of my old ‘hoods last weekend (maybe two weeks ago, now, I can’t remember; every day bleeds together) and I was taken aback by how much had changed. I’ve only been in Brooklyn for six years, so I wonder how many things lifelong residents have seen, the ebb and flow of “progress.”
One man’s progress is another man’s ruination. Sure, everyone would rather have new and nice bars and eateries, maybe even a Starbucks or a generic, mom-and-pop facsimile thereof. But with all of that comes higher rents and more stuck-up white people who think, because either their parents or their trust funds are paying their rent, that they’re better than everyone else.
It galls me that the price of a brownstone in Bed-Stuy has topped a million dollars. I’m dumbfounded that people will plunk down $400,000 or more for 400 square feet. And that — for my brand of white person (that is, one who has to pay for everything himself ) — an apartment that’s more than a grand per month apartment is a “bargain.”
I’m grateful I found a place affordable on the ridiculous scale of NY affordability, and when I first came to Brooklyn, some dipshit renting a place south of the Prospect Expressway and west of 4th avenue wanted $1100 for a basement apartment that’s not even as big as what I’ve got now. So, things weren’t hugely reasonable when I first came here … but if I’d looked where I should have back then, I’d be paying less than a grand right now.
But I don’t. And the ridiculous thing is that my place is the cheapest — and one of the biggest — of those rented by everyone I know. Soon enough, I’ll be priced out of this neighborhood, though, just like every other one in which I’ve lived. At some point, the critical mass of uppity whites is reached and the rents explode skyward.
Video Edge, that blessed alternative to Blockbuster, my old stand-by on Flatbush Avenue, is gone. The Prospect Cafe is vacant. Lorena’s is a taco stand. Christie’s is still around, but they moved to the north side of the street because Crunch gym bought out their old space, just like they’d bought out the independent gym that had been next to the Flatbush Pavilion theater which is now a clothing store.
To me, that’s all ruin. The theater is gone. The independent businesses are gone. A shitty, modern condo went up around Prospect and Park places.
Still, Gran Castillo is still around (the one not evicted so that a Duane Reade could go in), and though she’s not all that, Li’l Miss Muffin and her Stuffin’ is still right up from the train at 7th Avenue. Brownstone Billiards, from what I could tell, is still in business.
Yeah. So, things come and things go. I’m still here, but other things have either died in my tenure, been born and died, or were just born and have yet to die. Some businesses are going to fail, others are going to thrive. It’s always the way. Gorilla Coffee is responsible for killing the .25 cent Ms. Pac-Man upright I used to play. Some people wouldn’t have it any other way. I couldn’t care less about GC; I’d rather have an old ducan with an upright arcade machine.
Enough nostalgia and sour grapes for one day, though; I’ve got to eat. I’ve got a hockey game to win tonight.
Women on Women | June 5th, 2008
Yes, it’s a blatant attempt at attention grabbing. I was directed to the results of a poll of women, taken by New York’s own Channel 4, to determine which 30 women those polled considered most attractive [poll results]. I have to say, I’m incredulous over some of them; a few of the ladies in the results are down-right scary looking and barely any of the photos do any of the women justice, even the pretty ones (like Natalie Portman).
Lena Headey, yeah, she’s hot. But Ellen Degeneres? Hello? Were they passing out crack to the ladies surveyed? Get this, though, Ellen isn’t even the least attractive woman in the list. There’s one that’s bound to elicit a scream of terror: Kate Moennig. I’d never heard of her before this poll and I hope to never hear of — or see — her again. Christ.
I can definitely get on board with Headey, Eliza Dushku, Lucy Lawless, Kate Winslet (who I have to admit, I think is a total fox and I thank her for her lack of modesty on screen). Penelope Cruz has a great rack and even though there’s something off about her face, she’s still pretty. I like Mariska Hargitay. Mary-Louise Parker is all right and Ellen Page is cute but looks like I’d go to jail for consorting with her, which makes any sexual thought really creepy. But, yeah, if these are the 30 women that women find most attractive, it really makes me doubt their credibility with regard to anything.
“This is New York” | May 30th, 2008
It’s the lamest excuse I’ve ever heard. The biggest copout. Whenever someone acts like a total dick, “Yeah, man, but this is New York” is supposed to serve as justification. People are assholes because this is New York.
It figures that I’ve got something of sizable annoyance to offset how good pretty much everything else in my life has been. I’m pleased to be living alone. My apartment is pretty big. It’s nice. I keep it clean. I’ve got some fun projects to work on at work. I’ve been playing hockey. Aside from a couple roaches, I’ve got no real complaints about my new place … except. EXCEPT. Upstairs, I’ve got a neighbor from hell.
You know the one. The person who believes only they exist and that their actions have no impact on anyone else. Or worse, they simply don’t give a damn if their actions affect anyone else; they only care about themselves. Selfish, in short. Utterly inconsiderate and self-centered. The worst kind of neighbor and, honestly, the worst sort of person.
Sure, everyone needs to be a little selfish. Totally selfless people are fairly insufferable as well, but when someone is so self-absorbed to the point that they utterly disregard the well-being of those around them … it makes me wish I could put in for an anvil to drop on that sort of fuckwad’s head.
I’ve never quite understood the need to antagonize people I don’t know but around whom I’m forced to be. It makes the environment in which one resides very tense and uncomfortable. But, there are people who are so miserable and so intent on spreading their vile, emotional disease that it is by design that they do anti-social, inconsiderate things intended to upset those who would otherwise not be.
What to do with such a person? There’s really only one thing: give them as much hell, albeit in a more productive manner. It’s in the lease that one must be mindful of their neighbors and that all tenants have a right to a quiet and peaceful environment. If that condition isn’t being met, it’s a violation of a contract. Breach of contract is grounds to make that contract void and make revocable the privileges it was meant to provide.
I love my peace and quiet. I love my solitude. I’d like to ensure that I’m able to sleep at night without the need for earplugs.
Flatbush, at last | May 20th, 2008
I didn’t grow up in the confines of the Greater City of New York, but just outside of it. It was the place in which I aspired to live since my first visit to the American Museum of Natural History. I thought it would be the coolest thing to not have to take the LIRR or drive to see the dinosaurs. And there was a park right across the street. How novel.
When I went away for school, I pined for New York City. When I came back to it’s suburbs during breaks from classes, I would always make at least one trip in to eat some pizza or just walk the streets. When I got closer to graduation, I decided I’d move to Brooklyn when I got my degree. Flatbush was the neighborhood I thought to be quintessentially Brooklyn, even though I’d never been there. To be honest, I’d never been to Brooklyn before I moved here. I just thought it was edgier — more fringe — than bland, sterilized and Disney-fied Manhattan. I wanted to be somewhere with true grit and character, that was still authentic. I wound up living right on 4th Avenue at Pacific Street.
The digs were tiny and it was a sublet, so after a few months, it was out of there and onward to a place in Cobble Hill on the cusp of Bedford-Stuyvestant. Less than a year there before a move to a sweet one-bedroom near the Museum. A little more than a year there before a break-up forced me out.
Still no Flatbush. Honestly, the idea of living there had left my mind. It wasn’t a conscious thing; I just stopped thinking about it. At some point, certain places in Brooklyn became too far away. As much as I wanted to avoid living in Manhattan, I judged parts of Brooklyn based on their proximity to New York County. I was working on that island, afterall, and I didn’t want to need an hour to commute.
I wound up in Park Slope, living with strangers for roommates for the first time. It lasted two months before I was forced out by three people, one of whom pissed in cups rather than use the communal bathroom and the other two who each owned one species of rodent or another. It didn’t break me up too bad that I’d been evicted; what a bunch of freaks. But what a pain in the ass.
So, I moved down the street into Gowanus, into an utter hovel of a shithole apartment, but it was cheap and my room was enormous. Landlords we’re totally racist, stereotypical cocks (they had the nerve to call my girlfriend a “mulignan”) but my new roommate seemed cool, if off-color. Still, as the year wore on that situation soured. Me and the roommate kept totally different hours, had little in common and it became a passively aggressive nightmare of resentment and uncomfortability.
I moved again, into a place with the girlfriend whose race my landlords maligned, into Bed-Stuy. Another of those neighborhoods I believed typified Brooklyn. Its gorgeous brownstones and tree-lined streets were the stuff of movie scenes, but the realities of gunfire every night and the shit-strewn streets, the vomitous low-rent retail hell of Fulton Street made living there less of a dream and more of a sentence.
That relationship ran its course and again I had to move out. After two years in the Stuy I found a place in Flatbush.
Thus far, I dig the neighborhood. It’s very insular. Most people on the street are ebullient as opposed to the Stuy’s angry and aggressive sociopathy. It’s near the park. It’s got a Duane Reade and a Family Dollar (so did Bed-Stuy, but these are closer). I’ve got three trains to choose from instead of one (the G really didn’t count as an option). But now my commute to work utterly blows. As crap as the A-train was, it connected to the train that put me right under the building where I work. My commute was, tops, 35 minutes except on disaster days. Now, it’s 45 minutes (that’s a miracle) to an hour.
I sometimes think I’d be better of living on Long Island, or forking out this kind of dough to live with a roommate somewhere closer to the city, but then I realize that on LI gas would cost me hundreds a month and the LIRR would be a few more hundred. Insurance for the car, etc. and I’d be paying close to 500 plus just to get around. Why not just stay in New York and at least be somewhere walkable? And living with someone? No way. I’ve proven that I can’t. The money I spend to live alone is as well-spent as a good investment.
Despite her place in the curriculum of courses I took, I never read any Virginia Woolf, but I do believe she said something about needing a room of one’s own. I’ve got three (not including the bathroom). And they’re all mine.
It’s a nice feeling.
So, I’m in Flatbush digging everything except my commute.
It could really be a lot worse.
Can’t Fight the Fatigue | April 26th, 2008
I slept through the Red Wings game today. I couldn’t help it. I was watching the first period and I started to get that feeling, that all-encompassing fatigue that comes from having eaten something containing gluten. When it comes, I have to conk out else expend an immense power of will to stay awake. So, I slept. I missed periods two and three, and the resultant 5-1 victory by Detroit over the Avalanche.
When I woke, my stomach and its associates were extremely displeased. Another sign that I’d eaten something I shouldn’t have. It’s my own fault, though; I played fast and loose with some cold cuts today, buying a brand I’d never before bought and not asking to read the ingredients. Celiac disease is such a bummer that sometimes the frustration and annoyance borne of rooting out every potentially contaminated food is too burdensome to invite. But then the result of not being diligent is so bloody unpleasant that I feel like an ass for being so cavalier about something so debilitating.
I’ve got a hockey game tonight and I always play like crap after I’ve eaten something containing gluten, because I’m totally enervated from consuming it. My hope is that I’ve enough time before the game (11:30 tonight) to try and eat some good carbs and protein, all of the food g-f, and build up a good store from which to draw. Just hope my stomach can calm down in time.
Newcastle played today, too, and they came back from a 2 - 0 deficit against West Ham to draw 2 - 2. The Magpies are now undefeated in their last seven games, I believe. Good stuff all around, sports-wise. Food-wise… I’ve got a long way to go, it seems, before I really learn my lesson about my illness.
Two Days to do Something other than Work | April 4th, 2008
I’ve already gone over tonight. Tomorrow is the first full day of two without work and I’ve got a couple things slated, watching Newcastle United in the morning and playing hockey at night. That leaves doing taxes during the day or, more likely, grabbing some groceries.
My girlfriend was watching “The Secret” while I puttered around the web, checked my work email and tried to fill the time between the end of the Rangers game (a disappointing loss) and going to bed (as much as I enjoy sleep, a different kind of disappointment).
It’s a captivating premise, that all you have to do is believe the world is yours and so it is. Believe you’ve got money coming and there you have it. Believe you’ll get the hottest chick to lay you and, bingo, she’s in your bed. It’s easy for anyone to dismiss such a philosophy as crackpot-ism and snake-oil salesmanship, but who’s really to say that having it all isn’t just a result of knowing you’ll get what you want?
To me, it’s asinine that only Scots and Britons (and the Dutch, etc.) had the opportunity to get rich in America. By and large, they’re the one’s who did it. Inventing things, starting companies like U.S. Steel or Standard Oil. How does one have the foresight and the wherewithal to do that kind of stuff? I seriously doubt that John D. Rockefeller or Cornelius Vanderbilt had some intricate knowledge about oil and shipping and that’s how they began their businesses. I’m willing to believe they simply knew they’d be big-time and decided “I’m going to do it this way” and so struck out and did it, wooing people with their confidence and charisma into investing in their ideas and buying their products.
Confidence and charisma are the currency of all human interaction. Rich people amass their wealth through whatever variable means, and there are people getting rich all the time. It’s a cop-out to say “the rich get richer and the poor get poorer” because it’s a half-truth. Rich people are getting richer because they know how to make money and their money makes them money whether by investment or just accruing interest. Poor people either fiscally stand still or lose money because they have no idea how to better their economic situation, and some know only how to worsen it.
Back to confidence and charisma, it sells things. Anything really. Gatorade. Infomercial wares. From the top-shelf to the bottom-shelf there is psychology behind the method of sale that entices someone to buy. Those with money tend to keep toward the higher-end items and avoid the lower ones, but those without money are susceptible to all forms of coercive vending. In essence, those with high-value are secure enough to avoid being attracted to low-value merchandise while those with low-value are desperate for anything; they’ll take the lowest thing and pine for the highest.
People are still making themselves, even now … despite talk of “it’s impossible to get rich today” or “all the good ideas are already taken” … it’s just that the bulk of people are mired either in the middle or at the bottom and the negativity that festers there is infectious. It serves a main purpose of undermining the ambition of anyone who desires something greater by shattering their aspirations.
Looking back on almost every moment in my life, I have been a negative, choleric individual. It’s easy to be. It takes very little effort to loathe everything and everyone, and it’s a simple cop-out, a way to avoid trying and to placate lethargy. I’ve been told a million times that being a downer really doesn’t hurt anyone but me and those closest to me. The rest of the world wants me to be down, wants me to be miserable; it’s less competition for them or it feeds their schadenfreude to see someone stuck in a depression. Unhappy people revile the contented and the happy. It’s a cocktail of jealousy and rage. No one wants to be a miserable piece of shit, but those who can’t figure out how to be anyone else want everyone else to feel as much like garbage.
So, too, though, do those at the top want to keep down anyone without the right kind of attitude. Someone who doesn’t evince all the characteristics of go-get-em-ness is an undesirable to those with the means of including an aspirant in the culture of wealth and prominence.
As I read somewhere, it’s not about selling out so much as buying in. And, honestly, what would most people rather be: a sellout with a nice home and nice things who is confident and happy and therefore a positive, attractive force … or someone who didn’t sellout and touts their integrity while they claw through life practically destitute and perpetually desirous of more and better things while at the same time resentful of those who have “it all”.
Sometimes it really does seem like there’s a secret to life and that some folks really know what it is, while others just don’t have a clue. Take Mike Bloomberg for example: he knows nothing about computers, but computer security is how he made his fortune.
Chew on that for a while and tell me it isn’t easy if you just know how.
Friday on my Mind | April 4th, 2008
I’m not a huge Easybeats fan, but I recognize their place in musical history and that album title is apropos of today. Not thinking about Friday, but it is Friday and I’m thinking. Close enough.
Rangers take on the Islanders tonight at the Garden, the second game of a home-and-home between the teams. I’m a Red WIngs fan but I can’t bring myself to buy the Center Ice package and I like hockey too much to avoid watching it so I’ve adopted the Rangers to have a team to watch and for which to root.
It’s been an interesting season so far. A lot of parity in the league, but my Wings have stormed to another President’s Trophy. I think they’ve got a great shot at winning the Stanley Cup this year, but the team that wins the league isn’t always the team that wins the Cup.
Rangers, I’m sad to say, don’t have a chance. They play a boring brand of hockey to begin with, but their offense is anemic and their defense is laughable. Their goaltending isn’t consistently reliable (not that the Wings have the best goaltending; they don’t) and I don’t think the Rangers have the character to persevere and get 16 post-season wins out of four best-of-seven series.
Still, tonight there’s a game and it’s something to watch. Tomorrow, Newcastle United plays Reading. I’m hoping the Magpies can manage their third straight win, but the Royals have been looking good of late. It should be, as the Brits say, a “cracker”.
No Wheat (and all the good things I miss because of it) | April 1st, 2008
I’m by no means a foodie, nor a gourmand, but I do enjoy food when I don’t have to make it. Unfortunately, my reliance on others to prepare food for me is severely hampered by my body’s violent aversion to wheat, barley, rye and possibly oats. Pretty much everything has wheat in it, whether in the form of flour or something else.
When forced to pay attention to such things, it’s almost asinine some of the things with wheat as an ingredient. Soy sauce?!?! It makes going out for sushi a real pain; unless a place has La Choy (no wheat used in the fermentation process), then I’m dissolving my wasabi with water or rice vinegar if they have it (if they actually understand my request. The language barrier is usually pretty big in sushi restaurants).
I needed a snack the other night while out at Pete’s Candy Store’s Wednesday night “Quizz-off”, so I went to the (what do you call an Asian-run bodedga) and bought a bag of Doritos without reading the ingredients. I looked them over when I got back to the bar and, sure enough, there was “WHEAT FLOUR” staring me in the face. I had to take them back and exchange them for potato chips (read those ingredients really closely). It’s a complete hassle.
Worst of all, I can’t drink conventional beer. I love beer. Tough shit, though. I’m stuck with ones made from sorghum or rice or any non-wheat or -barley grain. My one consolation is that whiskey is okay for me; distillation removes the gluten. I’ve tested it. Bingo.
Still, a life without real beer is pretty sad. And sadder still is a life without donuts. I miss kaiser rolls, too. Gluten-free bread sucks. It’s very dense and not at all pillowy.
Sometimes I want to go buy a sixer of Newcastle Brown Ale (Come on, United!), buy a deli sandwich on a poppy seeded kaiser roll and have a donut for dessert … then I remember feeling every day like I was poisoned, waking up with a hangover when I hadn’t had a drop, and getting sick all the time because my immunity had plummeted like mercury before a storm … and I push that idea aside and thank my lucky stars I’m not allergic to peanuts.