On Saturday mornings you don't need an alarm clock.

It's really quite interesting to go from one neighborhood's vibe to another.

Last night I got some amazing oxtail from Errol's and this morning I was awaken at 7:30AM by the sounds of my neighbor's radio as she cleaned out her van.

A little while later I was coaxed back out of sleep by the music of one of the other tenants in our apartment and while moving boxes around I was kept company by music on the street.

There was not this much music in Park Slope. Not this much sit on your stoop and hang out with the radio on while playing games kind of life.

Anchors Away!

On a lighter note (that is, if you're able to ignore the whole, these are the young men and women who haven't been killed in The War aspect of it all) last week was Fleet Week.

I have a friend who's since moved to D.C. who said that her favourite time of year in The City was Fleet Week. When I saw the sailors last week I was sad that she missed it.

Though the white is not as flattering to some as it is to others it is definitely an amazing thing to see in NYC. The sailors really stand out. Especially in Times Square. As garish as the area is getting the cool simplicity and unmarred elegance of the uniforms are quite a sight.

And then, there's the awesome and garring sight of sailors their white uniforms still pristine in the subway.

I hope that you sailors had a great time in our city. Thank you and come again!

Oh, dear.

It's strange to think that by the time that I got up this morning (around 8:30AM) this had already happened and two people were dead.
I don't want to be morbid; but sometimes I wonder about the number of people on the daily dying in a city in which 8 million are living.

Makes me glad that The Head and I have moved away from 4th Avenue, where they'd just brought in a crane to help contruct the new condo going up next to our old building.

This is mostly about NY State but I'm including it anyway.

Bighead keeps saying that it's only a matter of time before we can legally get married right here in our great city and with this current piece of legislation I'm beginning to believe that she's right.

Make like a tree and leaf.

A tree grows in Brooklyn and Citizen Pruners are part of the reason why.

NOTE:
Hawthorne Street, where The Head and I now live, is a beautiful street with trees. It's nice to know that not only are the residents of Hawthorne Street looking out for our leafy friends, but so are some wonderful citizens from other areas of The City.

I'm quite tired.

We have made the move.

And in the couple of days that we've been here full time we have tried Cafe Enduro (okay, but not nearly as good as Bogota) and K-Dog (not too bad and enough to satisfy my Tea Lounge jones), Sushi Tatsu III (Head and I haven't been able to spot Tatsu I or II) and my personal favourite, Errol's Bakery and Catering where they have the most delightful coco bread.

I've discovered my favourite of the two hardware stores and tonight we explored The Associated which specializes in West Indian and Carribean spices, fruits and other sundries.

Like this.


And this.

I don't even know what to say about the Aryan child on the box of Cream of Wheat in The Associated in one of the brownest neighborhood's ever.

Except, every time I think that I've got a handle on the situation The City throws me a curve-ball.

They say it's your birthday...

Today is the 125th Anniversary of the Brooklyn Bridge's historic opening.

Happy Birthday Bridgey Baby!

Another closing...

I've just caught wind of the rumor that this will be Astroland's final year.

I've only been to Coney Island once in my time here and I am definitely putting Astroland on this Summer's List Of Ways To Spend Money I Don't Have.

I'm not a huge fan of traditional roller coasters because my stomach can't handle the drops (and I don't like the way that I always float above the seat). [I really like the newer roller coaster with the over the shoulder harnesses and the thrilling twists and turns and speedspeedspeed with less drops.] But I definitely have to go back in see the Cyclone in her glory before the who area becomes unrecognizable.

You know, like The Bowery.

Exeunt with florish.

I've never been to Florent but it's my kind of place.
I miss it already.

Normally I would try and make a point of going but I get the feeling from this article that any goodbye trips should be reserved for the longtime friends and guests of the restaurant.

Still here

Well friends, I am certainly behind with this blog o'mine. But I am not quitting. I am allowing myself a little bit of slack during this time of moving stress.

So...
the B41 goes right from my corner (Hawthorne & Flatbush) to Grand Army Plaza in about 5 minutes flat.

I think that I will have to learn to love the bus.

Finding out the scoop on the new 'hood.

I think that Bighead and I are really going to love our new neighborhood and all that it has to offer.

I do enjoy a rainy day (from this height).

When it rains you can’t see much beyond the southern tip of Governor’s Island.
It’s as if Staten Island and Brooklyn don’t even exist.
The ferries and tug-boats and schooners go around the bend and behind the grey wall of mist. Who knows if they make it out on the other side.

Good news for parkers in Park Slope!

A friend of mine just recently got a new job that includes a commute which will require her to purchase a car.

It is the first car that she has had since she lived in Michigan and the first car that she will have ever had in The City.

We were talking, during our run down Prospect Park West, about how the car will impact her life. Gas prices was one of the topics we discussed but most pressing, at least in Park Slope, was the issue of parking.
Where would my friend park her fabulous car once she got it? And how would my friend cope with having to move that car from one side of the street to the other to comply with parking regulations?

Well it turns out that she won't have to deal with that at all.

Claire Oesch’s seat.

So here's to the girls on the go

Everybody tries.

Look into their eyes,

And you'll see what they know:

Everybody dies.

A toast to that invincible bunch,

The dinosaurs surviving the crunch.

Let's hear it for the ladies who lunch

Everybody rise!

But with a lot less sarcasm, envy and pain than Joanne's version.

Particularly when applied to this great lady.

I don't like most NYC bikers. I don't like them at all.

May is Bicycle Month here in New York City.

I am none too pleased.

Don’t get me wrong: I enjoy the bike.

I think that one of the Universal scenarios of childhood is the whole falling off the bike and then getting back on and learning to riderideride. Even my old-lady (and older-kneed) heart would be hard pressed to say that my bike was my first memorable feeling of freedom as a child and I remember fondly pedaling fasterandfaster to some destination, overthereandawayfromhere on those warm summer days.

I remember that we even had bike safety classes in school and learned the proper hand signals. We were taught to be responsible riders.

I have fond memories of the responsibility of owning and operating my little two-wheeled vehicle.

Bikers in New York City have ruined that memory for me.

My animosity towards them has been simmering over the past five years. The first few times I was hit or nearly run down by a biker (I refuse to call these irresponsible clouts, “cyclists”) while using the crosswalk I thought, “Hmmm. That’s weird.”

Last night when a biker ran through the red light at Union and Seventh Avenue, heading downhill towards 4th Avenue and nearly ran Bighead over as we were crossing in the crossing walk I regretted not having a stick to stick in that biker’s tires. This is not the first time that this feeling has welled up inside of me but it IS the first time that I shouted at the biker, “Are you a fucking pedestrian or a vehicle? There are no separate roll on through rules for bikers (asshole!)!” <- The asshole was silent. He was too far gone, by then, having successfully run the red light at 6th Avenue as well.

I have a few friends who own bikes and extol to me the virtues of this green and wonderful mode of transportation. I know people who’ve ridden in Critical Mass, (routinely NOT getting a permit and slowing down traffic on Broadway during rush hour and NOT following any of the rules of the road [or common decency]) and complained that they’re misunderstood and in fact, victimized.

To this I say to them: Most bikers in NYC are menaces.

(Actually, as I leaned over the cubicle wall to ask Bighead what the name of this “group” is I called them a gang. [She rolled her eyes because she's got decency and understands their point and is generally a better person than I am.] Because they fucking are. They fucking are a gang. If you are in it, you are in a fucking GANG. [Oh, I went there. So great is my distaste for the vast majority of NYC bikers.] You can bet your booties that if this gang weren’t made up primarily of unwashed trustaffarians or white-collar Lance Armstrong lovers with too much time and privilege on their hands and was made up of MORE Rastafarrians the powers that be would be calling it the gang that it is.)

They flagrantly disobey the laws that are written to protect them and me. (And the most important value in this equation is me.) I don’t know too many bikers who’ve been run down by pedestrians, but I know more quite a number of pedestrians who’ve been run down by bikers.

The New York State Department of Transportation has some very clear rules and regulations about the obligations of bikers.

Now I’m not getting my panties all in a bunch about the rampant non-signaling of turns.
Although it would be nice if there was a little bit more of that.

I am getting my panties in a bunch about the fact that bicycles are VEHICLES. And there are laws for vehicles that most bikers that I encounter in New York City do not follow. There are also laws for pedestrians, which, as a pedestrian who wants to be able to sue the pants off of you if you hit me, I made sure to follow as best I can. What burns my grits is that many of these bikers don’t even follow the laws of pedestrians.

One of my friends floated the idea of more bike lanes when we were discussing the whole Congestion Pricing debacle and I quickly poo-pooed that. Most NYC bikers create and exacerbate congestion. Most NYC bikers make it harder for me to get to where I need to; make it more dangerous for me to cross the fucking street with my girlfriend at 9 o’clock on a beautiful Sunday evening. What NYC does NOT need is more of an excuse for them to disobey laws and endanger our citizens.

If you don’t like it, you can pedal home and cry yourself to sleep.

(I feel like I should get at least get a point for not saying, “hippie.”)

Barbra Streisand inspires not only awe, but also an interest in history.

So last night while watching Hello Dolly! it finally dawned on me that they were in Union Square.

I didn’t recognize it so I became interested in historical pictures of the square. What's really neat is that Union Square's name has nothing to do with the Federal Union. It got its name because many trolley lines converged upon the area.







I also came across this website.

History is fun!

This post is about Barbra Streisand.

First of all, heh!

Second of all, I’m not sure how I’ve managed to start a blog about NYC and NOT include, at the very beginning, mention of my love of Barbra Streisand.

I love Barbra Joan Streisand. I love her so much, I forgive for supporting Hillary.
And at this point in the game... that is love. I Luv huh.
I mean, I admire her and everything, but I also think that she's kinda hot.
This is not a joke.

This...


...really does something for me.

I love her Brooklyn accent.
I love her crazy long nails.
I love her nose. I trulytruly do.
I loved Meet the Fockers.
I love that she painted Oprah’s microphone white to match her needs.
I love that she went through like 10 years of “Farewell” concerts.
I love that she loves dogs.
I love that she has stage-fright. (I do too.)
I love the way that she moves her jaw all crazy-like to create sound.
I love the sound that she creates. Her voice sends shivers down my spine. I shit you not. Honest to goodness shivers. I got a little bit choked up while watching Hello Dolly! when she sang “Before the Parade Passes By.” I shush people so that I can hear the word “luckiest” of “People” because she really does this amazing spinning of the notes… the whole phrase seems to accelerate. She’s amazing.
I love that she’s demanding and at times difficult and she's totally unapologetic about it.

I love that she did a musical that was directed by Gene Kelly himself and somehow only managed to do one dance move. One!

Barbra Streisand is the type of lady who would cut a bitch for stealing her cab and I approve of that.

Brooklyn born. Broadway raised.
Barbra Streisand is totally fucking NewYorkCity to me.

Stop, listen. What's that sound?

You know you live in NYC when you can't tell if the rumbling that you hear in the 11 o'clock night sky is:
A. Fireworks
B. Thunder
or
C. The lesbians at next door Cattyshack.*

Aw... Bighead and I are really going to miss the mid-summer 1 ay am crying on the side of the curb "you were looking at her when you said you wanted to be with me" sagas that the lesbians have treated us to for the past couple of years.

New York City dykes are WAY more interesting than the broads on The L Word.


*Why, yes. I have lived next to the hottest lesbian bar in The City for the past 2 years. Bighead and I joke all the time about how we'd have the perfect location if we were single. We also joke all the time about how we never go there. We'd rather grab a six pack and sit at home watching TV together. It's cheaper. Plus we get the good lezzie drama on Showtime on Demand AND on our corner every Friday and Saturday night (sometimes Sundays too) starting in June.

And my name isn't Earl.

Head and I had some good NYC karma tonight. CabKarma... possibly the best kind.

I'd just like to thank that nice group of people on the corner of 47th and 9th who in exchange for our not poaching a cab from them, tipped us off to a cab that was just becoming available, allowing both of our groups to essentially gets cabs at the same time.

Wonderful.
That's the kind of NY stuff that they don't show you in the movies.

(Plus! It was one of those cabs with the in car credit card machine. My those are so useful! They even give you tip tips.)

It kind of reminded me of that Seinfeld episode when we find out that Kramer's been swimming in the East River.

Yesterday, for the first time ever, I walked over the Gowanus Canal.

Bighead and I had to go to the broker’s office to sign our lease and Bighead figured out that it was just a quick walk from our current apartment (now to be know as: “the tiny and cluttered room-that-could in a building that’s falling into a big gaping hole” or maybe that’s too long. Maybe I’ll just refer to it now, as we referred to it two years ago when we moved in, “our startment” as in “starter apartment.” Anyhoods) so we took that walk.

I’ve been living within walking distance of the canal for 5 years now and I’d never been there. It’s… uhm… green.
And it smells.
Quite bad. It smells quite bad and it's green and Head said that on her way to the broker's she saw a family canoeing on it with their small child.

Hippies... please don't expose your children to the Gowanus Canal. Sometimes Mother Earth is prone to Munchausen by proxy.

But it’s a really interesting juxtaposition between Carroll Gardens/Cobble Hill and Park Slope. It’s like “A River Runs Through It” if that river were a smelly green creek.

I wonder how much a cab ride to our new place will be.

I’m excited but I’m also a little bit nervous about the big move.

I’m realizing more and more each day just how big a change it is for me.

I have to find a new coffee spot. A new place to get my baconeggandcheese. My bank is now very far away. I’ve got to get up nearly 30 minutes earlier to be my regular 15 minutes late to work.

I also have to get a new launderer. My current launderer is a wonderful human being named Eddie. I’ve been patronizing his establishment on 4th Avenue between Union and President since Bighead and I moved here and I’ve never been happier. My clothes are the cleanest that they’ve ever been AND I get everything that I give to him back (and nicely folded). His dry cleaners are the best and have really helped to keep my inexpensive clothes alive.

Because he’s right on the Union Street R stop they’re really tied together in my mind. Going to a new neighborhood -having a new stop- means I think, more than the actual moving itself, a very definite goodbye. What is good though is that my new neighborhood seems to be filled with small mom&pop shops which I really like to patronize.

What I love about this city is how definitive the neighborhoods feel. While it’s frustrating to have to develop a whole new routine it’s really remarkable to go a couple of miles and feel like you’re in a totally different city. I love it. I think that all of these little pockets of community are really what makes New York City great.

Subway Surfing

I enjoy riding the subway. I enjoy standing and trying to ride for as long as I can without touching anything to brace me.

The roll of the train which causes me to shift my weight to compensate. I try to do so making the smallest movements necessary so as not to disturb others on the often crowed rush-hour trains. It’s what I think that surfing must be like. The ebb and flow of speed as the train makes its ways through the tunnels is thrilling beneath my feet.

Today as I was doing it I felt connected in a very profound way to The City. There was a moment as the train slid around the curves in the tunnel where I was very aware of being in NYC.

It was wonderful.

Well what do you know?

For the two years that we’ve been living at the apartment -that we are leaving in T-minus 21 days (our lease begins on the 15th but we’re physically moving our things on the 25th)- every six months or so the church down the way (I assume that it’s on Carroll between 2nd and 4th Avenues) does this really awesome processional along Carroll Street from their church to (I assume) 7th Avenue.

The first time I saw it -one sleepy Sunday morning… bleary eyed and under-caffeinated- I had no idea what was going on. There was a prayer in Spanish being blasted from a car with loudspeakers on the top and there was music played by live musicians and the Statue of the Virgin Mary carried aloft by four men. I was instantly entranced but then months went by without it happening again and I forgot about it.

The second time I heard the loud speakers and the music I jumped out of bed to watch them pass. There were children in white and balloons. And I noticed, this time, the flag that the paraders were carrying.

After a little bit of internet searching I discovered that it was the Columbian flag.


Today when it happened again, I noticed that the loud speakers were playing the Hail Mary in Spanish and that the music was more somber, a little bit like a New Orleans funeral dirge so…
I did a little bit more researching (after all, this is probably the last time that I’ll have this experience and… well, it was something that always made me feel happy. It’s one of those, “Yeah, I live in NYC” moments and I will miss all of those families parading up the street in observance and in celebration) and the closest thing that I could come to an explanation for today’s procession is that it’s an Ascension Day rite.

I wonder what kind of public displays I’ll see in the PLG.

A Week in The City

On Sunday I saw the benefits of running on the park side of Prospect Park West.

On Monday I noticed that the roof on the newly constructed elevator shaft of the improved 1/9 stop (on the Staten Island Ferry side) seemed to be made of wood.

On Tuesday I bought an "Earth Day" Metrocard. (Still no picture.)

On Wednesday Bighead and I went further down Flatbush into Prospect Lefferts and saw a beautiful apartment. We also discovered the first coffee shop in the 5 years that I've been in The City that closes before 8PM.

On Thursday, while completing our application with the broker for the beautiful apartment in PLG, I (and everyone else in the D'Andrea Realty office) saw a man's penis as he oh so discretely pissed between two cars facing, not the wall behind him, but the glass windows of the office.

On Friday Bighead and I were approved for the apartment.

On Saturday Bighead and I took the day to ourselves, wishingplanningandhoping about the future of our new apartment and getting ready to say goodbye to Park Slope in favor of our soon to be neighborhood.

So that's where the MTA money has gone.

I can’t believe that I forget to tell you…

I got a green Metrocard!

Okay, so the card itself isn’t green but the colour of the word “Metrocard” is. It’s a slight change that I think that the MTA is doing for Earth Day or Global Warming Awareness Month or a Salute to Hippiness Year -whatever it is that they’re calling it- but it totally took me by surprise as it came begrudgingly whirring out of the Metrocard machine.

The back of it has Earth facts in more green font.

Let me see if I can find a picture of it.

[Insert passage of time here.]

Nope. Nothing.

It's about NYC because I say it is.

I’ve been thinking a great deal about the Sean Bell acquittal.

Mostly I’ve been thinking, as AngryBlackBitch puts it, about “my brother, my cousins, my uncle, my friends and was my father and my grandfathers and others who have gone to be with God.”

I’ve been thinking about “…what the murder of Sean Bell translates to for me…how my mind instantly redirected to the black men I know, the weddings I have anticipated witnessing…to real people who could have and would have been shot dead as that night merged into morning because of what police officers thought was about to happen.”

My brother is unwell. So unwell, in fact, that he refuses to go to doctors or seek counseling to find out what the imbalance is so that it might be corrected. He has a history of making bad choices and finding himself in unfortunate situations. He has a familiarity with paranoid thinking that often borders on diagnosable. He hasn’t been able to answer a question without grandiose allegory since 2000. I have, on one scary occasion, gotten a called from Bellevue’s psychiatric wing about him.

He is young. He is angry. He is Black and he lives in America.

A friend of mine posed the following question on Facebook:
Are police and law enforcement ever good for black people?

I replied with the following:

I am not sure that the police are good for anyone.

As per the NYPD website, their mission is to “enforce the laws, preserve the peace, reduce fear, and provide for a safe environment” and apprehend those who offend the law so that they might be brought forward to receive punishment.

Their job is not to protect or help us. This fact already puts all of us as citizens at a
disadvantage as far as the system goes.

The fact that the NYPD is powered human beings who bring to it a host of their own prejudices complicates the matter.
This is a complication that greatly impacts people of colour.
America has done a good job of systematically teaching us to fear people with brown skin. America has done an exceptional job of mythologizing Black people, specifically Black men, as threats. This doesn’t go away when someone joins the NYPD. In fact, due to profiling, it probably increases.

Didn’t the officers in the Sean Bell trial admit that they were scared of Mr. Bell and his associates? One could argue that those officers got off because the judge decided that their fear of Mr. Bell due to the colour of his skin was justified.
Judge: “They shot him because Black men are scary and (of course) carry guns and so that’s okay with me (and the system). Suck it!”

This is not to say that I am not for the enforcement of laws, preservation of peace and reduction of fear. This is not to say that I think that all police officers are bad. I just think that they’re human and they’re doing what is still a pretty dangerous job. It’s just that for most people with brown skin, a lot of the time the police officers are
the danger.

I thought long and hard about putting all of this in this blog as this blog is, you know, about my feelings about The City.

Here’s what I’ve come up with:
What happened to Mr. Bell happened in The City so it is fair game.
It’s fair game because it says a lot about our City and it’s important to openly confront what it says and how we feel about what it says.
What happened to Mr. Bell says a lot not only about our City, but the America in which we live… so I’ve started yet another blog in which I will work on thinking critically about the America in which I live.