“Unless it’s an old man selling apples at the corner of Broad and Chestnut Streets, Philadelphia, on a cold winter day, I can’t think of anything more pathetic than setting out with the Brooklyn Dodgers for another season.” His cigarette was out so he lit another and continued. The words came faster. “Who’ve they got this year? For pitchers, Jake Kennedy, Frenchie De Voe, Harry Norman, Rats Doyle, Sam Henderson, ‘Fat Stuff’ Foster, and Razzle Nugent. Except for Nugent, Foster is the best of a bad lot. He had the best record last summer when he lost twenty games and won ten. That means the Dodgers are exactly half a game behind every time he takes the mound. They have a rookie from Elmira trying for shortstop, two new outfielders from the Pacific Coast, and a kid from somewhere up in Connecticut without any big-league experience who’s supposed to pitch them into the Series. Maybe.”
When I was a little kid I didn't just run around in the street and play stickball and scully. I had to do chores. Throw out the garbage. Go to the stores. I went all over the place even when I was in the second grade. When I was old enough to cross the street I was sent on errands all the time. My grandmother especially sent me out shopping. Why not when she was supposed to be in the second grade she was already working in a shirt making factory. So she didn't take any bullshit.
She would send me to Columbia Street where the push carts were. They had a bunch of stuff that came from the docks. Legal and otherwise. I had particular people I had to patronize. Friends of my uncles who made sure I didn't get ripped off.
When I was a kid growing up everything revolved around the docks. I might have told this story before but I am an old bastard so I like to repeat myself. You see my uncles worked on the docks like 99% of the people in the neighborhood. Everything revolved around the docks. The restaurants catered to the longshoreman. The stores carried working mans clothing. They even sold stevedore hooks. Then there was all the stuff they stole that fed the economy.
You see they would drop a crate off of the shit and when it broke they would take everything out. The crate would go to the coopers who would fill it with rocks and repair it and send it off to Kansas or wherever. Then they would go up and down the neighborhood and sell whatever they had. Dresses. Watches. Tools. Whatever. You could get some great bargains. Ten cents on the dollar.
Then they invented the container. Everything was in these huge metal boxes. No matter how high you lifted and dropped it ....well it just didn't break. It went right off the ship onto the truck. They had to build these big cranes to lift the containers off the ship. So they moved the ships out to Jersey or Howland Hook in Staten Island where they had room to build the cranes. Plus they needed a lot less people. It wasn't like an ant hill with hundreds of guys carrying sacks and crates. It was just a couple of crane operators. The union had to go on strike to get a guarantied wage for some of their members. Which they did. They closed the books since they needed so many fewer guys. It was a bloodbath.
Almost all of the longshoremen moved out to Staten Island or Jersey. Over the Guinea Gangplank and out of Brooklyn. To be replaced first by yuppies and then by hipsters. Now there is nothing left of a 150 year old culture. It's all gone.
So I don't care if a container ship sinks. I hope they all sink. We should buy American and only American. America First. Last. Always.
Anthony the kid in the Prince Spaghetti commercial is dead at 61. Just a couple of years younger than me so we are almost exact contemporaries. I lived that life in Brooklyn.
The clothes and the food and the decor in the commercial are what I grew up with in the 1960's. My Mom had the same haircut as his Mom. I used to be outside with my friends playing all day and at dinner time the Moms would open the window and shout at us to come home. It was never all the Moms. Just the one closest to where we were hanging out The rest of us got the message and hurried home. If we didn't want a smack.
Back in those days everyone bought the same stuff. Not Prince or Barilla or some other brand. Everyone bought Ronzoni macaroni and Red Pack tomatoes and Polly O mozzarella and ricotta. It was a given. They were always on sale at G&G on Henry Street and my Grandmother would send me out to buy it. A simple supper was often just spaghetti and sauce with nothing much on it other than grated cheese. Sometimes as a special treat she might cook up some veal spiedini in the sauce. But usually it was just a basic puree. Of course that wasn't the Sunday sauce with the meatballs and sausage and the pork skin. That was what made Sunday Special.
You can't buy Ronzoni anymore. It is way too starchy. The macaroni just falls apart. Some big company bought it from the family that ran it and ruined everything. Red Pack is still around but I use Pomi tomatoes exclusively that are imported from Italy in cartons not cans. Much less salt and much better tasting. Still only use Polly O since they are the best by far and are what we are used too.
Kids don't play out in the street anymore either. It's was all play dates or video games on the phone. Nobody plays stick ball or stoop ball or skelly.
Anthony wouldn't recognize the North End. Just like I don't recognize South Brooklyn.
Everybody knows what Jewish Lighting is right? That's when your business isn't making it so there is a "mysterious" fire and you get the insurance money instead of bankruptcy.
Well the Body Elite gym on Court Street had a Jewish Earthquake. The whole freaking building fell down. I know the owner Robert well. He has an Ego even bigger than me if you can believe it! He was conveniently away when the building collapsed. Just like Al Capone was when they had the St Valentines Day Massacre. You see he has been losing his shirt. Closed for months. All the nasty liberals demanding refunds of their gym memberships. Hemorrhaging cash.
Right next store is the Park Health Food store that I used to patronize every day. Owned by an old Korean dude named Mr. Park. Some reports say that the gym was owned by Mr. Park but I think that is bullshit. I am pretty sure I heard Robert say he owned the building in Marco Polo one night and that Park was a front. That he had to collect the rent from him. But whatever. I do know that whenever the news reports anything they always get it wrong.
I have been inside the gym and noticed that they had removed several of the load bearing walls. I don't know shit about construction but I know that much. They opened up the floor plan so there was no obstructions. No beams holding it up. Just a floor through open space for the machines and the weights. They never do maintenance in buildings in Carroll Gardens. So this whole thing is fishy.
I do know one thing. Everybody in the neighborhood will be breathing in about an ounce of asbestos dust. That building was chock full of it. Good thing everybody is wearing a mask!
Sixty mentioned that he recently saw the "Search for One Eyed Jimmy." I have written about this before at Trooper York.
This was an independent film made in Red Hook in 1994. That was right before gentrification turned Red Hook into a hipsters paradise. Red Hook used to be a pretty tough place. The projects were a horror show in the 1980's because of crack. You might remember the story of the principal of the grammar school who was murdered trying to protect one of his students caught in a crossfire. The only safe streets were the ones controlled by the Mob where they had a social club. Or the street where my friend Greg had a sandwich shop. The shop and Greg are in the movie. He later opened a jewelry store on Court St. His son stole the store when he had a stroke and moved the operation to Staten Island where its a big deal with radio commercials all the time.
Anyway they used some of the neighborhood characters as the basis for the characters in the movie. Just more exaggerated if that is possible. For example Disco Bean is based on John who owns Sal's pizza and never got over his disco years. The General is based on a homeless guy we used to call Rockefeller who was an ex navy guy who would preach that all of our problems were because of the rich people like Rockefeller who were shooting rays into our head to control us. Head is based on a couple of mooks from the neighborhood who had that nickname.
When I was growing up in the 1960's Red Hook still had a big Italian presence. Most of the small houses and small business were owned by the wops. Then they started to move. Many of the old time joints closed as the moolies took over. Then this guy opened up a Fairway Supermarket and it started to turn. Hipsters started moving in. Soon enough Movie Stars got condos. That dipshit Michael Shannon for one. If any of the old characters were around they would have them arrested. Now there are million dollar condos where Disco Bean used to dance on cardboard.
The movie was really calling to mind an environment that existed twenty years before in the 1970/s. Still as a slice of life it is pretty funny.
The Diocese of Brooklyn named more that 100 priests who were sex abusers. Most of them are dead or defrocked. Some still are in the priest hood. 100 priests. In an area as small as Brooklyn.
I personally knew ten of them. From them being in my parish or running into them at my high school or various weddings of my extended family where I was in the wedding party.
It is hard to talk about how I really feel about this.
If I could paint and if I could see color I would aspire to paint like Cassius Marcellus Coolidge did. I really enjoy his work.
This is a detail from a painting he did of a Friday night at Meadehouse. Words fail me. Others have tried to copy him. Tried to be contemporary. They can never approach his genius.
Those are my dogs goofing off on a quiet Sunday Night.
So yesterday we took the day off to see the eclipse. We had the glasses that I talked about and we went with a few friends to Valentino Pier in Red Hook.
This is the pier in Red Hook named after Louie Valentino who was I guy I went to school with all through grammar school and High School. His dad was a big deal in the ILA which was the longshoreman's union. One of my greatest regrets is that I didn't go in the union like he asked. I could have gotten involved in the union and stolen a huge pile of money.
There were a huge amount of people. Well a couple of hundred anyway. Kids. Dogs. Lawn Chairs. It was a party. Everyone looked up at the eclipse. Total strangers fell into conversation. While their dogs pissed on kids. Or their kids pissed on dogs. You see parents don't pay any attention to their freaking kids. The pet owners pay way more attention. They just don't care where their dogs shit or piss. New York. I gotta get out of here.
After 4 o'clock pretty much everyone left and we sat down and had lunch. It is beautiful there. The sea air was beautiful. It was war. I was looking out at the water. I turned to my wife and said "Why aren't we doing this every day instead of only where there is a freakin' eclipse of the sun."
So everybody is losing their shit about the solar eclipse. The wife loves this bullshit and she ordered our special protective glasses a month ago. But guess what? They screwed up the shipping. They had the zip code off by one number and it was returned. When we got the tracking number and I called the post office and they told me it was sent back and there was nothing they could do.
I called the company and they said they couldn't send it back until they got it. They were sold out. So we were screwed. Again.
We went on line to buy them. Of course the prices were outrageous. Most of the vendors were sold out. We finally contacted the company that makes them and they would only sell us 25 pieces. With overnight shipping and Saturday delivery we paid through the balls. We wouldn't even be there in time for the delivery so I had them shipped to the pet food store that opens at 8AM.
So I take out our glasses and put a sign outside. We were selling them for $15 a pair. Seems like a lot right? Well I just told the people look you can buy it or buy two cups of coffee at the new coffee shop on the corner that is paying $18,500 a month rent. You don't want it? Fuck you with a rusty spoon.
I sold them all in two hours.
This craze reminds me of the cabbage patch Dolls. Remember that craze? Well I have a funny story about that.
I am too old for comic books. As I am sure you guys are as well. The thing is I notice that there is really a case of arrested development in the younger crowd. Guys into their 30's are still buying and reading comic books. I mean I gave that up when I got hair on my balls. Now I do love me a good Superhero movie since they are recreating the origin stories from the Jack Kirby/Stan Lee era of Marvel.
Now I hear that they have become strictly Social Justice Warriors. They made Thor into a girl! I mean really. They have Spider-man agonizing over beating up a criminal because he was a minority! Vox Day has an interesting post about this. In it he talks about the foolishness of diversity in comics. He has substantial quotes from another blogger who is also very interesting. Jon Del Arroz writes the following:
"Marvel has a diversity problem.
In that they have none in terms of diversity of thought. They are a pure social justice propaganda arm. This is dangerous when it comes to creating art, as if you have everyone thinking in lockstep, unable to get outside the box, you’ll have creative stagnation. More than that, when you turn children’s adventure fiction into adult message browbeating, you lose any semblance of fun that a product formerly had. It’s no wonder that sales have dropped by about half, when they have an entire writing core of every single one of their monthly writers hell-bent on a crusade of alienating half of the country in some social engineering through comics. I don’t exaggerate my numbers either, and I did some leg work for you all so you might better make educated purchases, or lack thereof, of Marvel Comics.
A struggling artist allegedly butchered his female roommate inside their Queens apartment on Wednesday night — and then griped about having to find a new place to live, cops and neighbors said.
“I’m not going to have a lease anymore,” fumed suspected killer Render Stetson, as his neighbor, Joshua Cruz, looked on in horror moments after the stabbing. “He was wearing just underwear,” Cruz recalled. “He was covered in blood.”
Stetson, a 26-year-old psychedelic illustrator who has worked on short films and music albums, had gotten into an argument with Carolyn Bush, also 26, in her second-floor apartment on Stanhope Street near Onderdonk Avenue in Ridgewood at around 11:25 p.m., according to police.
Neighbors told The Post that Bush was a waitress struggling to pay the rent, so she had been letting Stetson stay and pitch in. The two are both Bard College grads.
Wearing nothing but his boxer briefs, Stetson grabbed a kitchen knife during the dispute and plunged it into Bush’s neck, back and arm — in a bedroom where police later found her sprawled on the floor.
He then inexplicably stabbed himself in the leg before darting out of the home and down the block, smashing car windows and leaving a thick trail of blood along the way.
So this happened. The pet store two doors down had an event where they had free kittens for adoption. Which caused a big freaking commotion.
You see my employee is a hipster cat person and she was all indignant that the cats were outside in the heat and whatever other bullshit was going on. She wanted to beef with the guy but I told her to chill. There was a better way to handle it.
I waited until tonight. Sunday night. The pussy was free all weekend. No takers. Weird right? Who passes up free pussy.
Well the owner Adbul told me the people didn't want to adopt because it cost too much. The shots. The vets visit. The food. The litter box. The cat litter. You know all the stuff he wanted to sell them. I said to him "Abby baby alls you get is lookie-lous around here. You know some of the real cat people complained to me that they were outside in the sun and shit. Those are your real customers. The ones who will catch a beef with you and go somewhere else. Meantime you are entertaining passing hipster douchebags and their demon spawn. Get a clue dude." He goes "You know you are right. That's the last time I do this shit."
Of course he didn't take my final suggestion.
I told him to drop them off at the Chinese restaurant.
In the letter, addressed to the group Mayor Bill de Blasio wooed during its visit to New York two weeks ago, the president of the Sergeants Benevolent Association, Edward D. Mullins, said the city was going “backward to the bad old days of high crime, danger-infested public spaces and families that walk our streets worried for their safety.”
He presented a city overrun with “squeegee people” and other panhandlers, with shootings on the rise and morale among police officers flagging.
“The D.N.C. should choose another venue,” said the letter, which appeared as an advertisement in The New York Times and The New York Post. “Mayor de Blasio,” it continued, “has not earned the right to play host to such an important event.”
Mayor de Blasio chalked it up as an attempt to "benefit their own position in contract talks".
"White flags, which are symbols of surrender, flew from poles on the stone supports atop the famed bridge that connects Brooklyn and Manhattan over the East River."
