happy new year!

obviously i resolve to post more. sorry! it's been a crazy holiday season. i hope you've all enjoyed yourselves!

i was in minnesota for xmas. it snowed almost a foot. and then one night i took my dog out for a walk and it was 12 below zero. nice to have some real wintertime.

i also resolve to cook more. i made a parsnip base for homemade udon soup last night.

but this year i'm going to focus on cooking bread. and luckily my friend ameet found a source for cooking videos.



later, 2007!

happy holidays?

after fighting the flu all week, i am way behind on my xmas shopping. and by way behind, i mean i haven't started. i usually get super into the whole spirit of givng thing, but having just received my first paycheck at the non-profit, it looks like mix cds, used books and thrift store clothes for everyone!

maybe i should ask santa for help giving presents to other people.

and if he doesn't have time, i'll just ask this aggressive woman on crutches for a little help.

to whom it may concern:

i would like to express my distinct dissatisfaction with the management of the live music concert event at your venue ______ on saturday night this 15th of december. i myself participated in the event, in the band known as luff, and dear sir or madam, i regret to inform you that the music concert was poorly organized, executed and hosted.

firstly, your ceilings and walls made of tin make it quite difficult to play with the sort of fiery passion that makes music engaging and a live event successful without utterly destroying the sensitive eardrums of your concert-going audience. soundproof your venue post haste.

secondly, as a former mixologist, i may be particularly picky when it comes libational services, but i was quite put off by the attitude of your staff. as one of your performers, i expect no especial treatment, but to be treated with disrepect and a lack of caring by one of your bar-tenders i found quite offensive. after a long wait watching the young man lumber cluelessly from end to end, he asked if we would like anything, and when we responded in the positive, he simply walked away and ignored us. that is unacceptable and the young man should be terminated immediately.

thirdly, and most important, when you should happen to schedule a concert event, please confirm that there is indeed enough time for all the various acts to manage their melodious magic. for as the evening progressed, the acts became shorter and shorter until the very act with which i was performing had time for merely half of the music we had planned. i would hope that your lesson has been properly absorbed: four bands cannot fit into three hours. please discontinue this unfriendly habit of over-scheduling at once.

and in conclusion, suck it.

more amazing news

i still can't get over that karaoke story. i just keep thinking about the joy of screaming welcome to the jungle over an intercom system. and the absurdity of the teacher who thought "you're gonna die" was a death threat.

at least, i couldn't stop thinking about it until i saw this story.

Japan Scientists Develop Fearless Mouse

a slow, snowy day

i think i have the flu. i probably shouldn't be at work. but here i am. luckily it's a slow day. i'm watching the swirls of white spinning down broadway.

i wanted to point out this story about the power of karaoke. it is not a power to be wielded lightly.

ROXBURY, Conn. - Karaoke can be scary, but threatening? A school custodian's impromptu after-hours karaoke performance prompted a police response when a teacher thought she was being threatened over the loudspeaker.

State police say the teacher at Booth Free School barricaded herself inside a classroom Wednesday when she mistook someone singing a Guns N' Roses song over the public address system for a threat.

She was working after hours and thought no one else was in the building. Then she heard someone say over the loudspeaker that she was going to die.

Six troopers and three police dogs showed up and found three teenagers, one of them a custodian at the school, who had been playing with the public address system.

Police say one of them sang "Welcome to the Jungle" into the microphone. The song contains the lyrics "You're in the jungle baby; you're gonna die."

The teenagers were cuffed for about 15 minutes while police investigated. They didn't realize anyone else was in the school at the time. No charges will be filed, said state police Sgt. Brian Ness.

picture!

a while ago i mentioned the "blog" of "unnecessary" quotations -- a shot from my trip down to new orleans was highlighted today. take a look!

"some bunches"

santacon

last night a friend said, you don't blog any more and i miss you. sorry about that!

i'm finally settling in well enough that i have some extra time. not so much that i can tell the whole story, but saturday was santacon. if you saw santas running around in your city, there's a reason. i'll get my pictures up soon!

santas on the rampage:

busy busy busy

so this new job is insane, and i barely have time to think about writing, much less take the time to actually put it up. so i'm taking a break from the adventures to try and stay focused at work. the job is going great and the switch of life schedule is tough but manageable. it's much easier to get up in the morning when i have a good reason to do so.

excuse: big change

sorry, the adventures have fallen silent for the past week. but i promise you, i have a very good excuse. last week i was training at my new job! it's all happened so fast that i haven't even had time to write about it. and now i have so much to do that i barely have time today.

so here's the story: i am the new administrator for a non-profit that (mainly) organizes volunteer musicians to play in hospitals around new york (and philly and nashville too). we also deliver CDs and discmen to hospitals all over the country and record musicians who themselves are in hospitals.

i'm going to be doing a little of everything, from office management to online marketing to event planning to graphic design. i think it's going to be a challenge! and i'm looking forward to it.

i love bartending. and i'm going to miss it! it's hard work and the hours are long, but when it's fun, it's the most fun i've ever had at a job. my bosses have treated me well and i'm sorry to have to leave.

but since i moved to new york to deepen my involvement at the intersection of music and health, how could i not take this job?

and look, the view from my desk is across madison square park to the old met life building.


and check this out -- an office full of smiles and CDs to the ceiling.



i just have one question: who could ask for anything more?

bad

i am in a band called luff. they are on the myspace. we are headlining at union hall tomorrow night. yay!

so today is all day band practice. i will be a bad blogger today. but i will be a better musician for it.

come see my band tomorrow.

the headlines

there are plenty of places to read about the chaos in pakistan or the oil spills everywhere. but only adventures in brooklyn provides you with news that really matters. today, two stories out of germany.

check out this man. now that's how to prove your innocence. or not.

BERLIN - A German flasher stunned lawyers during his appeal hearing on a flashing conviction by stripping off in court, authorities said Thursday.

"The court withdrew for deliberations and during the adjournment the man removed his clothes again," said a spokesman for the court in the western city of Duisburg. "It appears he sees it as art, and views himself as a living work of art."

The 60-year-old was in court to appeal against his conviction for running onto the pitch naked during a girl's soccer match and striking a range of "body builder poses," the spokesman said.

State prosecutors filed fresh charges of indecent behavior against the man after the court incident.

berlin is just the happening place to be! flashers naked in court, and now this excitement at a local gas station.

BERLIN - A German man forgot his car after filling it up at a petrol station, police said Friday.

"He just forgot about it and walked off home," said a spokesman for police in the western city of Wuppertal.

After the car had sat blocking the pump for about an hour, a woman working at the petrol station became suspicious and alerted authorities.

Officers contacted the 63-year-old from Remscheid, who came straight back to fetch the vehicle. He had paid to fill up the car before walking off.

seriously, i can understand forgetting your sister at a gas station, but your car?

sorry jessie.

more truth from toothpaste

i'm excited about the new apple leopard os. but there is one major problem.

from toothpastefordinner.

worst sex columnist ever!

i have my beef with dan savage from time to time. but this disheartening bathroom reading from my housemates really puts it in perspective. what terrible advice!


Talking Dirty

No one knows O.P.P. like Alexyss K. Tylor. the Atlanta sex therapist and TV host advises some of our disturbed readers.
From KING Magazine’s October ‘07 issue

Dear Ms. Tylor,
I’ve been married for seven years, and our sex life is pretty healthy (role playing, bondage and porn). But since my wife made some new work friends, she’s been trying to persuade me to let her play with my butthole. I’m really not feeling that. I feel like you need to draw the line somewhere, and I draw that line at my anus. The last time we made love, she attempted to probe me with her finger, and I instinctively smacked her, but she still insists on penetrating me. How do I talk her out of this?
Colin D. Rigeur Teaneck, New Jersey

You needs to find out where this is comin’ from, because she’s suddenly changed friends, and they’re telling her that for added sexual pleasure—or to dominate you—she needs to poke you in the ass. It’s just the fingers now, but the problem is the whole dick is gonna come in a minute. You gon’ need to open ya ass up and get relaxed and greased up for that. Sounds like she just wanna damn dominate and hump you into submission! She’s trying to secure a deeper, more authoritative alpha-male role. If I was you, I wouldn’t let her do it.

Dear Alexyss,
After watching the Kim Kardashian sex tape with my lady, I’m feeling inadequate. I feel like I’m an average size, but this dude, Ray J… My girl won’t stop talking about his meat, and now I have performance anxiety. What should I do?
John Paynesworth Tallahassee, Florida

She done made it very clear she like big penises. She watchin’ that man on that tape and it done turned her on; now, in her mind, she’s fantasizing about a piece of that dick. You can’t never erase that fantasy out that girl’s mind. You’ve gotta decide whether you respect yourself enough to let her go, or are you gonna share her? ’Cause it seems to me like a level of respect for yourself is gone—she done thought to discuss another man’s dick with you?!

finally!

whew! what a week. i've got to get my final new orleans stories out of the way so i can get back to work pointing out stories about toys contaminated with GHB and the dangerous challenges of living in central washington.

i spent my last two volunteer days working on a house in the 7th ward. as noted in my mobile entry, the house was almost completely destroyed by katrina. rod and camile, the couple that lives in the house with their two daughters, said that the water came through as high as the top of a stop sign. the city had actually planned to demolish what was left -- mildewed plywood and crumbling, termite-infested studs -- but there is such an unimaginably gigantic backlog that they never got to it. so, we rebuilt it. my sister and mom had both worked on the house during previous visits, first to gut the house and then to put up walls. now here i was, working on the finishing touches before the family moves in at the end of this month.

the first day i mostly followed instructions. they had put the only four male volunteers on the project and we worked together well. no, that's an understatement. we worked fluidly and efficiently. we made some serious progress, i spent hours finding studs, or what was left of them, so that when we cut the baseboard we could lay it down quickly. with a nail gun. man, that thing is such a rush. i was a nail master. and i'm not talking manicures!

nothing like spending time with men looking for studs.

after our day of construction, we took rod and camile's family out to dinner to celebrate the near completion. we let them choose and ended up at a fast food-ish burger and seafood joint. you cannot imagine the waitress' face when we walked in and asked for a table for 22! ouch. bonus: $7 pitchers of abita amber, the delicious local brew.

my god, that put new york bar prices into perspective. can you imagine $7 pitchers? a bottle of bud is $7 some places in manhattan.

by the second day of construction, i was more or less working on my own -- measuring walls and angles, cutting baseboard and installing trim. now i know how to use a compound mitre saw!

throughout my experience down south, it felt like a privilege to be able to step away from my life and give some time and energy towards making even a little difference.

but the real privilege? getting to wear these amazing work goggles. damn sexy!

an intense end to the day came when the volunteers from the tureaud school arrived. this was the school where, just two days previous, we had helped host their halloween party and i had walked through the neighborhood, trying to capture boarded-up houses and burned-out churches. our volunteers were spending the day working on letter recognition when from outside the school there was a hail of gunfire and a man was killed. the school went into lockdown. remember, these are elementary school kids who have already had to survive the storm. post-traumatic stress disorder is a way of life for some of these kids. and now there was a corpse in the street in front of their school. i don't envy our volunteers who were there that day.

after finishing up at rod and camile's, we headed out towards the north shore of lake pontchartrain. driving across the long causeway at sunset, i marveled at the long views out all windows and wondered how such a pretty lake could have such a devastating effect on its neighboring city. the rise in pontchartrain was responsible for the worst of the flooding in new orleans, but in the glow of dusk, it was at peace.

the north shore unitarian universalist fellowship has hosted us and helped in our efforts since the first trip down, eight weeks after katrina. two of their members, tim and carla, live in an other-worldly magical house out in the woods. the house survived the storm remarkably unscathed, even as they lost half the trees on their property. we arrived to a giant homecooked meal and sat around the bonfire for hours singing, telling stories and jokes and making general merriment. a welcome break from being constantly surrounded by destruction and reminders of death, racism and the complete ineptitude of our government!

after our magical night in the woods, we said our goodbyes and parted ways. it's always hard to leave a community of service. you've all worked together towards a common goal, striving to make the world a better place, bit by bit. but then eventually you have to return to your lives and routines. if anything in your life makes you unhappy, returning to it puts it in stark contrast.

as i lay down to sleep that night, in my own soft bed and not on a church floor, i listened to the roaring trucks, the growl of buses, the screams of the ambulances and police sirens, the gleeful conversations of drunken patrons from downstairs. i wondered how i had survived it so long.

an anniversary

today is the anniversary of galloping gertie. check out the news footage from 1940. if only the news were still presented like this!

still busy

i should have time for a nola wrap-up tomorrow. in the meantime, i'll let toothpastefordinner do my work for me.



it's like he sees straight into my soul.

dang it.

i have so much i want to put up here. but i am insanely busy right now. notice that i'm up before 11 am after bartending last night. yeah, i'm that productive.

i hope that you've taken a look at the pics from new orleans. i'm proud of them. i think the pictures of the kids on halloween are so unbelievably cute.

just before my camera died i was able to get some video of the chaos of halloween in the french quarter. not the best quality, unfortunately. but c'mon, you can't argue with thriller!

pictures!

while i work on my final new orleans entry, here are some highlights from my pictures.

http://picasaweb.google.com/jonah.ei/NewOrleans

progress.

Six months ago, this wall was nothing but plywood and rotted studs. It was damn near washed away. You could see through to the house next door. My mom and sister worked on the drywall and i installed the baseboard and trim. The family moves in at the end of the month. How cool is that?

halloween, in school and in the quarter

the tureaud elementary school was our destination yesterday. i was sorry not to head back to gregory. it's obvious that so much needs to be done in that prison camp of a school -- so much, unfortunately, that our presence is not necessarily helpful, which i hope to get to. the 7th ward school tureaud was in much better shape, and i felt a bit useless. we helped move some things around and did some inventory, but after that hour of hard work was over, we spent the afternoon helping to set up the school's fall festival and halloween party. and yes, it was easier for the people setting up the event with us there -- who would have carried the giant roasting pan full of boiling nacho cheese down three flights of stairs if i hadn't been there?

i guess i just had lofty goals for my time here. but hey, it was one heck of a party. i took endless pictures of children in costumes, kids playing on a playground looking out on boarded-up houses with the ubiquitous X. two years later, many houses still bear the marks of inspectors that identify the inspector, the hazards inside, pets if any and the number of bodies found. most of the x's have a body count of zero, but the ones that do make me shudder as we drive by.

still, we had one heck of a halloween party. i ran the ring toss and the pins were two liter bottles of soda, so the kids were anxious to win. they were like compulsive gamblers, going again and again and again in vain.

after our day, i expressed my doubts as to the effectiveness of our time at the school to our program leader and was transferred to construction duty this morning. a good morning for it, considering the real halloween party was last night in the french quarter.

some say the best halloween party in the country is in the castro. but it was cancelled after a shooting last year. those from madison wisconsin say their's is the best in the midwest. i haven't done the west village yet, maybe next year. honestly, i'm not sure that i will ever be satisfied with another halloween after last night. i can't wait to put my pictures and videos up. seriously, this is one helluva time. i couldn't believe the insanity. so many amazing costumes -- michael vick seemed to be a local favorite, with stuffed dogs dragging behind.

the highlight for me was in our last bar. we stopped to wait in line for the bathroom before we began the long search for a cab home. a couple girls were dressed in full kiss makeup and suits and started singing i wanna rock and roll all night. me, being dressed in my full freddie mercury costume, started we are the champions. kiss shouted me down and i challenged them to a rock-off. they went silent and it became obvious that rock and roll all night was the only kiss song they knew. so me and my sister started rattling off song after song from the queen library. eventually a guy dressed in a terrible florida costume (egg crate mattresses tied to his body with duct tape) joined us for bohemian rhapsody.

rock off final score? queen 7, kiss 1.

we truly are the champions.

unbelievable!

you can drink in a moving vehicle here! hells yeah!

the graphing calculators

new orleans

i'm sitting at the shared computer in methodist church volunteer center. the center was set up almost immediately after the storm, and we're lucky enough to be able to crash here, even though we unitarians have some significant differences of faith. we're stashed up in the youth wing, which i have to say is about the sweetest youth room i've ever seen -- they have a pool table, ping pong, air hockey, two foosball tables -- now if only we had energy or time to play!

yesterday i was picked up at the airport and driven straight to gregory middle school, where they've had to deal with three moves *this school year* -- that's moving an entire middle school three times since the beginning of september. and the district removed their much-beloved principal on monday. our job was to organize their boxes and take them to proper classrooms. it's a surreal place to be -- a middle school in giant gleaming white modulars with no grass, no place to play, surrounded by gravel pits and directly in the looming shadow of their old destroyed school.

it's a school of contradictions. the computer lab is well stocked and the the science lab is spotless. but the computer lab isn't ready to use and the science teacher, in his first week in new orleans (our guess is teach for america) didn't know where the science lab even was. they have an array of a dozen computer workstations in their library, but our donation to the school is going to be office supplies, because they don't have paperclips or paper. i'm serious, the secretary hoards paper to give to kids who need it.

i can't figure out who decides what supplies go to the school. it's obvious that much is donated -- why else would they only have 100 copies of book two in a series but no book one? but for real, in a school with 80 students, why do they have three *palettes* of graphing calculators? they literally have hundreds upon hundreds of graphing calculators. and my guess is that the nearest school may not have any.

we'll be spending the week at the school pretty much doing whatever they need us to. that may be planting flowers, or moving gravel, or figuring out what the hell to do with a thousand calculators.

after we left the school yesterday, we came back to the church for a cooking class with a luminous woman who taught us how to make a proper creole roux for gumbo while talking about the history of the food we were going to eat. it was wonderful, standing in a hot, smoky kitchen with two dozen volunteers, watching this woman cook ancient foods that actually traveled from west africa with the slaves. did you know that the bantu word for okra is kigombo? thus, gumbo. how cool is that?

looks like it's time to make some lunch and head back to the school. and maybe another cup of the worst coffee known to humanity.

devastation, public and private

dang, someone wants the computer. i haven't slept. not the best time for writing. but so much to tell! i went from closing the bar straight to the airport and from the airport straight to a new orleans middle school in temporary modules because their nearby school was completely destroyed. there are trailers everywhere next to huge piles of insulation and moldy wood. some of them used to be houses. some neighborhoods look okay, but the vast tracts of public housing that supported the working class communities here are still boarded up and abandoned. how do they expect people to come back if there's no place for them to live?

that's all for now. it's hot and humid and i'm at a methodist church helping bake a cake.

aaaah!

i leave for new orleans tomorrow morning. i am too busy to write anything! hopefully i'll be able to get some things online while i'm down there. if not, see you next week!

snack time!

fun behind the bar on birthdays

me and steve on his birthday last night, breathless from our duet of born to run.



these are from devon's party last month -- i've been meaning to put these up forever!



aren't we just the cutest couple? i mean, not as cute as me and steve, but close!



don't EVER step behind my bar!

17th century drinking throwdown

the plan for my next party includes the punch-bowl fountain:

The record for history's largest cocktail belongs to British Lord Admiral Edward Russell. In 1694, he threw an officer's party that employed a garden's fountain as the punch bowl.

The concoction? A mixture that included 250 gallons of brandy, 125 gallons of Malaga wine, 1,400 pounds of sugar, 2,500 lemons, 20 gallons of lime juice, and 5 pounds of nutmeg.

A series of bartenders actually paddled around in a small wooden canoe, filling up guests' cups. Not only that, but they had to work in 15-minute shifts to avoid being overcome by the fumes and falling overboard.

The party continued nonstop for a full week, pausing only briefly during rainstorms to erect a silk canopy over the punch to keep it from getting watered down. In fact, the festivities didn't end until the fountain had been drunk completely dry.

you know what makes a drink great? 1400 pounds of sugar.

finally, an excuse

i didn't really want to make my bed anyways. i mean, i'm just going to mess it up again tonight!

untidy beds are healthy.

drinking with oedipus

after a productive day at red hot (!) i met some friends for dinner and a show. one of my friends is in a production of oedipus rex so of course we had to go and see it. we were all impressed with the quality of the production. it's an updated adaptation -- and those are always risky -- but this one held its own. the chorus became reporters and the play was essentially set up as speeches and press conferences. very interesting. oedipus yelled a lot.

when the play was over, we took our starlet out to drinks at nearby slainte, an irish bar on the bowery. not my favorite place in the world, but a good draft list and lots of screens for watching the game one massacre. when we sat down, my friend ordered a black and tan -- that's guinness and ale or lager, a standard drink in american irish pubs (wikipedia points out that it's not commonly consumed in ireland). the snaggle-toothed waitress stared at her blankly. a black and tan, my friend said again. okay, our waitress said cautiously. my friend pointed to his black pants. black, the color, and tan, it's two beers mixed together, just tell the bartender, he'll understand. alright, she says and walks away.

two minutes later: her thickly accented question, you said black and tan right? um, yeah, what's going on here?

two minutes later: busboy approaches. you wanted a black and tan?

yes, my god, how hard is this?

the drinks arrive. no more problems.

boston begins their two out hedonistic scoring spree.

some of the cast joins us. oedipus has washed the blood from his eyes.

round two arrives without a hitch. because we order from the bartender.

later, my friend with the black pants orders a black and tan, from the waitress. should have known this wouldn't go well.

yeah, can i have a black and tan?

you want guinness?

no, a black and tan.

guinness?

black and tan.

okay, guinness.

miraculously, a black and tan arrives.

when i ask the bartender for our check, he apologizes.

do you think our waitress still has a job?

i don't mean to be cruel, but i doubt it.

best bartender ever?

no, it's definitely not me.

i think it's this woman.

to the person sitting next to me on the subway

hey, so you're reading the post. awesome. i'm totally going to read over your shoulder.

okay, i'm done with that page. turn the page please.

no really, did you stop reading or something? i'm done. next page.

WHAT ARE YOU DOING I AM TRYING TO READ HERE PLEASE TURN THE PAGE

dammit here's my stop. thanks for nothing, post reader.

a full mouth

so finally the other half of my mouth is clean. that was a strange week, to have the right side of my teeth sparkling and wide-gapped and the left side still covered in crap.

but it's all good now.

svetlana took me into the radiology dept and gave me a full set of x-rays. in the middle of the session with a film set between my teeth, there was a knock on the door and a wizened crew-cut carpenter came in with a rolling palette. i have to work in here, he said. now we're talking about a tiny x-ray lab and here he comes wheeling this wide load into the room. he gets about four feet in before he discovers that his palette won't fit through the door into the next room. slam! he tries to jam it in. slam! i start laughing and the film falls out of my mouth. svetlana starts laughing. al? paging al the carpenter? the radio blares. he pulls his palette out of the room and is gone. i guess he didn't have work to do after all.

in the radiology waiting room:


aw, the radiology teachers have pets!


yes, that is definitely my plan.

weak week

i've got a hectic week coming up and i'm worried that blogging time will be at a premium. i leave for new orleans early next week and i've got some preparing to do. i'll do what i can to keep you informed about gay wizards and mayor-killing monkeys.

in the meantime, here are two blogs i recently discovered that i think are awesome. enjoy!

the "blog" of "unnecessary" quotation marks

this one is particularly close to my heart.

mustachesofthenineteenthcentury.

savor these words, for they are my last.

of the day.

on my blog.

wish me luck

it's not looking good folks. in fact, there's a 100% chance of precipitation today. usually, i don't mind the rain, but i'm spending the day with my kids, and i haven't had a rainout yet.

i'm a little concerned that they're going to go insane, cooped up in the house, playing with next-gen transformers. damn these new toys are cool! the optimus prime that flips with a flick of the wrist into a loaded nerf cannon is one for the ages.

maybe i'll teach them how to gamble.

if only i had that laptop

one question: how is 12 beers a month a lifetime supply?

NZ brewery offers beer for laptop

A New Zealand brewery is reportedly offering a lifetime supply of beer for the return of a stolen laptop.

Local media said the laptop was stolen from the Croucher Brewing Company in the central North Island city of Rotorua earlier this week.

Owners were desperate to retrieve the computer containing designs, contact details and financial information, the Rotorua Daily Post said.

They have offered free beer to anyone giving clues leading to its recovery.

Co-owner Paul Croucher said the company would provide a lifetime supply of about 12 bottles a month to anyone who could name the thief.

The company has back-up copies of the material stored on the laptop but these are not up to date, the newspaper said.

yet another vice

rockstar games, why did you have to go and make this? my life is over.



no seriously, this game is awesome.

why i love my job

because i work for these guys.

cloak of invisibility, here we come

so close, so very close. i can't wait to be invisible:

New 'Metamaterial' Brings Scientists Closer Than Ever to a Cloaking Device

sunday bartenders rest easy

last month in nearby red hook, there were back to back brazen daylight robberies at local watering holes bait & tackle and moonshine. all us sunday bartenders were wary, especially since the bartender at bait & tackle was tied up at gunpoint in her first (and last) month of bartending.

but this afternoon the new york times reports that the thieves have been apprehended -- after going back to the bar to have a drink! read on.

Bartender Snaps a String of Tavern Holdups

The robbers carried guns into dark bars in broad daylight on back-to-back Sundays in Red Hook, the ballyhooed next-great-neighborhood of Brooklyn that has stubbornly maintained much of its gritty charm and, with it, danger.

News of the first holdup spread quickly: On Sept. 23, shortly after 2 p.m., two men entered Red Hook Bait and Tackle on Van Brunt Street, as laid-back a tavern as they come, with lots of mounted fish and taxidermy specimens. The bartender, a woman, was alone in the place, cleaning a restroom and just opening for the day. The men asked to use a restroom, and when they returned, one was wearing a mask and the other a bandanna over his face, and both held black handguns.

They bound the woman’s hands with duct tape, and stretched another piece over her mouth, the police said. The men took more than $1,000 — the exact amount was not provided by the police. The men then fled in a gray sport utility vehicle, the police said.

The bartender banged on neighbors’ doors until someone opened up and untaped her, said another bartender at Red Hook Bait and Tackle, who, fearful of a suspect still at large, gave his name only as Chris P., 30.

The following Sunday, Sept. 30, the men struck again, the police said, this time at Moonshine, a bar nearby on Columbia Street. About 3 p.m., one man entered, used the bathroom, left the bar and returned wearing a hat pulled low and with another man in a mask.

“They made my customer lay on the floor,” said the bartender, Marni Ludwig, 31. “They held a gun to my head and I gave them the money. They were angry that I didn’t have more money.” The men fled with less than $1,000, again in an S.U.V., the police said.

But this time, surveillance cameras photographed the first man as he approached the bathroom, showing a distinctive teardrop tattoo on his face, said Sgt. Joseph LaBella of the 76th Precinct detective squad. Officers circulated a sketch of the man in area bars.

The next Sunday passed without incident. Then, this past Sunday, Chris P., the bartender at Bait and Tackle, was killing the last minutes of his shift, which took him into the early hours of Monday, with seven or eight friends.

“It’s about 3 a.m.,” he said yesterday. “I see a man and a woman walk in the bar.”

“I notice he has the teardrop by his eye,” Chris said. “I think, ‘This is definitely the suspect.’ They ordered some shots of tequila. They wanted limes and salt.”

Chris said he went to the end of the bar and told a friend, “who happened to be one of the more sober people in the place, to call the cops. I told him in a hushed voice.”

Chris said he tried to act natural while his friend stepped outside to call 911. But then the man with the tattoo suddenly got up. “He leaves the bar,” Chris recalled, while Chris’s friend “is outside calling the police on him.”

The man returned with his hand curled in the bottom part of his shirt, and Chris said he thought he had a gun. He approached the couple. “I said, ‘Guys, if you don’t need anything, I’m just going to use the bathroom,’” Chris said. He, too, called the police, and returned.

The man rose again, this time for the men’s room, where Chris figures he got a good look at his own police sketch, for he quickly left the bar without a word to the woman, Chris said.

Chris said he told his friend to lock the door. “He locks the door. I go over to the woman and say, ‘Do you need anything?’ She asks for another piece of lime for her tequila.”

Then Chris and his friend and a manager of the bar slipped outside, where two of them pulled down metal gates over the front of the bar and the third held the door shut as the woman, who had unlocked it from the inside, was trying to leave, Chris said.

The police found the man hiding under a parked car down the street, and arrested him and the woman, Sergeant LaBella said. The suspect, Luis Rodriguez, 26, of the Bronx, was charged with three counts of robbery. The woman was not charged. The second man remains at large, the police said. The police found the S.U.V. and a handgun inside it, Sgt. LaBella said.

In Red Hook yesterday, Chris and his friends walked the awkward gait that combines patting oneself on the back with looking over one’s shoulder. “We did a little detective work. It was nice,” he said, but added that the robberies were a reminder: “It’s still a little shady. You have to keep an eye on your surroundings.”

a public apology

so on monday i said some bad things about union hall.

and i was rightly called out on it.

so i just want to say that i love union hall. it's a great bar and i adore the staff there. i've thoroughly enjoyed every show i've been to there and the only reason i thought nada surf didn't sound good is that their own sound guy who was touring with them was doing their sound. the house sound guys do a great job.

i hope this doesn't come off as insincere -- i'm constantly impressed with their lineup and would heartily recommend heading to the u.h. for a show. especially when my band plays there on wednesday november 14th!

also, be sure to join me and dick swizzle for late night karaoke this saturday!

ps magnetic field rocks.

250th post: half a mouth

back from the dentist. if you're interested in a free dental check up (x-rays and all!), click here.

it's one pm in the office of the dental hygiene department at cuny. but the clock on the wall says 9:05. that's not a good sign. it's like george carlin reminding us never to trust a dentist with blood in their hair. ten minutes later it's still 9:05. if they can't put batteries in a wall clock, will i be safe in the x-ray booth?

luckily my dentist for the day/russian model svetlana welcomes me warmly and sits me down in her cubicle. it's quite a scene, cube after cube of dentistry under a low hanging particle board ceiling with pretty serious water damage.

but svetlana's blue eyes and bleached blonde hair are a soothing balm to the treachery of pop radio emanating from speakers on all sides. can someone please shoot rhianna so there's never another disaster like umbrella? thanks a million.

after an initial look, svetlana says i have heavy calcium buildup and that we can't get it all off and take x-rays without another appointment. not a problem. i thought we would do a light clean this time and then finish with x-rays and a deep scraping next week.

instead, i'm left with a thoroughly cleaned right side of my mouth and a left side forlorn and filthy as a romanian orphan. this is totally bizarre.

why i love google image search ("dental hygiene"):

the dentist

ok, i'm spending three hours at a free jay street dentist. this could go badly. i'll keep you posted.

falling into fall

growing up in california there were seasons, but they were subtle. it took years to glean the changes, a few trees losing their leaves, the rain in winter, the verdant hills which roasted to golden in the summer.

there are problems with a lack of seasons. the years can just wash over you like so many days on end. wait, you say, was that the winter of aught-four? it rained then. where was i that summer when it actually was pretty warm? it's all a little confusing, fogged-over perhaps.

but here, it's a different story. even with global warming lessening the tenacity of our east coast winters, it's very obvious when it's february as opposed to august, especially a block from the harbor. the atlantic avenue wind is already picking up, and although i'm actually a fan of winter (thanks minnesota), i'm not a friend of the bitter chill coming off the water.

so we move into fall, tightening the circle, closing inwards, stashing our proverbial acorns and preparing for the long haul.

bonus? no more looking at capri pants.

another hectic weekend

i should know by now that going to a bar where i know a majority of the staff is a dangerous proposition. and when nada surf played on friday, i was surrounded by friends at union hall. unfortunately the sound guy the band with whom the band was touring was utterly incompetent, and my audio engineer ears could barely handle the high treble hiss.

also, the band kind of sucked.

saturday i biked off my hangover and went to potentially the second-to-last open market at the red hook ballfields. if you haven't been, this saturday might be your last chance. either way, after next weekend they close until the spring. the tarp-covered foodie's paradise is chock-full of local delicacies from latin and south america -- huaraches, papusas, giant tamales wrapped in banana leaves. it's all delicious. i don't remember the specifics, but there's something about their vendor permits and the parks department and a senator coming there over the summer to support the market staying open.

fyi, if you get the ceviche, careful with the green salsa they provide. that salsa, like c+c music factory, is gonna make you sweat.

did i tell you i'm in the band? well, i am.

more biking to band practice that afternoon. and oops, i forgot my cheat sheet with the chord progressions to all the songs. but hey, i pulled it off ok. it sort of felt like taking the training wheels off my bike. except my bike was a bass guitar.

do you not have dental insurance and live in new york? check this out: FREE DENTAL HYGIENE

i've got an appointment tomorrow. hmmm, but i hate the dentist. we'll see how this goes. three hours at the dentist? there better be laughing gas.

one last thought for the weekend

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

park sloop

tonight i'll be sailing the seas of park slope -- nada surf is playing at union hall! text me if you're in the hood.

and now, the story of the mystery cell phone.

yesterday i found a cell phone at the foot of a borough hall subway turnstile. rather than turn it over to the mysterious tombs of the mta lost and found, i decided to keep it and try and track the owner down.

first strange thing: not a single outgoing call had been placed since august.

second strange thing: attempts to call "mom" and "home" met with disconnected numbers.

third strange thing: emails sent to addresses stored in phone all bounce back.

i think i have a new phone!

but i have t-mobile and the phone is verizon. anyone with verizon service want a sweet camera phone?

am i a bad person?

your daily anagrams

collided igneous, so lucid old Genie, eluded i sing cool, includes good lie, soul do diligence, duelling so docile, no logic is eluded, so indie could gel.

stolen (as usual) from the blog of mike doughty, poet and former frontman for soul coughing.

no shoes, no shirt, no subway.

put a goddamn shirt on.

good word, good word

one of my friends/regulars (seems to be a lot of crossover these days) is working all over africa for the next year. his blog is halperin.wordpress.com.

in his most recent post, he explains (along with dickies pants being a gang uniform) that traffic lights in johannesburg are called nighttime authority robots.

really, i couldn't agree more.

interesting, an image search for "destroy all robots" comes up with more results for "destroy all humans."

OH MY GOD THE AUTHORITY ROBOTS ARE GOING TO DESTROY US ALL!!!


in other news, the german sailors who didn't tip me last night can go straight to fucking hell.

don't read my blog

why shouldn't you read my blog? because dancing at gunpoint has all the best videos before i do!

ok no wait you should read my blog.

and you should watch this amazing video.

which i stole.

once again.

big news!

i'm going to work today.

i have my ipod with five new albums purchased with a previously mentioned itunes gift card.

they are:

iron & wine, the shepherd's dog
jose gonzalez, in our nature
beirut, the flying club cup
manu chao, la radiolina
okkervil river, the stage names

i have copied them onto cds and then put them back in itunes to break the copyright. i am a thief!

speaking of stealing, if you haven't watched the video from yesterday's post, go back and watch it right now. seriously, it's hilarious.

okay, i really have to go to work. i have a great and inspiring story about a school in manhattan that i visited on tuesday. hopefully i will have a chance to put it up when my cube-mate leaves for lunch.

happy happy joy joy

the t key on my laptop is still broken, but i reconnected my bluetooth keyboard and now i have a most excellent ergonomic workstation -- monitor at eye level, foot rest to keep my hips even, wrist pads for both keyboard and mouse.

aahhh, this is the life.

really, just having a keyboard with a working t is a major victory for me. why didn't i get batteries months ago?

i've been busy recently, lots of time behind the bar and working on various red hot projects and taking my twins out for photographic adventures. on friday i bought them each a disposable camera and we walked through the neighborhood taking pictures. i can't wait to see their pictures! even though i'm betting that most of them will be finger-obscured.

this blog stole a video from another blog, and i was laughing so hard that i had to steal it too. enjoy!

that's a law? seriously?

an interesting article today from wftv orlando.

It's the first trial of its kind. A man is facing a judge and jury for violating Orlando's ban on feeding the homeless. Eric Montanez, 22, was caught feeding a group in Lake Eola Park earlier this year. The prosecution told Eyewitness News their case rests on video taken of Montanez feeding the homeless, breaking Orlando's feeding ban.

"There are a lot better things for law enforcement to be doing in this town, but this was an outrage," said George Crossley of the ACLU.

Montanez and a small group of supporters marched from Lake Eola Park to the Orange County on Monday morning.

"We're ready to take this on," Montanez said.

Montanez and the group he's involved with, Food Not Bombs, returned to Lake Eola just after sunrise to once again violate the ordinance that has him on trial. Food Not Bombs volunteers served breakfast to about 100 Montanez supporters, most of them homeless. They will serve breakfast, lunch and dinner during what they're calling a three-day "ladle fest," not a protest.

"Me personally, I think that's discriminating for one," said Lamont Robinson, a homeless man.

"We're out here trying to survive from day to day life and this gentleman over here is helping us," said Melvin Moore, a homeless man.

In April, Montanez was arrested for violating the city ordinance that bans mass feeding in one area. His attorney will argue that the law is a violation of civil rights and say Montanez did nothing wrong, because every feeding that he participated in was done at a public park.

"The law itself should be illegal. Feeding people should not be criminalized. Being poor should not be criminalized," Montanez said.

The group is hoping to pressure city leaders into axing the ordinance that they believe is a violation of their civil rights, but the city has made no mention of such consideration being in their plans.

adventures in babysitting

is it really october? my god it's beautiful outside. nothing like an afternoon at the playground with five year old twins to cheer me right up.

hurt

after a week of pretty much not taking good care of myself at all, i just wanted to make sure that everyone has seen the video of johnny cash covering trent reznor's hurt.

i guess crying is a theme today -- the first time i saw this video i was working at the headquarters of the unitarian universalist association on beacon hill in boston. it struck me so hard that i took the rest of the day off to wander aimlessly through the common.

you've been warned.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=SmVAWKfJ4Go

it makes me cry

yes, our president has recently vetoed a bill to give health care to poor children around the country.

his explanation?

"my job is a decision-making job. and as a result, i make a lot of decisions."

i think i'll move to australia.

more overheard

another classic from overheardinnewyork.com

What a Plot Twist!

Man: How much for two double-A batteries?
Bodega worker: The good ones or the one-dollar ones?
Man: The dollar ones.
Bodega worker: One dollar.
Man: I'll take two.
Bodega worker: That will be two dollars.
Man: Two dollars?!

--30th & 6th

thanks, but no thanks

amazing what you'll find in the free section of craigslist....

mmmm... potato...

the news today...

is somewhat funny and more than a little disturbing.

charges dismissed against this woman who may have killed her husband with a sherry enema. um, eww....

this article should be posted in its entirety...

PRAGUE (Reuters) - A Czech couple who decided to take a DNA test to squash persistent pub gossip and prove that their 10-month-old baby was their own got a nasty surprise.

The couple, from the southeastern town of Trebic, had some doubts about the child as her hair was blonde and they both had dark hair. Fellow drinkers' suspicions got on their nerves.

But the test showed neither of the parents had the same DNA as the baby, Czech news agency CTK reported Wednesday, suggesting a mix-up at the hospital.

Authorities were looking into the case.

i know exactly how this orang-utan feels. he refuses to pay any attention to his primate equals and is instead obsessed with heavily tattooed blondes. you and me both, sibu.

and finally, someone has discovered a great use for mr. potato head...

clooney watch

production has moved to just a block away from me! no blogging today, too busy keeping vigilant celebrity watch.

the crappy mets

my friends and i were discussing the nickname that history will bestow upon the chokiest of choke teams. that would be my mets, who, in case you missed it, became the first team in baseball history to blow a lead of seven or more games with 17 games left in the season.

the only good one i could think of was the disappoint-mets.

but my friend bill has got the winner. simple, straight-forward and it references history.

how about the dismayzin's?


got anything better?

um, what?

i can't tell if someone messed up or if this is just horrendous journalism.

read this story from kpho phoenix. here it is, in its entirety.

MESA, Ariz. -- It was supposed to be a two-hour Shakespearean comedy attended by 700 Higley Unified School District sixth-through 12th graders.

But it was not to be.

About 40 minutes into the play, a district official halted the show Monday at the Higley Center for the Performing Arts.

"We stopped the show because we feel that this was inappropriate and not a kind of performance that we want them to see," said Tara Kissane, the district's director of visual and performing arts.

that must have been some seriously bad shakespeare.

also, this happened

the weekend in cell phone pictures

this is cool -- a car on the set of the new coen brothers movie that happens to be in production a few blocks away. i always wondered how they filmed people in cars. it seems like the front seat would be really crowded with a cameraman in there.


two from the dumbo arts festival. dumbo in dumbo!


found what? oh my god, your art is so confusing!


i know it's hard to tell, but take a closer look. i stuck one dart into the other one! slow night at the bar. but at least i am totally robin hood. of darts.


the atlantic antic!!! joy of joys. i love this day! there's something so powerful about watching this street, this street that i both love and hate, worship and curse, be completely transformed, filled to the brim with people and taken over, if only for a day. this is the view from the v.i.p. section, otherwise known as my roof.


special atlantic antic version of...



who wants a mustache ride?

clooney-pitt watch

are they in there?

magnetic field softball

you may remember that i used to be the jinx for our softball team. for three seasons i'd never been present at a victory, although we'd had a few. that streak finally ended earlier this month. with a forfeit. streak over regardless.

after our recent fall season ended due to some field permit weirdness, it looked like we were done playing softball until the spring. but then we were able to squeak into the kings county co-ed fall conference. the games start later because we're playing on a field with lights. it sounds nice.

but i wouldn't know, because so far i've worked through every single game.

and now check out the standings!


note: at press time, magnetic field was 3-0 and tied with the fully-uniformed scary irish bartenders of mcmahons for first place.


THIS IS OUR YEAR BABY!


i'm never going to a game again. my guess is the team would appreciate it.

at least i can still be their bartender.

something new

i'd like to just say, i cannot wait to get my new t-shirt in the mail!!

damn

i knew i should have entered the contest...

peta strikes again

i'm all for the ethical treatment of animals, but peta is starting to resemble a certain pot-smoking, dog-strangling former nfl quarterback.

this story broke tuesday:

SPOKANE, Wash. — Children at a downtown preschool got an unplanned lesson in animal rights activism when their pet rabbit was stolen and anti-circus fliers were left in the animal's cage.

Sugar Bunny vanished from the Community Building Children's Center during a celebration of building renovations Saturday evening, teachers said.

"Somebody stoled him," 5-year-old Zion told The Spokesman-Review, which gave only the first names of him and other children in a report on the heist. "I'm sad."

Lori Peters, a teacher, said watching, petting and playing with Sugar Bunny helped the little children overcome separation anxiety. The theft is being reported to police but it's unclear whether the preschool will find a new pet, she added.

The fliers that were left were for protests against the Ringling Brothers Circus, which was in town Friday through Sunday, and showed a picture of a bear trying to escape beneath the bars of a cage. Listed at the bottom were People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and the Northwest Animal Rights Network.

Daphna Nachminovitch, director of PETA's domestic animal department, said the group would not endorse stealing a pet bunny.

"Just like dogs and cats, (rabbits) have been domesticated, so we encourage people who have the knowledge and ability to adopt rabbits from their local shelters," Nachminovitch said.

Teachers gathered the children in a circle Monday to remember Sugar Bunny, some by drawing pictures and others by writing songs.

"We talked about how some people have different ideas about animals," Peters. "Some people don't think they should be in cages."

and that's just the beginning: petakillsanimals.com

turns out peta kills 85% of the animals they "save." that adds up to 10,000 animals since 1998.

whoa.

suddenly michael vick eating kittens doesn't seem so bad...

stealing is wrong.

but it's also fun, and since this blog stole the laughing baby video i feel like it's ok to steal from them. yes, they did credit my blog, but they didn't provide a link.

anyways, what with the new update and all, i'm suddenly conscious of the links section on other people's pages. and in the links section of said blog i found an amazing site.

it's a dating site run by sean hannity.

really? could this be for real? there's no faq and no link to it from his site, but wikipedia says it's legit.

i guess even conservatives want to find love. even this guy.

I'M THE EASY GOING OUTDOORS TYPE. I LOVE THE BEACH AND THE MOUNTAINS. HIKING , SKIING , BOATING IT'S ALL GOOD. SATURDAY IS A MORNING WALK BY THE SHORE AND THEN A FEW YARD SALES. COOKING DINNER AND WATCHING A MOVIE IS ALSO PRETTY HIGH ON MY LIST. IF YOU LIKE THESE THINGS TOO, MAYBE WE CAN HAVE SOME FUN TOGETHER.

that doesn't sound so bad. but all caps make people sound CRAZY!

criminal or hilarious?

evil bartender or merry prankster?


read the story here.

edits today

as interests change, so too the links.

check em out!

also, new picture.

i almost changed the layout.

but i didn't.

why i always read toothpastefordinner.com

today's birthdays (some)

according to wikipedia. but can they be trusted?

st. francis of assisi
johnny appleseed
t.s. eliot
george gershwin
marty robbins
olivia newton-john

so if today is your birthday, you probably like talking to birds, planting apple trees, writing incredibly obscure poetry, composing country and/or ragtime music, and of course, getting physical.

damn, i should write horoscopes.

damn you, werner herzog

the last post of the day before i head full on into practicing.

someone with a blog saw the video of the baby laughing, and one of her readers posted this in response.

whoa.

fire update part two

the director of public affairs at l.i.c.h. has informed me that he is actually a she. i shouldn't have assumed.

i think i have a new reader!

more

ok, so i'm procrastinating today.

when i was in tanzania a friend played me a track by a french hip hop group called saian supa crew. check out the safe sex style! any french speakers out there want to tell me what they're saying?

if only

if only we could live our lives with this much joy.

from the ticker: good engagement, bad engagement

popping the question via a crossword puzzle? precious beyond words.

robbed at gunpoint seconds after proposing?

actually, i'd say that's much more exciting than doing a crossword together.

fire update

i hope you noticed yesterday's post, in which i single-handedly saved a hospital from burning down. some have called me a hero, but i was just doing my job as a citizen.

you may have also noticed a comment posted from someone at the hospital's public affairs department. well, i've given him a statement and now he says i should call him if i ever need anything from them...

looks like i don't need health insurance after all! sweet.





on a related note, i thought it funny that the google image search for long island college hospital is very different from searching for the hospital's acronym, LICH

last night

all was quiet last night. i tried, i tried so hard, to bring people in. it was the last monday without a show for a long time, so i had a feeling it would be slow. but there was a glimmer of hope, for it was the one year anniversary of vassar night. for a year i've been inviting my friends from vassar to come and hang out on the last monday of every month. it's never drawn more than ten people, but it's always been fun.

so, r.i.p. vassar night, because not a single person came last night. oh well. i think that my friends will be happy that i'll stop bothering them.

so instead it was movie night.

i forgot how much i loved falkor...

weekend highlight

i'm busy today and have a second audition with the band tomorrow, so not much time.

friday night a garbage can caught on fire across the street from the bar. i got to call 911! it was awesome. thanks to yours truly long island college hospital didn't burn down and atlantic avenue didn't look like this.

late night bar antics

who wants a mustache ride?

more quality reportage

thanks again, bbc. i heart silly signs.










the german in the last one is "duckbread is duckdead."

truer words were rarely spoken.