Have a heart, foster a butt plug today!

May 31, 2007 ·
Filed under: Area 51 

Thursday I had a truly amazing idea. I am still downright giddy in the afterglow of its sheer brilliance. In fact, I have been prancing around the apartment mirthfully giggling to myself for hours. Not since starting New York Shitty have I been as psyched about something as I am about this.

Who or what do I have to thank for this yet-to-be-announced breakthrough, you ask?

This guy. It happened like this…

My morning started on a rather inauspicious note: immediately after waking up I got sick. My stomach made this weird gurgling sound, and lo, up came a tummy full of sinus drainage. The taste of this foul substance, in turn, made me convulse and dry heave for two solid minutes. Sexiful.

After cleaning myself up, I got on the computer to see what was shaking over at The Gowanus Lounge. And what did I find? A whacked-out rant about Feminist Art, that’s what. I cannot do this masterpiece of misogyny justice. Click on the above link and behold its paleolithic logic (and my rather angry rebuttal) yourself.

That said, if history takes any notice of Miss Heather at all, one of the facts about me that will be found in little Timmy’s and Meghan’s high school textbooks will be this: she was feminist. It should also be noted that I make art on occasion. So, if someone was to use a little deductive reasoning, the argument could be made that I am, indeed, a feminist artist. There, I said it.

And (as I indicated in the angry missive I left regarding the above-mentioned story on The Gowanus Lounge), Judy Chicago is not my cup of tea. That doesn’t mean I do not think her work is important, though. Art is a very subjective thing, Ms. Chicago may appeal to some people, but this (Warning: NSFW) is more my speed. You see, Miss Heather is not only a feminist, she is also a pervert with a wicked sense of humor.

Yes sir, I likes me some Lynda Benglis. Enough so to take my busted-up copy of Bad Girls to a lecture she was giving and ask her to autograph it. That was well over ten years ago. This memory got me to wondering what she is doing nowadays, so I did a little knocking around online. I found this and this. Not only is Ms. Benglis the same age as my mother, but she also lives right here in New York Shitty. I wonder if she’ll adopt me?

Shortly after learning the previous two facts, I had my revelation:

I wonder what ever became of that dildo?

I have not been able to get this question out of my mind. I imagine he probably resides in a nice assisted living center somewhere in New Jersey, being such a famous marital aid and all, right? But what if he’s sick or scratching out a hand(job)-to-mouth existence out on the street? If he is, I bet he’s not alone. There are probably legions of buttplugs, pocket pussies, doubledongs and cockrings out there struggling to keep warm at night.

When someone throws a cat or dog out on the street, the usual (and rightful) response is outrage. What about man’s other best friend? Don’t these devoted companions deserve protection too? I think so and that’s why I have started Miss Heather’s Home for Sick, Unwanted, and Crippled Dildonics (or “H-SUCD”).

Please find it in your heart to take a little time out of your busy day to learn about some personal care products who really need you. Who knows, you might might even find a new nocturnal companion to love and cherish for years to come.

Open your minds (and your legs) and give one of these fellas a chance. I know you have it in you.

Sincerely,

Miss Heather

FYI: Forgotten-NY Tour #30

May 31, 2007 ·
Filed under: Area 51 

On June 10th I have the honor of co-conducting Forgotten New York’s 30th walking tour which will cover (where else) Greenpoint! If you want to learn more about this fanfuckingtastic ‘nabe otherwise known as “The Garden Spot”, you can get all the deets and RSVP here. I don’t want to reveal too much about the itinerary but I will say this: the leopard print enthusiasts among you will not be disappointed.

Be there or be square!

Miss Heather

P.S.: I also want to give a shout out to Not For Tourists for featuring New York Shitty as their web site of the week today. Craig Nelson, the Managing Editor raves:

Keep up the shitty work!

Thank you very much. I think I will.

Free Delivery

May 30, 2007 ·
Filed under: Area 51, Greenpoint Magic 

First off, I’d like to give a hearty shout-out to my homegirl 11222. It’s really nice not to be the only person bringing the, uh, finer points of “The Garden Spot” to the blogosphere’s attention. Maybe more people will actually pay attention to our oft-neglected and abused but very cool corner of Brooklyn as a consequence. I’m not going to give names, you know who you are. Shame on you.

Although we don’t agree on a number things (like grocery stores for example —I’m a Garden gal, myself*), a new voice was very much needed in this here ‘hood and 11222 delivers. Speaking of delivery, my fellow Greenpointer has made light of something that is lacking in our ‘hood: late night eateries. I had honestly not given this matter any thought, but she does have a point. 11222 writes:

I am a firm believer that the key to success is staying open later than normal restaurants in Greenpoint. This isn’t a late night kind of place, but please stay open until 8 or so, to get people coming home from work. Closing at 5 or 5:30, in the antiquated belief that people actually get home from work at that time, is a sure recipe for failure – unless of course you’re able to do such a smashing lunch business that you don’t need to.

Someone could open a late-night pizza joint near the Greenpoint Ave. G stop, serving the crappiest pizza in the world. It wouldn’t matter; they would do a bang-up business, because aside from the God Bless Deli & Grocery, there is nowhere else to get late-night food in Greenpoint. I am still astounded by this.

Aside from perhaps the Chinese Musician (which is open until 11:00 p.m.), I cannot think of a single sit-down restaurant that is open past 9:00 p.m. This is probably because it has never presented an issue to me: I work unconventional hours. Just like Jaime, as you will see.

I recently found someone offering free late night delivery. Right here on Manhattan Avenue.

Free Delivery

Call me cynical but I suspect these breasts and thighs are going to cost you a lot more than the ones Colonel Sanders hawks. I won’t even go into the special sauce.

Miss Heather

*My best friend used to work at the deli at Key Food. That’s all I’m saying.

Dung of the Day: Bushwick Style

May 30, 2007 ·
Filed under: Dog Shit, Dog Shit Signage, Dung of the Day 

As I said yesterday, the bunghole of heaven has opened wide and showered me with a bounty of first-class shit pix. Here is today’s selection courtesy of Jaime, the proprietor of the known universe. He writes:

Hi Miss Heather,

This dog shit was in the stairwell of my loft in Bushwick. I realize the photo is kind of old — I posted it on my own blog over a year ago — but I didn’t come across your newyorkshitty blog until today and I thought it was worth sending to you anyway…

-Jaime

It was worth it. Still is. Even though it is a rather old example of excrement, it combines two items that go great together:

  1. dog shit
  2. an angry note from a neighbor of this negligent dog owner.

Here it is. Enjoy!

Dogshit 1

Why don’t we do it in the road hall!

dogshit 2

Looks like someone left a note. Let’s go in for a closer look…

dogshit 3

Excellent question, my dear Watson!

I want to thank Jaime for helping realize how lucky I am. All things considered, I suppose it’s better to live in a vomitorium than a toilet. During the six years of I have lived in my current apartment I have not seen anyone (canine or otherwise) take a shit in public areas of my building. Yet.

Miss Heather

P.S.: While I am on the subject of angry notes, check out this site. DO IT NOW. It’s hilarious. (Thanks “Dupreciate” for tipping me off to this!)

Photo Credit: Jaime

When bad things happen to good buildings

May 30, 2007 ·
Filed under: Area 51 

Last weekend I spent a significant amount of time working in the kitchen. I elected to do this because:

  1. my husband watching a lot of television, including a number of John Wayne movies which I would just as well not partake of
  2. the kitchen was a filthy mess

Armed with a pitcher of margaritas, my cd player and an assortment of cleaning products, I whiled away the entire evening diligently cleaning the floor and washing dishes. My pristine floor lasted maybe 24 hours. My husband has since tracked corn oil all over it. I’m not too sure how this happened and I do not think I want to know.

During my spring cleaning juggernaut I observed something unusual happening next door. The same neighbors who recently had a smoke detector problem apparently had a new one on their hands. Before I continue, I would like to say that I gave these peeps a serious drubbing over the previous incident. As ridiculous as the whole situation was, I still believe my neighbors to be nice people— they just weren’t thinking at the time. (It is rare for me to meet someone I do not like anyway, but most of them seem to work for Con Ed.)

That said, the purpose of this post is not to bash my ‘nabes. Rather, it is to highlight a problem they seem to have courtesy of their landlord’s crappy construction. As I stated in a previous post about “Beepy”, the landlord next next door raised the roof on the backend of his building. As a result, the roof rises about six inches above the bottom sill of our windows. In order to comply with fire code and account for water runoff, he created trough-like openings around both my and my neighbor’s windows. I realize this is a little difficult to understand, so here is a picture of one of them.

Trough

Located in each of these trenches is a smallish drain, which you can see here, which brings me to what I witnessed last weekend. As I was washing dishes I heard the sound of splashing water hit the roof. I peered out the window and noticed my neighbors stuffing a wet shirt between the top of their air conditioning unit and the window. Although puzzled by this, I went back to work.

Several hours later I heard it again. Dripping water. I looked out the window and saw them stuff another wet rag into this gap, making the air conditioner dip at a 70 degree angle.

Dipping a/c unit

That’s when I realized what my neighbor’s problem was: instead of going down the drain, the runoff from their air conditioner was leaking into their apartment. This is the only reason I can come up with for them doing this. The air conditioner has been positioned so the condensation will flow directly into the dinky drain they have been provided. To their credit, they did an admirable (if ugly) job of solving a ridiculous problem. I may very well end up doing the same thing.

I would love to meet the ‘architect’ who drew up this ‘plan’. I bet it was rendered on a piece of manila paper with crayon— the pretty metallic ones that you don’t get with the standard pack of Crayolas (the bastards!). Instead of being on file at the Department of Buildings, this M.C. Escher-esque masterpiece of poor design is probably taped to his mommy’s refrigerator.

Miss Heather

Anybody out there want some chickens?

May 29, 2007 ·
Filed under: Greenpoint Magic 

Because if you do, go on down to Noble Street and help yourself.

Chickens

I saw these chickens pacing about on Noble Street just east of West Street yesterday afternoon. After a little research, I learned that their apparent “home” belongs to 72 West LLC. This corporate entity, in turn, is headed by Greenpoint’s favorite citizen, the one and only Josh Guttman. I didn’t realize he was diversifying his holdings to include live chickens. Good for him.

In all seriousness, I could smell these foul-ass fowl all the way from Java Street. Those of you who have the misfortune of living near one of our city’s lovely “live poultry” establishments can attest to the stench I am talking about. It’s not unlike horse shit, only worse.

My curiousity piqued, I did a little poking around the Department of Health’s web site today to learn more about how these businesses are regulated. Here is what I found:

Health Code Subsection 161.19 Keeping of live poultry and rabbits

(a) No person shall keep a live rooster, duck, goose or turkey in a built-up portion of the City.

(b) A person who holds a permit to keep for sale or sell live rabbits or poultry shall keep them in coops and runways and prevent them from being at large. Coops shall be whitewashed or otherwise treated in a manner approved by the Department at least once a year and at such other times as the Department may direct in order to keep them clean. Coops, runways and the surrounding area shall be kept clean.

Here’s my two cents:

  1. Why are there chickens on Noble Street?
  2. Who is allowing them to wander about?
  3. Do these people even have a permit to keep chickens here? If they do, they don’t seem to be following the above regulations.
  4. Anyone up for some KFC? I’m buying!*

Miss Heather
*Just kidding, I’m a vegetarian.

Shit Parade

May 29, 2007 ·
Filed under: Bum Shit, Dog Shit, Dung of the Day 

This morning I awakened to discover a staggering assortment of blue-chip shit waiting for me in my inbox. One or two of them literally left me speechless. Here is the first installment, which was submitted by a gentleman named Jon Feinstein. It’s some seriously amazing stuff shit which I have taken the liberty of annotating for your amusement. Enjoy!

Manhattan
27th Street between 6th and 7th Avenue

yin/yang

I took a dump that looked just like this before viewing this image. A pretty uncanny coincidence if you ask me, but then again this is the usual by-product when one mixes margaritas with homemade salsa the previous evening. I did stick to using conventional toilet paper to wipe my bum, though. My socks simply have too many holes in them.

Park Slope Shit

Yourfuture…

The title of this one is “Your future does not have to be a mystery”. This is a reference to the ad copy on the flyer next to this gargantuan lump of shit. If this woman was a bona fide clairvoyant, she would have placed a flyer reading “Warning, I see a pile of shit in your future” ten feet in front of this bad boy. I am certain the person who (clearly) stepped in this puddle of puddin’ would agree with me.

Boerum Hill
Near Wyckoff Avenue

Portable outhouse

You gotta give the guy credit: at least he did it in a bucket. This reminds me of a story someone I went to graduate school with once told me. He grew up in a subdivision in Topeka, Kansas. One his neighbors decided to quit paying their water bill, and as a result, their water was turned off. Instead of using the toilet (which was rendered useless by lack of water) the entire family shit in buckets. When the bucket was full, they placed it in the garage. By the time these people were finally ejected from the property (by the city) the entire garage was filled with buckets ‘o’ shit. Maybe this family has moved to Boerum Hill?

Gowanus Pool Entrance

Shit on the wall

Looks like our neighbors to south like to throw them some D’s too!

Thank again Jon for the tasty turds! Another select morsel will be featured tomorrow, so stay tuned!

Miss Heather

Great Moments in Greenpoint Vinyl Siding, Volume III

May 29, 2007 ·
Filed under: Vinyl Siding 

Miss Heather is a big fan of self-expression. If you want to (for example) adorn the front door of your two story house with leopard print, I say knock yourself out. In my opinion such unusual and modest customizations to one’s home only add to the overall quirkiness and character of my neighborhood.

Unfortunately, since New York City has no architectural review board whatsoever, it also gives carte blanche for some miscreant (whose money far exceeds his taste) to make a much bigger and bolder imprint on Greenpoint’s landscape. The end result is usually pretty jarring, if not downright hideous. Take this building on Leonard Street (please!!!).

Leonard Street Whorehouse

Pretty fucking fug, isn’t it? Well, wait ’til you see what’s next door.

Neighbor

Shit like this makes me happy there isn’t some nosy government entity (or homeowner’s organization) to mess with my man on Leonard Street’s right to bear siding. All the way down to the last fucking inch of his property.

Rampart

The window box on the third floor is a nice touch, don’t you think?

Miss Heather

Shaffer Family Values

May 28, 2007 ·
Filed under: Greenpoint Magic 

89 Clay Street

After getting a little housework done I finally have time to sit on my ass and sip a brewski. The laundry has been run, the dishwasher is loaded and groceries have been purchased. Life is good.

This morning I could not for the life of me decide what to feature for today’s installment of Greenpoint crime blotter fun. Thankfully, Greenpoint gave me a hand: at precisely 8:30 a.m. This is when I got up from my desk, peered out my living room room and discovered an ambulance parked directly in front of my apartment building.

The EMS workers didn’t seem to know where they should be headed. Thankfully Vito, a gentleman who lives across the street had a word with them and whatever he said seemed to help. The previous is pretty remarkable given that Vito is mentally retarded and his speech is, for the most part, unintelligible.

Vito is a neighborhood institution— or he is to me and the guys who work at “The Thing” anyway. On any given day he can be found hanging out at the laundromat over on Huron Street (which presumably, his family manages). I’ll never forget the time Vito saw Kerry speaking on a cordless phone. He left the store and came back less than five minutes later with a phone receiver. JUST A PHONE RECEIVER— with which he commenced to strike up a ‘conversation’ with Kerry. This was hilarious beyond words. I like Vito; he brings a much-needed touch of Greenpoint zen to my life. But I digress…

After watching the ambulance episode this morning I remembered the Shaffers. They are my very favorite Greenpoint family. The local patricians may not have seen fit to name a street after them like the Meseroles, Bennets, Calyers or Provosts, but they made their mark nonetheless— in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle crime blotter. Repeatedly. Without further ado, let me introduce you to Joseph “Grandpa” Shaffer…

June 18, 1867

SENT TO JAIL.— Justice Dailey yesterday sentenced Jospeh Shaffer, of Greenpoint, to jail for 10 days, on the complaint of Officer Beckingham, of the Forty-Seventh Precinct, who found him very drunk and disorderly in the vicinity of the ferry.

And take my word for it, the acorn nut does not fall far from the tree…

June 8, 1894

A young man entered the Fifth Street Station house in Long Island City yesterday afternoon and said he had been shot in Greenpoint a few minutes before. He gave his name as John Shaffer, and said that at the corner of West and Huron Streets he met a man he had never seen before. He had some words with the fellow who was about his own age, 19 years, when the latter pulled out a revolver and shot him in the knee. The Greenpoint police were notified and an investigation was made. Captain Rhodes, who examined Shaffer, thinks he invented the whole story.

What about the lovely ladies of the Shaffer brood, you ask? Well, let’s just say you probably don’t want to marry one of them…

June 28, 1884

Rosanna Shaffer, of No. 89 Clay Street, Greenpoint, was arrested on a warrant this morning, for assaulting her husband, Fred Shaffer.

Poor Fred. What is a hen-pecked husband to do? Kick the family dog, I’m guessing. Shit rolls downhill. Even in Greenpoint.

August 24, 1884

Yesterday morning while a number of children were at play on Clay Street, Greenpoint, a large dog, the property of Frederick Shaeffer, of No. 89 Clay Street, bounded out of a yard and sprang upon a little girl, the daughter of John Hawley, of No. 79 Clay Street, and fastened its teeth in her right arm, lacerating it in a fearful manner. The dog was taken to the station house and hanged by Doorman Brennan, The girl’s wound was cauterized.

I don’t know about you, but I feel like I know these people. I can only imagine what their holiday celebrations were like, but I strongly suspect knuckle sandwiches were on the menu alongside the turkey, stuffing and cranberry dressing. The Shaffers are were my neighbors. That’s why I am grateful four blocks and 150+ years separate us.

Miss Heather

Photo: 89 Clay Street as it stands today, taken by Miss Heather.

Fecal Yoga at Berry and N. 11th Street

May 28, 2007 ·
Filed under: Dog Shit, Dung of the Day 

Shit Salutation

In Williamsburg even the doggie droppings know how to do the suryanamaskara.

Miss Heather

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