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Culture on the Cheap
New York Shitty is taking submissions!
Filed under: Dog Shit
I genuinely care about my readership. And for that reason I am inaugurating a new feature: you can now email me pictures of dog shit from your ‘hood! I will inspect your submissions and write a weekly critique/synopsis.
My specs are as follows:
- 150 dpi jpegs. I understand that a number of you will have no option other than 72 dpi and that’s cool. 150 dpi is preferred, but not necessary. Nothing larger, PLEASE!
- Keep the images around 400 x 300 pixels.
- Indicate where you found it. I prefer a street address, but an intersection is OK.
- Indicate when you found it.
- If there is a good story behind your submission, include it. If there is one thing I have learned from living in NYC, it is that there are few things people enjoy more than the pure Schadenfreudesque hilarity that can result from an errant piece of dog (or bum) shit.
Send your shit to: missheather@newyorkshitty.com
I look forward to seeing (and not smelling) what you guys find!
Miss Heather
Hipsters Need Only Apply
I recently noticed that the “for rent” sign has been removed from our apartment building. The apartment in question has been on the market for over two months. It has had no takers (until now, anyway) because it is an overpriced piece of shit.
The landlord has offered this apartment to my husband and me twice, and both times we have declined. We would like a two bedroom apartment so we could convert one of the bedrooms into an office, but this apartment is a ‘two bedroom’ in only the most rigidly academic sense of the term. It has…
- two bedrooms: one was about 10′ x 12′, the other was 8′ x 10′ (READ: a glorified walk-in closet)
- maybe 100 square feet more than what we have now, probably less
- walls that looked like they have been worked over by Keith Moon and then repaired by a circus monkey on crack
- one closet
And last, but not least…
- a brand-spanking new remote controlled ceiling fan (wtf?)
The asking rent for this ‘palace’ was over $300 a month more than what we are currently paying. It was all I could to to keep from laughing in the Stupor’s face when he told me the price. He was pretty damned proud of that ceiling fan he installed and the rent certainly reflected this. To be fair, it was a very nice ceiling fan, but it looked completely out of place because the rest of the apartment was a complete and total DUMP.
I have been wondering who my new neighbors were going to be what idiot would rent this apartment. Last night I got my answer.
Around 9:00 p.m. I heard something that is music to my ears: the sound of hipsters of moving somewhere else. I like ‘moving day’ because that’s when they throw out lots of cool stuff. Items only someone with no concept whatsoever of what it is like to work for a living would throw away. Nice stuff that only requires a little ‘TLC’, like this…
…and this.
I never knew Lite Brite even made tricked-out shit like this. The four lights even flash in tandem when you hit the button twice. Way cool! But I digress…
I peered out my window and saw a guy placing an antique lamp out with the trash. I bolted out of my apartment to grab it. When I came back, new score in hand, there was a eighteen-to-twenty year old chick talking to some dude (around the same age) who must have had at least a thousand dollars worth of tats on his arms and NECK. These “J.C. Penney Punks” (as my friend Mark calls them) were standing in front of my apartment.
Me: Excuse me.
Dude (moves, leans on my front door): Sure.
Me: That is my front door.
Dude: (moves)
*end of conversation*
P.T. Barnum has been (erroneously) credited as saying “There is a sucker born every minute”. If this is so, the 1980’s must have had more such ‘minutes’ than any decade to be had before or since. I find it fascinating that as this crappy apartment gets more (and more) ridiculously expensive, the people who rent it get younger and younger. I suspect this is because they have rich parents and do not know any better.
They will learn soon enough.
The apartment they are moving into is the ‘widowmaker’ of this building. No one has lived there for more than one year. It is Greenpoint’s very own “Room 101”— or perhaps “Room 237” from The Shining is more appropriate— as anyone who goes in there soon wants nothing more than to get the fuck out. They arrive here as fresh-faced, arrogant upstarts and they leave with hollowed-out faces completely bereft of any trace of humanity. And after they leave the rest of us get a good laugh and descend upon all the cool stuff they left behind like the vultures we are.
I suspect this cycle will perpetuate itself again next year. In the meantime, I hope these kids get some serious money and/or gifts for Christmas because I saw their possessions as they moved in. It was a bunch of crap even I would not want. ‘Slipster shit’ if I ever saw it.
In closing, I would like to give the following Greenpoint ‘shout-out’ to all you hipsters out there. I do not mind you moving to my ‘hood. Seriously. This is because I know you will leave soon enough, and when you do, I will score some seriously cool stuff. In fact, the only thing that keeps me from stabbing most of you arrogant fucks in the gonads is the prospect of getting free shit. That’s it.
So please do me the courtesy of not moving here unless you have stuff worth taking. There are plenty very nice people elsewhere who will accept items of inferior quality. Most of these people can be found off the Morgan Avenue stop of the L train or just about anywhere off the JMZ line in Brooklyn.
Your immediate attention to this matter is greatly appreciated.
Sincerely,
Miss Heather
Year of the Dog
Filed under: Area 51
I was born in the Year of the Dog.
2006, the year I conceived and developed this blog, is the Year of the Dog.
A blog about dog shit created during the Year of the Dog, by someone born on the Year of the Dog seems strangely fitting.
For the above reason(s), it is ironic that my first and only upbraiding by a New York City Parks employee to date would be at the behest of a dog.
Aside from the “Latina Chicks with Dirty Old Geezers” dvd I recently found behind our apartment, I gave my husband the very best birthday present of all last week: I landed an interview for a job. But in true Miss Heather fashion, this did not come to pass without incident.
Being the punctuality freak that I am, I left Greenpoint at 12:00 p.m. in order to make sure that my well-groomed white-trash ass got to Union Square by 1:00 p.m. I got there at 12:20 p.m. Damn.
I decided to knock around Union Square awhile and what happened next merited a phone call to my husband.
Me: I just got my ass reamed out by an employee of the New York City Parks Department for having a dog in a public bathroom.
Husband: (laughing)
Mind you. We do not have a dog.
I had consumed a lot of water and tea before I left the house, so I sought out a public bathroom. Union Square does have such facilities. They are pretty disgusting, but I really needed to go, so I ventured inside.
The ‘handicapped’ stall appeared to be occupied, so I selected the other one. Pissing away in a state of bliss that can only be had after drinking at least a gallon of water, in August, and riding the L train, I looked downward to find a dog. An old Boxer was peering up at me.
“This is weird”, I thought to myself.
I do not like anyone watching me ‘do my business’, so to speak. Then again, a dog is probably the least of all evils I can possibly encounter in a New York City public bathroom, so I tinkled away. Eventually I heard a woman’s voice from the adjacent stall say “O.K. Betty, are you ready to go?”
“This is getting really fucking weird” I thought to myself.
The word “go” has a very distinct meaning in a bathroom. I sat on the bowl as he/she/it/they exited the adjacent stall. I heard the door to the women’s bathroom open, and shortly thereafter, a banshee-like scream.
A.
LOUD.
ASS.
SHRILL.
SCREAM.
Imagine Yoko Ono getting buggered with a fire hydrant and you’ll get the general idea. It was not a pleasant sound. My bum-gut instinctively sealed itself shut, so I ‘adjusted myself’ and ventured out of the stall. I found a homeless woman washing herself while her dog waited patiently.
Homeless Woman: Why the fuck do these people get so freaked out by dogs?
Me: Hell if I know, but if I had to take a guess I’d say it’s because most people expect large dogs to be mean. Your dog (Betty?) is nice enough, she doesn’t bother me. Boxers are good dogs. They’re being assholes.
As the homeless woman washed herself and I waited, a NYC Parks Employee started beating furiously at the door. “Betty” started to get restless, so I placed my shoe firmly upon her leash so she would not try to bolt out of the door.
NYC Emp (opening the door and looking at me): You MUST get that dog OUT OF HERE!
Me: But…
NYC Imp: GET THAT DOG OUT OF HERE, A WOMAN HAS COMPLAINED ABOUT IT ALREADY!
Me: But it is not my dog…
NYC Imp: ?
Me (pointing to the Homeless Woman) : It’s her’s.
NYC Imp (in a soft voice, to the Homeless Woman): You need to get your dog out of the bathroom. There’s a woman out here who will not go into the bathroom while it’s in there.
Me (exiting the bathroom and thinking to myself): FUCK YOU!
Even homeless people get more respect than I do. Wherever Rodney Dangerfield is now, I am certain he is weeping tears of sympathy. Perhaps even tears of envy.
Then again, getting a good dressing-down before a job interview is not such a bad thing. It actually made everything that followed rather anti-climactic, if not downright pleasant. I arrived at my potential new employer’s place of business with a renewed sense of humility. A placid state that can only be had from extreme paranoia.
And when I got home I made a very long, very overdue and very gratifying visit to the bathroom.
Cats were afoot everywhere and yet no one screamed.
Miss Heather
August 27, 2006 Crap Map
Like a number of you, I frequently wonder about who (or perhaps more accurately, what) my neighbors are. These musings are usually preceded by my:
- finding a new piece porn (homemade or professional, I have found both— on several occasions).
- watching the police perform their duties. “To protect and serve” hereabouts seems to mean breaking up melees fueled by alcohol, infidelity and abject stupidity. OR
- hopscotching over ungodly amounts of dog shit.
Yesterday I did #3. What I assumed would be a one block trek in the rain to get me a bottle of Ito-En tea from the Franklin Corner Store ended up being a slush-ridden gauntlet through dog shit hell. It was a veritable sea of fly-ridden shit soup!
It was gross. VERY GROSS. A little backwash of vomit even crept up my throat while I photographed some of this shit. No joke.
Conclusion: my neighbors are inconsiderate, lazy pigs. my neighbors are sexually perverse, inconsiderate, lazy pigs.
Miss Heather
American Playground Women’s Bathroom
As if bumping into Tarzan last Saturday morning wasn’t a big enough mindfuck, the condition of the of the women’s restroom at the American Playground left me absolutely dumbfounded. It was clean. Terrifyingly clean. “Wipe up the blood from the crime scene with bleach so we don’t get caught by the police” clean.
I entered the facilities Saturday morning braced for anything: after all, if the McCarren Park bathroom was disgusting, surely this bathroom will be as bad— if not worse.
WRONG! The bathroom lacked soap, but the sink and mirror appear to have been cleaned recently. And when I say “recently” I mean during this Bush Administration…
A trash that does not require preventative measures against theft?!? Holy shit, this is getting serious!
I approached the solitary bathroom stall with a mix of anticipation and dread. Perhaps the public area of the bathroom is clean so as to lull me into a false sense of security? That way I will be completely thrown off-guard when I open the door to the toilet stall and find a 200 hundred pound shitbeast ready to rip my head off. “Ain’t no way I’m falling for that shit” I thought to myself as I kicked open the door.
Oh…
MY…
GOD!!!
For reasons you can probably imagine, I got my ass the hell out of there. I hightailed it home so I could tell my husband my findings.
Me: The garbage can was not chained down, Sam! Anyone, A-N-Y-O-N-E can just walk in there and take it!
Husband: Maybe the people in that part of the neighborhood don’t steal things?
Me: Are you fucking kidding me? This neighborhood is a veritable den of thieves! I swear they are hard-wired for theft, why else would people around here steal all useless shit that they do? If there was a man without an asshole in this neighborhood, he’d be the one caught trying to shoplift fifty Fleet Enemas from Eckerds! Such is the nature of compulsive thievery here. It’s fucking unreal. There are two groups of people in this neighborhood; thieves who have been caught stealing and thieves who have yet to be caught. Simple as that.
Husband: (nods)
Me: Remember when Kerry at “The Thing” caught that old Polish broad* trying to steal an issue of Architectural Digest?
Husband: Oh yeah, I had forgotten about that.
Me: I will never fucking forget it. Magazines only cost fifty cents there for chrissakes— why would someone go to the trouble of stealing something that only costs fifty cents?!? What is an old Polish woman— in GREENPOINT of all PLACES— going to do with an issue of Architectual Digest anyway?*
Husband: (nods)
Me: It’s not like she can or will read it.* No one reads here. I betcha she tried to steal that magazine because one of the legs on her coffee table is shorter than the rest and she was going shove that fucker under it to make it level!
Shortly after this conversation, my husband and I agreed that the American Playground toilet facilities require another inspection. And this time we are going to inspect both the men’s and women’s bathroom!
Miss Heather
*I can such crass remarks because I am, indeed, of Polish descent.
Bowels move on New Jersey Transit
This is an email I got from one of my husband’s coworkers today.
I just saw the most obscene, vile, surreal imagery since working in the city (mind you I have worked off and on for over 10 years in NYC). My day is starting with 5 star accommodations when NJ Transit decides to screw up the bus schedule and strand 200 people for over 2 hours at our terminal at Toms River due to a mix up with a broken down bus in the rotation. That was nothing in comparison to the eye candy I observed once I got into Port Authority. I called the Office to let them know that I actually arrived a bit earlier than expected from the delay and should arrive at work between 9:30 and 9:45 AM. I was talking to them on the cell phone and walking down the South Terminal’s main exit; I saw three security guards standing in the middle of the causeway with their arms stretched out in a “T†formation around a large area of the hall. As I got closer I witnessed something so foul and repulsive that I was left mute for about 35 seconds on the phone to work and the secretary was asking if everything was OK. What I saw that threw me mentally off guard was the sight of either a human or large animal’s, possibly canine, pile of shit on the floor. This was not any ordinary shit pile either, it stretched for about 25 feet long by 14 feet or so wide. Not that the load was extra ordinarily large, though it did have a good amount of mass to it, but the fact that the general public was trouncing over the shit like it wasn’t there! They smooched and smeared the fecal matter in the Duane Reade, the Trailways counter, through a newsstand and to the entrance of the subway escalator. I don’t think even Franz Kafka could not have thought up such a blackened image as this. I was so shocked by this fact, that the PA had to get armed guards to stand there with arms out to *prevent* people from smearing any more of it around. I couldn’t speak, it was like being stabbed in the kidneys with a knife; you want to scream, but no voice came out. I then deftly made my way around the mess carefully looking at the ground as smeared shit was extending beyond the cordoned area and I made sure to avoid any shoe-shaped dull spots on the floor. I actually had to exit the South Terminal, walk outside to the North Terminal, go back inside to go downstairs to get the subway. Even now I shudder to think about the earthy colored mosaic of shit pieces fanning out from the main pile, ugh! I thought that you would have enjoyed the setting with camera in hand, I am sure. PA would probably “clean†this by using a mop which would just help spread the bacterial matter around more evenly; something to think about if you see a kid playing on the floor or if you are tired and think about resting on the floor of the terminal. I wonder if anyone could have sued the PA if they slipped on the that heap of tan and brown, or declare a health hazard for the stores that had smudges and soiling extending into their establishments? Anyways, I thought this would have made your day and at least someone would have had a better start to the day than I.
And I thought swabbing up beer vomit from the foyer of our apartment building on Puerto Rican Day sucked.
Miss Heather
Found Magazine
After running errands all day I got home, checked my email and am happy to announce that I will have (at least) one of my finds featured in the upcoming issue of Dirty Found.
Mike (from Dirty Found) told me to give him everything I had. He also told me he liked ’em large.
So I gave him everything I had. And I made them large: five finds, three of which are from Greenpoint!* Pretty darned cool, eh?
Miss Heather
*The other two are from Kensington, Brooklyn.
1,000 Points of Blight
It is already Monday evening and I am still trying to figure out exactly where my weekend went; it is nothing more than a blur of sheer busyness, lack of sleep and an intense desire for a tube of Flexall and Budweiser to me now. That said, here are few highlights from my weekend for all to enjoy…
SATURDAY
I awoke at 5:45 a.m. I creeped out of bed and busied myself cleaning the house. Three hours (and four cups of coffee later) I got restless and went for a walk. The following bar chart summarizes what I found.
After perusing this visual aid, you will notice that I saw (or perhaps heard is a more appropriate term) one shirtless man who yodelled “like Tarzan”. I saw this gentleman on Greenpoint Avenue— and of all my six years of living in Greenpoint, this had to be the most infuckingcredible thing I have seen. Ever.
It was 10:00 a.m. and I was headed westbound on Greenpoint Avenue with the intent of going to the American Playground to assess the cleanliness of the women’s restroom.* About three doors shy of reaching Franklin Street, I spy a shirtless man walking out of The Cruz Grocery (at 111 Franklin). After walking about six feet, he abruptly stopped and roared a mighty howl (Johnny Weissmuller style, none of that candyass Disney shit). This mighty Greenpoint Yell reverberated off all the surrounding buildings and everyone— I mean EVERYONE— stopped dead in their tracks and stared.
His point (whatever it was) having been made, “Tarzan” continued walking down the sidewalk as if nothing happened. The rest of us stood there in a state of slack-jawed shock trying to figure out exactly what the fuck had just happened.
SUNDAY
I am awakened at 7:30 a.m. to the sound of cats growling and hissing. Our local tomcat, “Clarence”, was making his regular morning visit, the purpose of which is to piss off our cats. And as usual, his effort(s) were a stunning success. I have no complaints; this morning I have to help a friend of mine move his art materials out of his ex-girlfriend’s apartment in Long Island City.
No one enjoys helping someone else move. I certainly do not, anyway. But I have enough foresight to know that helping someone move is neither a task nor a favor: it is an insurance policy towards the time when I have to move.
Besides, my friend’s possessions were in Long Island City and I would just as well have him (and his stuff) somewhere else. I am certain some people find this nabe to be very a very pleasant one. I for one do not. In fact, being in LIC gives me a great deal of anxiety. This is not entirely unreasonable given the fact that the last time I visited this same friend in Long Island Shitty (when he was living with his now ex-girlfriend) I got hit by a car. Sort of.
We were crossing Vernon Boulevard at 46th Avenue. The cross-walk signal indicated that we could cross and we did just that. And while we were doing so an old fuck made a right hand turn off of 46th Avenue, plowing into all three of us. My husband and friend were able to get out of the way, but I had to jump onto this asshole’s car in order to avoid being run over. Thankfully, I landed on my (porcine) ass and was left with nothing more than a bruise.
Stunned, I got off his car and stared at him. He stared at me, drove forward about twenty feet, stopped, and then drove off. Thankfully, I got his license plate number and a good look at his face (when you land on the front of someone’s car you remember such things).
What had started as a social call ended up being a two hour visit to the police department. I filed a report and my friend (a witness) filed a deposition, only to have the police Detective refuse to pursue the matter because I was not “sufficiently injured”. Yeah. Fuck you too, buddy!
A few months later I happened upon this intersection again to discover this:
Push Button For Luck, indeed!
Anyway, we got the U-Haul loaded, fired it up and drove over to my friend’s new studio in Williamsburg Greenpoint on North 12th Street. Unfortunately, someone else was using the loading dock so we had to wait (and wait) until he done. We whiled away the time talking about my friend’s upcoming overseas internship (?) in Holland.
Friend: Yeah, I will be in Holland from September until November. I am going to store all my stuff here and when I come back I’ll figure out where I will live.
Me: That’s not such a bad idea. As things are now, the apartments hereabouts are grossly over-priced. Perhaps by November rental prices will start to correct themselves. The economy is going to shit and finding idiots willing to outlay ??? for an apartment hereabouts isn’t as easy as it used to be.
Friend: You think the economy is going down?
Me: Yes, I do.
Friend: That’s too bad.
Me: Why? (Ed Note: When you have been just as fucked during “boom” cycles as “bust” cycles, like me, the state of the economy is a source of bemusement, little else. “Trickle-down Theory” my poor, over-educated, fat white ass!)
Friend: When the economy is bad, the art market slumps. Sure, some very good art is created during times of economic adversity, but little money is to be had.
Me: That’s why I write about dog shit.
Friend: ?
Me: My endeavors are not dependent upon the economy. Good times or bad, there will always be dog shit.
The previous statement, dear readers, is one of the most profoundly intelligent and piquant observations to ever find its way out of my mouth.
On that note, I leave you with today’s Dung of the Day. I am dedicating this find from 119 North 11th Street to “notme” who wrote the following very thoughtful comment regarding a feature about New York Shitty on Curbed.com:
Are you sure that’s dog crap? Probably just more hipsters crapping off the rooftops. It is Monday after all.
Very good point, “notme”. Very, VERY good point…
Miss Heather
*My findings will be posted soon. Stay tuned.
PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT
I have been up on the roof relaxing. On a lark, I casted my gaze downward towards the open area behind my apartment— to I discover a new item my neighbors have seen fit to cast out their window! This is truly the most remarkable find I have made to date; my husband can’t wait to get home and check it out himself. It can be found here. Happy Hunting!
Miss Heather
NYS Flickr Pool
