Mr. Butler Has A Fan In Greenpoint

When the opportunity presents itself I like to perform conduct anthropological experiments. These usually come to pass when I have something more pressing to do, like the cleaning the apartment. I performed one such bit of research last week when I was tidying the apartment in anticipation of my parents’ visit. The results were telling.

It started with this.

11:30 a.m.: After delivering my first salvo of stuff to the Salvation Army I spied this book sitting on the sidewalk outside my building. It is entitled The Dance of Anger, A Woman’s Guide to Changing the Possibilities of Intimate Relationships. I never knew any of my neighbors had trouble with the opposite sex. Maybe the book worked?

12:30 p.m.: When I returned from my second Salvation Army run I noticed the book was gone. An idea was hatched. There are, after all

more things in Miss Heather’s mind and apartment, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

I have always engendered a distrust of self help books, so I put together my own “care package” and left it in front of my building:

1. A champagne bucket
2. A biography of Jerry Butler
3. A bottle of massage oil

1:30 p.m.: I made my third donation to the Salvation Army. When I arrived home one of my neighbors was holding the champagne bucket.

Me: I see you like my old champagne bucket?
Neighbor: Is that what it is?
Me: Yes.
Dude next door: See, she knew what it was! I bet you drink Dom Perignon every day, don’t you?
Me: Do I look like a Dom Perignon kind of person to you?
Neighbor: I was planning on storing cat food in it.

2:00 p.m.: As I was throwing away some recycling I noticed the bottle of massage oil had been moved. No one had taken the Butler book yet, but it was looking encouraging.

2:30 p.m.: When I left a VCR stand out front I noticed the book and the massage oil were gone.

My next door neighbor was also absent. I suspect someone in my neighborhood had a very interesting Thanksgiving this year.

The End.

Miss Heather

The Beginning

I spied this cryptic bump sticker while making a bodega run earlier this week.

The beginning of what, I wonder? No worries, I am certain we’ll all find out soon enough.

Miss Heather

Belvedere XX Goes Green: Kind Of

Hmm. If I was a developer who built a buttload of crappy ass cookie cutter condos what would I do to generate interest? Oh wait, I know: I’d hire some spin doctor to turn my homogenized shit into individualized Shinola!

I must confess: this logo is pretty nice. It is me, or do those little green leafy things make me think of trees— or marijuana?

It’s sort of funny to have a logo invoking greenery when the fine folks at Belvedere/Bridge Realty seem to have killed the only tree on the premises. I won’t even go into the whole “No Dumping” thing because it is simply too easy.

Just like Babs “twat flop cakes” Corcoran advised, they covered the frontage with cement. I am certain this will add much value to my neighborhood.

Behold, another piece of condo crap!

And for the very reasonable starting price of $379,000 this view can be yours!

I too have a question for Babs:

Do your collars and cuffs match?

Having grown up in the land of fake blonds (Texas), I suspect her pixie-esque locks were begotten by peroxide. Why not drop trou and take one for the team, Barbara? Who knows, you might make a few (more) bucks. I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.

Hugs,

Miss Heather

Parental Visit Wrap-Up: Part I

My father was a Greenpoint greenhorn. Until I moved to Greenpoint he equated New York Shitty with the worst it had to offer: midtown Manhattan. Pa Heather made numerous trips to our fine city “on business” before he retired. These usually entailed being shacked up in some shitty corporate hotel on Times Square. Well, dear readers, he has returned home a Greenpoint believer.

Yessiree. The Pontiff of Poop (I acquired my predilection for all things scatological from dear old dad— he can back-up a toilet like no one’s business) loves him some Garden Spot.

This is the first thing that caught my father’s eye upon riding the G train for the second time: a woman wearing an incredibly short miniskirt with high heeled boots. Her entire ensemble was trimmed in gold. LOTS of gold. It was topped off by a huge mop of permed hair. BIG HAIR. After all, the bigger the hair, the closer to god.

Pa Heather: I saw a woman who looked like that while waiting at DFW (Dallas/Fort Worth Airport).
Me: It took me years to figure out the fashion here, but I did.
Pa Heather: ?
Me: You hit the nail on the head. There is very little difference between the likes of her and Texans. You could put her in a shopping mall in Dallas and no one would notice.

Therein lies the rub, dear readers: NO ONE WOULD NOTICE.

Inasmuch as we New Yorkers would fancy ourselves as being different, the fact of the matter is we Americans are all pretty much the same: Gauche. Hence why I didn’t mind when my mother chided me for dressing like “a bag lady” the last time she visited. There is no better means airing one’s dissent in an affluenzic society than looking like a homeless person. What’s more, it’s damned comfortable.

Methinks I will have to take this sociological experiment to a higher level. I will dye my hair gray. Nothing will render a person more invisible to our society than being elderly, poor, foul-mouthed and bat shit crazy. Maybe I’ll start a new trend and twenty-somethings will being eschewing Brooklyn Industries for the local pharmacy. Surgical stockings, colostomy cans, walkers and Metamucil might just become the new trucker hat. Who knows, crazier things have happened.

Miss Heather

In Praise of Stupidity

Unlike most people who bemoan the downward spiral of human intelligence seems to be taking nowadays, I believe this brain drain to be a positive development. Had my fellow hominids been graced with greater gifts of the mind I assure you most of them would busy themselves by concocting in one dishonest scheme or another. Nobel Prize material most people are not.

Now that I think about it, even those with marginal mental mettle usually employ it in some nefarious fashion. Take my former neighbor (PLEASE). She, a 50-something year old, 300 plus pound, non-English speaking Puerto Rican woman had a novel idea about how to generate some revenue: steal and cash one of Miss Heather’s unemployment checks. Though I am certain she thought her plan to be fool-proof, the reality was it had certain fundamental flaws:

1. When asked to present identification (in order to cash said check) merely pointing at one’s self and then at the check in question will not suffice.
2. A person of Hispanic origin is probably going to encounter certain difficulties cashing a check made out to a person with a Polish/Lithuanian surname in Little Poland. It’s just a wee bit suspicious.

Needless to say the woman at the check cashing establishment confiscated the check and I got it back. Hence, why I am pro-stupidity: it makes criminals (like my dip shit former neighbor) easier to catch. In fact, the only thing I can think that would be dumber than what this woman did would be to rob a store and leave your picture.

Well guess what, readers! A pair of thieves did just that right here in good old Greenpoint, no less. From the September 28, 1913 edition of the New York Times, I present to you two of the dumbest criminals to ever grace the Garden Spot.

I wonder why these chaps were “taken aback and annoyed” by this photograph? Was the lighting bad? Did he capture their bad sides? Oh wait, I know: it made their butts look big!

Miss Heather