Greenpoint
Lorven Pharmacy
Culture on the Cheap
Ad Council Intervention
I encountered this nugget of Ad Council hilarity on Lorimer Street yesterday. I’m guessing the point of this advert is to inform users of the BQE (automobile drivers all) that global warming is BAD. Indeed auto emissions are bad. But smothering a building in advertecture strikes me as being somewhat worse. for this reason I felt a few modifications were in order.
You know, I am getting pretty darn good at Photoshop if I may so myself.
Miss Heather
The D Word
(or Miss Heather’s Musings About The Art of the Insult)
Douche (doosh) n. (Fr. shower) 1. a. A stream of water or air applied to a bodily part or cavity for cleansing or medicinal purposes. 1. b. The application of a douche. 2. An instrument for applying a douche.
Bag (bag) n. 1. a. A usu. flexible container… *
Douche Bag (doosh bag) n. 1. A flexible container used to irrigate a woman’s vagina. 2. The insult of choice for the unimaginative.**
I recently confided my newfound hatred for this (oft employed by New York Shitty’s blogorati) epithet to a friend of mine. We despised this phrase, upon this we agreed. But the reasons for our respective distastes differed significantly. In his case, it was a matter of taste and decency. Unfettered by such concerns (after all this blog, New York Shitty, was founded on shit. Literally.) the issue (as far as my curiously eccentric world view is concerned) was one of creativity.
Sure, there was a time I invoked “douche bag”. Frequently. But once it became overused (and therefore rendered meaningless) I employed the extensive education my father provided me to come up with a replacement. Or more accurately (given Pa Heather’s predilection/gift for profanity) replacements.
- Cock sucker
- Dick head
- Fuggin’ asshole
- Homeless Boogeyman/men (courtesy of the Parks Department)
- Pig fucker (my current favorite)
All the previous are staples in my anger arsenal. When under duress the offal that finds its way out of my mouth is much more colorful. Which brings me to the point of this post: can we exercise a little more imagination when it comes to putting down our fellow men (or women) online? Please? It’s not that hard. Follows are a few insults to get your creative juices going folks.
Exhibit A: Woodbine Street, Bushwick
Calling someone “gay” is not a well constructed insult but the lack of personal hygiene angle is compelling. The essential underpinning of a good insult is to point out an aspect of your adversary that is socially undesirable. Homosexuality does not (and should not) have the stigmatizing sting it used to. New York City is the great melting pot. And in this crucible of cultures, creeds, religions, races and yes, sexual orientations, there is one thing we all have in common: noses. People who do not shower, well, STINK.
Exhibit B: Woodbine Street, Bushwick
Elijah (and his dear mother) are clearly objects of wrath on Woodbine Street.
Exhibit C: Bedford Stuyvesant
Why bother blathering about incest? Sucking pig balls is much more provocative.
Still not convinced, douche bag devotees, that your affront of choice is yesterday’s news? Maybe the following anecdote will change your ways.
This is Hana Food Deli and Grocery. It is located at 534 Metropolitan Avenue, Williamsburg. 11211. I happened to be in the area (and very hungry) so I went inside in seek of kibble.
I always preferred my douche bag on the rocks. Shaken, not stirred. Just like James Bond. A douche bag with blue cheese dressing?!? That’s just plain gross.
But I suppose a douche bag tastes pretty damned good washed down with Pabst Blue Ribbon. $7.99 a twelve pack who can argue with that?
Miss Heather
P.S.: I ordered the “Sandy-wich” which was (simply put) a vegan BLT. It wasn’t bad. That said, these guys have NOTHING on the Franklin Corner Store in good ol’ Greenpoint. Andre, his son, partners and Oreo know how to make a sandwich.
*Websters II New Riverside University University Dictionary, 1984
**Miss Heather
Bushwick Photo du Jour: Sunday Special
Filed under: Greenpoint Magic
From Jefferson Street.
Miss Heather
Williamsburg Photo du Jour: Maspeth Avenue
Filed under: Williamsburg
I was under the impression that pirates preferred cable.
Miss Heather
Bed-Stuy Photo du Jour: Next To Godliness
Filed under: Bed-Stuy
From Madison Street.
Miss Heather
TODAY: You Pick The Movie At East Coast Aliens
Filed under: Greenpoint Magic
Tonight the folks at East Coast Aliens have a great pair of movies to choose from for this special Oscar Award Winner “Pick Pick Night”. Per their press release:
Oh well,
It’s the Oscars again!
And boy! We almost missed out on the big show.
For those out there who don’t give a damn about artifice but care about art we give you the choice of… who should turn out to be the big winner of the night.
So you decide:
shall it be
Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights
or shall it be
the Coen brothers’ O Brother, Where Art Thou?
East Coast Aliens
216 Franklin Street
Brooklyn, New York 11222
Doors open at 8:30 p.m. and the suggested donation is $6.00 per person. The selected film will begin at 9:00. p.m.
Miss Heather
Woodside Photo du Jour
Filed under: Area 51
The 61 Street platform of the 7 train.
Miss Heather
Meet The Snowmen Of Greenpoint
Filed under: Greenpoint Magic
Passed out at Ashbox.
Faceless next door to Ashbox.
Faceless on Green Street.
This one (my favorite) comes from Manhattan Avenue.
Miss Heather
A Little Red In Greenpoint
Filed under: Greenpoint Magic
I happened upon this Greenpoint Red in the usual manner: while engaged doing something else. I was warning a fellow tenant of Chateau de Ghetto that someone has been parsing through our mailboxes. Our conversation came to an abrupt halt when I saw him, this fellow traveler of the Crosstown local.
Miss H: Pardon me, can I take a photograph of your coat? My husband is a card-carrying Commie. Since Castro resigned he’s been really bummed out.
Bearer of the Cloth: Oh yes, the hammer and sickle. But the Soviet Union were not true Communists.
He’s right. That’s why Mr. Heather is a Trotskyite.
Miss Heather
*Brazenly. Stealth is not our felon’s strong point: he (or she) leaves the mailboxes open for our edification. Mr. Heather and I have not received mail for two days save a Victoria’s Secret catalog. I left it in the mailbox on Thursday (in the hopes this person would take) only to find it still there on Friday. Bitch.
India Street Revisited
Filed under: Greenpoint Magic
Today I received a very interesting email from an India Street resident who calls himself The Ghost of Willie the Barber regarding my post about the proposed India Street Park. He writes:
The actual India Street community (that is, people who live here) already had a plan for this park that would have restored the pier and made a real park. This was part of an intensive series of open-forum meetings (part of something called a “197-A” plan) that the city pretty much ignored when they put together the Big Rezoning a couple of years ago.
The City ‘s rezoning plan (which IMHO involved a lot of selling-out on the part of some community activists in league with Council member David Yassky –who, like all NYC politicos, gets most of his campaign money from real estate interests-) basically puts the whole project in the hands of the private owners of the waterfront properties.
This results in the kind of compromised idiotic crap you quite accurately reported on last week. Even if the officials like the Parks Dept. guy at that meeting- WANT to do something serious, they have no real budget – seeing as how any REAL park would need many times the amount of money available- because the street ends in concrete-hanging-over-river and would have to be demolished and re-built. Only developers have that kind of money and the rezoning actually gives developers the last word on when and how such supposedly “public” work can take place.
It is a cruel joke.
Here was part of what the community wanted to do:
THE FRIENDS OF INDIA STREET PIER is a group dedicated to the pier its members “adopted” for the benefit of the Greenpoint community. Although heavily deteriorated, the India Street pier was a popular summer refuge for many residents of North Brooklyn, who spent weekends there sunbathing, fishing, or simply enjoying the Manhattan skyline. But a near catastrophe in which seven Greenpoint residents atop the pier fell into the East River along with the pier when it collapsed in May, 1997 brought additional attention and a sense of urgency to the efforts of the Friends to speed repair of the popular pier.
According to “Willie the Barber,” President of the Friends of India Street Pier, the group envisions a “New India Street Pier” with new pilings to strengthen it and make safer, a 4′ fence on the rear half, tables, benches, and shrubbery that would provide a park-like atmosphere, a food stand that would pay rent to the city, and possibly a water fountain.
The pier would become a nice place for fishing, sunbathing and picnicking. The location offers a beautiful view of the Manhattan skyline and the ships on the East River. Recommendations for the New India street pier are an integral part of the Greenpoint 197-a Plan (see section on Waterfront Access).
T.G.O.W.B., India Street
North Brooklyn Greens
So there have you folks. The interests of our community were sold to the developers a long, long time ago. Not that this should come as a big surprise. It doesn’t to me, anyway. Nonetheless, it never ceases to anger yours truly.
Mark my words: if/when the developers decide to step up to the plate and provide park space it will not be out of the kindness of their hearts. It will be in exchange for discretionary zoning. The current limit is 24 stories. Under discretionary zoning they can build up to 40. In the meantime we can anticipate more concrete walls.
Nice, eh?
Miss Heather
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