Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Hood Sweet Hood
I sooper dooper la la love to love Bed Stuy. And not just because that's where I keep all of my stuff. I heart the old architectural gems crammed between LMI ghetto-blocked, Fedders-AC'd single family apartments. Heart the "Influential Women of Brooklyn" mural that shouts out Margaret Sanger. Heart the way beer [sandwich, trash bag, cat food, ramen, super glue] costs half what it does in Man-a-hattan. Heart the way people hang out on their stoops, keep dogs in the fenced in front yards, and even keep a few junk cars stashed in the back - just like bein home back in Kakalaka. And of course, I heart that whitey stays away. Mostly. (Begone, honkey, begone! High thee to the Willy-B!)
I gotta fess up, though, that a big chunk of why I get that special feeling out of living here is that it reaffirms something I've long suspected: the television didn't lie. Life really is like this. All that archetypical cable-portrayed bullshit came from somewhere, and I've hit a main nerve. Observe.
Fix-it Guy. Fix-it Guy lives on my block. He retiles, he hangs shingles, he repairs TVs, he cleans yards. Shovels snow, retools misbehaved plumbing, changes transmission. He borrows five dollars and he calls people "dude," to make fun of my white ass. He takes in the stray cats and still lives with him mom. I cruise home at any hour and my man is on the street with a wrench and some fucking twine reassmbling a television set that he can turn on without electricity. At nights he works as a barback at some rough and tumble queer joint, somewhere deeper into the hood. I have some untouched VIP passes awaiting myself and ten of my closest intrepid adventurers to go see what it's all about. Next time my microwave starts to leak plutonium, I'm packing that mofucker into a diuffel bag, rounding the bitches up and headed off to Starlight to see what it is.
Schneider. Unfortunately, Fix-it Guy has competition in the Boy next Door - Trinidad's answer to One Day at a Time's Schneider, complete with tool belt and laugh track. Comes in through the front door unannounced with a 22 of Guiness and some lilting tail of block bullshit. Two hours later, after he finishes the brew and a humble blunt, he heads in to the bathroom for 15 minutes of ceiling repair and leaves immediately, his drying handiwork taped up under a black garbage bag. He brings gifts like extra stereo speakers and grenadine, and for a while, he lived in the basement. Now he's done a runner, somewhere Upstate. But not before he replastered the ceiling.
Kools. People smoke them. I mean goddamn everybody.
White People. Roommate, a blond, has been referred to as Britney - for the once-glamorous and sweet-assed pre-Fed Ms Spears. She has been summoned with, "White meat! Come to me!" I have been addressed as "Asal" by the Yemen crew, for "sweet," but also as "Snow Ball," and one incredible time, a girl on her stoop just clucked at me loud as hell.
Store/Church Names. No editorializing: Mr. B's Black Power Variety, Homie Boyz Fried Chicken and Pizza, Fu King Chinese Food, Morning Dew Industrial Church of the Light of His Son, Bambi Day Care and Hair Salon. Nuff Said.
Guy on the Corner. See "Booty."
Cops. Not a rumor: cops hate black people. I thought this was true before, but y'all, the shit crackles.
The _____ Van Club. Conversion vans are the hottest ticket in this slice of America, fools. Make no mistake. The owners convene, brand their wehicles with vinyl logos, airbursh "Fruit Loops" or "Shawntelle" across the back. It could be "The Gold Suns of Glory Van Club," or "The K-unit Van Club." Contributing to the beautification of your street with righteous rims and paisley curtains, glimmering and shimmering in the late summer sun. Magnificent.
Booty. And I don't mean ass. I mean that's somebody's name. I mean Guy on the Corner, there all day and most o fthe night. A neighborhood insitution. You wanna find somebody? Ask Booty. You need to see someone who knows you? Find Booty. 'Bout 5"1' with a platinum grill, a real slick smile and witness to everything that happens in the script. I put this to anyone who offers the "Pirates or Ninjas" debate at a party.
A tree. Every block has a tree. In many cases, just one. If it has several, construction will down them like Vietnam vets until you got, you guessed, a Tree Growing in Brooklyn. Thank God people read.
Lest one confuse this marvelous screenplay with Life in Brooklyn, think on Bay Ridge. Willamsburg. Park Slope. For me, even day toliving showed me the way. I used to live in Bushwick, see, the heavy Latin edge before all the factories became lazy musician/hack artist lofts. Plenty of charm, Bushwick, but harder to translate, and altogether lacking the daily zing of life in the hood. Chocolate the toothless lech of a security guard took off when they finished construction. Johnny, the ex-punker, ex-jukie dealer of miscellany - books, swifter wet jets, safety pins, whatever - got hit by a car and vanished for the winter. Kids who opened bottles with his teeth at the grocery store foudn other interests. Not the Stuy. New adventures, daily, but a ready cast and plenty of reliability - a clockwork testament to the 70s film industry, a time machine of city wonder. Quentin Tarantino is a shit talker, and too interested in LA and Kung Fu - but from time to time, you have to realize that from the outside, you start to see that he does have a point.
What do you do?
Get back to the tube for some higher education.
I gotta fess up, though, that a big chunk of why I get that special feeling out of living here is that it reaffirms something I've long suspected: the television didn't lie. Life really is like this. All that archetypical cable-portrayed bullshit came from somewhere, and I've hit a main nerve. Observe.
Fix-it Guy. Fix-it Guy lives on my block. He retiles, he hangs shingles, he repairs TVs, he cleans yards. Shovels snow, retools misbehaved plumbing, changes transmission. He borrows five dollars and he calls people "dude," to make fun of my white ass. He takes in the stray cats and still lives with him mom. I cruise home at any hour and my man is on the street with a wrench and some fucking twine reassmbling a television set that he can turn on without electricity. At nights he works as a barback at some rough and tumble queer joint, somewhere deeper into the hood. I have some untouched VIP passes awaiting myself and ten of my closest intrepid adventurers to go see what it's all about. Next time my microwave starts to leak plutonium, I'm packing that mofucker into a diuffel bag, rounding the bitches up and headed off to Starlight to see what it is.
Schneider. Unfortunately, Fix-it Guy has competition in the Boy next Door - Trinidad's answer to One Day at a Time's Schneider, complete with tool belt and laugh track. Comes in through the front door unannounced with a 22 of Guiness and some lilting tail of block bullshit. Two hours later, after he finishes the brew and a humble blunt, he heads in to the bathroom for 15 minutes of ceiling repair and leaves immediately, his drying handiwork taped up under a black garbage bag. He brings gifts like extra stereo speakers and grenadine, and for a while, he lived in the basement. Now he's done a runner, somewhere Upstate. But not before he replastered the ceiling.
Kools. People smoke them. I mean goddamn everybody.
White People. Roommate, a blond, has been referred to as Britney - for the once-glamorous and sweet-assed pre-Fed Ms Spears. She has been summoned with, "White meat! Come to me!" I have been addressed as "Asal" by the Yemen crew, for "sweet," but also as "Snow Ball," and one incredible time, a girl on her stoop just clucked at me loud as hell.
Store/Church Names. No editorializing: Mr. B's Black Power Variety, Homie Boyz Fried Chicken and Pizza, Fu King Chinese Food, Morning Dew Industrial Church of the Light of His Son, Bambi Day Care and Hair Salon. Nuff Said.
Guy on the Corner. See "Booty."
Cops. Not a rumor: cops hate black people. I thought this was true before, but y'all, the shit crackles.
The _____ Van Club. Conversion vans are the hottest ticket in this slice of America, fools. Make no mistake. The owners convene, brand their wehicles with vinyl logos, airbursh "Fruit Loops" or "Shawntelle" across the back. It could be "The Gold Suns of Glory Van Club," or "The K-unit Van Club." Contributing to the beautification of your street with righteous rims and paisley curtains, glimmering and shimmering in the late summer sun. Magnificent.
Booty. And I don't mean ass. I mean that's somebody's name. I mean Guy on the Corner, there all day and most o fthe night. A neighborhood insitution. You wanna find somebody? Ask Booty. You need to see someone who knows you? Find Booty. 'Bout 5"1' with a platinum grill, a real slick smile and witness to everything that happens in the script. I put this to anyone who offers the "Pirates or Ninjas" debate at a party.
A tree. Every block has a tree. In many cases, just one. If it has several, construction will down them like Vietnam vets until you got, you guessed, a Tree Growing in Brooklyn. Thank God people read.
Lest one confuse this marvelous screenplay with Life in Brooklyn, think on Bay Ridge. Willamsburg. Park Slope. For me, even day toliving showed me the way. I used to live in Bushwick, see, the heavy Latin edge before all the factories became lazy musician/hack artist lofts. Plenty of charm, Bushwick, but harder to translate, and altogether lacking the daily zing of life in the hood. Chocolate the toothless lech of a security guard took off when they finished construction. Johnny, the ex-punker, ex-jukie dealer of miscellany - books, swifter wet jets, safety pins, whatever - got hit by a car and vanished for the winter. Kids who opened bottles with his teeth at the grocery store foudn other interests. Not the Stuy. New adventures, daily, but a ready cast and plenty of reliability - a clockwork testament to the 70s film industry, a time machine of city wonder. Quentin Tarantino is a shit talker, and too interested in LA and Kung Fu - but from time to time, you have to realize that from the outside, you start to see that he does have a point.
What do you do?
Get back to the tube for some higher education.
Labels: BK, Britney Spears, hilarious shit, NYC, ridiculous absurdity
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FM, the last time I visited you I stopped for some frosty tallboys at the Gates Ave bodega on a corner that has been mentioned in Notorious BIG (and Lil' Kim!) songs, a gentleman loitering about the premises immediately identified me as an anomaly in the neighborhood.
"Hey, ma, you from Connecticut?" he asked.
"No," I said. "Manhattan."
"You visiting those girls over on Quincy Street?"
Realizing that he was talking about you and your roommate "Britney," I answered in the affirmative. He said to say hi.
Heart you and the 'Stuy, FM!
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"Hey, ma, you from Connecticut?" he asked.
"No," I said. "Manhattan."
"You visiting those girls over on Quincy Street?"
Realizing that he was talking about you and your roommate "Britney," I answered in the affirmative. He said to say hi.
Heart you and the 'Stuy, FM!
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