Note: This post ran in a different form on March 6, 2009.
Pop quiz! Guess which of these Greenwich Village townhouses exploded exactly 40 years ago today…
a.) The one that looks different than all the others; or b.) One of the others
Answer: a! The building with the funky-angled protruding living room.
Yes, that’s the one. A few members of the Weathermen (l/k/a the Weather Underground) apparently mishandled some nails and dynamite and…yeah, kablooie. According to ever-reliable Wikipedia, it took nine days of body part collection to determine that three people had died in the blast. Two others survived and escaped arrest, with one remaining on the lam for more than a decade before getting pinched for pulling an armored car heist with Tupac’s stepdad. I am not making this up.
A slightly more thorough reflection from Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn here.
Note: With baseball spring training opening this week and March Madness nearly upon us, we thought it wise to revisit a topic we originally dissected last August, lest any of you end up sober at a sporting event this fine spring. (Re-)Presenting Dunce Cap’s Guide to Sneaking Shit In:
On a sultry Friday eve last summer, DCQ’s New Yeez contingent ventured out into the wild bacteria stew of the Hudson on a decrepit ferry stocked with booze, 150 people and one RJD2. With payday a distant glimmer on the horizon and said booze bogarted behind a “cash” bar, we resorted to the familiar tactic of “sneaking shit in (SSI).”
This is an art form we’ve refined over the past dozen years, with the primary media being sports and concert venues. Our first stab at SSI came in September 1997. Giants vs. Padres. It began with a friend’s spectacular fake ID, used to procure an armload of Mickey’s 40s from the Oak Grove corner market (‘bodega’ hadn’t yet entered our lexicon) behind school. We had the angles scoped: Malt brew transferred to green 7-Up two-liters and hidden in closets overnight, then wrapped snugly in hoodie cocoons as we pulled up to Candlestick Park. This being the glorious buyers’ market of pre-South Beach Giants baseball, security shoved us through the turnstiles with nary a sideways glance. As it happened, the game was actually sold out, and we sat in the second-to-last row of the upper deck in center field — approximately 1,200 feet away from the plate. But all was good: By the third a sickly Mickey’s buzz was had, by the fifth we were bouncing off the walls of the concrete spiral stairways that encased the hulking mass, by the seventh we were taking turns calling earl in the nearest bathroom stall, and by the end of the ninth, as Barry made his famous stand atop the home dugout, we were passing out where we sat.
In the years since, we’ve become more efficient and creative. The prevailing opinion is that hard liquor’s the way to go, and a fifth is the biggest you can pull off with confidence. If it’s a day game and you’re nursing a hangover, long pants and knee-high socks filled with tall boys are acceptable. The fifth — whiskey or rum only, child — goes right-side-up directly in front of the jimmy, belt buckled as tight as possible so as to secure the bottle with the bare minimum of above-waist frontage. If possible, go for the male security guard — he’ll be less inclined to check certain essential areas. In rare cases, through extensive field research, you may uncover a unique perimeter flaw that allows you to do wondrous and otherwise unimaginable things: At the Giants’ new(ish) baseball stadium, for example, you can bring in giant beers in styrofoam cups, purchased for a pittance at the pizzeria across the way, simply by entering the park through the team store.
Large sporting events are fairly easy. The latest innovation came in the recent discovery of an MLB-sponsored DUI prevention program that doles out free Cokes to attendees who identify themselves as designated drivers. These make cheap grog more palatable. AND you get to show all the college girls your hero-status DD bracelet! Bonus. Where it gets tricky, however, is at certain music venues where organizers seem to expect most patrons to be carrying some form of intoxicant. Many a would-be SSI champ has been knocked down to amateur status here. In such situations, we’ve come to employ a tactic used for decades by certain Suburban-driving Sinaloans: The mule wave. Break the juice into as many pint-sized water bottles as possible. Give one or two to each person you’re with (better make it two or three if it’s an all-day festival). Use the same crotch placement process as with full fifth, tightening belt to keep bottle from sliding down to your ankles (mysterious bulges are to be avoided). Spread out as you enter so that security doesn’t recognize that you’re together. This way, you’re virtually guaranteed a passable stock of booze even if one or two of your homies takes a fall.
As any nimrod (that’s you, Jack) can see, we’ve had some time to fine-tune our playbook (though perfection, as always, remains elusive). Which made it surprising — nay, stunning — when the token security guy checking passengers boarding the RJD2 boat nabbed the bulk of our supply during what experts predicted would be a harmless formality. We suspect somebody dropped a dime on us because the guy went straight for the above-junk area without any attempt at acting out the proper pat-down sequence (ankles-legs-hips-ribs-arms-back-THEN abovejunk as an afterthought, if at all…everybody knows that). Luckily, despite all signs pointing to an SSI Level Green, we’d divied the stash up beforehand, and our backup made it in.
So you see, DCQ nation, the key to a successful SSI operation lies in the artist’s ability to assess and adapt — that is, to change up the strategy on the fly and, to be certain, on the sly. But even the most practiced and universally-lauded practitioners sometimes slip up.
A skeezy Little League baseball coach once told us a common off-color joke he’d blessed with a personal touch: “Close only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades and fat chicks.” We were only 10 at the time, so we didn’t really get the last part, but the rest seemed to have some sense to it. In any case, replace “fat chicks” with “SSI operations,” and it rings true. But it still won’t make sense to a 10-year-old.
If you find yourself in the greater Los Angeles area tonight, drop by Red nightclub in Newport Beach as we celebrate the launch of our Preview Issue with booze, Thunderjazz courtesy of Tango & Camaro, and good times to be had by all. RSVP with us to get on the list or you’re stuck with a $20 cover, cabrones!
Who: DCQ Friends and Family
What: West Coast Launch Party Extraordinaire
When: Friday 2/26, 10pm to close
Where: RED Nightclub, 4647 MacArthur Blvd, Newport Beach
We stumbled upon this cat at Bottom of the Hill on Friday and thought he was just some dude with sturdy follicles and a “twisted” (HarHar) sense of humor.
We’re pleased to unveil DCQ’s new “Features” section, future home for an untold number of award-winning investigative articles, fictional and fact-based short stories, and longer nonsensical expositions. We’ll also post pieces that had previously been published exclusively in our print editions. Case in point: “These are Hospitals,” the first in a multi-part series chronicling one man’s exploration of public health care facilities in urban America. The story ran in our Preview Issue; to cop a copy, join us next Friday at a club in the city made famous by the Bluth Family Banana Stand.
SAN FRANCISCO - A block from City Hall, the Tom Waddell Health Center lies hidden in an alley that houses a diverse and entertaining troupe of homeless people who, lacking a convenient alternative, have no qualms with urinating on your car tire if you pick the wrong spot. The walk from my apartment takes me through Civic Center and past the $400,000 gilded dome of the Hall, cutting through groups of bureaucratic suits returning from schmoozy lunch hours. The sun is shining. Pigeons are flapping. Activists with bullhorns are protesting something. Everything’s right as rain.
Thirty seconds later, I’m straining to find a comfortable position in a scratched plastic chair in the clinic’s cramped, L-shaped waiting room. Six or seven others wait for their numbers to be called, each holding a paper slip retrieved the butcher-counter number dispenser on the wall. Everyone’s black except for me and a gaunt man sitting across from me. He pulls out a stack of wrinkled napkins as he brushes a few long strands of wiry hair from his face.
“Does anyone mind if I change the paper in my shoe?” he announces.
Nobody seems to notice.
“Why paper in your shoe?” I ask, bewildered.
“I have problem feet,” he answers, pulling off a shoe and slowly pulling out a long trail of yellowed toilet paper. “Some people mind — that’s why I asked. Most don’t.”
“Hmm,” I respond.
That was that.
I fill out the registration forms and pass them through a smeared plastic window to one of the administrative workers. An hour and twenty minutes pass. There’s a little kid across from me, probably four or five. The man he’s with is talking loudly with a pal who just showed up. Everyone seems to know each other here. Eavesdropping, I gather that these two have a substantial history — they’re playing the catch-up game. Thus far, the conversation has centered on which friends are in jail, which are out on parole, and which are headed to court. They’re both cursing up a storm, albeit in a jovial manner. Still, there’s children and shit. I consider objecting, but my instincts tell me these fellows might know fellows who do bad things to fellows like me.
The party breaks up and, once again, the room is quiet, save for the low moans emanating from a withdrawing addict to my left. The woman twitches constantly, fiddles with a stack of documents, mutters to herself about a friend who done her wrong. Hazy light filters in through a thick, rectangular window, the kind, threaded internally with chicken wire, that is omnipresent in urban gymnasiums.
Another thirty minutes pass. Counting downward, the voice over the loudspeaker lethargically draws closer to my number. Just then, the clinic’s front door creaks open, and a moment later, a jittery, smiling man pops his head into the waiting room. He saunters into the cramped space, pulls a blue Nalgene bottle out of a filthy backpack, and begins filling it under the Alhambra machine in the corner.
“Nice little watering hole they got here,” he says to nobody in particular.
Nobody answers him. Nobody cares about his watering hole.
Impervious, he adds, “One thing when you come to this part of town is you always got fresh water.”
He throws the knapsack over his shoulder, clad in a ripped denim jacket, and walks out the way he came. I gather this is a routine stop along our cowboy’s daily Market Street bushwhack.
The loudspeaker crackles with more numbers. Eventually it says mine, and I follow a curt Asian nurse through corridors to an airy room with a steel surgical table in the middle. The doctor will be right in.
Twenty minutes pass, giving me time to study every corner of the space. There’s a large, angled skylight at the apex of the ceiling, thirty feet above me. The room must be forty feet long and twenty-five feet wide. The air is cold. So is the steel. Glancing at my watch uneasily, I grimly consider the types of surgeries that might have come to fruition on the table I now sat upon. Autopsies? Where the fuck is this doctor?
She arrives and, in the absence of a simple fucking hello, asks me to pull up my pant leg so she can look at my injured knee. It’s been hurting for six months, I explain. Rest hasn’t helped, nor has exercise.
Three hours after I first took my seat in the waiting room, Doc quickly fills out a small form and hands it over, referring me to San Francisco General Hospital for an X-ray a month out. Then she’s off, leaving as silently, as frigidly as she came.
Back in the waiting room, sick people are literally crying out for help. Meanwhile, a McCovey longball away, San Francisco’s anointed leaders spend taxpayer millions examining Golden Gate Bridge barrier designs intended to prevent people who actually want to die from achieving their goals.
If you’re in the greater Los Angeles area, be sure to join us on the 26th as we celebrate the launch of our Preview Issue with booze, Thunderjazz courtesy of Tango & Camaro, and good times to be had by all.
Who: DCQ Friends and Family
What: Launch Party Extraordinaire
When: Friday 2/26, 10pm to close
Where: RED Nightclub, 4647 MacArthur Blvd, Newport Beach
Disclaimer: This post will be relevant to almost nobody who reads DCQ.
A couple Dunces grew up in Burlingame, Calif., a “leafy” suburb south of San Francisco. The town is known for its politely progressive vibe and for producing an abundance of garage bands and a sum total of one professional athlete. Over the past decade, Burlingame also gained a reputation for fostering a slightly more lively bar scene than the slightly more boring suburbs it is wedged between (the Bay Area beyond San Fran proper being one oval-shaped clusterfuck of unbroken suburbs).
Thus, it would seem somewhat less than entirely impossible that a nightclub in Burlingame would find a way to commandeer the artists behind the marketing for Studio B and Santos Party House in New York:
Not the case: SonicLiving, through a partnership announced last spring (yeah, we know, we’re slipping) with burgeoning urban clothier/art space Upper Playground, provides poster templates created by UP-backed artists for anyone who lists an event on the site. More examples below.
As for this “Club 261,” I still say it sounds fun. I’m in. We’ll reminisce on the good old days and talk about Vegas and real estate. Don’t forget your Giants hat and Tapout tee.
Foto del Dia goes to Queens straphanger and DCQ pal Todd Obolsky, who swears he remains neutral on the flashpoint issue of guys sitting wide-legged and taking up two seats on the subway:
Brooklyn resident Ben Sargent has attracted a rumbling of local press over the past week for running an underground (in both the “unlicensed” and “in his basement” sense) lobster roll joint in Greenpoint; the buzz seems to have emanated from Liza Mosquito de Guia’s fun video profile of The Underground Lobster Pound for food. curated.
Upon further investigation, it turns out Sargent hosts a weekly online radio show called “Catch It, Cook It, Eat It” for Heritage Radio. On said show, Sargent recently interviewed a memorable group dubbed the Night Crawlers: As the name suggests, the Night Crawlers are fishermen who prefer to spin their reels under cover of night. Armed with a simple motive — “to find the best fishing possible” — and a shared frustration over the dearth of public shore access, the Crawlers duck under barbed wire fences and pogo between rusty pier pilings to find and exploit underutilized fishing spots along the East River waterfront in Brooklyn and Queens.
There’s nothing especially remarkable here thus far — after all, Brooklyn seems to have become ground zero for urbanites who harvest their own food within murky legal parameters. What makes the interview indispensable Monday-morning jackoffery, rather, is the Crawlers’ approach to the taping: They arrived at the studio resembling a gaggle of Zapatistas, donning hoodies, ski masks, dark shades and bandanas while insisting on using voice distortion technology throughout the recording. The “Fish Slayer” and a couple of his sidekicks spend a half-hour schooling Sargent on the nuances of NYC trespassing law, the joys of falling into the soup (“I was lucky enough to fall in at high tide”), and the thrill of the potentially carcinogenic chase (“It’s sort of like a video game. There are, like, different stages, (and) the stakes are higher and it gets more and more difficult the deeper you get in…Yeah, it’s really fun because it’s a balancing act: You literally jump over stuff. I mean, it’s just like Donkey Kong sometimes”).
The highly-recommended full audio interview lives here. To put faces disguises to the voices, jump to the 4:25 mark in the video below:
(Note: Yes, another re-run. At least we can call this an anniversary commemoration. The bulk of this post originally ran on February 5, 2009. Yes, it’s completely obsolete at this point. Read the part about the celebrities — it’s okay. At the very least, you’ll be four minutes closer to happy hour by the time you finish. Dicks.)
We were in the rafters at MSG last night to watch BronBron dump 52, 11 and 10 on the Knicks. Among the highlights:
The Celebs: The second quarter is apparently when the arena Jumbotron guy decides to get close-ups of all the famous pretty faces and pretty famous faces in attendance. I think my grand total from last year (in only like three games, but still…) was James Blunt, who warranted a couple “oh, that guy”s from a 60 percent-full house. Last night’s game was sold out, and the celeb faction repped hard: First up on the big screen was Chris Rock, ten seats down from Spike Lee near the scorers’ table. Today’s tabloids ran a photo of Lebron taking a break to give Spike dap. I’d accept said dap too if I thought it might convince the dapper to sign a megalo-contract with my team come 2011. Two minutes later they flashed to the token black Spice Girl, who’s a.) still alive; b.) promoting an exercise video or some shit; and c.) much less scary in real life. She scored courtsides as well. THEN they scanned up to Willis Reed, the one guy in the building who’d have a legitimate claim to a lifetime of comp courtside tix…and he’s in like the third tier. It was kinda sad. Apparently Whoopi and Jay-Z and Puff fucking Daddy were all in the mix as well (check out the ridicu-fotos of Diddy flashing cash to buy kettle corn and poor Bobby Bacala sitting next to Whoopi and Ciara but nobody gives a shit; come to think of it, Bobby actually got Jumbotron Love at a game I was at last season versus the Bucks or some embarrassment. They probably just comp him seats so the Jumbotron dude has a reason to get paid on slow nights). Apologies for this fanboy rant — it was just cool to sit and look down from the 12th deck while sipping on a fine spiked beverage and be like, “Hey, Chris Rock’s scratching his nose, maybe. Spike Lee’s baggy sweatsuit looks really comfortable.”
The Delicacies: The biggest hot dog on the menu is, indeed, impressive. Concessions people’s approach to the bun, however, is one-size-fits-all. Which it most definitely does not. The result is like squeezing a whale into a pair of Tic-Tacs connected by another Tic-Tac. That hijacked and bastardized analogy worked better in its original form. They also sell delicious Cokes that are complemented exquisitely by most brands of mid-range Kentucky whiskey, the latter preferably served in a reused plastic Tropicana orange juice bottle.
The Last Rebound: Win in the bag, Lebron had his teammates clear out on the last Knicks shot of the game, then almost broke an ankle falling out of bounds after lunging to grab a meaningless 10th board. People cheered like we all got free tacos or something, which we didn’t. He became the first player to score 50 in a triple-double since the 70s with that rebound, which was essentially the basketball version of Michael Strahan’s record-setting “sack” of Brett Favre in 2002. And speaking of Fav-rah, check out his douchey cousin, Trent. He’s into sexy shit like “Premises Liability Defense,” proving that the family is good at offense and defense! Ugh. Somebody smack me with a frozen Eggo.
(Note: Every so often, we run short of rational ideas and dip into DCQ’s archives. The bulk of this post, intended to remind our East Coast followers that the specter of the eternal winter is so much peacenik propaganda, originally ran on June 20, 2009.)
Puerto Rican flags and bandanas were flying off the shelves in Los Sures and Spanish Harlem and on D-Block over the last few weeks. On recent weekend days, you couldn’t round the block without catching Big Pun blaring from a passing SUV. The PR trinket hawkers crowded out the Halal cart guys and the Mexican mango stands, pushing them off the corners with sprawling setups dripping red, white and blue. Then, finally, Sunday came: The one day of the year when browns outnumbered whites on 5th Ave. With the JAPs and WASPs retreating to their Hamptons cottages, the Upper East Side belonged to the Boriqueños.
Def Jam’s street soldiers came out:
As did the hooptie crews:
And the merengue fellas, with the requisite porcine drummer man:
Then there was this guy; photos don’t do it justice, but as you’ll pick up, the owner’s clearly a fan of vintage Pacino:
Backside detail: so excessive, it just might be genius. Or a ludicrous waste of money — jury’s still out:
Chicken trike man rocked a picture of his chicken trike ON his chicken trike! A proud fan of fowl:
Jewish Hipster or Hip Jewster? Hewish Jipster? (Did we manage to offend TWO long-persecuted ethnic groups with the latter? Awesome.):
