THE COLLEGE POINT CLASS CONFLICT PUB CRAWL (CPC^2)

As I lie here, re-writing this piece, listening to the mostly-dead Ramones, what really strikes me is how my hands got sturdier as the CPC went on. Most of the shots with camera shake come from the first roll and the first two bars – The Pour House and The Point Bar and Grill. By the time we hit Rob Roy’s and the Sports Garden, I was feeling steadier than a sniper after taking his steady pills. The confidence shows in the photos (mostly).

We set out expecting a reception much like the characters in Turistas Go Home, after all we went into the heart and bowels of College Point, Queens. Mamma and Papa Bell’ had tried to warn us not to do this. Thought we were cruisin’ for a bruisin’. Hell, we half expected it ourselves. We were going to be heading into one of the bluer-collared parts of Queens, itself a blue-collar extension of white-collar Manhattan, the shiningly white collared City on a Hill.

Myself, RB, C-Mike and his g/f from KA, and three other rhs-ers headed out into the blue-collar stronghold expecting the worst. With fists clenched (thumbs out), armed only with our wits and my Vivitar v4000 we went to get our drink on.

And emerged unscathed. Thee was no violence, no threats, hisses, obscenities, or stitches required. The Pour House greeted us with free green shots (Butterscotch and Apple Pucker?) when the five of us rolled in and tripled the crowd. New and designed like a hang out for sub-fratty people, we even thought about staying all night – they had City Worker Specials on Thursdays.



Leaving to meat up with the other two ex-Regians, we passed some puke, the fake Liberty Bell in a North Fork Bank, and not much else.

The Point Bar and Grill had old bikers, a big trough to piss in, and old exercise bikes on the back stage. And an old dude just drinking there in-between brining up more bottles from the cellar.



The further we got into College Point, the cheaper the beer got, the higher the possibility for danger rose, and the nicer the people got. Rob Roy’s had computer trivia and a dartless dart board on the wall, the NY Post warning of the Gran Bomb, and some dude born in Somerville who played host for us.



Sports Garden, after a 7-11 Go-Go Taquito run and a walk by shooting of the federally closed J.P.’s on the Blvd., was even better. Debbie the Bartendress brought us in, checked our IDs, got out beers, gave us food, served up a few drinks, and made sure we got home alright. We even got a round of shots from the locals who were looking for us return the favor.



The worst part was the 15 min layover at Flushing Main Street for my bus home. Consider yourselves invited to CPC `07 next Thanxgiving.

“Why don’t Puerto Ricans have checking accounts?
Because it’s hard to sign your name in spray paint!”
-Debbie of Sports Garden

All photos can be seen on my Flickr site. (Yeah, I joined the Flickolvution.)

A (Lingering) Crisis of Confidence

...I want to talk to you right now about a fundamental threat to American democracy.
...
The threat is nearly invisible in ordinary ways. It is a crisis of confidence. It is a crisis that strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will. We can see this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation.
...
In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities, and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns. But we've discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We've learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose.

The symptoms of this crisis of the American spirit are all around us. For the first time in the history of our country a majority of our people believe that the next five years will be worse than the past five years. Two-thirds of our people do not even vote. The productivity of American workers is actually dropping, and the willingness of Americans to save for the future has fallen below that of all other people in the Western world.

As you know, there is a growing disrespect for government and for churches and for schools, the news media, and other institutions. This is not a message of happiness or reassurance, but it is the truth and it is a warning.

These changes did not happen overnight. They've come upon us gradually over the last generation, years that were filled with shocks and tragedy.

We were sure that ours was a nation of the ballot, not the bullet, until the murders of John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. We were taught that our armies were always invincible and our causes were always just, only to suffer the agony of Vietnam. We respected the presidency as a place of honor until the shock of Watergate.
...
These wounds are still very deep. They have never been healed. Looking for a way out of this crisis, our people have turned to the Federal government and found it isolated from the mainstream of our nation's life. Washington, D.C., has become an island. The gap between our citizens and our government has never been so wide. The people are looking for honest answers, not easy answers; clear leadership, not false claims and evasiveness and politics as usual.

What you see too often in Washington and elsewhere around the country is a system of government that seems incapable of action. You see a Congress twisted and pulled in every direction by hundreds of well-financed and powerful special interests. You see every extreme position defended to the last vote, almost to the last breath by one unyielding group or another. You often see a balanced and a fair approach that demands sacrifice, a little sacrifice from everyone, abandoned like an orphan without support and without friends..."

--- a former peanut farmer from Georgia
July 15, 1979

His approval ratings rose 37% after this speech.
As of Election Day `06, 3/4 of Americans polled felt we still have a "leadership crisis."

How should we view all this: Shit don't change, so screw it! Or should it serve as a clarion call to Get Involved and Try to Make a Difference! I know how I feel, and how I should feel.

Oh that wacky BBC

Three stories: Delhi boy eaten by herd of pigs, Drunken soldier ironed hamster , and US baby 'murdered in microwave.

coming by the weekend - words and photos from the CPC

i'll admit it: i missed it. and it helps, maybe more than it should. the first time that i hear the opening notes is one of my favorite moments of the end of the year.

It don't take much

It had been a good day. didn't wake up hungover, had a good day with the fam. was doing good. then i got bored, started looking into what was going on at marvel, what with the civil war and all. then i got pushed to wikipedia to look up some stuff. got to gwen stacey's entry. saw the screen shots of spidey 3.

like the sound of a soviet army marching up from the bottom of a hill, out of my range of vision and behind my eyes, the rage and bile began bubbling back up.

i had been avoiding the spidey3 trailer and all information about it. people knew this. i wanted to see it on the big screen first, not a computer. and i was worried about where they would go. after going through too many websites because sony wants to advertise ifilm, which has lost out in its relevance battle with youtube, and denying too many new softwares access to my cpu, my fears were not unfounded. yes, the graphics look great, but they're butchering the story. cramming in too much, changing too much. yes, its a different earth than the one in the comics, but its too divergent now.

and all the bitter sourness inside is coming back up to the front. it don't take much. it's back now. i may end up skipping spidey3, but its bigger than that. Defcon Omega may be reached tomorrow .

it may be long winter.

Power of English & the Meaning of Thanksgiving

(with thanks to Google translator. from www.compasscompass.com)

If you mention November, after all with Thanksgiving Day the shank. When this Thanksgiving Day ends long for the people who have lived in America it enters into the time when Christmas shopping starts simultaneously. In addition don't you think?, November, December is when the opportunity which eats tasty ones with the family and the friend becomes many. In Thanksgiving Day and in Christmas as for the American Turkey (the turkey) burning, the people whom you eat being many, the shank. When at this time, it does also the highlight scene of the arm of your American mothers perhaps, when in them very being busiest at year, perhaps.
Well, as for Thanksgiving Day that when it tried inspecting a little, President Lincoln Thursday of the 4th week eye of November decided this day in as many as 1863 whether one body when it starts from time so is...

H5N1

tick. tick. tick.

thanxgiving `06

(i took down most of the bleak version of tonight's post. i'll leave the last line up):

on the bright side, the prestige is "wow" good.

Thanxgiving `06

really, i'm getting to the point where the best holidays start out with me disliking them and then going downhill. usually as the calander winds down.

i am neither in the mood for nor ready for christmas this year.

on the bright side, the prestige was "wow" good.

Best Breakfast Reviews:

Twin Do-Nuts
501 Cambridge St
Allston, MA (617) 254-9421

It all began a few years ago when a car commercial features some guys driving around and they went past this cool looking donut shop with an old school script neon sign. (It has also been used in a High Life commercial.) Then, while crashing at some friend’s place in Brighton, MA we found the place right near the outer reaches of Boston’s T. This past weekend I finally talked people into going there to eat.

Staffed by Asians with sit down or take out service, the $1.50 English muffin sandwiches sold me even before we ordered. Three coffee refills and about $8 later I had downed “2 French Toasts”, two eggs over-easy, corned beef hash, a large raspberry donut and a mega large bowtie (about the size of a pair of donuts from chain places – hence the name?). It was a phenomenal breakfast, straight out of a road trip – all the important breakfast food groups were taken care of (bread/batter, eggs, meat), Tabasco was applied liberally enough to loosen the sinuses, and I was stuffed enough to not have to eat until dinner later that night.

With a mixed crowd of twenty-somethings, civil servants, and late rising students, friendly but not overbearing staff, and delicious breakfast at a great cost/helping ration, Twin Do-Nuts is good enough to blog about three days later, and that’s all the rating you need.

Confusion at the Century Buffett

My journal started getting too big and too old, and I started getting nervous about loosing it. So I’ve been using more scraps of paper and my notebook now. This is based out of the notebook:

Take the Fung-Wah BOS-NY bus enough and you get Fung-Wah stories. We all have some by now. You almost expect to get them at this point. Too much crazy cultural mixing. Leaving Boston on Sunday, having only eaten some of the greasiest Chinese food I’ve ever had (bought at the South Station food court), unshaven, unshowered, and unsobered, I got on the 5:15 to NY.

Only 80 mins into the trip, the bus gets off the highway, somewhere in CT, and pulls into a mini-mall where there are two other buses, one Lucky Star, one Lucky River, sitting outside of something called the Century Buffett. Everyone on the bus has a look of “What the fuck are we doing here?!” on their faces. That’s about all I can register. By the time I hit the couch at 5:30ish AM my eyes didn’t want to focus anymore and I may have come close to getting into a fight with a bunch of paintballers.

So I was on autopilot – bus tip + rest stop = bathroom break. Half-awake and a third lucid I get off the bus and enter the Century Buffet, only to hear someone say, “Oh no, another one.”

The Century Buffett was split into a bunch of food serving, eating, and selling islands, and the bathroom was somewhere in the back corner. Bouncing off a couple of people, avoiding the 20-deep line for the women’s room, I hit the head and do my business. 2 mins later and I’m bouncing off people again as I head back to the bus, only this time the people I’m bouncing off of are speaking in Chinese. Loudly. Possibly into cellphones.

The only way I can explain it is that someone’s grandmother must have bought the Century Buffett in Sometown, CT and now all the busses are forced to stop there like relatives going home for Thanksgiving. No one knew why we were there, or where there was, but the food was sold by the pound and everyone was a little sad that we didn’t hit the greasy Roy Rodgers in Someothertown, CT.

Bush'sLastDay.com

Three easy steps to Ridicularity:
1) Think of popular ending to a rabid ideology
2) Create website celebrating said endpoint
3) Sell merchandise of said website, such as $12.95 mugs, 12 piece keyring sets for $139.95, and $23.95 baby-t shirts.

Happiness is just a chemical

Been Awhile, Hasn’t It?

Coming home from a shitty day at the office, opening up a pie and a beer, wondering how long I can by if I don’t go back to work in January and if that’s the kind of gun to the head that I need to actually DO something, here’s some of the things that’ve been going through my head. In no particular order:

ÿ Shit Even Your DJ Didn’t know about - What It Is! Funky Soul And Rare Grooves (1967-1977) – B and C sides, lost treasures, and just some cool ass tracks all put together. No hits, no megasingles, just the good stuff that got lost over the years, some that had to be tracked down in Japan (according to RS).

ÿ My mom trashed the Raconteurs/Bob Dylan show she went to this week. Didn’t like the lack of interaction, the staging, the opening band … she left early. I kinda think I would have dug it.

ÿ Welcome to Summavlle – Vote No on Question 1. Is the accent a job requirement?


ÿ My source in the pharmaceutical industry says that Wyeth is coming out with a man-pill. It’ll make you shoot blanks and the chix will luv u 4 it! Thank you for taking away my manly powers Bettie Freidan!

ÿ Shit don’t change. Reading HST’s articles from the mid-80s this is what’s striking: The president is a lil’ out of it, and is too religious. The Middle East Madman threatens us all, and Pat Robinson is calling for his head. The Democrats can’t get a good man on the ticket. He’s talking about Reagan and Khadafy, but can you really tell?

ÿ HST also writes about the Super Sexe Club in Montreal as being world famous – then and now, I’ve been there! And everyone seems to know it.

ÿ Satire Battle – American Dreamz beats Thank You For Smoking with a TKO in the eight. Maybe the best (worst?) Bush parody since That’s My Bush.

ÿ Bio Zombie is a HK cross between Mallrats and Dawn of the Dead, but with some really cool zombie scenes and shots. Plus optional engrish subtitles.

ÿ I kinda thought that Tom Morello would have up to more since leaving Rage. Audioslave is big, but Morello has kinda drifted away doing social justice work and singing folk songs. I thought he woudla at least been in the news more often after leaving Rage.

link #1
link #2

ya gotta love the Daily News:

#1
Look
At
This
Cast

#2
Now See The Movie

give credit where credit's due:
Directed by: Tony Scott
Written by: Quentin Tarentino &Roger Avary
Casting by: Risa Bramon Garcia & Billy Hopkins

Exit Polls

Straight party line, except for Hawkins for Senate and Treichlar for AG. I don't particuallry like Cuomo and I'm not voting for Hillary - she's been a good Senator, but I don't want her to be my Senator (or President).

Elections Day (11/7) In Queens Post #2

Election Day (11/7) Post #1

Just how much does it cost to get these ads on during the Giants game?
While the Dems can probably keep running Against Bush!, can't we also hear what they're running For in more ads?

One of 33 ads on Ned Lamont's website:

I'd say that the CPC is running close to Orange:

me: at least ya got the cpc coming up
rb: oh boy
rb: prepare to die

Some Zombie links:

Turns out that I would have a 30% chance of surviving WWZ. Calculate your odds here!

Also, turns out that Flickr has a Zombie Army Group from all over the globe, and includes the NIght of the Unalive from Japan. And how the hell did I miss the Calgary Zombie Walk? Could Calg be redeemed?

(I'll stop after this one) From eatmybrains.com:

Sars Wars (2004)
	Plot A kidnapped girl, two heroes, a transsexual baddie, lots of zombies and a big bad snake.

Book Review - WWZ

Among other things, I’ve been busy reading Max Brooks’ World War Z. Not only is it well written and extremely well planned out and all encompassing in its presentation of how the world was nearly consumed by zombies about a decade from now, but it is also brilliant in it’s layout. Brooks, as in the son of Mel, didn’t write a book, a novel, or a history – he wrote a series of short stories all in the first person narrative style all revolving around a central theme and collectively moving the theme along as if it were a plot.

These recollection style vignettes are really the easiest type of story to write – they’re the same as telling a blackout story from college, only written down. But Brooks put so much thought, planning, social commentary, military and political policies, and human emotion into the stories that they all come together to reach his purpose – to tell The Oral History of the Zombie War.

And after watching Aliens tonight, after all the Entourage Season 2 references, it got me wondering if the re-popularization of zombies in the cultural zeitgeist has to do with the new threats to life. Danger is no longer coming from the Outside – Soviets, AIDS, and other forms of invaders – but now from the Inside – Terrorists, Sleeper-Cells, and other “such nice quiet” people next door. Zombies are us, minus the humanity, and with our devour and conquer tendencies ramped all the way up. We’re no longer afraid of Bogeymen like Jason and Freddy, or Invaders like Aliens and Predators, but Ourselves or Monsters of Our Own Creation, like Zombies and Terminators.

According to Rolling Stone, Brad Pitt got the movie rights to the book (beating out DiCaprio). When it hits theaters, I’ll be at the nearest mall-based mega-plex. Anybody coming with?