Greenpoint
Lorven Pharmacy
Culture on the Cheap
Down
Yup, that pretty much sums up newyorkshitty.com the last few days. In any case, I have a lot of (written) material to edit, pix to post and a new “look” for this blog to tool around with. In the meantime, this is a little project I am working on…
and this is a nice sunbaked pile of dog shit I found on Norman Avenue today.
Enjoy!
I’m in a fightin’ fuckin’ mood
Filed under: (s)Hit Parade, Area 51, Crap Map, Dog Shit, Dung of the Day, Greenpoint Magic
I didn’t wake up in a bad mood this morning, but I sure as hell am in one nasty as fuck mood now. The first day of decent-ish weather to be had in about a week— ruined. Courtesy of the MTA jackhammering up the street…
this dude doing god-only-knows what…
while these asshats watched.
Foolishly, I opened up the windows of my apartment to get some fresh air (HA!)— and shortly thereafter was assaulted by a noise that sounded like 1,000 chalkboards being scratched by Freddy Krueger amplified through Satan’s very own asshole (with Pete Townsend controlling the volume).
The melee that followed was not unlike something from Mutual of Omaha’s Animal Kingdom: a herd three very freaked-out cats bolted out of the living room en masse to get away from the noise. One of them saw fit to molest one of our female cats in order to make his displeasure (via displacement) known. I close the window and then spend five minutes placating everyone. Except myself.
After experimenting with different music* (to conceal the noise), I finally gave up and went for a walk. This walk netted me (ample) content for my very first Greenpoint crap map and a second-hand encounter with the very kind of person I do not need to be exposed to when I am in a mood: a clueless hipster chick wasting a cashier’s time (and as a consequence, my own, as I had to wait behind her in line).
Clueless Hipster Chick (to clerk): Can I park my bike in here?
Clerk: Uh. Sure.
CHC: Do you have, like small clothes for a dollar? (Behind her is a rack of children’s clothing in plain view.)
Clerk: (?)
CHC: Like doll clothes, you know, cheap?
Clerk: Maybe, try that bin over there.
This was the bin I happened to be going through. As a result, now I had a smelly-ass chick hovering behind me, looking over my shoulder. I went to the back of the store. Eventually I got bored and brought my selections to the register only to discover… she’s still there!
CHC: How much for this?
Clerk: (Utters a price)
CHC: What about this?
Clerk: (Utters another price)
CHC: Can I like, get a discount, if I buy a lot of stuff?
Clerk: (Utters an answer)
CHC: What about this wig?
(Aside: buying, much less wearing, an old wig is gross. Then again, it was probably cleaner than her hair. It was oily and matted. Nasty.)
Clerk: $10.00 for everything.
CHC: Do you take credit cards?
Me (thinking to myself): So help me god I am going to throttle this woman!
After several minutes of negotiation and inanity, the bitch pulls out a wad of bills and pays in cash. I get my turn.
Me: one picture frame (priced at $4.00) and one set of buttons (priced at $1.00)
Clerk: $2.00
CHC: (Throws one nasty look my direction.)
I have worked in public service.
I have worked in sales.
I have also worked in hospitality.
My resume is a patch-work quilt with one common theme: interfacing with the public. There is nothing that a public servant/salesperson/PR hack hates more than some idiot wasting his/her time by drifting into a stream-of-consciousness line (?) of questioning. ESPECIALLY if the transparent (if illucid) motivation underlying it is chiseling away at the price of something.
CHC (and her brethren) are blissfully unaware of the fact that “X” number of people (many being idiots, just like herself) are in line behind her. In my experience, this is the type of person also operates under the (erroneous) assumption that the clerk enjoys conversing with him/her— or finds him/her interesting. We don’t. We are paid to expedite business and be nice— and when the day is over, we stick pins in our ‘troublesome customer’ dolls with extreme prejudice.
Hopefully this squeaky wheel learned that she will not get the grease by being an annoying twit: she’ll get the shaft instead. The quiet, patient, non-haggling customer (with daggers in her eyes) is the one who gets the discounts. While neither asking for nor expecting them, I might add.
Eventually I came home. Upon arrival, I beheld the latest incarnation of our apartment buzzer ‘system’…
I’m speechless. Fucking speechless. When I see shit like this (and in my building/’hood I see it with disquieting regularity) I ask myself: at what point does the exertion required (X) to cover up/avoid doing a task (Y) prove to be more effort than actually hiring a professional to fix the problem (Z)?
When (in New York City apartment physics) does X-Y (prove to be) >/= Z? If Stephen Hawking is still asking/fielding questions on Yahoo, I’m gonna ask him.
Otherwise, if this cutesy arrangement proves to facilitate theft (of anything I happen to have delivered to my apartment), I will invoke a force neither Mr. Hawking nor god himself would dare reckon with: the United States Postal Service.
*ELO, Public Enemy, Pearl Jam**, Guns-n-Roses (which worked)
**To their credit, “Go” (from the album Vs.) came very, very close.
Joel Krupnik
If this inferno-esque weather is good for anything, it is this: I can toss up some new stuff on my blog that is long, long, overdue. No blog about dog shit is complete without voicing a few thoughts about Mr. Krupnik.
Like most people, I harbor mixed feelings about him. On one hand, I found his Christmas display hilarious. I also like his ‘stand-up’ attitude about people who do not pick up after their dogs. His assessment of why people choose not to pick up their dog shit is dead on: entitlement. I would also be a liar if I did not mention that he was a major influence regarding my decision to blog about the dog shit problem in Greenpoint— and the city at large.
On the other hand, I do not approve of his methodology, e.g., rubbing dog poo on the owner’s back. If I were in his shoes, I’d probably would have done one of the following:
- Bag it, shout at the girl (“You forgot something!”) and hand the bag of doo to her.
- Blog it.
One of the (many) things I love about living in New York City— especially Brooklyn— is its citizens’ willingness to call other people on their bull dog shit. If you cannot or will not police your actions, someone else will do it for you. Quickly, concisely and with a piquant type of wit I have not beheld anywhere else.
If I cared to overcome my aversion to crossing the East River, and Mr. Krupnik found my eccentricities tolerable, I bet we’d make good neighbors. I find him a lot more palatable in comparison to some of the folk* in my building, but I am not willing to subject my person to his (potential) wrath. I can easily see my predilection for using power tools (while cranking Britney or Joan Jett** to cover up the noise) as a provocation— and I care not to venture as to where he would shove my cds or tools in/on my body in retaliation. Scary indeed.
Otherwise, I have a number of irons in the fire. As you may have noticed already, I have set up a number of new pages that are bereft of content. Among them are the following:
- Shitty Confidential: I created this to house all things that do not pertain to dog shit proper.
- Shop Cats: this will be a photoblog featuring (duh) shop cats— and yes, shop dogs— if/when I find them. My reason(s) for creating such a page are as follows:
- There has been a spate of animal cruelty here in Greenpoint. Specifically, someone has made it a practice to shoot cats— with a gun— of recent. My well-intentioned, but probably misguided, motivation underlying the creation a page of featuring shop cats is to illustrate that every pet has a name and someone who loves him/her.
- They’re cute. (Yeah, I’m soft that way.)
*Like the woman in Apt. #6. She’s a total shitbag and I should know: the way our buzzers are rigged, every sack of pus who comes here (seeking Girl 6’s company/services) hits our buzzer. At all hours. Just in case you are wondering, I have labelled our buzzer— and these folk cannot or will not READ IT. They tap it like the well-trained lab rats (seeking a pellet) that they are.
**If you live in Brooklyn and have not experienced the glory that is Ms. Jett’s song Coney Island Whitefish, spend the 99 cents on i-tunes and get it. I can’t believe my mother let me play this shit on her car’s tape player when she drove me to elementary school.
Feces… possibly of canine origin…
My career (if you can call it that) is one that is firmly grounded in the customer service industry. This is not so much the result of conscious decision-making as it is the consequence of having two degrees in a field that no one on the outside (of the field) gives a damn about: fine art. I find this ironic, as the sophism bullshit I beheld in the many student critiques I have had the (mis)fortune of attending over the years in art school, can does qualify me to work in the upper echelons of public service. There is no better place to learn how to spin shit into Shinola than art school. Period. That said, I do not think even I could (or even care to try to) redress the damage our current Chimp in Chief has unfurled on the international community. So it goes.
While the pay to be had working in customer service is generally poor, as are the working conditions (disgrunted lunatics yelling at you 40+ hours a week), it is not entirely without its benefits.
Case in point:
Having nine months to burn between completing my BFA and starting my MFA, I entered the world of temporary employment. The first (and only) assignment I had was in a workmens compensation unit whose clientele consisted of fast food restaurant employees. This unit had gone through at least five temps (one of which went into labor on her first day and another arrived one day wearing a tiara); I (with my stellar 35 words per minute typing speed) proved to be the right “fit”. The people I worked with were fantastic, by far the best I have ever had encountered— which was a good thing, given the (bull)shit we all had to deal with every day.
It is a commonly held belief that fast food workers are not the brightest bulbs to be found. My experiences at this job did absolutely nothing to refute this. If anything, it (re)affirmed this urban myth in spades. Every day I fielded phone calls and retrieved the new claims that copiously spewed forth from the fax machine. A few of my all time faves are as follows:
- An employee who (for reasons one can only imagine) burned his ass with oven cleaner.
- A fist fight between two female employees who harbored amorous sentiments towards the store manager.
- A drive-thru window employee who got punched out (through the drive-in window) by a customer.
The list goes on and on…
I also handled a lot of inquiries that were erroneously sent to my unit’s office. Customer claims, mostly. I do not think I will ever forget the day I was eating my lunch (Mexican food) at my desk when a call came in: it was a manager asking who he should contact regarding a customer’s complaint of having “explosive fits of diarrhea” after eating his restaurant’s product. After ditching the remains of my lunch in the garbage can, I told him who to call. But this pales in comparison to the following “turd” that circulated in my department.
Per the nastygram I opened from some attorney’s office, it seems that a woman in Rio Rancho, New Mexico bought a take out meal from Taco Culo* and took it home to her family. After taking a second bite into her taco, mamasan discovered a bad taste and “unusual” texture. Not being able to decipher the source of said bad taste or unusual texture on her own, she summoned the professionals: the New Mexico Department of Health. Being the crack professionals that they are, the NMDOH concluded that the foreign object in this taco malo was a “long piece of feces… probably of feline origin”.
My husband and I (collectively) have five cats. Yes, cinco gatos. And to this day I (still) find it incomprehensible that anyone, A-N-Y-O-N-E, would require more than a sniff— much less, more than one bite— of a food item in order to determine that it has cat shit in it.
Which brings me to the “Dung of the Day”. I found this big boy next door to our apartment building. My husband says it’s human, but I’m not too sure. It looks too firm to be bum shit. Enjoy!
*As it happened, years later my parents moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico. One of the first things I did when I visited there was dine at this very establishment. My mother drove me, as I did not have a valid driver’s license. There was no shit, human, feline, canine, or otherwise, to be found in my food. Then again, I was very, VERY polite to the restaurant staff. I didn’t even complain when they fucked up my order.
liberte, egalite, fraternite… and poopie?!?
Last Friday (Bastille Day) my IT support (READ: husband) knocked around the “back-end” (heh,heh) of my blog. After he made some upgrades, we both got curious and looked at the activity for “New York Shitty”. Neither of us was prepared for the data that awaited our perusal.
Below is a pie chart outlining the top search terms generating traffic to my blog…
“Shitty drunk teen girls” (and the men who love them) is a demographic I had never honestly considered. I didn’t even know it existed, to be perfectly frank. Now I know better.
Perhaps that explains the curious amount of hits I am getting from MSN France?
I want to give a “shout out” to my French homies: MERCI! The way this country is going, I’ll probably darken your doorstep soon enough. I’m looking forward to seeing those machines you have that washes garbage off the streets.
Greenpoint Cinderella
Not too long ago I was a real estate agent. The neighborhoods/areas I specialized in were Chelsea, the East Village/LES, and North Brooklyn. Despite this, I would occasionally get the odd client interested in the Upper East Side. If pressed to give one common denominator to be found among all these folk, I would say it is this: I grew to despise damn near every single one of them.
More often than not, these apartment-seekers were single women, mid-30’s at the very oldest, holding low-to-middle level admin jobs with commensurate pay (READ: chump change). Lest you harbor any notion that I look down upon women (or anyone else for that matter) who work(s) in administration, I do not. I have held numerous administrative positions myself; I understand how hard (and thankless) the work is and how difficult it is to make ends meet with a $35,000/year salary (if that) at your disposal. Do I ever…
For this reason it is quite remarkable that the intransigence, haughtiness, and overall inability to face facts (e.g., apartments on the Upper East Side can be had on your budget, but they are going to be east of 2nd Avenue) these women had was enough to completely alienate me. Much less, sufficient to foster abject hatred from me.
To the best of my understanding, these woman all wanted to live in a safe neighborhood and their concept of a “safe neighborhood” was the Upper East Side. Faulty logic, but comprehensible— even to me. That said, there are numerous “safe” neighborhoods to be found in New York City (some are even in Manhattan), but when I tossed out these possibilities, my ‘clients’ recoiled in a histrionic disgust rarely found outside B-grade horror movies.
It didn’t take too (terribly) long for me to “catch on” to what these women were really looking for (consciously or unconsciously): prestige. It didn’t matter if the apartment was a total shithole, they wanted to hob-nob with the elite. The thought clearly had never crossed their collective minds that the elite may not want to hob-nob with them, but I digress…
Yesterday I had the pleasure of vulgarizing the Upper East Side with my presence. I rarely go past the East River, much less north of 40th Street, if I can help it. But when I do it is always for a damn compelling reason. The reason du jour yesterday was a job interview. The chamber of horrors I beheld strolling the streets of mid-60’s east-side Manhattan made me recoil and ask myself: why in would anyone want to live here? I saw:
- A heavily pregnant woman clad in yoga pants and a tank top chattering away on her cellphone while smoking a cigarette.
- (Too many) women (old enough to be my mother at least) with faces pulled tighter than Donald Rumsfeld’s asshole. You could bounce a quarter off of ’em for chrissakes!
- Filipino nannies pushing humvee-sized strollers teeming with frankenkids.
- The remains of Dr. Bartha’s abode…
DAMNNNNN! Call me plebian, but I don’t want to live in a neighborhood where people blow-up shit. Even if I am only steps away Hermes or Chanel. I bet the local neighborhood association loves Mr. Bartha. Sarcasm aside, I am sure realtors do: he pulled a Guttman (albeit due to mental illness, not greed) and came damn close to doubling the value of property by doing so. Kudos to Bartha— but I would prefer to keep an arm’s length or more (the East River and straight-jacket) away from him. - Dog shit. Plenty of it. Guess what? Upper East Side designer doggie doo stinks as bad (if not worse than) dog shit to be found in the outer boroughs or *gasp* New Jersey.
Boy was I happy to get my K-Fedtastic-ass* self back to the G-Point. Big Time. I got on the E train at 51st Street with a renewed sense of purpose: get me the fuck out out of here. When I arrived at Court Square, my fairy (angel dust) Godmother was there to secure my passage to the home of Queens (Kings County, DUH).
My fairy Godmother was exquisite. Beyond description (and too dangerous to hazard photographing)— but I will try, nonetheless…
She was about 5’6″, 130 pounds, and of African-American descent. She was clad in a dress (black) that was about 2 inches too long to qualify as lingerie, footless fishnet hose (black), and 4 inch pumps (black). Her person was impeccably groomed and ‘high on life’ or something else. Who knows?
What I do know is that she did a dance while giggling inanely (people walked around her) and the G train appeared. (Undoubtedly conjured from seven sewer rats, regurgitated vodka, and four empty tins of pickled herring in mustard.) And when it did, my Godmother saw fit to “hail” the mighty G train like a cab— as if to say “take my downtrodden sister” home. And it did. I love her.
*One who prospers at the benefit of an another, be it actual or perceived.
A Crap Map is Born!
Unless you have been living under a rock (perhaps one volleyed from 34 E. 62nd Street), I’m sure you’ve heard about this guy. I am sure I will regret what I am about to write, but I’m going to write it anyway…
I do not condone blowing up buildings; I really feel for those who lost their homes or were injured due to Mr. Bartha’s hijinks. That said, the tale does say something about tenacity and follow-through: here’s a man who said he was going to destroy his house (so as not to fork over it in a divorce settlement) and he actually did it. In Texas there is a saying: Don’t cut checks with your mouth that you ass can’t cash. He cut and cashed his own “check”. That takes balls. Texas-sized balls.
I’ll forgive the suicide angle. Nobody’s perfect (he’s a doctor, not a demolition expert after all). Besides, Mr. Bartha might want to live after doubling the value of his property. I for one hope some of that money goes towards getting the psychiatrist he so clearly needs.
On that note (tenacity and follow-through), I am proud to offer you the following “Test” Crap Map: Dog Shit on Kent Street. It isn’t a Google Map, but it will do until I (or more likely, my husband the “IT” professional) fix a few very vexatious problems. Admittedly this is long overdue, but upgrades on this blog get done the same way anything in my apartment gets repaired: slow, sloppy, and not up to code.
More to follow…
Finally, some dog shit that doesn’t stink!
I found this little gem surfing the internet yesterday. Too bad there are not additional options, e.g., smeared dog shit, dog shit with cigarettes on/in it, dog shit with dirty rubbers, etc.
On a (semi) related note, I also found this bad boy. I wish I had a handle to hold onto and cheering section when I use the bathroom. For now I’ll just have to content with this. People in Japan have all the cool stuff…
Syntax: 97 Green St.
Filed under: (s)Hit Parade, Dog Shit, Dog Shit Signage, Dung of the Day, Greenpoint Magic
You know you have either hit a very high or a very low point in life when you ask yourself: where’s a pile of canine diarrhea when I need one?
I have been asking myself this very question for the last month. Sure, I have found dog shit. (Lots of it.) I have even found homemade pornography right outside the front door of my building recently. But diarrhea was not to be had. That changed today.
After getting a sandwich at the Franklin Corner Store (and waiting behind a dude who was so drunk he didn’t even remember the cashier giving him back change for the beer he bought at 1:20 p.m.), I walked by 97 Green Street.
I have featured this location a number of times in the past, and once again, it didn’t disappoint.
And “dog bombs” were indeed to be found, along with some diarrhea…
…and some edgy ‘street art’ made by our local (and ever increasing) corps of artsy hipster types….
This kind of shit never ceases to amaze me. Seriously.
Was this to be found in East New York? No.
Bedford Stuyvesant?? No.
East Flatbush??? Once again, no.
I found this missive in front of an artist’s loft in a rapidly gentrifying section of Greenpoint (a redundant phrase, I admit). In what manner has this person been oppressed by “the man”? Did he (or she) get admonished by the police for playing music too loud? Drinking beer out of an open container? Not cleaning up their dog shit??? I’d really like to know.
I do not always agree with the tactics or mentality employed by some of New York’s Finest. That said, in a civil society, the job of the law enforcement is probably the hardest to be had (I couldn’t/wouldn’t stomach it). And we are (still) a civil society, despite the efforts of some of our leadership, but I digress…
I would not bite the hand of an organization which is saddled with responsibilties as various and sundry as defending public safety and personal property (the latter of which includes keeping a registry of i-pods so they can be returned if/when reported stolen). Such protestations by people who (for all intensive purposes) have the world on a string mock the very real and aggregious problems had by those who are not equally served by law enforcement.
‘Nuff said…
Hmm. I am guessing the message here is “Texas Sucks”. While hardly original, I imagine very few people (hereabouts, especially) are likely to disagree. It’s sort of like saying “I hate people who burn puppies, what about you?” No sir. No disagreement here.
I do wonder, however, about the motivation which underlies the creation of such a work. Has this person been so scarred by Texas that he (or she) had to make it known via a sidewalk chalk drawing… 1,377 miles away? That’s some serious shit. And I thought being born in Waco sucked. (It does— especially since that whole Branch Davidian thing.*).
In closing, I would like to say this post was long, long overdue. And I would like to thank BARC for featuring my blog on their blog. I strongly support their cause and encourage you to do the same (I am anti-dog shit but 100% pro-dog). I am so inspired by what I have seen today (and want to share the Greenpoint love), I will leave you with this…
*If you are wondering, and want to learn from somebody truly ‘in the know’: the worst thing about Texas are Texans.
Greenpoint just got a little bit uglier
The recent torrential downpour(s) have made “Dung of the Day” pickins’ pretty slim. But “dog shit” isn’t merely canine effluvia, it’s a state of mind. Which brings me to this steaming pile of shit my husband and I happened across last night at 198 Green Street…
Who the? What the? OH MY GOD!!! As if the facade’s strong resemblance to a sub-zero refrigerator isn’t bad enough, check out the front door…
And exactly who (or what) will live behind this door? Frau Blucher immediately comes to mind. This isn’t a house, it’s a fucking fortification— which may not be such a bad idea given that some neighborhood (wannabe) toughs hurled an object in my direction as I gawked at this atrocity. Frankly, it makes me want to hurl something at (or my dinner on) it too.
I’m guessing this is a light fixture. The first of three to be installed along the top of this building. I for one would like to propose that upon completion these be used as gallows for the owner of this property, the ‘designer’ responsible for this ‘design concept’ and the contractor who enabled it to happen.
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