Greenpoint
Lorven Pharmacy
Culture on the Cheap
August 27, 2006 Crap Map
Like a number of you, I frequently wonder about who (or perhaps more accurately, what) my neighbors are. These musings are usually preceded by my:
- finding a new piece porn (homemade or professional, I have found both— on several occasions).
- watching the police perform their duties. “To protect and serve” hereabouts seems to mean breaking up melees fueled by alcohol, infidelity and abject stupidity. OR
- hopscotching over ungodly amounts of dog shit.
Yesterday I did #3. What I assumed would be a one block trek in the rain to get me a bottle of Ito-En tea from the Franklin Corner Store ended up being a slush-ridden gauntlet through dog shit hell. It was a veritable sea of fly-ridden shit soup!
It was gross. VERY GROSS. A little backwash of vomit even crept up my throat while I photographed some of this shit. No joke.
Conclusion: my neighbors are inconsiderate, lazy pigs. my neighbors are sexually perverse, inconsiderate, lazy pigs.
Miss Heather
American Playground Women’s Bathroom
As if bumping into Tarzan last Saturday morning wasn’t a big enough mindfuck, the condition of the of the women’s restroom at the American Playground left me absolutely dumbfounded. It was clean. Terrifyingly clean. “Wipe up the blood from the crime scene with bleach so we don’t get caught by the police” clean.
I entered the facilities Saturday morning braced for anything: after all, if the McCarren Park bathroom was disgusting, surely this bathroom will be as bad— if not worse.
WRONG! The bathroom lacked soap, but the sink and mirror appear to have been cleaned recently. And when I say “recently” I mean during this Bush Administration…
A trash that does not require preventative measures against theft?!? Holy shit, this is getting serious!
I approached the solitary bathroom stall with a mix of anticipation and dread. Perhaps the public area of the bathroom is clean so as to lull me into a false sense of security? That way I will be completely thrown off-guard when I open the door to the toilet stall and find a 200 hundred pound shitbeast ready to rip my head off. “Ain’t no way I’m falling for that shit” I thought to myself as I kicked open the door.
Oh…
MY…
GOD!!!
For reasons you can probably imagine, I got my ass the hell out of there. I hightailed it home so I could tell my husband my findings.
Me: The garbage can was not chained down, Sam! Anyone, A-N-Y-O-N-E can just walk in there and take it!
Husband: Maybe the people in that part of the neighborhood don’t steal things?
Me: Are you fucking kidding me? This neighborhood is a veritable den of thieves! I swear they are hard-wired for theft, why else would people around here steal all useless shit that they do? If there was a man without an asshole in this neighborhood, he’d be the one caught trying to shoplift fifty Fleet Enemas from Eckerds! Such is the nature of compulsive thievery here. It’s fucking unreal. There are two groups of people in this neighborhood; thieves who have been caught stealing and thieves who have yet to be caught. Simple as that.
Husband: (nods)
Me: Remember when Kerry at “The Thing” caught that old Polish broad* trying to steal an issue of Architectural Digest?
Husband: Oh yeah, I had forgotten about that.
Me: I will never fucking forget it. Magazines only cost fifty cents there for chrissakes— why would someone go to the trouble of stealing something that only costs fifty cents?!? What is an old Polish woman— in GREENPOINT of all PLACES— going to do with an issue of Architectual Digest anyway?*
Husband: (nods)
Me: It’s not like she can or will read it.* No one reads here. I betcha she tried to steal that magazine because one of the legs on her coffee table is shorter than the rest and she was going shove that fucker under it to make it level!
Shortly after this conversation, my husband and I agreed that the American Playground toilet facilities require another inspection. And this time we are going to inspect both the men’s and women’s bathroom!
Miss Heather
*I can such crass remarks because I am, indeed, of Polish descent.
Bowels move on New Jersey Transit
This is an email I got from one of my husband’s coworkers today.
I just saw the most obscene, vile, surreal imagery since working in the city (mind you I have worked off and on for over 10 years in NYC). My day is starting with 5 star accommodations when NJ Transit decides to screw up the bus schedule and strand 200 people for over 2 hours at our terminal at Toms River due to a mix up with a broken down bus in the rotation. That was nothing in comparison to the eye candy I observed once I got into Port Authority. I called the Office to let them know that I actually arrived a bit earlier than expected from the delay and should arrive at work between 9:30 and 9:45 AM. I was talking to them on the cell phone and walking down the South Terminal’s main exit; I saw three security guards standing in the middle of the causeway with their arms stretched out in a “T†formation around a large area of the hall. As I got closer I witnessed something so foul and repulsive that I was left mute for about 35 seconds on the phone to work and the secretary was asking if everything was OK. What I saw that threw me mentally off guard was the sight of either a human or large animal’s, possibly canine, pile of shit on the floor. This was not any ordinary shit pile either, it stretched for about 25 feet long by 14 feet or so wide. Not that the load was extra ordinarily large, though it did have a good amount of mass to it, but the fact that the general public was trouncing over the shit like it wasn’t there! They smooched and smeared the fecal matter in the Duane Reade, the Trailways counter, through a newsstand and to the entrance of the subway escalator. I don’t think even Franz Kafka could not have thought up such a blackened image as this. I was so shocked by this fact, that the PA had to get armed guards to stand there with arms out to *prevent* people from smearing any more of it around. I couldn’t speak, it was like being stabbed in the kidneys with a knife; you want to scream, but no voice came out. I then deftly made my way around the mess carefully looking at the ground as smeared shit was extending beyond the cordoned area and I made sure to avoid any shoe-shaped dull spots on the floor. I actually had to exit the South Terminal, walk outside to the North Terminal, go back inside to go downstairs to get the subway. Even now I shudder to think about the earthy colored mosaic of shit pieces fanning out from the main pile, ugh! I thought that you would have enjoyed the setting with camera in hand, I am sure. PA would probably “clean†this by using a mop which would just help spread the bacterial matter around more evenly; something to think about if you see a kid playing on the floor or if you are tired and think about resting on the floor of the terminal. I wonder if anyone could have sued the PA if they slipped on the that heap of tan and brown, or declare a health hazard for the stores that had smudges and soiling extending into their establishments? Anyways, I thought this would have made your day and at least someone would have had a better start to the day than I.
And I thought swabbing up beer vomit from the foyer of our apartment building on Puerto Rican Day sucked.
Miss Heather
Found Magazine
After running errands all day I got home, checked my email and am happy to announce that I will have (at least) one of my finds featured in the upcoming issue of Dirty Found.
Mike (from Dirty Found) told me to give him everything I had. He also told me he liked ’em large.
So I gave him everything I had. And I made them large: five finds, three of which are from Greenpoint!* Pretty darned cool, eh?
Miss Heather
*The other two are from Kensington, Brooklyn.
1,000 Points of Blight
It is already Monday evening and I am still trying to figure out exactly where my weekend went; it is nothing more than a blur of sheer busyness, lack of sleep and an intense desire for a tube of Flexall and Budweiser to me now. That said, here are few highlights from my weekend for all to enjoy…
SATURDAY
I awoke at 5:45 a.m. I creeped out of bed and busied myself cleaning the house. Three hours (and four cups of coffee later) I got restless and went for a walk. The following bar chart summarizes what I found.
After perusing this visual aid, you will notice that I saw (or perhaps heard is a more appropriate term) one shirtless man who yodelled “like Tarzan”. I saw this gentleman on Greenpoint Avenue— and of all my six years of living in Greenpoint, this had to be the most infuckingcredible thing I have seen. Ever.
It was 10:00 a.m. and I was headed westbound on Greenpoint Avenue with the intent of going to the American Playground to assess the cleanliness of the women’s restroom.* About three doors shy of reaching Franklin Street, I spy a shirtless man walking out of The Cruz Grocery (at 111 Franklin). After walking about six feet, he abruptly stopped and roared a mighty howl (Johnny Weissmuller style, none of that candyass Disney shit). This mighty Greenpoint Yell reverberated off all the surrounding buildings and everyone— I mean EVERYONE— stopped dead in their tracks and stared.
His point (whatever it was) having been made, “Tarzan” continued walking down the sidewalk as if nothing happened. The rest of us stood there in a state of slack-jawed shock trying to figure out exactly what the fuck had just happened.
SUNDAY
I am awakened at 7:30 a.m. to the sound of cats growling and hissing. Our local tomcat, “Clarence”, was making his regular morning visit, the purpose of which is to piss off our cats. And as usual, his effort(s) were a stunning success. I have no complaints; this morning I have to help a friend of mine move his art materials out of his ex-girlfriend’s apartment in Long Island City.
No one enjoys helping someone else move. I certainly do not, anyway. But I have enough foresight to know that helping someone move is neither a task nor a favor: it is an insurance policy towards the time when I have to move.
Besides, my friend’s possessions were in Long Island City and I would just as well have him (and his stuff) somewhere else. I am certain some people find this nabe to be very a very pleasant one. I for one do not. In fact, being in LIC gives me a great deal of anxiety. This is not entirely unreasonable given the fact that the last time I visited this same friend in Long Island Shitty (when he was living with his now ex-girlfriend) I got hit by a car. Sort of.
We were crossing Vernon Boulevard at 46th Avenue. The cross-walk signal indicated that we could cross and we did just that. And while we were doing so an old fuck made a right hand turn off of 46th Avenue, plowing into all three of us. My husband and friend were able to get out of the way, but I had to jump onto this asshole’s car in order to avoid being run over. Thankfully, I landed on my (porcine) ass and was left with nothing more than a bruise.
Stunned, I got off his car and stared at him. He stared at me, drove forward about twenty feet, stopped, and then drove off. Thankfully, I got his license plate number and a good look at his face (when you land on the front of someone’s car you remember such things).
What had started as a social call ended up being a two hour visit to the police department. I filed a report and my friend (a witness) filed a deposition, only to have the police Detective refuse to pursue the matter because I was not “sufficiently injured”. Yeah. Fuck you too, buddy!
A few months later I happened upon this intersection again to discover this:
Push Button For Luck, indeed!
Anyway, we got the U-Haul loaded, fired it up and drove over to my friend’s new studio in Williamsburg Greenpoint on North 12th Street. Unfortunately, someone else was using the loading dock so we had to wait (and wait) until he done. We whiled away the time talking about my friend’s upcoming overseas internship (?) in Holland.
Friend: Yeah, I will be in Holland from September until November. I am going to store all my stuff here and when I come back I’ll figure out where I will live.
Me: That’s not such a bad idea. As things are now, the apartments hereabouts are grossly over-priced. Perhaps by November rental prices will start to correct themselves. The economy is going to shit and finding idiots willing to outlay ??? for an apartment hereabouts isn’t as easy as it used to be.
Friend: You think the economy is going down?
Me: Yes, I do.
Friend: That’s too bad.
Me: Why? (Ed Note: When you have been just as fucked during “boom” cycles as “bust” cycles, like me, the state of the economy is a source of bemusement, little else. “Trickle-down Theory” my poor, over-educated, fat white ass!)
Friend: When the economy is bad, the art market slumps. Sure, some very good art is created during times of economic adversity, but little money is to be had.
Me: That’s why I write about dog shit.
Friend: ?
Me: My endeavors are not dependent upon the economy. Good times or bad, there will always be dog shit.
The previous statement, dear readers, is one of the most profoundly intelligent and piquant observations to ever find its way out of my mouth.
On that note, I leave you with today’s Dung of the Day. I am dedicating this find from 119 North 11th Street to “notme” who wrote the following very thoughtful comment regarding a feature about New York Shitty on Curbed.com:
Are you sure that’s dog crap? Probably just more hipsters crapping off the rooftops. It is Monday after all.
Very good point, “notme”. Very, VERY good point…
Miss Heather
*My findings will be posted soon. Stay tuned.
PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT
I have been up on the roof relaxing. On a lark, I casted my gaze downward towards the open area behind my apartment— to I discover a new item my neighbors have seen fit to cast out their window! This is truly the most remarkable find I have made to date; my husband can’t wait to get home and check it out himself. It can be found here. Happy Hunting!
Miss Heather
Planet of the Shits
I found today’s Dung of the Day this morning at 959 Manhattan Avenue.
The resemblance is rather uncanny if I say so myself…
Miss Heather
Rocket Queen
Last night my husband and I walked to Williamsburg to get some dinner. We strolled down Kent Avenue because it has always proven to give me ample amounts of dog shit to document. This particular evening was no exception, and as I stopped to document a new pile of dog crap my husband asked: are we still in Greenpoint?
Me: Yes, we are.
Husband: where does Greenpoint end and Williamsburg begin?
Me: Here (Kent Avenue and North 13th Street) seems to be as good as place as any, look at what’s written on this light pole…
and look what’s deposited under it.
Satisfied with this answer, we continued our trek to Williamsburg. Our journey was pretty unremarkable— that is, until we found the following masterpiece on North 6th Street near Bedford Avenue.
I realize this is a bit difficult to read, so I have gone to the trouble to transcribe it (crazy capitalization, absence of punctuation, etc.) below:
WARNING
When it comes to my cAt. MINd your busiNess Do Not tRy to hAVe my cAt fixed.. If so I, Woody would ReArANge your fACe. CONSider me as O.J. Simpson. So Nicole Simpson And RON GoldMAN StAy AwAy fRom my CAT. ANd I WANt my Kittens thAt you stole bAcK
Woody AKA OJ
Hmm… looks like (yet another) person in Billyburg got his coke mixed-up with his anthrax (again).
This has got to be the first time I have ever seen someone (willfully and deliberately) draw a parallel between his person and O.J. Simpson. I suspect I speak for most people when I say that I have a very dim view of the “Juice Man” and it is for this reason I find this sign unusual: why in god’s name would anyone in their right mind want to liken himself to O.J.?
That said, I think it is safe to say that we are not dealing with a “normal” person here. Only a certifiable asshole would refuse to neuter a cat. And given that this cat was standing next to this hastily scrawled out missive (which one can safely presume is posted on Woody’s OJ’s property), perhaps this simile is an appropriate one. Both “O.J.’s” are murderers. This poor animal is undoubtedly one of the many homeless and/or soon to be euthanized cats this man is responsible for bringing into this world. She is living a slow and painful death; you can see it from the look in her eyes. She broke my heart.
Saddened by the sight of this kitty, my husband and I continued our walk in silence. A silence broken upon reaching Bedford Avenue and bumping into a friend of mine from art school (Parsons School of Resign), Mark. Back in the day Mark was always the one who had the greatest zest for living and (god bless his soul) he has not changed his ways. He was in particularly good form this Friday evening (READ: drunk as skunk).
Mark gave me a giant bear hug and introduced me to his friend, who also happened to be very intoxicated. His friend smiled, and in so doing, revealed a greyish front tooth that had rotted down to a nubbin; it looked exactly like a stalactite. And like a deer caught in headlights, I stared at it with both a mixture of wide-eyed wonderment and absolute revulsion.
Mark (shouting to his friend who is standing only a foot away): This is my friend Heather. She is one of the best artists I know! I haven’t seen what she has done lately, but she launches dildoes*…
Friend: ?
Mark (wildly gesticulating): …big ones, little ones… it makes no difference. She’ll launch ’em.
Friend: Was it vibrating when you launched it?
Me: No, I had to remove the motor in order to get it light enough to take flight using a size “c” rocket engine. It probably shot upwards of 25 feet.
Friend (nodding): Ohh…
Me (to Mark): I have a web site now. I write about dog shit. You should check it out.
Friend: You launch dog shit?
Me: No. I launch dildoes; I write about dog shit.
Friend (nodding): Ohh…
After chatting a few more minutes, we parted ways. They went to go party (some more), we continued on our quest to get some dinner and my life reassumed its (highly) relative sense of normalcy.
— Miss Heather
P.S.: I have (finally) edited and posted this story and have added a choice little morsel here.
Enjoy!
*My mother videotaped it.
Miscellaneous
Filed under: Area 51
I neglected to give props to The Gowanus Lounge for this, so I am doing so now. I am very happy that there are other people out there who also revel in rejection. Failure is after all, the new success.
Otherwise, I want to point out a few folks I have added to my blogroll:
- Negro Witticisms: this guy is hilarious so do check him out. Especially his musings about Con Ed’s new advertising campaign.
- fauxy dot net: I noticed last night that she added me to her blogroll. And after I discovered that she was indeed the woman I read about on Gawker.com (who was menaced by the NYPD because they thought she was a prostitute) I wept tears of joy. This woman is the kind of company I covet the most: the harassed.I have yet to be picked up for solicitation, but as Scarlett O’Hara said: “tomorrow is another day”…
I regret to announce that the ‘Slipster Shanty’ featured in this post has since been razed. Probably in order to build condominiums that no one in their right mind would purchase.
Miss Heather
NYS Flickr Pool
