life in these long island cities

last night was not the bastard's finest hour as a parent...

during the summer...

every tuesday in the liquid city is free music night on the east river....

and the hood turns out for fun and sundown.

so...

my daughter, the tyrant is running around playing with kids...

and the bastard is on point...

and i get surrounded by screaming urchins while playing paparazzo to my daughter...

and i politely reply to there lack of personal space respect and caterwauling with whatever entertaining absurd response comes to mind...

make a game of it...

it all sounds like screaming screamey screams anyway.

after a bit, the bastard decides to set himself up with an ice cream and enjoy the mediocre stylings of the band when i see the tyrant come screaming out of the fray...

and she looks visibly upset...

so i'm off like a shot with my dip top in hand...

"what happened monkey?"

"those boys, they bothering me"

"which ones?"

"over dare" (the nanny is from the caribbean. she says things like dare and tings alot).

so i scoop her up and storm over knowing full well that the two screaming boy standouts from earlier were no doubt the culprits.

"which...ones?" and she gestures at the blond urchin who had been screaming at me earlier and his ape of a partner in crime who i will also call urchin.

i squat down and in my usual tone tell the blond urchin to leave my daughter alone

his partner who is clearly older pipes up in his best, "raised by parents who don't give a fuck about his kids shit behavior" and tells me, "why do "AYE" have to leave her alone?"

the bastards eye grow smaller as i turn to face and tell him pointedly, "because she is my daughter, and i say so"

then frau bruha shows up and is clearly the blond urchin's antithesis of a helicopter parent as she had been up until this point making time with someone's father, asks me if there is some kind of problem.

"yes, these boys have upset my daughter"

"well they are just kids. you can't go around scaring kids", frau bruha responds

"well, i apologize if i scared your kid but, these boys upset my daughter", i continue. "and i will not apologize for my tone"

i get up and i go back to my ice cream all the while walking with the gate of one who isn't going to suffer any further bullshit this god eve.

the thought i had the whole time is, at what point do we stop letting 3 and 4 year olds settle up shit with one another? they are incapable of reason at that age.

and i concluded that you don't. your kid gets upset...

you shut it down and eat your goddam ice cream.

—the bastard

the unbearable lightness of bastard…

when the bastard got home to tonight…

the traffic landscape was all asses and elbows. 

I had forgotten that the river to river festival was doing fireworks tonight. 

so flash forward…

the wife just turned in…

the boy is chilling on his computer…

the bar has gone silent…

the baby went to the mattresses as well. 

and here the bastard is… 

just chilling in his balcony remembering what he asks for for Father's Day every year. 

"what do you want for Father's Day?"

"for everyone to shut up for a little while"

sure, it doesn't sound kind but, I'm not a kind man by any stretch. 

but I can't help feeling a certain level of serenity right now as I've entered my 10th minute here in the grand duchy of shutupistan. 

I could cry right now but it would totally fuck up my silence. 

happy Father's Day to me. 

—the bastard

life in these Long Island cities…

the other night when I was heading to the after party I noticed on a crisp cool night there was an abundance of fat bearded guys in shorts walking around in flips flops toward the bar that moved in behind me.

these guys, while looking a great deal like the fat bearded guy from the t. show revolution are a considerate lot.

they drink their beer on the back patio and they keep it down. occasionally they pipe up slightly while having one of those god is dead but he was short really short conversations.

but lic has a different species of vermin that plagues the bar that moved in behind me.

gymrats.

gymrats are in shape…

gymrats like to work out together then sit on the back Latino and yell loudly about leg day…

gymrats have too much meat between their ears to have that moment of clarity that the rest of the borough of queens doesn't want to hear your "thoughts in air quotes" on whatever it is passes for thinking in your pea sized brains.

I imagine since they live here, they work in finance or marketing or some manner of high paying job that affords them the ability to live here.

but I prefer the fat bearded atheists over them most of the time.

—the bastard

...on muckraking

the bastard would like to talk about his hood for a minute...

i live in a spaceship in long island city 3 blocks away from the east river...

and while it didn't garner as much press as what's happened down by the rock...

we took it on the chin when sandy came through...

we took on some water...

which wrecked our electric.

my neighbors and i were homeless-ish for two weeks...

and fortunately, we're all getting back to normal.

we were lucky.

but here's the rub.

there is this local blog that i USED to go to for my local info that went to my building during the post storm mayhem to "get the scoop" on the extent of my building's damages.

we're a new building...

we're not all sold...

we'd like the rest of the building get sold...

but this sort of thing sets us back as a community, so our people politely said no...

the muckraker who writes this blog presses harder, saying he's providing a "service to the community" by providing  photos that are fit for disaster tourists of all stripes and those of the kind of carnage that would definitely hinder other new buildings in the area from EVER becoming profitable anytime soon.

i'm sure the powerhouse and the yard are real fucking grateful for that.

so after this bit of leverage from the muckraker, our people respond with a sterner "no comment" which hurt his widdle feelings.

so in what the bastard can only imagine was in a crying fit of babylike proportions, he wrote an angry post about our building...

you know...

as a service to the community.

a service...

you know?

muckraker.

this prompted the ire of both residents and local who felt that this "service" was unwarranted...

perhaps uncalled for...

trolls responded to the counter...

and i'm convince those trolls were the very author of the post as they all centered around how the blog provides a service to the community and we should all move on.

i mused to myself, does the muckraker hav e a thesaurus in which to alter his constant refrain regardless of what the name of the troll who posted in response.

i eventually, commented an invitation to lunch to the author of one unkind cut.

said we should meet up...

have some lunch...

chat about the local issues...

like muckraking...

and local bloggers who flew through a storefront window as a service to the community.

muckraker.

but i digress, when the bastard moved back into the building, he decided to let it go,  glad to be home again.

this post garned the most comments in the pitiful history of the blog so it was not surprising that when my building was mentioned in a post on curbed that he felt the need to repost it as his own content.

or at least as a "i'm neither good at writing nor am i good at generating my own content but, i sure did like all of that attention i got the last time i slagged off on that building that hurt my feelings so left me just repost it"

muckraker.

so to the blog, i linked to today but won't bother mentioning...

please go directly to die...

you won't be missed i assure you.

now i have work in the publishing world to finish up now...

so run along now to your amateur photography and your bitchy posts.

—the bastard

life in these new york cities

the ride is short these days.

but the ride has become more and more populated as the neighborhoods along the 7 line have become more sought by folks as the next affordable heaven for those of you who come here from oklasota or wiscotucky or even long-g-g giland for that matter.

and the touchstone conversations the bastard overhears are starting to become more and more interesting.

it seems that hipsters travel all across these new york cities in search of other hipsters so that they can talk about how funny it is to judge some other hipsters from oklasota and wiscotucky when they order a chocolate bagel when they should clearly be ordering the authentic flavors

like cinnamon raisin.

shit is hard when you a graduate degree and a bad 80's haircut and your friend from out of town orders the wrong kind of bagel.

you see.

some bagels are more equal than others.

however to the bastard, you're all from out of town.

the more you blather on in your midwestern accents that you try so desperately to hide from the likes of me...

...the more we know how fearful you are of us finding out about your redneck past...

and no amount of copies of 100 years of solitude (apparently "atlas shrugged" is no is no longer in print) clutched under your arm will ever ever change that.

give it 9 more years according to gothamist.com. then you can consider yourself authentic.

so until that day arrives, judge not.

because i am already judging you too.

—the bastard

the din

so as the wife and I feared…

…with the onset of warm weather comes the bar across the way beginning their balcony seating for the season…

which has been negotiated down to 10pm by our fearless head of the angry tenants association.

now…

…the people who patronize the beer bar aren't THAT loud…

…there are some annoying cackles coming from some annoying local women…

… but they aren't awful…

…the is what the bastard tells himself because he wants to embrace this crap instead of blowing as gasket.

it is a shame though…

I may have to give up going there if whatever cackling bitch down there doesn't stop cackling like a cackling bitch.

… so much for acceptance.

— the bastard

zombies on a thursday night

it really is amazing how quickly on can get to the upper upper west side on a weeknight to play a zombie board game.


yeah. you header that right. the bastard plays zombie board games. wanna fight about it? I'll cut your sorry ass.

have I mentioned I've been drinking.

—the bastard

…on travesties

OH GOD! OH GOD! OH GOD! OH GOD! OH GOD! OH GOD! OH GOD! OH GOD! OH GOD! OH GOD! OH GOD! OH GOD! OH GOD! OH GOD! OH GOD! OH GOD! OH GOD! OH GOD! OH GOD! OH GOD! OH GOD! OH GOD! OH GOD! OH GOD!

WHY?!? WHY?!? WHY?!? WHY?!? WHY?!? WHY?!? WHY?!? WHY?!? WHY?!? WHY?!? WHY?!? WHY?!? WHY?!? WHY?!? WHY?!? WHY?!? WHY?!? WHY?!? WHY?!? WHY?!?

—the bastard

...on flash artisanal markets

the bastard doesn't talk about the news as often as he used to but this little item made him laugh. because like bored to death, it makes fun of brooklyn

—the bastard

this weak is not anime

truth to tell, the bastard has been obsessing over mi-5 of late.

which is called spooks in great britain.

but you can't call a show spooks on american television even if it's airing on pbs.

what'd ya want? a dissertation on it?

—the bastard

this is why the bastard can't leave town

"there was a little accident today while you're at work", the wife began to explain, "and I have some bad news"

"okay, now let the other shoe drop"

"well… the baby got into the cabinet and she dropped the coffee press."

"ok"

"and it shattered into a million pieces"

"does the baby know that if I can't have coffee, that there is going to be fucking murders?"

"I'm not sure"

so a change of shirt and out the door I went. up to 3rd avenue to the Starbucks.

no dice.

up to park ave.

no dice

undaunted, the bastard walks to the Starbucks on 5th and boom.

paydirt

now let's dispense with the fact that I went to a major coffee chain to find a goddam press. up yours shiteyes, I'd have to walk clean across this crapstand to find a home goods store that I can buy a press at.

and let's dispense with the bastard's hoi paloi fashion of making coffee. hey guy, up yours.

your moms

that's right, I'm talking bout your moms.

the press takes up less space than any other coffee contraption and besides, there's this guy at my office who looks like fucking old fezziwig from a Christmas carol who has a coffee setup in his cube that look like a frikkin steampunk movie vomited in his cubicle. so someone else walks the earth with a greater sense of coffee snobbery than the bastard ever could.

but I digress.

I realize that I could never NOT live in a large city like this. the fact that I can walk 5 minutes from my doorstep to replace my coffee maker tells me that I cannot leave. that and the fact that the first time I tell cooter about his moms, he might stick a shotgun in my mouth.

did I mention that I was preventing fucking murders?

—the bastard

...grammar rodeo

...special end times edition


the bastard has seen this sign everyday for the last three or four weeks on a construction site on third.

yesterday, i noticed that someone updated the sign.

so that said,

this just in,

death and destruction ARE coming.

just so you know.

—the bastard

ummah gahd

ummah gahd.

did ah tell u thah on our first date

John took me to do his laundry

ummah gahd. rilly?

ummah gahd, yah.

squeal

oh gay man, if you slept with John on your trip to the laundry, and you're calling that a date, it isn't a date.

it may very well be having sex with a guy who made you work for it.

I hope it was worth it.

ummah gahd.

stay classy laundry room. stay classy

—the bastard

i have to tell you something...

you really are awful.

no.

seriously.

what's with that ginourmous flower in your hair?

is it a clever diversion to divert the average passer by?

to divert them from the ugliness that lives inside of you?

i have you sussed.

you are contemptible with your airs.

telling that old geezer how cool you are.

how much cooler you are than the rest.

please.

I despise you.

wow! I feel so much better now that I've gotten that off of my chest.

hell, my headache has even gone away.

—the bastard

hell is other people...

...again.

you know,

the bastard really didn't sign on this morning to listen to you shout massage instructions to your husband

"lower!"

"lower!"

"lower!"

"good"

"now move yer elbow to the right"

oh, flying. at least you're never boring.

—the bastard

...on descriptions

...special mine's bigger'n yours edition


"wow, this bathroom is less maintained than a truck stop"

"huh huh huh. yeah"

"nah, this bathroom is maintained like a philips 66 somewhere in northern pennsyvania"

"huh huh huh. yeah"

"yeah, and like you gotta go and get the key from some guy to get in"

"huh huh huh. yeah. and it's just a trough"

"yeah"

"huh huh huh. yeah"

ok guys, shut the hell up with your over describing. i'm trying to take a crap here. shut up. we don't need you to peripherally describe the group grope you were involved in while face down in a trough in a philips 66 station in northern pennsylvania. i'm sure it was a real dark period in your career as a journalism major in north bumblefuck university but, shut up. some of us like a little piece and quiet.

that is all.

—the bastard