About a month ago, I left my old digs in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn for Ditmas Park. I’ve been busy packing, unpacking and being poor from all the expenses associated with moving (asshole old landlord, movers, furniture, etc.) It’s all been a bit of a stressor.

But, the upside is that I now have a doorman, an elevator, more space and laundry within my building (a rare score in NYC for some people). The neighborhood is quiet, beautiful and has tons of cops (I see at least two every time I go outside, if not more). Bang for buck, the real winner for me is the laundry. I despise shlepping to laundromats. The fact that I can hit pause on the TiVo, hop an elevator with a bag of clothes and be back in five minutes nearly moves my grumpy, NY ass to tears of joy and salvation.

Every day, when I come home, passing the the doorman, Herman a.k.a. “Cheese” (Herman = Herman Munster = Muenster = Cheese. It’s how I remember people’s names), the lyrics to The Jeffersons runs through my mind:

Well we’re movin on up,
To the east side.
To a deluxe apartment in the sky.
Movin on up,
To the east side.
We finally got a piece of the pie.

Fish don’t fry in the kitchen;
Beans don’t burn on the grill.
Took a whole lotta tryin’,
Just to get up that hill.
Now we’re up in the big leagues,
Gettin’ our turn at bat.
As long as we live, it’s you and me baby,
There ain’t nothin wrong with that.

Well we’re movin on up,
To the east side.
To a deluxe apartment in the sky.
Movin on up,
To the east side.
We finally got a piece of the pie.

Granted, I’m white, have never fried fish, nor cooked beans on a grill and I’m in Brooklyn, not the Upper East Side. But, I am loud, grumpy and I walk funny.

This morning, I rushed onto the 2/3 train, heading into work, managing to catch a seat. As I settled, I spotted my upstairs neighbor a bit farther down the car from where I was sitting. I was about to wave when a man sitting next to where she was standing leaned over a let loose a massive wave of multi-colored puke onto the floor, liberally splattering her legs and feet.

Not even pausing for a moment of shock, she runs from the train, barely making it past the closing doors; I assume to go home and clean up. People quickly start moving to my end of the car. Meanwhile, Mr. Yakkity continues to hurl forth streams of joy and partial digestion.

For three whole stops, the man kept barfing. He must have had a second stomach or something, because it was fucking impressive. Someone gave him a bottle off water and some napkins and eventually, the torrent of chunks tapered off and stopped.

After wiping off his backpack, the guys stays on the train (thanks for that, buddy) and just slides down the bench, away from the scene of the crime and acts like nothing happened.

Gross, yet slightly exciting. I wish more morning commutes were like this.

I was a little surprised yesterday to fire up my trusty Google Reader and see that some dude who lived 2 blocks over from me was stabbed in the side of the head with a corkscrew and killed. When I say surprised, I don’t mean the fact that someone was murdered in my neighborhood. People get killed or at least shot and stabbed on a fairly consistent basis in my neighborhood. Mostly, it’s gang-on-gang bullshit and/or drugs. Rather, I was surprised at the fact the crime made the news. Since violent crime in my area is 90% black-on-black violence and usually not involving children, the news never covers it. You can be sure this sudden attention was entirely due to the novelty factor of the corkscrew.

I’ve no shame in admitting that I burst out laughing at the mental picture of it all. Working for a wine magazine all I could think of was…

“THIS…*screw*…WINE…*screw*…IS…*screw*…FUCKING…PISS!!!!”

This weekend, as I was standing on the platform of my local Brooklyn subway station, heading into Manhattan for pizza, I noticed this homeboy coming down the stairs on the the opposite platform across from me. His winter hat was pulled low, covering his right eye completely with the obligatory puffy coat and too low pants represented. Noticing his shuffling gait, I got the idea that this guy was some strain of seriously fucked up; stoned, drunk…something.

I guess I my attention had shifted for a moment, but when I looked back, the guy was suddenly on his ass in the middle of the train tracks. On an almost completely deserted platform, he’d managed to somehow lose his balance and take an ass-dive off the edge.

Struggling to get up at a pace conveying that he didn’t catch the gravity of where gravity had landed him, the few people that were around yelled at him to get the fuck up and off the tracks because a train was coming (although it was a decent distance away, well enough to stop if warned sufficiently) and a woman ran up the stairs to alert the station agent. Finally standing, the guy shuffled around a bit like a zombie, before deciding that the best idea was to go to the middle space between the Brooklyn and Manhattan-bound tracks. So, he steps up onto the third rail covering, which, as unreliable and fucked up as he was, is a supremely retarded choice of foot placement, regardless of the the barrier shield above the electrified rail. More yelling at him ensues and eventually he shuffles back to the edge of the platform and a woman and a young man haul him up to safety, where he promptly drops his ass onto a bench and zones.

Pretty much everyone had their hearts in their throats the whole time, except me. Not only did I not feel sympathy, I was kind of rooting for the train to paste him. If the fuck is stupid enough to get that trashed and try and take a train, he’s basically earned his spot as professional rail-grease. The world doesn’t need his genetic pollution. I only wish I’d remembered to take a shot with my phone’s camera.

I’ve just returned from work and a quick trip to the supermarket for arugula and beers (awesome combo, you don’t have to tell me). As I was walking home from the store in my neighborhood (Prospect Heights, Brooklyn), I noticed by a woman walking her poodle down the street in the opposite direction from me.

As I came closer, I saw some small, stick-like thing hanging out of the dog’s mouth. From a distance, my first thought was, “That’s a cigarette!”, but I have shit vision, even with contacts. But, sure enough, as the dog came closer I distinctly saw an unlit cigarette poking out of it’s mouth. The death-stick was whole, slightly damp in some parts, but complete and smokable.

The owner, who was walking slightly ahead of the poodle, seemed wholly oblivious as I can only assume she wouldn’t condone her pet’s addictive habit. My guess is the dog picked it up off the street, managing by coincidence to get it oriented correctly, filter-first and at the perfect smoking angle. The poodle really looked like he was just trying to get a light for it’s smoke. I would have obliged, had I been packing matches.

I’ve been in Vermont for the past four days, vacationing. This entails a lot of efforts made at keeping my friend’s backyard from up and floating into space and shit like that. I accomplish this feat by sitting in a lawn chair, high off my gizzard, appreciating the birds and the green shit that sprouts out of the ground. There’s no bass-thumping cars, fire trucks, buses or crazy loud drunk people. Brooklyn is never able to be this quiet.

I’m drinking Pabst out of a can and my friend’s hound is howling at the neighbor’s car. I’m sitting in a white plastic chair with my laptop and the mosquitoes have not yet found me. There’s a couch made out of grass to my right. I’d sit in it, but there’s these funky white spiders that I’d rather not have crawling on me.

Tomorrow morning, I have to fly back to New York City.

Photos that I’ve taken so far can be seen here.

In the past two years, I’ve gone from having a freak religious cult for neighbors to having a chicken waving, chanting, hooting and hollering idiot living next to me. Is it a case of “like attracts like”? Who knows? It just seems that my luck with neighbors in Brooklyn kind of blows hairy donkey balls.

I live on the third floor of my building and outside my bedroom window is a kind of a pit-like opening, made up of several of the surrounding buildings meeting up. It’s one long shaft straight down and all there is to see are the windows of other apartments in the surrounding buildings. The whole space is only about 12×12 feet and this shaft manages to act as a natural amplifier, bringing all kinds of interesting noises into my bedroom and blissful beauty rest at any odd hour of the day or night.

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George is my cat. He’s about a year old (which would put him at about fifteen in cat years, so in reality he’s at the whiny, pimply-faced teenager chapter of his life) and has lived with me for about six months now, having come from an animal shelter in East New York aka ghetto central. He very much prefers his new home here in Prospect Heights and is a very good cat—very affectionate, playful, entertaining and stupid looking at all the right moments and overall I am very glad to have him. However, over the course of our time living together, I have developed a few concerns about the little bugger:

1. He’s become a fat-assed little fucker.
2. He acts like he’s the Liberace of felines.

I recall his first day home, poking his head out off the cardboard box, all groggy from getting his nuts chopped off. He was small and skinny. Today, he’s still pint-sized, but his ass takes up several parking spaces. I can actually grab on to folds of lard that hang off his gut. When he parks himself on the floor his butt just seems to flop out, all blubbery and shit. I’ve tried putting him on a diet, but his ass seems to want to expand like Walmart. A big, gay Walmart.

Why do I think my cat is gay? Is it the way he prances about like Carson from Queer Eye? Is it the way he wears his fur like like Dolce couture? Is it his curious interest in shows like Project Runway? I’m not sure what ties it all together and leads me to this assumption, but I am certain George is a definite shade of lavender, a friend of Dorothy always ready to go Brokeback on a bowl of wet food or a pile of catnip. He’s a fat, gay, eunuch, but he’s mine.

To see George is all his fat, gay glory, you can view my rather huge (and growing) gallery on Flickr. Scratch that fat, gay feline itch.

A few days ago, after spending a wretched day renewing my ID at the hell that is the Brooklyn DMV, I picked up a copy of “Shadow of the Colossus” for the PS2 to brighten my day. I had no idea what it was about, but chose it because somewhere at some point I’d glanced at a review that raved about it. This is basically how I buy all games as I’ve a decided lack of patience to read gamer sites and magazines. I usually will subscribe to an RSS feed and scan the photos and titles. Games that get a bunch of posts, stick in my memory and usually end up getting purchased in moments of consumer weakness, which is often.

The format of your run-of-the-mill action game is: fight, fight, fight…boss scene. Fight the boss and then it’s back to fight, fight, fight til the next boss scene and the game eventually ends. Nothing wrong with it, I suppose but the boss fights have historically always been my least favorite parts. Give me a room with twenty little baddies that I have to kill á la God of War and I am one happy fucking camper. Games that are boss-heavy usually begin to collect dust shortly after purchase.

SotC is all bosses. There’s nothing else to the game, unless you count running from point A to B. There’s not baddies in between to slay. You go from one boss monster to another and while normally this would have me hating this game, I find myself hooked. SotC doesn’t have just any old bosses. These bastards are HUGE, gorgeously rendered behemoths that combine action, puzzle-solving and strategy to beat. The graphics, scenery and feel are hot shit. Strange, mysterious and moody. There’s little or no dialog in the game so the huge dream-like world sprawled out before you, unoccupied but for the mountainous beasts reminiscent of something out of HP Lovecraft is simply there to wonder about.

The hero of the game is this dinky little fucker, armed with only a sword and bow and a horse to ride. Pitted against giants literally fifty times larger, the little dude has to expose and attack the monster’s weak points. This is accomplished by figuring out how and managing to climb the boss, get to his weak spots and stab the fuck out of them before you lose your grip and fall. Tense shit.

There’s something to be said about a game revolving around my least enjoyed facet of the action genre that manages to completely entertain me. SotC is a great game on so many levels, from the concept to the anime-like look. It’s a short game, there being only sixteen bosses to battle, which sucks since this is a game that keeps you wanting to see more. More bosses, more areas, more everything.

I’m not really sure what’s brought this drastic change in my musical listening habits, but over the past six months, I’ve become obsesssed with metal. Not that sissy-ass shit like Metallica, Iron Maiden or Megadeth—I’m talking Death Metal and best of all, Black Metal. From the corpsepaint and mutilated animal parts to the cookie monster vocals, it’s the shit. I’m all about it. It’s my new thing. Hail Satan. Where’s my Axe of Doom?

Bands like Gorgoroth, Cannnibal Corpse, Morbid Angel, Kataklysm and Darkthrone have taken over my playlists and my mp3 player. I feel compelled to wear tight leather pants, glue carpenter’s nails to my clothing, have sex with severed goat heads and carry around disproportionately huge battle axes. I find myself getting odd stares as I hit up the local ghetto Brooklyn bodega for a forty wearing corpsepaint and looking like Kiss on a negative death trip.

I kid…I kid. Although it’d be kind of cool to be the only white dude in a Brooklyn ghetto keeping it real, Satan-style. I wonder if I’d get an award?

If you need a good laugh, there’s an awesome Black Metal gallery at photographer Peter Beste’s website.