todo tipo de musica since 2007
Posted in Africa Talks, Bronx, Crime, Drugs, Flicks, Latino, Music, Religion, Sex, labor, politics on Jul 5th, 2010
“There is nothing that ever happens to a woman or a man that he or she doesn’t cause to happen, whether it’s on a mystical level or whether it’s on a spiritual level or whether it’s on a human level.”
“What is good, bad, right and wrong? There are only 1 through 9 numbers. There are [...]
Posted in Bay Ridge, Bed-Stuy, Carroll Gardens, Coney Island, Crime, Downtown, Flicks, Irish, Jazz, Latino, Literature, Manhattan, Midwood, Music, Ocean Hill, Park Slope, Poetry, Queens, Red Hook, Religion, Rockaways, Sex, Transportation, West Indian, Williamsburg, hip-hop, labor, politics on Jun 29th, 2010
Ignorant of the ways of publicity and chance alike, I’m unsure how these things happen but HiLoBrow.com has just been named by Time magazine’s Best Blogs of the Year . I could make up some things but not that! We’ve been meaning to catch up with WWIB’s recently elusive publisher, Brian Berger, who doesn’t answer the phone, [...]
Posted in Crime, East New York, Literature, Manhattan, Park Slope, Queens, Transportation, labor on Jun 25th, 2010
There was once a very sad and impressionable man who lived in a shabby apartment in a desolate section of Queens. Grady was his name, and it had been quite a long time since anything had gone right for him. Eight months earlier, he’d been fired from his job at the pencil factory. It wasn’t [...]
Posted in Africa Talks, Literature, Manhattan, Navy Yard, Red Hook, Religion, South Brooklyn, Southern Thing, Transportation, Vinegar Hill, labor, politics on May 29th, 2010
Douglass’ advocacy of slave revolt was a view shared much more widely among black than among white abolitionists. In 1856, Lewis Tappan became alarmed at Douglass’ “vengeance is mine” attitude toward slaveholders. “In your speeches and in your paper,” Tappan complained, “you advocate the slaughter of slaveholders. I cannot go with you.” He accused [...]
Posted in Downtown, Irish, Manhattan, Poetry, Queens, Transportation, labor on Apr 21st, 2010
He was of all things a typical New Yorker, an Irishman who’d been driving a truck for the Post Office most of his worklife and was now headed for a girl in Denver and a new life. I think he was running away from something in NY, the law most likely. He was a real [...]
Posted in All-City, Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill, Crime, Downtown, Gowanus, Industrial, Literature, Manhattan, Poetry, Red Hook, Sex, Subways, Transportation, labor on Apr 9th, 2010
Yugoslav Steward knocks on my door, says “You stay on the ship? Okay?” and goes off into Brooklyn to get drunk with the crew— Alyce and I are waking up, at one A.M., arm in arm in a dreadsome ship, agh— Only one watchman alone on the walk— Everybody drinking in bars of New York.
“Alyce” [...]
Posted in All-City, Downtown, Jazz, Latino, Literature, Music, Poetry, Religion, Sex, Transportation, labor, politics on Mar 31st, 2010
“Gad, Easter, where was I?”— “The soft son, the flowers and here I was going down the street and thinking ‘Why did I allow myself to be bored ever in the past and to compensate for it got high or drunk or rages or all the tricks people have because they want anything but serene [...]
Posted in All-City, Bay Ridge, Coffee, Coney Island, Crime, Flicks, Irish, Jazz, Literature, Manhattan, Music, Poetry, Religion, Sex, Sunset Park, Transportation, labor, politics on Mar 7th, 2010
“My brother’s in the Coast Guard,” Lee told him. “That’s why we’re here. He’s stationed in Ellis Island. Port security it’s called.”
“My brother’s in Korea now.”
“My other brother’s in the Marines. They might send him to Korea. That’s what I’m worried about.”
“It’s not the Koreans you have to worry about,” Nicky Black said. “It’s the [...]
Posted in All-City, Bed-Stuy, Canarsie, Clinton Hill, Crime, Crown Heights, Flatbush, Flatlands, Irish, Jazz, Literature, Manhattan, Music, New Lots, Our Italian Friends, Sex, Subways, Weeksville, West Indian, graffiti, hip-hop, labor, politics on Feb 2nd, 2010
Three things about Empire Boulevard (there are more)*: First, what’s beef? In 1989, graffiti writer JA wilding on SONI’s house as recounted in Jim Dwyer’s excellent book Subway Lives (1991): JA JA JA JA JA JA JA JA JA JA JA JA JA JA JA. And so on. This really happened and it didn’t end [...]
Posted in Africa Talks, All-City, Bed-Stuy, Crown Heights, Flatbush, Jazz, Literature, Manhattan, Music, Southern Thing, Transportation, labor, politics on Jan 11th, 2010
Have you ever been to Hawaii? I mean Hawaii— or Hawai’i— “the big island,” as they say, because Hilo is there, although Magnum lived on Oahu, and the University of Hawaii Press is there too, in Honolulu. I’m not sure where Hawaiian punk/noise band the Fuckin’ Flyin’ A Heads came from; neither of the two [...]
New York Calling
"By turns tender and irate
whimsical and reflective, it's
a great guide to Gotham's recent history."
-- Mike Wallace, co-author
of the Pulitzer Prize winning Gotham: A History of New York
City to 1898