The Topless Bar and the Tapas Bar

Years ago, I lived in the Dunwoodie Heights section of Yonkers,  about two miles from my current neighborhood, which is the Woodlawn-ish neighborhood which straddles the Yonkers/Bronx border.  The Dunwoodie house was best described as a beach house without an ocean- there were four of us who had known each other for many years, helping a friend pay his mortgage by paying him an almost perfuctory rent (basically, enough to cover the mortgage payment).  We would always have visitors over, and twice a year, we'd through huge parties with over 100 guests- that was the only way to do the major housecleaning... you had to clean before company came over, and you'd REALLY have to clean the day after the beer bash.  We'd always tell the neighbors, even invite them, and we never received any complaints.  The neighborhood is a safe one, a blend of working class and middle class, native-born and immigrant.  

We were a block north of a small commercial strip on Yonkers Ave, a couple of takeout joints, a small supermarket (I believe the term 'superette' should suffice), a pastry shop, and a couple of bars.  One of the bars is a low-key, low-rent topless joint, fairly unobtrusive but a bit of an anomaly in a neighborhood like that.  It never really attracted much ire from the neighborhood, and nobody ever seemed inclined to shut it down.  We're a live-and-let-live bunch for the most part.  Oddly enough, though, it seemed like every ten years or so, somebody would get killed in the place.  I've been combing through the news archives trying to document a shooting around 1990, which actually made a national 'true crime' show, but haven't turned up anything yet.  The second shooting took place around around 2000, and two friends of mine met there for a beer the next day, and wondered why the place was abandoned.  Recently, there was a non-fatal stabbing and a brawl in which a firefighter put some guy in a coma.  As I said, the neighborhood is a generally safe one, but I would joke that, if you wanted to get murdered in Dunwoodie, the topless bar was the place to go.  Even with the periodic mayhem, there really haven't been any calls to shut the place down.

There's a new contender for Dunwoodie murder spot... taking the mantle from the topless bar is the tapas bar.  In the wee hours of Sunday morning, there was an altercation in which an individual shot two employees, one of whom died.  I have to say that I might have been to the place once, soon after it opened, but I recall a time when it was owned by a wannabe wiseguy who spent his parents' money on coke and a vanity project as an aspiring bar owner.  Yeah, not a great place, especially when you hear a stray rumor of the owner keeping a gun in his office, probably next to the cocaine supply.  Oddly enough, even though the tapas bar has a lower body count than the topless bar, there are calls to shut the place down.  It's on the ass-end of the commercial stretch, across from an apartment building, so it's more obtrusive than the topless joint, which really doesn't seem to raise anyone's ire.

Now I have to change my routine- there's more than one spot to be murdered in Dunwoodie.

Betrayed by a Valuable Servant

Smartphones... can you live without yours?  Every once in a while, I leave mine at home while running errands, just to show myself that I am not totally addicted, and to have a couple of hours when my location is unknown to a bunch of telecommunications conglomerates.  Those occasions are rare, and of short duration though.

Yeah, smartphones are valuable servants, so when one is betrayed by such a servant, it is heartbreaking.  So it was with French judoka Priscilla Gneto, 2012 Olympic medalist and 2017 European champion in the 57Kg weight division.  During a match with Japan's Momo Tamaoki during this weekend's French Judo Grand Slam, her smartphone fell out of her judogi onto the mat, and she was disqualified.  The worst thing about this occurrence is that she had the upper hand when it happened:

 

Quel dommage!  Thankfully, she was able to garner the bronze in the competition by winning her next fight.  It's unfortunate that her little electronic servant betrayed her during this important fight, but such are the fortunes of combat.

Good Advice Guy

This morning, I clocked out at 7AM. I was lollygagging because it was frigid out and sunrise was at 7:01. I was in no hurry to walk the skating rink that is our parking lot- let the sun beat down a while and maybe reduce the ice factor a bit.

As I’m preparing to head out, I see two guys walking toward the front doors and think to myself, “What the cinnamon toast fuck are these guys doing here on a morning like this?”

As they get closer, I recognize one of them, he works for our custodial contractor. He’s a young Dominican man from the Bronx, a good, hard-working kid.

The last time I saw him was on a rare Thursday when I started at 5PM. He told me that he had quit his other job, where he had few hours, with no consistency, and where he felt disrespected. He had found a full-time job, Monday to Friday, and he was planning on quitting the second part-time job because he wouldn’t be able to arrive at 5PM on Tuesday.

I told him that there wasn’t a magic day or hour for him to clean our place, and suggested that he talk to the boss about coming in on Saturday or Sunday, if he wanted to pick up extra work. He has the keys and the alarm codes he needs.

Sure enough, he spoke to the boss, a decent guy, and he remained working Saturdays. He and his wife have a baby and the extra money is useful.  I was happy to hear that he is happy with his full-time job and feels respected and valued there.

I’m glad I had the talk with him, he’s young and I don’t think it even occurred to him that he could negotiate with a boss, and make his own hours. Needless to say, I was happy to see him, and ecstatic that my advice to him was sound.

Straight Out of Dark Dungeons

Via Tengrain, we have news of a book burning in Tennessee, in which a MAGA-loving pastor burned books to be deemed 'demonic':

This happened about a mile from my house tonight. Book burning. Harry Potter. Twilight. Anything else deemed demonic. Some say to ignore the madman who leads this congregation. But how can one be silent? What/who gets burned next? @TheTNHoller pic.twitter.com/A0yXPAVDuw

— Sarah Moore (@shmoore75) February 3, 2022

As a nerd, and someone who enjoys gaming and fantasy literature, this immediately reminded me of the Satanic Panic which gripped much of the country in the 1980s and never quite went away. Back in 1985, Uncle Gary spoke about this nonsense in a 60 Minutes interview: 

 

One of rhe artifacts of the Satanic Panic is a Chick Tract, Dark Dungeons, which is simultaneously beloved of and reviled by gaming nerds. Whom among us wasn't reduced to paroxysms of laughter as we followed Debbie on her quest for the real power?

Oddly enough, none of us learned how to really cast spells, but we did learn a shitload about probability and statistics, and picked up High Gygaxian vocabulary words such as milieu, weal, and hoddypeak.  Personally, I would love to see a study about the effects of playing D&D on SAT scores.

Of course, the real solution to the occult dilemma which ensnared Debbie was an old-fashioned book-burning, like that we just saw in Tennessee:

Why mess with a winning formula?  The burning of objects they deem demonic scratches an itch among these people, and will do so until the dark time when they get to burn people they deem demonic.

Fear of a Black Narrative

Typically, I post an acknowledgement of Black History Month at the end of February, but this year, circumstances dictate that I write about this topic now, as Alabama school officials receive complaints about Black History Month:

People in Alabama are calling the superintendent of schools and complaining that Black History Month is Critical Race Theory pic.twitter.com/46q7RGP324

— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) February 3, 2022

The mere fact that a Black History Month is necessary is monstrous... Black History is American History, the nation was built using unremunerated labor performed by enslaved persons of African descent.  From the 1600s to the 1900s, unpaid Black workers toiled to build the infrastructure of the continent, and to line the pockets of wealthy White men, quite a few of whom professed lofty ideals about individual liberties.  Slavery was ubiquitous in the colonies and the states, and while the economics of slavery in the North were different than the economics of Southern slavery, fortunes were made throughout North America using unpaid Black workers.

Even after the abolition of slavery, Black labor was exploited through sharecropping, debt peonage, and other exploitative economic chicanery.  When Black communities became successful, they were often obliterated... such towns as Wilmington, NC, the Greenwood district of Tulsa, OK, and yes, Seneca Village on the island of Manhattan were destroyed by hostile whites.  Any lack of generational wealth is the Black community has been caused by White pathologies, not Black pathologies.

I would also posit that Black Americans are more authentically 'American' than White Americans- they had to create a culture on American soil because their original cultural identity was destroyed, and numerous African ethnic groups had to piece together a syncretic Black culture in a New World.  Black American Culture has a particular genius- producing Jazz, Blues, R&B, Rock-and/or-Roll, and Hip-Hop.  Predictably, White people also appropriated these cultural achievements.

Throughout American history, the dominant White culture has sought to erase or denigrate the achievements of Black Americans.  Successful Black individuals were often targeted by violent mobs, as were successful Black neighborhoods.  Black cultural forms were ridiculed by White pundits, then appropriated by White performers.   Black History Month, the shortest month of the year, was formed as a corrective to this erasure and devaluation... it's really not enough, Black History is American history and should be integrated into the national narrative.  There's nothing that mediocre White people fear more than an acknowledgment of Black excellence.

Post title is a riff on the classic Public Enemy album title.

Nutty News from North

Today was a weird day, spend doing a bit of housecleaning and spending entirely too much time following coverage of the right-wing occupation of Ottawa, ostensibly by a convoy of truckers who oppose vaccine mandates  The latest development in this kerfuffle is the pausing by GoFundMe of a fundraiser which raised almost ten million dollars.

There are a couple of Twitter feeds by women who are monitoring the radio-app communications of convoy members and supporters- Noelle covering an English feed, and Jennie covering a French feed.  The feeds are a farrago of idiocy, and confessions of ill-preparedness (convoy members need blankets, shovels, and fuel- which must be transported to idling trucks in Jerry cans).  There are also expressions of fear about donations of sugar-tainted fuel (I can't tell whether or not advice to taste it are serious or not) and laxative-tainted food.  Trolls are interrupting the feed with homoerotic songs such as Ram Ranch and Welcome to the Cum Zone... I can't really endorse listening to either of these.  One troll hilariously asked for an emergency fuel delivery to Frumunda St.

Despite the comedy value of a bunch of idiots staging a moving protest during a Canadian winter, there are worrisome aspects of the occupation- a lot of the occupiers are creeps, residents of a downtown women's shelter have been traumatized, and reports of assaults and threats have necessitate the creation of a hate crimes hotline.

Thankfully, a snowstorm is bearing down on the region, which has prompted accusations of weather manipulation by the Trudeau government because, don't ya know, snow in February in Ontario is suspicious.

Damnit, Dorsey Did It!

He finally forced my hand because using the site became impossible... yeah, I signed up for Twitter.

Finally joined this site because it became impossible to use without signing up. More bastardy to follow...

— Big Bad Bald Bastard (@Big_Bad_Bald) February 2, 2022

I held out for as long as I could, but it became impossible to even scroll down a thread without a 'sign in or sign up' prompt. I like to follow a bunch of researchers and a bunch of journalists, and the site lost all functionality for non-members. I was a bit chafed when I signed up, because I was forced to follow an account from a short list of mainly celebrities, so I chose a NYC tourism related site. My first follow of choice is Tengrain, who has always been supportive of me and my endeavors.

If you have a Twitter account and wish me to follow, drop me a line in the comments.  I imagine the first week or so on this site will be mainly involved with accruing a followers/followed list... then the snarking can begin.

Postscript: I know Jack Dorsey stepped down as CEO of Twitter, but I am exercising poetic license in order to achieve alliteration.