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Posted Mar 23, 2001 by Dr. Funk
Jake,
About meeting up: good point about the maybe-it's-not-safe business. You sound like you know more than I do in this department. Maybe we could just pick a place and time sometime here in this forum. That's safer than leaving email addresses and phone numbers lying around; and if someone really wants to pick you or I off while we're standing around on a street corner, well, frankly, I'd be a little flattered.
What made you decide on SoHo when you moved here? My decision to move to Astoria was really financially driven. At the time, I was making so little that I really couldn't afford to live even in Brooklyn (this was two years ago, so rent in Astoria was substantially cheaper than it is even now). As it turned out, I really liked the neighborhood, and still miss it now, six months after leaving, but I went into the apartment search knowing almost nothing about it. And the more recent move to the UES-Spanish Harlem DMZ was mostly because my girlfriend needed to be really close to Mount Sinai. She's in her third year now and doig rotations. You should hear some of our dinner conversations. We sometimes have people over, and we'll be discussing surgery and discover that our guests have put down their forks and lost their appetites somewhat.
Another favorite shady neighborhood of mine is Red Hook, in Brooklyn. It has a sort of deserted quality to it. There are a lot of warehouses around, old brick Civil-War-era warehouses that once held munitions. It also still has cobbled streets. Once upon a time, Red Hook was where lots of sailors hung out; it was a port-of-call of sorts, and it still has a bit of that vibe. If I had to put music to Red Hook, I might put "Clap Hands" by Tom Waits, something like that.
Shameless self-promotion: the other reason I like Red Hook is because there is a fantastic bar there called Sunny's (Sonny's?). This place is only open on Fridays and stays open really really late, so I've been told. We--that is, this old-time fiddle music band I'm in--play there most every week from 8-11, and the vibe in there is just terrific. I've never been in a place like it. There are lots of working-class guys from the neighborhood, and then a whole bunch of arty types. And there are dogs. It gets really crowded and really smoky. And you pay a "suggested donation" of...I think 3.50, for each drink, though because we play there, I don't remember the last time I paid for a drink in that place. If you're interested in going, it's on Conover Street between Read and Beard. The B61 bus puts you a block from the place. I'd be the schlemiel with the green fiddle.
-B
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Posted Mar 23, 2001 by Mr. Cogito
Brian,
Don't worry. I'm not paranoid like Howard Hughes or something. I don't think it's unsafe like people are out to get me (although I do know a little TOO much), but it seems like email addresses and other things are immediately purged by the system and replaced with [removed by moderators]. Anyway, I think I have an idea. You remember I used to be harrisj on the system, and I have a domain schizopolis.net I use. I'm just mentioning these things, for no real reason at all. Nope, no reason whatsoever. Move along, there's nothing to see here. And I really know nothing about the Project X or the orbital mind control satellites.
The street corner idea sounds fascinating, but I'm afraid it might not work very well. Reminds me of the Stephen Wright joke: "I missed my blind date. She was going to be drinking sake, I'd have a leather jacket on. Turns out it was one of those Japanese biker bars so we never met." I'd be the person wearing black. So would everybody else. New York's funny like that. I could wear my fedora, but with my luck, Film Noir would be in fashion and it'd be a rainy night.
I'll tell you what made me move to SoHo (really just above SoHo): Love. My girlfriend had an apartment (rent-stabilized) with a roommate. The roommate moved out as I was finishing up school. So I moved in, thinking I would probably find a new place. We live together really well though, so I never got around to the apartment search. Of course, there are downsides. We're on the 6th floor (no elevator), the place is a converted tenement, and this weekend they're ripping out some of the walls to fix a plumbing problem. Plus it gets noisy with B&T people and their cars on the weekend. So I'm thinking of moving to Brooklyn. Not someplace trendy like Williamsburg, but someplace nice. Maybe even Park Slope. We'll see... Manhattan is convenient, but I wonder if it's time for a change.
I actually must admit I don't know a lot about all the neighborhoods of Brooklyn. I've walked around a bit, but I get confused sometimes. Without the familiar N-S (Empire State - WTC) axis, I don't know which way is north. So I've never been to Red Hook, but I've been to some other neighborhoods (Coney Island is fascinating always, but I missed the mermaid parade this year). And I think Prospect Park is much nicer than Central Park anyday...
I could eat dinner with you. I have a friend who's a psychology PhD candidate. She specializes in treating violent sexual offenders in correctional facilities. Her bookshelf has some really scary titles on it, but she's never down. I think she's separated her work from her life, which is probably the best way to stay sane. I have another friend who was studying pathology and forensics. I'm not going to repeat some of the stories she's told me.
Yours,
Jake
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Posted Aug 16, 2001 by the autist formerly known as flinch
Sorry to return to the origonal point but i have lots to friend relatives and aquatances who are all refered to by their nicknames, i myself, at work etc am know as Flip - a conjuction of my name, Phillip, but i used to be known as Rickets or Flinch (hence my nickmane).
But i know Hairy, Cheese, Dangerman, Bushy - i don't even know these guys real names, and i know them really well. The nick names replace the official names, i new a guy called Chris Tuna but we called him Chris Tumour, about ten years later i discovered that he wasn't called Tuna at all, and that had been a nick name in the first place.
As for quotes i know "S**t" Withers and it's now his chosen monkier, once a nick name sticks i think any negative connotation kind of dissapears. I have another friend called Martin Methane, who's now called Martin "Meef" Methane, a kind of double barreled nick name. His brother Merlin had to work really hard at becoming known as Merlin, so desperate was he to have a cool nick name. Like wise my friend Slasher, resorted to paining the name on the back of his jacket so people would start calling him it.
Maybe its a local thing. There's a guy here in GY called Elvis Presley and another called Shakin Stevens, they ended up working on the same bin round for a while and had to be separated because they argued over who was the true king too much.
All the Dockers and Fishermen had nicknames. Perhaps is comes from that.
Women tend not to have nicknames so much, though i do know a woman universally known as Bloody Brilliant, my sister is called Nelly, and my best freind is known as The Doog.
There's a real joy in a well crafted nickname. I used to know a couple Anthony and Liz, who were universally known as Tonehenge and Glastonbetty.
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Posted Aug 16, 2001 by Mr. Cogito
It's okay to return to the original point. Dr. Funk and I seem to ramble off topic on various discussions in both his and my personal spaces. We're not really very good at staying on-topic it seems.
It's fascinating to see how many people you know with nicknames. I have none really, but I suppose it reflects that I'm not hanging with the right rough-and-tumble crowd. Where exactly is GY anyway? (still taking my morning coffee, so bear with me)
I once knew a person called S**t Jim, but it was not any sort of odd compliment, and the negative connotation stayed. Still, I know what you mean. I just think it's cool that you have friends nicknamed after chemical compounds. Just call me Strontium Jake in the future. However, Merlin does not really fly in my book, but I guess it's whatever makes you happy.
Dockers and fishermen, eh? For me, nicknames evoke a time when men wore fedoras and drank highballs. But I suppose that's largely a result of too much exposure to Dick Tracy and Film Noir. Or, if it's horribly misspelled, rap artists. But I suppose that's largely a result of growing up middle class on the East Coast of the United States. Not much exposure to fishermen there.
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Posted Aug 19, 2001 by Dr. Funk
Autist, et al.,
You're right--there's no need to apologize about guiding the discussion in any way. I know people who definitely go by nicknames: Greg Crowther, a guy I knew in college, went by Doogie; Andrew, another guy I knew in college, went by Ferd (short for "Fertilizer"); two guys went by the nickname Moose. In my present life, there's Peter Henderson, who goes by Trip; there's a guy who everyone knows as Sheriff Bob; there's even a guy who people sometimes call The Mayor. A friend of mine who grew up in Durham, North Carolina, says that all his friends had nicknames and still do to this day. His was New Wave Charlie. My favorite nickname among his friends however is a man named Fan Belt. Good story about Fan Belt: he was a drummer in a rock 'n' roll band, and at one point, he blurted out to the audience, "I eat bugs." An audience member challenged him to eat a bug he saw on the stage, which Fan Belt promptly did. After that, the band made an in-between sets show of challenging the audience to find the biggest, hairiest, most nastiest bug they could find in or around the bar for Fan Belt to eat. Of course, Belt ate them all. I met Fan Belt last summer and he seemed normal to me. Nicknames are cool. Someone tried to attach the nickname "Cornhole" to me a few months ago, but alas, it didn't stick.
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Posted Aug 19, 2001 by the autist formerly known as flinch
Strange about your bug story - the guy i meantioned "S**t" Withers, got his name in the mid-eighties after he was being persued by a gang of "Dressers" - trendy guys whose raison de etre was to wear designer logo clothes and persecute anyone who didn't. These guys regularly hospitalised any of the towns misfits (see the pulp song of the same name), and being unable to run from the any longer spotted a piece of s**t on the floor and had an idea, he stopped and picked it up off the floor, the gang came to an abrupt stop a few metres away - unsure as to why he'd stopped and a little wary of this, as which point S**t took the piece of crap and ate it before them. They were so horrified at this lunatic that they went away.
An unusual stategy, which it's hard to believe worked, but it proibly saved him a trip to intensive care.
GY is Great Grimsby in the North East of England, once the worlds largest fishing port, whose port abreviation (on the side of all the home fleet) was, and is, GY.
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Posted Aug 21, 2001 by Mr. Cogito
I personally like the fact there was a Blues harmonica player of some renown called Shakey Jake Harris (the latter part is my name). It gives me some comfort that I could be called Shakey and it would not be an insult.
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Posted Aug 30, 2001 by the autist formerly known as flinch
Nick names are often a way of distiguishing you from all of the other people within a certain community with a similar name, and the blues community was prestigious in it's use of nick names, but it always amused me that there was a pianist known as Black Bob - in what way was that going to differentiate him from all the other early blues pianists???
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