Little House on the East River

While SL continued on with hand nailing 1" red oak planks for new floors in the hallway and dining room, I pickled garlic scapes, mushrooms, radishes and beets today.

It gets gayer and gayer over here.

Scotty Hard Supper Club

I love this brilliant fundraising idea from Scott's old friend Chris Mooney. Friends can host private dinners in their own homes cooked by known chefs, with the cost paid for the meal all going to The Scotty Hard Trust. Scott is one of the bigger food queers I know, so this tie-in makes complete and poetic sense. I am working on putting on one together here in my backyard. Stay tuned for details....

Brooklyn Courier Outlines Studio B's Violations

Article here.

Upshot: More citations. Studio B skipped the community board meeting because their lawyer didn't show. The hearing is postponed until July 8th. Club still in full operation, including the roof deck on Friday, June 13th, in complete violation of all the missing permits. The 94th precinct tells me they can do nothing since it's a DOB issue. And the DOB has passed it off to the Department of Consumer Affairs. Apparently not having a cabaret license is worse than not having any fire safety plan or being over occupancy. Uh, ok.

It's going to be a long slog, but myself and rest of the neighbors are not going away.

Summer Scenes

Driving down 56th in Sunset Park in my newly a/c-less car, and instead of avoiding two open fire hydrants spouting 8-foot fountains into the street, going right through both of them slowly with the windows down.

Heat.

Love the heat, love the summer, but four days of this intensity is a lot if wrapped deep into the city. SL and I spent our first day of the season at Riis Park Beach yesterday, where it was about 15 degrees cooler than in Greenpoint. Gorgeous, windy, and water so cold I couldn't feel my legs 10 seconds after wading in. No matter. In we went. Broke down last night and put in the central air at home, after spending 2 hours cooling on the stoop with my neighbors Betty and Cookie, gossiping about the neighborhood. They have lived at 110 for 47 (!!) years, raising both their families in our building, after growing up in the 'Point. Telling me stories about seeing movies in the theater that used to be where the Rainbow is now. I can't imagine this life: living within a 10 block radius since the day I was born. A throwback to the old ways of never moving, these two ladies are a wealth of local information, and hilarious to boot.

Today I'm ensconced in the a/c at a friend's, babysitting her three-month old son while she runs into the city for some errands. My summer is looking quiet, with trips to London and Thailand on the horizon in July for Visionaire projects. Not a lot of work, but just enough to live on. We're putting in some gifted-to-us solid oak flooring in this week, and cooking from the farmer's market most nights on the new gas grill, but I don't have much else. Here is where I am. For once.

Missing the Triple

Another year, another failed Triple Crown. Find myself wondering if the lack of his regular steroid shot on the 15th caused Big Brown's utter failure, or if Dutrow put 100gs on Da Tara at 34-1 and called it a day. I'm waiting for the announcement that something is wrong with the horse, and that he'll be retired without racing again. Horses just don't tank that bad without SOME reason.

Either way, easily the most anticlimactic missed Triple of the four I've seen in the past seven years. Still: great day, great undercard to lose your shirt on, and great company (SL, GregBennetts, Julia, Tania and Ramona in this year's version), barring the fact that half the bathrooms were inoperable on Belmont's biggest day of the year. And that I had to say goodbye to Haas and Brooks right before heading to the race,

Words of the Day

Two new words I like:
SPLINE: the thin rubber stuff that roll into a small gap to keep screens in their frames.
EGRESS: a way out; exit.

Won't You be my Neighbor?

Somehow I've become the 'point person' in the ongoing quest to have Studio B's roof deck shut down. A reporter from the Brooklyn Courier called me today to talk about their permit problems after I went to Community Board 1's monthly meeting on public safety last Thursday. Weird how these things spiral.

For those who have inquired recently (at least, the ones who have asked without making a snide comment in the process) is that the second floor of the place a.k.a. "the roof deck" has not one single permit to be open legally: no fire safety plan, no amended Certificate of Occupancy, no amended Public Assembly (PA) permit, no cabaret license. The roof hasn't been open much recently, but if that is due to crap weather or no permits, I really don't know. The few nights they have been open caused a ridiculous amount of noise to float into the houses on the residential sides of our block.

They recently made motion towards applying for a cabaret license, although their current PA indicates they have a cabaret license. However the Department of Consumer Affairs are the ones responsible for the cabaret permit, not the DOB, who issue the PA. This means they have been operating for over TWO YEARS without a cabaret license, when they constantly promote dance parties, DJs, etc. Why the owners would suddenly care about having one permit specifically, when they have no others for the space, is a mystery.

There will be a public hearing on their application on June 11th at 6:15 at the Swinging 60s Seniors Center (my new best friends, no doubt) at 211 Ainslie St., a recommendation from the board will be made, and then the final vote will be in early July.

I also had the pleasure last week of helping my neighbor Chuck write captions for the Greenpoint Gazette, who were going to run his photos from the Greenpoint Memorial Day Parade. Weigh laid on my way to the store, I sat in his front yard for 20 minutes and pounded out some brilliant stuff like "Greenpointers show their American pride as members of the Armed Forces march down the Avenue on Sunday, May 23rd" Easily my most stirring work.

Anniversary?

For those of you keeping track at home (or, like Retotted, actually present), it's been a year since SL became more than just some guy I-sort-of-had- known-forever- that-hung-out-at -dog-bar.

As I say as a regular one-liner when people ask how we met: "I thought he was a dirty drunk freak, and he thought I was too fancy for him. Turns out we were both right." Who knew then it would turn out to be such a great and lasting fit for both of us?? It's been a blessed year. (Hi Baby!!!)

TWIB

•Jay Bruce was brought up on Tuesday from the Reds Triple-A team in Louisville, and is tearing it up. Bruce is now batting .591 (13-for-22) in six games, with six RBIs, two HRs and two steals. The rookie center fielder hit his first career home run on Saturday night, a walk-off solo shot in the 10th inning to give the Reds an 8-7 win. The hype on this guy is proving to be true, and his tear seems to have energized the Reds as well, who swept Atlanta at home over the weekend.

•Great day at Shea on Saturday afternoon for Brooks' last MLB game in NYC before he heads back to the West Coast and their Triple-A Padres club. SL, Brooks, Rubes, Greg, Eric and I saw the Mets rally in the eighth to beat the Dodgers 3-2. Believe it or not, the Mets are finally starting to look like a decent team.

•In WBSL news, A/T goes down in a tough loss to Black Betty, after putting 8 runs on the board in the top of the ninth to lead by two. Costly errors handed the Betty about 7 runs of their runs. grrrr.