RE: New York is Back Motherbitches

Allan, others, if you'd like to see more of the New York of Olde, here is a handy map to follow from the location of your dead pigeon, it's 1.5 miles, 31 minutes walking into the epicenter of the Red Hook Housing Projects (according to our friends at Google) and you won't be disappointed. The last time I was down here it looked like parts of Baghdad.


View Larger Map

New York is BACK, Motherbitches.

Brooklyn, Pacific St. between Boerum Pl. and Court St.
Saturday, August 23, 17:52

I was upset to come home empty handed after spending a little while sneaker hunting. There was once a time when it was pointless to resist dropping an unacceptable amount of money on NY-exclusive kicks. Those are days have long gone by. Maybe I'm just getting older or don't care for shopping. Maybe there's nothing out there anymore. Maybe the city and all its unique goods have been diluted and more readily available to the masses because of e-commerce, globalization, whatever. Either way, this little guy cheered me up.

There he was, bigger than a dinner plate, looking like he just picked his spot. He had "New York" written all over him.

Police Brutality

I saw a crazy act of police brutality on Friday afternoon around 2:30 PM in front of my studio in Brooklyn. I was on the phone with Seb Demian discussing the new composed score he is making for WEAPONS and as I was talking and looking out the window (2nd floor) a blue minivan pulled to a stop in the middle of the street right in front of my building and a guy, white or perhaps light skinned Hispanic dressed in normal street clothing, jumped out of the van with a Glock 9mm pistol on his hip (in a holster) and pulled the gun out and pointed it at a tall, thin Muslim, very light skinned, almost looked Hasidic, wearing the traditional robe and Kufi with a super long beard. At first it looked like the cop was going to shoot the man and they exchanged words back and forth and the Muslim put his hands in front of his face like he was scared but didn't run. Then the cop suddenly attacked him, threw him against a parked car and proceeded to beat him and rough him up a little bit, talking shit in his ear and putting his hands behind his back as if he was going to arrest him. This went on for about 20 seconds, meanwhile I'm watching and telling Seb the blow-by-blow account over the phone and he can't believe what he's hearing. Finally the cop shoved the guy and ran back to his minivan, jumped in and drove off. The Muslim guy ran down the block in the opposite direction, looking very scared and confused. He didn't seem to be bleeding or too badly hurt so I guess he's okay. This happened in broad daylight and there were at least a half dozen witnesses. I didn't see what happened in the moments before the cop jumped out of his minivan and can only imagine there was some sort of altercation.