If you’re in November 5, 2004
NYC this evening, check out Joe Jack Talcum from the dead milkmen at Petes candy store in brooklyn. Tonight 11pm. yeah.
Mets season comes to a close October 4, 2004
Yes, I was living in Philadelphia last year, and yes, I got a bit back into baseball by watching the Phillies play. And yes, after my move back to New York, I was looking forward to once again, returning to Shea to rout for the Mets. And No, I’ve never been an enormous baseball fan, fortunately for me, skateboarding dominated my formative years.
However, being raised by rabid Met fans, I was lucky enough to attend every opening day at Shea till my late teens, and be in attendance for the Pennant clincher in 86 when my dad, my brother and I, and 30,000 other fans stormed the field in celebration; returning with a patch of outfield to plant in the backyard.
The largest bar in Bushwick September 8, 2003
Last night we constructed our lofts’ crowning jewel - The Big Bushwick Bar…
Misspelled on purpose, in a pile of sawdust.
44 pine 2×3’s, 1 circular saw, 2 drills, 3 pounds of 3″ drywall screws, 2 chairs in lieu of saw horses, 1 measuring tape, 2 8×3 3/4″ Birch plywood, 1 case Natty Ice, 12 pack Yeungling Lager, 5 hours of free time.
You may recognize this afro from our Amateur construction in Brooklyn photos.
The first stages of putting the bar together, we had some rough plans on paper but a lot of it ended up on the fly, naturally.
All of our measurements worked out right on, everything being flush & level was most important. Notice the screen printing tables in the background that we built earlier… good practice for our most important piece.
Standard job site attire - flip flops.
The entire bar is 16 feet long, so we built it in two seperate, 8 foot sections…
Building frames for the bar tops, we’ve now discussed starting a small construction company on the side, broadening our skill set by each passing hour.
These pita pizzas will be the first item on Chef Afros’ Big Bushwick Bar Short Order Menu©.
Bdubs tests the stability of the attached bar top framing.
Nearing completion, the shelving is added.
In addition to the first Big Bushwick Bar - beer spill & bar fight, the first bar surf also went down.
View from the bartenders’ side - note the open space for the kegerator’s, our next project.
The final product is absolutely enormous, the title “Big Bushwick Bar” becomes a top contender.
Steps left for completion: the staining (red oak), polyurethaning & attachment of bar tops & fronts & side paneling. Mix with 3 parts anonymous female. Drink, Enjoy.
Amateur construction in Brooklyn August 13, 2003 1 comment
Our basic 4 bedroom layout; quickly updated to include a window in each room.
After a late night run to the local depot, we secured our goods, preparing for the 55 mph BQE.
Chalk lines were layed down and most of the bottom runners put in place.
dirty ass bdubs.
We later drew cards for the room selections, my 9 of diamonds was the second highest, I chose this one.
The start of the hallway.
Chris is a skinny ass white boy with big hair, for some reason he looks super diesel in this photo.
Casiel’s skinny ass white boy build shows in photos. Measuring and cutting the floor & ceiling runners.
We got into a rhythm and banged these frames out in about 9 hours total. Not bad for non-union laborers.
The entire time I was thinking there’d be no way to attach a stud to this brick section, worked out no problem… Drill holes first, and do it in between the bricks.
Eats & Colts.
We had to pause and move this pile of crap for the 4th and final room.
3 foot hallway.
Ghetto ass door headers, very little measuring involved.
Somehow, these 2 locals ended up turning our living room into a Dr. Dre’s radio show after hours dance club.
3rd day in - After a disasterous first attempt at drywalling I placed a call to an old journeyman friend, and everything fell into place. Drywalling is not as easy as it sounds.
Again, the hallway w/ some drywall up.
Mad progress in just a couple hours; At this point the fun of it had pretty much worn off, and now it’s just hard work. I always thought Manual Labor was the president of Mexico.
We plan on saving the spackling and painting for a later date. yeah right.
Chris…
5 minutes later.Check out phatgas’ version of the construction…
Music on Park Ave August 5, 2003
Chris Low Budget, occupation - rockstar.
Joe rockin the organ. Big Lizard in my Backyard, Beelzabub, Metaphysical Graffitti & Soul Rotation will always be in heavy rotation in my CD player.
More rockin…
Chillin on the rooftop.
Who doesn’t love a 99 cent Colt 45? The young punks bought a case.
Some photos of our progress August 1, 2003
Some photos of our progress in the new digs
Living quarters, august 2003
Our office setup, not fully complete but functional. Note the usage of junk.
Still no bedrooms, but all the building materials have been purchased. We’ve been sleeping in this area, minus privacy = no release.
Kitchen is complete for now, need to swap fridge with stove & build long ass bar on the edge of the linoleum…
Living room area, 27″ TV isn’t cutting it.
Minor example of a recent fly problem, took us 3 days of constant cleaning & killing to wipe them out.
As you’ve probably already seen July 15, 2003
As you’ve probably already seen - bdubs posted a link to a bunch of photos, including these below, of this past weekend… Me, Tom&Susan drove up a Uhaul&Toms car full of my crap on Saturday morning. I was super stoked, cause Bdubs, Tone&Cohen were meeting us there, I haven’t seen Cohen in years, I think not since Swig, our fallen crew members, funeral… I know a bunch of you don’t know these heads, but that link above has some explanation within.
Everyone was psyched on the new digs, and recommended that we not stroll around our new hood after dark. We have roof access which we quickly discovered is covered in dog crap from a neighbors giant rottweiler… something will have to be done about that.
We got all my stuff in the loft, reminisced for quite awhile and then headed to Goshen NY for a night at our former local boozeries.
On Monday, I had an appointment in Manhattan for this freelance gig that’s due this Thursday, which I’m busting my ass on right now…
I’ve spent a lot of time in New York city before, but never as a new resident, and I was overwhelmed by the feeling of not being able to call it home. My first impressions where that it totally lacks the personality&personal-ness (is that a word) of Philadelphia. I guess it has something to do with my living in Philly for the last 5+ years, but I can tell it’ll take much longer than it did in Philly to feel at home here. Living out of boxes with a dusty ass floor&no internet access doesn’t help much either. Oh, and I’ve already christened the joint - beat you to it, bdubs - That brings my lifetime new apartment christening record up to 5 out of the 7 places I’ve ever lived… beat that.
Prepare for another stretch August 5, 2002
Prepare for another stretch of zero updates as I head to Los Angeles for the next 9 days… I managed to actually get an update done before I depart, titled:
Macworld NY wasn’t the highlight of my 4 day excursion in late July…
Macworld NY wasn’t the highlight 1 comment
Macworld NY wasn’t the highlight of my 4 day excursion in late July…
The week began on a Wednesday evening, when I boarded the R2 from Suburban station in Philadelphia with a one way ticket to Newark, Deleware. After a small fire in the undercarriage of the R2 caused a half hour delay, I was welcomed into Newark by the overwhelming scent of fish and my friend Nick. Turns out his daughter is a fan of the movie Slingblade, Billy bob’s thrust into Hollywood… Not the film itself, but we’ve all taken on the rustic tones of it’s destinct phrases such as - “ALLRIGHT DEN”, “YOU OUGHT NOT”, and “BBBBOY”. His daughter was pleased to find out that I, in fact use the voice more often than her daddy.
After a quick pirate of Photoshop 7 for OS X, which I desperately needed to stay on the cutting edge of web design, we were on our way to my old roomate MAC’s house (It was actually his brothers house - but who’s keeping track of the details?). As the night wore on and the alcohol was consumed, we found ourselves at the University of Deleware’s sole drinking establishment, whose name escapes me. After quite a few beers and a shot of Tequilla, we called it quits, the excuse being the need for an early rise to rent a mini-van and head to Manhatten. The child proof back seat windows were quite a hinderance as I attempted to save the interior by vomitting out the window of our ride home. I was eventually allowed to crawl on the street, violently releasing all that I had consumed that day. I crashed hard on the futon.
Thursday morning, as we inspected the dried vomit covering the window, our rental van showed up. The driver was a guy whose tee shirt read “Mac-geek” and sitting shotgun was a local “computer celebrity” recently featured on WHYY for his video skills and deteriating eye sight. Turns out he was wearing a kilt.
The first thing we did at about 10 am; was loaded up a cooler full of beers & hard liquor. By the time we stopped at a Mcdonalds, Most of us were wasted with the exception of the driver and myself… (the last time I drank that early in the morning was my trip to Cancun, Mexico over a year ago). Mac decided to ask the local patrons a couple of questions, in search of some good video.
By the time we made it through the Lincoln tunnel (where we were instructed to stop filming) I had given in to the call of a 22oz Heineken…
We had made it to Macworld NY 2002, multiple bathroom stops & a lit cigarette loose in the backseat - we were alive.
Macworld itself was pretty boring, I played with iChat - a new feature in Apples’ highly touted “Jaguar” operating system (It’s really just MAC OS X.1.2 in disguise).
I felt it necessary to point out to the Apple tech on the other end of iChat that AOL instant Messenger has in fact been out for quite some time now. I grabbed as many posters as I could from Apple and headed out to the floor. Macromedia wasn’t there, WTF? Adobe wasn’t there, WTF? I heard the REASON booth was pretty hot, but I couldn’t give 2 shits about audio apps on my mac. The MAYA demo was hot, and the technology behind some useless piece of software called six degrees was pretty cool. I ran in to my old boss from Art On View web design (AOV), Justin Knecht - the man behind crayola.com… We chatted for a bit before I reconvened with the original Deleware crew outside of Jacob Javitts.
We unanimously decided to head to a local watering hole titled GOLD RUSH. Discussions that hot chicks would die for ensued, such as - the current state of MAC OS X, operating system market share, late braking software updates, and the current state of our nations corrupt politicians. Driven by exhaustion we finally decided to part ways. I took the F train into Brooklyn where I crashed at the apartment of a friend, Casiel - housing the fabulously screen printed Toke A Cone tee shirt company.
Friday morning I took advantage of the DSL connection, answering some email and uploading the latest photos to metropolitanfoundation.org, a current project of mine. When Casiel returned from his duties over at MTV we kicked back with a couple of screwdrivers, the second time in 2 days that drinks were consumed before 1:00 in the afternoon. Smokes are 7$ a pack in NY, I sucked it up and sucked em down.
Flying solo to the final day of Macworld I arrived just in time to see the doors closing, So I headed to a bar on 52nd & 9th Avenue to meet up with a couple of heads from Philly who I had been in touch with earlier. We downded pitchers of Rudy’s Amber & Rudy’s Red, a beer I had never consumed. The bar had some hand written signs explaining the Pronunciation of Yeungling (ying-ling) Lager, a beer local to the Philadelphia bar scene. We got a kick out of this, Philly is better than NY and here was proof. Once again, we discussed features in the latest apple software, the advantages of using a macintosh, and the best available 3-D software. Eventually parting ways I headed back to Brooklyn, this time Crown Heights was my destination, to meet up with some long-time friends - Sierra & Bdubs.
Guiness, Coronas, Bud Lights, Jack & Gingers, Jack & Cokes, Coors Lights, a bottle of White Zinfindail, and a wonderful Chicken & pasta dish were consumed in the next 48 hours. If you’ve never played a boardgame called TABOO - buy it, invite over some friends, and play it. As cheesey as it may sound, this board game is amazing - sparking laughter & conversation it’s a must have in ones social arsenal. The very first word I had to get Bdubs to say was, oddly enough, “pornography”. Him being a huge porn fan, we were off to a good start; sweeping every game - boys vs. girls. The futon was comfortable enough, waking up on Sunday morning to the reality that drinking beer every day is simply not acceptable not to mention completely unnecessary. We called it quits.
Being the only white people within eye sight, we began the small journey to the 2 train, heading to Penn station & Port Authority. Catching mass transportaion back to the welcoming arms of our respective metroplitan areas was the goal. Once we said our goodbyes, I ran into a little healthy milk shake place that doubled as a hot dog vendor. The “recession special” consisted of 2 hot dogs and a purple juice for $1.95, it was quite a find for my alcohol ridden bloodstream. I asked for onions & sauerkraut and was on my way. The dogs kicked ass.
I headed back to Philadelphia on Peter Pan trailways where to the disappointment of myself and the rest of it’s passengers, the on bus movie was a flick from the discovery channel titled “Oregon Trail - the discovery of the West”. I made it back to 112 Fairmount tired and run down; with the weekends’ long term memories already settling into place. I look forward to Macworld 2003.