Friday, July 27, 2012

Potato Stix mascot is a PIG!

Actually, he's an anthropomorphic potato, but he's obviously a jerk.

I don't know who he's calling a ho, but I do know it's not very nice!

You Must Squat Before THE KING OF JEANS!



This is crazy because:

1. The King of Jeans wears no shirt, even on his own sign!
2. The girl he's making out with is squatting in front of him.
3. What the girl is wearing. Especially the choker.
4. The King of Jeans is wearing big buckle guido shoes. On his sign.
5. The shape behind the King of Jeans and his Queen is - a completely UNCLASSIFIABLE rhombus.

It is not so crazy that the King of Jeans is going out of business, although it is very sad.

Things Your Kitchen Can't Live Without

Not only is this made out of real wood, it's safe.

Surf's Up

Here are two takes on the same coloring project.

Iko's Take

Emilio's Take

Philly In 100 Degree Heat

The hydrants up and down Lancaster Ave. in Philly were all gushing yesterday, but this family took it to the next level.


I used to have a Mr. Turtle pool when I was a kid and my dad would join me.  He'd just sit in it, set up in our backyard in Queens, popping can after can of Budweiser.  He'd take one of the pots from the stovetop and every few minutes he'd scoop up some water and dump it all over his head.

My Dad with a horse in Flushing Meadow Park.
He wore that shirt every day for two years straight at one point.

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Supermarket Dance Party

Now.  July, 2012.

The "Best Yet" Supermarket in the 37th Street Plaza in Astoria used to be a classic old red and yellow Shop Rite, famous in the neighborhood, where we all used to graze in the candy section and wait outside to see if anybody would pay 50¢ for helping them bring their groceries to the car.

70's/80's era Shop-Rite Truck


















In conjunction with the local church (Immaculate Conception), our Shop-Rite used to be a huge sponsor of the ICYP little league program. The fields that housed the six baseball diamonds that comprised the league were sandwiched between the Shop Rite parking lot and the endless stretch of generators that make up Con Ed's Queens facility which end at the East River.



But in addition to the little league, our Shop-Rite used to run an adult league, comprised of teams from other supermarkets that went as far east as Long Island.  All the supermarkets played: Met Food, Scaturros, Key Food, the A&P, Grand Union, Waldbaums, Pioneer, C-Town, even the Associated from up on Ditmars whose team was full of old rock-n-roll burn-outs.  Mostly, the teams were made up of old-timers, young deli-counter-types, check-out girls, and teenage stockroom kids.  They battled it out for the rest of the summer while the little league championships ended in early July.  The Supermarket teams played into September, trying to mimic the scheduling of the majors.

My cousin Stevie, a Trans-Am driving guido of mostly ill repute, was on the Shop Rite team when I was still in grammar school. Sometimes he or my dad would take me to the games - which seemed more like 23-inning keggers. Someone was always carting in another keg. The players were all drunk, and there were tons of fights -- but they ran a killer snack-bar/souvlaki stand and all the kids that didn't get shipped off to summer camp traded comics and baseball cards in the equipment shed. The shed was a rusted out old shipping container that had dirty pictures glued all over the walls, and was supposedly where Mavroulis the "groundskeeper" lived.  There was a busted up old cot in there, but everybody knew that was where older kids would take girls to talk about homework. Still, if you met Mavroulis, you'd believe that he lived there.  Mavroulis was Greek, but my dad and Stevie called him Marvin, and most of the kids called him Martian.  He used to spray us with the garden hose all the time.  My Dad said he took too many diet pills.

Where is this post going?  Well, the most interesting thing about the Shop-Rite Supermarket league was that Sal, the son of Shop-Rite's owner, my cousin Stevie's good friend, used to throw these big Saturday Night dance parties, in honor of all wins AND losses.  He threw these parties IN THE SUPERMARKET.  Stevie said they would go crazy and drink all the beer they wanted and play bumper cars with the shopping carts all night.


It became like a thing.  The party in the supermarket.  The parking lot would be packed with Trans-Ams, Corvettes, and Camaros (it was around the time that the Irock-Z hit). You couldn't get into the place.  I knew a gy named Dmitri who said he worked the party as a valet. You'd have to go in the back and they had bouncers and velvet ropes and everything. This was like 1982. They'd DJ over the PA system and open as many bags of potato chips as they wanted. Stevie said Grandmaster Flash was even supposed to DJ there once, but he never showed.

This is the parking lot now, not filled with any awesome guido cars at all.



Before I was in junior high, the police raided the joint, and Sal's dad shut down the party scene for good. In a few months the Shop-Rite became a Waldbaums. This was after the Shop-Rite team had enjoyed a disaster of a season and lost to everybody.  Even still, my cousin told me that the reason the party got raided was because the Met Food team was jealous of the Shop-Rite guys having all the fun and ratted them out to the cops. There were so many fines that the only thing Sal's family could do was sell.

The other day George, the guy who plays Mr. Parfenix, and I, were walking around Astoria and we happened upon the old supermarket, which, as I said before, is now a Best Yet.  We went around back, and lo and behold - there was this huge DANCE sign sitting back there.  Which made me think of this story.

George Psillides

Could the Best Yet guys be up to the same old tricks?  Is there an awesome dance party going on in the back of 37th Street Plaza on Saturday Nights?  You be the judge.  

The Best Yet staff.


Goblin House on 38th Street in Astoria

Mr. Parfenix plays poker here on Thursday nights with the Czechoslovakian goblin who owns the place,
a rabid squirrel from the local park, and the Armenian guy who runs the Optimo around the corner.


Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Lucite Candy Cubes

These used to be a staple in NY delis and bodegas but not so much anymore

Doesn't Melia Look Pretty With Her Hair Up?


Absolutely Disgusting Rugrats "Tommy" Bank

For all you verminous 90's aficionados out there

Phonebooth!

There's a working phonebooth on the Upper West Side!
The door works and it smells like piss and everything!!

This is me trying to explain to Sudsy that I'm not gonna be home for dinner because I'm going to
go out to eat with my wife instead.  He reminds me all the time that divorce is a real option in life,
but then again, he says the same thing about suicide.  What a jokester!

Some Winter to Help Get Us Through Summer

Bemelmans Bar is located in the Carlyle Hotel on Madison Avenue and 75th Street, across the street from the Whitney Museum.  The bar sports a mural by Ludwig Bemelmans, the guy who created Madeline.  Every wall in the place is handpainted and so are the lampshades.  Just in case you didn't know.  It's ok for kids, they serve a slamming set of mini-burgers that everyone likes.

The bunnies making the bunny snowman is my favorite part.





Vacation and Strong Dude

I blame the parents.

They were good kite-flyers though.
Strong Dude wouldn't let Vacation hold the kite-string, so she started freaking out.

Dragon Fruit

That's what this is called.  You can get it in Chinatown.


Me and Sue the Park Ranger

At Castle William, the old prison on Governor's Island with Sue, my favorite park ranger

Luther Caught A Bee!

Luther caught a bee in mid-flight on Governor's Island the other day.

Luther just kept on saying, "Bee!"

Spongebob Icepop Gif

Breaking News: Melia Marden and Me shared a Spongebob Squarepants Icepop in Central Park.

Melia thinks Spongebob is rather handsome.  The yellow part tastes like lemon.

I like his pants.  They taste like cotton candy.

Here it was in the beginning, sans gif-toon.


Friday, July 20, 2012

Day Camp Bus in Staten Island

The kids on this day camp schoolbus started yelling at me and making fun of my clothes the other day in Staten Island.
The kid on the left is just scary. 





I thought I heard some bad names but when I turned around the kids were just staring at me, like this.
Again, I heard names.  Turned.  Nothing.  

Then I did a fake turn away but looked back at the bus really fast.  Caught this guy SCREAMING.
Called me Clown, and Loser, and some worse ones. 
This kid said my shirt was ugly. Then I took a photo of the bus and all the kids started screaming, "STOP IT!"
"YOU STOP IT!"  They called me a hippie and a bum.
Some were too scared to join in.  One of the activities directors was literally standing next to me,
and he just put his head in his hands.

Thursday, July 19, 2012

Play Streets

I'm not dissing this.  At all.  I'm making fun of it because it feels really busted and cracked out, but I'm not dissing it - if anything, I'm sweating it, and I wanted to play with these guys, and I'm thinking about getting a knock hockey table for the workshop.

PAL: the Police Athletic League has its own Day Camp Alternative for URBAN YOUTH.
Knock-Hockey in the Park.

I only took this one flick of the set-up and although it's not the greatest photograph in the world, I kept on looking at it all day for several reasons.

1. The sign claims that the Police Athletic League is the BEST FRIEND a kid can have.
2. The Knock Hockey Tables were set up on garbage cans.  GENIUS.  That's exactly how I would do it.


3. The "staff" guy looked like a thinner, younger Biz Markie, but pissed off and not into it.

4. The most obvious reason.  This kid was winning, talking shit, and LOVING it.

5. The best reason. This kid was sitting behind the winner, grilling him, sending across the illest
"hate rays" possible.