NYC's finest don't like performance art or deviant views apparently. Whoa, but whatabout the 'naked cowboy'? 

Haven't heard from the Naked Cowboy in this neck of the woods lately, he went down South to escape Covid?  Looks like he made some money in Daytona Beach:

WKMG

Daytona Beach agrees to $90,000 settlement with Naked Cowboy after Bike Week arrest

The city of Daytona Beach will decide whether to settle a lawsuit with the so-called Naked Cowboy.

Read more from WKMG

Impeachments Past ... or ... Pork Chops!

I watch the Representatives file into the Senate chambers. As expected, not one Senator demanded immediate dismissal of the traitors, instead there will be a trial. We shall see.

During the short procedure I ponder tonight's dinner. Half a red cabbage still sits in the crisper, left over from Christmas dinner ... mmmm ... pork chops and red cabbage ... little duck fat, onion, apple and some lemon for the red cabbage, yup, got everything except the chops.

The Senate goes into recess until quarter to one, so I head up Second Avenue in search of pork chops. Only one package of chops at the supermarket, in a pool of blood yet. The meat mgr gets shifty-eyed while promising a fresh load later today, so I decide to head further north to the Ukrainian butcher, only to find the place shuttered. Strange. There's another one over on First Avenue, another few blocks, but it's closed as well. It's Christmas! How could I forget. Ukrainian Orthodox Christmas! Oh, well, now what?

Ok, there's a supermarket on Avenue A. Lots of pork chops, each one uglier than the other. This won't do. I wander south ... got to be a pork chop place somewhere; cross Delancey to the old Jewish Lower East Side. The Essex Street Market is all Puerto Rican now, piles of chops, but much too much fat. Haven't been in the area for ages, Chinese signs everywhere.

Clinton Street ... dang ... I'm going to miss the impeachment!

Strange supermarket with more ugly pork chops. Walk through Chinatown thinking I'll just head north again, up Broadway to a nice supermarket just a couple of blocks west of where I started, but then I see Dean & Delucas ... mmmm.

Why not, I'll splurge. Wander by piles of ideal fruits, vegetables, fish, meats, and there I find a case stocked with perfect pork chops! Two nice thick ones are $4.50, not at all as expensive as I had worried. Grab my chops and hurry north and home and make it back just as Strom Thurman hobbles back into the Senate. Didn't miss a thing.

... oh ... Merry Christmas!

_1/7/09

most bizarre

A friend had occasion to give us some free tickets, thought we'd get a kick out of Pupppetry of the Penis, The Ancient Australian Art of Genital Origami, which has somehow made its way to Theater Row on 42th Street after being a hit all over the world. They call it Dick Tricks, put on by two very ordinary looking guys, nude, twisting their testicles into baby birds, pelicans, snails, wind sails and such.

The contortions are picked up by video cam and projected to a huge screen as the two joke their way through a set of thirty or so dick tricks while a sold-out house watches the show and cheers them along, lots of young women, couples, people from the suburbs. It's all straight-forward, only a couple of lewd references, something your grandmother would enjoy if the objects being manipulated weren't what they are.

A book with step by step instructions is available after the show for $20. "Can you believe we found a publisher for it?" said one of the guys.

Just to mention, the warmup for the show was a (dressed) woman. She had a heavy British or Australian accent so I didn't understand much of what she was saying, other than "I don't have a penis."

'twas a pretty dumb yet somewhat entertaining evening ...

_10/24/01

Little India on East Sixth Street

The kaleidoscope of cultures that is the City never ceases to amaze. I'm a perpetual tourist finding new sights even as I walk streets I've walked many times before.

Just a few blocks up Second Avenue from my place, past Lhasa and Siam Square, around the corner from Szechuan Exotic Chinese Food and the Korean grocery flower stand, is perhaps the largest concentration of Indian restaurants this side of Asia. It's part of that crazy quilt of ethnicities that is the East Village, predating most of today's popular ethnic food joints.

The first Indian restaurant opened in the 60's, not really Indian but Pakistani. Not too many people knew the difference (if there is a difference,) so it became Little India. Judging by the names on the awnings, the owners aren't eager to fight that misconception. The first two were opened by feuding brothers (so the legend goes,) uncles and more distant relatives followed, opening their own restaurants, filling the block with popular and inexpensive places to eat, perfect for the Hippies living in the area at the time. Over the years the word got out, so now tourists by the busload head for this New York City neighborhood.

Some places cost a bit more than others and there are slight variations in the menus and flavors, but not enough to dispel the rumor that there is one central kitchen in the middle of the block, serving all restaurants. In any case, it's still the cheapest place in the City to get a tasty multi-course dinner.

Nestled in these tastes from the Indian subcontinent are a few representatives of other cultures, equally at home in the neighborhood. Right across the street from Sonali is a Synagogue, built when the area was a center of Jewish life before WWII; and should you need to check your email, one of the City's few remaining Internet cafes is still in operation a few of blocks away.

That was the 90's, it looks much different now. The City made many restaurants take down their colorful unlicensed signs and awnings. There are only a few Indian restaurants left, replaced by other ethnics, other cultures, other tastes.

Don't know if I like those sidewalk sheds they came up with for the age of Covid, nor the bicycle rental racks on the corner.

Vieques, or what I did on my vacation

A friend of ours had visited the island off Puerto Rico, extolling emerald seas and rustic cabins. I researched and found the place, the owner mentioned exercising most mornings by swimming to a smaller island off shore from the beach. Our friend had flown in (too expensive, for us,) but there was a ferry, the place was rustic. Rustic cabins on the beach I was thinking, I can deal with that. So, after visiting relatives in Puerto Rico, we take a ferry from Fejardo to Vieques.

The sun is setting in emerald seas below as our taxi races up an endless narrow road into a thickening bush. We come to a sudden stop around a corner, facing a stallion acting as crossing guard for his entourage of mares, some obviously very pregnant. Driver explains they breed like rabbits here; fences on Vieques exist only to keep out horses, cars and doors stay unlocked. We keep on climbing, the paved road turns into an eroded dirt path up a steep hillside, we bounce around a lot. Roomie looks puzzled, this is no way to get to rustic cabins on the beach?

New Dawn "covered by flowers, was built for outdoor living by women participating in carpentry courses in '86-'87. The decor is pure tropics, bold Guatemalan textiles, woven palm lamp shades and numerous windows open to the trade winds." That of course requires the use of mosquito netting at night and, in general, I am not fond of sitting on a commode with a boldly-patterned curtain inches in front of me, reaching down just to my knees, though I don't mind the open-air showers behind similar curtains. There are a few cabins and tent platforms dotting five landscaped acres. The tour ends outside our very airy second-story room of the main house with a dramatic "... and this is our veranda."

It's a grand vista of tropical hillsides dropping to the ocean way below, inlets shimmer under sunset salmon skies, hammocks sway in the breeze. We settle down during dinner on a wide open first floor, watching two tattooed women from Maine doing the cooking, but Roomie doesn't recover until the following morning when we go snorkeling through a reef busy with tropical fish, just 15 minutes or so by car to the beach. At night, in hammocks on the veranda, we argue about which star is which and add an extra day to our stay after discovering the flight to San Juan is only $45 and takes less than half an hour across the ocean blue.

... oh ... an ex-New Yorker who owns the Bali Llama Boutiques in both tiny towns on Vieques is setting up her home page with a local ISP, and New Dawn is for sale. I'll be on my way just as soon as I can raise the money.

*

Never was able to raise the money, but found some fading photos. New Hope and hammock, Greenbeach and Sunbeach below.

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