I was 11 in East New York

I was around 11 years old, growing up in East New York ,Brooklyn. I lived in the Boulevard Projects which were built on garbage. It was built on a swamp, the mosquitoes were many and huge. The planes would pass overhead, so low and so loud and always during the ending line of a TV show. You'd say , "what did he say"  and have no idea what happened. Behind the projects was several important geographical locations. There was Sherwood Forest, which were woods. They caught some guy growing pot there back in the  50s when most people never heard of pot. Then there was the barracks, these were quansett huts that the  government put up for veterans that stretched from East New York to Canarsie. There were a few farms, horse stables, and  people had goats. Can you imagine goats in Brooklyn. Then there was Volcano Mountain, it was a big hill, all the way in back  through the weeds, and there was a big crack in it with steam coming out.  Some say there were blue rats living  in it. Some kids would tie long strings on a branch  and put gum on the end to catch  a blue rat.  I never  saw one , but i heard they were big.  I'm also not sure if I was  9, 11, or 12.  There was a pond there, and we'd  burn tires and  float on wood pallets that we called rafts. Behind  the school PS 273 was a sewage plant. The principal of the school's son, fell into that sewage pool and  drown.   We were very careful after we heard about that .
We used to play behind the sewage plant.  we'd walk past Flatlands Ave.  toward the Belt Parkway, and  under the  overpass, hmmm under the overpass , that doesnt sound right.  Ok under the viaduct.  We would pass Shitz Creek. that's where we would play.  On the way we also passed  sand hills with tons of dead cats. Years later I figured the ASPCA must dump them there. Anyway  back to  Shitz Creek.  me and my best friend Sandy would play there. There were big mounds with red flags on them, that was our safety zones. Because the stream that went between the hills  was   water from  the sewage plant. and  by no means did we want to step in that  sewage water.We thought if we stepped in it we would get  Polio. Polio was  a big deal back then.   So we jumped from mound to mound, never landing in the  pee-poop water. We were so proud.  Eventually we headed home.   Told our tale of mound jumping.  Then the older kids killed our joy, destroyed our moment of proudness. They told us the red flags marked  a  "do not go near it" area, because those big brown safety mounds  were mound of  human shit. We were jumping from shit hill to shithill to avoid the  pee water.  YUCK!!!!!!
     After we found  out about that , we stuck to our usual, setting the weeds on fire.  We played in what we called the "lots'. Many were adjacent to farms.  Our favorite one was  near the stables.  To be more exact "Rockin Horse Ranch". The owner , Lou, I believe went to jail for murder.  I used to walk the sweaty horses and get free riding time.  My favorite horse was Blackie. some horses they treated badly. Too slow horses were Ayrab and another wads  Rosie Buckin'.  I've seen them hit those two with  pipes , and boards to make them run,, really sad.  I love horses.  Blackie you would  just make a  clicking sound and he would take off .Anyway, i also shoveled alot of horse manure.  Basically I had a shitty childhood.  Back to the fires.  We would usually stop by the glass factory ,, i dont really know if it was a glass factory but they had these half cylinders of glass they would throw away,,, and we used them as magnifying glasses.  There were a whole bunch of factories  and still are, around  Elton St and  Stanley Ave.  We would take the magnifying glasses and  burn each others arms with it. But the best would be to burn a  twig  and   start to blow on it , then  a fire would start, we would  make the fires so big that the lots would catch fire, we would ring the  fire alarm on those red things on the corner and wait for the fire engines to come and put it out ,,, Pyromaniacs! that's what we were. But it was fun.  We didnt  have video games to  shoot video guns and kill villains.  We made fires.  Yes of course we did other things between  age 7 and  12.We would catch grasshoppers,  butterflies and bees. My mother  used to freak out when i would come home with a jar of bees. Oh when it rained, tons of worms would come out. So cool.  In the projects they had  huge lawns, so fun to play in, but  they would  give fines if they saw you on the grass. It was keep off the grass. And we would  always  be playin in the grass. We would run from the "maintenance men" who gave us fines. We had nick names for  them,, the most famous was  Googoo eyes, he knew our names and  would fine us even though we ran away. It was $5 and would go on the rent bill. we would play games in the grass, like 3 feet over the boundary line, ring-a-leev-io,, chicken fights (you go on someones back and  bump into other  people on backs and knock them over),, or poison ball was popular, kinda like dodge ball but with a pink rubber ball, you would  get the ball and fire it at someone, if they caught it you were out , if you hit them with it , they were out.  Lots of good games. Punch ball, Johnny on a poney.  I may as well mention, in the middle of the grass, under a big tree, there was a  manhole cover.  In there, rumor had it, that there was a kid named Billy. He wore a yellow t-shirt and  was  50 feet down in the manhole. I swear i've seen him down there. Everyone swore they saw him.  Speaking of seeing  crazy things.  In the back by volcano mountain,  there was a witch. One day she chased us for about  half a mile,.that old witch and her broom , it was so scary.  we ran into a building and hid.   I guess thinking back,  it must have been just some old ugly lady ,,, well on second thought , it was definitely a witch and  it was unforgettable.  So we'd be back home, around  say  4 or 5 in the summer. Stinking from  fire, after setting those lots on fire, My mom would say  in a scolding voice, "where were you!?"   Sandy and me would stink from the smoke, and we'd say  ummmm nowhere.  Sometimes, we'd stop before the fires, and  one of us would hold the door open at Pete and Marty's candy store ,the other would grab candy and we'd run so fast.  I guess we were 10 in the candy stealing days, 11 tops.   So obvious, but we always got away with it.  I'd go for the Clark Bar, or Necco Sky Bar, and  Chuckles for  Sandy.  My other best friend Gregory would be a door holder but he ran so slow, it was a problem ,we would have to drag him.  Gregory was Black, and his family was from the South , I think South Carolina. That was my first exposure to  rock candy, and to milk that was flavored with just sugar. We used U Bet  chocolate syrup in my house. But  down in apt 1C , we had rock candy and  sugar milk.Gregory's brother was in the Roman Lords a big street gang at the time, so we looked up to him. We looked up to alot of tough guys. We also dressed tough, even at 10. We had thick black garrison belts, we wore it with the buckle to the side. we wore Wrangler jeans. we called them dungarees.  Sometimes we would sharpen the buckle. We bought studs at Carl's Motorcycle shot and put them on our jackets. We wore rabbit feet on the zippers of our motorcycle jackets or on our loops. Our bicycles had streamers in the hand grips. baseball cards in the spokes to make  a cool sound. handle bars up in the air i.e "monkey bars".  We also had scooters made of  a milk crate a two by four and roller skates. Our roller skates were Union Hardware  number 9 or  5 , i forgot.  You knew it was Spring when you started hearing the  metal skate wheels in the street.  Oh i forgot  to mention the smoke truck.
The neighborhood had tons of mosquitoes.. so this orange  truck, more like  a jeep, would come around. It emitted this huge cloud of smoke. It smelled so good.,  we would put bandanas over our faces . maybe 10 of us, and  run behind the truck in the cloud of smoke.  As we found out later on, the smoke truck was  spraying  DDT,, a  poisonous insecticide that has  been made illegal for decades.  No wonder i'm nuts.
     Around 7 pm in the summer , the ice cream truck would ring his bell ,, there were 4,  good humor, bungalo bar, hiya Al and  Johnny.  Hi ya Al came all the way from Delancey St. to ENY.  he gave us prizes with the ice cream. Mostly we would get  Marino's ices , eat it with a spoon and dig a hole in it , until there would be a hole all the way through it. We called it making a donut.   Good Humor was good for the chocolate eclair bar,and when we were done we would sharpen the sticks. Yeah, we'd make weapons. Johnny had bootleg ice cream and  was some kind of criminal. His father Rocky had great  italian ices. There was also a knish man who had a  metal salt shaker  on the  wagon, the salt was chained to the wagon. Who in the world would want to steal his salt shaker.  Cherry bombs and  caps were big,,, sometimes we would bang the caps with a rock. The knees on our pants were always ripped. Either from  caps bangin, or from playing a game named Skelly. It was a game where you  shoot a bottle cap into numbered boxes. The caps were filled with  corks from other caps or wax, or clay . It was a great game. The girls mostly played Potsy, we would play occasionally and  a key was the best thing to use to throw in a potsy numbered box.  Pea shooters were the rage, but pretty dangerous. Speaking of dangerous.  There was  a school play, A Christmas Carol. I played a wooden soldier. my mother made a nice old time toy soldier hat for me.But  to make it more real , I took my father's japanese rifle with me to the play. It was a bolt action rifle, bayonet, that took 7.7 mm huge copper head bullets. yeah I had bullets with me too. And a samarai sword. i was the "realest" soldier around.  When i was on stage during the rehearsal with the rifle and pointed it after  pulling the bolt. A teacher  screamed, a male teacher I think it was  Mr. Rosansky, grabbed me.  Disarmed me.   called my  parents. Boy was I in trouble. I always seemed to get in trouble. My friend Sandy , somehow always talked his way out of trouble.
    Oh did I mention I was always late for school.  To this day, i'm still always late. In Junior high school it said  in my graduate album, "better late than never'.  So  when you would get to school late , you would  have to wait on the  "late line" and  you would get a demerit.  So I had a plan.  I became the lateline monitor. I even had a badge.It was a yellow round metal pin that said  Marshal.  anyway,   after i became late line monitor , i was never late.  As a matter of fact, noone in the school was late, because i was the last one to show up. What a great plan.
      Well that's enough for now on growing up in East New York, It was alot of fun. Home-made fun, everyone knew each other , the doors stayed unlocked. Always something to do.  next time i'll talk about  Tiger Lady, and  sharing veal cutlet sandwich at Nino's.  So bye for now.
  

francais

Today I had lunch with a friend of mine. He had lived in France for a while. In any case, we went to a French restaurant. So we greeted the poeple who worked there in French, with a big Comment Ca Va?  and  sat down,,,, my friend blurted some  French words out, that noone understood, then again with a  loud "Port Plume"  which i dont think means anything ,,, Then i figured out that he has  French Turrets  syndrone. Blurting out French sounding words sporadically. Then he asks for some sauce on his steak and the waiter brings him a jar of mustard .   I almost choked on my food  when mon ami yells C'EST DOMMAGE"  that was loud,,, a French Turrets  friend ,,how bizzarre  ,,but  quite  hilarious.
       Also,  I think he frightened the waiter , who forgot to bring my meal until my friend was already done. Which brings me back to the Post here ,where i need my own personal waiter/waitress.
 LE FIN

the bat mitzvah

A good friend of mine's daughter was turning 13 and getting bat mitzvahd ( hmm how do you spell that?).
So me and my kids attended happily.  The bat mitzvah girl did a great job with reciting her haf torah ( that;s the section of the bible they have to sing and study for a year to learn the melody etc). Anyway, then it came time for the party part.  Of course you have to make a check out for a gift.  I am known for good gifts.  So we discuss , "what is a good gift"?   We came up with a number that seemed good.  We get to the affair or party or banquet, and  there's a basket up front where everyone puts their envelopes with the gifts.
So, before  we eat they have the  bread (challah) cutting ceremony.  Guess what!  i'm the one called up to do the honors of cutting it and saying the hebrew prayer. Wow , a big honor, I was actually suprised they called me to do that.  Then the party goes on and i'm dancing the hora (like a mexican hat dance), one guy dancing with me falls, i thought it was his heart.  What a scare.  Anyway,  now they do the candle lighting honors.  Well, wouldnt ya know it they called me and  my kids up,  and  then  went on to light a candle for my wife that passed away.  WOW , alot of honors here.  So i'm thinking,  this gift isnt big enough.  Now they're showing slides on a screen of the  bar mitzvah girl growing up.  Half of the pictures were of her with my kids,  with my dog, with my wife.  i say OY,  now I really got to raise the  gift.  So  with my daughter  as my shield, we have a plan,, we  sneak up to the basket I go threw the basket  and grab my envelope and we sneak out to the lobby.  I go into the bathroom, and open the envelope to  change the check to a new higher amount. Mind you , it was pretty high already.  BUT  when i open it I see it's not my check in their ,,it's a check from her cousin,,,,OMG<,,i took the wrong envelope and now it's ripped open,,Of course i look to see how much they gave,,, they were very generous.  Now what do I do,,,i cant go back and  start looking again... and i have to somehow slip this open envelope back in the basket and not be seen,,,,so me and my daughter slowly sneak back in, envelope in hand.  And  the basket is right next to the projector for the slide show that is still going on,,, so we make the move,,and i slip this ripped open envelope in ,,and  just leave my original in the basket.  I didnt think anyone had as bad of a handwriting as me, so I thought my envelope would be easy to find,  Oh well,,, it was quite an comical experience. Larry David  welcome to my world.

sushi and me

Today I ate at a japanese-jewish restaurant called Sosumi.  Umm that was a joke,  let's hear a little laughter LOL

       So the new rage in japanese restaurants is for them to  yell in japanese  , "welcome".  Most of the people yelling it arent japanese.  So many sushi restaurants are non japanese, alot are even non asian.

Ya know you can get very sick from  improper care of  raw fish. A real sushi chef trains for  7 years and knows everything  about the fish, cleaning, care, cutting, even the eating of it.

Tonite I ate a ton of mediocre sushi in the best sushi restaurant in Park Slope.  It is truly amazing  how a  "hip" neighborhood has  such mediocre food.  The bill was  $200 for  2 of us, well i'm  full , so that's a plus. I asked the  chef if he had "buri" that's a fish in season now, he didnt have any idea what i was talking about, I think he gave me a napkin.

     So this post is far from humerous, but  my advice is to only eat in japanese run sushi places. Otherwise order the cooked food.  The Japanese make a dish called toriwasa, they take a live chicken , kill it fresh for you ,  then soak the chicken in soy and  wasabi , maybe some ginger, a little sake.  Yeah it's raw chicken, it's awesome.  My favorite thing is fish guts, aka  watta.  very strong taste, very old fashioned , very good with sake.  ok  now it's time for ice cream. Ja matta

Black Friday

All i hear is that it is Black Friday. Hmmm I guess I should wear black.  Maybe because it's dark outside.
I dunno, supposedly people are gathering in masses to go shopping.Why?  Maybe I should jusr go and take pictures of all the shoppers.  I wonder  if I go buy toilet paper on black friday if 1000's of people will be online, ya know toilet paper is very popular.

thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving.
So, I was walking down the street and  I stop at the corner , waiting for the light to change. These two junkies are talking to each other. And one asks the other " so  Bobby what are you doing for  Thanksgiving?".. Bobby answers,  "i'm going  cold Turkey".

 yeah yeah ,,, well that's the kind of things I think about.
that's it.
that's all i have for the frog today. well it's still early.
Well now that i think about it, I didnt mention that my Korean cleaners always loses my clothes.
 I know one day I will walk down the street and see a Korean guy wearing all my clothes.
Funny though, since i put a few pounds on, the cleaner was upset,  He even commented that my clothes size has changed. Hmmm maybe they wont fit him and the clothes wont be lost anymore.
 The other day i brought a jacket in to get a zipper and a lining , he charged me  90 bucks and gave me a  safety pin to pull the zipper.  When i questioned it, he said "that what you order" ,,, i said  wow  90 bucks for a safety pin,,it must be Armani.

GPS

I love my GPS. It tells me wrong directions. Yells at me when i dont listen.
But sometimes I put it on even when I know exactly how to go somewhere.
It's companionship.  It keeps me company. So if i'm driving somewhere ive been 1000 times
I still have it on.  Good to know someone is there to hear me curse the traffic.

new week

So, why do people try to give themselves titles or descriptions that make them sound on a higher status scale than they probably should be. We have metiorologists telling us if it's sunny or rainy, we have sanitation engineers that used to be called garbage men, we have philosophers who used to be called people with alot of time on their hands. Well the one that really got  me going was, a guy who puts a sock on his hand,and talks to this sock puppet.  He doesnt move his lips but there is is talking away.  Some might call him a whacko or  maybe a puppet talker.But Noooooo they need a fancy 4 syllable word for it. He a Vantriloquist. Now thst sounds very very important. He must have studied years to be a vantriloquist, hmmm that's a good major. Well i fart alot, maybe I should be called a flatulantologist.  or maybe we should call pick pockets who are quite talented cleptopocketologists,  Vantriloquists, it just makes me laugh. \ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Someone told me that people dont put flowers on graves in a Jewish cemetary, because they will get  stolen. So they put rocks on top of the tombstones to show they visited. Ok, would you believe,I went to the Jewish cemetary to pay my respects to some family members and wouldnt ya know it,,,, no rocks anywhere.... what's a guy to do?  well , yeah ,,, i had to steal some rocks from other  graves and put them on the graves I was visiting.  Hmmm ia that a crime?  I'm a rock-stealer ,  but can you imagine  how embarrassed I'd be if I got caught?  And after all that crafty stealing, a storm will come and blow the rocks off the graves.  What i'm thinking is a rock concession maybe with velcro. Seems like the idea has some potential. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Do you think expiration dates on medicine is just a way of drug companies and doctors to get you to come back or order more. I take medicines years after their expiration, and they work just fine. Ok  so I twitch and lost all  my hair ,,but hey what;s a few side effects , it got rid of my warts. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ where's my damn personal waitress,today , when i need her,,,,i ordered 4 dishes at a chinese restaurant,,, 3 of the 4 were not what I ordered. I tried to explain the problem but got nowhere . So i ate the wrong dishes. They tasted pretty good. But if i had my own waitress with me, I wouldve gotten what I really wanted. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ GRRrrrrrrr my GPS ,,,, can i shoot it? I set it to go to a steakhouse and it took me to an Indian restaurant.... another time I was going to a wedding at a country club in NJ,,, i punched in the correct address but ended up in an empty lot, surrounded by trees,,,, I hate it ,,and  it hates me,,, it constantly says  " make a U turn" ,,,, "you idiot I said right turn not left"

draft

TGIF

It's Friday, the weekend begins.  I am looking forward to a nice and relaxing weekend.
So, did you ever go to a restaurant and you're waiting patiently for menus, then water. Then your food isnt getting their. Maybe the waiter or waitress is busy talking to the bartender or doing her nails.You sit their patiently at first  then fidget around.  Finally, you've been seen and they go check on your food. The waitress comes back and says  , "it will be be coming out soon".  So the appetizers come and she puts it on the table and walks away. You want a glass of wine, then you drop your fork. Now you cant eat and you're  waving again , trying to get  the waitress's  attention. Oh yeah, it's not the dish you ordered.Well eventually the meal is up and you think of this fantastic idea.  You have your personal private waitress or waiter ( doesnt matter).You take  her whenever you go eat out. She knows what you like to order , how you like your food prepared. And wil make sure you have your utensils, condiments, your water glass stays full, napkins, everything you need.  If the place has a TV it will be on a channel you want to watch. Doesn't matter what restaurant, you'll always have your own personal wait person.Ahhh, what a pleasure.
I can see the looks now from the restaurant owner , chefs, waitstaff, busboys etc "who is this person, going into our kitchen ?" Oh well, it's a beautiful thing.
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So today I had a big meeting about bagels. Yeah bagels.. When i left the meeting I had about 35lbs of bagels that was placed in a Bergdorf bag, they were samples to show some people, But here I am carrying a load of bagel all over the place.  Into stores like Tiffany , Tourneau, Even Bergdorf. Everyone looking in my bag , saying  "bagels??"  yep  bagels.  One guy asked me if i was in the bagel business I said  "yeah, there's alot of dough in the bagel business!"  Corny but funny at the time,
Then of course, the bag rips so i'm struggling to carry all these to my car. Awhile later, my back is killing me.  Pain reminding me of a disc problem and I shouldnt be walking around with  35llbs straining myself. I mustve walked a mile with these bagels.  The crazy thing is, the bagels werent even made  the way they are supposed to be, so they are useless to me.  So when I got back to where I garage my car I gave the  guys who work there , all the bagels. How bizarre.  I think i'll take two Advil and go to sleep.

first look

Frog with a pen-guin is gonna dive right in. Whewwww cold water!
gives me an "eyegrain", yep a eye headache. eyegrain,beutiful isnt it?
Now for a little humor: I went to Bloomingdale's today...... (no laughs) tough crowd.
So there will be new vocabulary words all the time i.e. Kelbow, that's when your elbow misses the table.
I had 2 kelbows this week.  i also had a blongue which is a bloody tongue from biting it. Why do blongues happen to me? I'll figure it out one of these good days.
Ok that's the first dip in the pool here. tune in for future frog with a pen-guin random thoughts.