warning labels

i heard someone on the radio talking about funny warning  labels on products:
I should keep adding to the list i'm sure there are really funny ones.
1) a box of pudding said on the bottom of the box " do not turn over"
2) Christmas lights said on it " can be used indoors and outdoors" hmmm where else is there?
3) Korean knife said "warning: keep out of children"
4_ Frito Lay package says on the bag regarding a contest " WIN!  no purchase necessary, details inside package"

Christmas tree mink coat

Happy Holidays to all.
I was creating a joke from a thought I had. For all I know, someone thought the same thing many years ago , but I never heard a joke about Christmas Trees.  So here is what I got.
Fact:  Many Christmas Trees are Douglas Firs.
Joke: Where did Cathrine Zeta-Jones get her mink coat from?
        she got it from Michael Douglas' Christmas Tree.... LOL
 ummmmmmm,,,,,,,, it's a  Douglas  Fur Tree

Hey,  I try.

SPIT

Happy Thanksgiving.  It is a day of overindulgence , over eating, feeling so stuffed that one can't even move.  Well, that's how I feel ,, Like , why? why? why?
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Let's talk about  spit.  When I was maybe  11 years old I had a nickname Spit.  I've had several nicknames throughout my life. Some were, Chops, Spit, Fog, Dart, Fingers, Wigout, Qtips, Lip, Colonel,
   Anyway back to Spit.  There was a weird time when something hit me, that  spit was dirty and not to be swallowed.  So i would spit every ten seconds I think.  Hence the name of Spit. I had developed many techniques of spitting.  If you are going to spit you have to be cool about it, not gross about it. Did you ever see these gross dudes, hocking and getting up balls of phlegm. Then they spit and then hold their nostril and shoot a  snot rocket. Pretty damn disgusting.
  I was a cool spitter. I could spit between my teeth. It's not that easy to do. You kind of push your tongue behind your front teeth and it makes a sound and spit shoots out.  By the time I got to the 7th grade I lost the nick name spit. But didn't stop spitting. Just not as much. I mastered many techniques of spitting.  Dotting, was a very cool way to spit. It was like pitching underhand.  You lifted the spit out from that reservoir in your lower mouth and gracefully pushed it up  through or past your bottom teeth and a dot of spit would come out and fly a good distance. My friend Manny was the best dotter I've seen.  It is an almost silent spit.  Manny used to dot a lot on the guy sitting in front of him in class. It was  pretty cool at the time.  Now in a spit fight, you really want to get  some  phlegm up and really shoot it out.  I think I could shoot a phlegm ball a good 12 feet.  Some would  call it  "hocking a louie or loogie".Spitting was an important  skill in East New York.  Spit balls were popular. Where you spit a tiny piece of  notebook paper.  In any case my favorite type of spitting was the  thru the top teeth making that  squeeshy sound.  I  have lost most of my skill over  years of not practicing. But I can still make the sound, just the projectile is weak.

Cool you tube of Brooklyn 60's gang called Ellery St. Bops

below are  two you tube videos i found. and enjoyed very much . Featuring the Brooklyn gang of the 1960's called the Ellery Street Bops. They were famous and tough in Bushwick area, but known all over.  The photos are  great and the background Doo Wop is awesome.

video credit goes to rtoledo who did a great job with these.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0ijxFG2QBU&noredirect=1

and  movie  2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVC-JKM-zkM

2 posts in one

Hi All,  I haven't been here in a few months.
Anyway,
The other  day I went to the cemetery to visit my dead relatives. I figured it might bring some good luck. The cemetery is an old one in Queens. Some of the tombstones have cool old pictures on them.
Rather than ask where my people were buried , I wandered around until I found some. I can't believe I actually found most of the graves I was looking for.  In my Jewish tradition, you're  supposed to put rocks on the graves,to show you were there.  I have no idea of how this tradition came about , but  I will say there is a scarcity of rocks in the cemetery.  They should have a vending machine for rocks.
I noticed one tombstone with about   30 rocks on it. I was thinking that was very greedy of them, but probably it was  little kids, playing  "steal the rocks from other graves".  So I figured if I stole some rocks from them, it wouldn't be a sin or anything. So I stole several rocks.  I hope it wasn't a sin, because  I was  about to commit another sin.  I had to pee.  So I found a secluded spot behind some graves, and  peed the longest pee ever.   Oh boy,  two sins.  Then a giant rat ran by.
Meanwhile, the sun was going down it was the day before  Halloween. I was still searching for my grandparents graves. They were in an area , where everyone buried was from  Volochisk, Ukraine(Russia).  I finally gave up because it was almost dark. Some rabbi looking guy waved me down, to give an old lady a ride to the grave of a famous rabbi. The roads are quite narrow in the cemetery . I think i hit two graves or a pole and a grave.  Anyway, it was weird picking up a stranger in a cemetery. I dropped her off and headed for the front gate.  Just my luck,  it was locked.  I wait for a while and then start to drive around looking for someone to let me out.  The office was closed.  I didn't see anyone. So I go back to the gate, it's dark and scary. Scary thoughts going through my mind . Ghosts and  goblins. Crazy stuff.  Then someone taps on my window and scares the daylights out of me. It was the security guard. He was wearing an NYPD hat , to look official.  He started yelling at me.  "what are you doing in here?" . I was pissed off that he was yelling at me and I told him if he kept yelling he would  end up  in here permanently. That didn't help my cause to get out.  The argument went on, and he points to a sign that said  "cemetery closes at  4:30".  He asked me if i could read.  Finally  he  opened the gate and let me out.  Very crazy experience.
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Tonite after dinner, while  walking to my car, a gentleman stopped me and asked "where can I get some ice cream around here?".  The man had an Italian accent and confirmed that  he was from Italy. I had just returned from  Italy and they have the best  gelato there. So, I figured this guy knows his ice cream.  So I gave him directions to a good gelato place a few blocks away.  He says" it's good ice cream" I say, " yes it is gelato". He puts on a sad face. He says, in his thick Italian accent "  I no wanna gelato, I want ice-a cream".  " You know , Ben and Jerry".  Oh my goodness. The guy comes from a place with the best ice-cream/gelato ever, and he wants Ben and jerry.. I was thinking the next person will approach me and  want some  pastries.  I'll direct them to Veniero's for good italian pastry and they'll say  "no no  I want  Hostess twinkles".    
   And that's what  makes the world go 'round.

Summer in the city

Summer in East New York, for starters was very hot. If you spent a few weeks in the  mountains, like we often did, when you get back to ENY it had a strange dirty, kind of fogged over look.  Quite often we just sat around outside the building on the bench. Someone would have a portable radio. We'd be listening to oldies from Newark, NJ. "The Relic Rack" was a favorite. Other shows were  Jocko on your Radio, or Alan Fredericks Kit Kat Club.  Earlier  years had Alan Freed.  I remember  listening to these old songs and with a switchblade, I'd be carving my initials deep in the  wooden bench slat. Day after day I would  keep carving in the same place, making my initials deeper and deeper in the bench.
The mosquitoes were huge. They weren't friendly bugs, they were like  B-52 bombers , diving  into your  neck or arm and sucking your  blood out like the vampires that they are. I kinda like smashing them, while they sucked and the blood would splatter all over. When  we'd go upstairs we'd fight over who got the big fan. I remember the good fan had colored buttons and  the green button was  high speed.  We had no air conditioning.  Nowadays , I can't survive without  A/C.  The  cars used to have "fly" windows, which were little windows you  could turn to direct the wind at yourself to cool off.
     Summer  nights always had the sounds of sirens in the background. They were more melodic than the annoying sirens on police and fire engines today.  We would go up to the rooftop on our  6 story building on Stanley Ave. and watch the fires burning the tenements on Blake Ave. Speaking of Blake Ave,, it was where my mother liked to shop. They had  pushcarts, and each one sold  a different product. Everything  from fresh fish, to vegetables, to meats to pots and pans.  Eventually, Fortunoff graduated from pushcarts to stores. Each store would specialize . One would have clothing, another was a pharmacy, another  dishes and cookware and another  was  bedding.Eventually, There was a suspicious fire and the stores all burnt down. This was on Livonia Ave, in Brownsville.  My mom loved the fire sale and bought all this "china". She was so proud of her purchases. I think she got an amazing deal.  Then a few months later , Maxie Fortunoff opened a huge department store in Westbury. Amaingly, this guy Murray, a New Lots Boy and my friend Fuzzy's boss at the pharmacy store, was given a job as  VP of this huge department store.  It just seemed weird that a hoodlum, could have such a high powered job. At least it seemed that way back then.   Curly's pool room was  on the same block as Fortunoff. When we were 15 we would go there to play pool. You had to be 16, but we had phony proof of age.  Curly's catered to mostly Hispanic folks.  There was a boxing ring in the back. They had pocket billiards,  billiards and snooker  tables.  Only men  were allowed into  pool rooms back then.  It was a few years later when  Playboy Billiards  started letting  women in.  Curly's was  filthy and your hands would be black after  shooting pool there.  The price was  70 cents an hour for the table. Most often we would play for  "time"  or for a couple of bucks.  Murray's pool room, was our other spot. it was  80 cents an hour. It was  right over the Biltmore theatre. Everyone there knew each other. So it was always easy to get a game with someone. The best players in Murrays, were Giff, Shotsy, Davey,Manny and big Mel .  There was a guy named Crazy Laser who spent 20 years in Danamura prison, and a  whole bunch of  lunatics up there. If you got to  Murray's early you could  carry up the block of ice that he used to keep the sodas cold, and get a half hour free time. The tables were "old time' with  beads on a wire to keep score. The sound of the beads were something that stays in your head. The same with  pool balls smacking against each other. A guy named  izzy Knish would sing Moon over Miami outside and  people would  throw him quarters.  Izzy had some   issues but everyone treated him OK.  Saying "sing another one Izzy".  Oh yeah, Gary Crutch was a real good pool player too.  Hate to leave an important fact like that out  , haha.
       I don't know where this story is going, but when we'd drive home from  clubs on Long Island, we would know we were home when we smelled sewage from the swamps off the Belt Parkway near Pennsylvania Ave.  The water way we called shits creek, would give us the smell , that woke us up and told us to  exit the Parkway.  Imagine, the familiar stink of  sewage, told us we were home.  It's a beautiful thing.  Hot town summer in the city, singing, listening to the transistor radios.  Fishing for  stripers off the bridge. Doing crazy stuff.  Ahhh the memories.

Home Cookin'

My mother was a great cook for  some types of foods. When she was asked for the recipe she said " you have to come make it with me". This was because  she went by feel. The quantities were not in teaspoons or cups they were in handfuls, pinches, some of this,  a little of that. When she made matzoh balls or gefilte fish , they had to feel a certain way.  WIth matzoh balls she would add chicken soup to the dry mix instead of  water.  Gefilte fish,  what a mess, she would grind the fish after filleting them, when they float they are done. She always had a cigarette,  a Camel, dangling from her lip.  the ash would grow, and I'd keep watching it. Eventually it got mixed into dish as a secret ingredient.  if she used onions and you were allergic to onions or hatted them, she would lie to you . She'd say "No I didn't use onions". If you see onion peels in her garbage and then challenge her, she would  say , "well maybe  a little I used."
        My mother loved using different peoples  recipes, even if  her own recipe was better. The  craziest was when she wanted to use my mother in law's recipe for  some kind of noodle pudding.  I warned her and told her she could die from that food my motherinlaw made.  She of course refused to believe that  it could be that bad. When I explained that  my father-in-law died from her food, she didn't believe that either.  My mother-in-law made me frozen Tater Tots,,, she served them  ice cold,,,I told her ,  "these aren't fully cooked, they are still frozen."  she said " the package said  9 minutes, I cooked them 9 minutes. That's how they are supposed to be."   I've seen people choke on her food. Normally , we would go eat some pizza or something  before we went to my mother-in-law's  for dinner.
One day my mother  while doubting me, took a sample of mother-in-law's noodle pudding thing and  gagged on it, and  spit it in the garbage, and  made  strange sounds.  She said " i can't believe you are right. This food is inedible."  My cat Spanky died within 2 months of eating my mother -in-law's food.  He  had starved himself to death.  I'm amazed no other family members died, but some got sick.
Grayish Greenish chopped liver  was  her  specialty.  She could have  been  this country's secret weapon in the  big wars of the past.
     Thank goodness my kids inherited my mom's cooking talents and not my wife's mom's.
Although, my kids did get to grow up on my special tuna fish.  I would put  Tuna, vinegar, sunflower seeds, M&M's, chocolate syrup ,tomatoes, celery, and a touch of worcestshire sauce in it. The M&Ms made it attractive to the kids, and they loved it.  I always  played around with weird ingredients and that's probably why my son, "chef of the future' developed his famous pasta with tomato sauce and apples.  He is Mr. Experimenter. I wonder where he got that from .  Although he went to Thailand and cooked what looked like amazing dishes.  I believe, you experiment, don't be rigid, following recipe books and you get  a better dish.  Do like my mom, go by feel, by taste.
My daughter makes amazing chocolate chip cookies. It was by trial and error. She discovered the effects on the cookie if you used brown sugar or white sugar. The consistency changed.  Her chocolate chip and  her rainbow cookies are the best in the world.
   So with all that  food talk , I think i'm going to this Vietnamese place and getting a coconut shrimp sandwich.  Adios for now