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Friday, August
06, 2004 at 12:29:40 (EDT) |
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Like nine cans of shaving powder
Here's a good illustration of why Brooklyn is cool: in the same
day I saw an amazing funk band, and then later the same night
I took in a show of bizarre jug band music. First it was the
historically significant Ohio
Players at Metrotech.
These guys kicked 5 kinds of ass at this free outdoor concert.
Despite how long they've been dong this (the few original
members have been at it since 1968), they obviously enjoy
themselves and were especially attentive to thanking everybody
involved, something few performers remember to do.
  They
got the crowd on its feet several times, no small feat considering
the audience had a lot of old folks in attendance. At one
point they even got the whole audience to chant "OHIO!"
which as a transplanted Clevelander I found a most surreal
sight.
All the guys pictured here are original members, including
the drummer, who miraculously switched places with another
drummer mid-song so he could run up and introduce the band.
Can Buzz McKinnon do that?
 Later
that evening I rolled out on the folding bike to go to Southpaw's
Jugfest, an evening of jug bands. Or so they said. We saw
nary a jug onstage, not counting the freakish fake boob of
transsexual porn star Allanah
Starr she was waving around at one point. Don't ask me
to explain what a she-male was doing at a country music showcase.
Also don't ask me why representatives from Troma
films showed up and gave away DVDs and other paraphernalia.
Or what any of this had to do with L
Magazine. In Brooklyn, we don't ask such questions, we
just accept the magic. Speaking of not asking questions, look
at this weird truck I saw on my street on the way over. It's
an SUV totally covered in weird baubles and stuff. It was
hard to get a photo cuz it kept reflecting too much .
The Flanks
The Flanks brought the house down with their bluegrass version
of Queen's "Fat Bottomed Girls" which they rightly
dedicated to Ms. Starr. Most of my pictures didn't really
come out, but all the bands we saw were excellent. The music
ranged from old-school country to Django Reinhardt-style guitar
jazz (the latter was best performed by the Wiyos).
There were washboards, jaw-harps, kazoos, even a wash-tub
bass, but no jugs were to be found. We left before The
Brooklyn Jugs went on; maybe they had the only one. But
it was still a great show.
The Mad Jazz Hatters
Another things that was weird was the sheer number of dancing
people. At most rock shows around here, nobody bats an eye
when even the best bands are playing. I don't know much about
the jug-band scene in Brooklyn, maybe this is the way all
their shows are. But people were going nuts at this thing.
Is this happening at all the country shows these days? Oh
right, I'm not supposed to ask.
Posted By Jimmy Legs
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Thursday,
August 05, 2004 at 11:48:20 (EDT) |
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Over and over and over again
You knew it was going to happen sooner or later. After many
auditions, we're proud to announce The Summer 2004 Jimmy Legs
Charity Case. You may remember last year's graduating class,
which was a family of cats sired by Pinky.
Like last year's finalists, our newest winner distinguished
himself by barging into the house and making himself at home.
We've been calling this guy Toby, after Sylvia's family cat
whom he closely resembles. He appears to be a fairly young
male, with big round eyes and a big round head. Oh, and his
left ear sticks out funny (it doesn't even appear to be an
injury, it's like he was just born that way). The rest of
him is pretty scrawny, a state wrought all the more extreme
when he sits near Mr Bones.
The resident cats, by the way, have done jack to stop him
from roaming around the house. Despite the fact he's male
and therefore a possible threat, Mr Bones ran out of hissing
steam pretty quick and Hubcap barely notices there's another
cat on the premises. Decatur just runs away. Why don't these
animals defend their turf? Is it the near-constant parade
of cats that seem to pass through our doors? Are they just
wimps? Yes.
I think he has a brother cuz I've seen an identical cat outside
with a non-crooked ear. But despite the perfect ears, that
cat didn't have the foresight to turn on the charm at our
back gate. I thought about trying to aritifcially increase
demand for this guy by saying we wouldn't be giving him away,
but that's just too pathetic to endure. But the good news
is that interested parties are already weighing their options
and so Toby may soon be claimed. However, if you simply must
have a cat with a perpendicular ear, do not hesitate to contact
our offices.
Posted By Jimmy Legs
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Thursday,
August 05, 2004 at 01:51:05 (EDT) |
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Might as well jump
 It
sucks that this post was inspired by my reading about a new,
most likely lame, movie that's about to come out, Without
a Paddle. But whatever. Do you guys know the story of D.B.
Cooper? This was always one of my favorite Unsolved
Mysteries-type of story. In brief, a guy took a flight
from Portland to Seattle in 1971, hijacked the plane and demanded
$200,000 and some parachutes. Then he forced the plane to take
off again, he opened the aft stairs and jumped out with the
cash. The FBI has never been able to pin the crime on anyone.
D.B. Cooper was never officially heard from again.
Actually the name he gave at the airport wasn't D.B. Cooper,
it was Dan Cooper, some reporter got it wrong. Exhaustive
manhunts of the area thought to be his drop-point revealed
nothing. A few years later a little kid found $5800 of the
dough, far upstream. But nobody found a body, or a discarded
parachute. From the optimist's perspective, it sure looked
like this guy managed to score 200 grand and get away with
it.
Duane Weber |
There's gonna be a new documentary
about the case, which is apparently still open. It purports
to reveal new evidence linking Cooper to real suspects. The
most intriguing is that of Duane Weber, who died in the mid-90s,
whispering on his deathbed "I'm Dan Cooper." There
appears to be a lot of evidence, but there's still nothing that
conclusively links him to Cooper. My favorite suspect is Richard
McCoy, a guy who executed an almost-identical heist a few years
after Cooper. He got away too, but his big mouth landed him
in prison. The he escaped! Yea! And then Federal agents shot
him. Oh well. It was fun while it lasted.
Still the best theory is to believe the guy really did get
away with it. This seems unlikely, mostly because none of
the money has ever surfaced (the FBI logged all the serial
numbers). Then again, how closely is this stuff tracked? Do
you ever look at the serial number on a bill? Who cares as
long as I can use it to buy beer at the bodega.
 Because
of the novelty of the crime, and the incredible odds involved,
one would be forgiven for romanticizing what is otherwise
another scary airplane hijacking. But nobody got hurt, and
the guy didn't have a political axe to grind; he just wanted
moolah. His story belongs to an earlier era, the same one
that produced that Catch
Me if You Can story. Neither could exist today. The
further we get from this kind of thing, the more attractive
it seems. Oh, to fly on airplanes when the worst possible
experience you might have to face is a guy in a conservative
suit who hijacks the plane with a note. And the flight attendant
he gave it to didn't even read it right away because she thought
it was his phone number.
We're so spooked these days it sometimes seems like we'll
never have crazy things like this happen again. I suppose
the trade-off is supposed to be that we're safer, even if
it means a blander existence. Huh, I still don't feel safer.
Do you?
Posted By Jimmy Legs
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Wednesday,
August 04, 2004 at 09:57:59 (EDT) |
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White lines
 Coleen
had a little birthday get-together at the Highline,
so named because the actual Highline
rails run outside the building. Apart from that, there is
no other discernable connection to it; it's a Thai restaurant
with a bizarre interior. Especially the lower level, which
is completely white, resembling both an Austin Powers
setpiece and the TV studio scene from Willy Wonka.
In the light of the flash, the fountain was somehow less appealing
than in the dark
 The
restaurant has a waterfall fountain that spans its entire
3 stories. What was good about the place is that there are
very few sharp corners on which a drunk person might injure
himself. What's bad about it is the preponderance of chairs
made out of the Swedish exercise balls, which I felt would
be increasingly difficult to balance upon the longer one was
drinking. I stuck to the mod chairs.
JC Penney catalogue, circa 1968.
 I
spent a long time trying to photograph myself in the big mirror
ball. This is as good as it got.
 Eventually
we decided we couldn't take it anymore and retreated to the
decidedly less stylized Brass
Monkey down the street.
Posted By Jimmy Legs
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Tuesday, August
03, 2004 at 09:45:00 (EDT) |
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We got a drug, we wanna try it out
on you
 When
they first started up with the terror alerts the other day,
I must admit that the first thing that popped into my head was,
"It's a Republican ploy; they're drumming up the paranoia
so when they come to town they'll look really 'brave' for coming
to New York." Buzz added that such terror alerts have the
effect of tightening security weeks before the convention, and
so people will be less likely to question restrictions when
they get here. But I felt a little bad for being so skeptical,
especially since the information could be saving my life.
So what are we to do with the news that the 'tips' used to
induce these new alerts were based
on data from 3 or 4 years ago? Some officials are saying
the info is important because the terrorists like to gather
information for a long time before striking. Okay, so now
what? They're planning on attacking financial institutions
in New York ... sometime. While I'd like to believe these
terror alerts are prompted by only the best intentions, these
intentions no longer matter. The only results of giving this
information to the public are increased traffic, government
clamp-downs, fear in the general populace, and the sneaking
suspicion that somebody is interested in keeping life like
this as long as possible.
You might say I'm just being overly sensitive, that my conclusions
are unfounded. But how is that any different from these dubious
warnings we're getting from the government?
Posted By Jimmy Legs
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Monday, August
02, 2004 at 11:31:55 (EDT) |
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Freddy's on the corner ... now
I urge all local residents to go to Freddy's
as much as possible, since we don't know how much longer it
will be around, due to the Stupid Arena Thing they want to
build on top of it. We gathered a team of highly
professional
photographers to document an evening at the bar so that future
generations may know the joys of said establishment. Or something
like that.
Shaves as close as a blade |
My forehead produces its own light |
Buzz is gonna go kick that guy's ass |
At least some people had some class |
| It's not always easy to hang out with
a stand-up comic |
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Booze helps Heather endure |
But what evil does he have in store? |
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Three tomcats on the prowl! Rrrrrooowwwr!
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This is what happens when you lend out
your digital camera |
Posted By Jimmy Legs
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Archives
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Week of August 1 -7, 2004
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It
starts off cute when Decatur starts into the grooming thing.
But it rapidly gets disturbing because she never ever stops
once she starts. I have to pull away when it becomes intolerable;
otherwise I think she'd just keep going until she hit bone.