Today the gods did not smile upon me friends. My meeting was canceled to start things off. Below is brief outline of the remainder of my misfortune.

 - 3 minutes out the door I stepped in dogshit.
- My bike that has lay dormant for months at my girlfriends old place had the lock rusted through and now has to be cut...and i need a new tube.
- I get a serious case of the runs and end up asking my old super to let me in an abandoned Morrocan place on 3rd Avenue to use the facilities....disgusting
- As I continue to work on the lock a bird shits on my head.
- Crunch disallows me from terminating my contract once again until September 31.
 - I got drunk and lost my phone..wait...that doesn't happen until later tonight, nevermind.

While Austin is out gallavanting with locals in Grenada of all places, I am stuck in this not-so-hellish hole of NYC. My day was spent delving in the depths of a shithole sublet in Astoria, Queens. Weeks ago I was made aware of a quandary. My good friend was being hassled, to be put lightly, by a cocaine addicted gambler cum derelict landlord. For the past year he has been living in a 100/wk renter on a building that can only be described as a place you always wondered what went on in and you are now most certainly correct about. Drugs, prostitutes and the like were commonplace and he was holed up in his 10x10 room armed only with the creativity of thought and a cheaply made Korean lock that would keep the local dregs at bay. One year was his struggle and a struggle it was. Ensuing insanity below....

The trek started with a parking attendant pulling my rental up to the front of a garage named aptly "The Parking Club" on Pacific Street. The rear window had been smashed so heinously recent that shattered glass littered the back seat. I navigated the Tacoma to 27th Street and 23rd Avenue in Queens without a hitch, for the most part.

Standing on the corner shit in hand . . . it's a smash and grab job. He tells me of undue back rent and incessant harassment. We are to be subtle. As we begin hurriedly moving oversize black garbage bags, cheaply made furniture and the like confrontation is behind every door. A man, 'the uncle'  as he put it, comes midway through the move to assure us things are changing around there. Attempting desperately to assuage my friend's, the tenant, reservations about continuing quarters there. I am walked through the bad to worse conditions of the apartment. A petite Russian girl interrupts politely in poor English, she came across some things in the shower. I am told this was a prostitute, one of many, that has lived there for days.

We drop the first load off fifteen minutes away and head back. The dense air thickens as the night begins to creep ever so slowly across a forgotten corner of nowhere. People are listening to our casual conversation, I could tell. Our chitty type chat is briefly suspended by an encounter with another tenant. An elderly latin women who my friend has actually never seen before and who undoubtedly speaks no English. A window above opens and closes. We shuffle a mattress covered in plastic out the door just as the landlord Mike approaches. In not so many words wants money. "Hold on, hold on, I'll be right back", I jump in the car and start the engine. 

MW has been in Brazil for months and he comes back to this piece of shit living in his room , sleeping in his bed, using his haircare products etc. I never felt better for someone else in my life than helping a friend out of that situation. Best of luck friend.

While browsing a 3 day old NYT I came across some actual neighborhood news. Blocks away, places I wouldn't say frequent, but have been a occasional patron of are out of business. The one-time stranglehood that Oven, Wine bar, Blue Pig and the Busychef had on Henry Street is no more.  According to this article they were the target of a scam artist employee who was parading around as owner. I saw the Brooklyn Heights Blog was mentioned in the article good for them. Seems like people onto it pretty much knew the deal but some were not so lucky as credit cards were charged to the tune of some ten thousands. It seems this Kaufman character temporarily pulled one over and has a history of this trailing back to Beantown. This fucker put 50 people out of work. Local musings below.

“There isn’t much out there. It’s going to be so hard for all of us to find work. I am questioning whether I should even put the Wine Bar on my résumé...My biggest fear now is being associated with all of this.” - Farah, employee at Wine bar

The Times calls Chef Jerk “affable.” Didn’t most of us generally get a “sleazeball” feel from him rather than an “affable” one, long before there was any proof of said sleaziness? - Nigel, poster on BHB

They all echo the same thing. Right under our noses too, that bastard.

Very recently I had a conversation with an unnamed person, AH. The topic of the conversation was the lack of coups that have happening in the recent years. It is always an exciting thing, especially when it is one of those hostile but not deadly instances. I am not talking about the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, I am talking a little bit more cagey.

As of right now news pouring out of the oil barron country of Mauritania is that the military is or has displaced the current leadership after the canning of 4 military officals because of their support for politicians who were threatening to bring corruption charges on certain influential people. Now apparently the government is more friendly to hard line Islamists. People like NYP, FoxNews, NewsMax and CNN for that matter have all appeared to not care. Which I will say is not the field day/media circus I expected. We shall see in the coming weeks I guess. Last I heard the president is detained. That must be so shitty, going from the president of a country to captive of your own subordinates.

Read more here.

Above: Where my dry cleaning probably is.

The seemingly endless chess match I am embroiled in with the local dry cleaners has come to a head. What started with a simple next day pick up debacle that left me running for my flight to Paris (later to find it was delayed hours) was dismissed as a miscommunication. They also do not really deliver.

This latest episode was another simple drop-off wash 'n' fold with dry cleaning. After the customary 15 minutes of waiting the bill comes to 14.86. I pull a crisp 20 and 4 not so crisp, rather unsavory looking, 1 dollar bills. I grab my change and speed walk out the door. After conquering my 6 floor walk-up I pull out my change to find I never got $10 back. I run down to inquire and am rudely turned away. Sure, she gave me the 10. It blew away in wind/fell outta my pocket or another ridiculously unbelievable suggested explanation.

The next day I go to pick up my dry cleaning to find only my shirts are there. These people have my clothes. I am totally defenseless against these people. "Come back later, maybe later" they say. Fine, I take the high road. I prepay to expedite this process.

'These people have my clothes. I am totally defenseless against these people'

I go in the following day  before my morning meeting. The pants are there. I grab them and head off .. . a disgruntled customer. Hold on now. What's that? I did not pay? I owe 9 dollars for these 2 pants? Fuck you! So now they are almost $20 ahead. It's like an onion, the more you peel it, the more it stinks. After minutes of waiting for them to verify what I know is wrong I ask, Can I just grab them and bring the money by later? No.

So now my pants are there. I'm out $20. These fucks.