Union Pool and the Reverend

Union Pool is arguably the best bar in Brooklyn. It is too crowded to really enjoy on the weekends, but every Monday the Reverend and his Love Choir break it down. Here's a little sample:

Black Swan

Saw Black Swan last night, which was good. Very emotionally difficult. I left with a cramp, which lasted for about an hour and was only helped by a shot of Buffalo Trace whiskey and some jalapeno potato chips and a pint a Yuengling.

Perhaps it would have been easier to stomach if my ex-girlfriend weren't a ballerina, but that, unfortunately, is not what this post is about.

Natalie Portman did a fine job acting in the film. She will likely win Best Actress at the Oscars. The only point I didn't believe she was a real ballerina was when she told her mom that she got the lead role as the Swan Queen. She did, as Gio described, her facial contractions - smile, to lesser smile, to bigger smile, etc.

Other than that she was stunning. And while at times the relationship between mother and daughter was mawkish, it was so in a good way. We all can relate to the mawkishness. In the same way we shudder at her self-mutilation.

Ugh, I think about it and the stomach tumor bulges.
For a more in depth review, click to learn about Brooklyn.

The Strabismics Pt. 2

They took the 6 train to Union Square and transferred to the L train. Bohemian accordian music floated hazily along the platform. Their bellies fluttered with the unknown. After a few minutes the silver train bulleted to a slow stop, humming as the robotic man's voice said, Stand clear of the closing doors please.

By the fourth stop in Brooklyn, they were alone with a little Mayan-looking mother with a brown sugar colored baby in a stroller, a girl with a pallor that oddly matched her pink hair and fishnet leggings, a dude in a tank top and colorfully inked sleeves, and a couple of punks wearing denim vests and baseball caps with the brim flipped up. The subway rumbled to their stop, and the punks joined them in waiting for the doors to open. They walked up the stairs and the indigo spring sky devoured them.

 Buckley strutted into the brisk swinging a jean-jacketed arm as he held his other to his ear to call his man. There was no answer. Buckley left a message. They would wait five minutes. They stood in the style of rebels without a cause, arms folded, smoking cigarettes, a booted foot bent at a 90 degree angle, propping them against the brick wall.
  

Around them square buildings sat clunking in industry. Mesh steel fences hovered gravely as shreds of plastic bags caught in barbed wire flickered in the wind. Behind the fences was more of the ubiquitous brick plated with black steel grated windows and smokestacks filtering into the sky. Wind whispered at them through newly budding trees.

On the opposing corner was an organic food store and what seemed to be a cafe. They ventured down the empty street eyeing straggled hipsters smoking outside the cafe.
 Five minutes was up. Buckley called. Luckily, their man answered. He would be down in a minute. They went back to the brick building built on the subway station and waited ten minutes. First thing you learn is you always gotta wait.

The Strabismics Pt. 1

This is the first installation of a chapter in my forthcoming book, Hot Love on the Wing. To my younger readers, proceed with caution, it is rated M for Mature.

It was Easter weekend and he hadn't seen Buckley for a few weeks.  Their friendship had plateaued due to Buckley being set on making new friends at school and spending most of his time there, although he missed Gabriel.
They manhugged, with their arms x'ed around each other's shoulders and an arched gap between their pelvises. It was Friday afternoon and the evening sunshine darkened so when they sat down there was an odd play of sunshine across Buckley's bed and onto his face; it looked like a nasty birthmark. Gabriel hadn't been smoking weed and didn't miss it, but social smoking was a delight. Buckley packed a bowl eagerly and he said this was the last, melancholically, but that he knew a guy from Stony Brook who had a friend who lived in Bushwick.

“Bushwick? Isn't that in Brooklyn?”

“Ya man, it's off the L train. Supposed to be real fire.”

Although most druggies won't admit it, the adventure of picking up the drugs is half the pleasure of consumption. Since Gabriel had never been to Bushwick he decided it would be fun to go.

As he felt his thoughts and worries begin to evaporate, Buckley took out a piece of aluminium foil with a black letter on it and an empty pen. He lit the black letter with a lighter and hovered the pen over it as he sucked in the fumes. 

“What the fuck are you doing, man?”

Buckley nodded profusely as he finished inhaling the last of the smoke. “Dude, I'm trying to quit Oxycodon, so I smoke this opiate resin.”

Gabriel looked at him like he was five feet underwater. “What? So you're smoking heroin?” He tried to be amiable, unjudging about Buckley's habit. This is my friend, he is a good guy. Maybe it isn't the way it looks. But it looks like he's smoking crack. All those times we smoked weed under the bridge and now...

“Dude, it's not heroin. It's much safer than heroin because you couldn't possibly smoke enough of this to die.”

“You might as well smoke heroin. You look like a crack fiend.”

“Trust me man. It's much safer.”

“I just don't want you getting caught up in these drugs man. Mary is one thing, but this resin shit is weird.”

“Try it and see for yourself that it's not that weird.”

For a second, Gabriel debated whether he should try, but his gut warned him. “Nah, I'm okay.”
    Buckley finished his drug and his phone vibrated. It was a text message from his man in Bushwick. "He said go to the Morgan stop and he'll meet us there."


PB 'n' J 'n NYC

I eat PB 'n' J every day at my desk in Brooklyn, New York. Sometimes I'll blog while I'm eating it, or social bookmark, or read the New York Times.

The bread, for the sake of variation, is changed loaf by loaf. Right now, I have two slices of Potato Bread, but this is aberrant; tomorrow I will buy a fresh loaf of whole wheat/oat bran medley.

The Peanut Butter must be natural with or without salt added, but processed peanut butter is really nasty. Once, when I was in college, I bought the peanut butter and jelly in a jar combo, thinking it would save me time (because I was really busy smoking weed and reading Denise Levertov). It was a bad idea.

The preserves must be 100% fruit, or at least close to it. Jam has corn syrup and jelly has all kinds of nitrites and other shit in it.

I don't mess with organic milk because I'm a lowly writer, but I dig the 1%. You cannot drink anything else with PB n' J. If you do or try to deny me, I won't be your friend. I buy it by the half gallon and drink it from the carton. By Friday I'm usually running low, but it's a Friday so it's okay.

It's healthy and sweet, packed with protein and omega-3s and vitamins. I love my PB 'n' J with milk.

Daniel Adler's 100th Blog Post

Hey Guys and Gals,
This is my 100th blog post, and it has been nearly a year since I started this thing. I want to thank y'all for staying tuned, and I want to reassure you that there's a lot more good stuff to come. I hope you've enjoyed reading excerpts from my forthcoming novel, Hot Love on the Wing (which believe me, still needs about a year of work). My ideas and thoughts on our moment of late postmodernism, post postmodernism, metamodernism, or whatever you want to call it, are always subject to interpretation based on our the definitive quality of our interaction. And my hopes and love for Brooklyn and New York can always be enhanced with more information.

If you have any ideas for me as to what I should blog about, feel free to drop a comment. To all you new viewers, don't be scared to follow me. I'm working hard to make my blog the most interesting one on the internet, and with your help and my hard work, it will be.
All my love,
Daniel Adler

Can We Call Brooklyn Its Own City Again?

Brooklyn has recently been drawing literary agents and basketball teams to its friendly confines. The Nets won’t be called the New York Nets, they’re going to be the Brooklyn Nets. Last night I met a biker from Denver on my way home and welcomed him, telling him that this is the best city in the world (I meant Brooklyn, nothing against Manhattan). That said, is it fair to treat Brooklyn as its own city?

Oakland and San Franscisco, Baltimore and DC, Brooklyn and New York –can we put the last pair in this group? Until 1898 Brooklyn was its own city. The Economist calls it Manhattan’s Left Bank, but for the past decade Brooklyn has regained its status as a city worth living in. The development of North Brooklyn especially has added to this, as Williamsburg has taken Manhattan’s Lower East Side and East Village spillover, and reclaimed the young artists and creatives as their own.

Part of this is due to the increased safety of the city – downtown Manhattan is no longer “rough;” unless you live in deep Bushwick, you don’t have to worry about walking home late at night. So I’m advocating Brooklyn not just as a sister city, but as it's own city. Manhattanites have to really just how uncool it would be if it didn't have the creative center of the universe a mile away. After all, with almost 2.5 million people, Brooklyn would be the sixth largest city in the country on its own. That’s pretty cool.

 Excitedly,
Daniel Adler

A Brooklyn Discourse

I was born in Brooklyn. Once its own city, it was consolidated into New York in 1898.  That is not to say that its character as a city has become subsumed, leaving it as nothing more than a borough. Instead of being competitors like San Francisco and Oakland, or Baltimore and D.C., Brooklyn and Manhattan are sisters. One is the runway model, the other is the athletic one, bound for the big leagues. She's a cauldron of pluck and bubbling verve that enjoys being removed from the limelight that bathes Manhattana. And geography plays into it too. Manhattan is patently phallic. It was gridded more than 400 years ago because the Dutch settlers knew that it would fill with people, and that all of them would eventually vie for space. In Manhattan, it's not possible for a building to take up more than a square city block. It is a city of autonomies, of arid scimitars. Brooklyn, south of Manhattan, also has easy access to the River and spreads, north to Queens and the Island. But it's vulvular. All of the streets come together to form a V, slanting and coy, taking you from one neighborhood to the next, as long as you know your way. They'll accept you, even if it is with a raised brow or an evil eye. And because I was born there, not in the graceful cradle of pomp and circumstance, it comes  reflected in my character. It's why I'm adventurous, yet wary of standing out, because Brooklyn is not about standing out like Manhattan, it's about who can stand out the best while blending in. Sometimes I press on with insouciance away from the stage, preferring instead to revel in the glory of size, biding my time quietly, comfortably, in the way Brooklynites are proud. I live for authenticity, because that is a true New York characteristic, and Manhattan is ready to deceive with illusions of grandeur and bright lights. Brooklyn can't be swindled. The former is a place for work, and tourists, and millionaires. The vast ocean of Brooklyn lies removed from the hubub and centerpiece of Times Square and the financial center. Across the East River, well into the 21st century there are neighborhood enclaves of immigrants, and they point to the old bubushkas with pushcarts and the slick haired kids elongating their vowels outside of salumerias, the affordable brownstones, the Puerto Rican auto body shops; that it is here where the poor immigrants came and slaved all away to make it in the world delivered upon them. 

East Williamsburg Art Show

The Eastern District art gallery off the Morgan stop is having an East Williamsburg show for the next month. The opening party is tonight, with a live DJ, free drinks, and some crazy cool avant garde art. I'll be there.

My friend Aakash Nihalani is going to be exhibiting. Aakash is my neighbor; he lives below me in the blue house on Boerum. He's a good guy. Below is some of his work:

So come tonight, and have fun with all of the post- postmodern artists and New York Writers.