Why You So Winey?

For time immemorial, New York City neighborhoods have been battling it out over the rights of businesses to sell liquor vs. the local residents' quality of life concerns. Back in the day, I guarantee there was some gaggle of cockamamie Temperance chicks repeatedly flapping their gums down on the Brooklyn docks about the ills of liquor.

These days, the Lower East Side & Meatpacking Districts are constant battlegrounds between drunkard-catering businesses & puke-hating residents. OBVIOUSLY, every time another business is granted a license to sell alcohol, we all get a little bit closer to hellfire & brimstone. Enough is enough.

In Park Slope, ever since vanquishing the nuisance, bottle-poppin' club that would've been Kemistry Lounge, we've turned our attentions toward the real threat--boutique wine & spirit shops. Late last month, the State Liquor Authority refused to grant a retail liquor license to Amaro Wine & Spirits, one such business that's trying to open up in the former Lucia space on 5th Ave between 1st & Garfield. The reason for the SLA's denial? Last-minute opposition by two nearby wine stores apparently worried about competition.

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Consider the Wang

These are the Wangs I know I know. These are the Wangs I know. WANG LABORATORIES! You made computers before most people made computers & before Steve Jobs was a thing & that was sorta awesome. Go tech!

These are the Wangs I know I know these are the Wangs I know. WANG CHUNG! You took the Chinese phrase for "yellow bell" & made ignorant 80's American radio listeners wonder about the Asian origin of your band name whilst ensuring that Dick Clark had to repeatedly say "Wang Chung." Everybody have fun tonight!

These are the Wangs I know I know these are the Wangs I know. WANGS...PENISES...WANGS...PENISES.

These are the Wangs I know I know these are the Wangs I know. ALEXANDER WANG! Kanye dropped your name in a song & he is a TOTAL DESIGN EXPERT. You design clothes. You are urban. Whoopdee-do...

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[FIPS Was There...] Geeking Out

Image via Geeking Out

Back in the 80's, one of my favorite movies was definitely Revenge of the Nerds. It was this film about a bunch of geeks who went to college and formed a geek fraternity. It starred that one guy from ER and that other guy from thirtysomething and had scenes depicting both extended urination and extended eructation. Also...a panty raid. Also...boobs. By the end, we grow to love those geeks. They stage a concert and the college campus embraces them, despite how geeky they are. WE ARE ALL GEEKS.  

With geekdom in mind, I found myself back at Union Hall (sans bacon) on Tuesday night for the latest edition of Geeking Out, a geeky comedy/storytelling series hosted by FiPS' former managing editor Kerri Doherty. She's been hosting the series for a while now but I'm a bad acquaintance who's never actually made it to a single show. Basically, a bunch of people get up on stage and geek out over pop culture topics. Tuesday's lineup was to feature both comedienne Jeneane Garofalo and eighteen-time Moth Storyslam champion Adam Wade. Easy decision: I decided to shell out $5 for the ticket.

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[What You Should Order At...] Union Hall

WHAT YOU SHOULD ORDER AT...is a recurring column designed in kind for your opinionated asses and our lazy asses. When the mood strikes, we pick one Park Slope resto and recommend our favorite dish. Are we right? Are we wrong? YOU KNOW YOU WANNA WEIGH IN.

When I think of my five reasons for going to Union Hall, they rank as follows:

#1 - Alcohol, #2 - Atmosphere/Females, #3 - Shows, #4 - Food, #5 - Bocce.

I just don't get it. Bocce? What is this? An Italian neighborhood? BOCCE IS NUMBER FIVE. BEHIND FOOD.

Since Union Hall's opening back in 2006, I've spent many a spell within its bookish confines. I've smoked butts in the courtyard area. FiPS has held the occasional meeting/gathering there. I even brought my stuffed monkey to one meeting & started a lapsed column about it. One random summer night, I ended up working the door downstairs at a burlesque show, where I accidentally stamped some guy's shirt sleeve. In my defense, dude was wearing cufflinks, so he was kinda asking for it. Over time, in my dozens of visits there, I've probably ordered food two or three times. It isn't that the food's bad, It's just sort of meh...better-than-200-Fifth Bar food.

As such, until this week, I couldn't have named a damn thing on the Union Hall food menu. Early Tuesday evening, I stopped by briefly, sat at the bar and grabbed a beer. The food menu was right there and I was sick of looking at my phone, so I perused the front of the menu and flipped it over. On the back, a single item jumped out at me, an apparently recent addition to the menu: BACON ($8). The description: "A basket of crispy bacon." The bartender confirmed that said item was in fact a pile of bacon in a basket. It sounded about right. How different was it really from popcorn or mixed nuts or any other such bar snack?

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REVIEW'D: j'eatjet?

When Big Pun died of being BIG back in early 2000, we all realized that we had a mission: To keep the spirit of the BIG PUN alive and kicking.

Back in August of last year, 5th Ave Park Slope got a serious contribution to the BIG PUN legacy in the form of a "gastropub" called "j’eatjet?" PUNTASTIC. THEIR capitalization. THEIR punctuation. OUR quotations. It's Frenchish. It's questioning. It's almost too much pun for BIG PUN to handle.

'Round the j'eatjet? opening, FiPS got an email from the folks behind the place. The chefs were from Rose Water. Folks in the front of the house were from Rose Water and Dirt Candy. We thought to ourselves..."Rose Water is pretty damn good. Dirt Candy is pretty much the shit as far as veggie food goes." Flip side, in the name of an unnamed FiPS writer..."the name alone makes me want to throw a baby down a flight of stairs."

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