FIPS Throwback Thursdays: Remembering Jackie's 5th

In December 2011, we posted THIS LIST of our ten (well, eleven, really) reviews on Yelp of Jackie's 5th Amendment.  Now that Jackie's is planning to close, we thought we'd repost our favorite reviews, with an update of the choicest comments from more recent reviewers.  So, here without further ado, is the reprint of that post.

* * *

We've EXTOLLED the virtues of Jackie's 5th Amendment, before.  We've argued that Jackie's was grievously overlooked by COMPLEX when they made their LIST of definitive NYC Dive Bars. And we've CHASTISED GQ for failing to recognize the raw, unbridled genius of Jackie's (and its ilk) when penning their fucked-up and lame GUIDE TO NIGHTLIFE in Brooklyn.

FiPS isn't alone in the appreciation of Jackie's 5th Amendment. Many of the REVIEWS of Jackie's on Yelp agree with us. Also, they are hilarious. So, here, without comment (mostly), and without correction of spelling, grammar, punctuation or capitalization, are our top ten excerpted comments from Yelp reviews of Jackie's 5th Amendment:

READ MORE

When Trees Attack: Prospect Park Edition

Image from The Wizard of OzSome dude was walking his dogs in Prospect Park when he was injured by a falling tree limb.  He's now suing the city for Twenty Million Dollars, and I have a few things I'd like to say about this.  Here are those things, presented in bullet points, so that you can digest them more easily. 

• Twenty Million Dollars?  Oh my fucking Zoroaster, what the hell?!?  Did you know that those sanitation workers in New Jersey who split a winning Powerball ticket are only estimated to get 3.5 million, each?  Seriously.
• Twenty Million Dollars?  Dude, what the fuck were your injuries, anyway?  I mean, I'm not saying it wasn't  a serious accident or anything, but for $20 Million, I'm guessing that the tree fell on your dick, and now you can't do secks anymore.  Or maybe it injured you in a way that you can no longer eat bacon.  Something really awful like that.

READ MORE

Pie Pops Finally Arrive in Park Slope!

In a recent post maligning the concept of cake pops, we opined that "pie is superior to cake in every regard."  Inasmuch as no one took issue with this statement in the comments, we here at FiPS are treating the superiority of pie as a scientifically proven fact.

 

Since the neighborhood agrees 100% with me on this point, I have good news for Park Slope!  Pie Pops have been spotted at the 5th Avenue Greenmarket! 

READ MORE

'Daily News' Wants to Clean Up the Gowanus with Vaginal Sponges

Oh, Daily News.  What are you doing?

In a recent story about how Mayor Bloomberg is going to plant a park along the Gowanus Canal to soak up all of the overflowing water during a heavy rain, the News used an oh-so-very-current reference from Seinfeld in their sub-headline, pronouncing the Gowanus "sponge-worthy."  The upshot of the story is that the funding is finally in place to build a so-called "sponge park" along the banks of Brooklyn's favorite Superfund site.

First of all, it's stupid to call this a "sponge park," because there will be no sessile sea animals of of the phylum Porifera in this particular park. So, if you were getting your kids all excited about showing them marine life in a neighborhood park, well, prepare to be disappointed.

Oh, no. This is a park that will have regular old garden-variety plants that drink water. Two years ago, the city planted tree pits along 4th Avenue to try to deal with this problem, but apparently, that didn't work. So, now they're going bigger. With a whole park of plants that will allegedly drink sewer water, so that the sewer plants don't back up and deposit poop in your basement. I'd say, "don't hold your breath," except you might have to, 'cause I'm willing to bet that even with this new park, the Gowanus will still smell like a giant turd.

But back to the Daily News. A reference from a sitcom that's 20 years old? And not just any ancient pop-culture reference, but one that refers to a vaginal contraceptive sponge?!? Wow. So, what are your readers supposed to think, Daily News? Should they be worried that if they visit this park, they'll be expected to insert these plants into their hoo-hoo? Will this park give them toxic shock syndrome? Can the Gowanus Canal prevent pregancy, or will it forever be relegated to promoting birth defects? Only time will tell, I suppose.  

In other news, vaginal sponges have actually been back on the market for the past several years. Which makes me think that perhaps the quickest way to clean up the Gowanus would be to manufacture one giant contraceptive sponge, stick it in the Gowanus, and let it soak up the all the toxic waste. I mean, if it works in a vaginal canal, why wouldn't it work in the Gowanus Canal?

Now we all have to eat cake pops

Fabipops! [Photo by @mr_mookie and @creativityqas, via @fabipops on Instagram]

You guys. Everything is coming up cake pops. The balls of cake on a stick are the new cronuts, which are the new frozen yogurts, which are the new cupcakes. And since no trend truly exists unless it exists in Park Slope, you might not be ready to accept the cake pop as a trend because they did not exist in Park Slope until just now. Fabipops, a store dedicated to the newest dessert sensation, just opened an outpost in The Slope (60 4th Avenue, between Bergen and Dean St). And duh - they will sell you a cake pop if you want one. 

Now that you know what a cake pop is, did you know that you can have Fabipops make a cake pop that looks like your head? Did you know that you can get a cake pop emblazoned with the logo of your business or of your poorly-run transit system? Well you can. So, if this solves some sort of problem you were having about wanting someone to eat a cake voodoo doll of you, or of squandering shareholder money/taxpayer dollars on cake with a stick in it, well: "TA DA!"

Personally, I think cake pops are stupid, because:

(1) They are not pie and everyone knows that pie is superior to cake in every regard; and

(2) Everyone also knows that the only reason to put something on a stick and call it a "pop" is so that you can lick it. And licking cake is weird and wrong.

That having been said, I can't really make fun of this woman's business, because she had a young child who died of pneumonia. So, I guess we're all just going to have to lick cake on a stick, everybody!

Who's excited?