BLOCK-OFF! 5th Ave [btwn 10th & 9th] vs. 7th Ave [btwn 13th & 12th]

Oh fickle love. One day, you’re smiling into each others’ eyes, belly-laughing at each others’ jokes, leaving coy little notes for each other to find. The next, you’re married & your husband turns out to be a complete ass who forces himself on you, so you up & chop off half his penis with a piece of kitchen cutlery & toss it in a field. That’s right folks. Sixteen years ago today, down in Manassas, VA, the early days of cable news got one of its first, majorly transfixing stories, when Lorena Bobbitt grabbed a carving knife & dismembered her husband’s member.

This week, in honor of America’s love of sensational cable news (you didn’t think I was going to honor spousal rape & dismemberment, did you?), we’ll be infusing the Block-Off! with the spirit of TOTALLY AWESOME journalistic sensationalism.

As we visit 5th Ave between 10th & 9th and 7th Ave from 13th to 12th, the two blocks will, in the true spirit of cable news, offer us round-the-clock, breaking coverage of child abductions & celebrity trials & octomoms. As they navigate their way through our fast-moving 2.0 (3.0?) blogosphere of camera phone tweets by citizen journalists, one block will provide coverage of people staging a protest against a comedian & the other will offer up a very special exclusive with the Jonas Brothers. In the end, we’ll declare a winner, but we won’t really mean it. Let the excruciatingly painful, “hologram”-riffic, infotainmentastical judging begin!

Click to read more ...

BLOCK-OFF! 5th Ave [btwn 8th & 7th] vs. 7th Ave [btwn 3rd & 2nd]

Thug life, yo! That’s right! Today’s celebrity birthday?...Tupac Shakur! Thirty-eight years ago today, Shakur was born to an East Harlem woman who was also totally a member of the Black Panther Party. Since we dedicated last week's Block-Off! to my favorite college-era hippies, Phish, we’re going to take you back even further this week & dabble in my high-school musical tastes by going all hip-hop on yo ass.

I can’t think of two more gangsta blocks in Park Slope than this week’s two contenders—5th Ave from 8th to 7th and 7th Ave from 3rd to 2nd. Both blocks have Bingo! That’s wicked gangsta. Since 5th Ave’s obviously more gangsta than 7th & located west of it, we’ll be infusing it with the spirit of Tupac, while 7th Ave’s block will be inhabited by Tupac’s best bud to the east, Biggie Smalls.

As the two blocks fight for their respective territories & reps, a turf war will develop & a lot of people will say a lot of things & there’ll be beefs & disses & representin’. We’ll move a bunch of units, but by the end, both blocks will be dead…but one will end up selling more posthumous albums!...but he won’t even get a biopic. Let the bandana-wearing, paranoid, 2Pacalyptic judging begin! California love, y’all.

Click to read more ...

BLOCK-OFF! 5th Ave [btwn 4th & 3rd] vs. 5th Ave [btwn President & Union]

some artsy photo from the Phish show in Camden [ed note: UGH...PHISH!]

Oh, man. I just got back from a Park Slope-free weekend of Phish shows in Massachusetts & scenic Camden and I’m totally burnt right now. Since June is here, it was a badass weekend, with lots of hip-focused dancing & slight tans from lovely weekend weather (sorry rain-soaked Jones Beachgoers). All I’m saying is that in the two shows I saw, I heard me a Fluffhead, a Lizards, a Guyute, a Hood, a Wolfman’s Brother, a Fee, a Possum, a stellar Chalkdust opener, a Contact and an Antelope-->Tweezer Reprise closer. It was like 1998 all over again.

This week, to honor Park Slope’s neo-hippies, we’re infusing our two blocks with Patchouli & herb & the souls of folks in their mid-thirties as we hang out on 5th Ave btwn 4th & 3rd and President & Union. As one block embodies the soul of Phish pre-Trey arrest & the other embodies that late period before this year’s reforming, where it felt like a funeral for Phish, we’ll friggin’ twirl & spin & sway & look up at summer skies feeling like there’s no place we’d rather be. If you’re vindictive like me, we’ll also see it as another example of why the Grateful Dead are so not as good. Let the shaggy-haired & pitted, pentatonic, Helping Phriendly judging begin!

Click to read more ...

BLOCK-OFF! 7th Ave [btwn 5th & 4th] vs. 7th Ave [btwn 2nd & 1st]

Holy crap! It’s friggin' June already! I know that it happens pretty much every year after Memorial Day, but I’ve been so busy trying to sweep visions of Sunday night’s sub-par Breaking Bad season finale out of my head that I plum didn’t even see it coming. Still, I can’t seem to shake the fact that one of my top-five TV shows totally left me underwhelmed. They give us twelve episodes of crazy cancer-having, Chemistry-teaching, meth-dealing awesomeness & then they end with that thirteenth episode? At least the shit that blew up in the season finale of LOST was part of the plot.

Since I need you to feel the totally justified inner torment that I’m experiencing at the hands of a TV Chemistry teacher, we’ll be visiting two blocks with schools of their own this week. We’re heading on down to 7th Ave to pit the block between 5th & 4th against the one between 2nd & 1st.

In the spirit of the specter that’s haunting my soul, one block will take on the meth-cooking, Macgyveresque persona of Walter White, while the other will represent his family man & Chemistry teaching side. They’ll cook a ton of colorful "Blue Sky" & try to poison insane Mexican drug dealers & almost die in the desert and by the end of it all, we’ll be left with nothing but a feeling of emptiness. Sigh. Let the dual-existence, Southwestern-tinged, meth-fueled judging begin!

Click to read more ...

BLOCK-OFF! 5th Ave [btwn Sackett/Berkeley & Degraw/Lincoln] vs. 7th Ave [btwn 1st & Garfield]

image via BrownstonerWe’re back, bitchez! The Block-Off! And I took the last week off & stayed in bed with a mound of our preferred drug, cuddling & occasionally showering & just enjoying each other’s company…Week-Off!

This week, we’re back to fill the void in your hearts. Official Summer Solstice date be damned— Monday was Memorial Day and it’s basically summer now, so we’re back out & about, honoring people & grilling shit.

To celebrate this memorious holidation, we’ll be visiting 5th Ave from Sackett/Berkeley to Degraw/Lincoln and 7th Ave from 1st to Garfield. One of the blocks will represent all the young men throughout the years who have died for old men’s ideas and the other will represent propane fumes, tiny flags & an inordinate amount of Budweiser. As the two blocks struggle for control of the Memorial Day ideals, both will likely end up sunburned, dehydrated & intoxicated with cheap beer & BBQ, but only one will be left standing as the other is memorialized, probably through drinking. Let the non-date specific, skewly-Patriotic, cookoutasmic judging begin!

Click to read more ...