The Urban Grind

Why, they go “glamping” of course!

What that means for the rest of us is that they rent out their mansions in the Hamptons over the summer (for mucho dollars), and them move into trailers.

“It’s a piece of paradise. That we live here [is] a blessing to me,” Montauk resident Jeanette Esposito told CBS 2’s Jennifer McLogan on Thursday.

Esposito was talking about the Ditch Plains Trailer Park at Montauk Shores sitting at ocean’s edge — for 200 lucky families, complete with swimming pools and playgrounds.

Some call it “glamping” — or glamour camping.

“We don’t like to refer to them as trailers. Some people have the connotation it is rundown. I would say 90 percent of our residents live elsewhere for most of the year and they spend their summers here,” said Hugh Herbert of Montauk.

And some savvy Hamptonites are taking full advantage, squeezing in for the summer and renting out their sought after luxury million-dollar digs for the season.

Even owners of more modest homes are collecting $50,000 in rent for July and August. They will pay $1,400 a month to lease trailer space at Montauk Shores – quite a profit.

{snip}

But the trailer park in Montauk is full and there’s a waiting list for interviews. The trailer park in Montauk has been around for more than 50 years. The people who run the place said this is the first time they remember seeing Hamptons families moving in for the summer.

Interviews to rent out trailer park space? What’s next trailer park co-op boards??? There goes the neighborhood!

I’m sure you all know about the sky high prices of renting (and buying) apartments in New York City. New York City residents have the option of using a broker, thus paying a 15% commission of the entire year’s rent, along with a one month security deposit, and another one or two months of rent before moving in. Or if they don’t want to go that route, they could search Craigslist for either apartments or rooms to rent, if they want to save some money and have a roommate.

Now I thought I would try taking a roommate a while ago, but I was immediately turned off by people who could barely put a coherent sentence together. Also, I learned that I’m way too old for this kind of thing. I mean it’s one thing to be fresh out of college, with dreams of “making it” in the Big Apple. At that age, living in a basement apartment with several roommates while taking an entry level “glamour” job in advertising, public relations, or publishing no doubt is seen by some as edgy and chic. I know this because I’ve lived in Manhattan for most of my adult life. The expression “bridge and tunnels crowd” was made up by Manhattanites who look down their noses at people who live in Queens, Brooklyn, Staten Island and the Bronx. (But then again, I don’t think it applies to residents of Brooklyn Heights and Astoria these days.)

These are some of the same people who will pay more than ten dollars for the privilege of waiting on several block long lines in 10 degree weather to see the latest movie. These types will also take a summer share in a Westhampton pig sty of a house, or sleep in the garage of that same disgusting house just to say they vacation in the Hamptons.

Anyway, the reason I thought of all this today is because I just came across blog called The Worst Room, run by a homeless man that shows what your money will get you (or in this case, won’t get you) if you want to rent a room in New York City. Get a load of some of these rooms:

West Village, Manhattan. $1900.00

“Loft bed setup with workstation”

Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. $725.00

“with kitchen”

And here’s the lovely kitchen.

Upper East Side, Manhattan. $1600.00

Washington Heights, Manhattan. $300/month

(The Breakfast Nook)

I don’t have to remind anyone here that New York has always been a blue state. But New York City is the bluest of the blue. In most of these social circles, it’s just a given that you’re a liberal Democrat. I remember one time going out with a neighbor of mine and her friends back in 2003. At the restaurant, my neighbor started by saying “Now we’re all Democrats here,” at which point I interrupted her to announce my conservatism. And her answer was “That’s OK.” They were all very excited about having the choice of either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama as the next POTUS.

I’ve had as neighbors well to do married woman with one or two small children who worked high powered jobs. If I’d bothered to ask them at the time about their politics, I’m sure they would have said “Of course I’m a Democrat! Why are you even asking me?” But I’ve always wondered if they saw anything wrong with working 60 hours a week for the privilege of living in a fancy Upper East Side high rise rather than staying home with their children. Did it ever occurred to them that they might not need two salaries in the first place if they weren’t taxed so relentlessly. Then again, something tells me that their brains don’t work that way. After all, being a high powered working woman with one or two kids while living in a pricey Mahhattan sky rise is “chic.” You’re “having it all.” Staying home with the kids would be “wasting their education.” And let’s not forget the whole feminist/pro-choice issue. In New York City, it’s automatically assumed that you’re pro-choice. I mean what other way would there be for these women to have the same sexual freedom as men, right? Maybe that’s why they put up with the 60-80 hour work weeks, the punitive taxes, the big bad co-op boards (a subject of an entirely different post), and the subway.

Some people still have way too much time (and money) on their hands. They are flocking to celebrity dog groomer Jorge Bendersky to have temporary tatoos stenciled onto their dogs.

To “tattoo” a dog, Bendersky and other groomers typically start off by filling in a stencil with canine-safe glue. Next, they add dog-friendly glitter and, sometimes, pre-packed designs with rhinestones.

These designs, which cost approximately $100, are most often placed on dogs’ hips or tailbone, making the placement analogous to a lower back tattoo on a person.
“It’s all about the tramp stamp,” Bendersky said.

Here’s what some owners have to say about why they do this to their dogs:

6. “In the summer, they cut the dogs’ hair short, so you’ve got to supplement the glamour.”
5. “It’s grown immensely — even people in remote Iowa do it.”
4. “I go to a lot of events, and people dress up their dogs in expensive outfits, and it was something I could do to make my dog stand out that wasn’t that expensive.” [Ed. note: It costs about $100.]
3. “Sometimes, my dog and I dress in the same color if we’re going to a red carpet event. During the summer, it’s just too hot to have him wearing outfits like that … The tattoo is a good option.”
2. “Dogs are like humans, and when they accessorize they get attention. A pink dog does not know it’s pink, but when people are smiling and taking pictures, it gets attention … So, a dog likes to get tattoos.”
1. “It’s all about the tramp stamp.”

Obama’s goons in the media have pretty much declared war on legal American gun owners by publishing their names, addresses and the types of guns they own. First there was the Journal News, which is a Gannett publication. Now Gawker Media has published the names of legal gun owners in New York City.

Last month, the Journal News sparked a firestorm of protest when it published a mappable database of every licensed gun owner in Westchester and Rockland counties, north of New York City. The paper obtained the data—which New York state law explicitly and unambiguously demands be made public—through open records requests. The reaction was swift and furious—gun rights and privacy advocates published the names and addresses of the paper’s editors in retaliation, and the paper (ironically) hired armed guards to protect against threats.

{snip}

Below is a 446-page list of every licensed gun owner in New York City. I obtained it from the NYPD two-and-a-half years ago via a Freedom of Information Law request. Because the NYPD is more interested in raping and/or eating ladies and spying on Muslims than it is in honoring public records law, the list contains only the names, and not the addresses, of the licensees. (If you’re curious, here’s what section 400.00 of the Penal Law of New York, entitled “Licenses to carry, possess, repair and dispose of firearms,” has to say on the matter: “The name and address of any person to whom an application for any license has been granted shall be a public record.” The only way to get the associated addresses from the NYPD, as the law requires, would be to take them to court, which no one has apparently done.)

OK people the editor of this hit piece is one John J. Cook. Here’s his address and phone number:

Via Urban Grounds

528 16th st. Apt #2
Brooklyn N.Y. 11215-5912
718-369-8243

Here’s a picture of Cook with his two cute kids, which is his Twitter profile picture, by the way.

Pay back’s a bitch, isn’t it?

Not surprisingly, the trendiest Manhattan neighborhoods are where most of the STD’s are found, along with the South Bronx and Harlem.

Now I could go on and on with stories about my dating experiences with men who just wanted to get right down to business while I was living in Manhattan. One man I met on a Jewish dating site said right to my face that I needed a few nights of sex with a nerdy guy to “loosen me up.”

Anyway, with statistics like this, I’d rather be “uptight.”

Nightlife areas such as SoHo, Murray Hill and the Upper West Side are home to 10 times more syphilis-infected residents than the city’s average, according to the city Department of Health.

Roughly 125 people — taken from a sample of 100,000 — tested positive for the disease in those three neighborhoods.

But it’s not just the posh ZIP codes that make playing the field sound like playing with fire.

The Tremont section of The Bronx — where 43 percent of residents are below the federal poverty line — is home to the city’s highest STD rate, the study found.

In the report, which uses data from 2010, researchers also pinpoint areas with the highest rates of hepatitis B and C, chlamydia, gonorrhea and HIV.

The findings reveal:

* The Bronx is the borough where you’d least like to have a one-night stand. Roughly 68 percent of neighborhoods in the borough were found to have “high” rates of more than one STD.

* Staten Island is the healthiest place to hook up. Not a single neighborhood in the borough made the agency’s top-20 list for STDs.

* Thirteen out of 20 of the neighborhoods with the highest HIV and syphilis rates are in Manhattan.

* HIV and hepatitis C ran most rampant in gentrifying Bedford-Stuyvesant, Crown Heights, Williamsburg and Harlem.

* Neighborhoods with the highest rates of chlamydia and gonorrhea include the South Bronx, central Brooklyn and northern Manhattan.

* Health officials note TB and hepatitis B are most prevalent in the city’s immigrant communities. More than half of Queens’ worst-ranked neighborhoods are home to predominantly foreign-born residents.

Areas with the highest hepatitis rates — including Chelsea and Morningside Heights — rank 10 times the city’s average.

Hat tip: Chris

More than half of New Yorkers polled by Quinnipac are opposed to Mayor Bloobergs proposals to ban large sugary soft drinks, and to hide baby formula from new mothers in hospitals.

Let me just say that I rarely drink soda. And I *never* drink sugary beverages. Sugar is known to be unhealthy in so many ways. Diet sodas aren’t much better either, as they can leech calcium out of your bones, and just make you crave more sweet foods. But I still don’t think it’s the Mayor’s place to propose a ban on these drinks. The same thing holds true for hiding baby formula. One thing I sort of agree on is the “stop and frisk” program. Being that we’ve refused to close down our borders for years, it’s the least the police can do.

A proposal before the city Board of Health would limit servings of sugary drinks to 16 ounces (473 ml) at most restaurants, theaters, delis, vending carts and stadium concessions. It is the first of its kind in the nation and has been vigorously opposed by the soda industry.

A separate initiative would encourage breast-feeding by making baby formula less available to new mothers.

{snip}

Voters oppose Bloomberg’s sugary soft drink proposal by a margin of 54 percent to 42 percent.

They oppose the breastfeeding initiative by an even greater margin, with 56 percent of voters opposed and 24 percent in favor. Six of 10 women oppose the initiative.

In case you’re wondering what it was that set off these monsters, it was simply because the 63 year old man asked them to quiet down.

A wolf pack of drunken young women “acting stupid” on the downtown No. 6 train after an all-night party stabbed a 63-year-old man yesterday — for having had the nerve to ask them to pipe down, police said.

The man was on his way to work as a vendor near the World Trade Center at about 6:15 a.m., a law-enforcement source told The Post.
“The eight females were acting stupid. He just told them, ‘Relax. Calm down,’ ” the source said.
Instead, one stabbed the man, Ralph Carnegary, in the shoulder. He was in stable condition at Bellevue.

The women were busted on the street near at the 23rd Street station.
A city bus driver who witnessed the arrests said the women, beers in hand, were screaming, “We didn’t do anything.’’
Seven of them, ages 17 to 20, were charged with gang assault, disorderly conduct, rioting, criminal possession of a weapon, menacing and felony assault.
Cops added that they recovered a knife.

The suspects later shouted and cursed at reporters and photographers as they were led to a police van.

Meanwhile, Mayor Bloomberg has been doing nothing but trying to outlaw guns, ban oversized soft drinks, and most recently, telling hospitals to hide baby formula so new mothers will breastfeeds their kids.

Instead, these “women” need to be thrown in jail and their welfare terminated.

This exhibit, or whatever you want to call it, is being held at the Allegra LaViola Gallery on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. The brains behind this is one Laura Ginn. It’s called “Tomorrow We Will Feast Again On What We Catch.”

For the privilege of eating rat meat, guests can pay $100, and sign a liability waiver in case they get sick. The menu is not exactly road kill stew either.

The first course consisted of a goat cheese crostini overlain with a small piece of rat meat and a shot glass of (rat-free) gazpacho. Diners at our end of the table noted that the goat cheese mostly overwhelmed the rat, but we found the flavor and texture reminiscent of lamb.

Next came two circles of rat and pork terrine over a deconstructed salad containing cherries, greens, pickled carrots and Mexican sour gherkins (also known as mouse melons—clever menu planning). Though oily (hardly a criticism, it’s a terrine for god’s sake), it was salty and delicious.

“Rat Two Ways” was the main course. Reminiscent of rabbit, a pile of braised rat was so tender it fell apart as soon as our fork touched it. A roasted half rat—glazed meat stretched over its tiny rib cage—was placed over a sweet corn salad. Throughout the evening, Ms. Ginn continually paced around the table, making conversation generously filling wine glasses, but for this course she hunkered down and performatively sucked the meat off the bones.

After a palate cleanser (much needed for a few reluctant friends of the artist, who came along more for moral support than dinner) of lemon sorbet dressed with an edible flower, we were served a dessert of French toast with the closest thing to bacon the chef and artist could summon from a rodent: a sliver of crispy rat jerky. As the most dramatic plating of the evening, an entire crispy rat head sat on each plate, mouth open and teeth jutting forward, and a back leg sat atop the French toast, toes and claws clearly visible.

The meal was touted as a “post-apocalyptic hunter-gatherer feast.” The gallery’s site notes that “allowance to current social memes” would be made, and in this way, despite the American taboo of the main ingredient which is widely eaten in other parts of the world, it was a completely authentic contemporary New York dining experience—on offer were upscale versions of a “low class” food, spirited with an imagined nostalgia and a hobbyist approach to survival skills. It occurred to us that cooking with rat is a slightly less socially acceptable version of taking up pickling as a hobby, drinking small-batch moonshine and paying $15 for grits at Sunday brunch.

Nowadays, it seems like anything can pass for art, as long as you charge (gullible) people enough money, and host it an art gallery.

Hat tip: Gary Morgenstein

For all you theater and politics enthusiasts in New York, there’s a new play coming out about a conservative African American man married to a liberal Jewish woman.

Right On Target is about a conservative African American – who claims he was fired from PBS for his politics — and his liberal Jewish wife. It will premiere at the New York International Fringe Festival at the Main Stage of the Cherry Lane Theater, 38 Commerce Street, Saturday, August 11 at 7PM; Wednesday, August 15 at 9:15PM; Saturday, August 18 at 12noon; Wednesday, August 22 at 2PM, and Friday, August 24 at 4:15PM. Tickets are $15 in advance, $18 at door. Go to www.fringenyc.org or call 866-468-7619.

Directed by Noemi de la Puente of Dramatic Question Theatre, RIGHT ON TARGET stars Maggie Wagner, who recently appeared in the off-Broadway production of The Diary of Anne Frank; Simcha Borenstein: Jane Dashow; Janet Kim; Tom Lacey and Robert McKay.

Here’s what Mr. Morgenstein says about this play, and his characters:

…In theatre, hey, all entertainment, conservatives are either depicted as religious zealots, redneck bigots or evil capitalists. Even in Aaron Sorkin’s THE NEWSROOM, his Republican character is a liberal. In RIGHT ON TARGET, a conservative is portrayed as intelligent, as are all the characters, so they can have intelligent discussions. I think that’s called democracy which, as Mr. Churchill said, is the worst form of government, except for all the others.

To see more of Mr. Morgenstein’s writing, check out his page on the Tea Party Nation website.