Bad Advice

A little pornographic stained glass with your hippie home

I'm sending this post over to my friend Phyllis at Reclaimed Home for verification, but I am pretty certain that this stained glass, featured in this listing for a home in Woodstock, is of a blonde-haired lady getting finger-banged.

Look carefully. She's reclined, with her head is resting on his knees. They're kissing, and he's got one arm wrapped around her, while the other hand is down yonder.

Keeping images of ones' sex life is not uncommon, but committing it to stained glass? That's something that had never occurred to me, possibly because I'm not crafty. But why would you leave it behind? Maybe the couple in coitus isn't together anymore. I guess that could be the case. However, I've seen enough home design shows to know that most realtors wouldn't consider porno-glass a selling point—it's not like a walk-in closet or granite countertops. Hell, they usually advise sellers to get rid of fully-clothed family photos.

I'm sure there are some home-buyers who'd consider pornographic stained glass a bonus, but I can't think they're in the majority. Am I wrong here? Do I just have a dirty mind and this is actually not a fingerbang in action? Help!

More Beautiful Buildings Full of Wonderful People!

The lot on Roebling, between North 9th and 10th, has been empty for quite a few years now. I forget exactly when they tore down the old buildings that were there, but after an initial burst of activity it's been a dead zone. Now comes the news that this gorgeous piece of architecture will soon grace our nabe.

Up there with the Ansonia or the Beresford, this beauty is sure to bring a touch of class to a neighborhood previously known for vinyl siding and cabbage factories. I used to get all outraged when some new architectural atrocity would pop up, but this neighborhood has never been pretty. It has convenience going for it, but if it weren't dirt cheap, I would've never moved here in the mid-nineties. I see all these suckers paying Manhattan prices to live somewhere they mistakenly think is "cool" and now I just shrug. I can't complain too much because thanks to them, I can get all sorts of food delivery (our choices used to be pizza or bad Chinese, period), nobody's tried to stick me up in a few years, and there's an organic wine store down the block. Yes, the strollers are annoying, but I have cheap rent, nice friends nearby and dollar oysters across the street. Life could be worse.

Goth Teen Lothario Seeks New Pussy Palace

I was reading Curbed LA and came across this listing for Janet Leigh's old place. From the outside it's kind of boring, and from the inside . . . well, the staging looks like it was done by Angelyne (who also recently sold her casa). There's a hot pink piano, some hideous art—including a life-size red plastic cock—and various fuschia chaise lounges and such.

But this room . . . well, this obviously belonged to a connoisseur of the doin' it. But with a side of spooky darkness. Black, pleather, circular bed in front of a wall of mirrors? Naughty! Skull and crossbones throw pillows flanked by lamps with bases crafted from faux automatic weaponry? I'm scared, daddy—hold me!

C'mon, admit it‚ you're a little turned on by this place. The bed isn't even neatly made, obviously because when you're absorbed by the all the sexing, who can think about housekeeping?

And is that a Richard Kern photo hanging over the bed? Looks like, but I don't know for sure. But what I do know is that if you have $4.5 mill, questionable taste, and an urge to live in LA, this place could be yours. Sadly, it looks to come unfurnished, but maybe if you shelled out a couple extra bucks you could get them to throw in that sweet sexy bed.

I'm not quitting!

Over the past couple months, some of my favorite blogs have just up and quit and it's really bummed me out. I know I've been posting very sporadically, but I'm not going anywhere. I'm just being kind of lazy, lately.

I'm still writing two columns a week—here's one featuring a guy who hates capri pants (not an uncommon phenom I've discovered) and another on being a good ex, which was inspired by this this example of a very, very bad ex. 

Oh, wait—there's more!

A Contest!!!!

It's been a while since I wrote about all the exciting new construction going on in my neighborhood (Williamsburg), but as the condos next door are finally on the market, I thought I'd give an update. That dirt patch there might look kind of crappy (more on that later), but it's actually the backyard to the first-floor condo you see there—the stairs lead up to the spacious deck you can see in this shot:

When the buildings were being slapped up (and nearly destroying my building in the process), the project manager/foreman/whatever told me they were going to be rentals because the market was sucking it so hard. Apparently someone had a change of heart because not only are these condos—they're pricey condos! The one you see there is listed for $660k!!! Sure, it's under 900 square feet, but hey, it's a pet-friendly building, so there's that.

I overheard one potential new neighbor asking the agent if there was any other new construction in the neighborhood. Huh? This woman must've either been visually and/or developmentally challenged or had been choppered in, wearing blinders, because there's the empty Roebling Oil Field building directly to the west, an abandoned project/lot across the street to the south, and one block over, yet another stalled project to the East. The only place there's not new construction is at Private Sunsire Triangle across the street.  

Just for fun, here's a picture of the beautiful model apartment at the Roebling Oil Field Building, all lit up at night. Who wouldn't want to live in a fishbowl? I got nothin' to hide! Plus, think of all the fun you could have, giving pressed hams to passers-by?

But I digress . . . the contest I'm running is to name the stretch of dirt that runs between my building and the fabulous new condo. I've already seen several people using it as a toilet, so I'm thinking something like "Pee-Pee Park" or "Crap Alley." But as I've been under the weather, my naming faculties aren't operating at peak capacity. So see what you can come up with—the scattier the better—and leave your entry in the comments.

As for the prize—well, I think it's only fair that the prize gives something back to the original(ish) inhabitants of the neighborhood. The ones who can't afford to buy fancy new condos or $300 t-shirts at Bird. So I've decided that the prizewinner will get $50 donated to the Greenpoint Soup Kitchen in their name. I wish it could be more, but, unlike many of my new neighbors, I'm not exactly sitting on a trust fund over here.

I thought the market was in the toilet?

So how was some usurper able to scrape up $2.7 large to scoop up my dream home ahead of me? I was counting on future Lotto winnings to help me afford Hunt Slonem's fab mansion, but I guess my luck is just running a little slow and low these days.Take a look at the listing and I think you'll agree that this baby would look awesome on me.

My bitchin' kitchen.

This is my favorite room in my giant, mansion-sized apartment. You can't really see them, but I have Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash window shades, purchased from Etsy seller DrinkandDream. Just thought I'd share.

It's 8pm, do you know where your scaffolding is?

Well, at 5 Roebling, it's coming crashing down all over the place. My building was jolted by a loud crash as a few stories of scaffold went careening down to the ground. All I have is my crappy iPhone camera, but I think even with the low quality you can see the scaffolding leaning precariously to the left. There was a lot of yelling after the crash, but I don't think anyone got hurt. Naturally, as they're working dangerously and after hours, I called 311. I'm certain the city is going to get right on it. As they did every other time the tenants of my building called to complain about the myriad violations that have been a regular occurence for over a year next door. Remember when they yanked out our cable and telephone lines? I do!

Five Roebling originally started off as condos, but after the crash the owners ammended their plans and are following the trend by making them rentals. The lack of precision, craftsmanship, and any semblence of competence that has gone into making these two fugged out buildings is astonishing. From the demo to near-completion it's been 100% incompetence, 100% of the time.

UPDATE: My friend Meredith has a much better (scarier!) photo here—complete with Fire Department presence!

Bust, my ass!

This week marked the return of something we haven't seen in a while around these parts. No, I'm not talking about the enormous phallic saint at the Giglio—I'm talking the piledriver. Stalled construction sites surround my little corner of the world and so wasn't I surprised to feel that familiar feeling this afternoon . . .  the ground shaking beneath my feet and the reassuring boom of giant poles being driven deep into the ground. And on the same day that New York Magazine declares my neighborhood a disaster area!

I can't wait to see a plan of the stunning new architecture they're going to erect on the corner of Richardson and Union. Hopefully it'll have a yoga garden, so all those frustrated would-be buyers at the stalled Warehouse 11 (aka, Roebling Oil Field) will have somewhere to spend their hundreds of thousands of dollars.

You talkin' to me?!

Today the Daily News ran a great story on Marie Grasso, the bitch who nearly knocked over my building while demoing the cabbage factory next door. Apparently she is not only a total hottie (nice bathrobe!), but a huge scofflaw, owing the city over a million bucks in fines! Yet she still gets city contracts! Great job, Mikey B. Something tells me Marie Grasso isn't tearing down buildings in your neck of the woods.

The reason she gets these fines is because she is such a scumbag that even the incompetent building inspectors can't ignore her. And believe me, they try. We must've called 311 a hundred times and got very little action. She hires people who don't know what they're doing, doesn't provide hard hats or any other protective gear, and just generally doesn't give a shit. Her company ripped out all the phone and cable lines from our building because they were "in the way" and then just shrugged it off. If you want to read about our hell, you can here, here, here or here. I feel sorry for the people she screwed over badly enough to actually have a building inspector take their complaints seriously. They must be missing walls!

This is the kind of story that makes me really miss Bob Guskind and Gowanus Lounge.

The one funny part of the whole equation, is that looking at the photo, I'm pretty sure she's the woman I met at the site who claimed she just "worked" for Marie Grasso. She's like bulky, unattractive version of Vicki/Nicki on One Life to Live.