Ride Brooklyn

We bought bicycles!

I haven't owned a bike since mine was snatched from right outside my window on 12th St., what, like ten years ago almost to the day? But everyone is getting bikes now and riding places. Tom rides his everywhere, shows up to things with this helmet still on, unbuckled. Especially since he and Colleen moved to their own apartment on 22nd St. We haven't seen it yet (has anybody?) but we met him for drinks at his new local, Sea Witch. It was alright -- they've got a pretty sweet aquarium behind the bar and an outdoors with a couple of man-made ponds with free-roaming turtles in them -- but the place was packed with weak-looking dudes wearing Best Show t-shirts (takes one to know one) and it took me fifteen minutes to get the attention of a bartender. We left after one beer and traded up to Mary's across the street, which I'd often walked past but never entered. It was nice and dark, and the beers were cheaper.

But having a bike seems pretty cool. Or maybe it's a prerequisite now. The thing is, though, bikes -- new, recycle-a-bicycle'd, stolen, whatevs -- are crazy expensive, even for a baller like this guy. We looked at web sites and felt despair, until Colleen directed us to Ride Brooklyn, which she claimed was selling a $350 starter model that sounded very much within reach. Their Park Slope location is over on Bergen St. near Babeland and the comic book place. It's got a bright orange and blue facade. Jessica Williams was filming something with a film crew at the comic book place the day we went. I didn't see her, but Nina saw her name on something. The staff at Ride Brooklyn was super nice -- beardy and stoned as fuck -- and they did indeed have some good cheap starter bikes. Nina got a teal Liv. Mine is a black Escape with a flat cross-bar that looks a little funny to me, but that's whatever. I'll dress it up with stickers. The real problem with it -- that I keep meaning to fix -- is that the seat's hitched up so high that my feet don't really touch the ground when I stop at an intersection, and there's a lot of weight on my, uh, in-between parts. We had to pick up U-locks and cable-locks, too. Kryptonite makes this insane "New York" model that's about as thick as your wrist. We opted for the "standard" size, which should be able to keep our shit safe during daylight hours, at least. Not a safe place for bikes, this city!

Our first big adventure on the bikes was the Saturday after we got 'em. Nina'd grabbed a bike map at Ride that highlights the major bike lanes and greenways, none of which I feel like existed the last time I was on two wheels. (Maybe because Janette Sadik-Khan built most of them.) We rode up 6th Ave. to 24th St., where Greenwood Cemetery cuts it off, then zoomed down to 5th Ave., me frantically pumping the hand-brakes all the way down the hill, Nina stopping confidentally right at the light. We rode 5th Ave. through Sunset Park and the beginnings of Bay Ridge, down to 64th St., where it goes under the Gowanus Expressway. We passed by Bay Ridge Nissan -- you know, from TV -- and caught a glimpse of Leif Ericson Park, which from what I can tell from looking at a map is less of a park that a kind of green belt that just goes on and on. A right turn at Three Jolly Pigeons took us down to Owls Head Park and then through a twisty greenway, under an overpass for the Belt Parkway, and the finally onto the long promenade that follows the Narrows down to Gravesend Bay. The promenade is very flat and regular and beige and kind of industrial, but not in a depressing way. There's a kind of "lane" for bicycling, and some people go pretty fast in it. At regular intervals on the walking path, there were groups of men casting fishing lines, and Orthodox families parked on benches looking out at the water. It was late afternoon, We rode down to about 91st St., where the Verrazano Narrows Bridge juts out from a huge triangular concrete wedge, and marked that as our turnaround spot.

On our reverse journey, we stopped in Sunset Park at Don Pepe's for some animal protein. I wasn't used to biking. My back hurt, my forearms hurt. My buns hurt. I got the Oaxaquena (or did I? Those sandwiches are all indistinguishable from each other). On impulse, I picked up a packet of D'Gari coconut pudding, because I'd seen it everywhere back when I lived in Sunset Park and had been curious about its toxicity. (Long story short, it's okay.) Bikes have a shot at being the Summer Jam. But there's also popsicles, specifically the strawberry flavor of the Associated store-brand kind. I've been going through a box of them a week. They make other flavors -- coconut, pineapple, passion fruit (by way of corn syrup) -- but none of them are quite as good. The summer beard is huge and denser than usual, probably because I started growing it out in May. To add some texture, I've been pruning back everything except the "mustache area" to create a sort of topiary Derek Smalls / Lemmy effect.

Switching gears.

Tried to hit up the screening of Cry-Baby at McCarren Park a few Wednesdays ago, but a downpour almost washed the whole thing away. I showed up fifteen minutes in and ready to get soaked, but the crowd of yuppie hipsters was stampeding through the chain-link gates, and I could see the Six-Point Craft Ales hawkers wrestling their tent down and dumping plates piled high with beer brats. Girls in heels took shelter under a tree in front of the Automotive H.S., its wet leaves lit up orange by the street lights.

I checked out the Deltron show at Celebrate Brooklyn on a Saturday near the end of July. I was blown away! Work kept me late, so he was well into his set by the time I got there, and heard the show on the approach to Prospet Park well before I saw it. I came around the bend within view of the bandshell and my jaw actually dropped because there was a full orchestra and choir on stage, Dan The Automator conducting it with a baton in full conductor's uniform, coat-tails and everything. Kid Koala scratched records and did flips and handstands by the turntables. A crazy burlesque: Del's masterful, loopy flow (he sounds like Count Chocula or, uh, like a ghost that got high) running ahead of behind the beat; strings section, horns, percussion. This, I thought, is the best thing I've ever seen. Del's certainly the best rapper in the world. He did the whole album. I remembered when I first (I think) heard "Virus," riding in the back of Tim Jones' car (tapedeck) on the way to get late-night pancakes at The New Athenian in Middletown. Then a couple of years later, sitting in the front room of Fishbowl, where Tom and Ted and Greg and Dan lived, hearing "Clint Eastwood" for the first time. Del did that one as an encore, amid wild cheers from the crowd, after thanking everyone and marveling at the fact that he'd gone the whole show without shitting his pants from some bad takeout he'd eaten backstage. The trio of blonde girls standing in front of me put their heads together, eyes closed, singing along to the refrain. It was our song, too: I'm useless, but not for long / The future is coming on.