The Old Girdle Factory

A full half of DCQ's editorial team was walking south from the L train on Bedford Ave. this past weekend when it stumbled through a gauntlet of collapsible store signs that virtually funneled passersby through the glass doors lining the sidewalk and into a grungy corridor.

Inside, we found a mix of viable businesses (coffee shop, hairdresser, snobby craft beer outlet) amid empty display windows. We got the scoop from George, the manager of said beer purveyor -- a place called the Spuyten Devil Grocery that has an accompanying bar with myriad unpronounceable brews a few blocks away. George informed us that the compound was originally a girdle factory, and when people stopped wearing those things it turned into a Goodwill of sorts before its owner subdivided it into its current composition.

This latest transformation, Spuyten George continued, happened about a decade ago. The place now carries the familiar North Williamsburg air of hipster funk, but with a bit of a heroin chic nose -- if we were in a depressed I-5 corridor town that lacked a Greyhound station, this would serve as the local shoot-up spot. There was no identifiable urine scent, but twenty bucks says people pee here with some regularity.

The timing of the building's renovation again became relevant a few moments later, when we noticed this sketch, covered with scuffs and adorned here and there with old gum wads, in the corner. Early, overlooked Sam Flores? We need Art Direction here.

In any case, tenants like the place because rent is significantly cheaper for everyone except the coffee shop, which fronts the street. Additionally, more petty operations can take out smaller lots than one would find in street-fronting retail in the neighborhood, creating a few select opportunities for small businesses to establish a physical presence in a neighborhood that's only a couple of credits short of max gentrification (though Hipster Heaven becomes Trinitarios Slashing Your FaceVille real fast a couple blocks south of the Factory).

Opportunistic Lefties Strike Again

Nice, gay marriage proponents: Stealing the concept of nonconventional marriage support from Ben & Jerry's. How very Obama of you. You liberals are shameless. Shameless, I say. 

California Love Redux

Something led us to that old Dr. Dre/Tupac "California Love" video the other day -- you know, the apocalyptic one where they're running around in rags and ramshackle Hummers, all early Gibson-like? We couldn't help but admire the stylistic shout-outs (ha! get it? hip-hop reference) they squeeze in there: Aside from the obvious overriding Mad Max trilogy theme, the video opens with vintage Chris Tucker doing his 5th Element thing (you know, the outerspace-crackhead schtick he used to land more lucrative gigs playing comic relief to Jackie Chan's unintentional straight man) and is followed with a scene lifted from The Warriors before descending into full Road Warrior mode; this later tiptoes quietly into Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome territory when they move to sweeping aerial shots of the stars rapping inside a, yes, Thunderdome. The whole video's simply fantastic, but why waste it on "California Love?" I know Australian apocalypse-themed jams don't usually chart, but still: "California Love" is one of the few songs that actually warrants your classic mid-90s rap video -- you know, 64s, Cristal, ladies in thongs, egregious materialism, guest spots by other definitively regional rappers. 

What's that you say? Oh. 

Fuck you world

I just watched a Southwest Airlines ad whose selling point was "Your Bags Fly Free!" This strikes me as analogous to Craigslist apartment ads highlighting "Free Use of Toilet!" and hookers throwing in handjobs with Eliot Spitzer specials. 

That is all.

Church: Cool Again

A Soho boutique called Lounge shut down a few months ago and is allegedly in the process of finding a new place to operate. In the meantime, they're running a temp setup out of an old church on 6th Ave. and 20th St. -- a space that, as the Lounge's owner reminded us on multiple occasions, is the former "home of the famous Limelight" nightclub.
Lounge's proprietors are unloading threads from mid-to-high-end labels after shuttering their 16,000-square-foot store on Broadway and Houston. 

Not the best photos, but you get the idea: An 18th-century church converted into a multi-level nightclub, soundsystem, dance platforms, etc., then closed and left to dilapidate for a decade or so...

Since moving in last month, the offerings have grown from a couple racks scattered around the soaring space to essentially a fully-stocked store. They've got the system bumping again, and there's something uplifting about walking into this scene off a scuzzy section of Chelsea on a harsh midwinter afternoon.

more money, more problems

I don't know if it's because (and I am so sick of hearing this…) “the economy's in the dumps” or what, but of late, I've been hearing way more people saying that they don't like their jobs, "but the money's great," so they stay there. What's up with this? Think of your friends who began law school with a plan to work in child advocacy or environmental law, but who, after passing the bar, plunge into well-compensated corporate counsel positions “just until I pay back my loans.” That was seven years ago. They’re still doing doc review for Exxon. And when you call them on this, they slightly blush and repeat the above quote.

Since when is it okay for the Entitled Generation to compromise their values and justify working for evil companies or meaningless retail shops with large (or in my case, merely mediocre) paychecks?
This is totally contrary to the American dream, by golly. Yes, we still want to have the white picket fence someday. And yes, it costs a LOT to have that on either coast. But America—and, by default, capitalism—encourages life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Financial security can contribute to happiness, obvs, but does working long hours at a job you despise and feel wretched about? That, of course, is the false allure of the free market—the notion that wads of cash equate to happiness. In true hypocrite form, I'm currently working for a large oil and gas company. I'm not exactly on board with their environmental policy, nee old man corporate bureaucracy, so I am clearly projecting this issue. Am I ultimately being far too idealistic? Naïve? I refuse to believe so. At least until the system crushes my soul a little more.

More Pepsi-Biting from Obama

OK, fine. I know that corporations have piggybacked off war, disaster and political propaganda campaigns to turn a quick buck in the past, but Pepsi’s current ad campaign is positively analrapististic. For the uninitiated (and we’re about a month late to the party here), watch this Pepsi flack try to keep a straight face while telling us about his employer’s desire to seize upon a “cultural movement” and “a spirit of optimisim” to quench our “thirst for positive change”...through mass quantities of refined corn syrup. He also implies that the Obama campaign ripped off the campaign, using as his crucial piece of evidence the fact that Pepsi is older than Barack. 

In its ads, Pepsi tells us that “every generation refreshes the world.” Well, now...come to think of it, that’s absolutely true: The baby boomers refreshed our supply of potential soldiers, the beatniks refreshed American demand for berets, the hippies refreshed our appreciation for the First Amendment, Gen X refreshed the cocaine industry, Gen Y refreshed the flat-top, and the millenials refreshed our definition of “refresh.” Who doesn’t want to be a part of that? I’m in -- toss me a Pepsi, Britney! 

The more I study the Obama campaign, the more I begin to side against the man: He clearly nicked original Pepsi catchphrases like “Yes You Can” and “Fo Sho!” (because, after all, black=now acceptable in Kansas!). His campaign logo looks eerily similar to that of Pepsi--a company that, I must remind you, is older than Obama. And the fact that Obama decided to get inaugurated just as Pepsi rolled out its “Change” campaign is too coincidental for comfort. Nope, my mind’s made up -- Obama’s a thief. He’s from Illinois, home of Blagojevich and that other locked-up former governor and R. Kelly and Oprah, who once endorsed a memoir that wasn’t even true. It was fictional, which is Dutch for “sucked.” 

So there it is -- the truth in all its exhaustively-investigated, naked glory. Screw off, Obama. Get your own damn ad campaign. And give Enrique his mole back while you’re at it.