You Have Corn on the Cob...

...we have fire hydrants and streetball. When the temp breaks 80, the people of Los Sures break hydrant caps.

Then grandma breaks out the oil-drum barbecue, and it's officially a summertime Saturday afternoon.

The only question is whether or not the firefighters will be able to get the thing back together. In this case, the answer was a resounding 'no'; two weeks later and it's still gushing Catskills clear onto brown pavement.

Meanwhile, next to the BQE, a team from Rodney Park is eternally playing some other team from Rodney Park. Or so say their jerseys. I don't even know if Rodney Park is a place or a man (or maybe the requirement for joining the team is you are a Rodney Park?!), but these guys can run. The teams seem to play one of only two styles: Aggressive, flashy and mistake-riddled with lots of sensational dunks or aggressive, flashy and fundamental with no dunks whatsoever. Either way, the Caucasian baller here is regarded as rare a sight as the post-Giuliani Manhattan street whore or the red panda courtship ritual.

Summertime's just the best, right guys?

Pimpin' Benches All Over the World...

From SF to BK to LA to ??? The DCQ crew gets around...

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).

Telefon Tel Aviv, coming soon to a smallish venue near you

Telefon Tel Aviv is half the band it used to be: Charles Cooper died in January in Chicago at age 31, with media reports suggesting he may have committed suicide. TTA's surviving member, Joshua Eustis, has remained mum on the circumstances surrounding his bandmate's death. In any event, Eustis recently tapped a longtime friend and collaborator to join him on tour this summer. Telefon's playing a number of September shows in DCQ territory -- find a way to get there (dates below). And if you still don't have Immolate Yourself, cop it stat or follow the album's instructions.

Sept. 11th: Bell House, BK

Sept. 12th: Mercury Lounge, Manhattan

Sept. 25th: Spaceland, LA

Sept. 26th: Bottom of the Hill, SFC

WHERE IN THE WORLD IS DCQ???

Hint: It may be one of the locations in the opening montage of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2, which we're not saying we've seen, but we might have talked to someone who's seen it, so don't even go thinking what you're thinking of thinking. Because really. Have some faith.

Lenny's Down!

The man-boy who bragged last fall (while chewing on a gob of Twizzlers for dramatic effect, mind you) that one of the myriad entities suing him had "folded like Mitch Williams in the ninth" in settlement negotiations has pulled the ultimate fiscal implosion: Lenny Dykstra is bankrupt.

Dykstra's well-documented rise from scumbag athlete to Wall Street darling for bored bankers in desperate need of cocktail party fodder begs a number of questions:

a.) Why does anyone listen to Jim Cramer anymore? Or, more accurately, why did anyone listen to Jim Cramer up until Jon Stewart reduced him to a blubbering, goateed effigy for financial media's rather long shortcomings during the subprime buildup and collapse?

b.) Who brings Twizzlers to a closed-door meeting in a federal courthouse? During which hundreds of thousands of dollars are at stake? "Ashtray money" aside, Lenny either planned out his Twizzler feast hours in advance and stashed the goods in his briefcase, pockets, underwear and/or socks, or employs an assistant whose sole duty as such is to keep Mr. Dykstra with Twizzler-in-hand at all times. "Where's my fucking Twizzler brick, dude? I didn't hire you and buy probably one of the top-five most badass Twizzler briefcases around for you to carry everywhere I go and not open and give me Twizzlers LIKE NOW!!!!"

More to come, without a doubt, sooner or later, but hopefully frequently for the rest of our natural lives.

So Longo, Bongo

A long-overdue RIP to former Gabonese president-for-life El Hadj Omar Bongo Ondimba, who died of what may or may not have been advanced intestinal cancer in Barcelona on June 8th. In a sequence of events that should register as eerily familiar to Eazy-E fans, Papa Bongo didn't seek international (read: first-world) medical care until early May. It clearly didn't take.

Under Bongo, who rose to power in 1967, Gabon proved anomalously tranquil amid the ever-convulsing border lines of West Africa. As Gabon's neighbors in the continent's armpit slaughtered each other, Bongo built one of the world's most prolific kleptocracies, rooted in his country's substantial oil reserves (at present, Gabon still has more miles of pipeline than of paved road). While no conclusive estimate of his total wealth exist, Papa hung his hat in an $800 million palace and owned properties in Nice, Malibu and the like. At 4'11", Bongo may, indeed, have boasted one the highest dollars-to-inches ratio of any current or former head of state. He apparently spent freely: The New York Times reported that Bongo shelled out $9 million to Jack "Definitely Not in Gen Pop" Abramoff in 2003 for a promised meeting with Dubya; ten months later, Papa was sipping tea and noshing on crumpets in the Oval Office.

To the littlest Big Man there ever was, happy trails (and yes, 'death' buys you one free post that fails to note mentions only in passing a decades-long pattern of rampant corruption, ambivalence toward human trafficking, and disregard for human rights).

Willie T. Coleman biopic forthcoming

When they adapt the life story of Willie T. Coleman, Jr. for the silver screen, there shouldn't be any discussion as to which African American A-lister will portray the guy:

I know, Wesley Snipes, right!? Right? He'd be perfect: "Always bet on black...when betting on landmark civil rights cases, that is. In games of chance, it's pretty much 50-50, really."

In reality, Coleman's a hugely important guy -- not long after becoming the first black Supreme Court clerk, he co-wrote the legal brief that brought down segregation in public schools nationwide and made for a wholesome and mildly entertaining moment in Forrest Gump.

No, but seriously, that guy looks just like James Earl Jones.

WHERE IN THE WORLD IS DCQ??!?

Ancient Mycenae? Kosovo? Sleeping under the Williamsburg Bridge?

Only TigerCat knows for sure...but that there wall sure looks Cyclopean (HINT HINT).

DUSTYKID on the Ones

For the last couple weeks, DCQ's art director has been predisposed. At first we feared he'd drowned whilst surfing off SF's Ocean Beach. Then we suspected he'd holed up in a Sixth Street flophouse with a ragtag bunch of characters as he dealt with his latest bout with delirium tremens. Fortunately, we discovered last week in Athens that he's been doing something more productive than being a.) dead; or b.) red, bloated and semi-dead:

He's thinly disguised himself and become one of the Balkans' hottest drum-n-base/go-go mashup artists, distinguishing himself from the genre's three other DJs and going on tour through the Balkans and the better countries surrounding the Balkans. He tore it up last Friday.

On a side note, we were floored -- absolutely floored -- to learn that aside from Mythos, Amstel and Heineken, one of this land's favourite brews is none other than Carib -- literally the only alternative to Stag ("A Man's Beer") if you want to drink beer in Trinidad & Tobago.