COLUMNS
86'd Stories: Interview with bouncer Frankie Clinton
Jennifer Blowdryer
01.27.10
George Orwell recounts his experience of being shot while fighting in the Spanish Civil War: "Roughly speaking it was the sensation of being at the center of an explosion. There seemed to be a loud bang and a blinding flash of light all round me, and I felt a tremendous shock––no pain, only a violent shock, such as you get from an electric terminal; with it a sense of utter weakness, a feeling of being stricken and shriveled up to nothing." Here Frankie Clinton describes what it was like to be stabbed while working as a bouncer outside a Manhattan night club. His advice on human interaction is essential reading for any potential bouncers out there and for fans of workplace tourism. Learn more about Jennifer Blowdryer's 86'd project here.
86'd Stories: Rob Shapiro
Jennifer Blowdryer
12.13.09
Jennifer Blowdryer, editor of Good Advice for Young Trendy People of All Ages (Manic D), brings us this interview with Rob Shapiro, twin brother of comedian Rick Shapiro, in which he discusses purse snatching, sexiest life guard competitions, ass-less hospital gowns, the heyday of Studio 54, making out covered in blood and betrayal by trusted service workers. At least three bodily fluids make cameo appearances. Also, in a previous installment of 86'd Stories, Sammy Reid and Jeff Dickinson discuss hustling, speed and Bellevue. Art by Danny Jock.
86'd Stories: Sammy Reid and Jeff Dickinson
Jennifer Blowdryer
10.17.09
Over the last several years, Jennifer Blowdryer has been conducting an oral history project of friends and acquaintances who have been 86'd -- kicked out and never allowed to return -- from various places: restaurants, bars, apartments, houses of celebrities, computer hardware stores and others. In this first of three installments Sammy Reid talks about one of his many evictions and Jeff Dickinson tells a tale of lost shoes, stolen gas masks and the Bellevue psychiatric ward.
Riding the Hoboken Ferry
Pete Hausler
09.03.09
When the world you live in is a world that's constantly shifting (i.e. New York City) it's good to have an anchoring voice that grounds you back in the ways that things once were before the hipsters started taking over and changing the landscape. Pete Hausler waxes a nostalgia of sorts, riding the Hoboken Ferry from the city back to the Mile Square City, home of The Feelies and Maxwell's, remembers times when he was just a young'un picking up girls and feeling a little Kerouacian on his lunch break from work. Hausler meanders between Kerouac and Blaise Cendrars in the piece, melding his own writing style with theirs while conjuring up some terrific scenery of times past, and wraps it all into a seemingly innocuous and everyday break from his day job. Art by Danny Jock.
Talk Show 28 with Thomas Beller, Joshua Furst, Elizabeth Graver, Dave King, and Binnie Kirshenbaum
Jaime Clarke
07.29.09
Long buried in a trash heap in Georgia are most of the presidential physical fitness awards I won as a kid during the Reagan administration. Learned back then while trying to run the mile part of the test that I had asthma; still I managed to eek it out for the Gipper. When older and "punk", and a bit smashed, I took some of these and other trophies and hit them with a baseball bat over the backyard fence into the rear lot of the A & P grocery store. Ah... awards. Well in this episode of Talk Show, # 28, host Jaime Clarke talks to authors Thomas Beller, Joshua Furst, Elizabeth Graver, Dave King, and Binnie Kirshenbaum about their memories of awards, more specifically blue ribbons. Art by Danny Jock. -CM