I Go To Staten Island So You Don't Have To.

I went to Staten Island recently to go to a thrift store that had been mega-hyped.

But first. Memories.

I worked on Staten Island for a few months in 1996, as a PA and locations assistant on a low-budge indie film that was my own personal Living In Oblivion. I wrote a production diary for it that I never published anywhere. I will dig it up and post it soon.

I think it was a couple years before that that Giuliani was elected mayor. In the same election, there was a referendum about whether to allow Staten Island to secede from New York City. The outcome: Staten Islanders were largely responsible for electing Rudy, but they failed to get enough votes to leave NYC. I remember wishing that if they elected him, they could also leave and take him with them.

And BTW I just heard that SI is that fastest growing New York City borough.

No offense to Staten Islanders, but I hate it there. It makes me feel unclean. Strange because it's probably cleaner than Manhattan. It's certainly more rural. I think it's the ferry ride that does it. I always think it's going to be fun, taking a ferry across the river to the island, but it isn't. Everyone waits behind the vast glass doors. It's a holding pen that gets more and more crowded until the large digital clock turns to the half hour. When the doors open there is a stampede. You have to carefully calibrate your pace or else trample or get trampled.

When I worked in legal publishing, I knew a nice fellow who lived on SI, who brewed his own beer, and I attended a Halloween party of his once (as Divine*). And at my current job there is a very nice SIer. Please save me from anti-SI bias.

I did hear my very favorite overheard line of all time on the Staten Island ferry, however. A girl told her her girlfriend, in an SI accent, "I would neva, evah, wear leathah in this weathah."

The thrift store, Everything Goes, should be called Everything Blows. It's at 140 Bay St., a few blocks from the ferry terminal. They don't appear to have a web site. Yes, everything is pretty inexpensive. Everything is also pretty ugly. In addition, you have to factor in, in your risk/benefit analysis, that not only is it an expedition, it's one you might resent having gone on. They might have to have mint Puccis for ten dollars or something for me to go back.

There is also an Everything Goes bookstore nearby, which I visited to use the restroom, and it seemed nice, a cozy hippie joint with an open mike, and an Everything Goes furniture store, also nearby, that I did not visit.

The most interesting thing about Everything Goes is that it is run by the members of nearby Ganas, "NYC's most exclusive commune."

How many communes does NYC have?!


*Not just Divine, but Female Trouble-era, post-facial acid scar Divine.












I wish I could say that's me. But I have no photos, sadly.

What Have I Been Doing This Summer?

Watching it bake on by. I just went to the flea market for my allotted 30 minutes of cancer-baiting.

Belatedly falling in love with Black Sabbath. The pioneers. The best. Forever. SABBATH!

Learning drums. Listening to Priestess and Black Sabbath with my ginormous headphones on and picking out the drum part, over and over. Going to the studio with Ivan to rehearse. (Okay that's only happened once so far but it's going to continue.)

Some other things that I can't tell you because It's Not That Kind Of Blog. (But it's probably not what you think. It's most likely not as good as you think. Unless you think I murdered someone. It's better than that.)

And I baked a cake.

Some thrifting. There is no thrill to compare with getting some cheap t-shirt for close to what it actually should be worth. But even Beacon's Closet is too expensive for me now. Yesterday I got a skirt, dress, and two t-shirts for $48, but minus the $16 credit for some stuff I got that I maybe paid two dollars for (a one-piece Budweiser swimsuit that was too small for me (and too big for the other person I know who would really like it) and some gold sandals this woman at work gave me). So I paid around $34, really. Which isn't bad. I can and sometimes do pay Beacon's prices, but it is less of a thrill. The same haul would have been about $12 at M***. So the bargain aspect is definitely a draw. I can't tell you about the really cheap places because then all three of you might go there and ruin them for me.

I guess just tell me if you want to go thrifting with me. If you want to go with me, it's a different story.