spring loaded ghetto booty!

i've been undergoing a rather disturbing spate of neighborhood loyalty of late. really, it's getting kind of out of hand. in particular, i seem to have built up this kind of rivalry between williamsburg (home of the trendy and uber-hip) and the slope (home of myself and other similarly fabulous people).

what was once a mild annoyance with the former for its hipper-than-thou and largely pretentious population (as well as its thoroughly inconvenient location in relation to my apartment) has evolved into a full-blown...something. not distate, exactly, but i get a sick thrill of pleasure in the pit of my stomach when someone says that their favorite brooklyn bar or restaurant is in my hood, that they prefer seventh to bedford, all that good stuff.

and i have started taking serious offense when people say with such conviction "williamsburg is the coolest part of brooklyn, they've got all the culture. no question." no question? hm. actually, i've got a question: who's got the brooklyn museum, biz-nootch? the academy of music (okay, a little north but still more ours than theirs), the main branch of the brooklyn public library, prospect park, the botanical gardens? who? the slope, baby. that's who. not those williamsburg goons.

not that williamsburg doesn't have it's own lovely things going for it. i have several friends there whom i love dearly. there's planet thailand (japanese and asian food--home of this spicy peanut roll), verb cafe (good coffee, nice staff, more candy-colored mac i-books than you can shake a stick at), the artland (best open mic in the world tuesday nights, hosted by joey d.)....

but, as a true loyalist, i say that those places get their asses whooped by the gate, loki, sotto voce (home of the true and fabulous alcoholic brunch), the brooklyn botanical garden, bar 4, great lakes (best jukebox around), tea lounge, naidre's, not to mention biscuit, union worker, jebenezer, "the boy" (hee hee!) and the rest of the motley cast making their home in the slope and beyond. plus, in the slope (south slope, anyway), no matter where you are, you only have to walk about twenty-five feet to get one of those infamous ghetto-style manicures with the three-inch dragon lady claws. for 7 bucks.

and there's my little manifesto on the merits of park slope and its associated communities in comparison to williamsburg.

represent, baby! brooklyn style, yeah! (to be said with a very thick brooklyn accent, a little shuffle and probably topped off by spitting on the sidewalk while adjusting my tight-ass hoochie pants with my big-ass airbrushed acrylic nails. yeah!)

oh, and for those of you wondering where this suddenly came from, blame the new york times and its insistence on raving constantly about how motherfucking cool williamsburg is and how the slope is the upper west side (read: culturally barren area) of brooklyn. and i'm not quite this totally out of control about it in person. i just like my neighborhood a whole lot. and i like to vent.

yeeha!