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Since this is being reported in the New York Post, it’s got one of their characteristically impenetrable and ungrammatical headlines: BOUNCER SLAY TWIST. Here’s the story, with annotations:
November 19, 2005 — A murdered strip-club bouncer found shot dead inside his Brooklyn apartment was killed by someone he knew, law-enforcement sources said yesterday.
I knew that already. His door wasn’t locked, there was no sign of a struggle, and he was sitting on his sofa watching TV.
Irving Matos, 42, who worked at Sunset Park’s “Sweet Cherry,” …
The Sweet Cherry is a sleazy waterfront strip club. It’s not the only one in that area. Remember hearing about the cleanup of Times Square? Sleaze never gets “cleaned up”, if by that you mean it goes away permanently. Sleaze just relocates. One of the places it went is Third Avenue in Brooklyn, underneath the Gowanus Parkway (I-278), and some of the waterfront blocks near the 39th Street exit, which is the only exit from the Gowanus along that stretch.
What does this area have in common with Times Square? Simple: it’s easy to travel there from outlying areas. This is the second time I’ve lived relatively close to a Designated Crime Area—you know, one of those places even half-wits know to go to in pursuit of their particular vice. That’s what red light districts are for: to keep sin bounded in a particular area so the customers know where to find it.
The last time I lived near a DCA, we were on Fairview Avenue near 190th and Broadway, at the far northern end of Manhattan. The crack epidemic was in full swing, and the bleeping New York Times was printing stories about how the 180th Street neighborhood was the place to go for drugs. We groaned in despair when we saw that. Sure enough, next thing you know there’s all these jerks from the New Jersey suburbs driving in over the George Washington Bridge, looking to score.
Let ‘em buy drugs in their own neighborhoods, sez I.
Anyway, I digress. More on the Sweet Cherry in a bit.
…was discovered murdered about 11 p.m. Wednesday, slumped over a couch with his TV on inside his basement apartment on 31st Street.
Please don’t come looking. There’s nothing to see. 31st street is lined on both sides with nearly indistinguishable row houses full of irritable Brooklynites.
The club’s owner went to the apartment after Matos failed to show up for work for seven days, police said.
I think I met him, if he was the big genial gray-haired guy who was hanging around out on the sidewalk late Wednesday night. He told me he’d come to check on Matos after he’d missed work, so it could very well be.
Initially, police believed Matos had died of natural causes. An investigation launched by the Medical Examiner’s Office revealed that Matos had been shot in the top of the head and that the bullet that killed him lodged in his tongue, the sources said.
How I found out it was murder: One of the detectives asked me whether I’d heard anything that sounded like someone playing with a cap gun. I looked at him for a moment in polite disbelief, then said, “You mean, someone popping off with a .22.”
He ducked his head and mumbled that yes, that was what he’d meant. “We recovered a fragment,” he said—that’d be the bullet lodged in the tongue—then added, “We still haven’t ruled out suicide.”
“Surely you’d be able to tell if it was suicide,” I said. People who shoot themselves in the head don’t usually tidy up afterward.
He mumbled something more about how sometimes friends or family come by, don’t want to admit what’s happened, and take the gun away with them. I tried to imagine that, but couldn’t. Irvin Matos lived alone, and seldom had visitors. I’m supposed to believe in friends or family who made an unaccustomed visit to his place, found the body, cared enough about appearances to tamper with the evidence in a violent death, but didn’t bother to make an anonymous phone call to let the authorities know that the guy was sitting there decomposing? And who went off leaving the door unsecured?
I know there are reasons for the police to try to be discreet about their investigations, so I did my best to keep a straight face. Mostly I felt sorry for the officer. It must be hard to avoid giving people the idea that someone shot the deceased when you’re having to ask them whether they heard something that sounded like a cap gun.
I told him everything I knew. There wasn’t much of it, and none of it was terribly interesting. Near as I can tell, I was in Madison, WI when Irving Matos died. When he was alive, he and I mostly talked about our gardens. He grew up here, so he told me as much as he could remember about the old lady who gardened in what’s now my back yard. That’s all. I’m just the next-door neighbor. It’s a quiet block.
The victim’s door appeared to be broken—but authorities suspect that occurred prior to the murder, sources said.Matos’ home appeared to be neat and tidy and there was no immediate indication that he had any debts connected to drugs or gambling.
I don’t know what they found, but the police did ask me whether Matos ever talked about “all those guns he owned.” They said he “worked in security.” I can’t tell whether he’s he same Irving Matos mentioned here and here in 1999. I don’t necessarily assume he is. There could be two different people named Irving Matos who could both be described as “working in security.”
More about Sweet Cherry: First, I was amused to see it used as the standard of comparison when a reviewer wanted to indicate that another club was less trashy than it might be.
Perhaps more to the point, earlier this year the club was the focus of a six-month-long sting operation that netted multiple arrests:
Brooklyn, May 3, 2005 – Brooklyn District Attorney Charles J. Hynes today announced the arrest of five people on charges of selling marijuana, cocaine, and ecstasy out of the Sweet Cherry Topless Entertainment Bar in Sunset Park.
“The bar is the subject of disturbing allegations concerning drug sales, prostitution and underage strippers. It is a blight on the neighborhood,” said District Attorney Hynes.
Sweet Cherry, at 202 42nd Street, came to the attention of the DA’s Office in October 2004, when its owner, Gabriel Bertonazzi, 44, was arrested for allegedly raping a 16 year-old girl who applied for a job as a topless dancer. His rape case is pending in Brooklyn Supreme Court. He was subsequently also charged in the rape of a second dancer. It is alleged that he forced dancers to have sex with him, to be hired.
The DA’s Office has received numerous complaints from the community about illicit activity at Sweet Cherry and the sex industry along the western perimeter of Sunset Park, in general.
Following Bertonazzi’s arrest for Rape in the First Degree, Rape in the Third Degree, Assault in the Second Degree, and Endangering the Welfare of a Child, the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office initiated a six-month investigation into the club’s operations. Detective Investigators purchased cocaine, marijuana, and ecstasy from five Sweet Cherry managers and dancers. Bertonazzi, out on bail for the rape case, allegedly sold cocaine and marijuana to undercover agents on two occasions.
Yesterday, Detective Investigators from the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office arrested all five suspects and executed a search warrant on Sweet Cherry, where they recovered financial records for the club. Prosecutors will inspect the books for evidence of tax evasion and money laundering from the drug sales.
Finally, there turns out to be a bloggy connection to the Sweet Cherry bust. It was reported by one Karol in a fairly lame right-wing weblog called
Her
What is it about Republicans and tacky sex? They can’t all be into sleaze, can they?
Addenda: Today (29 November 2005) I broke the links to Karol and Jessica’s websites, after it was suggested that the reason they keep trolling the comment thread is to increase their traffic. If you want the links, look at the source code.
Here’s Lin Daniel’s take on their presence in the conversation:
I’ve read all your posts
And I’ve just missed the point.
Does anyone notice
My nose out of joint?I’ve read all your posts
And I haven’t a clue,
So I’ll make accusations
That just don’t fit you.I’ve read all your posts
And I’ve come back for more.
Let’s make this thread longer
With misquotes galore.We’ve read all your posts
Let’s throw in the towel.
We’ll make this thread shorter
And remove all your vowels.
Let's hope this doesn't get "ripped off the headlines" to wind up as the plot of one the Law & Order series - probably Special Victims Unit, what with the sex club and the trashy Republican girls. Let's not forget that the victim's neighbors are SF editors who run a web site where the word 'dinosaur' often pops up in conjunction with 'you-know-what'.
Instead of Johnny Depp & Meryl Streep, it'll probably be Steve Buscemi & Jessica Walter playing your parts.
I don't like this idea! I don't WANNA get fed into a woodchipper!
Serge beat me to it . . . I was thinking "CSI: NY," but SVU fits too.
That's a Fargo reference, isn't it, Patrick?
Grow up. Or, move back to whatever hole you came from. I'm from Brooklyn, not far from Sunset Park, and I have friends who work in the Sweet Cherry neighborhood which is how we ended up there that night. I thought liberals were the not uptight side of the aisle? My bad.
I love that you two wannabees are performing at Pussycat Lounge. What is it about liberals and hypocrisy? They can't just all be judgemental assholes who don't practice what they preach, can they?
Karol, do you actually disagree with what Teresa quoted from you and Jessica?
Only one of them is performing at the Pussycat Lounge.
Karol: You weren't slumming, then? Duly noted.
My first reaction was, 'How awful for you both!' This makes a horrible event even worse. I can't begin to imagine how dreadful this is for you.
Thanks, Maggie, and thanks to everyone else who's been so kind. It's all been pretty creepy. Of course, it could have been much worse. I could have been the one who found him. I could have known him better. And I could have known something (anything!) significant about the circumstances surrounding his death -- which, I'm devoutly glad to say, I don't.
*says a quiet prayer for the deceased, and for anyone still in the way of the harm*
Teresa writes: You weren't slumming, then? Duly noted.
Be careful about the pronoun tense when you write that down. We don't know whether Karol's friends were slumming.
Actually, Teresa, your neighbor's demise and subsequent, um, repose was reported earlier in the week in the Daily News. It was a smallish article, which I happened to note after having read your post, and noted that the two fact patterns alligned very closely. It didn't mention the strip joint, or the man's name, but it did mention Sunset Park and the fact that he was undiscovered for a while.
I think it might have been Thursday's paper.
BOUNCER SLAY TWIST has me wondering if there's some new dance craze going around. I can just picture hordes of club kids bouncing and twisting around, with intermittant dropping to the floor for a rest, before bouncing up again.
It's very strange reading about your home in the news - we had a fire down the street, and saw it on the news at the same time as seeing it out the window.
Karol: You weren't slumming, then? Duly noted.
So, you are a hypocrite? Duly noted.
Excuse me for asking, Karol, but where's the hypocrisy?
If you say you weren't slumming, I have to believe you.
As do I.
Now, where does this hypocrisy supposedly come in?
Just wondering-- they think he was shot because they found a bullet fragment in his tongue? Might there not be a slightly more obvious hole?
Karol seems to be one of those people who confuses being indirect with being clever. Notice how she can't just come right out and say whatever it is she wants to say, but has to tart it up with cheap and incompetent irony.
I was going to say... parroting TNH's remarks back to her shows reading comprehension and all, but it's not so much with the witty.
I have to agree with Karol here, despite finding her politics repulsive. You made fun of these women for going to a strip club because it's sleazy but are yourself performing in a strip club. Is that because your strip club is in a "Good" area and the one they went to is in a "Bad" area? Seems hypocritical to me too. And the mention of them at all in this post seems unwarranted. What do they have to do with the story?
I think it's more that their reaction to the strip club was of surprise and astonishment, coupled with a giggle and a list of ways to tell it's a substandard place-- when they could probably tell its character based on a glance. She never said it was sleazy for them to be there, only commented on the fact that they had somehow missed every single sign that it was not a reputable club until it came time to joke about the misadventure.
This is my interpretation, of course.
What I'm curious about is why this thread shows up on my laptop but not on my desktop downstairs. (Incidentally, Jim's thread on diabetes does and that was a new thread for the downstairs machine - and I did clear the cache & reload the page.)
Are the different floors in my house occupying different realities? (Anyone who's heard us discuss the previous owner's notions of home repair might think so.)
Are my computers checking into different internets?
Is one of my computers a neo-con Republican? (They're both Macs, but I suppose that doesn't mean anything.)
It's very odd.
I love that you two wannabees are performing at Pussycat Lounge. What is it about liberals and hypocrisy? They can't just all be judgemental assholes who don't practice what they preach, can they?
Karol, I know this will come as shocking news to you, but:
1. Musicians generally perform where they get gigs.
2. It's not generally liberals who spend all their time lecturing other people about Family Values or Sex Bad Sleazy Dirty. Liberals, in fact, generally maintain that other people's activities are their own business, as long as it's all voluntary and no one is getting hurt.
So, no, there's no hypocrisy in liberals being in a strip club, or in liberals snickering at that sight of a gang of "conservative girls" wanting to eat their cake and have it too--have the thrill of going to such an obviously sleazy place in a sleazy neighborhood, and still pat themselves on the back for being too good for that kind of place. Well, no, you're not too good for that kind of place. If by chance you didn't know when you set out, you knew well before you got there that it wasn't the kind place you were going to be telling Mummy and Daddy about over breakfast.
Margaret, have you tried selecting the 'refresh' item under the 'view' pull-down menu?
Now, Lis, your response assumes that you-know-what is interested in a debate where assumptions are reasonably discussed.
Serge, I realize it's unlikely, but who knows? Maybe the horse will sing.
Yes, Lis, and pigs will fly. The equivalent expression in French translates as 'when chicken acquire teeth', but I think the comparison to avian-porcine hybrids is so much more adequate.
(Anyone who's heard us discuss the previous owner's notions of home repair might think so.)
Ah, you've been hit by a handy-jerk, too, eh?
The guy who did the work on our house did well-crafted, meticulously built shit. As in "why the shit did he do it that way?" The house has two main electrical lines, one on the left side of the house, one on the right. It was apparent that our handy-jerk rewired the house at some point, with a new fuse box and everything to include 220 for the a/c, ... and left the house wired with two main sides, one on the left... *sigh*
I haven't heard your stories, but you have my sympathy.
If people are looking for film references here, I was reminded more of "Manhattan Murder Mystery" than of "Fargo".
The trouble with the word "sleazy" is that it trails in all sorts of distasteful connotations. including a slatternly environment and a general exploitative dishonesty in dealings with the customers, as well as the air of sexual thingummy one associates with a strip joint.
Looking at the earlier events, the place looks outright criminal, a hive of scum and villainy, and an owner named "Gabriel Bertonazzi" would likely provoke helpless editorial giggling if seen in a work of fiction. It sounds the sort of place that an undercover Lensman would enter
Luckily, no Police Forces in the US have yet taken to using duodecaplyatomate, and trained Rigellian Cateagles are in short supply.
Anyway, sleazy isn't really the word.
Can we refer to is as a Zwilnik den?
Serge, thank you, but I did reload/refresh the page. I have a couple of websites I maintain, so it was about the first thing that occured to me. If that doesn't work, clearing the cache & reloading the page does.
More on topic, I'm very sorry to hear that this happened, and I hope that nothing further comes of it.
No offense taken, I hope, Margaret?
If this plot isn't going to be Fargo-inspired, but along the lines of Woody Allen AND 'Doc' Smith, maybe somebody should tell Harve Presnell that we don't need him to play the part of Tom Doherty.
You had a decent post going until the final couple of paragraphs. "Srikingly stupid?" Gimme a break. Shortsighted name-calling may have a place in grade school, but the adult world looks down upon such bush league tactics.
Haha...Jason wrote "bush league". George Bush! Get it? That IS a "Bush League" tactic. haha. Man, that's funny. So, so very funny.
Have you noticed that there's always a strange stench lurking around when certain people come around to "defend" themselves? Kind of like the stench in Teresa's basement.
Folks, I don't think it's fair to call Karol a hypocrite just yet.
I think it's clear from her comments here that she wasn't slumming. She's obviously the sort of conservatarian with little patience for the sex-negative and drug-paranoid types who show up at places like JusticeSunday.com, for example.
The telling thing, it seems to me, is that, of all the myriad strip club venues in the great city of New York, she would choose to visit one with such a poor record of labor-management relations. Perfectly consistent with the conservative ethical system, when you think about it.
As a good leftist, I always "look for the union label" when I choose a strip club to visit. If it's not SEIU, then it doesn't get my money. So, it's helpful to know, for the next time I visit New York, that Sweet Cherry is 1) not a union shop, and 2) frequented by annoying conservative bloggers. I'll definitely avoid the place.
Okay, I may be confused, and on several different counts. It's been known to happen in the past, so can I attempt to clear some things up for myself, really quick?
Teresa: You're not performing at the strip club, correct? Patrick's band is performing at the strip club? Are you in Patrick's band, as well (well. Not that it's "Patrick's band," as in he's the creative force behind it, but more in the sense that I simply associated the music with Patrick, that's all)?
Karol: are you from Brooklyn, or from Russia?
I thought the point of the end of the post was to note the connotation's in which the Sweet Cherry's been mentioned in the blog world. And I think the key word in that part of Teresa's post is "disingenuous." In each post by Karol and Jessica, the experience is spoken of with the "hee hee" tone, and the second-to-final sentence is what nails it. Jessica's blog posits the question: "How do you know you and your three nearest and dearest girlfriends just walked into a shady strip club in Sunset Park, Brooklyn?"
The answer, of course, is none of the ones proposed; the answer is that you don't know you just walked into the shady strip club. The answer is you know you're *going* to a shady strip club, and you know so *well* ahead of time. I'm quite nearly certain it didn't "Seem like such a nice place... until you noticed the bullet holes in the door." I'm also nearly certain that Jessica knew she was in a shady place long before she was asked if she and her friends were making a documentary. The tone of the post smacks of the "slumming" vibe: slumming, in this sense, used to mean deliberately visiting a "shady" venue not for the purpose of having a good time but rather to experience, vicariously, the shadiness. Then waking up the following morning in your own bed, going to work at your political pr gig, and blogging about the experience. (I also read some of the seeking of hipster credibility in the posts)
Not to mention, in Jessica's blog, there's a post about a bachelorette party. "Can someone tell me why a bunch of girls would think a good way to spend an evening is to shell out a hundred bucks for vomit-inducing food and dancing transvestites?"
Dancing transvestites sound like far more fun than bullet-holes. But that may be just me.
Jason: if you follow the links to the blogs, especially Jessica's, I think you'll see what Teresa means. I don't think "strikingly stupid" is a "bush league tactic." Although, "vapid" might have been a better adjective, or maybe "vacuous," or even a third or fourth v-word.
What is it about Republicans and tacky sex? They can’t all be into sleaze, can they?
(wearily remounts soap box) One of the fundamental, perhaps the most fundamental, motivations of the "Right" is sexual hysteria. Look at their "issues": abortion is evil because it interferers with God's punishment for sex; homosexuals are evil altogether, and probably have more fun sex lives than we do; sex education (the surest, cheapest way to cut abortion rates) is evil because it's about sex; etc., etc.
It's about punitiveness and control. Sex is about being out of control. There is no more evil than interfering with the punishments for sex.
Wilhelm Reich used the term "emotional plague", and while he didn't have much in the way of constructive suggestions*, I really like the term.
* (Toward the beginning of the Bush II Administration, I re-read Mass Psychology of Fascism hoping for practical advice. It sharpened my understanding, but wasn't much use tactically.)
Sayeth Will Entrekin:
Dancing transvestites sound like far more fun than bullet-holes. But that may be just me.
Same here. I've never been shot at, but I've known some very sexy transvestites.
Dancing transvestites firing guns. Now there's an idea even more brilliant than Snakes On A Plane.
Randal... I kept wondering if the 'bush' league comment was an accident. Or a freudian slip. There would indeed be a certain irony to busheviks decrying the use of insults against their opponents. Remember the 1992 Presidential Race when the other side would refer to Bill & Al as Bozo & Ozone?
By the way, Bozo the Clown was quite offended at the Republicans using his name as an insult, partly, it's true, because Bozo was a Democrat. I think I read that in a column of the late Herb Caen in the San Francisco Chronicle.
" One of the fundamental, perhaps the most fundamental, motivations of the "Right" is sexual hysteria."
middle eastern peoples are evil because they control the mysterious and erotic falafel.
About Jason's post: what's the matter with Kansas. Indeed.
Will, of course I'm not performing at the Pussycat Lounge. I'm not performing at all. Patrick plays guitar in a rock band, and they've got a gig in the upstairs half of that establishment: a major venue for minor bands.
Miz isn't a careful reader. I didn't make fun of Karol or Jessica for going to a strip club. I have no problem with that. What I found distasteful about Jessica's writeup was its disingenuousness and its prurient tone.
I acknowledge that "vapid" or "vacuous" would have been better word choices.
I was particularly moved by "E)You feel somewhat violated after leaving the place." Wrong. Violated is what happened to the club's underage dancers. If you and your buds decide to have a little transgressive fun by going sightseeing at a waterfront dive that has bullet holes in the windows, and afterward you walk out with your wallet plus howevermuch virtue you had going in, you may feel unclean or grossed out, but you can hardly lay claim to violation.
j h woodyatt, I like the idea of dancing transsexuals with guns. It would bring a much-needed infusion of vril to the standard gun control debates.
I'm just guessing that the transsexuals with guns are dancin' the Bouncer Slay Twist.
(Rataplan, rataplan, rataplan, plan, plan.)
I have to say I didn't find Karol's post "prurient" in tone, and even if I had, if one can't take a prurient tone writing about a strip club, just when can one?
If she feels "violated," it's probably because there is a very thin fourth wall at such places. I might not feel that way, having actually worked very, very briefly in a strip club, but I can understand easily enough how someone would.
I went and read Jessica's blog.
Is she really a "political consultant"? I can't fit the label with what I read in the blog. Have I mistaken a third-party advert for self-description? Or is it the latest label for a very junior worker in a politician's office?
There's nothing wrong with the giggly girlie-girl stuff, but it does clash with the label.
Surprisingly, my puny dictionary doesn't have the word vril. The Wikipedia entry gives an excellent explanation, but dammit— that is an extremely cool word. It really ought to be in my dictionary. I have something new to complain about this weekend.
j h woodhyatt said Dancing transvestites firing guns. Now there's an idea even more brilliant than Snakes On A Plane.
Actually, Dancing Transvestites Firing Guns sounds like a great band name, to me :-)
I wanna see pole dancing trannies with gun holsters....
I don't think they have them at Missie B's. (our local drag q
queen perfomance venue..._
Teresa: yes, I knew Patrick played in a rock band, and had seen that Whisperado was playing at the Pussycat Lounge, but I had just wanted to confirm that you hadn't taken up accompanying the band. I figured it was possible you had, in your spare time, taken up the pan flute. Or maybe the zither.
Wow, how old are we? Only an overemotional, angry, thick-skulled feminist like yourself would bring politics into the equation where it is completely unwarranted.
By the way, I've played guitar and violin in bands for the last five years here in New York and I know all too well how many venues there are to choose from, especially for a baby band starting out. I'd recommend getting your own hobby instead of promoting your husband's band at a venue where you'll be just one floor above topless dancers being 'violated'. Oh, but you'll be having a blast dancing and schmoozing with the crowd, won't you? Of course you will!
Here's a bit of advice. Maybe once you stop trying so hard people will start to like you.
As ever, I'm on the edge of my seat to see when dsmvwllng kicks in.
Heads up for Jessica:
Being a topless dancer doesn't automatically mean you've been/are being violated.
The specific reference was to the Sweet Cherry, where dancers were allegedly required to have sex with the boss in order to get a job. You may have noticed he's been indicted for rape. Would you tend to agree that those particular women might have been violated?
Dancing Transvestites Firing Guns as a band name? Maybe. I'm waiting for Cross-Dressing Cowboys with Live Ammunition, which is a particularly tasty phrase Will Shetterly gave me a couple of years back.
I'm coming to the conclusion that the problem with the current version of the Republican party is that there's not an adult in it.
After reading our current visitors' blogs with their attendant twittering about sex, and considering the adolescent mind set that most of that party has regarding the topic, I think it's a reasonable conclusion.
When you add in the juvenile bullying (of entire countries, even), the insistance on dividing the world into us and them, the total lack of interest in how their actions will affect their future -
it reminds me of nothing so much as the least attractive bits of high school.
Okay, I'm now thinking "strikingly stupid" was a pretty good call.
Oh, and on a related note, here is good place to start learning about the Lusty Lady chapter of SEIU Local 790 in San Francisco, the first union shop for exotic dancers.
Jessica doesn't seem a likely candidate for disemvowelling: her vocabulary's big enough to avoid the grosser sorts of insults. I'm waiting to see if she will demonstrate knowledge of the first rule of getting out of holes.
Admittedly, it's not as entertaining as the bigger Republican meltdowns further down the east coast, but it's a nice little sideshow. Anybody have some more popcorn?
Near as I can tell, I was in Madison, WI
You were? Cool. Hope it was at least mildly fun.
the first rule of getting out of holes is to head for china.
*offers Margaret the missing "junior" from her last sentence.*
The Wikipedia entry on Vril notes that Bovril is a portmanteau name composed of Bovine and Vril, but calls it an "English drink".
Bovril can indeed be made into a hot, beefy drink by adding boiling water, but it is sold as a black goo in a jar not unlike Marmite or Vegemite (apart from being the exact opposite on the Vegetarian scale), and it can be spread on bread before adding cheese and toasting for a tasty snack.
On the subject of toasting things, I have an American recipe book which makes frequent use of the verb to broil. From context and my Oxford dictionary, this appears to mean the same thing as the English to grill. Yes? No?
In the US, "broiling" is cooking with high radiant heat, so yes, grilling is a form of broiling. The heat can come from either direction; the broiler in my gas stove is in a drawer below the oven, so the food will be directly under the flames. And the last stop on my toaster oven's temp dial is "broil."
So now I'm curious: is "London broil" -- broiled strips of flank steak -- not in fact English, whether from London or Milton Keynes? (I wouldn't be at all surprised if it weren't.)
I've never heard of London Broil, but according to beefusa.org:
- London Broil took its name from London, England, but originated in the US
and if you can't trust a casual Google, what can you trust?
I began reading this thinking that Jessica and Karol were both friends of TNH having fun with her. But after reading Jessica's last post, I understand. Neither one of them have a clue about who TNH and PNH are, probably think they are clueless 20 year olds with a blog. I giggle at the idea of T dancing on a pole at the Pussycat or somehow needing support from her husband's band.
They simply googled their own names and found themselves here.
The adjectives I would use are clueless and useless.
Jane
I simply have to chuckle at the use of "feminist" as an insult. What an odd mindset.
Niall: If you look at a jar of Bovril now, you'll see that it's completely vegetarian. I think it even has Vegetarian Society approval.
I figured it was possible you had, in your spare time, taken up the pan flute.
Teresa has spare time?
"Only an overemotional, angry, thick-skulled..."
*koff*projection*koff*
Doesn't even require googling yourself in this age of trackbacks. (They don't sound like the sort who would know how to check their referrer log manually.)
Nothing like hearing someone who has benefitted so much from feminism using that word as an insult... Lots of those in the GOP.
Linking the current tenor of this thread to its original subject of the crime next door... How about having some of the site's members dress up like old-style mobsters then having them visit annoying Republicans. I'd be nervous if John M. Ford/Hugo Weaving and James MacDonald/Tom Connolly showed up at my place and said:
"Ma Teresa wants us to take you for a ride."
Feòrag, I'm shocked!
I only hope poor old Chris Bonington doesn't find out.
"I simply have to chuckle at the use of "feminist" as an insult. What an odd mindset."
I don't think it's anything new, especially from Republicans. Rush Limbaugh morphed the word into "feminazi" to convey his own feelings toward feminism back as early as 1993.
It's incredible to me that after reading a handful of posts people seem to *know* all about Jessica and their "conservative" friends. Because you know describing the place as a off-color and unusual in your daily life screams of "over indulgent manhantanite lifestyle". Just for clarification all that Karol or Jessica were trying to communicate that they had a good time in a place where people, such as yourself, might not associate evil, sex-hating, feminist-hating (cause you know strip clubs are great place to assert your feminism, except for sleazy ones like Sweet Cherry, because unlike the SF ones they aren't unionized) conservatives. Seriously i can't believe people spent time thinking whether Karol, Jessica, and co. knew if it was a seedy bar before going. To dissect Jessica's post in such extremes, which by the way was written that way as a rhetorical device to make the post amusing and fun, only speaks to your insecurities and deluded opinions of self-righteous.
Lis, you know you're right i never did get around telling my mommy and daddy about the experience. But you know if i was a liberal i would feel all safe and warm telling my parents about it. Sigh... if only i didn't have to hide my deviant sexual desires from my parents the world would be a better place.
Margaret Organ-Kean,
When you write "When you add in the juvenile bullying (of entire countries, even), the insistance on dividing the world into us and them, the total lack of interest in how their actions will affect their future" you realize this is an instance of the pot calling the kettle black, right?
Ww, ths sms lk qt th ntllctl bnch. S mch s, n fct, tht 'm sr w'll sn b sbjctd t dscssn f th tr mnng f 's.' Scrw th ppcrn, smn gt m cgr.
Robert: Yes, I know you worked at a strip club. You told me about it once.
I didn't find Karol's post prurient. I was talking about Jessica's. Also, the prurience I perceived there wasn't about the sex, but rather about what a wicked low dive it was. Homo sum; nihil humanum mihi alienum puto, wherefore I am not a modern Republican.
Dave Bell, given the tone of her most recent comment, I have trouble believing she's a political consultant in any conventional sense of the term. Perhaps there's something else she's good at?
Niall, what Mike said. In currant US usage, the distinction between grilling and broiling is whether the food makes contact with the heating element. If it does, it's grilling.
Do you suppose all their friends are going to come in and completely miss the point? This is like watching them play "let's grab hold of the wrong end of the stick" as a party game.
What's with all this talk about grilling? We're now into the braising season....
I like the idea of dancing transsexuals with guns. It would bring a much-needed infusion of vril to the standard gun control debates.--TNH
Then you might like Killer Transvestite (realaudio) by Feo Y Loco. I used to run sound for them. I think they'd've loved to be booked above a strip club.
[points at Petitedov] Look, argument with no evidence!
But you know if i was a liberal i would feel all safe and warm telling my parents about it.
*sigh* As fuzzy-headed liberals go, I'm pretty fuzzy, but I sure wouldn't tell my mom about going to a strip club, sleazy or otherwise--she doesn't ask about my sex life, and I don't ask about hers, and we're both quite happy that way. But that's rather not the point; the point is that I wouldn't make self-congradulatory blog posts about how I was slumming, either.
There's more I could say on this subject, but--and I realize this is a failure of my character--I just can't justify spending my time on trying to educate someone who refuses to think...
I'd just like to thank everyone upstream of this posting for contriving to make this thread a much more attractive time sink than the galley I'm currently supposed to be proofreading.
Obligatory killer transvestite content: anyone else read Killer in Drag by Ed Wood (yes, that Ed Wood)?
Wll, 'm nthr cnsrvtv frnd f hrs, nd t fnd yr h-s-clvr "sd" jst chldsh nd ptty. Wht's th pnt? Tht t's fnny tht Rpblcns g t sdy rs nd fnd sdy bhvr thr? W lv n bg wrld - r crtn rs nly th prvnnc f lbrls? Bllsht. Y ssm tht, jst bcs thy'r Rpblcns, y knw crtn thngs bt thm. Jst bcs smn fvrs lwr txs nd n ggrssv frgn plcy dsn't mn nythng mr bt wh thy r thrws. Tht's th fndmntl msndrstndng lbrls hv bt cnsrvtvs, tht thy'r ll ptght nd cltrlly cllss - slly csd by nt ctlly knwng ny n rl lf, by th wy.
h, nd wht's "mssng th pnt"? Thnkng tht ths ws jst n ttck n sxl hypcrsy? f s, plnty f yr wn cmmntrs sm t hv mssd th pnt t. Fl fr t scld thm wy.
Hey, you remember that night that Tex and Juggy showed up at the strip club and got all wild and shit. I should totally tell that story in this thread. I bet Jessica would appreciate it.
Those two are so... declasse
I guess I was right, Lis, about their not being interested in an actual debate. And when they can't come up with a valid argument, they bring up Bill Clinton's sins. Which reminds me of Field of Dreams's scene where Amy Madigan's character has a run-in with the local book-burner. The latter, when faced with a logical argument, can only make an irrelevent reference to her hubby being a weirdo who hears voices in his corn field. To which Madigan responds:
"Now there's an intelligent answer."
Those two are so... declasse
Add clueless. I read Jessica's 'trip to CA' post. She seems to think a few days in Palo Alto at someone's (large, very expensive) house and a few days in Big Sur have qualified her to speak about How Wonderful California Is. Not. Jessica, please stay in NYC and make those of us who live in CA happy.
If I ever write an SF novel with dinosaurs, sodomy, and transvestites with guns, I know just the place to get it published....
No, *this* reminds me of nothing so much as the least attractive bits of high school:
"Here's a bit of advice. Maybe once you stop trying so hard people will start to like you."
Sweetie, honey, this one topic probably has more comments than one of your gals' blogs -- that is, if you Republican Ladies Who Slum actually allow comments to take place. (I'd sample one of those sites myself, but, you know, *cooties*?)
Who ever in the Wide Wide World of Sports wanted you to like this blog? Which person posting here is so desperate for your approval that he or she must change her posting behavior, right now, so as to keep his or her cache with your posse of kool kidz?
In terms of your tone and content, the temptation to say exactly what I feel would earn me instant dsmvwllmnt, and I'd rather spend a night in the company of drunken, neocon, faux-hipster slatterns than risk that, thank you very much.
Yes, I know, someone's done a better job of demolition, above....
Srg: n ctl dbt n wht? Th nly pnn bng dvncd hr s "ths grls r stpd, nd w r smrt".
cgy: Tht's splld "ccht".
Actually, having sampled both Karol's and Jessica's blogs, they sound like giggling high-school students. You know, the ones who spent most of their time in front of the mirror fixing their hair and their makeup, and ignoring everyone else.
Girls, if you can say that you didn't know what you were getting into when you walked into a place with a sign reading 'topless entertainment', you are truly clueless. It's right up there with 'gentlemen's club' and 'sports bar' for translation as 'the only females inside will be employees'.
Yaron: You say "I'm another conservative friend of hers,"-- with whom are you friends? The two previous posts to yours belong to Cassie, and then to Teresa. I want to guess your Cassie's friend, but I'm unclear.
And concerning your most recent post, the opinion isn't actually "these girls are stupid, and we are smart." The opinion actually put forth has been stated rather clearly several times, and I'd clarify it again, but you'll probably just ignore it, like you did the other instances.
For people who do not like either liberal blogs or sleezy dives, these girls sure spend an awful lot of time in both places.
If I went to a topless club, I might or might not tell my mother about it.
But if I wasn't going to, I wouldn't post about it in my blog.
I realize that not everyone's mother reads their blogs or online journals, though mine does. But if there's something you don't want your mother--or your boss, or your ex-husband, or any other person--to know, don't post it to the Internet. They might find it, whether by looking for your name, or by accident, or because someone who knows you both offhandedly says "Did you know your daughter went to a strip club last week?"
No, Yaron. It's all about each side's attitude toward sex and how your side has been using ours to depict as a bunch of degenerates who can't be left alone in a room with the neightbor's dog. Say what you will, as with the hokeypokey, that's what it's all about.
Oh, and, yes, Yaron, I did write "neightbor's dog" while I meant it to be "neighbor's dog". That's called a typo. You do know the concept?
Srg: f tht's wht y thnk th sbjct s, thn ccrdng t Trs y'r cmpltly mssng th pnt.
Wll: frnds wth Jssc. 'm ls frnds wth Krl.
n n "ctl dbt" prsnl ttcks r frbddn. Hr tht's... ll nyn's dng.
s sl, whr thr s dbt ftrng lbrls nd cnsrvtvs, lbrls knck thmslvs t t rg thr wn stpdty. Yt nthr mdl rght hr. t's bvs frm yr bnxs lttl pst tht y wr trllng fr hts nd bt f rcgntn. Prhps mmmy nd dddy nvr tld y tht ngtv ttntn s rrly th wy t g. Bt hts ff t y; grl-wh-prfts-frm-tplss-dncrs-sh-pts-nd-rls-t-Jssc-fr-vwng s dspt yr nhrnt stpdty, vn y cn s yr hbby's lttl bnd wll mst lkly prft frm t's bnfcl ggrphy.
Sms y knw hw t mnplt vry ngl, h? S lk lbrl.
I fail to see how my comments in re Bovril can be construed as personal attacks on Karol or Jessica.
Ari
You wrote:
As usual, where there is a debate featuring liberals and conservatives, liberals knock themselves out to argue their own stupidity. Yet another model right here. It's obvious from your obnoxious little post that you were trolling for hits and a bit of recognition.
Uh, Ari? Do you have any idea how much traffic a link FROM MakingLight generates? Trust me, Teresa and Patrick don't need any traffic.
Ari:
I don't think you realize how little TNH has to troll for hits or recognition.
Or who PNH or TNH are in the first place. Or what they actually do in their day jobs.
A little research before posting can make all the difference between sounding clueless or informed.
"It's obvious from your obnoxious little post that you were trolling for hits and a bit of recognition."
Actually, Ari, that's not at all obvious, not to mention blindingly, stunningly wrong. Toward the end of August/beginning of September, MSNBC mentioned Making Light as a resource for survivors and victims of Hurricane Katrina. So Making Light obviously -already- has its share of hits and "a bit of recognition." Just because you've never encountered it before doesn't mean it wasn't already there.
Larry: I simply have to chuckle at the use of "feminist" as an insult. What an odd mindset.
Will: I don't think it's anything new, especially from Republicans.
No, it's nothing new. I was surprised that Larry found it novel enough to chuckle at.
As for the cockroaches scuttling around upthread: "clueless" doesn't even begin to cover it. Super-mega-giga-clueless, maybe.
Here's a bit of advice. Maybe once you stop trying so hard people will start to like you.
Haha, wht lsrs.
Ditto Ari's entry just above..."trolling for hits and bits of recognition." ROFL, these people have no idea who they're even addressing! Clues, clues here! $0.25!
I missed the point, Yaron? Oh no! How can I live with myself.
This is going round and round and I have better things to do with my life than responding to people who aren't listening. Better things, like trying to avoid a collision with someone who cuts my off very close when changing lanes and who then cuts me off when I change lanes again, all this because I have a Kerry/Edwards bumper sticker.
Ta-ta...
Charlie: Yes, I have; my daughter snagged a copy at the local used book shop a couple years ago, and I read hers. Every wannabe-hip parent dreads and rejoices in the day when they find out that their kids have become cooler than themselves.
i know, i know, more fun to play with the guests. but look:
the mysterious and erotic falafel
FUNNY!
Srg: n th cntrry, ppr t b th nly n wh's lstnng t y.
Lr: m "cckrch"? Fr wht, dfndng my frnds frm hrtfl nslts by ppl wh dn't knw thm?
By th wy, wll nyn ctlly rspnd t my rgmnts? dbt t.
I don't know how many here went to fairly conservative east coast top-25 universities in the last ten years (or spent time in the halls of Congress lately), but if you had, you would have encountered many Karols and many Jessicas. I'm afraid it's a bit of an epidemic. They tend to be bright, well-educated, beautiful, charming and have figured out that men in certain circles find such bright, educated, beautiful and charming women threatening. So they espouse the viewpoints of the monied, conservative white men who hold the reins of power, knowing that this (and perhaps flashing a tanned, toned leg) will get them in the proverbial door. It's a whole generation of Ann Coulters.
The sorts of conservatives that Karol, Jessica and Yaron are definitely aren't culturally clueless or uptight. They just find it personally advantageous to appear so, when it is convenient. For those keeping score, that's the hypocritical part. They can dress provocatively, yet object to sex ed being taught in school; they can call TNH a feminist in a mocking tone, yet take full advantage of the cultural changes people of her political stripe and her generation have wrought; object to high taxes when "Gluttony is so in this year" (priceless). Having their cake and eating it too; enjoying the thrill yet looking down their noses, just as other commenters have said, not only in strip clubs, but in life.
"By the way, will anyone actually respond to my arguments? I doubt it."
Um, I don't think you've actually made any arguments, Yaron. The nearest thing I could find was something like "All you liberals make ridiculous generalizations about your political opponents. This is something all liberals do."
Yaron: you and your friends are cockroaches because you have infested this thread and left nasty little footprints all over it. Furthermore, although you were able to figure out that you were being insulted, you clearly do not understand the exact nature of the insults directed at you.
That's where the clueless part comes in.
Can anybody tell me if cockroaches are known for their intelligence? Because then I would have to apologize to the species.
KrstnB: myb y shld chck bck wth lsn, wh ctlly dd rspnd t sm f my rgmnts. Nt tht gr wth ny f t, mnd y, bt thr y hv t.
Lr: ths thrd ws nsty frm th vry bgnnng. nd... thr s n "xct ntr" t ths nslts. t's thrd-grd-lvl fr-fr-ll, f y hdn't ntcd.
I wasn't fishing for these guys, but if I had been, I'd've tossed them back in after I measured them.
I hate to counsel mercy when y'all are having so much fun, but I'm starting to wonder whether it's possible that these kids are literally unable to follow the conversation. Judging from their descriptions of what they think is being said, they're all low-resolution readers.
A predictable thing is about to happen to one of them.
Ari: girl-who-profits-from-topless-dancers-she-pities-and-rails-at-Jessica-for-viewing
You see that dot over there? That's the point you're missing.
For some reason the comments have taken on a very definite "us and them" feel between 'liberals' and 'conservatives'. The problem is that those labels are so vague as to be meaningless. Plus, as the cookie says, all generalisations are false.
Karol/Jessica/Ari/etc. - nobody here particularly knows you, what you like/dislike, what you're like off-line, etc. Please remember that you know just as little about the people here.
I saw a pretty girl once in the middle of a crowd/mosh pit(Pietasters show- ska, not punk) doing a sort of early-Madonna bop.
The amazing thing was, people were slamming into each other all around her and, successfully, avoiding her. Her expectations overruled Brownian motion.
Going to a place where people shoot guns, expecting to not get shot, and actually not getting shot is like that, only more so.
Me, I don't go to places with bullet holes in the windows. It's dangerous.
[I would like to thank 24fightingchickens.com for this insight. The specific article has been taken down, in hopes of publication. ]
A predictable thing is about to happen to one of them.
They will be sodomized by a dinosaur?
Alison, I think you'll find some of the same types in the British political world, mostly with job titles like "researcher".
Anyway, "political consultants" are ten a penny. If anyone wants some seriously fit totty, they should try "Trouble Consultants".
I think you'll find some of the same types in the British political world, mostly with job titles like "researcher".
If this is true, I weep for the noble art of doing research, for it is truly one of the last bastions of non-partisanship.
Facts don't lie. People do. People can make the facts look like they lie, but in the end, facts are facts, and nothing can change them.
*scurries off to continue working with the Census data she is using for her grant writing*
this thread was nasty from the very beginning.
It is true that when I read the fifth post, my first thought was "Wow, that was fast."
I can't believe Ari Fleischer is REALLY posting on this blog! You've hit the big time, Teresa and Patrick! Next thing you know, Scott McClellen will be here to defend himself. Then, it'll be George Bush Jr., himself.
Teresa: now that you've gotten out the red pen, I'd like to point out that it was very rude of me to call them cockroaches.
I almost regret it. Well, I regret the lapse of etiquette, not the possible accuracy of the term.
Thanks, everyone, for helping clear my confusion.
Yaron: "What's the point? That it's funny that Republicans go to seedy areas and find seedy behavior there?" This is an example of your fundamental missing of the actual point. This statement is most assuredly not the point. The point is that "these two girls went to areas they -knew- were 'seedy' and then blogged under the pretense (meaning, to pretend) that they were -surprised- to find 'seedy' behavior." I read the further comment about Republicans and sleazy sex as alluding to a previous post on Making Light, which discussed the phenomenon of conservative, mostly Republican authors, including but not limited to Scooter Libby and Bill O'Reilly, writing fiction which contains scenes of a salacious and lascivious nature when they are the ones (remember: -not limited to-) who most argue against sexual education. Who preach "family values" and "upright morals" but seek out entertainment at places they know are 'seedy' (the quotes in this sentence do not refer to statements from the bloggers).
I've mostly refrained from using big words for you. 'Salacious' and 'lascivious' mean having to do with lust and sex, mostly, with some negative connotation added. 'Connotation' an idea associated with a word.
(I note the above because I hope not to be misunderstood, and sometimes we say things we aren't explicit or clear about, which can reveal our beliefs. For example, you might find it interesting that, when you say "aggressive foreign policy," I understand you to mean "bombing the heck out of other countries without any real reason, which makes the rest of the world hate us.")
Tangent alert.
I know we started out being all about the dread horror of a neighbor possibly murdered, but Clifton said:
Every wannabe-hip parent dreads and rejoices in the day when they find out that their kids have become cooler than themselves.
And I just want to say something about that. Because I remember when my dad started asking me things about some aspects of popular culture (but he's still cooler than me). And I remember when I st
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