The Mantalist?

Terror on the park.

The mothership of tacky.

The Observer has always wanted to know what this abomination of architecture is doing in Flushing Meadows Park. It looks like a War of the Worlds mechanical robot mated with a suburban office park.

A simple web search reveals that this monstrosity of Soviet era exteriors is in fact the world’s cheeziest place for the bridge and tunnel set to get hitched with over the top Louis the XIVth interiors. Grotesque in two completely different ways inside and out.

http://www.terraceonthepark.com/

Inequitably humongous.

The Observer has often wondered why many buildings in Manhattan have a ziggurat (step pyramid) configuration on the upper floors. Considering the expense of real estate in Gotham one would assume you’d build as straight and efficiently as possible. Aim for the stars, touch the sky, take the rent, reap the riches.

The answer lies in the Equitable building.

Upon its completion in 1915 the Equitable was the largest building in the world in terms of floor space. It rose almost 600 feet above Broadway and cast a shadow of over 7 acres. It’s immensity caused Gothamites pause. Worried that more buildings like it would result in a dark cave-like existance at street level the 1916 zoning resolution was passed. This law required that buildings of a certain height have set backs. Based on a mathmatical formula a building must either move back from the sidewalk (like the towers on 6th avenue around Rockerfeller Center) or have a retracement on the upper floors allowing for light and air to mingle with the buzzing masses below.

Ziggurat expained.

Crushing commute.

The Observer wonders why the MTA wishes to make the slog to work in the grim confines of the Times Square tunnel all the more disheartening with this installation. Did they take down the “KILL YOURSELF” chapter to this sad story?

Inspector Clouseau shopped here….

One of these things is not like the other....

The Observer is thinking about going clubbing tonight. While The Observer’s date will be decked out in body sparkle, 4 inch heels and a silver Cher wig The Observer will be rocking his own unique look: Leon Trotsky as 70’s porn star.

Try “Clinton Dental” instead.

Hold still while I put this black toilet plunger on your face….

The Observer would like to make a marketing suggestion to the purveyor of potentially painful pulling. Don’t use “hell” and “dental” in the same sentence. Or the same paragraph for that matter.

Another suggestion: The Observer wants his dentist to have hands. And I DON’T want him to use implements that look like a beat cop’s nightstick in my mouth that renders my head into a monochromatic martini olive.

Rudy can’t fail.

Please remove your hats.

There are some solemn traditions in this world. England has the changing of the guard. Japan has the annual visit to the Yakusuni shrine to those who died in the emporer’s name. Gotham has the application of yet another layer of red duct tape to the booths at Rudy’s. The Observer was lucky enough to be there for this hallowed event and had a soggy bar napkin dabbling salty tears.

Taking liberties with creepiness.

Where are you going? Don't forget zee Lady Liberty shot glass!

The animatronic figure of Frederic Auguste Bartholdi (designer of the Statue of Liberty) in the Liberty Island gift shop would have been creepy right out of the box. Nobody likes the Disney Small World ride, the pelvic gyrations of a battery powered Santa or a street performer pretending to be an animatronic robot. But when the herky jerky movements of a dirty rubberized humanoid are compounded with a head of wispy yak hair, an ill fitting neckerchief, a bad french accent and torn off fingers the result makes Freddie Kruger, Holloween’s Jason and Dick Cheney look down right cuddly.

He needs a good hand job.

I knew Clyde Stubblefield and you, madam, are no Clyde Stubblefield.

The Blarney Cove is the kind of bar that opens when the streets begin to fill with morning commuters. Rumpled janitors and steelworkers slink in to build a foundation of beer and whiskey upon which the day’s drunkenness can be constructed. As Tom Waits once penned “nobody comes into this joint with anything small”. Big worries and big problems solved with small beer and short shots. Put down a twenty and leave the first round’s change on the bar until it’s all drunk up.

When The Observer walked in some weekday night he was immediately struck by the creature behind the bar. She had been rummaging in Morticia Adams’ closet and decided upon wearing a full length jet black dress with stretchy, clingy arms that matched the color of her hair. But to add an element of festivity a sparkling red rhinestone vest was thrown over the funerial smock. She had attitude for a woman in her middle 50s. She looked like she’s lived. Alot. Around her left eye an eyeliner pencil had drawn what looked like a willow tree’s roots. 3 inch long black tendrils snaked down her cheek seeking purchase upon the dry desert of her weathered face.

The heavy set latino man pushed upon the scratched and sticky surface of the bar to heave his corpulence upright. He waddled over to the juke box and put in the money better spent on cheap tequila. James Brown’s ‘Sex Machine’ began to thump it’s rhythm out of the speakers.

Our bartender was taken by the funky beats. She grabbed an implement with which to express herself. It was an aluminum ice scoop. And with the muses controlling her she produced this…

Graffitti’s not all bad…

… particularly when it’s a portrait that looks like a collaboration between Picasso and JJ Walker from “Good Times”. Dy-no-mite!

Let’s try and bring that expression back. Dy-no-mite! Remember to use it at the next quarterly sales meeting.