Just recs this time

I’m here to provide some basic Greenpoint recommendations that you probably know about already. Last week, I went to Good Room for the first time after months of saying Guys, I’ve still never been to Good Room. It’s a club with two(?) dancefloors, one that’s smaller and looks like a library and the other that’s massive. We started at the smaller room and enjoyed bopping but the party really started when we joined the masses. I usually hate excessive strobe lights, but this room his the perfect amount of strobe that made me feel like a protagonist. The music was all oonts-oonts-y but relatively light, and I had a great time (and a strong Yerba Mate tequila). This is one of the only straight clubs I’ve been to here that I like wholeheartedly, and it felt like a straight version of Market Hotel because of the fog and lights (but I’ve heard it also called the Straight Elsewhere). What set it apart from other straight places was that everyone just seemed happy and not irritated. Would go again.

I’ve always been annoyed at the name Paulie Gee’s for this Greenpoint pizzeria because it just feels like it rolls off the tongue too much for an influencer. My annoyance with the name washed away once I walked in. Apparently they have a second location in Columbus, and that midwestern coziness feels present in this wood-lined restaurant perfect for escaping a cold night. We took up a huge table, sharing wine and pizzas. You can reasonably eat a whole pizza in one sitting (but more if you’re an eager man). My friend Jordan and I shared our pizzas: Ricky Ricotta (normal saucy pizza plus ricotta blobs, Italian sausage, and arugula) and the Hellboy (basically a hot honey pepperoni pizza). Both of them were incredible, thin but not overly crispy. I was sad to finish but happy that I didn’t feel sick. I can’t really pick a favorite but I guess I can, and it’s the Hellboy. I hate to pick the menu item that’s highlighted by the restaurant but I also love to see what they think is the best. We got delectable Italian cookies at the end, and one of the pizza guys drew rough sketches of two of my friends and gave it to them. We still aren’t sure if that was creepy or not because his demeanor seemed normal.

Obviously I have to talk about the Brat remix album! Almost a third of the songs are ones we’ve had in our rotations for a while, and most of the new batch feels like completely different songs than their originals. Sometimes I like them, sometimes I don’t. I respect Charli XCX, but I don’t think I like her enough to be obsessed with every song. “Sympathy is a knife” was disappointing and a poor use of an Ariana feature (I would have liked to hear her sing the chorus at least once). I don’t care about The 1975 or Bladee. Some of the songs were cool but not something that I would casually listen to (“So I” and “I think about it all the time”). That aside, I liked everything else. I love that more of the world is getting to hear from bb trickz, and I like that Tinashe has a victory lap. I couldn’t pick a favorite a week ago, but I can now confidently choose Caroline Polachek’s hauntingly beautiful rendition of “Everything is Romantic,” and not just for the absurd lyrics of freebleeding in the autumn rain.

Lebanese music knows how to stop me in my tracks and force me to dance, especially when I’m waiting for my sandwich at Semkeh and they’re blasting the hits. I heard “Shou Hayda” by Marwan Chami for the first time and had to add it because I wanted to leap out of my seat. I love how male Lebanese musicians just sound like they’re whining, and the only contemporary western musician who has a similar quality is The Weeknd. Fight me!

Two dumb things that keep making me laugh: 1. A Twitter user named Saeko posted about her therapist calling her by her deadname instead of Saeko. Instead of getting validation in the replies, Saeko is getting clowned. Why? She’s white and decided to go with an Asian name upon transitioning. I’m always fascinated by people appropriating other cultures, but each meme about Saeko has made me laugh, mostly because this feels like such a niche internet thing that I am shocked people can meme about and there’s others like me who understand the reference. But the original post has a ton of engagement, so what do I know.

Pittsburghers and Pittsburgh-lovers, I assume you’ve seen the chronicles of Don and Deb from TikToker Joe Long, who I previously only knew from bizarre freestyle rapping. He doesn’t have an accent in his other videos, but his impersonation of a Pittsburgh couple shows that he is a true yinzer. Every single word, every vowel…it’s perfect Pittsburgh media. Anyone who’s never been to Pittsburgh must watch this video, too, because it shows so much that I can’t even explain properly, even down to the names Don and Deb. Dahn the hahs, working at Kuhn’s, the way he says color, too…it’s art. Thankfully, Joe has made this into a series and keeps giving us more Don and Deb content as if its a soap opera. Please watch!

This is my first Survivor season that I’m watching in real time, and I’m lucky that this one is so good. The episode from, I guess, two weeks ago is a masterpiece. Someone from the red tribe has to go home, and a quiet, unassuming member of the team ends up in a powerful position and knocks out someone I would not have expected. I love being surprised.

I walked into Banks Tavern in Greenpoint near closing and saw the bartenders playing the Savage X Fenty fashion shows from the past few years. I’ve seen a few of them and got very into rewatching them with the patrons and bartenders, all of whom had lots of commentary. They put these on as a palette cleanser after watching the Victoria’s Secret fashion show, which premiered that night. The show has been on hiatus for a few years after everyone was too bored by the brand of body dysmorphia they espouse, especially in the wake of Rihanna’s shows doing so much better in every single department. But since RiRi has been taking a step back, VS decides they’re ready to relaunch. I am so lucky that I wasn’t plagued by media like this in my youth, and maybe it’s okay that my mom didn’t let me have a Tumblr. I enjoyed some of the musical performances, but I found the show to be pretty boring and not very diverse. They had plus size models wearing leggings — boring! Half of the reason people watched is because they brought back models from the show’s heydey like Adrianna Lima (who looks the same somehow). I’m just so bored of existing IPs rebooting again and again without making anything groundbreaking.

As usual, lots of Israel and Palestine content for me. This American Life episode “51 Days” compiled interviews with Israeli hostages Code Switch re-ran an episode from last year talking to “Two Palestinian writers on the right to share their stories.” Both episodes made me sad and were yet another reminder that people’s morality cannot be defined by their nations. Additionally, both stories showed more complexities of Israeli and Palestinian livelihoods that that I think American media usually does a poor job of showing, which pushes a lot of people into treating each group as monoliths.

I physically bumped into two different children. A small child ran into me while I was walking to the Liberty Game, and I instinctively said, Sorry, kid. Am I a cartoon gangster? I haven’t been able to live that down amongst the friends I walked with. He hit into me so fast that I didn’t have time to think of a real response, so my instinct was to become a loser. The next week, another child was biking behind me on the way to Paulie Gee’s, but since I had more time to react I said, Move out of the way for our friend. I guess I learned my lesson, but how would my group hear our friend and think small child? I need to work on my communication relating to our smallest community members. I’ve always hated when people talk to kids differently than to other adults, so I need to move back into Oops! territory.