“You say tomato, I say f*** you.” [Asterisks added.] Welcome to the Park Bench. I read that little (micro, really) witticism on a bumper sticker stuck beneath one of the TVs above the bar of “The Bench,” as the regulars refer to it. I reprint it here, concerned reader/advertiser/Wegman, because it’s an enlightening example […]
Culture
Posted inCulture
A concise handbook of astrology
Is it appropriate for our nation’s leaders to consult astrologers on critical decisions? Should you check your horoscope when buying a car? In this column, I will show why astrology is 99.9 percent bunk. Astrology is confused in some people’s minds with astronomy. The latter is a meticulously accurate body of knowledge that describes […]
Posted inCulture
Houses in motion
Eight years ago, at the age of 18, Richie Salvaggio, a.k.a. DJ Richie Salvaggio, brought a brand new sound to Rochester: funky house. It happened in a building on Main Street his friends intended to turn into a record store (they never did). Salvaggio says it was his friend BK of the Brain Fruit […]
Posted inCulture
Wormhole
Walking into Dicky’s for the first time in five years, I thought I stepped into a wormhole. Nothing had changed since that night in ’97 I’d last left there after losing at darts, drunk. I wandered from the bar to the tables in the back, searching for some sign of time’s passage. There was […]
Posted inCulture
Like flies on sherbet
I first heard the buzz about Barfly from a bartender at Lola, the bistro on Monroe Avenue. It had opened the night before, he said, and a swarm had formed for the occasion. That’ll happen when a hip hangout drops on the scene, especially at East and Alexander. Lola and Barfly are both owned […]
Posted inCulture
Outside of the box
As soon as an idea shows up as a bumper sticker, you know it’s dying. Certainly “diversity” has become a tired buzz word. Yet, sometimes the old slogans (like “freedom” and “peace”) retain a trace of significance. Flooded with cliché-mongers, the world of literary fiction still occasionally allows a new writer to tackle these […]
Posted inCulture
Rock of ages
Author’s forward and disclaimer: Welcome to the first installment of our new, bi-weekly nightlife column, “Barfly on the wall.” As the name attempts to imply, I’ll be exploring bars and other gathering places (mostly bars) incognito. My intention isn’t to spy on people and expose their embarrassing nocturnal exploits to the public. That is, […]
Posted inCulture
The rockets’ red (white and blue) glare
In the wake of the World Trade Center’s destruction, are celebratory fireworks still OK? More than ever. For one thing, fireworks can be used for Freudian sublimation: Take that, you rotten, sub-human terrorist scum — POW! ZAPP! and BANG!! And just to show that our spirits (of ’76) aren’t dampened, nor our ability to appreciate […]
