Reykjavík Grapevine - 07.04.2006, Blaðsíða 45

segues all feuding into a discussion of what our
photographer would like to drink, and how big
our photographer’s lens might be.
We are eventually led to a secret bar in
the Lower East Side called Milk and Honey
– a bar so hip that it has no sign, no line and
you must get a secret phone number to gain
entrance. The sublime beauty of the staff and
patrons is enough to cool down Mr. Blasen-
game. Sadly, I am unable to consider anything
but the waitress’s enormous hair for the hour of
our visit, until said fear, combined with retro-
cocktail-induced vertigo, forces us all from the
building.
Brunch without the Agent
“Oh my God am I a douche bag! I am going to
tell an entire restaurant about my agent and my
acting career!” Blasengame moans the next day
at a small café in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.
“It is not acting, it is crafting, the stage
and screen are craft and art, as I always tell my
agent,” I say, doing my best James Lipton.
The object of our loathing is a big-haired,
high-domed, saggy, small-bodied, mid-thir-
ties actor who has been lecturing two equally
saggy and small-bodied, mid-thirties women
about the way people misunderstand his acting
career, his craft and his various gifts – most
sentences beginning with, “I was saying this to
my agent the other day.”
“This is why I wear that sweatshirt, that
one I wore last night in Manhattan,” Blasen-
game says, again, much louder than he needs
to. “Because assholes who come into brunch
restaurants and talk about their soap com-
mercials in the hope to get some depressing
sex, because these douche bags are moving in
from the bridge and tunnels and taking over
Brooklyn.”
It all seems funny enough, but when we
leave, Blasengame actually apologises for the
saggy actor. “I’m sorry you had to hear that.
This neighbourhood is usually so much nicer. I
can’t believe it’s getting this bad.”
He points out a string of ten-storey, slip-
shod apartment buildings going up to accom-
modate the newest wave of Brooklynites. The
picturesque, working class Polish neighbour-
hood with the Russian Orthodox cathedral is
losing its charm. “This place will be as bad as
Williamsburg soon,” he says.
Our photographer, who takes a few sec-
onds to frame a shot of the God Bless deli, and
who started ignoring gentrification talk two
days ago, shrugs and whispers to me, “I’d kill
to live here.”
I ask Mr. Blasengame if he and the many
other Brooklynites who are complaining about
the change aren’t overstating the problem
– rich people throwing money around, even if
they’re annoying actors, can’t rate that highly
in things that ruin your quality of life.
“When you know what’s being ruined, it
matters,” he says. We go back to his apartment
and read about Portland, Oregon, which, ac-
cording to the Willamette Week, doesn’t suck
yet.
Mentioned in this article:
Galapagos, www.galapagosartspace.com
Vice Magazine, www.viceland.com
Brooklyn Rail, www.brooklynrail.org
Brooklyn Baby, www.brooklynbaby.com
Willamette Week, www.wweek.com
Two Man Gentlemen Band,
www.two-man-gentlemen-band.com
Electric Lights, www.electriclightsmusic.com
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