Celebrating Community
I was off to The Bunker. The storied home of William S. Burroughs. Where he lived on The Bowery. Downstairs from Giorno’s apartment. The Bunker is now home to The Giorno Foundation. I was running a little late the train from Brooklyn was delayed. I skated from the train as fast as I could. Avoiding a smashed beer can. Pedestrians. […]
Grammy award-winning trumpeter Nabaté Isles is back with a new album, En Motion. His career boasts performances at the White House and collaborations with legends like Mos Def (Yasiin Bey), Jimmy Owens, and Jill Scott. And yes, Nabaté is still hungry to create and inspire us all to move. My interview with the incredibly talented Nabaté Isles below. Roderick Thomas: […]
If you Google “rock clubs, Brooklyn,” you’ll see more than a dozen, most of them in Williamsburg, Bushwick, Gowanus or nearby. But before any of them were there, Lauterbach’s, at 335 Prospect Ave. in the South Slope, had a thriving scene featuring original rock bands. None of the Lauterbach’s bands – Frank’s Museum, Chemical Wedding, Cryptic Soup, Formaldehyde Blues Train, […]
I walked into the colorful and dramatically lit club, Purgatory in Brooklyn. Everything about the space screamed Bushwick— offbeat aesthetic, yet not lacking any cool whatsoever. Daytona Starsky was performing tonight for an arriving crowd. I had the pleasure of speaking with both him and his management. More on his album, Reality Station, and live performance below. Reality Station begins […]
You would barely know it from the US media, but the European Union is currently in the midst of it’s worst-ever scandal. It all has to do with reports that we did see about the exploitation of foreign migrant workers who built the sports complex that housed the recent World Cup in Qatar. As Belgian newspaper Le Soir revealed last […]
Just a block from my apartment is a little bakery, almost hidden amongst the surrounding houses, a block from the BQE. Though I’d occasionally seen lines wrapping around the block, I was hesitant to give it a try, as a visit to their website revealed a price tag of $11 per loaf. Two weeks ago, I decided to splurge and […]
When I was a senior at Manhattan College, I gave my twin sister Regina away to Charlie, right before he shipped off to APO addresses in Vietnam. I never saw him again. The marriage took place in St. Thomas Episcopal Church on Bushwick Avenue. My parents refused to attend because their priest said Charlie’s priest wasn’t a true priest. But […]
After being in limbo for nine months, New York v. New Jersey—also known as the New York-New Jersey Waterfront Commission case—will soon be litigated in the U.S. Supreme Court, with oral arguments being made beginning February 27, 2023. The issue, as it stands, is whether the Supreme Court should issue declaratory judgment and/or enjoin New Jersey from withdrawing from its […]
I was off to The Bunker. The storied home of William S. Burroughs. Where he lived on The Bowery. Downstairs from Giorno’s apartment. The Bunker is now home to The Giorno Foundation. I was running a little late the train from Brooklyn was delayed. I skated from the train as fast as I could. Avoiding a smashed beer can. Pedestrians. […]
Thirty years ago in the 1992 Presidential election I registered to vote and voted. For that simple and solitary act I spent two decades in purgatory battling criminal charges, the past five years in Federal Courts on my malicious prosecution lawsuit. But if you think I have any regrets the answer is no. When a country starts locking people up […]
