the thrill is GONE

the red hook ballfields are back, as you may have read or seen. i knew b/c when i went yesterday there were as many camera crews there as there are paparozzi currently stationed on 64th and Central Park West outside of Madonna's apartment, waiting to catch a glimpse of A-Rod (believe me, i've seen them). unfortunately, friends, it just ain't the same. what used to be gigantic, beautiful chaos is now tightly regulated bullshit. bullshit in that, well in that i personally think it's bullshit to wait in a 75 person deep line for a lemonade. bullshit in that the 3 best vendors have taken up residence at the brooklyn flea on sundays, and apparently are sticking tight because they weren't at the soccer fields this weekend. and, finally, bullshit because the cause of the red hook food vendors has become a bit of a brooklyn cause celebre, in that the ejection of the food vendors was met with such universal disapproval and outrage (color me guilty as well. i started one of the oodles of "save red hook" myspace pages as a properly lazy act of civic responsibility), that the return of the vendors in this opening weekend was met with such a massive turnout that anyone who really loves the food and the red hook ballfields was positively turned away from the long lines for, basically, nothing. i love that all of the vendors were getting the spillover business from the outrageously over-taxed huarache stand, and even the lady selling $10 containers of ceviche and "tuna soup." but truthfully, there's a reason why those stands weren't ever really busy in the first place (i once overheard a teenage soccer player crack wise to his homies with the snap-tastic "she puts TUNA in the ceviche," which elicited massive snickering and snorting. i like to think of this joke as the ceviche version of steve martin's plumbing joke).

why so bitter, right? well those lines were really just excessively ridiculous, but i understand that i'm crabby and old. i understand that the new blood at the ballfields will thin, as it always does, and the lines will become manageable. in my impatience, i also was introduced to a vendor i've never visited before, the colombian booth, at which i had a delicious plate of beans and rice that kept me full and semi-coherent throught the entire day, which is no small feat on a saturday, especially one like yesterday in which the day was long and the cervezas were aplenty. i guess this tiny rage stems from the incompetence of the city, which happily enables any and all roasted corn & watermelon slice vendors, as well as the ubiquitous cheese steak carts, at every street fair in the city that bounces from street to street throughout the summer in new york city. the sheer size, or lack of, is undoubtably crippling for the vendors, and has permanently altered the feel of "soccer tacos" and has made it more of a nyc street fair and less of a red hook secret. i used those vendors as a surrogate for a mere 2 years, sating my constant need for mexican/latin food, which has represented 90% of my subsistence for these past 33 years, and even more than that the past 9 that i've been a vegetarian. sandwiches get old, but nachos never do, and a quality meal that even a pauper could afford was something that i grew to not only appreciate but need in the worst/best possible way. those days are now gone, and if i really want the "red hook" experience, i now have to make it a once a week occasion, and have to go to fort greene to get it, and to wade through comically overpriced antiques, neckerchiefs and knick-knacks to do so. but my loyalties lie not just with the meal but with the person who prepares it, and the best of those vendors, the hernandez huarche stand and the good el salvadoran pupusa people, they've moved on and defied the city's financial demands and continued doing things the way they've done them for 20 years. i also just really like the guy who just prepares the meat shanks at the pupusa stand, he's my favorite of them all. i'm also bitter because today i accidentally ate the second bit of meat i've had in 9 years, and the first was an honest mistake of an egg roll at a chinese buffet in oklahoma. lord, that shit was nasty. last time i go to that pupusa stand, even if they have the pupusas with the mysterious loroco flower. thank goodness there's a plan B, even if i have to ride the train to get there.

p.s., for anyone who ever walks down 9th street between smith & court street. my over/under for the stoner MORON who keeps his bong collection in the window, for all to see, on going to jail is 2 years. any takers? he/she has had it up there for at least 1 year already. how the NYPD hasn't noticed this, with the requisite black light/red light bulb back lighting, well it's beyond me. they must have bigger fish to fry.