It’s All My Fault
Fee Fi Faux: 10 Imagined Village Destinations
By Duane Scott Cerny
East and West Villagers are routinely smitten by the latest must-see venues: beautiful people, places and things that are beyond mere nouns. Where’s the experience of cutting-edge end retail design? The upscale dives, the delightful deliriums, the decorum-less dioramas?
Seasons are now out. Quarterly earnings are in. Vintage old is in. New old is out. And New Yorkers recognize the “new” as if they needed it yesterday. And they did!
In such spirit, I offer the following points of place: A vague street here, a cobbled path to nowhere there. Take a stroll through your ever-evolving neighborhood and find the fabulous future of faux…
The Always Closed Café
One of the hottest coffee joints to ever open, Always Closed Café never is. Whether it’s city licensing issues, landlord troubles or staffing problems, this trendy eatery leaves us hungry for more…or less. Rumors have spread like jam on unleavened bread that this cafe is: 1) open only to a high-end clientele, 2) secretly closed and, 3) a front for a money laundering patisserie.
Next Door Doors
Experience full size samples of hundreds of doors in this 250 square foot West 4th St. showroom. Though cramped, their innovative simulator ride display moves you effortlessly through more doors than Andy Warhol ever opened. Though some find moving through a tunnel of endless doors to be near injurious, most shoppers experience a temporary holographic blindness. FYI: Puking inside the store is prohibited due to their lack ventilation and hinges.
Your Dirty Laundry, Private Investigator And Dry-Cleaning Specialist
At first blush, one wouldn’t see the nexus of these two careers, but owner I.C. Yu recognized the need for his specific talents. Yu takes lipstick-stained collars to the next DNA level, tracking roots a la Professor Henry Louis Gates. From questionable Quakers to unmentionable Mormons, Yu’s services have been used to reveal notable adulterers, philanderers, and drag queens with a penchant for Jungle Red.
Burnt Ends
A dispensary with food service seems like a winning combo, but this Christopher Street pot spot has a tasty twist. Forget the pothead’s go-to treats of candy, chips and peanut butter jar scrapings; Burnt Ends ups the high with BBQ edibles! Now you can get toasted with your favorite smokey flavors, taking a tangy hallucinogenic tangent, or a flaming five-alarm, mouth burning fire of pork. We love their motto: “Get off the sauce and onto ours!”
Bette R. Endowments
For years, owner Bette has been giving unwanted advice to friends, relatives, and people she pigeonholes on crowded buses. Initially she only provided personal suggestions… (Lose the cologne, buster!)… but now she has now gone pro by expanding her opinionated services to financial advice, mostly to mistresses, gigolos, and kept people of all genders. Think about it: Who represents the “other” man or woman, the jilted courtesan, the short-changed sex worker, the stud who packs a baker’s dozen and doesn’t even bake? As Bette says, “Where there’s a will, there’s a way out!”
Chez Garbage
Do they sell antiques, vintage collectibles or junk? You be the 1st Dibs judge. After their Staten Island store closed due to an over-publicized outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease, sisters Annabelle and Lucy Belle Palsy have reopened in the basement of a quaint East Village tenement. Don’t let the long, rickety staircase fool you: Their best bad inventory is in the sub-basement, home to a former Yiddish theater. The sisters claim they often hear the ghosts sing: “Ich hob mir teshvart di tuchas.”
Deli’s Funeral Services (DFS)
Everyone needs a good funeral occasionally ─ but where’s lunch? Years ago, funeral luncheons were considered tasteful and often tasty, if not mandatory. Today, funeral homes have drive-thru windows where last respects are expressed by yelling into a clown’s mouth. Now DFS morphs a great tradition with mouthwatering corned beef, brisket, lox, tongue and pickles that’ll keep yours an open casket. Buffet style (with sneeze guards) is a favorited option. DFS also offers earth-friendly cremation services though don’t forget to pick up a side of their killer potato salad. You only live once.
The Hare Cutlery
Unsurprisingly, finding the proper bunny clippers or “Cher Sheers” (the trade parlance) can be a frustrating cut through the forest of fuzzy buzz retail. Bunny tails don’t grow on trees, but neither do their scarce clipping scissors. And that’s where the Hare Cutlery hops (sorry) in. Recently featured in the Sheers Association of America Delineator (SAAD) mimeographed newsletter, this shop’s selection displays more scissoring than a Lilith Fair.
Smudgee’s Dyslectic Tattooing
Just another tattoo emporium? No, Smudgee’s drops tattooing to the lowest level of discounted disappointment. In time, most tattoo afficionados are inevitably unhappy with whatever art they’ve chosen, so why not begin with misspelled, inaccurate, and sloppy work? Sure, it’s cheap ─ painful bloodletting is the cost of costing less. Update: Smudgee’s has launched a mediocre tattoo removal services indistinguishable from lesser skin flaying.
Half Baked
Secondhand smoke has zero competition in this cleverly reimagined day-old dispensary for the thrifty. A colorfully psychedelic selection of used bongs of every description waft through their 10th floor walkup location. (Yes, that high!) Need a pipe? Fabricated from glass, wood or old plumbing, their pipes are second to none, though still secondhand, and will surely tickle your tincture. Looking for cheap seeds and stems? Shake your way to their newest location behind a dumpster at Hudson and Mary Jane.
Follow On Substack! Duane Scott Cerny takes the blame for most everything in his monthly satirical column, It’s All My Fault. Best-selling author of “Selling Dead People’s Things” and “Vintage Confidential,” he is the co-owner of Chicago’s Broadway Antique Market. Send podcast invites, interview requests to ThanklessGreetings@yahoo.com.
