Yeah, that’s it Mister Bernstein…straight outta Citizen Fucking Kane, why not?! That damned Rosebud, that’s the lost bag, that’s the talisman the dream remembered the theme I am dancing around here. The snow globe my keys the photograph of Bette Goldwert that my mother was holding in her stash. Yeah, so what is he thinking…I buy this book because I hear it is a Henry Miller thing a dive into the dark underworld of the illegal clubs of one Brooklyn neighborhood in flux a work in progress a first person troops on the ground approach, I want to read all about the young ladies, the way they walk and the way they talk and the way they dress and what it is they like to drink and how they like to take it.

So start me off with Sidney Bernstein why don’t you? Well, okay let’s call him Sid B so you can all feel who I am really talking about here. And I’ll make it quick, cause this story is really all about Alexis right? She’s been warming up in the bullpen cause she is going to make one hell of an entrance. And oh yes, this book is all about Jane Rosenthal and she is a seriously trained Hollywood actress so like when she like walks into a room, well, you just know that she has just walked into the room I mean Stage Presence is putting it gingerly and yes, you see I am a sucker for that and for sure maybe I just enjoy writing down women’s names, women’s names in lists, succession and certainly women who carry men’s names oh:

Sam I love Sam I thought I was in love with Sam sure Samantha there were four that passed through in this story one was just such a doll, the second still is a singer and I mean she has talent you know the third is Keller I actually have her appear here and then that friend of Ariel who is so cute and so collegiate and then of course, there is another Alexis not my Alexis the black Alexis the dyke who was pouring me a bourbon at Skytown and making me think of the seventies and making me think I could convert her if only for a few minutes her skin tone her pierced nostril her deep male voice oh my god! None of this would have happened had I not had the pleasure of being introduced to one Sid B.

It was the first Sam, the drop dead pixie freckled Sam that introduced me to AnhTu who introduced me to Thu Tran who introduced me to Sid. Sid needed a business partner and an authoritative figure to help him settle down. He was already established in July 2011 as the “Bill Graham of Williamsburg.” He was a music promoter known for throwing a live show in a location where no one ever considered hosting a rock concert, for example, a Chinese Banquet Hall, an abandoned parking lot filled with rusted parts, a friend’s apartment with a PA system out on the fire escape. Bernstein had a reputation for not respecting the law and he somehow divinely managed to stay one step ahead of the local police.

We were introduced in an abandoned cinderblock ground floor across from the Domino Sugar Factory. He was busy fixing it up to become an illegal music venue but this place was kind of temporary, it was that stunning corner in Bushwick that he had made the grand plans for. When I shook his hand, I got this strange glow it was a combination of déjà vu and a cold premonition of excitement to follow. This feeling would come up again and again during the two and a half years that follow in this book. I had always been afraid of my own pleasure and how far my thoughts would push me into exhilaration. The moment I shook Sid’s firm hand, I knew that great adventures were going to follow.

What immediately impressed me the most about Sid was his street level knowledge of New York City as I vainly stated in my opening remarks, I am an extremely opinionated native New Yorker and while you are reading this the tourist population of this town is escalating exponentially. A borderline must be drawn between those who are natives and know New York and those newcomers who are fronting. Sid was from somewhere else, Portland maybe, Seattle, the birth of grunge was his style ticket what with a flannel shirt in any weather and scrappy about to become carpenter pants looking tan jeans. But when he gave me a walking tour of the neighborhood he fucking knew every street and every building.

He was attempting to do a background check on me an Escobar style job interview he liked to keep you waiting wondering which side of the avenue he would roll up from on his ten speed. We met on the corner of Myrtle and Broadway and he ushered me up what I would like to call the Double Indemnity stair case of a trapezoidal shaped second floor loft known as The Market Hotel. The place was a dive almost too perfect as if a fag art director team had been hired to make it look grungy, so many couches everywhere old clothes on the floor additional flannel shirts but the sure fire closer was the numerous drum sets authentic Fender amplifiers and beaten up old Stratocasters that started getting me excited.

The room stirred up the same feelings as that initial handshake: I knew at that moment that I was going to commit myself in any way possible to become involved with this location to make it my business to get up on the rat dung infested stage and rock my skinny ass off. I had no idea at that time that a gang of people were living there people who I would soon come to know intimately. I had no idea that I would invest a substantial portion of my figurative life savings in this venture that at the time of this publication is still not completely finished and certainly not yet operating as a legitimate club. I figured okay this looks like my scene circa 1980 Lower East Side, I can most certainly live with this shit for sure!

Sid had a small army of lieutenants who showed up. You could sense how much they feared him with the kind of respect that I had witnessed among gangsters. We all chatted and then we walked outside onto Myrtle and up a few blocks to a brand new hipster coffee shop that had just opened. Sid explained that this place had opened as a direct result of the crowd he had brought in when The Market Hotel was still in operation. The place seemed completely dead as he introduced me to the owners. Just wait a few months, he predicted with the confidence he often exuded that bordered closely with sheer arrogance. I guarantee you that this is going to be the place, I mean the place. Wait and see.

The owners were putting a new sign up, it would be known as Little Skips. We talked at length about how much attention the press put on his Williamsburg venue already and how much The Market was so popular before police had shut it down in a now infamous raid one night in 2010. Suddenly, it started to rain violently and the unfinished ceiling at the coffee shop began to leak. The lieutenants went into Battle Station mode and quickly prepared to attend to the potential flood problems at the various venues under their watch. I was left high and for just a brief moment dry before venturing out into the now dark puddles of Myrtle. The neighborhood seemed strange, unknown, new different.

I had no idea at that moment, that I would be spending most of my time in 2013 on those streets…

 Next Chapter