Travelling Without Moving

By rights, we were going to ease into this post at about 10am, like a knotted and weary slaughterman eases into a Radox bath. But panic in dayjobland, and a series of inane queries from putative limey houseguests, has delayed it. Yesterday morning was spent doing a little light jogging, followed by a full-on Walkathon against the real estate developer that wants to knock down our local.

So, we listened to a few of the speeches, threw some money in the pot, and then repaired to Freddy's to taste the freedom. We might also add that we assisted the organisers in clearing up, and were thus unable to march, so if you follow the video link from the above NY1 story hoping to UNMASK us, then think again. Rosie Perez, billed as the Grand Marshal of the march, was late, but she did show up, since we encountered her outside Freddy's peering at the signs. Did we say hello? Did we say "Thcwoo Ratner!" Did we hell.

We must apologise to Matt the bartender, who we dragged outside to talk to a rather lazy reporter from Channel 12 News. Her question was "so, the march raised $50,000, What I want to know is what would the organisers do with the money if they don't need to use it?" Matt, who is about as close to the inner counsels of Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn as we are, suggested, as politely as possible, that she walk over to Soda and go ask the organisers themselves.

We had already broken for P Heights, there to further get our drink on, and were slightly chagrined at our cowardice. What we probably should have said is this:

"We will attempt to treat your hard-hitting question with the seriousness it deserves. How much is $50,000? A decent chunk of change, but probably about a quarter of what DDDB needs every year to take on Ratner. It's a third of what Ratner paid to invent a grassroots organisation that would support him. And probably a fraction of what Ratner, his company and his management throw around every election cycle. Let's assue that having spent these vast sums to bring his land grab to fruition, Ratner suddenly decides tomorrow to move back to Cleveland and pretend it never happned. DDDB has two options. Spend the rest of the money on series of lawsuits to see of there is anyway to force Ratner to compensate us for the time money and Sunday afternoons we've spent taking him on. Or spend the money on a colossal party. Really we don't mind so long as the bastard stops trying to turn our neighborhood into Metrotech part 2."

But we went to Half instead. Sorry, Matt.