fugged abud et

For those of you with eyes glued to the tales of late night griper let me firstly apologise for having not griped much lately. Life has been very, very busy and there have been many adventures that have begun....The gripe man has moved house to Union Street Brooklyn, from downtown Manhattan....should have done this several months ago! I'll try and post some pics of the area soon. The new Gripe Headquarters are in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn which boasts a very strong Italian population. There are many old Italian club houses, statutes of saints and Madonna (no, not that one) in the front yards (well front patios), great bread shops, restaurants etc etc...Some of the conversations I have already eavesdropped on are the stuff of drama. Lots of wogs (including myself) sitting on stoops or in chairs out the front of their place watching the world go by. My neighbours Carmine and Josephine, an old couple with Palermo in their blood, keep a watchful eye over the street. I stop by when passing and talk about the weather. Yesterday they tried to give me a giant fake plastic tree, 'you don't gotta water it cos it's ahh...it's not ahh real, ya know....' Then there are the guys down at the local pizza joint; 'that scumbag owes me twenty-five hundred! I seen him sneaking around here lower than the belly of rat!' that motherf&%#$@# %$@# &*%@!' There are two old Italian clubhouses on the block. One is the size of a kitchen with a bar on a diagonal in one corner. I spoke with Tommy, a young guy in the hood, who told me 'It's more friends and family than an actual, an actual clubhouse if you know what I mean...' Anyway, on Friday and Saturday nights the 'friends and family' sit out front on chairs or at the bar, 1950s jazz belts out from the dimly lit interior. You could imagine old blue eyes stepping out from inside. Anyway, there's plenty to see and do here in our new digs. Beyond that I will leave you with a scene from the recent spell in Australia.