Sascha Comes To Brooklyn

Sascha was in NYC for a good long week over Thanksgiving, and came back to Brooklyn with us after the big food orgy. The next morning, we lounged around a bit, but soon set out on Sascha's mission: to acquire some official Brooklyn Cyclones gear. Since 2001, Brooklyn's own AAA team (a Mets farm team) has played in a beautiful new ballpark down at Coney Island, restoring baseball to Brooklyn after a 44 year absence (people here still mourn the departure of the Dodgers.) Sascha wanted to take a piece o' Brooklyn back to San Francisco with him. So we obliged, and hopped into our borrowed car to make the drive (thanks, mom and dad!) Luckily, the store at Keyspan Park was open, so we browsed for quite some time until he had the perfect cap. And Mets tee for good measure. And keychains and other paraphenalia to boot. Then we walked up to the famous boardwalk, where icy winds didn't stop some of the track suited local populace from taking their afternoon jogs. Crazy people, those Coney Islanders. It was sunny but a frigid 35 degrees. Sascha, outfitted in a medium-weight handsome but impractical little suede number, and his thin new Cyclones hat, was astonished that people live in New York in the winter at all. How quickly we forget - I guess 14 years in California will do that to a guy. And I guess Andres and I, in our down coats and scarves and hats, are old and jaded NY'ers now. Sigh.

We attempted to show Sasch the Warriors mural that glorifies the eponymous film that took place in these parts - we had photographed it last fall - but it mysteriously was not hanging any more. So here it is, Sascha. Warriors....come out and play-ay-ayyyyyyyyyyyyy!

However, the Shoot the Freak gallery was on abandoned, wintry display for all to see. A trash-littered alley in between the refreshment stands and a few rows away from the rides, Shoot the Freak promises "live human targets." All we could see were some scary faded old clown heads, a torn mattress and other random detritus. I suppose a theme-park anthropologist might have alot of fun explaining the significance of what looked like so much garbage to my uninitiated eyes. As we approached the alley we could see a sign strung up...but at first we didn't catch the S in Shoot. Next summer let's Hoot the Freak y'all!!

Then we had the obligatory hot dog and fries at Nathan's Famous. Goodness, they were good. However, we didn't live up to my dad's usual standard of 2-3 dogs each. We must have been too full from Thanksgiving. But we'll be back next summer for more Cyclones games! Hopefully Sascha will join us for more good times on the Island of Coney.