- SLUM LORDS

When I lived in my last apartment building in Washington Heights, the owner of the building wasn't exactly an angel but he was a fair guy. Any major issues were usually addressed in a timely matter.

There was one time I had asked about him possibly cutting me a break on a bigger apartment in the building since I was such a good, quiet tenant who paid my rent on time each month. He kinda laughed and said something to the effect of, "How am I gunna pay my porsche bills if I let that happen."

I laughed at it too because it was funny. But then I realized, man what a prick some rich people are.

This leads me to today.

My new apartment in Carrol Gardens Brooklyn is pretty fantastic overall. I have a nice sized one bedroom with actual sunlight as compared to my old studio which faced concrete walls on both sides. I was given the apartment by a friend who moved to California. The rent is stabilized and under $900, almost unheard of for an apartment anywhere in NYC. The area is great, streets teeming with restaurants, cafes, bars, and shops.

The landlord (a husband and wife tag team) however leave something to be desired. Apparently they are the Kings of Carrol Gardens and have been buying up the Red Hook area like crazy. I don't know how many buildings they own but I've heard its quite a few. So a small 8 unit building where I live causes them little concern. They do the absolute bare minimum needed to maintain it. The halls are rarely clean, the basement is disgusting and usually soggy and wet. The front of the building hasn't been cleaned since the Eisenhower administration. It is the black sheep on the block as far as buildings go. I call it a tenement slum but maybe that's exaggerating a bit. No actually its not. They would NEVER spend an extra dime to make the apartment look presentable, we tenants have to do it ourselves (my upstairs neighbor bought and planted tulips for the front yard).

We do have nice exposed brick walls and decent hard wood floors inside. Oh and we do have new windows. YIPPEEE!

The bathroom sink and the bathtub both have a lot of rust. I replaced some stuff without being reimbursed, of course. I was actually laughed at when I asked if they would pay for a new door and lock because the one I was left with is old, jiggly, and doesn't always work right....like your grandma's butt.

When I moved here in December, the kitchen sink was not working properly. I called 4-5 times and the problem still hasn't been fixed. They didn't want to paint my place and encouraged me to do it (legally they must every 5 years or when a tenant moves out, or some rule like that). So I painted it with the help of a friend and then deducted the painting supplies out of my first months rent. Fine no big deal.

Ok, so today. To preface this, about 3 weeks ago the weather was ridiculously warm and yes I realize how nice it had been outside. So the landlord shut the heat off. But over the past week or so it has cooled down considerably and I have spent several evenings freeeeeezzzzzzing and resorted to turning my oven on for warmth. One night I was wrapped in two blankets in bed and was still cold.

Sorry but that just seems ridiculous to me. We aren't living in the depression here. Its 2005 and I don't think its right.

So I called and asked for the heat to be put back on at least for the evening/early morning hours. The first person I spoke with at the office was pleasant enough and said she would talk to the owners. I got a call from the owner of the building (the wife) and she basically began a tirade by yelling at me. It was as if I asked for them to install hot tubs in everyone's apartment.

She told me to tough it out. "Put on a sweater and turn your oven on." Is that a good idea that a landlord suggests to their tenant that they should be putting their oven on? Did she not read about the 3 young boys that died last week because they left the oven on all night? That was due to religious reasons but still.

I was yelling back at her so loud that a coworker came to my desk to inform me that they could hear me down the hall. I was pissed though. She complained about how much oil costs and of course reminded me how little I pay for rent.

I reminded her that they own half of Brooklyn and make a lot of money.

That set her off. She completely flipped out and started yelling to her office about what I just said. She told me I had no clue and that they reinvest in the community so people could have jobs. She screamed at me how she and her husband don't drive around in a porsche or Mercedes. Whe was seriously offended by my comment. And then she asked me, "Why does my husband wear overalls if we have so much money."

What kind of question is that? Rich people can't wear overalls? Is this woman trying to tell me that the she and her husband who are worth millions of dollars cannot afford to buy the man a pair of dockers if he so desired? They must own 20 something buildings and are planning to install a major supermarket in the Red Hook area. I do not think that they are struggling to put food in the mouths of their children.

What is wrong with people. Seriously though. Damn this was a long post, sorry. Its just a bit longer..

So she got so worked up that she told me she can't talk to me anymore. She then HUNG UP THE PHONE on me. Wow! My landlord so upset that she hung up the phone. BTW I hate when people hang up the phone, its very immature and pisses me off.

Ok so last part. I wrote this letter to her and I want to mail it but haven't decided yet. Should I? I have a 2 year signed lease and regardless of that I don't think you can evict someone on the basis of being mad at them. If they do I'll go Michael Keaton in Pacific Heights on them.


Friday, April 29, 2005

Dear Landlord (I'm leaving her name out)


First, I apologize if I upset you so much that you had to hang up the phone on me. I don't ever hang up on someone myself so I realize you must have been upset.

I would like to mention though, that every single time I have called with an issue, you make sure of emphasizing the amount of rent I pay.

Does this mean that my concerns or issues are less important than those who pay 200 dollars a month more? It belittles me and makes me feel like I am less of a tenant when you mention it every time. If you want to talk about hurting one's feelings think about when you say that to me.

That is what led me to make the statement about how much money you make. You nitpick me on every issue I've raised from possibly changing the rusted out sink in my bathroom to placing a door handle that works well (which you actually laughed at).

I would think you could be concerned that a tenant called you claiming he/she had been very cold the past few weeks. Instead of showing your concern you actually started YELLING at me and telling me to tough it out, like we are living in the depression of the 1930s.

Also, the weather is not supposed to go above 60 for the next week and that means it will be 50 or less at night. Not exactly summertime weather.

I really don't care anymore about the heat, leave it off. But you should not treat a tenant with such contempt and I needed to speak my piece.

Daniel Krieger

- MEET MY NEW PET

Don't be scared little guy, Mingus isn't going to eat you. In fact I think he's more afraid of you then you are of him. I think that's why he has his head buried in his litter box right now.

Meet my new pet. He is a an aye-aye, a rare species of lemur from Madagascar, the first captive bred aye-aye straight out the UK from the Bristol Zoo Gardens. I bought him yesterday through some of my close connections at the Bristol Zoo.

I've named him Cutie-pie. He seems like a nervous little fellow but don't be fooled. As you can see on my hand is a band-aid that I had to apply after he gnawed off a small chunk of my finger while I was sleeping. Maybe I should get a cage for him but my friend said he likes to roam free. He also warned me that the first chance an aye-aye gets it will try to kill you by going straight for you neck. But, like one out of every 14,000 Americans I sleep with a motorcycle helmet on. Lucky for me.

- HAPPY PASSOVER!

I had Passover tonight at my uncle's house. I realized I was old when they didn't allow me to look for the Kofi Annan.

No wait that doesn't sound right.

Afikoman. Yes that's it.

A story from my youth is coming to me. I remember I was at this big Passover event at a church or some crap. No wait, it was probably at a temple. About 20 kids or so were searching for the Afikoman and no one could find it. We must have been looking for about 10-15 minutes when some guy grabbed me by the arm and said, "Hey kid, it's behind the piano."

I guess he was getting tired of waiting around and wanted this fiasco to end. I of course grabbed the hidden piece of Matzah and claimed my prize. I felt a little bad but realized that if not me, someone else would have been tipped off.

I kept that piece of Matzo until this very day. I'm actually eating it right now in celebration of this post and this happy day of Passover.

- MY CAT IS THE NEW POPE

Conclave had to reconvene today after realizing their Pope-to-be was in the Hitler Youth Boyscout division back during WWII. So after some contemplating they chose my cat Mingus, as their new Pope.

All hail king Mingus our new glorious leader.

Ok I'm sorry I promise this is the last Pope thing for a long time. Done.

- NEW POPE YIPPPPEEEEEE

Man I'm so excited about this. I heard this guy is great. An ultra conservative anti-abortion, anti-treating women like human beings, anti-divorce, anti-gay. And the whole molesting of small boys, well let's just not talk about that ok? It's not a big issue now is it? Go on wit ya badself Catholic church...Keep making this world a better place.

You know me and my buddies have "Conclave" every few months. If you watch from outside you see different colored smoke coming from my apartment window as well. But there's one difference. When our elected official comes out he can get all the cheering and applause from fans on the street, but he still must fulfill his duty of running to the corner bodega for some burritos, salsa, and chips.

Oh Pope please please tell me how to live a perfect life and adhere strictly to the doctrine that some drunk guys probably wrote as a joke a few thousand years ago. I can imagine the dudes who wrote the bible sitting around saying, "Man this is some dynamite shit, but you think anyone is ever gunna really read this?"

If it wasn't for science you morons who buy into this shit would still be worshipping the sun god and water god everyday. Remember that.

Yeah Yeah send me to hell, just pack up some Tofutti Cuties for me. Man those things are like licking monkeys. Yeah I used that line again.

I actually just found a free coupon while searching for the proper spelling of Tofutti. See, by reading my website you don't only get a dose of blasphemous rantings but you also get free treats.

- MY NEW PITCHER

Say hello to the Bormioli Glass Storage Pitcher. Recently purchased by yours truly. While this dope looking pitcher may not change my life it will definitely enable me to make my Uncle Krieger homebrew ice tea and keep it in a nice container in my fridge. Man this thing is going to be sweet.

I found it amusing on cooking.com some of the review posted by people who bought this pitcher. Once I get mine I will of course post a review because hey, that's what I do.

Check out what some dude I'm going to call "Julius" from Washington D.C. wrote:

What I wanted seemed so simple: a glass juice pitcher with a lid that closed tight enough for me to swirl my orange juice around in the morning to re-mix the settled pulp, and with some stylishness. I must have looked at hundreds via the net. This is the one I chose and I'm happy with it. The square shape is very space-efficient in the fridge and the lid seals pretty tight. It looks rather elegant (though the plastic lid looks somewhat less so than the glass body of the pitcher, which is quite
nice). I liked it enough that when I'd bought one and decided I liked it, I went back and bought two more.

Yeah you did you saucy fellow. I can't mock this review too much because mine will probably sound similar except I won't use the word "stylishness" when describing a pitcher.

And this one from our friend I will call "Fellipe" from Covington, GA:

My only reservation about this pitcher is the limited amount of space between the handle and the body of the pitcher. The picture is a little deceptive. My hands are not real big, but I can only put my fingers around the handle up to the second knuckle. This is awkward and will take some getting use to. It is compact, twisting the inner part of the top gives an airtight seal and I can get my hand inside the pitcher which makes for easy cleaning. Overall, a good buy.

Hey Fellipe, the picture is deceptive because its about 1/10 the actual size of the pitcher. That and you probably have the hands of a monster.

- NO MORE ARGUING

OK OK enough already. Can we go back to talking about dental floss or that awkward moment when someone asks you for an extra piece of gum and you pull out the last crumpled stick which is obviously warm and wilted with a bit of colorful lint stuck to the end, which really doesn't match the color of the pants you're wearing? So now the decision comes. Does Linda from Processing actually say, "Uh no thanks" making the scene more uncomfortable, or does she politely accept your last piece of Big Red and then toss it in the trash can when she leaves and is out of view? A better question might be how does the lint get to be that color?

UPDATE: She took the gum and later in the day I noticed just the WRAPPER in a trash can outside my office. She actually ate the gum. My god, that pig.

- DUDE WHAT THE FRIG iS GOING ON!?!

So a few things. Some good, some bad. Mostly good actually.

Been getting nice publicity lately. A popular website boingboing.net put up my phony craigslist apartment listing HERE and I got over 350 hits in one day. Sweeeeet. Then yesterday the guardian.co.uk put a little link to my anti sidewalk gum spitting campaign post, but I think its gone already.

Soon I'll be dining at Arby's like the fatcats on Park Ave.

But today was the most interesting. This is a little complicated, well at least for you it will be. So turn off that Yanni record and pay attention. A friend emailed me saying NPR did a segment on the Brian Lehrer show this morning about roommates, and mentioned my phony craigslist apartment listing. They actually plugged this site, so I was pretty excited to hear about the whole thing.

I don't actually own a radio but when I do get to listen to NPR I usually enjoy it.

Since the segment was already over by the time my friend told me about it, I tried to check out their website to see what information was on there.

Anyway, the Brian Lehrer page actually had a description of the topic and gave a link to a phony craigslist apartment post which supposably "Inspired the topic."

Cool I thought as I clicked on the link, another plug for me.

Then when the page opened to my horror (Ok maybe not horror but mildy shocked and angry) I found SOMEONE HAD RIPPED ME OFF.

My phony post was not there but another, almost identical post sat before my eyes. If you must, you can read it HERE. But be warned it's not as funny as my original one HERE. Seriously though its really not.

I didn't even have to read through the past few sentences but did anyway. Without a doubt its fabricated, not real, and modeled exactly after mine. If you read them side by side there is no doubt at all about it.

I guess its a compliment, but I didn't get no credit on Brian's website originally, or these two other websites where I found links leading people to the rip off post HERE and HERE.

To update this, I found that these two sites just had the post up but didn't write it. I yelled at them both because I was rather upset but have recently retracted my original loud accusations.

Are you following this? wake up!

I actually called NPR and told them about it. I spoke with someone there who forwarded the information to their website department and the Brian Leher show. They changed the link so now it goes to my post instead of that other one. That was pretty cool of them. Maybe they didn't want to deal with my crazy lunatic fans demanding justice. By "crazy lunatic fans" I mean myself of course.


So while I was happy today I also got a little pissed. It's all about principles to me. Even when I use someone else's joke among friends, I always try to attribute it back to them.


Sucker MC's Should call me sire. I won't stop rocking till I retire - RUN DMC


To update again, I've been arguing a bit with real authentic lunatic fans of that guy Davezilla's website which had posted the imposter link. I admitted in his comments section that I did fly off the handle too quickly. But does anyone really like having their work stolen? I'm not going as far as calling my writing "art" but I do work at it and take pride in this new endeavor of mine.

- JOB VACANCY

So I was searching Monster.com and CareerBuilders.com but couldn't find the Pope's job being advertised.

I figure it must be a pretty nice position. Posh pad, sweet robes, big hat. Nice balcony too.

And the throngs of mindless humans that worship you like you're a god when you're really not. Just a normal human being who has been giving a special bullet proof car.

I'm sick of the media coverage on this guy. I think we as a society should be moving away from religion especially the Catholic church who has done more damage to the world than any religion known to man.

Oh and a late Happy Easter and Passover to everyone.

- WALKING AROUND THE CITY

Is best done with a comfortable pair of walking shoes. And clothed, always clothed.

You would be surprised about how many people approach you with the question, "Is that yours?" when walking around the streets of NYC with a human brain in a jar of formaldehyde. I mean obviously it's mine, whose else would it be?

If I find an extra lone tissue in my pocket while walking around outside, I will usually blow my nose into it even if I don't have to. Then I throw it away feeling that I've accomplished something and didn't just make unnecessary waste.

I'm going to tell you about a little minor city confrontation that I'm proud of.

I was standing outside a pizza joint in the Hell's Kitchen area of the city. I was with 2 coworkers. We had just finished our lunch, and walking outside noticed a group of teenagers hanging out by some scaffolding.

They weren't loud or obnoxious in anyway, just normal kids. But I saw one of them spit his bubble gum onto the ground right in the middle of the sidewalk.

I was thinking to myself, ok its not like he just grabbed some old man's cane and balanced it on his nose while the old man strained to jump and get it back. I know it wasn't the end of the world. BUT it was still wrong in my mind. SOMEONE will definitely step on that freaking piece of bubblegum eventually. They will stop walking, look down at their shoe, and curse the world, their life, Jesus, and Uncle Rico.

I didn't want that to happen. Even though my cowokers shrugged it off and began walking away, I ran back, looked at the kid and said, "Hey man was that really necessary? I mean did you have to do that, spit your gum right there in the middle of the sidewalk?" "Do you like stepping in a big piece of wet-warm-pink Bubblicious when you're on your way to a Superman or India Jones movie? Or A skeeball game at the fair?" (ok so I'm out of touch with the times leave me alone).

He just looked at me and then the gum, realizing what he did was wrong. There was literally no trash cans close by, so he did his best to eventually kick the gum out of harms way into a septic grate. I felt better. My friends felt better. The kid realized it was a dumb thing and that he knew next time he wouldn't just spit the gum out on the ground, he would look for a trash can. I'm not so sure how the people living in the sewer systems feel being bombarded with kicked gum, but I can only win one war at a time.

- TODAY'S HEADLINES

I'm trying to come up with some headlines for pictures like this which apparently are found online all the time. Well at least my sister finds them and sends them to me (she's a pervert I know).

How about this for today's picture on yahoo of Spain's Prime Minister greeting the Colombian ambassador.



"Just checking the pressure, we'll have you back on the road in no time."

"If I let go will you close that mouth of yours?"

"Did I say Prime Minister? No No, I'm Doctor Feelyourboobs."

"In my country we shake breasts, not hands. Please feel free to grab mine. Please?"

"You're my wife now. Oh and wait..Yes now you're the mother of my next child too. Impressive, no?"

"Hello, I'm blind."

"Give me some of that good Colombian coke and I'll let go, I promise."

"This is how the old ambassador had me great him I swear."



ahhhhh that's fun. Anyone have a good one they want to share?

Ok enough. goodnight I'm going to sleep.