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You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Late Night Open Thread: Tragedy Descends to Farce

Late Night Open Thread: Tragedy Descends to Farce

by Anne Laurie|  December 23, 20151:01 am| 31 Comments

This post is in: C.R.E.A.M., Open Threads

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Race for saddest airport restaurant is over: CBGBs diner at Newark Intl. (via @gothamist) https://t.co/LjVXi2tvai pic.twitter.com/e91esgC6WV

— Jason Gay (@jasongay) December 21, 2015

“The CBGB Gastropub: You’ll get caught with the meat in your mouth!” https://t.co/w0oXPxZhRy

— daveweigel (@daveweigel) December 21, 2015

As though being at the Newark Airport weren’t punishment enough. From the Gothamist article:

When Hilly Kristal opened CBGB OMFUG on the Bowery in 1973, he served his special chili—cooked in the presence of the chef’s pet rat, “Hilly’s Chili” contained surprise seasonings like cigarette ashes and bodily fluids. But the venue was known for the music, not the menu—the Talking Heads, Blondie, and The Ramones all found their sound on its ramshackle stage. It was legendary, and when Kristal died in 2007 his venue faded away with him. Consider this the final nail in the coffin of CBGB, the Bowery, punk, everything: CBGB is reopening as a restaurant IN NEWARK AIRPORT…

Is nothing sacred?

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Reader Interactions

31Comments

  1. 1.

    chopper

    December 23, 2015 at 1:07 am

    “The CBGB Gastropub: You’ll get caught with the meat in your mouth!”

    so full of win.

  2. 2.

    east is east

    December 23, 2015 at 1:17 am

    I’m just trying to get over Cole’s post. This is not happening.

  3. 3.

    chopper

    December 23, 2015 at 1:41 am

    @east is east:

    what’s wrong with walking pink junk? I’m serious.

  4. 4.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    December 23, 2015 at 1:58 am

    Apparently Russian space junk just burned up over the skies of southern CA and NV.

  5. 5.

    joel hanes

    December 23, 2015 at 2:09 am

    The punk that can be blasphemed against
    is not the true punk

  6. 6.

    Geoduck

    December 23, 2015 at 2:24 am

    I’m a night owl so this isn’t as bad as it could be, but.. my rage-inducing moment of the day. Right now, somewhere over in India, some idiot scammer has his minions calling people up and pretending to be some sort of Microsoft tech-person. This is bad enough, but when the call came in at my end, it was 11:00 PM at night. So yeah. When an Indian-accented person at the end of a bad scratchy connection calls in the middle of the night, I’m totally going to trust hir with my personal information.

    And the really horrible thing is that eventually they’ll hit on someone who will fall for it.

  7. 7.

    NotMax

    December 23, 2015 at 2:34 am

    @Geoduck

    First time for you?

    This odious (and obvious) scam has been going on for years. Get called as many as 16 times a month, usually followed by a welcome hiatus, then suddenly they’re back again.

    I personally know one person who keeps a junker computer around specifically to string them along by agreeing to grant them access. He keeps a folder named Passwords on it (irresistible bait). Inside that folder are a handful of viruses to infect their machines.

  8. 8.

    NotMax

    December 23, 2015 at 2:43 am

    @Geoduck

    And if you haven’t already received such a call, you can now expect a robocall at some ridiculous hour from an entity masquerading as the IRS and threatening to toss you in the slammer.

    Both scams seem to share phone number lists.

    If like many of us here you have elderly parents, do make a point of emphasizing to them that both calls are criminal scams and to hang the hell up.

  9. 9.

    Geoduck

    December 23, 2015 at 2:53 am

    I should have made it clear this has happened before, just not in the middle of the night. At least most of them have the brains to work out the time zones.

  10. 10.

    Jay S

    December 23, 2015 at 3:13 am

    Wait, BJ has a facebook page? There’s an invitation to be the first of my friends to like it over on the right.
    Looks like it had one post in November, the next newest on in 2013. So is this going to be a thing or is it just a walking dead facebook page?

  11. 11.

    John Revolta

    December 23, 2015 at 3:23 am

    I played at CB’s. Believe me when I tell you, the last thing you would think about doing in that joint is eat.
    It was sticky in there.

    In fact that pretty much goes for that whole block. Yeesh.

  12. 12.

    hellslittlestangel

    December 23, 2015 at 4:06 am

    CBGB: Come for the food, stay for the Cramps.

  13. 13.

    David Koch

    December 23, 2015 at 5:02 am

    I wanna be sedated.

  14. 14.

    David Koch

    December 23, 2015 at 5:04 am

    The mayor of a northwestern Wisconsin city came under fire Monday for his Facebook post in which he called President Barack Obama a Muslim who has “destroyed the fabric of democracy” along with his wife First Lady Michelle Obama.

    Five city council members want Superior, Wisconsin Mayor Bruce Hagen to retract the Facebook comment under a picture of First Lady Obama, which, according to WDIO, read, “Unbelievable!

    I know this is gonna come as a shock, but it turns out that Mayor Hagen is an….. wait for it… an old, old white guy. I know! No one saw that coming! Unbelievable!

  15. 15.

    Schlemazel

    December 23, 2015 at 5:29 am

    I dunno, seems punk has followed the trajectory of all cultural phenomena. The Newark airport looks to be a perfect landing point for it. I expect to hear the sludge as background music for lame luxury care and toenail fungus ads soon.

    As has been mentioned, that scam has been going on for a long time but it still must work well enough to keep people trying. I have no idea if they call me as I never answer a call from a number I don’t recognize. If it is important they will leave a message. If you want to check just enter the number into the google machine, there are several web sites that will provide you information from people who have been contacted by that number.

  16. 16.

    raven

    December 23, 2015 at 5:52 am

    We just watched the movie abut CBGB, it was ok but nothing special.

  17. 17.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    December 23, 2015 at 5:57 am

    @Geoduck: I love those calls. One of those was my record-setter until about a month ago; I kept the idiot on the line for 22 minutes. The really funny part is that I don’t play dumb. I just patiently try to get them to tell me which computer it is that contacted them. I had one tell me that I was just messing with him, telling him that I had three computers at my desk at that moment. I said “You don’t read Gizmodo, do you?”

    Current record is 45 for one of the card services scammers.

  18. 18.

    Punchy

    December 23, 2015 at 6:26 am

    @Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: I dont understand what Gizmodo has to do with the scam….

  19. 19.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    December 23, 2015 at 6:42 am

    @Punchy: Brain fart on my part, probably because Lifehacker is one of the Gizmodo stable of sites. Lifehacker has been doing featured workspace articles for years, a lot of them with multiple computers arrayed around the desk.

    I had told him he needed to tell me which operating system phoned home to “Microsoft” because I had three machines in front of me: Vista, W7, W8. He didn’t believe anyone would have multiple computers at their desk.

  20. 20.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    December 23, 2015 at 8:25 am

    @Geoduck: A friend’s response to that:

    Them: type in mypctechsupport.c0m in the browser

    Me: Heyyy! It says mypctechsupport.c0m is a scam!

    Them: What?! Where did you type that?

    Me: In the Google internet box in the middle of the screen.

    Them: No! no! no! no! no!

    :-)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  21. 21.

    SFAW

    December 23, 2015 at 8:25 am

    @David Koch:

    I wanna be sedated.

    You ain’t got time for that now.

  22. 22.

    SFAW

    December 23, 2015 at 8:32 am

    @Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
    A couple of weeks ago, I received a call from myself, apparently (“Get out of the house, NOW!” Oops, wrong genre.) That is, caller ID showed my own number – the one that I was answering.

    Instead of ignoring it, or picking up and then hanging up (to conserve precious answering machine resources), I went through the recording to get to a live person.

    “Hi, this is Kevin from Card Member Services” (Based on the accent, from Mumbai or Bangalore or similar)
    “Hi, please put me on your ‘Do Not Call’ list”
    ” ‘Please put me on your do not call list’ [Said in a whiny, mocking tone] Fuck you.”

    Needless to say, I was a little surprised that a telemarketer would curse at me. Next time I’ll ask for a telephone number — before conversation starts — so I can call back, to return the favor.

  23. 23.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    December 23, 2015 at 8:50 am

    @SFAW: Oh, the 45 minute call from Card Services had my husband ROFLASTC. The guy kept alternating between trying his spiel again and cussing me out. I graded him when he stopped to take a breath. “Gunny Hartman you ain’t, sugah.”

  24. 24.

    Paul in KY

    December 23, 2015 at 9:26 am

    @NotMax: I admire his moxie!

  25. 25.

    Paul in KY

    December 23, 2015 at 9:36 am

    @John Revolta: Pretty cool that you played there!

  26. 26.

    lurker dean

    December 23, 2015 at 10:27 am

    @NotMax: oooh, i really like this idea. these a-holes scared my elderly mother into giving them remote access, they are really scum.

  27. 27.

    Mike J

    December 23, 2015 at 10:31 am

    @John Revolta: The dressing room was awful, but the restroom was famous as one of the most disgusting in the western world.

    The front of the house actually wasn’t the worst.

  28. 28.

    SFAW

    December 23, 2015 at 11:39 am

    @Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:

    I’ll have to try it your way, although not sure I could keep it up for more than a few minutes. Maybe you could offer it as an Adult Ed class?

  29. 29.

    Arcadia Berger

    December 23, 2015 at 12:46 pm

    @Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: 1) I’m surprised the telemarketer would continue trying to con you after cussing you out. Seems as though there’s not much point after that.
    2) I was about to ask you what ROFLASTC meant, but then I remembered I could just do a search for it. Poor kitty.
    3) WRT Anne Laurie’s original post: Out on the road today, I saw a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac….

  30. 30.

    J R in WV

    December 23, 2015 at 12:53 pm

    I got the “Microsoft Tech has detected activity on your computer” a couple of times. I have played along with them, none of our computers currently run a Microsoft OS. All are running a version of Linux. So results when you follow their instructions are quite different. When they ask questions about my system, I try to be straightforward.

    Eventually they will ask a question that lets the cat out of the bag, like when they ask he start button… I just don’t have one. “You have to have one”, he says. “All Windows machines have a start button!”

    Partly true, I say, but all machines aren’t running Windows, you know. Blam goes his head. What are your machines running? Linux, I answer… and now he is well and truly lost in the bit swamp, because he doesn’t have a script for Linux. If he did, it wouldn’t help any. There are no passwords to financial systems on my computer, the only saved password is to a Comsumer Reports subscription. And of course, it isn’t in a place Windows would have put it.

  31. 31.

    chopper

    December 23, 2015 at 2:32 pm

    @Mike J:

    oh man the bathrooms were brutal.

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