For a while, the two centers of the cultural world have been Brooklyn and Berlin. The latter was called by the New York Times the cultural center of Europe just a few years ago, and after traveling to the city just after the article appeared, I couldn’t argue. And so as Brooklyn became the artistic center of New York City over the past decade, it seemed that between the European artistic capital and the American artistic capital, Berlin got extra points for the E.U. better weathering the recession, and Germany being the economic powerhouse that helped it through. No more.

Over recent months, Berlin’s “multi-kulti” paradigm has fallen by the wayside. Germany has returned to what Jurgen Habermas calls in a recent essay, “a rekindling of controversies of the early 1990s, when thousands of refugees arrived from the former Yugoslavia, setting off a debate on asylum seekers.” Turkish and other Muslim immigrants have been ostracized. And while the Arizona immigration debates have been seriously based on prejudice, they’ve stemmed from the fact that many of the state’s immigrants are illegal. And plus, Arizona is on the other side of the country. Even the Ground Zero Mosque won approval from our President. In Germany, a much smaller country, Chancellor Angela Merkel said that multi-culturalism has failed and that immigrants need to do more to assimilate.

Intolerance is the enemy of creativity. That said, this turn of events gives the crown to Brooklyn to become the Paris of the 21st century.

Brooklyn is great, don’t get me wrong, but when you’re trying to get around it without the aid of a bike or Bushwick car service, things can get tricky. If you’re thinking about taking the G train to get from one point to another, forget about it. This train rocks up “if and when it feels like it,” a clever and insightful person with graphic design skills has made clear to the world in a new MTA service change sign. The sign shows that service changes will occur from January 1 to December 31, at the “most inconvenient times possible.” Under “Exactly how am I going to be screwed up by this?”, the sign explains that by the time a train shows up, you will have forgotten where you were going. All this wouldn’t be so funny if it wasn’t so true. Now, home I go on the G train. See you above ground in a few hours.

Forget Mimosas and Bloody Marys in Williamsburg – brunch at J.K. & Sons, which I affectionately call  “J.K. Rowling,” on Broadway in Bushwick, is where it’s at. J.K. & Sons is warm and unpretentious, run by a couple that’s been married for 40 years. No haughty waiters here, just good ol’ fashioned service, just the way I like it. The menu is a veritable novel and filled with eggs and bacon, waffles, cheese burger deluxes, lamb gyros, Greek and Cobb salads, chicken wraps, steak and potatoes, and all of that good sort of stuff. I always have extreme difficulty making my choice. And each day, they have soup specials, which I can never pass up – who would, when a tasty bowl of Manhattan Clam Chowder will set you back only $2? Whenever I walk into J.K. & Sons and see the waitress (there’s only one), I feel happy. Long live J.K. & Sons.

J.K. & Sons is located at 801 Broadway, Brooklyn  NY11206 (Btwn Fayette & Ellery St). Near the Flushing Avenue J train station.

The College Music Journal 2010 is hitting the city by storm. With over 1200 bands, it’s hard not to find some good music to listen to. Why just last night I went to Phoebe’s off Graham and Devoe to see Soundhouse, a killer bluesy, jazzy, souly band. They rocked.

Where else will CMJ take me? Good question. For those of you just looking to hear some cool new bands and drink some beer, success is pretty easy, as the New York Times agrees. My new music quotient is through the roof. Here’s a dope video from Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. (and by the way, what’s up with all the bands named after people? Gay for Johnny Depp, Natalie Portman’s Shaved head, Sandra Bullock’s Tucked In Penis, Zach Galifianakis Is Getting Really Old). Anyway, if you’re in New York this weekend, go see music.

I knew today was going to be different, colder. Luckily I had my new bicycle gloves to keep me warm. But there was still a lot to discover. On Flushing Avenue, far east of the new bike lanes, the Bushwick Loom has built a veritable menagerie of shops. There’s a jewelry boutique, a jam co-op, a market, a chabad dinner party, a yoga studio, moped shop, vintage clothing stores and lots more to see.

All of this activity should make the industrial part of Flushing Ave. a little warmer this winter. There are still some open spaces in this minimall collective, so here’s hoping we have another cafe coming soon to replace the Archive.

What keeps me confused are the boundaries of this neighborhood. Bushwick is technically south of Flushing, so I can allow them getting away with calling themselves the Bushwick market being on the north side of the street, but technically it’s East Williamsburg. Then again, I tell people where I live (just north of the Market) and they say, so that’s what the realtor told you, huh?

This neighborhood is coming down with a case of split personality disorder – on one hand, it is a lot like Williamsburg; on the other it is five stops deeper on the L train. What do you think we should call it?

I’m a proud Bushwick resident and live just  off Broadway between the Flushing Avenue JMZ and Myrtle-Broadway JMZ stops. Every day, I pace up and down and around my little patch of Broadway, of Bushwick, of Brooklyn, and it has everything I need to sustain me during the week. For example, there’s the wonderful Mr Kiwi’s organic grocery, where you can get a large, freshly squeezed juice for $3, friendly service, and organic fruits, vegetables, sushi, and a great selection of beers and cheeses. For Mexican food, I always go to Cholulita, which makes a mean chicken taco with hot green sauce ($2) and a great beef, turkey or veggie cheeseburger deluxe ($5). Their icy banana and strawberry milkshakes are pretty darn good, too. Down the road, there’s Fat Albert Warehouse, which seems to have everything I could ever need for my home, at a price usually somewhere between 99c and $9.99. I’ve gotten towels, coat hangers, graters, glasses, forks, crockery, measuring cups, ice cubes trays, and so much more from this 3-level warehouse, and I’ve been satisfied with it all. For brunch, I like to go to J.K. & Sons, a welcoming diner which has a hearty menu filled with eggs, bacon, sausages, BLTs, burgers, steaks, Cobb and Greek salads, and all that good stuff, along with great service and low prices. It’s all there, and it’s all on Broadway, Bushwick.

Get ready, Brooklyn: We’ve got our very own Jersey Shore coming our way. Lifetime has picked up 12 episodes of Brighton Beach, a Jersey Shore-ish, about the Russian-American community in South Brooklyn, to be aired next year. This show won’t focus on a select group of youngin’s; rather, it’ll be about the whole community. Fear not, though! The central point of focus will be a local nightclub, so you know there will be plenty of dancing, booze and bad decisions.

I’d personally like to see a showdown between the cast Jersey Shore and of this show. (No casting announcements have been made thus far, but I can already feel it — a battle royale à la Real World/Road Rules Challenge seems inevitable — inevitably amazing.

It’s out with The Archive and in with Momo Sushi Shack, a fantastic new edition to the community of cool grocery stores, cafes and bars by the Morgan Ave L. If you’re a Bushwick resident and you’re into amazing and beautiful looking Japanese food served up in an unpretentious space with a great vibe, Momo is your  new favorite hangout.

I wandered over to Momo, the work of the guys behind the popular Bozu in Williamsburg, a couple of weeks ago and quickly fell in love with the utilitarian long, heavy wooden tables and benches, the low lighting and concrete floors, and the friendly service from co-owner and head chef extraordinaire Phillip, who took the stress out of ordering from an unfamiliar menu. He asked how hungry we were, we said how much, and he whisked away our menus, telling us he’d bring us out a selection of food that we would not be disappointed with.

And we were not disappointed with what came out of the kitchen. The miso soup was tasty and piping hot (Momo doesn’t cut any corners and makes the stock properly with kombu and bonito), the pork and chive gyoza was lightly fried just right, and the selection of sushi bombs featuring cuts of fish like big eye tuna and organic Scottish salmon, presented alongside a trio of soy sauces infused with varying degrees of wasabi, was fresh and flavorsome.

But best of all was the pork belly. This is no regular pork belly. It’s sliced thin, and each slice, set prettily in a fan shape around a big white plate, is drenched in a sweet mix of soy sauce and sake and topped with a delicate drop of wasabi cream sauce and cilantro. Everyone who dines at Momo must indulge in a dish of these mouth-watering morsels of meat. To die for.

As a postscript, Momo doesn’t have a liquor license just yet, but that’s okay: it just means you have to get a drink at Roberta’s around the corner before your meal.

Momo Sushi Shack is located at 43 Bogart Street (between Moore St & Grattan St), Bushwick, Brooklyn. By the Morgan Ave L train.