The radio is the pits. Unless you are a Hot 97 devotee there is not really much good radio going on in New York. Rock radio is virtually non-existent save for the getting the Led out school of classic rock, pop radio is whittled down to less than twelve songs at any given time, talk radio is strangely conservative given the general liberal nature of the city.

If you want high quality radio there is but one place to turn in Brooklyn. That place is WFMU. The only freeform radio station seemingly in the world anymore. There is a wealth of quality programming on the station. There is old timey anthropologically excavated records on the Antique Phonograph Music Program. There is high quality rock from DJ’s Even “Funk” Davies and Terre T. There is globe smashing dance music with DJ Rupture. There is also a number of exceptional comedy weirdness from 7 Second Delay and Shut Up Weirdo.

The show’s best contribution to our culture is an unironically titled program called The Best Show On WFMU hosted by Tom Scharpling. It is a boundless three hours of “mirth, music and mayhem.” The channel is completely listener sponsored and offers it’s programs and their whole back catalog for free. They are currently offering premiums for donations. It is their sponsorship marathon and they are worth any money you can spare.

DONATE HERE!

Not sure what to do on Sunday in Brooklyn?  Need some ideas on an outing to spend with loved ones or with a significant other?  You are in luck because this weekend is chocked full of happenings and events that you should check out. You have to love Presidents Day weekend!  Here is a small list of things to do and events to see:

• “Inventing Brooklyn: People, Places, Progress” Sunday, noon-5PM.  Housed in displays is over 400 years of history encapsulated in artifacts, documents, and photographs examining how people, events, and specific locations shaped Brooklyn.
• Pretty Good Friends Sunday, 7:30PM.  Comedian Eugene Mirman and his pals spread laughter at Union Hall.
• “ElectriCity: Powering New York’s Rails” Sunday, 11AM-5PM.  This exhibit being held in the New York Transit Museum will show off what it takes to keep the city’s trains going.
• “Lunation: Art on the Moon” Sunday, noon-6PM.  Let the moon shine upon you as over 20 artists display their work in an art show that is inspired by the moon.  This event will be held in the Observatory.

These are but a number of things happening in Brooklyn.  If you are lucky enough to have a nice three day weekend you can spend Sunday checking out these interesting, and sure to be entertaining events.

Brooklyn is burning to the ground. There is a war breaking out on the streets of Flatbush. The people of Williamsburg have organized a gang of roving mobs to try and handle the two headed rat problem in MacCarren park. Park Slope moms are using their babies as weapons in dealing with the invading Canadian pirates. Somewhere in East New York a single violin plays reminding everyone why they are so desperately trying to stay alive.

Pretty eventful week in Brooklyn huh?

Actually it wasn’t. This week was all about morning Whitney Houston, fashion week, Jeremy Lin, the Santorum gushing from this week’s primaries and of course the stuff that happened on this week’s episode of New Girl. Look much as it’s hard to admit Brooklyn is not the center of the universe. Sometimes Brooklyn news is just going to be lost dogs and new bike lanes meaning who cares. Sure the dog owners and specific neighborhood cyclists but who cares about them? Sure their respective families but really who else?

Brooklyn get over your selves. This is some tough love from a Brooklyn events blogger who understands why you feel so superior but would just prefer it to stop. Get off your high horse.

This weekend I had the pleasure of drinking. Sure, I have the pleasure of drinking most weekends but this past Friday’s binge drinking ended happier than normal. Some friends and I found ourselves in a random dancing/bar space somewhere on North 6th in Williamsburg. We spent some time there swigging Brooklyn Brown Ales and plastic cupped shots of Jameson. We went to Union Pool, the Target superstore of hip Brooklyn bars.

The end of the night however was the highlight. Usually we make our way to the Tex-Mex establishment San Loco but someone had a different idea. We hit up the Meatball Shop, a cool place that was loaded with customers even at the late night hour of 3am. We all dined on meatballs because that is just what this particular place serves. Just meatballs.

You can order meatballs made from a number of meat options dowsed in a number of sauce options. There are also great delicious sandwiches and meatball sliders. Everything though is meatballs! And they were delicious! Even my sober friends were shoveling these balls of meat in their faces like they had the cure to some disease. It mioght not be important Brooklyn news but you should be checking out the Meatball Shop soon!

The Meatball Shop’s Brooklyn location is at 170 Bedford Avenue.

Heading into Brooklyn?  You should definitely hop on a train to Coney Island to see The Great Coney Island Spectacularium.  This event takes a look back into the pre-cinematic 19th Century when live, weird, and sometimes outrageous live attractions were all the craze.

Though the event may not have wild events like a staged tenement fire featuring 2000 participants or an authentic replica village populated by genuine headhunting Bontac tribesmen, the Spectacularium has its own unique exhibits that are sure to please modern day audiences.  These include Body Worlds, a traveling exhibition of preserved human cadavers and body parts; Pompeii the Exhibit, which showcases many artifacts and genuine body casts that were preserved over 2000 years ago when Mount Vesuvius erupted and borrowed the town in volcanic ash and other interesting attractions.

If you are looking to do something very interesting and very different from what you usually do on a typical weekend, The Great Coney Island Spectacularium is the place for you.  Take a trip to Brooklyn and head on over to the Coney Island Museum where it is being held.  The Museum is open Saturdays and Sundays from 12PM to 6PM.  Admission is $5 for all comers.

Take some time to check out and enjoy the many attractions the event is bound to have.

February is Black History Month and the Brooklyn Art Museum (BAM as the lovely locals call it for short)  is going to be holding a lot of great events and exhibits to celebrate. From musical events  to book discussions and signings, there are a few things already set up fort the beginning of the month and more events will  be added on as the days progress.

This week coming up, the night of the 7th, there will be a talk hosted with Simon Critchley about his new book, ”The Faith of the Faithless: Experiments in Political Theology” . Tickets are only $15 so it’s definitely worth checking out.

If you haven’t been to BAM, first of all, shame on you! Second, make plans to go. It’s located right on the Eastern Parkway, a main thoroughfare of Brooklyn, and has a ton of great exhibits, besides the ones set up for for this month specifically. Everyone should add a bit of art and sophistication into their lives so it is well worth the visit.

It has been a long time since there was a clear victory for unionized workers in New York. It seems that over the last few decades politicians have vilified labor unions more and more, making  workers less and less likely to vote for unionization even as their wages have done a poor job of covering expenses and benefits have become increasingly scarce.

So any fans of labor unions would be proud of some local Brooklyn news coming in this week. This week Brooklyn Cablevision workers have voted to unionize. 282 workers mostly  technicians and dispatchers voted on Thursday to join the union the Communications Workers of America. The union is the largest telecommunications union in the world and includes 700,000 other workers. Cablevision of course released a statement that they were “disappointed” about the results of the vote.

The effort to unionize apparently began on December 2nd 2011 when more than 70% of the company’s workers submitted union registration cards. The results of this vote could reverberate throughout the cable industry and have an affect on customers prices. For the workers the results will be a leg up in contract negotiations.

While Brooklyn’s shipyards have been closed for years, that doesn’t mean that the history has been forgotten. In March of 1862, the USS Monitor was pitted against the CSS Virginia (which was formerly named the USS Merrimack) in the very first battle against two ironclad ships in the history of the United States.

History geeks like me get a little bit of a thrill hearing those names brought up over a century after the battle actually happened, but those in Greenpoint, Brooklyn are getting more than a little thrill. They’re excited to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the commission and building of the USS Monitor (the Navy’s very first ironclad commision.) In a celebration in Brooklyn this weekend ancestors of the builders of the ship will be dressed in Civil War garb and participate in Civil War inspired activities including a wreath laying.

The USS Monitor later sank in a storm on New Year’s Eve in 1862 but the inhabitants of Brooklyn still celebrate the great triumph it was to build. From start to finish, keel to turrets, the entire boat was finished in 118 days. A great achievement that certainly deserves it’s own parade.

If you’re a history buff and looking for something to do in Brooklyn this weekend, I think you’ve found the place to be.

With a wealth of non-native New Yorkers forever influxing to the five boroughs and especially Brooklyn etiquette that should have long ago been established as consistent and never wavering sometimes gets mucked up. Staying to the right on the sidewalk for example to allow the faster and crazier New Yorkers to jut around you is a pretty standard “rule” that gets ignored all too often.

More significantly though is the new New Yorker’s disrespect of bagel culture. It is not that they do not appreciate the greatest carbohydrate New York and Brooklyn have to offer, it’s that they do so all wrong. Some of these people do something that would have any self respecting Brooklynite feeling defeated and angry. They have the nerve to toast perfectly good bagels ruining their doughy softness and making them into just some regular old toasted bread.

A Brooklyn bagel is not the same as those dumb things you get in a frozen bag at your local supermarket and to toast one is a crime against culinary justice. A nefarious and vile act that should be grounds for sending people to some Brooklyn salt mine deep in East New York.

This might not be Brooklyn news but apparently it is to some.

To protest the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) Wikipedia, Reddit, and a host of other sites will conduct a blackout of their sites today.  Bored you won’t be able to find funny articles on Reddit?  Worried you won’t have anything interesting to read or edit on Wikipedia.  Fear not!  There are lots to do in Brooklyn!

Start off the day by visiting the Brooklyn Museum.  There you’ll see the “African Innovations” exhibit.  This exhibit houses a collection of 200 pieces of African art which spans over 2500 years of history and the entire continent.  Arranged chronologically, you will see everything from ancient to contemporary works of art.  While in the Museum you can also visit the “19-Century Modern” exhibit which boasts 40 items from its collection of American and European decorative arts, which spans the early to late 1800s.

From there you can take a trip to the Brooklyn Historical Society where you can see the “Inventing Brooklyn: People, Places, Progress” exhibit.  This exhibit showcases a collection of documents, artifacts, photographs and more spanning over 400 years.  These works on display examine how ethnic groups, places, and historical events in Brooklyn have shaped it.

To end the day you can take a trip to Brooklyn Public Library and attend the “Made in NY” Industry Series where you can learn the ins and outs of breaking into the film and TV industry.  Who knows, maybe you can have a shot at showbiz!