Only in Williamburg can you find a children’s playground with a theme of rock ‘n’ roll. And to this writer’s delight, I mean old school, real rock ‘n’ roll and not the obscure indie rock flooding the music scene today. Founders Julia Dawson and Carey Balogh created Frolic! hoping to merge their past lives with their present. Think of it as a less sad/creepy version of The Banger Sisters. The two were originally in the fashion industry and met in Williamsburg after popping out some children. They left the business to open up the 5,000 square foot space hoping to bring classic rock into their children’s lives.

With a Rolling Stone tongue-inspired slide, an old Volkswagon van, and some Velvet Underground bananas lying around, it’s hard not to send your kids here. But it’s easy to not fall in love with their prices. You can sign up for membership on a monthly basis which essentially gives your child the freedom to roam the playground whenever he wishes. Birthday parties are offered for as “little” as $750 a month. But if you can afford to hang out in Williamsburg, that’s a steal! Your kids can even sign up for music lessons and be on the lookout for fun events everyday.

Start your kids off right, with amazing classic rock in Brooklyn.

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.

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.

Last Friday, Duane Browne was fatally shot by NYPD Officer Kevin Murtha. It was during an incredibly chaotic and jumbled series of events.

As far as anyone can tell, the sequence of events was that Browne’s half brother, Dale Ogarro, was being robbed by two armed thugs outside of their Brooklyn, NY brownstone apartment. After seeing this, Browne rushed out with a .38-caliber pistol. The facts of why the police were already there are unclear but when Browne came out brandishing the weapon, Officer Murtha yelled out “Freeze! Freeze! Drop your weapon!” This according to authorities at the NYPD. When Browne did not slow down or drop his gun, Murtha fired one shot which hit Browne in the chest. It was later discovered that the gun was an unregistered weapon.

After he was shot and the evidence of an unregistered weapon surfaced, the apartment was searched. $1,000 in cash, a scale, and five pounds of pot were found in the apartment that the two brothers shared. They both have long arrest records related to drugs.

This shooting is exactly one month removed from the fatal shooting of a Detective of the same Brooklyn, NY 75th precinct. It also happened during a calamitous and equally confusing scuffle having to do with a marijuana robbery.

The best place to find love these days isn’t at a bar. Apparently it’s not even online on websites like Match.com or OKCupid. It’s at Brooklyn Bowl on Wednesday nights. Brooklynites who are tired of the bar scene might want to try their hand at a singles bowling league. Jake Reuben, founder of Singles Social Sports, wanted to launch a winter league after the success of his softball league.

There are about 100 members divided into eight teams, four guys and four girls on each team. The league lasts seven weeks, giving you plenty of time to potentially find a mate, or at least some people who know how to handle large balls. But don’t feel ashamed if you need bumpers. No one is expecting you to be that great. Actually, the worse you are, the more adorable you look to others. Or at least that works to a woman’s advantage. Even if you don’t find your soulmate, the fee is only $100 which is much cheaper than going to Brooklyn Bowl on your own.

Get a cute pair of bowling shoes, because those ugly shoes are totally in, and see if you can manage a love strike –dorky pun intended.

Here's Leighton Meister sitting in a hallway.

Just before 9/11 many writers had contemplated what they called “The End of History.” We lived in relative peace and prosperity and progress be it technological or sociological had sped up so much that keeping track of it was no longer tenable. Of course now we know that those who predict the death of history are doomed to be rocked to the core by it.

Then there are slow news days. Lately, post #OccupyWallStreet, I’m feeling a bit of a lack of history locally. Of course am I asking for trouble simply by mentioning this dearth of eventfulness? Probably.

Brooklyn news these days can be tragic on a hyper local scale(a man was shot by the police in his own home last night) or almost about the fact that nothing is happening(have your heard the Nets are a thing that will eventually happen here). What it is not in the last few weeks is world changing important cultural, political and economic shifts. Where are those stories?

The last decade Brooklyn has played a big role in the collective consciousness. Perhaps we have now entered into a period of cultural insignificance. More likely though the sky will cave in in some way or maybe something huge and good will happen.

Monday the 16th is Martin Luther King Jr Day and Brooklyn will have a ton going on to celebrate this historical figure this weekend.

On Saturday the 14th, Habitat for Humanity is celebrating at  Metropolitan Missionary Baptist Church with a reciting of  the famous “I Have a Dream” speech. A  commemorative poem will also be performed  by the NYCHA Youth Chorus. The event is free and is  happening at 2 pm.

The Brooklyn Children Museum will be celebrating from 2:30 to 3:30 where kids 6 and up can explore the ideas that Martin Luther King Jr spoke about and fought for. They’ll also be teaching the values of celebrating and joining together cultures and living in peace with each other.

On the holiday itself on Monday, the Brooklyn Art Museum (BAM)  with celebrate its 26th annual tribute to Martin Luther King Jr with keynote speakers  and musical performances. It all starts at 10:30 am  and tickets must be purchased. It’s first come, first seated so get there early!

The Brooklyn Botanical Gardens will be offering free admission in honor of the holiday as well, so take that day off from work to go enjoy the winter flora!

The New York City Opera announced last year that it was entering a “new era” of bringing opera to the masses. It was a time of excitement and opportunity. Or at least that’s what they said out loud. With problems with the Lincoln Center location and with the company being unable to come up with the money to even rent the space, they set out to create a “living presence” in the places like the Upper West Side, Harlem, Central Park, and Brooklyn.

But it doesn’t look like you’ll be hearing La Traviata at Brooklyn‘s Howard Gilman Opera House any time soon. The cash strapped company has run into even more trouble with the unions.

The money woes have extended to the orchestras, chorus, and soloists of the company. Because according to the contractual union-contract scale, they must be paid a certain wage. A huge labor dispute followed and finally it appears that NY City Opera has broken down. This past Saturday the company locked down the rehearsals and did not let anyone practice for the February run of aforementioned La Traviata.

Could this really be the end of New York City Opera? Well, it might be, but there is no end in sight of smaller opera companies looking to take it’s place.

I thought synchronized swimming died years ago along with the rotary phone and most people’s dignity. But I have been proven wrong today by this Brooklyn news . Two women in their 30s just couldn’t let this dead art go and decided to resuscitate the aquatic “sport” in Brooklyn, of all places. With so many hipsters bike riding, I didn’t know people still swam in the boroughs. Known as the “Brooklyn Peaches,” Nicole Salm and Nicole Sciarrillo thought normal swim class was just way too boring and not cheesy enough.

“We don’t go crazy with sequins or appliqué like competitive performers,” said Sciarrillo. “They’re intimidating and smiling too hard.” (Kudos to that!) The duo were inspired back in 2010 after meeting a Parisian ballerina and suddenly become nostalgic for dancing in the water. The girls teach a class at the Dodge YMCA in Boerum Hill and have also appeared in art festivals in the Rockaways. But the two have no intention of competing. They want to keep it fun, for those brave enough to show up to a class. Roy Auty, the only male in the class, said he’s always dreamed of doing this. I can’t say the same, but a job well done for finding your flair underwater…with black bathing suits and mesh gloves.

It’s January and though it is once again unseasonably warm here in New York it still feels like prime time for a cool refreshing Winter Ale. I have been spending the last few months doing everything short of binging on the excellent Brooklyn Winter Ale. Wandering around bars and music/comedy venues last week it seemed to be on tap at almost every place we stopped.

Good! I know it can get a little bland to keep getting the same beer at spots with upwards of 7 beers on tap and yet there I was. I think the reason I kept returning to it is the flavor felt full without ever feeling overwhelming and the beer was just heavy enough to allow for long sustained drinking. It may not seem like Brooklyn news at this point since the line started showing up in well stocked delis around October but I think they’ve hit a stride with this particular brew and I thought it seemed worth letting everyone know that now is the time to dive in.

Of course if you aren’t a fan of winter ales or Brooklyn Brewery in general I don’t know that we should even be talking to each other at this point.