I think U.S. corporations should have theme songs, and perhaps the most appropriate theme song for Freddie Mac, the quasi-governmental mortgage guarantor that has run into a huge amount of trouble of late, is Curtis Mayfield's "Freddie's Dead", which includes the lyrics quoted below. One might be tempted to substitute "houses and dreams" in place of "rockets and dreams". After all, poorly vetted mortgages were a kind of dope for the financial system of this country. Oh, and who gets stuck with the bill for burying Freddie? Yup, the American taxpayer:

"Everybody's misused him
Ripped him off and abused him
Another junkie plan
Pushing dope for the man
A terrible blow but that's how it goes
Freddie's on the corner now

And if you want to be a junkie, wow!
Just remember
Freddie's dead

We're all built up with progress
But sometimes I must confess
You can deal with rockets and dreams
But reality, what does it mean?"

Here is how it starts...

Fabio is a sixty year old visual artist who lives and works in a loft on Forsyth Street. He was born in San Francisco, came to Manhattan in 1966 to attend Columbia, and has been living in downtown Manhattan since the mid-70s, first in Soho and later on the Lower East Side.

Gerard is thirty eight year old musician and composer who lives in a one bedroom apartment on Suffolk Street. He was born in London, moved to Manhattan at eighteen to attend Julliard, and moved to the East Village, originally to a squatter building, in the early 90s, right after graduation.

It's Happy Hour at The Wobblie Wonk on Rivington Street. As "I Wanna Hold Your Hand at the Hotel California" begins to ooze from a satellite radio station, Gerard and Fabio, who had been sitting silently next to each other, begin talking.

G: "Fucking Beagles really suck… Fucking boomers really suck… Why has this bar started pandering to empty nesters from the 'burbs who have just bought brand new pied-a-terres in our once dangerous neighborhood?"

F: "I actually don't share your disdain for the new arrivals. They can be amusing to talk to, if somewhat limited, although you're right, their music does totally suck. But junkies are way overrated as neighbors. I'm rather happy they've gone somewhere else to nod off and overdose."

G: "But don't you object on a cultural level? Isn't this music extremely painful to listen to?"

F: That's a different matter. Boobus boomerus, whose geographical range extends from North America to Europe and Japan, is closely related to boobus americanus, the species of human being first identified by H. L. Mencken in the 1920s, and only found in the United States."

G: "'Cuz who needs a CD by Billy Joel/Is dat all yuh get faw yaw munnnney…'"

F: "Isn't it curious that the Greatest Generation spawned the Lousiest Generation?"

G: "But you're a boomer aren't you?"

F: "No. I am in the same age cohort as the boomers, that's undeniable, but by all standards of taste, civility and intellectual orientation, I am most decidedly not a boomer, as the term is popularly understood."

G: "The most typical examples of your boobus boomerus I ever observed were a mom and dad in their late forties or early fifties out to dinner with their ten year old son at a now defunct barbecue restaurant on Varick Street. This was about ten years ago. Dad had a receding hairline and a greasy ponytail. Mom was soft and flabby and wearing clothes that, given her body type, showed way too much flesh. Both of them were wearing sandals over their dirty feet. Mom and dad were on one side of the booth swaying back and forth Kumbaya style as they serenaded their embarrassed offspring with an off key rendition of Sweet Baby James's "You've Got a Friend."

F: "Who along with his ex-spouse won a Crummy Award for Most Appalling Honky Cover Of An R&B Classic for their emetic version of "Mockingbird.""

G: "I want to blow up the fucking Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. That little cunt Rhymin' Paul "Fifty Ways to Leave Mama Pyjama Or Still Boring After All These Years" Simon was "elected" to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. That's like George W. Bush's "election" in the 2000 presidential race. All communiqués to the media about the bombing will be from The G. G. Allin Liberation Front. He should be in the fucking Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, not wankers like the aforementioned or fucking Elton John and the cocksucking Bee Gees."

F: "Or is it "the fucking Bee Gees and cocksucking Elton John?" But in any event I would advise you to save your Semtex for a less risible target."

G: "Darts?"

We refer to the pharmacy on the corner of 2nd Street and Avenue B as "The Ghetto Duane Reade". It's a throwback, a mini-sinkhole of depravity in a sadly over-gentrified neighborhood. Now, for at least the past month, the store has had the quintessentially appropriate beggar sitting out front and plying his trade (when he's not sleeping or nodding off on the job). And he has the best beggar's pitch line I've heard in a long time:

"Help the homeless help themselves."

Yes, empowerment by taking up space on the sidewalk!

The last really good begging line I heard was about ten years ago:

"Would you care to make a contribution to the United Negro Pastrami Fund?"

Since the wanker who owns the building site and the sleazeballs in the Port Authority and the government of the State of New York just aren't getting the job done, I feel obliged to present two alternative visions for the space that is now a gaping hole in the ground:

1) The World Trick Center

Taking a cue from how the descendants of the Dutch settlers of New Amsterdam have organized commerce in their capital city, the new towers will become the center of the sex trade in Manhattan. Historically, this is appropriate, given that in the 18th century the prostitution trade in the city was centered in a park known as "Holy Ground", which was several blocks north of the WTC site. The name "Holy Ground" is a satirical reference to the fact that the park land was owned by the parish of St. Paul's Chapel.

The centerpiece of The World Trick Center will be Spitzer Plaza, a site for alfresco orgies, presided over by a statue in the style of Augustus St. Gaudens, in which the ex-governor is presented with a leering sneer on his face, left arm upraised holding a subpoena, trousers dropped to his ankles, one knee length sock raised to its full length, the other sock drooping down just above the ankle, penis hard and straight at a perpendicular to his torso, and a discarded unopened condom on the ground at his feet.

2) The World Trump Center

While it's true the buildings will be cheap, shoddy, glitzy, and as ugly as sin, at least they will be tall and they'll go up virtually overnight. Just don't walk anywhere near the cranes at the construction site...

Yesterday I saw this sign in the window of an art gallery on Ludlow Street:

Unattended children
Will be fed espresso
And given a free puppy

... Now that will keep the tourists from the sticks away (assuming there are any; these days virtually all of the visitors to our fair city seem to be speaking French, German, Italian and other assorted European languages).

It's Fleet Week in Manhattan and the streets are filled with sailors in uniform. Last night the chalk board sign outside of Doc Holliday's on Avenue A read:

We Know How to
Treat a Drunken Sailor
----------------------
Alyssa and Meredith
are Here to Serve You
------------------------
Free Head
with Every
Draft Beer

Now, perhaps U.S. Navy recruiters should take note of this, and consider revising their recruiting pitch.

I have a 2008 calendar from the Chinese-owned Clinton Supermarket, which is on my block, hanging in my bathroom. As I was tossing out the April page I noticed that the horoscope reading for "Romance" for the month read:

"Love relationship is in harmony. However, efforts are needed to maintain this bondage."

I guess we are all being warned to make those knots much tighter...

I was walking home through Chinatown today, and as I passed under the Manhattan Bridge on Division Street I saw a Chinese women in her -- I would guess -- mid to late 70s -- sitting on a suitcase, wearing a baseball cap that read:

NAKED CO-ED
FOOTBALL

My guess is that she does not speak a word of English.

It was one of those occasions on which I regret not having a camera with me.

Earlier this evening, two men passed by me on Mott Street, with one saying to the other:

"Landlords are just going to have to stop being greedy."

Yeah, right. Maybe this will happen when The Rapture arrives. Otherwise, I wouldn't advise holding your breath.

This one is out in front of Vasmay Lounge -- formerly a lesbian bar called Meow Mix, and before that a hole-in-the-wall bar called (yup) Vasmay Lounge -- on the corner of Houston and Suffolk Streets:

10 beers a day
Keeps the shakes away

I'll take this one on faith rather than resorting to the experimental method to find out if it's true.