Atlantic Antic Mayhem

Yesterday, I spent some time at the Atlantic Antic, the popular annual street fair that totally takes place in my neighborhood. As hinted at in the name, the Atlantic Antic takes place on Atlantic Avenue, the large avenue that runs from the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway all the way over to really far in the other direction, to Flatbush Avenue or maybe even further for all I know.

As is usually the case with street fairs, the Atlantic Antic is pretty much food, folks, and fun in every direction. There was even an exhibit of New York City buses through the ages that was put on by the Transit Museum. The buses from olden times- like the ‘50’s and ‘60’ and stuff- were pretty fun to look at but the buses from the ‘80’s and ‘90’s just looked pretty much like buses that I see driving around the city all the time. One of them even had an ad for “Fiddler On The Roof” starring Harvey Fierstein, which led me to believe that it might have actually been a bus that people totally ride on to this day (just not me, as I am more of a walking/subway-taking kind of guy).

On the food front, my friend Matt and I each got a Vietnamnese sandwich- a pork and beef sanwich respectively- and gave each other half so we could both experience the full magic of Vietnamese sandwiches. They were pretty good. After that, we walked a few blocks and stumbled upon a new Vietnamese take-out place on Atlantic Avenue (which may in fact have been related to the stand where we got the sandwiches, not really sure) and got a couple Vietnamese iced coffees. Not surprisingly, all of this started a bit of a riot in my gastrointestinal system (I had Vietnamese food for the lunch the day before, it should be noted) and I had to make the decision to not go any further down Atantic Avenue since I didn’t want to be too far from home. Matt, on the other hand, continued east on Atlantic Avenue. I have not heard from him since.

After walking a few blocks back in the other direction, my gastrointestinal system seemed to snap back into place and I felt confident enough to jump back on the stuffing-my-face horse and eat some more food. This time around I decided to get a pulled pork sandwich from the Pete’s Waterfront Ale House people. It was pretty excellent but pretty much spelled the end for me as far as eating stuff at the Atlantic Antic goes. No more room. I guess I just flew too close to the sun. It was nice while it lasted though.

While I was coming down from the pulled pork sandwich incident mentioned in the previous paragraph, I ran into my friend Patrick, the Gay Icon, and we stood around chatting a bit while watching the Fleshtones rock people for a while. The Fleshtones were pretty solid and singer/keyboardist Peter Zaremba still has great hair after all these years, so they scored extra points for that.

Then I went home and fell into a deep, deep sleep and dreamt of totally eating the fuck out of some more food. That is how I stay so round and delicious.

Dave Hill