Seems ridiculous, right? Only in Brooklyn, right? Well, apparently these championships have been happening all around the world in the last few years. Here are some gems from one of the contestants:

Leonardo Gomez, 25, of Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, will be in the Recession Beard category because he started growing his fuzz in September, just as the economy began to fizzle.
“If there’s anyone who can change what’s going on right now it’s a beardsman,” he said, evoking Abraham Lincoln.
“I really think if President Obama would grow a beard, we’ll really start to see some huge progress in America.”

Can I also say that I came across this in the physical version of the Daily News, as in, this event made it to print– loves it. Here’s the web version.
So, go be a part of history this Saturday at Public Assembly. What do you have better to do?
PS- If you RSVP on Going.com, you get $6 off admission & Open Bar from 7-8pm.

Photo via
Help a fellow Williamsburger out, y’all:

adamdiy posted this on March 10th, 2009 @ 3:18:28 am
hello, i am driving across the country soon in a 1994 minivan with only a cassette player. i thought it would be fun to listen to old mixtapes the whole way. it seems many people keep around old mixtapes even when they have no way to listen to them.
do you have an unloved/ unlistened to mixtape from back in the day? want to donate it to a cross country road trip? message me!
postcards available from the grand adventure from anywhere in the US or Mexico we go through!

via williamsboard.com

As I’m going to be Tokyo!-bound this weekend, and because some of my fellow FREEburgers have jumped on the East meets Brooklyn bandwagon (check out David & Lisa’s posts below)–here’s another reason to love/be jealous of our cross Pacific friends:

Oh, and has anyone coined the term FREEburger yet? Because, if not, well… done & done.

I might be being hard on myself here. But this seems like a serious missed gift-giving opportunity. I’m thinking about all of the Secret Santa parties I went to just a few short months ago (one of which I received the best gift of 2008). And now, even Valentine’s Day has passed and I can’t bestow the joy of Williamsburg pin-up to all those deserving of it… But I guess two months late is better then never… Paypal here I come!
Get your own here.

If you know me, you know that I’m a big slut for a good magazine layout. But with prices of specialty &/or foreign mags running at around $15 a pop, websites for Chinese hipster inspired print such as M-Style scratch the itch just as well. Over at the Shanghaiist, they seem to agree:

Hipsters get a lot of flack in the U.S. and Europe for fetishizing elements of fringe movements and regurgitating them into something completely sterile and inauthentic – all of the style and none of the substance, so to speak.
And yet (for us, at least) the cheap beer and great music is a welcome escape from the whisky-and-green-tea, Eurotrash house, everybody clad in some skimpy shade of black scene that’s dominated Shanghai so far.

Bombarded with the now long dead pop culture trends of yesterday’s East, some Hong Kong-goes-Brooklyn gems passed under the radar. These kids might as well be living in my building, no? But we’ve always been fans of the Asian aesthetic. I mean, McDonald’s is giving away Hello Kitty watches in their Happy Meals nowadays (which I know one FREEburg writer is super excited about). It’s no wonder Michel Gondry loves him some Eastern city lights….
(Exciting news & a peek at Gondry’s newest, Tokyo!, after the jump)

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European discount airline RyanAir (and it’s PR people, apparently) have got their panties in a twist after one blogger’s discovery of a supposed free flight bug. Check out the angry staffers comments on Jason Roe‘s blog:

“It is Ryanair policy not to waste time and energy corresponding with idiot bloggers and Ryanair can confirm that it won’t be happening again.”
“Lunatic bloggers can have the blog sphere all to themselves as our people are far too busy driving down the cost of air travel”
“…what self respecting developer uses a crappy CMS such as word press anyway AND puts they’re mobile ph number online, i suppose even a prank call is better than nothing on a lonely sat evening!!”

Hat tip, Consumerist.

Noah @ MHoW
Since we’re all praying for warmer weather, Ferraby Lionheart & Noah and the Whale, sans Laura Marling, brought some country fair charm to Music Hall of Williamsburg last night. Makes me wanna put on a summer dress and walk around barefoot in the park– which is sad, as my window says its starting to snow. Seriously though, more of this please. Two bands with fairly equal playing fields and that’s all. It screams show up on time, the opener is just as important, not to mention wonderfully whimsical.
After Ferraby’s melodies drifted up and away, the Noah boys, whose website looks straight off of Zissou’s Belafonte, took the stage. There were lots of new goods to be played, as they are in New York mixing their next record which just might be of the same name as the last song of the set, First Days of Spring. Let’s all thank Charlie Fink for sharing his broken heart charms, bassist “Urby Whale” for wearing those zebra print shoes, and to all the boys, although some may disagree, for not playing into one fan’s urge to be in a Saturn commercial.
I’ve been left with a serious longing for Spring, in more ways than one…

Noah, Whale-ing (tee hee)

I checked out the scene at Glasslands last night for Williamsburg Fashion Weekend. Let me just start by saying that seeing some of the fashion elite bouncing around in their 5 inch heels at this venue was thoroughly entertaining. I showed up late, flats in tow, at the fault of currently going through Brooklyn roommate search hell– which reminds me, if you want to live in a beautiful Bushwick loft, holler at this girl.
Anyway, fabulous host Arthur Arbit kicked off the night introducing the ‘Burg friendly models of Mandate of Heaven. Although an hour late, designer/model Carissa Ackerman’s grandma chic meets scandalous onesies tickled the fancy of the patient crowd. Much to my delight, I guess, I somehow managed to position myself in perfect viewing of lots ‘o sexy buns.
Next up was Nettie Tiso featuring super sleek Racecar! for men and flirty Nettie for women. Her lines seemed to race by (pun unintentional) after Mandate’s never ending hot bod parade. But a short line is what you get when everything is hand sewn. Serious good stuff.
Trisha McBride & Papusza Couture put on an unorthodox show, but isn’t that the point of hosting a fashion party at a warehouse by the East River?

Check out Day 2 of the show tonight at Glasslands– starting at 8:30pm (hopefully). See the likes of Treehouse Brooklyn’s Sirius*, Sodafine’s Erin Wekerle, and Arbit’s own King Gurvy. Oh, and Celebration is gonna be there too! 8 Bucks at the Door, y’all!
More photos after the jump…

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As I procrastinate another drab trip to the USPS location on South 4th St. (seriously — why is that place the black hole of the ‘hood!?) I’m fondly reminded of the days I toted around a neon pink sticker book under my arm, glittery unicorn and all. Martha Cooper, who you may know from her efforts in 1984′s Subway Art, tells the Village Voice what we’re all thinking. Or, at least, what we wish we were cool enough to think:

“What I really like about postal stickers is the idea that the U.S. government is participating in street art,” Cooper explains from a counter stool in a 14th Street coffee shop, a knitted scarf and matching OBAMA-print hat tucked into her bag. She’s simultaneously eating a whole-wheat doughnut and examining a sticker that demands, “WHERE THE FUCK IS MY MOONCAKE?” This conveniently works as a thought bubble, but it’s actually scrawled on a page in the sleeved album she’s brought along, to show off just a few of the “couple thousand” stickers she has spotted on foot since 2003, shot digitally, then carefully detached with an adhesive remover that lives in her backpack. “It’s like a little treasure hunt, when you’re walking around, to always have your eyes out.”

So, Tonight at 7:30pm, go check out the launch of Miss Cooper’s new book Going Postal, celebrating this special kind of government funded art at Ad Hoc with FREE drinks, of course. Oh, how I love thee, broken economy.