Steve Azbill

-- Name withheld

-- FREEwilliamsburg

Dear FREEwilliamsburg

i've got a brooklyn based indie instrumental trio called UsVsThem... i also
run a brooklyn based record label, LittleFuryThings... cover us instead...
you wankers.
:)

again, you guys are simply NOT representing like you pretend like you are... Hooverphonic? what the fuck is that shit? why don't you interview some local bands? interview Stereobate! Shoes and Rider! Tin Can Telephone! don't end up like 11211. be true. dont pretend. please.

--Nat

Secondly, why don't you send us your shit for review instead of bitching.

Thirdly, we have covered music by LuLu, Baraka, Misra, Thirsty Ear, and
Arena Rock in the past few months. Here are a few articles covering local bands:

Last, you tell us to "practice what we preach." What the hell do we preach?

Please let us know.

Thanks-
The Wankers

Regarding the book, Nickel and Dimed, J Stefan-Cole writes:

"Barbara Ehrenreich is a best-selling writer, a journalist, lecturer
and, as she mentions, in possession of a Ph.D. in biology. She left
behind those credentials and the comforting fruits of her success to
join the minimum wage crowd. She wanted to find out if it was possible
to survive on wages of up to $7.00 an hour."

It's an interesting experiment and it is useful in that those who don't
know the working poor or haven't been among them (e.g., most of the
readers of Harper's magazine, the NYTimes and other publications that
have swooned over Nickel and Dimed) will learn that the minimum wage
isn't really a living wage.

One big problem with Ehrenreich's experiment, though, is that Ehrenreich was not actually poor and thus unable to apply for some benefits. There

are programs (both government and private) that would have assisted her
with housing, paying utility bills, and so forth. But because
Ehrenreich's a wealthy writer, she couldn't fully play the role of the
working poor person. The upshot is that we get an incomplete picture:
maybe the aid would have helped a great deal; or, maybe we would have
seen firsthand that aid is hard to get, humiliating, inadequate, and so
forth. Too bad.

Moreover, since Ehrenreich has spent the past couple decades doing
research and tapping on her computer's keyboard, it is not surprising
that she finds scrubbing and serving the public painful. Mr. Howell on
Gilligan's Island bitched and moaned when asked to carry a few
coconuts. So her near hysterical depictions of the 'oppressive' job
circumstances ought to be taken in perspective. Yes, working as a
waitress is damned tough (I've bartended, scrubbed toilets, torn tickets at movie theaters, etc.), but it's not a Soviet work camp.

Cheers,
Kevin R. Kosar
Lecturer in Public Administration
Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service
New York University

Thank you for writing. I agree, the nasty facts of minimum wage-living are a well kept secret. The value of Ms Ehrenreich's book is that she challenges us to imagine the life of the working poor.

I don't know how well off she is, certainly not comparable to Gilligan's islander Mr. Howell. She states in the book that she does not employ a cleaning person in her own home. And I did not have the sense that she found hard, repetitious physical labor insulting per se.

She was able to obtain some financial aid through private agencies in the form of food purchase vouchers. But the overall point of her book is that affordable housing shortages are crushing the working poor. And why should a person doing an honest days hard work have to stand in line after hours for a handout in order to eat or pay rent?

The humiliation comes not from the work itself (though it's hard to imagine taking much pride in cleaning toilets all day), but in the inability to fend for oneself even if holding down two jobs. Ehrenreich does not suggest that the working poor exist in a Soviet style Gulag; they are free, though they are also cornered by market place economics. Someone has to clean, and wait tables, and fold shirts at Wal-Mart, but those someones are treated like replaceable screws in a gigantic machine. The folks who lost their savings with the Enron collapse, for example, were not regarded much more highly by their bosses who held all the cards and cheated at the game. It's not just the lack of a living wage that keeps the working poor down, it's the lack of hope, too. The work that needs to be done at the bottom is performed by increasingly desperate but invisible workers living on the insecure economic edge. Regardless of how many credit cards Barbara Ehrenreich holds, her message is clear: you can't make it on the minimum wage.

--J. Stefan-Cole

Dear Free Williamsburg,

Great Fugazi review. I mean really great. I too lack faith in everything,
just about, except honesty and truth, and honesty & truth in music
(which is a lot to have faith in, but leaves a lot more out). You said it well,
considering yourself to be pleased to hanging with them at 26. I still
have faith in Fugazi at age 43 to even a greater extent I did at 33. It
stays the same. The Argument catches their developments and takes them to a new and refined level (though there are some meanderings in the mid/later tracksI don't quite latch onto); Furniture's a nice little wail too.

Thanks.
Jonathan

Dear Free Williamsburg,

-Kelan

Regarding our article on the Village Voice:

Dear Free Williamsburg,

FUCK YEAH! Give the Voice hell.

I have also found very little redeeming in any of their reporting (with the
notable exception of their theatre reviews), most of it qualifies as
knee-jerk-hyper-left-wing-reactionary masturbation. It is an unfortunate
reality that a majority of today's journalists have forgotten the very
purpose and founding principles of their craft. However, in this particular
case, how can you blame them? Everyone is so desperately anxious to find the next Seattle that they will sink to almost any depths to announce their ownership of the discovery. The Voice has never hesitated to include itself in the ranks of the cultural conquistadors. So...fuck 'em.

Keep fighting the good fight. Good luck.

Yours,
Thomas S.

Dear Free Williamsburg,

As much as I can sympathize with Ken Wohlrob being pissed off, it is, as he writes, a matter for the courts to decide (and, yes, should you choose to pursue a legal option, the test is "harm" -- just as in fair-use cases).

Media, particularly electronic media, is a endlessly replicating virus.
How many reporters covering Afganistan follow one another's leads or
replicate a colleague's angle on a story?

As far as I can tell, the Free Williamsburg inspired a Voice topic on the
same topic and, yes, the bigger fish always gets to eat the little fish and
take the credit. It isn't fair, but it isn't necessarily plagiarism
either. I read both pieces and found them to be significantly different:
the FW piece focused on several new clubs in Williamsburg, the Voice piece
mentioned those clubs, clubs in other parts of Brooklyn, and interviewed
established Manhattan clubowners about the new competition.

Also, why did Ken write the piece at all, for his clippings book or to help
the "scene." I'm sure Williamsburg clubowners and musicians are quite
happy with the additional attention.

Sorry. No plagiarism.

PS: I don't work for the voice or anything.

-- Name withheld

In regards to our Lump of Coal List:

Dear Free Williamsburg,

His name is John, and he's been selling candy for the last 8 years. His
mother and aunt are Jehovah's Witnesses; they are the ones who put him up to it, rain or shine, on the 4th of July and on the coldest day of the year.

He lives in downtown Brooklyn and has been taking the train to the Northside (either alone or with his even younger brother) since he was 7 years old.

He's not "in on the scam". He's a child who has been forced into this for
most of his life.

Suzy OBrien
Bean Restaurant