DADWAGON

Yesterday, the Internet’s new favorite punching bag noted that he’s a proud resident of the Brooklyn turf abutting the Gowanus Canal. And congratulations to him! I’m sure little Sasha has a pretty good chance of growing up without sprouting feelers or tentacles. Easily 80 percent! Probably even higher. Probably.

As it happens, in my other life as a journalist–the one where they pay me–I wrote about the stuff at the bottom of the Gowanus not too long ago. There’s lots to talk about. Coal tar. Very high levels of fecal matter, and the bacteria that love them. A white ooze that appears to have evolved resistance to said bacteria.

But the best detail was that a drop of water from the canal tested positive for gonorrhea. The canal has the clap. And now that I’ve read Matt’s commentary about his friendly neighborhood street whore, I believe I know where it came from.

I must say, I was extraordinarily pleased by the comments we received about yesterday’s post, “Matt is raising a LUSH!”. I learned so many new things.

For example:

Matt–you are a CUNT. Thank you, Felix, for pointing that out. I had no idea. He did father a child, after all.

Matt: NO ONE LIKE’S SASHA. FUCK YOU. GO HOME. Speak truth to power, Your Baby Is Ugly And You Are Selfish.

Matt–you are a HIPSTER BAG TOOLDOM.

Matt–David doesn’t want you to just bite a bullet. He needs you to SWALLOW THE WHOLE ARSENAL.

Matt–take Sasha to a strip joint. It’s BETTER THAN A BAR.

Matt-that picture sure makes you look bad. In fact, according to Andy, you COULDN’T LOOK STUPIDER. That’s a relief, eh? Only uphill from here!

Matt–YOUR GLASSES ARE GOOFY.

Matt–ONLY SHITTY PARENTS BRING THEIR LITTLE SHITS TO A BAR! Didn’t you know that? Eric B. sure does.

Matt–CONGRATULATIONS. YOU ARE A DOUCHE BAG OF THE HIGHEST CALIBER. Apparently, Batman oughta know.

Matt: how dare you take a PHOTO IN SAN FRANCISCO! The nerve of some people, right Vunder? Let’s blame THE MEDIA.

Matt–why don’t you just TAKE A HEALTHY WALK or SIT IN A LOCALLY-OWNED COFFEE SHOP?

Matt–you spend TOO MUCH MONEY AT THE APPLE STORE. (note: kinda true)

Matt–YOU HAVE FAILED AL GORE.

Matt–you are a HIPSTER. This is serious. Really, be careful out there. No one likes hipsters. They want them to die.

Matt–ONLY IN NEW YORK…and NEVER IN IOWA.

Matt–STOP FUCKING QUEEFING AT THE BAR AND BLAMING SASHA. Gary thinks that rude.

Matt–SASHA IS CRYING and Enoch thinks that means she hates you and will need therapy as a teenager.

But wait, there’s more!. I learned new words, like crotchfruit and shitmachine and designer children (is that like Ecstasy with diapers?). That prompted me to do a little research. Did you know that the word children is another term for pubic hair? I certainly didn’t. But now I do. And that’s great!

God, I love the Internet. It’s all about learning.

UPDATE: DadWagon loves its readers. One of them, Die-in-A-Fire, who coined a term I reference up above (“designer children”) left a comment asking why he didn’t get a “shout-out.” Well, Die, we aim to please here at DadWagon, and we certainly don’t want to use intellectual property without permission. So, in that spirit, Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Die-In-A-Fire (no relation to Dances with Wolves). He thought up a funny phrase. Much appreciated!

Nathan, along with DadWagon friend PetCobra, joins forces with the video powerdads over at DadLabs to create the first episode of PopSmack, where bloggy types mouth off about whatever they feel. This week’s topic: vasectomies–love ’em, hate ’em, have ’em?

Must be said, Nathan looks a bit like a severed head in a box. Is he as braindead as a head-in-a-box? Judge for yourself:

When I first heard that the Gowanus Canal had been designated a Superfund site, I had a typical New York parent’s reaction: What will this do to real-estate prices in my neighborhood?

I mean, I suppose I should be worried about the effects that the century-plus of toxic mayonnaise leaching out into the surrounding lands might have on my crotchfruit, but it’s not like I moved here—to the edge of Boerum Hill, about a block or so from where the canal begins—utterly ignorant of the waterway’s history. In fact, I like to imagine I’ve benefited from it. How else to explain the near-simultaneous pregnancies in three of the four units of our co-op? Superfund? More like Superfecund! Boo-ya!

It’s really quite amusing, actually, to read about how a simple EPA designation will alter the fortunes of this forlorn little corner of Brooklyn. Some developers can’t get funding or insurance! Others are going ahead with their plans!

But Gowanus is already developing, as Fucking Hipsters know very well. You can go swimming in Dumpsters, watch Malaysian singer-songwriters and dance to house D.J.’s in a fake garden on the canal’s banks. For a few minutes, I even considered getting a membership to Proteus Gowanus, an art space with a reading/writing room. (In true hipster fashion, they call it a “study hall.”)

There is one aspect of the Gowanus cleanup I hope will remain untouched: our neighborhood hooker. Oh, I’m sure there’s more than one, but I’m thinking of the one just down the street, visible from my window if I use a telephoto lens, who said “Hello, honey” to me one night when I was walking over to Theodore’s place. She seemed like an anachronism, a forgotten leftover from the area’s distant past, a PCB, a toxic event, a charming outpouring of untreated sewage.

The cleanup is supposed to be finished around 2019, at which time we’ll have a lovely greenspace where Sasha—by then 11 years old!—can sip the fresh waters gushing toward New York Harbor. I hope Our Hooker sticks around till then, because if real-estate values go up, I may be able to afford more than a “Hello, honey.”