In this week's WAVE - Boyleing Points (with my apology to Kevin Boyle)

{NOTE]:  Last week I posted Mr. Boyle's column entitled,   Early Birders Are The Real Hipsters  and remarked that "Our local editor has redefined the term "early birding" and in doing so has penned a classic homage to afternoon tippling,  replete with a  celebration of that most respected, yet under-appreciated, daily neighborhood event - "Happy Hour" and stated that his  column was "brilliant".

After reading this week's column (below) I find I must now offer my sincere apologies to our local editor as it appears that my enthusiastic response to his column last week may have contributed to an increasing sense of insecurity and literary depression on his part.

Insecurity and depression are terrible afflictions - doubly so when embedded in the heart and soul of an Irishman.

Thus, as far as this blog is concerned,  I hereby state my unequivocal political promise that there will be no further accolades for Kevin in response to any column involving either his love of the spirits or his new-found habit of an early morning breakfast of champions!

Sorry 'bout that boyo...buckle down and keep writing about those serious issues!  They are factual, informative, intelligent and neighborhood centered and I love to read them while sipping from my glass of Jameson!

Boyleing Points

Step Into The Liquid

By Kevin Boyle
10/11/2013

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You can write something that would make Old Yeller cry. You can write something that deserves to be framed and sent to Congress. And you can write something that Abe Lincoln and Mark Twain would plagiarize but it wouldn’t matter in Rockaway. You want to get noticed in Rockaway? You want feedback? Then write what people care about: liquid refreshments with a jolt.

I write about the joy of early-birding, the art of afternoon alcohol, and I get splashed with praise. I bemoan the arrival of a SIX DOLLAR bottle of bud and I get hundreds of alerts to bargain beers elsewhere. I write something about hangovers and little old ladies send me homemade cures. You think I’d take the hint.

But nooooo. … I’ve spent all these months talking about various issues and how the boardwalk is the lifeline ofRockaway. What an idiot. I try to elevate the conversation once in a while and what do I get? Silence. Some weeks, I have to go to the newsstand to see if the paper actually got delivered because nobody says anything to me. I should’ve just written the column on a postcard and mailed it to myself. Silence, the last thing any writer wants.

There’s no way around it. I’m insecure. If I write a dud and nobody responds?

That puts me in need of a hug. But don’t hug me, because I’m Irish, and I hate that hugging crap. I’d rather get a cold shoulder than a warm hug.

But I think I’ve got it figured out. From now on, every column I write will start off with how I woke up and poured beer on my corn flakes. And then I’ll mention how I walk out on my porch and like Stanley from A Streetcar Named Desire I howl,Rockaway !!!!!

Boyleing Points: Tara Carlton Stackpole sent a classic my way. In last week’s column, I mentioned “the long goodbye” and how it takes some people forever to actually leave. The goodbye part is the longest part of the conversation. Tara tells me her aunt used to call it “vestibuling.” She said, you go to a wake or party and see someone and don’t talk to them until you’re leaving and then you stand at the door for 39 minutes talking about your kids, your retirement, what the doctor just cut off your face, and how you must really get together soon!

***I’m easily bugged. People from Rockaway, what are they called? Rockawayites? Rockawayites is lame. Rockapeeps, Rockadudes, Rockawayers? Rockafarians? That’s the deep thought of the week: we gotta do better than Rockawayites.