Meet Michelle from Maspeth, Queens. Our first Uberchic with a car.
AskaNewYorker: Tell me about this bag.
Michelle: It’s not a bag, it’s a purse. It’s got girl stuff in it. It carries all my necessities including this (points to tampon case, see photo at left). It’s not a messenger bag or a knapsack. Although I do have silly stuff in my purse, I don’t have a sling shot. But I have stickers and stuff.
AskaNewYorker: How would your friends describe you?
Michelle: They’d describe me as Martha Stewart on crack with tattoos. I was never afraid of her, but now that she’s in prison working out every day, she’ll be a badass. I heard she was sneaking spices in her bra.
AskaNewYorker: What are you reading?
Michelle: It’s called Behind Bars. The straight-up tales of a big city bartender. It basically tells of every gripe a bartender has ever had. It’s all here, like “don’t talk to me while I’m counting fucking money”. It’s a great book cover to cover.
AskaNewYorker: Tell me about the good old days in New York.
Michelle: Back in the old days, when New York was New York? Not blinking lights in Times Square, when Mayor Dinkins was in office? Those were the good old days. It was the wild, wild west. It was the best. You could do anything, you could be creative, you could be yourself, and nobody bothered you. It was cheap. I never thought I’d leave Manhattan. I lived on 23rd and Madison and I remember they opened up a McDonald’s downstairs from me. And I remember thinking, “Who in the fuck would eat at McDonald’s in New York City, it’ll never work! They’ll be closed in a month!”
AskaNewYorker: Where did you hang out?
Michelle: Live Bait (14 E. 23rd St) was a good place to steal toilet paper when me and my roommate were broke in the early 80s. Mona’s (224 Ave. B) was a great bar. Downtown Beirut was a great bar on First Ave. They had this parachute hung real low over the bar. It was the dirtiest bar, like CBGBs, but you could get good stuffed shells there.
AskaNewYorker: What are your thoughts about Home Depot opening up in Manhattan?
Michelle: Despicable, horrible. Vercesi’s is the best hardware store (152 E. 23rd St). You just look in the window up to the ceiling and see everything they have. I’ve been going there since I was a little kid.
AskaNewYorker: You sure are organized. What’s this to-do list (see photo)?
Michelle: Everyday I make a to-do list. I make projects for myself. See this I made (points to Brooklyn Christmas ball, see photo)?
AskaNewYorker: Who are you?
Michelle: Besides bartending, I’m a food stylist (see cooking magazine). I make the food pretty for commercials. The perfect burger that they bite into for commercials, that kind of thing. I don’t eat sweets but I love making candy truffles. I like anything that looks really awesome. There’s a trick to making things look good. It may look easy, but it’s not!
AskaNewYorker: Where did you go to school?
Michelle: I went to SVA (School of Visual Arts) for graphic design and minored in illustration.
AskaNewYorker: Who are some of your design idols?
Michelle: Milton Glaser, Skip Sorvino, Richard Wild. But Milton is God, you know. He did the “I love New York” logo and the Brooklyn Brewery logo.
AskaNewYorker: Besides that cooking magazine, which magazines do you subscribe to?
Michelle: Time out New York, New York Magazine, Bon Appetite, Gourmet, Surfer, Motorcyclist, Real Simple, Interview…God I spend a lot of money on magazines! I also subscribe to…don’t tell anybody…Family Circle and Better Homes and Gardens. I love those! I hide them in my bathroom, which is pretty cool, with all the Iggy Pop lyrics on the walls and the graffiti on the mirror. You sure you want me to be the Uberchic? I am not “Uber”, nor “Chic”.
AskaNewYorker: And your tattoos?
Michelle: I want to get this one next (see “remember 9/11” photo at left) on my stomach. It’s going to be really painful getting it. I remember every day, I never forget. I wrote something about it. I was having a hard time getting over 9-11 and two years later I just wrote and wrote one night and purged everything out of my system.
AskaNewYorker: What’s this one on your arm?
Michelle: It’s the Ramones. Johnny, Joey, Marky, and Dee Dee. Initially I just got Joey, when he passed away. Then Dee Dee passed away. I figured I didn’t want to put them all on as they died so I just did the whole band at once then.
AskaNewYorker: What are the criteria for you to work in any specific bar? Any requirements?
Michelle: I will not work at a bar that has olives or cherries, or one that makes me make more than one pink drink per year.
AskaNewYorker: Where do you live?
Michelle: I hate to say because it’s the best kept secret in New York. It starts with an “M” and ends with a “peth”.
AskaNewYorker: What’s so great about Maspeth?
Michelle: There’s no subway, there’s no alternate-side-of-the-street parking, there’s great pizza, it’s pretty, and it’s all old people. It’s totally the land that time forgot. I love it.
AskaNewYorker: Happy New Year to 2005’s first Uberchic!
