Title:
Letter from the Editor: Latitude 32 price change and how I’m coping with it.
Not giving up, but giving in, we love the way a girl smokes cigarettes in our bed, love the way a girl smokes. I complain from my seat in North PB, and maybe I could move inland. Maybe I could save some money and hang up the Jersey. But I am not giving up, I am giving in. I love the way a girl smokes, love the way a girl smokes.
Well it happened inflation hit the one bunker where a single bar tender working at a time insulated and protected us. TVs on, sports playing – never sound. And that’s how I want to remember it. Maybe it’s all rose colored lenses or the amber that shines through when they pull down the shades at “Latitude 32, no Ocean view.”
I thought it would stay cheap - in every other Bar in PB there was lawlessness a requirement for a security guard to be present at the front door so that you could verify your age. Or dare I say take a photo of you as a form of insurance against an inevitable / potential future act of lawlessness (fuck you Shore Club, fuck you Firehouse (catch me there next week)). Not Latitude, this was a community. You held yourself responsible for your own actions, you got in a single file line for some reason to order a drink with Willy or that nice lady with the curly hair because you respected your neighbor as if we were all on the same island together.
And in exchange for the conformity of waiting in a single file line I could get a cheesesteak, a bowl of chili, and the side salad for $20. And I did do that, I did it once a week for at least 2 years I walked, maybe 200 yards for the same meal. It was comfortable, it was good, and it was mine. I’d tell anybody about it and if you visited me and were from out of town its where I took you to eat when I didn’t want to do the dishes.
The menus were dated back to 2019. Covered in greasy fingers marks, memories, and laid to rest probably all at once in the dumpster out back. Though I am lucky to have seen the high-water mark, that comfort is something that I miss. Sometimes I complain about how prices have changed to the Chefs in the back, and I am surprised every time they respond and even more surprised when they agree with me.
The more money I make the more expensive the World around me gets. And if my finances versus the cost of living are my personnel identity then I’ll be 23 forever except on my driver’s license. And I am decidedly not 23, as I write I am doomed to know that wishing for the prices and pieces of the menu to return will only make me miss them more. I miss when Pizza Pal had $5 pizzas, and you could show up to a covid era house party to a hero’s welcome by pretending you bought $20 pizzas from Hoboken. I miss when you could valiantly tell your friends to put it on your tab at The Dog and know good and well that you wouldn’t have anxiety going through your Mastercard statement the next day. Those Kingdoms are gone and there is less territory left to rule.
So yeah, now we drink more on the front lawn. Now it takes us a little bit longer to make it out to the bars. Maybe now I refuse to ever miss a meal when friends are cooking. And yeah, maybe that means we drink a little bit more. Maybe we are getting further or closer from the meetings inevitably down on Cass Street (at least with proximity that’s convenient, full circle right). But it’s not our fault, its inflation. I remember when things use to be more accessible, and those memories makes us miss it more now that we can’t afford it. Perhaps it was never ours the vase was always broken, and the time was always fleeting. That’s what I tell myself as I sit on the stool in Latitude 32 that looks - but never is sticky.
So that’s what this 40s and Foamies is going to be about, the times we had, some that are permanent and that you can’t raise the price on. Some words you can reflect on when its all over. Hopefully you read this – hopefully you read it later. Because this was what we were up to then and I am curious what it will look like later.
40s and Foamies is for people who were there. And this will be where we come to meet and figure out if it tasted better, or if it was ever even ours. This is our illustration of why we miss things that have changed, whether its overtly or covertly. If you want to contribute or write something, reach on out. Come over and have a cold or kind of cool one on the front lawn and if you’re buying even one at Latitude. Or just come for the ride – we don’t care.
- Andy