#remember when honk fans said in 2016 how crazy it is for them to get so much extra content esp compared to yg ways 🙈

[pen1ag0n]

this is old news i guess but still. cube video team is a separate departament in cube, under different supervisor than idk artist developement team. so they have relatively more freedom, and also are very important for all cube groups, given they provide all the extra video content: behind the scenes, small series, song cover videos etc. back in 2012 cube video team decided to develop special contents for btob, like sik's sense. slowly they managed to hone a specific style, for example using punny series titles, adding a lot of extra sound effects and figuring out a subtitle system. i'm pretty sure the fact this much extra content is available to watch for free is a major pro of being a fan of (among many cons but i already talked abt thay 🙃). also fans are allowed to edit all these videos whatever they want, as it's ultimately beneficial for the groups' recognition video team people go on youtube to check from time to time, and are often amazed by the creativity, using the ideas from fans to futher improve their work

they have a youtube channel where they post extra content that didn't make the cut. for example rehearsal videos that we normally wouldn't be able to watch. i'm pretty sure this channel wasn't even advertised by cube, it's just a side project video team created to make use of extra content because they know fans will appreciate it. right now they are for example posting unseen clips of currently enlisted cube idols, they don't really have to honestly? but they simply want to

there's an older interview (2016) with video team dept head here, focused mostly on btob stuff but there's some info about creative process and also it's implied the video team had to work on a time crunch a lot 🙃

[einstein-robin-hood-blog]

Untold Tales of the Proletariat, No. 4 - Renaissance Country Club, Dramatis Personae, Part 1

Call me Ishmael, for I now embark on a stormy sea of words: a series of Untold Tales about the Renaissance Country Club, may its memory be a blessing and where all my changes were. See, Neil Young, Helpless, 1970. This post is about the club itself and the scoundrels, ne’er-do-wells, and drug fiends who called it home. 

Frank the Owner

Frank was the owner. Not sure if he had partners or owned the whole thing himself, but who cares? We didn’t see much of him. His office was in the front and we were in the back. Occasionally he’d come in the back looking for Bimbo, and tell me to pick up a piece of trash on the floor. Managing by walking around and talking to people, as it later came to be known. He also PERSONALLY handed out the Christmas bonuses. 

Frank owned a Cord, which was a Fancy Ass Car that Gram Parsons wrote a song about. See, The New Soft Shoe, 1973. Parked in a garage right outside the kitchen. We’d often see him take it out for a spin. Say what you will about Frank, he has some serious class. And enough cash to burn a wet mule. 

1936 Cord 810 Phaeton. This is a pic of Frank’s ACTUAL car. Sold by a subsequent owner in 2016 for $154,000. I once licked the bumper.

Jerry and Joe

Jerry Bimbo was the maitre d’hotel (MASTER OF HOUSE). I have refrained from using real names in these Untold Tales, but can’t help it here. Given all the hijinks and pranks that the veterans played on the newbies, it took me a long time to realize that no one was playing a joke on me when they’d say “Go talk to Bimbo” and that this fellow’s name was actually “Bimbo.” Blue velvet tux with extremely frilly shirt. Porn star mustache. Eventually changed his name to Beretta. Jerry Beretta, that is, not Beretta Bimbo. Decent guy, treated us pretty well when he wasn’t yelling at us about something.

Joe C was the catering manager and he worked hand in hand with Jerry, making sure the food was ready when it was supposed to be, and that the Cro-Magnons in the back didn’t poison anyone. Similar to Jerry, nice enough when he wasn’t yelling. Random memory of him going on about how much he liked watercress on a sandwich. Amazing what one remembers, 50 years later. 

Joe Banks

After Sonny met his doom, Joe was in charge of the kitchen until Big Bob came along. Joe was a Williston Park homie a couple of years older than us, so we all knew him.

I loved working for Joe, and he loved me working for him. It was my first real job, and I was ready to work hard, and that made Joe happy. He’d give me something to do (150 deviled eggs, sure; 100 stuffed mushrooms, got it; Chicken Cordon Blue, what is it? OK, I can do that. ). I barely knew what those things were, but he’d explain them to me, and off I’d go. You learn a lot by doing and working at it until it tastes good. And this was a fancy-ass North Shore joint!  With a pimply-face, snot-nosed kid (ME) preparing these exquisite delicacies (MUCH, MUCH, TOO MUCH MORE ABOUT THIS IN FUTURE INSTALLMENTS). It was here I got hooked on the kitchen adrenaline of cranking it out. See, Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential, 2000. Beano no doubt knows of what I speak. 

I have a VERY VIVID memory of Joe making some kind of bet with Head Altar Boy Jimmy (HABJ), who was the hors d’oeuvre cook at the time. I don’t recall the subject or the terms other than that Joe said HABJ could chop off his dick if he was wrong. After a fact-finding mission, HABJ gleefully reported, with a large cleaver in his fist, that he was right and that Joe was wrong. The cleaver was of a size that could have been used by Fred Flintstone to shatter boulders. 

Joe, a Man of Honor, complied and bravely met his fate. As a crowd gathered to witness the reckoning, Joe unzipped and laid his member on the large butcher block table (NOT A HEALTH CODE VIOLATION - I CHECKED). HABJ raised the cleaver high, and as it sped downwards towards a new life for Joe, there was a collective intake of breath that would have impressed the most advanced yoga teacher. Joe withdrew Little Joe at what seemed like the impossible last minute. There may have been a slight loss of hair, but Joe wasn’t saying.

Joe went on to accomplish great things in the restaurant business. Had a nice place of his own in the Hamptons, and became a pillar of the community. Sadly, he died in a small plane crash just a few years back. So let me say, with all love and sincerity, may his memory be a blessing.

MY ONE GREAT REGRET IN LIFE

When I couldn’t find a date for the prom, Joe suggested that I take Linda. “Who’s Linda?” I asked. “She’s my wife,” Joe responded, in all sincerity. She never got to go to her prom, and was apparently willing. Sadly, I declined the offer, in hopes of meeting someone who was, shall we say, more available. Meeting that person was still a few years off. So I blew my chance to take Linda to the prom and, when my classmates asked who she was, I could have told them: “She’s my boss’s wife.���

Big Bob

As great as Joe was, Big Bob was the worst. Or, to be charitable, he was the least great. He was big and built and liked to boast about how tough he was. Lots of yelling. He didn’t drink coffee, he drank tea, with like eight tea bags in his stupid New York Giants mug (Jets fan here.) We coffee drinkers (I was on the bean by then. Started out with coffee milkshakes and quickly moved onto straight java. More about this later.) saw this as a character flaw, but never said anything. Did I mention the yelling? It was kind of like this, except in a kitchen, not a barracks:

But, in Big Bob’s defense, he didn’t freak out when I broke his fancy-ass knife. I was chopping some onions with his knife. BIG BOB’S KNIFE, DON’T MESS WITH BIG BOB’S KNIFE. He was letting me use it while we were in the middle of some stupid argument. I was stupid and he didn’t know why I didn’t just shut up because I wasjustsomepunkkidwhoknewnothingsojustshutupbeforeIcrippleyou. 

As I was contemplating my response - something along the lines of “I’m doing the best I can and why don’t YOU shut up”-  Big Bob’s knife broke. Snapped clean in half. Total loss. I wasn’t even honking on it, and Big Bob was right in front of me, so he couldn’t accuse me of goofing around with it. So, as I was fearing for my life, he took the knife and threw it in the trash. “It happens,” he said. End of story. One point for Big Bob.

On the other hand, he did saw my frisbee in half. Not to be judgmental, but Big Bob should burn for all eternity in the Bad Place for what he did. Some background: we worked hard in a really hot kitchen and dishwashing room. When we had some downtime, we’d go out into the parking lot and throw the disc around. Maybe five or ten minutes of fresh air. On the day in question, Big Bob came out to join us. Cool! Oh wait, he’s taking the frisbee inside. I guess this is his way of telling us break is over. Oh, he’s taking it over to the band saw, to pretend to cut it in half. Funny. Oh, he’s actually cutting it in half. Bummer. Let’s dig Dante up and have him write a new circle of hell for this indignity.

I suppose I had some small measure of revenge. We got paid on Thursdays. I was scheduled to work on Friday, but was paid up to date, so I blew off the last day. The timing was perfect, I could skip out without any hassle about getting my last paycheck. I didn’t want to deal with whatever fresh frisbee-related hell Big Bob had in store. Avoidance! It’s the best. I spent the whole day playing softball at Sagamore field, where I made a spectacular diving catch in the outfield.

Years later, I stopped in for a visit. By then, I had gotten into law school and was hailed as a conquering hero. Big Bob remembered me blowing him off, and told me I was crazy to think he would make my last day miserable, He said he planned to have me sit in the corner and eat cake all day. As the French say, “My ass.”

Accumulated Wisdom of Big Bob

If you eat too much Italian sausage at a picnic down at the Jersey Shore and the sausage gets stuck in your throat, here’s what you do. Take a bottle of creme de menthe (pronounced CREEM DA MINT; and get the green, not the white) and chug it down. It will blast the sausage right out of there. Guaranteed. But who brings bottles of creme de menthe to Jersey Shore sausage parties? We never asked.

“She was only the fisherman’s daughter, but I showed her my rod and oh, did she reel.” He’d say this about ten times a day, apropos of nothing, and then look at us as if he had just delivered the ten commandments.

“We laugh and joke, and take a little dope, but we don’t fuck around.” OK, maybe slightly more on point, but we didn’t need to hear it 20 times a day.

“Fuck with the baker and you get the bun, fuck with me and you don’t get none.” Finally, something that makes sense. Words I have tried to live by.