Can we show some compassion for poor cyst-headed Joey... who we can now call Signor Mal'Occhio (or mal-ooch, as they'd say in the neighborhood).

Hey Mal'Occhio, where'd you get that swelling? A batting cage mishap? Bad bounce of a flaming golf-ball? Or did that hat you were wearing at your bachelor party leave a nasty ring?

Y'know, life is like a hat. A big hat.

I'm still waiting for Vito (oootivoo) to join this blog -- and provide the Brooklyn fig tree report. Last I heard, the harsh winter had taken all the ancestral fig trees. I keep hoping to hear otherwise (maybe they're just sprouting late this year?). About a year ago I took a cutting from the wildly overgrown tree on 38th Street and had it growing nicely in a big clay pot all last summer. And it didn't come back either.

Vito, what've you heard?