It’s hot time, summer in the city, so I went down to Coney Island on the off day Wednesday.  It takes me about 90 minutes to get there on the subway.

I don’t wear swim trunks or take a dip in the big blue on arrival.  I go instead for the salty breeze and the most unique sights and sounds of any strip of beach in America.

This isn’t where the rich and famous go on vacation or where there’s heated competition to book summer rentals.  This is where regular New York City cools off and has it’s own kind of fun.  The cultures and nationalities that make the outerboroughs such a wildly rich experience exit the newly-refurbished Coney Island subway stop and spill onto a boardwalk that teems with energy.

I usually start with a chili dog at the Nathan’s flagship on Surf and Stillwell.  They sell you a big cup of beer in a paper cup for six bucks and nobody cares where you take it.  As long as you don’t flaunt it, beers on the beach and boardwalk are allowed no problem.

Mayor Mike gets heat for his efforts to clean up Coney and make it something it isn’t – or shouldn‘t be.  I guess that effort is still in motion but I don’t see it yet.

The pour at Ruby’s remains almost all gin and hardly any tonic.  When Jungleland came out loud from the juke, I looked around for the magic Rat.  Screaming girls could be heard in the distance on rides that have scary dives or turns.  There’s one amusement I wouldn’t go anywhere near.  It’s some kind of cage in the shape of a ball that’s flung around on cables.  It looks like it would give one the feeling of imminent death.

-Not that she probably cares about criticism that bubbled up on the Brooklyn Vegan web site, but I’m guessing Samantha Urbani’s decision to perform naked from the waist up last week in Austin, TX was not the calculated stunt some cynics here at home claimed it was.  Urbani fronts the Brooklyn band Friends.  She went nude on top for the band’s July 2, 2012 show at the Mohawk.  Talented Austin photographer Miguel Angel was in the audience and snapped a bunch of shots.  A few days after posting them on his web site, Vegan grabbed ’em with his consent and made the collection available to the vast BV audience.  Cynics barked via the famously active comments section.  My reaction – immediate and now still – is that it appears Urbani acted spontaneously.  The photos don’t enhance Urbani’s mystique.  They likely don’t represent what Urbani would choose if she wanted documentation of both her talent and beauty.  They’re snippets of a rock and roller who decided on that one night to take her shirt off.  Based on how Urbani and Friends have conducted themselves early in the band’s rising tenure, it’s hard to believe there was a plan or a contrived stunt in play here.

-Faced with a somewhat frustrated and fractured workforce, the forces running the newly-merged United Airlines have attempted to improve morale with regular status announcements about the Boeing 787.  The new, widebody aircraft will join the United fleet later this year.  United will be the first US airline to operate the new plane.  That distinction is a source of pride for some airline employees although the management’s repeated efforts to trumpet the 787’s arrival feels a bit forced in the face of significant operational challenges.