Monday, January 27, 2014

On a cold Sunday afternoon in Downtown Brooklyn, Congressman Michael Grimm made his appearance at the January meeting of The Brooklyn Young Republican Club

A warmed-up Grimm tells a rather cooled-down group of GOP “youngsters” that he is likely to face a very well-funded and determined Democratic opponent in 2014

Moments earlier, Grimm and his “body man” Marc Alvarez  made quick work of a rump group of GOP naysayers without any blood or even an adult beverage being spilled on the Ceol bar 


There was a little dispute as to whether Grimm and his entourage were basically on time or late at about 4:15 PM,  as they made their way from the bar area of Ceol on Smith Street and into the pro tempore “inner sanctum” of the Brooklyn Young Republican Club by the fireplace at the rear of the Downtown Brooklyn pub. Nonetheless, the club members seemed content that the Staten Island and Southwest Brooklyn Republican Congressman showed-up at all. There had been some buzz that Mr. Grimm might be a last minute scratch, but staffer Clorinda Annarummo was on hand to assure the BYRC officers and others that the Congressman would be there after only a slight delay.

After Wave F. Chan, of Manhattan, had helped keep the meeting on its toes for over an hour with a series of proposals to show how the GOP in NYC is there to help “empower” the diverse mix of groups in NYC, Congressman Grimm arrived to a warm, though not boisterously enthusiastic, reception. Immediately, President of the Club Glenn Nocera made the presentation of a personal gift for one of the Congressman’s offices a road sign that said, “Grimm Rd.”  The Congressman seemed relieved and truly thankful that he wasn’t getting more of a peppering of the sort he had to endure getting passed the middle of bar area out front, where he had left his personal escort, Mr. Alvarez, fully engaged with a few people who clearly weren’t among Grimm’s strongest supporters at the event  —  and after only a few critical moments, certainly not fans of the Alvarez approach to dealing with incendiary situations ( then again, his background in pyrotechnics might have been limited to figuring them out only after they had gone off).

The Young Republicans and Tea Party members who had first spoken to Grimm at the Ceol Irish Pub were able to have a brief chin-wag with the Congressman, wherein Mr. Grimm was able to clearly assert that he is the only one out of everybody in Brooklyn, Staten Island and the city as a whole that is “on the front line” in Washington fighting against the Democrats, with Republicans now “controlling only one half of one third of the government.”  Furthermore, he wasn’t about to concede that anybody else might do a better job than he was doing, because he “had given [his] life” for this country.  To which some old fool had the temerity to ask  —  “Then, how is it that I can I see you standing there in front of me ?”

Mr. Alvarez then helped the Congressman express his regrets that the rump-meeting at the bar had to give way to the planned engagement in the back room. Both men departed, but Alvarez came back alone to discuss whether the older gentleman’s choice of anatomical body parts was appropriately addressed to him, although he didn’t seem to care that anybody had clearly referred to the Congressman with the same exact terminology. There was a little more friendly banter, and the older man excused himself and went into the back room to listen to the Congressman, while two or three others continued to talk to Mr. Alvarez a little longer.

Everything else that happened in the house was quite boring, because the usually spirited Q&A at BYRC meetings had a wet blanket thrown over it in advance of this Sunday’s get together with the Congressman.

19 comments:

Anonymous said...

At least four people who had demonstrated with the TPP against Grimm at his New Dorp Office last year were present to hear Grimm speak yesterday in Brooklyn.

Anonymous said...

Clorinda is still around...I thought she retired after being slaughtered by Lucretia? It really is time for the old hag to move on...maybe to golf or something...

Anonymous said...

So Grimm goes out of his district to speak at Glenn Nocera's (Plaintiff) meeting? I wonder what Craig Eaton (Defendant) thinks about that one?

Anonymous said...

I heard the only ways to get Grimm to an event in Brooklyn are:

1) bags of cash
2) meeting at a bar with bathroom doors that lock

Anonymous said...

Grimm "needs" Clorinda, because she is his connection to.....
Grimm needs Clorinda, even if there is no connection to anything or anybody. Grimm needs Clorinda even if there is no because.

Anonymous said...

I saw Bobby Zahn, who else?

Anonymous said...

Who is Marc Alvarez and why does Grimm need a bodyguard?

Isn't Grimm a Combat Veteran Marine/FBI Agent/Staten Island Arm Wrestling Champion?

For such a tough guy it seems odd that he would need a "body man."

From: http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20130212/BLOGS04/302129995

"It turns out, however, that Ms. Alvarez is the wife of Marc Alvarez, who provides security for Rep. Michael Grimm, R-Staten Island. Mr. Alvarez, whose title is "special assistant," is a former police detective and heads Mr. Grimm's security detail. Mr. Grimm, a former FBI agent, has appeared on Fox News with Mr. Alvarez to discuss the 9/11 attacks."

chaim Hoffman said...

I was at yesterdays meeting and I thought it was very well run and the Congressman was very enthusiastic in his responses to the questions from the audience. The Brooklyn Young Republican Club always puts on a great meeting.

Anonymous said...

When the mouthy old gent, who was originally in Grimm's grill, was distracted by Grimm's bald-headed body guy, who kept saying, "You don't know who I am, you don't know anything about me...."; the codger went for the bait and asked, "Well, who are you, and why are you driving around with a U.S. Congressman?" Grimm's bald-headed body guy didn't identify himself , but he did misrepresent that he was there just as "a citizen like you" to hear what the congressman had to say. Oddly, Grimm's bald-headed body guy missed quite a bit of what the congressman had to say, because he felt a more pressing need to discuss things with a few people at the bar. He did correctly size up the older man as a citizen, who was there to hear what the congressman had to say.

Galewyn Massey said...

UPDATE: THE “MOVIN’ ON UP TO THE BIG TIME” EDITION

Yesterday’s Brooklyn Young Republican Club meeting featuring Congressman Michael Grimm as its main speaker got very good coverage in one of the principal NYC political blogs today (See “Grimm’s Pitch to Activists: Keep at Least One NYC Republican in Congress” by Colin Campbell, 1/27/14, NY Observer/ Politicker [http://politicker.com/2014/01/grimms-pitch-to-activists-keep-at-least-one-nyc-republican-in-congress/]). Even the Secretary of the Kings County Republican Party Russell Gallo, who not a big fan of the Brooklyn Young Republican Club under its current president, had to concede that Glenn Nocera does a great job of PR for his club.

Politicker’s Colin Campbell gave a pretty good rundown of Congressman Grimm’s remarks and his handling of the questions that were selected by the “moderator” of the Grimm portion of the meeting, John Thomas. [However, in a future post, I do intend to focus on one of the Congressman’s particular statements in the backroom that was not mentioned in the Campbell piece; and I will tie it into what was said and WHAT WAS NOT SAID by Congressman Grimm to the slightly more hostile Brooklyn Republicans camped at the front of Ceol for most of the afternoon.]

Nonetheless, even the minor contretemps experienced by Mr. Grimm as he entered the pub and moved toward the back room was mentioned in this snippet by Mr. Campbell: “...One of the activists from the Catsimatidis confrontation, Frank Russo, told Politicker things had gotten heated between him and Mr. Grimm as the congressman entered the pub Sunday, though the exact details were unclear....” Maybe, if Colin had raised a pint of Guinness with some of his GOP friends at the bar, while waiting for Grimm to arrive, he’d have noticed that the leaders of the competing Young Republicans were strategically seated at the bar by the narrowest point to enter the back room in order to deliver their verbal “Michael Collins treatment” to the Congressman accompanied by his “body man” Marc Alvarez.

Anonymous said...

I thought Alvarez was Grimms connection

Galewyn Massey said...

Intriguing !

Please, explain, clarify or elucidate....

zalman said...

I've been to grimm's office a couple of time's. Clorinda is probably the most knowledgeable (on government agency's) from his entire brooklyn (maybe SI too) staff. If anybody has any doubt regarding clorinda ability's, take a hop by her office to see what i'm talking about.

Anonymous said...

I'm not Anonymous from up above, but a lot of people know that Alvarez and Grimm are definitely hooked-up together pretty good. Who knows naybe one or the other is like Paul Winchell or Jerry Mahoney; or even maybe somebody else operates both of them like Jerry Mahoney and Knucklehead Smith. Anyway, the relationship back and forth between Alvarez and Grimm is important enough that Grimm signed off on a contract to get Alvarez’ wife, Debra Alvarez, to be the Staten Island Republican Election Commissioner, until somebody else thought better of it. All most people think about it is that the last Staten Island Republican Chairman Scamardella stepped on something or got stepped on by Jimmy Oddo and his crew, but others say it was an overreach by somebody on Grimm’s side from the beginning, it never was a done deal and it wasn’t hardwired the way it needed to be to get it done.

Anonymous said...

Grimm and Alvarez were first greeted at the Ceol pub by officers of the OTHER Brooklyn Young Republicans, Diana Sepulveda, President of the BYRs, and Russell Gallo, Treasurer of the BYRs. Things seemed to get off on the wrong foot when Congressman Grimm cut off the introductions by Gallo and Sepulveda with a curt, "I already know who you are...."

Things went from bad to worse when an older man who was there started to ask Grimm a bunch of questions that Grimm tried to evade and the old guy finished by accusing the congressman of being "... a good Republican according to Andrew Cuomo's definition..."

Anonymous said...

This is not the first time that Alvarez has thrown his weight around like this. Last August there was an incident in Staten Island where the cops were called because Marc Alvarez tried to gorilla some kids for causing a ruckus outside a press conference by Lisa Giovinazzo. Just like this time with the old guy at the pub in Brooklyn, Alvarez said he was at the Staten Island event for Giovinazzo on his own time and in no official capacity. Some things never change.

Galewyn Massey said...

Fair enough.... but that isn't why Clorinda is on Grimm's staff.

To be clear, are you saying that the rest of Congressman Grimm's district office staff is knowledgeable and competent or not ?

Galewyn Massey said...

UPDATE: THE "BUFFOON OF THE WEEK " EDITION --- OR WHY CAN'T "MARKY MARK" ALWAYS BE A WAHLBERG ?

The aforementioned Russell Gallo got in the last word (so far) on Marc "You don't know who I am" Alvarez concerning a little tete a tete mostly involving Mr. A and a few guys and a gal hanging out at the bar in the Ceol Pub last Sunday.

Mr. Gallo is a Brooklyn Republican with many hats and the ultimate avatar of the concept "An Army of One"......

Gallo is no expert in Psy-Ops, but he does OK in a pinch.

If we go by last Sunday, Marc Alvarez is no expert in personal security, being a front man, general PR or whatever else he's supposed to do for Congressman Grimm. Because of that and generally not being very nice, Mr. Gallo nominated Mr. Marc Alvarez "Buffoon of the Week" on this week's Brooklyn GOP Radio blogcast. Enough of those gathered in the studio agreed so Marc Alvarez won. Or is that "lost" ?

Galewyn Massey said...

BACKFILL: THE “ALL OVER GRIMM LIKE WHITE-ON-RICE” EDITION

SEE — PRIMARY CHALLENGE MICHAEL GRIMM — https://www.facebook.com/pages/Primary-Challenge-Michael-Grimm/633248050043494 – CONTAINS COMPREHENSIVE LINKS AND DOWNLOADS ABOUT THE GRIMM-SCOTTO BROUHAHA

This is a facebook site that is rich in download material and general buzz about Congressman Grimm.... It’s so insightful that it had a few entries about Congressman Grimm’s appearance at the Brooklyn Young Republican Club last week.

PRIMARY CHALLENGE MICHAEL GRIMM even did a link to some of this blog’s earlier coverage of the confrontation of Grimm in the bar area of the Ceol Pub and the Alvarez counter-confrontation at the same spot – all immediately adjacent to the Brooklyn Young Republican Meeting in the backroom at Ceol on Sunday, January 26th.

So back atcha PRIMARY CHALLENGE MICHAEL GRIMM !