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.