Pictured: Steve Trimboli and Goodbye Blue Monday. Via Drew Grant's Flickr.
When we interviewed Goodbye Blue Monday's Steve Trimboli in 2006, it was already over a decade since his Scrap Bar closed down. He had just opened GBM in 2005, but the coffeehouse/venue/"stuff orphanage" was years in the making. Nearly everything in the unique, cluttered joint is for sale, it's sort of like being inside of eBay. In the interview, Trimboli reminds us of an old t-shirt that read "Whoever has the most stuff when he dies, wins." It's not true, he says.
The establishment's goings-on are collected (just like all that stuff in the store) and posted on a blog where Trimboli even chronicles the old days of Scrap Bar. Many are hoping the digital collection of stories isn't a prequel to the end of days for the space. Last year, Trimboli was uninsured and diagnosed with cancer (he has since been cancer-cleared but dreading a recurrence). He recently told amNY about his struggle during that time, and the relationship he has with the Bushwick neighborhood his shop calls home. "Once I came back to the store and my car window was smashed up. You can't do much about it. That's sort of the relationship I have with the neighborhood; there are things you just have to accept." Going on he recounts low moment from last year: "Everything had become an effort: waking up, sleeping, being alive. I knew I hit rock bottom this one night when I tossed out three kids who kept coming in and stealing from me. I turn around and see one is holding a gun in my face -- sideways, like he learned from the movies or something. At this point I'm so exhausted from the chemo, I don't even care if he shoots me."
GBM has been struggling to stay afloat, and benefit shows have been thrown by friends and fans of Trimboli and his space. Their MySpace page lists months worth of shows, but as new patron of the place Miss Heather points out that the survivor and his surviving Bushwick space could probably use even more support.
