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Yes, it's time for me to break out the long under-used "real reporting" button. For, with recent horrifying reports of the closure of East Village gay bar/travesty The Cock, we were forced to put on some pants, get our cam-phone, and walk over and actually... look.

Our reporter carefully approached the intersection of 12th and A, circa 3 p.m. today. The neighborhood was quiet — three grandmas sat in lawn chairs across the street at the funeral home. Peering into the windows of The Cock itself, one could see piles of beer cartons, glasses strewn on the bar, half-burned candles, coathangers, and various detritus reminiscent of a crackhouse.

This image was lost some time after publication.

While at first this trash-heap immediately convinced us that The Cock has been suddenly closed and abandoned, the truth, we think, is quite the opposite — the general squalor actually indicates that The Cock is alive and well. Furthermore, writes one recent attendee: "I was at the cock on thursday 8/5 - the place is as seedy and vile as ever and still the best boy bar in the east village or perhaps all of new york." Writes a neighbor: "I live at 12th St. and Ave. A, and at least as of 12:30 a.m. on Saturday night it was alive and kicking. Unless something happened on Sunday, it's still open." Lucky neighbor. Eesh.

Your reporter finally concluded that The Cock was most probably not closed, but perhaps it probably should be, and went to get a strawberry lemonade at Ciao For Now on 12th Street, then came home for a long nap after all that behavior painfully resembling actual work.