This is something else. No that was the album The Kinks released the year before. On the same day The Beatles released their eponymous album, The Kinks released their greatest and more adventurous, more cohesive and arguably better album “Are The Village Green Preservation Society”.
This explains a lot why this band who hit the States around the same time as their way more popular moptop peers didn’t get noticed by America for their great albums also, for this album is stylistically different and miles ahead of their brilliant and proto-metal killer singles of the early 60’s (you know ’em). Which is probably why it didn’t sell that much and is totally ignored by formulaic, repetitive classic rock stations. Hell, I didn’t hear this album until 1992 and it still gets heavy rotation (or whatever you call playing it on windows media). It’s also the most British album I have ever heard.
Luckily for genius composer Ray Davies, his brother Dave, Mick Avory, and Peter Quaife, record labels let the bands follow their instincts and were able to take risks to make albums like this. The baroque arrangements of the songs gave the feel of high society as the lyrics sardonically mocked it. Ray took no mercy on other songs regarding celebrity worship and voyeurism but took mercy with the underclass in characters he like Johnny Thunder (whose name was adopted by the New York Dolls legendary, incendiary lead guitarist) and people named Walter and Monica. But the true theme of the album is the narrators and characters consternation concerning the rise of industry that is encroaching on and their worries about being disenfranchised and displaced from their Village Green. Which makes this album an early harbinger and dire prophecy of the presence and effects of gentrification that has ossified in this century.
I cannot stress that this album should be in everyone’s collection, even those that don’t care for rock music. To really get into this classic, listen to this after Pet Sounds and Sgt. Peppers which this album is the sonic equivalent of and it’s inclusion in that pantheon will make more sense.
Today is the birthday of The Beatles eclectic rock and roll masterpiece self-titled album. World reknown as the White Album of course.
Sonically and structurally this album is just as innovative as Sgt Peppers was. In a way, it was the first indie-rock album being it covered lots of styles. What really made this great and yet frustrating is how compact a lot of the songs were that left you wanting more, especially on side 2 or the last 9 songs on disc 1. It had the hardest, sweetest, silliest and weirdest songs they ever recorded too.
The band was supertight despite the obvious friction going on during the sessions. Even though they are both credited you can tell which ones were written exclusively by Lennon and McCartney, and the music direction each one will pursue.
The big shocker is the rockers Paul takes lead vocals on, Back in the USSR and Helter Skelter, the latter which conveys how pissed off Paul must have been with John at the time. Even if it’s a song about a kiddie slide being used as a sexual metaphor (which wound up being misinterpreted by the Manson family). But you can see the vast musicianship he will take with Wings with brilliant compositions like Martha My Dear, Mother Nature’s Son and Rocky Raccoon, Honey Pie and his other solo acoustic masterpiece Blackbird. And of course the song verbally hashed out above “Birthday”, which is a better song to sing than the traditional standard.
John’s creative subtleties and madness really dominates the White Album though with his gorgeous “Dear Prudence” and his ode to his mum Julia. His wicked I Am the Walrus sequel in “Glass Onion”. The ennui to a scream and subtle dis at Paul track “I’m So Tired” The drug addiction references of the polar opposite tracks that dominate the black humor of “Happiness is a warm gun” and the jovial “Everybody’s got something to hide except for Me an My Monkey” (although the monkey is allegedly about Yoko) and the metallic “Yer Blues”.
Even though he had only four tracks, you can tell George grew as a songwriter and he surely saved his best stuff for his monster triple album a few years later. But the ones he composed was the radio staple “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”, the anti-elitist upper class twit bashing of “Piggies” and the funky confection “Savoy Truffle”
Ringo only sang two but they were also the best of the album, “Don’t Pass Me By” and of course “Goodnight”.
Although a lot of people blamed Yoko, this album is actually what broke the band apart. John and Paul were utterly sick of each other at this point and George was probably fed up with their bullshit. Ringo just wanted to play the drums and probably didn’t give a fuck. I recall a movie of the band where they were recording Revolution #9 and Paul was livid about it being included on the album and John reminded him was a stupid shitty song Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da was and that’s on there (it’s a good song anyway, so is Rev 9)
But being The Beatles, the greatest rock and roll band of all time and being consummate professionals a masterpiece was released, meticulously produced by the real 5th Beatle George Martin, which was his best recording and engineering of all their albums. It all worked out in the end and this was released to inevitable praise and delight to millions. And certainly billions now.
I could write more about this tribute, but I’ve got blisters on my fingers!
(^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^I do not own or make any money off this banging song^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^)
The mayor waited a while since the release of a draft letter crafted by his (technically ours) city attorneys calling for the removal of Department of Investigations head honcho Mark Peters but they finally got it. He did not even strategically wait until this holiday weekend to do it too.
But de Blasio did strategize and machinate for about a year to sack him in order to selfishly avoid the bad optics and pathetically evade suspicions for firing the historically independent top investigator of department bureaucracies. Which under this corrupt and stupid mayor have all become shambling shitshows.
These two one-time allies for liberal causes and accountability have took quite the 180 degree turn since Peters was financing de Blasio’s 2013 campaign which the mayor thanked his friend with an immediate patronage hire for the D.O.I. position. But something wicked happened in the first couple of years, de Blasio spent the majority of his mayoralty distracted with boosting his national profile, forming and running a shady PAC fundraiser in city hall, and spending time and money in burgeoning court hearings involving that illicit fundraising while Peters actually and dutifully concentrated on doing his job and noticed a tons of malfeasance and corruption going on in almost every city office, the standouts being the Administration of Childrens Services, NYCHA, Department of Education, Department of Homeless Services, Department of Buildings and even the NYPD.
Reading Mark Peters letter to City Council, the impression it gives is that de Blasio had been hoping that Peters would let all of his political discrepancies and repulsive influence peddling and pandering slide. It also shows Peters as a man who saw all this endemic crooked behavior effecting city policies and services and was probably driven nuts by the efforts by de Blasio’s minions as they undermined him whether by collusion as what led to his ouster by firing an aide over an authority and agency shakeup at the BOE; or by intimidation as Peters cites one meeting with a top brass cop flashing his piece; or by petty tribal insults as his former colleague Deputy Anthony Shorris derided Peters as an asshole and not a “real friend”.
You gotta wonder what a toll this took on Peters psyche, seeing a guy he raised money for and believed in him turn into a colossal two faced back stabbing prick as he filled his cabinet with like-minded soulless amoral sycophants and opportunists.
Well, de Blasio no longer has to worry about his former friend that he threw under the bus since he got elected and will now insert a person that will be expected to give a veneer of independence and transparency while giving fealty to Bill the whole time, so his honest grafting in City Hall will continue unabated. That way he will be able to waltz around town on occasion, jab an accusatory finger at reporters and escape from New York time to time to promote his progressive activist charades.
But it’s not all bad, despite this brief respite from the facts that incriminated Mayor de Faustio, he still has to deal with the citizens despite his concerted effort to hide from them too. Because a few months ago while Bill de Bastard was dithering like a coward to fire Peters so the optics wouldn’t look horrible (even though it still does), there was a homeless 72-year-old woman named Nathylin Flowers Adesegun that wanted to do some intrepid sleuthing of her own:
Knowing that the snowflake mayor stops at the Park Slope Y during his entire morning ritual every fucking day commuting to Park Row, Ms. Flowers Adesegun, along with housing activist group VOCAL-NY, walked up to where he was “doing yoga” sitting on the floor holding his Blackberry and kindly asked him how come there wasn’t a sufficient amount of “affordable housing” for the homeless and he told her that “he wasn’t doing this right now because he was “working out” and scurried away from her with his NYPD security guards.
Now what Nathylin exposed here wasn’t only what an reprehensible elitist scumbag and shameless liar who betrayed poor and vulnerable people like her is. It’s what she and VOCAL caught de Faustio doing, and that’s this man’s daily tax dollar profligate wasting workout routine is a ruse.
Really, who does yoga in cargo shorts. Who does it while wearing running shoes, although they came in handy here to briskly walk away from a elderly woman demanding answers.
And for a physical workout that takes concentration and inner peace like yoga, he berate sNathylin for disrupting it with her distracting and inconvenient question. The big stinky shitty but is why the fuck is he holding and using his Blackberry during his “workout?”? Obviously, he is bothered and can’t won’t have a discussion with one of the 63,000 plus homeless people of your city but he can talk and text on his blackberry during it. He was actually texting while she was talking to him too.
Knowing the character of our Mayor here, he is still conducting government business on the sly like he did with those non-elected “agents of the city” meetings with lobbyists that worked on his 2013 campaign in City Hall in his first two years. Hell, he could still be calling them to this day. That Blackberry needs to be FOIA‘ed immediately.
Of course this is just a amateur theory. But it still warrants an investigation. Which unfortunately, the guy that seriously devoted his energy to expose and expunge graft and the embedded kakistrocacy and cronyism in our city gov’t departments was expunged himself by his fellow Park Slope compadre.
But it wasn’t in vain, for if it wasn’t for the intrepid work of Peters we all wouldn’t be cognizant of the Rivington House deed flip, the slack responses that led to child deaths by the ACS, the criminal obfuscations at NYCHA by the executives in charge and the amoral workers covering up the dilapidation as well as their asses, and the peculiar happenings going on in the NYPD involving the shakeups at the Special Victims Unit divisions, which may be why rape has been redefined into two genres (stranger and acquaintance rape) and blaming the 25 % rise of rapes this year on the #meToo movement.
We hardly knew ya Mark. But that will surely change pretty goddamn soon. Even the NY Post and Daily News have been solid and blunt covering #MayordeFaustio. For that teflon covering on that bag of dicks is starting to crack.
And rest assured that Ms. Flowers will not be the only one holding Mayor de Faustio accountable for his brazen lies, there will be many other citizens too.
As well as this digital publication, Impunity City.
Above: Tala and Rotana Farea. Sisters at the mercy of apparent Saudi Arabian oppressive sexist policies and American indifference.
Manhattan
In the Upper West Side in Riverside Park, two sisters were found dead duct taped by their wrists and ankles together in a crucifix position facing each other lying on the rocks by the Hudson River. The 22-year-old woman and her 16-year-old sister ran away from their home in Virginia when they got a notice from Saudi Arabia for them to return to their home country. Only recently they tried to apply for immigration asylum status in the U.S.A, but couldn’t get it (Trump’s draconian immigration policy could have had an effect on this).
Which is how they wound up in the city with both of them deciding to end their young lives in Manhattan living the high life and splurging on shopping, fine dining and swanky hotels until their credit maxed out. Winding up sitting by the Hudson and praying to their deity according to a passerby who last saw them.
Despite being duct taped together face to face and their bodies showed no trauma that would appear from jumping off a bridge, The NYPD is still determining that this was a suicide. How do you get the momentum to jump in the river or even move when you are bound like a cross facing each other? How does two people (or even one) capable of bounding each other together by their extremities with duct tape? I’m not a cop and never watched an episode of CSI and only occasionally watch Law and Order SUV (which with these sisters troubles and demise would make a great episode), but the only plausible way to commit a suicide pact like this would be is that they would have bound each other while laying down by the water on the rocks in the hopes that the river would rise to take them in.
The rebuffed asylum request by America’s immigration services along with the demand from their oppressive oligarch-royal ruled homeland makes this even more sinister, especially considering that asylum requests are usually by migrants to flee from oppressive and entrenched criminal nations. And it’s weird that these young women were rejected in the first place as if they were suspected terrorists or something.
Weirder still is the NYPD’s apparent insouciance for this case considering the notorious and now transparent fatal tactics used by the hierarchical government of Saudi Arabia to get what they want and in contrast of the efforts the NYPD and the NYFD took to find Karina Vetrano’s killer. There is also the factor that these sisters were spending lavishly in the city which shows that they probably came from a wealthy family and the trail they left at the various places where they made their purchases would undoubtably be of interest to Saudi officials looking to detain them as well as ICE agents who trace the whereabouts any illegal immigrant working in this city alone. And what about that witness? Is there a timeline of when he saw them praying and when they died? The determinations and conclusion of this case by the NYPD’s CSI of these two sisters has become WTF and FUBAR.
The second most distressing thing about the death of these two sisters is the total and revolting lack of local news coverage for this tragedy. What would have been the reaction by the local stations of CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox and Pix if these two women were White, or even Black, Spanish or Asian. Or American citizens in general? The only news coverage the deaths of Tara and Rotana Faera have received recently was on RT News.
It should be noted that the killer who slaughtered and dismembered Brandy Odom in Canarsie Park in Brooklyn is still on the loose.
Also in the Upper West Side, a 70-year-old woman was murdered in her apartment by a 24-year-old woman and upstairs neighbor who stabbed her in the neck. The woman had a long career in creative divisions of every ad firm. Her home life at her building was marred by the invective confrontations by newer tenants for her dogs that she rescued and feeding pigeons daily by the building and Riverside Park leading to constant badgering by the buildings co-op board who were inundated with complaints, at time dubious, from fellow tenants, leading her to be fearful of leaving her apartment in her final days.
Again in the Upper West Side at the West End Secondary School, a teacher attacked one of his students by pulling the chair from under him and pushing the desk to pin him against the wall.
And again in the Upper West Side, a vandal spray-painted swastikas on an concrete outpost by the Hudson River.
And again in the Upper West Side, a man committed suicide by jumping off a roof of a building at the Amsterdam Houses.
In Penn Station at the 34th Street Station, an elderly couple that just got off the 3 train were bumped by a man who ran into them trying to catch it from leaving. The selfish savage glimpsed briefly at them and turned and boarded the train instead of seeing if they were o.k. as the 89-year-old man he knocked down was lying on the platform unconscious and bleeding from hitting his head on the concrete. The victim died two weeks later after being in coma from pneumonia from internal bleeding in his brain.
In Midtown, a man ran towards an off-duty police officer and punched him in the head, then wrestled with him on the ground while trying to wrest his gun. The cop fought back and the man ran away but was apprehended by him and another detective. The attacker had a prior arrest for assaulting an MTA cop back in February.
Also in Midtown around 2 p.m. by Bryant Park a food delivery man attacked and assaulted a 64-year-old man with his bike lock and whacked him in the twice then five more times as he laid on the ground.
Again in Midtown, a manager at a restaurant got attacked by a man who feigned looking for employment who put her in a chokehold in a basement office then robbed her backpack and $400. The suspect is also wanted for breaking and entering into a synagogue robbing it of $400 and breaking into the basement of a fabric store and assaulting a maintenance worker there and stealing hi wallet.
And again in Midtown, another recidivist petty criminal rap star’s crew went buckwild when they were turned away on the orders of the “talent’s” new manager at a restaurant where there was a party being held for the “talent” for his clearing of sex abuse charges of using a minor for a lascivious video. The rapper’s crew returned to the ritzy joint and got into a tussle with the security as one of them crashed a chair over a bouncer and an ex-cop working security shot his gun hitting one of the “talent’s” acquaintances in the gut.
And again in Midtown, a man got stabbed in the back and arm during a fight with his attacker.
And again in Midtown, a man riding his bike on 5th Ave. got hit and critically injured by a private waste carting truck driver that was driving beside him
And again in Midtown at the Trump Tower, guarded by a NYPD surveillance tower and a phalanx of city cops, a man shoplifted a $1,600 bag from the Gucci store and split.
And again in Midtown, a vandal spray painted something in Spanish on a wall of a church run by the United Nations and ran away when the guards caught him in the act.
And again in Midtown, a venture capitalist scumbag and his three toadies got a man drunk and went to his luxury apartment to beat him down and tortured him for his bitcoin account and stole his laptop, cellphones and a thumb drive containing his password.
In Hell’s Kitchen, four teenaged boys are involved in a robbery and mischief spree in various restaurants and bars as they robbed a cash box from a restaurant during closing hours; provoked and menaced customers at a restaurant as one pulled a knife on a worker who ordered them to leave and popped a football player balloon at a bar they got kicked out for harassing customers for cash and last robbed customers of their phones and a pocketbook a sushi restaurant, noodle shop and another bar on the same night.
In the East Village, a man held up and mugged a sanitation worker at knifepoint on the block where the city decided to park the garbage trucks after their lot closed for a luxury developer on West 30th St. and West St in an unsettling karmic irony of the city’s incompetence, obliviousness and crass deference and obeisance towards the real estate overlords.
Also in the East Village, a man lamping in his car smoking a cigarette while showing off his $95,000 watch was approached by three men on bicycles as one of them asked if he could spare a cig, then another one of them yanked the watch off his wrist and they all rode away. Yoink!
Again in the East Village, a man snatched a credit card from an apartment building and went to Target at the East Village’s Greatest Apartment building around the corner and used it to spend $327.
And again in the East Village, a man who committed suicide in his car by ingesting poison was found by police a week after his confirmed death.
And again in the East Village, a man attempted suicide by jumping from an apartment building.
And again in the East Village, fireworks being set off sent misinformed people running in a panic on the streets thinking that they were gunshots.
In Harlem, a father and son both got stabbed by a man who got into a scuffle with them and later came back with his crew and ganged up on both of them. The son wound dying from his wounds. A woman was arrested for holding the murder victims arms while the killer stabbed him nine times in the torso and two brothers involved in the stabbing are still on the loose.
Again in Harlem, a man walking by a convenience store shot at another man twice at point blank range, wounding him and also injuring a woman in her leg who was inside from the shattering glass.
In East Harlem, a man got shot in the leg by the Jefferson Houses.
In Hudson Yards, a woman was found dead in her bathtub in a condo of a luxury apartment building after she fell on her head on the lobby floor and she was left behind by her ex-boyfriend
Also in Hudson Yards, a charter bus driver hit and killed a homeless man crossing the street and kept driving until the cops pulled him over by the Holland Tunnel.
In Soho, a man who is a video game executive that’s refusing to pay over $28,000 in rent and threw loud parties in his loft sub-letted by a woman who for months have tried to evict the derelict by legal means wound getting herself arrested instead by the NYPD on claims that the obnoxious tenant made threatening phone calls to him. Despite the fact that the woman has an actual eviction order for him notarized by the marshall’s office.
In Kips Bay, a man in his birthday suit repeatedly punched a police car.
Also in Kips Bay, a man followed a woman and solicited her for money then followed her to a building and grabbed her purse but failed to snatch it from her despite verbally threatening her.
In the Lower East Side, a man randomly slashed another man in the face with a knife by the Sara Roosevelt Park.
Also in the Lower East Side, a man slashed another man in the head after a brawl broke between patrons at a bar.
In Union Square, a man ran up to a woman and punched her in the face, knocking her to the ground after he randomly punched another woman nearby.
In Washington Heights, a man expecting a date to arrive at his apartment through a social networking app was ambushed when he answered the door by five men who barged in and robbed him of $400, metrocards and headphones.
Also in Washington Heights, a man wearing the mask from Scary Movie shot at a man three times hitting him in the chest, groin and leg and a 17-year-old girl in the chest and ran off.
In Chelsea, an app-hail livery driver got killed by a speeding hit-and-run driver when he stepped out of his vehicle to drop a passenger off.
In the Upper East Side, a man killed himself crashing his motorcycle into a NYPD Tactical Emergency vehicle.
Also in the Upper East Side, a man had his 10 large watch stolen by a woman he banged in his apartment that he hooked up with on a social network dating app.
Again in the Upper East Side, a man broke into a Dunkin’ Donuts at a quarter to four in the morning and made off with bags of bacon and coffee. (Could be for a worthy cause.)
In Times Square, an idiot tourist playing with his toy drone crashed it into an office building window and got arrested after he offered to pay for the damages.
Also in Times Square at the station of the same name, an idiot bum stood at the edge of the platform, dropped his pants exposing his ass and proceeded to urinate on the tracks as the R train was arriving. And yes, service had to be suspended so he could finish.
In Gramercy, a man held up a 7-11 at gunpoint. The suspect had purple hair and was wearing a hat.
In Central Park, a man walking with a woman was attacked by a man who smacked him in the head with a rock and rode away on a bike.
In Herald Square, two men snatched shopping bags full of merchandise from a man who was trying on clothes at Macy’s. When the vic pursued them down the escalators, one of the robbers punched him in the face and he and his accomplice ran out the department store. Somehow security couldn’t stop those thieves being that merchandise was probably paid for but mostly that despite all those cameras as well as security and undercover guards they still got away untouched.
In Hell’s Kitchen, a homeless man hit a man on the head with a broomstick by a fruit stand after his victim refused to give him a dollar.
In Stuyvesant Town, a man sidled into an apartment building as a woman was entering it and then followed her into the elevator and proceeded to sexually molest her. The woman ran out of the elevator and the man caught her and dragged her to the stairwell and forced himself on top of her and strangled her. He ran away when she managed to scream.
Also in Stuyvesant Town, a man held up a bar at gunpoint and robbed it of $700. He was wanted for 3 other armed robberies in Brooklyn.
Again in Stuyvesant Town, a 66-year-old man committed suicide from jumping from an apartment building landing on the oval loop.
And again in Stuyvesant Town, three people tried to swindle a chicken wing restaurant by attempting to get change for fake hundred dollar bills for small purchases.
In Greenwich Village, a man attacked an 83-year-old man and a 69-year-old man in two mugging attempts as he was walking westward and made off with nothing.
Also in Greenwich Village, a three-time Emmy award winning actor punched a man in the face who sidled in a parking space one of his relatives was saving for him. That’s what you get when you stop an entitled guy from taking his reward.
In Inwood, a woman walking through a park was jumped by a man who held her up by gunpoint and then robbed her phone and forced her to sexually please him.
In Washington Heights, a man got killed driving his motorcycle when a livery cab driver ran a red light and crashed into him. The driver did not have insurance nor owned the car he was in.
In NoMad, a man got stabbed in the leg then his attacker ran off.
In Downtown Manhattan at the Brooklyn Bridge Station, a man grabbed a commuter on the platform and pushed him to the tracks. The commuter was saved by a Samaritan who pulled him up in time as the 6 train was arriving.
Also in Downtown Manhattan, a two vehicle collision caused a box truck to careen into the pillars by the World Trade Center memorial.
Again Downtown Manhattan, a vandal scrawled a racist threat on the African burial ground monument on Reade St.
In Columbus Circle at the station of the same name, a man came off the 1 train with giant fucking palm tree.
Also in Columbus Circle at the station of the same name, a man boarded the D train and stood behind a woman and whipped his dick out and whipped it good and came on her and fled when the train arrived at the Rockerfeller Center Station. Check out the super funny NY Post take.
Is Ms. Logan referring to the perp’s mental faculties or the fact that a bodily fluid was excreted?
Also in the subway, the city is allowing a man to vandalize advertisements posted in subway stations because they lamely mock Donald Trump. Anyone else that would tag these posters or graffiti the walls with political opinions would get fined or even cuffed, but it’s some entitled transient gentry geek so it’s acceptable.
Update to the Proud Boy beatdown in the Upper East Side, the man who organized the event at the Republican club where he was recreating the public butchering of a Japanese Socialist activist was brandishing a sword in full view like Jack Sparrow after the brawl was broken up as a bottle flew in his direction and then he fled in an Uber vehicle. Instead of taking the weapon from that bloviator, the NYPD hunted for the bottle chucker instead. One of the Proud Goons arrested is a resident of Jackson Heights.
Now, imagine that this was a Black man waving around an object in a threatening or even joking manner and cops were deployed to quell the situation, because I can.
Bronx
In Mott Haven, an unhinged man walked into a pizzeria spewing racial slurs and targeted his vile rage to a man sitting at a table who then moved to another one to finish his slice to get away from the jerk. The vulgar racist then stood in front of the door when the target of his rage was trying to exit and raised his elbow to him. The man then threw a cup of soda at him and got slashed in his eye by the psycho.
Also in Mott Haven, an off-duty cop was driving home with a fellow cop when they got caught in a crossfire between two gangs and wound up getting hit and wounded.
In Allerton, a man got killed from a shot to the face by a man he was arguing with.
In Norwood, three men held up a deli at gunpoint, tied up the workers and robbed it of $1,100 and drove off in their getaway car.
Also in Norwood, a 19-year-old man entering the 205th St. Station was approached then chased by three men who caught him and stabbed him multiple times in the stomach.
In Soundview, a man attempting a stick up at supermarket got shot to death by the manager who was armed with a shotgun and blasted him when he jumped the counter.
In White Plains, a app-hail livery cab driver molested a woman while she was napping in the back seat and then drove her to Conneticut and abandoned her there. The lecherous pervert still charged her for the fare for the obscene amount of $1,047.
In other app-hail related chaos in the Boogie Down, a livery driver got hit in the head with a brick by a passenger when he got pissed when the driver picked up another passenger to share the ride because the attacker ordered a pool ride by mistake.
In Fordham Heights, a man followed a 63-year-old man to his apartment and sucker punched him, knocking him down to the floor and then stood over him and robbed his groceries and $40.
In Claremont Village, a man was killed and his son was wounded as they were going home when they got caught in the crossfire of a shooting on a stairwell inside the Butler Houses
Also in Claremont Village, a man stabbed his brother to death after fighting with him in their apartment.
In Claremont, a 15-year-old girl arrested for grand larceny made a dash for it by jumping out of a police car and running away while handcuffed. The NYPD spared no expense in hunting despite her not getting that far:
A phalanx of cops, including K-9 units, an NYPD helicopter, and Emergency Services Unit officers with shields and body armor, descended on a six-story apartment building on Sheridan Ave. by E. 172nd St.
For a teenaged girl, they deployed an excessive amount of cops akin to what the city is using to escort El Chapo to his court hearings. It’s like they were hunting some Marvel comic mutant.
In Highbridge, in a crime scene similar to the lynching murder of a teenage male that made national news just last summer, a gang of teenage males chased a 15-year-old boy into a bodega and savagely beat him down in the store aisle. They were heroically chased out by the store’s manager and employees.
Also in Highbridge, 12 men ganged up on one man and pummeled him with a baseball bat and a cane.
Again in Highbridge, another gang of kids tried to rob a deli while menacing other customers, but the store manager chased them out with a pipe. This lead to a protest rally with other store owners and the appearance of their district councilman to demand the stores be equipped with panic buttons.
In Sugar Hill, a man was stabbed to death and his father was wounded during a brawl with a man they were arguing with inside their apartment building as he called his crew to assist him.
In Morrisania, a teenage boy followed an 11-year-old girl into a park bathroom and raped her.
In Melrose, an 87-year-old woman waiting on line at Mickey D’s was randomly grabbed by a man who shoved her to the floor and walked out with his rolling luggage.
Also in Melrose, a manhole exploded on the street, injuring 3 citizens and 2 cops
In Longwood at the Intervale Ave. Station, a man got stuck on a escalator by his shirt causing him to get choked to death.
In Fordham, an ambulance crashed into a store and injured three people inside.
In Kingsbridge, a man running from the cops tried to escape by jumping onto a fire escape from another building, but hit the railing with his head and fell three stories to the ground. Yet he survived, just like Wild E Coyote or Jason Bourne.
In Wakefield, a man threw hot oil at his sons and daughters and a 60-year-old woman and a 87-year-old woman during a dispute, burning his 2-month-old grandson and trapped them all by moving furniture to the front door and sparked a blaze inside the apartment by torching the couch.
Brooklyn
In the dumb hipster capital of the world Williamsburg, some stupid woman who placed a vending machine filled with bespoke upscale expensive jewelry in a park area by a shitty luxury apartment building had it plundered by a man who used bogus credit cards to steal over $13,000 worth of merchandise.
Also in Williamsburg, an intoxicated off-duty cop crashed his car into a parked vehicle going the wrong way on a one-way street.
Again in Williamsburg, a man stole a ninja bike parked in front of a crappy looking luxury apartment building.
And again in Williamsburg, a boy threw a pipe at a window of a synagogue and ran away with his 3 buddies.
In Downtown Brooklyn, where tower hyperdevelopment is taking place, guns are being stashed in those construction sites by gang members for their self-defense from rivals in the area before they go to their court hearings.
Also in Downtown Brooklyn, six gang members chased a man into a shopping mall. When the man ran into the Target dept. store, the security guards were to scared to stop them. As the gang surrounded the man inside the store, the man pulled out his gun and one of the gang members pulled out a knife and started fighting with each other. It ended with the man shooting his pursuer in the chest and killing him and ran out the store with the gangbangers chasing him into the street. According to relatives and friends of the dead man, he had a “bright future”.
In Brownsville, a drug dealer beat one of his customers to death when he found out his victim bought drugs from another pusher which prevented him from buying blow for himself.
Also in Brownsville, a man lurking on the street sneaked up behind a 68-year-old woman walking with a cane on the crosswalk and snatched her purse while dragging her on the asphalt.
Again in Brownsville, a bus driver contractor left a crying 2-year-old girl alone in his bus.
In Prospect Heights, anti-Semitic graffiti was found scrawled on and inside the halls and stairwells of a synogogue on a week of heightened bigoted attacks influenced by the carefree vitriol spewed from Figurehead Trump’s mouth. After misinformed assumptions that led to the cancellation of an event, it turned out that the vandal was a typical White supremacist it turned out it was a Black man that once worked campaigning for Barack Hussein Obama and Bloomberg’s Council Speaker Christine Quinn.
In Flatbush, a 14-year-old boy got shot in the face during a dispute with other teenagers and a 17-year-old boy got shot in the leg three hours later in another part of the town.
In Canarsie, a man got murdered in front of his apartment by a man who shot him in the head and chest.
In Ditmars Park, a man approached a parked car and shot a woman livery driver sitting in the driver’s seat three times in the shoulder, arm and chest.
Also in Ditmars Park at the Church Ave. Station, a woman was attacked by a man who stabbed her in the chest, punched her in the face and called her a racial slur after she stepped off the Q train.
In Clinton Hill, a man jumped and punched a woman as she was jogging by him and attacked her three hours later by hitting her with a cane as she was walking back to her home. The suspect is still on the loose and sports a face tattoo. Hard to believe Mike Tyson’s worst decision to ink his face decades ago would become a lifestyle trend.
In Sunset Park, three teenage males jumped a drug courier from behind, threw him into a parked vehicle and robbed his backpack containing the product by cutting the straps with a knife.
Also in Sunset Park, a drunk man got hit by a passing vehicle when he walked into traffic and suddenly paused.
Again in Sunset Park at the 72nd Precinct in a reverse #MeToo, a police sergeant stuffed a pair of clean panties in a fellow cops mouth when he complained of her leaving her skivvies lying around the locker room they share. The NYPD has transferred the sexy sergeant to the 17th Precinct in Manhattan.
Well at least the dildo looks clean too.
Again in Sunset Park, a man was followed to his home by a group of men from a neighborhood security who accused him of yelling an anti-Semitic slur at them and was initially sparked over a street hassle over a parking space. The men surrounded him in front of his door, assaulted him and tried to drag him out as he was going inside.
And again in Sunset Park, a man stabbed an ACS worker in the back after she advised him to properly bathe his kids during a visit following a report about the children not getting proper care from their guardians.
In East New York, a man got shot to death around the corner of a restaurant after arguing with three men defending a waitress they allegedly harassed.
Also in East New York, a 14-year-old boy tried to smuggle a loaded gun in his backpack into his school then ran away when he got caught.
In Bed-Stuy, a man was shot to death by a man he was arguing with inside his apartment.
In Sheepshead Bay, a man in a ski mask walked up to two men in front of a bodega and shot at one of them hitting him in the elbow.
Also in Sheepshead Bay, a 77-year-old loan shark was murdered in his house from a gunshot to the back of his head.
Again in Sheepshead Bay, a man attacked an off-duty cop while he was walking his dog, hitting him twice in the face.
In Gowanus, a delivery man got slashed three times with a huge knife by a man who got pissed when he was asked to back up his car so he can move his truck to let him pass through.
In Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, a man murdered his girlfriend in her apartment by slashing her neck and attempted suicide by slashing his own.
In Fort Greene, a man hit another man in the head with a fan during an argument in a homeless shelter.
In Brighton Beach, a man jumped a woman as she was crossing the street and dragged her to the ground while robbing her handbag.
In Manhattan Beach, two men, one clad in a yellow safety vest, robbed an 87-year-old woman of $2,500 after she let them in her house when they told her they were utility workers.
In Midwood, a mentally ill man was inexplicably walking up and down the block while waving two knives in his hands passing by a synogogue.
Also in Midwood, a man walked up to a man and kicked and punched him in the head causing his yarmulke to fall off. This should be a good time to write that bias crimes are on the rise in your city.
In Bushwick, a man shot a woman to death and killed himself inside her mother’s apartment.
Also in Bushwick, a man who got bludgeoned in his head stumbled into and passed out inside an apartment that was for sale and was found by the broker who was showing it to a client
In Borough Park, a 74-year-old man dazed from a medical episode crashed his car into other parked vehicles and collided into a elevated train stanchion. He was then roughhoused by a cop who aggressively tried to pull him out of the drivers seat until he was stopped by two EMT’s. The driver was smoking a cigarette at the time.
In Bay Ridge, an MTA worker out on bail for flashing four girls was busted again for lewdness when he backed up his vehicle obstructing an 18-year-old woman walking on the sidewalk. And when she went around the car, he left the door open so she can see him choking his chicken.
Also in Bay Ridge, six dud grenades were found in a closet that were left behind by a previous tenant.
In Gravesend, a mentally ill man cut up his 91-year-old mother days after she died in their home of a heart attack.
In Park Slope on the F train, a man rubbed up against a woman’s thigh and masturbated after molesting her.
In Greenpoint, two men shoplifted pills, Rogaine and whitening strips in two robberies from the same chain pharmacy store.
On the R train, a woman was slapping a man so silly it made him scream and cry.
On the J train, a stupid hipster woman arranged a luxe birthday party in a train car that included imbibing alcohol that lasted throughout the whole route of the line despite MTA rules and vagrancy laws prohibiting it and being witnessed by commuters and a transit worker. Despite the high end meal, it had the ambiance of and the planning, assembling, and creative stylings normally utilized by white trash. The shitty shindig’s nadir was when the hipshits set up a pinata and the moron smashed it with a wine glass. Hey Andy Byford, where’s your new zero tolerance anti-social policy concerning littering you bloody twit?
Grotesque gilded age entitlement in action. Instagram and snapchat must die.
On the L train, a kid laying down on the seats playing with his cellphone had his comfort zone disrupted by a fat hipster who sat down on his legs as he was ensconced on his cellphone.
In Sunnyside, a man killed himself crashing his car into a telephone pole seconds after speeding down the street in a drag race.
Also in Sunnyside, a man driving a motorcycle was killed along with his passenger when he rode the wrong direction on a one way street and crashed into a van.
Again in Sunnyside, a man wanted for breaking into a woman’s apartment and jerked off beside her on her bed, stalked another woman walking her dog to her apartment building then leered into her window and flogged his junk again.
In Jamaica, a bouncer at a niteclub arguing with men outside pulled out his piece and shot at them, wounding one of them in his leg.
Also in Jamaica, a street hassle between two men ended when one of the men whacked the other in the head with a baseball bat.
Again in Jamaica, a man got shot in the leg by a man he was arguing with in the middle of the street.
And again in Jamaica, three women shoplifted three wigs from a beauty shop and assaulted and knocked down a worker who tried to stop them. The wigs were worth a total of 87 bucks and colored black, brown and black with purple highlights.
And again in Jamaica, a man got shot to death by a man who he had a fight with at a baby shower earlier in the day.
And again in Jamaica at the Sutphin Blvd. Station, a man got stabbed in the face while he was sleeping on a bench on the platform.
And again in Jamaica at the Parsons Blvd. Station, a woman challenged a woman to a fight on an escalator then walloped her in the face with punches.
And again in Jamaica, a man got stabbed repeatedly during a street brawl.
And again in Jamaica at the Sutphin Blvd. Station, a bunch of hustlers are jamming metrocard machines in order to sell swipes for two bucks to tourists trying to fill their cards for fares. One of them called PIX News reporter Mary Murphy a bitch and another one called her a snake in the grass as he rapidly scurried away with his cane. Without limping.
Also in Woodside, a man leaving a strip club got surrounded by five men as he was about to get in his car. One of the muggers pulled out a gun then the gang jacked him of $150,000 worth of jewelry.
In Woodside, a doctor and three of his workers were arrested and indicted for running an illicit oxycodone prescription drug ring from his clinic where the pills wound up being sold on the street by pushers.
Again in Woodside at the Northern Blvd. Station, a man boarded the 7 train and sat down, spread his legs and crowded a commuter next to him. When the man complained, the spacehogging asshole punched him in the face, breaking his nose and glasses.
And again in Woodside, a serial pervert home invader and peeping tom has been menacing the town for a year.
In Richmond Hill, a man robbed a bank of $17,000 just by a showing a note to a teller. Two hours after he ran away from a bank in Woodside he tried to rob after the teller pressed a button to notify police.
Also in South Ozone Park, two men shoplifted power tools worth $1,795 from a Home Depot and easily waltzed out.
Again in South Ozone Park, a man held up a cellphone store by feigning to have a gun and robbed it of $850 in cash.
And again in South Ozone Park, a woman was accosted and yelled at by a drunk off-duty fireman parked by her house then grabbed her by her neck and hair and attempted to hit her with a metal rod.
In Ozone Park, a cop committed suicide by shooting himself in front of the 106th Precinct after he left a bullet on a desk, drove around the block and following an argument with 3 other cops.
Also in Ozone Park, an off-duty corrections officer along with three of his friends brutally beat down a man who crashed his car into his. When cops arrived to find the man beating down the victim, the three other men already fled and they had to pepper spray and use a taser on the man as he resisted arrest to try to attack the other guy again.
In Maspeth, three women held up a livery cab driver at gunpoint, made him drive to Elmhurst and forced him to apply a condom to his penis then robbed him of $49.
In Long Island City, a man was found dead in the drivers seat of a parked truck.
Also in Long Island City, a woman in a hotel room answered a knock on her door and four men barged in and assaulted her, tied her up with duct tape and robbed her phone, drivers license, credit card and $100.
Again in Long Island City, a man got jumped, beaten and slashed by four men on the street.
In Sunnyside, a 64-year-old man in his car was confronted by two men and engaged in an argument with them. One of the men punched him through the open window and ran away with his buddy.
Also in Sunnyside, a man and a woman held up a commuter gunpoint on the 7 train and robbed his cellphone then got off the 40th St. Station.
In Ridgewood, the town had the highest total of opiod overdose deaths in the borough in the last year.
Also in Ridgewood at the Grover Cleveland High School, cops were called to detain a belligerent 19-year-old student but were disrupted by a guidance counselor who was goading the student to resist and then punched one of the cops in his face. Ironically in a case when it comes how the NYPD deals with their own rogue cops, the D.O.E. decided to re-assign the counselor elsewhere.
Again in Ridgewood, three men that broke into a home got caught in the bedroom by it’s resident. One of the home invaders grabbed him and held him at gunpoint, then decided to run away with his accomplices on the roof.
And again in Ridgewood, three men held up a man at gunpoint and robbed his wallet, phone and sneakers.
In Elmhurst, a 17-year-old boy was stabbed in the chest across the street from a school, 3 individuals were charged.
Also in Elmhurst and in Corona, a man robbed four women at knifepoint and slashed two of them making off with $2,500 in cash from two purses, a wallet and their cellphones.
In Flushing, a woman got killed crossing the street from a driver making his turn in his SUV.
Also in Flushing, an off-duty cop was mugged at gunpoint and robbed of his backpack.
Again in Flushing, a car exploded on a road by the Van Wyck Expressway, killing it’s driver.
And again in Flushing, a man was shot to death on the street around the corner from his house.
And again in Flushing, a woman got hit by a pick-up truck as she was crossing the street and died from a head injury.
And again in Flushing, a man got stabbed to death inside his apartment.
And again in Flushing, a man clobbered a 14-year-old boy on his head from behind with a blunt object after the kid accidentally bumped into him walking on the sidewalk
And again in Flushing, a man going into his car was jumped by a man who placed an automatic pistol to his head then stole his backpack.
And again in Flushing, two men broke into a bar and robbed a bottle of hooch and a cellphone.
And again in Flushing, an 86-year-old man got killed in the crosswalk by a driver in SUV making a turn.
And again in Flushing, a couple in their sixties were both found stabbed to death inside their apartment in a seedy SRO building.
In East Flushing, a man got shot to death by two men in front of his house.
In Auburndale, a man broke into several parked vehicles by schools and day care centers stealing property left inside.
In Hollis, a man hit another man with a bat to his head during a street hassle.
In Forest Hills, a man robbed a bank by handing a teller a note after he got blown off by a teller in a bank across the street that he tried to rob. He then successfully robbed a bank in Elmhurst using the same method.
Also in Forest Hills, a man got killed crossing the street by a hit-and-run driver who thought he hit a log and was scared to stop according to a man who wasn’t with him at the time. Even though the jerk kept driving despite wrecking his windshield
In Astoria, a man broke into three apartments in the same building and robbed two of them stealing $6,400 worth of cash and jewelry.
Also in Astoria, a hit-and-run driver hit a 13-year-old boy and broke his ankle while he was crossing the street
In Fresh Meadows, a man was stabbed to death in his bedroom and left dead there for days until his grandmother showed up after not hearing from him.
In Middle Village, a man trying to break into a house got caught by a woman inside who banged on her window and scared the man to fall off the second floor deck. The prowler then ran away like Mike Myers.
In Jackson Heights, a man got stabbed by a man in a lighted mask who attacked him with a butcher knife.
In Laurelton, a man molested a 13-year-old boy inside a deli at 5 in the afternoon.
In Maspeth, a pack of raccoons have occupied the Grand Avenue Bus Depot scaring the shit out of bus drivers and city workers and beating the shit out of alley cats. The furry fat urban animals have also occupied the wonderfully named Jackie Gleason Depot in Sunset Park in Brooklyn.
No worries, they’re citizens like you and me.
In Bayside, an app-hail livery driver was caught masturbating by a 14-year-old girl who was in the back seat when she noticed he was leering at her in the rear-view mirror. The service, LYFT, refused to cooperate with the NYPD in disclosing the creeps name and allowed him to pick up fares for the corporation for another two weeks.
In Roosevelt Island, five men were nailed swindling a homeless woman who won a four million dollar settlement from the city from a subway accident where she lost both of her legs. The woman gave one of the men $800,000 so she can run up a tab at his deli to get cartons of smokes to resell at a profit, and a check worth $880,000 that she placed in a bible she carried was robbed from her wheelchair.
On Rikers Island, an inmate threw a table at a C.O then attacked him. After the C.O. fought him off and tried to restrain him, the inmate broke free and charged at him as he wrestled the C.O. and started swinging punches at him on the floor. The C.O. got up and the inmate continued with his attack which extended across the hall and seemingly ended with the inmate throwing a garbage can at the C.O. All this happening as other prisoners just casually walked by like it’s just another regular day at the prison complex and top brass officials at Rikers blows it off as minor incident.
Well, it turns out that watered down incident report worked, because that aggressively hostile inmate is an 18-year-old man with eight prior arrests for robbery, gun possession, i.d. theft, and assault just like in the video footage just had his $1,500 bail paid off by the RFK foundation in their obliviously self-righteous ill-conceived program to bail out prisoners that can’t afford to pay, no matter what their prior charges were and how violent they are. So he’s back on the streets again. Stay tuned.
Also on Rikers Island, two of the suspects from the Trinatarios gangbanger machete killing of Lesandro Guzman-Feliz attacked two C.O.’s by throwing a bottle of piss at them and verbally threatened them with murder.
Reported rapes are up 50% reaching a high not seen in 25 years in precincts in North Queens. NYPD is still attributing this disturbing crime trend on the #MeToo movement even though there wasn’t social 25 years ago when women were getting raped at this level.
Staten Island
In Stapleton, in front of the beauty parlor where Eric Garner was murdered after being placed in a chokehold and pinned face first to the concrete by Officer Pantaleo, a bottle was thrown in the direction of an actor and profanities were yelled at a film crew that was shooting an arrest scene of him and two other actors as cops for a TV show featuring a cop-killer actor, an actress that was involved in a burglary of a studio with her son in Astoria, and an actress who played a character that offered to suck “The Dude”‘s cock for a grand. The director, a former NYPD cop, professed not knowing that was the exact location where the fatal abuse of excessive force occurred.
In West Brighton, an off-duty firefighter was found in a car wreck after his brother crashed the vehicle they were in into a telephone pole. A Corrections Officer neighbor of theirs tried to aid them by offering to park the car in his driveway. After he does that, the fireman gets in the C.O.’s face and starts assaulting him as his buddies show up and ganged up on him and his song while he’s trying to ward them off with a broomstick as they were assaulting them with punches.
In Edward Markins Gardens, a drunken domestic dispute between a couple at their home escalated into the husband getting stabbed in the gut and killed by his wife.
In Clifton, a professional boxer attacked his ex-girlfriend at her apartment and strangled her while violating an order of protection against him.
In Stapleton, a man stopped another man on the sidewalk and told him to submit to a body search then robbed his wallet containing $500.
In Marines Harbor, two men attacked two other men by slashing one and punching the other robbing a cellphone and headphones.
In Port Richmond, a man with a prior felony conviction for drunk driving smashed his car into a fence while DWI.
In New Springfield, a man was caught videotaping a woman with his phone while she was in a changing room in a clothing store.
In Concord, the woman who killed two children running a red light in Park Slope committed suicide in her apartment.
25 years ago the greatest posse rap album was released to the world by the RZA, the GZA, Raekwon The Chef, The Ghostface Killah, Ol’ Dirty Bastard and the M-e-t-h-o-d Man. Well known throughout the world as the Wu-Tang Clan.
Enter The Wu-Tang: The 36 Chambers was unlike anything heard. It sounded cheap and dusty yet also dense, atmospheric and ambient. It was the first rap group to have as many rappers (actually one or as time went on half dozen more) as old school legends the Furious Five and all the rappers had distinctive, innovative rhyme styles.
The brilliant production by RZA drew it’s musical influences mostly from the classic Stax/Volt 45’s, Gladys Knight, Hall and Oates, and of course classic kung-fu movie scores and dialogue, the latter giving the album a Pink Floyd type vibe. And the singles wound up being iconic too. Particularly and obviously Meth’s theme song (the flip side of their indie single above, B-side wins again!) and the universal anthem for money earning under problematic conditions and environments, C.R.E.A.M.
The album was solid from start to finish and was one of the last albums to come from Rap’s Golden Age when it was strictly album-oriented format from 1986 to 1993. It would lead all of it’s members to release classic albums on their own too. There will never ever be another one like this. (Thanks to fucking streaming and downloading, and the fact that their million dollar album still has not been released for free to the public after it’s douchebag price gouging criminal owner got incarcerated)
Whoever still owns this classic, and there are about 4 million of you, give it another replay. And remember when creativity was once a priority in making music.
I have just been notified by my digital distributor WordPress that my blog has turned 2 years old today. This has been quite the year for shitty ass news and events regarding the injustices and inequities existing in this city, the nation and the rest of the world, which includes a mild tolerance and embrace for fascism. More to come covering all those topics
Your author here will make a resolution to make this blog more prolific by using the usual format of posting news of interests of the day along with long form invective screeds. For I feel it is now my civilian duty to report and inform since those that get paid millions to do it and make billions distributing the news are doing a goddamn shitty job at it.
This would be much easier if this was a full time job though. Here’s hoping this year of our Trump and one nation under Amazon will bring more visitors here. I am really trying to make a niche out of this.
Happy Birthday to Impunity City. It’s truly a labour of beautiful barbed wire love.
With Mario’s son Andrew Cuomo going for his third term virtually unchallenged with a massive campaign money war chest and insane and willfully ignorant endorsements from the New York Times and Daily News, it’s only right and natural to fill the box or write in the name of Howie Hawkins for Governor of New York along with Jia Lee for Lieutenant Governor.
Despite being totally undermined and ignored by the press and predictably and cowardly by incumbent Andy, candidate Hawkins has all the bases covered about his desire to take the reins of governing this state. Particularly the thorniest issues truly effecting the constituency and society of this state with the dearth of legitimate affordable housing and living wages, growing wealth disparity and tax payer inequity and the economic necessity of the full legalization of marijuana. And what is actually the biggest threat to democracy in New York which our current governor is surely cognizant of (and it isn’t Trump as Andy Cuomo incessantly and desperately points out to instill fear in voters) and that’s the scandalous loopholes in campaign financing, the endemic corruption in the halls, offices and toilets of the Albany statehouse and the horrendous conditions and transit service of the MTA.
For those last three are the real reasons Mario’s son Andy’s political career must come to a crushing end. In the last two terms after he promised to obliterate corruption after he got the job, he first made sure to obliterate the Moreland Commission that he assigned to investigate said corruption. Since then everyone that was in Andy’s circle got arrested and convicted. In his last term, all of his billion dollar projects have been colossal failures and only got approvals via criminal tactics, leading to convictions of the idea men developing them and appointed officials lobbying for them. The biggest offense of Andy’s governing by insouciance was clearly by his former campaign manager and symbolic adopted kid brother Joe Percoco, leading to his own arrest and conviction.
And like any recidivist thug crook loose on the street, Andy has not learned a goddamn thing about all that corruption under his purview, as he approved a billion dollar land deal by Nassau Coliseum for one of his many real estate developer donors. One of Gov. Cuomo’s biggest donors has landed a $1 billion-plus deal to develop the area surrounding Nassau Coliseum — infuriating other bidders whose proposals were solicited, then discarded, by government officials
The developer, along with 16 others, submitted proposals this summer at the behest of Nassau County, which was looking to finally transform the sprawling property around the newly renovated stadium, which is now mostly a parking lot.
But the county didn’t follow through with the proposals — making an unexpected announcement in early September that the “Nassau Hub” project would instead proceed as a joint venture that included Scott Rechler’s company, RXR Realty Investments. The plan includes two hotels, 500 housing units and office and biotech research facilities, along with 200,000 square feet of retail space.
It should be noted that Andy appointed Scott Rechler of RXR Realty Investments to the MTA board in 2017. Possibly right around the time Andy announced the Summer of Hell for subway commuting.
And of course there’s the MTA, which Andy is in charge of. Which under his purview has now devolved into the worst fucking transit system in the universe. Which he exacerbated by installing Wifi in the subway (except by the A train elevated tracks headed to Lefferts Blvd) and modernizing stations with LED screens and state commissioned bland art instead of starting to upgrade the signal system and repairing broken tracks, by fast tracking the development of the 2nd ave line so he can hold a New Years Eve party, by reallocating money for the transit system for stupid tourist pandering signs that violated safety codes and for upgrades for a upstate ski resort and useless obelisk monitors on bridges, and having four cheesy light shows at the Kusciusko Bridge.
Months after MTA president Andy Byford announced his Fast Forward Program will need 37 billion dollars to get the complete overhaul of the subway, now comes the current MTA budget assessment by his temp board director (who has been there for almost 2 years now) Joe Lotha announcing that it’s actually going to cost 60 billion to “fast forward” these essential improvements.
And of course there is the L train shutdown, coming 6 years late and is wreaking havoc on the citizens where the reconstruction of the tunnel and stations are having and is causing stress and those anticipating with worry about their commutes. Howie Hawkins has a great plan and will assuredly be focused on the improvements to the MTA (he actually assesses the costs covering the five boroughs will be 100 billion dollars).
These are the reasons in a nutshell why Cuomo must go and be vanquished from holding government office again. Even though you got this far reading, I think the justification for voting against Mario’s son was very well put by a woman who confronted him earlier this year:
She makes some very good points, especially how she aptly describes his character. Because Andy’s platform and plans for the state of New York and it’s citizenry are zilch, and he is basically running on sexual identity politics and coaxing fear with his ads focusing mostly on Stronghead Trump. And lying about and insulting his Republican opponent Marc Molinaro by maligning him as a dwarf sidekick of Trump even though he did not vote for him.
So stop enabling this corrupt colossal prick Cuomo. Take a fucking chance and vote for Hawkins.
As for the rest of the ballot:
Impunity city is going the green line and endorsing Michael Sussman for Attorney General. Because Letitia James is not qualified for the job and has spent the last 4 years being ineffective as Public Advocate, a position that has no reason to exist at all and her Republican opponent is too deferential to corporations. And also endorsing Mark Dunlea for State Comptroller
In other races of interest:
Impunity City endorses Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez for Congress against her Republican opponent Working Party candidate Joe “Pennywise” Crowley, who was recently caught defensively denying a stealth flyer campaign against her. And who thinks the song “Born to Run” is about him being entitled to elected office because of his family ties.
Impunity City endorses Tony Avella to take back his State Senator seat against John “Foodie” Liu and Republican candidate Vicky Paladino.
This is what the ballot looks like and vote no on all 3 proposals on campaign finance, the civic engagement commissions and community board term limits. These charter revisions don’t even take effect until 2 years and was concocted and supervised by Mayor de Faustio and his fauxgressive minions and who, as any every citizen of the city he governs knows by now, is corrupt and has no fucking credibility. And in the long run, nefarious scum will find loopholes in these revisions that will be easily exploited.
Liberty Ave. And 123rd street. Where the gilded asphalt path abruptly stops.
Richmond Hill, Queens, N.Y.
A week before Halloween, an encouraging sight sprung forth to auto owners and cyclists. The decade long dilapidation of Liberty Avenue beginning at Lefferts Boulevard was about to get repaved with fresh tar and asphalt. Being a cyclist myself, it was elating to finally look forward to a smooth path and finally see the cracks and crevices produced by many winters, persistent double and triple parking and K and illegal U-turns by overtly aggressive drivers remediated.
What’s frustrating about this is that a while back the D.O.T. milled and repaved the entirety of Liberty under the elevated train from Rockaway Blvd to the last stop at Lefferts Blvd but they decided for some damn reason not to stretch out the repaving 15 blocks east to the Van Wyck Expressway to at least make it look compatible as well as prevent the road from suffering from further degradation.
But in yet another case of diminishing returns of half-ass efforts from your city, it turned out that they only repaved 2 fucking blocks.
Even more frustrating and fucking maddening is that the long overdue road repair was permitted and possibly inspired and demanded to make way for a film shoot.
A day after the repaving, film permits appeared taped on lamp posts and this parking meter here for something mysteriously titled V3. It must be some sequel of some cruddy film franchise or maybe it could be a historic film chronicling the nascent stages of the invention of V8 juice when the beverage contained only 3 vegetables.The freshly paved scenery was supervised by someone only named Rocco.
The trucks and trailers with the Jersey or Penn plates and catering truck were supposed to arrive to assemble the proverbial fourth wall for the shoot on Liberty on Monday but a strange development happened on the day that footage above was shot the day before though, all the permits were removed from said posts and meters and the producers decided to move all their rigs on 103rd avenue instead and 120 street.
The next day the catering truck moved to Liberty and two charter buses appeared buttressed by orange safety cones. The charter bus facing east and the catering truck in front of that charter bus facing west were parked on city bus stops for the Q110.
And another charter bus was parked by 103rd avenue around the corner. I assume these vehicles were the mode of transportation for all the creative forces and talent involved with this project.
And the action took place at Leo F. Kearns funeral home halfway down the block.
Spoiler alert! Someone in this movie dies!
It’s been a week since this production, and being that it took two days it will probably result in a 2 minute scene. I came to this synopsis because the last few times that major shows were filmed in this enclave of Southeast Queens were HBO’s Bored to Death where they took a day to film Rushmore star Jason Schwartzman ask a cashier a question in a scene that was 10 seconds and the other was also by HBO called …the Night Of where the trailers took over 2 blocks for a good week to film some catalyst scenes for the first episode (sadly, the shows executive producer, James Gandolfini died a week after that shoot in Italy, man it would have been actually cool to bump into him).
Wait, I forgot the odious and easily hacked social media platform corporation that sold out their customers for billions of ad dollars and now government contractor Facebook filmed a show here in the springtime. At least they split so fast it was barely noticeable. Probably because they realized it wasn’t Brooklyn.
Too bad Broad City is ending, it actually would have been nice if those funny ladies stopped by and did some jokes about roti shops.
But I’m digressing, because this road upgrade was obviously done for aesthetic reasons for this V3 movie. Which gives the impression that some special tweeding went down to benefit the film industry over the needs of the driving and riding constituents and also essential bus transit service that continues to get neglected again and again. This can be verified by the I.M. exchange between Cynthia Nixon and Mayor Bill de Blasio when the failed gubernatorial candidate wanted to get her pal in City Hall to halt chopper flights over Central Park that were bothering her director pal’s Shakespeare performances there as she forwarded his complaints to him and your mayor happily and hurriedly obliged and got it done for her. It also helped that TV’s Miranda’s wife was working for Mayor Big Slow at the time as one of his advisors.
So the rest of Liberty will probably remain a broken ass mess in this broke ass city. As well the majority of streets that intersect with it and the avenues south and east of the busy avenue are in equally shitty and even worse. It doesn’t look like there is going to be any upgrade in the near future or even beyond as the new pretty, vibrant and hip burgs get nice things and the dirty southeast of Queens gets dirtier and rockier. And not to mention the massive renovation of the BQE.
And even with this sudden attention from Hollywood, which from the way this city favors this industry, has become an official citizen person of New York. At the expense of safe streets, commuting and the dwindling patience and sanity of it’s residents.
It was just over a year ago, when retired judge Johnathon Lippman and his professional peers compiled a study citing the horrid conditions regarding criminal impunity among inmates and correction officers, human rights violations and the myriad violent conditions in the environment in Rikers Island to justify it’s shutdown. After incessant publicity and promotion by fauxgressive figures like Mayor de Blasio, former speaker Melissa Mark-Viverto and various tag-along liberal sops in city council; Governor Andy Cuomo signed into law to raise the age for getting charged as an adult for minor offenses and major crimes to 17 years old (to be raised to 18 in 2019) leading to transferring of over 90 young inmates to the Horizon Juvenile Center in the South Bronx on the first of October.
In a grotesque result of what happens when the bleeding hearts of well-off liberals lead to brain hemorrages, all of the teenage males took their new found limited freedom and attacked all the corrections officers appointed to watch over them. Leading to twenty of the C.O’s getting hospitalized for injuries. The majority of the kids showed visible delight knowing that the guards were not equipped with pepper spray and handcuffs, because they were denied these defensive accessories according the newly signed law. Which certainly inspired the kids to throw desks around and break windows. One scamp even took a guards uniform shirt and wore it.The kids also utilized all the free unrestricted space to reassemble their gangs and reignite their street rivalries and brawl with each other.
As for the rationale behind the lack of gratitude shown towards being held in an optically better facility from where they came, it wasn’t like the kids didn’t warn them of what was going to go down:
While stationed at Rikers, the injured officer said the teen inmates taunted Corrections staff about what would happen once they were transferred to the Bronx facility and working unarmed.
“They said ‘just wait until we get to Horizon,’” said the injured officer, who was reassigned to the 90-inmate juvenile facility when the teens were moved.
This led the Corrections Officers Benevolent Association union leader, the benevolent Elias Muhammed, to rightfully imply I told you so:
“They aren’t turnstile jumpers, the open container crowd. These are gang-bangers. They are here for robbery, attempted murder and murder.”
The chaos barely even settled down as the kids kept being surly and uncooperative every day since the tranfer as 17 more C.O.’s and even two captains were attacked by the kids.
Calling the reactions to the anarchy that has broke loose at Horizon by the ones driving the Rikers Shutdown as haughtily tone-deaf is literally understating it. As the bruises and broken bones from these altercations were still fresh that the usual suspects that induced this stupid transference went into spinning dervish mode.
“Beginning today, no one under 18 will go to Rikers Island,” tweeted Mayor de Blasio. “Kids will be treated like kids instead of adults. This is an historic moment for criminal justice reform and another step toward replacing Rikers Island with smaller, safer, more humane facilities.”
Gov. Cuomo also tweeted Monday, writing “As of today, NY’s Raise the Age Law is now in effect. This law raises the age of criminal responsibility, removes 16-year-olds from the adult criminal justice system, and prohibits 16- & 17-year-olds from being housed at Rikers Island. A big step forward for our justice system.”
“All 16- and 17-year-olds have been transferred from Rikers Island to Horizon Detention Center,” said ACS spokeswoman Chanel Caraway. “We are in a transitionary period for a historic reform that’s never been done before and there have been some incidents involving youth and officers, which were quickly addressed. None of the injuries were serious, but we take these and all incidents seriously.”
That last statement was a doozy, for it leads open the suspicion that Ms. Caraway has never felt of even seen a broken bone or surface wound. But the damning thing about this is that this transfer was under the purview of the Administration Of Children’s Services. Which is a wonder why they didn’t send guards from that government office and laid the care and security of the center on the Department Of Corrections. Certainly that may have driven the young inmates to go giddy at the prospect of getting some sort of revenge on their former captors.
Another thing about the Horizon transfer is why wasn’t the near billion dollar mental health program THRIVE run by de Blasio’s wife and co-mayor Chirlane was somehow not involved in this? Being that the reason behind this transfer was to get them away from the mentally traumatizing environment in the cells of Rikers. But the answer to that is that even the officials in those government offices knew damn well of the potential danger lied ahead if they sent their counselors there and obviously did not want to risk injury or even death. Despite all the alleged empathy behind this transfer and the Rikers shutdown in general is the obvious concern and fear knowing how those 90+ formerly incarcerated kids will violently react.
If there has been some actual progress in this nascent stage of criminal rehabilitation is that the city finally acknowledged that they had to make conditions safer at Horizon by bolting down the desks so the gangbangers don’t weaponize them and fogging the windows so they don’t see each other (even though they definitely are aware of each others existence, duh.)
Meanwhile, as Horizon is currently and temporarily faded into the background, plan b of the city’s mentally mad Rikers closing is gathering methane releasing steam with the building of new prisons in neighborhoods in the boroughs except for Staten Island (which with the failure of the ferris wheel, they actually have prime real estate to glom for a prison there). And it will also be understating how contentious (although utterly inspiring) the reactions of the communities from those towns are.
What started in a scarcely reported city hall meeting scarcely meaning that it was closed to the press and public that was only with by a tweet, in what can be derived of being under the impaired influence from the Lippman Study and the still unmentioned pernicious influence of big time real estate investors and the lobbying involved from both entities, the city wants to build smaller prisons in the metropolitan areas of Kew Gardens, Queens; Downtown Brooklyn; Chinatown, Manhattan, and bizarrely and most inappropriately on a residential street corner in Mott Haven in the Bronx.
The unmistakable fury and abject objections for the city’s tactless and crass plans to place jails was dominant in recent hearings in Kew Gardens and Mott Haven. And why wouldn’t it, because like every other ill-thought policy that comes from and is induced onto the constituency from de Blasio’s city hall city planners and (whoever the new agents of the city are) is executed by stealth and with arrogance and disingenuous self-righteous blather. For example, the neighborhood jail plan draft was initiated in a secret meeting in city hall among officials and some persons of interest that was closed to the public and reporters according to a tweet by a writer from Gothamist, then the draft was disseminated to reporters hours later. (Foul fact, when that cityblog folded, de Blasio arranged a meeting with them for some bullshit discussion but mostly to bloviate what a progressive icon he is.)
And what a draft it is. Because you see, the plan is to not just put prisons in residential areas. Oh no, your fucking city wants to place prisons where criminals will be serving long sentences in towers. Towers ranging from 20 to 40 stories! Because you see, the city and obviously the unmentioned caring folks from real estate and development, want to integrate unsightly prisons with residential living and commerce by having apartments built with them and stores to shop or restaurants to dine in.
Take this dumbshit rendering please and shove it up your neoliberal asses.
It seems the reason for these stylish glossy penitentiaries is so it seamlessly and aesthetically blends in with all the other glossy towers that have arose in Brooklyn and Manhattan and the presence of towers will hopefully spur high market speculation in Kew Gardens and Mott Haven (leading to pestilent gentrification). But it mostly gives the impression that the neoliberal powers that be think that towers and the vector of upscale living it emits will be able to camoflage the inconvenient truth about the existence of crime and criminals. Just like the rationale that affordable housing can only exist with luxury tower development, resulting mostly in camoflaging the existence of destitution and homelessness. On the subject of affordable housing, these towers with jails will also conveniently yet slightly speed up de Blasio’s bogus affordable housing program in a way too since it doesn’t take much thought to speculate that no one would pay market rate to live in the same building with convicts milling around the lower floors. And judging by the fury of the citizenry of these targeted areas, those people obviously wouldn’t want to live there either.
These spanking new jails are suppose to materialize only if the prison population decreases to 5000. Which is a super tall order considering that major crimes like murder and rape have had incremental increases and all other crimes like grand larceny, assault and battery and burglary have remained steady.
But damn if these big brainiacs in their elected, exalted government jobs and a clueless, oblivious heiress and her non-profit operation aren’t going to stop trying to fulfill this #Rikersshutdown mission in spite of tax-paying residents rejections and the inevitable societal malaise that will occur.
That heiress would be Kerry Kennedy and her foundation. Who has put up five million dollars to post bail for women prisoners in Rikers and even those ultraviolent kids in Horizon despite prior arrests and serving time for attempted murder, robbery and assault. Which those teenagers committed again immediately on Horizon’s admission day . One female convict and recidivist criminal who held up a sex shop at knifepoint that Kerry’s foundation bailed out by contributing $25,000, didn’t show up at her court hearing to ensure her new found charitable freedom.
Then there was a murder committed by a man who scored a plea dea by D.A. Cy Vance after he was charged for possessing an illegal gun. Just a week and a day after Vance’s way too trusting decision, that man got involved in a street hassle with another man on the street and chase him down and shot him in cold blood.
Another thing these fauxgressive intellectuals like Lippman, Kennedy, and progressive issue bandwagon jumpers and stowaways like de Blasio and Cuomo don’t get or even acknowledge are the people, the victims of the crimes committed at them from these kids and adults. Victims of a rape, robbery, burglary, assault and murder of course are being violated of their human rights too. Which is hard to conceive by people isolated in the upper echelons of society and class and those elected officials daily protected by an entourage of cops. And deep down they know it’s a fact, because before the transfers of juvenile delinquents to the Bronx and these obligatory bullshit town hall hearings for the boro prisons, the city’s commitment to upgrade and renovate Rikers Island to make it handicap accessible is still going on at the cost of 50 million dollars.
And even de Blasio is not immune from his fears (and he has many this man is a giant coward) of the presence of these inmates as well as the existence of crime itself. When the weak ass mayor decided to hold a press conference at the 40th Pct. back in July, he ordered that prisoners detained in the cells there be moved to the 41st Pct. across town. The illogical logistics led to the latter Pct. forced to assemble a command post outside of their station to handle the load of new arrests, being that the 40th has seen a large rise of crime in that district.
The cognitive dissonance and brazen hypocrisy by him as well as the other suspects mentioned here shows that these plans have no basis in reality or common sense and is irresponsible. But mostly incompatible with the towns they want to dump these prisons on and even on the inmates they purport to help. The corrections officers and the citizenry are extremely right to reject these programs.
Bo Deitl, during his disruptive, incorrigible and juvenile behavior during the mayoral debates around this time last year made the best observation about Rikers Island: “Why don’t we fix what we got”. That sentiment desperately still needs to be applied here. There is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to help these convicts and make certain that they are dwelling in a safe environment during their incarceration. After all, prisoners have rights. But these reform plans and the officials minds that concocted and executing them, along with the rationales behind them are as hardheaded and maladjusted as most of the kids that rioted the first day at Horizon and any recidivist criminal continuing to commit crimes on the streets against the citizenry.