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Constitution Pollution Which New Yorkers are really pissing on the Bill of Rights? [authString]Staff[endauthString]
Terrorists hate our freedoms -- or so politicians have been telling us since the Twin Towers crumbled into a tourist attraction. We rarely swing from Afghan monkeybars in ski masks, but we too find certain American freedoms detestable. Without further ado, here's our list of New York City's worst violators. Freedom of Speech Boasting a back-story flush with hardscrabble hustling, industry blacklisting and a well-publicized lead-absorbing misadventure, Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson’s ascension to stardom was viewed as a victory for the little guy. Now, as he proclaims on The Game’s “Love it or Hate it”, the underdog’s on top. Unfortunately for this pooch, his taunting competitiveness has become petty arrogance, his media savvy has become tiresome manipulation and his lyrical mediocrity has become inexcusable nursery-school rhyming. We don’t have even a problem with his Vaselined chest or blatant pandering to the inhabitants of the dancefloor (just shake that ass, girl); we’re simply weary of his boring-ass persona. He doesn’t drink. He doesn’t smoke. He lives in a Connecticut mansion. He’s a summering Mormon investment banker with belly tats. To make up for his character, which gravitates between bland and obnoxious, he runs his mouth. Incessantly. Other than his long-term feud with Ja Rule, 50’s beefs with Nas, Jadakiss, Fat Joe and Game have all been listless battles of his own design; without a butcherblockful of clumsy-yet-publicized beefs, it’s clear that 50 has nothing left to say.
Buried in a filthy basement loft shared with a pack of illegal Somalis frying up cod fish on hot plates, YRB Magazine is a twin-headed beast, one cranium the disturbed ambassador of the SoHo clothing store Yellow Rat Bastard, the other the oily mouthpiece of its Lebanese publishers. The magazine was originally founded as the store's mail order catalog, catering to a customer base of pacifier-suckling, Jersey ravers clad in baggy UFO windpants. And beyond their shoddy wares, YRB's bright yellow bags are second only to pink Conway jumpoffs for street shame. Today, YRB Magazine is, at finest, a monthly mess that mimicks decent scenester magazines like Vice and Mass Appeal. In a six-month span, YRB's cover has been asininely awarded to porn star Tara Patrick at least seven times. The magazine's publisher (think a nepotistic version of Anna Wintour's grocer) manages the magazine like his fellow foremen do a few blocks north in Chinatown's sweatshops. Paid-under-the-table employees average only month-long stints and the office is routinely visited by Immigration officials sniffing out illegal workers and Health Board workers clad in white space suits scanning for gas leaks. During the 2003 winter, with the office heat shut off and the publisher vacationing in the Keys, employees were forced to type in mittens and incinerate a garbage can for a week. With a myriad of lawsuits pending and enraged advertisers hoodwinked by grossly bloated subscription numbers, the publication continues to stay afloat like a Fulton Mall Hip-Hop store manned by gold-toothed Arabs.
The interlopers weren't even burka-clad al qaeda comfort slaves, they were battered homeless women fleeing small-fisted Asian men. But in 2003, the Italians of Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, petrified by the New York Asian Women's Center's plans to open a shelter in a local brownstone, circled up the wagons to beat on the broads some more. Perhaps it was the straw that broke the camel's back after a decade of tight-lipped resentment at the Murray Hill and West Village transplants turning their longtime Italian-American community into a J. Crew, Nantucket beach house. Perhaps it was just a bid at recapturing the limelight lost since the Bensonhurst Beat-a-Black block party in 1992. But no matter their twisted logic, opponents of the shelter promptly formed Carroll Gardens Concerned Citizens, dusted off an old world recipe of xenophobic Ragu, and enacted a series of sleazy NIMBY tactics to keep the shelter from opening. Despite months of picketing the designated brownstone, lobbying local legislatures and slimily broadcasting the shelter’s address with neighborhood posters (secrecy was vital, as many of the women were escaping brutal mates), the shelter still opened last year. The bigots were left bitter, searching for answers in the bottom of Italian ice cups amidst the ever-skyrocketing rents of Brooklyn's answer to Boston.
Since all the felons we roll with hold their AR-15’s illegally (and sideways, squeezing unorthodox), the obvious candidates for firepower fuckery are the good ol’ boys in blue. And, unfortunately for the city’s melaninated masses, there’s no shortage of hogs clapping hammers without proper authorization. And while there’s plenty of jamon in the sty -we’ll skewer our butcher knives into Richard Neri, the officer who “accidentally” shot unarmed teenager Timothy Stansbury on a Bed-Stuy project rooftop. Stripped of his gun and badge pending internal investigation for his deadly stairwell hijinx, Neri was recently tabbed by the PBA (Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association) as a Brooklyn North union delegate. Ironically, one of his duties will be to attend to cops whose cloven hooves have been too itchy on the trigger. There are more dangerous men out there with stashes of high-powered weaponry, but since most of them are holed up in West Texas silos packed high with bomb-making fertilizer and half-a-million rounds of armor-piercing ammunition, Neri gets the nod of disapproval for bearing arms like short-sleeves.
We could care less if someone opts to join a cult, shave their pubic hair into crop circle patterns and give their beloved Jennifer Convertible pleather sofa away to a complete stranger they met while shucking corn at the Grand Army Plaza Farmers’ Market. Our real concern is public worship. And while screamin’ subway preachers are irritating, they are but devout lone wolves, solitary advocates of a divine calling that reverberates only beneath their own matted nest of hair and plaid shirt with soiled armpits. When it comes to organized obnoxiousness, we’ve found ourselves with a conundrum we call “an idiot’s slipknot” -- a virtual draw between the Black Israelites and Falun Gong. Street-preaching Lost Tribesmen, identifiable by their long colorful robes, decadent sashes, pillbox hats and gaudy Magic: The Gathering amulets, are an argumentative lot. Venture through Herald or Times Square and you’ll likely find them denigrating devils, berating homos, lambasting race-traitors and generally being humorless loudmouths in Renaissance Faire garb. On the bright side, if a homo or race-traitor gets offended and engages in an angry debate, prepare for a dosage of top-shelf entertainment. As for the Falun Gong, we’re not really sure what their issue is - something about the Chinese government being oppressive and mean-spirited. While we’ve got no beef with their claim that energy can be harnessed to rotate infinitely as a mass in the lower abdomen (White Castle, we see you), we’re just sick of those blood-covered women crouching in cages. Anywhere a cluster of people can be found - Union Square, anti-war protests, wonton derbies -- there they are, simulating Oriental torture. We already know the Chinese Gov is cruel, doggie, we’re up to our ears in Free Tibet bumper stickers over here. Read more articles in New York » |
What if Rupert's acquisition of the Wall Street Journal is just the beginning? Coming to grips with being famous on the world wide web. A reexamination of St. Patrick's worthiness as the don dada of Irish sainthood. The War Report: Storch versus Timbaland, Chimps versus Humans, Dick Cheney versus Iran. Compared to the thrill of going to war, getting out of one is a tiresome and humiliating business. The Game's new album is pretty good, Fabolous hires a private gumshoe and all Republicans are gay. |
