Staten Island Haiku

Just the simple sound

of rocks slapped by water waves

wakes up my dull'd head.

Mockingbird

Hush, baby, have you heard?

One of the greatest joys in my life now is the talented mockingbird in a bush by the entrance of the Staten Island Ferry Terminal. I've never seen him, but I've heard about 30 of his songs. He can imitate blue jays, car alarms, sea gulls, crickets, and a variety of many more avian whistles, diphthongs, and cheers.

Whenever I'm weary, he makes me instantly smile, pause, look at the half-moon and the fireflies that have begun to blaze their green bottoms in the night air. 

My mornings are rushed, my workdays recently have been wearying, and my nights are hungry and dazed until the birds sing in the early blue sky. So I count my colorful joys when I hear them.

Rabid Little Island

Unbelievable - as I was walking home on Staten Island roads in the cool night under a full moon reminiscent of Kuindji, I was surprised to look up and see the Big Dipper. In almost seven years of living in New York, this is the first time I've seen a constallation in the night sky. 

A more typical City experience was the night of my Columbia Orientation party, when I saw the shadows of Midtown buildings reflected onto the sickly vermillion sky and sulfury yellow clouds.

Anyway, I need to catch up on Staten Island news. Let's begin with RABIES!

I credit my friend Alexia with this one. Apparently, between 1992 and 2007, Staten Island had 37.9% of cases of documented rabies in the five boroughs - 133 cases.  That includes 42.4% of rabid raccoons, and 70% of rabid cats. 

In comparison, the Bronx has the lion's share of rabies - 53.0% of all cases, and 52.1% of rabid raccoons! Only one rabid cat, though. Van Cortlandt Park seems to be a breeding ground for the stuff.

Still, Staten Island can claim something none of the other boroughs have - RABID GROUNDHOGS - by the scenic South Shore.  My North Shore just seems to have humdrum rabid raccoons.

Some other tidbits: 

Wednesday, June 11th - Staten Island's two Republican Councilmen hold positions of Minority Whip and Minority Leader - because how many Republican city Councilmen are there? And the Post (of course) notes that a man was arrested for exposing himself to a young woman on the Staten Island Railway. Haven't ridden that yet...

But the worst has to be the New York Times's obnoxious blog, which tried to use clever alliteration to say that Staten Island politics is "part Aeschylus and part E!" But the reporter is referring to the Oedipal struggle of father Frank Powers and son Fran Powers for the Congressional seat - in other words, Sophocles's Oedipal Cycle! If it were Aeschylus's Oresteia, Vito Fossella's underage daughters would be running for office, or at least, killing the Virginia police officer who had arrested the representative for drunk driving. Learn your Classical references, you Times snot.

The past weekend - I completely missed the borough's music festival Rock the Harbor, and I missed the exhibitions and bands showcasing Art by the Ferry, but you can catch the bands performing again this upcoming Saturday. I will be out of town.

All this artmaking again tried to raise the public value of the Island, but another story has overshadowed the Island - mysterious house fires. And they turn deadly.

Fran Powers lost the Libertarian nomination, but he tells the New Yorker he may create a Free Party. To which the New Yorker asks, "get it?"

The Staten Island Yankees lost to the Brooklyn Cyclones 3-1, - and I had to read a Wisconsin website to learn the score?!???

Oh well. At least the Staten Island Russians are happy. As are the Chasids.

So let's drink some Tuscan-style wine, grown at the public expense by my borough president! Prego!

Park for Allie

When you leave my apartment complex, turn left, take the first right and pass the Ambassador, an Art Deco apartment building where Paul Newman once lived. Turn left, and there's Belmont Place, a road of surprisingly large Victorians. Go past the fences and lilies and roses to touch with your lips and you will find the Lt. Lia Playground. On the top level is an extensive jungle gym playground, covered with a round metal latticework, and a fountain spraying jets of water for children to splash. A lower level has a round concrete bench surrounding a tree before a memorial plaque. At my age, Nicholas Lia had been dead in Vietnam for one year.

Come to my park, Allie.   

OMG the Mall

So, it's been a while since I caught up on this thing... I started this post during the tail end of last week's - sing along - HEATWAVE, but the heat turned my brains to jelly. Then, my coworker developed health issues, and so we two remaining web writers of NY1 have had to pick up the slack to get our website going. For whatever reason, the thought of typing and sitting in front of a screen on my off-time from typing and sitting in front of screens bummed me out. Granted, I spent all of yesterday typing and sitting in front of screens, but... well... shut up!

So let's catch up on the past week and change: the heatwave made it the season for "weather stories" on the news! What do New Yorkers do to beat the heat? They express their pride, or stomp on grapes, or go to city-operated cooling centers, which apparently aren't that bad.

My favorite story has to be this reporter in Bergen Country, Jerz who (unwittingly?) expressed contempt for everyone who didn't automatically go to a pool in a hot day. 

Like an obstinate Englishman, I've remained in dark clothes, long sleeves, and frustrated baths of sweat. But one day last week, when my old glasses finally snapped, I took a 50 -minute busride into the interior, to the STATEN ISLAND MALL. It's a very good, two-floor standard-issue agora of our modern version of Hellenism. You can get over-sweet and savory Sakura teriyaki chicken and Bourbon "Cajun" chicken and frisbee-sized cookies in the foodcourt just as you can in any other mall. Macy's is Macy's is Macy's.

For whatever reason, I got a strong lesbian vibe at the mall - I saw many happy Hip Hop lesbian couples strolling, one girl in baseball cap, big T-shirt and jeans, and the one girl in tank top, shorts and long hair. 

The salesperson in LensCrafters regaled me with stories of camping with her girlfriend, and the dangers of straying far from the comforting realm of a proximate LensCrafters. She also sweet-talked me into buying a pair of glasses that will look more like jockish sunglasses. Eh, I'm young enough to still make fashion mistakes. The salesperson was a cool person, she's part of a Staten Island rock band called Bombshell Betty, which has a song about my neighborhood of St. George and which alerts us that there will be NO butt touching! So think not of it!

One last image - the mall is next to a large mound of landfill, looking like it came out of the pre-Columbian Missippian culture. A giant bread loaf of green grass, filled with refuse of past decades. And when I left the mall, new glasses on my face, I saw the dark green landfill loaf against the pink sunset sky. Beautiful Staten Island sunset. 

Hey, tonight as I finish this, I'm into the night owl hours, watching the right-to-die "Mar adentro" (which is really good, the paralyzed man flying to the sea in his dreams - F.U. gringos who didn't like Javier Bardem in that Coen Bros. movie). And right before that, because it was the Kooky Sundance Channel, I found a TV program that actually would make me want to see... 

THE LOVE GURU! That horrible, horrible, horrible upcoming "Austen Powers" rehash, which I first thought was Mike Myers's pathetic attempt at recapturing psychedelic $uce$$ that has evaded his sad Cat-In-The-Hat middle age. And while that is probably true, it is But oh, the horror grows greater, it turns out that this debacle of comedy is Mike Myers's attempt at profound thought. Start with TV Guide for more details, but here's my summary.

Last year, Deepak Chopra and Mike Myers gave a joint lecture at the Magnet Theater, where I've seen much improv and where Allie and I had our first date. The two talked about comedy and the relationship to the spiritual. Life is transient, and laughing is one way of dealing with the imminent tragedy, of looking beyond your own condition and gleaming the . Deepak puts it, "enlightening by lightening up." I came up with a similar conclusion, that laughter is a way for humans to deal with situations they cannot rationalize, comprehend - only I tried to be less pretentious about it.

According to Mike Myers, "The Love Guru" is about "faith vs. choice, self-love, and internal validation vs. external validation." That, and fun with tossing midgets. I can't wait.

I'll stray back to Staten Island, I promise.

"ha-ha" "aha!"

"And a Little Child shall lead them."

Isaiah and William Blake fans rejoice - I don't know whether the Peaceable Kingdom is upon us - but the little children are definitely leading.

In a congressional race that is increasingly looking like a race for Lord of the Manor, the son of the presumptive Republican candidate Francis H. Powers, whose name is Francis M. Powers, is running on the Libertarian ticket.

Claiming there's no Oedipal twinge to his campaign, the Powers son, known as "Fran," is merely running against his father, known as "Frank," on policy differences alone.

Fran's hilarious - compared to his suit-toting father, he looks like a local version of wild-maned Lyle Lovett. And Papa disapproves of his son's "carefree lifestyle," and says little Fran "rejected everyone's help to live a healthy lifestyle" to work in the music industry.

When Fran was asked whether voters would be confused by Francis M. vs. Francis H., he said, "If people can't tell the difference between the Republican Party and the Libertarian Party, maybe they shouldn't be voting."

Should make for a great race.

And in other news, a teenager was the Staten Island Police Commissioner for a day.

No word on whether the lion and the lamb are lying together as well.

Restaurant Week

So, Staten Island Restaurant Week apparently started on Monday. In celebration, let me share with you the place with my friend Chorney and I unwittingly marked the occasion:

Taqueria El Gallo Azteca (yes, the Aztec Rooster)
75 Victory Boulevard
(718) 273-6404

I sorely miss "Taqueria y Fonda" at Amsterdam & 107th from my days at Columbia in White Harlem. While St. George's restaurante muy autentico lacks my old stomping ground's breadth of menu and cornucopia of fresh ingredients, it does have street cred. You're eating freshly made $2 tacos with grilled beef on corn tortillas with mucho cilantro and onions, topped with a homemade medium-spicy green sauce while rubbing elbows with blue-collar Mexican guys. There's Corona, Boing, Jarritos, and many other usual suspects to quench the thirst of La Raza or any pinche gabacho. Three cheers for the cook behind the counter who, while I was eating my tacos, methodically sliced a whole slab of [I think pigs'] brains that was easily three feet by four feet. That sounds like some nice, cholesterol-laden eatin'!

But the reason why I would come back again would be for the $6 tortas. At first, I thought I didn't want a sandwich for dinner, but these huge sandwiches filed an entire plate, were piled with grilled meat, peppers, and onions, and were topped with a globular, butter-glazed bun. DAMN, it looked good - I need to come back to try them.

Also along this beginning stretch of Victory Street - northeast Staten Island's commercial artery - is a Jamaican restaurant, a Polish restaurant and adjacent grocery, a pizzeria, and another [sketchier-looking] Mexican restaurant. Maybe they're too blue collar for Zagat's, but I'm excited at the prospects.

I get off work early on Friday, and will hopefully find a place to *actually* take advantage of Staten Island Restaurant Week, and the SINY Film Festival. They're offering "Dinner and a Movie" specials a-plenty.