On My Command Unleash Ribs

Tokyo became wearying and hectic, and not in the sense that I sped around neon-lit Pachinko parlours and made crazy karaoke friendz either. The Four Seasons became my gilded prison, and I sat around there viewing how Japanese corporations might benefit from super extraordinary business opportunities in Asia and Latin America. And then I went home again, care of our grouchy but basically well-meaning friends at American.

I'd been rather too busy to scan the news from home, but would now like to note in passing that top utter bastard Bruce Ratner's attempts to tear down my neighbourhood continue apace. Needless to say, the only ugliness that Prospect Heights has ever experienced was at this monster's hands.

In other blighted building news, an acquaintance of mine recently viewed a Gloria Trembicky apartment. One of Gloria's opening gambits was, and I promise that I am not making this up, "so, do you guys like to have heat in the winter?" The real estate broker, an individual that provides conclusive proof of our closeness to reptiles on the evolutionary scale, even tried to say that Gloria was the frequent innocent victim of unbalanced tenants. He then offered to knock $500 a month from the one-bedroom's rent on the spot.

And finally, proof that possibly Brooklynites have been much too restrained at public hearings on the Atlantic Yards project. Nascar has been trying to build a course on Staten Island for a few months now, and has even purchased some land for the purpose. I had thought that maybe they deserved each other, and had not paid too much attention to the subject.

My bad. A recent hearing on the subject erupted into a riot - scuffles, cops, unseemly rhetoric, the lot. Now, we always knew that Staten Islanders were not that well-schooled in the finer points of discourse (Exhibit A: Fossella, Vito), but this was a marvelous display of lunkheadedness from the New Jersey annex. But, the whole thing did dominate the news cycle in a way that the earnest meetings on the Atlantic Yards often fail to do. So I am officially challenging Bruce Ratner to a fight. The parking lot of the Vanderbilt McDonalds. Whenever

What was slightly disconcerting, though, was the suggestion that the construction jobs to be created at the new Nascar track were all going to people who live outside the borough. This is perplexing, since I had assumed that all the union people who wanted the Atlantic Yards jobs lived in Staten Island. More likely, I assume, is that all these jobs will go to people on Long Island, which as we all know is the real enemy. In the mean time, though, Staten island Citizens Against the Track may want to rethink their acronym.

OK, children, posting will enjoy another hiatus for the weekend. I have a party, starts with Bachelor... (See? Means that Gari could be a boy or a girl!) So I'm going to be mostly drunk. Cheers.

The Gotohells - "Drink Poison, Wrestle Snakes"
Buy "Rock N' Roll America" Here. Then fight someone

P.S. The Boy Boutin is right. Myspace has brought instantly to the masses that which previously took awkward teenagers weeks to get to a point suitable for mocking on Portal of Evil.

[UPDATE: Hello, nolandgrabbers. Hardly me finest, is it? Was I drunk? No, just looking forward to it.]