Friday, July 17, 2009

Non-Megan Stupid

but funny.
(Warning: NYC-centric content ahead)

Punks invade Williamsburg as heroin-addicted hobos set up shop in trendy Brooklyn neighborhood
:

Heroin-addict hobos from around the country are overrunning hipster haven Williamsburg - living in stalled luxury condo projects in the trendy Brooklyn neighborhood.
The newcomers, who call themselves "gutter punks," are stirring outrage among residents and shopkeepers who charge the bums brawl on the sidewalk, shoplift and shoot heroin in trendy cafe bathrooms.
"It's like St. Marks in the '70s," said Williamsburg activist Philip DePaolo, referring to the notorious East Village hangout. "It's the bad old days all over again. There's crack and heroin all over the neighborhood."
Let's take this one step at a time.
It's "new" that there are homeless kids who do drugs in Williamsburg.... yes, if you mean white kids, maybe, and if you mean within the last 2 decades, give or take a few years.
They "call" themselves "gutter punks", because they were fucking with the idiot reporter trying to interview them. And there's a strict policy in Williamsburg since 2005 that if you're going to do a drug in trendy cafe bathrooms here it has to be cocaine. Maybe ecstasy or a vicodin if it's a weekend, but keep it clean, folks. Ask yourself, what would the Strokes do?
As for the St. Marks quote... well, folks, you can judge for yourselves if you've seen both "Midnight Cowboy" and "Flight of the Conchords", if you could tell the difference.
The vagrants - who also call themselves "crusty punks" - swarmed into Williamsburg this spring, drawn by open-minded young people and vacant lots.
Packs of punks and their mangy dogs clog Bedford Ave. in the evenings. They sprawl drunkenly on the sidewalk and heckle hipsters for money and cigarettes.
And may the FSM bless their little junkie hearts for it.
I could mock just about every single word in the damn piece, but instead let me explain how it happened.
One of the two reporters it required to produce this masterpiece moved into Williamsburg in the late winter/early spring, when the homeless kids were either in shelters or had drifted south to avoid the cold. Then, as it reached a temp at night where you can sleep outside comfortably, they magically appeared for the first time ever! This reporter, who had either lived in Manhattan or a dorm room previously, maybe both, was so amazed to see vagrants in Brooklyn (!!) s/he immediately started interviewing them and studying their habits, learning their secret lingo and the inscrutable names they give themselves.
But be warned, and frightened. This new wave of drugged youth is unstoppable in their not particularly violent or criminal.... ummmm, sitting around, the police are telling residents to stay inside and consider preemptive suicide:
Cops said they haven't seen an increase in crime or vagrants, but would monitor the area. "If someone is found trespassing or sleeping in [the lots] ... they will be arrested," said NYPD spokesman Detective Joseph Cavitolo.
Someone should just simply slap the people behind this piece.

(Via Roy's blog at the Voice, I closed the tab and am too lazy to find the url but you know who n what I mean.)

1 comment:

M. Bouffant said...

Local journalism always kills me.

Anything I've ever been even peripherally involved in that's been reported, even in print (obviously tee vee coverage is, by definition, worthless w/o actuality) has been shortened, mangled & made "objective" by the journos.

Feh!