What I did with my Batman Movie Masters Chase Figure: WAVE 2, Batman Begins.

The new Batman variant. You know, from the shitty Katie Holmes movie that came out a couple years back.

This operation was moved indoors when I had to try to explain to a passing Miami Beach cop what the fuck I was doing.

“You look like a man who takes himself too seriously.”

“You want my opinion? You need to lighten up.”

DEAR NERDS:

No, the girl in the picture is not me. But I, too, am way too hot for you.

P.S. I do it because nerd tears give me strength.

Someone’s gonna run into ATLAH’s Pastor Manning at the new Target in East Harlem.

Just when I thought the No Dew Nor Rain campaign was starting to take hold…

Forget IKEA: East Harlem Target Looms on Horizon

“Everyone is super excited about the Target.” Everyone! Or at least real estate players like Jessica Armstead of the Corcoran Group, who predicts that the Target store finally coming to fruition in East Harlem will “totally change” the area’s lagging pace of gentrification. “It appeals to everyone,” she tells the Sun. “You go in to get toothpaste and come out with three bags. It’s amazing.” Armstead is already luring condo buyers into East Harlem with the amazing, exciting shopping utopia to arrive any year now.

Currently scheduled to open in October 2009, the store is part of the perennially delayed East River Plaza shopping complex, which will cluster other exciting big box stores such as Best Buy, Marshalls and Home Depot – unless that company decides to sublet its 110,000 space to Costco. The Harlem Target (the first in Manhattan) will join a growing Target army in New York City, with seven currently open and two others under construction in the Bronx and Flushing, Queens. To help inspire shoppers to stimulate the national economy, the Harlem store’s façade will be wrapped in a steel mesh American flag.

And those who recall how the controversy surrounding the Red Hook IKEA tended to split along class lines know how this will play out: Kenneth Knuckles, president of the Empowerment Zone Development Corp., is framing the $440 million project as a chance to provide 2,000 full and part-time jobs to East Harlem residents, who will then “take money they’ve earned and spend it in the community.” But NIMBY brownstone owner (and architect) Raymond Plumey predicts terrible traffic and pollution from consumers flocking to the amazing 485,000-square-foot shopping center, whenever it finally opens.

By John Del Signore

Cocaine Cowboys 2 premiere at Cinevegas.

Cocaine Cowboys 2 premiered at Cinevegas this weekend.

Set in 1991 on the inner-city streets of Oakland, California, cocaine dealer Charles Cosby has his life is changed forever when he writes a fan letter to the “Cocaine Godmother” Griselda Blanco, who is serving time at a nearby federal prison. Six months later, Cosby is a multi-millionaire, Blanco’s lover, and the head of her $40 million a year cocaine business. Also known as “The Black Widow” for her propensity to permanently dispose of her men when she’s done with them, Blanco will stop at nothing to ensure that Charles is faithful to her. Cosby soon learns that he’s in way over his head.

Oh, and from the film, crack cooking 101:

Las Vegas.

Las Vegas is fucking crazy. And ridiculously hot.

“Started out hustlin’, ended up ballin’; nigga I’m the shit, get the fuck up out my toilet…”

Biggie and Tupac are dead; Wu-tang got all whiney; EPMD has had twenty “final shows” at B.B. King’s; Mobb Deep fell off and joined G-Unit…hip hop, as it was, IS dead.

It evolved, and the new shit, especially that coming from the South, is mostly abyssmal.

…but for Lil Wayne. He’s intensely arrogant, yet somehow understated. His lyrics are completely absurd, usually hilarious, and occasionally profound.

To this new era of hip hop, this album will be what The Chronic was to 90’s West Coast shit…what Ready to Die and 36 Chambers were to the East Coast.

Anyway, here’s my friend’s awesome review on Pitchfork. Probably the biggest Wayne fan on the planet.

Even the raccoons are gangsta in Harlem, and 3-1-1 remains utterly worthless.

Harlem: Sometimes-aggressive raccoons are taking over the prime streets around Central Park, and some folks are saying, well, you didn’t see raccoons until the white people started moving in. Just sayin’…

Rampaging raccoons hit Harlem

BY EDEN UNIVER
DAILY NEWS WRITER

Sunday, June 8th 2008, 4:00 AM

Some unwelcome furry friends are on the prowl uptown.

Raccoons have become the scourge of Harlem, residents say, tearing up trash bags, ruining barbecues and even threatening kids.

“We can’t even come outside,” said Dorothy Burrell, 40, who lives on W. 111th St. “It’s a dead street after 8. I had to end my barbecue early on Memorial Day.”

There are more of the oversized residents in the neighborhood than in past years, and they’ve grown more brazen.

“They’re not scared by the cars, by sounds and by noises,” said Keri Denny, 40, a postal worker who also lives on W. 111th St. “I sounded my car alarm at one and it didn’t even move.”

Harlem residents believe the raccoons live in nearby Central Park and emerge from the urban oasis to forage on nearby blocks.

Residents regularly call 311 and complain to the city’s Animal Care & Control. But officials tell them to get a private exterminator or call back if someone gets bitten.

Virgie Spann said she used to think the raccoons were just a nuisance - until they tried to get into her apartment.

“They’re very bold,” said Spann, 70. “My son had his window cracked just a bit and one almost got in.”
***************

I’m just shocked that 311 wasn’t helpful.

A year and a half ago, my ex and I broke down on the Deegan (I-87) in the South Bronx. We called a random tow company and were told that each stretch of highway in NYC was contracted out to ONE specific tow company; no other companies could interfere.

…but they couldn’t- or wouldn’t- tell us which tow company had our stretch. They suggested we call 311.

311 had no information whatsoever. They suggested we call the cops to come sit with us while we tried each of the 500 tow companies in the city and found the one that handled our stretch of the Deegan.

After calling 20 or so companies, one finally sighed and gave me the name of the company that had our stretch of highway.

We rode with the tow truck driver to a car repair shop up around 220th Street (North Bronx). As we passed the scummy crack motels along I-95, he told me about various sexual affairs he’d carried out in many of them. And then, I asked how his tow company had gotten so lucky in obtaining much of the Deegan.

“I’ll tell you this,” he said, smirking. “There are a lotta government employees making thirty, forty thousand a year and driving new Mercedes and BMWs.”

NYC: “still the one pool where I’d happily drown.”

New York is fucking crazy.

A real friendship in NYC is codependent by definition. Good friends are the only way to maintain some sense of stability in such a dynamic, demanding environment. It’s like that shitty sitcom, Friends, except instead of a few irritating douchebags sitting around drinking coffee in a lame neighborhood, we are a network of intoxicated, wound-up social machines. And chaos and craziness are so ingrained in our psyches that to feel calm or- God forbid- bored feels patently inorganic.

If you know me, you’ve heard me bitch about the city pretty consistently for the past few years. I left for ten days before I had to rush back for a city refuel- it felt like a year.

My pathetic week-and-a-half separation gave me clarity.

I love the city. It’s in my blood, and nothing else will ever fit me as well. I was an outcast for most of my life, and NYC opened its cold, dirty arms to me and said, “It’s cool…come here. We’re all fucking neurotic, psychotic, sordid, needy, draining, absurd, and cynical. You’ll totally fit in here. Deadpan humor is an aphrodisiac to the opposite sex. Your quirkiness and intensity…and yes, your sketchy, dangerous vacation tendencies…will be celebrated rather than condemned. Oh, and bars are open ’til 4 am!”

(Crazy taxis.)

That said, I need to study. I need to be bored. I need to be so uninspired by my surroundings that I don’t even really want to go out.

(Central Park Zoo Benefit, Tuesday night. Our chief concern was handling the 9-1 open bar in such a way that we wouldn’t black out later at Bungalow 8.)

In my three days in the city, two people asked me to photograph parties for them this weekend, two people asked me to go to the Hamptons, and honestly, if I’d chosen to stay, I would’ve.

(Yankees game, Thursday afternoon. I hate baseball; it’s excruciatingly boring. But with months until football season, what else is there? We left in the 9th; Yanks pulled it out with a homer at the end. Oh, well.)

But I left. For now.

Kingston, Jamaica (in the midst of a ‘murder wave’).

I love this place.

…but I was too lazy to take many pictures this time.

Fun Facts About Jamaica:
1. Jamaica’s per capita murder rate is #3 in the world (although I seriously lack the reliability of the data, because in countries like Haiti, #17, crimes are much less likely to be reported and reported murders are much more likely to be construed as accidental due to UN presence and reliance on foreign aid. Like, “deceased tripped and fell on a machete…several times.”)

2. In the month of May, ~190 Jamaicans were murdered; most of these killings took place in garrisons.

3. Karl took this video last year in Kevin’s neighborhood. You can hear him at the end saying, “I’m not taking pictures…I’m not taking pictures…” to the cops.

4. JCF (Jamaican Constabulary Force, more commonly referred to as “Babylon”) is more corrupt and inept than the NYPD.

5. I’m not a dancehall fan, but Black Chiney is amazing.

The Block is Hot. No, literally. This always happens in Harlem in the summer.

8 are Wounded in Shootings in Harlem

By ERIC KONIGSBERG and CHRISTINE HAUSER
Published: May 27, 2008

Eight people were shot and wounded late Monday night in Harlem, the police said. Most of the victims were found along a stretch of Lenox Avenue north of 125th Street.

Authorities flooded the area north of 125th Street and Lenox Avenue and blocked off streets as they searched for suspects.

The police said they received a call just after 10 p.m. of a large group of young people leaving Marcus Garvey Park — which is located near Lenox between 120th and 124th Streets — and as the group moved north, shots were fired.

Since the victims were found at different locations, the police were piecing together exactly where each of the shootings took place. A 25-caliber bullet casing was found at the foot of the subway station at 125th St and Lenox Ave.

The police taped off areas near 125th Street and Lenox Avenue, including in front of the Adam Clayton Powell Jr. State Office Building, across from H&M clothing store, as well as just north of 125th Street. Traffic was diverted, and the sidewalks and streets in the area were mostly empty after midnight.

According to an Emergency Medical Services spokesman, the first shooting was reported to authorities at 10:14 p.m., with another at 10:17, two more at 10:19, and two more still at 10:24.

The spokesman said the reports appeared to have come from different locations in the vicinity, including one at 131st Street and Frederick Douglass Boulevard.

There were several places where victims were picked up by paramedics, including at the intersections of Lenox Avenue and 126th, 129th, 130th and 131st Streets; at 131st Street and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard; and on 125th Street at the Adam Clayton Powell State Office Building.

An 18-year-old man was either shot or stabbed in the back and was found lying on a bench at 125th and Lenox, the authorities said.

Officers were checking with hospitals in the area to see if anyone else sought treatment.

A male victim with a gunshot wound to the chest was involved in an apparently unrelated shooting at 131st Street and Lenox Avenue, according to police.

The other seven victims appeared to be in stable condition, the authorities said. They also said that all but one of the victims were male, one of them appeared to be 13 and another appeared to be 16.

They said that they did not know what prompted the shootings, and had not captured anyone as of early Tuesday.

The Police Department ordered scores of officers into the area to hunt for any assailants and to control crowds that had formed on the streets.
************************************

Two summers ago, after a parade, I passed two bodies walking from Lenox and 125th to 133rd. When I passed the second body, a teenage girl outside said, “See? We ain’t even gotta go upstairs to watch CSI…that shit’s happening right here!”

So wrong…but I had to laugh a little.

When the temperature rises, so does the rate of violent crime…that’s why violent crime is so much more prevalent in the South.

One night last June, a friend visiting from Boston urged me to crash at our mutual friend’s place on the Upper West Side rather than commuting back up to Harlem. I finally agreed to*, and the next morning I discovered that, at roughly the same time I would’ve gone home, there had been six shootings within a few blocks of my apartment:

(I’m the red “x”, obviously.)

P.S.
I don’t see why the police are investigating. This is really the best way to solve crimes.

P.P.S. That’s a really crappy Harlem shooting picture. Mine are always crappy, too…but at least I capture some of the essence of the situation. Community members watching the cops mill about:

…or reporters:

…or something.

*None of those bullets would’ve hit me, though. Maybe I’m biased, but shootings in Harlem are typically at specific targets; none of that three-year-old-in-a-minivan-struck-by-a-stray-bullet shit you hear about in the Bronx. (Barring, of course, instances like last night’s open firing psycho and post-parade madness.)

And sadly, while the acquittal of Sean Bell’s murderers did not, as Al Sharpton promised, “shut the city down,” the shooting of a white girl in Harlem certainly would.

Like that time a couple years ago, when the Jewish guy wandered off the MetroNorth at 125th, on his cell phone, dicking with his iPod, head up his ass…was jumped by a couple thug kids…and RAN INTO ONCOMING TRAFFIC! That story was in the Post for weeks. Some kid actually brought that shit up in one of my classes last semester as a black-on-Jew hate crime!

They call ‘em flyover states for a reason.

I don’t know why I thought I liked road trips; I have a bladder the size of a pea (meaning, I constantly have to stop to pee) and I’m an invariably angry driver. Also, I find any part of this country outside of a major metro area (other than the Northeast) to be incredibly banal and depressing.

The drive from NYC to Miami should take roughly 20 hours; due to weather and traffic, mine took roughly 30. Here’s a synopsis of the experience I had driving through the shitty states between New York and Florida: