Posts Tagged ‘MTA’

We were swamped at work and I didn’t get a chance to catch my breath until well into the afternoon. Even if I hadn’t forgotten my lunch at home, I wouldn’t have been able to eat until 4:00 at the earliest. But by then I had gone beyond hunger. Ever been there? When you wait so long to eat that you no longer feel like eating? It’s like your hunger fed on itself until it disappeared.

So I decided that I wouldn’t run out and get something awful in the area (the deli around the corner makes a semi-competent egg sandwich; the owner of the deli two doors down is still mad at me because I refused to comp him a doctor’s appointment; the Chinese buffet next door makes Panda Express look like Shun Lee; the Burger King next door is a Burger King). Instead, I’d wait until we closed at 9:00, hightail it to Zito’s Sandwich Shoppe on 7th Avenue (in Brooklyn, not Manhattan) and get my new most favoritest sandwich ever: The 8-Hour Slow-Cooked Pork Bracciole.

It’s a butterflied loin of pork (from Faicco’s!) stuffed with provolone, garlic, parsley and a pinch of bread crumbs, covered in their deceptively simple tomato sauce, and sprinkled with parmigianno reggiano — all served on a perfect hero (from Brooklyn’s own Il Fornaretto Bakery!). It’s absolutely amazing.

Zito’s closes at 10:00, but I called them at around 8:00 and asked when they stopped taking orders. “10:00 p.m.” Perfect. If I left work at 9:00, I’d be between the Carroll Street station and the 4th Avenue and Ninth Street station (which is an area that gets great cell reception as it isn’t in a tunnel) by 9:45. I’d call in my order and arrive at Zito’s by 10:00 at the absolute latest.

I wasn’t hungry until around 8:30, but from the moment I devised my plan I could only think of that sandwich and how good it would taste when I ate it with my face.

A patient arrived at 8:15, so I started tidying and closing down what I could. He was on his way by 8:50 and I considered calling in my order and telling them that I’d be there in an hour. “Nah,” I thought. “No need. My plan is foolproof.”

Cut to 9:30, when we actually locked up.

I calmly walked to the R train, frantically doing math problems in my head (what if I get off the train just before 10 and call in the order and then get back on the train — would that work?). I didn’t see myself getting a sandwich. So I started considering the places near Zito’s that would still be open. Mediocre pizza, horrendous Mexican, Dunkin’ Donuts, Rite Aid… nothing really tickled my fancy. Then I heard the R train coming. I raced down the stairs and then raced up the other stairs (I hate you, Cortland Street station) and made it onto the Brooklyn-bound R. I looked at my watch phone. It was 9:35.

“Hmmm… I could get to Jay Street by 9:48… if there’s an F train there by 9:53, my plan will still work!”

I maneuvered through the train so that I was standing exactly where the entrance to the escalator at Jay Street would soon be. When we arrived at the station, I hurriedly climbed the escalator (it’s like walking fast on an airport treadmill except not fun and it makes me wheeze). In all the time I’ve made this commute, there has never been an F train waiting for me at Jay Street. Tonight, there was. At the doors closed as soon as I started down the steps toward it. A crazy person was loudly trying to seduce a morbidly obese station agent as she pretended to sweep the floor. It offered me no succor. I would arrive home sandwichless.

An F came about 10 minutes later. When we were finally out of the tunnel, I called Zito’s. It was 10:02.

“Zito’s, how can I help you?”

“He wants to help me!” I thought. “A place that wasn’t taking orders wouldn’t offer me assistance!” I tried to hide my giddyness from the dead-in-the-eyes commuters surrounding me. “Are you still taking orders?” I asked.

“Sorry, no. We’re no longer taking delivery orders. We stop at 10. Have a good night.”

***

But… but… what of his offer of help? What did he expect me to ask for that he would have been able to aid me with? “Would it be possible for me to not order a sandwich?” I was gutted. But then I had another thought. They aren’t taking delivery orders, but what of pick-ups? What of pick-ups? We were back underground, but I started to feverishly imagine various scenarios wherein I exit the subway and call and ask to make a pick-up order and am told, “Sure thing!” or that I arrive just as they’re about to throw away a pile of unclaimed but perfectly OK sandwiches or that I appeal to the kindness of Zito and he smiles and nods and hands me the sandwich that he had been saving for me all along.

[Full Disclosure: I don't think anyone who works at Zito's is named Zito.]

I started walking towards the shop and saw their sign was still illuminated. “That’s a good sign,” I thought. Then I thought about what a horrible pun that was and winced. I crossed the street and approached their door. As I did, I noticed people sitting and eating. Then, as I was about to reach for the knob (and feign surprise when I found it locked), someone opened it to take out the trash. I saw my opportunity and seized it.

The first employee who saw me wasn’t any of the three guys behind the counter. They all had their backs turned to me and were dealing with various closing duties. No, the one who immediately took notice of me was one of the cooks. He had a slight note of “you’ve got to be kidding me” on his face. I smiled weakly at him and waited by the register. Finally, someone turned around and asked if he could help me.

“Can I get a sandwich to go?”

He looked at the cook, then at his register, then at me — all while wearing a mask of “please notice that I am trying to make it clear that you cannot.”

I would accept a “no,” but he would have to say it to me. I wouldn’t say it to myself. At this point I was getting deliriously hungry.

“…OK,” he surrendered. The cook rolled his eyes. I didn’t care.

I sat down to wait. I could hear various people saying, “I told him not to take out the trash yet” and “lock the damn door” and “we’re supposed to be closed by now” and “what is wrong with him?” I went from fearing that I cost someone their job to wondering if the last remark was directed at me to not caring about anything except bracciole. In fact, I started imaging the man getting killed by his co-workers for unknowingly letting me in and, at his peasant funeral, a rockslide wiping his entire family out. I imagined everyone at Zito’s pointing and laughing at me for being so pathetic that I needed to swindle my way into a meal. None of it mattered to me. I just wanted my dinner.

After what seemed like two minutes (but might have been three), I was handed my sandwich. I profusely thanked the man who handed it to me. Then I profusely thanked the man who unlocked the door to let me out. I almost started to cry.

It took me another 25 minutes to get home, but I didn’t care. As soon as I walked in the front door, I washed my hands, ripped open the foil and paper casing and did unspeakable, inhuman things to my first real meal of the day (the semi-competent egg sandwich I ate at 8:00 a.m. doesn’t count).

You know what? This would be a terrible movie.

We closed early today, so I went to Target to see if I could find Teresa a nice treat. Memo to self: NEVER DO THAT AGAIN (especially on December 24th but also, ever).

So I went down 5th Avenue (in Brooklyn, not Manhattan), got some Chinese take-out and have settled into bed for an old-school Christmas like I used to have when I was single:

(Teresa is at our friend’s Christmas party but the MTA and my job are not conducive to my raging in Williamsburg tonight)

I didn’t make a holiday wage at my not-in-a-Seattle-movie-theater job (which I actually enjoy), but other than that this song feels especially appropriate.

Also, I drank vodka all day and wound up naked in front of the patients.

Happy Holidays!

This is the cover in the Post’s cover archives:

But the one I got has a much darker picture:

It also has a thumb.

Yes, the NYPD raided Zuccotti Park (a few hours after I left my clinic’s grand opening) and evicted everyone that was there. Here’s some video that was shot in front of my clinic:

There are a lot of other videos, but most of them are shaky and/or have bad sound (that’s what happens when Mayor Bloomberg doesn’t let professional journalists and news crews in to do their jobs). Lots of screaming, lots of protesters being punched, thrown to the ground, bloodied… but the Post devotes almost all of pages 4 and 5 to Breasts, but no bust, for Zuccotti Pk. gal’s naked aggression. Laura Cavanaugh’s photo alone takes up more than half of page 5:

(The caption is 99% NUDE: A cop locks his eyes forward yesterday as an Occupy Wall Street protester bares her, um, grievances in Zuccotti Park.)

“Despite the fact that it is against the law in New York City to expose your genitals — an act punishable by summons or arrest — NYPD officers completely ignored the woman — instead focusing only on gawkers who stopped to take photos, ordering them to move along.” Even the police recognized that this was a non-story, but it still gets more coverage than last night’s raid.

B’also? The Post names Bill Csapos, 57, a disabled construction worker from Tennessee, first as an “organizer” of OWS and then as “the leader.”

And Erik Kriss’ slim article next to the photo of the naked lady (DA lets Albany ralliers slide) begins, “State Police are making good on Gov. Cuomo’s vow to arrest Occupy Albany protesters who defy the curfew at a state park at the Capitol, but the district attorney is refusing to prosecute the cases.” And who is that DA again? “David Soares, the ultra-liberal Democrat whose campaign for office was bankrolled by lefty billionaire George Soros.” It’s important to know that George Soros funded Soares’ campaign because Soros is evil because he’s very rich and uses his money to help politicians he agrees with. Not like those nice Koch Brothers, who the Post has never written (and will never write) an unkind word about.

Patti LaBelle is being sued by a neighbor [Roseanna Monk] who claims that the singer shouted profanities at her so loudly that it frightened her 18-month-old “so badly she suffered ‘personality changes, sleep disorder’ and ‘increased fear of strangers’… [Her daughter] was crying so hard she vomited, Monk said.”

[insert joke about LaBelle "wigging out"]

Jerry Sandusky’s attorney, 63-year-old Joe Amendola, “was the attorney on Mary Iavasile’s emancipation petition filed Sept. 3, 1996, just weeks before her 17th birthday… That’s approximately when Iavasile became pregnant with Amendola’s child.”

The prosecution rests.

The MTA is claiming that their brilliant plan to remove garbage cans from a handful of subway stations is a success.

“‘So far we are not seeing a greater amount of trash [left behind],’ said New York City Transit President Thomas Prendergast… ‘The number of bags that we generate [for removal] is down about a third.”

So there’s only two-thirds as much garbage in stations that have no garbage cans. Only the MTA could call that a success.

In a somewhat related story, there have been 200% more rapes and 300% more burglaries on subways in 2011 than there were in 2010.

Keep up the incredibly shoddy work, guys.

Page Six (today on pages 20 and 21) refers to Michael Moore as “the ‘1-percent filmmaker’ who’s under scrutiny for owning a lavish lakefront home in Michigan and a Park Avenue pad.”

What does Moore’s net worth have to do with the argument he’s making? In fact, wouldn’t a person demanding higher taxes on the wealthy be considered more noble if he was wealthy?

This is a terrible newspaper.

More MTA news!

Nancy Shevell “skipped the boring old MTA committee meeting yesterday after a weekend of globetrotting with hubby Paul McCartney.”

Why is she still on the MTA’s board? Does anyone know? Is it because the rest of the board cares just as little as she does?

Over on page 36, Geoff Earle reports (in an article smaller than the Sudoku puzzle next to it) that Sharon Bialek’s ex-boyfriend (Dr. Victor Zuckerman) has come forward to corroborate her claim that she was sexually harassed by Herman Cain.

In a related story, Carl Campanile reports that Cain told GQ magazine that “A manly man don’t want [a pizza] piled high with vegetables! He would call that a sissy pizza.”

Cain is becoming the kind of candidate that most people would like to throw a beer at.

Rich Lowry’s ‘Lazy’ Isn’t America’s Problem begins, “President Obama was wrong to say at the Asia-Pacific economic summit that America has gotten ‘lazy’ in the last few decades at attracting foreign investment.”

That sentence is full of words. Rick Perry? Can you translate it for me?

“That’s what our president thinks wrong [sic] with America? That Americans are lazy? That’s pathetic.” So says the governor of Texas. But is that really what Obama said? I’ll let Lawrence O’Donnell take it from here.

Why do I have a hunch that most of the people who read the Post (and watch Fox) will come away from articles like this one thinking that Obama called them lazy?

The editorial Time’s Up, Children applauds Bloomberg’s raid last night, calling it “a long-overdue fumigation of the festering mess at Zuccotti Park.” It further justifies the mass eviction with “Threats to disrupt rush-hour subway service appeared on fliers around Lower Manhattan. Just who was responsible for them wasn’t clear…”

…but kudos to Bloomberg for assuming it was a credible threat and that it was made by Occupy Wall Street.

“But the fact is that no right — the First Amendment included — is absolute.”

Unless it’s the right to bear arms.

The PULSE section features a three-page piece on what the best new toys are this season and who you should buy them for. For example, Ugly Ted is a teddy bear “so ugly that he’s actually adorable. And so is his message — to teach kids to treat others with love and respect, no matter who they are or how they look.” And who does author Wendy Straker Hauser recommend you buy Ugly Ted for?

“BUDDING POLITICIANS.”

And that’s Tuesday.

More to come…

“Penn State fans defiantly supported their fired coach Joe Paterno yesterday, chanting ‘JoePa!’ during the Nittany Lions’ 17-14 loss to Nebraska.” I find it amusing that the Post is chastising college students for their blind allegiance to Joe Paterno while continuing their blind allegiance to the GOP and their failed policies.

Stones, glass houses, pot, kettle, etc.

“The Bronx’s largest gay-rights group [Bronx Pride] is unfurling its rainbow flag tomorrow at its new headquarters — ironically located in a building funded by, and named after, the city’s No. 1 gay-marriage opponent, state Sen. Ruben Diaz [the Rev. Ruben Diaz Gardens].”

This makes me so happy.

“Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi resigned yesterday.”

Farewell, grotesque lech. We hardly knew ye. But still we knew too much.

Candice M. Giove’s EXCLUSIVE on page 8, Dollars and dissents: OWS costs local biz … $479,000! begins, “It makes no cents. The Occupy Wall Street movement has cost surrounding businesses $479,000 so far, store owners said.” The store owners don’t offer any proof to back up that figure, but who needs proof when you’re writing a story for the New York Post?

Bottom line: The OWS protesters are all filthy and ignorant and costing honest businesspeople lots of money.

Case closed!

B’also? I just saw this (NSFW) video on Facebook. It’s well worth 15 minutes of your time:

“Actress Piper Laurie describes Ronald Reagan — who played her dad in a movie and then bedded the 18-year-old virgin off the set — as an insensitive ’show-off’ in bed in her new memoir, Learning to Live Out Loud.”

“‘It was my first love affair,’ she said. But the bedroom romp later that night was ‘without grace. He made sure I was aware of the length of time he had been “ardent.” It was 40 minutes,’ she writes. ‘And he told me how much the condom cost.’ Then, sensing Laurie was less than enthused by the experience, he insulted her. ‘There’s something wrong with you. You should have had many orgasms by now — after all this time. You’ve got to see a doctor,’ he said.”

No wonder the GOP considers Reagan a hero — when today’s middle- and lower-class complain about getting fucked by the policies of the GOP, the GOP tells them they’re crazy and they should actually be grateful.

“Thousands of New Yorkers may have been exposed to cancer-causing drinking water aboard a flotilla of luxury cruise liners, according to a bombshell report. A defective paint was used inside water tanks on as many as 50 ships owned by Royal Caribbean, Norwegian Cruise Line and other companies, according to the Sunday Times of London.”

The manufacturer of the paint (Hempel) was able to hide the fact that the paint was “capable of leeching the toxin acrylonitrile — a tumor-causing probable carcinogen — into the water” because of a court order designed to “gag whistle-blower Brian Bradford.”

“Bradford discovered a black residue on tanks, told Norwegian Cruise lines about it, and was axed.”

I wonder if I can sue the Post for sending me on that cruise years ago…

“A Japanese toilet maker has built the Neo, a part-motorcycle, part-porcelain throne that is powered by sewage and includes a giant roll of TP on the back.”

I found a picture of it at Oddity Central:

Imagine driving down a highway and being flagged down by someone who begs you to crap in his motorcycle.

(Fun Lie: That was the original chorus of John Lennon’s “Imagine.”)

Page Six is on page 16 today.

“Seven New Yorkers have filed claims totaling $27 million against the city and the MTA for injuries caused by cracked sidewalks on a 14-block span of the Upper East Side, where construction of the Second Avenue Subway is under way.”

And they’ll get at least half that.

And the MTA will use that as an excuse for the inevitable delay of the line’s completion.

ASK ASHLEY!

Money has been super-tight lately. I feel pretty comfortable during budget-tightening times. I like brown rice enough, and cheap beer is fine by me. I’ve just started dating a girl I really like, and I want to be able to do special things for her. She’s down to earth, so it’s not like she’ll bolt if I don’t go all-out, but I’d still like to impress her. Do you have a couple of suggestions for knock-her-socks-off dates that won’t make me go broke? — Glenn, Williamsburg

ASHLEY: “The good news is you can totally impress her using just your charm and a little brainstorming.”

ME: “The bad news is you’re incapable of brainstorming, which is why you’re asking a hooker for dating ideas.”

ASHLEY: “It’s not so much where you go or what you do. If you two are compatible, it will make Shake Shack your own personal Babbo.”

ME: “Only a prostitute would select Shake Shack as a place to have a cheap, romantic date. It’s always crowded, it’s overpriced and it isn’t as good as the hype… just like Ashley Dupre’s vagina. (rimshot)”

A cute guy has asked me out a few times via Facebook and text. Each time I say, sure. Then he disappears until I get another message from him weeks or months later saying, “We never went out. Are you still game?” I feel like Charlie Brown having the football pulled away. He just reached out again. Do I reply? — Bella, Fort Greene

ASHLEY: “Yes, reply, but carefully.”

ME: “No, unless you take pride in being a doormat.”

Chazz Palminteri claims that his love of the New York Yankees prevents him from ever wearing another team’s paraphernalia. Ever.

“There were a couple of movies where they wanted me to wear a Mets hat and I said ‘no.’ And the director was really insistent and I said, ‘Look, get somebody else. I can’t wear the hat.’ And they said, ‘Chazz, you’re a character. It’s not you.’ I said, ‘I can’t put it on. I can’t do it’… I couldn’t put on another uniform unless it was a Yankee hat or a Yankee uniform. I swear on my mother and father I couldn’t do it.”

I’m going to watch A Bronx Tale again, to pay tribute to this wonderful man. And also to see that actor who’s in prison for robbing a house with the guy who shot a cop as they were escaping.

And that’s Sunday.

More to come…

Sexy lady in lingerie + man fired for not reporting rape of 10-year-old boy = the sexiest/unsexiest cover on the newstands.

Incidentally, this made me smile (if you don’t know why, don’t worry about it — the explanation isn’t worth it):

An audit by state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli has revealed that a Metro-North signals unit “padded their paychecks with more than $1 million in unnecessary overtime by manipulating work rules designed to keep passengers safe.”

Over “two dozen railroad-signal workers on the Harlem and Hudson lines” were paid “for zero work.”

“‘If I had to name the top five jobs in this country, this would have to be, hands down, No. 1,’ Anthony Picano told auditors. Of the $145,453 he made last year, he was paid $28,685 for doing nothing. The waste of taxpayer funds involved supervisors green-lighting employees to work 7:30 to 4 p.m. shifts, even though their jobs couldn’t be started until later, when service slowed down. The workers would then rack up obscene amounts of OT by staying late to get the work done. And once any railroad worker is on the job for more than 12 hours, he or she automatically gets a fully paid ‘rest shift’ as required under a federal safety law.”

You know what would make MTA and Metro-North employees think twice about committing fraud like this? If the people who get caught doing it are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

“Bronx police-union delegates — furious over the handling of the NYPD ticket-fixing scandal — yesterday called for their leader’s head and then stormed out of a meeting when he refused to step down, sources told The Post. In a pre-planned protest, as many as 500 as many as 400 about 50 Bronx delegates from the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association stood and demanded the ouster of PBA President Pat Lynch at the union’s general meeting at a Queens catering hall.”

Following the meeting, Lynch had those delegates pepper-sprayed and beaten with sticks.

Geoff Earle’s Fir-get Christmas-tree fee begins, “Call it a Christmas miracle: The feds are chopping a new 15-cent fee on Christmas trees just a day after the Grinch-like idea was announced. The fee, published Tuesday in the Federal Register, was sought by a group of growers and is backed by the National Christmas Tree Association… The tax scheme got panned after it was reported on a blog written by Heritage Foundation honcho David Addington, and the White House caved before President Obama could be painted as a Scrooge.”

1) I’m sure Jesus is thrilled that Geoff considers not paying an extra $0.15 for your Christmas tree a Christmas miracle.

2) In all honesty, if the price of your tree went up $0.15, would you even notice?

3) Someone from the Post is praising something that the Heritage Foundation said or did? What are the odds!

4) Apparently it wasn’t too late to paint Obama as a Scrooge, as demonstrated by Geoff’s article.

Philip Messing and Bob Fredericks’ NYPD IS RABBLE ROUSED: Elite detectives at OWS explains that “The NYPD has moved three elite Manhattan homicide detectives and a deputy chief to the raucous Occupy Wall Street protest in response to a rash of sex attacks, thefts and vandalism.” None of which constitutes a homicide.

“[S]ome cops called it a waste of manpower. ‘Sending homicide detectives to investigate vandalism and lost-property cases is a little much,’ chuckled one police official. Another police official called it an overreaction, adding, ‘If you have graffiti on your mailbox, call up and see how long it’ll take to get a criminal-mischief report filed.’”

But why would the NYPD send “elite” homicide detectives to an area that hasn’t had a homicide? Might the daily fear-mongering of the Post be at least partially responsible?

[SPOILER: Yes.]

…

This is as far as I got many days ago. I am now sitting on seven issues of the New York Post. I’m going back to work on Saturday and Sunday, so I can’t catch up on the weekend. And on the days that I work, I leave before Teresa is awake (usually at 7:30 a.m.) and get home exhausted (usually at around 10:30 p.m.). I miss my wife.

So here’s what I’m going to (try to) do.

Tomorrow (Friday), I am going to get up bright and early and try to get through as many horrible newspapers as I can. I can no longer devote three-six hours a day to each entry in this blog, but traffic has never been higher and the feedback has never been more complimentary (with the exception of the phone call I got from an attorney friend of Mr. Andrea Peyser [Mark Phillips] requesting [unofficially, he claimed] that I remove all references to Phillips being a possible [REDACTED] — more on that in a moment), so I don’t want to just take a vacation or discard the last week’s papers. I want to ride the site’s momentum to fame and fortune. Just bear with me while I try and figure out how to keep doing this without destroying my marriage and mind.

Despite the precedent set by Isaac Eiland-Hall, the man behind GlennBeckRapedAndMurderedAYoungGirlin1990.com, it occurred to me (after the aforementioned friendly chat with his attorney friend) that Mark Phillips is not a public figure and he doesn’t write hateful and ignorant screeds for a living. I have no beef with him. In fact, I have great sympathy for the man. It can’t be easy to share a bed with Mandrea — I have a hard enough time looking at the heavily airbrushed photo at the top of her columns.

Therefore, over the next few days, I will go into the archive and remove all references to Mr. Phillips being a suspected [REDACTED]. Additionally, I’d like to apologize to him. I was (clumsily) trying to make a statement about the spurious logic of his spouse (and the paper she works for).

To be clear: I have never seen or heard anything at all that would imply that Mark Phillips has ever been guilty of anything. His reputation, as far as I know, is impeccable. And if one can have unimpeachable ethics despite not killing Andrea Peyser despite having numerous opportunities on a daily basis, then Phillips has those, too. And I am sincerely sorry for ever implying otherwise (regardless of satirical intent).

See you all tomorrow.

Last night was the grand opening party of the place I work. My co-workers and I tied balloons around our storefront and hung banners. As we did, I noticed what seemed like an inordinate amount of police cars. But I was told that that’s what the NYPD have been doing every night. Just before we went inside (at around 5:30 p.m.), I saw a group of men (I remember thinking they were sanitation workers despite being in street clothes, but now I can’t remember why) see their friend (or co-worker) in the street and tell him “not to stay out too late.” They all laughed.

I thought it was weird that a policewoman stopped by our party (which was supposed to end at 8:00 p.m.) at around 8:30 to see when we planned on closing.

I honestly felt something in the air when I went home at around 9:15. Zuccotti Park seemed quieter than usual to me. Maybe this is why:

What am I going to see when I get out of the subway at Cortland Street on Tuesday morning? Will I still be able to smell the tear gas and pepper spray? Is there any damage to my office? I’m watching the Global Revolution livestream, but they aren’t at Zuccotti Park right now.

I’ll get to work early and try to take some pictures.

I work across the street from Ground Zero. I work across the street from Zuccotti Park.

I work on Liberty Street.

I spent more time today trying to get to places — all of them in Brooklyn — than I did at the places themselves (and one of them was a two-hour rehearsal). But rather than post a very small percentage of the entry I’m writing on Thursday’s paper, I am going to post a movie poster that made me laugh.

The movie isn’t a comedy. But the fact that no one told the filmmaker why Brownian Movement might not be the wisest title for a drama, is.

Tomorrow is another 12+ hour shift (followed by our official grand opening party!), so there probably won’t be a posting until later in the evening.

Sorry for falling behind.

Blame the MTA.

Last night I worked a 13½-hour shift and went right to sleep when I got home. Now I am (and have a) super behind. Additionally, the F train is not stopping at our station this weekend, so getting to and from tonight’s show will be even more time-consuming than usual. But I will try to get through as much of these horrible newspapers as I can over the next two days, starting with…

I’m not sure who came up with the follow-up headline HE JUST CAIN’T REMEMBER HER: Herman says no way he harassed No. 4, but Kate Sheehy, Geoff Earle and S.A. Miller’s piece informs us that Cain remained defiant (at yesterday’s press conference) “even though he acknowledged that ‘there will probably be others’ coming forward to accuse him, fueled by his political enemies.”

The article also features not only what might be my favorite sentence about Herman Cain of all time (“Cain acknowledged that there’s a ‘remote’ possibility that his memory could just be failing him, but he doubted it.”), but also my new favorite Herman Cain quote (“Sexual harassment is a very serious charge. Yes, I have seen instances… and if I saw it… I dealt with it immediately. [But] it’s not just men who harass women. I also have seen situations where women sexually harass men.”).

Cain’s explanation of the alleged sexual harassment that accuser #4 (Karen Kraushaar, 55) is accusing him of is a close second (“One day in my office at the NRA, I was standing next to Ms. Kraushaar, and I gestured… [and said], ‘You’re the same height as my wife,’ because my wife came up to my chin.’”).

And, in the last four paragraphs of the 41-paragraph article, we learn about Donna Donella, 40, of Arlington, Virginia. (aka Accuser #5).

Kate Sheehy also tells us about two women (one of whom Andrea Peyser recently cited anonymously) who have come forward to discredit Sharon Bialek — Chicagoan Amy Jacobson, who allegedly saw Bialek talking to Cain last month at a Tea Party rally (“It sort of looked flirtatious.”), and Mandrea’s source, Anna Alexander, 64, of Queens (“I got a phone call [from Bialek] one day. I thought she was calling to wish me happy birthday. She was sobbing and crying that she was going to lose her apartment. She said, ‘Please help me out’… She said, ‘I will give it to you when I have it. In the meantime, go on welfare.’”).

The Post is treating the allegations leveled by these two women against Bialek as far more credible than the allegations being made by the two three four five women against Cain.

Correction

“The Post incorrectly reported that bettors pumped $15 million into the slot machines and electronic table games [at the Aqueduct racino]. The correct figure was $177.85 million.”

I had really high hopes for MTA finally gets it: ‘Patience’ wears thin, until I read it. It isn’t about the MTA making the trains run more frequently — it’s about how the end of their announcements have been changed from “Please be patient” to “Thank you for your patience.”

“‘How patient can I be?’ griped Deborah Draughton, 47, of Queens. Considering that her regular route — the problem-plagued F line — recently underwent substantial construction, she pointed out, ‘We’re already patient as it is.’” Actually, the substantial construction starts on Monday. Good try, though, Julia Marsh and Jennifer Fermino.

“Joshua Echevarria, 19, a Brooklyn subway rider, noticed the change on the M train recently. He shrugged it off. ‘At the end of the day, “we apologize, sorry for the inconvenience” doesn’t make a difference,’ he said. ‘If we’re late, we’re late.’” Amen, brother.

Candy Spelling, widow of Aaron and mother of Tori, won $90,000 in a single slot machine pull in Las Vegas. Three years ago, she won a $180,000 slots jackpot. The year before, she won a $200,000 slots jackpot. She also won a Toyota Prius in a charity raffle in 2007.

“She recently sold her 123-bedroom Los Angeles mansion for the bargain-basement price of about $85 million. That was reportedly $65 million below her original asking price.”

She’s very wealthy, even if you don’t count all of the money she made as singer/songwriter Paul Williams.

Post Wire Services is credited with the eight-sentence Ohio union victory, about the state’s rejection yesterday of Gov. John Kasich’s recent anti-union law (Kasich, a Republican, isn’t mentioned anywhere in the article).

Sentence #2: “The legislation, which would have allowed the more than 350,000 workers to bargain on their wages, would have banned ther right to strike, and eliminated binding arbitration or promotions based solely on seniority.”

Sentence #5: “Labor and business interests poured more than $30 million total into yesterday’s referendum.”

Sentence #8: “Also in Mississippi, voters rejected a referendum asking that life be defined as beginning at conception.”

This is a terrible newspaper.

There’s a lot about Joe Paterno and Jerry Sandusky and Penn State, but the only thing I want to share with you from Tim Bontemps and Leonard Greene’s A tragic end of the ‘Lion’ as Penn State gets set to sack Coach Paterno is this: “The backlash against Paterno has been mounting like an aggressive pass rush ever since child sex-abuse charges were leveled last week against Sandusky.” See what they did there?

Mike Vaccaro’s Sad flicker from beacon of integrity is less flippant and more heartfelt (albeit mildly confusing). “But even for Joe Paterno, there is a difference between what is legal and what is right… Penn State is a marvelous university. It has clearly tried to do what is proper across the decades. But it is no more infallible in its own world than the Catholic Church is in its world. I was raised in a parish ransacked by a rogue priest; I was subjected to many days and nights of inappropriate behavior, spared the worst of it by a saying the nuns would drill into us: There but for the grace of God go I. Others were not so fortunate.”

So… Vaccaro knew there was a priest molesting his peers, but he wasn’t molested because the nuns said “there but for the grace of God go I” to him a lot? Am I missing something?

Vaccaro doesn’t mention what happened to that priest — or if he ever reported the sexual abuses that “others” were subjected to. But he does spend an entire page shaming the various Penn State officials for not reporting Sandusky’s actions.

In Cain’s ‘time’ bomb, Michael Goodwin writes, “Polls showing that Herman Cain hasn’t lost much support over allegations of sexual harassment remind of the story of the man who jumps off a 40-story building. As he passes the 20th floor on the way down, he’s heard saying, ‘So far, so good.’ Be patient. It takes time, as much as two weeks, for most events to work their way through the political bloodstream. Ordinary voters don’t pay rapt attention to the daily drip of campaign drama the way pros and pundits do… Herman Cain, despite the denials, is about to hit bottom.”

Let’s see where Cain is in the polls on November 23rd.

Page Six (today on pages 12, 13 and 14) reports that Jennifer Aniston now has an “incredible bosom” and is probably pregnant (by Justin Theroux). But she recently told Hello! that “she was neither engaged nor pregnant. She explained: ‘It’s just I quit smoking, so I’ve gained a couple of pounds.’” Congratulations to Jennifer for whichever part(s) of that story isn’t a lie.

And in Oscars fire Ratner, Page Six reports that “director Brett Ratner was last night dramatically fired as producer of the Oscars after making bizarre remarks including, ‘Rehearsal is for fags.’” Five sentences later: “The Academy said in a statement: ‘[Ratner] did the right thing for the Academy [by resigning].’” I guess Oscars fire Ratner by accepting his resignation was too long for headline.

Finally, Elliott Gould talked about his friendship with Groucho Marx after a recent screening of California Split. “I once changed a light bulb over his bed, and he told me, ‘That’s the best performance I’ve ever seen you give.’ I said, ‘Well, that’s the best review I ever got.’” Neither man was kidding.

Cindy Adams writes, “Although Leonardo da Vinci passed away weeks ago, he’s returning. Coming is a film about his youth.” I wonder if Cindy will play herself.

B’also? “Question: A lifesaving paramedic makes $30,000 a year. A slam-dunk basketballer earns $20 mil. What’s wrong with this picture?” That you’re still alive?

B’also’also? “Murray Kellman sent [this query]: ‘Why drive on a parkway and park on a driveway?’” And Steven Wright’s attorney is sending him a cease-and-desist letter.

Heavy D (real name: Dwight Arrington Myers) passed away at the age of 44.

He will be remembered and then missed.

“The Obama administration cautiously offered up more areas in the Gulf of Mexico and off Alaska’s coast to oil and gas drilling yesterday. But the proposal didn’t go far enough to satisfy Republicans.”

Really? That’s so weird.

“A hulking, beer-guzzling rugby jock suffered a stroke in a freak training accident — and woke up gay. Chris Birch was a straight, 266-pound Welsh bank worker who liked sports, girls and booze and was engaged to his girlfriend before the lifestyle-changing event. Now he’s a 154-pound hairdresser who bleaches his tresses and lives with his 19-year-old boyfriend above his salon.”

Before:

After:

Fabulous.

Jennifer Fermino’s DA: No spit, Sherlock! claims, “Law enforcement is mulling a plan to use DNA samples to prosecute expectorating hotheads who hock loogies on transit workers.” I guess I’d better stop.

“From the beginning of the year through October, 145 bus and subway workers were spit on, officials said.” Maybe a better (and cheaper) way to make the number of (alleged) salivacides go down is to not award the (alleged) victims six months of paid leave (or to not give people numerous valid reasons to spit on MTA workers).

Over on page 32, you’ll find Kate Sheehy’s tiny article A win for BamCare.

“The conservative-leaning US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia upheld a lower-court ruling that defended President Obama’s universal-health-care package as constitutional, despite the fact that the law will force all Americans to buy insurance or pay a penalty… A lawsuit brought by Pat Robertson’s American Center for Law and Justice contends not only that Americans should not be forced to buy health insurance, but also that Obamacare [sic] discriminates against those whose religious beliefs are anti-medicine.”

I’d forgotten how stupid Pat Robertson’s followers are.

Danny Gold’s Thief nailed at Zuccotti reports that “a raging lunatic” was caught stealing money from “a plumber who was taking up a collection for himself and 9/11 first responders” who knocked him unconsciousness. “When he regained consciousness, cops escorted him several blocks away but did not arrest him. Several protesters said the man has been harassing them for days.”

And people wonder why the Occupy Wall Street protesters don’t report more crimes to the NYPD.

(but only really stupid people)

John Podhoretz spends most of A Pack of Scandal Addicts: Media’s insane Cain obsession reprimanding the media for spending so much time on the sexual-harassment allegations against Herman Cain (as Bart Simpson once said, “The ironing is delicious.”). He also explains Twitter: “You can’t underestimate the attraction of Twitter to people like me who’ll always wonder whether we should have tried stand-up comedy earlier in our careers. A Tweet [sic] is basically a one-liner. ‘Take my wife — please’ was a Tweet [sic] half a century before Twitter’s creators were even born.”

John? I recommend trying stand-up much later in your career. Much, much later.

“Now you can add bigoted comments to the list of challenges facing Carsten Kengeter, the head of UBS’s investment banking operation… At the dinner with banking heads of several divisions inside the embattled bank, held to discuss strategy and rally the troops, Kengeter, 44, implored the bankers to make a more concerted effort to streamline the firm and likened the strategy to slashing expenses like a ‘Jewish shopkeeper.’”

Fun Fact: Kengeter was born in Germany, as were negative Jewish stereotypes.

MOVIE REVIEW!

Lou Lumenick gives three and a half stars to J. Edgar (“Clint and Leo ‘a dress’ the rumors in fascinating biopic”).

In honor of Kim Kardashian and Kim Kardashian’s ex-husband’s 72-day marriage, Michael Riedel writes about Ethel Merman and Ernest Borgnine’s 38-day marriage. Borgnine claims that during their honeymoon in the Far East, Merman “was furious that, while everyone recognized [Borgnine], nobody knew her. She had her revenge by refusing to give him some of her Kaopectate when he had diarrhea.”

“In Merman’s memoir, there’s a chapter titled ‘My Marriage to Ernest Borgnine.’ It’s followed by a blank page.”

But they looked so happy together!

“Dancing With the Stars host Tom Bergeron believes the dance show ought to pare back its schedule to one season per year from two.”

I think that’s a good start.

“Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, the stars of TLC’s popular 19 Kids and Counting, are expecting one more bundle of joy.”

In all seriousness, someone needs to solder that woman’s vagina closed.

And that’s Wednesday.

And now, I’m off to wait for the bus I have to take to get to the bus I have to take to get to the train to Manhattan.

I hate the MTA.

1) Mariah Yeater, 20, has served Justin Bieber with a paternity suit in San Diego, “demanding that he take a DNA test. Yeater said she had sex with Bieber, now 17, after meeting him backstage at a Los Angeles concert last year, RadarOnline reported. Yeater was 19 when she allegedly hooked up with Bieber, who would have been 16 then… ‘He told me he wanted to make love to me and this was going to be his first time… After walking away from the other people backstage, Justin Bieber found a place where we could be alone — a bathroom,’ [Yeater] said, adding he refused to use a condom.”

I was going to make a joke about determining whether or not Yeater is carrying Bieber’s baby, baby, baby, oh, his baby, baby, baby, oh, but I decided it was too easy. Instead, here are a couple of photos of Yeater:

If you were Justin Bieber, is this who you’d want to lose your virginity to?

B’also? Can Mariah and Justin please go on Maury?

2) The Kim Kardashian story is about how her friends “yesterday launched a hardcore smear job on the reality-TV star’s hubby, New Jersey Net hoopster Kris Humphries, who had been recruited to play the glorified-extra role of groom in her made-for-TV wedding last month.” One of Kim’s “friends” told the Post that “[any establishment] who books [Humphries for endorsements or appearances] will be blacklisted [by Team Kardashian].”

How soon before Cindy Adams complains that there’s too much media coverage of the Kardashians? I’ll guess three days.

3) “The revolution has backfired. A heartbroken Shamil Cepada is one of 21 employees of a Wall Street cafe who just got laid off because business has bottomed out due to the ragtag Occupy Wall Street protesters.” Here’s the photo of owner/victim Marc Epstein sitting in his humble cafe that appears on page 7:

It’s such a shame that such a small cafe gets put out of business by Occupy Wall Street. Actually, I’m surprised that 21 people could work in such a tiny cafe. I’d love to know more about this place’s humble beginnings… oh, look. It’s an interview Epstein gave in June.

Waitaminute… this isn’t a small cafe! It’s a gigantic restaurant! Let’s take a tour!

So a giant restaurant (8,000 square feet for the restaurant, another 15,000 square feet for the kitchen) located at 40 Wall Street (aka The Trump Building) — almost four blocks away from Zuccotti Park — is blaming their financial difficulties solely on the OWS protesters? Really? It has nothing to do with their $10.50 soup? Or their $10.95 sandwiches? Or their $4.00 hot dogs? Or the $47.95 they charge for a dozen Sesame Chicken Satay skewers?

I guess it doesn’t. Otherwise the Post wouldn’t be able to use the follow-up headline REAL JOB KILLERS: Protesters force cafe layoffs as biz drops. Right?

By the way, every eatery around Zuccotti Park has been packed full every time I’ve been in the area. It has become a huge tourist draw.

B’also? Buried in the last paragraph of the 25-paragraph piece is this: “In another development, the protesters’ security team spotted a man suspected of sex assault in the encampment and notified cops. They took him into custody for questioning.” Does this mean the Post will apologize for yesterday’s editorial that insisted the protesters take pride in hiding crimes from the NYPD?

[SPOILER: No.]

“Herman Cain is turning past sexual-harassment allegations into a fund-raising bonanza, hauling in more than $250,000 Monday alone.”

Which shows you what kind of people support Cain. You know, the same ones who champion family values.

“The House yesterday cast a symbolic vote to reaffirm ‘In God We Trust’ as the US motto and encourage its placement in all public buildings and public schools.”

Jobs! Jobs! Jobs!

“The looming state budget deficit ‘appears to be getting worse,’ Gov. Cuomo warned yesterday… ‘It’s fair to say’ that state revenue collections have ’slowed down’ and the projected deficit for the state fiscal year that begins on April 1 will top the $2.4 billion his administration officially forecast, Cuomo said.”

Hey, I just had an idea! You know what would provide the city with a billion dollars? Extending the millionaires tax!

“A blind man miraculously survived a terrifying fall yesterday onto Brooklyn subway tracks by rolling beneath the platform and avoiding an oncoming train.”

I predict the MTA will pay him a settlement of… $2,000,000.

Jon Huntsman recently referred to Mitt Romney as a “perfectly lubricated weather vane.”

Jon Huntsman is the only sane GOP presidential candidate. Which is why he has no chance.

Page Six (today on pages 12, 13 and 14) ran this photo today:

They say it’s Lady Gaga. But is it? I don’t think it looks like her, but I also don’t pay much attention to her.

After that Amy Winehouse photo they ran (that wasn’t actually a photo of Amy Winehouse), I can’t trust anything in Page Six.

Cindy Adams says: “May this country shrivel at Kim and kin and the whole family of Karcrashians. She itches to make money and be famous — fine. But thumbing your nose and shaking your behind at a second go-round of marriage is horrendous.”

Judges?

The judges say that this isn’t a plea for America to stop talking about Kim and her kin and her family and her relatives. So my prediction that she’ll make that plea in two days might still come true.

Unless she dies painfully before then.

“A Republican lawmaker [Sen. Marty Golden] vowed yesterday to kill a proposal that would make it easier for New Yorkers to find a parking spot in their neighborhoods.”

“Two Brooklyn pols are pushing the idea in anticipation of the opening of the new Barclays Center, an 18,000-seat arena for the NBA Nets in Prospect Heights that will have just 1,100 parking spots.”

$20 says Marty Golden has a garage. And doesn’t live near the Barclays Center.

“French producers are planning to make a porn film about the scandal surrounding Dominique Strauss-Kahn and his alleged sexual assault of a New York maid.”

The working title is DXK and, surprisingly, Strauss-Kahn will not be playing himself.

But if they cast him as the maid, I’ll buy a copy.

Remember that sentence from yesterday’s paper that I told you to remember? Here it is again: “While unionized state workers are getting hit with three years of wage freezes, and Gov. Cuomo and his top aides are taking 5 percent wage hikes, state Senate Republicans are doling out pay hikes to most of their Capitol staffers, The Post has learned.” And here’s why I told you to remember it:

Correction

“Due to an editing error, yesterday’s edition of The Post incorrectly reported that Gov. Cuomo gave raises to his staff after he came into office, when, in fact, he reduced his salary and the pay of his top aides by 5 percent.”

Oops.

From the editorial Leadership at Zuccotti Park:

“OWSers (and the prospect of free food, drugs and sex) have lured all sorts of unsavory types, outright criminals included. Many clearly see the First Amendment as a license to break the law.” Surprisingly (I write sarcastically), the Post still hasn’t written about the allegations being made that the NYPD is sending mentally-unstable homeless people and criminals to Zuccotti Park.

If you are drinking anything, swallow it before you read the next sentence.

“No one is a greater defender of free speech than we are.”

I told you to swallow, Kevin!

Kurt Schlichter’s op-ed FACTS ARE OPTIONAL: How sex-harass suits work defends Herman Cain because, where sexual-harassment claims are concerned, “Facts are optional. Maybe Cain did harass some employees. But the dirty little secret among lawyers that defend business people from lawsuits — and among those lawyers who bring them — is that an enormous percentage of such claims are frivolous, if not flat-out lies.”

So… Cain might be guilty, but many of these claims are frivolous, so we shouldn’t treat him like he’s guilty. Even if he is.

“Where sexual-harassment law once protected women from being forced to be the playthings of crude lechers, it’s been transformed to enforcing a prim puritanism that drains the humor and humanity from the workplace.”

“Cain is damned if he does, and damned if he doesn’t — and the liberal media is going to damn well enjoy harassing him.”

No, he’s damned if he did. Especially after all of the denials he’s been issuing.

The Yankees re-signed Brian Cashman to a three-year contract and added a year (and a surprisingly small amount of money) to CC Sabathia’s current four-year contract.

Sadly, A.J. Burnett is still alive.

Linda 3Starsi reviews Bravo’s Top Chef: Texas. She gives it…

…three stars.

Bonus Points: Maxine Shen provides a sidebar to let people know what Top Chef’s past winners are up to. That’s where I learned that Season 2’s “Ilan Hall blends ethnic flavors at his Los Angeles restaurant, The Gorbals, where he’s currently working on a bacon-flavored pina colada.” Good luck with that, Ilan.

And that’s Wednesday.

I’m off to a rehearsal and I’m working tomorrow and Saturday, so updates will be terse for a couple of days. But I’ll catch up ASAP.

The weekend is almost here! Yay!

I hate the MTA.

On Saturday night, I braved the sleet and winds to get from my warm and cozy home to the UCB for Let’s Have A Ball. I took the same route I always do — the F to Jay Street-Metrotech where I switch to an A or C (if an A comes first, I get out at 14th Street and wait for a C or E to 23rd Street; if a C comes first, I take it all the way to 23rd).

Due to the weather I expected delays, but I always give myself plenty of time to get to the UCB (I prefer to arrive early and read over racing against the clock and giving myself an ulcer). When we arrived at Jay Street, the recorded announcement told me to “transfer here for the A, C and R train.” So I did.

An A showed up 10 minutes later and announced that it would be traveling on the F line until 4th Street. That made me sad (I got off an F Train 10 minutes ago — I would have taken it to 4th Street and switched to a C or E there had I known the A — and I assumed the C, as well — was becoming an F train), but I still had plenty of time and an Onion crossword to do.

When we got to 4th Street, the conductor said, “Next stop: 14th Street.” But I noticed we were still on the F line despite the previous announcement that said we’d be back on the A line from 4th Street on. The weather being what it was, I didn’t want to have to walk from 23rd Street and 6th Avenue to 26th Street and 8th Avenue. So I got off and raced upstairs to wait for a C or E. An E finally showed up and I got on. Ten minutes went by before the conductor announce, “This train isn’t going anywhere. If you want to go to 34th Street, go downstairs.”

A mob of already-frustrated straphangers raced downstairs only to find an empty platform. Eventually, an E arrived (on the F line) and I got on. After ten minutes, the conductor explained that there had been “an incident” at 59th Street and there was no service on the A, C and E lines. Five minutes later, we started moving.

I got to 23rd Street and 6th Avenue at 7:15. I called the UCB and asked them to let Becky and Kay know that I would be there ASAP and to hold the curtain until I got there (we were the only three performers because everyone else was out of town and Brandon’s plane to NYC was cancelled that morning). I was told (in a very polite way) that I didn’t have the authority to hold the curtain but they’d suggest it to the theater manager. If it wasn’t sleeting and if there wasn’t three inches of slush on the ground, I would’ve had no problem getting to the theater by 7:25. But it was (and there was), so I hurriedly slid into hordes of umbrella-toting pedestrians staring at the ground (instead of watching where they were going) until I got to the theater at 7:28. No curtain holding was necessary.

The show was fun and I was smart enough to pick up some empanadas for the journey home (I had to wait 25 minutes for an F train at Jay Street, but they were a delicious 25 minutes), but I saw something on the F train that made me glad that I had already eaten my dinner (as I would have immediately lost my appetite if I had one). I took a picture of the poster, but I found a less blurry photo at Fucked in Park Slope:

What this means: Starting on November 14th (and [allegedly] ending in “Spring 2012″), no southbound F or G trains will stop at the station I live above. This is the opposite of what happened last time (no northbound trains stopped there for a few months), and slightly more preferable (it will add no time to my commute to work in the morning, but it will require me to travel past my stop and transfer to a northbound train every time I am coming back from work or the grocery store or a rehearsal).

Bonus Points: FiPS also points out that the poster’s (alleged) finish date is different than the one on the MTA’s Web site.

I really and truly despise the MTA.

“As as many as 500 as many as 400 16 cops were hauled into Bronx Supreme Court yesterday to answer for the massive NYPD ticket-fixing scandal, and hundreds of officers protested outside, new details emerged on how the suspects made the summonses disappear.”

“IT’S A COURTESY NOT A CRIME” was a popular sign, as was “‘IT’S BEEN GOING ON SINCE THE DAYS OF THE EGYPTIANS.’ MAYOR MIKE BLOOMBERG.“ But my favorite is this: “JUST FOLLOWING ORDERS” (which you might remember as the most common defense at the Nuremberg Trials).

It looks like they’re standing in the street, doesn’t it? That’s a crime! Why isn’t anyone beating them with batons and pepper-spraying their eyes?

“Families worried about loved ones with Alzheimer’s getting disoriented and wandering off can now get them walking shoes with built-in GPS devices.”

But they’ll only work if the person wearing them forgets how to take them off.

There’s a story about how the new racino at Aqueduct Racetrack had to turn people away from their grand opening. I only mention it because it introduced me to my new favorite name: “‘This wait is crazy!’ said prospective gambler Inosent Carver, of Queens.”

His parents, Nahtgiltee Stabber and Akwidid Slasher, had no comment.

“Two off-duty NYPD officers were arrested yesterday morning charged with driving while intoxicated. Police officer Ariel Rosa, 26, was arrested after the rookie allegedly hit a parked car on Moffat Street in Bushwick  at 4:25 a.m. yesterday…He’s been suspended for 30 days without pay. Meanwhile, Officer Michael Botros, 29, was arrested near 150th Avenue and Lefferts Boulevard in South Ozone Park at about 7:40 a.m. yesterday, and also charged with driving while intoxicated.”

I don’t know who watches the watchmen, but I know who gently slaps their wrists.

“Firefighters powered down Occupy Wall Street yesterday, seizing protesters’ electric generators as the grungy horde prepared for the season’s first blast of wintery weather.”

The grungy horde? Fuck you, Antonio Antenucci and Bill Sanderson.

“Mayor Bloomberg said the seizure was made ‘just to make sure everybody’s safe.’”

Because what could make the protesters safer than removing the things that keep them warm right before a giant slush-storm?

“Meanwhile, a protester was arrested early yesterday on charges of assaulting a TV reporter. Dustin Taylor, 34, of Millersburg, Ohio allegedly threatened WNYW/Channel 5 reporter John Huddy, saying, ‘I’ll stab you in the throat with this pen.’” Now why would a protester be rude to a TV reporter? Hmmm… what’s WNYW/Channel 5 an affiliate of? Oh, that’s right. It’s Fox’s channel in New York City.

It’s such a shame that after weeks of insulting the protesters and perpetuating the “they don’t even know why they’re there” and “they hate wealth” myths, Fox isn’t treated with kindness. Incidentally, here’s a sign that might help Fox better understand the OWS movement:

“Meanwhile, a fed-up Rudy 9iu11ani said the city should move the protesters out, citing public safety and health hazards. ‘Enough is enough,’ the former mayor said. ‘We can’t allow this to go on forever and ever. It sets a bad precedent… [and] diverts police resources from public safety.’” And protests outside Bronx Supreme Court.

Bonus Points to Antonio and Bill for starting paragraphs #12 and 18 with “Meanwhile.”

“The Long Island Rail Road and a federal board said they are prepared to yank the pensions and disability benefits of the seven retirees busted in a $1 billion scam Thursday in which the workers allegedly falsely claimed to be too hurt to work.” Yay!

“But [RRB spokesman Mike] Freeman repeatedly refused yesterday to say if RRB will investigate — as it promised three years ago — whether up to 1,423 LIRR retirees who were approved disability benefits between 2004 and 2008 are legitimately disabled… The vast majority of the 1,423 retirees were certified disabled by two doctors, who were also busted Thursday.” Boo!

The TSA is firing the baggage inspector who put an inappropriate note (GET YOUR FREAK ON GIRL) in Jill Filipovic’s luggage after he spotted her vibrator. Here’s part of Jill’s response:

“I get no satisfaction in hearing that someone lost their job over this. I would much prefer a look at why ’security’ has been used to justify so many intrusions on our civil liberties, rather than fire a person who made a mistake… The invasion is inherent to the TSA’s mission, regardless of whether a funny note is left behind — the note only serves to highlight the absurdity of all this security theater.”

Page Six is on page 10 today.

“Actress Kristen Stewart has revealed the latest movie in the ‘Twilight Saga’ was originally given a ‘R’ rating after a sex scene between her and real-life lover, Robert Pattinson, was deemed too steamy… Luckily for younger fans, the rating will not be final as the scene is being re-cut.”

Wait… the Twilight Saga has older fans?

Conrad Murray’s lawyer put Dr. Paul White on the stand yesterday and he told the jury that “Michael Jackson likely injected himself with a fatal dose of the anesthetic propofol after popping an extra eight sedatives without [Conrad Murray's] knowledge.”

This is an odd strategy, as Los Angeles juries have made it clear that they disregard everything Michael Jackson does.

Swedish Chef:

Swedish Lunch Lady:

“[A lunch lady in Sweden] stunned teachers and students when they confronted her about the inedible food she served, and she responded by taking off her pants.opening her shirt, and doing a striptease in the cafeteria. ‘The school’s social-welfare officer tried to tell her this is no [sic] acceptable behavior, but she just kept on dancing,’ said a witness.”

This seems like a good time to thank all of the cafeteria workers in all of the schools I have ever attended for never taking off any of their clothes in my presence.

“A stray beagle mix that cheated death in the gas chamber of an Alabama dog pound is up for adoption in New Jersey.”

When he heard this, Pat Buchanan (who recently complained that Jews — “who represent less than 2 percent of the US population” — have “33 percent of the Supreme Court’s seats”) turned to his wife and said, “See? They can’t even kill a beagle mix in a gas chamber! I told you the Jews were lying about the Holocaust!”

Rich Lowry still doesn’t get it.

“Are we divided between the top 1 percent and a vast wasteland of the dispossessed, as many of the Occupy Wall Street protesters have it? Or are we still the land of opportunity, as top House Republican Paul Ryan insisted in a recent speech at the Heritage Foundation? The answer is that we are still a mobile society, although not as much of one as we might wish. If the nihilistic despair of the Occupy Wall Street crowd is detached from reality, neither is self-congratulation in order.”

Vast wasteland of the dispossessed? Nihilistic despair? That’s weird. When I listen to what the various Occupy groups are saying — and doing — I get a sense of unity and compassion and hope that has been sadly missing from America for some time. But please, Rich, tell us what the answer to our nation’s problems are.

“If Americans finished high school, worked full time at a job that matched their skills and married at the rate they did in the 1970s, the poverty rate would be cut 70 percent.” Of course! Everyone should just get full-time jobs! Brilliant!

“These old-fashioned bourgeois virtues, and particularly marriage, rarely figure in the public debate. Everyone is more comfortable talking about taxes or the banks, as the American Dream frays.” Yeah, Occupy Wall Street! Shut up about the criminals who almost destroyed our economy! Start protesting the lower marriage rates in this country!

Rich Lowry is not very bright.

Not to get too meta, but I honestly don’t know if the authors of these two letters to the Post are being sarcastic or not:

Staten Island’s Charlie Honadel writes, “I know that Frank J. Fleming is trying to be funny and that ‘Why We Must Lose the Darn 1 Percent’ is supposed to be satire. But some people might not understand he’s kidding and take him seriously.”

Flemington, New Jersey’s Joe Hann writes, “Fleming must have written this column with tongue in cheek the whole time. Include a picture next time so that we can know for sure.”

“Tesla Motors, a US maker of electric cars, is sold out of next year’s production of its new Model S sedan and should earn a profit in 2013, CEO Elon Musk said in a Bloomberg TV interview.”

I would like to applaud the Post for printing this sentence without adding “for eco-fags” after “electric cars.”

GOBLIN IT UP! is the PULSE section’s guide to the right candies to get for “your guests” on Halloween.

Examples include: A nine-piece bonbon box from Max Brenner ($12.90), a small skull with marshmallow eyes from Jacques Torres ($20), and cupcakes from Crumbs ($3.75 each).

If you come to my house on Halloween, I will give you one fun-sized candy bar from a giant bag that I got on sale at Rite Aid. You’re welcome.

Hondo (the sports section’s resident right-wing pundit) writes, “The Occupy Wall Street Protesters, aka ‘the 99 percent,’ today will belong to a group in which they will be ‘the one percent’ — the tiny minority that camps out while being deluged by a wintry mix.”

And speaking of tiny minorities,

And that’s Saturday.

Teresa and I are heading down to Zuccotti Park tomorrow and I start my new job (finally!) the following morning. But I’ll write what I can when I can.

Have a great week and Happy Halloween!