THE SHITHEAD EXPOSER'S BURDEN

The following is a piece of supposed “satire” written by an actual New York City Parks Department employee, David Langlieb, for his Haverford College Alumni magazine. I want to point out that these are not my opinions. While I am reprinting them (I couldn’t post a link, since Haverford College apparently removed them from the Internet), that is for purely instructional purposes. In my opinion, this is ineffective satire, composed by a man who had no idea what he was doing. It caused quite a stir at the last Community Board meeting I covered, and while I am not sure Mr. Langlieb should lose his job over it, I do think a public apology is in order, so long as Mr. Langlieb doesn’t write it himself.

Here is the offensive essay, entitled “The Black Squirrel’s Burden,” with pointed criticisms to follow:

THE BLACK SQUIRREL’S BURDEN

By David Langlieb ‘05

What separates a Haverford education from a Yale education or a University of Phoenix education? You guessed it: A commitment to social and civic responsibility. This is why after graduating from Haverford in 2005 I decided to move to a neighborhood where I knew I could make a difference. That neighborhood was Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

Greenpoint is a tightly knit, working class, semi-urban community of first- and second-generation Polish immigrants. It's the kind of place where the old ladies shop at Gus's Fruit Stand instead of Wal-Mart, and parents take their kids to the park on Sunday nights to play softball and drink lemonade. Communities like Greenpoint are a dying breed in America, and thank God for that. Try ordering a Venti Caramel Macchiato at the Franklin Street coffee shop and you'll see what I mean. While the community has several problems, most of them come back to the high density of Polish people infesting its rowhouses. Mocking Poles for being stupid is perhaps the last form of politically correct prejudice, as well as the most accurate. The other day I asked a local Polak shopkeeper if he'd heard the one about the Polish guy who tried to fill up his gas tank by driving the car in reverse. The shopkeeper didn't respond because he'd accidentally put his pants on his head that morning and the waistband was cutting off his hearing.

I'm kidding, of course, but Greenpoint's problems are no laughing matter, and they won't be solved by teaching the locals how to wear pants. The Greenpoint business district, for example, is even uglier than the morons who work there. Shoddy hand-made signage pollutes the storefront windows, and some of the signs aren't even in English. A friendly corporate logo or two would do wonders for the place. The good news is that it looks like they're opening a Blimpie on Calyer Street, where Ula's Deli used to reside. I'm not sure what they're doing with Ula, but maybe if she promises to clean her ears once in awhile they'll let her work the cash register.

Amidst these modest improvements are a few old-school New York charms. I'll admit that I was kind of intrigued by the bearded alcoholic homeless man who lives outside the subway station. That was cute for about five minutes. But day after day with the nonsensical screaming and the pointing... get over yourself, buddy.

So why do I live in Greenpoint? Because if I didn't, then it wouldn't get any better. Oh sure, I could move to SoHo or the Upper East Side like some of my fellow Haverford graduates who care only about themselves. But those places have already been saved and they don't need my help. If my Haverford education has taught me anything, it's that social change doesn't happen overnight. You must, if necessary, be willing to endure months of living without a Lord & Taylor in the immediate area.

Not to toot my own horn, but I've done wonders for the community. My non-ethnic whiteness, above average hygiene, and dependable income have already attracted new investments to Greenpoint. Private developers are within months of breaking ground on a massive high-rise condominium complex on the Greenpoint waterfront. There'll be a rooftop pool, a fitness center, and gorgeous views of the Manhattan skyline from across the East River. It's not quite perfect -- a small percentage of the apartments will go to low-income families but nine tenths of a loaf is better than none.

One thing I do worry about is that Greenpoint will gentrify incorrectly. This is what's happening in adjacent Williamsburg, where the Hasidic Jews are being displaced by hipsters. Sure, their parents give them enough money to keep the neighborhood looking decent, but the new population is almost as annoying as the old one. And yes, they do wear suits and ties sometimes, but only to be ironic. No thank you. I'd hate to see that happen to Greenpoint, because it has so much potential. It's a place I'd like to raise my kids: Within a stone's throw of Manhattan, amidst lawyers and investment bankers, and as shut off from civil society as humanly possible. I dream of a Greenpoint where Banana Republic is open all night, where groceries are ordered over the Internet, and where the churches are converted to mixed-use parking facilities. Mine is a Greenpoint of the future, sensitive to the desires of its residents who so desperately need a racquet club and driving range. Or who will, anyway, after the vermin are gone.

So join me, my fellow Greenpointians. That is, if you're literate enough to understand what I've written.

David Langlieb ’05 is a project manager for the New York City Parks Department.

Okay, so the awesome K. and I spent some time trying to figure out exactly what went wrong with Mr. Langlieb’s attempt at “satire.” Among the problems we dissected:

-None of the jokes about Poles work, even as “satire.” Why? Because satire usually contains a kernel of truth, whereas the attributes Langlieb pokes fun at – that Poles accidentally put their pants on their heads, don’t clean their ears, or are just ugly morons – don’t even fall within the realm of human behavior. Am I wrong? Are there famous Polack jokes that I’m missing?

-The middle section is just sloppily written. As K. pointed out, Langlieb starts off ragging on Greenpoint. Then, suddenly, he goes off on this “bearded alcoholic homeless man.” Since when did unshaven derelict drunks become a particular problem of Greenpoint’s? I’ve seen winos in all parts of the city, including SoHo and the Upper East Side – areas which Langlieb claims have already been saved by gentrification.

And while we’re on the subject of “saving,” Langlieb might have saved his own hide had he hired an editor. In the first paragraph, he states that what sets a Haverford education apart from any other is the “commitment to social and civic responsibility” that was apparently imbued upon him. But only a few short paragraphs later, he claims that his “fellow Haverford graduates” only care about themselves. This is just sloppy writing.

-Finally, it is my opinion that this only works as satire if Mr. Langlieb also pokes fun at himself and his idea of an ideal Greenpoint. But his description of such a place – “where Banana Republic is open all night, where groceries are ordered over the Internet, and where the churches are converted to mixed-use parking facilities” – hardly seems extreme or ridiculous enough. Instead, it seems awfully plausible. Greenpoint could very well become, “sensitive to the desires of its residents who so desperately need a racquet club and driving range,” as Langlieb puts it, and sooner than we think. Simply put, his opening goes too far, his closing doesn’t go far enough. The impression I end up with is someone who could very well believe that paradise requires the extermination of Poles.

I certainly hope Mr. Langlieb gets shunned at the water cooler over this.

MAN PUSH CART: ME FUCK STORY?

A few months ago, I started a new section at the paper entitled “Cinema.” I write articles for it every two weeks, which cover films set in the outer boroughs, directors who live there, or both if I’m lucky.

This past week, I wanted to write about “Man Push Cart,” a film you may have heard something about. It tells the story of a pushcart vendor, one of the many souls we see selling bagels and coffee on street corners in Manhattan every day. Naturally, there’s more to it than that, but I really can’t say more without giving away crucial plot points.

Also, I hadn’t seen the movie yet. Still, I very much wanted to interview Ramin Bharani, “Man Push Cart’s” director, prior to his film’s screening at the Queens Museum of Art. Since QMA wanted to generate as much publicity and interest in the picture as possible, they enthusiastically got me into contact with Bharani, with whom I set a date and time for a phone interview.

Until then, being pitifully self-conscious of my own nascent journalistic prowess, I planned to read every interview Bharani had ever participated in, to study his bio, look him up on the Internet Movie Database, etc., etc., so that I would be able to write a strong piece about him.

Then I got an assignment on the date of the interview and totally forgot to call.

To be fair, I did not forget so much as remembered several hours later. Unfortunately, I never did any of the homework I had carefully plotted out, so my call to Bharani – preceded by a mutter of “Oh, crap,” and my spilling onto the floor of the bedroom, where I had been peacefully reclining – was more or less cold. What followed was approximately ten minutes of questions that traveled in no certain direction, or in multiple ones at the same time. I was also in a slight panic mode, which meant I scribbled down information haphazardly, often with a short-handed version of shorthand. That will become important in a few lines.

Yesterday morning, I took those pages of notes with Bahrani and spliced together the preview article, sending it to my editor as soon as I finished proofreading it. With the day’s work done, and at least half-an-hour to kill before leaving for the office, I puttered around the apartment doing random things, checking my e-mail, thinking about the coming week’s stories.

I’m still not sure why, but I decided at length to e-mail a copy of the article to Bahrani. I expected to get a thank you note in reply, maybe a few slight suggestions for changes. After all, I reasoned, I couldn’t have fucked up the facts of the piece too badly; it wasn’t a long article to begin with, so there weren’t enough facts to really fuck up.

Oh, but there was at least one, and one fuck-up can be too many.

As it turned out, I got Bahrani and his film’s star, a Pakistani actor named Ahmad Razvi, confused with each other. One had spent years observing pushcart vendors as preparation for his role in “Man Push Cart;” the other had actually been one. On that topic, I confused Bahrani to Razvi, and vice versa.

Luckily, the former e-mailed me back just as Blaine, the managing editor, was about to leave the office. Bharani pointed out exactly where the mistakes had been, and I forwarded his notes to Blaine, who made the necessary changes. It was especially fortuitous timing since I cannot edit the layout myself, and we were going to press. Also, had we gone to print with the mistake, I have no doubt that some movie geek in Brooklyn or Queens would have caught it, causing the paper, myself, and the subject a heap of embarrassment.

For his part, Bahrani took the error in stride, and did thank me for the article. However, I don’t think of myself as being out of the woods yet, especially since he knows I will be attending QMA’s screening of “Man Push Cart” this Saturday.

Looking ahead to that date, I can’t help wondering what may transpire if I approach him, or ask him a question during the question-and-answer period that will follow the movie, and he notices the press pass dangling from my neck. Will he realize who I am? Will he immediately think, “There’s that newspaper reporter who made the bush league mistake?”

In the meantime, what I’m also wondering is, “Did the mistake come about because I was pressed for time last week? Or was this incident indicative of the rest of my work?” I guess I won’t know until the next article, the next phone interview, or the next response from a subject.

BEEN KEEPING UP WITH THE GOTHAM GIRLS?

Queens Of Pain Take It To The Wire

The Queens of Pain, reigning champions of the Gotham Girls Roller Derby league, will defend their title next month against either the Brooklyn Bombshells or the Manhattan Mayhem.

Star jammer Suzy Hotrod scored five points in the closing minutes to cap Queens’ comeback over the Bronx Gridlock. Meanwhile, recent addition Cheapskate showed the potential to be a valuable complementary scorer, racking up 34 points on 11 jams for her team.

Bronx was paced by Bonnie Thunders, who led all jammers with 43 points on 18 jams.

Queens’ next opponent will be decided by a Nov. 3 bout at the same venue where Oct. 13th’s took place: The Hunter College Sportsplex in Manhattan. In the league’s first action at Lexington Ave. and 68^th St., the Gotham Girls packed the stands with roughly 600 excited spectators, comparable to the season’s matches at Long Island University.

Ana Bollocks, a Queens of Pain blocker who served as producer, said that the league approached Hunter College prior to the season, right after losing the Skate Key in Bronx as a home. “When we lost our original rink, we went on an all-out search,” she said. “It didn’t work out here at first, so we skated at LIU.”

She said that a permanent venue and practice setting for the skaters are both still a ways away, and the next two games will get split between the schools. “We will still be at LIU in the future,” Bollocks said. “The staff at [here] wants to see how this goes first.”

Bollocks could not say if the rough-and-tumble, at-times dirty play exhibited by the Gotham Girls, who have been known to hip and shoulder-check one another into spectators lined up beside the rink, would necessarily jibe with Hunter College’s tradition of female empowerment.

But longtime fan Jimmy O’Connor, who commuted in from Brooklyn, said those kinds of unexpected thrills are exactly what make the league so appealing. “The first time [I saw] Queens and Bronx, a skater landed right on top of me,” he said. “It was fun. It’s cheap, fun, and takes you out of your everyday life.”

While skaters from neither team went flying into O’Connor this time around, the Queens of Pain did come out aggressive, and led by as much as ten shortly before the half. Cheapskate had 20 points by herself, the most thrilling when she sliced through a staunch Bronx defense, including their jammer Pop Rox, on her way to five points.

Meanwhile, Suzy Hotrod racked up 12, but Bronx stalwart Bonnie Thunders outscored her 4-0 in the last jam of the half to close the deficit to 42-36.

During the second half, foul trouble for Queens and shrewd strategizing for Bronx helped turn the game in the other direction. The Gridlock shifted Blissy Sadistic to jammer, who provided a quick spark, literally, scoring seven points on a single jam to whittle the Queens lead to three.

Thunders added three more points in the next jam, while the Gridlock’s defense began to live up to their name. Then Sadistic struck again, fending off the Queens of Pain’s Joey Hardcore for seven more points, tying the score. She would finish with an impressive 14 points on three jams.

As for Thunders, she played jammer for two consecutive rounds in which several Queens skaters were in the penalty box. Capitalizing on the superior numbers, she racked up nine points while her team held their opponent scoreless, giving Bronx a six-point lead – their largest of the game.

Pop Rox nearly sealed the win for the Gridlock with smart play during the second-to-last jam. After the Queens of Pain’s Suzy Hotrod zoomed through the pack, and appeared to be in good position to score some points, Rox swept in and knocked her down. That allowed Thunders to catch up, forcing Hotrod to call off the jam rather than allow Bronx to score points.

But with seconds left in the last jam, Hotrod would get her revenge, skating past all five Gridlock skaters – including Thunders. She passed the latter with less than a second remaining on the game clock to give Queens the one-point win.

Queens blocker/jammer Medula Oblongata, who raced over to congratulate her teammate by the bench, which exploded right after the buzzer sounded, never doubted that the game had been in the right skater’s hands. “She knew [time was winding down],” Oblongata said of Hotrod. “And we knew she could do it.”

When asked to put the excitement of the final jam into words, Queens manager Bust’er Cheatin could barely speak. “I can’t answer that question right now,” he said, clearly on the brink of hyperventilating.

But his voice became steadier when asked about his team’s chances for winning the league championship, and the contributions of their latest jammer. “We’re going to get [team co-Captain] Rolletta Lynn back, and get a lot of people back,” Cheatin said. “We lost five players, and replaced them all with [Cheapskate]. She’s a solid scorer.”

The Queens of Pain defeated the Mayhem earlier in the season, a fact not lost on their manager. “We have no idea who we’re playing, [but] if it’s Manhattan, yeah, we just had a very solid win against Manhattan,” he said. “I like our chances.”