Banana-Fanna-Fo-Fetty

You know those little community newspapers that sit at your local supermarket (or, if you live in the suburbs, at the end of your driveway once a week)?  The ones that usually have puppies-in-clothes or kids treat-or-treating on the front page?

Ah, Brooklyn.

Road rage was blamed for an incident in which a 44-year-old man was attacked on a  Sunset Park street and another man was arrested on March 1.

The suspect, whose name was not released by the police, went after the victim with a machete on 48th Street near Second Avenue while both men were stuck in traffic around 10:35a.m., said authorities.

The suspect and victim were both in their cars, sitting in a traffic jam when the two men began arguing, said police.

Both men got out of their cars to continue the argument, which was growing more heated, said cops.

The suspect went to his car, pulled out a machete and began menacing the victim with it, said police.

The victim, in fear for his life, got back in his car...

The suspect was arrested and charged with menacing and criminal possession of a weapon.

Police recovered the machete in a nearby sewer.  The suspect had allegedly dumped the weapon in the sewer before cops got there.”

I remember reading about a couple other machete incidents in New York last year.  Is there any place in the world where you’re less likely to need a machete?

Unless you’re stuck in traffic, I guess.

*

Which reminds me to swing by happynews.com...

I don’t know why I find that one so funny.  Could be the condescending look on Toyama’s face – “See how stupid this looks without words?!  You are stupid!  Stupid!” – or that simply putting the words “Microsoft” and “help” in the same sentence sends me into giggle fits.

Other Happy News, including a pair of valentine stories I missed a month ago:

• Proof the editorial staff is afraid to be anything but straightforward:  This headline should obviously be Wood Beats Rock, Paper, Scissors


• The headline says, “Firefighters Help Boy Send Valentine” but I’d call it “Your Tax Dollars Used to Litter, Perpetuate Useless Illusions of Afterlife.”  What happened was:  A seven-year-old boy in Nebraska whose mother died of cancer wrote her a Valentine at a grief support group and tried to send it to her... by helium balloon.  Unfortunately, God decided Paul’s craft project should instead be snagged in a tree.  Local civil servants were called to dislodge the thing so the kid would stop freaking the fuck out.


• This is a fantastic story about a high-school junior who tried to buy popularity – at a cost of around $900 – by sending a single rose to every girl in his class.  “To all the lovely ladies of 2007, here’s wishing you a Happy Valentine’s Day.  Affectionately, Paul Kim.”  Paul told the reporter, “I realized that not many girls would get anything [for Valentine’s] and it would be an ordinary day.”  Unfortunately he didn’t bother to do a roster count beforehand and excluded, oh, a hundred of his classmates.

*

“I really only started practicing for the tour three days ago.”

The Silver Jews played their first-ever live concert on March 10th, and immediately bootlegs hit the internet.  Which just might be why they never wanted to leave home in the first place.

Anyway, if you’re headed to Webster Hall this weekend (or any of their other dates) and you want a taste beforehand, Cable and Tweed has both the 10th (in Athens, GA) and 11th (in Atlanta) in bulk; for nibblers, Rawkblog posted the first show in easy-to-digest single tracks (here and here).

tags: machete  silver jews  

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