PATH train. Port Authority Trans-Hudson or Pimpin' Ain't That Hard?
People are murdered in the vicinity of my Jersey City apartment fairly regularly. I won’t say daily because even if it’s true, it just sounds excessive. Maybe bi-weekly? Is that twice a week, or every two weeks? I’ll say quarterly. Like, four times a day. Four times a day, people are murdered in the lobby of my apartment building. And it’s a nice building! Everyone seems pretty friendly, they all have interesting-looking babies and all that, it’s just that occasionally you find yellow police tape and chunks of brain on your Pottery Barn delivery in the mail room. Look, it happens when you live in a sprawling metropolis – you’re gonna get some shattered skull bits on your Oversize Moss Basket every once in a while.
Now I know what you’re thinking. John, you probably live in the yuppified white part of Jersey City, where crime is synonymous with the tapas restuarant getting stingy with their truffle oil, or the dogs in the dog park looking too adorable. OK, maybe a slight truth. Sure, the walls in the building swelled when Arcade Fire won an album of the year Grammy last night, and then nearly crumbled when Radiohead announced they were releasing a new perfect album this week, but we’re still a melting pot! We still have a cartoon pimp that lives down the street (pictured)! People still get murdered! No one shovels their walk! SHUT UP IT WAS ETHNIC WHEN I GOT HERE!
So yeah, crime. Here’s a look at some of the local flavor that explodes out of our melting pot and lands all over the goddamn gutter I call home.
Teens Beat, Rob Bayonne Man. See? SEE! We have rowdy teens that ask to borrow your phone and then punch you in the fucking face. Oh, who was I calling? Why, my knuckle specialist, because my knuckles smart like the dickens. Not sure what Bayonne Man should have done in this situation. Your first instinct is to assume that one in eight teens has a working cell phone, and relay that information to the teen gang. Second instinct is to lie through your teeth. No, I don’t have a cell phone! Isn’t that crazy, there are nine people walking down Montgomery Street and not a single one of us has a phone? TTFN, that’s slang for Ta-Ta-Fone-Needer! Then you duck into the vegan bakery/antique birdcage shoppe and call the police from your cellphone which was hidden in your pocket this whole time. Get a gluten-free muffin and then soar home on a wheat grass rainbow.
Man Attacked By Fellow Bowler. This is a pretty interesting article because I didn’t know we had a bowling alley in Jersey City. And “Everything is perfect except for the amount of bowling balls, they really need more bowling balls because they be taken and I am always stuck with the wrong sizes and then I look like I s*ck when I really don’t,” according to bowling2u.com, the Yelp of bowling alley review sites. Everything is perfect except sometimes you get a bottle smashed over your head in the parking lot for stepping over the line, but for real guys, I give it a B-. More balls, less bottles, we’re talking A+ bowling alley material here.
Car Completely Buried By Snow Mound in Jersey City. If I was a newscaster, I’d introduce this story by saying, “And on the WHITER side of the news,” but the story is about snow, not white people. Allow me to continue my local news anchor audition: “And on the whiter side of the news tonight, take a look at this picture. No, you’re not seeing things, that’s an actual CAR buried under a mound of snow on Williams Avenue, photographed by local freelance news photographer Richard J. McCormack. Public service workers are unsure of how to free the car from its icy coffin, but you know what they say… ‘there’s snow business like snow business.’ They also say ‘Snow your belongings under your seat,’ ‘Snow snow snow your boat’ and ‘Quid pro snow, Clarice.’ Back to you (other anchor’s name, and if his or her name rhymes with snow, call them Snow, then chuckle).”