Minding my own business, as You can assuredly mind Your own, so many things happened today.
Most notably is that I am going to see my music-savvy attorney in the Shiny Apple. But, to be fair, I do not know the musical proclivities of mine other attorney. And, not surprisingly, JW,Esq tells Me - ME!, bedraggled yet savvy urbane gradgirl - about some hip-hoppening gig here that we will most undoubtedly pop into after dinner on jeudi.
Was most fascinated today by the terrorist-ready armed men standing at attention outside and around the Forbes building, right next to Parsons School of Deconstruction.
Phillip and I puffed away as I watched one of the attentive kevlared men attentively watch girls jiggle by. I meandered over and stated, patriotically: Umm, excuse me officer, but my homeland security is at stake here. Could you puh-leez refrain from checking out the derrières and the frontières of the ladies for one fucking minute.
I pointed out to Phillip that all a terrorist had to do to get Forbes would be to drive recklessly (like any ol' cabbie) down Fifth, wrench wheel at appropriate moment to the right, jump curb (one of my absolute specialties), careen down sidewalk about 50 feet, drive through green scaffolding outside Forbes's joint and do their business. Mr. Boobie Guard and his buddy would be fairly ineffective I am sure should that transpire. The Parsons School of Detachment door/security man told us the armed people were out there as there had been a Threat. When I left after the critique (not a reaming, as I had imagined after the snappiest of snappy emails I got from Misery Seminar instructress, the verysame who thinks I've done no class readings and am a general flaked-out distraction to one and all and recourse is to not recourse until said course is fini) of my artist statement, the AK47 holders were gone.
The scaffolding and the Forbes building remained.
All back to status code yellow, or perhaps a nice soothing seafoam green alert.
As all you loyalest of epinw readers/groupies know I am a gigantic fan of the Wild Animal in Urban Setting tale/newstory. So today in my beloved Post was yet ANOTHER story about a beast in the Shiny Apple. This was a most challenging snippet of a story (with byline no less - but is Laura Italiano really a flesh & blood & sweat & tears reporter, You be the judge) and it took me a few read-throughs to catch its nuances. It centers on The mother of Harlem's notorious Tiger Man. The mother is 70 and her son kept a tiger - Ming - in his pad. Here comes the best part, a quote floating out in space, disconnected from logic, from Antoine, the son: She doesn't know whether to be happy or sad.
Who, I ask, is happy or sad. Ming. The mother. Linda Italiano. The girl who was bitten by the tiger. The woman cop who was recently injured in her struggle to capture another wild cat last week in the Shiny Apple. Fact check please.
My mother always told me to believe in myself, Antoine added.
I ask You, believe in what. The ability to keep a 250 pound tiger in a Harlem apartment, undoubtedly flinging raw chickens through a doorcrack. Apparently Antoine traveled with Ming to South Carolina. And he had Suspicious bites at one time, which he was treated for, on his legs. Conclusion, if there could ever be one in this convoluted story:
Antoine tearfully pleaded guilty last month to keeping a deadly wild animal, in a deal that got his mother off the hook.
Do You feel like there are details that slipped through epinw cracks, down its slippery slope.
If I were Lou Grant, as he was in Mary's from bell bottoms to cheeseball pantsuits show (even though it was a television station), with scotch in the drawer and a song in his heart, I'd be shouting Italiano, your ass is on the line, go out and get me another TIGER STORY with more scarring, scaring, details. And bring a photog - and clarity - this time.

Grant Tough Love.