Rock the Harbor

So Staten Island has it's own music festival. The line-up has been announced, non-participating bands are outraged, Brooklyn transplants are involved in pretentious mockery, and all sorts of hell brakes loose. Well, not really.

The event has even spawned a mini-anti-festival the same day of said event. All arguments for and against have their weaknesses, I say go to whichever show you deem worth your time.

Rock the Harbor lineup:

Where: South Meadow at Snug Harbor Cultural Center, 1000 Richmond Terr., Staten Island,
NY

When: Saturday June 14th, 1pm

How Much: $15(advance)/$20(day of show)

Who:
The Budos Band
Brown Water Music Collective
Paragraph
The Rabbits
The Delay
Wahoo Skiffle Crazies
Happy Anarchy
The Heavenly Tenants
Julius C
Heavy Weather
The Great Unwashed
Matt Wilson
Kilgore Trout Is Dead
Captain Ahab and the Sea Crackens+ many more!!!

Fried Twinkies at Martini Red

Looks like there's another local gig involving the usual suspects over at Martini Red. This Saturday's show includes SI's pseudo-surf rock group Captain Ahab and the Sea Crackens. Also performing is Ezra Donnellan and his similarly verbose moniker Kilgore Trout Is Dead.

Now I'm always suspicious when I see a group performing with uniforms, but Captian Ahab really seems to pull off their sea shanty shtick.

As Ben Johnson reported in the SI Advance (can't find a link to article) there will be fried Twinkies and Oreos served -- what happened to good ol' pot brownies.

Cell Towers on North Shore

Tuesday night's meeting of Community Board 1 (which represents the North Shore of SI) was dominated by discussion of the proposed radio tower planned to be erected at the end of Richmond Avenue.

The majority of the speakers at the meeting were concerned citizens who were dead set against the building of the tower. Most of the concerns were due to safety from the radio waves.

There was some greasy-looking lawyer from the military contractor Northrup Grumman, which put up a red flag for me right away. (What's a war profiteering company doing on Staten Island anyway?)

I'm not sure where the SI Advance is on this one. I know they had a reporter at the meeting but I haven't seen any coverage of yet.

Poor Vito

Cheers to the SI Advance for putting the pressure on Vito Fossella. The paper, which has helped usher in Republican candidates since as long as I can remember, has not only called for the congressman to resign but has consistently criticized his lack of candor about the utterly embarrassing situation he has found himself in.

Today the paper stays on his case as Islanders grow increasingly outraged, frustrated, and just plain grossed out by Vito's proclivities.

My guess: Vito either resigns or announces his intention not to run in the next election -- leaving some other clean cut GOPer to step in and take over. If (and this is a big IF) Vito continues this downward spiral and refuses to drop out the 13th district may see it's first Democrat since 1993.