Now That’s Chutzpah!

It takes great balls of fire to reveal your kooky theories about Sept. 11 just before being sworn in as chaplain to New York’s Bravest:

An imam slated to be sworn in today as the second Muslim chaplain in Fire Department history, instead resigned after making controversial remarks on the Sept. 11 attacks in an interview with Newsday.

. . .

In a telephone interview Thursday, Habib, 30, a native of Guyana who studied Islam in Saudi Arabia, said he questioned whether 19 hijackers were responsible for the Sept. 11 terror attacks, and suggested a broader conspiracy may have brought down the Twin Towers and killed more than 2,700 people.

He said he doubted the United States government’s official story blaming 19 hijackers associated with al-Quaida and Osama bin Laden.

“I, as an individual, don’t know who did the attacks,” said Habib, 30, a soft-spoken man who immigrated to New York in July 2000 after spending six years in Saudi Arabia getting a degree in Islamic theology and law. “There are so many conflicting reports about it. I don’t believe it was 19 … hijackers who did those attacks.”

Asked to elaborate on his reasons for doubting that story, he talked about video and news reports widely disseminated in the Muslim community.

“I’ve heard professionals say that nowhere ever in history did a steel building come down with fire alone,” he said. “It takes two or three weeks to demolish a building like that. But it was pulled down in a couple of hours. Was it 19 hijackers who brought it down, or was it a conspiracy?”

Questioned about who he believed was responsible for the attacks, Habib said he didn’t know. He said, however, that he did not expect to raise his doubts with rank-and-file firefighters — nor did he share them two weeks ago when he participated in several Sept. 11 memorials on behalf of the Fire Department.

“The Groom Is A Big Part Of The Wedding”: Everything In Perspective

The Post, stating the obvious, pits self-centered brides-to-be against the Yankees as the big season-ending series versus the Red Sox begins:

They might be tying the knot this weekend, but thanks to the Yankee series, they’re fit to be tied.

Couples planning to say “I do” are anxiously waiting to see if their guests — and even their potential spouses — will play ball this weekend and focus on the nuptials rather than baseball.

“You know what, people? It’s my wedding,” said Kerry Kramer, 29, a graphic designer from Darien, Conn., who has already been asked by a few guests if televisions will be at her reception hall tomorrow.

“Your focus is in the wrong department. It’s all about me,” said Kramer, who will wed Artie Koellmer, of Greenwich.

Meanwhile, some brides are holding out hope — hope against hope! — that their grooms will be fully engaged during the big day:

Grace Lombardi’s husband, Keeth Fiocco, refused to have a late October wedding, she said.

“Not when it’s the playoffs,” Lombardi remembered him saying.

“Now we get married Oct. 1 — not knowing that this weekend would be the most important,” said Lombardi, a customer-service rep from Massapequa, L.I.

Lombardi, 26, will walk down the aisle tomorrow afternoon in a strapless, beaded, off-white gown purchased from Kleinfeld Bridal, and she’s confident Fiocco will be at the end of the aisle on time.

“The groom is a big part of the wedding,” she said. “I’m sure he’ll be into the wedding — but he’ll want his updates.”

Jets To Park Haters: Drop Dead

After using Flushing Meadows-Corona Park as a negotiating ploy, the Jets’ and Giants’ joint announcement that they will build a new stadium in the Meadowlands that they will share has disappointed those who want to carve up the park:

John Puccio, co-founder of Bring Our Jets Home, a group that had worked with the Jets in recent months to build support for plans to build a $1.35 billion stadium in Queens, said he felt like “a pawn in a game to help the Jets gain leverage with New Jersey.”

“The Jets wasted our time and broke our hearts,” Mr. Puccio said.

So for now at least, the park has been spared . . .

Forget Quizzo, This Is The Real Spuzz

Hipster know-it-alls geek out by competing in spelling bees:

Adult-only spelling bees, born of nostalgia and spiked with alcohol, have become increasingly popular social activities for brainy hipsters in their 20’s and 30’s at bars and community centers from Brooklyn to Spokane, Wash. Gone are the days when the sole opportunity to demonstrate one’s spelling aptitude was in school. A new kind of bee has emerged, one where participants tackle baffling words between flirty smiles and sips of Yuengling.

In a setting where skinny, pasty people flex intellectual muscle like a peacock flaunts its feathers or a housecat marks its territory, the Adult Spelling Bee provides psychological comfort and reassurance:

Some spellers, haunted by mistakes made during childhood bees, participate to settle old scores. Others, former spelling champions, wish to relive their glory days. Yet most people go for the cold drinks and the inevitable laughs derived from watching a person who is tipsy try to spell trichotillomania. (The compulsion to tear or pluck out the hair on one’s head and face.)

Karl Steel, 35, a graduate student in English and comparative literature at Columbia from the Gowanus area of Brooklyn, admitted to being a poor speller, yet he readily enters nearly all of the bees at Freddy’s. “There’s a lot of shared misery,” Mr. Steel said. “I’ve never won, and I’m never going to win. It’s taking claim of your inabilities.”

His girlfriend, Alison Kinney, 30, has proven to be a better speller. An administrator at the New York University School of Law, she has won the bee at Freddy’s more than once. “A lot of recovered high school geek behavior is coming out,” she said. “It’s appealing because it’s a kind of structured way to be with your friends that isn’t just sitting around a bar and talking.”

(It’s not worth repeating the anecdote of the 23-year-old man who decided to settle in Brooklyn because of the Pete’s Candy Store spelling bees, but should you decide to read about it, it’s there.)

Everyone who understands that spelling aptitude directly correlates to sexual prowess knows that the Adult Spelling Bee is a perfect way to reach out to potential mates:

For those in search of romance, the bees are a welcome alternative to happy hours and online dating. Mr. Guiney, a former citywide spelling bee champion in Boston, dated two young women he met at the Williamsburg bee, one of whom is Ms. Dziura. “The whole place is really dark,” he said. “It’s mood lighting. It’s dim and warm, and having just gone through a spelling bee with someone, you have something to talk about. It provides people with an in.”

Get Shaved!

Difficult to unpack and probably not worth it: A “small but growing number of men” (read: three people the writer knows) who enjoy the look of three-day stubble but who hate scraggly neck hair and are unwilling or unable to sculpt three-day stubble are opting for “laser beard sculpturing”. I swear to fucking god I’m not making this up:

The two-day beard is a modern classic. Both virile and casual, it bespeaks a man who needn’t bother to shave every day.

And it’s also a lot of work.

The truth is, most men who sport sexy, two-day growths end up spending more, not less, time in front of the mirror. That’s because facial hair has a way of meandering in unruly patches down the neck or up too high on the cheeks. If the look you’re aiming for is George Clooney relaxing at his Italian villa – rather than, say, Jack Nicholson on a murderous rampage in “The Shining” – you end up needing to trim around the edges. And that means wielding a razor very, very carefully.

“I love the look of going a few days without shaving,” said Charles Christian, 26, a part-time hair stylist and fashion designer who is a student at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. “But my beard hair was growing into my chest hair, and I’m really not into that.”

Kevin Hillaire, 29, a case manager for the New York City Department of Correction, likes the stubbly look, too. But the scraggly patches on his neck, dotted with ingrown hairs, ruined the picture.

No longer. Mr. Christian, Mr. Hillaire and a small but growing rank of other men are sporting neatly trimmed two- and three-day growth without extra grooming. A technique called laser beard sculpturing has helped them do away with unwanted areas of facial hair for good.

(This, by the way, basically proves that the Fashion Week Hangover exists.)