Red State Revolution

In honor of our visitors from the so-called “flyover states” (and because no one else is around), the Times op-ed board extols the virtues of tailgating:

The proposal for a $1.4 billion Jets football stadium on the Far West Side of Manhattan has many flaws, which we’ve enumerated on other occasions. Now the Times sports columnist Dave Anderson has added another. The new stadium would offer mostly garage parking, and would thus interfere with a pastime that a lot of fans find more enjoyable than watching the Jets themselves: tailgating.

On two recent Sundays, Mr. Anderson toured the vast concrete parking lots surrounding Giants Stadium in New Jersey’s Meadowlands, and conducted an admittedly random and unscientific poll of about 150 tailgating fans.

The results were clear: 80 fans wanted to stay where they were, 55 would attend games at a stadium on Long Island or in Queens (like Shea, where the Jets once played, and where fans could keep tailgating). Only 15 preferred a stadium in the city.

Proximity to one’s home was a factor, but the most important reason to oppose the stadium plan was the feeling that a Manhattan stadium would not just trifle with the tailgating tradition, but pretty much destroy it. The Jets, who say they have conducted polls in which the “West Side came out on top,” insist that fans will be able to gather on the streets and at local bars and restaurants.

But that’s not tailgating. Tailgating is acres of S.U.V.’s and pickups, grills and trestle tables groaning under mounds of chicken and ribs and burgers, tents to keep out the rain and the cold, and R.V.’s to house the TV for watching another game.

“Your team can’t always be great,” Mr. Anderson quoted one fan as saying, “but the tailgating is.”

Unibrow for the Working Class

Story by story, bit by bit, those effete elitists at the Times are dismantling the myth of the working man. “Tough Guys, Shapely Eyebrows”:

In a quiet revolution sweeping the blue-collar precincts of metropolitan New York, mechanics, firemen and construction workers – most of them insistently heterosexual – are unapologetically doting on their eyebrows. Inspired by “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” and the well-coiffed rap artists on BET, cowed by tweezers-wielding girlfriends and goaded by wisecracking co-workers, they are plucking and waxing as never before. And they don’t lie about it.

“Eyebrows were the last frontier,” said Louis DeJesus, a hair stylist whose Bronx salon, International Nails and Beauty, started seeing an influx of men about two years ago. “Everyone’s doing it now. And once a guy starts doing it, he gets addicted.”

. . .

From the immigrant enclaves of Queens to the minimalls of Long Island, modest salons that once catered to women find themselves inundated by primping, preening men, most of them young working-class guys who tend to spend their weekends at dance clubs. Even the Gotti brothers, the ones with their own reality television show, have embraced a minimalist approach to facial hair.

Carol Cedeno, a manicurist at Tom’s Scissorhands, a salon in Paterson, N.J., has seen the trend. “A lot of the guys used to be embarrassed, but now they just walk in and say it proudly: ‘I want my eyebrows done,’ ” she said, noting that her salon offers a wax job for $5. “Sometimes their eyebrows end up looking more dainty than their girlfriends’.”

When he first started tweezing last year, Al Bernal, a 31-year-old auto mechanic from Newark, said his friends called his sexuality into question. “They said I looked, you know, gay,” said Mr. Bernal, whose style is maintained by his fiancée. “Of course, these days they do it, too, and they love it because they get a lot more attention from chicks.”

Unintentionally adopting a look that got its start in gay clubs, Mr. Bernal and his friends – who once aspired to the roughneck street thug look – have also discovered the allure of the year-round tan, the shaved chest and the eye-catching clubbing outfit. Diamond studs are in. Flashy gold chains are out. Guys, without even a pause, call it “the pretty-boy look.”

Robbie Wootton, the owner of Spirit, a Chelsea nightclub that caters to the bridge-and-tunnel set on Saturday nights, says the transformation has been stunning. “Never mind the eyebrows,” he said. “These guys shave their whole bodies, even their arms. If you bump up against them in the early morning you can feel the stubble growing back. It’s like rubbing sandpaper.”

Best Post Headline Ever?

“‘Hookers’ Relish Wieners”:

Long Island cops have busted two women who were selling hot dogs — and themselves — from a food truck parked along a busy stretch of Sunrise Highway, authorities said.

Rose Skorge, 34, and Catherina Scalia, 38, were charged yesterday with prostitution.

According to police, Scalia and Skorge started parking in Baldwin about four months ago and sold hot dogs, chips and sodas to dozens of unsuspecting customers from the front of the truck — and sex in the back.

When they spotted a potential consumer for their other business, they would first offer to strip, and then, if the man appeared to be craving something more, take it to the next level, according to cops.

“We’ve never seen hot dogs mixed with prostitution before,” Deputy Inspector Rick Capece said. “There are so many jokes, so little time.”

Acting on a tip, a police officer visited the truck and was propositioned, cops said.

Capece said that Scalia offered to reveal a part of her body for $50. When the officer declined, Scalia allegedly said that Skorge would perform a sex act for the same $50.

When the officer again balked, Scalia promised additional services from Skorge for the same $50, cops said.

In the back of the truck was a captain’s chair and a couch, where Capece said the sex acts would take place.

And they weren’t even tidy about their legitimate business — open bags of chips were scattered around. “It’s certainly not the most sanitary hot dog truck I’ve ever seen,” he said.

Scalia, who lives in Rockville Centre, told police she’s only a stripper and that Skorge, of Merrick, was the one turning tricks in the back of the truck.

Cards for the stripper service littered the truck. On the cards, the women went by the names “Diamond” and “Roxy” and the business was called “Double Delicious,” a possible reference to their hot dog sidelight.

Contrite Snapple Execs Grovel; Staten Island Says “Drop Dead”

Snapple vs. Staten Island update:

Snapple executives were doing everything they could yesterday to prove they aren’t all wet when it comes to Staten Island.

The day after they removed a jab about the borough from their Web site, company officials called local politicians to apologize.

But City Councilman James Oddo (R-S.I.) still found the humor hard to swallow and wanted to make a point.

“When faced with ignorance, disrespect or worse, you need to stand up to it and call it out,” Oddo said before he and state Sen. Diane Savino (D-Brooklyn, S.I.) poured a bottle of Snapple Iced Tea down a sewer drain in Grant City.

Right down the sewer — where it belongs!

That Special Time of Year

While it’s true that the Carnegie Deli has a line out the door stretching halfway down the block and you can’t walk down Seventh Avenue without being asked where Times Square is (“That’s it right there.” “But where’s the square!?”), the rest of the city is deserted:

For those worried about getting around town, please do not be alarmed to find an empty seat on the subway, even at rush hour. Nothing is wrong. It is not a prank.

Then again, don’t even bother trying to find a seat in a horse-drawn cab near Central Park for a romantic winter-wonderland ride. Every out-of-towner has the same idea.

It should come as no big shock, of course, that New York often takes on a different personality during certain holidays. There are more tourists and fewer natives. Businesses change their hours, their décor, even their attitudes to match the conditions.

But this year, it seems, New York has become even more a best-of-times, worst-of-times kind of place, depending on geography and other factors. Or so said dozens of New Yorkers and tourists in conversations this week, who have noticed that some places seem more jam-packed than ever, while others are deserted.

I have to say that although it’s obviously bad for business, we enjoy having a bar or restaurant to ourselves. Even the normally hard-to-get-into places are empty:

Even some famous establishments, ordinarily packed, have had surprising lulls. On Sunday night, for instance, Lisa Magnino and her boyfriend, Jon Coifman, decided to see how long the line was at Grimaldi’s pizzeria in Brooklyn. There wasn’t one.

“We were like, hmm, it must be closed,” said Ms. Magnino, who lives in Carroll Gardens. “But it wasn’t, and when we walked in, we were seated right away. There was a couple sitting at a table for four, and they said, ‘Can you believe this?'”