Staten Island Stalker, Screech Edition

Seen on Staten Island — Dustin “Screech” Diamond:

From 5 a.m. until after sunset last night, 100-plus ABC crew members descended on the Hilton Garden Inn, Bloomfield, and a nearby office building to film parts of episode 4 of the Knights of Prosperity.

The show, due to premiere Oct. 17, mixes sitcom fare with celebrity voyeurism by following a pack of goofy characters as they plot to rob the home of Mick Jagger.

The plum-lipped, wire-thin rock icon, around whom the show has been built, makes an appearance as himself in the first episode, the production company divulged yesterday.

Otherwise, the TV people on scene at the Hilton Garden Inn yesterday guarded the set with passion equal to that of a Betty Crocker Bake-off contestant protecting a secret recipe.

They couldn’t quite hide Dustin Diamond, however. The actor, who played the uber-nerd Screech in the early-1990s sitcom Saved by the Bell, has a cameo, although a spokeswoman for the production company was characteristically mum.

He’s a little heavier and has a little more facial hair — other than that, he’s Screech, said hotel owner Richard Nicotra.

It’s amazing how much time and effort is spent on seven minutes of airtime, marveled Nicotra, as he watched the crew line up for a buffet lunch during a break in the 14-hour-plus day. We’re friendly to them. We enjoy doing this. It’s certainly good business.

With some Hollywood set-designer magic, the hotel can be transformed into Anywhere, USA, and it receives frequent visits from scouts looking for locations to shoot.

Knights of Prosperity, starring Donal Logue and a band of other actors who have yet to become household names, joins the ranks of such shows as Law and Order and The Sopranos in using the hotel as a set.

What does Donal Logue have to do to become a household name on the Island? Screech-struck ingrates . . .

From “Flea” To “Boutique”

Twelve hours on how to sell factory-seconds electronics and cheaply made socks:

Starting next month, aspiring entrepreneurs will be able to attend a seminar that will teach them the marketing skills they’ll need to be vendors at an indoor flea market in Far Rockaway, Queens.

The “How to Become a Successful Flea Market Vendor” workshop was set up by organizers of the Seaside Flea Market, who are seeking locals who yearn to own their own businesses and are willing to set up shop at the market, which reopens this fall.

“When we saw there was an opportunity for something to happen in the Rockaways, we jumped at the chance,” said flea market vendor Valerie Vargas, 45, who co-owns Pisces Arts & Crafts with her husband, Max.

The Far Rockaway couple took the 12-hour course earlier this year and on summer weekends have sold their handmade jewelry and oils at the flea market, located at 1700 Seagirt Blvd.

“We went there open-minded. We didn’t know we had a knack for this, and I’m enjoying it,” said Vargas, 45, who also works as a production editor. “We’ve done quite well this summer, and we have repeat customers. Our goal and dream is to have our own store.”

The vendor course instructs participants how to choose a product for sale, how to set uptheir selling area and salesmanship.

“Anyone who is interested in extra income or starting their own business can learn how to do it on their own,” said Abbey Feldman, course instructor and a market organizer. “It is ideal for people who like the boutique business concept.”

Not Only Is It Still A Hole In The Ground But Giuliani Is (Still) Racist!

Someone like Bill Maher should hurry up and book Charles Barron before he ever comes to his senses. Today, the councilmember defends New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin even as Nagin steps back from his Ground-Zero-is-a-five-year-old-hole statement:

Criticism surrounding comments by New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin about rebuilding at Ground Zero is a “racist double standard,” according to City Councilman Charles Barron, who took aim at Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani yesterday.

“One year later, they have the unmitigated gall to tell [Nagin], ‘How come it wasn’t fixed up?’,” Barron, D-Brooklyn, said during an unrelated City Hall press conference. “Here you have two white mayors in New York City — one a racist, Giuliani, and the other a billionaire, Michael Bloomberg — and five years later they still haven’t built up downtown Manhattan after 9/11 and they got the nerve to ask him about one year after Katrina.”

In an interview scheduled to air last night on “60 Minutes,” Nagin deflected criticism about reconstruction delays in New Orleans by pointing to Ground Zero.

“You guys in New York City can’t get a hole in the ground fixed, and it’s five years later,” Nagin said. “So let’s be fair.”

Yesterday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Nagin backed away from that comment: “I wish I would have basically said that it was an undeveloped site, which it is.”

. . .

Barron, meanwhile, said he supported Nagin 100 percent.

“Giuliani put a little mask on his face so he didn’t get dust in his mouth and nose and he was called ‘America’s Mayor,'” the councilman said. “Five years later, the place isn’t even built. They didn’t criticize Bloomberg, they didn’t criticize Giuliani. Ain’t no maybe, they didn’t do it to the white mayors.”

Voters of the 10th Congressional District, please send Barron to Congress — HBO needs you!

Previously on “Charles Barron Says The Darnedest Things”: Barack Obama: Some Guy They Stuck In There and “It’s probably healthier on the plantation”.

And Here, When The Light Goes Away, The Men Come Out To Play — “Pleasure In The Park”

The Queens Tribune makes it sound downright Victorian:

As the last few joggers and bikers make their way out of Forest Park, it is mostly silent. Dusk quickly fades to night and a new group of people begins to quietly make their presence known by the sound of their careful footsteps.

Along Forest Park Drive, between Metropolitan Avenue and Mayfair Road, the ample greenery and bush provide cover to keep people, and any secrets they hold, hidden from view. And here, when the light goes away, the men come out to play. Heading down the maze-like bicycle paths in the park, men of all colors, races, and sizes can be found standing along the way, in clusters or by themselves. The men are fully dressed, unthreatening and quiet. Some stand still and stare, others gesture with hand signals while others repeatedly walk by, trying to create eye contact.

After contact is made, and interest is reciprocated, the men disappear, usually in twos, but sometimes in threes or fours. Movement can be heard in the bushes. A closer look reveals men’s faces and their bare lower torsos, often in compromising positions. The deafening sounds of cars and horns from the road make their noises inaudible as the bushes keep them out of plain sight.

Other Queens public sex hotspots include: Cunningham Park.

Queens Is The Bestest, Better Than All The Restest . . . Borough Of Dreams: Queens

The Not For Tourists Guide to Queens book-release party makes Talk of the Town:

The partygoers sprawled across the SculptureCenter’s gravel courtyard, picking at pieces of fruit and cheese. Many of them hailed from Manhattan or, disproportionately, from the newly trendy Brooklyn neighborhood of Greenpoint, just across the Pulaski Bridge. Michael Sendrow, a twenty-nine-year-old Sunnyside resident (and brother-in-law of one of the guide’s editors), gave a possible explanation for the party’s inter-borough popularity. “It was posted on Myopenbar,” he said. (Myopenbar.com is “your guide to free booze’ in New York. “Queens is full of good shit,” the site’s notice for the N.F.T. party had said. “The Astoria pool, Indian gold by the pound, men with mustaches, strip joints . . .”) “Terrible,” someone chimed in. “I’m telling you: they’re all hipsters, here for the free beer. Cheats.”

Insofar as other Queens residents could be found, they, too, were wary of outside interest in their borough. Bryan Kimpel, a lifelong Astorian, confided his concern that Queens was on the verge of an invasion by exiles from pricier parts of the city. “I was just telling some of my friends about Water Taxi Beach, and then I was going, ‘Oh, jeez, I better not tell too many people.’ Because we’ll have to wait in line.” Cathy Albright, the one local who expressed unqualified enthusiasm for the guide, had moved, just a year earlier, to Astoria from Texas. “I’ve been waiting for the Queens edition to come out,” she said, clutching her complimentary copy. “The addresses are so screwy here.”

. . .

By eight, the party was winding down. Revellers had begun spilling out onto Jackson Avenue, some in search of the E, G, and 7 trains, others in the general direction of the nearby L.I.C. Bar. A dozen more loitered on the sidewalk in front of the SculptureCenter, apparently uncertain of their next move. Sendrow said, “I imagine that these people, who probably don’t know where they’re going, get a Queens guide and have to look at it in order to get back to wherever they’re from.”

What a wag . . .