Your Poor Mother . . .

You know what they say about not quitting the day job . . . this guy actually did it:

Four folks in the group are a self-defined entity, calling themselves the Mortal Beasts and Deities. Hailing from northwestern Connecticut (Falls Village, to be exact), they have made the trek to New York City for three years running, and will stay on their stilts for three hours straight tonight.

“This is an awesome event. We love coming,” says Mark Alexander, who gave up his day job as an art teacher to perform full time. “I want to do this while I still can. It takes balance, rhythm — and lots of ibuprofen.”

Within minutes, the [Greenwich Village Halloween] parade marshals pull back the barricades where Spring St. meets Sixth Ave. The waiting is over. The parade has begun.

Alexander and everyone behind him move eastward, en masse, toward the intersection.

“My mother may be worried about my giving up the day job,” he says. “But look at this spectacle. She can worry all she wants, but I’m certainly not. This is awesome.”

The Long Arm Of The Lionel-Industrial Complex Returns To Wrap Its Filthy Fingers Around Our Fair City

The entity responsible for this nation’s infatuation with trains is coming home:

After almost four decades working out of a sleepy Detroit suburb, Lionel, the toy train and model railroad manufacturer, is back on Madison Avenue, and trying to bring model trains out of the hobbyist’s basement and into the realm of popular culture.

Founded in 1900 by Joshua Lionel Cowen in Midtown Manhattan, Lionel grew to mainstream popularity through the 1950s, when trains were icons of Americana and lifelines of cross-country travel. But when cars and planes began to replace train transportation, Lionel’s sales dwindled, with only hardcore hobbyists buying.

The move to Madison Avenue is part of Lionel’s CEO Jerry Calabrese’s aim to “re-establish what Lionel’s tradition was for its first 65 years and stake our flag back in the world of pop culture,” he said in an interview yesterday.

The Madison Avenue showroom, complete with oak floors and three operating train layouts, marks a nostalgic homecoming for the company. “There are old men who weep that we’re back with a showroom on Madison Avenue,” Mr. Calabrese said. The showroom is now seven blocks north of the company’s original Madison Avenue showroom at 27th Street. “It’s great to be back in the city because the roots of the company are in New York,” Mr. Calabrese said.

If the Lionel-Industrial Complex has its way, a grim future of light rail awaits:

Under Mr. Calabrese’s leadership, Lionel has signed licensing deals with the movies “The Polar Express” and “Harry Potter,” with Nascar, and an exclusive deal with the MTA to manufacture replica subway cars.

Last year’s Lionel train display at Grand Central Terminal drew more than 200,000 visitors to the station Mr. Calabrese refers to as “the St. Patrick’s Cathedral of trains,”during the holiday season when train sets suddenly enter the mainstream zeitgeist. “At the end of the day we’re a pop cultural iconic American brand,” Mr. Calabrese said. “Now we have to catch up with our destiny.”

The Devil squints his black eyes, strokes his fiery goatee and breathes heavily, “Choo, Choo.”

With A Booming Economy Back Home And Anti-Illegal Immigration Demagoguery Here, No Irish Need Apply

The Queens Chronicle reports that the Irish immigrants of Queens are returning to Ireland:

Martin, 29, an illegal Irish immigrant who has been here for seven years, has had enough. He came to America looking for a better life, but has not been able to obtain legal status in this country. He will soon join the growing trend of Irish immigrants moving back to Ireland, where they can reap the benefits of a booming economy and legal citizenship.

“I’ve had enough of being a subject here. I have to find a life somewhere,” said Martin, who requested his last name be withheld.

Statistics show Martin is one of many Irish immigrants who are opting to return home as a result of the current immigration situation in the United States and the burgeoning economic state back home. According to Ireland’s Department of Social and Family Affairs, 132,000 Irish have returned since 2001, with more than 61,000 returning between 2002 and 2004.

In Queens, the flight of Irish immigrants has become very apparent. Neighborhoods like Woodside and Maspeth, formerly known as predominantly Irish enclaves, have taken on new identities, as Hispanics, Filipinos, and Koreans move in.

Maria, a 22 year old Irish immigrant who also requested her last name be withheld, is a bartender in Astoria and plans to study nursing at LaGuardia Community College. She came here a year and a half ago because she wanted to travel and see the world. She knows, however, that many who came to America for similar reasons will end up moving back.

“People are moving to Ireland because of the legal system in this country. The government doesn’t want to give us any legality or citizenship,” said Maria, adding that the irony of the situation is that, “there’s no such thing as a true American and I feel like this government has forgotten its roots.”

The article adds that that whole “Leave No Paddy Behind” thing hasn’t worked out so well:

Siobhan Dennehey, the executive director at Emerald Isle Immigration Center, said that while many immigration reform movements have lobbied to legalize the Irish, their exhaustive work has gone unanswered, possibly because the Irish are often overlooked as an immigrant population.

“The automatic assumption is that if you’re Irish you don’t have an immigration problem, which is quite far from the truth,” Dennehey said, adding that her colleague once told her, “our Irish ancestors helped build this country, build the roads, but we can’t drive on them, we can’t reap the benefits of which we’ve sown. That’s the Irish story.”

Dennehey also said that the public protests and marches supporting the legalization of the Irish have possibly done more harm than good, uncovering undocumented workers who had previously lived under the radar. “There has not been any positive sign,” said Dennehey, who cites the lack of improvement in legalizing immigrants and the Irish economy’s success story as reasons for the mass migration back across the Atlantic.

And Soon We’ll Start Calling Them “Freeways”

Bad news for those who worry that New York is becoming more and more like LA everyday:

City and state transportation officials are planning to give highway drivers real-time travel information, calculated in part with E-ZPass technology and displayed on a network of roadside message boards in the five boroughs.

Motorists on major thoroughfares like the Belt Parkway and the FDR Drive will get forecasts of how long it will take to go between various points in the city based on the average times of other drivers.

Currently, such level of detail is being displayed only to drivers on the New Jersey approaches to the George Washington Bridge and at two Metropolitan Transportation Authority bridges. The plan is to have real-time travel information displayed along highways in all five boroughs within about three years, a spokeswoman for the city Transportation Department said.

It will begin with a pilot program along the Staten Island Expressway by the end of the year.

We’re desperate, get used to it.

We Are All Orange Now

MTV’s “True Life: I’m A Staten Island Girl” continues to have repercussions on the island:

MTV’s recent “True Life” documentary, “I’m a Staten Island Girl,” hit a nerve when it portrayed the borough’s youth as catty, road-raging, privileged and Gottiesque. Then the show cut deeper and compounded that unflattering list of stereotypes by portraying Islanders as — cringe — tanning-salon-orange.

. . .

After the episode first aired on national television on Oct. 18, viewers posted more than 230 comments to the entertainment forum on the local Web site silive.com.

Bloggers ranted.

Some recorded the episode to watch again. Others couldn’t bear to watch.

Islanders wrote in to the Advance calling the episode “embarrassing,” “horrible,” “hilarious” and “emotionally disturbing.”

“We are not orange,” was their cry.

. . .

Said Ms. [Danielle] DiPietro [one of the show’s three subjects]: “I know a lot of people are really p.o.’d about the show and they have a right to be. But they should have been at the auditions for the show.”

Both aspiring actresses and publicists, these two “Staten Island girls” have no regrets. They also thought the show was pretty accurate.

“Not everybody has spiky hair. Not everybody has an orange tint to them. Not everyone does, but the majority of Staten Island does,” said Ms. [Lauren] Laner [another of the show’s subjects].