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].

Next You’ll Tell Me That Melanie Griffith’s Depiction Of Working Girl Tess McGill Was Inaccurate!

The Staten Island Advance is unimpressed with MTV’s recent “True Life: I’m A Staten Island Girl” episode:

If Staten Island girls are all club-hopping, mall-going, road-raging, tanning-salon-orange Italians, then last night’s episode of MTV’s True Life was so totally true to life.

If Staten Island girls all date spiky-haired losers and throw in extra W’s when they tawk, then the show, I’m a Staten Island Girl was also totally true to its billing as a documentary about young people and the unusual subcultures they inhabit.

Or, it was a totally vapid documentary about young people and the unadulterated stereotypes they exhibit.

Do Staten Island dads really warn their daughters they’ll be sleeping with the fishes?

Do 20-somethings seduce their boyfriends with lines like, Your spikes . . . they’re disheveled in all the right places.

And do they say to their parents, It’s not that I don’t like youse (sic). I just want to get out of Staten Island.

Apparently, sometimes they do, and yesterday, they did it on national TV.

If You Do, Don’t, And If You Further Do, You Really Shouldn’t

Moral of the story — don’t play high-stakes games of dice. Or perhaps if you do play high-stakes games of dice, don’t bet your vehicle. Or maybe, if you do bet your vehicle in a high-stakes game of dice, and you then lose, certainly don’t renege on the bet:

A high-stakes dice game took a near-deadly turn when a drug felon from Stapleton allegedly shot and wounded a loser who bet his car and refused to give it up.

Jerome Mitchell, 19, of Hill Street has been indicted for allegedly attacking the unidentified male shortly before midnight on July 23 at Castleton Avenue and West Street in West Brighton.

A law enforcement source said the victim bet his car in a dice game with Mitchell. The man lost, but when he wouldn’t sign over the vehicle’s title, Mitchell shot him.

The defendant was charged with one count of first-degree assault and three counts of criminal weapon possession.

That’s “Kills” As In “Body Of Water” . . .

The GAO reports “large quantities of radium” in Great Kills Park:

High levels of radium were found in Gateway National Recreation Area in Great Kills when anti-terrorism officials conducted a helicopter survey of city radiation sources last summer to prepare for potential terrorist attacks using so-called dirty radiation bombs, but that fact was revealed only yesterday in a congressional survey.

The aerial survey found 80 unexpected radiation “hot spots” around the city, according to the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, which stated that the NYPD had singled out “a local park” that was “contaminated by large quantities of radium.”

NYPD officials confirmed that the park was Gateway’s Great Kills Park, a portion of which served as a city landfill until the 1930s. It became federal parkland in 1972.

A piece of metal equipment — possibly part of an old X-ray machine — was found underground on Aug. 2, 2005, and it was removed the next day from a portion of an area between the Great Kills Ranger station and the model airplane field, said Tom O’Connell, site manager for the park. An investigation by federal environmental officials found that the radiation levels posed no current risk to human health, according to officials with close knowledge of the survey.

. . .

Vincent Scavuzzo, another Great Kills resident, said he’s skeptical that everything is OK. But Scavuzzo added that the news would not stop him from taking daily walks in the park with his wife, Toni.

“I don’t like the idea that they found something like that,” he said. “Maybe they should do some testing, test the soil, test the water. Anything that’s around here, they should do tests.”

Elaine Borruso agreed.

“You’d hate to think you could come into contact with [radiological material],” she said, adding that she wants the National Park Service to do more testing.

Officials downplayed the threat:

O’Connell, who worked with the federal Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Energy during the investigation, said people should not worry about the news.

“It is no more harmful for a human than having a cigarette on a sunny day,” said O’Connell, who was present during the EPA and DOE’s investigation. “But the only way it would have that effect is if you were sitting in the hole [where the equipment was found].”

Her First Mistake Was Looking For A Hit Man On Craig’s List

One, is every hit man actually a cop? And two, what does it say about you that your life is only worth $50? Questions but no answers:

A baby sitter is accused of hatching a bizarre plot to gain custody of an 8-year-old Staten Island girl with whom she became obsessed — paying a “hit man” $50 to whack the kid’s mother, authorities said yesterday.

The “hit man,” however, turned out to be an undercover cop, leading to conspiracy charges against 26-year-old Shonelle Melvelle-Grant.