Ironic Brooklyn Just Folded In On Itself

Just like a three-card monte game where the rube walks away a winner:

I was trying to find out from a very harried looking cameraman why a full film crew was following around the worst dressed group of young people at last night’s packed Semi Precious Weapons show at Rebel.

“They’re nobodies,” said the cameraman trailing them around the club. A friend whispered to me that they weren’t just any nobodies, they were the cast of the new The Real World in Red Hook. The lights, cameras, VIP status, bottle service and fawning by wannabe socialites was explained.

MTV had the kids well trained. “I’m sorry I can’t divulge that,” the cast members would tell me when I pressed them for any details on life in the Pier 41 house. But Chet Bannon, the Mormon who the producers are trying to have de-flowered, was too nice not to talk. By far the most suave of the yahoos, he was wearing an H&M scarf, Elvis Costello glasses and had his short blonde hair spiked. Best of all, he admitted that they were indeed the cast of The Real World.

“I love glam rock,” Chet told me as he sipped a Shirley Temple, “you just don’t see anything like it in Salt Lake.” As if on cue, Justin Tranter, the mascara-wearing, teased, peroxide-haired frontman of the Weapons, put a medallion around Chet’s neck, whispered something in his ear, then strutted off.

“Wow, that’s just so cool,” Chet — who’s engaged to a girl back home — gushed.

There was trouble in paradise, however, and the young man needed to get something off his virginal chest. “When we go to Williamsburg we get harassed. The hipsters throw things at us and say ‘Why are you here? Go home! Ten years ago none of them were there either.'” He looked hurt and wondered, “Why are the hipsters so small minded?”

Upside: When The Reality TV School Reality TV Show Premieres, We’ll Finally Have The Black Hole Necessary For The Whole Enterprise To Collapse In On Itself

Severe ramifications from the recent writers’ strike continue to wreak havoc on a fragile American culture:

Dreaming of showing it all on reality television? A new school has opened to show you the ropes.

The New York Reality TV School — brainchild of theater coach Robert Galinsky, who has trained reality-TV stars for years — began classes on 19th Street in Manhattan yesterday, offering lessons in jumping from real world to “reality.”

The school — which claims to give students a “competitive advantage” over other potential contestants — provides one-time workshops for $139 and five-week workshops for $299.

Maybe The City Comptroller Can Take Over The Property From EDC . . .

That would be a switch! Funny how that sometimes works out:

One of the biggest water bill deadbeats in New York City is the Economic Development Corporation, according to an audit released by the city comptroller’s office on Monday.

William C. Thompson Jr., the comptroller, said that the corporation had not paid any water or sewer bills for 22 years at the Brooklyn Army Terminal in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, a building of commercial and light industrial space controlled by the corporation.

The unpaid bills totaled $4.5 million.

In a press conference, Mr. Thompson said he was outraged that the agency was so delinquent, not only in failing to pay its bills but also in not contacting the city’s Department of Environmental Protection, which runs the water system, since 1989.

I Suppose It’s Not The Worst Thing To Have A Doubter On A Board, But Then Again . . .

Too bad this story didn’t come out yesterday:

Paul McCartney gal pal and Manhattan MTA honcho Nancy Shevell has a pass that lets her flout city parking rules, The Post has learned.

Shevell, the raven-haired MTA board member who has been dating Sir Paul for months, slid her shiny, black SUV into a commercial loading zone on a recent afternoon.

She then brashly headed off to a Manhattan salon, without the slightest fear of reprisal from a meter maid, photos taken at the scene show.

That’s because Shevell has a special MTA police placard plastered to her dashboard that allows her — and the rest of the agency’s board members — to park their vehicles in no-parking, loading, and metered zones.

An MTA spokesman said agency rules stipulate the pass can be used only for “official MTA business.”

He declined to say whether Shevell’s parlor pit stop qualified.

Historicize It, Don’t Criticize It

NIMBYers somehow invaded the bodies of the four preservationists devoted to the cause of the Gowanus Canal:

Activists admitted that there was some irony in trying to retain the current polluted state of the canal by seeking protection for the industrial buildings that hastened its demise during the 19th and 20th centuries. But they said it’s possible to separate the buildings themselves from the messy business that went on inside.

“They are perfect specimens of what industrial buildings looked like at the start of the Industrial Revolution,” said Betty Stoltz, a member of Friends and Residents of the Greater Gowanus. “Think of it this way: I don’t love everything the Church does, but I don’t want to see churches destroyed.”

Location Scout: Gowanus Canal.