It Could Be Just Me, But The Mayor Is Probably The Last Person I’d Want To Rap About

Hizzoner as rapper’s muse*:

By day, mild-mannered Angela Banks-Lowe toils quietly inside City Hall, answering the unrelenting stream of phone calls that pour into Mayor Bloomberg’s press office.

But unknown to most, this soulful civil servant also has a separate, secret life — as Madame Star, a rapper whose face once adorned the pages of Billboard magazine, right next to Salt-N-Pepa and Queen Latifah.

Now, the Erasmus Hall grad has a new song about her boss, the mayor — most certainly the only rap tune ever to mention the words “social promotion,” all while grooving to a bass line straight out of her native Brooklyn.

“I am just starting to get back into my music,” said the thirtysomething Banks-Lowe, who achieved most of her fame in the mid-’90s. “It was just something that I thought would be a nice dedication to the mayor.”

To be sure, her new single, titled “Four More Years,” offers not a note of criticism about the mayor. It is instead a kind of hip-hop anthem that recounts the successes of Bloomberg’s first term and his reelection last year.

“Everybody in the place, put a smile on your face, as you bounce to the bass, ’cause the mayor won the race,” goes the chorus to the song, which is not available in stores but can be heard at Banks-Lowe’s Web site

*And it’s not the first time this has happened.

Turning Your Small Business Into A Smashing Success

After dozens car windows were smashed on Staten Island, police investigators are looking into the possibility that an auto repair shop was behind the vandalism:

Cops are investigating the possibility that a North Shore auto repair shop hired thugs to smash out almost 100 car windows in an attempt to beef up business.

Inspector Richard Bruno, commanding officer of the North Shore’s 120th Precinct, is so disgusted with the rash of vandalism last week that he has personally promised to go to any lengths necessary to bring the perpetrators to justice.

“This is either some fraternity or gang initiation, or some sort of operation for financial gain,” Bruno said.

He emphasized that his detectives are “leaning toward” the latter of those two theories.

“We will be visiting every auto glass repair shop on the North Shore. There are over 20 of them, and we will be running background checks on the owners to see if anyone is struggling financially,” said Bruno.

He added that his officers will be on the lookout for two to four white males last seen leaving some of the crime scenes in a black Kia Sportage, a four-wheel-drive sport-utility vehicle.

“We have the ability to check state Department of Motor Vehicle records for every black Kia [registered] on Staten Island,” said Bruno. “And we are going to do that. We’re going to shake some bushes.”

In total, Bruno said, 86 windows were damaged — 20 Tuesday night into Wednesday morning and 66 Friday night into Saturday morning.

The NYPD provided the following statistics: 30 car windows were smashed in Mariners Harbor; 17 in Port Richmond, near Heberton and Charles avenues; 15 in West Brighton, near Oakland, Pelton and Castleton avenues; 11 in Westerleigh; nine in New Brighton, near Tysens Street and Franklin Avenue, and four in Castleton Corners, near Knox Place and Governor Road.

“The damage was deliberate,” said Bruno. “There was one residence on Oakland Avenue where the suspect hopped into a fenced-in backyard, broke a window with a brick and hopped back out.”

Why There Oughta Be A City Council Resolution!

New York City Councilman Eric Gioia attends to the most important issues facing his district:

Banning pointed metal scissors and small tools from airplanes to make airline travel safer and to send a clear signal to terrorists has been proposed recently by Congressmember Joseph Crowley and City Councilmember Eric Gioia.

The lawmakers said that the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) reimposing the ban on these small tools would send a clear signal to terrorists that the United States would remain vigilant in securing the safety of its citizens and the country.

Both also said they support pending legislation to reimpose the ban on those articles and others.

The TSA officially lifted the ban last December and immediately ran into strong opposition from Crowley and other public officials. Crowley (D–Queens/The Bronx) introduced the Leave All Blades Behind Act [Damn you, Bush for beginning this “Leave . . . Behind” convention!], which seeks to reinstate the ban on all scissors and tools that can be used to threaten the lives of airline passengers and flight personnel.

United States Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D–New York) introduced a similar measure calling for freezing the list of previously prohibited items.

Gioia (D–Long Island City) announced he would introduce a resolution in the City Council denouncing the TSA’s decision and supporting the bills introduced by Clinton and Crowley.

How About Instead We Try Something Along The Lines Of “No Mellifluously Cute Foreign Accent Left Behind”?

Don’t get me wrong — I like your humorous, self-deprecating style, but if you’re going to convert those anti-amnesty types, you might want to rework that slogan a little:

Rallying under the slogan “No Paddy Left Behind,” about 900 Irish and Irish-Americans packed a town hall meeting in Woodside on immigration reform Friday evening.

Speakers urged the audience, many of whom are undocumented immigrants, to call their elected officials in support of the Kennedy-McCain immigration reform bill. Currently before the Senate, the measure would allow undocumented immigrants to remain in the United States and earn a chance to apply for permanent residency.

. . .

The Kennedy-McCain bill, known as the Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act, was introduced before the Senate last year by Senators Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.).

The measure would permit undocumented or “illegal” immigrants currently living in America to obtain work visas for up to six years. They could apply for permanent residency after paying fines, passing a background check and completing a period under a temporary visa. The bill would also create a new path to legal immigration through a temporary worker program.

Undocumented Irish immigrants present at the meeting said current laws prevent them from returning home to visit family. They pay taxes, but cannot apply for health insurance or open bank accounts, much less obtain a driver’s license.

Dionne Warwick Is On The Tarmac! Dionne Warwick Is On The Tarmac!

The search for Vivi, the Westminster Dog Show participant that apparently bolted before getting in the cargo hold of her plane, now includes several psychics:

With all leads running dry on the sixth day since the prized show dog darted off a plane during boarding at Kennedy Airport, the main search party has begun taking advice of at least four animal communicators.

“They are telling us that she is alive and they are telling us she is warm,” Honi Reisman, a close friend of Vivi’s owners, said via cell phone yesterday as she searched the heated cargo buildings dotting the airport. “They are saying she’s in a building — but there are hundreds of buildings.”

About a dozen psychics in total have chimed in, claiming to channel Vivi, with four psychics echoing the same information, said Paul Lepiane, Vivi’s co-owner.

. . .

Close to a hundred hours have already been logged by searchers for the prized whippet, whose full name is Champion Bohem C’est La Vie. On Wednesday morning, Vivi was on her way home from the Westminster Dog Show — where she took a coveted award of merit – when she broke free from her crate before being loaded inside the plane. The crate latch was later found to have been broken.

Though she can run as fast as 35 mph, both her owners and the psychics think she is somewhere on the airport’s 5,000 acres.

Animal telepathy is not new for Vivi’s co-owner, Jil Walton. One communicator helping search for Vivi also channeled Walton’s horse 10 years ago, finding that the animal once had an offspring who died, Walton said. The information turned out to be accurate.

“Some part of me says it’s ridiculous to feel hope,” Walton in a phone interview, speaking of the pet psychic, “but some other part of me says it’s real.”

Reisman’s sister, Carol, gave the name of psychic Beatrice Lydecker of Portland, Ore., as helping out. Lydecker said Vivi was in eyeshot of lots of yellow equipment — not much help in an airport littered with forklifts — and was hiding under folded boxes. “She said Vivi could hear a person calling to her, but she didn’t recognize the voice,” Carol Reisman said.