Oops!

So LIPA's Richard Kessel resigned his CEO post (while still remaining chairman and collecting the CEO's $165,000+ salary) nine months ago, and never told anyone.

This from a guy who's drawn to a microphone like geeks to a Rush concert at Jones Beach. According to Newsday:

Asked why there was no public release, he said, "I didn't see any reason to do it."

Turns out there were a few other things Kessel has found no reason to publicly disclose:

1. He owns a solar-powered applause machine that he hides behind the podium during his ubiquitous press conferences.
2. He is working behind the scenes to kill Donald Trump's plans for a high-end restaurant at Jones Beach because he wants a Ponderosa with an all-you-can-eat buffet.
3. He is the reason all the chicken-salad sandwiches have gone missing from refrigerators in the LIPA cafeterias.
   

What Would Castellano Have Said About This Kind of Drug Trafficking?

Oftentimes we'll be driving along Jericho Turnpike in Huntington and notice what looks like a auto-wreck garage but with the name "Gotti Tans." And we're like, it can't be that Gotti.

Turns out, it is.

And it's owned by Frank "Gotti," whose real last name is Agnello, the 16-year-old grandson of mobster/Brioni-suit-wearing fashion icon/thief and murderer John Gotti. (We assume Frank figured "Agnello Tans," while more accurate, isn't as catchy a name.) The kid got pinched when the cops found drugs in his car. And by "drugs," we mean OxyContin tablets.

We think that more important than the drugs is the fact that he was driving two friends: one was 17, the other a juvenile. Drivers with a junior license ae not allowed to drive with more than two passengers under the age of 21 unless they are members of the immediate family. If we got caught doing that, Dad would have snatched the keys from our grubby mitts. (Frank's dad, Carmine, once referred to as a "moron" by his late father-in-law, is currently serving a racketeering sentence in prison.)

But the kid is doing a lot more than we did at age 16. Not only does he own a tanning salon, he's the author of a book called The Gotti Diet. And he got arrested!

Curiously, he was driving a 2006 Chrysler Pacifica. Which is like a glorified station wagon. Guess he's not so goomba after all.

There's Crazy, and Then There's Cah-RAY-zeeeee....

"Mental illness. Thought process disorder. No empathy. Malignant narcissism."

Judith Regan's self-diagnosis during weekly therapy sessions? No, these are the DSM-IV categorizations that the ambulance-chasing publisher uses to describe O.J. Simpson in her latest statement responding to criticism about her decision to publish The Juice's "hypothetical" tell-all book "If I Did It."

However, a quick scread of the 11706-native's raving, Percocet-fueled manifesto reveals that perhaps the Island has spawned another veritable whackjob the likes of which haven't been seen since John Spano thought he'd tap into his nonexistent petty cash fund and purchase a local NHL franchise.

Second Floor: Lazy, Spoiled Rich People

Meet Lucy Ghazvini. She's 38 and lives in Brookville. And, oh yeah, she and her husband installed a fuckin' elevator in their house. Newsday (which notes that the couple have no physical limitations, lest you think we're picking on the disabled) sez:

...the couple's live-in maid finds it handy when carting laundry up from the basement.

Good thing the Ghazvinis have a maid. Because Lucy's a "homemaker" (we assume she must be cleaning the toilets while the maid's doing the laundry) and maybe if she didn't wear that scarf so tight, she'd get more oxygen to her brain and she'd be able to actually walk up a flight of stairs without getting out of breath.

First Act of Office: Place National Earthquake Center Along San Andreas Fault

To the surprise of no one since, oh, 2002, "America's Mayor" (try saying that with a straight face) Rudy Giuliani is running for president. There's probably a joke in there somewhere, but we're feeling lazy this morning and will instead do a cheap "separated at birth" thingy:

Wow. That was fun. Here's another one featuring greedy cue-ball Dick Grasso:

Proof That Gun Control Might Not Reduce Violent Crime

Soon Long Islanders will be forced off the Island not because of high taxes or unaffordable housing, but because of the increase in murders committed by bizarre weapons (see also previous post).

As Opposed to Those Gentle Misdemeanors Involving a Samurai Sword

Don't Forget Who's Still Sitting Pretty in Oyster Wang, I Mean Bay

Sanjay Kumar is going to jail for 12 years.

To put the sentence in perspective: if Charlie Wang's former protege serves the full term, there will STILL BE THREE YEARS LEFT on the contract Charlie gave Rick DiPietro.

Also on the Budget: Robot Firemen!

More of your tax dollars at work: Farmingville's fire commissioners recently passed a budget that allocates $260,000 for the renovation of its stations' recreation rooms and $55,000 to buy a race car.

A deeper look at the budget also reveals an earmark for this:

Uh...that's a Farmingville FD patch on the space shuttle. Which isn't really a space shuttle, but a balloon shaped liked the space shuttle. But you know what we mean.

The Facial He'll Get in Prison Is Not Quite What He'd Get at a Spa

Finally, after a million delays, Frank Tassone is going to prison. He joins fatty Pam Gluckin (pictured, and fat) and a bunch of other thieves who ripped off Roslyn. Your taxes at work!

Dead Cablevision Exec Treated Better Than Living Cablevision Customers

And so it appears that the Dolan Family Monolopy has awarded backdated stock options to nonemployees, including a no-longer-living former vice chairman of the company.

It's been learned that Cablevision has also awarded options to the following:

1. Former President Warren G. Harding (1865–1923)
2. Anyone who buys an album by Jim Dolan's band
3. Several trees in Charles Dolan's yard
4. Seven of the nine Jim Dolan clones (still in progress at an undisclosed location)

Good Thing He Didn't Work at the Elephant Exhibit

Some dude in Coram got back at the contracting company that fired him by stealing one of its payloaders and joyriding through town. As Cindy Adams would say, Only in Coram, kids. Only in Coram.

Nelson Ravings Summary: September 14, 2006

In which we plow through the weekly Long Island Press column so you don't have to.

Title: Downtown
Word count: 1313
"I" usage: 41 "I"; 5 "I'm"; 0 "I'd"; 4 "I've"
Four-word summary: "I had to pee."

Note to Self: Get Savings Account at JPMorgan Chase

A Syosset businessman and "life coach" was the recent lucky recipient of a $70,000 windfall transferred directly to his Chase savings account. The problem is, the money transfer was a banking error, the guy has withdrawn $58,000 of it already, and now the bank wants its dough back. Of course, the dude's lawyer is saying it was an honest error, that his client doesn't keep track of the large amounts of money filtering back and forth into the account, and that his refusal to return any of the bank's calls or letters does not mean he is guilty of any wrongdoing.

Sounds reasonable. Shit happens. But it's hard to give the guy the benefit of the doubt when you read a little further into the article and discover that this modern-day Matt Foley honed his motivational speaking skills and the life lessons he taps into in his coaching sessions IN JAIL while serving time for conspiracy to commit securities fraud. Sigh....

Child, Thy Name Is Lard Ass:
The Roslyn Cluster-Fuck, Er, Cluster-Stop Conundrum

We know their backpacks are super-heavy. We're well-aware that they may need to conserve their energy for after-school PlayStation marathons. But the schoolchildren of Roslyn surely have the stamina and athletic ability to make it to and from the corner for their daily busride -- don't they? Not if you ask their outraged parents, who are up in arms over a recent change in the district's schoolbus pickup/dropoff itinerary. Now, in an effort to save money in the beleaguered district, each child will no longer be picked up directly in front of his or her McMansion; instead, the nonperambulating mouthbreathers will be forced to walk to -- GASP! -- a nearby corner to nab a ride on Big Yellow.

C'mon, people, gas prices are at an all-time low, so if you've got a problem with your progeny having to venture past the end of your driveway, fire up the H3, postpone your manicure till after lunch, and drive them to school yourselves.

Besides, what's the worst that can happen? If you're lucky, your exhausted cherubs will be so pooped from their eighth-of-a-mile exodus that they'll fall asleep on the bus and go missing.

Next Stop: Go Screw Yourself

A recent epidemic of school bus drivers misplacing children has been plaguing Long Island. Newsday’s been on top of it. But the real problem is not the bus drivers, but the kids falling asleep on the bus.

Who falls asleep on the bus? When we were kids, we had to stay awake to fend off the pack of bullies who tortured us. Who can sleep when you’re sitting on a slippery green vinyl seat (with the occasional duct tape to provide some friction) on a rumbling diesel vehicle that shakes more than Muhammad Ali off-roading in a SUV with stop sign-shaped tires? And why hasn’t Newsday mentioned these other incidents:

• On November 22, 2005, a Long Island Rail Road train leaving Huntington for Penn Station ended up on the observation deck of the Empire State Building. When asked why the train went off course, the conductor replied, "I always wanted to go to the Empire State Building."


• During an Islanders game in 2003, an elevator full of fans at Nassau Coliseum was stuck between floors for the entire second period. Passengers said staring at the closed doors turned out to be more entertaining than the home team flailing on the ice.


• In late 2000, a Southwest Airlines flight coming from Fort Lauderdale was about to land at MacArthur Airport when it turned around and returned to Florida because a co-pilot “left a pen at the Cheeburger Cheeburger stand.”


• On a humid August day in 1996, the Hampton Jitney ended up in Hampton, a small village along the New York-Vermont border, some 300 miles away from the closest Long Island-based Hampton. The bus driver was like, “Hampton, East Hampton, West Hampton, what’s the difference?”


• On October 3, 1905, a carriage hired from the Sayville Livery Concern en route to the Blue Point General Store was rerouted through Browns River in Bayport when the horse pulling the carriage got thirsty.

Seller's Desperation

Newsday has recently revamped its real estate section to include a one-page feature entitled Why You Should Buy My House in [Your Town]. Here you'll find a last-ditch effort by the highlighted homeowners to dump their overpriced, overtaxed money pits (STAR deduction notwithstanding) on a new flock of suckers (Long Island Nation staff included) who would rather survive paycheck-to-paycheck in a Port Washington split than live the high life in a custom-built, center-foyer Colonial in Buttfuck, Pennsylvania (those Poconos pipe dreams are mostly scams, by the way).

The article usually features the home's basic specs (asking price, taxes, what other homes in the area have recently sold for, and the amount of time it's been on the market), as well as a litany of often-poignant tales of how many children were sired in the amorous abode, immaculate images of the interior and exterior, and a stiff, posed shot of the homeowners themselves sporting pleading, pained expressions that seem to emote, "Please take this financial drain off our hands so we can retire to Miami Beach."

Today's "Why You Should Buy My House" showcases a plea to purchase a pleasant-enough-looking dwelling in Commack, which immediately raised our ire, since the writers of this particular item also have a home in Commack that we'd be willing to part with for the right amount of wampum. And we think they could have listed some better reasons for buying in Commack than a house that boasts a fieldstone fireplace and banquet-sized dining room.


Why You Should Buy OUR House in Commack

1. Beautiful harvest-gold kitchen circa 1973 (perfect decor for the upcoming autumnal equinox!


2. Large, crabgrass-ridden 0.33-acre lot that takes hours to mow


3. Ultra-sexy location right down the road from the Commack Motor Inn.


4. Proximity to not one, but TWO Targets, two Home Depots, and the verdant Hoyt Farm, which is within walking distance but to which we're denied access because we're Town of Huntington residents, not Town of Smithtown residents.


5. Forget about through-the-roof SAT scores and Regents scholarships: Commack High School (SD 10) claims both Rosie O'Donnell and Bob Costas among its esteemed alumni.

Nelson Ravings Summary

In which we plow through the weekly Long Island Press column so you don't have to.

Title: Fashion and Fame
Word count: 1308
"I" usage: 53 "I"; 2 "I'm"; 4 "I'd"; 1 "I've"
Four-word summary: "I like Project Runway."

LaGuardia's Looking Better All the Time

To the surprise of no one, MacArthur Airport is experiencing more trouble. This time, Southwest Airlines' second concourse has been delayed indefinitely because of fire and other safety deficiencies.

Further investigation by longislandnation.com has discovered the following additional problems at the airport:

1. Airport wasn't actually named after General Douglas MacArthur, but rather the treacly tune "MacArthur Park" (the Richard Harris version).


2. T.G.I. Fridays serves potato skins that actually came from Bennigan's!


3. Bumps on the runways caused by the burial of bribe money to disgraced former Islip boss Peter J. "Baby Face" McGowan.


4. Major delays caused by rerouting planes to the LIE.


5. Hard to find pilots willing to work so close to Selden


6. Many Southwest flights go to Florida. How is that "southwest"? Like, did anyone pass a geography course?


7. "Lost" luggage showing up on eBay from a seller named ISPbagz


8. In-flight movie is United 93 (but only after people revolted against Herbie: Fully Loaded).


9. Rumors of a new carrier: Buttafuoco Air.


10. Airport screeners asking passengers to "remove all metal items, take off your shoes, and show us your tits."


11. Southwest's male flight attendants might…be…gay.

Welcome, Suckers!

Welcome, Suckers!

Welcome to Long Island Nation. Or LongIslandNation. Or longislandnation. Or however the hell we decide to eventually spell it.