New Yorkers We Cannot Tolerate
NYPress released on Wednesday their Top 50 Hated New Yorkers list. A day after my tirade on Bloomberg's shitty job with the MTA subway system -- what do you know -- the Mayor makes number 1 on the list. Here are some excerpts for your pleasure:10. William B. Harrison Jr. CEO, JP Morgan Chase & Co -- If you have money in Chase's vaults, you should already hate this guy for doing nothing since his appointment in 2001 to fix his company's usurious, fee-based rape of low-income depositors. Then there is the matter of all those WorldCom bonds. But lately Bill Harrison's loathsomeness has hit a new high: JP Morgan continues to extend huge credit sums to predatory lenders that then use JP's line to furnish cash "payday" loans to the working poor with interest rates that can approach 1000 percent. So-called "payday" lenders find an especially fruitful clientele in youthful soldiers. Thus have payday lenders over the past decade sprung like poison mushrooms in the fecund soil of the "private sector" around military bases nationwide. All thanks to the largesse of Harrison and his ilk, which includes the heads of Wachovia, Bank of America and Wells Fargo, all of whom have snatched a piece of the $6 billion-dollar-a-year payday lending industry—but none so effectively or extensively as JP Morgan under the leadership of William B. Harrison Jr.1. Michael R. Bloomberg
Mayor of New York City -- We were hoping, praying even, that we could avoid giving this year’s top honor to the most obvious choice, but there was just no way around it. Bloomberg is the most loathsome person in NYC. Just glance back at his “achievement” of bringing the Republican National Convention to town and the mini-police state inspired by it. From the criminal arrest and unlawful detainment of innocent people walking down the street, to his barricading of roads and subsequent damage to local businesses, the RNC alone puts Bloomie in the top 10. Now in reelection mode, “Mayor Mike” is cranking the average-guy happy face to 11, but don’t be fooled. He’s still the same scheming billionaire who spent his entire life up until his first election getting filthy rich and—in his own immortal words—“dining well and chasing women.” Since buying office from a shaken post-9/11 electorate, he’s stayed busy punishing victims of crime instead of helping them (see his innovation of fining for graffiti-strewn newspaper boxes), harassing innocent storeowners (for having extra information on their awnings), and slashing social services. All in order to plug the holes in his Swiss cheese budgets. There’s something for everyone to hate in the born-again Republican mayor: shuttered firehouses; pushing cops to harass people to meet ticket quotas; his 18 percent property tax hike; his retarded and dishonest Olympics pursuit (and his hilarious call on New Yorkers to visit Greece to show support for the same); his exclusion of parents from any decisions on the future of their kids’ schools; “Snapple loves New York, and New York loves Snapple!”; his complicity in abuse of eminent domain statutes; his initial refusal to investigate Guy Velella’s release (changing his mind only after the media shitstorm); his support for the secret 22 percent pay raise given by Pataki to the MTA’s loathsome Katie Lapp; his “tort reform,” which forces local property owners to pay the damages when someone gets hurt on a broken sidewalk; his vulgar efforts to buy off journalists and political parties to serve his needs (such as the $250,000 he gave to the Independence party, without whose ballot line he can’t win). The list goes on. Do we even need to go into the stadium, or his election promise to “never” use tax money for…stadiums? He has the gall to criticize the MTA when he was all but silent in 2003 after they raised the fare an unprecedented 33 percent. But what would you expect from a man who has dedicated his life to one man and one man only? Mike Bloomberg has never cared about anyone but himself, and for that, he wears the crown in 2005.50. Alex Rodriguez
Third Base, New York Yankees -- The $250 million Yankee is so difficult to like, so impossible to root for, that he might be the only athlete in all of sports who would actually look better if it came out that he was a steroid user. If it turned out that A-Rod was a juicer, the ensuing decline-and-fall drama might add some humanity to his hideous, fake-ass Mr. Perfect public persona. Rodriguez represents the supreme embodiment of one of the great international villain archetypes: the toothy, handsome, strapping jock who beats up the nerds before the first school bell rings, stopping just in time to give an apple to the old-la dy homeroom teacher who adores him. He is a classic front runner who's all charm and smiles when he's signing the big contract and hitting home runs in May—but when the chips are down and his team is losing, he passes the buck, points to his stats or picks on small-time nobodies like Bronson Arroyo. Coming as he did into a Yankee tradition rich with gritty gamers like Derek Jeter and Hideki Matsui, and brash free-agent braggarts with a flair for the big stage like Reggie Jackson, A-Rod is the human equivalent of Disneyland Times Square—the child-safe corporate import spackled over the soul of a great city.34. Olsen Twins NYU Students -- Fraternal? Identical? Adorable? How about really fucking scrawny and annoying. The only thing we know for sure about the Olsen twins is that they suck—albeit legally, now that they've reached the age of consent. Though straight-to-DVD dreck is their bread and butter, don't expect them to cash out by flashing their itty-bitty titties on film anytime soon. They're still a couple more drug addictions and anorexic relapses away from being forced to munch sisterly snatch, thereby fulfilling the one-handed fantasies of 74 percent of male America and falling. So what makes these saccharine siblings so repugnant? Swaddled in designer rags, they're insults to the city's hobos. And contrary to the New York Times style section, they aren't starting any trends here. Our urine-scented street people have spent years cultivating their raffish look, complete with rope belts and oversized layers of torn rags—style the Olsens are biting weakly like the pampered Chihuahuas they are. Ladies, we really want to welcome you to New York. By all means, feel free to snort our cocaine. Eat our Tasti D Lite. Screw Lolita-crazed men of dubious ethnic origin and much facial hair. Just drop the rebellious act, dress according to your bank account and for Christ's sake, eat your veggies.
<< Home