Why the new Au Bon Pain at the ferry matters

The tourists might actually stick around after they get off the ferry.

Everyday, especially during the pristine summer months, hundreds if not thousands of tourists take the ferry to Staten Island, where they promptly exit, turn around, then get right back on.

So the extent of their visit to SI consists of a walk through the St. George Ferry Terminal.

The borough has tried, and failed, to lure people onto the island in the past.

A minor league baseball stadium has been a miserable failure -- dwarfed by the city's countless real sports teams and not nearly as popular as the Cyclones in Brooklyn.

The ferry fish tank, installed in 2008, cost $750,000 and did a better job at killing fish than luring tourists.

A trolley tour that took ferry riders to iconic North Shore landmarks has been shut down.

A bunch of big wigs went to ferry recently and had a ribbon-cutting ceremony for Au Bon Pain -- the first of many eateries that will be housed in the ferry terminal.

The city's Economic Development Committee took over from the DOT after the spaces sat empty for years.

Someone may have actually done something right at the ferry for a change.

New Pablo Video

We can't even begin to pick apart all the possible narratives in this new Pablo video.

But suffice to say "Learn a Lesson," from last year's excellent There's Rope to Leave, is just an small example of the Schalda family creating intimate moments through songs that are as emotionally fraught as the individuals who perform them.

The one-shot piece has both brother and father confronting the Budweiser-sipping pianist with a dramatic climax: "I'll laugh / all the way / to the morgue."

Rarely do we have the opportunity to talk about stuff we actually like, but here it is.

Bravo boys. If you haven't picked up this album, you can get it here.

Pablo - "Learn a Lesson"

Local news guy does PR stunt at the zoo

This guy is named Chuck and he's from Staten Island.

There's also a groundhog named Chuck, from Staten Island.

Can you fucking believe this. The irony.

Chuck D'Amodio, the one holding the shirt, decided to slum it in his home borough to plug his local morning newscast.

The whole earth-shattering event was covered in depth by the Advance.

"At first, Chuck says, Zoo officials looked a little worried -- but were happy that Chuck was nice and calm."

What the effe does that mean? Zoo officials looked worried? What did they think this guy was gonna do, punch the groundhog in the nuts or something?

D'Amodio wants to make sure everyone tunes in to his PIX11 Morning News Show on Tuesday.

Man uses evening ferry ride to decompress, make dinner plans

A man riding the Staten Island Ferry earlier tonight had a conversation (via cellphone) regarding imminent dinner plans.

"Steak, I think," said Robert Donogan over the phone, grumpily, to his wife. "We had chicken last night, didn't we?"

Donogan, seen here in his office, is an accounts manager at the firm Jacoby & Peters.

He rides the ferry home every workday, but does not seem to mind the long trip.

"I get to decompress," he told us. "It's very therapeutic."

"The stress of crunching numbers all day, on that awful, old, piece-of-shit computer -- you have no fucking idea."

Donogan then shuffled off the boat. It was unclear what form of public transportation he would be taking next.

There's no criminals, junkies, or dirtbags on SI

That's right, people in Staten Island (at least some of them) actually believe that the rest of NYC is filled with "criminal(s), junkies, dirtbags" -- and we need to keep them away from our pristine borough.

Here's the evidence from a similarly bullshit idea about the R train coming to Staten Island via a multi-billion dollar tunnel.

After a piece about the "train" was posted on SILive this comment below came from the tin-foil-hat-wearing crowd that reads the site:

We've come to the conclusion that this man is either

A. Mildly retarded

B. Living in 1973, when he moved here to get away from the 'bad' neighborhoods.

C. Actually represents a majority of the Island.

D. All of the above.

Bloggers attack Staten Island

It's hard to believe that anyone could not like Staten Island. It's literally one of the greatest boroughs in NYC.

Recently, a 'blogger' wrote something on the interweb site Slate.com that called Staten Island 'Planet of the Guidos' -- and they meant that in a bad way.

Anyways, this set off a firestorm of comments from other a-hole bloggers who wanted to 'feed off the Staten Island hype.'

We tried to read the Slate blog, but it's hard to understand, so we went to a place called Gothamist, which is like a BrooklynVegan for Manhattanite transplants. This is what we found:

"Staten Island was always full of douchebags,"

What the effe?

"keep SI'ers confined to their island."

effe you! Somebody needs to tell these people off. What makes them the standard-bearers for high culture in NYC?

Walking the Cow

There's this place on SI that been getting a lot of internet 'buzz.' It's called the Cargo Cafe and lots of hip kids go there -- the key demographic. They have like hundreds of twitter followers.

Last night there were local singer/songwriters playing and a guy named Matt Wilson (not the Beach Boy) played a song from Dan Johnston called "Walking the Cow."

We started to get 'goosebumps' because the song felt so meaningful -- like it was 'bigger' than just a song.

So we went home and googled 'dan johnston' to find out more about the artist.

It turns out Mr. Johnston was a singer/songwriter who made some great music on a shitty four track, went bat-shit crazy, almost got famous for being talented/crazy, went off deep end, took some meds, kinda came back, got fat, met his high school romance, is still alive.

This made us think a lot about music, life , Staten Island.

1. Is Dan Johnston a metaphor for Staten Island?
   
   
2. Is Staten Island misunderstood and often put down?
   
   
3. Does SI have lots of hidden, inane talent?
   
   
4. Is there more to life than Twitter followers?
   
   
5. Are there slightly sociopathic attributes to SI?
   
   
6. Is Staten Island under-appreciated?
   
   
7. Did we do too much drugs in high school?
   
   
8. Is SI the zany uncle you kinda don't wanna visit but is still kinda cool?

Daniel Johnston - Walking the Cow

Local Objects as Food

We were cruisin' the interwebs and found this pic on Gothamist of the Staten Island Ferry re-imagined into a chocolate cake -- looks good.

What other SI landmarks can be crafted into delicious foods?

Borough Hall: Canoli

The Conference House: Pear Tort

Pier off Prince's Bay: Three-Eyed Fish from The Simpsons

Staten Island Advance: Martini

Martini Red: Frozen Burrito

St. George Library: Fried Chitlins

Staten Island Zoo: Jerky

Staten Island Mall: Bubblegum

The entire Island: Extra-Cheese Pizza

When did Italians get so homo erotic?

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Woman from South Shore getting "completely smashed" tonight

Patricia Sullivan, from the South Shore neighborhood of Eltingville, said this afternoon that she is "sooo fed up" with her position as an administrative worker at Staten Island University Hospital and, as a result, is getting "completely smashed tonight" in celebration of her day off tomorrow.

"I can not deal with these people anymore," she said, refusing to give specifics.

Sullivan, who describes herself as "around 40" mentioned that she will probably go to "that bar on Forest avenue" or some other location on the North Shore.

"I am totally down to go see a cover band tonight," she said.