Clothes make the man...

When fancy pants magazines like GQ and websites we’ve never heard of cite Buffalo as extremely lacking in fashion sense, they don’t realize the contributions to fashion made right here in the city and surrounding area of WNY. But William Van Landingham of “Keep Buffalo Lame” does, as he presents another installment of “Buffalo: For Realz?!”. Give him a listen for three minutes, or get the Tommunist Retort podcast on the iTunes or add this feed (http://thomasdolina.com/blog/feed/podcast/) to your podcast app!

Who wears stripes better?

Cold, windy weather didn’t keep away animal lovers and their furry friends this early afternoon at Buffalo’s “Bark Park” in LaSalle Park this Tuesday as a press event was held there for State Senator Mark Grisanti’s announcement about his sponsorship of legislation to create an animal abuse central registry in New York State for those convicted of animal abuse.

The weather was a bit... ruff... yes, I went there...

Tommunisms was there (and normally is in the afternoon, as my pal Filbert likes to romp around the park to begin with!) Unfortunately, I’m a one man outfit, and my tiny HD recorder and tripod would’ve blown away in the heavy wind that was rolling through, so I have no footage. Truth be told, I couldn’t hear too much either, but that my be from the fact that a small dog on a leash actually distracts from blogging. Here is Filbert distracting me at my desk when I need to type this up:

"Love me! Not your damn blog!"

Besides Grisanti, the Senator was joined by North District Representative of the Buffalo Board of Education Jay McCarthy and Erie County Legislator Terry McCracken. McCracken has already introduced this bill for enactment in Erie County. The proposed law would create an animal abuse registry for those over 18 years of age convicted in a case of animal abuse. The law would require abusers to register annually and prohibit animal abusers from possessing, adopting, owning, purchasing or exercising control over an animal as long as they are required to register. Any animal abuser who intentionally or knowingly fails to comply with the registration requirements or provides false information will be guilty of a felony which is to be punishable by a imprisonment not to exceed four years or a fine not to exceed five thousand dollars or both. Shelters and pet stores would also be required to check the registry when selling or adopting an animal.

Since I really couldn’t hear with the high winds, I’m going the lazy route and quoting Senator Grisanti from his press release:

“Animal abusers are heinous people who hurt and kill animals that are incapable of defending themselves. An individual who would hurt an animal should be punished severely and this animal registry will ensure they are not able to own more possible victims of their future violence.”

So, the next time somebody tries to marinade their cat, perhaps this will keep them from adopting additional pets in the future.

The Senator posed for a few photos with Filbert and the tiny dog managed to get one of his muddy paws on the Senator’s pinstriped-pant-leg, which is a good ice breaker for me to ask him a question. I really did have a serious question for Senator Grisanti, regarding anti-fracking activist Chip Northrup’s critique of the Senator’s proposals to regulate horizontal hydrofracking in NYS, but it was long winded, and I accidentally left my notes on my desk before I left. So, I popped my backup question, one that only Tommunisms has the guts to ask:

Tommunisms: “Antoine Thompson is reportedly considering a run for State Senate again, this time in the 63rd district. Should Thompson run and win, would you consider car-pooling with him on the drive to Albany?”

Senator Grisanti: ”I prefer to drive by myself. That’s where I get a lot of my thinking done.”

That that, Capital Tonight!

For the record, Grisanti has two dogs: Frado, a Bichon Frise, and Kody, a Schiperkee who was very sick, rescued and nursed back to health. Neither dog was available for comment at this time…

Come to our Festival of Lights!

In light of the recent Buffalo News story regarding the racially charged intimidation of an African-American family in The Iron Island of Lovejoy, the Kouncil of Korncerned Karetakers of Lovejoy have announced plans to hire George Zimmerman to help “bring a little law and order” to their little Buffalo neighborhood.

Perhaps we should make the figurative “Iron Island” a real one and jettison all the racists there out to the fucking sea…

Polished them off!

Time for another edition of “Buffalo: For Realz?!” by William Van Landingham, chairman of “Keep Buffalo Lame”. This one is a three minute history of Dyngus Day, so that Anderson Cooper can learn that the occasion is a serious part of Polish heritage for Buffalonians.

Also, here’s Anderson Cooper when he wore a bunny rabbit suit. Which is more ridiculous at Easter time?!

Giggle fest...

DyngusHistory

And that's just for this month...

At a hastily put together press conference outside Redlinski Meats today, Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown announced a plan to create a “shitlist” of people who already have, or may in the near future, insult the fragile sense of self-worth of those who reside in the city.

Brown said:

“In order to better manage the knee-jerk, hyper-sensitive manufactured and indignant moral and civic outrage that seems to stem from our long standing inferiority complex, I propose we create a “Proactive Shitlist” in which a panel of experts will name people known on a national and or global level who will probably at some point utter something that makes Buffalo look bad. This list can also extend to those who probably also harbor such thoughts, but have never publicly espoused them.”

The mayor continued:

“Be it a slight against the quality of our hotels, our general lack of success compared to places like New York City,, that our sports teams suck and so do the coaches, or that the words “Dyngus” and “pussy-willow” are funny, we will not rest until we force these people to apologize and admit that the Queen City is the greatest and most bestest awesome place to live, and that they were wrong to oppose us in the first place.”

Brown closed with:

“Buffalo is the ‘City of Good Neighbors’, and if you don’t believe, we’ll beat the living piss out of you!”