August 2, 2006
Joel Steinberg, the Daily News, and that guy on the subway +
If you've lived in New York for a while and take the subway to work every day, chances are you've run into the guy who rants about Joel Steinberg and the Daily News. (Steinberg is a former criminal defense attorney convicted in 1987 of killing his young adopted daughter.)
One man has made it his mission to let subway riders know about the perceived connection between Steinberg and the Daily News. His name is Kirk Wilcox. I've heard his speech about five times in the last four years. He's always recognizable from his distinctive cadence and tendency to end every sentence with the direct address "people." As in, "You have to stop buying the Daily News, people. You're helping a child killer, people." Although he tends not to mention specifics, it seems he is upset with NYDN columnist Michael Daly, who one wrote a column asking people to send cigarettes to Joel Steinberg, apparently to get him sick.
The other morning, he entered my car and began his rant. I shot this video of him with my cellphone. (Quicktime will play the video.)
Here is a transcript:
You buy the Daily News you donate money to Joel Steinberg, people. He killed a helpless 6-year-old girl, people. Beat the little girl every day til she died. And you help [feed?/free?] the killer when you buy the Daily News. They don't want to talk about how much [garbled] the child killer, people, remember that. They have no [garbled] don't buy [...garbled...] child killer gets your money, people, that's all [garbled]
Look at the deadly ceiling. look up, people, at all the stuff going down, remember the woman that died, was killed in Boston a couple weeks ago when something fell down the tunnel and killed her? Well, it's gonna[?] happen to you, people, if you don't stop buying the Daily News.
In another part of his rant, he said that the Daily News does not allow its employees to wear identifying material while on the subway, because they know he will "humiliate" them.
Steinberg, by the way, was released from prison two years ago and reportedly lives in Harlem.
Update (9/20/2006): I saw him again the other day. This time he was ranting about the free Metro paper and its reporter Joshua Rhett Miller, apparently because of a story they ran about the DJ at Hot 97 who was saying crass/violent things about a rival DJ's little girl. Here's the new video: Subway Ranter Rants About Metro Paper, Pedophiles
categories:
EDP, Subway
posted by adm at August 2, 2006 11:38 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.thousandrobots.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1517
