Lindsay Lohan's Little Italy BlackBerry Bodega Brouhaha
This may be one of my favorite gossip items, ev-ar: Lindsay Lohan ended up having to call cops to get her BlackBerry back from a bodega in Little Italy, reports the Daily News today. Where? Who? What? Why? How?
The story goes like this: Lohan goes in to get a cup of ice from a bodega. Leaves her BlackBerry on the counter. The guy working the counter runs after her in a cab, tries to give it to her, but asks if she can prove her identity first. She tries to get it back from him, even makes a swipe at it. Now he relents. She calls the cops, but the situation was "diffused" by the time the 5-0 arrived. Here's our lowdown:
Where: On Kenmare, between Mott and Elizabeth, in Little Italy, lies a bodega called the Mott Corner Deli. It's fairly inconspicuous, there's not much to the place. Typical downtown bodega, if not lesser-than-average. Advises a Yelp user:
Since it was past midnight the lazy option prevailed and we went over to Mott Corner (formerly known as Luncheonette) to grab a fish sandwich. Beware of this place! If you eat some of the food they cook there, you'll develop unknown cutaneous reactions. Seriously, it's that bad.
Advises me: if you're dumb enough to eat a fish sammie from a Bodega at 1AM, you deserve whatever "cutaneous reactions" you get. Besides being convenient and occasionally representing a decent cross-section of important foodstuffs, unimportant foodstuffs, and clutch necessities (condoms, beer, ciggarettes, TP, tampons), Bodegas (or "delis" as they're sometimes referred to) are historically known in New York as many a showdown between people of different languages, cultures, dialects, and levels of sobriety.
Who: In the right corner, actress, singer, newfound lesbian Lindsay Lohan, who's shown a recent shift of getting lippy, no? There are few like her. In the left corner, Bodega late shift worker and "counterman" (via the News), Mohammed Hashan. There are many like him, but he is special.
What? Lohan's shown a preference for the BlackBerry Bold. It's the PDA of choice for many a celebrity! It currently retails on Amazon.com for $49.99 with a new service plan, and can cost up to $500 without one. Much greater than the fiscal loss of a BlackBerry is, as everyone knows, the absolute pain in the ass it is to recover that kind of information. Also, she is a "Blackberry Person" as opposed to an "iPhone person," which, I bet you anything, Sam Ronson absolutely is. This is just how these things go, you know? The other "thing" involved? Ice. She was there to get a cup of it when she left her BlackBerry there.
How? It escalated to calling the cops for one of two reasons. The first is that the guy was geniuinely being an asshole, and wouldn't give Lohan her BlackBerry back for his own reasons. The other theory: she flew into a rage after not being recognized by these plebeian nobody.
Why? Because Lindsay Lohan's career is still spiraling downward, even after being cast in Robert Rodriguez's new film (probably more for kitsch value than anything else). Because her new lip job went terribly wrong and it's painfully obvious. Because recognition - even at the level of a guy working at a bodega - is important to celebrities who try to skirt it from the people who'd usually recognize them. Because interactions between New York's bodega-working populace and New Yorkers are sometimes strained as a result of a very in-your-face class system at work, the cover for which some people misread for friendliness, togetherness, and the common bond of being New Yorkers. Because the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Or, just: cocaine. There's always that.