(Photos: Twitvid)
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Entitled celebrities, aided by toxic handlers and wads of ill-gotten cash, and tacitly egged on by an adoring public, pose a grave danger to city streets and public aircraft.
Enough! These scoundrels must not be permitted to roam the earth without the accompaniment of a responsible adult, a tight leash. Or a ball gag.
Ellen Barkin is an erstwhile starlet graced with a chronically rotten disposition after being dumped by billionaire hubby Ron Perelman, who paid a reported $40 million to rid himself of her — inadvertently catapulting Ms. Ellen into the top 1 percent of the richest Americans.
Now it’s we who must pay.
Ellen’s vile tantrums, emitted in person and on Twitter, carpet-bomb the landscape with a fierce flurry of f-words so frequent and stylistically varied, they remind one of a Chihuahua suffering from a bad case of the runs.
But last week, Ellen, 57, upped her game, moving inexorably from her normal pose of making a giant ass of herself. On a dark and unseasonably mild early New Year’s morning, she turned into a snarling, snapping, one-woman crime wave.
Watching police arrest suspected Occupied Wall Street miscreants in Greenwich Village, Ellen pitched a nuclear hissy fit, taking on patient cops who were out doing their jobs. And, sadly, avoiding charges of making a public nuisance.
“F–k all of u, Bloomberg & every 1 goosestepping behind you,” she tweeted.
“Just threatened on my street by NYPD,” she posted, “cop shoved me, both hands, onto the sidewalk.”
But Ellen’s ugly call to arms was blunted by a video shot by her boy toy, 20-something actor and Hollywood royal Sam Levinson. It shows Barkin going bat-bleep crazy on a cop, who gently guides her with both hands to the sidewalk and out of danger.
“Get your motherf–king hands off me,” she’s heard screaming. I heard her yelp something about the cop being a “psycho stalker.” Now, I’ve heard officers called many things. Visually impaired isn’t one of them.
Barkin has said nothing, post-hangover, about the fracas. Nor have Mayor Bloomberg or the NYPD. But City Councilman Peter Vallone Jr. spoke for us all on Facebook, writing, “The NYPD anxiously awaits your apology. Twit.”
Which begs a question of grave municipal and national safety: Is Ellen Barkin simply a parasite unworthy of attention, sucking up more than her share of oxygen and police facetime?
Or, does Ellen pose a public hazard, her actions as vile and contagious as Ebola? Do her outbursts of middle-aged frustration and rage rise to the level of incitement to riot?
One thing is clear. Defying authority and putting innocent bystanders in peril is spreading like cocaine among the unspeakably wealthy. Last month, actor Alec Baldwin was tossed from an American Airlines jet bound for JFK, but escaped arrest, when he 1) refused to turn off his phone 2) threw down papers and stormed into the bathroom, and 3) beat on the walls and pounded his fists like a demented toddler.
Later, Alec made light of the brouhaha on “Saturday Night Live,” playing an airline captain who apologizes to the “national treasure.” And denying that a cellphone can muck up an aircraft’s navigation system.
So what does this all mean?
America’s stars have long gotten away with and encouraged misbehavior that would get them tossed in the clink in any other country. Sean Penn dabbles treacherously close to treason as he sucks up to enemies of the state, such as Venezuelan prez Hugo Chavez. Michael Moore hates America so virulently, it’s evident in his love for Fidel Castro. But this behavior tic is considered free speech — for millionaires.
Barkin’s Twitter rants include this eye-popping missive: “this will be nothing if Obama loses the election. A police state will be just around the corner.”
There is no law against stupidity. Yet we must stop indulging antics that threaten the peace.
Make an example of Ellen. For the good of the city, shut her up now.
Turnstile justice
We dodged a bullet. Or many.
A South Carolina gun nut arrested for jumping a subway turnstile had brought a machine gun and pistol here from Washington, DC, hoping to sell the weapons on New York’s streets, police say. But Reggie Allen allegedly didn’t foresee our cops’ zero tolerance for offenses that might seem minor back home, such as taking a free ride. We got lucky. The next guy who tries to riddle this city with gunfire might not be too stupid to work a MetroCard machine.
Hey, let’s go Skee-ing. Or maybe not
A game considered Brooklyn’s national sport, Skee Ball, is headed for the Dumpster, along with your old VCR. That’s because Skee Ball Inc. lodged a federal lawsuit against Williamsburg’s Full Circle Bar for trademark infringement — furious that the hipster joint dares promote the retro game to kids raised on iPads.
Maybe the lawyers will now be compelled to give it a rest. Oh, never mind.
That’ll teach the city to be generous
New York City is more generous to people in need than virtually any place in the nation. Witness San Francisco, which last year started enforcing a law preventing the homeless from using sidewalks as beds. Never happen here.
But the Bloomberg administration has drawn powerful foes in its efforts to ensure that scarce resources are spread where they’re needed. This includes shelter beds, whose users, it’s been proposed, should be asked to demonstrate they’ve got nowhere else to go. And the food-stamp program, in which recipients are fingerprinted to make certain no one’s double-dipping.
No surprise The New York Times has joined kvetchers, such as Council Speaker Christine Quinn, in saying fingerprints-for-food-stamps “stigmatize’’ the poor. A worse stigma would be starving to death because someone robbed the program. This is bad for the city. And worse for the hungry.
Stop the bus madness now
Oh, to be a city bus driver, spending many a work day playing chess. Dominoes, too!
The cash-poor MTA has found a new way to stick it to taxpayers, cutting bus service to the bone during the traditionally slow week between Christmas and New Year’s, while providing a warm space for bored drivers to snooze in transit’s version of rubber rooms, The Post’s Jennifer Bain and Jennifer Fermino reported.
“We are there for eight hours with nothing to do,’’ said a stir-crazy driver.
This insane scenario may save money in fuel and maintenance costs. But there is no excuse for blatant waste. The MTA should negotiate union cutbacks in sleepy times. That’s the bottom line.