This Week in the Voice: The NYPD Tapes

Who knows what goes on behind the closed doors, locked file cabinets, and day-to-day routines of the NYPD? Other than them, nobody. Which is one of the reasons why one of New York’s Finest saw fit to record his life among their ranks, and shed light on some of the darker aspects of those who police New York City.

In this week’s Village Voice cover story, The NYPD Tapes, staff writer Graham Rayman obtained the recordings of a police officer working the 81st Precinct in Bedford-Stuyvesant, who from June 1, 2008, to October 31, 2009, recorded an unprecedented amount of material without the knowledge or approval of those around him. They provide an incredible composite into the goings-on of those entrusted with the law, the ones New Yorkers don’t know about, and the ones they would definitely want to. We got them. And the results are as astounding as they are infuriating.

Elsewhere in things that make you wonder who, exactly, is running this city: Columnist Tom Robbins tunes into The Epic Mayor Bloomberg Movie again as he notes the mayor’s pirating of the city’s TV station and resources to document his trip to Copenhagen, costing the city money it could probably use. This isn’t the first time we’ve caught him doing it, either.

What to do with all this rage? Legendary Voice gossip Michael Musto has some Ticked-Off Trannies With Knives who could show you a thing or two. He thinks they deserve an award.

The outrage doesn’t stop with the theater of the transgendered, though. In this week’s Arts, Voice theater critic Michael Feingold tries to look through the British lenses of Enron: The Play at our country’s most infamous bankruptcy. What does he find? Well, in his words, a director who is “just another of those glib idiots the field spawns.” Thankfully, he finds some solace in the Denzel Washington-lead revival of August Wilson’s Fences. Also, Alexis Soloski talks to theater’s “It Girl,” 23 year-old That Face playwright Polly Stenham, who’s ready to relinquish her “title.”

And in the movies? Iron Man 2 disappoints a franchise fan, and legendary Voice film critic J. Hoberman finds a “gloriously desultory slap in the face of public taste” in former New York art boy wonder Harmony Korine’s Trash Humpers. Thankfully, there may be hope yet: Dan Kois watches Babies, and while he does find both “shitting meatloaf(s)” and “fertility treatments,” in the film, he also thinks it “gets the job done” — which is more than a lot of people we know can say this week.

What to do about it? You could always stress-eat, of course. In that case, the Voice food critics Robert Sietsema and Sarah DiGregorio might know a thing or two as to where to direct you. This week, DiGregorio visits Greenpoint pizzeria Paulie Gee’s, while Robert makes his way out to New York’s only Liberian restaurant, Maima’s Pepper Coast, located out in Jamaica, Queens.

You could also just listen to some music, and try to feel young again, even if it’s old people singing it. That’s okay, especially in the case of The Hold Steady, Voice music editor Rob Harvilla offers, whose new record is “still important, still a vital piece of wizened wisdom.” Maybe you just need to accept whatever it is getting to you, and take it in, the same way Mike Powell understands Flying Lotus: electronic music you won’t dance to.

All that, plus more Music, Art, Theater, Film, Books, Dance, Restaurants, Michael Musto, Free Will Astrology, and Dan Savage. And then some.

The Village Voice: We’ve got our ears to the streets. We may not always like what we hear, but we’re always gonna let you know what we get, and where we can get it better. And New York City: we can always get it better.

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