What a pisser

Sitting in my tiny Hyundai Accent, reporting intern Tom and I are on a stakeout. We might as well have coffee and donuts. We are waiting outside of C.R.E.A.T.E. Charter School in Jersey City for it's executive director and founder, Steven Lipski, who happens to also be a Jersey City Councilman.

We are stalking like the paparazzi because Lipski recently was arrested and charged with simple assault at a nightclub in Washington DC. It is just why he was arrested and charged that make the story quite sensational.

Lipski happens to be a dead head. He enjoys the Grateful Dead so much in fact he regularly attends the Grateful Dead cover band, Dark Star Orchestra. So much that I find a bumper sticker of the band on the back of the councilman's car. Last Friday, Lipski traveled down to DC to go watch his favorite cover band, and he got drunk. Really drunk. While enjoying the electric infused, folksy sounds of the dead, Lipski had to take a piss. While standing on a balcony in the club, Lipski urinated on the crowd below. Bouncers quickly escorted him over to the police. Witnesses identified Lipski as the urinator.

And so that leads us to Tom and I waiting for the pisser outside his work. With time on our hands, we question just how much of a story this is. On the list of things I would rather not have my councilman do, pissing on people isn't really on the top. In fact I feel sorry for him, as he seems well liked by those at the school and the within the community. Of course, we the media eat it all up, and so here I am waiting outside this guys work.

He finally comes out the circus begins. TV crews rush at him with questions and lights. I snap a few photos as he makes it to his car. Later Lipski released a statement saying he is an alcoholic and is seeking out treatment.

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by Charles Hack
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