Raymond "CI Joe" Velasquez, the 34-year-old man who climbed a lamppost yesterday morning and stopped traffic in Times Square, today was charged with reckless endangerment, trespassing and disorderly conduct.
As Assistant DA Jon Choate put it in court today, Velasquez managed to bring "the city to a halt" yesterday "dancing, doing pull ups and rapping" atop a pole. As for why Velasquez, who spent the night at Bellevue for observation, pulled the stunt, that's still a little unclear. According to the complaint while still on the pole he told police "I lost my son. I'm up here trying to find him" and that he would "only come down if Alicia Keyes comes outside to see me." But he also told them that "it was just a publicity stunt for my music."
But it is worth noting that the married father who lives in Sea Gate has a history of "inappropriately drawing attention to his would-be music career." He has previously hopped the metal barrier outside the Today show (where he shouted "I'm God's gift to music" before being dragged away) and bombed episodes of BET's "106 & Park" in April 2010 and CBS's "The Early Show" last December. You can see some of his other stunts on CI (as in Coney Island) Joe's MySpace page. The judge put his bail at $1,000.
So now that people know that if you want attention all you have to do is climb a lamppost and do a jig, how long until people take it to the next level? Should we expect to see the aspiring artists stringing wires on lampposts and tightrope walking around Times Square à la Philippe Petit—okay, that might be funny as long as we nobody takes it to Marty Markowitz's sky biking extreme.
