I returned home this week to headlines describing violent bikers, a deranged scissor attacker and brazen yet-to-be-caught downtown parachuters. I voted for the loser in the Public Advocate’s run-off and then met a police roadblock on my Tuesday afternoon bike ride up the west side. Cops shut down Riverside Park to reconstruct the rampage of scissors-man so I deposited my bike share bike in front in front of John Jay College while news trucks and newspaper photographers on foot scrambled away from the scene with their accounts.

Back in my neighborhood, there’s a sign in the window of the shuttered Cuban restaurant. Looks like the great Thai place Arunee will come down the block and occupy the space left vacant by Novo. This is a positive development. Arunee will fit right in on 37th Avenue. Novo drew the ire of nearby residents with their late-night scene and piss-in-the-alley noisemakers.

It’s funny, Roosevelt Avenue is just one avenue block south and buzzes bright and loud all night but the long tradition on 37th Avenue has been quiet by 10 PM. Silence. Darkness. Novo broke the code. Arunee is right there with Sripraphai as the best Thai in the city and will now occupy a more prominent storefront. I look forward to seeing how it pans out.

-My employer and union jointly announced a new tentative agreement covering 28-thousand airport workers a week ago. We rejected the first proposal and appear to have won a better deal although we still haven’t seen the full document. I’m ready to vote yes and move on. Lock in.

-I support Obama’s determination not to blink at the blackmail while the so-called shutdown is applied in politically selective ways. This shutdown should more accurately be described as a partial freeze on certain federal government functions. The obstructionists will lose this one eventually with some collateral damage to their cause if the Senate and President hold firm.

-The Rado performance in Big Sur still has a grip on me so I bought a ticket to the Foxygen gig in Brooklyn later this month despite strong hints of continuing uncertainty over band cohesion via their official Twitter page. While Rado is listed as the author on that outlet of missives it appears to me Sam France is the source of a flurry of middle-of-the-night nuttiness on Twitter the last few days. Rado is doing a couple of opening sets during CMJ (for White Denim and Real Estate) but both gigs immediately sold out. I figured if I can’t get into those shows, I’ll take a shot at Foxygen’s Music Hall performance as a consolation. The outcome of Foxygen’s pending commitments in Austin the next two weekends should serve as a good signal about whether the band makes its NYC dates on October 21 and 22. I really wonder whether Rado isn’t better off with a full-on pursuit of his own thing. He’s that good.

-WBAI is again saying it’s on the brink of financial ruin and listeners to the weekly Bob Fass program Radio Unnameable called in last week with a consistent message. The non-stop pleas for pledges using the station’s imminent death as a rallying point will not work unless there’s some transparency about WBAI’s future plans to escape the red. Frustrated callers spoke of the station’s failure to mail promised gifts in return for donations. Others urged more modest aspirations as it relates to the station’s next studio location and some wonder whether programs (and the local news department) that have vanished from the air in recent weeks will ever return. “There are some people who are very dissatisfied with this station, clearly,” said Bob. “I’ve been dissatisfied with some aspects of it for many years.” In the meantime, Bob seems to have settled into a good place at the temporary studio on CCNY’s campus in upper Manhattan after several rocky months of technical issues. Last week’s show featured calls from night owls woven into the program two-at-a-time, a technique Bob uses to liven up the discourse. After discovering more than an hour into his show that invited musicians Jeffrey Lewis, Peter Stampfel and the Deposit Returners were waiting outside of the locked studio, the show veered into a short set of live music.

-My Dad recently mailed me a full-page advertisement pulled from the Chicago Tribune’s 9-22-13 print edition. It was a public plea by the brewer of Old Style beer to remain available at Wrigley Field in 2014. Pabst owns the Old Style brand. The brewing conglomerate apparently fears the Cubs and the contract outfit that serves food and drink at the ballpark will remove Old Style from its menu of options next season. As it is, Old Style has been hard to find at the Friendly Confines in recent years. Not that I have much of a stake in the outcome but I would hope for the sake of new Cub fans coming of age that the crisp and flavorful beverage integral to enhancing the ballpark experience on the North Side remains in place. An online petition has been set up at KeepOldStyleinWrigley.com .

Same old Jets.

Three Geno Smith turnovers on Gang Green’s six offensive possessions in the first half expedited the outcome, an ugly Jets loss the Titans in Nashville, TN last Sunday. 38-13 was the final.

I attended the contest as a guest of pal Jeff D who is a charter season ticket subscriber to both the Titans and Predators. It was an excellent 48-hour visit to Music City highlighted by a couple late-night toonage-listening sessions at high volumes in Jeff’s fun room.

Geno’s first pass of the ballgame was a floater into the hands of Titans cornerback Alterraun Verner. As intended Jets receiver Stephen Hill watched Verner scamper with the ball the other way, Hill was leveled with a brutal, blind-side late helmet hit just below his chin by Titans free safety Michael Griffin. Hill needed help exiting the field and did not return. He was diagnosed with a concussion. There was no flag thrown on the play.

Smith forces a lot of balls into coverage. He played poorly enough to render the respectable effort of primary Jets ball carrier Bilal Powell and the team’s stout offensive line a wasted afternoon. Operating mostly out of shotgun and often without a huddle, the rookie quarterback appears composed in the pocket but lacks sound judgment when he lets the ball fly. Smith panics when tacklers get near. He was intercepted twice and fumbled twice. Verner was credited with three of the four takeaways.

Will Geno’s development as Jets quarterback of the future be stunted by making him the quarterback of the now so quickly? It’s hard to say. The Jets seem fully committed to Geno given Head Coach Rex Ryan’s reckless decision to insert veteran Mark Sanchez into action in the fourth quarter of a meaningless preseason game against the Giants. Sanchez took a season-ending shot to the shoulder while suffering the indignity of calling signals behind an offensive line that included third-stringers. While Sanchez may not have been much better than Smith this year, he deserved better. The Jets organization is dumb, dumb, dumb for allowing Sanchez to get creamed in the spot he was.

Perhaps the plan all along was for the Jets to go with Geno given the downward trajectory of Sanchez’s performance level going into his fifth pro season. What’s not debatable at this point is that the $20 million guaranteed handed to Sanchez by Jets owner Woody Johnson prior to last season only compounded the horrible decision in 2009 to make him the franchise quarterback. It’ll end up being about a $50 million mistake in sum. The number is way more than that when you consider the disgust level of Jet fans walking away from the chance to fill seats at the new building they share with the Giants.

Also distasteful about the current state of affairs is the continuing sight of Ryan on the sidelines. Johnson loves Ryan and made the retention of him a requirement when new GM John Idzik was hired prior to the current season. The Jets lead the league in penalties and penalty yardage through four regular season games. While Ryan has put a latch on the excessive mouthing off that was a trademark of his first four seasons at the helm, he bears responsibility for the sloppy play thus far with – or without a rookie quarterback.

Attendance at LP Field was announced at 69,143. No-shows numbered a couple thousand. It rained during the game’s final three quarters but it was of the drizzly, sporadic variety. The NFL’s new security procedures made it a slow-go getting in the stadium. The fans sitting in the immediate vicinity of Jeff’s pair of seats in section 123 were all friendly, well-behaved and enthusiastic.

We ate well on this visit. On Saturday night, we visited Papa Turney’s BBQ in Hermitage. Located in a strip mall occupied primarily by a bar called Shooter’s, the Papa’s BBQ pit out front filled the air with a woody smoke. Inside, the vibe was homey with warm greetings on arrival. We all ordered the BBQ pork plate which included two sides ($7.50). I forked the pungent boiled greens into the meat and squirted on a lot of hot sauce to make what turned out to be a wonderful stew of flavor. The next morning, Deborah hosted a fun homemade brunch gathering that included richly-smoked bacon, baked eggs and delicious cinnamon rolls (containing both walnuts and thin-cut almonds) brought by one of her guests. Before Jeff dropped me off at Nashville’s airstrip Monday morning, we went back to the great Pied Piper Eatery on Riverside. This place has become a favorite Nashville stop for me. I’m not sure how they prepare their chicken soup, but it’s magical for the way it tastes and makes you feel before getting on a flight.

I returned to New York via Washington-Dulles. I brought back one of the leftover cinnamon rolls. It did not garner interest from airport security in Nashville and served as my Tuesday morning breakfast.