Last night at the CBID meeting the topic of Borough Clown Marty Markowitz came up quite naturally. No one had a good word for him and a connection with Marty was debated as a big negative for an otherwise good judicial candidate.

During one conversation I was told that Marty Markowitz has been away on a cruise during the whole CB6 circus that has been making news recently. We laughed at this, realizing Marty may have missed a great deal of the anger and may, perhaps, even be taking it easy, waiting for it all to blow over. Well, even clowns need vacations.

Turns out Marty's little ocean cruise is more than just a vacation: it looks an awful lot like a kickback...or at least an eyebrow raising freebie. This comes to me thanks to Queens Crap.

Some time back, Marty Markowitz lobbied hard to get Red Hook to be the home port of the Queen Mary 2, which will dock in Buttermilk Channel between Governors Island and Brooklyn. I remember seeing a huge ship right there, as a matter of fact, and wondered what it was.

Well, I should have known that when I was told that Marty was on a cruise, there would be SOMETHING lowdown about it. It seems that after lobbying so hard to bring Mayor Bloomberg and Cunard Line cruises together on a deal for the Red Hook berth for QM2, Marty got a free trans-Atlantic cruise on the very same ship. He may well have been boarding QM2 right when I was looking at it, wondering what it was.

Well, what can I say? I hope Clown Prince of Sleaze had a nice cruise. After all, rampaging around like a mad gorilla takes a lot out of a guy. He needs some time to kickback.

UPDATE: No Land Grab has some good coverage of this. They point out that in Marty's absence, his staff has failed to spin the CB6 story in any way, leaving not only Marty looking bad, but also sucking Bill DeBlasio and David Yassky into the whirlpool. We know Marty is asea, but what about his staff? Bill DeBlasio is having no trouble sailing the rough waters, having the honesty to right out say that yes, the purge IS about Atlantic Yards and he is fine having nothing by yes-men for Ratner on CB6. I have yet to hear comment from David Yassky's office though I am among those who have speculated that Yassky's actions may be separate from the Marty/Bill purge for Ratner. If I am right (and I am hearing things both ways) then Yassky's staff might want to make more comment rather than let Yassky sink in the same boat as Marty.

One thing is clear, though. If Marty wanted to take his cruise to let this storm blow over, it didn't work. All he did is let Bill and David take the heat for him and he STILL looks bad.