Say newsboxes for his mag are vandalized
By Matthew Krautheim
and Gersh Kuntzman
February 18, 2006
Another day, another bashed-up newsbox.
Bay Ridge's self-appointed guardian of conservative thought, Matt Lysiak, found himself the victim of a sort-of hate crime last week when a newsbox containing fresh issues of his paper, the Bay Ridge Conservative Monthly, was dragged six blocks, beaten into a metallic pulp, and left for dead.
The box's bedraggled corpse was left at the corner of Third Avenue and 77th Street for days--a warning to Lysiak that he simply will not heed.
"Look, all my issues are inflammatory to people who don't think like me," said Lysiak, who is putting the finishing touches on his next issue, which will fill his nine newsboxes next week.
He used to have 12, but his paper seems to have a knack for angering its potential readers, thanks to headlines like "Islamic Fundamentalism in Bay Ridge," "Bring Wal-Mart to Brooklyn," "Destroy the United Nations" and "Why do feminists look like Men?"
"People also take the papers out and stuff the box full of trash, said Lysiak (pronouncd LEE-shack)
The 28-year-old Ridgite is the founder and sole producer of the newspaper. He moved to Brooklyn a few years ago after dropping out of Bloomsburg University, where, he claims, he could find "no real intellectual stimulation."
Like all things, Lysiak found what he was looking for in Brooklyn, where he reinvented himself by airing his political opinions.
"I'm an advocate of individual freedom," said Lysiak, a Web editor for the conservative New York Sun by day.
"I define myself as a free-market advocate,"
He cited Ayn Rand, Aristotle, St. Thomas Aquinas, and "of course, Ronald Reagan" as his philosophical fellow travelers--but said he is not the stereotypical conservative.
"I am an atheist, so I'm not religious. But I am open to the idea of a God--just give me some objective proof. Let's have a constructive dialogue."
Ever the capitalist, Lysiak has been compensating for the money pit of putting out his own newspaper by selling such things as "Hillary Rodham Clinton/Barack Obama 2008" bumper stickers to unsuspecting liberals who don't know he's joking.
"The important thing is to take their money," he said. "They've shown it's dangerous for them to have it."
Such ventures underwrite the paper, whose primary goal is to persuade people about the virtues of true conservative values, such as a free market and strong defense," he said. "As a moral absolutist, I am convinced that I am always right."
(It's not always political, of course. A recent article, headlined "Parking Ticket Weasels," focused on every Ridgite's complaint about parking in the neighborhood.)
Nowadays, people who want to vent on any topic at all typically start a blog, but Lysiak has chosen to do it the old-fashioned way, with a printing press.
His paper is free and has no advertisers, which Lysiak said helps keep it "raw and honest."
The tone ranges from skeptical to downright irreverent, such as "22 Reasons why Clarence Norman Will Love Jail" or a holiday story entitled "Mayor Bloomberg and the Ghost of Republicanism Yet to Come," which was accompanied by illustrations depicting characters from Dicken's "A Christmas Carol."
"I can live with the machines being tipped over or copies being ripped into shreds, but someone from the Bloomberg campaign went as far as to insert pro-Bloomberg pamphlets into every issue once," he said.
"I suppose I should be flattered because it meant they wanted to reach my reader, but it encouraged people to think that I am a supporter of his, I'd rather be called a pedophile than a Bloomberg supporter."
Lysiak's efforts have recieved decidedly mixed reviews.
"It may be his opinion, but ot's crazy to have these headlines," said Ridgite Nick Ennab, a Palestinian native and Fourth Avenue deli owner who has lived in Brooklyn for 13 years.
And then there are the people who keep destroying, stealing or soiling Lysiak's distribution boxes. Their opinions are well known.
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