I'm the Firestarter, Twisted Firestarter

So, after a long day at work and a long walk home from midtown this evening, I emerged from the mouth of Broadway into Union Square Park, teeming with Green Market shoppers, farmers, merchants and artists hawking their wares. I've gone on record before about not being particularly fond of the Union Square Green Market. As much as I love the produce my wife procures from it, I can't stand walking through it. Tonight, it was especially choked with slow-walkers and people literally just standing in the middle of foot-traffic either texting or blabbling obliviously in cell phones. As I attempted to ferret my way through the maze of human cattle, I couldn't help picturing the whole place engulfed in flames. Immediately after hatching this juvenile arson fantasy in my addled skull, who should I suddenly walk right into -- AS IF ON CUE -- but none other than Keith Flint of the Prodigy, the firestarter himself, with dreadlocked Maxim walking right behind him.

As inarguably ridiculous as the track -- as well as the album that spawned it, The Fat of the Land -- laughably remains, I've always adored it. When I first moved to this neighborhood in 1996, I remember "Firestarter" going into irregularly frequent, neighbor-worrying rotations at my housewarming party, accompanied by lots of suitable grimacing and ill-advised interpretive dancing. Ever since then, I've always wed the two -- the endearingly silly Prodge and the Union Square/University Place `hood -- in my head. How fitting, then that I should spot them in it.

So crank it up, light a match and make a silly face.