Models Of Queens
Aiming High

Martin Holder
Kew Gardens Hills
Height:  5’11”
Weight: 150  

Martin Holder says he likes to do things on his own. 

“I’m working now so I can get some money together, find my own apartment, and provide for myself,” says the aspiring model and actor, who currently lives with his mom in Kew Garden Hills. 

Since graduating from Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn in 2000, Holder has been featured in television commercials for Nike and participated in a runway show at the Fashion Institute of Technology.

Modeling has taken him to far away places – he recently traveled to Cancun, Mexico for an acting and modeling convention. 

In his spare time, Holder says he likes playing basketball and practicing his freestyle hip hop skills. 

“I’m focusing on being an actor and model,” said Holder about his rhyming skills.

Holder's  favorite MC’s are Redman, Notorious BIG, and Jay-Z. 

“My lyrics aren’t that tight,” he said.

Christopher Walken

We know he played a soldier who stashed a watch in the most unusual of places in “Pulp Fiction,” but who knew that Astoria-born actor Christopher Walken dabbled in painting, too.

Walken’s colorful pieces are currently on display at the Danish Contemporary Art Gallery on West 22nd Street in Manhattan.

The exhibit, entitled “Works On Paper,” features a series of oil paintings on thick paper, on view through April 12.

Ironically, the actor who won an award for his performance in the film “Deer Hunter” is having his pieces shown at the same gallery featuring a new exhibit of works by artist Tomas Lahoda called “Deer Paintings.”

“A coincidence,” according to one gallery staffer. 

Far Rockaway Then And Now

Far Rockaway — the longtime home to some of the borough’s most notoriously violent and drug-laden housing projects — got a lot of bad press one recent week.

First there was an eruption of violence at a Manhattan club that left eight people shot and two stabbed. Four of the five people arrested for the violence are from Far Rock.

The next day, a Far Rock resident drove his U-Haul truck into another car on a Merrick Boulevard overpass, sending both cars flying onto the Belt Parkway below.  The driver, who was allegedly drunk when the accident happened, fled the scene on foot.

But the mayhem produced in Far Rockaway wasn’t always human . . . if a nearly 100-year-old postcard is any indication.

A QConfer acquired a postcard hand-dated October 1906 featuring an image of “Far Rockaway, L.I.” graced with a line of poetry by English Romantic poet Lord Byron.

“Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean — roll,” reads the line.

Byron wrote the line while traveling in Europe in 1818, as part of his epic Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage.

Byron probably didn’t have Far Rockaway in mind – who knows, we can’t confirm this one — but it seems Far Rockaway publisher William F. Gray thought the line was perfect for his ‘hood.

An added informational treat we got from the postcard – the top right corner of the back says, “Place the Stamp Here. One Cent for United States, and Island Possessions, Cuba, Canada and Mexico. Two Cents For Foreign.”

Ah, the good old days.

(left) Bayside-born Porn Star Ron Jeremy and (right) captured Al Qaeda terrorist Khalid Shaikh Mohammed both probably know the CIA director, Little Neck's George Tenet.

Of Porn Stars and Terrorists

Take a close look at recently captured top Al Qaeda terrorist Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. Does he remind you of anyone? Does the miserable killer’s badly groomed, hairy, and slightly overweight face look like anyone you know?

No?

Well, then you don’t watch enough porn.

Mohammed looks strikingly similar to Bayside’s very own Ron Jeremy, a short, hairy, balding porn star commonly known as “The Hedgehog.” 

Everything about them, from their messy little moustaches to their wild hair, looks similar. In fact, they look so alike that their resemblance has been mentioned on several oddball websites across the country.

Other than their looks, they don’t seem to have much in common . . . except for one thing. Jeremy graduated from Benjamin N. Cardozo in Bayside with none other than CIA top man George Tenet.

Tenet, of course, is one of the guys hunting down terrorists and must have played some role in the recent capture of Mohammed, the monster who planned the World Trade Center attacks, and allegedly slit journalist Daniel Pearl’s throat.

Criticize porn all you want, but we’re glad Ron’s the one who lived among us. And even though they look alike, Ron still is quite a bit better looking . . . at least, that’s what his co-stars say.  

Tongue In Cheek

The diplomatic fallout between France and the United States sunk to comic proportions this week when angry members of Congress successfully lobbied to change the name of two odious items on the menu at Capitol Hill cafeterias.

Now it’s Freedom Toast for breakfast, or perhaps an order of Freedom Fries with lunch.

“This is just childish,” scoffed Michele Jones, professor of French at St. John’s University. “Do we really change all our words over politics.”

Jones could think of no foods which the French might rename in response to the Congressional cuisine coup. She pointed out, however, that the French have been fighting American words for years. 

“They want to rescue their language from an American invasion,” Jones explained. 

An entire ministry in the French government creates new French words for any Americanism threatening to take root in the native vocabulary.  While Italians and Germans use computers just like your average American Joe, the French insist that the ordinatuer connects them to the internet. 

Perhaps dropping the “French” before fries and toast was long overdue given the long-standing disdain our cheese-eating colleagues have shown for American linguistic contributions.  

But the question remains: Do we really want to call it the Freedom Kiss?