SAX-APPEAL: Bill Clinton and Clarence Clemons

Japanese import Noriko Masunaga has certainly been around over the past three years, but is happy to say that she has ended up right back where she started from.

The soft-spoken Ridgewood resident, originally from Japan, moved around a lot when she first came to the U.S. three years ago. "I lived in Ridgewood, and then I moved to Astoria, and then Brooklyn, and then back to Ridgewood," she said.

She said Ridgewood is the place that has a piece of her heart: "I like Ridgewood the best. It’s quiet, comfortable, inexpensive, safe. There are a lot of families here, and I like how there’s such a mix of people – Italian people, Spanish people, Polish people, everyone!" she said.

The fan of diversity came to the States hoping for opportunities in modeling after strutting her stuff for the cameras in Japan. She said she often modeled in magazines and even held a day job in her native country, but hasn’t had the same luck in the States. In New York, she said, there’s not as much work, although she has modeled at the New York International Automobile show at the Jacob Javits Center and in various small magazines across the country.

Still, the limited work has not discouraged Noriko. "I love working," she said, adding that she has always wanted to be a model. But before she catches her big break, you can see the Japanese beauty online on her website www. Riconyc.com. The site, filled with photos by Manhattan fashion photographer Israel Colon and other shutterbugs, is dedicated entirely to her modeling.

As for her dream modeling gig and her career goals, she laughed and said, "A lot of things!"

Specifically, she’d love to have her image up on a billboard, or in a magazine, or in someone’s artwork – "here" in the United States, she said with emphasis.

But for now, until her face is plastered across billboards from Queens to Los Angeles, her own website will have to do.

Outside of modeling, Noriko spends her nights working at a Manhattan dance club, but said she has no plans to move outside of the borough she loves — adding, "I don’t mind the commute."

Made In Queens?

It was in ways a snub of Queens-sized proportions.

As a QConfer was guzzling down some cold bottled water with the name of a foreign country on it recently, he saw a word on the label that reminded him of home.
His bottle of Poland Spring – whose motto “What it means to be from Maine” and reminds us that the ‘Poland’ here refers to a town in New England – came from the town of Hollis.
You mean the same Hollis that produced seminal rappers Run-DMC and L.L. Cool J, and hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons?
Nope. The label, just an inch away from our correspondent’s cross-eyed face, read “Source: Clear Spring, Hollis, Maine.”
Apparently the company has a plant in the town, which was originally called Phillipsburg but later renamed to Hollis either, according to town historians, after Hollis, New Hampshire or after the pro-American Duke of Newcastle, whose family name was Holles.
Either way, it’s not the only culinary connection between New England and Southeast Queens.
In 1983, ice cream made by Vermont-based Ben & Jerry’s was used to build the world’s largest ice cream sundae — all 27,102 pounds of it — in St. Albans.
You mean the Southeast Queens neighborhood that John Coltrane, Ella Fitzgerald and James Brown all once called home?
Not quite — the super sundae was made in St. Albans, Vermont.
What’s next, a soda from Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts?
A candy bar from its neighbor one mile south, Forest Hills, Mass.?

From DMC To KFC

Russell “Rush” Simmons, the Queens native who made a name for himself more than two decades ago promoting rap shows and managing Run DMC, is now campaigning against Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) as an animal rights activist, objecting to the way the fast food chickens are raised and slaughtered, according to published reports. 
In addition to managing his entertainment and fashion businesses, 45-year-old Simmons has long been active in politics and social issues. In 2001, he founded the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network, an agent for social change to fight the war on poverty and injustice.

Politically, Simmons has hosted a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton’s Senate campaign, organized a protest over public education cuts in New York and petitioned Governor George Pataki to change the state’s drug laws.
Now he even owns a beverage company that sells an energy drink called Def Con 3. In an interview with The Toronto Star, Simmons said the proceeds will “go to underwriting social and political activities that help poor people.”

Putting The 'Walk' Back In Sidewalks

In his nearly two years in office, Flushing Councilman John Liu has shaped himself in the image of an agressive and frequent communicator. He holds more press conferences than one could possibly imagine and can often be found on the sidewalks of Flushing or the steps of City Hall in the center of an unwieldy media scrum.
Last week he staged a press conference near the intersection of Main Street and Kissena Boulevard in the heart of Flushing—at one of the busiest crossroads in the borough—to announce new legislation that would prohibit most businesses from operating sidewalk tables in the downtown area.
The sidewalks, Liu said, are not for just any use—“They are for people to walk safely on their way to and from work and home.” 

“Our sidewalks are simply getting too crowded,” he explained. “It has become a public safety nightmare, a disaster waiting to happen.”
Predictions by politicians are notoriously questionable, but in this case Liu was prophetic. Moments later, a pedestrian lost his footing while trying to get around the media huddle and went crashing into a line of reporters.
Liu acknowledged the painful irony of the situation after helping the pedestrian up. “Let me apologize,” Liu said sheepishly, “for momentarily adding to the sidewalk congestion.”
Without missing a beat, Liu pointed to the mini-disaster as a reason why the sidewalks needed to be cleared of all unnecessary obstructions. 
But the questions remains: will press conferences be banned by his Flushing sidewalk-clearing legislation?

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Queens NYConfidential is edited by: Michael Schenkler and Tamara Hartman.
Contributors:	Q Confidential is edited by: Michael Schenkler & Tamara Hartman Contributors: Steve Azzara, Ira Cohen, Marcia Moxam Comrie, Stephen McGuire, Angela Montefinise,  Michael  Nussbaum, Azi Paybarah, Aaron Rutkoff, and Shams Tarek