Produce paradise

Now this is just a personal preference, mind you, but seeing someone with a banana sticking out of his jeans and pretending to urinate on a bunch of produce won't get my vote as entertainment of the year. Nor will lines like "I got the worst cold because my rhymes are sick, I open and close packages just for a lick." But hey, that's just me - and it's a free country. If a couple of college goofballs decide to produce a gangsta-rap video called "Produce Paradise," smacking each other in the crotch with beets and fondling honeydews, there's gotta be a few takers on YouTube, right?

Well, not so fast. It turns out Mark and Matt D’Avella used the stock room and produce section of a Califon, N.J. A&P, where they had worked stocking shelves, as the backdrop for their video. Even though the supermarket wasn't identified, someone got wind of the production and they got canned. Then things got weird: Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co., parent of A&P, filed a defamation lawsuit against the college kids. The company claims that "disparaging and false statements" in the video will cost them customers and so it's seeking $1 million in damages and the removal of the video from the Web (the company claims receiving at least one complaint from a "disgusted and distressed" customer who said she will no longer shop at A&P thanks to the "repulsive acts" in the video). By the way, the video has been seen almost 90,000 times. Somebody at the A&P really has the old thinking cap on. (Courier-News)