Archive for May, 2007

With his hair helmet shining, noted mentalist and super cool guy, Sam Eaton took the stage and announced: “TONIGHT THERE WILL BE NO SECRETS!” I winced as I couldn’t help but wonder if he was going to tell the audience that I wasn’t toilet trained till first grade (he didn’t).

In truth I had no clear idea as to what a mentalist was or what they did and I was a little apprehensive. I needn’t have worried. Sam Eaton was more than a mentalist; this man was a master performer.

EVERY feat of mystery he performed he used a volunteer from the Petri dish that was the audience. The night I went the soup included: smarmy suburban 10-year-old boys, the Scottish, guys in ties, blue hairs and me!

And all of us fell in love with the man as over the course of 90 painfully short minutes he won our hearts. He commanded all of our attention, weaving a rich tapestry of bad jokes and mysterious feats of mental agility.

He had the kind of charisma that people said David Koresh or Hitler used to possess, only you know in a non-genocidal Christ complex having kind of way.

Now, I’m not saying I have a “mancrush” on the dude, but, well, my girlfriend said it best when she told me she found him, “kinda dreamy in a Gabe Kaplan/ Egon Spangler kind of way.”(I love my girlfriend.)

I won’t tell you exactly what his act consisted of, first off because it would rob you of the wonderment of the experience. But also because I don’t think I’m a good enough writer to capture the uniqueness of the evening.

I will however tell you that he completely blew my fragile lil’ mind by just knowing things that he couldn’t possibly know. In closing: this was one of the few experiences in my life that I was glad I was sober for. See it, trust me.

DIG IT!

• The Jewel Box Theater is on the 10th floor of a building whose ONLY elevator fits 7 people at a time: arrive early
• For future show times and general informational type shit click here!
• Sam produces a show called, “Paul Carpenter’s: The Psychic”
• Paul is a super cool guy who holds a world record for the fastest escape from a straight jacket

• The Jewel Box Theater is also the home of the Guilty Pleasures Burlesque and Vaudeville Show.

I love Town Hall!! The time on the ticket said 8:00 and guess what time the concert started? Pretty much at 8:00. Yay! I love when things start on time. The lights blinked in the lobby and people filed into the theater for the opening acts: Jonathan Rice & David Bazan. I very much enjoyed them. They both had a similar style; very Bob Dylan folky, heavy on the imagery and simple guitar playing, but I liked it.

Another trait they shared? They were both low talkers. I would guess maybe this was because they’ve only played in smaller venues before or maybe it was simply a technical issue. I could hear them perfectly when they were singing but not at all when they were talking between songs, which was frustrating. They were both fun though. Jonathan Rice led the audience in a sing a long and David Bazan sang a funny song about reviewers. Gulp. Hope he likes me!

Ben Gibbard was flawless. Playing solo really spotlights how incredibly talented he is. He played his solo stuff, stripped down versions of Death Cab for Cutie songs and a couple of covers: Neil Young’s Harvest Moon and Nirvana’s All Apologies. He also did a cover of Iron & Wine’s cover of one of his Postal Service songs “Such Great Heights”. I was hoping to hear his cover of The Backstreet Boys classic “I Want it That Way”, which I heard recently and it’s awesome.

Oh well. He played “Lack of Color”, so I was satisfied.. And yes, I still have a crush on him. le sigh.

There was only a short break between each act, probably about 10 minutes, which was nice. It made for a quick evening of music. When I looked at the clock on the way out, it read 10:30!

In conclusion, I love Town Hall! It’s the perfect venue for singer-songwriter types. I saw Regina Spektor there and I’m going to see bright eyes there in a couple of weeks and I really hope that others like them start playing there. It’s a cozy intimate setting and you get to sit down and relax and not have to worry about some teenager stepping on your toes or blowing pot smoke in your face while you’re trying to enjoy the music. Yes indeed, I’m old. I no longer enjoy standing around for hours waiting for the band to come on because the venue wants to sell as much alcohol as possible. All in all, a fun night of music at my favorite new venue. If you like Ben Gibbard and folky singer types, you would love this show. No more NYC tour dates, but they’re playing tonight in DC at Club.

So it’s out! SPIDER-MAN 3 is in the theaters, and. . . . . . wow, everyone says its crap.

I haven’t seen it yet, so I can’t rant quite yet (But check the ‘movies’ section soon, the review will be up in a jiffy.) but as a cross promotion for the film, all the Spider-man comics have him “Back in Black” which means Spidey has gone back to his black suit with the big white spider in the chest, meaning he’s all mean and angry and stuff.

Heck, everyone loves an anti-hero!

Personally, I don’t buy the “back to the darkside” ploy. It didn’t work for Jaime Foxx in Dreamgirls and it doesn’t work for Peter Parker. An actor friend of mine recently illuminated me to the trend that when a franchise wants to pretend that they’ve added depth to a story, they’ll make the claim that “it’s much darker.” Darker = better. Which in the case of Amazing Spider-man’s recent turn, doesn’t apply.

Here’s why Spidey’s back in the black suit:

During Civil War, Spider-Man went pro-SRA and under Iron-Man’s guidance, chose to reveal his identity to the public. Boom. In one issue (Civil War #2) Spider-Man takes off his mask in fornt of a full press corps, and says “Yep. Peter Parker. I’m Spider-Man.” Breaking a more-than-40-year precedent of the secret identity for our web-head.

The primary reason (and logically, the only real reason) Spidey kept his face a secret is because of the fragile, non-super-powered people around him. His frail aunt, his smokin’-hot wife, and every else that doesn’t stand a chance against the Green Goblin or Sandman. But under the SRA act, his most precious Aunt May and Mary Jane would be safe and protected by S.H.E.I.L.D., Iron Man, the Avengers, et al. They were SAFE!!

And then Spider-Man flipped. He joined Captain America and all the other Anti-SRA, assholes putting his precious wife and older-than-dust Aunt into mortal peril by ANY super-powered psycho that knew how to track down this guy named Peter Park whose face was on newspapers all over the city.

Of course, Wilson Fisk: The Kingpin hires an assassin to take out his most beloved, and when a bullet puts little old Aunt May into intensive care, Spidey puts on the Black suit to tell everyone. . . .

“See! I can be baddass too! I can be like Punisher, really I can!”

Bullshit. I slogged through one two lousy issues of Spider-man pretending he can acutally be a killer, talking about being a killer, dressing like an assassin, and claiming multiple times in only one issue that he’s ready to kill anyone who messes with his family. So far his body count is still zero.

We’ve been here before. During the first alien black-suit saga, during the dark periods of the late 90’s with the Harry Osborn Goblin and other haunting stories, but Parker will always be the good natured, caring, loving sentimentalist and I don’t think he’ll have it in him to take out the Kingpin. One big reason:

Spidey got the girl.

Wolverine; Punisher; Daredevil: All genuine baddasses, none of them get (or got) the girl. (Or in all three cases, “the girl” was killed in a horribly brutal fashion.)
Cyclops, Spider-man, Captain America: All upstanding, law-abiding citizen types, all got the girl.

Sometimes all a super-hero needs is the love of a fine woman.

I’m also proud to report that today was the first successful PANELGEEK GROUP! A handful of comic-heads, plus a couple of neophytes gathered at the Bowery Poetry Club to flip through some TPBs I offered to share and discuss favorite writers, storylines, and how modern war-time political climate has helped raise the bar on many series to appeal to a more sophisticated audience.

Read about it in Gothamist (soon)

The PANELGEEK GROUP will meet the second Thursday of every month at Bowery Poetry, and we hope to see you there!

Being “uncool” is kinda cool these days. Page through The Hipster Handbook, and you’ll embrace the fact that you suck at sports, read books, and wear glasses. We at Uncool Kids try to take back the word “uncool,” embracing our dorky tendencies to watch Broadway shows, promote cartoons as art, watch vampire movies, walk around with art on our head, actually enjoy taking quizzes, stalk cheesy sitcom stars, watch polo, and obsess over comic books. As a runty underdog myself, I can tell you it’s taken quite a few years to get past all the scar tissue of youth and embrace my nerdiness. I have stacks of diaries to prove it—and so do the self-derogating people at Cringe.

The first Wednesday of every month, young adults flock to Freddy’s Bar and Backroom over in New York’s safe haven for the coolest of the uncool—Brooklyn. At around 9 PM, Cringe begins as “brave souls come forward and read aloud from their teenage diaries, journals, notes, letters, poems, abandoned rock operas, and other general representations of the crushing misery of their humiliating adolescence.”

“It’s better and cheaper than therapy,” boasts the Cringe website. After all, it makes you feel better to know that you weren’t the only kid to have a “Kick Me” sign taped to your back. And that maybe—just maybe—some people even had it worse than you did. Avenue Q—I told you we like Broadway plays—has a whole song about that.

Most of the crowd at Cringe look like they aren’t all that far removed from their years of dorkdom. And, actually, quite a few of them look like the Plastics that accentuated the fact that you weren’t cool. Their idea of a cringe-worthy diary entry would be gushing over some boy who their friends later deemed as lame. The backroom of Freddy’s was crammed full of apple-faced blondes and stylishly nerdy brunettes that looked like they came to Cringe as a study break from Lit 101.

The room was so full that I was relegated to cower in the stairwell with the other unfortunate losers. It was so unbearably hot down there, I started sweating like it was down to me and one other kid waiting to see who would get picked last in gym class. The pretty girl in front of me had some sort of oriental fan. I figured she probably had been here before. The room was probably full of regulars, and here I was—by myself, in the corner.

It makes sense that there’d be a lot of regulars. Cringe has been held at Freddy’s since April 2005. Everyone from “ABC Nightline” (see the video here) and “Newsweek” to “Time Out New York” and “Spin” has covered Cringe. (“This American Life” covered a similar show called Mortified.) Next month, Cringe will be held in London.

May 9th’s reading featuring a hysterical story—slurpily told in character as her younger self with braces—about a girl who in trying to achieve her “goal to masturbate and squirt tonight” almost catches her house on fire. She waxes philosophical when her parents get her priest involved

Like it’s a sin to touch yourself. What shit is that? Catholics are crazy. Mary had a baby, and you’re going to tell me she never masturbated.

Another reader was John Sellers, author of the recently released book Perfect from Now On: How Indie Rock Saved My Life. …Apparently, Sellers didn’t always have good taste in music. In his 1983 journal, “document of my geekness,” he writes a whole section on how is favorite rock group is Journey. He also write about how he loves the Wizardry videogame, how inflation has affected prices at Showbizz Pizza, and how he wishes Abraham Lincoln had never lived because then he wouldn’t have to memorize the Gettysburg Address.

So yeah, it’s worth going to Cringe even if you have to stand in the back by the aquarium of frogs.

And what a night it was! Hosted by Lolita Bar in the NEW Lower East Side, all the classies and the flashies, the Vera Wangs and Chanel Diors of the City on Broome st. and Allen, where 250 Russian Jewish immigrants probably stuffed themselves into a Bell Jar tenements with a single air shaft and no bathrooms.

DAMN YOU, COOL KIDS!! AND ALL THE CONSPICUOUS WEALTH THAT THAT THERIN IMPLY!!

But this past Wednesday night was weighted heavily, or perhaps uplifted by a geekitude of absolutely honor and respectability: Urban Lore, and Knowledge of your City.

And with multi-colored, custom silk-screened T-shirts (thank you, Ad Hoc Arts.) the NYC Titans of Trivia All Stars were ready to take home the crown: A group of hotshot mostly NYC Tour Guides, helmed by The Levy family of Levy’s Unique New York. Their secret weapon, A living NYC Encyleopedia named Andy Sydor aka The RedMenace; both for his politics and fo the color of his head when he’s riled up.

(He’s the Union Shop Steward of Grey Line (The Red Buses) and if you ever want to get deluged with emailed articles about NYC by the DOZEN, email him: RedMenace@aol.com)

At a table in the back, surrounded by Wheat Beers (brought to New York by German Immigrants, mostly in Bushwick) and Pale Ale (from the Colonial Day, of course) and got going on the questions.

And BOY there were some stumpers. . . 6 categories, including

Old Names: (6th avenue used to be known as the West Road.)

It Happened Here: (The Hot Dog, invented in Coney Island in 1904)

On this date: ( Dec 8, 1980: John Lennon shot and killed. May 25, 1883: Opening of the Brooklyn Bridge)

and. . . lots of other very obscure stuff. . . The beer was flowing pretty heavily by then. Some very apocriphal stuff (I heard it this way!) and the occassional reference to something outside the city got the crowd into an uproar. But, when trivia geeks get fired up about something, the gloves are off. I should know. . .

(Triviacrats: RIP [for now]. . . SOB SOB SOB. . .)

The photo round was frustrating, as they were small, grainy photo-copys from the City Lore book in a dark bar when people were drinking.

But after Craig Finn of the excellent band The Hold Steady read off the 60th questions, the scores were tallied and the

NYC TITANS OF TRIVIA ALL-STARS CAME IN. . .

2nd place. . .

After Kevin Walsh and the Triborough Destroyers beat us by a single question. Ladies and Gentlement, Kevin Walsh is the Moby Dick of NYC Trivia. . .

Next time, Walsh. . .

Next time. . . . . . . .

I’m wondering if there is some unwritten book of code for improv houses/basement comedy shows. For example:

People’s Improv Theatre: West 29th Street, above a sushi restaurant

Upright Citizens’ Brigade: West 26th Street, next to a Gristedes

PIT admission: $5

UCB admission: $5-$8

PIT theatre access: hike upstairs to purchase tickets

UCB theatre access: watch line snake downstairs as you wait for your tickets

PIT theatre gripes: a wee bit chilly

UCB theatre gripes: supportive beams that hinder visibility

PIT VIP service: buy warm beer at ticket counter

UCB VIP service: buy warm beer at ticket counter

PIT claims to fame: photos on walls, ranging from Steve Buscemi to Mariska Hargitay to Lisa Gastineau, you know, of the notorious Gastineau girls…what do you mean you never watched that show?

UCB claims to fame: everyone

PIT attire: frayed jeans, old tee’s, vintage Chuck T’s (yes! uncool factor), throwback corduroys, unwashed hair…

UCB attire: unwashed jeans, throwback tee’s, old Chuck T’s, frayed hair….

PIT courses: $333 dollars for weekly introductory improv course

UCB courses: $325 dollars for weekly introductory improv course. If you purchase a Starbucks before class, it all evens out.

The PIT, however, hosts an event called The Liar Show, in which the director invites three people to tell their most absurd, outlandish, and literally unbelievable stories to an audience, while images of infamous Liars flash in the background (Nixon, Bill O’Reilly, James Frey to name a few). Afterwards the audience members are allowed to ask questions, in attempts to poke holes through the stories, and then vote on who they believe is the Liar. The winners get PIT T-shirts.

Last night we were ushered in just a minute before 7 p.m. and were ushered out barely forty five minutes later. Remember in college when your well-meaning but rambling professor would say, “Oh dear…I’m afraid I’ve run over and the next class has to come in?” That’s basically what happened. The PIT’s schedule is so packed that the show wasn’t given enough time.

I once read an article in a women’s magazine, before I quit women’s magazines (along with designer coffee and a bad boyfriend), that said that people who lie always give too many details. Armed with this info, I thought I would be able to nab the liars. But all three stories were very detailed.  I kept thinking, “You can’t make this stuff up.” 

The first storyteller, Brian, told a really funny story about his attempt to renovate an independent theater in Haverhill, Massachusetts, with hopes to subsequently revitalize the town. His plans were foiled when he kept giving away free tickets, to “plant the seeds” of marketing. Then he enlisted the help of a comedy group named “Mrs. Potato Head” who performed a skit entitled “Sore From Fucking.” Brian was possibly lying.

The second storyteller, named Sara, recounted her experiences trying to find a New York City apartment on craigslist with her salary as a store greeter for Banana Republic. She found a dream deal in Park Slope. But the tenants - her future roommates - were an attractive forty-something investment banker and his teenage girlfriend named Seng-Yi who didn’t speak a word of English and who, by the way, cleaned the house naked, per his request. The story sounded crazy, but having gone through my share of craigslist encounters, I couldn’t peg Sara as the Liar.

Finally, the last potential Pinocchio, named H.R., began by telling us about his obsession with the movie “The Graduate”. Then he told a story about his affair with an older woman he met during his first summer in New York, and how he fell so head over heels in love with her that he didn’t go back to school in Wisconsin the following year. He proposed and she gently pointed out that they were at very different places in their lives. He moved out of her apartment and wound up finishing school. The whole thing was not unbelievable. But he was so verbose - his language was almost - and I hate this word - “flowery” - that I figured he might be fudging the details and thought maybe he wouldn’t have gotten laid if he was a hardwood floor plank.

Only a few people asked investigative questions, and one of the questions was “H.R., have you ever told your girlfriend that story?” to which H.R. replied, “No.” Turns out the girl who asked that question was his girlfriend, and she didn’t seem happy.

The director then took our ballots, announced that The Liar was H.R., and handed us our t-shirts. The T-shirt was well worth the five dollar ticket. But I would’ve liked to have seen the event stretch a little longer.

A collage of lesbian pornography at the Metropolitan Opera makes us question the boundaries between Art and smut. It would’ve been cause for scandal if any one of the girl-on-girl images contained within the painting in question had been arbitrarily taped to a wall, but situated within the setting of The Arnold and Marie Schwartz Gallery Met, Richard Prince’s Madame Butterfly takes on more significant meaning.

The painting exists to shock the viewer. According to curator Dodie Kazanjian, Richard Prince—an artist already known for his rather explicit photographs—was specifically selected as one of the artists who could “bring highly idiosyncratic and challenging perspectives to the exhibition.”

Prince was commissioned “to capture on canvas the operas being given new productions, with a focus on their heroines.” His portrayal of Madame Butterfly engaged in various sapphic acts certainly challenges preconceived ideas of the Japanese geisha who killed herself after discovering her American husband had married an American woman.

“I went to the opera. It was Madame Butterfly. I fell asleep. When I woke up the music was by Klaus Nomi and Cio Cio San had turned into a lesbian and refused to commit suicide. It was a German ending,” state the block letters (in the typical fashion of Prince’s joke paintings) superimposed over the photographic montage. Like David Henry Hwang’s play M. Butterfly, Prince’s Madame Butterfly uses homosexuality to confront race and gender stereotypes. As a lesbian, Prince’s leading lady rejects expectations of her to be a sex object designed to please men, which in the opera was her calling as first, a geisha, and then, a wife. Prince’s heroine choses life in both a physical (she “refused to commit suicide”) and social (her mental state is not destroyed by ill-requited love) sense. Although the painting is orderly—rows of equal-sized photographs all in black-and-white—its message deconstructs the mysogyny of “the most often-performed opera in North America.”

While Prince’s painting is the most overtly sexual contribution to the exhibit, it’s perhaps not as problematic as Wangechi Mutu’s Love’s a Witch, Orfeo’s Underworld Coronation for Euridice. The heroine’s body is desmembered. Barbie-like legs explode across the canvas. At least John Currin’s Helena looks like she’s in the throes of passion.

Some patrons have been so disturbed by the graphic content at the Gallery Met that they’ve walked right out. The good news for those who don’t blush so easily is that you don’t have to have a ticket to the opera to visit the gallery. It’s free and open as late as 11 PM, through this Saturday, May 12. And, if you do go to see an opera, don’t be surprised to find that they are oftten as sex-tinged as the heroine paintings. After all, what do you think inspired the artists?

Soon the season of picnicking on overpriced-but-irresistible Whole Foods lunches will be upon us. If you want to impress your picnicking pals with more than just your ability to pick out a ripe cantaloupe, choose a park that has some public art that will wow them. Here are some highlights of temporary public art currently on display in Manhattan.

Union Square Park

Union Square Park has something straight of a 70s horror flick–a looming bronze rabbit playing a drum.After a bit of investigating, we learned that it was not some silly rabbit, but Large Left Handed Drummer, one of the hares in Barry Flanagan’s famous series.

We won’t bore you with the details, but apparently rabbits and hares “differ quite radically.” We weren’t the only ones to mistakenly interchange the two lagomorphs; Parks & Recreation Commissioner Adrian Benepe praised Flanagan’s sculpture as a “whimsical rabbit.” The Parks & Recreation gave us a little background on the artist and his work:

Is it just me?? Am I just that fucking trashy or does everyone hate to tip the bathroom attendant lady?

Don’t get me wrong- she was lovely, kind and even suggested that I de-static my top, but you know- I really don’t see the point of having a bathroom attendant at all! And- YES, you people- of course I DID tip her (I’m not that tacky). Although it meant I had to dig into my bag/wallet/pocket/bra/money-stash with my freshly washed hands to pull out dirty money, then wash my hands all over again (cause who isn’t fucking OCD these days?). I must admit, though- my top did look much better sans static.

So, hey- Crash Mansion’s pretty cool with it’s mongo space and all, so I went to catch a few bands on Friday, 5/4. They started with an open bar at the beginning of the night- ahh… just my style.

SO… THE BANDS:
Missed the first band cause the promo didn’t clearly say what time the first band went on.

Aloud was cool and had a good following- lots of people in the crowd. They had great energy and the band had an awesome comradery apparent to the audience. Two really strong singers- music was really good, good sound, but to be completely honest a few of the tones hurt my ears. I think it may have just been the microphone- maybe??

Radio America was good with kind of an eccentric sound, although the energy level dropped a bit when they came on. They were good though and there were some really great solo moments by the band.

Caffeine hit the stage and blew me away with their mad, hot sound. Talk about energy- they were exploding. They’re from the UK and are about to head out to tour Hollywood. Their CD is good too, but you really should try to catch these guys live to capture their ‘Fuck ya’ energy. And, who doesn’t love guys with a British accent?? Catch them at The Bamboozle this Sunday.

Overall: Great roster of bands, cool space. Although, I swear I lost about a decibel of my hearing- maybe tomorrow my ears will stop ringing? 4 bands may have been a bit too much to squeeze into the night- last band was playing close to 1 in the morning and the crowd had pretty much gone home by that point- which was really too bad as they were the best band of the night.

Rock on till next time…