Author Archive

A sense of foreboding crept into my testicles as I stumbled into the Parkside Lounge ten minutes late to do this review and realized I was the only person there. By the time The Rob and Mark Show started there were about ten of us. Things looked grim, but then a showbiz miracle happened:

They went into their opening number, a book club review about a book neither of them had read, and it…was…Hilarious! The moment Mark sang about the shit fairy,”the shit fairy comes and replaces your poo” I was hooked.

A little ways into the show they told a horror tale of working a club where they had to follow a duo of tranny magicians. The big finish for the trannies was pulling a seemingly endless line of knotted scarves out of their post- op vagina/things and flatly announcing: “TaDa!” It was at that point I began to realize this show was gonna rock. And I was right.

To me, Rob was reminiscent of a young Lewis Black sans the maniacal anger. He kept things grounded and moving- even while breaking our hearts singing about his hetero man crush on Jack Bauer.

Mark reminded me of a mix between Dick Smothers and Tom Hanks’ character from the movie Volunteers. An awful movie, but I mean it as a compliment. At one point in the show he does an impersonation of Wilfred Brimley hawking muffins filled with his own leche de hombre- Now that’s just good clean fun.

They also had a couple of special guests. The first was Todd Womack. One thing he did was an impersonation of a monkey coordinating an elaborate theft of a shiny spoon. The bizarre thing is the voice he used for the monkey is exactly how I always imagined a monkey planning a heist to sound. Creepy huh?

Their second guest was Rusty Ward. He came up on stage to read us some mad libs he had filled out with his crazy Mother. Then he was interrupted by a call from his daughter. It didn’t take long for the scene to deteriorate into a domestic disaster between him and his ex wife, only you know- in a really balls out funny way.

The easy witty banter between all the guys was great and really showed that they genuinely enjoy each other and love comedy. Even when their jokes fell flat they were able to laugh at each other and themselves, or in Womack’s case, just blame the audience for being lame.

They stumbled, they had miscues, they talked over each other, but it all added to an air of camaraderie and gave the show an intimate raw feel that I find lacking in a lot of live performances. It wasn’t perfect, it wasn’t polished, but it was real and it was laugh out loud funny. I’d go to see them again in a heartbeat.

For future dates and venues check out the link to their website.

Also hear some of their songs on their myspace page.

If you dig astrology; or gazing up at the night sky; or just like catching an early evening buzz and staring at big, bright, shiny shit, then you need to check out Tuesday nights at the Hayden Planetarium. Just about every Tuesday night at 6:30 pm the good folks at the planetarium put on an hour long lecture and star show under the dome and it only costs $12 (or $10 if your a member, a student or a senior citizen.)

Me, my girlfriend and a fifth of Jack went on the last Tuesday of the month when they host “Celestial Highlights”, a nifty overview of what’s going on in the sky for the upcoming four weeks. Turns out March is a pretty happenin’ month, astrologically speaking. We sat with about two dozen other people in the dark as the lucid tones of Professor Steve Beyer took us on a tour of the night sky starting with the planet Venus coming into view just west of the setting sun on the 1st.

The Hayden possesses the world’s largest cosmic atlas and they use their unique Zeiss Mark IX Universarium Star Projector(say that ten times fast) to paint the heavens in all their hyper detailed glory. Under the dome the sky blazes with a majesty that just can’t be observed with the naked eye in the big city. It was breathtaking and a little overwhelming.

All during the lecture and the show there’s a digital clock on one wall with the date on it. As the lecture continues and the stars move across the sky, the date on the clock progresses through the month to parallell when it is we are seeing and hearing about. It was just another little touch that added to our immersion in the subject.

The star show and lecture gave me a new appreciation for a skyscape that I take for granted as a constant everyday fixture in my life. The whole adventure was a wonderful experience, and like almost all the thiings you’ll find on this website, the planetarium is a treasure that far too few New Yorkers take advantage of. So, I implore all of you to take an hour and go. You’ll have a blasty blast. If nothing else, it’s a cool way to pre- party before hitting the bars. And who knows- you might just learn something. In the words of Professor Steve Beyer, “Just get out and LOOK!”

UPCOMING COOLNESS

• Tuesday March 6- Depths of Sky

• Tuesday March 13- The Search For Life on Exoplanets

• Tuesday March 27- Spring Has Sprung

To get updates on upcoming sky phenomena and Hayden events send a blank e- mail to

star-struck-join@lists.amnh.org

If William Shakespeare, John Woo, Mel Brooks and the RZA ever dropped acid and decided to do a play in my backyard with Spanky, Alfalfa and the kids from Our Gang, the result would be “The Jaded Assassin”.

This is a 70 minute giggle filled, transcendently violent Kung Fu masterpiece that makes the most inventive use of stage space I’ve ever had the pleasure to experience. The story itself is an old one I’m sure you’re all familiar with:

Young, half breed orphan raised to be the greatest warrior of her generation heads out to seek her fortune after a mysterious plague wipes out her entire tribe. She kicks much ass, struggles with some MAJOR anger issues, and deals with love lost.

Along the way she finds herself embroiled with a nation cursed to wage eternal civil war, confronts a jealous nemesis, hangs out with a water boy with serious Daddy issues and continues to kick much ass. In the end there’s a Hitchkockian plot twist from outta nowhere and yet even more of the twice aforementioned ass kicking.

The plot unfolds through the voice of a narrator punctuated by the beats of a wicked talented Taiko drummer. They flank opposite sides of the stage and immerse the audience in a cozy campfire story intimacy.

Like all great Kung Fu there is little dialogue. The actors portray their characters through hilarious pantomimes and a series of fight sequences that unfold with all the grandeur of a ballet.

The staging of the battles was nothing short of artistic genius and truly stretched the boundaries of stage combat to a level I never imagined possible. (without a million dollar budget) One of the coolest effects was having actors behind a screen shadow dancing a sequence of stabbings, dismemberments, and a beheading. One memorable fight piece combined classic karate moves with blistering break dancing moves.

There was one beautiful sequences where the actors’ sheer physical virtuosity coupled with strobe lighting created a cinema like scene of flight and slow motion brawling. This play also displayed the kookiest use of props since a little show called: Puppetry of the Penis.

The choreography wasn’t perfect, like you would see in a film. Nor should it have been. What “The Jaded Assassin” gives to the audience is the giddy joy of indulging in a guilty pleasure. The whole thing is pure camp, an intricately structured joke without irony or mean spiritedness shared wholeheartedly with the performers and audience alike. Just, you know, with a body count higher than “Saving Private Ryan”.

One for the Perverts:

(you know who you are!)

If you sit in the front on either the extreme left or right you’ll get some sweet extended side boob action in the first few minutes. Oh, and spend $5 to get the hot apple cider with a shot of Bacardi- it’s a good time.

SEE THIS SHOW BEFORE IT CLOSES!
YOU’LL THANK ME LATER

Science geeks of the world rejoice! We have a new, sexy leader to rally behind. He has the jivin’ -jiggly hips of James Brown, the pimped out pompadour of Prince and a trimmed up 80’s Daddy-O mustache not unlike a Nubian Cap’n Crunch.

His name is Neil DeGrasse Tyson and he’s the closest thing to a rock star astrophysicist the world has seen since Sir Iaasic Newton. Tyson is the director of the Rose Science Center (formerly the Hayden Planetarium, the old home of Laser Floyd).

He is a lively, wonderfully laid back, genuinely likeable genius. In the words of Ben Oppenheimer, the man who introduced him at a lecture the other night, Tyson is, “dynamic, but kind of a slacker”.

He was at the Museum of Natural History speaking about his new book “Death by Black Hole”. The book is a series of essays he wrote dating back to 1995 when he was a columnist for Natural History Magazine. Here’s what he had to say about the experience:

“Writing an essay every month is like giving birth. I can see the women in the audience are giving me a dirty look, but still…it was like my flesh was being hewn from my body each month. But it was one of the greatest experiences of my life.”

For over an hour Tyson wrapped us all around his pinky finger spinning anecdotes, history, astrophysics and cocktail party stories into a monologue worthy of Johnny Carson or P.T. Barnum. At one point he was explaining how as humans our five senses are completely inadequate for truly “making sense” of the universe around us, when out of nowhere he interrupted himself…

“Oh, if we have time later, remind me to tell you of the asteroid coming our way that will make the western part of the U.S. unlivable. But only if we have time.”

Spoiler alert: He never got around to it again, so I guess we’re pretty much fucked.

The man has done his math and is smart enough to know he knows nothing! He offers no answers but points out that the human condition brings with it constant discovery and accumulated knowledge over the generations and that there is salvation in knowing what we don’t know. “We are participants in the cosmos, vulnerable,” to its whims.

He implored us all to lose our intellectual egos. “We are not the top of anything!” Quite the opposite, we are merely a step in the evolutionary process of the cosmos. Consider this: The most common elements in the universe: hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, are also the most common elements in the human body. With Yoda like wiseness he summed it up: “Not only are we in the universe, the universe is in us.”

Lessons Learned:

• Genetically speaking chimpanzees are 99.99% identical to you
• Spacettification: verb- meaning- to die while going through a black hole
• Words O Wisdom: “Black holes, we really want to avoid them”
• Buy “Death by Black Hole”- it’s the best book by an astrophysicist with a Cap’n Crunch mustache that you will ever read!

If cable television has taught me anything it’s that there’s a fine line between feminism and soft core porn. That lesson was illuminated for me in all its glory the other night as I experienced for the first time: AMATUER FEMALE JELLO WRESTLING!

As run by Dana Sterling (the Grande Dame of Jell-O wrestling) and her crack staff, this is definitely NOT your creepy Uncle Jack’s back room dollar bill fueled filth fest. And honestly, I would’ve been cool if it were, but what these ladies have created is a for girls by girls good time that’s more about showmanship and sisterhood than it is about raunch.

The wrestlers in waiting arrive around 6:30 to discuss character development, create a costume, go through a safety orientation and take a lesson in saphic, slapstick stagecraft. Turns out, just like in real life, success in the Jell-O octagon depends on open communication and learning how to fall properly.

At 8:00 the party kicks in with a dj and a live band. In keeping with the Grrl Power theme of the evening they try to book all female or chick fronted bands. The night I went they had a funky rock outfit named: Rotten Cherry.

The event is handily emceed by Veronica Vicious, a curvaceous, saucy tongued Marv Albert in a tiara and pink prom dress channeling the late, great Anna Nicole Smith. She keeps the audience whipped into a froth with her wrestler interviews and improvised ring side announcing.

Sample Dialogue:
Superslut (a wrestler) - “I’m gonna slut ALL over her!”
Veronica- “Wow! That sounds wet!”
I defy you to find a wittier discourse anywhere in the wide world of sports casting.

Sample play by play analysis during a match:
“Tiger Lily fights with Native American power while The Claw has…A Claw!… and now a hot ass is up in the air. Screw the boys ladies, that is a hot ass! Now let’s see some SPANKING!”
-needless to say, I’m helplessly in love with Ms. Vicious.

The whole night is a sticky tour de force of feminism at its bustiest best. With names like: Tinkerbelle,; Acid; and Lady Venom, these ladies tongue firmly in cheek are blazing a trail of gender equality with class cascading out of their cleavage and pride pouring forth from their pantalones.

Sure, I sported wood through most of the proceedings, but these babes are no mere mindless objects of lust, they are blue- blooded, drunken embodiments of all that is righteous and true. In a word these young ladies are America! And I, for one, applaud their courage and their feminine mystique.

Amateur Female Jell-O Wrestling is an experience I would recommend for all and sundry. I went in looking for greased up nipple slips and malicious wardrobe malfunctions. I came away though, wiser,with a new found respect for the ladies… and a wicked case of blue balls.

What You Need To Know:

• Next Jell-O night: March 11 @ Don Hill’s on Spring and Greenwich
• For more details go to: Jellowrestle.com
• Those standing ringside WILL GET WET!

“Contemporary art is a discourse always explained but never understood.”- Patrick Mimvan. This quote was surreptitiously placed on a huge billboard outside the Nicole Klagsbrun gallery on 26th st and 10th avenue. Keep that quote in mind as I try my best to illustrate the punk rock ass kickery that is Ted Riederer’s, “The Resurrectionists.”

The concept behind the exhibit is that Ted and his friends beat the holy hell out of a drum set, two guitars and a shiny red bass. Then in the grand tradition of Humpty Dumpty he methodically puts all the pieces back together again. Then this poet/ warrior composes a piece of music and records it using the reconstructed pieces!

“But why? Dear God Why?”’ you may ask.

He does this to illustrate his love of one word: NOTHING! He believes the word nothing, “…does not point to our insignificance or our unhappiness, but on the contrary to our fulfillment and our divinity, since everything is in ourselves.” Pretty kooky, huh?

The whole instillation is set up on three walls in a sparse all white room that’s maybe 12 x 12 feet. The left hand wall is a painting of the destroyed instruments in a jumbled scrambled egg pile.

The right hand wall has a series of printed individual brown and black .45 records pinned to it. One says: “Q- the use of the living for the dead.” Another one states: “A- the use of the dead for the living.” Smack in the middle of the wall is a large print of a funeral wreath composed of dried sticks bound with barbed wire.

The center of the room is flanked by two real life funeral wreaths, both of which were bare sticks wound with barbed wire. The one on the left read: “Immaterial Substance” The one on the right had lilies pinned to it and sent the message,”Insoluble Bliss”.(Admittedly, this would all seem really creepy and morbid, but the underlying message here is personal fufillment.)

Between them were the instruments, all put back together and displayed in their resurrected glory. The back wall had a big screen flat panel television. On it was a room in a warehouse.

We get to watch as in alternating slow and fast motion Ted and three of his buddies thrash and pummel the instruments into splinters. The whole time we are treated to a spacey orchestration that Ted wrote and recorded using the instruments in front of us.

The duality of something so simple yet intricate all at the same time made me an instant fan of this dude I never heard of before. It also blew my fuckin’ mind!

Bad News:
• The exhibit ends on Saturday night
• It will subconsciously make you want to destroy things in a Hulk- like fashion

Good News:
• His work can be seen in Altered, Stitched and Gathered at p.s.I/ MoMA.

*BE THE COOLEST KID ON YOUR BLOCK*

• 26th St. between 10th and 11th is a cornucopia filled with a bunch of warehouses each with a gaggle of different galleries in them. This block has art for everyone from post modernists to hard core porno coinsurers. Definitely worth checking out!
AND IT’S ALL FREE!

Somebody is smoking crack at the Museum of Modern Art. How else to explain exhibiting Dog Aitkin’s “Sleepwalkers”, an outdoor exhibition, in the middle of frigin’ WINTER! The night I ventured out into the breach was the first time in my life I could literally empathize with a witch’s tit, and not in a good way.

However, once my extremities got acclimated I was actually able to appreciate, if not fully enjoy, the sublimely unique New Yorkiness of what I was experiencing. The main stage of the exhibit was situated in the outdoor sculpture garden, which is barricaded on three sides by the glass walls of the museum itself.

Six separate films exposed themselves on the naked exterior of the buildings with only the cacophony of the city acting as their Philip Glass-esque soundtrack. At first sight it was a truly breathtaking nocturnal panorama.

The movies were 16 minute shorts each depicting a solitary soul slogging through the drudgery of their daily lives. The movies, though autonomous, flowed together as one through the use of perfectly timed edits that occurred simultaneously in all six pieces at exactly the same moment lending a soothingly mellow synchronization that was wicked cool.

Another super sweet aspect was that every so often each of the six films would flash the same image; such as a sunset, facial close up or high speed traffic scene, creating a multiplied mirror effect that I found quite trippy.

I took advantage of the audio commentary, which was cleverly accessed through a cell phone number. I learned that the artist told his actors to, “dissolve into the landscapes”. His belief is that a city is heat and energy without boundaries and that the city itself and the people in it are micro and macro reflections of each other. I dig that, but as my balls burrowed deeper into my belly I began to get increasingly disturbed.

NOBODY was smiling. None of the actors in the films, none of the hundred or so audience members, NOBODY! The movies themselves ,while gorgeous, were intense and bleak. Even the physical projection on the windows gave them a bleached out, spectral look.

The thing is: Mr. Aitken created this instillation to showcase the organic heat of life in our city, but what I experienced was not the city I know and love. To me it wasn’t so much a celebration of New York life as it was a depressing homage to the remorse and alienation one feels riding the L train at rush hour. Then again, that’s just one humble kid from Jersey’s opinion.

HIGHLIGHTS:

· It’s FREE
· They won’t bust your balls if you light up a smoke
· It truly is a unique piece of art
· The cell phone audio commentary is free and enlightening: 408-794-0886
· Connolly’s Irish Pub is right across the street on 54th, and a $6 shot of Jack goes a long way after freezing your ass off in the winter night for half an hour.