Posted by Michael Clancy at 1:27 PM, March 4, 2008
Pour a little potion out: Gary Gygax, the co-creator of the Dungeons and Dragons role playing game, has gone on to the great campaign in the sky. Gygax, who suffered from heart problems, is dead at the age of 69, according to the C-Net Crave blog , various gaming sites, and, of course, Wikipedia. (How do they do that?)
When GameSpy interviewed Gygax in 2004, he said he had quit smoking and was taking better care of himself after suffering a stroke. The interviewer also asked him what he'd like on his tombstone and how he'd like to be remembered.
The Dungeon Master replied:
"I was gonna say, "Better here than Philadelphia," but I think somebody already did that. [Laughs] I would like the world to remember me as the guy who really enjoyed playing games and sharing his knowledge and his fun pastimes with everybody else."
Posted by Michael Clancy at 1:03 PM, February 27, 2008
Watch William F. Buckley employ the "why do you hate the troops?" argument and invoke "Nazism" while debating the Vietnam War. When Gore Vidal counters that Buckley's a "crypto-nazi," Buckley calls him a "queer" and offers to sock him in the face.
William F. Buckley Jr., the erudite Ivy Leaguer and conservative herald who showered huge and scornful words on liberalism as he observed, abetted and cheered on the right's post-World War II rise from the fringes to the White House, died Wednesday. He was 82.
His assistant Linda Bridges said Buckley was found dead by his cook at his home in Stamford, Conn. The cause of death was unknown, but he had been ill with emphysema, she said.
The AP on the National Review:
The National Review defended the Vietnam War, opposed civil rights legislation and once declared that "the White community in the South is entitled to take such measures as are necessary to prevail." Buckley also had little use for the music of the counterculture, once calling the Beatles "so unbelievably horrible, so appallingly unmusical, so dogmatically insensitive to the magic of the art, that they qualify as crowned heads of antimusic."
What I want to say about the death of Heath Ledger is…nothing. No speculation on why he committed suicide, if he committed suicide. No comment on the chronology, the circumstances, the known facts or lurid details of his passing. No outrage at the ghoulish gathering outside his SoHo apartment, no interest in who may or may not have owned it, not even my revulsion—violent as it is—that New York Magazine no sooner posted news of Ledger’s death on their website than offered a link to a broker’s listing for a loft in the same building, as if this were just another colorful chapter in the story of Manhattan real estate.
No one saw it coming, everyone says, as if it would be any of our business if we did.
Ledger’s most recent performance belongs to a movie about the artist besieged by critics, cultists, acolytes, and skeptics, inundated with intrusions, expectations, adoration, disillusionment. As the dissolute actor in I’m Not There (how doleful, how morbid that title now becomes), he contributes a bittersweet, reproachful shade to this kaleidoscopic reflection on the necessity, and consequences, of reinvention, an epic contemplation on the thrill, and toll, of a life spent heading for the exit.
What is there to say? His rigorous, wrenching turn in Brokeback Mountain, instantly accepted to the uppermost pantheon, now abides in the ethereal company of Mike Waters, narcoleptic angel of My Own Private Idaho. Like River Phoenix’s lovesick hustler, Ledger’s Ennis Del Mar is a milestone not only of acting but of representation. His forthcoming role as the Joker will be what it is (and we can best respect his memory by letting it play out as free as possible from studio temerity and maniacal punditry), but Ledger’s legacy will always rest on the sad shoulders of a performance that belongs equally to the history of acting and cultural consolation.
Posted by Julie Bolcer at 5:00 PM, January 18, 2008
Mel Cheren, the founder of the Paradise Garage and West End Records, died on Dec. 7.
Some call him the Godfather of Disco. Others refer to him as Uncle Mel. Whichever name is used, both capture the familial feeling ascribed to Mel Cheren, the pioneer who made fundamental contributions to disco music and culture, and nurtured its extended community.
On Thursday evening, nearly 250 family members, friends and colleagues filled St. Peter’s Church on Lexington Avenue and 59th Street for a memorial service to celebrate Cheren, who died on December 7 from pneumonia as a complication of AIDS. He would have turned 75 this Monday.
Personal recollections in addition to stirring vocal performances by Taana Gardner, Marty Thomas and Dawn Tallman delivered a portrait of Cheren, whom his attorney Sherri Eisenpress succinctly compared to a “cannoli.” Her analogy captured his hard exterior bursting with business acumen, and sweetened on the inside by abundant generosity and passion expressed through music, and even painting. His canvases, produced without a brush, look like the squares of Mark Rothko, his muse, with fingerprint traces.
The ashes of Mel Cheren and Larry Levan lay side by side
“He was somebody who had the remarkable gift of being able to create family in so many different worlds,” said Mark Cheren, across the altar from a life-size photo of his cousin. Beneath it, two urns containing the ashes of Mel and Larry Levan, the legendary Paradise Garage DJ, rested on a table draped with a rainbow flag and flanked by a glittering disco ball. According to writer Brent Nicholson Earle, who hosted the service, Mel kept the cremains of Levan after he passed away in 1992.
A native of Massachusetts, Cheren co-founded West End Records with Ed Kushins in 1976, almost two decades into a career that generated the groundbreaking concepts of the 12-inch vinyl format and the instrumental B-side. West End quickly became a home for influential R&B dance music, beginning with its first single, “Sessomatto.” According to Cheren in “The Godfather of Disco,” a 2007 biographical film by Gene Graham, hip-hop patriarch Grandmaster Flash cited “Sessomatto” as an influence on burgeoning uptown rappers before the dawn of the Sugarhill Gang.
As West End progressed through the late 70s and early 80s, the label delivered smashes such as Karen Young’s “Hot Shot,” the New York Citi Peech Boys’ “Don’t Make Me Wait,” which included Larry Levan, and Taana Gardner’s “Heartbeat,” one of the most sampled tracks in music history.
“I closed my eyes when I went in to record it,” Gardner recalled on Thursday about the song that achieved extraordinary sales in 1980. “Everyone looked like they were hanging from the ceiling,” she said, “and I knew it must have been something good.”
During the memorial service, Gardner performed “Cry of the Brokenhearted,” a soulful ode to friendship she wrote for Cheren, whom she applauded for his honesty. West End producer Kenton Nix, who also attended the service, introduced them to each other when she was 17.
Although hailed by music executive Daniel Glass for his authenticity as a “record man,” the savvy Cheren possessed the means to provide his former lover, Michael Brody, with financial backing for the Paradise Garage in 1977. Housed in a parking garage at 84 King Street in SoHo, the legendary club installed Larry Levan and other DJs as the center of attention, where they reigned over a powerful sound system— perhaps, the best in the history of the city. Until its demise in 1987, the venue defied boundaries of race, class and even aesthetic to unite patrons in sonic ecstasy.
Sherri Eisenpress explained the allure of the Paradise Garage for those who missed the heyday: “It was the only place around where no matter who you were, people came together in the shared spirit of love and music that, when you heard it, you had no choice but to get up and dance.”
DJ Jeannie Hopper, host of the WBAI-FM program “Liquid Sound Lounge,” which her friend Cheren generously supported, adds with a sense of mourning: “These events were places where people could come together in a social context. Through people coming together, all the isms disappear.”
Others insist that the experience cannot be adequately relayed in words.
“If you weren’t there, you wouldn’t know,” remarked one Paradise Garage devotee at a reception following the memorial service. “It would reverberate from your head to your dome,” he insisted, as he flashed a tattoo of the venue on his arm.
The reception was held on West 22nd Street in Chelsea at the Colonial House Inn, where Cheren lived and for 20 years operated a gay bed and breakfast now run by his cousin, Illya Dekhtyar. In the early years of the AIDS epidemic, from 1980-84, he offered the space to the non-profit organization, Gay Men’s Health Crisis. Along with his founding of the AIDS charity, 24 Hours for Life, the gesture was one of many significant steps to fight a disease that he ironically contracted in the later years of his life.
However, as someone who reportedly relished the phrase, “Nothing happens by accident,” Cheren in his final days transformed the irony into an opportunity to educate people about the need to remain vigilant against AIDS. Like his impact on music and culture, his contributions to activism are immortal, if unquantifiable.
Richard Burns, executive director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center, recounted his final meeting with Cheren at Cabrini Hospice the day before he died. “Standing there with Mel,” he said, “it was so easy to tell him about the difference he made on earth.”
Taana Gardner, of "Heartbeat" fame, performed “Cry of the Brokenhearted,” a soulful ode to friendship she wrote for Cheren.
A Cheren original painting in the style of Rothko.
A memorial service honoring and celebrating the life and achievements of Mel Cheren will be held on the evening of Thursday, January 17 at Saint Peter's Church in New York City from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m., with doors opening at 6:30 pm.
Cooperberg-Rittmaster Rabbinical Intern Ben Davis of Congregation Beth Simchat Torah will open with a blessing followed by performances by West End recording artists Marty Thomas ("I Was Born this Way") and Taana Gardner and Dawn Tallman ("Save a Place on the Dance Floor"). Friends, family members, and leaders in the music industry will also make testimonials to Mel.
The co-founder of West End Records and the Paradise Garage, Cheren was credited by Billboard with having helped invent the 12-inch single. Cheren donated the first office space for the Gay Men's Health Crisis, organized GMHC's first fundraiser, and founded the 24 Hours For Life AIDS charity.
The man's contributions to music are hard to quantify. Consider this: No West End Records, no "Heartbeat" by Taana Gardner. No "Heartbeat," no "Buddy" by De La Soul. No "Buddy," no "Buddy Remix."
Posted by Michael Clancy at 1:38 PM, December 10, 2007
Friends of Bob Kohler scattered his ashes through the streets of the West Village on Sunday before emptying his urn in the Hudson River.
By Julie Bolcer
"Whose streets? Bob’s streets!” “Is anyone here fighting for queers?”
More than 100 people chanted on Sunday evening as they marched down Seventh Avenue South in what they called a political funeral to honor Bob Kohler. The legendary West Village resident died on Wednesday at age 81, after decades of multi-issue activism that spanned desegregation, gay and transgender rights, HIV/AIDS, and the anti-war movement.
The colorful but bittersweet send-off lasted just over two hours, and wound through locations of significance for Kohler, and by extension the twentieth-century history of gay liberation. Beginning at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center on West 13th Street, and escorted by a police van, it streamed to Christopher Park near the Stonewall Inn. Then, it headed down Christopher Street, to where he once operated the popular clothing store named The Loft. Finally, it reached the Hudson River and the piers, lately the controversial gathering place for queer youth in an increasingly upscale, heterosexual neighborhood. His ashes were scattered at each of the stops, the ground was chalked, and candlelit memorials were created.
“It was Bob’s idea,” said Kara Davis, one of the young dyke activists who cared for Kohler in his final months and mainly organized the funeral. She was with him in his fourth-floor walk-up on Charles Street when he succumbed early in the morning to his recently diagnosed lung cancer. “He made known how he wanted to be remembered. It would be a chance to talk about all the things that mattered to him,” she explained.
What mattered most to Kohler, according to young admirers as well as veteran activists who had known him since the 60s, were the ongoing fights to secure a space for queer youth of color in the rapidly changing Village, to find a cure for AIDS, and to extend city-sponsored benefits such as housing to low-income individuals who are currently HIV asymptomatic. The latter proposal is known as HASA for All.
“He was fighting for things that haven’t been won yet,” summarized Jennifer Flynn, a board member of NYC AIDS Housing Network, who met Kohler in the mid-90s when both were involved with the group, Sex Panic! She later coordinated his work with DASIS Watch, formed to address the regular failure of the Giuliani administration's Division of AIDS Services and Income Support to provide housing for HIV-positive homeless people as required by law. Well into his 70s at the time, he stood outside the DASIS office on Eighth Avenue and 30th Street every day for 18 months, to make sure that everyone in need of a housing assignment received one.
“He was a fighter,” affirmed an emotional Phillip Spinelli, who was present at the Stonewall Inn in June 1969, when cross-dressing street youth unexpectedly fought against a police raid and launched the modern gay rights movement. Kohler helped found the radical Gay Liberation Front on the subsequent nights of rioting. Spinelli caressed a black and white photo of a robust-looking Kohler in middle age, tall and handsome. “He was a great advocate, not only for the gay community, but for people in general,” he declared through tears.
Unfathomable energy and irreverent style were traits that endeared Kohler to younger activists, many of whom refer to themselves as “Bob’s queers.” They describe a cantankerous but accessible man whose cranky attitude was outsized only by his big heart.
“Bob for me was a mentor,” says Michelle Cronk of Harlem. “I never thought of him as being a grandfather even though he was older than us, because he was one of us. He never slowed down.”
And, of course, there was the cattiness and the defiance suggested by the epitaph, “grand old fag.”
“He loved to gossip,” recalls Laurie Wen, who met Kohler through anti-war activities in 2003. She remembers their first conversation that lasted for two hours on Seventh Avenue and 21st Street. “I was kind of shocked at how much he was telling me! It was switching between this really funny, crazy gossip, and really hard-core, social justice activism,” she says.
This paradox of Kohler could be heard during the political funeral, when marchers led by AIDS activist Amos Hough shouted one of his favorite expressions, “Wash your ass!” Newcomers to the West Village neighborhood looked on, bewildered, while some tourists snapped photographs.
One of the most beloved stories told about Kohler pertains to his earliest days of activism, when he headed to the South with the Congress on Racial Equality to desegregate a public pool. He and two black friends hopped in, to the consternation and horror of the white swimmers, and the pool had to be drained to remove them.
“They sat there crouching for hours with the water going down until the entire public pool was empty,” says Kara Davis.
Last night, Kohler was in the water again, for one final time as his ashes were scattered in the Hudson River. He wanted to join his friends, the transgender pioneers Sylvia Rivera, who died in 2002, and Marsha P. Johnson, whose body was discovered floating in the river mysteriously in 1992.
“Have a nice fuckin’ swim!” shouted the crowd as they emptied the urn, and said goodbye.
Posted by Michael Clancy at 11:30 AM, December 6, 2007
Bob Kohler doing outreach for homeless people with HIV in 2000.
photo: Cary Conover
Bob Kohler, gay activist, former owner of The Loft on Christopher Street, Stonewall veteran, co-founder of the Gay Liberation Front, ACT UP member, and longtime fixture of Charles Street, died on Wednesday at the age of 81. The cause of death was cancer, according to friends.
A Queens native who lost a kidney in World War II, Kohler was remembered as a tireless fighter for gay rights, transsexual rights, queer youth, and people with HIV/AIDS who never gave up the struggle even as he battled illness and advancing years.
"At at an age when most people were doing nothing much more than using a remote control Bob was out on the street fighting for what he believed in and often committing civil disobedience," said Bill Dobbs, a friend. "He inspired many younger activists and helped shape the modern gay rights movement."
When the Giuliani administration's Division of AIDS Services and Income Support (DASIS) regularly failed to provide housing for HIV-positive homeless people, Kohler was an active member of DASIS Watch, a group of volunteers who kept a vigil outside of the city's DASIS offices to ensure that everyone who needed it got an assignment. For 18 months, Kohler stood guard outside the DASIS office on Eighth Avenue.
“I had not done anything like that before, but I was the only one who kept showing up,” Kohler told The Villager newspaper, describing how many of the homeless did not trust him at first. “It took a lot of cajoling and begging…they told me to get my white ass out of there.... It was the coldest winter I can remember. I was out there every day for 18 months."
"I do not equate my oppression with the oppression of blacks and Latinos. You can't. It is not the same struggle, but it is one struggle. And, if my being here as a longtime gay activist can influence other people in the gay community, it's worth getting arrested. I'm an old man now. I don't look forward to spending 24 hours in a cell. But these arrests are giving some kind of message. I don't know what else you can do."
This biography written by friends of Kohler in celebration of his 80th birthday last year gives a good picture of the sweep and arc of the man's life:
"Born in Queens, New York, in 1926, Bob joined the Navy and served in the South Pacific where he “left a kidney behind.” After WWII, he worked in television before launching a talent agency in Hell’s Kitchen. Bob was among the first agents to represent non-famous Black artists and hold classes for Black performers who, “since agents would not represent them,” lacked audition experience. Although Bob tells stories of theater circles, A-list parties, and witnessing celebrities’ darker pre-fame moments, he says “don’t make me out to be some big-shot. I was an independent agent who worked my ass off.”
To his younger friends, Bob recounts stories of a queer world in another era: how he and his boyfriend Ed bought a fixer-upper in Amagansett in what became a gay enclave; of the show-biz lesbians who settled nearby Bridge-hampton; about the eventual move to Cherry Grove and the Pines in Fire Island and the class wars that defined relations between the two gay settlements. Of the Hamptons days, Bob says, “We were gay when it wasn’t cool to be gay, and I like to think that we did make a few openings here and there. We never closeted ourselves.”
On the second night of the Stonewall riots in 1969, Bob and other West Village community members called the first meeting of the Gay Liberation Front, which Bob (and historians) credit with “establishing radicalism in the New York gay community.” He went on to work with direct action and advocacy groups including ACT UP, Sex Panic!, The Neutral Zone, Fed Up Queers, the NYC AIDS Housing Network, Irish Queers, animal rights groups, and others. Throughout his work, Bob was a father figure to activists and street kids, including Sylvia Rivera, who herself grew up to be a parent and mentor to queer youth.
In the late 1970s, Bob became manager of the Club Baths. He fought the closure of bathhouses as a response to AIDS in the 1980s, arguing that they were controlled environments with condoms, soap and water, and information “and that many bathhouses were willing to take on a community organizing role to stop the spread of HIV.”
But homophobia and panic prevailed against the bathhouses, so Bob opened The Loft, a retail store with shops on Christopher Street and on Fire Island. He used the wild popularity of the shop to support independent designers like Patricia Field as they started out -- and to leverage recognition of the queer community by marketers like Calvin Klein who pulled in enormous amounts of money from queers but failed, at times, to stand up for them.
In 1999, Bob helped form Fed Up Queers, a direct action cell that challenged the rise of right-wing gay groups, discriminatory AIDS policies, and Mayor Giuliani’s targeting of queers, people with HIV/AIDS, people on welfare, low-income people, and people of color, among other issues. In 2001, when the City of New York began illegally denying emergency housing to homeless people with AIDS, Bob became the core volunteer in an activist operation to pressure the city. Bob, who was 75 at the time, stood outside the housing agency for hours each day for a year, supporting PWAs and calling on politicians and news media. His work formed the basis of a lawsuit that forced the City into compliance with housing assistance laws hard-won by AIDS activists in the 1990s.
Most recently, Bob has mentored the queer youth of FIERCE! in their struggles against displacement, police harassment, and attacks by residents of the gentrified, increasingly heterosexual West Village."
Funeral and memorial arrangements for Kohler have not yet been set.
Posted by Michael Clancy at 3:06 PM, November 21, 2007
Mailer on Ali's knockout of George Foreman to regain the championship: "His opponent was attacking, and there were no ropes behind the opponent. What a dislocation: the axes of his existence were reversed! He was the man on the ropes! Then a big projectile exactly the size of a fist in a glove drove into the middle of Foreman's mind, the best punch of the startled night, the blow Ali saved for a career."
The old literary lion is dead and all the kudos and laments are pouring in. Great writer, super ego. No one can deny the talent—or the combustible personality.
But for a certain generation of New Yorkers, those living and breathing in the remarkable year of 1969—the year of the Miracle Mets, the first Earth Day, the Vietnam Moratorium—there is still the vision of Norman Mailer, Democratic politician....
It was all chronicled in a book called Managing Mailer by Village Voice columnist Joe Flaherty. Flaherty was destined to be the campaign manager for the heavyweight literary ticket of the century—Mailer for Mayor; Jimmy Breslin for President of the City Council. Managing Mailer is not only a primer on the politics of the city in the last third of the 20th century, but also one of the funniest books ever written about American politics. It is The Last Hurrah for a city that no longer exists.
Tom Robbins also explores Mailer's mayoral run and other facets of his life—irascible New Yorker, imaginer of alternative newspapers, inmate of Bellevue's psych ward, passionate, head-butting, put-your-dukes-up saloon intellectual—in a tribute that recalls Robbins' own encounter with Norman Kingsley Mailer in the chaotic streets of Chicago during the Democratic Convention protests in August of 1968.
Robbins wrote:
With a police riot raging one night along Michigan Avenue, three of us had taken sanctuary in the quiet streets behind the Hilton hotel where the delegates were housed. From out of the darkness, a short, barrel-chested man with a massive head swaggered and swayed toward us. He lurched left and then right, the telltale march of the inebriated.
We stopped in our tracks as we recognized the unmistakable form of the famous writer-turned-antiwar-partisan. He halted as well, presumably conducting his ritual head-to-toe survey of potential opponents. "Mr. Mailer," one of us blurted. The ice was broken. "My troops!" he cried as he threw himself around our shoulders one by one. "You're beautiful. You're beautiful. My troops!"
And a look at Mailer, from his work. From the The Fight, Mailer's account of the legendary Ali-Foreman "Rumble in the Jungle" in Zaire in October of 1974:
"With twenty seconds left to the round, Ali attacked. For the first time in the entire fight he had cut off the ring on Foreman. Now Ali struck him with a combination of punches, fast as the punches of the first round, but harder and more consecutive, three capital rights in a row struck Foreman, then a a left and for an instant on Foreman's face appeared the knowledge that he was in danger and must start to look to his last protection. His opponent was attacking, and there were no ropes behind the opponent. What a dislocation: the axes of his existence were reversed! He was the man on the ropes! Then a big projectile exactly the size of a fist in a glove drove into the middle of Foreman's mind, the best punch of the startled night, the blow Ali saved for a career. Foreman arms flew out to the side like a man with a parachute jumping out of a plane, and in this doubled-over position he tried to wander out to the center of the ring.
"All the while his eyes were on Ali and he looked up with no anger as if Ali, indeed, was the man he knew best in the world and would see him on his dying day. Vertigo took Gorge Foreman and revolved him. Still bowing from the waist in this uncomprehending position, eyes on Muhammad Ali all the way, he started to tumble and topple and fall even as he did not wish to go down. His mind was held with magnets high as his championship and his body was seeking the ground.
"He went over like six-foot sixty-year-old butler who has just heard tragic news, yes, fell over all of a long collapsing two seconds, down came the Champion in sections and Ali revolved with him in a close circle, hand primed to hit one more time, and never the need, a wholly intimate escort to the floor."
Posted by Michael Clancy at 9:29 AM, November 2, 2007
Fed up with the gentrification of the East Village, Jim "The Mosaic Man" Power has packed it up and decamped to Brooklyn, AvenueA.org reports. No word on whether he'll be bringing his street beautification to the streets of Kings County or whether commute back to his old 'hood to continue his street art campaign.
Eric Fererra writes:
Jim Power was just one of the many casualties of this gentrification. I have had many discussions with Jim about this very topic. How can you not be bitter when you are an overlooked pioneer and the new population does not appreciate you? When you can not afford to live in a neighborhood you helped identify? When the very streets you have bled on and slept on are lined with fashionable hipsters, posing against your mosaic drinking $4 coffee and talking to someone back home about how radically adventurous they are standing on Avenue B? This is enough to make anyone volatile and abusive. Apparently, The Mosaic Man had enough. Unfortunately, he sold out to the very entity which drove him to his current state in the first place: A real estate developer.
Before he left, Power sold his domain name, eastvillage.com, to a developer. Visit the site now and you'll see pictures of three cranes hanging over luxury buildings under construction and the motto "World Renowned Community of Artists is Undergoing a FaceLift!"
Um, that's one way of putting it it. Power's new site is mosaicman-eastvillage.com. Why not call it mosaicman-brooklyn.com?
We reached out to Jim for comment. We'll let you know.
The demise of New York City is a death by a thousand cuts.
Posted by Michael Clancy at 11:52 AM, October 22, 2007
Laura Cantrell takes to the stage of Mo' Pitkins Sunday night for a few final numbers.
By Julie Bolcer
The distinctive Cuban Reuben sandwiches already a memory, patrons and performers packed Mo Pitkin’s House of Satisfaction Sunday night to bid farewell to the venue that was officially shuttered on Saturday. The 150 final revelers—including Moby and Penny Arcade—who populated the sidewalk, downstairs bar and dining room at the party’s high point seemed sad but resigned to the fact that the nostalgia palace would close after only a two-year run on Avenue A .
After all, as some partygoers noted, from its very beginning, Pitkin’s revolved around something that was already long gone.
“I think we were trying to make a place that didn’t exist anymore,” said co-owner Jesse Hartman, a musician with the band, Laptop, which was scheduled to play during last night’s marathon of final performances along with regulars, such as Murray Hill and Laura Cantrell. Hartman launched Mo Pitkin’s as a joint venture with his brother, Phil, who owns the Two Boots pizza chain and Pioneer Theater, and founded the Howl! Festival of Art. He explained their intended result at Mo Pitkin’s as, “Part Max’s Kansas City, part Second Avenue Deli and part Mercer Arts Center.”
While the Second Avenue Deli has indicated that it will reopen soon in Midtown, Mo Pitkin’s and its Judeo-Latin cuisine don't have a new home planned for anywhere in the city just yet. When the bi-level restaurant and performance space materialized in late summer 2005, it drew customers with kitsch-hungry palates, as well as downtown comedians, musicians and literary mavens seeking refuge from the successive closure of spots like Fez, Satalla and Tonic.
The Hartmans, however, say that comfort, whether served via food like deep fried mac-n-cheese or in enviable stage amenities, came with the price of a fleeting lifespan. Earlier this fall, Mo Pitkin’s announced that it would close because the cost of developing the facility had created “a debt load that the club just could not sustain.” Now, the gut renovated building, complete with duplex apartment on top and liquor license, is available for more than $5.5 million.
“We hope to sell it to somebody that will keep it like Mo’s,” Jesse Hartman said when asked about the future of the property. Then he added, “Honestly, I don’t know if that’s possible.”
Posted by Michael Clancy at 3:56 PM, October 16, 2007
Though there are a lot of people who will tell you that CBGB died years ago, Monday marked the one-year anniversary of the club's closing. On Tuesday morning, a thoughtful fan marked the anniversary with some flowers. Next door at the CBGB gallery, two workmen were ripping out the bar. They said they had no idea what would become of the place.
Hate it or love it or indifferent, CBGB seems to have closed unnecessarily.
During the rent dispute last year, Muzzy Rosenblatt, the executive director of the Bowery Residents Committee, the homeless shelter that subleased space to CBs, said he would not renew Kristal's lease because he had a fiduciary responsibility to his clients to get the highest rent for the space.
Kristal was paying $19,000 rent. When negotiations foundered, Little Steven offered to set up a foundation that would pay the taxpayer-funded homeless shelter $100,000 a year, and set-up a third-party guarantor to pay the rent, including a modest increase.
Rosenblatt ultimately rejected the deal. With the storefronts vacant for more than a year, the BRC missed out on $228,000 in rent, at the very least, and potentially a$100,000 contribution from the CBGB foundation. That's $338,000 that could have helped a lot of homeless people and saved a local legend.
Posted by Michael Clancy at 1:59 PM, October 12, 2007
United Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten spoke publicly for the first time about her life as a lesbian at a gay pride dinner on Thursday night, the Gay City News reported this week.
Addressing the annual Fall Dinner of the Empire State Pride Agenda (ESPA), New York's gay rights lobby, Weingarten was recalling a telephone conversation in which a colleague in the state teachers union was urging that its annual convention not take up a proposed resolution condemning the right-wing push for a constitutional amendment barring gay marriage.
As she prepared to launch into the part of that story in which she essentially told her union colleague off, Weingarten stepped back slightly from the microphone, visibly took a deep breath, and said, "At that point, my sexual orientation was not as common knowledge... as it might be tonight."
Those last five words in that sentence came with a smile and just a hint of a laugh. And the statement was met with hearty applause from the crowd of roughly 1,000 at the Sheraton Hotel & Towers on Seventh Avenue.
Weingarten, president of the 140,000-member United Federation of Teachers, told the New York TimesCity Room blog that “I had never acknowledged my sexuality in such a big setting, although it had never been hidden from anybody.” She said that in the context of a gay-rights event that "“If I wanted to make a powerful statement, I had to insert myself into that statement.”
If you're curious about how many Rihannas were born in New York City, you can download the entire 33-page list from the health department here.
For the record, there were 46 Rihannas born in 2006. That's four more than the amount of Britneys born in 2006. For that matter, there were also twelve Rhiannas born in NYC in 2006. And ten Brooklyns and ten Cherishes.
Posted by Michael Clancy at 11:34 AM, September 26, 2007
Its doors have been closed for months and its records collecting dust. And now it seems Finyl Vinyl is closed for good.
The store's proprietor Robert Cohen, who opened the record shop on East 6th Street in 1985, has been suffering from health problems, said Michelle Taylor, who owns the American Painting art gallery a few doors down.
A few guys from Academy Records were down there last week picking through the best of Finyl Vinyl's collection. The American Painting gallery is going to move in the space, said Taylor.
I can't say I knew Robert Cohen that well, but if you ever went in there, you could tell the guy was a true head. One crate-digger from England commented on a message board that it was worth a trip there just to talk to the interesting owner.
As a po' brokedown rock critic, I never actually have any money, so I just roll up on small East Village shop Finyl Vinyl to drool over the wall where divine proprietor Robert displays all the latest funk and soul rarities that have resurfaced. One-stop shopping: Chocolate Milk, Cymande, and Allen Toussaint. There's stuff on the rock side too (right wall), but it's never as dynamic nor dire. Any given day, you're apt to see some maniac collector plopped on the stool babbling frenziedly about the merits of obscure Spector demos, while mid-'60s boogaloo blares on a real live turntable. Sho'nuff it's a haven for overgrown adolescent whiteboys. But I too love how folks toss off the query for some vinyl grail rather than "Howdy" by way of greeting. My personal big score: Right on Be Free, by the the Voices of East Harlem.
Let's hope Robert can bounce back from his illness.
Posted by Michael Clancy at 1:18 PM, September 11, 2007
A lot of the talk during the lead-up to the sixth anniversary of 9/11 seemed to be about moving on and post-9/11 fatigue, but when you meet people mourning at Ground Zero, the wounds still seem so fresh. Natalia Sanchez, right, was 11 and Ana Sanchez, 7, when their uncle Alejandro Castano died in the Second Tower. Castano, an immigrant from Colombia, wasn't supposed to be there. He was helping a friend make a delivery to the World Trade Center.
Scores of folks who believe 9/11 was an inside job stood vigil outside the Path train station on Church Street, videotaping themselves, and proselytizing to anyone who would listen.
Just a few yards away from the "Investigate 9/11" folks, a woman, wearing a flight attendants uniform, turned her face toward the construction fence to hide her tears.
In a powerful and touching display, these three women— triplets or at the least sisters—traced the path of sorrow from 9/11 to the present day: the office worker covered in dust, the soldier, the Iraqi woman.
Each woman has the number of casualties— of the World Trade Center attack, of U.S. GIs, and of Iraqis— written on her forehead.
Sammy Vasquez, a Korean War combat veteran, realizes that he bears a strong resemblance to President George W. Bush. "I don't like the man," says the Bronx resident.
Joe Piazza, a retired OTB manager from Staten Island, says he dressed like this every day— not just on anniversaries— so that people won't forget about 9/11. And what about his Flavor-Flav clock? "I made it myself," says the 78-year-old.
Tourists pose for pictures outside of Ground Zero as the names of the dead—they were up to the letter P—are read aloud by first responders.
Posted by Michael Clancy at 2:23 PM, August 30, 2007
Some thoughtful fan left this tribute for Hilly in gold glitter and a substance that appears to be cocaine. The glitter got us thinking: What would really be nice is if someone spruced up a CBGB T-shirt with the BeDazzler.
Hilly Kristal opened the doors
of CBGB's to us all in 1974.
All who passed through the portals
experienced, as Arthur Rimbaud would
say, "new scenes, new noise".
He offered us artistic freedom and his
gruff yet unconditional love. We evolved,
we left and went out into the world like
prodigal children. When we returned
he always accepted us with open arms.
Once back in 1974, leaving the club after a
loud, raucous night, I noticed that Hilly had fallen
asleep on a cot. He was covered with a faded blanket
and his feet were sticking out. His mismatched socks
were also holy. Having holes that is. But perhaps holy
as well. I remember thinking he's just one of us.
I never really knew him outside of CBGB'S. But
he was always there. His door was always open. And
when he fell asleep we never had to be quiet.
Hilly Kristal was the good shepherd of a flock
of black sheep. We are forever grateful.
Posted by Michael Clancy at 12:44 PM, August 29, 2007
It didn't take long for the tributes to pop up in front of CBGB.
We hope the person carrying that can of spray paint is over 18.
At least he'll never have to see his beloved club become an Olive Garden.
Can you read that? It says "I saw the best minds of my generation... vanish to Vegas."
Hilly never made it to Vegas, but it looks some crap movie about Vegas made it to the Bowery. Hilly dies as it was scheduled to shoot. Coincidence or conspiracy?
Hilly Kristal is dead at 75 after a long battle with cancer. He died on Tuesday at Cabrini Hospital, his son, Mark Dana Kristal told the Associated Press.
He opened in December 1973. Though he couldn't have planned it, it was the perfect moment for a new rock joint, especially one that relied on local talent playing original music. This may seem far-fetched for anyone who has lately perused the entertainment pages of this bohemian hometown rag, but turn-of-the-'70s New York had become a hard place to find footing for a band, ever since the glory years of the post-folk Greenwich Village Night Owl scene. Even the Velvet Underground mostly played outside the city of their birth until they provided a summer's worth of dancing entertainment at Max's Kansas City in 1970. Most Manhattan clubs only provided a showcase haven for visiting national acts, or were resolutely still flying the folk flag.
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