The dreaded annual co-op meeting was last night. I was happy to see other people ask about the explosion of dogs in the last year. We're one of the only buildings in the area that allows dogs, so many of the people moving in (generally affluent Chelsea fags) have dogs, sometimes two.

I work at home, so I get to hear all of the little darlings be miserable and bark for, oh, lets say, 6 hours a day. This includes Saturdays while people are at brunch of course.

At the meeting I heard the most pathological "dog" statement of my life. One of the people admitted that he was one of the people with two dogs. He said he gets anonymous complaints under the door, and he can't respond to them. He followed this by saying he couldn't really do anything about his dogs barking, and if the neighbors found them annoying, imagine how bad it was to live with his dogs! This person needs a therapist, not pets. Who gets pets to brag about how much trouble they are?

There's a nice essay in Salon on the new Tom Waits CDs I just bought - Alice and Blood Money.

Alice is from a musical theatre work created by Robert Wilson and my friend, the brilliant Paul Schmidt -- his Chekhov translations are highly recommended.

Blood Money is based on Buechner's Woyzeck.

The lovely and talented Jesse has a photo of a shop in London called "Fags and Fings".

Yessiree, I've added myself to the nyc bloggers list. Others in the 'hood:

The Axum Obelisk, brought from Ethiopia to Rome by Mussolini's soldiers, was damaged by lightning yesterday. The CNN story has a picture. There's more on the history of the obelisk here.

My friend Charles Goldman (no link -- I'm not done working on his web site) has a nice review in the SF Chronicle of his show in Berkeley. Check out the images.

I've seen the Distance Paintings in person. They're beautiful.

... looking for "new talent". The Art Newspaper has a pretty good article on the search for hot/new/young artists. It quotes one of my favorite "art world" people -- Zach Feuer from LFL Gallery. I didn't know he was only 23!

That paragon of British Journalism, the Sun, has an article with the classy title of "Talibum Alert!" about hunky British marines being chased by men wearing makeup and perfume in the mountain villages of Afghanistan.

Marine James Fletcher, 24, of Arbroath, Scotland, said: “They were more terrifying than the enemy. They go about hand in hand, mincing round the village.

“We were pretty shocked. The Afghan soldiers with us said a lot of men in this country have the same philosophy as Ancient Greeks: ‘A woman for babies, a man for pleasure’.”

Pal Gaz Pickles, 23, from Scarborough, North Yorks, said: “I think one problem is that they don’t have women around. They are hidden up in the hills.”

The commandos came under close scrutiny from the pink parade during a mission in South Eastern Afghanistan.

They were told by Afghan soldiers that some villagers had never seen a western man before — and thought the muscle-bound marines were very hunky.

My birthday's coming up. Someone buy me the Captain Kirk chair!

Cool pictures of Aurora Australis (Southern Lights), courtesy of the BBC.

I saw this story courtesy of Sam:

A record number of same-sex couples are flooding into Canada through Buffalo because they can be legally recognized as families, immigration officials say.

I went to an opening tonight at K.S. Art of a cool show curated by David Humphrey. This piece -- lost my slip of paper with the artist's name -- is a chocolate cake, to be eaten at the opening:

Adam Ant, aka Stuart Leslie Goddard, denies charges he broke a pub window and threatened a man with a gun.

The Daily News has a story about a (male) firefighter, Michael Gorumba, who died of heart failure while fighting a fire last August. Albany and the City are talking about passing a bill to allow his (female) domestic partner to receive survivor benefits. Kudos to Christine Quinn:

A bill pending in Albany would extend those benefits, worth $11,000 a year, to their mother. The bill required Council authorization.

City Labor Relations Commissioner James Hanley, who testified in favor of the measure, was pressed on whether he and Mayor Bloomberg also supported benefits for surviving partners in gay relationships.

Hanley said only that Bloomberg would be willing to "take a look at it."

"Do you or don't you?" demanded Councilwoman Christine Quinn (D-Manhattan).

"It's not a yes or no answer," Hanley replied, contending there could be substantial costs.

The bill for Campbell was approved later by the full Council.

The Telegraph says:

Drinking a glass of white wine every day strengthens the lungs and may help prevent disease, according to a new study.

Researchers have found that moderate white wine drinkers have healthier lungs than teetotallers or beer and spirit drinkers.

That was my problem -- expecting all that highbrow stuff -- a script, acting, etc.

I just took the Political Compass test:

Economic Left/Right: -5.88
Authoritarian/Libertarian: -7.54

About the same as Ghandi. Here is the Libertarian Left recommended reading list.

There I was, calmly reading my New York Magazine, when I came across the story of him throwing a party at the McDonald's on 34th and Tenth Ave -- with hors d'oeuvre off the Dollar Menu.

The only worthwhile part of the NY Post -- the gossip pages -- has this interesting tidbit:

In what could be seen as a pre-emptory strike, Mets manager Bobby Valentine says that Major League baseball is "probably ready for an openly gay player."

Valentine makes the remark, seemingly out of the blue, in an upcoming interview with the June/July issue of Details magazine. "The players are a diverse enough group now that I think they could handle (a gay teammate)," he says.

While the manager's statement is imminently sensible and unlikely to disturb any of his young players, it could roil some traditional Shea Stadium fans. (I can hear the chant of "switch hitter" already.)

More to the point, some may think that Valentine is getting in first, before one of his big guns is outed. There is a persistent rumor around town that one Mets star who spends a lot of time with pretty models in clubs is actually gay and has started to think about declaring his sexual orientation.

The rumor even goes so far as to say that the player and a still-closeted local TV personality recently purchased a house together in a ritzy New York suburb. (I've made a cursory check of the real estate rolls in that suburb and can't find any documentation of the rumor. But even if it's all nonsense, the story is out there and gaining momentum by the day.)

The other fascinating thing about Valentine's statement to Details is that it shows how far he's come in the big city. When Bobby came up to manage the Mets, he was, to be blunt, a bit of a redneck, a man perhaps more like a John Rocker than a crusader for gay rights. I think we all should be proud of him for taking such a principled and sensible stand.

We spent the afternoon walking around Williamsburg, going to a few galleries. The Stuart Hawkins show at Priska Juschka is grrreeat! The Thomas Lail show at Goliath is cool too. Schroeder Romero had an amusing neon piece in the back by Bill Rowe (who teaches at ASU, near my home town!), called "Who's your daddy?".

There appears to be a new Italian (Sardinian to be precise) wine bar called DOC at 7th and Wythe, open every day from 6-midnight or later. I expect to try it out soon.

Late in the afternoon we sat outside at Yabby, had coffee, and watched the pigeons.

Overheard while walking around the Lower East Side looking at galleries:

At least you're unemployed here. I was unemployed in Hoboken!

The sign reads: Part Time Work, $8/hour. Must be articulate in describing things well. Good computer skills necessary.

Spotted on a rainy night in Soho:

Poor poodle. Where's the owner?

Has anyone else noticed these on lamp posts around Chelsea?

I forgot to mention another artist we liked at the Scope Art show (see this): Paul Mullins from Lyons Wier Gallery.

Recommendation!

Go see The Sandman at Target Margin. David Herskovits and his merry team have done a great job with this Opera-meets-Downtown-Theatre work, with music by Tom Cabaniss. It's in a cool little opera house-like theatre in the East Village. Check out the review in this week's Time Out NY. I think it's a better review than this one in the Village Voice.

As part of the Nancy Hwang birthday extravaganza, I saw Episode II: Attack of the Clones last night. Ugh -- it was worse than I expected. Natalie Portman's a trooper for trying to act like this was a "real movie with acting" while saying some of the worst lines in movie history. It made the 3 good ones (now known as Episodes 4-6) look like Shakespeare. My friend Anees was right - it was like Star Wars Porn -- all the stuff you like to see, over and over and over. All money shots, all the time!

Whenever there were "plot" interludes, such as the scenes of the budding romance between Natalie and whoever that guy is, the audience snickered until we got back to the light sabers and special effects.

I miss Princess Leia.

On Sunday we went to brunch - which one was the mother? - at The Park with our friend Brownie, followed by a visit to Scope Art at the Gershwin Hotel. No celebrities were spotted at The Park. The food wasn't bad, and is surprisingly cheap at brunch/lunch time. If service is going to be that bad, shouldn't all of the waiters look like models? (They don't.)

Scope Art was great fun! Sort of like the Gramercy Art Fair at the beginning -- nicely low key. There were a number of interesting out of town galleries -- without websites to link! I was pleased by the amount of drawing and painting on display. It's not dead!

There's a very interesting gallery in Cleveland of all places called Shaheen showing people ranging from Roe Ethridge to Blake Rayne.

Others things of note: Stuart Hawkins from Priska Juschka and a show called "Amenities" curated by Pascal Spengemann -- an entire room of works by artists replacing or working with the objects in the room -- a painting in the Gideon Bible (Ben Potter), toilet paper of handmade paper from utility bills (Missy Bly), and casts of vacuumings from the hotel (Corin Hewitt).

I've been having some computer issues for the last week, so this is a big catch-up post.

On Saturday we went to some galleries in Chelsea. Highlights:

• Brian Coleman and Molly Smith at LFL Gallery -- Molly's gouache and ink works on paper are especially beautiful.


• Katarzyna Kozyra at Postmasters -- pretty Polish boys in videos


• Polly Apfelbaum and Beatriz Milhazes at D'Amelio Terras


• David Reed at Max Protech -- hmm... www.maxprotech.com takes me to some kind of hydraulics company


• Jim Hodges at CRG -- Wow! One of the best shows I've seen in Chelsea in a while


• John F. Simon, Jr. at Sandra Gering

Here's a disturbing but interesting 13 minute video by Christoph Draeger, Reynold Reynolds, and Gary Breslin. It stars Guy Richard Smit. The premise: the final newscast of MSNBC.

Actual photos from the 1848 uprising in Paris - barricades and all! See it on James' site.

Beware of art majors whose conceptual projects go a little too far.

The 21-year-old college student accused of putting pipe bombs in mailboxes in five states told authorities he was trying to make a "smiley face" on the map, a sheriff said today.

My friend, the fabulously exuberant Gabriella, has joined this little blog world of ours.

Welcome!

Hmm... Should this be filed under culture or queer? It's one of those high/low art kind of things.

Last night we saw Jonny McGovern, Gay Pimp Daddy/International Gay Teen Pop Superstar, at PS122. We took James's nephew Peter - the gay psychriatrist nephew - and his friend John. It was great fun, with Jonny and his backup dancers (including one Abercrombie and Fitch model), plus two fabulous draq queens. I think my favorite song was "Hey, Little Raver Boi". The choreography, by Jonny, Kimmarie Lynch, and Christopher Campell, was hilarious -- trashy queer boy band dancing. The costumes for "Raver Boi" included light sticks, visors, and bell bottoms of course.

It lasts until May 12. Worth a visit I think. The crowd was an interesting mix, including straight boys and their girlfriends. The girls really screamed for the songs about Jonny seducing straight boys. This post-straight world is very interesting.

We had dinner afterward at my favorite East Village restaurant, Raga -- Indian fusion, not really Indian, one block east of the glitter of the 6th Street Little India.

Side note. Abercrombie's web site has a music page, including a streaming station? How's this for an album description:

Camber attacks with buzzing guitars desperately hung over a rock solid backbeat.

Last night we went to the opening for 3 shows at Art Resources Transfer -- Jonathan Feldschuh, Merrill Wagner, and M. Sovan Kumar. Jonathan also has a show at Cynthia Broan right now. The pottery installation by Kuman is really beautiful, and I LOVED the Merill Wagner works. She rocks, as usual.

After the opening we saw Blue Surge, by Rebecca Gilman, at the Public Theater. Info on the production in Chicago at the Goodman is available here and here. It seems to be mostly the same cast, and the same director as that production. She has a reputation for writing plays that are a bit didactic, and have their hearts in the right place, but don't necessarily work as theatre. This is the first play of hers I've seen, and I have to agree.

I think the direction by Robert Falls, and the cast, outshined the play. The cast was uniformly excellent. Rachel Miner was totally convincing as a young woman still in her teens who realizes that working in the local "massage parlor" makes more sense for her than working at Wendy's. Joe Murphy plays a cop trying to "escape" his background and make something of himself, with Amy Landecker as his middle class artist girlfriend. The other two actors, Steve Key as a goofy, slacker cop, and Colleen Werthmann (member of Elevator Repair Service) as another hooker, are also awesome. We spoke to Key afterwards to tell him how much we enjoyed it.

The play has its moments, I will admit. The scene between Beth (upwardly mobile) and her boyfriend Curt (who isn't) is really strong. All of us that came from small, poor towns where most people have dead end jobs and drink too much would find a lot that's familiar in that scene. He wonders if she stays with him to shock her artist friends, and she's disappointed that he's not more successful. After all, she says, anyone who is smart enough and tries hard enough can "make it" in America. I would like to think that, and I'm lucky to be where I am now compared to where I came from, but I don't think that's the way the world works for most people. I went to a high school where most people didn't think of going to college, and thought it was frivolous to do so. I'm glad I escaped, but I can't really say that I'm "better" than the people who are still there. I'm lucky.

POLICE MUST NOTIFY RESIDENTS WHEN
CATHOLIC CHURCH MOVES INTO NEIGHBORHOOD
Controversial "Egan's Law" Expected to Gain Widespread Support

See it at SatireWire.

I was browsing Gombrich's Story of Art and came across a Dürer watercolor called The Large Turf or "Great Piece of Turf". It's from 1502 or 1503.

Take that, Richter!

Found thanks to Flak:

Look ma, no crusts.

Sara Lee wants to take over a duty moms have carried out for kids for decades — slicing the crusts off white bread. The consumer goods giant is touting its new IronKids Crustless Bread as a fresh-from-the-oven idea, coming soon to a bakery shelf near you.

This amuses me. As one of the people involved with the new paper The New York Sun used to write Smarter Times (which critiqued the NY Times), there are already two similar sites for the Sun: Smarter New York Sun, courtesy of Flak Magazine, and Like Father, Like Sun.

The two critical sites are more interesting than the Sun. One of my favorite features of Smarter New York Sun is "Wire Watch" -- in which they track the number of stories coming from the wire services. It appears that $20 million doesn't buy much of a news-gathering operation these days.
.

My goodness! John Leo, wacko right-wing columnist for the Daily News, says One vote here in favor of the blogging revolution. Thanks to Andy for the link.

I didn't know Tom Tomorrow had a blog! I love him, and read his cartoons (excuse the expression) religiously. James and I met him at a Ralph Nader fundraiser in 2000. That was a great event, at a private home, where we also met Patti Smith, Michael Moore, and Susan Sarandon. We talked with Susan about ACT UP demos we all attended.

Leo also mentions The Daily Howler, which I will have to add to my list of daily blog viewings.

The Nando story says...

Widespread sharing of songs over the Internet does not reduce the overall amount spent on music purchases, and may even increase it, according to a study released Friday.

The report by Jupiter Media Metrix, a high-tech consulting firm, challenges the assertions of the major music labels that the industry is being victimized by piracy of music over the Internet.

The Dutch right-wing politician Pim Fortuyn has been shot dead.

He was an odd one: openly gay, anti-immigrant right-winger. The AP story contains the execrable sentence:

Fortuyn, a former academic and columnist who led an openly gay lifestyle, had dictated debate during the campaign with verbal attacks on the country's growing Muslim population and strident criticism of the national government.

We spent a few hours in Williamsburg yesterday, lookin' at art as one of my college friends always said.

There are 2 cool shows at Pierogi 2000 - a French artist named Christophe Cuzin (conceptual alert - check out the info on him and the drawings in the office), and Lisa Kereszi -- a GREAT photography exhibit. She goes on the "to buy" list once I recover from the list of recent benefits.

Eyewash is presenting "Window Shopping" -- 30 Brooklyn artists displaying work in shop windows along Bedford. We picked up a map at Pierogi, or you can get the list at Eyewash's web site.

Finally, there's a big smart show at Momenta, curated by Deborah Kass. It's one of the best group shows I've seen in a while, ranging from 70s conceptual and feminist work to Hiroshi Sunairi and Eric Doeringer. Go!

I came across this page while searching for web pages on Ohad Naharin. The Frankfurt Ballet certainly has an interesting approach to photographing its dancers.

We saw Naharin's Virus by the Batsheva Dance Company last night at BAM -- Fabulous, theatrical work and brilliant dancing by a beautiful international troupe of dancers. It's a collaboration from the outspokenly political (and anti-war) choreographer Ohad Naharin and the Arab Palestinian musician Habib Allah Jamal, and uses the text of Peter Handke's Offending The Audience. There was an amazing lightness, and animal energy, to the movements. I think the NY Times review is pretty good.

There was a Q&A with Naharin in the Times also, but it doesn't show up in the archives. But thanks to the magic of Google, here it is.

You know, I'm very informed about what's going on. And I have very clear opinions. Right now, there's a real clash between my politics and my country's politics. It's very tragic what is going on because it's obvious that eventually there will be one of two possibilities: total disaster in the region or a big compromise and peace treaty. So, if we don't want to choose the total disaster, then it will be a peace treaty. And if the peace treaty, why wait? Why make all these mistakes? Why not just compromise now?

Obviously there are millions of people in this region who don't particularly wish well for us. But the present acts of the Sharon government don't make it safer. It's not a government that seeks negotiations. It's a government that has an illusion of power. And that's something that interests me.

I think a lot of people in Israel live in an illusion, and that Sharon has infected a lot of people with his phobia. The phobia is really a lack of guilt. It's blaming everybody but yourself. It actually causes you to lose any kind of sensitivity to the suffering of other people. And it's kind of a chronic thing. That's the illusion that I'm talking about. So maybe what I'm trying a little bit to evoke an awareness, just the ability to look at ourselves from a little bit of distance and perspective.

We had to go through metal detectors to enter BAM, and one of the security guards told James that he liked his anti-war button. James told him he would give him one if he would wear it, and he said, "certainly!" James always carries extras for such an occasion, and recently gave one to a man walking with a rescue dog in midtown.

Last night we saw John Guare's A Few Stout Individuals at Signature Theatre Company. While not a perfect play (the ending seems to peter out), it's a very clever rumination on history, and has one of the best casts I've even seen in a play. I think he was trying to reach for more surrealism than he was able to pull off -- maybe he's afraid of confusing the kind of audience he has now. I didn't find it particularly unusual as a play, but the generally 60ish crowd around me all talked about how "weird" it was.

It's a huge cast (13 actors) and is very well directed. The standouts included Polly Holliday, Donald Moffat, and William Sadler as a perfect Samuel Clemens. I felt like Mark Twain had returned from the dead. The woman who played the great diva Adelina Patti (Cheryl Evans) was a real opera singer -- I saw her in Akhnaten a couple of years ago in Boston. James Yaegashi was quite dashing as The Emperor of Japan.

I had never seen Donald Moffat on stage -- he has a great presence as a physical actor and made a believable U.S. Grant at the end of his life.

The title comes from a quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson: "all history resolves itself very easily into the biography of a few stout and earnest persons".

You can get cheaper tickets right now while it's in previews. For my impoverished actor/artist friends, I recommend calling to see if you can usher/volunteer to see it. I think it's worth seeing just for the cast.

One more thing: The actress playing the Empress of Japan, Michi Barall, kept looking at James and me as if she knew or recognized us; we were in the front row. Hmm... other than in plays, do I know her?

We saw Dennis Cleveland last night. This is the excellent opera -- but not a Puccini-type opera -- by Mikel Rouse that many of my friends have heard me rave about after it was done at The Kitchen a few years ago. Here's more info including a link to a video clip. I don't think the sound is that great on the video clip.

I think I liked it more at The Kitchen -- cooler crowd than at something sponsored by Lincoln center, but I still highly recommend going. You're not going to see a work like this very often.

Here are a couple of MP3s from the CD:

Soul Train
Beautiful Murders

Check it out! Put an address in MapQuest and you can now get aerial photos of the area, such as... Chelsea Gardens

Lovely -- the site of last weeks's explosion 3 blocks from here has been declared a toxic waste site.

Read the page for my friend Misa's Fragile Art project. Maybe you've seen the posters like this on the streets?

Here are some locations from her most recent e-mail update:

• 14 St (btw Broadway & 7 St, south & north sides of sidewalk's light poles)
  
• University Place (close to 14 St)
  
• University Place & 8 St
  
• Williamsburg (Bedford Ave, btw N7 St & Grand St)
  
• Brooklyn Museum, construction board
  
• Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn (Fulton St, btw Washington Ave & New York Ave)
  
• Soho/ Wooster St (btw Houston St & Canal St)
  
• Greene St (btw Houston St & Broome St)
  
• Broadway W btw 116 st & 71 St (east sidewalk

Here's a nice essay on homos at the Friends of Palestine march across the Brooklyn Bridge about a week ago, including a discussion of non-violence and the role of internationals, including the gay community, in bringing down apartheid in South Africa.

A Clinton talk show may be in the works...

I just got back from lunch at The Odeon with James, Scott, and Andy -- too much wine so this won't be eloquent. Andy asked me why I started doing a blog apart from my current, more "public" web presence, and I think it's because of what David Drake referred to as "free floating rage". I started with shoulderchip rather than this page, because I had some things to say about the way the world is being run today.

A little bit of shoulderchip is about the Middle East, but a lot of it is about the theocracy that America has become. The current administration didn't even win a majority, and they're acting as if they got 90% of the vote. They don't care what people think. All they have to say is that this is a war to protect our civilization, and the sheep that pass for the media and the public say, "OK".

As Choire says -- what should we be doing? I don't post to shoulderchip that often these days, because I'm feeling pretty apathetic about changing anything. I was never a great activist, but I feel really impotent these days.

So what's the answer?

Men's Cookie exchanges -- a trend?

Wow - at the rate the world is moving, the USA will have more in common with autocracies/theocracies in the Middle East than the rest of the West:

Police back softer line on drug users

Police chiefs say they would have a better chance of winning the war on drugs if addicts were given treatment instead of punishment.

The Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) also believes it would be better to adopt a more relaxed stance towards people caught with small amounts of cannabis.

ACPO unveiled its proposals in a report, carried out by its influential drugs committee, saying in some circumstances, treatment should be considered instead of prosecution.

The new issue of Free Willamsburg is now out, including Gay Williamsburg, Part Two. Luxx has a $4 coat check?!

For my fellow linux geeks, here's an article comparing Win4Lin and VMWare. Even on an 850 Mhz PIII, I still found VMWare slow, so I can't really imagine paying $300 for it. Win4Lin is adequate for running Quicken and checking web work against windows browsers.

Lottery officials settle Big Game dispute

New Jersey lottery officials said Monday that the person due one-third of the $331 million prize will be revealed Tuesday -- and it won't be anyone from an office pool that claimed to have the winning ticket. They ended up with $2 after a dispute that involved two lawyers and a lottery review.
...
Marquez's lawyer, Donald DiGoia, said the co-workers suspected Marquez had the winning ticket because he called in sick for three days with the flu after the April 16 drawing.

"It's a bittersweet day, to say the least," said Anthony H. Guerino, an attorney who represented 10 workers. "They've always been a spiritual group. I could see them deflate."

Tonight (May 1) is the A.R.T. benefit. We'll be there will bells on, along with some friends. Go! Buy Art! It's for a good cause!