One More Downer Note Before '07 Is Out...

This is infuriating. Or depressing. Or both.

In Brooklyn, a woman gets a ticket for having her dog off the leash, tries to pay it, but the court is backed up so it gets thrown out but never logged as such. Then she gets pulled over on foot for jumping the turnstile in the subway (she says the Metrocard machine wouldn't accept her payment and nobody was to be found to help her) and when they call in her info, she's got a warrant out for her arrest for the off-leash thing!

That's annoying and all, but it's just the tip of the WTF iceberg as she is thrown into the holding cell where she spends a full 24 hours:

There seemed to be a giant amount of racial profiling going on -- alot of woman in the cell were just picked up wrongly and booked for supposed violations. (Open bottle of alcohol.) It seemed that they wanted to put as many black folk in the system as possible. I grew up in brooklyn in the 70s . My dad grew up here. I am not a naive, knucklehead from a transferred suburban bubble. This "pick up anyone for anything and process them for it" as my lawyer informed me, was a Guiliani mandate. It is racist. It has divided this city and it is making this place a plasticized suburb that I don't think I have the heart to remain in. It is disturbing to watch these rich kids prance around Smith Street, when 2 blocks away, there is a cell where you are held without communication, water, food and logic.

Read the full story here. (from the Gowanus Lounge)

It gets vicious in the comments section, with people taking sides and laying blame. Does the punishment fit the crime? Technically, she was not punished. Yet. She was in the process of being booked, being "put in the system".

In my opinion, that's the worst part.

I was arrested once. Got pulled over in Dunstable, MA (read: Middle of Nowhere) for going 36mph in a 25mph zone around the cow farm. In the same way as the story above, the cops ran my license and just as it seemed they were going to let me go, it turned out my license had been suspended for something (minor and dumb*) that happened in college. I had gone to court, settled everything up and WAS NEVER TOLD that my license had been suspended. This was over TWO YEARS before the night of my arrest.

I was cuffed, my car was towed and off to Jail I went. Luckily, I was in the cushy suburbs of Massachusetts and my stay in the booking area was brief. They actually had to call a woman in to frisk me-- there were only men on duty, so they called Kathy in for the job. She roused herself up from in front of her wood stove and raced down to find me. The criminal.

I never actually ended up in a holding cell. My "mugshots" were polaroids. I'd love actually to see them-- I remember smiling, because that's what you do when you're having your picture taken. The guy took one picture. He said he had to take another, so I turned 90° to the right. This seemed to confuse him.

Cop: What are you doing?
Me: This is my profile. For the second mugshot.
Cop: Yeah, you can just face front.
Me: Huh?
Cop: Yeah, just facing front is ok.
Me: LOOK! I'M SORRY! I've only ever seen this on Night Court. I fully expected to be in here with a bunch of hookers and midget circus clowns! This is just not my night.

All ended up just a-ok, and in retrospect, it's a funny story. But if I were anywhere else but the cushy vanilla 'burbs, I can only imagine what my tale might have been.

I hate the smell of disinfectant. And I'm not a fan of crackheads, either.

*I'll tell you that story, but you're gonna have to buy me a drink.

Ciao, 2007! Bring it on, '08!

Had a lovely Xmas up here in Binghamton with Will's family, and started out the season's travels with a visit to my people up in Massachusetts where an equally lovely time was had.

As far as Loot with which we honor the birth of the Savior, I was gifted some pretty neat stuff: (in no particular order)

• The Book of Vice: Very Naughty Things (and How to Do Them) by Peter Sagal, the host of NPR's Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me! (as if I needed a How-To guide on this topic! But seriously, a really fun read.)
• a nice new day-planner (this was the hands-down favorite of the OCD geek that lives inside of me)
• a crock pot (to Will's dismay-- he loathes the name and demands it be called a "slow cooker". Do you see what I go through?! Secretly, though, I can't wait to start a-stewin' with this gift from his sister and her boyfriend)
• a crock pot cookbook, a soup cookbook and Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking (anyone want to come over for dinner? I've now got a great recipe for brains...)
  
• a new yoga mat and bright shiny satchel in which to carry it
• some big, dangle-y and very fancy handmade earrings
  

Will scored guitar 2 ways: Guitar Hero (to be played on the Wii that never arrived... we've got a trip to the Nintendo Store on the horizon!) and an acoustic number I got him so he could become proficient in real life as well as in video games.

After all that über-stimulation, we've had over a week of delicious tuning out: no cell phone, just a smidgen of internet, not knowing what day it is... Lots of reading. Watched the director's cut of Blade Runner (which I had not yet seen), 3 out of the 5 Planet Earth discs (the caves are gross but the mountains are Rad!). Did lots of thinking about just how I'm going to organize things for 2008.

Big Plans, my friends. Good stuff.

Also, we just saw Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. Fun. Funny. Blatant. Oddly, in the later parts of the movie, John C. Reilly spent a lot of time looking like Tim Robbins. Lots of funny cameos. Eddie Vedder looks just as dreamy at I thought he did when I was 16. (think what you will, my formative years were the 1990s)

We're back in the city tomorrow. Got to clean out the old apartment, have one last 2007 party blast, then back to work.

Happy New Year to all.

Every Once in a While...

Something on the Post Secret Blog really stands out to me.

I was almost named Tammy after the Debbie Reynolds movie. I like to think my father put his foot down on that one, but I'm not sure really where my given name came from...

Red Velvet Madness!

Hi Friends and Readers

As many of you may know, I am leaving the apartment in the East Village for real on 1/1/08.

Up for grabs is my very boudoir-esque Red Velvet Living Room Set. Yes, a complete set.

In a sad-sack coin toss, Will's fancy "grown up" furniture won the space in our new living room, so I'm looking for a home for this vintage red velvet that has been somewhat of a family heirloom since 1973. (yeah, my family loved disco).

All told, it's a couch, a chair, coffee table, 2 end tables (all with handy storage inside) and two very fancy beaded lamps.

It's in good condition. All you'd need to do is get in touch and come get it by January 1.

Please feel free to pass this on to friends.

The Toughest Job I've Ever Had

I have done many things to earn money, lo these 15 or so years I've danced in the world of employment. Some things I loved, some things I was good at, some I hated but was good at, some passed the time and supported a serious shopping habit, and so on. I've been a waiter, a bartender, a cater-waiter, a public school substitute teacher, an office-flunky, a real estate pusher, a nanny, a game-inducer, a fake patient, a flower-buncher and so on.

I've plugged away as an actor and been occasionally rewarded for my efforts, though that is a continual daily battle.*

But the hardest job I've ever had, by far, went down this past weekend when I served as the entertainment at little Sean Riley's fifth birthday party.

My dear friend, the lovely and talented Katie Brack, helped me out, playing "robot" to my "mad scientist". (the party theme was robots, we're not just, like, weird)

My first flaw was overthinking the whole thing. We had a soundtrack and all of the robot's lines were pre-recorded and mixed to have a, well, robotic sound to them. Genius, right?

Wrong.

Ever been in a room with 25 five-year-olds hopped up on toys and apple juice? It's loud. The sound was drowned out immediately-- I guess I didn't equalize the recording, so all of a sudden, Katie became a mute robot as the excited kids overpowered our teeny speakers.

My instinct around excited children is to get more excited! It's like when you see a puppy who is all excited and wagging its tail, you tend to speak in that high-pitched sound and not stop until its bouncing around. Not that I think kids are like puppies, but they all tend toward bouncy.

The first thing I forgot was that these kids are smart as whips. They cannot be fooled. Don't bother trying. I should have learned this lesson from doing the Dr. Nebula show at the Museum. Kids in New York know more than I did when I was their age. Christ, these kids know more than I do now!

The plan was to have the robot make a big entrance. The party was held in a party room off of the 7th floor outdoor deck, so I figured it would be neat to have Katie enter from outside. Only problem was when I went outside to get her, the door was locked from both sides (fancy magnetic locking system). So ran back inside, made some off-the-cuff comment about what great security they had in the building and dashed through the room and down the hall to where Katie was waiting. We entered and she began her robot dance.

One minute and thirty seconds doesn't sound like a long time when you're making a playlist, but when you're dancing like a maniac, it's an eternity. Note to self: all dance numbers should be kept to under 30 seconds.

Our next hurdle was the fact that these kids were just not buying the fact that Katie was a robot. No suspension of disbelief in the 5-and-under set. No, sir.

"She's not a robot, she's a human!"

Once one of them said it, they all said it. 25 five year olds chanting:

"She's not a robot, she's a human!" "She's not a robot, she's a human!" "She's not a robot, she's a human!"

It was like bad sci-fi, man.

I chose to ignore it and trudge forward with the show we had planned. As we were about to start a series of visual recognition games, the birthday boy tugged on the sleeve of my labcoat (yeah, I was in costume complete with helmet and nerdy glasses) and said in the sweetest most heart-melting voice ever:

"Robin, why did you change?"

I was the first to arrive at the party to help set up, and now all of a sudden I'm running around trying to kid wrangle looking like a chem-lab escapee. I'm telling ya, the kiddoes are smart.

Ultimately it worked out ok, although what I thought would last between 20-30 minutes maybe eeked out to ten. But the parents were happy, and Sean's mom told me this past weekend that the teacher said that the kids were talking about the crazy robot all week in school. Phew!

It was a really fun gig in retrospect, but I never had that level of panic when asked to do an Excel spreadsheet, pretend to have a headache or make a martini.


* I came really close to booking a promo gig for CBS yesterday. The clients really seemed to like my read and the casting director pulled me aside on the way back to the waiting room to say "you're really good at what you do. I have to call you in more." But the spot records today and I didn't get the call. Big bummer. The compliments are nice. Really nice, and rare. But you know what else is nice? A big fat paycheck. With residuals. I plan on making residuals a big part of my life in 2008. Resolution #1! Zing!

Mr. Movie Trailer, Stricken

You definitely know his voice. Not a lot of people know his name or what he looks like. But Don LaFontaine is the Voiceover Actor that all other Voiceover Actors aspire to (read: he's got the steadiest of gigs and makes more loot than anyone in the business).

Well, put your trailer recording on hold for a bit, because it seems that Don had something of an odd thing happen that left him (hopefully only temporarily), as he puts it, sounding like "a demented Munchkin" :

Last Wednesday, November 18th, I went to Cedars Sinai Hospital for a minor surgery, an outpatient procedure, which meant that I was to be discharged from the hospital after a couple of hours in recovery.

It didn't quite work out that way.

When I was wheeled down to the recovery area, my wife immediately noticed that my face was swollen. Very quickly thereafter, I blew up like the Stay Puft marshmallow man.

What had happened was this-- (and here the causes differ, depending on if you're talking to my surgeon or to me)--

My version: During the procedure, my left lung was nicked.

My surgeon's version; After the procedure, while in recovery, I must have coughed, and coughed hard enough to blow a small hole in my lung.

Whichever is true, the end result was the same--Pneumothorax, the presence of air or gas in the pleural cavity, the result of a collapsed lung.

Read the rest of the article here.

If anyone is recording a movie trailer and just can't wait for the Big Guy to get better, might I suggest the smooth vocals of a certain lady dear to you and me? I'm just sayin'...

Crap Nobody Needs for Xmas

Consider it an "anti-xmas list" of sorts...

• A voice-activated shopping list
  
• A microwavable teddy bear
• A $400 necklace made out of wood (on which to knock for luck-- with diamonds!)
  
• Leather Flower Vases ($295 each)
• Personalized Ice Cream ($49.95 for a 1/2 gallon)

And the list goes on.

If you're feeling generous and considering making donations at this time of year, check in with Will's cousins in Africa. Bebeth and her husband Mark are in South Africa after a stint in the Peace Corps and Courtney and her fiáncé Arthur are volunteering with an NGO in Tanzania.

They ask us to simply think before we wildly unload our crap to be sent off to the motherland, and they have written about it here (Courtney) and here (Mark, who puts it ever so sweetly, Africa doesn't need your junk).

Upcoming-- Tuesday, 18 Dec 07, 8pm

A reminder, friends and lovers of truly experimental theater and text:

Julia Lee Barclay is coming to town next week to present a reading of a new work, Besides, you lose your soul or the History of Western Civilization. Julia wrote Word to Your Mama, which I performed in London and New York back in 2003. Nearly everyone from that show, plus a couple of others who worked on the early stages of Julia's work will be involved in the reading.

I'm excited to get back together with everyone. And if Julia's work in London has continued down the same path, I imagine that Tuesday will offer a lot of surprises. Please join us if you can-- 8pm at The Brick. Here's the official invite:

You are cordially invited to attend a
performative-response to

Besides, you lose your soul or the History of Western Civilization
a new stage text
written and directed by
Julia Lee Barclay

performed by:
Bill Aitchison, Fred Backus, Maggie Cino, Nicole Higgins, Daniel O'Brien, Robin Reed, Julie Shavers and Eva van Dok.

December 18, 2007 at 8:00pm at The Brick 575 Metropolitan Ave. in Williamsburg
(between Union Ave and Lorimer St.) – take the L to Lorimer Street or G to Metropolitan.
For detailed directions, go to The Brick’s website www.bricktheater.com.

This event, the first manifestation of this new text and the first time Barclay has shown her work in New York since 2003, features an extremely talented veteran cast who have worked with Barclay over the years in NYC and London. They have experience with her style of working improvisationally with text, gesture and theatrical space, so this event will be more a performative response to Barclay's new text than a traditional reading - more jazz jam than chamber recital.

“Besides, you lose your soul” is the last line of an interview of a U.S. Army officer from a New Yorker article about the inefficiencies of the use of torture for gathering accurate information. Besides, you lose your soul attempts (with the humor that results from certain failure) to search through the remnants of Western Civilization in order to find out who's to blame for the creation of the individual soul (that can apparently be lost or recovered) which can lead to those we do not recognize being branded soul-less. It's a bumbling cut-up detective story searching for clues as to how to get out of this mess. ‘This mess’ meaning the use of God v. Godless (soul v. soul-less) to justify the ruthless realpolitik of all the unholy Holy Wars (on Terror, on the Godless Infidels, on the Axis of Evil, on women’s bodies, etc.). We will fail of course, but perhaps we will stumble onto something in the course of our struggling that can open up a door to...not sure where really.

Julia Lee Barclay is a self-exiled New Yorker living in London in full flight from the Bush administration. She accidentally started a theatre company in 2004 from a month-long lab, which has been called Apocryphal Theatre (www.flyingoutofsequence.org). Apocryphal (meaning "of dubious authorship or authenticity") has since produced plays and experimental lab showings in theatres, art galleries and music venues internationally. Work created in collaboration with Bill Aitchison under the name AB has been commissioned and produced in Finland, Germany and Portugal. Before fleeing to London in 2003, she lived in NYC where her work was awarded, published (Plays and Playwrights 2001) and produced in many venues and festivals, such as The Present Company, HERE (American Living Room), Mabou Mines, Ohio Theatre (Soho Think Tank) and FringeNYC.

After the performance, we would be happy if you stayed to give us your feedback.

Because Why Not Start the Week Off Goofy?

I don't watch Saturday Night Live much at all anymore, but their Digital Shorts seem to get passed on by a link in an email, and the ones I've seen (ie Dick in a Box) have been pretty funny.

I just started perusing the beta version of a new online TV thingie (I think) called Hulu, and found this one, cleverly titled "People Punched Before Eating".

Happy Monday! I'm off to audition for a gum commercial (and maybe punch a few hungry suckers!)

Au Revoir, Parapluie at BAM

I saw this show at BAM the other night, and I can't recommend it strongly enough! Here, an excerpt from my review:

Stop reading this right now, go to bam.org and get tickets for this show. If you know any children, get them a ticket too—it will immortalize you in their memory years on end, that amazing show you brought them to see that expanded their imaginations beyond any heretofore seen parameters. They will thank you.

And if you can’t make it while they’re at BAM, book your tickets to Sydney. Yes, Australia. You know you’ve been meaning to get there-- it’s the next stop on their tour. In other words: this is one you do not want to miss.

I’m serious. Au Revoir Parapluie (Farewell, Umbrella) is simply inspiring, the dream from which you won’t want to wake. Not since reading C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia as a child have I gone on a more fantastical journey into a timeless and fully captivating world.

The rest of my review is here.

Buy tickets here.
Watch a video preview (but not if you're going to see the show-- the surprises are so delightful!) here.

It runs through 12/16.

High Rents Drive Out Artists. Duh!

It’s an old story, but let’s hear it again: Up go the rents, out go the artists. A new report from the Research Center for Arts and Culture at Columbia's Teachers College makes the case that New York real estate values are driving artists to lower-cost cities and that the city’s cultural capital is endangered, according to an article in today's Sun.

(From Brownstoner, via the New York Sun)

And they're really just touching on visual artists here. The artists interviewed were between the ages of 62 and 97. I moved here when I was 23, lucked my way into a rent-stabilized roommate situation in the East Village which skyrocketed (but was still "a deal") when my lease-holding roommate moved out. That apartment today, a 3-BR on Avenue C, which rented for about $1750 in 1997, rents at over $3000. And yes, we had a mouse problem when they were gutting the storefront last year to make room for a bank. Now that neighborhood is filled with places like this.

I wonder if there are kids moving here today the way I did-- with less than $1000 to my name (like, In The Whole World-- no secret savings accounts or parental stipends), but naïve enough to figure that it could work. Nearly ten years later, rents have skyrocketed beyond all semblance of control, but most acting jobs still don't pay enough to actually live here, nevermind comfortably. The theaters I worked in, bundled in my winter coat because the window got smashed or the proprietor didn't turn on the heat, have all gone or are going condo or have been replaced by bars or restaurants. Luckily, some have found new homes (Collective Unconscious) and new places created in Williamsburg (the Brick, the Battle Ranch) and Long Island City (the Chocolate Factory), to name a few.

An open letter to people who have to ask this question: Yes. We need affordable housing. Even if we are white, college-educated kids who come from what used to be the middle class. We are your waiters. We are your bartenders. We are your office temps who shut down Excel when you don't know how. And unless you plan to really jack up how much you tip, save us a place to live.

Really. Are the tourists going to want to keep coming to visit to see all the Hedge Fund Managers in the city?

I'm telling ya, Berlin is looking really good right now. Where did I put those German language tapes?

Attention Stand-up Comics and Handcuff Manufacturers

Advertising on cop cars. This should be fun. Wait. Might there not be some sort of morality issue here?

If Jackson Pollack Went Digital

Fun time-passer.

via Stumble Upon.

Oh, Weather!

Did you guys know that it still snows in the Northeast?! Amazing!! Geez, yesterday I was all excited that the leaves had finally started changing. One day of fall, then *BOOM* full-blown winter.

Where's my snow tube?

Nostalgia

A friend of mine emailed the other day about an art show she was involved in in Chicago. I emailed friends of mine in Chicago to let them know. I haven't talked to this one friend that I met back in my Northampton days for a while, so I checked in on his website.

I remembered that he had turned me onto this band, whose 1998 album I still listen to today, some ten years after it's release-- some songs are on my top played list on my iPod. I remembered that they had played this bar in the East Village when I first moved to the city, so I looked around the internet to see if they were still doing New York gigs.

Sadly, they disbanded in 2002, each moving onto other projects. The lead singer and über personality of the group has added an interesting new facet of his career. The bassist has done some solo stuff and joined another band, in which the drummer of the defunct band is also a member. That drummer has also done solo stuff. But the band I remember seeing at the local drink (also now defunct, or rather, turned into a, um.... nicer place?) is gone. A passing of time, of sorts.

I had a lot of fun during my three + years in Northampton. It was a college town, with it's cultural heart built by Boston and New York artsy refugees and it's primary twenty-something residents in the mid-to-late 90s when I was there were a mix of guys in bands, townies, college kids. We all worked in the same handful of local restaurants and ran to last call at the same handful of bars each night.

I had nary a care in the world when I lived there, so I always look back on my time there with a daydreamy lovingness. There are small pockets of Brooklyn that remind me somewhat of Northampton. I think that's why I like it so much here.

Now, I guess I'll return to my regularly-scheduled life. *sigh*

Stuff in the Sky

If you're in the New York area next week, apparently you'll be able to catch a glimpse of Space Shuttle Atlantis lifting off.

When I was a kid in 1986 I remember it being a big deal that we were going to catch Halley's Comet-- my science teacher was all a-flutter. To me, it just looked like a shooting star, but it felt fairly important with all the science-class hype. If I live to be 86 (and have not fallen prey to the elderly drug habit I'm expecting), I may be able to catch it again.

Then once in college, maybe my freshman or sophomore year, I was walking home from class. I walked by this once dorm where everyone had on crazy sunglass-machines, sort of looked like the gas mask version of eyewear. (apparently you can also use simpler 3D-esque glasses, but this was college and fancier). They were watching a solar eclipse, and one of them let me borrow their specs. And sure enough, the moon covered the sun, it was creepy and amazing, and we all got on with our day. At least those of us who had not done preparatory pre-eclipse celebrating for the occasion. I think those guys kept their glasses on for days.

So next week, go stare into the sky at sunset and let me know what you see!

I have not ruled out moving to Europe...

I have not been following the debates, but luckily John Clancy has:

Vote Democrat. Vote for whatever pathetic corporate whore they nominate. I'm an Obama man, of late. If they nominate Hilary, I'll swallow it and vote. If they nominate Edwards, I'll pretend that the corn-pone horseshit doesn't physically cause me to wretch and I'll vote. If it's a write-in and it's Ronald McFuckingDonald on a platform of forced French Fries for all, I will fucking well vote for the clown.

If it's Rudy, we're all deeply, deeply fucked. Look above, we'll live under a Fascist government. It will be extremely well run. Every train will arrive on time. It will always be sunny and quiet. You will never have to see anyone who is not hard-working, tax-paying and scared out of their poor fucking mind. You will live in constant, unrelenting fear. That's how those boys play and they play like a Vegas casino. The house always wins.

I don't like these choices. It's really really scary. I do, however, enjoy Berlin. The trains run on time there, and they already went through their Fascism phase.

Looks Like Compu-Geek Talk, Is Actually Universally Applicable

I fear the sharks are on to me...

From XKCD (I skip the Math-y ones that I don't get and really dig the others) via Will.

Will Sums Up Our Thanksgiving (Robin Still Full)

With photos and commentary, Will wins the Who-Will-Blog-Thanksgiving-07-First contest.

And the dishes are nearly finished. If anyone is still hungry, we've got turkey, potatoes and cranberries for days!

In Our Grown-up Apartment...

Will and I are hosting a little Thanksgiving Day feast here at our place. There's a poor dead (but surely delicious) bird in the fridge right now, just a-waitin' to be brined and roasted.*

We'll have his folks, his sister and her boyfriend and our friends Nicole and Marc. I'm really looking forward to it. I made soup stock. I've vased flowers. We bought a new coffee maker, glasses for liquids other than wine and knives for the occasion. We've got a rack full of wine, some gift whiskey and... well, what more do you need than gift whiskey?

Have a Happy Thanksgiving. See you next week!

* Many times this week I've found myself alluding to the fact that I have to get home because there's a turkey that needs brining. Though I don't really see myself getting around to it, I enjoy using that as my excuse...

Restaurants I Like, Episode 1 - Hope & Anchor

Will's series on Media Consumption inspired me to finally get around to writing about places we've found to eat in and around our new neighborhood, Carroll Gardens.

We moved to Brooklyn nearly two months ago and have been slowly making our way around the food scene here. Moving from the East Village was a tough decision, and one thing we seriously considered was just how much we LOVED the restaurants in our old 'hood. We lived in walking and therefore (sometimes more importantly) delivery distance from some of New York's most delicious restaurants. I'm not talking the heavy hitters like the Jean-Georges empire or anything with a dress code. I mean some casual joints with some serious food:

Minca (Ramen Factory, 5th btw A and B)
Esahi (Sushi, A btw 2nd and 3rd)
Supper (Italian, 2nd btw A and B)
Il Bagatto (Also Italian, Also 2nd btw A and B)
Luzzo's (The Most Delicious Pizza, the awesome like-really-Italy-Italian kind, 1st btw 12th and 13th)
Cafe Mogador (Morrocan, St. Marks btw 1st and A) and the list goes on.

That's a very LONG intro to say that we are ok: there are some great restaurants in Brooklyn. Duh.

The best breakfast we've found so far is at Hope & Anchor in Red Hook. (be sure to click on that sailor girl on their website-- woo-hoo!)

Hope & Anchor is basically a really good diner. It's got diner-style pricing (we had breakfast + coffee for two for just about twenty bucks) and a retro-but-not-annoying decor-- vinyl barstools & banquettes, vintage pulp/pop wall art mixed with what looks like the requisite paintings by local artists.

The service is good-- laid back and friendly-- the coffee is strong and the food is great. I've ordered the same thing both times we've been there: chorizo and green onion hash with eggs. The chorizo is spicy and tossed with sliced green onions and hash brown potatoes. Will had another hash last time, with BBQ Ham, which was ok, although the BBQ sauce was a little sweet and proved an odd mix with eggs. The spicy chorizo is the winner-- we both had it this time (yeah, we order the same thing sometimes-- it drives Will mad!). And it's seven bucks. The rest of the breakfast menu is largely standard fare and they have a couple of specials each day (I was nearly tempted by today's Chocolate Chip Banana Pancakes).

We haven't been there for lunch or dinner yet, but I like the look of the burger menu. Their fun cocktail list features drinks named after nearby streets-- and eight dollars seems a small price to pay for something called The Red Hooker. And zing! Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights offer Karaoke. A Red Hooker and the Neil Diamond Songbook? Sign me up!

Downsides? Red Hook is a bitch to get to without a car (from Manhattan it could be a couple of trains plus a hearty walk). And though I wouldn't call it "kid-friendly" per se, they are what I would call "kid-tolerant", which means that my winter coat just narrowly avoided being doused when little Mabel at the table next to us threw her sippy cup of OJ at the height of a tantrum. I guess people with kids still have to eat, I just sometimes wish we could set up separate rooms for them.*

But if you're headed to the Fairway for some heavy-duty suburb-style grocery shopping, stop by the Hope & Anchor for a bite. And a Red Hooker.

Hope & Anchor
347 Van Brunt St
Red Hook, Brooklyn

Hope & Anchor on Yelp

* Of course, I only mean this with regard to the children of strangers. I love all of my friends' kids like they were my own.

I'm Torn

Is it absolutely disgusting or a thing of inspiration?


The Ultimate Bacon Sandwich!

How do YOU spend YOUR Friday night?

Social McPopular (that's me) spent it updating her website. Yee-Haw!!

200th Post! And, where you can see me perform in the coming chunk of time!

Yes, friends, this marks Post #200 on the ol' oh. you again. I just took a moment to fondly look back on February 2005 when I started this little guy with perhaps the most fascinating post ever. Weeks later, I followed up with a couple of everyday stories of Life in New York. Three posts for the year, I thought back then, was a nice round number.

Flash forward to 2006. I've given up waiting on the tables and was trying to forget I dipped my pinkie toe in the world of New York Real Estate. I've thrown myself head first into the world of the New York City Temporary Staffing Pool. For one week, to be exact. But that was just enough time for me to really see how to perfectly craft these newsworthy gems.

Enough with the reminiscing. If you want more, check out the handy archive list right there on the left! By month, by year, by title. Have at it!

The news of the present is this: I've got a lot of performing going on, so come check it out!

Tomorrow, bring out your young ones to experience the magic that is me as Scooter, as I school them on evolution in Dr. Nebula's Laboratory presents: Life with Lucy. (2pm, American Museum of Natural History Kaufman Theater, $8 children, $10 adults)

My class show at the Magnet Theater is Thursday November 29 at 7pm. It's also Free. And should be Funny. (it's an intro class, so I'll guarantee the Free and hope for the Funny)

On December 1 at 8pm I re-join forces with Hope and Jeff for Piper McKenzie's submission to the Vampire Cowboys' Saturday Night Saloon in Lady Cryptozoologist. Also Free. (we've also begun talks for Babylon, Babylon, the next P.McK brainchild-- it's gonna be a doozy, so keep checking back for updates!)

And if you can see as far ahead as December 18th at 8pm, I'll rejoin Julia Lee Barclay and a bunch of friends from the London presentation of Word to No One for a reading of Barclay's new piece, Besides You Lose Your Soul. At the Brick.

I have also been invited to do some karaoke in the coming weeks. Email me if you want details for that, which I'm sure will be a performance nonpareil.

Did Someone Say The Crush Project???

More than one friend sent me a link to this article in the Times about -- *gasp* -- Fake Ads on Craigslist!

This, perhaps, could be how my two favorite Crush Project Recordings, blink and wink, came about:

Across the country, aspiring writers are using Craigslist not just as a place to offload their futons, but as a pixeled writing workshop where they test their stabs at social satire on some of the more than 30 million visitors that the site draws each month. Their personal ads ostensibly seek a soul mate, but what they’re really looking for is an audience.

Read the rest of the article here.

I wonder if said "aspiring writers" would appreciate me just helping myself to their work? Is this what they consider "an audience"? What do all those copyright symbols on CL actually cover? Thoughts?

Me & TV

Will sums up our (well, largely his which is, de facto, also partly mine) Television Watching Style in a post on his blog this week.

Two things:

One: You can pretty much follow the rule that if he calls it a "geeky show" (i.e. Battlestar Gallactaca), it's His Show Not Mine-- I have nothing against Sci Fi and have even watched a little BG, but I just can't get into it regular-style-- I'm just not that kind of girl?

And Two: He bemoans the presence of commercials on "regular TV" entirely spacing the fact that commercials are what I do for a living. When he's watching Sci Fi, I may sneak off to the You Tube to watch commercials. You know, check out the competition and what not. I don't look at them as trying to get me to buy shit but rather as reseach.

Will, if you want me to buy you an airplane, maybe you should try to download the shows with commercials. It's not that I strive to have a career selling soap/soup/perfume/womens television, it's that I strive to have a career full of residual checks.

He also goes on, in a later post, to talk about podcast consumption. Again, we share much of the same list with the exception of the tech stuff. When he's blasting a podcast about Rails or interface or how humans will soon live forever, I'm probably listening to the sound of my own voice.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, concludes our lesson on Media Consumption on Sackett Street. Tune in next time for an alluring tour of our sock drawer.

If this keeps up, I swear I'm moving to Europe

I thought it was bad that September 11th had a theme song. Now this? (via Urbaniak)

The Machines Have Aligned Against Me Yet Again

You may remember Not Too Long Ago when my hard drive lovingly shut itself down out of the blue.

Shortly thereafter, in rehearsal, my Handy Recorder ran out of batteries mid-recording.

Something else happened, machine-related, that I can't right now remember. (If you consider my brain a machine, you can see that's not on my side either.) And our DVD player laid itself to rest around the same time.

Well, the hard drive problem was thwarted, and thankfully under warranty, thanks to the Godsends at Tekserve. I recharged the recorder batteries, no problem. And Will made a gleeful trip to some Big Box Store somewhere in Queens? Brooklyn? to get a new DVD player.

Soooooo... just when I thought it was safe to consider my goods technologically sound, last night my phone shit the bed. You never fully realize just how reliant you are on something until it goes away.

I was meeting friends for dinner pre-rehearsal last night and all I kept thinking was 'I hope they didn't decide to change the place/change the time/cancel altogether because I HAVE NO WAY OF KNOWING! We were in Hell's Kitchen, which already to me feels like stepping back in time to 1989 (I'll have to save that for another post, it's just a feeling...), and now this time with the added bonus of my lack of communication.

And of course, when my phone breaks, the only thing I can see around me is everyone on their phone. Everyone. Then that sort of makes me glad I don't have a phone because I see how reliant everyone is on them. That dawns on me and I think, 'gee, I should text this genius thesis to Will' but I DON'T HAVE A FUNCTIONAL PHONE!

I think I need to go back to Silent Camp, where the highest level of technology you have to be concerned with is a spoon.

Performance on the Internet, an NYTheatreCast

As I mentioned before, I was part of a panel discussion on performance on the internet. Here are the links I'm sure you've been dying for:

to the blurb on the nytheatrecast blog
and
to the podcast.

We only chatted for about a half hour on the topic, so many many things were missed. If you've got something to share about your own performance in this medium or comments about anything discussed, please email me or leave it in the comments below.

FFFFound!

Will got me hooked on this website called FFFFOUND! It's basically a repository for images found on the internet, from design to doodle. It's been a great tool for me in researching images for The Project (details soon). Above is an image I found there today-- Will and I agree that they must be Italian. Just look at all that emotion!

Hello, World!

I'm back! Still a little stuffy, but back from the depths of the dead in which I was held captive lo these past two days. I'm schloffing off the remnants of a Nyquil hangover and still have Tissue Box, my trusty steed, by my side, but the light of day pains me no more.

Game on!

Sick Day

I have a full-blown case of something-- stuffy nose, weird throat, foggy-cloggy head with a hint of dizzy. I called in sick to work and spent the bulk of the day 2nd grade stay-home-from-school-style: under a heavy blanket on the couch either sleeping or catching up on Heroes and drinking more OJ thank I've seen in years.

I'm always funny about being sick-- I try to a) pretend it's not really happening and b) think I'm better after a single nap. Waking up for the second time at 11am today, I was rather miffed that my throat still hurt and my head was still cloudy. I'm trying to sleep you off, Illness! Work with me here! Although the couch is lovely and OJ yummy, I have Things to Do!

I'm about to go try the hot hot shower trick and then some soup and see if we can end this bad boy once and for all.

If you were thinking about that flu shot or buying echinacea in bulk, now's the time.

I Kinda Already Knew This, But I Love a Quiz!

I think we ladies are trained to love a quiz early on in teen magazines. I really thought Jane Pratt might well have had secret premonitions about what lipstick shade was right for me or what my dating style was at age 15. (yes, I know I'm dating myself with Jane Pratt-- it's sort of a phase I've found myself in lately...)

I don't know how I was planning on segueing that into this topic (I'm a little under the weather with a stuffy nose and sore throat), but here it is, the Which Presidential Candidate is Right for You quiz.

My top five, you ask?

Dennis Kucinich
Bill Richardson
Chris Dodd
Hillary Clinton
John Edwards

I've dug Kucinich for a while now-- I truly believe he's the least political of all the potential candidates, left or right, and the only one with implementable plans. Too bad he doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of winning the nomination. And what of my numbers two and three? Christ, I guess I should be loathe to admit this, but I wasn't sure until just now if Bill Richardson was Republican or Democrat and I thought Chris Dodd hosted a news program on CNN.

What this quiz has ultimately shown me is that I have to stop skipping over articles in the paper about the candidates. I sort of swore it off when a certain girl friend of mine said that I had to vote for Hillary Clinton because I'm a woman. Team Gender for President? That's not quite my style.

Thanks to Kevin at Rumproast for the link. Take the quiz for yourself here.

"Performance on the Internet" Pocast Tonight

I'll be at nytheatre.com headquarters tonight recording a podcast interview with Martin Denton about performance on the internet. My co-interviewees are Matt Freeman and Chance Muehleck. This should be a pretty interesting discussion, as the world of internet performance is pretty much unchartered territory. Sure, there's YouTube and podcasts and other stuff, but there are No Rules. At least as of yet. Exciting, inn't it?

I'll surely be plugging The Crush Project, and I'm totally interested in hearing what the fellas have to say about the subject.

Unchartered Territory. Just how much of that is left in the world???

Tekserve. Busy Little Bees!

With a service quote of "four business days" on Sunday, the lovely angels at TekServe called today to say my computer was ready for pick up. All is good.

Although, getting a new hard drive is like getting a whole new computer, hence the blog post at nearly 1am. I've been cruising through this blank little machine for the past two hours. I'm waiting for Will to get home to really get cracking on re-installing all the programs the big bad old hard drive ate (no matter how much he tries to deny it, I know Will loves nothing more than installing software on computers and setting up mail accounts!)

I ended up being without my actual computer for less than 48 hours and was able to retrieve all the stuff that was either almost lost for good or lost until I coughed up $800. It's as if nothing ever happened.

Life is good.

Unexpected Breakdown

My two-month old computer is in the shop! Will and I spent the greater part of yesterday either at TekServe, on the phone with TekServe or cursing my little white internet machine. After our trip to the geniuses (no sarcasm there) at TekServe, and the purchase of the external hard drive I'd been meaning to buy, we were luckily able to escape the EIGHT HUNDRED DOLLAR data recovery charge. Doubly luckily, the little machine is still under warranty, so the defective drive is being replaced at no cost to me. Phew!

So I'm borrowing my old computer from dear sweet Carrie Haugh for the night so we can go on with the Crush Project recordings at the bar night tonight. If you're in the city and anywhere near the East Village, do stop on by and lay down some tracks!!

Needless to say, posting here will be sporadic at best over the next Four Business Days, or as long as it takes TekServe to install a new drive. Work hard and work fast, little geniuses!!

I am a Shallow Pool of Water

I just had a massage at this place in my neighborhood. I'll be out of commission for the next chunk of time in an attempt to preserve my chilled-out state. Mellow Robin doesn't happen often, so let's all rejoice in these fleeting moments.

Happy Rainy Weekend!

Another Spot on HGTV

Yesterday I recorded a Public Service Announcement for HGTV regarding the wildfires in California. If you were looking to do some donating, now might be a good time to visit the American Red Cross website.

Return of We'll Be at the Bar!

Back in September, we kicked off a monthly performance series down in the East Village at No Malice Palace. It was a good time, and we're doing it again!

Next Monday, October 29th will feature Frank Anthony Polito reading an excerpt from his upcoming novel Band Fags!, the angst-ridden stylings of The Bitter Poet, and my own brainchild, Cardium Mechanicum's The Crush Project.

If you've been dying to be a part of the Crush Project, now's your chance to step up to the mic and lay down a track or two. We'll have scripts available, or bring your own!

I'm totally psyched about this lineup and hope that you will all come and join me!

Hiatus

I took somewhat of a break from writing this past week. It was a chaotic time-- I finished up fight class* (see photo), recorded two voiceover gigs, had improv class, acting class and a smattering of work at the day jobs, all the while chugging away at The Project. And a birthday. Chaos!!

I should be back in action this week, now that my schedule seems to have returned to normal.

*just in time to almost use my fighty skills in a battle on my block with a big meat-headed dude over -- wait for it -- a parking spot

Not Checking Your Calendar May Lead to Stand Up Comedy

This fall I decided to throw myself back into taking classes in the hopes of opening any and every channel of inspiration toward The Project (I'll explain more about The Project in the coming weeks).

I have been taking an ass-whomping Fight Choreography/stage combat class with Qui Nguyen and the Vampire Cowboys. I rejoined my on-going acting class with Kelly Kimball just in time for Bootcamp Month. And I have dipped my toe back in the pool of improv comedy-- I'm taking class with Armando Diaz at the Magnet.

I had studied improv at the UCB what seems now like a hundred years ago, and though I never pursued performing at the theater, what I learned in my classes has been invaluable to me as an actor. It can be such a terrifying form of performance, flying without the net of a script, but doing it puts you just a millimeter closer to feeling invincible, at least on stage.

Taking class at the Magnet makes you eligible to perform in The Magnet Mixer, a Thursday night show that forms improv "teams" based on who shows up. Newbies can perform with pros. It's very socialist.

After an inspiring class at Kimball Studio last night, I was ready to head up there and get my improv on. I wanted to go last week, but a combination of shyness and going out for a drink with people from class kept me off the stage. Mixers also happen at midnight on Saturdays, but I was long asleep by that time this weekend.

So I trudged up to 29th and 8th last night, raring to go, only to find out that the Thursday Mixer only happens ever other week! This week was a stand-up show, which I stayed to watch. The comics (Sean Crespo, Larry Murphy, Greg and Lou, and Joe Derosa) were pretty funny, so it wasn't all for nothing.

Even though I basically ended up with the performance equivalent of blue-balls. I did have a five minute fantasy of throwing all caution to the wind and improv-ing a stand-up routine. Luckily (?) that was not an option.

I Have Tasted Heaven

And it comes in the form of cake!

I met a friend of a friend the other day named Rebecca and she and her roommate Anne just started a business called Caked.

The story is that Anne was bequeathed a secret recipe that has been passed down to only one member of her family for generations. Caked makes just this one flavor cake (with a choice of chocolate or vanilla butter cream icing) though you can get it in full cake or cupcake size.

When I first heard about it, I kind of thought it was a bonehead idea-- why on earth would you make just one kind of cake? The Magnolia Bakery* makes tons of different cupcakes and they have a line down the block. How on earth can you have a successful business on just one cake?

Then I tasted it.

One cupcake, a delicious chocolate cupcake with chocolate icing. Magical. It was a day or two old but still tasted like the best thing my grandmother had ever made-- there was definitely a heavy dose of love running through this tiny treat! The icing is butter cream of the most delicious variety, and it doesn't leave your tongue and roof of your mouth all coated with butter like some crappy versions do. It is rich and chocolatey without being too sweet. I think they balance the sweet and salty just perfectly (that is not to say that it's a salty cupcake-- no, no, this will definitely feed your sweet tooth jones). I can only imagine what one of these puppies would taste like fresh out of the oven!

The girls are a small 2-person operation now, and they've only just begun. They only take orders, there is no storefront, so you have to order a batch at a time. But trust me. Yum. Treat yourself! And, they'll deliver them straight to your door in the NYC area!

*The Magnolia Bakery, though still extremely popular, entirely pales in comparison to a Caked Cake. It's just no contest!!

I Knew It! (notes from the old neighborhood)

Back in my East Village Days, I often pondered this: I couldn't imagine anybody buying soft serve at 11pm, so why was there always Mister Softee blaring his jingle outside my window? My guess was that someone was up to no good, and now I see that I'm apparently an omniscient super-sleuth!

Ice cream vendor arrested in Flushing -- Man arrested for selling drugs
(Queens - WABC, October 7, 2007) - He wasn't just selling ice cream from his Mister Softee Truck. Police say he was selling drugs -- just feet from a playground in Flushing.

Read the rest of the article here. (thanks again, Gothamist!)

John Clancy Explains It All For You...

Sometimes Will doesn't understand me. And that's ok. He's been posting about all kinds of crazy computer stuff that I completely don't get, but I still like him just fine.

One topic that utterly baffles him about me, though, is how I am able to somehow magically repel money.

Money and me, we're like opposing magnet ends-- it's fun to try to push us together and even though we might touch for a second or two, there just ain't no way we're gonna sticking (try as I may).

John Clancy, one of the original founders of the New York International Fringe Festival (info included for the three of you who read this blog and don't know everyone in the indie theater world), just posted on his blog about a trip he took to BAM to pitch his stuff. On what he sees, he writes:

"Goddamn. Am I in a theater or an investment house?"

And if you're really like me, you don't even know what an investment house is.

My obvious point is that for those of us who learned how to make our art in the funding wasteland of the 90s, that much cash makes us nervous and a bit disoriented. And if you let it, it makes you angry. You can go childish angry:

"Look at all this fucking money, I never had any fucking money, why did they get all this fucking money, fuckers."

Or righteous angry:

"The money spent on this furniture would fund two dance companies for four months."

To see what else he saw, read the rest of the post here.

I'm not wearing it like a badge, though, friends. I swear-- I'd love to give it a whirl with the limitless funds. But I've just chosen, like many of the artists I call friends and colleagues, to go the non-I-Banker route. Well, a lot of us have chosen to go the where-can-I-find-an-under-the-table-cash-job route, but you get the point. We're not the kids with the 401Ks and a lot of us (not me!) see nothing wrong with producing an off-off broadway production on credit cards and bartending tips.

Sooooo... while we're on the topic, if you're looking to fund the arts, why not make a tax-deductible contribution to my theater company via our fiscal sponsor, Fractured Atlas? You can donate online-- just be sure to go down the drop-down menu and look for Cardium Mechanicum.

I know, I know, you're thinking, 'hey, dumbass, you just said you're brainless with loot, why should I give you any?' But see? See, even though I don't handle the monies so well, I'm smart enough to know to ask someone else to manage it for me! Fiscal Sponsorship. It just smacks of being responsible. Maybe I should manage an office or something!

For My Birthday I Want... a subscription to Texas Monthly??!!?

Ok, maybe not a full-blown subscription, but I'm totally curious about this article on Jenna Bush. I don't like her daddy's policies and somehow I'm comforted to know that she might not either.

(Thanks, Kevin)

A friend of mine is in grad school and her class took a field trip to a museum here in the city where they were led on a tour by the other Bush daughter. For whatever reason, I found that fascinating... the same way I find it fascinating that another former Presidential daughter lives across the street from my friends in Gramercy Park.

I don't know... obsession with six degrees of separation?

Thank Goodness I've Moved to Brooklyn

Because seriously, what fun is left in Manhattan anymore?

West Village Parents Take on the S & M Fest
Parents in the area are voicing concern and flyering around Greenwich Village public schools P.S. 3 and P.S. 41 and at Bleeker Playground. An email we received from them stated when they called to complain they were told by District Manager Bob Gormley that their complaint will do no good, however the CB2 Board Members will be in attendance at the fest to monitor it. Maybe they should team up with PETA, surely there will be a lot of leather on parade!

Full article at Gothamist.

What am I talking about? I live in the Stroller Capital of the World -- anyone know of anything resembling an S&M Parade in Carroll Gardens?

I Am Many Things

One of my dayjobs is for a botique HR firm in Brooklyn where we have handfuls of downtime and free-flowing internet access. (also, thanks to someone who used this laptop before me, I managed to find this little gem of a photo)

I'm not often one to Google myself, but it's sort of an eye-opening affair (and it's killed the last 20 dead minutes here)-- I am amazed to find that I am so much more than I could have ever imagined, including

• a Midwestern Meterologist


• a Sci Fi novelist and cartoon contest winner


• a Professor of Cell Biology at Harvard


• a firecracker-peddling English dude


• and arguably the greatest American amateur wrestler

The real me comes up sixth on the Google. I may have an existential crisis over this before the day is through...

The Handy Recorder is Getting Quite a Workout!

Tonight I'm headed out to Sunnyside Queens to record an interview and rehearsal audio footage with the avant-garde group Temporary Distortion. It will air as a podcast, nay, an nytheatrecast on nytheatre.com on or around October 10th.

Temporary Distortion's entry into Fringe 2001, Alien Even Then, was the first show I ever reviewed for nytheatre.com (you can find that piece of championship writing in the archives here). It was an adaptation of Kafka's The Trial, and though I sat fairly rapt through the whole thing, I remember being especially taken by their design-- walking the line between dark and sexy and fucked up and scary-- on the Fringe Festival time frame (you have 15 minutes to set up your show, then 15 minutes afterwards to break it down).

Tonight I'll interview Artistic Director Kenneth Collins and sit in on rehearsal for their new piece, Welcome to Nowhere (bullet hole road) that opens October 12th at the Chocolate Factory in Long Island City.

Oddly enough, this is my third podcast in this sort of "on-location" style, and the second at the Chocolate Factory. They put good work on there. Go support them.

Are You Back to the 3-Martini Lunch?

Will got me hooked on this blog FFFOUND! that posts these beautiful and crazy images for you to see. The folks as FFFOUND! say that the picture above is not animated.

Oh, eyes! So funny with the tricks they play...

Maybe the G Train Ain't Half Bad...

Last night on my way home from Williamsburg, I was dreading taking the infamously non-running G Train. I trudged down the stairs and was met with a literally underground concert by this band called La Strada.

Their music reminded me of a New Orleans band called Bingo that I saw three times over a 4-show run at the Collapsable Hole about five years ago. They had this amazing carnival rock/folk trippy circus sound and blended some crazy instruments (electric fiddle! squeak toys! bullhorns!) into the show. La Strada seemed to be a tamer Brooklyn version (what?!) of the band, but had an equally diverse representation of musical instruments on hand, including a portable xylophone, accordion, violin, a couple of guitars and a handful of shaky percussive things.

Luckily, I've started carrying my Handy Recorder around with me, so I managed to get a little sample of their stuff. Check it out! I especially enjoy the line in the beginning about checking them out sounding better "up there" referring to the fact that they play in locations beyond the subway.

Don't Bother Me, I'm Knitting an Atari

photo via Combray

Will and I went with our friend Jen O'Donnell last night to Esty Labs in downtown Brooklyn to check out a tech-no-music situation.

How do I explain?

Well, a bunch of guys (there were a few girls, but they seemed to be there to explain their guy's project) brought these.... devices? creations?... doo-dads that they had forged from spare parts (?) that made music-ish noise when you pressed a button/flipped a switch/waved it around/asked the guy to show you. We were looking for inspiration in different directions to make The Crush Project, which is slowly making it's way back from the near-dead, visible beyond the internet.

It was a little overwhelming for me and O'Donns, since all the machines seemed to be playing their music at the same time (NOISE JAM!!!) so we headed out to what seemed to be the gift shop. There, we found racks of purses, jewelry, beaded pens (to be sold as part of an upcoming trunk show) and a whole room knit out of yarn, including the knit Atari you see above. Turns out, Etsy is just about an exact replica of the UMASS Craft Center where I made many an X-mas gift at during my impoverished college years. Sewing machines, glue guns, lab coats (that's just added to make you look... scientific) and blinky shit all around that you can use if you become a member.

I'm en route there now. Maybe I'll come back with a handmade handbag. Or a very bedazzled labcoat...

"We'll Be at the Bar"

Joel Derfner reads from his upcoming novel Swish: My Quest to Become the Gayest Person Ever

After some time in the planning, we kicked off what we're calling We'll Be at the Bar, a night of new short works at the East Village's No Malice Palace, the bar that ate most of my mid-twenties.

Last night we featured Remaking the Video, a webisode series by Cabin Eleven where they take the hottest videos from MTV's TRL and remake them frame for frame with two rules: the whole thing gets shot in three days and they don't spend any money. The videos are hilarious and were a big hit with the crowd. Check Them Out!

We also had four short plays by Jonathan Goldberg featuring James Kennedy and Cari Crisostomou. This might have been the first time live theater has graced the No Malice boards, and though the lighting was tough, I think it went over quite well!

And smack dab in the middle of the evening was Joel Derfner, who read a chapter from his upcoming book Swish: My Quest to Become the Gayest Person Ever on becoming a go-go boy with a club promoter in Manhattan. Besides being just plain funny, the story was an oddly moving tale of what goes on inside the mind of a man shaking it sans pants. It's always such a treat to hear an author read his own work, and Joel's voice and delivery is top-notch. Swish arrives in bookstores in June 2008; until then, you can grab yourself a copy of his last book, Gay Haiku.

Thanks to all who turned out last night. Keep checking back for details on the October session of We'll Be at the Bar, scheduled for Monday the 29th. If you have something you'd like to submit to show (anything performance based-- a reading, a short film, music, comedy, something new you'd like to show a friendly, drinky audience) email me!