Manhattan Offender

Let's get busy this weekend

Wow.  That was a fast week.  As New York City hit 10.4%, suddenly all those Facebook statuses went from "at the beach" to "considering getting a new roommate".  Fashion Week was just a thing in the peripery vision of the masses since most houses cut their "party budgets" and the fashion shows brought more yawning than fawning.  Oh, and your cocaine is tainted.  What to do?

Friday night: 

• Remember last fall?  Friday was difficult to navigate as everybody and their sistah had a party going.  Now?  Not so much, but the strong have survived.  Snaxx is up and running at Westside Tavern, and there's free beer from 10 to 11.
• If you're wearing your mittens on cold, cold Fire Island maybe going to see Robbyne Kaamil's show at the Ice Palace will heat you up.  And Daniel Nardicio is throwing lots of parties and probably a yard sale to close out the season.
• If you're taller than 54", you can take Superman for a ride at gay night at Six Flags in New Jersey.  
• Once you're back from vomiting on a roller coaster, you can gag on the price of drinks at Highline Ballroom at Blowoff with the hairy heavies.  (Twenty dollars!?!?)
• Better?  Go to this Housing Works benefit.  Andrew Krucoff organized it.  People seem to swoon for him.

Saturday night:

• Just go to Rocket at The Hose.  Ryan and Ashton put the poo in shampoo.
• But first, check out Scooter LaForge's gallery show of monsters and tee shirts at Envoy Enterprises (131 Christie Street) from 6 to 9!  Ha-ha.  6ty9.  
• And before all that, work out a budget for the fall.  Ben Bernanke might be saying "The Recession is Over", you know he meant to say OVAH.  Watch your pennies, Penny!

Sunday

• I'm going to a museum every Sunday until I don't.  Last Sunday it was the Michael Arad exhibition at MOMA.  This weekend I'm stopping in to check out the landscape architecture exhibition, In Situ.  If the weather is crap, I'll be checking to see if Baz Luhrman's Romeo and Juliet has stood the test of time.
• New York's sexiest person (according to Time Out), Justin Bond is giving new show at Joe's Pub.  Yay!
• Those Sea Tea tours leave me wanting to swim to land after the first hour, but the heavy hairy crowd is doing one Sunday.  Apparently there is a free buffet.
• I prefer a boat to take me somewhere, not drift aimlessly.  Taking a ferry to the ongoing (and awesome) New Island Festival is an option.  You could even stay and dance for the very popular Freemason's gig.  (Forty dollars!!  Bernanke must be right!)
• Also?  Pink!, a play about twelve-year old girls at sleepaway camp!  It's not as innocent as it sounds.  This is the final weekend, so check it out!

Or just stay home and organize files on your computer.  Or organize your DVD's.  Mercury is back in retrograde, so good luck with whatever you decide.  Meanwhile, here's a theme song, to get you through.

Name dropped? Really?

ON THE PHONE, AT HOME, EARLY EVENING FRIDAY

Dan:  I read your name today.
Me:  My site?  I haven't posted to it forever.
Dan:  No, your name.  Writer Rod Townsend in the East Village.
Me:  But I don't live in ...
Dan:  No, it was about the East Village and how you're ... hold on, I'll grab it.
Me:  What is 'it'?
Dan:  Oh, Time Out.  The East Village issue.  Here.  Wait ... Okay, "The Hose, Who you'll see:  Guys in muscle tees and trucker hats, writer Rod Townsend, DJ Josh Sparber and Justin Bond (one half of Kiki & Herb)".
Me:  Why would anybody care where or what Rod Townsend goes or does?  Did they quote somebody?
Dan:  No, it's just ...
Me:  Who wrote it?
Dan:  Leslie Price.
Me:  Is that a girl or a guy?
Dan:  It doesn't really say.  It's not a big deal and it's not why I called anyway.  About the beach tomorrow, ...

As it's the first time I've seen my name in print in such a manner, it has me a little confused.  This is not a person "on the scene" for sure; it says so in my ManHunt profile.  My recommendation for just about anything is not something one would typically follow.  As for The Hose, well, yes, I've been there a lot, especially for the now defunct MooseKnuckle.  (Also, pictured in the article is Scott Anthony, so maybe there is some technophile thing going there.)  It did sort of encourage me to start writing again, so, um, thanks?

Local gay bar (with low ceilings) creates shrine for deceased gay icon (Bea Arthur) that did not die of bird flu, despite what you've heard.

Location:  Nowhere Bar, East Village
Photo via:  Dan

New York magazine uses its "Best of" weapon to try to destroy The Hose.

"Hey, the New York Magazine Best of New York issue is out."
"Is it March already?"
"Yeah, and look, The Hose totally made it."
"Made what?"
"Yes, look!  'Best Gay Bar.' Isn't it great?"
"Uh, no."
"What are you talking about?  You love The Hose!  Didn't you go-go dance for them on the opening night?"
"Yes."
"And aren't you thrilled for Paul Short, one of the sweetest party promoters in town?"
"Yes."
"So what's the ..."
"I totally saw New York's 'gay' reporter at The Hose one night, doing his research.  Granted, I was in 'force of nature' mode by that point, so I don't remember it well, but I could kick myself for not having spilled a drink on him or sent a troll his way to way to ruin his evening."
"Tim Murphy, right?  Why would you want to ruin his evening?"
"Because I'm shy."
"What? You're not ..."
"Fine, I'm exclusive."
"You're losing me."
"I don't like places that 'everyone' goes to.  And it's not some 'cool' thing as I'm decidedly uncool."
"It's a 'cool' thing."
"No, it's just I like to be around people of a like mind.  And I hate crowds."
"It's a 'cool' thing."
"Fuck you."
"Not even with your dick.  So you totally aren't happy for Paul and Kiger and Dustin and Juan and Ashton and Ryan and everybody else involved with The Hose?  And you're never going to go there again?  Right."
"Oh, I'll go.  Well, maybe."
"Maybe?  Weren't you talking about go-going there again sometime soon?"
"Yeah, and I totally will, but they'll ... There's one thing they'll have to do."
"Drink tickets?"
"Oh, that'd be nice."
"But what's this 'one thing'?"
"Um.  Two words:  Restrictive Door."

Past, Over - Pot Smoke Linger(ie)s on Second Street

Sometimes I receive telephone calls from The Past, a mysterious entity that remembers where things used to be in New York before Starbucks and Whole Foods came to town.  Originally posted at Gawker, March 1, 2007 .

"Hello?"

"Heh. Um. Do you, uh, have Prince Alfred in a can?"

"Let me guess. The Past?"

"Dude. You're so fun."

"Gosh, um..."

"Psych!  You're not. At all. But I still love you. What's up?"

"Just sort of waiting for my dealer to call."

"Oh, how long ago did you beep him?"

"Beep him?"

"Yeah. You beep your dealer. As soon as he can get to a pay phone he calls you and tells you when he'll be coming by. Convenient if you're in that 'too-paranoid-or-wired-to-leave-the-house' mode, but not really preferable to just going out to get what you need."

"Like going to the dealer's house?"

"I would never send you to a crackhouse."

"We don't have those so much anymore, although there is the occasional meth lab."

"Meth?  As in crystal meth?  Are you in New York or the Ozarks?  Insane. Do you ever go to The Lingerie Store?"

Past, Over: Firsts

This week on that thing at Gawker I talk about my first time. 
No, not that one.  A different one.  Clues?  Okay. 
Avenue B.  Models.  Euro-trash.  Seven in the morning, or maybe ten.  Sand. 
A link will go up when available.

Past, Over: Madonna on Ludlow

This week on that Gawker thing, a look back to life on Ludlow Street in the gay 90's.  All at the convergence point of Madonna, bodegas, and Dominican boys.  For this piece a quick trip with the camera was needed to see if my memory was true, that Madonna's proposed new Kaballah center was on the site of the bodega where my Tropical Fantasy's were found.  Turns out that it was not, and that the former bodega is now an organic food shop.  Meanwhile, Max Fish, Pink Pony and Las Venus are safe and sound where they were almost a decade past. 
Enjoy.  Or hate, or, be indignant.  All good.

Friday Food: Kenka

Restaurant:  Kenka
Location:  East Village (St. Marks Place near Second Avenue)
Occasion:  Meeting with a couple of friends with the mutual realization on a Friday night that if this level of drinking continued that we would all be hospitalized so perhaps we should eat. 
Cocktail(s):  $1.50 Sapporo's!
Wine:  A bottle of sake
Appetizer:      There are over 100 items and we ordered at least eight appetizers for three people.  Everything married very well with "oo's" and "ah's" for every dish as it arrived to the table.  A favorite was an eggy item that was fluffy and spicy.  Octopus balls met with trepidation, but it could be an issue of the name alone.
Entree:  Again, dishes were shared and there was booze in the system, so detail are sketchy.  The pork tenderloin was memorably awesome.
Dessert:  On departure, you are given sugar with which you can make your own cotton candy.
Service:  There is a wait for tables and no reservations are taken on weekend nights.  After a 45 minute wait, entering the packed place the expectation is for some stutters in the service.  That expectation is met, but the $1.50 Sapporo's assuage everything. 
Atmosphere:  Some focus is required as you are surrounded by great traditional imagery and music out of Tokyo radio of the 1950S.  With the packed room full of a mix of Japanese and NYU kids and assorted others the key thing to note that although this is the East Village of the middle aughts, there is nary a twat nor a douchebag in sight.  The crowd is there to have fun. 
Pricing:    Amazingly cheap.  We ate like pigs and drank like fish and paid like (some animal that is frugal).
Rating:  "Yeah, so totally".

Image from  ptuft on flickr.

What's wrong with this picture?

Here are a few clues:

1. It is the garden of the twattiest building ever, the Gwathmey Siegel "Sculpture for Living".  As a friend put it:  "I thought that maybe over time it would grow on me, but, no, it still sucks ass."
2. It is convenient to K-Mart.
3. The landscaping is as uninspired as the twatty building.
4. It reeks of 'new money'.

Answer:  If you are going to restrict access from the public, then you need to have access in the first place.  The 'garden in question is not accessible to the residents; there is no pathway through it.  Therefore you are restricting access to the public to something that doesn't have access in the first place.  Thus twatty.  A twatty sign for a twatty building.

What happens in Vegas ... um, probably shouldn't

After reading about the replica East Village planned for Las Vegas, I can only think of what a fine job the project's developer previously did replicating New York.  At the New York, New York Hotel and Casino (gods, the embarrassment, I've stayed there ... long story), it is like being at home, but in the desert.  You can visit all of your favorite NYC hotspots, like ESPN Zone!

Although the East Village project is not a hotel and is mostly retail/restaurant/office space, perhaps a few suggestions are in order for our oxygenated friends in the desert:

• You must must MUST have a methadone-themed shop or restaurant.  Ruby Tuesdays, meet Methadone Mondays!
• Ignoring the East Village's bathhouse history would be a shame.  Maybe a St. Marks Bath ... and Bodyworks?
• It's great that other East Village landmarks have been included, like the Washington Square Park arch, the Meatpacking District, and the beloved Diamond District.  But why not include the wonderful East Village Cloisters and East Village Bronx Zoo, too?
• Retailing gold goes to whomever capitalizes on the East Village drag movement.  A Wigstock venue (Lady Bunny's Vaginatorium?) is a must!
• And to keep it all modern, you must remember that the East Village has been 'gentrified' so be sure to keep it on the sterile side and just a little twatty.  Oh, you are?  Perfect!