a few environmental justice issues with Hurricane Irene?
no power outages in Manhattan; thousands in other boroughs.
public housing authority residents told to evacuate, rather late, because the city was basically turning off their buildings.
private security, hired by individuals, buildings, and corporations, are allowed in evacuation zones - so we're going straight to 'splintered' unequal resource allocation.

Top Rebuilding Committees i'd want to be on

1. East Village Cheese
2. Bond #9 - the cleanup! all those perfume bottles!
3. The High Line (if they would have me)
4. Vandaag, Belcourt, and Counter, so there is a hasty return to $15 cocktails
5. Dowel
6. Cooper Union. Lord, spare that building!
7. The Lower East Side People's Federal Credit Union
8. St Marks in the Bowery

Dr. Krim"s My New BFF

I am such a HUGE fan of Dr. Mathilde Krim! Recently, I had the chance to bring her and Phill Wilson together for a conversation, airing online at www.inthelifetv.org in December 2008.

Last night, I was graciously invited by Phill Wilson to celebrate the opening of a NY office for The Black AIDS Institute at the home of Dr. Krim. I was captivated by a 500lb horse head on what Dr. Krim told me was a 600lb pedestal in her hallway. I loved how Dr. Krim told us she and a friend found it at a place that sells cherubs in Long Island, it was made for a restaurant in Saratoga, that had decided they did not want it. There were two horses and they were buried in sand when she spotted them and decided they both would take each of these 500lb horse heads. Alexis and I were wondering if the other horse head belonged to Liz Taylor, but we didn't ask. Dr. Krim said she liked it because it looks like the Elgin horse sculptures at the Pathenon, pictured above.
Now I want to go to Greece. First we will tackle Venice, later this month!!! I can't wait!!

Someone is living my life-WHEW! -It's me!

My friend Robin texted me this evening regarding the latest results of her google ego surf...Yes, we all ego surf. Anyway, a search on Robin's name yeilded me a posting from this blog and HELL, it's been so long since I blogged, that I didn't recognize all of the post and was like: "that sounds like something I did in LA, but I don't remember looking like Janet Jackson...
Then I called her and was like Dude- relax -it's my blog and YES, we did skip out of the Daytime Emmy's Dress Rehearsal that day, and DAMN we had fun!

It got me thinking that I need to keep posting so that I will remember my life better.
Thank you Robin, Ego Surfer!
Now write your damn bio before someone else blogs your life.
Here's a lovely film that I made after many many months of blog boycott...

The Poodle's Manhattan

I'LL TAKE NEW YORK
lyrics by: Tom Waits
Photo by: Jeff Ferzoco

I'll tip the newsboy
I'll get a shine
I'll ride this dream
to the end of the line
I'm goin places
I'll take a ride
Up to the Riverside
I'll take NY
I'll let it happen
I'll pop the cork
tear off the wrappin'
I'll make a splash on the Hudson
that's how I will arrive
Hey, do you have two tens for a five?
Roll out the carpet
Strike up the band
break into the best
champagne when I land
Beat the parade drum
hit all the bars
I want the moon and stars
But I'll take NY
I'll make it happen
Blow out the candlels
tear off the wrappin'
And I know someday
they'll have to name a street after me
right next door to old Franklin D

East Village Timeline

this is cool

The Krishna's had a point...

mean people suck
mean people are filled with their own shit, I think it actually backs up and makes their complexions go sour

Mean people are mean because they are hiding some insecurity issues.

Pathetic small minded mean people- you suck, try to remember who you wanted to be.

Amy Winehouse

new favorite thing: Amy Winehouse singing, "They try to make me go to rehab, I say no no no."

http://www.amywinehouse.co.uk/

placebo effect

There's a new Radio Lab available. It tells the story of how the placebo effect works, from shamans to depression to parkinsons disease. Apparently, 25% of the time, the placebo effect works on parkinsons - - it stops their hands from shaking. Someone mapped which part of the brain is "expecting" pain relief from the placebo effect and found it deep in the middle of the brain, making opiates. We make our own morphine when we think we need to.
Lots of other brilliant stuff on the show too.

The Immortal Eddie Boros 1934-2007

Eddie Boros was an artist in the East Village. He created the tower sculpture in the community garden on Avenue B and 6th street. Once, he stole a truck from an army base and made it drive over a cliff, into the ocean, just for fun. He then called the army base, told him he found a truck, and they gave him the week off-he was cool. He often wore pearls. He painted Jac's living room wall red. He died on Friday at the age of 74.

My organic friend

This past weekend I travelled to High Springs, Florida to see my good friend who is an organic farmer.



It was so good to just relax and pick herbs and vegetables from his garden, cook, play with his animals and hang out. Even though my friend has restaurant clients he delivers to, I am trying to get him involved with a community supported agriculture program, or even a farmer's market. At one point, I became this marketing freak when I saw the quality of his crops, I wanted him to feed as many people as possible, and make money!! Farming is a solitary act in his case, so he is not accustomed to marketing his crops beyond his few clients. I spent much of my visit as a pushy New Yorker, trying to get my friend to expand his business.

Later, my friend told me his crops do not go to waste, that he will call up local community groups and give them what he doesn't sell. That made me happy, so I relaxed.

My family's response to the Larry Kramer letter: Why do Staights Hate Gays?

Here I am putting the question to the dominant societal norm- straight culture:
Straight People Why Do You Hate Gays?

God Bless him, my cousin actually spoke to me today on the phone about the Larry Kramer "open letter" to straight people, which I had sent to him to speak to me about, whenever he could talk about it. He chose today to discuss it with me. He actually had to have me hold the line for a minute, while he closed the door to his office, he was at work. My cousin expressed that he had wanted to respond to me but he wanted to do so in a conversation, not in an E-mail which he felt could be taken the wrong way. As he spoke in a low voice, I started to get the sense of how he felt about the topic- shame.
His main point came right out of the gate: Straights hate gays because they feel homosexuality is rooted in sex not love. Sad, but when I pushed him further he said that he could not imagine being with a man or being in love with another man. He explained further that straight people see gays as people who like sex a certain way, much like someone straight would have a preference for a certain position like: "Doggie Style" or masturbation, and there aren't any parades for this.
He was not kidding, this is what he said. So, I said that I could understand given this perspective how two lesbians celebrating a mass together in church, or cooking dinner for one another in their home would not be hot therefore it just doesn't exist in his male fantasy, but 2 lesbians in bed together- that's the only space for lesbians to exist. I had no idea my cousin had seen me so flately.
Oddly, I'm not angry with my cousin, I told him to imagine a world in his mind where to be gay was the norm, and then to take the feelings he has for his wife and place them in this context, that this love was not the love that you are "supposed to feel"
-a side note I referenced Ancient Greece and homosexuality as the more pure form of love expression that humans can experience.
I told him to try to think about this when he could, maybe then he might start to understand or at least see gay and lesbian love equal to straight love.
It was good to discuss this with him, perhaps we'll keep talking.

Yeah, the revolution will be televised- if you signed the release.

What happened to our queer revolution? You remember our revolution- it was before the internet.
I had a conversation and E-mail exhange with Rex Wockner today regarding a photo he took at and AIDS drug protest on Oct. 11, 1988 the day ACT UP took over the FDA. The producer of the documentary would like to use a photo release with an indemnity clause that holds photographers accountable should someone pictured in the photo decide to sue the LOGO Network, which is owned and controlled by Viacom, for all legal fees and damages caused to the network. The photo release clearly states that the photographer as the "sole" owner of the material has in fact obtained releases from everyone in the photo.

Darlings I know it may have been awhile since you have ventured out into the streets to support a cause, but surely you can remeber the late '80's when we were all throwing "blood" onto the white marble steps of our government. I myself was big into WHAM- remember them? If you ever took pictures or video footage at any of these protests then you may recall that you would never have been asking for a release from the thousands around you. I mean it was clear then as it is clear now, if you are involved in a public protest you are apart of a news and later, an historical event.

I think it is silly to try to make photographers lie about having releases for news events, even if these lawsuit hardly ever occur. However, if someone did want to make a case about appearing in a photo taken at an AIDS rally in 1988, say now they are an "ex-gay" it would mean the small freelance photographer or filmmaker is responsible for all legal costs and damages - not the corporate giant.

I have seen some historical / political documentaries on LOGO -but if these documentaries were acquired after they were originally produced and distributed it is likely that LOGO acquired the rights from its makers. Did these filmmakers sign indemnity clauses that therefore hold them responsible for capturing an historical event such as a protest or demonstration? It just doesn't seem fair to me.

I do know that LOGO edits films for broadcast, they told me that when I was interviewing to work for them, it was going to be one of my responsibilities.
LOGO airs news segments produced for the network by CBS, why then aren't documentaries produced for LOGO held to the standards of reporting news?

So this the revolution Viacom has delivered.

How are we meant to write and share new history? Why is Viacom attempting to shrink the public sphere?

happy hippy homemaker

i got a recipe for a non-toxic bathtub cleanser from treehugger.com. it works so well! my kitchen sink is shiny, the bathtub is utterly clean, countertops... anything you might use Fantastik for. it rinses beautifully, it's slightly scrubby, and it smells lovely.

2 parts baking soda
1 part castile liquid soap

put baking soda in a bowl. add soap slowly. stir. you can keep it in an airtight jar or plastic container for a year.


no more Dow chemicals! hooray!

cherry whiskey

just say no.
even if it's your birthday.

Why isn't this big news?

There's a new process that creates a fuel that comes from stuff we now throw out that can be used in a car with an internal combustion engine and existing fuel supply infrastructure. The process emits no carbon at all. We already have enough biomass on hand to supply all our fuel needs, if we use this process. Everything. Cars, trucks, trains and planes could get enough fuel from biomass we already have. It's call H2Car, and it was created at Purdue University. Researchers there are applying for a patent. If this isn't big news soon, i'm going to create some conspiracy theories.

Anyway, here's a tangent: Let's say that this process gets widely used. And then let's say that lots of open space is preserved for parks, farms, wildlife, pasture, etc. Will there be any arguments left against suburban living? If someone wants to spend hours stuck in traffic each day, who cares as long as he's not polluting or making us do business with Saudi Arabia? And if someone wants to live in a big house on a cul de sac with a Wal Mart close enough to walk to but no way to walk there, who care since open space is preserved? All we're left with are opinions - - your mall is nasty, your yard is selfish, your children are dysfunctional, blah blah blah ...

The V Word

I can't believe this crap. A few students in Westchester wanted to perform a skit from The Vagina Monoglogues for their school open mic. They were told the couldn't say "vagina" because there would be children in the audience.

I came across an editorial that sums it up well: "women and girls exist in a sexually explicit and often violent world, the same world where a word unique to their sex can barely be uttered."

We just watched This Film is Not Yet Rated. It shows how motion picture raters have outlawed any depiction of women having fun in bed. Meanwhile, violence against women is allowed in movies from G on up. The raters wanted to give But I'm a Cheerleader an NC17 because of a scene with a girl masturbating; American Pie was no problem. They wanted to give Boys Don't Cry an NC17 because Brandon Teena wipes his mouth after going down on a woman; meanwhile, every other R rated movie has a woman going down on a man. Most of what the raters object to is simply a camera on an actress' face when she's having sex. Why can't we see that? It's such a nice thing. Wait, i know. Because it would make it harder to watch all the rape, torture and humiliation of women we see in the rest of the movies. Years of this crap coming out of Hollywood has apparently worked on at least one school principal in Westchester.

The MPAA can bite my vagina.

more radio bliss

listen to Maria Bamford discuss communal living and try to define "eco pets" (cats that eat their own poo?), and this, where Maria does a calm breathy LA woman just perfectly:

Maria: You know, I make a pretty good living, I could take a year off and help people somewhere.

LA Friend: Maria, you already do so much. You make people laugh – that’s the greatest gift in the world.

Maria: But I only do that maybe an hour a night. In the off time I could sponge bathe the dying or just hose things off a little bit in general.

LA: Why don’t you just buy a pair of fair trade shoes made of recycled materials and do your part?

Maria: I already have 80 pairs of shoes! Don’t you think conscious neglect is the equivalent of perpetration?

LA: Ok, it sounds like somebody needs to take a bubble bath.

Ladies and gentlemen, the camel toe...

Living in New York City has it's moments of affirming just why one loves it here amoungst the filth and the starlite. The other night I found myself in the company of some performative hipsters. After all the singing and dancing, there was carrying on at an afterparty.
I love an afterparty, in fact I think I live for it.
While bathing in the afterglow of entertainers with some really nice and really expensive drinks,I took in the moment. I particularly liked the fact that my cognac was served in a rather thick, heavy, square shaped glass, and I had asked for cognac on the rocks, causing my hipster friends shriek and recoil in horror, but I don't care, I liked the way it's cold and the square glass made me feel like I was drinking out of a giant, hollowed out ice cube. I was too busy being delicous.

But I digress..
While previously on stage during the performace, one luminary had remarked that his pants were yellow, to which the host of the evening's entertainment replied that the color was now referred to as camel. Now, at the afterparty, my hipster enclave brought up the pants again-I guess everyone loves talking about pants as much as I do.
Soon, it became like playing the game telephone, except it was like playing telephone with Madonna, and you are both drunk. Out of a cloud of smoke appeared Kiki, love her, to call Mr. Yellow Pant out:
"Darling, you have a camel toe!"
His response was an embrace: "A camel toe, I wish!"
It was camel toe envy.

radio bliss

listen to margaret cho and neil gaiman say what they would put on a record if they were going to send it into space, knowing the record would outlast this planet. It's Radio Lab, "Looking Up." the whole show is good. it starts out with star gazing on fire island.