Tonight I’m venturing over to the Renwick Gallery for the opening of an artistic collaboration that I am very excited about: that of Genesis Breyer P-Orridge and Daniel Albrigo, entitled Putting Your Money Where Your Mouth Is… A Love Story. Daniel is a tattoo artist based out of my favorite NYC tattoo shops, NY & Brooklyn Adorned, and Genesis is best known for his music and performance in Throbbing Gristle (who recently toured, with a stop in Brooklyn) and Psychic TV.

As our friend Marisa over at Needles and Sins writes:

Genesis and h/er late wife and other half, Lady Jaye Breyer, began a project in 1993 to transcend “body-based genders- and socially imposed identities,” thereby creating Breyer P-Orridge. Maxwell G. Graham sums it in the exhibition’s release: “…their two identities were merged through plastic surgery, hormone therapy, cross dressing and altered behavior in an effort to deconstruct the fiction of the self, each moving to resemble the other. Breyer P-Orridge, the cross-pollinated name of this endeavor, has continued even after Lady Jaye’s untimely death in 2007.”

In tribute to Lady Jaye, Daniel and Genesis join to tell a love story in painting, sculpture, photo-works, assemblage and jewelry.

The show and title is derived from the set of solid gold teeth that Genesis had installed to replace all of he/r original teeth. There are paintings documenting the casting process, as well as portraits of Genesis by Albrigo, sculptural objects, assemblages, and jewelry.  I’m fascinated by this collaboration, not only due to my interest in art that’s a little outside the mainstream, but also due to the great love that motivated the project.

The opening is tonight from 6-8 PM at the Renwick Gallery in SoHo, located at 45 Renwick Street between Spring & Watts. There will also be a closing reception on February 22nd.

Every year that I’ve lived in NYC, I’ve seen these coat drive ads and occasionally donated a coat. This year, after looking through my closet and marveling at the number of coats I don’t need, I decided to not only donate a coat, but run my own coat drive in my building.

If you have coats to donate to the New York Cares coat drive, you can do so at public donation sites around the city – just plug in your ZIP code to find the closest one. Or, you can host your own coat drive by registering on the New York Cares site. Registering doesn’t make your coat drive location public, it just lets the New York Cares people know that you’re hosting one. Once the drive is over, you deliver the coats to their Manhattan warehouse. Simple, and gets warm coats to people in NYC who need them.

New York Cares also has a blog, which is currently covering the coat drive, but also has information on other ways to volunteer and give back to the community. Do you volunteer with New York Cares or another NYC organization? Tell us about it in the comments.

As most people know, especially those living and playing on the Upper East Side, 2nd Avenue is a total disaster right now and will probably only get worse. But this is for a VERY GOOD reason, so I’m not complaining. The construction of the 2nd Avenue subway line, which still has a long way to go before it is even operational, is currently underway.

But what is even more important right now is supporting the businesses that are suffering because of the construction. Many 2nd avenue restaurants & retailers have been put out of business because foot traffic has come to a crashing halt. Restaurants have lost their sidewalk space so there goes their summer crowd. Often there is no indication a business exist anymore. So, if you happen to live or play on the UES, I urge you to support your 2nd Avenue Business.

As we’ve mentioned before, writing for Metblogs is completely amazing. It will make you charming, famous, and good looking. It slices, dices, and makes julienne fries. When you write for Metblogs, you instantly gain superhuman strength and the ability to fly.

Though it’s entirely possible that the above things are true, we don’t actually guarantee them. However, Metblogs is a pretty fun place to write. It’s the largest network of locally focused blogs on the web, covering almost 60 cities around the world, and we’re looking to add a few new bloggers/writers/authors (or whatever you want your title to be, except King of the World) to this fine site. If you wanna know more about us, check out this wikipedia entry but even reading that is not a requirement. If you wanna write for us, here’s the scoop:

• All author positions are volunteer. That means you don’t get paid.
• You must live or work in (or very near, and spend a lot of time in) the city you plan to write about.
• Anything you post must relate to the city somehow. That means you shouldn’t post a movie review, but talking about going to see a movie at a local theater is fine.
• There’s no requirement for how much you can or should write, but we ask that if we set you up as an author you make about 3 posts a week.
• You can post about things you love, you can post about things you hate. You can even drop f-bombs. It’s entirely up to you.

Additionally, because of our global network, there are plenty of options for things you write to be read by people all over the world. New posts are posted on both our local Twitter account and the Metblogs network Twitter account. Interested? Want more details? Post a comment and we’ll be in touch!

I am not a fan of the touch-screen televisions present in NYC taxis. They’ve been there for a couple of years now, and fortunately have an “off” button so you don’t have to listen to the incessant yammering of people trying to get you to watch their shows or buy their crap (I get enough of that if I turn on the tv in my own home, thankyouverymuch). However, occasionally I have had the misfortune to get into a taxi in which the off button does not work. Since the button is on a touchscreen, I don’t know if it’s that so many people have touched the off button area that it has become worn out, or because the software is crappy*.

But every so often I get into a taxi that has something this on the screen, and it makes me giggle a little.

*After seeing what’s onscreen in the photo, I have reason to suspect the latter.

Taxi TV fail

In case you have been lucky enough to avoid the seemingly incessant local political ads that seem to be everywhere right now, tomorrow, November 3rd, is Election Day. If you want to make sure you’re informed about your local candidates, you can start here to view the list of candidates.

Of course, the biggest kerfuffle has been around Mayor Bloomberg and his decision to seek a third term. He got the city law changed so that he could run for a third term, which had previously been disallowed. His challenger, City Comptroller Bill Thompson, graciously neglected to mention that whole thing in his political ads. No attack ads from anyone!

According to Reuters, Bloomberg is currently leading in the polls, but this is NYC, people. You never know what could happen. You could all write me in as mayor for a surprise upset. I can’t wait to see that reported on NY1.

To find your polling place, go to the NYC Board of Elections Poll Site Locator and plug in your info. Polls are open from 6 AM to 9 PM.

I am a vegetarian. I have been for at least the last 7 years. I have often said that I would eat meat if I were the one to hunt and kill an animal with the purpose of eating it and using its parts. I wont get into my political reasons too deeply in this post, but I am more against the meat industry than meat itself. Living in a city like New York has taught me that there are a diverse amount of eating preferences. I have met fat heavily tattooed raw vegans, skinny baconholics, and friendly pescatarians. Unfortunately living in this city gives little opportunity to hunt. I’m sure pigeon is a delicacy somewhere, I’ll pass. I was reminded of my thoughts on hunting my own food from a recent blog post my wife showed me by her friend Keith.

I left NYC on August 25th. I don’t intend to come back. 18 years of my life were spent here. The 18 that counted the most in forming who I am today. The decision came not because of the economy (I was employed) or anything else but my decision to follow my heart and the one I truly LOVE to India.

My journey is not the first of its kind. I’ve found that New York City provides an excellent ground for seekers of the spiritual variety. It is the only place on the planet where acceptance is not just a concept but a daily practice. I’m sure a lot of shady things happen in the underground, but that’s just the nature of humans. I’ve found that NYC has heart, love, genuine kindness. . . whereas most of other portions of America serve up a plastic flight-attendant smile.

Anyhow folks, I’m here in Mumbai, I tweet regularly and blog as well. I’m sure I’ll see a lot, experience a lot and definitely will be back to NYC, but for now, I’m gone. So long.

Bloomberg tucking into a slice of pizza. Image copyrights Mary DiBiase Blaich for The New York Times

The NYTimes has a front page (web) article on the eating habits of Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Now this would be a waste of valuable e-newsprint, one may say. However the article brings into sharp contrast the positive motions the Mayor brings into the realm of public health, while at the same time having a completely different set of personal standards.

The article talks about the Mayor’s affinity for (of all things) salt.

Mr. Bloomberg, 67, likes his popcorn so salty that it burns others’ lips. (At Gracie Mansion, the cooks deliver it to him with a salt shaker.) He sprinkles so much salt on his morning bagel “that it’s like a pretzel,” said the manager at Viand, a Greek diner near Mr. Bloomberg’s Upper East Side town house.

This is while the city wages a battle against sodium. There are directives in place recommending restaurants reduce salt consumption by 20 %.

Some may raise a stink about the so-called “double standards” from the Mayor. And in this election season, I would not be surprised if it does. However what the Mayor in his own personal time is no one else’s business.

Even with all the excesses of salt, bacon and what not, the Mayor, at 67, weighs what he did in his college days. How many people can claim to do that. ?

I think the real story here is that he indulges in “sinful” eating but also exercises self-discipline by exercising and balancing his food intake on other days.

The only thing that irks me is salt on a bagel. That leaves a bad taste in my mouth :)

I was recently in Chicago and ate a lot of deep dish pizza. This is something Chicago is known for and I, a pizza fanatic, was fully aware of. After eating some deep dish at a friends home one night he asked how it compared to NY thin crust. I had to admit to him that the deep dish was unique and amazing and I loved it. Then I had to tell him that it didn’t compare in my mind to the coal fired brick oven pizzas made in NY. What can I say, I’m an East Coast kind of guy. NY pizza is king in my eyes, the crisp crust and fresh ingredients that you taste with all the lush flavors they hold. What about you? Don’t be shy, tell us how you really feel.

You’ve no doubt by now noticed that the sites got a bit of a re-design and some things got changed around last week. We wanted to highlight two changes to make sure everyone knows what changed.

The first and biggest is COMMENTS! Registration is no longer required to post a comment on any post. Of course if you already have an account you can still login to ensure your comments are attributed to you, but those who don’t can now post a comment without any long term commitment. Also, on the right you can see some of the recent comments so you’ll always know what the active discussions are. This was the most requested thing we’ve heard from people since our last redesign and we’re excited to see where it leads.

The next change is also something that was heavily requested, and that is a change to the ADS on the sites. You’ll immediately notice fewer of them, but what might not be as obvious is those smaller square ones to the right are specific to this city only and are being sold for a flat rate for a period of time rather than a confusing CPM/traffic/network model. Depending on the city, these range from $7-$175 for a full week. If you purchase one, during that time your ad will be the only one in that spot and will show on every page. We set these up both to make it easier for smaller local businesses to get their ads on our site, and also to help us bring in ads that relate better to our local audiences. Also, keeping these sites online is expensive and every little bit helps.

There are a bunch of other things we changed but we’ll leave those to you to investigate and take advantage of. Hope you like it, and we look forward to seeing you in the comments!!

Love,
The folks at MBHQ

hizzoner mayor bloomberg

 I walked outside my office building at 1 pm and found many people staring at a giant bus. I noticed there were camera crews. My first thought: car crash.

Then I saw shortie Mayor Bloomberg step out of the bus looking like a celebrity. I was so close to him while talking to my mom on the phone that a member of his security squad about 4 times hizzoner’s size shoved me out of the way saying “can’t stand here folks.”

bus stop indicators of arrivals

Photos of the event thanks to a vegan in brooklyn – not that one. Oh the big deal was that now you’ll know how late your bus is arriving at select stops in NYC.

This morning, the central terminal at La Guardia airport was evacuated for nearly 5 hours after an apparently intoxicated man went into the airport with a bag full of batteries and wires that was apparently meant to look like a bomb. The man was acting “crazy” and police got several phone calls about his suspicious activity before he was taken into custody. The terminal was evacuated and the bomb squad was called in, but the “bomb” turned out to be a hoax device – just some wires taped to batteries, with no actual function. Many flights were canceled on multiple airlines due to the delays, even in the unaffected terminals, as traffic delays prevented flight crews from getting to the airport.

The suspect is in custody and normal airport operations have resumed, but delays can be expected to continue throughout the day as the airlines scramble to catch up. If you’re flying out today, be sure to check your flights before you head out to the airport.

Another small incident happened today that confirmed my belief that New Yorkers are the nicest citizens ever. I had dropped my earphones by accident on the busiest freaking place – 5th avenue and 39th street – and someone brought it over to my attention. I was on the cell phone and someone said “excuse me, excuse me” and I was being a typical New Yorker and pretending not to hear him thinking he was after something.

Then he poked and said, “your headphones, they fell” I looked around my neck and they weren’t there. He then went backwards, picked them up, ran back to me and gave them back.

I’m experiencing the true meaning of bromance. . . or brotherly love. Thank you man.

In return, if I find someone’s something on the somewhere anywhere, I’ll do the same that you’ve done for me today.

Love.