Apparently, conditions in Protester Jail are not the best — people stuck for up to 30 hours before getting their tickets issued, then coming out all stained with grease and soot — and now former tenants of “Li’l Gitmo,” which used to be a bus depot, are saying that the building has a fairly serious asbestos problem. (I can’t find a link at the moment, but heard it on WINS earlier.)
I’ve gotten pinched before, but that was in the suburbs; I got my own bathroom. This is decidedly less posh, and if you get collared, you’ll be there for a while — as the Hill Street Blues guy used to say, let’s be careful out there.
Also, (Thomas) Frampton comes alive!

…during the RNC, and so does live music. If you’re at loose ends on Thursday night, step over to the Baggot Inn to hear Emith at 8 PM. It’s an acoustic duo with a variety of influences, sure to soothe your red-state-inflamed nerves. Plus, Carol is pretty.
More scheduling info here.

Anyone want a ticket for the Cardigans/Liz Phair show at Webster Hall tomorrow night? I can’t go, and I’ll unload my ticket to you at a discount if you make it easy for me (i.e. arrange to pick it up at a mutually agreeable time/location).
Email me for deets, sars@tomatonation.com. First come, first et cetera.

Before Sunday I had never been to the WTC. Neither standing nor fallen. At first glance, as people had told me, the location really does just look like a construction zone–perfect mounds of dirt, bulldozers, smoothed out areas ready for development. But as I stood, taking it all in, the reminders (both big and small) are all very apparent. Poster size photographs of the relief effort, an aerial shot of the flattened area, vendors selling WTC memorabilia (gag!), surrounding skyscrapers still being rebuilt, and this ominous left over–a cross beam from one of the towers that acts as a tombstone.
Before Sunday I thought the emotional impact of Ground Zero had been bulldozed away with the building’s remnants, but it’ll never be just another construction site.

Well I’m sure Republican reps will have a field day when they see this on Houston and Lafayette. I’m no prude, but come one! She’s about to toss his salad!!!
In the words of Paris Hilton, “That’s hot”

Finally! Someone gets my Jonathan Swift Humor! I cannot even count how many times I have been waiting for my food in a restaurant and been bothered by some particularly annoying children only to suggest “A Modest Proposal” to kill two birds with one stone, only to be greeted by blank stares. Perhaps I am not destined to be misunderstood after all…
Regardless, I plan on heading up to 27th and Broadway to eat a hotdog and pick up a copy of The Compassionate Republican’s Guide to Mastering the Art of Human Cookery and if you enjoy cannibalism humor and dirty-water dogs, you probably should too.

Great article published yesterday with excerpts of an interview with President Bush conducted at Ricketts Park in Farmington, N.M. on Aug. 26, 2004 by Elisabeth Bumiller and David E. Sanger of the New York Times. Bumiller’s portion especially depicts the utter absurdity and frustration of asking the same question over and over again and never getting a straight answer. Damn, I know how that feels!
It’s pretty much summed up by the quote at the very end of the article…

MS. BUMILLER: At your last big press conference, you said that you couldn’t think of any mistakes you had made. It’s been about three or four months. Can you think of any now? It’s been a long time.
THE PRESIDENT: You mean other than having this interview?

This past weekend my BF and I headed up to Mt. Tremper, a small town upstate near Woodstock. We stayed at the Lazy Meadow, a lodge that Kate Pierson from the B-52s recently bought and rennovated. Each room is decked out in sweet 50s mod interiors, each a bit different from the other. Room #3 was outrageous! It was super quiet and, as the name would have it, lazy!
The church photo is from Phoenica, a town a few miles away from the lodge. The main street features THE best breakfast nook: Sweet Sue’s, which features 22 kinds of pancakes, fresh eggs, and great coffee (mmmmm). Phoenicia also has a great junk shop called Mystery Spot, where I got an amazing yellow dress and adorable vintage ceramic kitten S & P shakers. On Sunday, with the sun shinin’ we headed over to Minnewaska State Park, which has an amazing waterfall, as well as a huge reservoir-style lake. If you get sick of the RNC protests To decompress post RNC: borrow a car, drive 2 1/2 hours, and get lazy with Kate and fat with Sue.
ED NOTE: I’ve edited my original post in response to a reader’s disappointment that I suggested people might want to escape the RNC protests. While I might find the RNC’s presence to be insulting within a city that’s been terrorized enough, I don’t think New Yorkers should duck and cover while Bush is in town. Even if you don’t want to participate in a rally it’s important to show Republicans that as voters (whatever your party affiliation) we won’t take the political process for granted and cover our eyes when we are inconvenienced, or just plain annoyed.

i mean a real, live, more fruit, less sugar, melt-in-your-mouth crust, that reminds you of something your mother made (if your mother is/was an awesome pastry chef, elsewise, definitely something your mother couldn’t/wouldn’t make!).
pamie’s closing question inspired me to ask this question… and hey, i still have about 50 gmail accounts to give away so… if you are sans a gmail account and can come up with an excellent recommendation for the ultimate place to have your pie and eat it too in this fair city then… please, comment away!
thanks… (:=

Anyone considering taking in a Fringe Festival show should start with “The Adams Conglomerate High School Drama Club Presents: Tales of the 8th Grade!”. Yes, the title is somewhat unwieldy, but your face will hurt from laughing — I saw it last night, and it is BRILLIANT, particularly the guys playing Troy and Ghost Kelsey. Hee.
A bit of background: Tara Ariano wrote “The Bad Teen Novel,” which you should read in addition to seeing the play, because it too is brilliant in the way that only middle-school purple prose can be. (My own BTN, set in a stable, is lost to history. Thank God.) Then Brad Akin adapted the BTN as a musical, and so you’ve got the hilariously bad thirteen-year-old prose, AND you’ve got a bunch of actors pretending to be bad actors, looking at their feet for marks, messing up cues, chewing the scenery, singing off-key…it’s so many layers of bad that it’s probably the best play I’ve ever seen. Clever, funny, the costumes are awesome, I can’t say enough good things about it. Well done, Akin & Co.
Anyway. Best $15 you’ll spend. Go see it.