We Are The Village Green

Huzzah! The Village Green Preservation Society (member in good standing I am haha, courtesy civic-minded Danny Fields) has successfully rolled back the vulgarians at the gate threatening to erect yet more steel and glass crackerbox palaces in this fair parrish by successfully lobbying the city to extend the Greenwich Village Historic District to encompass more blocks just out my window (where everyday, I look at the world from...)--a tract stretching from Perry to Christopher Streets, bounded by Greenwich and Washington Streets--this is a sweet, rare victory for the children of the late fondly remembered Jane Jacobs, whose spirit still holds sway in her anteroom at Taverna La Paloma Blanca on 11th and Hudson-- and a decisive defeat for the rapacious gilded greedheads and the aesthetically blinkered architects and developers with designs on our neighborhood...

...from whence I sallied forth this week to the Tribeca Music Lounge (formerly the Canal Room, the New Music Cafe, Smokestacks Lightning, et al, one of those twilight zone mutable NYC spaces) to catch an incandescent short set by the Brazilian Girls (woops, must strike the "the" from their moniker henceforth), sultry siren-esque vocals courtesy of beautiful sweet 'n salty Sabina Sciubba, who has to be one of the hottest performers on the planet right now, her potty-mouth patter between songs merely one flaming arrow let fly from her, uh, quiver, at one point mid-Schau she turned her back on the audience and insouciantly, absent-mindedly scratched her ass/adjusted her panty line through the thick layers of her elegante wraparound silver outfit, which provoked a shocked, smothered titter from the 2 Japanese girls sitting in front of me (hey you think you're gonna read about THAT in the good old Times?)--and as she soared BG's Didi sublimely summoned up the ghost of Augustus Pablo with his melodica on the opener "Homme", and Aaron (lanky rubber-limbed drummer/dish with mucho muscular authority, percussion style a cross somewhere between Artie Tripp and The Pop Group's Bruce Smith), and Jesse (smooth, mathematically complex and accomplished bassist) brought a desultory crowd of weary, jaded Tribeca Film Festival laminate-wearers to their feet, effortlessly (including me, sans laminate...to quote Alfonso Bedoya-- "Botches? BOTCHES?? I DON'T NEED NO STINKIN' BOTCHES!!")...really looking forward to their new album.

Night before (or two) after dining at Miracle Grill in the evergreen West Village Caroline and I accompanied birthday girl/friend Shaista Husain to catch a memorable 1am set by soul rebel-temptress Imani Uzuri at NuBlu (same joint Bazilllllllion Girls emerged from) in the way-down- East Village, a gig that brought back fond memories of 70's nasty gal Betty Davis (the former Betty Mabry, Miles' Mlle.), now revved-up with even harder, more insistent and incantatory mutant funk grooves (she had a really good band with her, and a fine female sax player sitting in), some of Greg Tate's Burnt Sugar crew were in attendance, also our man Richard Porton of Cineaste...not to be confused with Imani Coppolla (lotsa Imani's out there) who apparently made an album that Columbia/Sony somehow never got around to releasing (been there, been done by that...what the hey, right when I got done was when I pulled "Grace" out of my hat) ...anyway Imani U definitely has the spark and the spirit and the drive and the vibe to grow Far...

Saturday night Caroline scored a real coup de theatre at April Barton's Suite 303 in the (still) fabulous Chelsea Hotel by casting a stellar reading of an excellent new film script by "hair dresser to the stars" April B--a reading dominated by Johnny Ventimiglia, a/k/a Artie Bucco from The Sopranos, who gave an amazing, funny, riveting performance (I normally snore--literally--through these things, eliciting a very hard stare once from Dame Judi Dench upon waking from my golden slumbers during the last act of "Amy's View" on B'way a couple years ago)...also on hand for the reading was gorgeous Jersey Girl Drea Di Matteo (the late lamented Adrianna from The Sopranos, who never failed to light up that program, till she was quite tragically offed by Little Steven...or was it David Chase?), also Irish American actress/gamine Bernadette Quigley who was so great in "The Beauty Queen of Leenane" and the film "In America", and a spunky, natural young girl who played Johnny's daughter, and who could well be the next Tatum O'Neal (circa "Paper Moon"--and damn if Tatum herself wasn't in the audience for this reading)... great great script and compelling ensemble reading, especially from Johnny V who definitely deserves more airtime on my favorite television show (funnily enough, Peggy Bewkes was telling me just a few days before how she thought both Michael Imperioli and Johnny V had really come into their own as actors this season, Johnny especially convincing on the episode which aired a few weeks back wherein he beat up the young mobster trying to shake down Vesuvio's with a credit-card scam)...

then we all trooped upstairs to a wild wild party in producer Scott Griffin's deluxe suite of apts. on the 5th floor (Scott just produced a Robert Altman-directed play by Arthur Miller for Kevin Spacey at the Old Vic in London), where I ran into legendary Warhol superstar, poet, (and author of the best Times op-ed piece ever, circa '77 or '78, "I Class Up a Joint"), the very Rene Ricard (think Ronald Firbank crossed with Franklin Pangborn), who I hadn't laid eyes on since the first Jeff Buckley memorial at St. Mark's Church in '96...nice goatee, Rene... lotsa good eats there too (chocolate covered strawberries and Jack Daniels went down smooooth yesiree), much comings and goings and troopings and regroupings in and out of the nest of rooms which resembled a film set of a film set in the early 20's heyday of petite Village Bohemia (coulda been Belgravia also), lotsa Maxwell Bodenheimlich maneuverings going down now, later on a glamorous grey dowager-empress type got up to sing "Someone to Watch Over Me" in a classic Madhattan moment, perched next to the piano tinkled grandly by Scott in front of a picture window with a sweeping majestic view of 23rd street, a real party mix of blood latin gay straight and whatever geno-type A personalities, verily we did hear the chimes at midnight and in walked (omigod) my old friend Persian whirling dervish-diva Sussan Deyhim and her saturnine sardonic/cerebral partner (and let us not forget Golden Globe winner for his contributions to the "The Sheltering Sky"), composer/keyboardist Richard Horowitz, and they'd just come from an endless lesbian bar-mitzvah where the rabbi (rabbess?) apparently mentioned the phrase "anal sex" about 50 times in her sermon (I Love New York!), woke up it was a Chelsea evening and we supped and sipped and dished and eventually dashed, Richard up to Harlem, Sussan, Caroline and I back down to the Village, what peerless energy what glorious vibes what a night to dismember...

and now it's time to say good night...

good night...

good night...

(do not go gentle into That)

xxLove

Gary