Museum! Aquarium!

Two latin words giving us art and sea life. A great weekend for Jules and Vivienne. Dia Beacon and the Norwalk Aquarium. Richard Serra, Louise Bourgeois, Sol LeWitt, poisonous frogs, sting rays, sharks, and meerkats. Oh, the expanding mind of the one year olds in New York.

 

Getting regular

I've decided to post an update every day about what i've done that day.

Today I rehearsed a Serge Gainsbourg song, "Je t'aime moi non plus," with my friend Elisabeth Cernadas, for a show she's doing February 13th with her band Les Bandits. I'm singing that song with her. It's a very naughty french song about sex. Perfect for Valentine's day. We dedicate it to all the lovers. I dedicate it to Chelsea.








After that, we went to a bar in Fort Greene, Die Schwartze Kolne, for a kids' playtime and beer drinking session. Here's a picture of all the kids and moms and nannies enjoying a Brooklyn afternoon with great beer and toys and a nice padded floor. I love Brooklyn. Vivienne and Jules made new friends as usual.

A thought about gun control

I recently subscribed to a conservative newsletter so I could see what the gun crazies in this country are thinking. For about six weeks, I was privy to the inside scoop from the right wing on everything from gun control to gay marriage to immigration to Obama's secret plot to destroy America. What I discovered when it came to gun control was that the radical wing of the American right actually, seriously believes that the US government, led by Barack Obama, is planning a "Kristalnacht" style, forceful take-over of its enemies, in which henchmen go door to door killing, abducting, and raping red-blooded patriots who don't support the Socialist agenda being diabolically hatched by the liberals. This is why the Second Amendment to the Constitution is so important to them, because it guarantees those patriots the right to remain heavily armed against the coming leftist, government-sponsored massacre of the innocents. They want to prevent the impending cultural revolution, in which the pure, American, capitalist enemies are slain and Chairman Obama is delivered the blood-soaked nation, transforming it into a hard-core, Marxist dictatorship.
OK, fine. However, there is one massive logical flaw to this scenario that I would like to point out. If Obama's government is planning to take over the nation, then why is he trying to shrink the military? If the danger is your own government, then why favor a stronger, better funded military? Why support more police? Wouldn't the more prudent policy be to completely disempower and dismantle the military, so the evil left-wing insurgents have no soldiers to attack you with? Wouldn't Obama wnat to beef up his military in preparation for his coup?
Whatever. When people are completely, certifiably insane, logic has no place. Gun control is happening. Obama won. This nation is slowly inching its way toward common sense and modernity. All the crazies can fester and rant and shoot each other in the ass at target practice...

Dark and Sandy

Hurricane Sandy hit New York on October 27th and we prepared ourselves by stocking up on food, wine, flashlights, and batteries. When it was time for the actual storm, we felt some very strong wind, barely any rain, and the power in our building flickered ever so slightly at 9:30PM. The next morning, we went outside and the street was basically fine except for a few downed trees. All in all, it was not a very dramatic event for me, my family, and my fellow residents of Fort Greene Brooklyn. As the week progressed, we stayed home from work, and we heard reports of the devastation in New Jersey, Manhattan, and other parts of Brooklyn, Queens, and the Rockaways. As the week progressed, it became clearer and clearer that we had dodged a bullet, as we saw the devastation caused by this massive storm.
On the 29th,  I drove down to my studio in Dumbo, and was surprised to see that there was not a drop of water anywhere, even though I had been warned there would be major flooding. My basement studio was dry as a bone, even as buildings just forty feet west of it were flooded up to three feet above the first floor. Again, I got the eerie feeling that I had been spared a catastrophe of Biblical proportions by just a few feet.

So where was all this devastation? On Thursday, November 1st, I drove my Vespa to Manhattan to go to work at the Plaza Hotel On my way there, I stopped at the apartment of Bill and Laurie, Chelsea's aunt and uncle, on 10th Street and Avenue C. What I saw there completely changed my experience. Lower Manhattan was a complete ghost town. I drove through Manhattan from the south to the north in the afternoon, during daylight hours. There was not a single traffic light functioning. Police directed traffic, and the usually cutthroat traffic was subdued as vehicles negotiated busy intersections, using only whatever philosophy they thought would save them from destruction. It occurred to me that society is a series of constructs and shared, accepted truths. The fact that human beings stop their speeding cars at red lights and wait for them to turn green seemed miraculous to me, as I edged my scooter through intersections next to bewildered drivers of all persuasions.  

After work, at midnight, as I drove south from Fifth Avenue and 59th Street, I could see that the city was completely dark below 39th Street in the distance. I drove down through midtown, Gramercy, Chelsea, the east Village, Soho, Tribeca, and Chinatown, in a complete daze. I fell into a reverie in the quiet streets. This is what Manhattan was like one hundred and fifty years ago, vefore electricity, when the Dutch, British and French vied for dominance and all above Canal Street was farmland. This is what it was like two, three, five hundred years ago when the natives who lived here ran and fished and hunted and camped. It was deeply moving and beautiful. It made me sad for the over-lit, over-exposed, over-stimulated and stimulating state of my crazy city. Why do we need so many damn lights on all the time? It was so peaceful without all those insipid advertisements and honking horns and blaring music. Don't get me wrong, I feel terrible for all of those who lost property and life in the storm, and who went without heat and water for over a week. But would it kill us to turn some lights off once in a while?


 On Wednesday, I drove my car to Rockaway beach, filled with water bottles to donate to those without water. What I saw there can't really be described. This is still happening, and it seems the best thing to do is to donate to the Rede Cross. Here's the link to donate http://www.redcross.org/charitable-donations
 

 

 

I'm a Socialist

I just spent two weeks in France with my wife and kids. I like life in France because it values lifestyle over money. The rich are not quite as rich, and everyone is better off. We all know that Europe is in trouble and that French-style socialism is a dying model, but I like it. Americans could stand to work a little less, pay some more taxes, and enjoy life. Really, what are we here for? The French had their revolution and they murdered the rich. The rich people in France know that you can only fuck the poor for so long before they rise up and slice off your head like a quiche. The rich of America don't really understand this yet. Their time will come.

GUNS ARE SHIT

Yesterday the NYPD reported that the shooting at 34th Street was not "terrorism-related." Whew! So far since 9-11 there have been exactly ZERO terrorism-related deaths in the US and about 343,000 gun-related deaths. Maybe we are chasing the wrong enemy?

I Can Outrun Your Gun

I can outrun your gun
Outwaddle your swaddle
I can outthink your violence
I can outlast your clamor
I can outsmart your loud
I can out silence your crowd
I can outsource your devices
I can outnice your macho
I can outfox your boss
Out toddle your milk bottle
I can outfield your dreams
I can outstand your sitter
I can outdistance your horizon
I can outscream your team
out lovely your ugly
out cute your malamute
I can outbreak your plague
Outshake your leg
outcrank your motor
Outrank your sergeant
Outwrangle your newfangled
Outpiss your sis
outspank your paddle
outflank your army
outshank your leg o lamb
outscramble your egg salad
out romance your power ballad
So sleep well my brother and mrs and mr.