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 areas just out my window (which through, everyday, I look at the world...)--stretching from Perry to Christopher Streets, between Greenwich and Washington Streets--a sweet, rare victory for the children of the late, fondly remembered Jane Jacobs, whose spirit still holds sway in her anteroom at La Paloma Blanca on 11th and Hudson-- a decisive defeat for the rapacious gilded greedheads and the aesthetically blinkered.

and 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 NYC spaces) to catch a particularly incandescent short set by the Brazilian Girls (woops, been instructed to strike the "the" from their moniker henceforth), sultry vocals courtesy of the beautiful Sabina Sciubba who has to be one of the hottest performers on the planet right now, her potty-mouth patter between the songs only one flaming arrow in her, uh, quiver, at one point mid-Shau she turned her back on the audience and absent-mindedly scratched her left buttock/hiked her panties up through the thick layers of her elegante grey organza 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 BG's Didi sublimely summoned the ghost of Augustus Pablo with his melodica on the opener "Homme", and Aaron (lanky rubber-limbed drummer/dish with mucho muscular authority, style a cross somewhere between Artie Tripp and The Pop Group's Bruce Smith) and Jesse (smooth, mathematically complex bassist) brought a desultory crowd of wearied, 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 West Village Caroline and I accompanied birthday girl Shaista Hussain to catch a memorable set by soul rebel temptress Imani Coppolla at NuBlu (same joint Bazilllllllion Girls emerged from) in the Way Down East Village that brought back fond memories of 70's nasty gal Betty Davis (the former Betty Mabry, Miles' Mlle.), but now revved-up with even harder, more insistent incantatory mutant funk grooves (good band with a fabulous female sax player who sat in with them), some of Greg Tate's Burnt Sugar crew were in attendance, also our boy Richard Porton of Cineaste...turns out Imani made an album that Columbia/Sony somehow never released (I know that song!), she definitely has the spark and the spirit and the vibe to grow far...

Saturday night Caroline pulled off a real coup de theatre at April Barton's Suite 303 in the (still) fabulous Chelsea Hotel with a 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, riveting performance (I normally snore--literally--through these things, eliciting once a very hard stare indeed from Dame Judi Dench who observed me waking up 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, a light worth tuning for till she was 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 Linane" and the film "In America", and a spunky, natural young girl who played Johnny's daughter who could well be the next Tatum O'Neal (circa "Paper Moon"--and damn if Tatum her self wasn't in the audience!)... 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 how she thought Johnny had really come into his own as an actor recently, especially on the episode which aired a few weeks back where 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 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 poet (and author of the best Times op-ed piece ever, "I Class Up a Joint"), the fabulous Rene Ricard who I hadn't laid eyes on since the first Jeff Buckley memorial at St. Mark's Church... lotsa good eats there too (chocolate covered strawberries and champagne went down smooooth), much comings and goings and troopings in and out of these rooms which resembled a film set set in 20's heyday of Maxwell Bodenheimlich maneuvers/petite Village Bohemia ( or coulda been Belgravia) , later on a glamorous grey dowager empress type got up to sing "Someone to Watch Over Me' at the grand piano tinkled grandly by Scott, set next to a picture window with a sweeping majestic view of 23rd street, was a real party mix of blood latin gay straight and whatever geno-types, chimes at midnight and in walked (surprise surprise!) my old friends the Persian diva/whirling dervish Sussan Deyhim and her saturnine partner (and Golden Globe winner, for "The Sheltering Sky") composer/keyboardist Richard Horowitz aqnd they'd just come from a lesbian bar-mitzvah (I Love New York!), woke up it was a Chelsea evening and we supped and sipped and dished and dashed, Richard up to Harlem, Sussan Caroline and I back down to the Village, what peerless energy what a memorable night it was too...

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

good night...

good night

(do not go gentle into That)

xxLove

Gary

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Posted by Gary Lucas to Gary Lucas at 5/08/2006 11:02:00 AM