The Metropolist

Batman, Robin & The End of the World

"Batman, Robin & The End of the World" should be a 1940s serial. Instead, it's my upcoming weekend.

Well, maybe not THE Batman and Robin, but Bateman and Robbins, which is weirdly close. Tim Robbins and Jason Bateman, along with Operation Truth's Paul Rieckhoff, will be the guests of Janeane Garofalo and Sam Seder on The Majority Report tonight.

Why is that my weekend? Because Air America is broadcasting live from The Tank on our penultimate night on 42nd Street.

Doors open at 6pm. Live radio show from 7-10pm Yes, they really will be there.

But we won't be there for long...and that's the bigger story.

Our universe ends soon. The universe of West 42nd Street. Two Off-Broadway Theaters I've known for 2 decades apiece. Basement studio spaces I performed in for 8 months 4 years ago. The diner I've been going to since I was little has already moved.

And, of course, the upstart Tank, the block's relative newcomer, which stormed forth to barrel over mountains is soon to be overturned by bulldozers. Not on Saturday, despite the sound of our ominously named WRECKING BALL farewell party, but soon enough.

Saturday is our final public event. The band that played our opening, Bishop Allen, headlines for us once again. Another Tank fave, We Are Scientists -- who recently signed with a label -- join us. And so do a few hundred friends, we hope.

So join us. For the end of the universe. Unless the dynamic duo of Bateman and Robbins somehow save the day.

You're in the Majority

Liberals -- no need to be ashamed, intimidated or overwhelmed. You're in New York. You're in the majority. And you can be proud.

So join the majorty -- and The Majority Report, with Janeane Garofalo and Sam Seder, LIVE this Friday night. At (of course) The Tank, which closes its doors on 42nd Street the next night.

Tim Robbins and Paul Rieckhoff (Operation Truth) will be on the show, in The Tank and everywhere you looks.

Come join the fun for a penultimate night of Tankishness.

Why does Bloomberg have Neil Giacobbi do his dirty work?

Why is our Mayor hiding behind Neil Giacobbi?

Come to think of it, who is Neil Giacobbi?

Here's a funny story about Michael Bloomberg. The Parks1 campaign wants to enable its supporters to email the Mayor. But his re-election website won't give an email address. You have to fill out a form.

So I did. I asked if they'd start posting events.

And Neil Giaccobbi wrote back.

So, his being the only address I had to communicate with CREEM (the Committee to Re-Elect the Mayor), I used it on the Parks1 site.

Is Neil the right guy? Not necessarily. But our Communications Director did receive this email back from him:

"Ms. Daly,

I am inquiring about the posting on your web site that references Mayor Bloomberg (http://www.parks1.org/candidates) You listed my email address. I can direct you to an appropriate person within the campaign for comment. But, I did not supply that statement nor do I deal in matters of policy and the press.

Sincerely,
Neil Giacobbi"

Which means soon the Mayor can hide behind the appropriate policy rep.
And it means that people have trying to write to the Mayor about our parks.

Miller Time, A Taste of Weiner and Another Night at Rudy's

Rudy's is a storied Hell's Kitchen dive known for its cheap beer, free hot dogs and colorful clientele.

Last night, all of that took a more political turn, as candidates stopped by Drinking Liberally to raise the spirits of a courtyard full of progressives...a pint of their own.

Free Weiner. You can always get a free meal at Rudy's, but last night's hot dog was Congressman Anthony Weiner, who braved the back porch to give an energetic address to the crowd. After a few jeers and a juvenile (but excited) chant of "Weiner, Weiner, Weiner," the Congressman stood his ground and held attention for a short stump speech.

Miller Time. Liberal Drinkers may favor Amber Bock or Yuengling, but last night was all Miller as City Council Speaker Gifford Miller took his own turn on the porch. "Keep drinking...I don't want to interrupt that," he told the crowd as part of a brief shout-out. Then, he did one better and came into the crowd itself. Forty-five minutes later, when the bouncer needed to start silencing the backyard due to city noise regulations, Giff was still there, chatting with everyone, enjoying a pint and even eating a hot dog. Take that, Weiner.

Hmmm...silencing the backyard due to noise regulations. If only we knew someone in city government.

The Best Politician Jim McManus Ever Knew

When asked recently who he considered the best politician he ever knew, Jim McManus -- the longtime district leader of the McManus Democratic Club and Hell's Kitchen, the keeper of stories of politics past and the welcoming guide to many Democratic newcomers to New York -- responded that it was the old Queens DA who never gave a speech in his life.

Instead, he'd come to the podium and sing. One Irish song. One Italian song. One Jewish song. Then he'd sit to the rousing applause of his ecstatic audience.

We joked that today he'd have to know Spanish as well.

Gifford Miller may be a young man, but he has listened well to wisdom beyond his years. And one wonders if he's summoning the spirit of that DA as he sings on the campaign trail as the New York Times reports.

In addition to Jewish, Italian and Irish songs (sung in English, not Gaelic), he's added the anthems of Kenya, Greece and Puerto Rico.

Jim McManus, are you impressed?

The Parks War

In calling newly-hired and trained gardeners a "privately leveraged army," yesterday's New York Times extended the proud tradition of military imagery from the War on Drugs, the War on Illiteracy and the War on Terror (which actually is a military endeavor...in party) to...The War on Parks?

Well, just like the French and Indian War did not pit the French and Native Americans against each other, the Parks War doesn't feature anybody attacking the parks. Rather, the war is to defend these vital open spaces from the long, cold seige of indifference and neglect that has left parks and playgrounds in too many neighborhoods with broken water fountains, locked restrooms and fields littered in broken glass.

The "army" referred to are the new recruits of the Neighborhood Parks Initiative: gardeners who are being hired onto fulltime, professional contacts using privately leveraged funds and trained in the city's heart, Central Park.

After the training in Central, Jeannette was one gardener who looked at her park, Echo Park in the Bronx, "through all new eyes."

"Now if I see cigarette butts, they got to come up," she explained. "All trash -- get it up." Until she had Central as a point of comparison, she assumed a little litter was par for the parks.

She and her comrades-in-rakes were ushered into neighborhood-parks-in-need by New Yorkers for Parks, which (not coincidentally) runs the Parks1 campaign I'm working on to make NYC Parks #1 in the Nation.