Post delayed due to rough Saturday night, an explanation of ‘rough’ follows:
The Nervous Cabaret, who performed at thedanger.com’s Halloween party, had good reason to be anxious. For non-New Yorkers unaccustomed with this city’s cabaret law, we’re living in a city where dancing is illegal in public unless the owner of an ‘establishment’ holds a license, has been fingerprinted, and can afford a back-up generator. I’m not sure if it was this particular law, the various Building Code violations, or the state liquor licensing laws that caused the party organizers to run afoul of the NYPD, ending the fun in a warehouse lost in Bushwick. Probably, too many people (around 3,000) wearing scary costumes showing up all at once didn’t help matters.
It’s tough to throw a party in this town, especially one with a sense of adventure while also meeting the authority’s standards for ‘public safety’. My friend Jennie best described the super-club and mini-club zones of Chelsea and the Meat-Packing District as the ‘Senior Assholes and Junior Assholes Quarters’ within the city: lines of people waiting behind velvet ropes starting fights with bouncers to pay for canned experiences of slick DJs, expensive drinks, new fake-old interiors. It’s the acceptance of the new fake-old aesthetic that really bothers me as an architect, especially when this city is so full of authentic industrial decrepitude. Fortunately, someone is trying to make use of it.
We did get to see the Hungry March Band march, a bit of Subatomic Sound System, and several of the scheduled DJs spin prior to it all going wrong- but, I’m reasonably certain that neither of the headliners, Spinoza & Wolf + Lamb, made it on. The police showed up shortly after 2am to thoroughly disperse the crowd, so thoroughly that I lost all of my friends in addition to the ones I couldn’t find in the first place. Admittedly, this might have been aggravated by alchohol-impaired judgements on several counts. My friend Rob sent me this message a few hours later:
…I made it to 3rd Ward. I did not see you there, but that was no surprise considering how overcrowded it was. What a fucking nightmare, those guys should be charged with endangerment of their guests. On the way down from the third floor the bathrooms were overflowing and dripping down the stairs onto everyone’s head, most people will probably wake up with E. coli…
Hopefully, Third Ward will be able to get a new Certificate of Occupancy and a bonafide cabaret license, because a lot of people would like to see it all go right.
Hey Heidi, how’s things? I moved your post to the Sunday slot. All you have to do is click on the “posting” tab on the main page, click “edit” next to your post, and then click on “post and comment options” on the bottom of that screen. There you can pre or post-date your submission to any time/date you want. Glad to read your stuff. I was trying to remember the last we spoke, I’m coming up with thirteen or fourteen years ago. Wow, I’m old.
I have a KTRU shift that follows the Mutant Hardcore Flower Hour on Thursday nights now. I have fun but God help Houston. Anyways, I played “Bullinga” by Mike Gunn last week. Oh, the great Oneness of the universe comes tumbling my way this morning.
Hi John- thanks for moving it- I had no idea how to do that. The manuscript of the Popul Vuh is old, not you.
Ms. Rosa- It’s hilarious that song still get airplay- people used to drive me out of the station with it. I’ll have to listen to Thursday nights again soon… always prefered ‘Tom’s in the Bathroom’ for some reason.
Dave Chaffin (orginal mutant hardcore flower hour dj) is here in the city somewhere- spotted him at Santacon last xmas. How is all of that old colored vinyl anyway?!
Cheers.