B.B. King
Eric Gioia, Talib Kweli Rock to Save Darfur
Last night, at the "Rock to Save Darfur Concert-Benefit," City Councilman Eric Gioia told Talib Kweli that he'd like to replace Mos Def as the other half of Blackstar. Kweli laughed and shook his head.
Gioia was at B.B. King's Blues Club in Times Square, along with a handful of hip-hop artists and human rights activists, as one of the sponsors of a City Council resolution asking the New York City pension fund to divest from Sudan.
“I’ve been working on this for about two years, and its kind of a lonely fight,” Gioia told me backstage before he addressed the crowd. read more »
I'm Thomas Pynchon, Bitch!
Steve's Pants
"Atwater was cool, tick/twitch filled and charismatic...Atwater could be over the top, but he had his own kind of manic grace, which Minarik lacks. Atwater knew how to use people and make them feel good about it. read more »
"I can't picture Minarik playing with B.B. King or with one of the Rolling Stones or dropping his pants for a magazine photo."
Whew!And He's Off!
And you know it's political season when Verna Eggleston, the head of the city's welfare agency, returns from wherever she's spent the last three years. Never mind that her agency is widely viewed as adrift, as this Newsday article politely points out. It's election time, and she's introducing the mayor.
Bloomberg, looking happy and relaxed, laid out some campaign themes: "A leader not a politician...not only the tough decisions but the right decisions...optimism, integrity, and independence." The real theme, however, seemed to be volunteers, and Mike's newly launched website bears that out.
"I'm not asking for your money," he said. "I'm asking for your support, your dedication, and your commitment,"
And speaking of commitment, the elusive uber-guru David Garth made a personal appearance, and we had the pleasure of taking a bit of ritual abuse from a man who returns, say, 3% of our phone calls.
Garth was soon replaced at the door by Kevin Sheekey, who beamed at the crowd, which included his wife, a serious Democrat, who was even holding a sign. He promised to keep the bar open late, as the line stretched toward 7th Avenue and the mayor's sister thanked people for waiting and the mayor departed to what sounded to us like a new theme song: "Ain't No Stopping Us Now." read more »
Nobody could give us a price tag for the event, which also included Mud Truck, the self-described "anti-establishment coffee machine of NYC's East Village," parked right outside. We asked the shaggy guy pouring tasty free coffee how much his services had set Mike back.
"Can you really put a price on a person's soul?" he replied.Mike Tracey's New Gig
Bloomberg's 50,000 volunteers -- and we're assuming that these are real volunteers, not "volunteers" in the same sense that Mike's charity is "anonymous" -- would give him a great comeback to the inevitable attacks on his wealth. His aides have no doubt learned a lot about organizing from the Presidential campaigns. And we don't doubt that there are a lot of people in the city who'd like to be involved, and who like Mike.
One interesting side note, however, is how the Republican National Convention turns out to have been a useful prologue to the campaign. Kevin Sheekey, obviously, is running both operations. But we've also noticed that the head of volunteers for the Convention, Mike Tracey, has moved into the same position on the Bloomberg campaign.
Tracey, according to this story from his NYU student newspaper, was an intern at the Host Committee before going on staff there. He also appears to be an actual Republican, which may make him the only one on the campaign so far.
Sheekey told us Tracey wouldn't be able to talk before tonight, mostly because he's too busy organizing the event. He also told us that they're not using Convention volunteer lists for the campaign.
But they will be able to capitalize on some of the Convention's volunteer infrastructure.
We're told that groups -- young Republican clubs, things like that -- were asked last summer to send the Host Committee spreadsheets of volunteers, ranked A, B, and C according to reliability and dedication. The Convention put the spreadsheets together. But there's nothing stopping Tracey from going back to the same groups, and even asking them to hit "send" again on the spreadsheets. So far, we've seen a mass email from the Metropolitan Republican Club directing its volunteers to contact Tracey directly.
So maybe that whole Convention thing was just practice for the main event. (Just joking, Kevin.) read more »
Anyway, the volunteer fun begins tonight at 5:30 PM at B.B. King's in Times Square.Second-Degree Schadenfreude
James Brown: Doing It to Death … Cashed Out
