Best Beer Gardens

Sorry for the late post, but this article originally appeared in amNewYork's weekend issue, May 10-12:

Between 1820 and 1860, 1.5 million immigrants arrived in America from Germany, bringing with them their own cultural traditions -- ­ among them outdoor beer gardens. Unlike the bars in Irish neighborhoods, the German beer gardens catered to whole families, and public drinking was just one of their attractions. Although many of New York's historic beer gardens have disappeared, this summer you can still enjoy a cold one at any of these authentic beer gardens around the city.

BROOKLYN

Gowanus Yacht Club
Garage-sale chic meets Gilligan's Island at this kitschy beer garden with a beach-shack feel. Sit outside on wooden benches and chow down on their 10 types of hot dogs while you drink wine or cheap, frothy beer in Styrofoam cups. Homemade and broken-in, with frat boys mixing politely with children and city-folk, the Yacht Club feels like a family picnic. (Open Memorial Day through Halloween; 323 Smith St., at President Street; 718-246-1321)

The Gate
With an extensive selection of beers on tap, knowledgeable staff and the option of indoor and outdoor seating, The Gate is one of Park Slope's best summer watering holes. The eponymous gate surrounds a packed patio, with tables perfectly situated for intimate conversation, or observing 5th Avenue passersby. It sometimes gets a little too crowded on the weekends, but you¹ll still enjoy throwing darts and listening to classic rock tunes on the jukebox. The outdoor patio is especially inviting for dogs and their owners. (321 Fifth Ave., between 3rd and 4th Streets; 718-768-4329)

MANHATTAN

Loreley
This old world German restaurant offers a taste of Bavaria on the Lower East Side. Modeled on brewhouses in Cologne, it focuses on the beer, not the bling. A darkened bar and indoor seating area in front leads to six large pine tables on the outdoor patio in back. Come hungry and order a half-liter of German beer (don¹t worry, you¹ll finish it) and hearty plate of Wiener schnitzel. (7 Rivington St., between Bowery and Chrystie Streets; 212-253-7077)

Zum Schneider
Owner Sylvester Schneider missed the all-are-welcome atmosphere of the biergardens back home in Bavaria, so he created his own in the East Village. The cash-only indoor/outdoor beer garden has a great selection of draught and bottled German beers, communal wooden tables and fake trees, and authentic German food and desserts. Almost all of the staff is fluent in both German and English, as well. (107 Avenue C, at 7th Street; 212-598-1098)

Hallo Berlin
"New York's wurst restaurant," the Hallo Berlin menu proudly proclaims. In fact, the wurst is tops at one of Manhattan's best German restaurants. They've created an authentic indoor beer garden in Hells Kitchen, complete with long picnic tables and umbrellas, so even in cold weather you can enjoy a taste of summer in Berlin. A great place for large groups, with affordable beers and food. (626 Tenth Ave., at 44th Street; 212-977-1944)

QUEENS

Bohemian Hall & Beer Garden
Arguably New York's oldest and most famous beer garden. The Bohemian Hall was built in 1910 as a haven for the traditions and culture of Czech immigrants, and has remained the most authentic European beer garden in the city. Inside is a charming old dive bar, but outside is another world -- a green, spacious expanse Manhattanites only dream of, with picnic tables under trees where folks sip cold Czech and German beer and tackle plates of hearty Czech food. (29-19 24th Ave., between 29th and 31st Streets, Astoria)

THE BRONX

Charlie's Inn opened in 1935, when Throggs Neck was still home to the German Stadium, which housed many German-American League soccer matches. After changing hands several times, this carriage house-turned-German restaurant and weekend beer garden has hasn't changed much. Customers enjoy island BBQs and live entertainment in the summer in the outdoor garden, and the Bier Garden tradition is kept alive on summer Sundays. (2711 Harding Ave.; 718-931-9727)

STATEN ISLAND

Killmeyer's
Also known as the "Old Bavarian Inn," Killmeyer's has been a part of Staten Island history since the mid-19th century. Plan a small get together in the private party room, feast on an authentic German dinner in the main dining room (adorned with Bavarian artifacts), or choose from over 150 beers and listen to music in the large outdoor beer garden. (4254 Arthur Kill Rd.; 718-984-1202)

Nurnberger Bierhaus
The extensive menu includes all the German staples, such as several different types of schnitzels, Schweinshaxe and potato dumplings. This bustling and warm German restaurant serves eight German beers on tap, plus two American brews, German wines and all varieties of Schnapps. The outdoor Biergarden at Nurnberger Bierhaus opens May 4, with live bands and four additional beers on tap. (817 Castleton Ave.; 718-816-7461)

Drinks: Up on the roof

This article appears in amNewYork's May 18-20 weekend issue:

Want a different summer escape every night of the week? As Manhattan's rooftop bar season kicks into high gear this month, there are more than 25 places to see a bird's-eye view the city. Relax and enjoy fresh air -- except for the cigarette smoke -- ­ and even more refreshing drinks at any of the high-altitude bars, whether they're trendy clubs, hidden dives or just a plastic lawn chair on a tar roof. Here are seven standouts, so you can sip in style every day of the week:

230 Fifth
With 22,000 square feet of space and enough wood benches and sturdy garden chairs for about 500 guests, the city's largest rooftop bar opened a year ago on top of the New York Market Center near Madison Square Park. 230 Fifth is so vast that it seems impossible it could be in Manhattan -- until you notice the Empire State Building and MetLife building looming as your tablemates while you sip cocktails flavored with guava, cactus and blood orange, and enjoy an array of Malaysian bar snacks. Drinks average $12 each, but the (almost) unobstructed 360-degree view of the city offers a year-round rooftop vacation that's well worth it. (230 Fifth Avenue, Twentieth floor, between 26th and 27th Streets, 212-725-4300)

A60
Though a members-only bar, there are tricks to cracking open A60. Try reserving a room at the hotel downstairs. Two separate rooftop areas present guests with picturesque midtown and lower Manhattan skyline views. The bar has room for up to 100 people, and offers pricey exotic drinks and Thai hors d'oeuvres. (60 Thompson, 60 Thompson Street, between Spring and Broome Streets, 877-431-0400)

Bar 13
Amid palm trees and illuminated panels, patrons at this Miami-themed rooftop garden can enjoy a different themed party and two-for-one happy hour specials every weeknight. Its location between NYU¹s Washington Square campus and Union Square makes this a prime destination for students stuck in the city all summer and looking for a little South Beach flavor, but the mostly under-30 crowd varies every night of the week. Affordable drinks save this otherwise lackluster roof, where opaque screens surrounding the deck mean the only place to look is up. Get there early (before 10pm) on the weekends to avoid a $10 cover charge. (35 E. 13th Street, between Broadway and University Place, 212-979-6677)

Cabana at the Maritime Hotel
Consistently ranked as one of the city's best rooftop escapes, Cabana at the Maritime fulfills your summer fantasies. In the summer, this bar in the meat-packing district feels like a cross between a trendy L.A. nightclub and a retro luxury cruise liner, complete with heat lamps, leafy plants, tropical wallpaper, lounge cushions, and plenty of strappy sandals and halter tops on the tanned female clientele. Cool off with a bottle of sake or a martini with fresh lychee juice and look for celebrities like Sean Penn, Sam Rockwell or the Hilton sisters, all of whom have been regulars in the past. And after a night of partying, you can use free passes to New York Sports Club a block away. (88 Ninth Avenue, between 16th and 17th streets, 212-242-4300)

The Delancey
During the summer, the roof is the main draw at this three-floor Lower East Side rock and roll bar near the Williamsburg Bridge. The all-weather rooftop bar is palm-fronded, South Beach style, with benches, fountains and a BBQ (and even a retractable roof that shields partiers from the rain ­ while it unfortunately eliminates an already-limited view). But beware: the roof usually closes to the public by 9pm for private parties, the drink specials aren't always as cheap as advertised, and the staff doesn't want you there. (168 Delancey Street, at Clinton Street, 212-254-9920)

Gramercy Park Hotel Private Roof Club and Garden
The Gramercy Park Hotel has just opened its own rooftop bar this spring, available only to guests of the hotel and select private members. The unique indoor and outdoor space 16 stories above the city strikes a balance between after-hours chic and classic private membership clubs, creating a country club feel in the middle of Manhattan. Paintings by Andy Warhol and Damien Hirst, among others, are on display inside. The roof promises to offer the same personal comfort and intimacy of a private home, and its exclusivity is ensured by the hotel's expensive room rates. (2 Lexington Avenue, at E. 21st Street, 212-920-3300)

Roof Garden Café
At the Roof Garden at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, young and old, tourist and native co-exist in a spacious garden setting above the treetops of Central Park. The "bar" is really just a concessions cart that serves alcohol and snacks, but in addition to the spectacular view, marvel at sculptures by Frank Stella. Children are welcome and the roof closes early (8:30 pm on Fridays and Saturdays, 4:30 pm other days). Accessible only by the southwest elevators on the ground floor of the museum, just outside the 20th-century art gallery. (The Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Avenue, at 82nd Street, 212-535-7710)

Hands, Her Greatest Asset

This story was written for NYU Livewire, the New York University Department of Journalism's feature syndicate:

American Express. Avon. McDonalds. Neutrogena. Pampers. Panasonic. Sprint. Tums.

You’ve seen Ellen Sirot advertise all of these products and companies, though you’d never know it.

Sirot, 37, is a top parts model: she specializes in showing off her hands, feet and legs. Earning as much as several thousand dollars a day working for TV and magazine ads, she is a supermodel in a competitive field most people have never heard of.

“My hands are really beautiful,” Sirot said in a recent interview. “They’re an amazing work of art. Pure porcelain. They’re like a newborn kitten, they’re so soft.”

Parts Models, a New York City agency, represents Sirot and more than 100 other men and women. Former model Dani Korwin founded the company in 1986, and takes credit for discovering the niche: no other agencies were representing parts models then, she said.

“You have to make a conscientious effort to take care of the body part,” Korwin said. “If you’re a foot model, you can’t wear flip-flops, in the event that you may stub a toe. This is part of the downside of parts modeling.”

Sirot’s hands, for example, have not seen the sun for 15 years, she said. She owns over 500 pairs of gloves and rarely takes them off, except to moisturize her hands some 20 times a day. She does not cook, clean or take out the garbage, because even a minor paper cut could cost her weeks of work. Wine glasses shatter in her nightmares.

“I started as a normal person,” she said. “But now I’m an obsessive hand model.”

Obsession is part of the job description, at least for female parts models. But the same techniques that keep a woman’s hands pristine “would be a little weird for men’s hands,” said male hand model Jimmy Furino.

“My hands are manicured, but they don’t look like mannequin hands,” Furino said. “I go to the gym, I get calluses, and my hand looks like a man’s.”

Furino, 47, usually works with Sirot when an ad calls for a couple - to promote jewelry, for example.

“I don’t prescribe to what she does,” Furino said. “She’s kind of a lunatic about it. But she’s the sweetest, kindest girl. The modeling world is generally a woman’s world anyway. She’s nutty about her hands, but she’s got her priorities straight.”

Sirot fell into modeling for extra income, while working as a dancer and waitress after graduating from Barnard College. A photographer told her she had athletic legs and perfect feet, and that she should show them off.

She got her first pedicure, then won an assignment to a national Dr. Scholl’s ad campaign, and saw her earnings rise from $2 an hour as a waitress to $300 an hour as a parts model. She soon noticed that hand models were the ones working every day.

“I became a hand detective,” she said. “It’s made me not only a hand model, but a hand care expert.”

A model’s hands must be veinless, poreless and flawless. Evenly shaped, healthy pink nails are important, as are soft cuticles and nailbeds.

“You want them to seem like they’re the hands of the girl next door,” Sirot said. “The all-American hand.”

Even at her wedding ten years ago, she wore sneakers to protect her feet and gloves to protect her hands.

She now lives with her husband in the New York City suburbs, in Westchester County. She and her young daughter have developed the “hand model high five” - a gentle tap of their palms - but she still relies on her husband or assistants for nearly every daily chore.

“Hands are like the forgotten appendage,” she adds. “They’re abused and usually not cared for at all. Ask any woman and she’ll say, ‘My hands show my age. I wish I could just sit on them.’ My hands look like a 20-year-old’s.”

The strength, endurance and muscle memory she developed as a dancer help, Sirot added. Cutting pizza or scrubbing a counter for an ad - activities she would never do at home - she must keep her hands steady and calm. Otherwise, the muscles and veins would show.

“It’s not as easy as it looks,” Sirot said. “It’s very yoga like. You’re acting with your hands.”

She is now one of few people in the world working full time as a hand model. And unlike Victoria’s Secret runway models, most of whom are out of a job by age 26, Sirot’s career has lasted. She expects to continue parts modeling for at least another 15 years.

“You can have a normal life,” Sirot said, “if you don’t mind wearing gloves all the time.”

Our Alma Mater

As New York University's class of 2007 celebrates our graduation this week, I am reminded of this same time four years ago, when we were graduating from high school and first heading off to college. In memoriam, here is what I wrote as my final "Editor's Note" for my high school newspaper, the Trojan Times:

Letter from the Editor

Well, here it is. You hold in your hands the final issue of the Wissahickon High School Trojan Times for the 2002-2003 school year. Some of you may be weeping with the knowledge that you will have to wait an entire summer before you can read the next exciting issue. Others may be thinking, “We have a school newspaper? Since when?”

No matter which of these categories best describes you, we hope you have enjoyed this year of Trojan Times. We have tried to fill each issue with interesting and timely articles, suited for the discerning high school reader. All killer, no filler. You know the drill.

Our most popular features, such as the horoscopes and “Book Nook,” continue to impress and entertain. Our writers, both on staff and contributing, go beyond the classroom to find topics of interest to all students. And all of our editors have done an amazing job this year. The paper could not have possibly come to you in homeroom every month without their continued efforts. We know that they will continue to work hard to make the Trojan Times even better next year.

The rest of the school year has been filled with even more exciting things, sure to remain in our memories for years to come. From the Winter Semi Formal to Prom; from the ever-improving football team to the Spring musical, an ambitious adaptation of Les Miserables; from fundraisers to field trips; from September to June, this year was surely unforgettable.

As we welcome a new principle to the high school, we also say farewell to the class of 2003. Graduation is upon us, and soon the nearly 330 members of the senior class will move on to a new stage in their lives. Some are going across the country to study at elite universities; others are choosing to enter the workforce; still more have decided to join the military to defend our country in troubled times, while many are unsure of what the future holds for them.

This year is quickly coming to a close, and we wish good luck to future classes. Most of all, though, we wish the best of luck to the class of 2003. As Dr. Seuss says, “You have brains in your head, you have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You're soon to be on your own, and you know what you know. You are the person who'll decide where to go.”

Wanted: Ambitious Young Filmmakers

This article was written for NYU Livewire:

After her original editor bailed, writer/director Nancy O’Mallon desperately needed a film editor for her first feature documentary, about a journey across New Jersey’s blueberry country.

She turned to the online network Shooting People and found Melissa Ulto in New York.

“We ended up working really well together, and now we are partnering on a few other projects,” said Ulto, who became both editor and animator for O’Mallon’s The Mighty Humble Blueberry.

Part social network, part job search and message board, and part video showcase, Shooting People and other new sites like it are helping filmmakers, actors and crew find each other to produce films — and also to show films to new audiences.

Other specialty film sites include the Asian American Filmmakers Network, the Louisiana Independent Filmmakers Network, Queer Screen (for Australian gay and lesbian filmmakers), and Intellifilm, aimed at college film students.

Three New York University film students started Intellifilm in 2006, to help their film school peers cast and produce their work. Membership is free, and more than 1,000 filmmakers and movie-lovers have joined.

“People put all this money into making their movies, but the sad truth is, a lot of them don’t get watched,” said Eric Krausz, who started Intellifilm with fellow students Surjyakiran Das and Steve Gnoza in 2006. “Short films don’t have a long life after they’re made. So we wanted to make a venue where they could be watched, where a film doesn’t get lost among viral videos, like on YouTube.”

Before they find an audience, though, filmmakers need a team to make a movie.

“You can’t make a film on your own,” said Jess Search, who co-founded Shooting People with fellow filmmaker Cath Le Couteur in London, then helped expand it to New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. “Film is different from photography or painting or really any other art. People come together to make a film.”

For his 2006 DVD Yoga 4 Fellas, a spoof of instructional exercise videos, London actor and filmmaker Ailon Freedman went to Shooting People to find actors and get advice on topics ranging from casting to DVD distribution to publicity. His DVD has now been picked up for international distribution.

Shooting People members have won awards at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, premiered at Sundance, been nominated for Oscars, screened at Cannes and have found wider audiences than they might have otherwise, its founders say.

The network began with 60 of Search and Le Couteur’s friends; today, about 30,000 members participate in more than 100 productions each week. Membership costs $40 per year, but its founders say Shooting People has yet to make a profit.

Dr. Simone Ahuja often travels to India, where she is shooting a PBS travel series to be called “Indique: Untold Stories of Contemporary India.” In Bombay, she spotted a Shooting People ad for a producer to work on a film about the national diabetes epidemic. She eagerly signed on, to a production that eventually ran on CNBC as “Diabetes Around the World.”

Shooting People’s Mobile Cinema also crosses the country each summer, screening its members’ films along the way — in theaters, bars, even living rooms.

“There’s a plethora of ways to get films seen, especially on the internet,” said Ingrid Kopp, the network’s U.S. director. “But it’s sometimes hard to separate the ‘noise’ from the good creative filmmaking.”

Not everyone is sold on the idea of linking up with strangers online, though.

“Every job I’ve had on a movie has come from another job,” said NYU film student Scott Rashap. “I would not think to look online, because it’s all based on personal relationships in the film business. Why hire someone you’ve never met?”

But one connection leads to another. Many established filmmakers also look to Internet sites to find fresh, young talent.

“There’s no big corporation here,” Search said. Each member is “just a guy trying to make a film.”

A Cigarette For Your Life Story

This story was written for NYU Livewire, the New York University Department of Journalism's feature syndicate. The article currently appears in the Resident and Worldpress.org:

I am standing outside a bar in the East Village with my cigarette clenched between my lips. A young man walks out the door.

“Hey buddy, do you have another cigarette? I’ll give you half a joint for it.”

I have nearly a full pack in my pocket, so why not? He shows me the joint, but I shake my head.

“Thanks. You got a light?”

You might think this would be the end of our encounter. But it is only the beginning.

Tonight as so many other nights, in front of this bar as so many other bars, a cigarette is exchanged for a life story, crammed into the five to seven minutes between lighting up and stomping out.

This man is in his mid-twenties, with greasy brown dreadlocks, piercing eyes and an unkempt beard that obscures most of his face. He extends his hand and tells me his name is Noah, nice to meet you.

Noah says he is an artist and that all of his work is created with materials he finds on the city streets, in trash cans, and in the subway. Broken subway tiles and defunct tokens are repurposed as a belt buckle. Discarded ketchup and mustard packets become a painting. Colorful bits of shattered glass find their way into a mosaic. The city is, quite literally, his palette.

His newest project is MetroCard art. “I’m having a lot of fun with that right now,” he says.

“It’s great because I can do it all with what I find on the street. People throw out so much stuff that they don’t even think about. And then I go and sell it right back to them.”

I stomp out my cigarette and promise that I will look out for some good trash for him.

I’ve met innumerable people like Noah — although no one else, of course, at all like him. I have talked to homeless people, drunken partiers, bouncers, bartenders, confused tourists, delivery boys and bike messengers. A few entrepreneurs have tried to sell me vinyl records and light-up yo-yos. All as I stood outside taking a few drags of that slow-burning cigarette.

Restaurants and nightclub smoking bans now protect the health of employees and patrons in nearly half the United States. But they’ve also pushed people out into the streets. The unexpected side effect: the bans force us to talk to one another.

A downtown bouncer tells me about his two loves — a Danish woman who lives in Amsterdam with their son, and a Chinese woman who moved back to Beijing after the birth of their daughter.

A West Village waiter taking his smoke break is incredulous that a foolish friend has been paying alimony and child support in cash. “Man, I just know he’s gonna end up paying that woman twice!”

Outside an Off Track Betting outlet an old man smoking a cigar says he’s lived in this neighborhood since he and his wife emigrated from Poland almost six decades before.

They had to move, on two days notice, when the city condemned and demolished their apartment building years ago. They used to own a clothing store on this block, but that too is gone. He barely recognizes the neighborhood, now. But he refuses to ever move again.

Then he goes back inside to place his bets.

I leave Grand Central Station and light up. A man steps in front of me and asks could I spare some change, or maybe a cigarette? His gaunt face is almost hidden under a stained gray beanie, and his bright red windbreaker is full of holes.

“That’s Jake,” he says, taking a long drag from the cigarette I hand him, and pointing to an old Labrador retriever crouched at his side. “My name’s Carl. And those guys” — he points to a group of three men huddled around a shopping cart — “they’re my buddies. We’re all ex-marines. Now we live here on the street.”

They take care of each other, he says. “And I take care of Jake.”

Carl says he is 44, but he looks much older.

“I have cancer,” he says matter-of-factly. I’ve already given him my change and a cigarette, so I assume he is telling the truth.

“And I mean, I don’t really care about it anymore, because what can I do? But I’m all he’s got.” He tells how he rescued Jake from a friend’s apartment, where the dog had been chained in a closet, often unfed.

“I had to punch the guy a few times, ended up breaking a chair over his head. When I left with Jake, I wasn’t sure whether the dude was alive or dead.” The ex-owner and Carl no longer speak.

Maybe the reason these encounters are so exciting is that I know they’ll end when my cigarette does. I listen to people’s stories, or at least the bits and pieces they choose to share, and feel I’ve learned something about the city and its people. It’s just too bad that, even while cigarettes are offering me such a wide view, they’re killing me inside.

Bob Saget is one of the best people on the planet.

Bob Saget recently came to NYU to film an upcoming HBO stand-up comedy special. I got the chance to talk with the actor/comedian before the release of his movie in January (but never wrote about it until now):

On a January afternoon, five reporters sit at a small round table in a cozy room at the Gramercy Hotel, fiddling with tape recorders and arranging, and rearranging, their notebooks and pens and bottles of sparkling water in front of them while they wait for Danny Tanner to arrive. Sorry, not Danny Tanner – Bob Saget, former star of the mega-hit family TV show “Full House” and also one of the dirtiest minds in stand-up comedy.

Saget doesn’t make them wait long. He enters the room with a broad grin, as everyone stands to shake his hand and introduce themselves. The 50-year-old comedian actually seems happy to be here for the next hour to talk about Farce of the Penguins, his low-budget straight-to-DVD spoof of the hit documentary March of the Penguins. His smile and laughter are infectious, and set a mood as if everyone is just bullshitting with their divorced uncle at a family picnic.

And like your uncle, Bob Saget will use his polite indoor voice and offer fatherly advice in front of your mother. As soon as she leaves the room, though, he’s joking about having sex with the entire cast of “Full House,” or his current favorite: penguin anal rape.

“I’m affectionate to this crazy thing,” Saget says of his new movie, once the official questioning begins. “I just said, you know, I’d love to take March of the Penguins and just be an idiot and make a stoner movie out of it.”

Farce of the Penguins, the newest entry in the growing penguin genre, is comprised entirely of stock documentary footage, in which the penguins have been given voices by Saget’s friends and colleagues – ranging from Lewis Black and Mo’Nique to Dane Cook and Abe Vigoda, and countless more – to deliver 80 minutes of sex and fart jokes. Samuel L. Jackson narrates.

Farce allowed the comedian and host of such TV hits as “America’s Funniest Home Videos” and “1 vs. 100” to showcase what he does best – add middle-school humor voiceover to shots of people getting hit in the balls, or more often in this case, penguins taking a crap.

“We’re desperate for footage. It’s one in the morning. [Editor] Michael Miller’s gone home - he has a life. I’m in the editing room thinking, ‘What are we gonna do? We’ve got two weeks. We gotta deliver. We’re overtime.’ And the assistant editor goes, ‘I got some footage of a monkey banging a coconut, you wanna see it?’ He was just a beaten man. And I’m like, ‘Yeah!’”

Although recent high-profile appearances in “Entourage” and The Aristocrats have allowed, or even encouraged, Saget to show off his dirty old man persona, in real life he is as charming and pleasant as Danny Tanner. And even if it is all just an act (because after 30 years in show business, celebrities like Saget tend to be savvy with the press), the reporters at the Gramercy sense his sincerity.

“People ask me to do cameos and be the dirty guy in the movie,” Saget says, “and I’m like, ‘I’ve done seven cameos in the past five years, that’s enough.’ I think we’ve suffered enough. Because it takes ten years to get a job, and then ten years to do the job” – in this case, playing a straight-laced single father of three on “Full House” – “and then ten years to tell people you’re not that person.” He laughs and says, “Please forgive me for what I’ve done.”

One more from the vaults...

This article was also written for Wissahickon High School's Trojan Times:

Phish return to Philly

Phish have been working hard to reclaim their title as jam band kings, having both released a new album and finished a winter tour that is their first in over two years. The break was a temporary hiatus for the band, each member pursuing solo projects until they were ready to reenter the studio together once more. Now Phish have returned triumphantly, as evidenced by their stop at Philadelphia’s First Union Spectrum on Tuesday, February 25, in the middle of their two-week tour of the country.

The first set opened with the energized “Julius,” and also included particularly vibrant performances of the live favorites “Slave to the Traffic Light” and “Water in the Sky.” As is characteristic of the band, several songs were extended into lengthy jams, some exceeding fifteen minutes while never losing their pace or energy. Following an intermission, Phish returned for a second set, which would include “AC/DC Bag,” “Cities,” and “Runaway Jim,” among others. For three hours, the band played their unique mix of funk, jazz and rock.

Throughout the night, the band played a varied mix of songs, choosing tracks most often from Billy Breathes, as well as their most recent album Round Room. Noticeably absent from the set was anything from the 2000 release Farmhouse, arguably the band’s biggest hit to date. Instead, Phish opted to play for their long-time fans, with a set spanning their entire career. This focus on the band’s roots resulted in a far more rewarding concert, dedicated to the spontaneous jams the band is famous for.

Phish first formed in 1983, and has since steadily grown in popularity. Their following is even compared to that of the Grateful Dead by some. In fact, after the death of Jerry Garcia, it seemed as if Phish had claimed the jam band title that the Grateful Dead had left behind. It was this sudden burst of fame that eventually led to the band’s two-year breakup.

Guitarist and band leader Trey Anastasio, bassist Mike Gordon, drummer Jon Fishman (the band’s namesake), and keyboardist Page McConnell have regrouped, more dedicated to the music than ever. Instead of the usual antics and gimmicks that have become a staple of Phish’s live shows – flying hotdogs, amplified vacuum cleaners, on-stage trampolines, or thousands of colored balloons, just to name a few – the band played on a simple, well-lit stage at the Spectrum. The focus was on pleasing their fans with the music that has not been heard live in over two years. They succeeded.

Through two decades and twelve albums, Phish has become one of the hottest live performances in rock music. They did not disappoint on this latest tour. If you missed the show, or want to relive the experience again and again, you can check out phish.com, where each date from their winter tour is available for download as part of the Live Phish promotion. For only $9.95, you can download an entire concert to your computer; and while it may not exactly make you feel like you were there, it might be enough to get you excited about Phish’s next concert.

From the vaults

This concert review was written for Wissahickon High School's student newspaper, the Trojan Times, in 2002.

Aerosmith rocks the Tweeter

With one of the most tumultuous careers in rock music history, it is simply amazing that Aerosmith even managed to take the stage on Saturday, September 7th at Camden’s Tweeter Center.

The band of Boston natives, recently inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, released their self-titled debut album in 1973. They stumbled along the road to fame in the early 80’s, but have since made a startling comeback - sparked by Run-DMC’s hip-hop rendition of the classic “Walk This Way” in 1987.

Not only have they become rock icons in their own right; the boys of Aerosmith, all over fifty years old, can still stomp out the jams with the best of them. From the raucous set opener “Toys In The Attic” to the immortal “Sweet Emotion;” from the power ballad “Don’t Want To Miss A Thing” (the band’s biggest hit to date) to the crowd favorite “Dude (Looks Like A Lady),” Aerosmith has cemented their status as one of the greatest American rock bands of the last thirty years.

Steven Tyler sang with abandon, a feat that is rare for a performer of his age. He swaggered and strutted across the stage, at times riding his trademark tasseled microphone stand like a horse. Most importantly, you could tell he was having fun up there.



Guitarist Joe Perry was in equally fine form that night. Perry was especially impressive during his many extended solos throughout the show, and once took a turn in front of the mic with the Eric Clapton-esque “Stop Messin’ Around.” He and Tyler shared a chemistry that exuded energy for the sweaty crowd of thousands.

There were many surprising highlights during the show. In the middle of their set, Steven Tyler shouted to all the fans on the lawn, “We’re coming to you!” The house lights went down, and the band soon appeared on a small stage in the middle of the Tweeter’s lawn seating area to perform three of their best, including the anthemic “Dream On.”

An unprecedented encore closed out the already unforgettable concert. A set list full of variety and energy culminated in one of the greatest finales I have ever seen. Opening acts Kid Rock and Run-DMC joined Aerosmith onstage for a truly rocking performance of “Walk This Way,” a perfect blend of rock and rap that will never be matched by the likes of Korn or Limp Bizkit.

For all the positives of the night, however, one thing remains constant: Steven Tyler is still as hideous as he was thirty years ago, and years of drugs and a life on the road have not been kind. But the music remains ageless.

OTB

Off Track Betting was introduced to the world of horse racing over 30 years ago to combat illegal bookies and organized crime, but ever since, the organization has dealt with the same corruption from the inside while also encouraging gambling in the city.

There are over 60 Off Track Betting, or OTB, sites in New York City’s five boroughs, all of which allow gamblers to bet on the day’s horse races around the country, rather than have to go to the racetrack to do so.

Off Track Betting accepts an average of 1.6 million sales transactions per day and handled over one billion dollars in bets in 2004, according to the NYC OTB, and there are currently about 18,000 active telephone accounts on their Automated Telephone Betting system.

Thomas Hart, 86, has been betting on horse races for 60 years. “I used to go to the track, but now I don’t have the time,” he said. “I use the phone now, so I don’t have to wait in line or worry about tickets. Now I can watch [the races] at home on TV. OTB makes life easier.”

But many contend that Off Track Betting simply allows New York’s poorest residents, many of whom are compulsive gamblers, to consistently lose money, on the same scale as alcoholics and drug addicts.

Hart said he goes to the OTB on Delancey Street “almost every day.” Whereas OTB’s advertising sells the image of attractive young people enjoying the spoils of successful gambling, in each OTB establishment one is more likely to find a crowd made up of cigar-chomping men with gray hair and discolored hats, crowded into a sparse room lined with televisions along the walls, standing on a floor littered with betting stubs, advertisements and candy bar wrappers.

Off Track Betting is the one of the few legalized gambling venues in New York State. The men gather not only to place their bets, but to watch the races and cheer on their favorites. Each of the nearly two dozen televisions displays a different track: Aqueduct, Santa Anita, Laurel, Gulfstream, the list goes on. The end of each race is marked with shouts of “Come on!” and “Please God,” in English, Chinese and Spanish, among other languages.

The convenience, not the atmosphere, is what attracts most bettors to Off Track Betting.

“I don’t come here looking for friends,” said Sam, 46 (whose last name is withheld at his request), who has been betting at the OTB on Lafayette Street about three times a week for the past 10 years. “The track is just too much out of the way. Plus prices are up. They do nothing to get you over there.”

Sam’s friend Joseph, 63 (who also requested his last name withheld), recognized the dangers of such a convenient betting system. “At OTB, you can lose a lot of money real fast because it’s so much easier to bet over the phone than to go to the track.”

Sam and Joseph met at Alcoholics Anonymous, and have since maintained their bond by gambling instead of drinking.

“It’s a lot of the same people here all the time,” said James Hill, 30, a security officer at the Delancey Street OTB. “Even though they won’t admit it, you can tell there’s kind of a community here. They all know each other.”

Stranger in a Strange Land

The population of international students at New York University is slowly declining, even as immigration to New York City has been steadily increasing since 9/11, according to NYU’s Office of Institutional Research and Program Evaluation.

International students have contributed a progressively smaller percentage to the student body for each of the past three years. At the same time, however, immigration to the New York region continues to increase, with rapid growth among Hispanic and Asian populations, according to an analysis of 2004 Census estimates by the Brookings Institution.

Paula Kupfer, 19, is a native of Panama City, Panama, and a freshman at NYU majoring in journalism. She has encountered frustration at being part of such a small minority at the university, where according to the College Board only seven percent of students are Hispanic, and far fewer are from Latin American countries.

“I wish more of the international students were Latin American,” Kupfer said. “Sometimes I meet someone from Ecuador or Brazil or other Latin American countries, and it just feels like we click. We get each other. Americans just operate on a different level.”

Kupfer came to the United States in September because she felt that a degree from an American university would be more valuable than one from Panama. But even in a city where non-Hispanic whites are becoming a minority, Kupfer found it difficult to adjust to a culture that is very different from her own. She has no family in the United States, and she still misses her native country.

“Living in New York, I miss nature, going to the jungle or going to the beach,” she said. “Just to be surrounded by trees. [Panama City] is a major city, but in an hour you can be at the beach, or you can grab your gear and go scuba diving or go camping.”

New York City is the world capital for international students with over 30,000 enrolled in colleges and universities in the five boroughs and about 45,000 foreign students studying within a 50-mile radius, according to the Institute of International Education.

“It’s good to get out of your own country for a while, and New York seemed like it would offer good exposure,” she said. But “people in America, especially in New York, are colder - more about themselves. I like going to school here, but I don’t love the lifestyle.”

Before coming to America, Kupfer briefly worked for La Prensa, the leading newspaper in Panama. She said that she was published in the newspaper several times a week in the months between her high school graduation and the beginning of her NYU career. Now Kupfer works at the front desk of the Deutsche Haus at NYU, because as a foreign student she cannot legally apply for work study or any off-campus job.

Although NYU sponsors activities that promote a sense of community among its international students, Kupfer stopped going to them very often when she became disheartened by the lack of people involved. She said that it remains difficult for her to meet new people from a similar background as her own.

But overall, Kupfer values her experience in New York City and plans to remain in the city after graduation, if only for a year or two.

“I love the independence of being here. Whenever you leave home you feel that, but in New York it’s especially strong.”

In advance of Easter Sunday...

For many New York University students, Easter Sunday is a day to eat jelly beans and marshmallow Peeps, dye hard-boiled eggs and maybe watch Charlton Heston part the Red Sea. But far fewer treat Easter as a churchgoing holiday, a time of religious reflection and prayer.

“I feel like it should be special,” NYU student Ryan Kalb, 20, said, “but really it’s like any other Sunday. I'm not very religious but my mom is, and she treats it like it’s such an important day. I'm like, who cares.”

Kalb’s sentiments are typical of his generation, it seems. There are about 2.6 million Catholics in New York City, and 53 percent of Americans worship weekly – down from about 80 percent three decades ago, according to Father John P. McGuire of the Catholic Center at NYU.

“There’s a category of people who consider themselves good Christians, but to whom weekly worship isn’t very important,” McGuire said. “They’re cultural Catholics, not religious Catholics.”

While nearly all of the students in an informal survey agreed that Easter - and Christianity in general - has apparently lost its meaning on NYU’s liberal college campus, McGuire is quick to contend that religion is not dead yet. Since he joined the Catholic Center in 1995, McGuire said that it has grown to about four times its size and reaches more than 1,100 of NYU’s 18,000 Catholic students weekly.

At the same time, McGuire said that only about 10 percent of his weekly congregation is comprised of students; the rest, he said, are older member of the community.

“I like Easter because it's a cultural tradition for my family,” said NYU student Alexis Buryk, 20. “But the religious bit doesn't mean a lot to me. I look at it more as a metaphorical resurrection, not really in celebration of Jesus, more as a celebration of Spring rebirth.”

Buryk and Kalb reveal a common sentiment among their peers – that Easter has taken on a meaning based more on familial conventions than religious convictions.

“Easter is an Americanized holiday more than a religious one,” NYU student Chris Kalicki, 20, explained. “The religious aspect was kind of taken out of the equation, and I feel like it’s sort of a fall-back holiday that you can celebrate without necessarily being or feeling religious, since the Easter bunny has little to do with J.C. himself.”

Even though many Americans worship only once a year, weekly church attendance is higher in the United States than in any other nation at a comparable level of development, according to a worldwide study based at the University of Michigan.

Overall, the importance of religion has been declining in the developed world, while in countries experiencing economic stagnation and political uncertainty, religion has remained strong, according to Ronald F. Inglehart, a researcher at the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research and director of the World Values Survey.

This may also be a result of higher education, which grows alongside economic development - especially at a school like NYU, with a typically liberal student body.

“I think [the church] is much stronger than people think,” McGuire said. “The diversity of the students we reach is phenomenal.”

But for every churchgoing student at NYU, there is another like Jeff Polley, 21, who seems a bit confused. “Is Easter the day God died, or the day God was resurrected?” he asked.

Comedy = Tragedy + Time

The other night, I ran into a comedian in Washington Square Park who I had interviewed months ago for a school assignment. Here, just in time for April Fool's Day...

“The truth is, the status of stand-up comedy in New York is like a sideshow,” says comic Ashley Strand, one of the city’s countless struggling up-and-comers. “It’s a footnote. ‘We were in the Village and the weirdest thing happened – we went to a comedy show!’”

From high-profile comedy clubs like Dangerfield’s, Caroline’s and the Comedy Cellar to low-rent joints such as Comedy Village, Underground Lounge, and hundreds of nightly open mikes, there are plenty of fart and dick jokes to go around in this city. But most of those jokes are told by people like Ashley Strand, a hard-working comic whose name you’ve never heard – or if you ever did hear of him, you probably don’t remember.

Don’t worry, he’s not insulted. “There are very few levels in stand-up comedy,” Strand contends, “where anyone remembers the name of the acts after they leave. They just don’t, unless you’re on TV, or if you specifically buy tickets for a single act.”

Most comics have to work for more than a decade before anyone remembers their name. Strand has been working the comedy circuit for the past two years – but he has not yet been paid a cent for his act. So this tall, expressively bug-eyed and caterpillar-eyebrowed stand-up still has to keep a day job installing home theater systems.

“It’s kind of cool,” he says, “since I’m 34 and I have no marketable skills. I’m like, alright, finally I’m going to learn how to do something. I mean technically I’m a moron. But you gotta do something to support yourself during the day, and it has to be this balance of something that’s not so mind-numbing that it saps you of your energy or leaves you too stressed to perform.”

Strand originally came to New York to pursue an acting career. But like many aspiring actors, he eventually became disillusioned with the theater. “I thought, I’m gonna be eating Ramen noodles until I’m 60 for this?” Strand says. “I don’t think so. I can be dissatisfied with more lucrative shit.”

Of course, stand-up comedy offers even fewer opportunities for financial success, but Strand heard about an open mike night and decided he had to try it at least once. So he showed up at Siberia, a dive bar far west on 40th Street, expecting a room full of comics.

What he found instead was an empty club and an immediate offer to host the weekly show – unpaid, of course. With no prior experience, Strand ran the show for about a year, then realized he had to move on and work up to what he calls “the real comedy clubs” if he ever wanted to progress as a comedian.

When he started out at other open mike nights and various comedy clubs over a year ago, Strand says, “It was two months of total ego annihilation. And not in the good, Eastern, ‘losing attachment’ sort of way. It was the bad, Western, still-trying-to-maintain your-ego-while-being-crushed way. Some places I did so badly that I thought, I can never even walk down that block again.”

Even after each bad set, Strand knew he had to just get up there again, because he says that he immediately felt more comfortable on stage as a comic than he ever had as an actor. He still has to deal with the typical insecurities that face any performer – the difference is that comedians use those same insecurities to make other people laugh.

Strand performs Friday nights at the Underground Lounge, on the Upper East Side at the corner of 107th Street and West End Avenue. The room holds about 20 to 30 people, many of whom are amateur comics who are either performing there or evaluating the competition. You’ll hear jokes about the mundane (“Pet health insurance? When I was a kid, pet health insurance was a new pet!”) or the bizarre (impressions of Al Pacino as a librarian, Antonio Banderas as a high school janitor or Robert DeNiro as Santa Claus), racial stereotypes and jokes about aging, or the typical repertoire of sex, drugs and more sex.

Strand tries to take his set a little further each week, testing his audience to see how far they will go with him. A bit about female ejaculation leads to the “man-gina” game (he will have to explain that to you himself), or a tirade about hating sex altogether. Not that he actually hates sex, he says, he just thinks it’s funnier to take all those little insecurities or annoyances and combine them into one sex-hating rant.

“All of my comedy is based on my suffering,” Strand says. “I’ve been sucking for a long time, with a few moments of not sucking mixed in. But the few moments of not sucking really kick ass.”

After months of struggling at open mike nights around the city, Strand refuses to return to them. “Open mikes are terrible, because comedians are the worst audience ever. For the most part, everyone there is nervous and fearful and thinking about their own act. Or they’re embittered and hateful and competitive. Either they’re not listening to you or they’re listening to you and hating you. No one wants to be in the audience; they want to be on stage.”

To avoid the open mikes, Strand resorts to a route taken by many unpaid novice comedians. He stands outside the club before a show, “barking” and handing out fliers for two hours in exchange for a few minutes of stage time; or he performs at “bringer” shows – bring people to the bar for their two-drink minimums, and you get your time. And even if there is no pay involved, the experience is invaluable. After all, it takes more than the best sex jokes, the best celebrity impressions, or the best one-liners to get noticed.

“Live comedy is all about dealing with what’s in the room,” Strand says. “You can’t hide on stage. You have to get up in front of a room full of strangers and form a relationship within the first thirty seconds, and then maintain that. And it’s extraordinarily difficult.”

Which brings us to the comedian’s worst enemy – the heckler. Perhaps the greatest challenge any comic faces, beyond having to keep an audience laughing for the duration of his time onstage, is a heckler.

But how does Strand avoid a Michael Richards-style meltdown when the jeers overtake the laughs? He says that the best advice he ever got was to “just be funny. You just have to come back with something funny. Get back on track.”

He remembers a particularly harsh heckler who had been bothering every comedian who took the stage one night at Comedy Village, where Strand performs regularly.

Some sort of flight or fight instinct must have come alive in Strand. He had been heckled off the stage two days earlier, and he fumed on this night while he watched a drunken bully interrupt every other comic’s set. When the time came for Strand to get up there and face the heat, he was prepared.

“First thing I said when I got on stage: ‘Uh, hey, are there any drunk British people in the audience?’ Everyone laughed, and from there I didn’t even tell a real joke until the very end of my set – I just went to work on this guy for eight minutes.”

He says that you have to be careful not to anger or alienate the entire audience just to go after one person, but when the right time comes, he relishes the opportunity for some karmic retribution. As long as the room keeps laughing, roll with it.

“Comedy means being a craftsmen and an artist,” Strand says. “I mean, that’s sort of high-flown rhetoric for a guy who tells dick jokes. But it’s fun and it’s hard and it’s exhausting – and worth it. When I stop doing it is when it stops being worth it. And I haven’t made a cent doing it and nobody knows my name.”

Perhaps more people will know the name Ashley Strand in the future. Until then, he’s just trying to make people laugh, one night at a time.

Chris Rock's domestic side

This article appears in the March 12 issue of amNewYork:

Comedian Chris Rock expects some criticism for his new movie, "I Think I Love My Wife," in which he plays a black family man living in white suburban Westchester and working in an even whiter Manhattan investment banking firm. People may say he's gone soft; fans may worry that he's lost his edge.

But Rock is OK with that.

"I hope I get softer over the years," says Rock, 42. "You evolve. I can't be the guy I was 20 years ago.

"I was never angry. I was only edgy compared to other things. … I was only edgy because you watched Paul Reiser before me. But he's not not edgy, he's just Paul. And I'm not edgy, I'm just Chris."

Rock wrote, directed and stars in "I Think I Love My Wife," co-starring Gina Torres as his devoted wife and Kerry Washington as the bold bombshell who draws him into adulterous temptation, blowing his formerly routine life out of the water.

"I like playing a grown-up," Rock says of his role. "I think most comedians play guys that won't grow up. And I think my comedy comes from being a grown-up."

"I Think I Love My Wife" is based on the French film "Chloe in the Afternoon," directed by Eric Rohmer, about a happily married Parisian man who fantasizes about other women but never considers infidelity until an old acquaintance drops by and tries to seduce him.

If a witty, elegant, French character study seems like odd source material for a Chris Rock comedy, he isn't exactly surprised.

"It's weird," Rock admits. "I know it sounds like a joke. But I loved ["Chloe in the Afternoon"], and I got [co-writer] Louis C.K. a copy and he loved it, and we both thought that we could get a lot of comedy in here. We thought it was like a house with no furniture: there's a lot of jokes that could go in here."

The result is a story that probes the fuzzy line between fantasy and infidelity, telling the humor-filled truth about the pratfalls of married life.

"Is [the movie] autobiographical? No," Rock says. "I definitely relate to the character. I've been married 10 years; I have two kids; I live in the suburbs; I commute into the city – all that stuff. It stops there, pretty much."

He adds, "Any guy, anybody -- gay, straight, whatever -- you see attractive people every day. You notice them, and you keep moving."

TMZ.com reported in November that Rock was filing for divorce after nearly 10 years of marriage to wife Malaak Compton. But he has since refuted the claims, and says now that, "It's nothing. It's all rumor. We know Britney cut her hair. But it's a rumor that she's crazy."

"I Think I Love My Wife" opens March 16.

Steak wit'

Pat Olivieri probably didn’t know, more than 75 years ago, that he had created a city-defining sandwich when he sliced up a rib-eye steak, slapped it into a roll and tossed some onions and melted cheese on top for lunch. But the cheese steak, as it would be called, became the iconic Philadelphia food.

It’s not hard to explain the basics of a cheese steak to someone who’s never had one. The name gives it all away – cheese and steak. Put it on a fresh Italian roll. Add some fried onions if you like (Philly natives know it’s your first time if you skip the onions). Sure, there are all sorts of variations: cheese steak hoagies, pizza steaks, mushroom steaks…the list goes on. But the original recipe is pretty damn simple.

More difficult is explaining the cheese steak’s essence – why that brown and yellow mess in your hand is actually the most deliciously satisfying meal you could imagine. You just have to devour one for yourself.

The Olivieri family is still grilling up the best cheese steaks in town at Pat’s King of Steaks (that’s the full name but, really, everyone just calls it Pat’s) on Passyunk Avenue in South Philly. Tourists come looking for a cheese steak, and some get distracted by the imitators that have popped up along South Street, in shopping malls, and in the wilds of suburbia. They think that all cheese steaks are created equal. But when the sign on the window advertises “Real Philly Cheesesteaks!!!,” you can be pretty sure they’re not.

You know that someone has done their research when they ask how to get to the corner of 9th Street and Pass-ee-unk Avenue (please explain to them that it’s much easier to just say Pass-yunk). They’re probably looking for Pat’s Steaks; hopefully they don’t get lost and accidentally end up across the street at Geno’s. Oh, what folly.

But once they get to the window to order , make sure they know how. Those counter guys show no mercy if you screw it up. If you want a steak sandwich with cheese wiz and fried onions, just say, “Steak wit’.” The only place to get gooey melted cheese whiz on a steak is Pat’s – anywhere else, you’re better off with some sliced provolone rather than the unnaturally orange liquid mess they squirt on, which will drown your steak in tangy artificial flavoring. (Why, for goodness' sake, don't the other places don’t buy their whiz from Pat’s suppliers? Maybe it’s some sort of trade embargo to keep Geno’s from ever truly being able to compete.)

The line is usually too long to politely ask for a “cheese steak sandwich with cheese whiz and fried onions, please,” and you’ll probably get laughed at anyway while someone tells you what you did wrong. Try again.

Fight back the tears of embarrassment while they giggle and make your sandwich. It’s worth it. As soon as you receive your steaming bundle of meat, cheese, vegetables (onions count as veggies, right?) and grease, you will have to sit right down at one of Pat’s outdoor tables and inhale it. It’s just too messy to be mannerly.

But even this is an art. Eat too slow, and the cheese will begin to drip down your hands and burn your wrist. Too fast, and each gluttonous bite will push the steak out the back of the roll until you have some cheesy bread in your hand and a pile of steak and onions in your lap. Steady, there, you’ll be fine.

The best time to go to Pat’s is around 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning, right after the fresh Amoroso Italian rolls have been delivered, hot and soft enough to form a mold around your hand. No better late-night snack than half a pound of thinly sliced steak after a long night of drinking at the bars, or especially after the Eagles win on Sunday, the Sixers pull it out in overtime, or the Flyers drop another game to slip further down in the standings. Comfort food. And several hundred of your closest friends stand in line and order the same thing – Steak wit’.

Ever been belly-bumped off a bus?

The Derek Trucks Band had just finished at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano, California, the last stop on their 2003 cross-country tour. Like most nights, the band – bassist Todd Smallie, drummer Yonrico Scott, keyboardist and flutist Kofi Burbridge and lead vocalist Mike Mattison – went back to the bus with road manager Adam Rosenberg and guitar tech Joe Main. Unlike most nights, guitarist and founding member Derek Trucks was not with them. If he had been, the incident might never have happened.

“Joe [Main] is a big beastly bear of a man,” Rosenberg says of the 40-something roadie. “He’s normally a sweetheart. But everyone knew not to cross him because he had such a wicked temper.”

Trucks had a "special relationship" with him, Rosenberg says, acting as a mediator with the band whenever necessary. Main was a longtime friend of Trucks’ father, and Trucks hired him after alcoholism had nearly consumed him. Everyone else had to be careful to stay on Main’s good side.

That night, the band was hanging out on the bus, now parked in the hotel lot. And just like every other night, Rosenberg was distributing the band’s pay in cash – when he realized that he did not have enough to pay the driver, who had gone back to his hotel room. The road manager is always in charge of the money, and the money is always distributed in cash. He had paid the band, he had paid Main, but now there was not enough to pay their driver on the last night of a long tour.

“In hindsight,” Rosenberg says, “I should have paid the driver first, because he gets you place to place.” And because Main was technically the lowest man on the chain, Rosenberg knew he had to ask him for the money back.

“Joe was smoking a joint in the [bus] bathroom, so I went in there and I said, ‘Joe, we have to talk. I didn’t plan ahead. I need to pay the driver, so I need that money back.’ And at first he just laughed at me. But then I said I was serious. And all of a sudden he went from a calm guy smoking a joint to a gorilla wielding an acoustic guitar.”

Main chased Rosenberg out of the closet-sized bathroom, all the way to the front of the bus, grabbing a guitar along the way and “wielding it like a sword,” Rosenberg says. But there was not nearly enough space for Main to effectively swing a guitar on the cramped bus, so he used his girth to “belly-bump” Rosenberg out of the open door of the bus.
“He literally chased me off the bus and then around the bus, waving this guitar above his head,” Rosenberg says.

The band soon noticed the commotion outside. The tension had apparently escalated so quickly that no one knew what was happening until they saw Main chasing Rosenberg in circles around the nearly empty parking lot. Burbridge and Smallie leapt off the bus and grabbed Main, trying to restrain and calm him, while Rosenberg ran to the bus driver’s room. (“The driver and I got along well by the end of the tour,” he says.) After Rosenberg had explained the situation, the driver offered him some of his Chivas Crown Regal whiskey, feeling sympathetic because the whole episode had been an effort to get him paid.

“Everyone gets paid,” Rosenberg says. “Joe was overreacting. I even said, ‘Sorry, but it’s not like you’re not gonna get paid’ – that wasn’t good enough. But he eventually gave me the money back. Derek wouldn’t have stood for it. But without Derek, it was a bad scene.”

Best Album Ever?

This article appears in the March 23 issue of the Washington Square News:

Most rock 'n' roll fans know that 1980 should have been a very bad year for Aussie hard-rock act AC/DC. Shortly after the band had finally reached international acclaim with 1979's "Highway to Hell," lead screamer Bon Scott died suddenly in true rock-star fashion (he choked on his own vomit in the back seat of his car). And that could have been the end of it.

They weren't finished yet, though - within the next five months, the band found a new singer, wrote 10 new songs and released its seventh studio album.

Now that's a pretty good story. But it wouldn't be worth a damn if the resulting album was not "Back in Black" - an unstoppable aural assault, with so much strut and swagger to spare that it could be called the most explosive rock 'n' roll eulogy ever recorded. No lame power ballads, no existential meditations on death - and certainly no rehab. Just all killer, no filler, lean and mean rock 'n' roll, propelled by Angus Young's instantly recognizable guitar riffs.

The album is an example of perfection in simplicity. Each track is tightly wound and ready to blow, but producer (and future Mr. Shania Twain) Robert "Mutt" Lange maintains clarity amid chaos. Every track has become a lesson in air-guitar greatness, and a model for kick-ass karaoke.

Songs like the hauntingly heavy opening track "Hell's Bells" and the rolling thunder of "Givin' the Dog a Bone" confirm that "Back in Black" deserves to be the soundtrack to every bar brawl, or at least your next late-night freeway drive. New singer Brian Johnson proved he was more than capable of filling Scott's hard-drinking, hard-living, womanizing shoes on songs like "You Shook Me All Night Long," "What Do You Do for Money Honey," and other highlights such as the title track and - hell, everything here is classic.

For those about to rock, we salute you.

Album Review

This article appears in the March 29 issue of the Washington Square News:

Yours Truly, Angry Mob
The Kaiser Chiefs
Key Tracks: "Ruby," "The Angry Mob," "Thank You Very Much"

Their high-energy 2005 debut album, "Employment," launched the Kaiser Chiefs into international stardom. This week, the UK rock band tries to match that success with their highly-anticipated follow-up, "Yours Truly, Angry Mob."

The Chiefs almost succeed. "Employment’s" best songs are arguably the first two: "Everyday I Love You Less and Less" and "I Predict A Riot." "Yours Truly" also starts off with a bang, but unlike Employment, it blows its load early, as the opening tracks – the repetitious but infectiously catchy "Ruby" and the "fuck modern society" invective "The Angry Mob" – build a momentum the rest of the album can’t sustain.

The Kaiser Chiefs combine Blur’s polished pop sensibility with the songwriting and vocal styling of the Kinks’ Ray Davies and the echoing guitar of the Smiths. The peaks just don’t reach as high on the Chiefs’ sophomore effort, and therefore the album’s few missteps become even more pronounced, as is the case with the plodding "Try Your Best" or the piano ballad "Boxing Champ."

Unfortunately, most of the songs here are mired in self-conscious cynicism. "The Angry Mob" begins as a bar brawl but then becomes a simplistic anti-establishment rant. The rock star in "Thank You Very Much" is bored with groupies. "Highroyds" reveals that drunken youth isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. And "Everything Is Average Nowadays" is, well, self-explanatory.

But singer Ricky Wilson’s sometimes subversive (and more often trite) lyrics are saved by poppy, guitar driven tunes and insanely catchy hooks. Don’t look to the Chiefs for insightful social commentary – just have fun basking in their Britpop exuberance.

But somebody likes me...

Apparently, New York Post movie critic Lou Lumenick starts every morning with a cup of coffee and a Google search of his own name. Here's what he wrote in his blog today:

Daniel Lehman of NYU's student newspaper, Washington Square News asked Chris Rock what he thought of my savage pan of Rock's "I Think I Love My Wife.'' You might think he would have quipped, "If you want a real film critic, get A.O. Scott,'' (who loved it), but Rock is surprisingly philosophical about the bad reviews and the film's lack of box office success. "It's like my stand-up," Rock said. "Some jokes you love, some jokes you're like, 'F--- him.' I wanted that type of movie experience. I want people arguing when it's over. There's things in it that didn't test well, that I just kept in because I thought it was a better movie.''

Everybody Hates Chris Rock's New Movie

This article appears in the March 28 issue of NYU's Washington Square News:

Comedian Chris Rock expected some criticism for his new movie, "I Think I Love My Wife," in which he plays a black family man living in white suburban Westchester and working in an even whiter Manhattan investment banking firm. Many critics say he's gone soft, and fans worry that he's lost his edge.

But Rock is OK with that.

"I hope I get softer over the years," Rock said. "I was never angry. I was only edgy compared to other things. I was always just me. I was only edgy because you watched Paul Reiser before me. But he's not edgy, he's just Paul. And I'm not edgy, I'm just Chris."

What the comedian might not have expected was his latest film's mixed reviews and poor opening weekend upon its release last Friday. It tanked, earning only $5.7 million in a week where the Sandra Bullock time warp thriller "Premonition" was the biggest new release (that movie finished third behind "300" and "Wild Hogs," with about $18 million in ticket sales).

"It's like my stand-up," Rock said. "Some jokes you love, some jokes you're like, 'Fuck him.' I wanted that type of movie experience. I want people arguing when it's over. There's things in it that didn't test well, that I just kept in because I thought it was a better movie."

The movie's rating at RottenTomatoes.com is holding at a pathetic 18 percent, with reviews as cruel as they are cliché: Lou Lumenick of the New York Post writes that the film is nothing more than "an exercise in misogynistic tedium," while down at the Miami Herald, Connie Ogle considers the film "as entertaining as reading someone else's divorce settlement."

Rock knows that past films, such as "Down to Earth" and "Head of State," have met with even harsher reviews, but their box office receipts likely soothed the sticks and stones thrown at them.

"Going into this movie I absolutely was not thinking of a box office number," he said. "I was just thinking about, 'OK, how do I fit in? How do I make the movie that is perfect for me?' The last couple of years, you might watch something like 'Bad Santa,' or 'Borat.' Those are just guys that made movies that really fit their persona. It's like, this suit fits. I need a tailor-made Chris Rock movie."

Rock co-wrote (with frequent collaborator Louis C.K.), directed and stars in "I Think I Love My Wife," co-starring Gina Torres as his devoted wife and Kerry Washington as the bold bombshell who draws him into adulterous temptation, blowing his formerly routine life out of the water.

"I like playing a grown-up," Rock said of his role. "I think most comedians play guys that won't grow up. And I think my comedy comes from being a grown-up."

"I Think I Love My Wife" is based on the 1972 French film "Chloe in the Afternoon," directed by Eric Rohmer, about a happily married Parisian man who fantasizes about other women but never considers infidelity until an old acquaintance drops by and tries to seduce him.

If a witty, elegant, but very French character study seems like odd source material for a Chris Rock comedy, he isn't exactly surprised.

"It's weird," Rock admits. "I know it sounds like a joke. But I loved ['Chloe,'] and I got Louis a copy and he loved it, and we both thought that we could get a lot of comedy in here. We thought it was like a house with no furniture; there's a lot of jokes that could go in here."

The result is a story that probes the fuzzy line between fantasy and infidelity, telling the humor-filled truth about the pratfalls of married life. And while some jokes fall flat, other moments manage a biting insightfulness more characteristic of Rock's best stand-up comedy or television projects than his prior films.

"Is [the movie] autobiographical? No," Rock said. "I definitely relate to the character. I've been married 10 years; I have two kids; I live in the suburbs; I commute into the city - all that stuff. It stops there, pretty much."

The real-life parallels between Rock and his fictional character are too apparent to ignore. TMZ.com reported in November that Rock was filing for divorce after nearly 10 years of marriage to wife Malaak Compton. But he has since refuted the claims, and said now that, "It's nothing. It's all rumor. We know Britney cut her hair. But it's a rumor that she's crazy, right?"