Entries from August 2004 ↓

I received the following via email and happily plug the event.

The Worth Street Theater Company is reviving VOICES OF PEACE & DISSENT at The East 13th Street Theater, 136 East 13th Street, for three Mondays — August 16, 23 and 30 — to coincide with the imminent invasion of the Republican National Convention on New York City.

Tickets are $20, with a portion of the proceeds going to MoveOn.org, and are available through www.SmartTix.com or by calling 212-868-4444.

VOICES OF PEACE AND DISSENT features a rotating cast of actors, activists and celebrities performing excerpts from plays, literature, letters, comedy and up-to-the-minute news relevant to current affairs surrounding the upcoming Presidential election. Performers who are scheduled to appear as of this announcement include MARIO CANTONE (Assassins, Love! Valor! Compassion!), MICHAEL CERVERIS (2004 Tony Award for Assassins), David Henry Hwang (M. Butterfly, Golden Child, FOB), Brian Murray (Much Ado About Nothing, Beckett/Albee), and from this season’s hit “The Moonlight Room,” LAURA BRECKENRIDGE (The Crucible), KATHRYN LAYNG (M. Butterfly, “Doogie Howser, M.D.”), MARK ROSENTHAL (Marvin’s Room, This is our Youth), BRENDAN SEXTON III (”Boys Don’t Cry”), among others. More stars are signing up each day! Please check www.SmartTix.com for the current schedule and talent line-up for each date.

VOICES OF PEACE AND DISSENT began in April 7, 2003 and ran for nine Mondays at The Tribeca Playhouse through June 16, 2003. It started as a response to President Bush’s preemptive declaration of war in Iraq. It featured such actors as Kathleen Chalfant, Clare Higgins, T. R. Knight, Andrea Martin, S. Epatha Merkerson, Denis O’Hare, Brenda Wehle, among many others. These three shows will bring “VOICES” up to date and focus on the issues of importance in the current election, including the current state of affairs in Iraq.

Tickets will also be available for $20 cash at the door on each Monday at The East 13th Street Theater, 136 East 13th Street, or in advance through www.SmartTix.com or by calling 212-868-4444.

Raise your voices and be heard during this important election year!

Ten thousand New York City Police officers will encircle Madison Square Garden during the Republican National Convention. Ten thousand! The Knicks should draw so well.

If you live here, and become a victim of crime, don�t expect fast response times that week. New York will form a massive perimeter to separate the President and Vice President from the citizens they serve, all in the name of anti-terrorist security. Yeah, right. And the emperor is wearing a three-piece suit too.

Since my office is within the frozen zone, I�m taking the week off. But this is what we were told was the lockdown situation:

– West 31st to West 33rd Streets from 6th to 9th Avenue will be closed to vehicular traffic.
– Pedestrians will need business ID�s for access from 7th to 9th Avenue, 31st to 33rd Streets.
– 32nd Street between 6th and 9th Avenue will be closed to vehicular traffic and become a pedestrian mall providing access to Penn Station.
– 7th Avenue will be closed from 29th to 42nd Streets during the 13 convention hours. The convention sessions are: Sunday 10:00 am to 1:00 pm and Monday through Thursday 8:30 pm to 11:00 pm.
– 8th Avenue will be closed during the 13 convention hours from 23rd to 34th Streets.
– All buses on 7th and 8th Avenues will be re-routed.
– The convention will not be in session during rush hours.
– Penn Station will have two entrances/exits operating: main entrance on 7th Avenue and the LIRR entrance on 34th Street.

In addition to being under �Code Orange� the city will foot the bill for all the overtime this damn thing costs. Convention goers are not likely to venture out while they are here, it will be too difficult to get around and they know they aren�t really welcomed anyway. So local businesses will suffer and the city will be awash in further red ink once they leave.

Can we just vote already?

Ok, I’ve said before how I’m not a big fan of reality tv shows. Well, call me a liar. There are two shows currently running that have me completely hooked.

The Last Comic Standing wraps up its brief summer run this coming Tuesday night with three remaining comedians vying for the title of Last Comic Standing (duh!) They started with ten comics, put them all in one house to live together, then put them through weekly challenges to weed out the weak links. Early on some of them tried to form alliances ala Survivor, but that proved to be a total waste of time and energy. Comedians are not that willing to work together, and ultimately they still had to prove how funny they were in head to head face-offs.

Certain people I thought would make it to the end didn’t, but the three finalists are all indeed funny. Alonzo Bodden, a brotha originally from Long Island, showed his skills throughout the series but was also kind of a dark-horse candidate. He may now be the front runner, although John Heffron and Gary Gulman are both quite good. Regardless of who wins, it’s just a good laugh all the way through. Viewers will get to vote online or via the phone.

The other show I’m watching religiously is American Candidate, on Showtime. Maybe because this is such an important election year and the divisions between progressives and conservatives are so pronounced, but this show makes me tense. There is a similar need to prove oneself each week or face elimination and the drama builds each minute of the one hour broadcast.

In week two, with 9 of the 10 original candidates still in contention, progressive candidates may have made significant gains. My favorite candidate, Keith Boykin, blew away the competition during an open air rally in New Hampshire, then finished third in the weekly telephone voting.

The show really demonstrates how hard it is to shape a message, communicate it to the public and rally support. Producers don’t make it easy either by giving them only a little bit of time to accomplish their tasks.

The upside of this show is that hopefully more people will realize that anyone can get involved in the political process (more likely on the local level) if they feel passionate enough and are committed to change.

The 2004 Peabody-winning HBO drama series THE WIRE, currently in production for a 12-episode third season, will return to the cablewaves Sunday, September 19 at 9:00-p.m. ET.

THE WIRE wrapped its second season last September. The first season depicted the national drug war through the microcosm of a West Baltimore housing project. Last season chronicled the de-industrialization of America, focusing on the travails of a longshoremen’s union to survive in a changing economic landscape. In its third season, the drama will continue to expand its sociopolitical description of a fictional Baltimore by examining the city’s political component and its relevance to the problems confronting a post-industrial city.

Observes David Simon, “More than characters or criminal procedure or even the drug culture, we are trying to write about the city itself, with Baltimore standing in for any number of American cities sharing the same hopes and fears and contradictions.”

Actors returning from the first two seasons include Dominic West (Det. Jimmy McNulty), Sonja Sohn (Det. Shakima Greggs), Lance Reddick (Lt. Cedric Daniels), Wendell Pierce (Det. William �Bunk� Moreland), Wood Harris (Avon Barksdale), Idris Elba (Stringer Bell), Deirdre Lovejoy (Asst. State Atty Rhonda Pearlman), Clarke Peters (Det. Lester Freamon), Domenick Lombardozzi (Det. Thomas �Herc� Hauk), Seth Gilliam (Det. Ellis Carver), Jim True-Frost (Det. Roland �Prez� Pryzbylewski), Michael K. Williams (Omar), John Doman (Col. William Rawls), Frankie R. Faison (Comm. Ervin Burrell), Andre Royo (Bubbles), JD Williams (Bodie) and Corey Parker-Robinson (Det. Sydnor).

New cast regulars this season will include Chad L. Coleman (”Brother to Brother”) as Dennis”Cutty” Wise, a recently paroled felon returning to a drug culture that has changed dramatically; Robert Wisdom (”Barber Shop 2: Back in Business”) as Major Howard “Bunny” Colvin, a police boss frustrated with the futility of the drug war and willing to try something new; Aidan Gillen (”Shanghai Knights”) as Councilman Thomas Carcetti, an ambitious and charismatic city councilman on the the rise; Jamie Hector (HBO’s “Everyday People”) as Marlo, a young street dealer protecting his turf from the encroaching Barksdale crew; Glynn Turman (”The Bernie Mac Show”) as incumbent Mayor Clarence Royce, whose grip on municipal power seems assured, despite rising crime rates; and Isiah Whitlock (”Pieces of April”) as Senator R. Clayton Davis, returning in his role as state Senator Clay Davis, a politician with surprising connections, not all of them legitimate.

The second season of THE WIRE generated wide critical praise. It was named Best Show on Television by Television Week’s semi-annual poll of 50 television critics. The New York Times called it, “one of the best shows on television,” while Time wrote, “irresistible… [David] Simon is a poet.” TV Guide observed, “You won’t find anything better all summer.” Entertainment Weekly hailed THE WIRE as “[Grade:] A…it’s a contender - for one of the year’s best series… get hooked now,” while the Chicago Tribune proclaimed, “HBO’s ‘The Wire’ is the best show on TV,” and the San Francisco Chronicle observed that THE WIRE was “the best show on television, period.”

A poll in Wednesday morning’s Toronto Globe and Mail reveals what many Canadians (and more than a few in this country) think of the heightened terror alert warning. Too bad the U.S. news media hasn’t the courage to report such conflicting views.