Gossip Central

Campaigning at the Museum of the City of New York

Buttons proclaiming “Bloomberg in 2008” will not go to waste. They are part of a new exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York, focused on the city's role in the outcome of presidential elections. The buttons, collected by the late Jordan Wright from the time he was a 10-year old, sparked the idea for this historic and timely show. At the display's center sits a lectern in a plexi-glass case lent by the Great Hall at Cooper Union, where Abraham Lincoln had delivered a key speech. Standing in his place, one has a view of cardboard life sized figures of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John McCain seeming to listen. “I Like Ike” socks, a stars and stripes Robert Kennedy for president paper mini dress, and Richard Nixon Good Humor bar wrappers all remind visitors of the whimsy behind the serious business of the elections. At the opening on Monday, Mayor Bloomberg assured the crowd that he did not attend this celebration of presidential memorabilia to endorse a candidate for the upcoming election of the 44th U.S. president, but for the 45th. And then he introduced Ed Koch who took the podium to say, of course it is better to win than to lose, but the people who worked on Hillary Clinton's efforts to become president will never forget the experience. His message: get involved. Get out and work for your candidate.

Regina Weinreich

Graphic Design: Salpeter Ventura

Chuck Connelly Rediscovered

Charming, disarming, with a tendency to profanity and cynicism, Chuck Connelly strolled around the National Arts Club last Tuesday delighted so many showed up to see his art, and celebrate a new HBO documentary about him. He invited well-wishers like Mark Kostabi to a show at DFN Gallery in Chelsea on the weekend, and then he waited for the bubble to burst. Who is Chuck Connelly, you ask. Connelly was a darling of the '80's art scene, compared to Van Gogh, collected at the MetropolitanMuseum, emerging alongside Basquiat and Schnabel. In the first of the film trilogy Love Stories, scripted by Richard Price, who is now enjoying acclaim for his recent novel “Lush Life,” and directed by Martin Scorsese, Nick Nolte plays a Connelly type painting in his downtown loft. The much-admired oils were Connelly's. Clearly on a path toward major superstardom, Connelly nevertheless could not curb his dark side. Drunk, he trashed Scorsese famously in Page Six, as reported by George Rush. The rest is history in opposition: obscurity and exile to Philadelphia. The documentary, “The Art of Failure: Chuck Connelly Not for Sale,” directed by Jeff Stimmel to air on July 7, attempts to explain the artist's contempt for the art market and consequent demise. A belligerent alcoholic, he is one of a dying breed, modeled on the image of the rebellious artist. Yet he also considers the highly sellable Warhol his hero, and in a contrary mood rails against commercialism. While it hurts him to see “crappy” art emerging, to see his peers Basquiat and Schnabel get the attention, he exclaims, “Now it's my turn,” and then, “I'd like to see this film make people get tired of the bullshit.”?

Regina Weinreich 

Graphic Design: Salpeter Ventura

Shaun White, Unscripted

Look out for “Don't Look Down,” an intimate documentary portrait of snowboarding champion Shaun White, directed by Willie Ebersol and produced by Charlie Ebersol. Homing in on the year after the superstar won prizes for every snowboarding event he entered in 2006 including the Winter X games and the Olympic Gold Medal in Torino, the film asks, how can you top this? Well, maybe you can't by always coming out first in every competition, but the flame haired White reveals himself to be a charismatic, cheerful subject-and a good sport-- moving through airports, losing luggage, sleeping on planes, refusing to be scripted for an American Express commercial, and taking his share of spills. Of course, not everyone considers snowboarding an Olympic worthy event. Yet, this fine film goes far to show the balletic, athletic grace involved in snowboarding and skateboarding as White makes mastery look effortless. Most moving is a trip to Kigali, Rwanda where this California white boy with his red mane instructs local kids in a schoolyard, patiently taking each one through the moves. Prepped beforehand, he knows everyone here has seen the genocide. One stop on the tour is a memorial mass grave. We are surely a long way from home in sunny Carlsbad, California. Bob Jameson, Bob Costas, Phil Griffin, (who is quoted in a smart feature about Keith Olbermann in this week's “New Yorker Magazine”), and many media types were on hand for an after screening dinner at the elegant Plaza Athenee. The talk turned to the recent shock of colleague Tim Russert's death with speculation of who would fill the uber-newsman-with-a-reputation-for integrity's ample shoes at “Meet the Press,” before the announcement was made in this morning's “New York Times” that Brian Williams will moderate this week. But coming back to the feature at hand, Producer Willie Ebersol said “Don't Look Down” would air on ESPN in November after a brief theatrical run in key snowboarding cities. No, he said, New York is not among them.

Regina Weinreich

Graphic Design: Salpeter Ventura

Tony Awards

Let me confess: I am a sucker for award shows, the Oscars' hammy fashion parade and all. At the Tony's it's a sea of strapless and dark suits, and last night, Whoopi Goldberg in every costume she could find. OK, she was fun as Mary Poppins and multiple Whoopi doing “A Chorus Line” means more is more. If the awards reflect a kind of artistic right, justice was served in honoring the three principles in “Gypsy:” Boyd Gaines, Laura Benanti, and Patti Lupone. Performing the signature “I Got a Dream” number to Louise, in a scene just after Baby June walks out of the act, doing that thing she does with her shoulders that says I don't care when she really really cares, she is the best Mama Rose since Ethel Merman, and that's over powerhouses like Bernadette Peters, Bette Midler, and Tyne Daly. But Arthur Laurents told me opening night: This is the best “Gypsy.” At 90, one of the show's creators, who happens to have directed this production, should know. A contender for Best Actress in a Musical, Kelli O'Hara is adorable as Nelly in South Pacific, but no match for Mama. The Musical Revival category was particularly strong this year. I only wish the marvelous “Sunday in the Park with George” could have won Best Musical Revival alongside “South Pacific.” I am sure opera singer Paulo Szot is pleased he made the jump to the American musical theater. I still hear him this morning in a sublime, sonorous “Some Enchanted Evening” although “This Nearly was Mine” is my favorite of his solos--and that reverberation is no hangover. While I often agree with Ben Brantley of The New York Times, he was especially good in yesterday's paper on the subject of Best Play. While August: Osage County picked up the award-as well as this year's Pulitzer-there is something off about a play deploying EVERY explosive in the dysfunctional arsenal. You do, however, feel a jolt.

Regina Weinreich 

Graphic Design: Salpeter Ventura

The Doctor is In: Three on a Couch, Caroline's, 21, Gonzo 7

“3 on a Couch,” Carl Djerassi's comedy now in production at SoHo Playhouse, could be presented heavily philosophical, or light and slapstick. At a recent pre play dinner at Ama, Djerassi-who is Viennese and who in a previous life as a chemist invented the pill, (yes, that pill)-- told me, his theatrical work is influenced by Tom Stoppard and Harold Pinter, so he would have liked to see his play of ideas performed with a pinch of gravitas. He finds it mildly irksome that the director went more for the funny bone. As a result of Elena Araoz's efforts, though, sight gags and pratfalls convey the hilarious illogic of a man who fakes his own suicide, the brilliance of a woman who insists upon the uses of the mango fork, and the elastic Bill Irwin-type body of the doctor who treats them. I hope Dr. Djerassi won't mind my critique: his play best brings to mind Beckett's tragicomedy, “Waiting for Godot.”
     And speaking of laughs there were quite a few at Caroline's Comedy Club for the annual benefit for Autism Research when Audrey Flack and her Art Officials took the stage singing and strumming an original composition on the lives of Jackson Pollock and Caravaggio accompanied by banjos. Flack, a New York artist famous for her painting and sculpture knows from whence she speaks and it helped that she had a straight man (as in foil), a suit from the Smithsonian, Charles Duncan, to play off her smart lyrics.
    21 hosted a breakfast in celebration of a new book on the subject of men's aging. How timely! The early diners, many of them over sixty, definitely sexy, smartly dressed, and decidedly successful feasted on superb scrambled eggs and bacon-although some cautiously opted for granola-- while Dr. Robert Schwalbe explained his reasons for writing “Sixty, Sexy, and Successful: A Guide for Aging Male Baby Boomers.” He was noticing certain trends in men coming into his psychoanalytic practice. A handsome 64, he was also seeing some signs in himself. The smart crowd did not miss the nuance, as the doctor limned symptoms reminiscent of the bewildering case of our former governor Eliot Spitzer. The diagnosis: He could have used this book.
    And finally, in this election frenzy, a documentary on the life and times of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson will be released on the 4th of July. “Gonzo,” directed by Alex Gibney, this year's Oscar winner for “Taxi to the Dark Side,” arrives just in time to remind us what real American patriotism is all about. The provocative film, narrated by Johnny Depp who starred in the movie of Thompson's “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” on the writer and inventor of Gonzo journalism who committed suicide in 2005, will inspire some thought about how Dr. Thompson might now be kicking butt with his in your face writing, that is, if he were in

Dr.Regina Weinreich 

Graphic Design: Salpeter Ventura