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Doogie Style: Tricks!

Or rather, illusions, as tricks are what whores do for money. Or candy. Neil Patrick Harris pulls some super sweet magic on a New York Times reporter--but you must read the entire piece to get what it is. Now, that's a good interview subject.

Over Me

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Soft and Wet and Slightly Unformed

There’s an ace show of remarkable photos of a pre-fame Prince at the Black and White Gallery in New York, through March 17^th.

Photo: Robert Whitman

Shot in 1978 just before Prince’s music career really began, his look in the photos is Superfly/Beat Street and a little gritty, but those bewitching doe eyes haven’t changed. Prince’s musical hero at the time was Joni Mitchell, and she’s recalled saying she remembers seeing him in the front row, staring at her with his enormous eyes. It’s amazing to look at this young man on the street of Minneapolis and think of how much extraordinary music would come out of him.

 

Dark Visions of Future make Present seem Better, Somehow

I’m a terrible Johnny come lately to the new Battlestar Galactica, but a friend just leant me seasons 1, 2 and 2.5 and I’m teetering on the edge of compulsion, drawing out my viewing sessions, careful not to OD on too many in one sitting, eke-ing out my stash in doses and making it last. Wicked timely at points in its imagining of politics, paranoia and military tribunals, the series is adult and intelligent, making all those grand, episodic shows on the four big networks look pretty dum-dum by comparison. In addition to some serious gravitas and great space-fu the show is populated by some very randy foxes, male, female and robot.

The female Cylon is hands down the nuclear epicenter of sexual heat on the show, but there’s plenty of interesting fin du monde-style sexual energy to keep things interesting. Much has been made over Jamie Bamber but I find him a little plucked tweezed and prissy-voiced, sounding like your waiter at Cafeteria. (When the clothes come off some masculinity comes through, though-it might be a self-consciouly stylized gym body, but it’s got legitimate meaty heft.)

Aaron Douglas’ Tyrol is that slightly stocky sensitive dreamboat, very otter. I’ll take the interestingly named Tahmoh Penikett as Helo, all tall and broad shouldered with vivid eyes that make you a little nervous and excited. And Grace Park’s smoldering Boomer gets to hit the skins with both of them. Good times at the end of the world.

In other sci-fi escapist news J.J. Abrams taking on the Star Trek franchise is promising, and the rumored casting of Matt Damon as James T. Kirk sounds right. Fox Searchlght has puched pushed Danny Boyle’s Sunshine back again, from summer to a December release, which is concerning. A new round of trailers describe more of an in-space thriller than one would have guessed at first. My feeling is: how bad can it be?

Mugshot Mondays Make You Feel Better About Weekend's Mistakes

Hopefully. Winding up in the drunk tank with some of these fellas might have its upside, however. Fresh N Tasty has reinvented itself as Famous Like Me and brought back the Monday morning roundup of head-I mean mug-shots from the weekend’s talent haul.

Waiting In Vain (I Don't Want To)

On the way home from seeing Dean and Britta at the super-plush National Arts Club last night (more on that tomorrow, but check out Lorenzo’s pics here), I was delighted to come upon my favorite subway musician, Corey Frye, on the platform of the Union Square stop on the L. I’d first seen him last summer, on a Sunday afternoon in August when I’d been out too late the night before and the relentless summer heat had ceased to be something you could reckon with. It was the 14^th street stop on the Downtown F that day, and Frye was perched on a little stool, strumming his guitar and singing in a voice both plaintive and consoling, joyful and tremulous. It was that rare occasion where you’re glad the train takes forever to arrive. I can't quite recall the songs, but I think it was Van Morrison, Marley, the kind of things that sound nice around a campfire. He sang ‘Waiting In Vain’ that day, and the unfettered tenderness in his delivery caught the six or so of us standing around a little off guard. A lovely young woman with already-reddened eyes sitting alone on a bench began crying quietly.

I checked out Frye’s MySpace page and while his original compositions are sweet, on first listen they didn’t capture my imagination. However, I don’t think it’s his songwriting that lacks. Frye needs an audience to connect with, and even the harried, disinterested iPodded drones of the subway seem to respond to him, and he in turn opens up. A current is passed, and exchange completed. Like James Baldwin said about jazz music in a nightclub, ‘it was made and used on the spot’.

I saw him on one particularly raw day in early February and he looked sad and lost, as did everyone else. But last night he turned his face upwards when he sang, and his eyes radiated kindness, and his feet twisted and turned as he navigated the chords. I thought of the Joni Mitchell line:

Kids with the jitters in their legs
And those wide, wide open stares

Perhaps I was particularly attuned to such magic after the show I'd just seen, but as the Brooklyn-bound L and the 8^th Avenue-bound L both pulled in on opposite sides of the platform I could barely hear them, and Frye kept right on singing.

Preview: Alternative Pin-Up #9

As a sort of appetizer for his special guest star spot in Reno 911! The Movie, try a little slice of Rudd. He takes a staged interview situation and makes it spontaneous and jazzy and grungy and alive and sexy: auto-palorazzi. He’ll be appearing here shortly as Alternative Pin-Up Number Nine.

 

In fairness the interviewer’s not bad. What’s this I Got Shotgun stuff?

Palorazzi

Check out the array of new shots on Meerkat’s longtime associate Lorenzo di Flaneur’s flickr page. Lorenzo is the nom de photo of a fellow who’s worked in the indie film scene and camped out at some cool bars and music venues around the world for the last decade plus, leading me to define his job description at one point as “attending every important cocktail party in the world.”  He got friendly with a lot of cool cats along the way and snapped pictures all the time. I’m hereby coining the term ‘Palorazzi’ in reference to Lorenzo, which I define as the taking of photos of celebrated and talented people but  from the perspective of a fellow party-goer than a sweaty shouting man on the other side of the velvet rope. Lest this be confused with something fabricated like the patent unreality of reality TV, homeboy really is pally with a lot of these folks, and as a professional partygoer with an iconic photographer’s eye, you’ll often feel as though you were living his very rock and roll, very glamorous life, too. And he doesn’t discriminate on the basis of fame--to him the go-go boy at Eastern Bloc can be as fascinating as the Oscar nominee (has anyone else noticed the tattoos on Helen Mirren’s hands-very visible as she poses with all the awards she’s picking up lately? Could she get any cooler?). I’m so completely into his vision and am making it a project to promote his work—I’d so much rather see shots of these folk in their natural habitat, drinks in hand, than standing and posing for a bunch of soulless photographers in the employ of Bonnie Fuller. Check out his take on Helen, Parker, Jake, Lina, Madsteez, Antony, JCM, Yoko, and Joe G-L (above).

Doogie Style Part Deux

Here’s a tasty slice of meta-closetedness, as Neil Patrick Harris plays himself as a horned up, drugged up het cocksmith in Harold and Kumar go to White Castle. If I ruled the world I’d reassemble all the players on the film right down to the best boy (especially the best boy), make them all replay this scene and have Patrick sub out dirty slang for guy parts rather than girls’, just cause I’d find it a bit hotter, and also cause he’s actually a mo. Gotta admit, though, he’s still pretty hot here.  On a side note, the  'Gay or..' back page of the  Jan/Feb  feature a Patrick Harris-alike in a  'Gay or Fomer Child Actor' bit that's pretty good; 'YOUTHFUL FACE: He can still play a guy half his age', etc.

Heteros like spontaneous, anonymous, non-repeat sex too. Only somehow they make it look sweet.