John Waters sported this snazzy suit at his City Winery show.
Holy night, dirty night: Filmmaking legend John Waters did not disappoint at his sold-out “A John Waters Christmas: Holier and Dirtier” show at City Winery Sunday evening. Not to give away his material, but in one of his nuggets, he said being transgender isn’t a big deal anymore — what he’d really like to see is someone have the courage to say they made a mistake, and then go back under the knife and transition to their original sex again. He also gave a shout-out to the former Hellfire sex club in the Meat Market. “Jerzy Kosinski would be there every night,” he recalled. “I see there’s a fancy restaurant there now — I don’t know if I’d want to eat there!” During a Q&A after his stand-up, he explained, “‘Pink Flamingos’ was a pothead comedy. I was on pot when I made that.” As for the infamous scene where Divine gobbles up dog poop, Waters proclaimed, “We did it for anarchy,” as the audience applauded. Someone in the crowd noted that the famous transgender actor / drag queen Holly Woodlawn (“Holly came from Miami, F-L-A…”) had just died, to which Waters said it was the first he had heard of it. “I loved Holly Woodlawn,” he said, adding, “I think one day Andy Warhol’s movies will be as recognized as his art.” As for Donald Trump, he said, “Good! I hope he wins [the Republican nomination], ’cause he’ll lose.”
Sorry, no Trump books! More than once, Donald Trump has said, “I’m, like, a really smart person.” Yeah, right! Well, McNally Jackson bookstore, at 52 Prince St., for one, begs to differ, recently tweeting out: “A bummer to disappoint a customer, but it is also a relief that we don’t carry any books by low IQ person Donald Trump.”
‘It’s not sexist!’ Some anonymous posters on thevillager.com have accused John Quinn, the Lower East Side Democratic state committeeman, of being sexist for saying District Leader Jenifer Rajkumar was too dressed up when he took her to visit a homeless shelter. But Quinn disagrees. “It’s not sexist!” he retorted. “These are people that have never even seen clothes like that. So you want to work with them — don’t make them feel like crap!” For his part, Paul Newell, Rajkumar’s co-district leader, said he doesn’t take Quinn’s criticisms personally, such as when Quinn said Newell and Rajkumar needed more experience. “I took no offense at his comments, he’s a brusque guy,” Newell said. As for Quinn’s sartorial swipe at Rajkumar, he shrugged, “It was an irrelevant point. Look, she’s a well-dressed woman.” Rajkumar, however, asked if she felt Quinn’s comment was sexist, tersely said, “I don’t think that comment warrants a response.” Meanwhile, nearly everyone who posted comments on the Nov. 5 Scoopy’s item scolding Quinn for his remark is anonymous, with evenly distributed geographic handles like LESVoter, GatewayRes, Downtowner, BPC Voter, West Sider, RectorGal, Village Girl, Battery Voter and Villager. Hmm, a very neat cross section of the 65th Assembly District. … Makes you wonder! Is someone trying to “spin” the story with anonymous comments? Is this the new politics?
Growing Bernie staff: Last time we checked, the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign was all-volunteer in New York State, which, no doubt, only added to his appeal for some voters. But now Arthur Schwartz, the Village male Democratic district leader, tells us that he has been retained as counsel for Sanders’s Empire State campaign. “He has a New York operation,” Schwartz said, “two people hired this week, besides me, and people already lined up to run for delegate in every congressional district in the state. As a lawyer, I am on staff, not a volunteer. As a delegate candidate, I am a volunteer. Bernie has almost as much money on hand as Hillary.” … Meanwhile, a decision in the court case over Schwartz’s removal of the landlord’s spy cams outside of the elderly Ruth Berk’s apartment at 95 Christopher St. is likely in late January, he said. Schwartz contends he was not stealing the inexpensive cameras, merely trying to stop the owner’s harassment of Berk, for whom Schwartz was acting as guardian.
Bull’s-eye! Following our recent article on Allan Reiver’s original Coney Island Mangels shooting gallery, we hear that Lisa Mangels-Schaefer, the great-granddaughter of William F. Mangels, was planning to visit Reiver’s Elizabeth St. Gallery to check out the iconic amusement attraction.
Rosie picture: East Village District Leader Carlina Rivera has been working at Councilmember Rosie Mendez’s office since September as the director of legislative affairs. We hear this is to help groom Rivera for Mendez’s seat as the heir apparent in 2017. We had thought Anthony Feliciano, Rivera’s co-district leader, was being positioned for the seat, but now we’re hearing it’s more Rivera. Word is that Harvey Epstein, former Community Board 3 chairperson and now at the Urban Justice Center, also had announced to people that he would be running for City Council. But now we’re hearing Epstein might have changed gears. Epstein didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Gas, at last! Ayo Harrington tells us the gas should finally be going back on soon at 125 Second Ave., the tenement left standing directly north of the March 26 Second Ave. gas-explosion site. Harrington put on the pressure by calling up the building owner and saying that the city was going to come in and do the repairs, which finally got the landlord on the stick. It was basically a bluff, she admits — but apparently it worked!
For the record: Court sketch artist Elizabeth Williams tells us that the courtroom in which the closing arguments were given in Sheldon Silver’s corruption case was the same one where the trials for Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, Martha Stewart and John Mitchell and Mitchell Stans were held.
Crumb’s complaint: East Village musician and blogger Eden Brower recently put the word out on her Slum Goddess blog that R. Crumb was furious about the recent profile of him by Jacques Hyzagi in the New York Observer, “Robert Crumb Hates You.” “Robert is VERY unhappy about what they published,” Brower told us. “He asked me to post his response to the article on my blog as he feels the need to set the record straight about all this.” Crumb writes, “I regret that I ever consented to give this interview, that I let the journalist, Jacques Hyzagi, come to my home and hang around for two days talking to me. I should’ve known better. I was warned about this paper, that it was owned by the ruthless real estate developer Jared Kushner, that the editor, Ken Kurson, was an old friend of Kushner’s who was once “deputy director for communications at Giuliani Partners,” that Jared Kushner is married to Donald Trump’s daughter and that they pal around with Rupert Murdoch. You’d think I would know better than allow myself to be had by these people, having received this information. Hyzagi got me to talk about sex pretty openly, asking me what my favorite positions were, and I naively described to him some favorite positions. … It was only afterward that I realized, wait a minute! What am I doing, telling an interviewer what my favorite positions are?! How did I get sucked into doing that?? What a vain ass I am! After he sent me the first draft I wrote back to him and urged him strongly to take out what I said about my favorite sexual positions… . I believe they were trying hard to make me look like a nasty pervert. Okay, it’s all in the comics, but, you know, I control what I put in the comics. It’s my own slant, my own take on my crazy sexuality. … Just to set the record straight,” Crumb says at another point, “it was Hyzagi who said that he went to Zuccotti Park to check out Occupy Wall Street, and opined that the people were fools, but it’s not at all clear the way it’s written that it was him saying that. …” The cartoonist’s complaint ends by warning, “I just want to say to any left-liberal media personality or writer, artist, musician, whatever, be very wary if you are approached for an interview by anyone working for The New York Observer. They are out to skewer you.” For Crumb’s full message, visit https://slumgoddess.blogspot.com/2015/11/r-crumb-doesnt-hate-you-r-crumb-hates.html. We tried to reach The Observer for comment, but couldn’t even get a live person. There was no response to our phone and e-mail messages. Meanwhile, Brower, her husband, John Heneghan, and Crumb are teaming up on “John’s Old Time Radio Show,” an album of podcasts coming out in February. Brower and Heneghan, of the East Village String Band, have previously put out a pair of records of old-time American blues featuring Crumb — a huge fan of the genre — playing on mandolin. “The album is John, Crumb and I talking in between playing 78s from both their collections,” Brower explained. “We did side one in New York City with John’s records and side two in France with Crumb’s collection. Some songs are ‘Fixin’ to Die,’ by Bukka White, and ‘Ohio Prison Fire,’ by Bob and Charlotte Miller. It’s not our music on it but the chatting in between is funny.” The record’s cover photo features an exasperated-looking Brower with Crumb intently gazing at one of the old shellac 78s. Explaining the “action,” Brower said, “John and Robert are going on and on about their 78s and stuff and I’m making fun of their obsession.”
