Volume 18 • Issue 27 | November 18 – 24, 2005
John Mayer’s Buddy
Blues fans know well that Buddy Guy can go Downtown, but he left no doubt Tuesday night when he rocked the Tribeca Performing Arts Center as part of Wall Street Rising’s free concert series this week. Guy called his friend on stage, pop star John Mayer, and the young buck showed he could hold his own with Guy, trading blues licks and vocals as the crowd pulled out their cell-phone cameras to capture the unlikely pairing. “This young man know how to play this [stuff],” said an impressed Guy, 69. The blues guy still has it. He sang about satisfying 19-year-old women and showed he has a keen eye for mature ladies too when he walked around the theater, stopping to serenade none other than Elizabeth Butson, former owner and publisher of Downtown Express. Guy gave her a guitar pick too.
Koch-eye view
Although he’s tall, former Mayor Ed Koch was stuck standing right behind another tall politician, Governor George Pataki, onstage at Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s victory party at the Sheraton last week. However, earlier in the night, he’d had a clear view of the place, and told us that the one person he saw walking around with Bloomberg during the festivities more than anyone else was Councilmember Margarita Lopez. Although not long ago Koch told us there was no way he’d endorse Lopez in the Manhattan borough president Democratic primary because of the ongoing unresolved issues with her 2001 campaign finances, Koch has changed his tune. “I think she’s cleared it up, I think she’s repaid it,” he said, referring to the $180,000-plus Lopez paid the Campaign Finance Board as a bond so that C.F.B. would give her public matching funds for her B.P. race. “I think she’s very competent,” Koch said of Lopez.
No resurrection for Rodman
Dennis Rodman has moved on from his days of sporting a wedding dress and veil. Last week, the former power forward for the Chicago Bulls turned up at Borders Books on Broadway dressed as a corpse. A battered hearse carried the former bad boy of b-ball in a coffin to the Downtown signing of his new book “I Should Be Dead By Now”. It took Rodman 20 minutes to wade through a mass of curious onlookers and paparazzi. By the time he made his way to the upper floor of Borders, he looked less than enthused by all the attention.
“All they want to do is take pictures,” he grumbled loud enough for UnderCover to hear. But he had little to worry about once he was inside: only about 40 fans showed up to get his John Hancock. But they were a loyal bunch, waiting dutifully for the famously tardy Rodman, who arrived an hour late. “He used to get in trouble for being late to practices,” quipped one fan. “I guess he hasn’t changed.”
Messier Downtown
Mark Messier, the New York Rangers’ former take-charge captain who led the way to ending the team’s 54-year Stanley Cup drought in 1994, was spotted on Liberty St. this week near the former Deutsche Bank building. The hockey star also took a few snapshots by the Ten-Ten firehouse. Neighbors who have been worrying about the bank demolition may have been hoping that Mess would take over the Deutsche project.
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