Trachtenburgs, Tohm, Michele and more

Spent last night doing a project with the Trachtenburg Family. In the middle, Tohm Lev showed up and contributed greatly to the proceedings. More about that some other time.

The night before, I had gone to the Rosie Rebel show at the art star theater, and it was really good, even though it was hot in there and smelled weird in the back, haha. Rosie was great, she had new bra props and her "rubbing a banana against her breasts" routine never fails to entertain. Mandy Stadtmiller was an excellent hostess and SuperCute! sang a great anti-drug song and put on a fashion show of outfits they had created themselves. A lot of people picked on models because there was an anti-fashion theme to the show. Reverend Jen had a slide show of a chihuahua fashion show. All the art star cast members made an appearance, and Reverend Billy gave a blessing in the beginning. I thought Rosie did a very good job organizing the event.

A few nights back, I went to Michele Carlo's book party at the Tenement Museum, and it was as packed as Rosie's show, and as big a success! Michele is becoming a star, and it couldn't happen to a nicer or more deserving person. Congratulations, Michele!!!

Peter Bernard's New York

I've begun a new educational series on YouTube called "Peter Bernard's New York." In it, I talk to interesting personalities from around town, and IN THEORY AT LEAST, I'd also do some "solo" episodes where I talk about stories from my own life. None of my stories so far seem as interesting to me as my guests', though, so we'll see about the solo episodes. I don't expect these to get many views in the beginning as I'm sort of coming out of left field with this, but as they begin to pile up, I'll create an index or search engine on my site so that people would be able to browse alphabetically by guest or subject, or search directly for the episodes they want to see. I'm trying to keep them under 5 minutes-ish, and I hope to get to everybody and everything eventually. If you have a good idea about some cool person or establishment or group of people in the City who are doing something which should be made note of, please forward any pertinent info to peter at peterbernard.com. Thanks!

Above is the premiere episode, featuring Jason Trachtenburg at the 4th Street Food Co-Op. An anti-health food wag described this one on Facebook as "Honey, I Shrunk The Supermarket!"


Above: the first of a series of episodes starring FRANK WOOD, legendary NYC rock show promoter. In this episode, Frank explains how he got even with punk rock star Johnny Thunders!


Above is our second trip to the 4th Street Food Co-Op, this time to talk to the lovely Claire and Dreamriver Press book publisher Theodore Poulis.

Coming Friday: Professor Tom performs Shakespeare AND opera-- all with his clothes on!

Monday: FRANK WOOD PART TWO!

After that: Angel Yau! The Rampler a/k/a Frank Edward Nora a/k/a "Ed 209!"
Mr. Creepo! Dino from Laughing Sky! Plus SURPRISE SPECIAL GUESTS!

Haha I'm not hyping this one as much as most of my things, I think it will eventually find it's audience once enough episodes have built up, and I think all the episodes will get decent views EVENTUALLY if not in the short term.

Your recipe for success

I had to go to both Brooklyn today and 59th Street just to get them to run a rerun of Angel's birthday episode this coming Monday night. So annoying, so much wasted time, which is why I need to get away from public access.
But then again is it wasted when I discover that Checker Phil is on the cover of the new MNN Program Guide (above)? I called him right away to say congrats but he was embarrassed that it was an old picture of him when he was less healthy but much larger.

This is what he looks like these days, 127 pounds lighter.
Phil enthusiastically invited me to come see Jason's new band on his show,
and I was intrigued because it would be a way to get to see the new band without having to deal with the public and certain emotionally draining people (they all know who I mean).
See that woman? I have no idea who she is, but one of the cameramen left his camera alone to hit on her for a good long time, so I kept repositioning the camera to give the editor (they edit the shows live there as though it were 1952) a third angle to choose from. At one point, Iwent over to the guy and asked, "Shouldn't someone be manning that camera?" He looked at me, looked at the camera, shrugged his shoulders, and said, "Meh." During one of Jason's songs, Phil himself had to man the camera. Oh, Jason's band didn't show, he was lip syncing to his latest record instead.

I liked the song that was like Harry Nillssen best. Jason also did the weirdest thing I've ever seen him do-- he played Michael Jackson's "Billy Jean" and sang along but with his own lyrics about Billy Jean King, and while doing this, played tennis. It reminded me of the old Joe Franklin Show, but in a good way.
Checker Phil challenged Jason to a pushup contest and whipped Jason's ass.
Then Checker Phil demanded to beat Jason a second time, and did so thoroughly.
Both of them went on and on about health food and so forth, and my mind drifted to the scene in "Rock'n'Roll High School" when the manager makes Joey eat "wheat germ and riboflavin."

But then I woke up because Jason told a Jewish joke but prefaced it with, "Peter Bernard will like this one!" I was like whatwhatWHAT? So now Checker Phil's audience will think that Jason and I are Nazis, which is especially weird for Jason, since he's Jewish.

But Jason is one of the most underrated songwriters in the world today, so I don't care.
Afterward, he told me he doesn't listen to music.
He said that nobody writes a book while reading a book!

Unrelated:

I laughed when I saw this truck today, although I can't say why.

Harvey and Friends

Harvey

Everybody look at your hands!

Mystery women

209 Brand Garbage Dumpster (TM)

Lobster brains

Mystery Co-Conspiratrix

Jason

Harvey

Jason Trachtenburg/Kate Nash song

jnsdfjisdfjosdfjkl

How does one un-follow blogs one is following? All rather annoying.

Tonight Jason asked me why I was afraid to go on Facebook. I told him I had to unfriend a girl I love who hates me, a friend of his wife.

He laughed and said, "Love is a multi-pronged utensil."

I haven't written here since my Kitka died. I went home from taping the first Jessica's Chest and she died within hours suddenly at the age of 4. Lisa Peters wrote me an email, telling me that now Kitka was in Heaven watching over me and protecting me.

Today Lisa told youtube to take down my films that she is in, claiming copyright of my films that she appeared in eagerly and cooperated with promoting on youtube. Jason said oh that's just big business, I said it wasn't the record company doing it, it was Lisa.

Say it again:
"Love is a multi-pronged utensil."

City Hall part 2: Rachel Sings her Horse Song!

City Hall yesterday (part 1 of 2)

New Jason video

2 new Jason videos in the works

Today we shot two Jason videos, one a solo composition and one he wrote with Kate Nash.
Only Jason would want to shoot a music video in a library, and the security guard was instructed to make us stop. But I told the security guard that we were shooting home movies and Jason was making this video as a surprise for his daughter on her birthday. I said it would really make his daughter happy on her birthday if we could just shoot the video. So the security guard went back and got permission from his boss for us to make Rachel a surprise video. Only Rachel's birthday is past, so we shot the Kate Nash video instead (sorry Rachel).