Jonathan Ames to Bring Moby, Nudity to Pitkin’s for a RematchWord comes from performance author Jonathan Ames that his show at Mo Pitkin’s tonight will include “nude wrestling, pillow-fights, paddling, chaos, excellent performances, and a likely guest appearance by Moby.” Nekkidness, chaos, and Moby the Jesus-fearing vegan, all in one place? Not as strange as you’d think: We heard from a witness that the shaved one once had so much fun at a Stamford, Connecticut, strip club that he convinced the staff to keep the place open for him several hours past closing. When the owners wanted to charge him a couple thousand dollars more for this indulgence than he thought was fair, he not only refused to pay a cent of it but also threatened to call the cops and report a fight outside of the club. “The sad part about this,” Moby allegedly told a bouncer, “is that when we wake up tomorrow, I’ll still be me and you’ll still be you.” Even worse: He’ll still be the guy who said that.
—Daniel Maurer
The Jonathan Ames Show [MoPitkins.com]
early and often
Spitzer, Announcing Budget, Looks to Steamroll Long Island, TooAs Eliot Spitzer was onstage in Albany today running through the billion-dollar pie charts of his first budget proposal, the governor’s cyber-self was sending an e-mail titled “Our Dialogue” to a 40,000-person mailing list compiled during his campaign. It’s the debut of spitzer2010.org, a domain name Spitzer registered back in November, six days after winning the election. The e-mail spends several paragraphs reviewing administrative appointments and bureaucratic changes before getting to its point.
company town
Proenza Schouler Shoots Too Early at TargetFASHION
• Proenza Schouler’s Target line was available online for four hours yesterday (three days before its official debut), causing mass Internet shopper hysteria. [Fashionista]
• Snejana Onopka, one of the poster girls for the current Save the Models movement, is rumored to be skipping New York Fashion Week. [FlyPaper]
• Jordan Scott, former designer at Betsey Johnson and child of the East Village, will launch his first collection during Fashion Week. [British Vogue]
in other news
Vive la Résistance (to Chain Stores)!
New York may be becoming a little more Paris-like — we’re even going to have sidewalk pissoirs — but we still have a lot of catching up to do. For instance, imagine Mayor Bloomberg railing about the “banalization” of Times Square (or, for that matter, of anything). His Parisian counterpart, faced with the familiar march of megaretail up the Champs-Élysées (Adidas, Gap, Benetton, Virgin), dealt with it in a delightfully French way: He legislated against it. H&M, for instance, was outright banned from opening a branch on the boulevard. “We don’t have anything against H&M,” the Times quotes the deputy mayor as saying. “It just happens to be the first victim.” Of course, this being France, the area’s historic establishments — independent movie theaters, for instance — get serious subsidies to stay open. Sadly, it’s as hard to imagine the City Hall sniffing at, say, the banality of T.J. Maxx as to see it doling out $40,000 a year to keep the Quad afloat.
Megastores March Up Avenue, and Paris Takes to Barricades [NYT]
