Will Ferrell Can Teach Us How to Live
It’s official: Will Ferrell is having the most fun of all the people, celebrities and non-specials alike. Shooting strange local commercials […]
David Archuleta to Save ThanksgivingRightful ‘American Idol’ winner David Archuleta will appear in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on November 27.
ByLane Brown
the sports section
Confetti and Courage: Video From Today’s Giants ParadeIf you missed some of the footage of the Giants’ victory parade today on television, New York’s Tim Murphy went on location to the Canyon of Heroes (a.k.a. lower Broadway in Manhattan) to gather some of the overwhelming fan joy into one short video. Click above to watch as children admit to playing hooky and streaking in celebration, Tim admits to not knowing who Osi Umenyiora is, and some extremely excited people admitted that, yes, Eli Manning is officially a New Yorker.
Giants’ Victory Parade [NYM Video]
intel
Proud Gays on Parade!
Perhaps you prefer bare male chests to bare female ones? Good news! New York contributor Tim Murphy was in Chelsea yesterday for the 38th annual gay-pride parade. Watch Tim ride a motorcycle. Watch Tim discuss the leather scene. Watch Tim plan a wedding with Christine Quinn. And, perhaps most important, watch Tim chat up some near-naked boys. The video is, well, fabulous.
Street Level: Pride March [NYM]
intel
Mermaids on Parade!
Couldn’t make it out to Coney Island Saturday for the 25th annual mermaid parade? Not to worry: New York’s Daniel Maurer was there, and he brings you enough sights, sounds, and Marty Markowitz pontification to make you feel like you were on Surf Avenue yourself. Now if only he’d brought us a hot dog.
Street Level: Mermaid Parade [NYM]
the morning line
No Congestion Pricing, But…
• So Mayor Mike struck out on his congestion-pricing deal as Albany ended the legislative session. But while that plan got all the attention, Bloomberg got a slew of other projects passed: a child-care tax credit, a corporate tax slash, and more state funds for public housing. Huh. [NYP]
• Dozens of pissed-off New Yorkers are being bussed to D.C. for a congressional hearing about the Feds’ performance monitoring air quality at ground zero. Jerry Nadler will be the congressman first to grill ex–EPA head Christine Todd Whitman. [amNY]
• What Sunday’s pride parade may have lacked in middle-aged, middle-class gays, it more than made up for in a newly prominent demographic: religious groups. Jews, Roman Catholics, Buddhists, and others came dangerously close, in the words of a reveler, to “hijacking the parade.” [WCBS]
• The weekend brought a mass gang arrest in Bushwick — 32 kids, the youngest 13 years old, collared on their way to attend a murdered friend’s wake. The gang is supposedly an offshoot of the Bloods, colorfully dubbed the Pretty Boy Family. [NYT]
• And now that Fred Thompson seems to be a viable presidential candidate, let’s get all our political advice from Law & Order cast members. Sam Waterston — a.k.a. A.D.A. Jack McCoy — is also the face of the libertarian-flavored online movement Unity08, and he’s ready to vote Bloomberg. [NYDN]
gossipmonger
Nobody Knows in America, Puerto Rico’s in AmericaJohn McCain has RSVP’d for the Puerto Rican Day Parade, but Rudy Giuliani has not. Lorraine Bracco will be a onetime co-host of The View. Baird Jones will celebrate Dr. Kevorkian’s release from prison tonight by exhibiting his paintings at Webster Hall. Kevin Costner ate at Michael’s. John Travolta may be in denial about his son’s autism because of Scientology. Paris Hilton plans to keep a diary when she’s in prison, which she can later sell. Sharon Stone is set to star in mock political ads to be unveiled at the upcoming Venice Biennale. Charlie Palmer’s Kitchen 22, on West 22nd Street, closed.
photo op
Who Told You You’re Allowed to Rain on This Parade?
Wedding March 2007 was held Saturday afternoon, when Marriage Equality New York led several hundred protesters across the Brooklyn Bridge to demonstrate for same-sex marriage rights in New York State. The turnout was smaller than expected, because it wasn’t such a nice day. But, then, if it had been a nice day, the umbrellas would have stayed at home and the aerial photos — as displayed on the blog mcbrooklyn — would have been much less dramatic.
Gay Marriage Marchers Brave Synthetic Turf at Cadman Park [mcbrooklyn]
The Wedding March 2007 [Marriage Equality NY]
intel
Biker Boychiks
If he was wearing a black leather yarmulke, Gil Paul, a fortysomething Jewish biker dad in black leather chaps and a black leather jacket, kept it under his stocking cap. Paul rode his tricked-out Harley Road Glide into town to participate in the Israel Day Parade with a dozen of his fellow Hillel’s Angels, a Jewish motorcycle club from Wyckoff, New Jersey. They rendezvoused at Temple Beth Rishon early Sunday and parked their kosher hogs at the marshaling point on East Broadway and Clinton Street, opposite the Young Israel orthodox shul on the Lower East Side. Then the Jewish Motorcyclists Alliance — a contingent of 150 motorcycles made up of Jewish biker clubs from all over North America — kept on truckin’ to 57th Street, to join the parade down Fifth Avenue.
intel
Everyone’s a New Yorker on Saint Patrick’s DayShunted to the back of tomorrow’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade, New York City firefighters aren’t the only ones who are angry with parade chair John Dunleavy. For several years, Dunleavy has banned gay groups from marching and last year would not allow City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who’s 100 percent Irish and 100 percent gay, to walk wearing so much as a pink pin. Though she marched on March 4 in a gay-friendly parade in Woodside, Quinn will blow off the Ancient Order of Hibernians entirely this year by taking her dad, her partner Kim Catullo, and five council members (including Staten Island Irishman Mike McMahon) to a more inclusive parade in Dublin. While Dunleavy didn’t return calls for comment, Quinn did talk to Tim Murphy about accessories, the Irish, and her father. Her words are after the jump.
the morning line
A Bad Day for All Things Trans
• The Board of Health has backed off the much-publicized proposal to let people change the gender on their birth certificates nearly at will, without having necessarily gone under the knife. The ultraprogressive policy would run afoul of new federal regulations, due next year. Once again, being first doesn’t pay off. [NYT]
• The Reverend Al Sharpton and other black and Latino leaders say they want to stage a pre-Christmas march down Fifth Avenue, from Plaza Hotel to Herald Square, to protest the 50-bullet police shooting of Sean Bell. Bell’s relatives will lead the procession. [NYDN]
• Broadway’s James Barbour (Beauty and the Beast, Urinetown) is hauled in on sexual-assault charges. If nothing else, this easily trumps yesterday’s news that a guy with a Law & Order credit was sticking up drugstores. [NYP]
• Eagle-eyed MTA budget-watchers noticed an odd expenditure: In the last four years, the authority has spent $102,009 on tailor’s bills. The culprit: a weirdly shaped armrest on LIRR and Metro-North trains, prone to ripping passengers’ pants. [AP via amNY]
• And in what’s clearly the Times’ grossest “Metro” item of the day, a must-read local-color piece trails undiscriminating diners as they grapple with the Taco Bell E. coli scare. Money quote: “I ordered from the Pizza Hut side of the menu because I can’t take any chances.” [NYT]
intel
Happy Thanksgiving to All, and to All a Good Night!
Well, folks, that’s about it for us. On Grub Street, Josh Ozersky imparts his hard-earned Four Simple Rules for Having a Pleasant City Thanksgiving. And earlier we let David Rockwell tell you how the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade makes the city feel smaller, literally. That’s all we got, and now we have to start prepping for maximum pigs-in-a-blanket intake. Be careful out there, and we’ll catch you Monday morning.
Your Last-Minute NYC Thanksgiving, and How Not to Blow It [Grub Street]
intel
David Rockwell Loves a Parade
The New York architect David Rockwell, known for his designs of restaurants (like Nobu), hotels (including several Ws), and, lately, Broadway musicals (his first was Hairspray, with those brilliant moving, dancing posters), has published a coffee-table book called Spectacle. It includes photos, interviews, and information on many of the world’s great spectator events — including, naturally, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. He spoke to Daily Intel yesterday.
What makes the parade so interesting to you?
I’ve always been interested in larger-than-life events, and larger-than-life communal events. At the parade, there’s a breaking down of the boundary between viewer and participant. The viewer is as much a part of the parade as the people in it. In your field of vision, you’re seeing other people across the street, and you’re seeing their reactions — were they surprised? These giant balloons transform our view of the city. They make the city seem smaller, literally, by inhabiting the space up in the air. And it’s just an amazing time where New Yorkers get out of their temperature-controlled boxes and have this celebration that spills out into the streets.
the morning line
Friendly Skies, Unfriendly Runways
• More reasons to avoid Newark Airport: First a plane plops down on a narrow taxiway instead of a landing strip. Now two jets clip each other’s wings on a runway while one is taxiing and another is being towed. No injuries, but what the hell? [amNY]
• A teenage trick-or-treater was killed in a hit-and-run after being chased onto Harlem River Drive by a knife-brandishing attacker. In a moment of discord, the Times puts the victim’s age at 13, the AP at 15, and the Daily News at 16. [NYT, AP via amNY, NYDN]
• In other Halloween news: Two million took to Sixth Avenue to gape at 50,000 costumed marchers, one reveler got stabbed after catching his girlfriend parading with another man, and, of course, someone had to come to school in a Hitler costume, which he’s now defending as “satire.” Lovely. [NYDN, NYP]
• George Steinbrenner was rushed to the hospital after reportedly fainting while watching his granddaughter perform in a college play. He’s fine, but the performance got canceled amid the ruckus. It may be worth noting the granddaughter was playing Sally Bowles in Cabaret. [WNBC]
• Historical, yes; preservationist, not so much. The New-York Historical Society wants to build a glassy 23-story tower behind its palatial HQ as part of a renovation. The haughty neighbors are predictably up in arms over blocked park views. Perhaps they could drop that annoying hyphen as a compromise? [NYT]
the know-it-all
So You Want to Throw a Parade?At eleven o’clock this morning, the 77th annual Columbus Day Parade, sponsored by the Columbus Citizen’s Foundation, started making its way up Fifth Avenue. Yesterday the Hispanic Day Parade marched the same route. On Saturday, the Korean American Parade took over Broadway. In total, New York will see some 79 parades this year. How do you get permission to put on one of your own?
