London in New York

Just when I thought I was out they pull me back in. While editing photos, enjoying some my home made pasta and Cabernet, I tuned into BRAVO TV last night and caught The Real Housewives of New York City and watched as Brooklynite Alex McCord took out in gangland style Jill “Santino” Zarin. In a scene reminiscent of The Godfather wherein the hot headed interim family boss Santino ”Sonny” Corleone was gunned down at the toll plaza, the former boss of the Real Housewives of New York City was found awash in tears (rather than blood) at Equinox wondering how she seems to have lost a grip on the empire with her only allies being the Trannylicious LuMann de Lesseps, who will continue the assault on our ear drums and her manly synthesized voice with the release of yet another song  Chic C’est La Vie and the air head Kelly ‘the body’ Bensimon (A.K.A. Fredo Corleone). Ramona “Crazy Eyes” Singer who has yet to find a product she is unwilling to put her name on was left with ”Eyes Wide Open.” (as usual) while the new Cougar, Sonja Tremont Morgan has yet to establish anything about herself, except her need for regular sex.

The curious rise of Alex McCord, much like The March of the Wooden Soldiers comes straight out of left field.  She seems to have been wound up to go the mattresses with Jill Zarin for prior misdeeds as much as her overall persona (excessive social climbing and media manipulation) which seems to have been inspired by Mean Girls and The Heathers (only the Five Towns JAP Version*). Hence it makes me wonder, however, whether In the words of Don Corleone:

“Tattaglia (McCord) is a pimp. He (McCord) never could have outfought Santino (Zarin). But I didn’t know until this day that it was Barzini (Frankel) all along.”

The finger prints on the rise of Alex McCord seem to point to her alliance with once Zarin friend Bethenny “best tuchis on a housewife” Frankel, whose comedic wit is probably the most entertaining thing about the show. She is funny and looks pretty damn good pregnant I might add, swelling up in all the right places.

Before we get ahead of ourselves, however, we need to remember, that “this is not personal, it is strictly business.” Perhaps the hit on Jill Zarin was inevitable to preserve the franchise as she seemed to be getting a little too heady with her power, success, excessive manipulation and perceived stature as the most important of the RHONY, much like Moe Greene or Tony Soprano without his meds.  In the words of Hyman Roth: “….this is the business we’ve chosen; I didn’t ask who gave the order, because it had nothing to do with business!”

So, are the Godfather’s days numbered, will Barzini take over the empire or is McCord more than Tattaglia? If she is what remains for the fallen Don, Jill Zarin? Damn, now I guess I will have to watch next week.

NOTE: Before you alert the ADL and attack the author of this piece for use of the term JAP, consider the links referenced below. Although the caricature of a New Yorker represented by Ms. Zarin’s character on the show in this blogger’s estimation, gives even  JAP’s a bad name.

Boston, The Return of the JAP: http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2005/03/13/the_return_of_the_jap/

Jewcy: http://www.jewcy.com/post/jewish_american_princess_revisited

-Come to Me by France Joli (LuAnn de Lesseps won’t be bringing this back anytime soon, rest assured.)

The woman known as Countess LuAnn de Lesseps from The Real Housewives of New York City, the self-anointed modern day Emily Post who penned a book entitled “Class with the Countess” to advise those lower than her on the evolutionary food chain about appropriate manners,  released her single “Money Can’t Buy You Class” to the web yesterday. The hype behind the long awaited single is that she claims I’m Bringing Classy (and Disco) Back. With such a bold claim she makes even the pompous self promoting Jay-Z sound humble and self effacing. Upon listening to the single, the only thing that is in fact clear is that money can’t buy you class or a voice that sounds less like you are tucking in to your panties a big ole sack of testicles, a sound more reminiscent of The Crying Game then The Last Days of Disco. Fact is one would have to possess a rather large set to make such a claim in  the first place.

“The Countless” (as she has been snidely referred to by bloggers and cast mates alike since her curious estrangement, resulting in divorce from her globe trotting philandering husband, Count Alexandre de Lesseps) has gone the synthesizer route ala Kim Zolciak, The Real Housewives of Atlanta, proving that while she may be “Tardy for the Party” that certainly won’t stop her from cashing in the culturally unenlightened, which likely include the Neanderthals who felt inclined to read her tome on how to behave like a civilized human being; a girl’s gotta eat. My advice, you just may want to stuff some snot back up your nose to see if it gives you a more regal air. One can only pray she ventures towards a night club in New Jersey and gets whacked by one of the The Real Housewives of New Jersey. Because you know after all, if you are New Jersey Italian you must be a gangster, right BRAVO and MTV? ….but if you debase culture and you live in Manhattan and “summer” in the Hamptons (which is far different than running around like a drunken club kid hustling in the Hamptons, complaining about being the token black person—first of all, on a personal aside you are not the first, the last or even a token, Brittany Mendenhall) while married to a philandering playboy who dips the wick in more candles than a candle maker, for his title and cash, and after it becomes crystal clear that in a scene out of Eddie Murphy’s Coming to America,  Count Chocula prefers a different flavor entirely in the form of an alleged Ethiopian Princess and he divorces you, you fight tooth and nail for your title more than anything—you have class? Yeah right. Most girls would be better off reading from the Ashley Dupre playbook; it’s more honest and real.

If not the synthesizer, LuMann and Kim Zolciak can go out on tour barnstorming throughout the pockets of the culturally unenlightened across rural America holding book signings and acoustical performances in places like Appalachia perhaps.  Maybe even arch foe Bethenny Frankel will show her well sculpted ass to the folks in the Appalachian region to  increase sales.  Money can’t buy you class, neither can it buy you a voice or the ability to sound less like a tranny; no offense to the Transgender Community. France Joli she is not, so I do not suspect that the LuMann will be bringing disco back. Fact is that LuAnn de Lesseps is not France Joli, hell she ain’t even Ashley Dupre. Regardless it is such a barren hustle.  If you sound like the LuMann, you really ought only to sing in the shower………………. with the door closed preferably. So please don’t “Come to Me”…. because I ain’t still waiting….open arms for you.

**Please Note: This post appears in an edited form on Scallywag & Vagabond.

Artist Alexander Charriol, an up and coming French-American artist, in collaboration with KiptonART and Whitewall Magazine, celebrated twenty new paintings at the opening of his show, Human Flow. The evening celebrated his new body of work focusing on the mystery behind the human touch. Each painting tells the story of an overpowering energy that feeds our desire to connect to each other while exploring the feeling of loneliness, our instinct for survival and the inevitability of death which all unite us towards an ultimate goal, LIFE. For the reasons which I outline below, Charriol’s exhibition at a rather significant pop up art gallery at 4 east 27th Street, between Fifth and Madison Avenues, across the street from The Gershwin Hotel, which runs from April 15-May 15, during the midst of recessionary times may in fact be one of the more timely cultural exhibitions in this town.

Truth told, I do not write to make friends or to enhance my relationship with a certain publishing cogniscenti who serve as mainstream media gatekeepers with the hopes that some day they will advise me that I can ditch my blog and write for theirs. No thanks.  I bask in my continuing irrelevance rather than to receive what amounts to a golden shower of platitudes from the ethically and morally compromised. For to be told how great I am from those who truly suck even more than I do, is hardly a major accomplishment nor anything to aspire to or get heady about. Like a bum stumbling through society’s garbage looking for something meaningful to digest, I forge onward nightly. Instead of meaningful culture often, as my expanding waist line represents, it is more often eggs, bacon and home fries at an ungodly hour that I am consuming.

Over a year ago I wrote about The End of Social Life in New York City and while I was  summarily dismissed by Cityfile, my point was in fact missed.  “A cultural re-awakening and re-enlightenment is what is needed in New York City. Andy Warhol is dead and the Studio 54 crowd that continues to have a lock on New York Nightlife and whom or what gets promoted and written about, needs to go the same route and step aside or get more creative for our culture to evolve.”  Our culture had seemingly devolved into what the SEO Drek Queen(s) and social aggregator/blog GuestofaGuest.com (“GOFAG”) “writer” could pull from a press release and run with two or three images of their friends partying with the same 10 people who get photographed nightly and then run it under a signatory byline, all in the spirit of debasing journalism for yet another day; is their motto “all the drek thats unfit to print.?”

During this recession I have watched as “Society”, and I mean that inclusively, not exclusively, in terms of intellects, writers, the bold and the beautiful, the culture-ites, socialites, fashionistas and antagonistas, the relevant, the reverent and the irreverent and irrelevant all split off into their various pockets or mini fiefdoms in the city. Truth is that there was rarely anything to unite or bring us together even briefly. While some looked in earnest for their 15 Minutes, others were looking to extend the expiring clock on the 15 minutes, still others trying to freeze the clock while some even attempted to get rid of the clock even as the vast majority spend their time looking for the next Andy Warhol or Tommy Hilfiger (nice Jeans, comfortable clothes—NOT ART), without considering that the “next thing” so to speak might be something none of us have imagined.

In the midst of observing one of the most eclectic gatherings I have seen in New York City in a while, Upper East Side meets Chelsea, Williamsburg, Soho and the Lower East Side all in one, intelligentsia, fashionista, antagonista, the bold and the beautiful and the curious if not delirious,  I was snapped to  my attention by the anarchy of The Stumble Bums Band performance at the Charriol’s  opening reception, when in the middle of one of their songs the lyrical refrain emanating from a megaphone manned by the Mohawk styled band member screamed “F_ck Lady Gaga…..F_ck Lady Gaga.” As humorous as it was disjointed it nevertheless awakened me to the possibility that by shattering the myth and illusion of our current creative icons that liberates us even further to smash down the temples of the faux icon’s, cultural manipulators and celebration of the over celebrated to get our culture to a place where there are fewer barriers of understanding if not a reduced hierarchy or pecking order. Maybe that is not what Charriol intended but it is what I felt, some form of unification of the masses.

All in all the experience covering the event, witnessing Charriol’s work on display in this environment was enlightening.   I was legitimately impressed if not “wowed” by the artistry and imagination if not the simple elegance  of the motivation for his work.   But moreover Mr. Charriol he may have done something else entirely, through unification of different societal factions he may be bringing an end to the recession and bringing back The Human Flow into meaningful cultural/social life in this town. To see photos from this event, click here.