Month: April 2010

After collecting himself almost imperceptibly, without so much as a shiver, Anything Man turned to Liver Lady. He said, “Please sit down. Thanks for joining me.” “Why thank you,” Liver Lady said. “Thank you very much.” “What are you drinking,” he asked. “Diet Doctor Pepper,” she said. “I don’t want anyone taking advantage of me…

“By this time Greg was watching, notebook in hand, from the end of the bar. Kevin had come out of the kitchen and wiped his hands on his apron nervously – he only had a minute before he had to get back to whatever he was cooking. Kimberly poked her head out from behind the…

I went to the Greg, the Bartender, also a filmmaker, and whispered, “Anything Man is buying Liver Lady a drink!” “Fuck, man, that is perfect,” he said, and made a note in his notebook. He was making an indie film about a bartender in one of New York’s old, authentic, disappearing neighborhoods, and he was…

“At 9:30, throwing our evening for a loop, Anything Man came in and sat down, with his usual cheap tweed, and his usual purposefully “enigmatic” smile, along the window, in front of Liver Lady, a few tables up from Model To Be. By that time, there would be just two of us working the floor.…

“Liver Lady was there at her usual 9PM. When I informed her that we had run out of liver, she didn’t take it well, but she did her best to put on her game face; her game face with wrong-colored lipstick, and her hair about to explode and her quilted too-warm blue, fraying jacket. She…

“You can picture the city. 1996: there was no Time Out New York; there was no solo show about a restaurant that was so popular they needed a special reservation line; there was no internet, really, to speak of, and no 9-11. Giuliani was in his first term as Mussolini. Neighborhoods in Manhattan had unmarked…

“There was another regular at Nick & Eddie, that last summer it was open, who we called Anything Man, and he came on Tuesdays. At first we had wondered about him but we quickly stopped. Anything Man was just another weeknight eccentric, and not a very interesting one; another lonely character the city used to…

“The Liver Lady came in on one of those Wednesdays, because she came in every Wednesday, because Wednesday was the day we ran the liver special. The liver was always on the menu, but on Wednesday it was two dollars cheaper than usual and the Liver Lady was thrifty. She told one of the waiters,…

“Nick & Eddie was a pioneer in a long line of Soho restaurants that served fancy comfort food made with a lot of fuss, at inflated prices. If you know the original Blue Ribbon, this was started by one of those guys, and occupied the corner of Spring and Sullivan Streets for about eight years.…

Mallory Catlett and I are working on a piece that involves abandoned malls. Right now it’s called Patient Boy Can anyone tell me how to perform a piece in one? Like, this one? http://www.flickr.com/photos/lookinthetunk/176615260/in/set-167023/