http://www.nypress.com/blogs-1-1-1-1.html We always assumed that people were still smoking inside because the places we tend to hang out are less than savory, but according to Eater, it's happening all over. --- ]]> One of my first jobs out of school was playing a rotating succession of floozies—some dumb, some angry, all crazy—on MTV’s first-ever nonmusical program, Remote Control. The parts were tiny, but Remote Control, the cultish late ’80s game show in which three college kids confined to EZ-Chairs answered trivia questions about television and pop culture, was a big deal. Often presented in mini-sketch format, the questions were]]> Helmer Toro, owner of H&H Bagels, was indicted for tax fraud yesterday. He pled not guilty to charges of withholding over $360,000 in payroll taxes. Surely the owner of the self-described “largest bagel manufacturer in the world” wouldn’t risk an enterprise that promising just to get out of paying some taxes? --- It’s a good thing Toro is pleading not guilty because this is obviously one big misunderstanding.]]> Artist Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon, who is best known for her collaborative environmental arts installations with husband Christo Javacheff, died today in Manhattan of complications stemming from a brain aneurysm. Jeanne-Claude, 74, is survived by her husband and son Cyril Christo. --- Jeanne-Claude’s career spanned nearly 50 years and dozens of environmental art projects that typically included la]]> The news on Monday that Window Media had finally closed its doors (literally) and that its chain of papers was officially kaput didn't seem to register much. Maybe that's because its two NYC titles, Genre and New York Blade, had already perished earlier this year. But the fact that the Washington Blade, a paper with a sizable reputation, as well as 21-year-old Southern Voice, one of the last papers focused on gay and lesbian issues in the South,]]> Hulu has been making some, well, interesting business decisions of late. First, it drops hints that the portal will soon be charging viewers to watch TV shows and movies that are currently "free." Now, they're adding content that is widely available elsewhere. --- The New York Times' Bits blog reports that Hulu will soon announce a deal with music label EMI to begin streaming music videos and other materials from ]]> I’m glad I was running too late this morning for breakfast because the following news is enough to make we want to vomit, swear excessively and then vomit some more. While perusing the normally fun-loving photography of Miss Heather on NewYorkShitty.com, I came across a story that is both disgusting and disappointing. Brooklyn has Nazis.---  A merry band of morons has been displaying their doucebagery around Brooklyn and]]> The Beastie Boys said it best: You've got to fight for your right to party—or, in this case, Pool Parties. The free concert series and summer pool party that is Jelly is facing an uncertain future after the New York State Parks Department and Open Space Alliance announced the summer series might not be able to return to East River State Park next summer. --- But Jelly isn't going belly up without a fight and thankfully they have Senator]]> Air Waves addicts can check out the pop trio tonight with Bright Lights at Brooklyn Bowl, 61 Wythe Ave. (at N. 11th St.), 718-963-3369; 9, Free.--- Classic rock heartthrobs Big Star play with with Kurt Vile (and the Violators) at Brooklyn Masonic Temple, 317 Clermont Ave. (at Lafayette Ave.), Brooklyn, 718-638-1256; 7, $35. Bob Dylan performs (hopefully not his Christmas album) tonight at United Palace Theatre, 4140 Broadway (at 175th St.),]]> A couple in Staten Island have recently decided to call it quits after being together for over three years. The real victims in this kind of tragedy are always the little ones who get caught in the middle. In this case Benjamin, the innocent in question, is only a year old and yet he has to bear the burden of a bitter custody battle between two hurt ex-lovers. Right now the police are siding with Audrey Hesselberg because hers is the name on ]]> Superdive opened its doors this summer just in time to earn its place in our Best Of Issue infamy as this year’s Best Bar Idea With the Worst Execution, but unfortunately the execution was worse than even we projected because the frat-boy frequented space on Avenue A just went up on the auction block. --- Tower Brokerage is listing the East Village bar’s asking price as $350,000 key money with a $10,000 per month lease repo]]> This morning's Washington Post examines the horrifying rash of "drive-by porning" incidents that are plaguing that city's subways, highways and even the airplanes flying overhead. And while most Washingtonians seem to respond prudishly and passive aggressively to the public porn (what New Yorker wouldn't realize that there is no better time to mug someone than while he is watching Cock Smokers 10 on the 4 train?), bartender Sandi Benede]]> Is there such a thing as a better nervous breakdown? Absolutely according to TheNervousBreakdown.com founder Brad Listi. The online literary collective launched a bigger, better Breakdown yesterday with its new site expansion. We found out from Listi about all TNB’s new bells and whistles and just what literary lovers can expect from the new site after, as he put it, lunatics take over the asylum and do a little redecorating. --- Back in 20]]> It's a freak occurrence of publishing genius: Sarah Palin's book "Going Rogue" will be released the same day as V. Nabokov's "The Original of Laura." Who's capitalizing on such a once-in-a-lifetime event? Unnameable Books in Prospect Heights. They encourage you to come dress as your favorite character tonight at their midnight release party. Be there, or be Levized. ---]]> If adding a basement lounge wasn't enough, Coffee Shop, the East 16th Street restaurant that everybody knows is a pain but most of us still eat at every so often, is expanding. According to our pal Patrick Hedlund over at Chelsea Now, Team Coffee Shop will "take over the lease at Chelsea’s Empire Diner, with plans to revamp the menu and rename the iconic railcar-style eatery." --- Now, the Empire was never all that great&mdash]]> Looks like the aged forces of Dame Edna and Michael Feinstein have punk’d us all. After days of cluttering in-boxes with emails taking pokes at one another’s competing All About Me Broadway shows this spring, they’ve “suddenly” decided to join forces (along with playwright Christopher Durang) for a single show sure to appeal to Broadway’s tastemakers. You know, the ones who never remember to turn their hearing]]> Over at NPR, Carrie Brownstein interviews Thurston Moore. It happened over email, but it's still totally awesome. Moore, who lives in Northampton, Mass. most of the time, locked it up for me with this exchange: CARRIE BROWNSTEIN: How does living outside of New York City help you to understand and appreciate it? THURSTON MOORE: It has proven that I'm really bored not being in the city -- though I do like the colors, I guess. ---]]> If you had to sum up Playgirl’s plan for Levi Johnston’s pending photo shoot in one word, it would be cheap. Two words? Cheap and classy—or at least that’s what the magazine editors would have you believe. But the cost of class was just too high for the legendary skin mag—plans to shoot Bristol Palin’s baby daddy at the Hotel on Rivington penthouse this Friday were dashed when, as The Post reported, the magazin]]> Clocking in at 70 minutes, Eugene O'Neill's The Emperor Jones, directed by Ciaran O'Reilly at Irish Rep (through Dec. 6), is tragedy in fast-motion. The first half of the play is an exposition as to the ruler's rise to power—he was a slave in America, who, through trickery and intimidation, came to be the ruler of a native land—and the second half is his torture by ghosts in the jungle, as he escapes his voodoo-practicing subjects' su]]> They’re still creepy and they’re still kooky. The upcoming Addams Family musical shared backstage interviews and a cast photo with Vanity Fair, proving that the actors will stay true to the undead hilarity of Charles Addams’s original New Yorker cartoons. --- Nathan Lane, still hammy but now cadaverous, says Addams’s original drawings of Gomez resemble “someone like me.” Krysta Rodriguez says—dea]]>