Rave Against the Parade

ly boring Filter (11/26 at Hammerstein Ballroom), um, Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes (11/26 at Irving Plaza) and that's damn near it. Oh, and Wetlands is presenting two nights of something called "The Jazz Mandolin Project," which I suspect is not a joke.

Okay, it gets a bit hipper than that. Everything But the Girl do their bland postmodern-lounge-music thing at Hammerstein on Thanksgiving eve (11/24, 11 W. 34th St., betw. 8th & 9th Aves., 564-5882, $27.50), and male half Ben Watt will DJ afterward at a food-drive party at Shine, (11/24, 285 W. B'way at Canal St., 941-0900, $10 + a can of food.) The next night, Paul Oakenfold spins "Trancegiving" at the Roxy. A few words about the Roxy: the sound system sucks, the way they set up the room is retarded, the security force is a bunch of dickheads and the crowds the place draws are overwhelmingly suburban and clueless?so the drug dealers outside are predatory. You could have a more mind-blowing Trancegiving by going sober to the Big Bad Voodoo Daddy show. Not to mock your pain or anything. (11/25, 515 W. 18th St., betw. 10th & 11th Aves., 645-5156, $18.)

No, I'm here to help. Not like Hollywood, which is serving up a double dose of holiday spectacle: End of Days and Toy Story 2, both of which open Friday and feature nonhuman stars. Actually, I found the first Toy Story heartwarming and remain a fan of Arnold's sci-fi extravaganzas (and all right, I suppose he's predominately human). But kids'-movie sequels so rarely satisfy (except Babe: Pig in the City, the best film of 1998), and End of Days is coming at us from the writer of Air Force One and the director of The Relic, with a soundtrack featuring Korn, Limp Bizkit and even Powerman 5000. What, no Methods of Mayhem?

That's Tommy Lee's new band. Perhaps you've seen the "Get Naked" video, with Fred Durst, Lil' Kim and George Clinton rapping along with Tommy. It's like watching very loud static. The debut album, according to advertisements, "Drops Like the Bomb December 7th"?I get it!?just like Pearl Harbor! Another perverse misuse of American metal! Afterward Mötley Crüe fans will be rounded up and interned, regardless of their current loyalties! Dope!

This is getting really depressing, right? All this soulless bullshit converging because of the holidays? Did you know there's also a Guns 'N Roses live album about to come out? Or that rapper Akinyele is advertising his new one, Aktapuss, on Time Warner Manhattan's channel 35, amidst all the phone-sex ads? What about the fact that the Animal Defense League (917-285-6295) is planning to protest fur-purveyor Macy's during the balloon inflation the night before the Thanksgiving Day Parade? That's sure to incite the Balloon Animal Defense League to swift retaliation! Sure, it's easy to laugh if you'll be with loved ones for a meal of fatty fowl flesh this Thursday, but what about those in the thick of it?

Help is on the way. I quote from an urgent fax: "Around the world a movement is building. An international tribe of insurrectionists has begun to shake the foundations of authority and control? As they strive to put a price on everything and value on nothing and raise profits over people, we will show them faces and bodies and rhythms of resistance. We will not be stilled. We will not be penned in. We will not be silenced. We will dance. IN THE STREET!" (Just typing that, my heart nearly stopped.) It's a protest against the World Trade Organization and the busiest shopping day of the year and also against the corporatization of public space. The having of fun and the pissing off of cops, should such acts occur, will be incidental. "On this Buy Nothing Day we will create a spectacle of sharing and giving and LIFE WELL LIVED that will not soon be forgotten. Come to the south end of Union Square at 2 p.m. [Friday, 11/26] to join the festival."

Oh yes, we're into the good stuff now. Even if you like your image of revolution against all-encompassing consumerism to look a little less like an illegal rave, there's an option: Hungerthon '99, on all six Infinity Radio Stations. WCBS (101.1 FM), K-Rock (92.3 FM), WNEW talk radio (102.7 FM) and the rest will have special charity auctions throughout the long weekend (800-5HUNGRY to donate). The finale will be Vin Scelsa's Idiot's Delight Rent Party, Sunday, 11/28, from 5:30 until midnight on WNEW. Then on Tuesday there's a chance to compare and contrast Scelsa's views on hunger with pop's leading commentator on the same knotty topic: T-Boz from TLC. "No Scrubs" and "Unpretty" might not be charitable, but you can bet they sparked more badly needed discussion of social issues than all the Rage Against the Machine songs. T-Boz will sign copies of her book of poems and essays, Thoughts, at Chelsea Barnes & Noble. (11/30, 5:30 p.m., 675 6th Ave. at 21st St., 727-1227, free.)

This just in: There's even a possible chance to dance your ass off indoors this week, 'cause while I was bitching about the Roxy the Knitting Factory was booking the Orb's Alex Patterson to spin post-feast. (11/25, 74 Leonard St., betw. Church St. & B'way, 219-3055, $10.) No, I've never seen people dance their asses off at the Knitting Factory either. But Patterson makes for a better bet than the other session by an English DJ this week: DJ Vadim, Saturday at the Cooler. That one is all but guaranteed to be a stand-around-and-stare-at-the-guy-playing-with-records affair. Is it any wonder that something is lost when ghetto art is interpreted by Brits and played back for white hipsters? I like Vadim's albums fine, but his club performances tend to ridicule my anguish. (11/27, 416 W. 14th St., betw. 9th Ave. & Washington St., 645-5189, $15/$12 adv.)

Our saving grace this week is the alternative movie theaters. They're coming through for us as much as the music gods are letting us down. If you're stuck here, lonely, not looking to go revolutionary or even intellectual, but simply looking for a little stimulation, a bit of art to get you through, the "Other Films" section is your ticket.

Word up: Film Forum's got Taxi Driver Friday and Saturday (11/26-27, 209 W. Houston St., betw. 6th Ave. & Varick St., 727-8110); Symphony Space starts a week of Keaton/Chaplin double bills on Friday with The General at 7 p.m. and City Lights at 8:30 (11/26, 2537 B'way at 95th St., 864-5400); MOMA is showing all the Errol Morris documentaries?Fast, Cheap & Out of Control Friday at 2:30 p.m. and Sunday at 5 p.m., Gates of Heaven Saturday at 5 p.m., The Thin Blue Line Sunday at 1 p.m.?see the Listings for a complete schedule (11 W. 53rd St., betw. 5th & 6th Aves., 708-9400); and the American Museum of the Moving Image is screening classic teen movies. They've got Rebel Without a Cause Saturday at 2 p.m. and the underrated Go (much more fun than Run Lola Run) at 4:30; Sunday it's Fast Times at Ridgemont High at 2 p.m. and a director-present screening of Coming Soon, a new teenage-girls-seek-sexual-satisfaction comedy, at 4 p.m. (11/27-28, 35th Ave. at 36th St., Astoria, 718-784-0077.) And don't forget about the four-day Merchant/Ivory conference up at Barnard. It opens Monday with a screening of Heat and Dust at 7 p.m., and closes Thursday, Dec. 2, with a panel discussion featuring Merchant and Ivory themselves. It's no bountiful harvest nor Life Well Lived, but hey, it's better than bupkes. (11/29-12/2 at Barnard Hall's Julius S. Held Lecture Hall, enter campus at B'way & 116th St., 854-9011 for info.)