Restaurant Florent is having some fun during the convention:

You may have heard that the GOP is coming to town . . .

Well, instead of 4 days of gloom and doom, bitterness and outrage, don’t we deserve to have a little pro-active, pro-radical, pro-family-value fun of our own?

Pop into Restaurant Florent Monday, August 30th thru Thursday, September 2nd for “Counter-Conventional,” where we’ll protest with performances and pommes frites. There’ll be a different theme each evening, featuring our most popular Halloween and Bastille Day performers, and 10% of the dinner receipts will be given proudly to not-for-profit groups working to put our America back on track.

Monday night: BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING!
Featuring Mr. Murray Hill on the microphone and Lavinia Co-op To benefit the American Civil Liberties Union of New York.

Tuesday night: SEPARATE CHURCH AND STATE!
Featuring the revered Reno and the secularly spiritual sounds of Dirty Martini and Tigger. To benefit Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

Wednesday night: MARRY THIS!
Featuring Frank DeCaro at the altar with musical guests Ami Goodheart and Daniel Isengart. To benefit Marriage Equality.

Thursday night: NO MORE WIRE HANGERS!
Featuring Mr. Murray Hill, Church Ladies for Choice, Ami Goodheart, and the World Famous BOB. To benefit NARAL NY.

There’ll be two (scheduled) performances each night, at 8:15 and 10:15. For reservations or more information, call 212-989-5779.

We hope to see you at Restaurant Florent, located at 69 Gansevoort, open 24/7, and, since 1985, the proud home of:
POLITICAL DRAG QUEENS
SUICIDAL LIBERTINES
SECULAR SURGEONS
TRANSVESTAL VIRGINS
LUNATIC RAVERS
STEROIDAL SAVIORS
TWELVE-STEPPING TWO-STEPPERS
INFIDEL LEPERS
SADISTIC HUMANISTS
LUNATIC SENSUALISTS
WONDERING JEWS
MULTICULTURAL VIEWS
LEFTIST RITUALS
&
DELECTABLE VICTUALS

New one! Click on the image for the rest.

David Rees’s new book, Get Your War On II, comes out September 7th.

There is no rally at the end, just… who knows with a crowd of that size?

From NY1 – there’s a video too.

The police waited 15 minutes before arresting them. Interesting.

A dozen AIDS activists were arrested outside Madison Square Garden Thursday afternoon after they stripped off their clothes and blocked traffic.

The men and women, members of ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) said they staged the demonstration in front of the site of next week’s Republican National Convention in order to protest the Bush administration’s policies on AIDS.

“This protest is to tell the naked truth to President Bush and the Republican Party,” said ACT UP member Robert Dabney, who kept his clothes on to talk to reporters. “Our protestors are demanding number one that the president support full debt cancellation for the poorest nations in the world.”

The protestors were standing naked in the street for almost 15 minutes before police put them in handcuffs. Traffic, already slowed by sporadic closures in the area for security preparations, stood at a standstill in the meantime.

ACT UPers were also involved in the anti-Bush banner released in Grand Central last week.

Another cool protest today: a banner outside the Plaza Hotel.

I grabbed that image from the local NBC affiliate, which seems to have some good coverage of both protests.

Also, a new Quinnipiac poll says 71% of New Yorkers think protesters should be allowed to use Central Park during the convention. 68 percent approve of nonviolent civil disobedience!

Good post on this topic (not just for artists I think — programmers too) by Franklin Einspruch.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert at Ground Zero in ’01 with Rudy Giuliani and Gov. Pataki.
AP

Dennis Hastert, Speaker of the House and chairman of the Republican National Convention, says in a new book that New York politicians were guilty of an “unseemly scramble” for cash after 9/11.

David Sirota has more.

Some day I’m going to get slapped by a midriff-baring Chelsea muscle queen when that pops out of my mouth as I walk down Eighth Avenue.

Gothamist has become so damn annoying (e.g. this) that I’m hoping Sean’s NYC.Metroblogging site can become the NYC-oriented site we can all rely upon.

We went to amBUSH at Van Brunt gallery last night. I expect James will have something up about that soon.

Tonight we’re going to Watch What We Say at Schroeder Romero (nothing on the site), opening 6-9.

There is a lot more. I recommend watching Joy Garnett’s blog for places to go. I will try to keep up with my arts calendar linked on the home page too.

I love this story. I heard about it on the radio yesterday.

Bright blue tarps, painted with glaring yellow letters, are going up on dozens of rooftops in Brooklyn, under the flight paths into busy New York airports. Thousands of delegates and convention guests peering down at the city might see messages like “No more years” and “Re-defeat Bush.”

“We just hope that they’ll look down and ask themselves, ‘Why, why do they feel so strongly? Why is it that New York feels this way?’” said Genevieve Christy, who has painted more than 80 banners since thinking of the idea a few weeks ago.

The movement is so popular in her neighborhood that Christy, a 57-year-old consultant, is putting orders on a waiting list. She even brought supplies with her on vacation so she could keep working.</blockquote>