Head off to Coney Island with Dagfinn to check out the free outdoor screening of The Warriors, which is being shown as part of Netflix's Rolling Roadshow thing.

I hold down the fort as Dagfinn goes off in search of Nathan's. It's early, and there's already a ton of people in the park.

The movie is projected from a truck onto this funky inflatable movie screen thing. The elevated train tracks are about a block away, and trains rumble past atmospherically about every ten minutes. Trippy.




After the show, pretty much every surviving cast member of the movie (including the oft-rumored-dead Roger Hill, who played Cyrus) takes the stage to field questions from the audience.


Can't end the night without taking one iconic Coney image:


The event is "hosted" by Lisa Loeb, inasmuch as she takes the stage before the movie and gives a little welcome speech, wherein she manages to mispronounce "Coney Island" - she says it like "Connie". I like Lisa Loeb a lot (despite how badly she came off in that tv show she did), but it's still funny.

Gotham Girls roller derby bout, Brooklyn Bombshells v. Bronx Gridlock.

Warm-up:





Pre-game cheerleader entertainment.



The bout begins!





Half-time entertainment.



The Gridlock kicks ass, like I knew they would.

Just a couple shots from Battery Park City, which is lovely this time of year:

It's Dagfinn's birthday the day after I get back from St. Louis. We start the night early at The Delancey on the Lower East Side, which has a roof deck that's nice enough that we overlook the rather warm beers. Things turn pretty dark, though, after about nine when the manager rather rudely informs us that we would each have to pay a $10 cover if we want to stay (despite the fact that our rather large group had already at that point been generous customers for hours), and that if we don't want to pay, we'll have to leave, immediately.

We may have (MAY have) just laughed it off, paid the stupid cover and stayed, had they not been so rude about it, but screw that noise. We all leave and go to the Magician around the corner, which is far more accomodating. Fun night, all in all.

I get back from St. Louis at about 2 in the afternoon -- time enough to unpack and to take a short nap before trucking up to Lincoln Center to watch Emily and her dance group do their performance in conjunction with that Midsummer Night's Swing thing that Lincoln Center does every summer.



I learn after I get up there, unfortunately, that the performance was cancelled at the last moment, but lucky for me Emily stayed to be one of the instructors for the night, so I get a chance to pop in and say hello anyway.



Midsummer Night's Swing at Lincoln Center is a trip. Like, I'd been told that it's basically just a bunch of people dancing, but I could never have pictured in my head just how many people, and how much dancing.



What amazed me was the number of dancers that had spilled out of the regular staged area. Pretty quickly it was evident that the "real" show was happening outside of the stage. Literally the whole of Lincoln Center had been taken over by swing dancers old and young, and most of them were quite good, too.



I have no reason to believe that it isn't like this every week, either.

After checking it out for a while, I meet up with Tim, and we go out for Chinese. I have to say, after having spent pretty much an entire week stranded in downtown St. Louis, which frankly I found to be quite desolate and sad, it feels so nice to be, so quickly after returning home, surrounded by life, by music, by joy, and most importantly, by friends.

God, I missed New York.

I'm leaving for St. Louis for a week tomorrow morning and need something fairly last-hurrah-ish to lighten my mood, so Ken, Martin, and I decide to meet up to go see Chris Garneau play at the Living Room on Ludlow.



I love watching Chris play, even if he's in more of a "German cabaret" mode tonight than usual. I guess the CD's been pushed back to January.

Roy and Jenna come over, and I'm sure the three of us at one point have actual plans to walk over to the Seaport to watch the fireworks, but in the end we're all too hot and lazy to get out of the A/C-path. We watch...something. I can't even remember. Hellboy, perhaps.



At one point during the evening, Jenna shifts her seat on the couch a bit, makes a classic WTF?-face, reaches between the cushions, and pulls out a pair of scissors. Man, I'd been looking for those things for weeks, and couldn't even imagine what had happened to them, as I am ALWAYS sure to return them to the drawer when I'm done with them. I instantly flash back to...basically every day of my childhood, when my mom was forever screaming at us for never putting the scissors back in the drawer after we used them.

I remember now: I was sitting on the couch cutting the tag off of a t-shirt before doing a load of laundry a few weeks ago. I feel bad - all this time I'd thought that my super had come into my apartment without permission while I was at work (he's done this at least twice before, once to replace my intercom, once to install a carbon monoxide detector - yes, I realize both times he was doing me a favor and probably saving me all kinds of time, but nevertheless, he didn't have my permission), had used them, and then just dropped them someplace. Instead, it was just my stupid carelessness.

Just as I'm going to bed, I see this funky shadow that my folding chair is making against the door:

Global benefit for Equality Now, weekend of 6/22-25

Okay, I'm gonna break my rule of images only to bring you this. Breaking this rule is a HUGE deal for me, so the least you can do is read this post, loser (^_^) :

The weekend of June 22-25 is playing host to benefit screenings of Joss Whedon's movie Serenity around the world. Screenings will be preceded or followed by dinners, auctions, and other fundraising activities, with all proceeds above and beyond the price of theater/print/restaurant rental going to Equality Now, an international organization which works to end violence and discrimination against women and girls around the world through the mobilization of public pressure. Issues of concern to Equality Now include rape, domestic violence, reproductive rights, trafficking, female genital mutilation, political participation, and gender discrimination.

Go to http://www.cantstoptheserenity.com/ to find information on screenings in your neck of the woods.

To learn more about Equality Now, go to: http://www.equalitynow.org/

***

The NYC screening will take place on June 23 (Friday) at Cinema Village (22 E.12th St.) at 11:45 PM. Tickets are only $11 and will be available for purchase soon (I hear) at the Cinema Village website: http://www.cinemavillage.com/chc/cv/

Dinner and auction will be at Rose & Ting Noodles & Grille (85 4th Ave. (@10th St.)) at 8:30 PM. Tickets are only $10, and include food, tax and tip (drinks and dessert are extra), and are available NOW at: http://outerrimoutfitters.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=7&products_id=13

Seating is limited!

You can attend either or both events. (Or neither, I suppose.... ;_; )

For more information (not much yet beyond what I just told you, but keep checking the site for updates), go to: http://www.browncoatsofnyc.org/portal.php?page=3

Please pass along to anyone you know who might be interested in this sort of thing.

If you're there on the 23rd, ask anyone in charge in point you to Mike C., and tell them you heard about the event here at nycityofmike.