Scene & Herd - You know you’re no model if ...
Plus, the return of the Yankees
Hasidic Jewish reggae singer and rapper is more than just a terrific idea for a Halloween costume. It’s also the job description of a young Brooklyn resident named
Matisyahu. I saw him at Smith’s Olde Bar last Monday night (Feb. 28), where he and his three-piece backing band played to a nearly sold-out house.
I went to the show because I thought it’d be funny. It wasn’t funny at all, though. Matisyahu is actually a great singer and he’s backed by the best reggae band I’ve ever seen live.
Matisyahu took the stage around 9 after a very kind introduction by 99X’s Jimmy Baron. The moment Matisyahu opened his mouth, the idea of Hasidic reggae made perfect sense. Religion has always sat right alongside getting high, getting laid, and vanquishing whitey as one of reggae’s favorite lyrical topics (remember, Bob Marley’s biggest success during his lifetime was an album called Exodus). Matisyahu is just making the Judaism-reggae link more obvious.
Speaking of Marley, Matisyahu’s second encore (the audience didn’t want to let him go) was a modified version of the “Rastaman Chant,” the song that closes the Wailers’ album Burnin’. Matisyahu kept the song’s “God is coming, look busy” theme, he just took out the word “Rastaman,” and replaced it with “higher man.”
Model Citizens:Last Saturday, I stopped by Lenox Square to watch auditions for “America’s Next Top Model.” I watched it by myself mostly, but for about 30 minutes, I sat with a group of women inside a hair salon overlooking the auditions. Shielded by glass that let them watch and comment to one another without being heard by those below, the ladies provided running commentary, letting me eavesdrop and quote if I promised not to use any names.In no particular order, here are some of the more enjoyable comments they made about the wannabe models: “Too skinny”; “Does she think this is an audition for a Nelly video?”; “That’s the ugliest poncho I’ve ever seen”; “She saw those leg warmers in a magazine, but she missed the part where it said ‘worst dressed’”; “She looks pregnant”; and my favorite because it was so true, “She looks like a man.”
Ads for the audition requested women with a “diverse background.” I’m not entirely sure what a “diverse background” is. I don’t know about you, but my parents could only afford to give me one background. I suspect that “diverse background” is just TV’s version of “urban,” the code word that the commercial radio industry uses when it really means “black people.” Of course, it is modeling we’re talking about, so “diverse background” could just mean “we accept both anorexics and bulimics.”
Here’s one thing I’m sure of, though: In the modeling biz, a diverse background will not make up for an ugly foreground. I wasn’t expecting to see so many flat-out unattractive women wasting their Saturdays auditioning to become a model. That’d be like me entering the Easily Pronounceable Name Contest. I know that I’m being harsh, but if you’re auditioning to be a model on a TV show, you’re literally asking strangers and the media to judge you solely on your physical appearance, so don’t nag.
It’s possible that some of the ugly auditioners are fully aware of their ugliness, but were hoping to become the William Hung of modeling. Watching them for a couple of hours, though, I got the feeling that most of the ugly auditioners mistakenly think that they’re all that (plus or minus a bag of chips).
With that in mind, I’ve developed a simple test to help you, the aspiring model, figure out if it’s the right career for you? Are you ready? It’s simple. Are your parents, your ugly best friend, and drunk guys in bars at closing time the only people who ever tell you that you’re beautiful? If you answered “yes,” you’re not modeling material. You may very well be beautiful on the inside, but until Sports Illustrated starts putting out an annual “Women with Great Personalities” issue, you won’t be a model.
Backdoor Action:Dad’s Garage’s Top Shelf Theatre (it’s in the same building, except you enter from the rear) is hosting a great little improv show through March 25 called The Saturday Morning Pajama Jam.It’s largely the same group that does the big improv show up front, however SMPJ has a different tone. It’s an offbeat take on Saturday morning programming of the ’70s and ’80s and has a slightly more stoned and absurdist edge than the theater’s usual front-of-house fare. The show’s highlights include (but are not limited to) a mock science show starring Chris Blair as science guru ChickenHand the Pirate and an improvised cartoon. The show’s daddy, Rene Dellefont, moves silent characters on a big screen via computer while actors improvise dialogue. The “Saturday morning” theme is echoed by pillows and breakfast cereal given to the audience. Altogether, it’s like watching your ultra-talented friends playing and creating, rather than watching strangers perform. I highly recommend it.
Look for the Union Label:At around 2 on Saturday afternoon, I headed up to Kennesaw’s Southern Museum of Civil War and Locomotive History because I had read, in this fine newspaper no less, that there’d be Civil War re-enactors there re-enacting. As usual, the paper was correct. The 125th Ohio Volunteer Infantry re-enactors had set up camp on the museum’s front lawn. Wearing Union Blue uniforms and toting replica Civil War rifles with bayonets, they answered questions and happily chit-chatted with all passersby.At regular intervals, the group of about 25 re-enactors got into formation and marched across the street into a field where they marched some more and fired their guns. Other than the smiling, the absence of thousands of dead and maimed bodies, and the cars driving by, it was very realistic. The 125th was commemorating the Battle of Big Shanty, an important step in the offensive that saw Union forces torch Atlanta, nearly killing Scarlett O’Hara in the process. I asked one of the soldiers if he and his unit were gonna burn Atlanta after they were done in Kennesaw. “That’d be great,” he said.