Hassan & Epstein, The Black & the Jew

Hassan & Epstein as kids.

Performing at Sweet Rhythm. photo by Bob Schaffer

HASSAN & EPSTEIN,
BEHIND THE COMEDY OF THE BLACK & THE JEW

Race, sex, politics, cunnilingus, cocksucking, and how to have a happy marriage: these are probably not the first things you think of when you think of comedy, but such is the offbeat approach to being funny taken by Naima Hassan and Steve Epstein, known for years as “The Black and the Jew.” (theblackandthejew.com)

They’ve been perfecting their take on these topics and many others for over 10 years, performing in clubs, small venues, and shows. They also emceed the Blue Angel Cabaret, from its early days on Walker Street, to its transformation into Le Scandal at the Cutting Room. They also had their own show, Shock and Awe a Go-Go, which featured acts representing various fantasies: the Black Man, a handicapped gay comic, and a tranny, to name a few. They’ve also manage to have a happy monogamous marriage for 24 years.

They didn’t start out as a performing duo. As with any couple, two different origin stories emerged: Steve tells me he had no experience performing at all, except announcing Jazz acts at the clubs where he worked as a doorman and manager, while Hassan was doing a one woman show called, “Everything the White Culture Wants to Know About the Black Culture, But They’re too Scared to ask, so They Watch the Cosby Show,” which she did at La Mama, PS 122, venues of that sort.

“We thought, they’re hasn’t been a husband and wife comedy team since Stiller and Meara, as far as we knew, and we figured the world would be so excited by this concept, but we found out quikly, this one idea the world is not that excited by.”
Hassan told me when she met Steve, he was doing stand up (though Steve insists this was rare), and when they started dating, she was at La Mama, and he’d bring friends, and worry “What if she’s no good?” but “Of course, I was very very good.”

So they decided, let’s do something together, but “we weren’t ready for the politics of it. People could handle it if were both both white or black, or Jewish or gay, but having an interracial team of two performers who both had strong points of view, freaked people out. We didn’t fit the standard format of comedy. What do you call what we do? We use stand up, sketch bits, one liners, performance art, improv, and music, and people, if they can’t label it, they don’t want to look at it.

“That was the challenge in the beginning, what do you call what we’re doing, this magical mixture, this jamabalaya. But we stuck with it, and today, the result of our labors is The Black and the Jew Comedy Hour.”

The duo started perfoming together in the mid 1990’s, and Steve clarifies, “She says I was a stand up, but I had really only been at a few open mikes, while her level of perfomance was on a much higher level. When I first saw her at La Mama, the woman before her was unbelievably awful [those familiar with the downtown perfomance scene can easily imagine how awful- ed.] and I thought, ‘I hope Hassan is better than this.’ She did this one woman show for years into our marriage, even as we were deciding to become a team. We did some open mikes, and quickly developed our personas.

Around this time, Velocity Chyald saw us and introduced us to Uta Hana, the producer of the Blue Angel. Originally, we were performers, and Laura Dinabell was the emcee, when she left, we started emceeing, where we developed many of our routines.”

Hassan says that the experience of emceeing the Blue Angel, opened up possibilities of hosting other shows, but “we never stopped doing our two person show.”

When the Blue Angel became Le Scandal, the duo no longer hosted the show, but would be the opening act. Around this time, they developed Shock and Awe a Go-Go, their own take on the burlesque scene, with possibly a harder edge then the retro cutesy vibe that enshrouds the new burlesque scene.

How they became the Black and the Jew is one of those classic tales: “We were originally called Epstein and Hassan,” Steve says, “and we were walking down Carmine Street and some guy who knew us yelled out, ‘You’re the Black and the Jew!’ and from that moment on, the name stuck. We thought it was funny.”

They also have an internet radio show (nytalkradio.net or go to the Blackandthejew.com) which you can hear on your computer five days a week at 6, repeated at 11. though shows are only live on Mon, Wed, and Friday. Older shows are archived on iTunes, and they’ve amassed over 170 hours so far. They got the show when the station’s founder and family came to see their show at Sweet Rhythm (sadly, now defunct, though it still opens for them to perform, at least until its sold), and invited them to appear on another show.

“I did have some radio experience,” Steve tells me. “In college, I was Sports Director of WLIU, I was the voice of the LIU Blackbirds, and they played division 1 college basketball, and instead of going to class, I spent three years on the road with them.” Hassan also did radio in college. “I had as how called Lady Love, I read poetry, played music, I really enoyed it.”

Steve says that though it took about a year to polish their live act, the radio show immediately had a flow and snap. Working as emcees really helped focus them. “When you host a burlesque show, the audience doesn’t want to see you, they want to see the girls, so you better learn to be funny fast, and eventually people started coming to see us, and that’s when we knew we were on the right track,”

Steve thinks radio works best with a multiplicity of voices, “and we found a bunch of people to be our co-hosts who bring something to the table.” People like Big Al (those familiar with Manhattan Public Access might remember Al from his long running show, “Spic ‘n Spanish”), Smoke Katz (childhood friend of Epstein’s), Gorilla Bob (caveat emptor: that’s me), and of course the regular scouging of Sean, the long suffering sound engineer.

“The great thing about internet radio is that we have listeners all over the world. We perform mostly in Manhattan and Brooklyn, and years ago, in Toronto, during the SARS outbreak, but now, anyone with a computer can hear us.”

They’d love to take their show on the road, but they say it’s hard to tell what audiences will like them. “We’re not really downtown, we have middle aged couples visiting from the Midwest who enjoy us,” Steve says, and Hassan add s, “We’re really a mind set. You’re either open to us or you’re not.”

They also did a film, “You Two Should have an HBO Special” because “when we always have people telling us, you should be on HBO, but apparently HBO doesn’t realize this,” Steve says. “But of all the things we do, the live show is our favorite.”

Darrell Blackandblue’s the Name, Gay Leather Sex is the Game

Man About Town. Photo courtesy of Darrell

A Boy and His Laptop. Photo courtesy of Darrell

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Darrell at the Folsom Street Fair. At most fairs you win stuffed animals, here you win a dildo, which can also be stuffed... photo by Bob Schaffer

This past Spring, (June 21 to be exact), the Folsom Street East Fair came to Manhattan, where aside form the usual trappings of a NY street fair (sausages, t-shirts, cheap pillows), there was s/m practitioners of both sexes wandering around, and performances by a variety of drag queens, including a Sarah Palin lookalike. I’m told this was the largest event of its nature on the East Coast. One of the people who was there was Darrell Perry, a 48 year old leather loving gay African American male, known around town as Darrell Blackandblue (http://notesfromthedungeonboss.blogs.com/).

Born on Staten Island, he had the common sense to leave that Twilight Zone borough quickly, to go live in Brooklyn and Japan, finally moving to Manhattan where Midtown has been his home for 25 years now. Working mostly in media and photography, Darrell recently quit his last job to develop several online adult web ventures. He also devotes time to throwing gay S/M leather parties, and you can learn more about that at http://www.darrellsdungeon.com/.

Darrell is a member of several educational and Gay clubs around town devoted to the gay leather scene. He has been going to events since 1991, and started giving parties in 2000.

Darrell is planning to expand his party venues to include bars, nightclubs and the like. He is optimistic, that despite the economic downturns, and the years of repression under Mayor Benito Giuliani, the gay leather scene is having a resurgence.

Despite the dearth of affordable real estate to throw events, people are finding ways of meeting up and playing. Darrell feels the internet will play a large role in this regard, and that more and more businesses, instead of fighting the web, will embrace it, especially in regard to nightlife in general, and gay nightlife in particular, and gay leather nightlife to be even more specific.

Darrell got involved in the scene the way a lot of people discover their taste for it: someone tries something out on them, often without their knowledge of what’s really happening. Darrell can’t quite recall the original scene that sparked his interest, perhaps spanking or role play involving daddy/son issues, but he soon realized he was really into it. Slowly, he came to discover others who share his off the beaten track interests. Darrell feels everybody is into something that other people would probably find kinky, but that many don’t want to own up to their desires, or be thought “odd."

This reminds me of one of something E.M. Forster once said, that there isn’t anyone whose sexual tastes if known, wouldn’t horrify other people.

The loss of a lover in 1990 decided Darrell to give himself totally to the scene, and with the end of his job recently, Darrell wants to embed himself further in the gay leather scene.

Kristen Copham, NY Artist

Portrait by Kristen Copham of me. Photo by Bob Schaffer

The Artist and Her Faces. photo by Bob Schaffer

The Artist and Another of Her Subjects. Photo by Bob Schaffer

I sat down for a chat with artist Kristen Copham, who also owns a studio/gallery in the East Village, NY Studio Gallery (http://www.nystudiogallery.com).

Kristen is from Minnesota, and has made NY her home since 2004. Like many others, art brought her here, and a best friend, who moved to NY first. When Kristen would visit here, more and more aspects of the city intrigued her, until she thought, “Why not just move?”

Kristen lives on Suffolk Street, which is not the same street I can recall from the 1970’s, when the neighbors would toss smoke bombs into galleries, surely the ultimate art criticism (This is not a joke, I was in ABC No Rio on Rivington Street back then when an evening of performance was disrupted in just such a manner. Ahh, memories… The streets are safer, though I can’t say they are as much fun as they were, muggings aside).

Kristen is working on a project of 1000 Faces, which are just that: paintings, all the same small size, of faces. Kristen has always done figurative work, which is what attracted her work to me when I saw it in a gallery. I’m sick of abstract art. Anyone who makes use of the human figure has an immediate appeal to me.

Kristen tells that though she “loves abstract work, I’m terrible at it, but I’ve always been good with people, or animals.” The faces project came about because of her desire to work in a smaller format, so she bought some pieces of wood, and began with her roommate, which she says “was not very good. It took me awhile to get it right. First, she made 6 face paintings, then I said, I’ll do 100. Walking the streets, I was struck by the diversity of the faces, especially coming from an essentially Caucasian place like Minnesota. I finished the 100, and people kept asking ‘How many more? How many more?’ and soon I had about 600, so I just said ‘A 1000.’”

Along with faces, Kristen has a series of male nudes, influenced by artists like Sylvia Sleigh and Alice Neel. Kristen started with nude self portraits, then grew tired of that, and with the idea of female nudes in general, and liked the idea of switching the gender roles: women painting men naked, instead of the usual paradigm. Kristen likes to paint men who have never modeled, and most are artists.

“The paintings are also about the men I paint, so I’ll sit and talk with them about their work, and how they want to be represented. We both brainstorm. I don’t want the men to be just an object in a painting. I guess I’m approaching these in a more typical female manner, rather than saying ‘I’m the artist, sit like this, turn right.’ I try to collaborate more with my subjects, so the portraits are more natural and not so contrived.”

When Kristen first came to NY, she lived on 20^th Street, in an apartment she renovated. “I’ve always been wheeling and dealing a bit in real estate, since about 1994. I used to buy places, fix them up, and sell them. When I sold my place on 20^th, I decided to buy a building, because all the rules in co-ops annoyed me, like being chastised because I sublet my apartment, and I’d say ‘Why wouldn’t I sublet it? It was empty.’ I had had enough, so I looked for a small building I could fix up. This place was more about the real estate then the gallery.”

In fact, Kristen never planned to open a gallery. “When I first moved, my friends would say, ‘You going to open a gallery?’ and I’d say ‘Fuck no! I don’t want to run a gallery!’ But what happened, is that I had a studio in Dumbo, and when I started my face series, I’d ask people to come over so I could paint them, and they’d say ‘You’re in Brooklyn? I don’t want to go all the way to Brooklyn.’ Even though I was only one stop over the bridge, so I got a studio In the Whitehall building, on 25^th Street, and I’d leave the door open for airflow, and people would constantly drop by. So I got the idea to use part of it as a gallery, by showing work by my friends up front, so there’d be a buffer zone. Then it just got a away from me, people would ask, ‘How can I show my work?’ Then I had to get help to handle the gallery stuff, and look at me now, I went from ‘No way am I having a gallery’ to living in one.”

Kristen is making the building more multi-purpose, with artists-in-residence, and a rehearsal space in the basement for bands, including her own, “Elfi Snow,” and she has become interested in video as well because of her interest in music. She is the singer/songwriter/guitarist for the band, and in fact did a show recently in Minnesota for the National Hot Rod Association.

You can call the studio if you’d like to be painted by Kristen: 212.627.3276, or info@nystudiogallery.com

Gabrielle Penabaz: Renaissance Toots for the New Millenium

Gabrielle with one of her paintings. Photo by Bob Schaffer

Gabrielle with a painting by Madeline Von Foerster. Her work is well worth your time: http://madelinevonfoerster.com/ Photo by Bob Schaffer

I spoke recently with Gabrielle Penabaz (http://www.TheSaintEve.com), a woman of many talents. Film director, writer, video editor, v.j., singer, dancer, actress, party thrower, and lovely woman.

Gabrielle has lived in NY since 1983, arriving in the city “fleeing from Miami, Florida and the suburbs.” She came here originally to attend NYU’s film school, realized it was too expensive, and switched to Gallatin, a division of NYU where “you invent your own program.” Gabrielle has recently started making films again, and she enjoys directing because you “get to choreograph diverse elements,” something that brings her back to her early training as a dancer.

She also edits video for PS 122 and Montclair University, helping create compilations and the like for them. “It’s a bit like cooking, where you combine things to make a dish, and might add something a bit weird to make the dish taste better.” The idea of harmonizing disparate materials to make a satisfying whole appeals to her dancer’s instincts.

She started making music at NYU, because in the 80’s, there was no video program, and to make the simplest film, you had to use 8 or 16mm, and it could cost upwards of 20,000 or so to make a short film. But her songwriting inspired her to want visuals, so while writing for her last band, she choreographed dancers, and created films for the musical performances. Essentially, that’s what entangled her into finally admitting to being a multi-media artist.

Gabrielle is currently working on a play called “Sex Crimes Cabaret” (http://www.SexCrimesCabaret.com)

that features short films and video backgrounds. The show is about sex laws through history and people’s reaction at various epochs. It started with an interest in laws regarding consensual sex, like sodomy laws, or sexual positions, “no rape or violence”. Sodomy laws affect “straight couples, not just gay ones, and sex toy laws are fascinating. For example, in Texas, until very recently (Nov. 2008), if you owned more than 8 sex toys, it was 'intent to distribute' and a crime.”

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“I find it interesting that the law is phrased with drug language,” says Gabrielle. “One of the more fascinating cases with this law was a woman who ran a sex toy business, but she had to call her stuff ‘educational models’, and was arrested by narcotics officers posing as a married couple looking for marital aid information, and then she was fined 4000 dollars. So as part of this piece, I made a belt of dildos.”

“I also do one-on-one performance art piece called ‘Til Death Do You Part – MARRY YOURSELF!’ [http://www.EncouragingPriestess.com] where you marry yourself and I am your encouraging priestess. I did this recently at Figment on Governor’s Island, and before that at London’s Spill Festival for their ‘Visions of Excess’ evening, and also at last year’s Biennial in New Orleans. Technically, it’s an art piece, but it can also have a strong emotional impact like any wedding.”

If that isn’t enough for one lifetime, Gabrielle has been throwing parties since 1999. “I was hired by companies during the dotcom boom because they wanted cool factor, and I had an unusual band at the time, St. Eve, and I was also working at the nightclub Mother that had a lot of appeal for them. So I would create these VIP events with costumed bartenders, go-go dancers, artsy performances, and interesting drinks. I mostly throw underground events these days.”

Gabrielle is also associated with Collective Unconscious, who recently lost their downtown space. “They’re producing ‘Sex Crimes’ along with Pinchbottom Burlesque for the first two weeks in December at Walker Space (home of SohoRep), and we were recently awarded rehearsal space through LMCC’s Swing Space program. I’m busy, but it’s all coming together. So far, so good.”

Rose Wood: Furniture Maven and Underground Cabaret Star

Ouch! Kids, Don't Try This at Home. Photo by Bob Schaffer

Bad Girl! Sister Frederick spanks Mama Lou. Photo by Bob Schaffer

Photo by Bob Schaffer

I should preface this piece by saying that though I use the pronoun "he" to refer to Rose, I do this because there really isn't an appropriate pronoun to describe what Rose is. As he points out,he does not identify as either a "man" or a "woman," and there is no word to represent that state, except inelegant constructions like "he/she." Feminism brought us "Ms." - let's see what the trans-gendered community can come up with.

It’s a good bet that people in their 50’s, a time of life of unpleasant metabolic changes, the steady collapse of the physical self, and the start of the slow downhill ride to the grave don’t imagine that they’ll end up starring in a late night nightclub, doing things that would shame G.G.Allin and, in fact, shock Marilyn Manson (this is true, Manson was apparently stunned by Rose’s tranny act), but Rose Wood is such a person.

Rose, whose day job involves furniture restoration and building, and is an absolute master of his craft, is also a drag queen who recently got implants (though he doesn’t plan to fully transition, so rather than a chick with dick, I guess he’s a man with mammaries, or a toff with tits). He also performs nightly at the infamous Box, doing acts that alternately fascinate and horrify. As a burlesque performer, Rose gained notoriety with his tranny hooker act, that ends with the insertion of a bottle up his anus.

First done as a trick, Rose decided to do it for real, and has escalated. He has thrown shit on audiences, pissed on them, vomited on them, and pretending to be a junkie, shot up in his dick, and recently, he caused the audience to vomit when he inserted a toilet brush up his tush. The shit and piss were faked, but the anal insertions are all too real.

Recently, I spoke with Rose about how all this came to be. Rose is 52 years old, lives in Manhattan, but was raised in New Jersey. He moved to the city in the 1975, to attend NYU. He makes his home at the Chelsea Hotel, and also has his furniture workshop a few blocks away, where he also keeps his costumes and make up kit. Rose calls what he does “cabaret for adults,” and likes his material to play with gender roles and sexual identities, something he illustrates in his own body, as he recently acquired a large set of breast implants.

He feels age has given him insight that younger performers might not have awareness of, despite being perhaps more physically agile. This is not to say his acts are message oriented. As Rose says, “Young people don’t need to hear when I was your age we had to walk to school, or wrote on blackboards, but if you can put what you want to say in a form that is entertaining and fun to watch, you can make a bigger impact on them.” Because what he does is adult physical comedy, akin to Laurel & Hardy (if they ever did s/m skits) or Charlie Chaplin (the Little Tramp hooked on the side), Rose stays fit by moderating his diet (he is pretty fit and extremely thin), and has been celibate for years.

He considers his age a positive attribute, and has decided that a comical personae works well for his acts. He regards his appeal as similar to that of stilt walkers, clowns, midgets, and the like. Rose feels he has found his performative side at a later time of life than most performers. He feels that delusions about looks and what he does, are hopefully fewer as you age, so you can get to where you want to be onstage quickly, and with a minimum of fuss. Clubs are a place where the audience’s defenses are down, and they are not expecting any profound thoughts, so Rose feels if you can cut through the alcohol and drug haze of the crowd you can say meaty things, which he loves about late night performances.

One thing that has shaped Rose’s theatrical view is that he ran an AIDS organization for 18 years, dealing with deep issues and conflicts, and this has informed what he feels is important in his acts. He says “With age comes freedom from worrying about sex appeal and physical perfection, and that having implants frees me from being on either side of the gender binary: not just male and female, but also straight or gay. If you find me sexy, are you gay, straight, or am I closer to an androgynous ideal, beyond such distinctions?” Rose doesn’t feel the need to fully transition at the moment, and feels as a celibate, he is “neither male or female, but a bit of both.”

Rose got started at the Box, because burlesque performers he knew were complaining that the owners of the Box didn’t treat them with the respect they felt they deserved, but they would tell Rose, “Now you, you’re just what they are looking for.” So Rose went for an audition, doing his signature tranny hooker shoves bottle up his ass, and the director Simon Hammerstein immediately asked Rose, “Can you pull a string of Christmas lights out of your ass?” to which Rose replied, “I’m Jewish. Before the Christmas lights, I have to dislodge the menorah.” He laughed, and asked, “Where do you hide the battery pack?”

Rose feels Simon is a brilliant man who has insight way beyond his years, and has a wonderful working relationship with the club. Rose also appreciates that Simon has a vision for the club, based on his experiences directing theater, when few of his friends would spare an hour or so to see a play, but would gladly hang out five hours in a club, so he decided to bring theater to the club, where they would see the whole thing. Rose appreciates that the whole approach his geared towards adults, and is not child friendly fare. Rose feels the contemporary timing, the high quality of the presentation, makes it a joy to perform there.

The shows are hosted by long time drag performer Raven O. Raven helps focus the crowd, which tends to be a bit ADD, as they come to be seen more than to see, by running caustic commentary through the performances, and he can be so brilliant and amusing, it has caused Rose to break character a few times.

As if this isn’t enough, Rose has a furniture business, restoring and building furniture for the past 23 years. Working with furniture give Rose great pleasure, of a different sort than performance, but he feels there are similarities to drag: you watch a transformation. When people ask Rose “How can you do drag and restore furniture?,” he replies that both involve painting old things.

He likes how you can reinvent and restore old objects to bring their original spirit and give them new luster, making old things more contemporary. Rose feels he is also honoring the original designers of the pieces he works on, and that he feels they would be pleased to see their work continue on. It’s also an opportunity to train others in the craft, and employees often go on to start their own businesses.

Although Rose feels you will never become rich doing this (“The two words you never hear together are ‘wealthy’ and ‘craftsperson’.”) Despite this, there’s always a need for furniture, even in this cyber world we often inhabit. You still need to cut a board, clean a table, have a chair. Also, everything wears out, so it is possible for a table at a 100 years to have a new life, as it is for a person at 50.

Rose also follows a Guru, which he has down for 24 years, and his place in Chelsea doubles as a meditation center. He finds it ironic that his reputation is someone who is extreme and weird, and that he gets praised for this willingness to do extreme acts, but that once you bring up anything that even has a whiff of religion, the same people back off. Rose has not that slightest interest in proselytizing for his beliefs, he is just grateful for the wisdom he has earned from his beliefs and friendship with his guru/mentor.

He also hope that his acts help people gain some freedom with their own bodies, and Rose regards the human body has a great playground for humor, with all the funny bits dangling and things hanging out. He thinks people are often confused by his humorous non-sexual or asexual approach to body parts that most consider sexual.

Another irony is that far from the extreme crazy Rose plays on stage, offstage he is thoughtful, soft spoken, and warm, although considering he has started to do acts that channel serial killers and horror, perhaps it’s best to remember it’s always the quiet ones…..

If you’re curious to see Rose Wood perform, the Box is located in the East Village, and Rose often performs at the Slipper Room, the Bowery Poetry Club (as part of Bad Ass Burlesque), and a few other venues. He is well worth your time.