First the bad news: Passing Strange, the critically acclaimed Broadway Show about a young musician’s journey through sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll, will close on July 20th in New York at the Belasco Theater. But the good news is that director Spike Lee plans on making a film version of the musical.

Written by native Angeleno and local musician Stew --who has played in such bands as Gutbucket, The Lullabies and most notably The Negro Problem-- and longtime musical collaborator Heidi Rodewald, formerly of Wednesday Week and also TNP, Passing Strange was originally work-shopped at the Sundance Institute in Utah and the Berkeley Repertory Theater in Berkeley before becoming an off-Broadway sensation last year. Passing Strange opened in February on Broadway to rave reviews and received seven Tony Award nominations, winning the prize for Best Book for its co-creator and star, Stew.

Overall, the musical will have played 165 performances and 20 previews by the time it closes at the Belasco Theater. Live stage footage will be shot on July 19 at both the matinee and evening performances, so all you west-coasters still have time to buy a plane ticket and reserve a couple of seats.

I have been really obsessed with Antony & the Johnsons since I moved to Los Angeles. I'm not really sure why. I did first listen to him when I initially moved to Los Angeles in 2001, so maybe I have him attached to Los Angeles in my mind. I was immediately in love with him. He was like a stretched out version of Marc Almond-- a bit more intense and not as flamboyant. I guess he had a different kind of flamboyance. He's also incredibly interesting and completely engaging. I wanted to know more about this man. My love for him grew after I eventually moved back to San Francisco. After recently finding myself living back in L.A. once again, I inevitably began listening to all his albums. I listened to them over and over again as I unpacked and rearranged my new apartment. I even broke out a live bootleg album that a friend of mine had made for me. I normally stay away from the live albums-- I would rather physically be there at a live show-- but I even became obsessed with this live album and soon had all his comments to the crowd memorized as if they were part of the album. So of course I was excited to find out that Antony would be featured on a new album coming out this year. Hercules & Love Affair just released their self titled album in the U.K. on DFA Records. You might have to wait a couple months for a domestic release, but in the meantime it is more than worth the import price for this amazing new debut album. You will find Antony on the vocals for four of the ten songs. He also sings some back up on an additional song.

  
       

This is the second part in the "moving violations" series of photos of graffiti on moving objects: never trains, mainly trucks and taken in New York, California, and Amsterdam.

      

   
       

       

       

       

      
       

      

New York City subway cars of a bygone era, where graffiti started and was once most prolific, or freight trains in the US or passenger trains in Italy and other European countries where graffiti is currently commonly seen, are not the only types of vehicles or moving objects that graffiti can been found on.   Trucks and sometimes cars in cities are also quite common targets for graffiti artists to tag up. Generally these are commercial vehicles since the code (albeit not always a strict one) among graf artists is to exercise respect for private property - but to hell with businesses and city owned property, especially when you can get away with the illegal act.

Always fascinated with this aspect of graffiti done on moving vehicles - oft times really rushed tags since the truck or van is only parked temporarily for as short a stop as a traffic light - I have been snapping pictures of what I have named this "moving violations"  part of graffiti.  Taken over the last few years in various cities including San Francisco, Oakland, Amsterdam, Los Angeles, and New York City they include a broad spectrum of graffiti from some intricate pieces to some very basic and obviously rushed tag jobs - kinda like the one above on the truck with Santa Rosa plates parked in the Mission District of San Francisco.

One truck owner in Chinatown in New York told me that he had long stopped trying to erase the tags on his once white van that he used to transport garments all over the city in. Other vehicle owners said that they actually commissioned artists to paint their trucks because then they knew that most other graffiti artists out of respect would then leave the vehicle alone. This way at least they could pick the art themselves.  There are also some shots (including immediately below) of a graffiti'ed barge on a canal in Amsterdam, a city rife with graffiti everywhere, even along its waterways.

For a long time the New York Times has cost one dollar. Just a dollar whether purchased in New York City or a newsstand in California. But the price of today's (7/16) edition of the New York Times, which coincidentally seemed slimmer than usual, went up in price by a quarter to $1.25 - which is still  good value because it's a great newspaper (despite some faults) that does a thorough job and covers topics that others do not, and has been doing so since 1851 - winning more Pulitzer Prizes (95) along the way than any other American news journal.

But regardless of its historic legacy, like all newspapers across the US today, the New York Times is also feeling the economic fallout of the new digital age in which advertisers are increasingly taking their dollars elsewhere, and news and information seekers are going online in increasing numbers.  Simply put: people don't read newspapers quite like they used to.  In a recently published study entitled "Young People and News," reported coincidentally in today's New York Times, findings showed that only 9% of teenagers surveyed read a newspaper everyday. Meanwhile 18 to 30 year olds rated higher with 16% of those surveyed daily newspaper readers.

Recently both the San Jose Mercury News (long considered among the country's finest newspapers) and the San Francisco Chronicle laid off a chunk of staff. They had no choice: the economy ruled, and journalists lost jobs. But the tragedy is that with these investigative reporters gone, or going - so too is good journalism.  The idea of the traditional city newspaper office, filled with reporters who go out with a pad and pen to dig deep in investigative stories, has pretty much become a thing of the past - and that sucks. While there are now more and more news and information sources than ever before, with everyone and their mama blogging,  it often seems in this new digital age that we've traded in quality for quantity.