The Only Thing More Boring Than Listening To New Yorkers’ Cocaine Stories Is Reading New Yorkers’ Cocaine Stories

Slow week? Recycle that exciting story about snorting lines* and stealing Christmas trees**:

We met the guys by the pinball machine. It was a couple of days into the New Year, and we were out at Barracuda in Chelsea, both of us bored and looking for trouble. I’d just gotten back from visiting my family for the holidays and the best way to wash all of that feel-goodness off seemed to dive right into the sluttiest bar on the West Side. For some reason Will and I always seemed to have more luck pulling a boy when we were cruising together, so I called him up and he was glad to join me for the sport. It all started out so innocently, though, that neither of us had imagined the coke-filled orgy that ensued.

. . .

“What’s up?” I was puzzled, but there was something about Paul that was so thrilling. His upbeat, slightly crazy attitude made everything seem like an adventure, so I was willing to wait and see what happened next.

“He’s getting coke,” Will whispered to me. Oh, we were in the middle of a drug run. Well, sure, whatever the boy needed to get the party going. In a few minutes Paul returned and jumped in the front seat of the cab.

“All right boys. Onward and upward we go,” he said, a big smile plastered across his face. Will and Max remained frisky in the backseat until Paul jumped out of the car again. This time we were stopped at a red light in the East Village, closed in on all sides by trash cans, half-melted mounds of gray snow and boys and girls hurrying between bars, bundled in thick scarves with creative knots. Paul pounced on a dark shape and rushed back to the car.

“Merry Christmas!” he yelled. He yanked open the back of the cab and began stuffing a discarded fir tree in our laps. The needles stung and poked.

*Ugh, please no more cocaine stories . . .

**No need to get the timing right but this would have worked a little better next week, no?

The Arc Tilts Back Towards The Artist

The downside of the mayor’s plan to install crappy public art around the city? It’s emboldening scofflaws:

The creators of the 8-foot-tall bench that captivated some New Yorkers when it mysteriously appeared on Houston Street last week don’t want their guerilla art installation back.

“All this work, once it’s installed, it’s kind of just left to the fates,” said Tod Seelie, who collaborated with street artist Brad Downey on the bench and photographed its stealth installation in the middle of the night. “The idea is to see how time changes it.”

The bench, which first appeared on a median strip on Houston and Suffolk streets last Monday, was taken down last week, and it’s now looking like it will be scrapped. City sanitation crews already have been contacted about hauling it away from the Department of Transportation warehouse in upper Manhattan, where it is waiting to be claimed.

. . .

Among those applauding the effort was Christina Ray, who hosts Conflux, an annual art fair in Brooklyn that celebrates artists like Downey and Seelie. “The bench is a bold statement,” she said. “It’s so public and unmistakable, it’s a kind of stop you in your tracks kind of intervention. A pedestrian clearly has to address it.”

The city’s transportation department took the sculpture down last week after it was unable to determine where the bench came from. Officials feared that since the bench was improperly affixed to the street, it could become a safety hazard.

“We do discourage renegade artwork, but we consider public art critical to vibrant street life and we are working to begin a program that allow for the temporary installation of art in some of the city’s public spaces,” an agency official said. “he bottom line, with this one especially, is safety.”

Will they be fined for littering?

Get ready for more Tilted Arcs . . .

Talking Christmas Bonus Blues

There’s no guarantee that your attorney isn’t quietly going home and turning your embarrassing custody battle into a song:

The skills of successful litigators with three decades in the law profession include the ability to craft an unfortunate situation into a lawsuit and arrange the evidence into a persuasive argument. But producing songs from those experiences and scoring them to electric guitar riffs is a more unusual skill, the domain of one lawyer, Lawrence Savell, who does his part to bring the insider world of high-power litigation to the masses.

A partner at Chadbourne & Parke, Mr. Savell, who just turned 50, waxes poetic on the intricacies of seeing opposing counsel and of emotions running high on late nights. This year, he produced his fourth album, “The Lawtunes, Live at Blackacre,” while earlier albums have had holiday themes to their songs.

. . .

Slightly hokey but with earnest charm, the songs cover topics with which lawyers are all too familiar. The lyrics are filled with references that include emerging issues like electronic discovery, the joys of reviewing briefs in early morning hours with cold take-out, and imaging the life of Santa Claus’s general counsel.

“The inspiration is really just working as a lawyer and trying to find, especially at the holidays, a little bit of humor in what we do, and not to take ourselves so seriously,” Mr. Savell said.

There are love songs to law and inspirational ballads, like “Law Man,” which Mr. Savell describes as “a hard-pounding and blunt explanation of exactly what it is that lawyers do.” The title character offers his fighting services to any lawyer facing the wrong end of a lawsuit, or losing a promotion to nepotism.

Sure — My Mind Wanders During A Brazilian, Too . . .

Wait for it, wait for it . . . your Carrie Bradshaw moment is here:

Is something missing in our lives that we’re trying to replace with spa services?

We Hear Tom Arnold* May Be Available In Mid-2008, But I’m Really Holding Out For Alf To Make His Triumphal Return To The Spotlight

If there’s one thing we need, it’s more overweight 1980s sitcom stars in the role of Edna Turnblad in Hairspray:

[George] Wendt, who played Norm Peterson . . . on “Cheers” for a decade, fills out a cast that includes such other big names as former *NSYNC boy-band member Lance Bass and former “Hollywood Square” Jim J. Bullock.

Wendt follows in the footsteps of other heavyweights who played Edna, including John Travolta who starred in this year’s movie-musical version and legendary drag actor Divine, who starred in John Water’s original 1988 film.

(Since when did “Jim” J. Bullock start using vowels? Or am I just not a big enough Jim J. Bullock fan?)

*Sorry, dude — I didn’t realize how much weight you lost since the early ’90s — you look good, by the by!