Vanities

Everyone goes to Swifty's

Oscar perennials: the bad musical numbers, the fashion disasters, Jack Nicholson, and "SWIFTY" LAZAR's Spago bash. He's recently widowed, but the (post-) show must go on.

Angie goes Palm loco; Idle pursuits; Black 47, bar band to the stars; Hwang's world

Whatever its other merits, Wild Palms offers this comforting prediction: they'll still be Rollerblading in Los Angeles in 2007. Indeed, some of the best fun in the strange, dark mini-series, airing this month on ABC, lies in seeing what bits of today's culture will (supposedly) endure. "Did you notice the 'Daryl F. Gates Elementary School'?" asks BRUCE WAGNER, Wild Palms creator. (Oliver Stone produced; Peter Hewitt, Keith Gordon, Kathryn Bigelow, and Phil Joanou directed episodes; and James Belushi, Dana Delany, Robert Loggia, Kim Cattrall, Ernie Hudson, and Angie Dickinson are in the cast.)

"Our mandate was to resolve the show within six hours," says Wagner, fending off the inevitable comparison, "so it's more like Dynasty than it is like Twin PeaksT

Greil Marcus's Rant- £ ers & Cnnvd Pleasers: Punk in Pop Music, 1977-92 (Doubleday) is definitely for those who like their rock-music criticism smart. In a 1979 essay, Marcus listens to a Springsteen bootleg and observes, The songs made me think of a story Maxim Gorky told about Lenin s love of Beethoven. Edmund Wilson quotes it in To the Finland StationGolly. Who knows what associations might be unleashed were Marcus to squeeze into Paddy Reilly's, in Manhattan, on a Wednesday or Saturday night when BLACK 47 is performing. The pub looks as if it were designed to hold a handful of placid, long-term bartendees (and their imaginary friends), but on those nights when the exuberant Celtic rockers pull their guitars, uilleann pipes, tin whistles, bodhran drum, trombone, and sax onto the makeshift stage, the crush spills onto Second Avenue. Irish expatriates down from the Bronx stand pint by jowl with young suits straight from the office, and there are occasional visitations: Ellen Barkin, Gabriel Byrne, Neil Young, Brooke Shields, Kiefer Sutherland, Sean Penn, Joey Ramone, Robin Williams, Matt Dillon, Ric Ocasek, Liam Neeson, Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, and Joe Strummer have all looked in.

With its new album, Fire of Freedom (EMI), just out and songs placed in a couple of movies, people are wondering whether Black 47 will remain a downtown bar band ? much longer. "Why not?" shouts Larry Kirwan, the group's genial leader, alxwe the

between-sets din. "Free drinks two nights a week!" week!" That's T1 good news. Because when the red track lighting catches cat the darts-touman darts-toumament trophies just so, and the bushwhacking waitresses start to sing along, you get the feeling that in some ways this is as good as it gets for a band like Black 47. You are reminded, in fact, of a stoiy James Joyce once told about Sid Vicious's love of Dvorak. Edmund Wilson quotes it in To the Finland Station.

'Comedy is by definition politically incorrect," says ERIC IDLE. "It deals only in stereotypes and things that shouldn't really be said. I wish Python was going, because it's a wonderful subject, 'politically incorrect,' isn't it? It would make a great film." And so, Idle hopes, will the story of an inheritance squabble resulting from switched babies called Splitting Heirs—which he wrote, produced, and stars in. "It's a low comedy," he says with evident pride. Also featured are Rick Moranis, Barbara Hershey, Catherine Zeta Jones, Sadie Frost. . . and John Cleese. "Yeah," says Idle, "he just wandered in for five days to collect a large fee." (Another former Python, MICHAEL PALIN, will soon release American Friends. No pratfalls here; rather, a few droll lines and some veiy pretty scenery. It's a genteel love triangle involving an Oxford don, based on Palin's great-grandfather's experiences.)

iinally, with David Henry Hwang's Face Value, I Hollywtxxl producer SCOTT RUDIN returns to his theatrical roots (and also to theatrical producer STUART OSTROW, who years ago employed a teenage Rudin in a road-company Pippin). The two producers, tracked down during the show's pre-Broadway run, said it was going great. "I see none of the Hollywood junk, 'cause Scott's still someone who was trained in the theater," said Ostrow from his Boston hotel room. "This was the team to play on," said avowed non—team player JT '¾ l Rudin, from his car.

GEORGE KALOGERAKIS