At this point, it's hard to tell whether Ed Begley, Jr. is more famous for his decades of acting or his decades of environmentalism. Sure, he's logged over 200 appearances on stage, film and television, including his Emmy-winning breakout role on St. Elsewhere and his priceless turn on Arrested Development. But his funniest performance is arguably his self-effacing cameo as a hardcore green activist in the classic 1999 Simpsons episode "Homer to the Max", in......

For some reason, Norwegian comedians thought that City Councilman James Oddo would be a perfect target for their program, "Rikets Rost." Oddo, a Republican and the minority leader in the Council (he's recently supported legislation such as banning aluminum bats and giving the Department of Transportation the authority to name streets), apparently consented to the interview because the request was to discuss presidential politics. But the questions posed by Pia Haraldson were more of......

There was a sickening coincidence yesterday: A report was released that faulted the city's Administration for Children's Services for contributing to the deaths of 10 children in families it was supposedly monitoring, just as a 20-month toddler was brutally beaten by her mother - who was under investigation by the ACS - and her mother's boyfriend. Twenty-four-year-old Marlene Medina and 30-year-old Edwin Garcia allegedly repeatedly "slammed" Hailey Gonzalez into a pack-and-play crib, according to the......

As we mentioned, City Councilman Charles Barron held his press conference yesterday to announce his candidacy for the 2009 Brooklyn Borough Presidency. He told the crowds that his platform included affordable housing, health care accessibility, more jobs, standing up to developers who use eminent domain, ending mayor control of schools and more would help everyone. "Am I going to be a borough president for all the people? Absolutely. But I'm letting y'all know now, I'm......

The story about Wesley Autrey jumping into the subway tracks yesterday afternoon to save a fellow straphanger at the 137th Street downtown 1 platform gets more amazing. It turns out that Autrey and two other women had helped 20 year old Cameron Hollopeter right before the fall - Hollopeter had a seizure and Autrey used a pen to keep his mouth open. They called for a station agent's help, but Hollopeter got up and......

Though I have my tenant's cell phone number and that of her co-tenant's she refuses to give me her work number or name of her employer. Am I not entitled to that info? According to the woman at the Attorney General's office, no, you are not entitled to that information. It is logical that you would want that before a potential tenant moved into your apartment, in order to check their credit history and......

Wolfmother...

Here's a perfect clip for all of our brother and sister nerds out there: Tron clips remixed to They Might Be Giants' amazing techno-inflected song "Am I Awake." It's just like living in the future!......

On Sundays, Gothamist runs opinion pieces on issues vaguely related to New York. The views expressed below are solely those of the author. Somewhere in the late high school-early college era, some female friends and I discovered a truly wonderful film genre: two beautiful foreign boys (not, like, toddlers, but maybe 19-year olds, definitely not 30 year olds, you get the idea) fall in love in front of a beautiful backdrop (beach, snow, any breathtaking......

There are so many holiday theatre offerings right now, many of them closing when Christmas is still a week or more away, so we are going to be ornery and focus on non-seasonal stuff, of which there is plenty, as usual. One show that just caught our eye is Under a Montana Moon, performed by the mime Bill Bowers. We get a lot of puppetry on stages here, but miming, not so much, and Bowers......

I recently moved to New York from Philadelphia, and while I'm happy to leave much of my Philly life behind, I very much miss Quizzo, a great bar trivia game that at least a dozen bars would have going on any given night across the city. I've tried looking for different trivia replacements in New York, but found very little. Am I doomed to nights at home with my Trivial Pursuit board? Our favorite......

Can you explain what my rights are as a taxi passenger regarding EZ-Pass? I travel weekly, and when returning to the city, I want to avoid potential cash lines at the tolls. Therefore, when I enter a cab at the airport, if I don't see an EZ-Pass attached to the windshield (which is often) I ask the driver if they have EZ-Pass. I get a lot of grumbling, some lies, and last night a cabbie......

Geoff Wolinetz, Freelance Satirist...

Jessica Delfino, Dirty Folk Singer/Stand-Up Comic...

I admit it--I'm a matchmaker at heart. Whenever I meet someone who's single, I'm immediately thinking about other people I know who are single and whether they could be a match. It's just fun! I only set up individuals who agree to it first and I always do my best in trying to match the people I know. The problem: my past two set-ups have gone awry and now these acquaintances are irked at ME......

I have a sexually-active relationship with a woman who I have been seeing about once a week for almost a year now. We have other partners and are pretty cool about our open relationship. Just this past Friday we had a great night out and she stayed over my apartment. However, I had out-of-town obligations I couldn't avoid and left her to use my place for the rest of the weekend (she lives in NJ).......

I am madly in love with this wonderful woman and am happy to the point that I can't imagine anything better in life. I want desperately to hold onto the relationship as best I can. While this is my goal, though, this woman is a real independent - she's someone who requires a lot of "space," as she is always telling me, and sometimes I feel that she's pushing me away although she seems really......

Help me settle an argument. My friend claims there are no statues of women in Central Park. I swear I've seen a couple. Am I wrong? She could list a bunch of statues of men like Alexander Hamilton and Hans Christian Andersen, but I was having trouble coming up with even one female statue. Jessica K., East 70s There are statues of females in Central Park but here's the rub: they're all fictional characters. Alice......

Kathleen Cholewka, Translove Airways...

Todd Levin/Bob Powers...

Fred Armisen is familiar from Saturday Night Live, where he plays Native American comedian Billy Smith on Weekend Update or the geriatric, three steps behind Vegas drummer, Mackey (he's also been a real drummer). Gothamist, in search of more things Fred, found this hilarious site on HBO that has clips of Armisen doing wacky comedy bits, like posing as a foreign tourist and asking people questions ("Am I a taxi?") and bringing a stuffed dog......

In previous Gothamist Oscar coverage, Stephen Daldry's half-gay status was noted. Page Six has this quote from the Advocate where Stephen Daldry, Oscar-nominated director of The Hours clear things up...a little: "I REFUSED to be boxed into the idea that, 'Oh, no, I can't have kids 'cause I'm gay.' I can have kids if I'm gay. And I can also get married and have a fantastic life. To all questions with my marriage, the answer......

Am I the first person to wonder if there might be beef coming between the Metafilters of the world and managed weblog style magazines like Gawker, a weblog magazine for New York? That is, Metafilter is sort of a democratic free-for-all where anyone can post a story, a situation that has a lot of pros and cons. A pro is that you see a lot of weird and interesting stories and links. A con is......