“The tree sloth. Where…in…Madagascar…is that TREE SLOTH? And those tranny hula dancers? Earth to Tonga! I can’t…HEAR…youuuu!”

Peter Makebish is having a “Makebishian moment.” Twirling precariously on his Beverly Semmes-designer Lucite clogs, matched with his signature furry dice-motif LimoLand by Johnny Pigozzi sari, he trills: “Can-APES? The HORS-derves? Whatever those little things on Ritz crackers are…” Just getting started, he runs directly into an empty wall. Telling, that.

The highly-anticipated works in question–rendered by alchemist-imagist Kika Karadi and “ShotGun” painter William Anskis–have yet to arrive to Mr. Makebish’s eponymous gallery. Nor has his staff, whom took flight in matching hoodies the night before, walking out on his bounty of bodacious acrylics and “neo-thrillics” not a moment before his close-up. Mr. Makebish had asked too much of them, he knows, he knows. But only as much as he tries not to give.

The exhibit is entitled “Controlled Substance,” but chaos–how Mr. Makebish likes it–is the order of the day. How will the show go on?

On this breezy early May afternoon, earmarked by a single Koons-ian cumulus in an otherwise Turner-azure sky, the man who famously chauffered Jack Kevorkian for a decade (and free-lanced as a SPANX model for nearly as long) is feeling the gravity of his self-imposed solo predicament. That is, until one-time nemesis (now merely a “frenemy”) David Blaine peeks into Mr. Makebish’s far-flung West Village space. The magician-turned-escape-artist scans the unfamiliar turf, drops a strategic ash on the travertine floor, and vanishes. Then…he re-appears, flits a one-eyed Jack playing card on the day-glo “WELCOME” mat (purchased from Ricky’s NYC on this very day)…and vanishes yet again. Magicians: can’t live with them…can’t see them.

It isn’t over.

Seconds later, Lou Reed scooters past the front window, expectorates on the cigar-shop wooden Indian perched next door, speeds off. (No walk on the wild side for the Big Man today.) As if stalking the crotchety legend, renaissance man-turned-Schwinn enthusiast David Byrne cruises past the open door and tosses a flaming Zip-loc bag of “mystery contents” into the lofty confines. Nonplussed, the gallerist stomps the rancid projectile out, raises a middle finger. “That Byrne,” he characteristically quips.

The inflammatory finger then directs southward toward the Gavin Brown Enterprises–a behemoth of a space famous for its “Amish crafts.” It will come to be his erstwhile competition. “Mr. Brown, you’ve got a lovely daughter,” Mr. Makebish quite-nearly whispers, divining with his digit the figurative pulse of the zeitgeist. A threat? A pining for the Fjords? A first date with fate? All merely whispers in the wind of an ever-morphing Manhattan art world, now in its second year, as the fickle crowd has fled Cincinnati, its longstanding hub.

Spontaneity, thy name is Makebish.

With a semi-formal education in the School of Hard Knocks (Barstow, Fla.), the bootstraps-insured former canine radiologist, Malibu rum “regional ambassador,” 16^thCentury rickshaw restorer, and nightclub impresario (Mingles Murray Bay East Upstairs VIP Lounge, 2005-06)–whose name is quizzically pronounced “Marge-jah-REEN”–struggles with the English language. “Words—incontintental,” he once intoned (translation: “inconsequential”). No matter.

In the high-flying world of curatorial tap dancers, where talk is cheap but yellow-chip paintings sell for literally hundreds, he is known for second acts. And controversy. The tales, they are legion. He walked off his own one-man show, “Take a Picture: It’ll Last Longer #3,” when his sidekick, dressed as the Quaker Oats Man–Mr. Makebish, like his spiritual adviser Jim Dine, loves product mascots and purports he was one in another life–forgot to bring the perfectionist-dervish’s cheat sheet. At last year’s MET Costume Institute Ball, he was ejected for knocking over ghost trainer Patricia Arquette, his papier-mache Mrs. Butterworth outfit devoid of eye slits. (A lawsuit ensued, remains unsettling). At Miami’s much-ballyhooed Art Basel, he came to fisticuffs with “style guy” Glenn O’Brien, confusing him with Glenn Close after being “ignored” by the acerbic wordsmith. At least this time, words were exchanged (as well as a paisley neckerchief). Mr. Makebish called Mr. O’Brien “gratufluous.” He has no regrets for smearing Silly Putty on Keith Haring’s influential multi-media subway-hangar opus, “Riddle Me This, Caped Crusader,” 1947.

And there was the reputation-devastating “Flashlight Incident,” which he still refuses to talk of, “on the record, that is,” he said.

Now this: Will the opening of his debut gallery elicit such rampant disregard for the hallowed halls of buttoned-up benefactors and Pop-pilling art stars? Will the ghost of his one-time Westbeth Housing Projects roommate Taylor Mead make a cameo, pocketing some crudités, whining for a dime bag? Will said crudités even arrive? What indeed has Mr. Makebish up his Agnes B. sleeve? (It appears to be a toy soldier, gripping a hand grenade—apt.)

But Mr. Makebish, known to chew a dozen stalks of fennel a day (“they’re the new Twizzlers!”) does not see himself in a pickle, a jam, or the proverbial stew. In fact, he looks famished, and grabs for a potted daffodil, which he gnaws upon seductively, while considering his next words of wisdom.

“Look,” he pauses, crosses his legs, reflecting, then genuflecting to the man upstairs, a landlord that this reporter cannot see (or isn’t deemed worthy enough, nay?). Then, re-crossing his legs, Proustian to a fault, he scratches his right nipple (confiding he is allergic to “performance wear”), and the Master of Unceremonious purrs: “I forgot what I was saying…Oh, look…Ex-actly.”

“As Francesco Clemente said: ‘Life is overrated…and then you marry one.’”

And: “Please put this sentence in italics.” We comply.

On cue, faster than Warhol’s so-called “13 Seconds,” in saunters the Countess LuAnn de Lesseps, dressed in a camel-foot Pucci jumpsuit that Mr. Makebish bestowed upon her (despite his meager earnings) when the dynamic duo worked together at a Bennigan’s fern-bar chain in Brandon, Florida. Bending over to air-kiss his slim hips (hips Kate Moss would die for), the Countess monotones: “I, dear boy, will be your Tonga. I shall be your mirror.” A reporter cannot keep up, as the two, thick as thieves, complete each other’s sentences, until the puckish provocateur excuses himself, as he puts it, to “release the Kraken.” (Somewhere Jean-Michel Basquiat is tittering.)

[Mr. Makebish turns the tape recorder off. Then back on.]

It wasn’t always like this: fabulous housewives in patterned cat suits, Basquiat tittering, eruditely pregnant pauses. To be sure, it has been a long road to hoe for Peter Makebish, fraught with social barricades (he still eschews silverware), bouts with halitosis, the heartbreak of psoriasis, and mere fleeting glimpses of fame on his careening trajectory to the Big Apple.

The son of a stage-door Johnny from Sidney, Ohio, and a model-good-looks mother who made Marzepan figurines exclusively for a Lithuanian bakery (which shall go unnamed), this real-life Chauncey Gardiner sold mail-order flower seed packets to neighbors to pay for the Sears pup tent that he called his bedroom. (That pup tent would later inspire his sole public canvas-on-canvas installation,“Finnigan’s Cake…and Eats it Too,” #18; a single hard-plastic stake (a la Claes Oldenburg) with a velvet rope surrounding it, uprooted a day later by vandals in Tompkins Square Park.)

It wasn’t until unicycling to New York’s artsy “ChiBeCa” neighborhood that Mr. Makebish got his first taste, as it were, of “how the other third lived,” as he put it, being recruited to clean up after surfer-groupie photographer Bruce Weber’s narcoleptic golden retriever stable.

By night he worked the Hobart, a regular Sammy Glick, as the pots-and-pans man at art-world stalwart Jerry’s, on SoHo’s Prince Street, hording the leftovers of such gallery deities as Castelli and Shafrazi. Schnabel was a regular–the latter whom Mr. Makebish suffered many a broken-plate indignity upon his now-scarred cranium. (He shows his war wounds to this interlocutor like some modern-day Private Ryan.)

Loyal to a fault–unless you are generous to him–Mr. Makebish remains friends with one less-mercurial patron, none other than the artist Marc Kostabi, who hired the then-paper-thin waif away from Jerry’s to render the details on his rough drafts at Kostabi World during the go-go ‘80s.

As Mr. Makebish spoke on an imaginary Blackberry–a pantomime device from his early days as a “silver robot” on Jackson Square (“consistency is nothing if not all”)–we asked him to appraise a few challengers from the incestuous gallery gang having second acts of their own:

Mr. Makebish, who places his age at “either 17 or 82,” installed his monocle, fell to a lotus position, and recited (in a Madonna-English accent):

Koons: “A balloonatic!”

Hirst: “Damaged goods–next!”

Barney: “Fred.”

McCarthy: “A Commie…like Lennon.”

Cotton: “Stale…”

Gagosian: “A WHO-sian?”

Boone: “WHO-oon?”

Deitch: “Tres Chicago School…by way of Teaneck.”

Koons: “Trick question. Please leave.”

And with that, we did, bidding him adieu on his opening exhibit, which is being underwritten by Sears & Roebuck.

“Controlled Substance,” with works by Kika Karadi and William Anskis,” runs at MAKEBISH gallery, from May 15-June 7. Visit petermakebish.com for details. The gallery is located at 681 Washington St. (at Charles St.).

Mr. Makebish approved this magazine profile parody–as he is more than game and nothing like this depiction (but for the fennel affinity).

Even if you aren’t a “boy of summer,” you might pine for more decadent times after paging through Tom Bianchi’s new “Fire Island Pines. Polaroids 1975-1983” (Damiani, 212 pgs.).

With an introduction by Edmund White, “Pines” evokes those pre-AIDS-epidemic days when the Long Island gay-and-transgender beach community did whatever they pleased–bringing Manhattan night culture to the sandy East Coast shores–sans a shroud of mortality enveloping them.

Yes, there are some racy dental-floss butt shots and group-shower scenes, but mostly the hazy-sun Polaroids included are suggestive of nostalgia more than flagrant prurience. Gay or straight, if you splay this coffee table musing on your beach house coffee table, expect it to be a popular favorite.

Memorial Day’s around the bend…

From Nanette Lepore to Steven Alan, eight super-cool designers have come together to roll out their limited-edition patterned beach towels for various charities and causes through the months of May and June. Each week debuts a new one, all costing $29.

Here’s a few. For more details and to shop, click here.

Amid the art-world big top pin-wheeling through the month–double Koons shows, FRIEZE-alooza, etcetera–the most unlikely of artist to keep it on the down-low is the typically-exhibitionistic Matthew Barney, showing his mesmerizing drawings at midtown’s Manhattan’s tony and hush-hush Morgan Library & Museum.

It’s rather awesome, an anti-“event,” for the one-time jock-turned-androgynue and weirdo filmmaker (the “CREMASTER” series). Frankly, to Room 100, this is THE one to go see, in peace.

“Subliming Vessel: The Drawings of Matthew Barney” runs through September 2nd. Check out more of the works and other details here.

Newish Sassafras, in the heart of Hollywood (at Sunset and Vine), from the people who brought you the Bigfoot Lodge, is our new clubhouse. There’s nothing like it in L.A. nightlife. It feels lived-in and timeless. The drink menu takes cues from its name–ginger beer, barrel-aged cocktails, and “Southern home root-inspired libations,” including variations of juleps and Sazerac-infused numbers. Toasted Pecan Julep or Grilled Peach Punch, anyone? Yes. Food too, such as blue crab cakes and Zydeco oysters. So what if it’s a little bit old-timey kitschy, if they’re doing it right. And take a look at the digs, pictured here.

 It’s open until 2 a.m. Located at: 1233 N. Vine St., sassafrassaloon.com

While Guiseppe Cipriani will never get to sip one of his trademark Bellinis there, his Manhattan followers will surely be popping by to the just-opened Cipriani in Downtown Miami to quaff the peach cocktails and feast upon razor-thin sheets of off-the-boat tuna carpaccio.

Live a little before going bust on a single group-table brunch, ladies and gents! There will be a scene at this nautical-themed “Cips” satellite, curiously complete with a “library,” as Miami is out of its bust and going for broke again. As we like it.

Cipriani Downtown Miami, 465 Brickell Avenue, cipriani.com.

As part of a new amenity program, Thompson Hotels are welcoming pets.

The plan, which will be implemented next week, will include pet food bowls and a toy, pet registrations, “Pet In Room” signage on doors, and tie-in services such as grooming and the like.

Have a pet and want to stay with us? Book our pet package, which includes a complimentary upgrade to a suite, 4pm late check out, and a pet bowl & toy. Use the promo code PETS to book the package at any Thompson Hotel.

Clockwise from top left:

1. Low cash dollars + wide age range: if you’re looking to get your music fest on without too much commitment. – Warped Tour – Toronto – July 5
2. Go hard or go home, this one is self explanatory. – Hard Summer – LA – Aug 3-4
3. Surprise! We’re opening Thompson Chicago in September 2013, so you’d better go ahead and fall in love with the city now, you’ll be wanting to visit a lot. – Pitchfork Music Fest – Chicago – July 19-21
4. The Miami Valley Music fest features lots of regional and local talent, plus *bonus* this one’s for charity kids. – Miami Valley Music Fest – Miami – Aug 9-11
5. For the music lover who hates standing in a dirty field and prefers to go home to a luxury hotel and hit the hay in our 400 thread count SFERRA linens. – NYC Pop Fest – New York City – May 30-Jun 2

Don’t worry though, when you’re ready to come out of the sun, we’ve got your relaxation at the ready.

Opening May 9th (through the snoozy museum dog-days of August 14th) is the Met’s “PUNK: Chaos to Couture,” and we surmise they figured: “If it worked with glam-rock style?” Roll out all those safety-pinned numbers on Richard Hell and Johnny Lydon, many of which were concocted and mainstreamed into the shopping malls by Malcolm and Vivienne.

Of course we applaud the street fashion-turned-haute couture that rose out of Brit-and-America’s punk music scenes. Is there anything making the runways today that inspires more? We don’t condone crashing the big ball, but wouldn’t that be punk-tastic?

Here is how the Museum, with the usual Conde Nast-sponsoring, describes the show: “The Met’s spring 2013 Costume Institute exhibition, ‘PUNK: Chaos to Couture,’ will examine punk’s impact on high fashion from the movement’s birth in the early 1970s through its continuing influence today. Featuring approximately 100 designs for men and women, the exhibition will include original punk garments and recent, directional fashion to illustrate how haute couture and ready-to-wear borrow punk’s visual symbols.

“Focusing on the relationship between the punk concept of “do-it-yourself” and the couture concept of “made-to-measure,” the seven galleries will be organized around the materials, techniques, and embellishments associated with the anti-establishment style.

“Themes will include New York and London, which will tell punk’s origin story as a tale of two cities, followed by Clothes for Heroes and four manifestations of the D.I.Y. aesthetic—Hardware, Bricolage, Graffiti and Agitprop, and Destroy. Presented as an immersive multimedia, multisensory experience, the clothes will be animated with period music videos and soundscaping audio techniques.”

A pretty neato new documentary which opened this week at Manhattan’s IFC Center in New York –and coming to video soon–is called “The Source Family,” a long-awaited chronicling of a band of hippies who made some pretty great (and often dark) psychedelic music back when Hollywood was a bit more frayed on the edges.

A handful of the commune members’ vinyl outpourings actually got pressed by commercial record companies (such as its boxed set “God and Hair”), and are now collector’s items they’re so hard to find. This bearded and beaded gang of jam-session merry pranksters were what the Manson Family could have been if they hadn’t murdered people and carved swastikas in their heads: a free-thinking subculture that left their mark on both the fashion and music of today.

A cultural artifact, acting as a precursor to New Age concepts, the film tells how it all began at a health food shop in Hollywood and headed into L.A.’s coyote-mating hills and rattlesnake-y canyons, right up to when Father Yod–said to have robbed banks in his lifetime–opted to death-strap himself into a hang-glider off an Oahu cliff and plummet into pop-culture history. Here, some vintage images of the gang not entirely all “there.”