English People Get Naked; Coldplay Comes to Town as Radiohead Takes More Pills; Nutty Art Under the Brooklyn Bridge; Meat on a Stick; Mini-Blurbs

Bethell is not a nudist, a streaker or a naturist; he's just a guy with a beard who supports "Human Race Activism." His philosophy goes something like this: 1) we are all self-aware, glorious human beings; 2) our skin is as important as our minds; 3) clothes are a form of oppression. Bethell has been getting naked and arrested in various London locales since 1998.

"I want to profoundly change the world so that people can have the freedom to be happy and carefree," he says on his [website]. It features pictures of skinny young English guys (and two women) in various degrees of undress, as well as loony mission statements.

"Humanphobia, Selfphobia... The Police and Law Courts victimise [sic] and persecute humans. Arrests are illegal due to police prejudice. Stop segregation. Stop the injustice. Stop the oppression. Stop the abuse of Law. Demand equal rights for humans: as people are alowed [sic] to hide their human nature, people should also be allowed to reveal their human nature."

Vincent Bethell's crusade has received extensive press in Britain. He was front-page news in The Guardian this January after winning a six-day court case that he attended nude. His de-facto second in command, one Russell Higgs, also managed to elude the law, getting unconditional bail despite walking around unclothed nearly all the time. Russell looks like a member of Blue Man Group and has a more punk rock attitude toward the new nudity:

"I don't know what the difference is between the sight of my dick, my fingers or my nose. Its [sic] got something to do with people's fucked up sex lives. The unclothed body is many things other than being sexual, but even sexually for me, an emphasis or preference for a specific part of my body depends upon the person or people I'm having sex with at the time."

Rock on, guys. Hope some people get naked for you this Sunday afternoon. Somewhere, Beavis and Butt-head are having seizures.

...Speaking of, you know, English guys, Coldplay comes to Radio City Music Hall (1260 6th Ave. at 50th St., 247-4777) this Thursday. The "Brit-rockers" (sometimes you have to go Daily News) were kind enough to send me a copy of their debut full-length Parachutes, as if I didn't know what it sounds like: Radiohead before they went bad. Very smart move, boys?Amnesiac tanked from two to nine its second week on the charts while Parachutes continues to move units.

Coldplay's leader (not the guy with the eye) will hopefully stay away from the sort of drugs that turned Thom Yorke (the guy with the eye) into a mewling rodent. The show starts at 8 p.m. with no opening band; tickets are $20-$35 on Ticketmaster.com (or charge by phone: 307-7171), which means they are really $27 to $42.

...Also on Thursday, practitioners of glitch and found music, which is what Radiohead wishes it could do, will be in Brooklyn providing a night of sound for "Massless Medium: Explorations in Sensory Immersion." Creative Time's art show has been going on since May 30 at the Brooklyn Bridge Anchorage (Cadman Plaza, under the Bridge, Brooklyn, but the number's in Manhattan, 206-6672 x250).

The anchorages of the Brooklyn Bridge are the parts that hold down the cables on either side of the river (on the Manhattan side, you drive next to the anchorage when you take the FDR onramp). The Brooklyn facility is huge, with nearly 50-foot high ceilings?engineer John Robeling envisioned it as a vault for the National Treasury. Since 1983, it has housed a multitude of odd shows that feed off its cracked acoustics and catacombs feel.

The show runs until July 29, with Thursday's party starting at 10 p.m. "Massless Medium" features artists doing what all 00s featured artists seem to do: immerse attendees in ambient environments. Their pieces are built with radio waves, micro-sequencers and soundtracks; essentially, you will drift from one weird station to another, messing around, like at the New York Hall of Science in Flushing Meadows (47-01 111th St. at 47th Ave., Queens, 718-699-0005).

Erwin Redl, one of two Austrian artists at the show, has constructed a grid of 10,000 red and blue LEDs that calls to mind the climax of Sphere. Marco Brambilla has put together two 12-foot metal towers that display, on plasma screens, a first-person video from Millennium Force, the world's largest roller coaster in Sandusky, OH. (With a 310-foot-tall first hill, it is technically a "giga-coaster.") You are supposed to stand between the towers, listen to the riders screaming in digital sound and experience the ride virtually.

Somehow, the Cyclone comes out looking good here. It's one damn coaster they're never going to recreate?you can't fake the unease that comes from trusting your life to an Indian man eating meat on a stick.

...Speaking of which, I saw an Indian man eating meat on a stick the other day. Straight up. And premium beef jerky (Tillamook being the brand of choice) is tasty; I occasionally blow $2.50 on a bag of it.

...Mini-Blurbs from a Friday: Met a now-ex at the Library (7 Ave. A, betw. Houston & 1st Sts., 375-1352), one of a number of bars in this city that are run by orcs. The orc who helms the Library also handles companion frat bar Nice Guy Eddie's (5 Ave A. at Houston St., 253-1666). To his credit, he isn't nearly as disgusting as the orc who runs Village Idiot (355 W. 14th St. at 9th Ave., 989-7334).

The Library's wildly inconsistent jukebox drove us out with that Velvet Underground song that has the one note constantly ringing in the background. It was a quick walk to Abaya (244 Houston St., betw. Aves. A & B., 777-7467). Formerly the Spiral, an ultra-dive home for teenage rock bands, the new lounge has two bars and a communal seat that looks like something from Sesame Place, or perhaps a comfortable part of the human colon. Atmosphere and small pear sandwiches were fantastic: many hot girls, many Armani, no cover. High-class Lower East Side spots continue to march east.

As we were on the way out of Abaya, an airport bus pulled up. It turned out to be D-3 (866-336-4837), New York's mobile limo-lounge "alternative night tour." D-3 loops continuously through lower Manhattan every Wednesday-Saturday, picking up and dropping off bar-happy customers at designated stops. It generally costs around $20, but I got on free, as a generous European woman had paid up for an all-night cruise. Inside, she and her European girlfriends were partying with a Lenny Kravitz lookalike. It turned out D-3 was headed to the dating kiss of death, The Frying Pan (Pier 63, Chelsea Piers, 23rd St. at West Side Hwy., 989-6363), so we bailed at 9th Ave., but it was fun looking down on SUVs through tinted windows as the night got thick.

The next stop was the absolute, certain dating kiss of death: waiting around in the rain with my friends for our other friend to show up (Hudson St. at Vestry St., no phone).