This Just In

Amy Weinhouse still doesn't want to go to rehab

Baby Grand

Now I've been to a lot of events in my day, but the one that I attended the other night was one of the best I have ever seen. It was a launch party for a magazine called Great Spaces and it was at the penthouse of the Soho Grand Hotel.. breathtaking views, beautiful suites, and some of the best mashed potatoes I have ever tasted. It was an interesting crowd and I spent a lot of the night talking to a guy with a handlebar mustache and his friend the magician. The people I was with just couldn't get over how soft the bathrobes in the bathroom were. Upon leaving, we raided the minibar shamelessly taking handfuls of the tiny liquor bottles that make you feel like a giant. The bathrobes wouldn't fit in our bags but it was still a fabulous night.

The Cheese Stands Alone?

Stand up comedy, like deli meat, when its good it so so good.. when its bad its just not worth the calories. Whether its a live show or an HBO special, sketch or improv, I've noticed that there is this very specific way that stand up comics end their acts that almost makes it look as if it were an accident or like they are trying to catch you off guard with the fact that the show is over or something. There must be some strategic plan that they have because they all seem to have mastered that nonchalant/awkward ending that leaves me going haha ha ha.. oh wait its over? They'll finish a joke and then before you've even started laughing they go directly into "g'night everybody you've been great blah blah bye.." and then they can't get off the stage quickly enough. I'm not sure what kind of ending I'm looking for exactly but that abrupt switch back to reality isn't working for me. I think I want a more fireworks-like grand finale where in the last 3 minutes they tell as many of their funniest jokes at once.. just fire them out so that the audience can't breathe they're laughing so hard. Or maybe come full circle by bringing back a reference to the very first joke of the night. I'm not sure but I think what I'm looking for here is closure..or a good sandwich.

You Like Apples?

New discovery... trivia is awesome. I mean who knew? Well apparently a lot of people with plastic framed glasses did but I didn't. I'm at the Gael pub (which when I say it sounds like gay ol' pub which is funny to me every time) and Tuesday night is trivia night. The guy who hosts it reads the questions pretty quickly and has an accent (or was that was the bartender) and there are all different rounds and respectable patrons find themselves huddling together feeling very intense about how many holes there are in a Connect Four board. Why whyyyyy didn't I pay more attention to that the time I played when I was seven and what was that actor's name what was it!? Needless to say it was a great night. Join me there next Tuesday for what is sure to be a gay ol' time.

Untitled

What's up with people deciding to stop liking something the second it gets well known? The appeal of something being underground has never been bigger than right now (or was it two years ago?) A cool bar is just a cool bar but a cool bar without a name, now thats where you want to be on a Monday night..(since Monday is the new Thursday) ..but now there are 17 bars without names and even one called nameless bar (which is not funny its stupid) and this makes it quite annoying when you're trying to meet up with someone there and no establishment really doesn't want people to not know about them because then they wouldn't be able to stay in business. Artists too for that matter.. selling out is the kiss of death but somehow along the way selling out became associated with selling records which is necessary in order to make money, in order to get by, stay alive, have a lunch and/or a pet. The goal is no longer to be in the Billboard top ten but to have your record leaked over the internet and played by a DJ that you haven't heard about yet (but your friend pretends to) and downloaded illegally by hipsters and taste makers and people who write for Fader or Spin or is Spin not in anymore because it became too in? I know a guy who comes from a wealthy family and he paints beautiful paintings of fish as they rot and change color (I'm serious) Anyway.. he recently moved from an amazing apartment to a really crappy neighborhood and tries to survive on very little money because he thinks that starving for his art will make him a better artist. I'm not sure what this has to do with nameless bars but I think there is a point in here somewhere. I also think the fact that Mary Kate Olsen, who was literally one of the richest females ever by the time she was a baby, made dressing like a homeless person shiek last season (this season?) deserves a mention here too.

WWGD?

So I'm sitting in a dark corner of a restaurant with 2 friends J and S. Businessmen and women looking to wed them (bed them?) surround the bar. The three of us are stressed in ways that require good medicine or a very talented therapist to cure yet stick to meeting up after work to complain to each other in order to get by instead. The company of two others as confused and anxious as myself at that moment often feels like the only place I can find some peace in this city even though we are all in a state of craze at that moment. We laugh at ourselves and each other and although we live very blessed lives, great jobs, nice apts etc.. harp on one particular thing (boy) and feel that this week just might be the week that the world ends. Not every day is like this but on the special few where the energy is such that the three of us are in a state of emergency at the same time .. well its nothing short of magic. We sink low in leather chairs ..I sip (gulp) white wine, J has red and S drinks from a glass of water, no lemon no ice. "I'm fasting until I am happy again" she says. "I need to make myself like an empty vase and channel Ghandi." I support her in this decision mostly because I love the dramatic irony of the fact that part of the reason that she is upset is that her mother is threatening to sell the building that has been left in trust to her and so she calls on Ghandi. As we pay the bill and exit onto the hot NYC streets filled with cabs, buses, pee, and people who can actually afford the $10 glass of wine I just had, the sky threatens a thunderstorm for that evening. It delivers. Inner peace? There's always tomorrow.

Hippies and Babies

So my computer at work blocks every website that could be considered even the slightest bit interesting so I've decided to join the thousands of self righteous bloggers out there. I'm doing this more out of boredom than self righteousness however am secretly hoping that I will discover that the person who voted for me in my 8th grade creative writing class competition (thanks Phillip) was right and I am indeed gifted.. also hoping that my life will provide material that is wildly interesting to strangers and soon the blog will receive record hits (and "unique visitors") which will eventually lead to it being sponsored, which will lead to a scandal and I will get my picture in the local free daily newspaper. I am also wondering if blogging will have the same effect on me that writing in a diary always did which was that I felt pressure to do things that were more interesting than the things I would usually do just so I could write about them. So really this is a social experiment that I am conducting on myself which is weird now that I'm admitting that ... Anyway much great art has come from boredom (or drugs) I assume and the thing about boredom is that it is really your own fault. So something fun, this past weekend I took the free ferry to a free concert on Governors Island which I had never been to before. My friend put it best when he described Governors Island as "a former something." We weren't quite sure a former what but he was definitely right. As the sun and the music made their way to our blanket in the grass, I couldn't help but notice that the hippies and the babies had the same dance moves. We had a beer or two each not knowing that alcohol is restricted on Governors Island and at the end of the concert a sweet (disabled?) man in uniform pointed to an empty beer bottle and said "is that water?" and he was not joking.. We said yes and he said "OK" and went along his way and so did we. Aboard the last ferry of the day back to downtown Manhattan we passed right by the Statue of Liberty. As a native New Yorker, I am always amazed by Lady Liberty's ability to stop me dead in my tracks even though I've seen it many times over. This morning I took a train where humans are stuffed in like cattle and am now back in my square office unable to access anything fun on my computer... Man, its good to be free.