Self-Aggrandizement: Exploits Archives

Night Life
Filed February 21, 2008 10:14 AM.

While my trip to LA a few weeks back was exceedingly productive, there were a handful of meetings (and a talk to give at USC's film school) that I couldn't quite fit in. So, the first half of this week, I was back in Los Angeles for a very short trip - in Monday morning, out Wednesday afternoon.

And while the trip was certainly worthwhile from a business perspective, it was the non-business stuff that made it truly memorable. Mainly because, the second evening, I got to share dinner with Ole Eichhorn, a long-standing online friend whose kind words and wisdom I've much appreciated over the years.

But also because, the first evening, I ended up having drinks at the bar of the Thompson Beverly Hills with a middle-aged black guy who was in from Atlanta ostensibly to visit his friend (who lived in LA, and was at the bar) but really to celebrate his eighth anniversary with his Canadian mistress (who was also at the bar, and seemed more than happy with her 'other woman' status), all of whom were chased off by Ridley Scott's wife, a late-50's eurotrash cougar who kept buying me drinks until I had to excuse myself to the bathroom and sneak out of the bar before she realized I was gone.

Big Ten
Filed November 14, 2007 4:43 PM.

It's official: the details are all locked for the Palo Alto High School Class of 1997 Ten Year Reunion.

Therefore, it's also official: I'm old.

In truth, I probably wouldn't be attending the reunion, except that, as student body president my senior year, it's apparently my job to plan it. I didn't realize this when I ran for the office, didn't get the memo until just this year, which is probably why our class never had a five year reunion.

But, this time, for the ten-year mark, we are. Not some big event in the gym with balloons and streamers and nametags and speeches, but an evening at a Palo Alto bar the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Lower key, it seemed, might be more likely to get people to actually show up.

And, by now, more than a hundred of my classmates have RSVP'ed. I'm curious to see how we look as a bunch by now - how much hair lost, how much weight gained. At least two people will be bringing small kids, and many more their husbands, wives and significant others.

Jess, wisely, will instead be visiting her younger sister, abroad for the semester in Copenhagen, so she'll be spared. So I'll be facing things solo - and, more to the point, very drunk.

High and Tight
Filed October 15, 2007 2:06 PM.

In other news, today at lunch I inadvertently got the shortest haircut I've had since, well, ever.

Hairy Situation
Filed August 29, 2007 5:31 PM.

I've been busy. Exceedingly busy. Which is why, though 'get a haircut' has been on my to-do list for weeks, I hadn't managed to stop in for a trim.

This weekend, however, my brother pointed out that I had started to grow payis. Then, this morning, Jess told me I had 'lady hair'.

So, at lunch, I headed off to Jean Louis David. Which, while admittedly French for 'Supercuts', has normally sheared me well. Today, however, there were only two stylists at work, and a shaggy-haired lineup waiting for them.

So, short on time, and remembering that my intern Jed recently had his hair cut at the nearby Astor Place Barber Shop, I headed there instead.

Located in a dingy basement below the corner of Astor and Broadway, the Astor Place Barber Shop is enormous - apparently about 9,000 square feet - and packed to the rafters with more old Greek and Italian barbers than I could count, each with electric trimmers buzzing.

I was more than a bit worried about plopping down in 'Einstein' Enrico's chair (as his sign proclaimed) - his stooped stance, mildly shaking hands, and thick, thick glasses didn't inspire much confidence. Nor did I feel much better when he launched into cutting, taking off giant chunks in one fell buzzer swoop.

The entire cut took less than three minutes (which, at $12, is perhaps all the time I had paid for). But, in the end, it looks surprisingly good. A bit short, perhaps, but overall pretty nice.

Nice enough, in fact, that in six weeks, when I next need a trim, I suspect I'd once again live on the edge, and head on back.

For the Money
Filed August 23, 2007 4:04 PM.

Earlier this week, I headed out to dinner with my brother David, his business partner, and an investor they knew, who was possibly interested in putting some money into Cyan's next project.

The investor owned some nightclubs, and was therefore an alcoholic. So, after dinner, he suggested we all grab a round of drinks nearby. And then another round. And then another.

My brother and his partner, at that point, wisely bowed out. But I could tell the guy was sizing me up, trying to see if I could, as the kids say, bring it.

So, I kept on drinking. And he kept on drinking. And, when we parted some hours later, it was with much increased mutual respect.

Or so I assume. Actually, by that point, I had totally blacked out.

I'm not entirely sure how I made it home, though Jess tells me I came in the door talking gibberish and laughing hysterically, barely able to stand.

But the next morning, I woke up feeling great. I wasn't hung over at all!

Instead, I soon discovered, I was still drunk. Still totally, plastered drunk.

It's a miracle I didn't fall onto the subway tracks on my way to work. I could barely type once I arrived. But I still felt fine. Until about 11:00am, when I suddenly and violently crossed out of drunk, and into terribly, horribly hung over.

For reasons that aren't entirely clear to me, we have a small ironing board in our office at the moment. Which, it turned out, is precisely the right size and height for use as a pillow when lying on the floor, something I preceded to do for the next hour and a half.

I rallied in time for a business lunch, which I managed without tossing my cookies in the restaurant bathroom (something, unfortunately, I did last year in a similar situation), though I was otherwise utterly worthless the rest of the day - couldn't write emails, answer the phone, or even focus on a piece of paper well enough to read.

Still, it looks like the investor will be coming through, and may even be bringing the deal around to a couple of his angel investing friends. So, in the end, as I told a friend yesterday afternoon, happy as ever to take one for the proverbial team.

He pointed out that approach, essentially, made me a whore.

To which I replied, no no, given the amount of money we're talking about, I'm fairly certain I qualify as an 'escort'.

Techmology
Filed November 3, 2006 3:05 PM.

For the past several years, I've had an account on Facebook. A good friend of mine was their head of biz dev, and another served a stint as the company's president, so I signed up on their request, to provide some user interface feedback in the relatively early days of the site.

After which, I more or less forgot that I had even signed up in the first place. Being old and out of school and no longer even vaguely aware of what's cool with the kids these days, I had no idea that I was supposed to be using the site obsessively, checking in several times each and every day (as the average user inexplicably does). Instead, my account lay largely fallow. Which was perfectly fine with me.

But then, a few months back, I started getting friend requests from anyone I'd ever met two to ten years younger than I. As a result, suddenly, at least a few times a week, I was logging into Facebook. And while I must admit I still don't completely grasp the site's appeal, I'm finally and undeniably on there, a real (albeit rather uncommitted) Facebook user.

Early this week, I took my Facebook-ship up a notch, having been added by my brother as an officer to my very first Facebook group: "I Live at the Russian Samovar". (Which, as I do, how could I possibly refuse?)

And though I'm not really sure what that's about either, I have the sense that I'm supposed to now be pimping the group out. I'm sure there's some way to link to it, or to invite you all, or whatever. But as anyone likely to join on probably understands the site far better than I have the patience or desire to, I'm just going to say it's out there, and that all of you young alcoholics should get in on it, whether you've actually been to Russian Samovar, or whether you're just happy to support the undisputed category king for "New York Russian mafiosi vodka bar part-owned by Mikhail Baryshnikov."

For those on the fence, I copy below our group's manifesto:

Comrades!

Let us leave our plows to instead join arms in a unanimous decry of solidarity!

Let us lift high our glasses to toast the People's Party of Inebriation!

Let us cast away the opressive yoke of capitalist early morning work hours!

Let us marinate like fine matjes herring in flavored vodka until we cannot speak our home addresses to impatient cab drivers who retrieve us on the nearby Broadway corner!

Let us honor mother Russia with shot and shot and shot of Russian Samovar's fine fruit-infused vodka until we vomit on the poor out-of-town assholes waiting in line for Hairspray next door!

Long live the Party! Na zdorovje!

Join up. And add me as a friend, I guess. But don't send me messages on the site, because fuck knows I'm not going to try to figure out how to pick those up.

Get-Up
Filed October 30, 2006 7:45 PM.

As on most Halloweens past, tomorrow night I'll be playing big band jazz at the venerable Theater for the New City's Vintage Halloween Costume Ball, a masquerade party replete with liquor, food, live music, and weird, weird East Village types.

And, setting aside how my lack of trumpet practice time over the past month may leave my chops worse than mangled by the end of a two hour set holding down the solo trumpet chair, I'm primarily concerned about my lack of appropriate apparel. In prior years, the tuxedo dress code left me with little choice on the costume front, aside from toting toy gun and martini glass in my best attempt at Bond chic. This morning however, the bandleader emailed to say that we'd now be free to costume ourselves however our swinging hearts desire. Which leaves me, in short order, to come up with my best attempts at items-already-available-in-closet assembly.

As my backup choice is to wrap a bow and ribbon around my neck, going as god's gift to women, I'd better think fast.

Reality
Filed September 13, 2006 5:40 PM.

There's an old truism that, as soon as a guy starts seeing someone, the guy somehow becomes instantly more attractive to women, who apparently telepathically divine his newly taken status. Girls come up to him at bars, exes send friendly emails out of the blue.

I have, however, now taken that theory to its logical conclusion. Minutes ago, I received an email that began:

ABC Television's hit reality television show, The Bachelor, is searching for its next star. After viewing your profile on LinkedIn, the casting producer has selected you as a potential candidate.

Um, no.

Hello, Newman
Filed September 12, 2006 2:51 PM.

About seven years back, I was in CNNfn's green room, waiting to go on-air for an interview. A woman walked into the room with a clipboard, said, "Joshua Newman", and looked around.

I stood up. So did another guy. We looked at each other. Then at her. As it turns out, there were two Joshua Newmans in line to be interviewed, one of us right after the other - he about a new wireless technology IPO, I about some startups in the financial services space.

After our respective interviews, we headed to a neighboring Au Bon Pain for mid-winter chicken soup, only to discover that, not only did we have the same name, and not only did we work in the same industry, but we had both graduated from Yale, he four years before me.

After falling out of touch in the intervening years, that Joshua Newman emailed me again today to say he'd recently moved out to LA, to become Director of Digital Media for Twentieth Century Fox.

It seems the secret cabal of Joshua Newmans has now moved, en masse, from the world of high tech into the world of film. Movie people, look out.

Mail Bag
Filed August 18, 2006 10:27 AM.

People often ask me whether writing so publicly about my alcoholic adventures and dating debauchery ever causes problems. My answer: of course.

Observe, for example, this rather gracious email I received last night, in reference to a segment of the inaugural F. Scott & Friends Bourbon and Brylcreem Hour podcast, from a friend of my younger brother whom Sarah and I had discussed on-air the likelihood of my drunkenly sleeping with:

Um, dare I say “well done?” I listened long enough to hear the bit about my dimple and how I am apparently going to get angry after we drunkenly sleep together. OH, josh. We’ll blame it on the bourbon (not us sleeping together — your podcast). Its no wonder Dave insisted I check it out.

For the record, I know what the hell a pod cast [sic] is, too.

Hope all is well. We all need to go drink/sing/not fuck real soon.

[name redacted]

The Usual
Filed August 3, 2006 10:04 AM.

[Meant to post this on Tuesday, but my week has been a mess.]

Monday night. My brother David comes over to cook dinner with me, then gets a call from a mutual friend, Robbie, a big dude from Georgia who recently moved to NYC to further his stand-up career and audition for Broadway musicals.

Robbie swings by my apartment as well, and we toss back a few rum and cokes, then head out on the town. As it's a Monday, most bars are closed or dead, so we head up Broadway to Ava Lounge, atop the Dream Hotel. The place is packed.

We grab a table, order up a round of drinks, and begin intently discussing which Disney character is the hottest, which degenerates into our singing "Part of Your World" in falsetto. Ranging from one topic to the next, we're cracking ourselves up, and people surrounding us stop their own conversations to intently listen in.

In any bar, people fall into two groups: the observers and the observed. Some tables are just clearly having more fun than others. Our table, that Monday night, is patently obviously the most fun one in the bar.

The waitress starts spending more time talking with us. Then another waitress, who comes bearing a round of Tequila shots, starts hanging out at our table as well. A middle-aged couple walks by in formal wear. "How was the prom?" my brother asks. They pull up seats.

With sufficient mass, the gravity of our group increases. Next drawn in are three Dutch lingerie salesmen and the cadre of blonde Canadian girls they'd picked up earlier in the night.

An attractive brunette in glasses walks clear across the bar, announces that we're 'more real' than her friends, and plops down at the table as well.

A rock-paper-scissors tournament ensues. Free drink are poured. We learn how to say "may I kiss the baby" and "show me the way to the nearest keg" in Dutch. Phone numbers are exchanged, laps are sat on.

Two in the morning. We close the bar, stagger down to the street, and head our separate ways.

The next morning, my eyelids stick to my eyeballs as I first try to open them. Coffee, black.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Look Out Picasso
Filed July 29, 2006 10:55 AM.

My bar-napkin masterpiece, "Naked Lady / Moose":

[photo courtesy H. Hunter and four glasses of Maker's Mark]

Like a Chihuahua
Filed May 18, 2006 4:43 PM.

This afternoon, I discovered that, with the din of blow-dryers in the background, "just a trim, please, I'm trying to grow my hair out a bit" apparently sounds exactly like "please whip out the buzz-clippers and sheer off most of my hair."

Cringing
Filed April 4, 2006 6:54 PM.

Tomorrow evening, I head out to Brooklyn to reprise my earlier recitation of the Laura Friedman Saga from my teenage digital diary, at Cringe's one year anniversary - a Best Of reading that's bringing back in the cream of the crop. Plus, you know, me.

A description of Cringe from organizer Sarah Brown:

Funny people reading from their old diaries, letters, songs, poems, and other general representations of the crushing misery of their humiliating adolescence, but it's okay because they're totally cool and well-adjusted and super attractive now:

Cringe Reading Night
Wednesday, April 5, 8:30 pm
Freddy's Bar & Backroom
Dean & 6th Ave.
2/3 to Bergen, any train to Atlantic/Flatbush
More directions here
Cost: free dollars

Though, for the record, I was just as "super attractice" at the time of writing; for proof thereof, I include the Bar Mitzvah photo below, taken at age 13 (as is my collection of journal entries).

barmitzvah.tiff

Such a shana punim.

[Also in this week's New York Magazine.]

Thin Skinned
Filed March 26, 2006 11:24 PM.

A few evenings back, my brother and I made our way through four or five Times Square-adjacent bars, happily and successfully flirting with several tables of women at each stop.

At the very last bar, however, on the way out the door and back to my apartment, I tossed out a bit of - what at least seemed to me - witty banter for the hostess. She, apparently, found it far less amusing, a point she rather cuttingly made clear.

And as I look back, even as I recognize that the evening was, percentage-wise, one of the best I've ever had, I'm plagued by that one brutal crash-and-burn far more than I'm pleased by the blur of preceding successes.

Sure, life is a numbers game. And I know that I can't bat a thousand. But, to stretch the metaphor, it seems I still haven't mastered the fine art of striking out without feeling like I got hit in the head by the pitch.

Tore Up
Filed January 13, 2006 5:17 PM.

Last night, following a business dinner on the Lower East Side, I headed a few blocks down to 'inoteca, to eat a second dinner with a college ex-girlfriend.

Following which, she and I headed to Arlene's Grocery, to catch a live performance by a band inexplicably doing it's damndest to become Blink 182.

As I was wearing a blazer and button down, and looking more than a bit out of place in the Arlene's crowd, I stripped down to my undershirt to watch the set.

By 2:00am, Arlene's was closing, and I stood by the bar, buttoning back on my dress shirt while waiting for my credit card to process.

As I did, one female bartender turned to the other and said, "you know, when he's not wearing that shirt, you can see he has nice arms."

"Really?" replied the second. And she reached over the bar with both hands, grabbed my shirt, and pulled.

Buttons flew everywhere - all but the very last having been ripped clean off. And as I stood there, looking at the bartender in shock, she gestured for me to remove the shirt.

Which, actually, I did. But, at least, I didn't leave her a tip. Just a note saying: "saving up money to buy a whole shirt's worth of new buttons."

Where's the Advil?
Filed January 1, 2006 3:52 PM.

As in most years of recent memory, I awoke this first morning of 2006 convinced that I could have saved a lot of time on New Year's Eve by not going out, but rather slamming myself a few times in the head with a hammer.

Either way, I'd have felt about the same this morning. The year's off to a good start.

Suiting Up
Filed October 29, 2005 5:16 PM.

Challenge: Find costume in less than three hours for a "90's Scandals" costume party.

Solution: One old pair of ice skates from under the bed, one curly blond wig and ballerina costume from Ricky's Costume Shop around the corner, one junior-size Louisville Slugger baseball bat borrowed from the kids who live next door.

Voila, Tonya Harding.

[Pictures, if possible, to follow.]

The Competition
Filed September 22, 2005 3:49 PM.

Tuesday evening, I grabbed drinks with a West Coast entrepreneur friend passing through the city. A few years younger than I, he already runs a company that's fast closing in on the million dollar sales mark.

But if it was a reminder that I've long since been displaced from the 'boy wonder' end of the startup spectrum, I was at least consoled to find age - or, rather, an additional few years of an effective liver-training regimen - has its advantages.

My friend emailed this morning:

Good meeting up with you on Tuesday night. You were definitely right about the Russian vodka; it sneaks up on you.
So here is what I gathered from other sources about the remainder of the evening after we left from margaritas. First I began by drunk dialing a ton of people, one girl 8 times throughout the course of the hour. I wandered through Times Square, telling people on the phone that I had no idea where my hotel was. I stopped in a bar and bought a Corona, so I could use the bathroom, but never touched the drink. While I was walking, some gay guys started trying to pick me up, or so I told people on the phone. Who knows if by then I was just hallucinating. Apparently security kicked me out of some place where I was walking and then I stopped at Sbarros and grabbed two slices of pizza. Nobody really knows how I ended up back at my hotel, could have walked, could have been a taxi. And then I proceeded to puke my guts out.
The funny part: when I woke up in the morning, I really had no idea what had happened, and until I started thinking about what I had done the night before, about 2 hours into the day, I had even forgotten that I had puked. Never a good sign.

I, on the other hand, made it home that night in time to bang out some late-night emails before hitting the hay. Looks like I haven't hit forced retirement quite yet after all.

Vindicated
Filed July 19, 2005 6:38 PM.

For years, my younger brother has been calling me a 'drunken monkey'.

Turns out, he was right:

Notes from a Birthday Weekend
Filed July 18, 2005 11:32 AM.

As previously noted, this Saturday, I turned 26. Or, as I like to think of it, 'double bar mitzvah'.

A few thoughts on the misadventures involved:

The birthday weekend actually started Thursday night, with drinks and more drinks at Russian Samovar. Though I haven't been to that bar for over a month, the bartenders, proprietors, and even piano players all still knew me by name. I take this to be a dangerous sign for the state of my liver.
The crowd that Thursday was wonderfully eclectic, with two sets of aunts and uncles, friends, colleagues, interns, and ex-girlfriends. It's always a bit terrifying to see spheres of your life collide, and a wonderful relief when the people you like, like each other.
Apparently, one of the aunts in attendance got drunk enough to reapply lipstick in the mirror behind her several times, before the other aunt told her that it wasn't actually a mirror, but a clear glass divider between their table and the next. Hooray for family!
Another reason to love my family: my mother pre-ordered me a copy of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, which arrived early Saturday morning.
Despite my other engagements during the weekend, I polished off all 652 Potter pages by 7:00pm on Sunday.
Saturday afternoon, I joined my grandmother at the Laura Pels Theater, for the Roundabout's new production, Jon Robin Baitz's The Paris Letter. The play itself was good, though not great; the acting was extraordinary. Also, as two or three friends have previously noted, Ron Rifkin does look a bit like my father.
I splurged for a birthday dinner of hugely overpriced sushi, a good reminder after a few months of lower-end sushi joints that, at least with sushi, you get what you pay for.
My great-grandmother, Nana, would buy herself birthday gifts each year, so that she'd be sure to receive at least one or two things she really wanted. I think this is an excellent plan.
To that end, I bought myself a Nokia 7280, for use as a 'weekends and evenings' cell phone. My trusty Treo, which I love to death, is a bit large for casual pocketing, causing me to often leave it behind when heading out for the night. Now, I can switch my SIM card to the Nokia, which has the added benefit of looking alarmingly like a tube of lipstick might in the world of Tron.
Saturday evening, I took the phone back to Samovar, for a second birthday party. One reason I love the place: we drank eleven carafes of home-brewed flavored vodka; they charged us for four.
Another gift-to-self birthday present: gymnastics rings. Give me six months of practice, and I should have an Iron Cross.
Speaking of which, as recently added to the left sidebar, I'm helping to head up a new group-training gym, CrossFit NYC. I showed up to co-lead the Sunday morning class, less hung over than still drunk.
Also speaking of which, at Russian Samovar on Saturday night, as we were getting ready to leave the bar and brave the stifling humidity outside, I peeled off my button-down shirt, to just the fitted gray undershirt beneath. A girl at the next table, with whom I'd been intermittently flirting, blurted out, "wow, so I guess you go to the gym," blushing as soon as that popped out of her mouth. It was the best compliment I've received in weeks.
Interesting fact: you know who totally remembers your birthday and sends an awkward email each year? Girls you've slept with.

And, finally, a quick birthday history story:

I was born at 2:27pm, July 16th, 1979, at Stanford Hospital. In the State of California, during the first three hours of a baby's life, the attending doctor or nurse is required to give the baby Silver Nitrate eye drops, to prevent infection. The drops, however, blur the baby's vision for several hours.

As soon as I had popped out, I started looking around. Taking in everything. The nurse told my parents that she couldn't bear to put those eye drops in, that she'd wait until the latest moment allowed by law, as she'd never before seen a baby so engrossed by the world, so enthralled by just sucking everything in.

Even in those first hours of life, I couldn't get enough. I still can't.

Blimp Pilots
Filed June 27, 2005 12:49 PM.

I spent most of last week with Rob Barnum, a new hire who'll be managing the West Coast office of Cyan Pictures + Long Tail Releasing, who was in town to get up to speed on both companies. While still in college, Rob served as an exec at EscapeHomes, helping to take the company through several large venture capital rounds and a recent merger. He then started a production company to escape from the world of tech and into the world of film. Plus, he screenwrites, and blogs, and drinks heavily.

So, in short, I hired him because, in true narcissistic style, I like people like myself.

It wasn't until Friday night, however, that I realized how dangerous having both of us in the same room would be. Because Friday night, we headed down to the West Village, hit the first crowded bar off the subway steps, and decided it was imperative that we spend the evening picking up random women.

Now, picking up women in bars is a chump's game. It puts you into competition with every single other guy in the bar. Worse, it puts you on par with every single other guy in the bar, makes you the sketchy sort of guy who spends Friday night hitting on random women.

Sure, the girls are ostensibly there because they want the attention, having layered on makeup and cocktail dresses. But, deep down, every girl would much rather date a guy she'd met at the park or through a friend or in the yogurt aisle of the supermarket. The Fat Black Pussycat just lacks tell-your-grandkids-about-how-you-met charm.

So, if you're looking to meet women at a bar, the main thing is to not be like all of the other sketchy guys surrounding you. You've got to be different, in a good way. You've got to think outside the booty box.

Rum and Coke's in hand, Rob and I sat down at the first bar to discuss that conundrum, and to scope out the options. To our immediate right was a group of three girls, sitting together, dutifully brushing off a chain of successive hopefuls coming over with their smoothest entrances. They seemed as good a choice as anyone else.

Before I had the chance to reason my way out of it, I excused myself from Rob and headed over. "I'm sorry to interrupt," I said, receiving icy stares. "But I was wondering which you think are cooler: blimps or hot-air balloons."

"What?", one of them asked.

"Blimps or hot air balloons - which is cooler. You." I pointed to the one in the middle.

"Blimps, I guess," she said, slightly confused. I got another blimp vote, then one for hot-air balloons.

"Thanks," I said. "That's all I needed." I walked back to Rob, sat down, and checked my watch.

Thirty-four seconds later, the most intrepid of the three walked over.

"Now we're curious," she said. "Why did you want to know that?"

"It's not that important," I replied, and went back to talking with Rob.

"You can't just ask us that," she continued. "You have to tell me why you wanted to know."

"Well," I started, then looked to Rob, who nodded approval. "We're going to be racing from New York to Chicago. Either in blimps or hot air balloons, and we wanted to see if one was cooler than the other."

"Racing to Chicago?" the girl asked, dubious.

"Well," Rob jumped in. "My grandfather passed away recently, and gave me an old hot-air balloon in his will. I was thinking about repairing it, and then I thought, if Josh buys one too, we could race."

"Right," I continued. "But I figured Rob could probably get some trade-in value on the balloon if we wanted to switch to blimps and race those instead."

Rob and I nodded nonchalantly, like that pretty much summed it all up.

"You have to come with me to tell that to my friends," the girl said. We were in.

Over the course of the evening, at several bars and with several groups of women, we worked our way through variations on the theme. Perhaps Rob was going to be in a hot-air balloon and I'd be in a blimp, and did they think that would put one of us at a disadvantage? Or, we had already bought the blimps, but we were in town to see if Blimpie would be a corporate sponsor of our race.

While we'd come in totally deadpan, we tried to slowly edge the story over the top, to let the girls in on it. The good ones got it, and played along, happy to be inside a shared joke. The slower ones never seemed to catch on, but remained credulous and interested.

Either way, after a while, we'd excuse ourselves, bow off invitations to join them at subsequent bars, decline phone numbers. We weren't really there to pick up women. We just wanted the thrill of the chase.

Which, I would guess, is almost as exciting as racing hot-air balloons.

Point / Counterpoint
Filed June 14, 2005 12:51 PM.

Suave:

Less suave:

Snooty
Filed June 13, 2005 8:19 AM.

Growing up in suburban Northern California, with Jewish New Yorker parents, Southern culture was, to put it mildly, not a large part of my early life. So far as I was concerned, America was the West Coast, the East Coast, and a whole bunch of 'fly-over states' in between.

But, over the past five years, largely due to living several of those with a Georgian and a Kentuckian, I've slowly begun to believe there might actually be something good going on in all those places jumbled up in the beach-less middle.

My iTunes library has filled with bluegrass and alt-country. My DVD collection has grown to encompass swaths of 'regional storytelling' - from Matewan through All the Real Girls.

And I've eaten barbecue. Lots of barbecue. With a host of guides ready to toss aside 'Yankee bullshit', I've toured the range of New York options, tasting scores of hush puppies, comparing the merits of vinegar- and tomato-based sauces, and marveling at the wide array of ways to chop up and char-broil the contents of an average barnyard. (Pig snoot sandwiches? Seriously?)

So it was with great anticipation that, yesterday at high noon, I headed down to Madison Square Park to meet James, Colin and Bill at the 3rd Annual Big Apple Barbecue Block Party. The event brought together pitmasters from places like Little Rock and Decatur, Murphysboro and St. Louis, Elgin and Driftwood, each carting with them a little slice of home.

Or, as it turned out, a big slice of home. Which was good, because New Yorkers came in droves to the event, yielding hour-long lines at each separate stand. The restauranteurs were ready, having towed along fleets of trailer-hitched industrial-sized grills, and having piled high stacks of animal carcasses, part and whole, bound for fiery fates.

I arrived at the park just after noon, and found James already in line for the Salt Lick's stand. Ten minutes and ten feet of line later, it became clear my initial wide-sampling intentions likely wouldn't work out. Buying plates from just two different vendors, it seemed, would be an all-afternoon affair.

Moments later, however, Colin arrived with our salvation: a Bubba Fast Pass he'd scored from a VIP the day before. The pass took us 'backstage', past the crawling lines and into the cordoned-off sections behind each stand, where the barbecuing itself was actually underway. From that vantage point, we could amble up to any of the serving stations and score selections of grilled goodness in mere seconds.

By the time we left the park, some two hours later, I could barely walk. Sated and sauce-spattered, I was nearly sweating from the sheer effort of ongoing digestion. James pointed out that he was trying not to step too hard when he walked, for fear of triggering an emergency bathroom run.

But, goddamn, that was some barbecue.

As we headed towards the subway, Colin announced he was considering holding his upcoming birthday party at Blue Smoke, a relatively recent addition to the NYC barbecue scene, which brings a rather New York perspective ("you can improve anything, or, at least, make anything more expensive") to it all by serving up what might be called haute barbecue cuisine.

Normally, I'd have been more than happy to pencil that into my calendar. But with the taste of authenticity still literally stuck between my teeth, it seemed like, well, kind of a waste.

Turns out, my Southern friends are right: when it come to barbecue, them yankees don't know shit.

Two Long Nights
Filed April 9, 2005 4:59 PM.

Thursday

Though exact details are hazy, the night definitely involved karaoke, four bars, and drinking champagne direct from pilfered bottles in the conference room of the Union Square W Hotel, with Colin and Sarah.

From their emails the following morning:

Colin:

I am still drunk. And at work.

My memory of Lemon Bar is a little fuzzy, but I remember we closed the place. I passed out on the subway home and woke up in Long Island City.

I just want to be the first to say that last night was, unparallelled.

Sarah:

Oh my god, best night ever.

We are invincible.

And Colin's response to Sarah:

I am feeling very vincible.

I think I may yet throw up.

Friday

Came up to New Haven late afternoon for dinner at the Chai Society. Wandered around Yale's campus for a bit, marvelling at how beautiful it is, and trying to convince myself that I actually lived here for four years. Post-dinner, walked back to the train station, and discovered I'd missed the last train out for the night by about fifteen minutes, leaving me more than five hours off from the next train at 4:40am.

Spent those hours huddled on a bench of the quiet, cavernous New Haven train station, as I and three other poor saps who similarly missed the last train home sureptitiously eyed each other, mentally calculating the odds that one of the other three might rob us all blind if we drifted off to sleep.

Nonetheless, did manage to get some neck-crink-inducing naptime on the train ride itself, feeling safe under the conductor's watchful eye. Pulled into Grand Central at 6:30am, and pulled my bed covers over my head at 7:00am.

Sadly, after too many days of work-driven early rising, by 10:00am, I was up again and nominally ready to face the world.

Now, at 5:00pm, I'm ready to rock out Florida style: early-bird special for dinner, asleep by 7:00pm.

The (Belated) Recap
Filed March 31, 2005 6:24 PM.

Meant to post about this yesterday, but a non-stop string of Cyan and Long Tail meetings kept me, sadly, doing actual work rather than writing up inane summaries of my rampant social alcoholism.

Despite a slow start (involving a terrifying initial half-hour of sitting at a table by myself, imagining that nobody would show up at all), the inaugural S-A Block Party collected a crowd of seventeen different attendees over the course of the evening, five of whom I'd never before met live, making it, in my opinion, an unqualified success.

As it was also the first chance for a crowd of my friends to meet Abigail (who showed up with a couple of her own friends in tow, presumably as reinforcements), the event brought together 'holy crap there are real people on the other end of that email address' internet weirdness with 'so this girl really exists after all' dating weirdness, yielding an event that was, in equal parts, exceedingly awkward and absolutely excellent.

In short, my kind of party.

Swing By Tonight
Filed March 29, 2005 1:24 PM.

The S-A Block Party is at 9:00 this very evening, B.B. Doyle's Pub & Restaurant, 51st just off 8th.

Hope to see you there.

recapped
Filed February 19, 2005 9:17 PM.

Apologies, kids, for the recent silence and relatively crap posts; real life, as it's sometimes wont to do, has been getting in the way.

On the work front, we're getting ready to launch into pre-production on Earthquake Weather with Cyan, and prepping This is Not a Film to head off to the DVD presser with Long Tail.

But, more detrimentally to my regular raconteuring, I've also been drinking the nights away, with nary a free minute of 'me time'. A quick run-down, for those looking for some vicarious liver damage:

Wednesday night, headed out to celebrate The Girl's birthday. As she quoted me saying on her own blog (and, no, I won't link it, because heaven knows my mother doesn't want that much detail about my sex life. Not that we've had sex. I'm, um, saving myself until marriage. Yes, that's it! Saving myself until marriage...), there are two traumatic events that can fall within the first few weeks of dating someone: Valentine's Day, and their birthday. And, wowsers, there's nothing like getting both in the span of a single week.

Still, I think I stumbled through both reasonably competently, as I'll be seeing her again this evening. (More on that later.) We started the natal evening at a Nerve bash, largely because it involved free wine. As she ran into train trouble, I headed into the party alone for a half hour or so, and emerged just in time to discover that the doorman wasn't letting her (or anyone else) in, despite her repeated protestation that she was actually on the guest list, and that her +1 was waiting patiently (albeitly already slightly drunkenly) inside. Fortunately, as I had come out sans-overcoat, I managed to get us both inside with the old 'I need to retrieve my coat' and Jedi mind-trick stare one-two punch. Though, frankly, it wouldn't have been worth much more effort. The small bar, Odea, was packed well past the confines of fire code, and moving from one end of the narrow bar to the other made me thankful for years of practice on thrown-elbow dodging. We did, however, manage to get onto Gawker, as Team Party Crash was stalking the event; add back-of-the-head picture of me making out to the growing list of incriminating artifacts trailing me around the Internets.

Post-Odea, we cabbed down Broome to the excellent Ivo & Lulu, a closet of a restaurant with truly excellent food they inexplicably sell for about a third the rate of similar gastronomic delights elsewhere. (For potential visitors, it's BYOB, so either buy in advance, or [as I was forced to do] head next door to the oddly-named Monkey Temple bar and sweet-talk them into selling you a whole bottle of cabernet at wholesale) Then over to Circa Tabac, where I first pissed off and then befriended the owner by requesting two empty wine glasses to finish off the remains of the cabernet bottle.

I'm pretty sure we cabbed back to my apartment following that, though the combined effects of wine, more wine, and a stiff Sidecar left details sketchy until the following morning, when, waking up at 9:00, we discovered a lawyer nearly pressed up against the glass in his office across the street, admiring the show through my aquarium-like bedroom windows. Thank you, but no, life-imitating-Hitchcock.

Despite barely staggering through the rest of the day, and repeatedly swearing off liquor, I nonetheless found myself at Russian Samovar later that evening (drinking problem; what drinking problem?) for a sipping vodka carafe with the visiting Dan Birdwhistile, founder of the Dropstone Group, a new and rather cool young-people-driven nonprofit. Then, after a brief glass-of-water respite in my apartment, I was out yet again to B.B. Doyles, to meet up with long-standing friend Mike Hoevel, in town for the weekend from L.A. (and, before that, China), as well as recent-ex-roommate Colin and his lovely girlfriend Carrie.

As ever, there's nothing like an evening of bad beer with good friends to pass the time, though Hoevel at one point launched into a retelling of a story I'd long since forgotten: in the Yale dining hall, over dinner one evening, I accepted a five dollar bet to stand on a chair and de-shirt. Though, contrary to the name of the site, I try to steer clear of too much narcissistic back-patting, I must admit I was thrilled that Hoevel described the event as a bit like Flanders shirtlessly mowing the lawn: I was 'unexpectedly ripped'.

As the evening rolled on, Colin excused Carrie and himself, to nurse the start of a winter cold, and both were replaced by Hoevel's man-du-jour, who trekked down 9th from Julliard. Eventually,after several TableTaps of YuengLing, and much flirting all around with middle-aged Irish waitress Regina, I made it back home to once again fruitlessly swear off ever drinking again.

Yesterday evening, in penance for the prior two nights, I met my friend Tova to take in some art at the Met, where she works, as well as some behind-the-scenes gossip on the Rubens exhibit and newly-redone modern art mezzanine. Then went with her to meet her friend Joel, a TV writer, for moulles, frittes, and more frittes, at Petite Abeille. (I may eat healthfully most of the time, but a french fry so rich you can feel your arteries clogging as you chew is certainly not to be missed.)

After crashing at home early, I spent most of the day cleaning my apartment and re-doing work I'd been too hung over to do well the first time through in the past few days. Now, I'm off to dinner with ex-girlfriend Kate, having lost a steak dinner bet that she wouldn't still be dating the guy she's in fact still dating after three months. And, then, up to Morningside Heights for the Girl's official birthday extravaganza, as well as a second chance at ruining the good first impression I made on all her friends.

But, at least, I won't be drinking much.

[Famous last words.]

first impressions
Filed February 6, 2005 4:38 PM.

My long-standing friend Josh Lilienstein is in town for the weekend, leading up to a med school interview this Monday. And, bucking the common wisdom of a quiet weekend of preparation, he instead spent yesterday rocking New York, beginning shortly after his arrival by Jet Blue red-eye from San Francisco when we headed into Central Park at 9:00am with a bottle of Hennesey and some Starbucks paper cups.

The day went happily downhill from there, with the two of us slurring through a slew of topics; one of the brightest people I know, Josh also has an exceedingly broad range of interests and knowledge, allowing us to - in the course of fifteen minutes - somehow skip from women to adipose biochemistry to Italian liquors to political theory. And while, at varying points of the day, we were more sober than at others, I don't suspect we ever crossed below the legal blood-alcohol limit for safe driving. Thank god for New York's subway-centric life.

So it was still not entirely sober that we headed uptown to Morningside Heights at 10:00pm, to meet the girl I've been blogging about, along with one of her college best friends and her literature PhD cohorts. Needless to say, I was a bit freaked out, as meeting friends is a crucial moment in any nascent relationship. Inevitably, at some point down the road, you'll do something to make a girl really, justifiably pissed off with you, and having her friends either rooting for or against you almost always decides your fate.

While I normally wouldn't much worry, as more than a few of my friends have pointed out, this was essentially our fourth date in just over a week - about the same tally that I usually hit in the first month of dating. So, basically, I really didn't want to screw it up.

The grad student party we first collectively hit was, admittedly, a bit short of the Platonic college party form (which ideally includes such elements as 'chug! chug! chug!'-shouting keg-stands and someone dancing on a table with a lampshade on their head), though I spent most of the first hour or two less concerned about the surroundings, and more concerned about just-starting-to-date etiquette. Within the larger party, she and I were privately carrying out the ritual of a middle school dance: slow progress from furtive across-the-room smiles and eye contact, to adjacent leg-brushing sitting to, finally, eventually, standing naturally next to each other, slightly intertwined, hand on back, arm around waist, or (most adventurous of all party stances!) hand in back pocket.

Through it all, it was actually her friends that saved me, as, fortunately, really liking people is far easier than simply pretending to. With each conversation, I eased back towards my natural self, as I discovered that literature PhD students are pretty much exactly my favorite sort of people: intelligent, neurotically over-analytic ones passionately pursuing some relatively obscure topic of interest. As the girl's closest friends turn out also to be attractive, articulate alcoholics, by the time we left the grad party to head to a nearby bar, I was happily convinced that I'd actually look forward to spending more time with them all.

And, mainly, I realized that I'm looking forward to spending more time with her. So when, a little after 3:00 in the morning, Josh and I finally bid the group adieu, as I kissed the girl goodbye on the stoop of the bar and she asked what I was doing Monday night, although I said I'd have to check my calendar to see, I was pretty sure, whatever it might be, I could probably rearrange my schedule.

preparations
Filed December 30, 2004 10:12 PM.

With Kentuckians and Missourians and god knows who else crowding my Times Square-adjacent block in anticipation of tomorrow's ball drop, my brother and I will instead be escaping down to the East Village to celebrate New Year's Eve at FEVA's Bedazzle Ball.

The problem: a costume's required. So, in a burst of do-it-yourself ingenuity, we headed down to Home Depot to purchase Tyvek Hooded Coveralls, 3M Woodworking Respirators, green latex gloves and a Sharpie marker.

Back at my apartment, we emblazoned the back of the coveralls, "Times Square Dirty Bomb First Response Unit," then drew nuclear warning symbols and a slew of official sounding nonsense ("Alpha Squad 4HQ3") on the front and arms. I wrapped an old handheld digital metronome in white paper, scrawled "Dirty Bomb Geiger Counter" across the top, and cut a hole in the paper to allow us to turn on menacing beeping at the touch of a button.

Let the 2005 hilarity begin.

told you so
Filed October 19, 2004 1:27 AM.

Drinking homemade vodka with my high school friend, Lis, at home-away-from-home Russian Samovar.

Me: Actually, this bar is part-owned by Mikhail Baryshnikov.

Her: No it isn't.

Me: No, seriously.

Her: [Very skeptical look]

Baryshnikov walks through the door, nods as he passes, then sits down at the piano and begins to play Debussy's "Rêverie", flawlessly.

Her: Okay. So maybe it is.

ambushed
Filed September 2, 2004 2:25 PM.

I left Dahlia's going-away party last night, and taxied up from Alphabet City to Midtown to meet a date. We had planned to head to Saka Gura, a great sake bar and restaurant that's a favorite amongst the Japanese expat set. As my date hadn't been before, and as it's a bit hard to find (being placed in the basement of a nondescript office tower), I suggested we meet on the corner of 43rd and 3rd.

I came up 1st Avenue, and so was on the east side of the street; my date, having subwayed into Grand Central, was on the west. I could see her, thirty feet away. But, in between, there were police barriers, and dozens of uniformed cops.

Apparently, some RNC-related VIP would be hurtling up 3rd in motorcade, and while there were no cars up or down the street as far as the eye could see, we weren't allowed to cross. Not to worry, though, the police assured me; they wouldn't be blocking the intersection long - certainly not more than an hour and a half.

So, in the end, we scrapped the Saka Gura plan, and both cabbed down in parallel (along 2nd and Lex, respectively) to Union Square, where we were able to cross the park and meet in between.

As we headed off to nearby Underbar, my date was furious. "It was just politics before," she said. "But now Bush has made this personal. Nobody gets between me and a drink."

down under
Filed August 30, 2004 2:28 PM.

As noted in my last post, I'm reasonably good (especially while drunk) at passing myself off as Australian. It's a hard-earned talent, certainly, though one I put to good use for years, while under-age, drinking on an Australian fake ID.

For any underage drinkers reading along, it's an approach I heartily endorse, as it left me with scores of entertaining experiences, from berating liquor store clerks who tried to look up the ID for verification in their US license picture books between Arkansas and California ("You fucking American twat, it's a country, not one of your little 'states'"), to waxing philosophic about the Australian public transportation system (something I'd never actually used) in conversation with a cute grad student in Cincinnati writing her thesis on subway systems of the world.

Women, it seems, love Australians, though explaining the lack of accent the following morning can be a bit tough. And while bartenders are happy to spot such out-of-towners a round of drinks, the round is usually comprised of Fosters. (Bartender: "Here you go man; it's Australian for beer." Me: "More like Australian for watered down piss. Aside from Victoria Bitter, I wouldn't even rinse my arse with the swill Fosters bottles.")

Throughout my years of being part-time Australian, though, there was only one fake ID experience that left me feeling a bit guilty about it all. Right around the corner from Yale's dorms was a small liquor store, Quality Liquor, that was notorious for being brutal on fake ID's - the wall behind the register was lined by at least a hundred confiscated fakes. So, in part because they really did have New Haven's best liquor selection, and in part because I wanted to see how well my accent and ID stood up to the test, I headed in the first week of Freshman year.

Not only did I pass with flying colors, I quickly became a favorite of the owners, who referred to me as "Crocodile Dundee", and gave me free liquor and significant discounts. Over the years, I got quite friendly with them, regaling them with tales from the Outback. But, then, the summer after my Junior year, I turned 21. And I was faced with a dilemma: do I keep pretending to be Australian so as not to offend them after years of friendship under false pretenses? Or do I come clean? (In my native California accent: "Sorry about that Australian thing, dudes, but an alcoholic's got to drink.")

Not really life-and-death, I know, but honestly something I worried about for a considerable amount of time. So, when I returned after the summer to New Haven, my sadness was tinged with considerable relief when I discovered the store had closed. I was spared the chance of revelation altogether, and, at least for two fat middle-aged Italian guys, will forever be as Australian as they get.

funny drunk
Filed August 29, 2004 1:30 PM.

For the most part, I think of myself as a merely moderately funny person. Sure, some of the posts here are (to me, at least) reasonably amusing, I've done my share of improv comedy in the past, and, like most people, I've at least toyed with the idea of leaving it all for a career as a bumper-sticker writer ("Honk if you're Amish" being an easy hit). But, really, I don't see myself headed off on the stand-up circuit any time soon.

Still, in the past few months, I've been told repeatedly that, with a couple of drinks in me (and here, by "a couple", I mean seven or eight), I'm pure comedy gold. While I've long had a vague sense that I'm at my best with all sheets to the wind, I rarely have clear enough memories of the conversations that take place in such a state to suspect any talents beyond drunken self-delusion.

With a slew of recent confirming reports, however, I'm now increasingly sure that I really am in prime form when liquored up. Perhaps that's because alcohol inhibits my (admittedly already meager) desire to be liked, leaving me free to make all the sarcastic, assholish (albeit self-deprecatingly sarcastic, assholish) comments that spring to mind.

At first, I was only vaguely pleased with this inebriated talent, as I suspected it might push me past the level of belligerence that even the bitchiest girls would find charming. But that opinion changed when I awoke this morning with some young lady's phone number scrawled on the back of my hand, though with only a vague recollection of to which young lady in particular that phone number might belong.

With a quick phone call to another party attendee, I was able to attach a name to the number. But I was also advised that actually calling the girl (at least while sober) might not be the best idea, as I'd apparently convinced her that I was a.) an Australian illegal immigrant, and b.) a performance artist who's signature piece is a lengthy strip routine, while in black-face.

When it comes to the pick-up potential of ironic humor, it seems there really is no such thing as too much.

turnabout is fair play
Filed August 20, 2004 12:42 PM.

Last night, while drunk, I convinced my brother to let me sharpie a bannered "MOM" heart tattoo on his right arm. At which point, he did the same to me.

It wasn't until this morning, getting into the shower, that I noticed he had actually replaced the contents of the banner with "MEN"; apparently, the kid has a sense of humor.

effigy
Filed August 16, 2004 10:11 PM.

This Saturday, following a fair bit of drinking at Bar Nine for Yoav's twenty-sixth birthday, we all headed back to his apartment to brave the rain and burn a teddy-bear.

Sadly, neither Yoav nor I can lay claim to the idea of stuffed animal torching - the credit instead belongs to attendeed Mike Schupbach, three-time Emmy winner (seriously) and head Muppet Wrangler for Sesame Street, who suggested that Yoav write everything negative that had happened to him over the last year on a piece of paper, stick it up the bear's hoo-haa, and then light the whole thing on fire in a Santeria-esque ritual that would doubtless permanently traumatize any six year-olds who happened to catch a glimpse of the action.

By the time of the burning, everyone wanted in on the act, and so the poor little bear was loaded up with an array of scribbled-on paper scraps, doused with enough lighter fluid to match Hades, and set ablaze.

The flames leapt a good five feet in the air, and when the rain finally cooled the embers, there was less left of Teddy than a well grilled hamburger leaves behind. And while we all likely took years off our lives inhaling the chemical fumes flame-retardant stuffing apparently puts out when push beyond the limits of its retardation, it was clearly worth it.

We left feeling cleansed, ready to face the world, knowing that whatever problems, trials and tribulations we'd previously faced had all gone up in smoke, stuffed up a teddy-bear's ass.

birthday photo
Filed July 19, 2004 10:23 AM.

[Recent discovery: cigars and Schlitz beer are about equally bad.]

ambushed
Filed July 17, 2004 10:13 AM.

I have officially become the first rube in the history of the world to actually be surprised by a surprise birthday party.

Special thanks to my brother for masterminding the wonderful evening, to Tova, Joe, Colin and Yoav for helping him pull it off, to all of my friends who showed up, and to Mikhail Baryshnikov for walking in to Russian Samovar as we were all there drinking, shaking his head, and walking upstairs to get away from us.

Also, you know you're already rather drunk when you stagger into a surprise party being thrown for you and initially think, "that's funny, there are a lot of people I know in this bar tonight."

a night out
Filed June 17, 2004 6:43 PM.

6:00pm
Meet one of Cyan's investment bankers down on Astor Place, chat about progress on raising our film fund.

6:30pm
Head to NYU's Tisch School for panel on the business of film. Roll eyes frequently at moderator's inane questions and panelists' equally inane answers.

7:15pm
Skip out of panel early. Head down to Stellar Network event honoring Philip Seymour Hoffman. Drink several vodka sours at the open vodka bar. Talk with three different women who actually end conversations with 'my people will talk to your people' or 'let's do lunch'.

9:00pm
Head over to Serena (under the Chelsea Hotel) for drinks with Coro Fellow Ari Wallach, to discuss both a TV show he's pulling together, and a network he's building of young leaders interested in shaping broader culture by careful introduction of memes. Discover he's having drinks later this week with Leah Katz, who bought me in a kissing rally when I was in tenth grade, and on whom I had a monster crush.

11:00pm
Join my brother and my cousin Jason at Otis, a bar around the corner from my house, for bad beer and even worse game of pool. Embarrass ourselves thoroughly by making much-too-loud snide comments about other patrons.

12:00pm
Head a few blocks up to underground bar Single Room Occupancy to meet up with my lovely friend Tova. Observe amusedly as Jason and my brother both try to put the moves on the bartender.

12:30pm
While outside talking on the phone, watch as the cops pull up in front of the bar, clearly thinking someone is throwing a monster party in their basement. "It's a bar," I shout to them. They ask the name and how long it's been there, and, apparently satisfied by my slightly slurred answers, drive off.

2:00pm
Stagger home. Manage to insert key into door on only the third attempt. Someone seems to have quadrupled the number of stairs between the front door and my third floor apartment.

8:00am
Wake up for morning meeting, noting that my eyelids feel literally stuck together by the gummy still-drunkenness of my eyeballs. Hit the shower. Rinse, repeat.

jailhouse chic
Filed June 12, 2004 4:42 PM.

A busy evening last night, involving three parties in succession, the last (and best) of which being Ms. Sarah Brown's and Mr. Ryan Chittum's joint birthday bash, the first party I'd attended since college that ended by being broken up by the cops.

Got my knuckles Sharpie-tattooed (again) by Sarah, this time reading "TALK SHIT", and, feeling immensely honored to be one of the few to achieve two-time tattooing, I've now decided I have no choice but to shoot for eventually getting my knuckles similarly SB-defaced more times than anyone else. As the current leader, Erin Byrne, a.) a lives in Oklahoma, and b.) is a librarian, I'm totally ready to kick her ass.

The only downside to the plan is that, while other people apparently can wash their Sharpieing right off, I, possessing a special magnetism for people and ink, am left with tattoo remnants for a good two or three days. Which, frankly, makes for some excellent business-meeting conversation:

Big Investor: "Why does it say 'Slow Deth' on your knuckles?'

Me (sitting on hands): "Slow deth? [Nervous laughter] I have no idea what you're talking about."

call us yenta
Filed May 9, 2004 7:32 PM.

Six months back, following our Halloween party (the infamous Hell's Kitchen Museum of Curious Deaths), one of my high school friends emailed to get the phone number of another guest, a documentary film producer who he had flirted with briefly at the party, and wanted to ask out.

I checked with her to see if she'd mind, then passed the number along. As I saw them both rather infrequently, and neither mentioned it again, I assumed that he'd perhaps not called, or that the date hadn't really gone anywhere.

Still, last night, at the Mother of All Parties, I saw the two talking again. How cute, I thought. A second chance.

Not exactly. Apparently, the first chance had been more than enough, as the two weren't meeting up again at this second party - they had come together. They've been dating since our first shindig, and are moving in with each other June 1st.

Parties here at the Gotham Sugar Shack: alcohol abuse and effective matchmaking, all rolled into one. Damn we're good.

the mother of all parties
Filed May 6, 2004 11:53 AM.

As previously mentioned, we have a party in the works for this weekend at our fair apartment, The Gotham Sugar Shack. A bit more information about the event:

Junior-
I'm flattered that you want to have a party in my honor. I spoke to your father, and we agreed that you can have your friends over to our apartment. However, if you're going to have a Mother's Day gathering, there are a few rules that you must abide.

1) You can only serve milk drinks (alcoholic milk drinks are okay, but no grain alcohol, okay?). And remember to be a good host and make cookies, brownies and Rice Krispie treats. I'm sure your little friends will bring something too, assuming their mothers raised them right.

2) Tell your guests that for this party they ARE REQUIRED TO DRESS AS THEIR MOTHER. Your father and I are serious about this, Junior! And yes, this includes boys as well as girls. Brooms, dustpans, aprons and minivans are optional, but appreciated (your friends can be so messy!).

3) Remind your friends that because we love you so much, we'll let them play in the "Womb Room." If your friends ask what the Womb Room is, tell them: "The Womb Room is both a metaphysical ideal and an aesthetic construct; words can not properly describe the Womb Room. The Womb Room must be experienced."

I trust that your party will be just as enjoyable as the one you had for Halloween, Junior. And yes, of course you can wear my dress for the night. Most importantly, Junior: as the host, it's your duty to make sure nobody has sex in the shower.

And, don't forget: if any of your friends don't attend, it's because they don't really love their mothers.

Have a nice party!

Hugs & Kisses,

Mom

Again, if you haven't received an invite, but would like to, certainly let me know.

a really bad party
Filed April 26, 2004 9:57 AM.

"I want to give a really bad party. I mean it. I want to give a party where there's a brawl and seductions and people going home with their feelings hurt and women passed out in the cabinet de toilette. You wait and see."
- Dick Diver, in Fitzgerald's Tender is the Night

With six months passed since our Halloween throw-down, the inimitable Hell's Kitchen Museum of Curious Deaths, we've decided it's high time for another soiree. So, in honor of this year's Mother's Day, on Saturday, May 8th (Mother's Day Eve), we'll be holding The Mother of All Parties.

We had a bit of trouble copying the invite list across, so if you've been invited to parties past but haven't yet received an Evite for this one, if you haven't been invited to parties past but should have, or if we've never met but you suspect you could do Dick Diver proud with your contribution to such a party, certainly let me know.

helpful housemate
Filed March 21, 2004 11:28 AM.

As I staggered in the door of my apartment last night, my housemate Colin asked if I wanted to join him and the group of eight Swedish ballerinas who were for some reason drinking in our living room.

That would be a yes.

bachelor debauchery
Filed March 11, 2004 10:24 AM.

In the countdown to my close friend Bobby's Sunday wedding, we this evening head out for his one last hurrah before the leash tightens. I cannot disclose the details of the planned events, bound as I am by the Bachelor Party Oath:

I (state your name) do solemnly swear that as a gentleman of the world I will respect and honor my brothers. I will not reveal the secrets of the evening. In taking this oath I understand that violating it will result in punishment that could include castration by way of a dirty, dull, knife. If asked about the happenings of the evening I shall reply:

"We ate pizza and watched porno movies. The groom got really drunk. His grandfather was there"

Still, I can say that I'm preemptively steeling my liver and throwing decency to the wind. Should be an interesting night.

cautionary tale
Filed February 22, 2004 12:46 PM.

The problem with starting drinking at 4:00 in the afternoon is that you wake up the next day at noon, with the words "slow deth" scrawled in sharpie across your knuckles, also fairly sure you walked a drunk blonde home, helped her put sheets on her bed, and left without even kissing her goodnight.

fly me to the moon
Filed February 15, 2004 1:03 PM.

Though yesterday evening started out on a rather somber note, through the twin powers of heavy drinking and attractive women, I eventually forged my way back to near full-blown holiday spirit.

Specifically, I headed up to Columbia for a friend's Champagne & Sinatra party, an event that works pretty much as the name would lead you to believe: champagne flows, Sinatra croons from the stereo, and everyone does their best to look and act Rat Pack chic.

As the hostess is a director, the crowd was overwhelmingly dominated by movie people, leading me to stray from my (rarely successfully adhered to anyhow) "no film girls" policy. I spent most of the evening flirting with a Danish writer so Nordically beautiful that (despite my advertised egotism) I kept wondering why she was possibly talking with me.

Still, by the time I left (in the wee small hours of the morning, as it were [my apologies to Old Blue Eyes for that pun]), I'd not only secured her number and a good-night kiss, but set up a date for later this week.

take note
Filed January 25, 2004 1:17 PM.

About two weeks back, I bought a Treo 600, a giant dorky combination phone/PDA. And, despite the hard time I've been getting about it from friends (Sarah Brown: "Ooooooh! A refrigerator phone!"), I'm a huge fan. On-the-go access to email, my address book and calendar, and Vindigo's location services, all make my life immeasurably easier.

But the real bonus is, I now have a way for the drunk version of me to leave notes to my more sober self. This morning, for example, I awoke to find a task titled 'Allison' added to my to do list, with an attached note reading:

Hot, blonde Mt. Sinai med school student you met at John's party. Call her: [phone number]. Also, sister's name is Callie, sister's roommate's name is Dianna; you signed Dianna's breast.

This is the sort of thing that leads me to completely swear off drinking, at least twice a week.

overheard
Filed January 17, 2004 1:57 PM.

Last night at Lucky 13 with Hilary (on whom I totally have a crush) and Helen Jane:

"And I was like, there's no way I'm eating a half a pound of pot - without a drink."

young mogul style
Filed January 15, 2004 8:08 PM.

Recipe for a very good night:

- One of the founders of Napster.
- Two Israeli girls he picked up the night before in Vegas.
- Wine.
- More wine.
- Very late dinner.
- Hard liquor.
- Even more Wine.
- The back seat of the Israeli girls' rental car.

carded
Filed January 11, 2004 3:19 PM.

Headed up to Oakland last night to cook dinner with Helen Jane. Without a recipe, we winged it on chicken parmigiana, which came out surprisingly well - particularly the homemade sauce. Apparently, the secret to cooking Italian food is consuming several bottles of vino in the process.

Helen Jane's husband, James, is recovering from a serious fall that left him wheelchair-ridden for several months, though by now he's up to crutching around with great aplomb. I was lucky enough to spend a lot of time with HJ on the set of I Love Your Work, enough to determine she's one of my very favorite people, but I hadn't spent nearly as much time with James. So I was particularly glad to spend an evening with just the two of them - sort of a chance to further feel him out. By the end of the night, I'm pleased to say he'd earned the official self-aggrandizement stamp of approval.

As the two had been unable to hit the bars (or, really, leave the house) for the past few months, they'd instead honed their card games skills to an impressive peak. Intermixed with cooking, drinking and eating, we blew our way through several games of Coolio, Egyptian Rat Screw, and an excellent variation of bullshit (possibly called 'fourshit'?) that I taught. The latter game requires both strategy and the ability to seamlessly lie through your teeth, which left James and I to battle it out while Helen Jane - whose tendency to dissolve into fitful giggles when bluffing put her at a bit of a disadvantage - mainly egged things on.

Eventually, we ended up on their porch, where Helen Jane and I shared blogger gossip (accompanied by much eye-rolling by James), and we all generally shot the proverbial shit. It was one of the most delightful evenings I've had in weeks, and as HJ's best friend Hilary (another recent addition to my very favorite people list) just managed to break her leg in three places and may consequently be coming to stay with Helen Jane for a few nights (thereby expanding Oakland's apparent mini-Bellevue), I suspect I'll be making it back at least once more through the course of this quick jaunt out West.

Ah, jet-setting, jet-setting.

honestly, i really should be batman
Filed October 25, 2003 10:14 PM.

Continuing my trend of playing superhero, I took a few punches this evening while stepping in to break up a fight on the A train between a drunk construction worker and a homeless panhandler.

For reasons that weren't entirely clear, the construction worker started swearing at the panhandler somewhere just below 42nd street; by the time we hit 34th street, they were chest to chest, screaming into each other's faces. As the rest of the passengers pushed back towards the far ends of the car to avoid the confrontation, I slowly inched my way up to the two, just in case.

At some point, the construction worker just started swinging, and after a few shots to the face the homeless guy basically crumpled. As the construction guy reared back for another solid John Wayne, I stepped in from the side, grabbing his collar and opposite sleeve in a solid underhook. With the momentum of his cocking back to throw the punch, I was able to push him backwards several feet, then brace well enough that I could keep him (despite his larger size) a few feet away from the homeless guy. After a bit of flailing at me, the construction worker seemed to calm down enough that I could keep the two separated until we hit the next station, at which point the homeless guy booked it out of the car, and I followed suit. Don't know what happened to the construction worker, though as several passengers that disembarked with me started relating what had happened to the station manager, I suspect he was pulled at the next stop.

Fortunately, the homeless guy got out with just a bloody lip and a black eye, and I left feeling no worse than at the end of kickboxing practice. As I headed up to the stairs, though, an older woman who had been on the car stopped me. "It was a wonderful thing you did back in that subway," she said, continuing "I would have jumped in to help you myself, but I didn't have anything heavy enough in my purse."

busy night
Filed September 21, 2003 4:46 AM.

Prior to this morning, it had been altogether too long since I came home so late that the sun was already beginning to rise.

what do you mean, "problem"?
Filed August 24, 2003 12:29 PM.

This morning, as occurs troublingly frequently, I woke up promising myself I'd never, ever get as drunk again as I did the prior night.

Night Life Filed February 21, 2008 10:14 AM.

Big Ten Filed November 14, 2007 4:43 PM.

High and Tight Filed October 15, 2007 2:06 PM.

Hairy Situation Filed August 29, 2007 5:31 PM.

For the Money Filed August 23, 2007 4:04 PM.

Techmology Filed November 3, 2006 3:05 PM.

Get-Up Filed October 30, 2006 7:45 PM.

Reality Filed September 13, 2006 5:40 PM.

Hello, Newman Filed September 12, 2006 2:51 PM.

Mail Bag Filed August 18, 2006 10:27 AM.

The Usual Filed August 3, 2006 10:04 AM.

Look Out Picasso Filed July 29, 2006 10:55 AM.

Like a Chihuahua Filed May 18, 2006 4:43 PM.

Cringing Filed April 4, 2006 6:54 PM.

Thin Skinned Filed March 26, 2006 11:24 PM.

Tore Up Filed January 13, 2006 5:17 PM.

Where's the Advil? Filed January 1, 2006 3:52 PM.

Suiting Up Filed October 29, 2005 5:16 PM.

The Competition Filed September 22, 2005 3:49 PM.

Vindicated Filed July 19, 2005 6:38 PM.

Notes from a Birthday Weekend Filed July 18, 2005 11:32 AM.

Blimp Pilots Filed June 27, 2005 12:49 PM.

Point / Counterpoint Filed June 14, 2005 12:51 PM.

Snooty Filed June 13, 2005 8:19 AM.

Two Long Nights Filed April 9, 2005 4:59 PM.

The (Belated) Recap Filed March 31, 2005 6:24 PM.

Swing By Tonight Filed March 29, 2005 1:24 PM.

recapped Filed February 19, 2005 9:17 PM.

first impressions Filed February 6, 2005 4:38 PM.

preparations Filed December 30, 2004 10:12 PM.

told you so Filed October 19, 2004 1:27 AM.

ambushed Filed September 2, 2004 2:25 PM.

down under Filed August 30, 2004 2:28 PM.

funny drunk Filed August 29, 2004 1:30 PM.

turnabout is fair play Filed August 20, 2004 12:42 PM.

effigy Filed August 16, 2004 10:11 PM.

birthday photo Filed July 19, 2004 10:23 AM.

ambushed Filed July 17, 2004 10:13 AM.

a night out Filed June 17, 2004 6:43 PM.

jailhouse chic Filed June 12, 2004 4:42 PM.

call us yenta Filed May 9, 2004 7:32 PM.

the mother of all parties Filed May 6, 2004 11:53 AM.

a really bad party Filed April 26, 2004 9:57 AM.

helpful housemate Filed March 21, 2004 11:28 AM.

bachelor debauchery Filed March 11, 2004 10:24 AM.

cautionary tale Filed February 22, 2004 12:46 PM.

fly me to the moon Filed February 15, 2004 1:03 PM.

take note Filed January 25, 2004 1:17 PM.

overheard Filed January 17, 2004 1:57 PM.

young mogul style Filed January 15, 2004 8:08 PM.

carded Filed January 11, 2004 3:19 PM.

honestly, i really *should* be batman Filed October 25, 2003 10:14 PM.

busy night Filed September 21, 2003 4:46 AM.

what do you mean, "problem"? Filed August 24, 2003 12:29 PM.