July, 2004

The July Roundup: Part One

Thursday, July 1st

leigh, meredith — Meredith, Leigh and I decided to start the month of July off proper and headed to the basement of Remote Lounge for Sid and Buddy Karaoke.

leigh, meredith — The plan was to have Leigh pop her cherryaoke, but instead she ended up being Meredith's shy backup dancer. I was really disappointed in Leigh. Meredith however...

leigh, meredith — ...didn't seem to mind as much.

DLR (That's Mr. David Lee Roth to you) approves. "WHOA-AHHHH!"

Sunday, July 4th

I went out of town for a few days to attend my cousin Chris' wedding, when I got back into town, there was a note from my roommate on the door saying she'd also gone away for a few days. The note explained that she'd left some food out for Herman (her cat) but that he'd probably need more by the time I got back and to please feed him. In the summertime, most people would leave a cat a bowl of DRY CAT FOOD, right? Well, not Vic. By the time I got home, the bowl of wet cat food she left for him had transformed into a swirling, writhing bowl FILLED with maggots. (See, that's the thing about my site - you may get to see two stupidly hot girls smooching, but you also have to deal with nonsense like this. Sorry.)

Monday, July 5th

grant — On Monday, Grant and I were bored out of our skulls. We went to K-mart to buy some towels and somehow ended up leaving with towels and a frosty 12-pack of Bud Lite cans. (WTF? I dunno, it just happened). I was like "Let's go to Tompkins Square Park and get drunk." Grant got all panicked and was like "We can't do that!" I was like, "We can't?" Grant looked taken back as he failed to come up with a good reason, and finally shrugged it off. "Ok, I guess we can. Let's go."

grant — Grant opted for the plastic cup method...

...where as I went for the much grosser "put my beer in my sock" manuever. (Hey, I know it's nasty but it sure beats an "open container" ticket. Well that and the fact that the sock smell helps lessen the taste of the Bud Lite)

me, meredith — About halfway through the twelve-pack, Meredith and Emily both called up and decided to join us. Here's me wearing her lil' green Harry Potter glasses.

emily, grant — And here's Grant making faces behind Emily's back.

leigh — Later that night, Leigh got caught in the rain and decided to have a little nappity nap on her records while waiting for a cab. (I didn't take this pic. She emailed it to me the next day).

Tuesday, July 6th

Some people would say New Yorkers are callous. And just when you're feeling down and ready to agree with them. You see...

...two dogs wearing sunglasses. When I saw them I started hysterically laughing and petting them and their owner got all huffy. "It's not funny!" She chided, "They have cataracts!" I was like "Lady, I'm not laughing at their cataracts...I'm laughing at THEIR SUNGLASSES!" Their ornery owner aside, these pooches made my day.

jess d — Later that evening, I met up with Jessica (whom I used to date way back in college) and her mom Sue who was in town visiting from Vermont. After we finished dinner, I left to go meet up with...

leigh, meredith — ...these two trouble makers. We'd agreed to help my friend Siege out with a photo project he was working on.

siege — We shot up on the roof of the building where Nerve has its offices. While Siege was crossing the roof, he unknowingly walked across some boards that were covering an ELEVATOR SHAFT and fell through UP TO HIS WAIST. If he hadn't managed to stop himself, he totally would have fallen ELEVEN STORIES down an ELEVATOR SHAFT!

How insane is it that this is a picture of Siege just having saved himself from death. (Er, how about the fact that I didn't know Siege had fallen into an elevator shaft so I stopped to take this photo before helping him out. Sorry for almost killing you, for the sake of a photo!)

Fast forward a couple of minutes later and I ended up making a stupid bet. Which ends up leading to photos like...

leigh, me — ...this. So you were right, Siege. I guess I am a size one. (PS - Hey Leigh, is there a PONY on my dress?). Afterwards, we ended up betting that I wouldn't run down Broadway buck naked for two blocks. We got down to street level and as we walked outside there were two police cruisers on the corner just hanging out. Saved by the NYPD.

Wednesday, July 7th

leigh — On Wednesday, we spent the day chilling in Tompkins Square Park again. This time sans beers.

grant — But we did manage to pick up some doo-rags. Hahah.

amy a, grant, leigh — Amy gave a call and it turned out she was nearby! So she stopped by for some late afternoon lounging. And what's that up there in the corner? Is that Leigh working on her "Get a load of this fugging guy!" face? Let's take a closer look shall we?

grant, leigh — Yes! It's in its early stages but with a little bit more practice, she'll be pulling them with the best of us.

leigh — For a long time I'd been telling Leigh that she looked like Cindy Loo-Who (from How the Grinch Stole Christmas). She didn't believe me until she put on my giant red wool Union Suit and suddenly the resemblance was too uncanny to deny any longer. Hahahaha.

leigh — Awww, who's the sad Tinny?

Saturday, July 10th

grant, martin g, stuart — On Saturday afternoon, Grant, Charlene (who just moved to NYC from London), Martin Greene (one of Grant's best friends from growing up in Essex who was in town visiting from London) and his wife Mary took the ferry across the water to Hoboken to BBQ at Stewart and Jeanette's new apt (who also recently moved to the States from London). Here we are getting ready to enter Stuart and Jeanette's fancy building.

Check out the sick view of Manhattan from their balcony.

stuart — Best picture ever. Stuart yukking it up with Grant about "wabbs." (Which is an Essex colloquialism for "big ol' titties." As in "Check out the huge wabbs on that bird.")

charlene, grant — Charlene listens in passive horror while Grant cracks up.

grant — After he'd finished looking at Manhattan, Grant used Stuart's binoculars to hone in on something even more wondrous and majestic...

...the slutty, overly-tanned Jersey girls (barely) decked out in borline-innappropriate itsy-bitsy bikinis.

charlene — Again, Charlene was barely able to disguise her distaste.

After we'd finished eating, the girls went for a walk and the boys decided to check out the grass by the pool (aka- securing a better vantage point for LeerFest 2004). It was also around this time that Martin showed us the tattoo he got on his chest of his wife's name. Her name, if you remember correctly is Mary. And he was totally lost when we were laughing too hard to explain why the giant MARY tattoo on his chest was funny. Here's to hoping he manages to stay away from Riker's Island while he's here. (PS - I have no idea WHY I don't have a picture of this tattoo. I must've been laughing too hard.)

me, niki, sarah — Later that night, I went over to Sarah and Niki's and we got dressed to attend a P.Diddy-in-the-Hamptons inspired "White Party" in Brooklyn. Sometimes a true playa's gotta roll with both dark and light meat, ya heard?

me, niki, sarah — The party was a little quiet, so we finished our forties of OE and cabbed it over to the west side of Manhattan to check out...

cat h — ...Misshapes!

niki, sarah — Niki and Sarah again.

Later that evening, I was standing next to the DJ booth chatting with Sarah when all of a sudden a guy standing next to me full-on passed out while standing up and went down like a bag o' bricks. The bouncer summoned me to help him carry the guy outside and somewhere in the process of trying to lift him up, his pants came down exposing...

...his (kiwi!) underwear.

sarah — The guy was so drunk he couldn't even tell us his name. Sarah thought he was cute and kept suggesting that she take him back to her place. Hahahaha. Suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuure!

leigh — In the end, I ended up fishing his wallet out of his pants and looking up his name and address (if memory serves correctly, I think his name was Brice or something like that). Here's Tinny holding his phone to his ear as we took turns calling people in his phone trying to get someone who knew him to confirm his address so we could put him in a cab. (In the end, we were never able to confirm where he lived so we sat him down outside with a bottle of water and went back inside. When I came out an hour later, he was passed out and had pissed his pants and we ended up calling the cops who sent an ambulance for him. Doh!) Anybody know who this guy is?

Sunday, July 11th

leigh, matt l, me, vin — On Sunday we headed back to Thompkins Square Park to enjoy the sunshine. (From L to R: Matt Lavin aka "Buddy" from Sid & Buddy fame, Vin, me and the Tins).

In the midst of our maxing and relaxing, Grant got a call on his cell from his Grammy Pammy in England (who is probably the only octagenarian who is a regular reader of my site)!

grant, me, nanny pam — We took this picture of us both speaking with her and assured her that it'd eventually be posted on the site. So here's a big shout out to Grammy Pam! (Here's a pic of her from when we were in London last year! She's the one immediately to Grant's left!)

grant — Self Portrait: by Grant Stoddard.

Somewhere during the course of the afternoon, I ended up making friends with this deaf mute guy. He spent his day circling the park and barking (yes, literally barking, he's deaf mute, remember?) at girls in bikinis to get their attention and then taking their picture with a disposable camera. He communicated with us by miming and manage to tell us that he puts all of his photos of girls in bikinis in an album and that we should all come over and look at the pictures sometime because he lives right around the corner. (I swear this is true. How could I even make something like this up?) The only thing I didn't learn was his name.

Tuesday, July 13th

vin — On Tuesday I had lunch with Vin at Homestyle Cafe. That is all.

Wednesday, July 14th

carol, grant — On Wednesday afternoon, Grant and I met up with Carol to celebrate Bastille Day at some French hamburger joint on Ave A. (huh?)

Afterwards, we hit the park where I quickly lapsed into a hamburger-induced slumber. (Yo, check out my "haven't shaved in two days" dirtstache. Suh-weet.)

grant — Now this is usually where Grant would take out his nuts and try to put them near my face...lucky for me, his vanity got the best of him and he instead took my camera and used it to take pictures of himself making "sexy faces."

grant — Too bad you think I'm kidding. I'll spare him the embarrassment of posting the other ELEVEN pictures he took.

Thursday, July 15th

martin g — On Thursday morning Grant and I took Martin and Mary out to brunch at 9th Street Market to wish them farewell.

Holy Fruity French Toast, Batman!

martin g, me — We took them on a stroll through Thomkins Square Park on the way back to Grant's apartment...

martin g — ...where Grant made sure they both got a chance to see his bad-ass paint job. Here's Martin admiring the stripes in Grant's bedroom...

martin g — ...and the ones in the kitchen too. Yep, stripes.

martin g — Martin and Mary posing in front of the huge power plant on Ave B & 14th st. Bon Voyage! Stay out of American prisons, Greeney (you MARY!)

Friday, July 16th

grant, siege — On Friday afternoon, Grant and I met up for lunch with Siege and Katie at TeaNY.

katie — Katie with a halo of sunshine.

arm — Something that Siege sure as shit avoids. Look at him comparing arms with (bronze adonis) Stoddard.

leigh, me — Later that night, Leigh and I went over to Lit to meet up with Grant and a few other people. Uh-oh! Trouble!

grant, xiomara — Grant and Xiomara.

evan, me — A litter later in the evening we ran into Evan, Grant's former Nerve intern from years ago who now runs Block Magazine out of Brooklyn. (Whom I totally fucking assassinated with one of the best "get a load of this fucking guy" finger-points in the history of the sport. Hahahahah).

scott m — After a few minutes of polite catch up, Evan turned back around to chat with friends and we spend the next five minutes trying to take the perfect "I'm not really touching your ass but it looks like I am" photo. Here's Scott in the (not very good) winning shot.

grant, leigh, me — Tins, me and Grant.

grant, leigh — Tins (wearing Grant's way too big for her hat) and Grant.

leigh — See?

leigh — I was just getting ready to put my camera away when Tins spied something interesting across the room...

...someone that passed out! Yes!

scott m — Scott offered him a smoke (he heard that helps with jaundice).

And then Rebecca offered a kiss. And then Grant, bless his heart, offered him the best thing you can offer a drunk, passed out person...

grant — ...his nutsack! Wooo! Let's hear it for the return of Wally Weirdnuts!

grant — FLYING BRAIN!

leigh, scott m — What started out as a little dirty dancing quickly turned into some...

leigh, scott m — ...serious ass fucking.

grant — Then Grant entertained us with his amazing impression of a mime eating an ass. Yay, First Half of July!