March, 2005

The March Roundup

Here they are: all the miscellaneous pictures from the month of March that didn't end up in a larger entry. Ladies and gents, the March Round Up!

Tuesday, March 1st

adam b — My buddy Adam B. (who's one of the guys that started Heeb Magazine) is a crazy-ass high-stakes day trader. For a few months he'd been offering to show me the ropes and help me get started, so after I finally got back into town after traveling, I took him up on his offer and went to his day trading office in Union Square for my first lesson. Fast forward 2 hours later, the market's about to close. Something crazy happens and I watch Adam lose $40,000 in, ooooh, about 15 minutes. After the bell sounded and trading stopped, he turned to me and was like "Well, you win some and lose some." I was like "Uh, dude, you just lost a lot of money, right?"

He was all cool and calm like "Yeah, but I'm still up a ton of money for the year. You gotta take the long view. Some days you're going to lose a ton of money - you just gotta take the loss and come back the next day and act normal. As soon as you start acting all crazy and taking the short view, you're fucked." And that's about when I realized that "day trader" is not an occupation for me!

Thursday, March 3rd

niki — On Thursday, future-roomie Niki was gracious enough to come up with present ideas for Meredith's birthday.I ended up getting her some fancy cutlerly, and cooking classes.

Which I figured she like better than this creepy-ass person-shaped squishy pillow for sleeping with. Hahah.

emma, lorelei, nina, rob t — Then later that night I met up with Rob, Emma, Nina, Lorelei and a ton of other people to head over to the Sunburnt Cow to celebrate...

...Emma's birthday! Happy Birthday, Em!

eric g, gina bonjersey, me — Then afterwards I went over to Happy Ending. Me with SmellsGood BonJersey and Eric.

I met these two on the street when I overheard their Essex accent and called them out. (Grant's from Essex so I'm always able to peg that accent).

Friday, March 4th

meredith — On Friday Mer got her presents.

meredith — What fun would cooking classes be without a corny chefs hat?

meredith — Hahahaha.

Saturday, March 5th

geordon — Saturday I went to Misshapes and my camera only came out to capture Jordan in rare form.

geordon — What was so rare, you ask? Well, certainly not his F-117 Stealth Fighter jumpsuit. Homeboy rocks that all the time.

geordon — Was it his "doing the jazzercize air bicycle while laying on the bar" drunken antics then? Nope, those are pretty much par for the course too. When I say Geordan was doing something rare I mean that he was...

geordon, sarah — ...well, you know. Hahah.

Old school Misshapes, I miss you.

Sunday, March 6th

Sunday, March 6th On Sunday I headed (the whole two blocks) over to Katz's to meet up with...

alysha — ...Alysha and Kerry who were in town visiting from SF!

My stomach feels like ouch!

Wednesday, March 9th

So earlier in the month Adam B. had told me that Heeb Magazine was going to be holding a karaoke competition at Lit called American Schmidol and he told me that I needed to come and compete. Here's Josh (who you may remember from when the Heeb guys came and rocked when I lived out in SF) acting as emcee opening the ceremonies!

josh m, sarah — Josh (aka - the only other non-Jew in the room) and Sar.

sarah — Here's Sarah tearing things up on the mic.

She had the judges going!

me, rina — Rina! (posing with my weird moon-face).

In American Schmidol, everyone gets to perform one song. The judges score everyone and then pick two finalists to return to the stage and each sing one more song. The winner of the finalists round will be crowned AMERICAN SCHMIDOL! Any karaoke enthusiast knows there are a very limited number of jams that are surefire karaoke gold. I wasn't sure which one to go with. Oh, Darling by The Beatles? Faith by George Michael? Maybe something from the Pantheon of Jovi? In the end I decided to take no risks and chose the only nuclear warhead in the karaoke arsenal: Laura Brannigan's Gloria.

Yes, that's right! Sing along with me, Jews! You can't but help be charmed by my blonde shikso locks!

josh m, sarah — Hahaha.

arm — Longest. Arm. Ever.

josh m — Josh kicked it!

grant — Grant showed up and came correct with his version of Rick James' Superfreak (which had me worried. Because if we both ended up in the finals, he would no doubt pull out I Believe in a Thing Called Love by The Darkness which, having already used my only nuclear option, I would have no chance of competing against).

grant — Grant getting his score from the judges.

After much deliberation amongst the judges, it was announced that I was a finalist!

I decided to go with Skid Row's cautionary ballad, 18 & Life. I was even lucky enough to score a stageful of interpretive backup dancers. Sure, that song might be a ballad...

...but it's a ballad with YELLING! AND A MORAL!

And a heartfelt ending. Why, Ricky? WHY? By the way, Brother Lawrence was manning my camera for all of this and I'd like to thank him for taking such great pics.

I would also like to thank him for using my camera to take this picture of his penis. (Which if you look really carefully you can see hiding down there below his nest O' pubes). Seriously, thank you. The internet could have never seen your penis if it weren't for you.

Somehow, by the grace of Sebastian Bach, I pulled it off!

Prizes included an official certificate proclaiming me winner of the very first American Schmidol 2005!

And a Heeb shirt!

Hahaha.

sarah — Afterwards we went to someplace Sarah was DJing and drank for free.

sarah, tom donahue — And ran into Tom Donohue!

me, ochi — And Ochi who I hadn't seen in three years!

Thursday, March 10th

grant — On Thursday afternoon Grant and I met up for lunch at the Homestyle Cafe (where we pretty much ate lunch together every single day for like 2 years when we worked at Nerve.com / Spring Street). He had a meeting later that week with his friend that's now an editor and Glamour and I was going to try to help him brainstorm and come up wtih story ideas he could pitch.

me, miriam — It also gave up a chance to catch up with Miriam! We spent so much god damn time in this diner that she's practically family.

grant, miriam — Hahaha.

sarah — Then later on I went over to the Darkroon to attend Sarah's "I'm leaving Spin Magazine to start my own record label" Farewell Party!

lizzy, sarah, sia — Sia, Sarah and Lizzie.

sarah — At the party Sarah was giving everyone hand-made editions of the very first EP she released.

alex chow, sia — Alex Chow getting inappropriate woMAN-handled by HIS BOSS! Ugh, when is sexual harrassment in the workplace going to end?

josh m, meredith, niki, sarah — Then we all went to the Pink Pony for a big birthday dinner! (Except I can't remember whose birthday it was...mostly because I am pretty much a horrible person).

I do, however, remember that Karen ordered the sea food.

Friday, March 11th

david k, meredith, miye — On Friday, Mer and I met up with David and Miye for some dinner and then afterwards headed over to the Sunshine Landmark for the midnight showing of...

...The Shining!

Sure taking photos of a movie is pretty fucking dorky. But it was so worth it to capture...

...this!

meredith — When we got out of the movie it was snowing and raining at the same time!

Saturday, March 12th

March 12th! Happy Birthday Brother Brett! Woooooooooo! I met up with Sarah and Karen for some Mexi-brunch and in honor of my brother's birthday I decided to get a steak for breakfast. (Brett would've wanted it that way).

sarah — Sarah.

karen — Karen. Ha-ha-hungover! After we finished eating, we decided to head over to the costume store on 4th Ave so the girls could buy cheerleading outfits. Later on in the week they were hosting a "Pre-SXSW Pep Rally" and wanted to make sure they'd be dressed accordingly.

karen — While browsing the costumes we got distracted by the most budget ever Ali G costume. Complete with Jamie Foxx's little brother (who clearly has Down's) modeling on the package. Hahaha.

Sunday, March 13th

thomas o — On Sunday we went to Sway to celebrate Thomas' birthday!

thomas o — Happy Birthday!

me, sandra — And Sandra and I realized that, in some weird way, we sort of look like brother and sister.

me, sandra — Hahah.

leigh, me — Tinny trying to hide from Briangina's camera.

sarah — Hahaha. Yo, J-Lo's got nothing on my velour-clad cutie.

amy k, me — Jonas and Amy K

Monday, March 14th

On Monday Grant and I went over to Amanda's so our iPods could hang out.

Then I went over to the passport agency so I could get a new passport. (My old one got water-damaged and the laminate was peeling away from the photo causing me to get pulled aside and questioned pretty much every time I entered a country).

Yo, check out that hair. Hahaha.

New passport photo.

karen, sarah — Later that night I headed over to Sarah and Karen's Pre-SXSW Pep Rally. Check out the gals in their "TARTS" cheerleading uniforms. Amazing.

The place was fucking packed. Hot Chip and Maximo Park were both playing warm up shows before leaving to play SXSW later on in the week.

Hot Chip.

sarah — Sarah.

karen — Karen.

josh m — Josh fashioned himself a nubby lil' pom-pom penis and Karen wasted no time showing Josh...

josh m, karen — ...what cheerleaders do best!

karen — Karen and her perpetually orange SparksTongue.

Hahah. Sar, Karen, Jenny, Me and Josh. SXSW, here we come!

Tuesday, March 22nd

On Tuesday, Josh hooked me up with a pass to get into the Red Bull house at SXSW. (Red Bull spends a ton of money renting out an entire building in Austin for SXSW. And if you have one of these dog tags, you and one guest can go into the Red Bull house and enjoy free food, free booze, email terminals and beds for napping. Insanity!) Thanks, Josh!

jessica k — Then later that night I met up with Jessica Kain who was in town on business from Philly. (I went to high school with Jess!).

jessica k — We ended up rocking some late night karaoke.

meredith — Meredith dueting with a stranger.

Wednesday, March 23rd

Meredith's mom broght her back a souvenir from Cleveland...

...this huge-ass chocolate bar! And the later Wednesday night, a whole bunch of us headed over to my old apartment on the Bowery becuase...

...Jake (the guy who moved into my old room) had somehow agreed to let some film production company use the apartment to shoot a gay porno. WTF? The narrative of the movie called for the porno to be taking place at "a party" so Jake called up everyone pleading for them to come over and help it look like a party.

grant, me, victoria lau — Reunited with my old roomie Victoria!

jake b — (Sorry about the new guy, Vic).

grant — Grant rocking Amanda's shades.

With "the party" in full-effect, it was time for the crew to get the rest of "the set" ready.

jake b — The dude in the green shirt was one of the "actors" in the movie (if you knowwhatimsayin). He spent his pre-scene time getting completely drunk and telling anyone that would listen that he wasn't gay and was just in porno for "the money." (...shots, probably).

amanda — As further testament to his heterosexuality, he spent a bunch of time trying to pick Amanda up. (Then he went into my old bedroom and got ass-reamed).

grant, meredith, victoria — Meredith, Grant and Victoria.

And randomly, here's a little dog in a parka.

jake b — Before any of the assfucking could get underway, some crazy girl (who was spotted smoking crack earlier in the night) started causing all sorts of problems and tried to get into a fistfight with a fat, gay dude. Jake tried to get her to calm down and she FREAKED THE FUCK OUT ON HIM. Literally, she went out of her mind. After three or four scary minutes, Jake finally managed to get her and her friends to leave the party. But as he was closing the door on them downstairs, she snatched his glasses off his face and ran out into the street. Jake followed her and when he tried to grab his glasses back from her, she bit his hand, grabbed the glasses back, broke them in half, threw them into the street and then ran away laughing.

jake b — Jake wearing his other pair of glasses while holding up one half of his destroyed frames that he retreived from the street.

jake b — And check out the purple fucking bite mark! Jesus!

Thursday, March 24th

fatty — On Thursday we went to Fatty's house and when he folded up his murphy bed...

...*GASP!*

Friday, March 25th

amanda, brandon k, grant, jake b — On Friday night we met up with Brandon who was in town from Budapest and went to his friend's party on the LES (Brandon, you may remember, was the internet stranger who went out of his was to be our gracious host when Grant, Jake and I were in Berlin and Budapest a few weeks prior.)

Saturday, March 26th

amanda, grant — On Saturday Grant, Amanda and I went out to Brooklyn to attend a party at...

emma — ...Rob and Emma's place (Rob not pictured here).

amanda — I like this photo of Amanda. She looks real pretty in it!

Then afterwards we went to Midtown to check out a new venue that some promoter Amanda knows wanted Fiasco to play a show at.

The venue was kind of meh, but it did have all these really great paintings of pretty girls on the wall.

The were awesome.

leigh, sarah — Afterwards I headed over to Misshapes to meet up with Sarah and Leigh. After SXSW, pretty much everyone (except me) headed down to the Winter Music Conference in Miami and so everyone was showing off their...

geordon — ...SUNBURN. Hahaha. Sweet manties, Geordon.

brandon k — Brandon was there!

So was Moshi Moshi Stephen!

ellen s, me — And Ellen!

marjorie — Marjorie caught making out with a stranger.

ellen s — Ellen has a pigface.

fatty — Fatty even showed up trashed out of his mind with a bunch of his co-workers! One of them passed out on the infamous couch in the back. (The site of 2004's infamous "Drunk Guy Jenga") And despite her being one of Fatty's co-workers, rules are rules. If you pass out in public, it probably means that...

...well, you all know what it means. Wakey, wakey! Welcome to Misshapes!

Sunday, March 27th

dad, grandma — On Sunday Meredith and I took the train out to my Aunt and Uncle's house in Jersey to celebrate Easter with my fam. Here's Gram and my dad getting the bird ready. (Sure, I know what you're thinking...it's a steep transition to go from my balls next to some poor drunk girl's face right to Grandma carving up some delicious turkey to celebrate the resurrection of Christ, but that's just how I roll.)

dad — Dad carving up the bird.

zoe — Zoe likes turkey.

meredith — Meredith felt honored when she received her very first chocolate Easter bunny from my parents. (I'll be expecting some chocolate geld come Hannukah, dig?)

brett, dad — Something was wrong the can opener and my dad ended up having an epic battle against this can of cranberry sauce. Check my brother pointing at the mangled-ass shape the can was in when Pappi finally managed to get it open.

Would you care for some cranberry sauce with your metal shrapnel?

dad, zoe — Zoe getting a scratching from my dad.

me, meredith — Meredith caught me taking a turkey nap on the couch.

sascha — On Sunday night I headed over to the studio to listen to Sascha record Fiasco.

Monday, March 28th

meredith, sarah — Rainy Monday. Somehow Sarah managed to talk Merdith and I into seeing the Ashton Kutcher & Bernie Mac remake of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. (Ok, I concede. As much as I'm reluctant to admit it, it was pretty funny).

Then later that night I went to go see The Walkmen at Irving Plaza.

meredith — Yo, guess what? Meredith's a huge fucking nerd.

Tuesday, March 29th

Ludlow St.

meredith — On Tuesday night, Grant, Meredith, Jake and I went down to Amanda's apartment to watch a bunch of movies we'd rented. Meredith fell asleep and was spared.

jake b — Jake however....

jake b — ...NOT SO LUCKY! Hahaha. (PS - Dear Grant, How do you get your balls to be so shiny?)

sarah — And on Thursday, Sarah and I rode somewhere in a cab. That is all!