May, 2005

The May Roundup

So I'm writing this on Sunday, February 2nd, 2007 - let's travel back in time and take a look at what was going on 1 year and 9 months ago. Yay, internet time machine! I had just gotten back from a month in Thailand so this round up starts almost halfway through the month.

Wednesday, May 11th

geordon, greg k, josh m — Does anything say "welcome back to NYC" quite like this photo? Hahah. Geordon, Josh and Greg at some party that we all went to on a Wednesday.

geordon, me — By the way, Is my head enormous? Or does Geordon have a tiny peanut head?

Thursday, May 12th

fatty — On Thursday night I went over to Bar13 to see Fiasco play a show there. Here's Fatty getting himself psyched up for the performance. Haha.

The show was dancetastic.

meredith — Afterwards, Meredith and I got something to eat and she pointed out the nipples and bellybutton on a giant bear wearing a sombrero. (Tanuki!)

Friday, May 13th

grant — On Friday afternoon I hopped on the Eastside uptown bus near the United Nations to visit a certain someone at their new job at Playgirl Magazine. Can you guess who it was by looking at their desk? Let's see....Golden Girls DVD Box Set, Silly Hat and "Red Boy" Brand ginormous DILDO! Hmmm....If you guessed...

grant — ...Grant Stoddard, you are correct, sir! Back in May Grant briefly worked (as a Staff Writer? Editor?) at Playgirl Magazine. A few weeks after starting, his book sold and he promptly left.

grant — By the way, a dildo that big is one thing...but a buttplug? Jeeeee-sus. I don't even want to think about the kind of person that can fit this thing up their ass.

jeet, karen, sarah — Later that night, a whole bunch of us went to Orchard Bar to celebrate Gurj Bassi's birthday at the old Stolen Transmission party. Hahahah. Gurj, Karen & Sarah. This picture pretty much sums up all of the Orchard Bar Stolen Transmission parties. Man, they were fun.

audrey, paul hanley, peter — Audrey, Peter and Paul pose with the weekly bottle of Manischewitz

Mmmmm! It's Concord Grape Koshertastic!

ellen, meredith — Ellen and Mer.

nina — Nina and Peter.

karen, sarah — Sarah and Karen on the ~~decks~~ iPods.

Saturday, May 14th

me, sheal — On Saturday I went to Misshapes. I didn't bring my camera. Thankfully, someone else was kind enough to snap these pictures of Sheal and I getting...

me, sheal — ...our phony dry-hump on.

Sunday, May 15th

On Sunday afternoon I took the train out to Jersey to hang out with my parents. Here's a picture of the (super-hot stripper-looking) girl that passed out on the train next to me. When we arrived at Dover (which is the last stop on the train) she told me this crazy story about how she lived down at the Jersey Shore but her friend was picking her up in Northeast Jersey and she had lost all her money and phone. I let her borrow my phone and then my Dad & I waited with her on the train platform making (aw-aw-awkward) small talk while we waited for her friend to show up. That is all.

abbey, liam — The only pics I have from my time in NJ are from when Scott brought his two kids down to my parents house to visit and I took them out into the backyard to help them overturn rocks and hunt for bugs.

liam — Liam!

abbey — Abbey!

abbey, liam — Abbey feeding Liam one of the bugs she found!

abbey — Just Kidding! It's a grape! Ha!

Monday, May 16th

brett, meredith, una — On Monday, Una, Meredith's friend, and my little brother (who lives in DC but was working in NYC for a couple of months) came down to Meredith's to hang.

Tuesday, May 17th

dens — On Tuesday night, I stopped by 12" on Essex street to say hi to Dens who was DJing.

funlap, randy — I arrived just in time to witness Jen Dunlap (aka "Funlap") challenge Becca to a "Dance Off."

becca, funlap — I even managed to catch a few shots of her onslaught of "opening moves."

becca — Ooooh! Using a chair as ass-leverage to lift your dance opponent! A very advanced move!

becca, funlap — Hahahah. Best. Photo. Ever. I also like how everyone's moved back like 10 steps to give them room to DANCE.

andrew k, funlap — Check out Krucoff's face! He might have managed to get ahold of a WildFunlap on the dance floor, but now he's gotta figure out what to do with it!

Wednesday, May 18th

On Wednesday Sarah and I went up to the Museum of Natural History to check out the new dinosaurs exhibit. But we ended up spending way more time checking out the...

...butterflies exhibit!

The exhibit was crazy! They had literally hundreds of cases of these huge butterflies and moths.

And then after you've finished looking at all of them, the exhibit hall leads to a huge room...

...that has hundreds of real butterflies and moths flying around in it. This moth here must of had a wingspan of 10"! It was amazing!

Moth friends.

Afterwards, we went and checked out the awesome dinosaur fossils room. Despite the fact that I've been there tons of times, I'm always amazed at the lengths God went to to create these skeletons of creatures that never really existed and then buried them to test our faith. Man, God is AWESOME!

The Placoderms are my favoritest!!!

Totally badass, huh?

Hahaha. Look at the model of the prehistoric crocodile! They've existed as a species (practically unchanged) for 90 million years! (Or at least that's what GOD wants all you SINNERS to believe! Everyone knows the planet's only like 6,000 years old, duh!)

Remember how on my trip to Thailand I was complaining about how loud the gecko in my room was? Well the museum likens the noise it makes to "the bark of a small dog." Hahah.

Thursday, May 19th

emily — On Thursday afternoon I was in mid-town running errands and I popped over to Google to visit Emily and enjoy Google's totally awesome Flunch (free-lunch) cafeteria.

Then, later that night I went to the Mercury Lounge to see Tarantula play (since the show the band has had to change their name twice! For awhile they were called Tarantula A.D. and now they've settled on the (unfortunate) name Priestbird). Anyway, this band rules. If you ever get a chance to see their live show...GO!

danny bensi — Electric Cello?

Double-necked guitar? That should be all you need to know.

Friday, May 20th

mandy — On Friday night, I went to go see Mandy and Stellastarr* at Irving Plaza.

mandy — Yay, Mandy!

mandy — The show was awesome!

brother lawrence, rina — Backstage after the show I ran into Rina (who I met for the first time at a Stellastarr show at Irving Plaza years ago!) and Lawrence.

doug — Then later that night, I met up with Doug! Doug had been living in Prague with his Czech girlfriend and then the two of them moved to Boston and decided to come down for a visit. (He's now living in Finland and is engaged to a Finish girl! This guy's always on the moooooooooove).

doug, me — Best Fwiends. Take One.

doug, me — Take two.

doug, me — Take three is the winner. After catching up at Meredith's apartment, we all headed a few hundred feet down the street to go to Orchard Bar for Sarah and Karen's weekly party.

gina bonjersey, michael — Gina "SmellsGood" BonJersey and Michael.

nissa — Joseph and Nissa (who I met while I was living in San Francisco!).

ellen — Ellen and one of her friends (who I think was visiting?).

leigh — I found this lil' woodland creature hiding downstairs in the coat room...

leigh, me — ...and brought her out on the dance floor. (Hahaha. Look at her feral woodland creature face).

karen, sarah — Sarah and Karen manning the sound system. By the way, these next two photos are my favorite photos of Karen and Sarah. If you know either of them, they pretty much don't even need captions.

karen — Troublemaker #1.

sarah — Troublemaker #2. Hahaha.

Sunday, May 22nd

sarah — On Sunday, Sarah came over to Meredith's to hang. (Here she is admiring Mer's "Shit Bitch You Is Fine" bear).

sarah — And then Sarah and I went to a movie and played video games.

audrey, cara, julia li — Late night, I decided to swing by Smith's Night and ended up running into all three of the self-proclaimed "Halfie-Sisters!" Hahaha. The always lovely Audrey, Julia and Cara.

Monday, May 23rd

sarah — Monday night a bunch of us went over to Sarah's to celebrate something (finishing her book?) and to have some beers and get warmed up for some pirate-themed party she and Karen were DJing at the Delancey.

catrinel — Cat was there with her ladyfriend. Here she is busting out her purse ("Hmmmm....what was in my bag?") and proudly repping for her well-earned "Ms Pillpurse" nickname.

karen — Karen was lamenting that she didn't have any clothes that were more "piratey" (adjective of the year, BTW) so I offered to give her a piratey tattoo. Check out the bad-ass skull an' bones I managed to pull off!

sarah — Sarah got one too! Catrinel wanted in on the tattoo action, but made the mistake of requesting a "lesbian tattoo" over a pirate tattoo.

Okey doke! One "lesbian tattoo" coming right up! (Man, I think I really missed my calling as an illustrator for Penthouse Letters).

sarah — I'm also happy to take credit for Sarah's Adam Ant make up.

catrinel, jeet, jordan silver, karen, sarah — We piled into the elevator and headed to the Delancey. (I love this photo).

We arrived just in time to see some band play in the basement. (I don't even remember who the band was...only that halfway through the set, James Iha, formerly of Smashing Pumpkins, took the stage to play a few songs with them).

karen, sarah — Afterwards, we went upstairs and danced to the musical stylings of the Tarts of Pirate Pleasure.

More of my tattoo handiwork.

elhaam, ellen, jeet, karen — Karen, Ellen, Sailor Gurj and Elhaam.

karen, sarah — Hahah. I love this pic, too.

I walked home in the rain.

Thursday, May 26th

ellen s, me — Thursday night I went out late to wander around and see if I could run into anyone I knew. I ended up at Happy Ending (remember how much fun that party used to be on Thursday nights there?) and hit pay dirt! Right when I walked in the door, I ran into Ellen Stagg!

ellen s, me — I may or may not have tried to not-so-subtley pop out her boobie (while a half-naked black man gyrated against us).

leigh, tracey — Then downstairs in the basement I ran into little miss Leigh Lezark (shocked out of her innocent lil' mind by Tracy's scandalous gaymakeout in the background). Haha.

Friday, May 27th

fatty — Friday night I went to Fatty's house and we all grilled up some dinner out on his giant deck. (That's right, the dude's got a deck in Manhattan!).

fatty — Make it flame!

sandra — Then I went to Bar Eleven (which is now called the Annex) to visit Sandra who was bartending downstairs.

leigh — And lookee, lookee who showed up.

leigh — Sandra got us drunk. We took dumb pictures.

Hahaha.

leigh, me — Tinny broke my cigarette.

Which resulted in me taking this photo (which I ended up using as my biography photo on my portfolio site!).

Sunday, May 29th

amy b, brett, dad, mom — On Sunday I took the train down to south Jersey to hang out with my family down at my parent's little shore house in Mannasqaun. Here's my brother and his lady Amy and my parents about to get their lunch on.

brett — Yo, my brother wouldn't even think about eating a burger without bacon on it.

aunt elaine, me — Me and Aunt Elaine.

After lunch, the whole family piled onto my dad's boat for a quick joyride out in the ocean.

dad, elyse — Big Skip at the cap'n's wheel while Elyse (my Uncle Bruce's girlfriend) chills on the back.

mom — My mom lounging in the front.

uncle bruce — My Dad's brother Bruce (aka: Uncle Moose).

The view from the cabin as my dad navigates the waterways out to the open ocean.

Monday, May 30th

On Monday, I pretended to be an angry raccoon (??). That is all.

Tuesday, May 31st

leigh, sarah — On Tuesday night I stopped by Happy Ending to say goodbye! The next morning I was heading up to Western Massachusetts to spend the next 10 days in total silence at a meditation retreat (which, believe it or not, was one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life!). Sarah, Scott and Leigh.

geordon, greg k — Geordon and Gregg hid in the corner and edited all the photos from the previous weekend's Misshapes party.

brandon, ellen, sarah — Ellen, Sarah and Brandon! Goodbye everyone! See you in an (enlightened) couple of weeks!