Same goes for this broseph - no idea who he was, but when he jumped down off that karaoke stage and took the mic "out into the crowd," he landed himself a place right inside my karaoke-heart. Awwww.
The place was pretty much packed with all people I didn't recognize...at least until Shandi took with stage to sing a duet with Kareem (who I don't know but I like his photography a lot).
I ran into my buddy Jared on the dancefloor! (Jared was the lead singer of the now defunct New York band, Group Sounds. They recently released what is HANDS DOWN, the funniest music video I've ever seen in my life. I know I say that about a lot of things, but trust me on this. Take three minutes out of your day right now and watch it: Temporarily in Love by Group Sounds.
On Saturday night I went to MisShapes with Brandon and Sarah (seen here with Sean Dack sneaking in the last-minute bird). It was so hot and crowded and sweaty that we tried to hide out in a tiny corner in the back.
I know it looks like they're kidding around, but I assure you, this was DEADLY SERIOUS. Here they are approaching the end of minute one and they're still locked up at the top! (Check out Alexis' face as she cheers them on. Hahaha!)
Here's Leigh summoning an extra jolt of power from her broken, wonky finger. In the end, they called it a draw! Fancy should've totally turned his hat around backwards and turned "from a man to a MACHINE!", ala Lincoln Hawk (!!!), the competitive arm wrestler (expertly!) portrayed by Sylvester Stallone's in the greatest (only?) arm wrestling-themed movie of all time: "Over the Top". What's that? You've never heard of this incredible movie? Dont' worry, YouTube's got you covered.
Not to go too far off onto an "Over the Top" tangent, but I think it's probably important (cathartic?) for me to mention that not only did I see this movie in the theater during its original theatrical run, I saw this movie on my very first date! How insane is that? I was in fifth grade, and Geri Fox and I went on a double date with Jimmy Rotsides and Renee Rusch! Hahaha. Afterwards, the girls' parents picked them up and then Jimmy and I went to the Ledgewood Mall where I bought one-pound bag of watermelon jellybeans (at Sound-o-rama!) and then went and slept over Jimmy's house. We talked about how awesome our dates went and how awesome we were for taking "our girls" to the "right" movie. I ended up eating the entire one-pound bag of jellybeans and threw up in the middle of night. Holy jeez, what memories! How did I get so old?
And now it's time for the "where are they now" part of this VH1 series: Geri Fox is married, I ran into her and met her husband at Bev Chase's wedding! Jimmy Rotsides, unfortunately, died. He sort of grew up into a rough character and sometime around '99 or so he ended up falling out of a canoe while fishing and drowned in a pond in my home town. Sad. As for Renee Rusch, I have no idea what happened to her! So Renee, if you ever read this, say hi! (Okay, this is starting to sound like the lyrics to a Bryan Adams' song "Jimmy died, Geri got married..." so I guess that means it's time to leave memory lane and get back to...
...skillz! Hahaha. He was so proud of this. He kept being like "Dude, check it! Check it! I have no gag reflex. I can take this mic ALL THE WAY DOWN!" Hahaha.
Then he flipped the mic around to show-off how he could also get his mouth "completely around the wide-part too!" Just when you thought it couldn't get any gayer...
Then I ran into Posh Tony and some cute (Australian?) girl he was with. (By the way, I don't know if you can tell from this photo, but Posh Tony looks EXACTLY like a "white version" of JB Smoove, the black dude who plays Leon on the new season of Curb Your Enthusiasm. Hahahahah.)
A half an hour later, I went downstairs to get my coat and lookee who I found catchin' a lil' nap down in the basement. Hey, we all need a break sometimes. ; )
...named Sarah and Leigh as two of New York's "Most Influential New Yorkers!" Here's the two-page spread of my two lovelies side by side! Congrats, you two!
Ok! Here's a doozy of a night for you! On Thursday night I went to the Annex to celebrate Gurj's birthday! Here's the birthday girl with her heart-throb, Rob Stevenson!
On the way in to the party I ran into (Sketchy!) Jimmy Mullen, Grant and Viola (who used to throw the most ridiculous Halloween Parties ever...see Halloween 2002 and Halloween 2001). Jimmy and Viola were on their way out, which means that they missed my "performance" later on in the evening.
That's right, I wasn't just at Gurj's birthday as a friend, I was there as a hired performer! You see, Sarah had been unsuccessful in her attempts to hire a male stripper and so she ended up asking me if I'd be willing to do it (Sarah knew all about my previous experience as a male stripper). She offered to pay me, but in the end I told her I'd settle for being paid back the money she already owed me! Hahaha. So around 1am that night, they called Gurj up onto the stage, and in front of pretty much all of our friends...
...the next photo reveals that she was just actually winding up to spank me! Hahaha. Just as I'd managed to convince the crowd that the stripping part of the show was over...
Then I REALLY showed that ass...to the, um, audience. Sorry about that, everyone. (FYI: This entire little dance number I'm doing was choreographed to Stacey Q's 2 of Hearts).
Oh Hai! I can grope titties? (I love how Gurj has her hands up in the air all like "Yes, he's touching my boobs, but this is a totally one-sided thing!")
I came down off the stage and was met by these three lovely ladies: Meredith, Niki the Roommate (thanks for the panties!) and Hot Karla. Look at these three vixens! They look like girls from an 80s rock video! Hey, can I get a little "smoke machine" action?
A few minutes later, Gurj came over with a bundle of cash (aka - the money that Sarah already owed me) and I gots paid! Woooo! Here's Gurj getting ready to make "the deposit."
All that dancing took a lot out of me! Here's me getting ready to replenish all those calories I burned shaking my ass on stage with a late night pot o' mac and cheese (How else do you think I maintain that svelte figure of mine?). Photo (and panties) courtesy of Niki the Roommate. Thanks, Niki!
The next morning I had to wake up bright and early to attend an all-day, off-site strategy meeting for work. Here's CTO, Mike Montero, kicking the morning off.
They had that golf simulator where the course is projected onto a big, plastic screen in front of you. You take a real club and real balls and hit them at the screen full force! They have sensors that detect the trajectory and speed of the ball hitting the screen and it shows you where your ball "went."
After the park, Grant and I stopped over Fatty's house to pick up a bag of blank CD sleeves that we were going to use to hand-make the artwork for the new Fiasco EP. While we were at his apartment, Grant moved an amp out of the way and made a shocking discovery!
Then we went back to my apartment and started using a stamp (that I designed and had custom-ordered!) to create album artwork for Faux Real, Fiasco's first five-song EP! (You can download it on iTunes here). We were inspired by all the self-released EPs that Sarah did for the first few bands on her label! First we'd use a roller to ink the stamp and then...
The process was really messy and labor intensive, but really cool because in the end each EP cover came out unique. Here's an example of on that came out really well!
Turns out that Jeffrey was there with a big group of people that included Eileen Chiang, my former co-worker back from the crazy Spring Street Networks days of yore!
And then Gina "SmellsGood BonJersey" showed up with Michael and our quiet little night of grabbing a catch-up drink pretty much turned into a rowdy mini-party.
