November 15, 2007

Nerve Party and Karaoke Times Two

On Thursday night, we went to the Nerve.com offices (my former place of employment) at 520 Broadway to attend a launch party for the new site that Nerve Media was launching - which turned out to be Babble.com, a parenting site for "hip" parents.

lisa, pauly — I headed over with Lisa and Pauly (I know they're standing in "Pauly and Lisa" order in this photo, but that just doesn't roll off the tongue quite as nicely)...

ben, catrinel, maureen, sarah h — ...and we ran into Sarah Harrison (who I think was still working at Nerve at the time) with Maureen, Ben and Cat!

amanda, posh tony — Posh Tony, one of Posh's friends and Amanda!

maureen, me — Me and Maureen! Wait, what's that I'm drinking?

Hmmmm, it's a bottle of Original Sin hard cider (which I know has been sitting in the Nerve offices SINCE 2001 when the company that makes it gave cases and cases of it to Rufus in exchange for a page of advertising in Nerve's short-lived print magazine!). I actually remember this same stuff being out at Nerve's 2001 HBO Party! Hahaha.

me, nikola tamindzic — Me with the lovely and talented Nikola Tamindzic, seen here pretending he's about two feet shorter than he actually is.

amanda — The party started winding down around 11:30...

amanda, ben, sarah h, scott ward — ...so a bunch of us piled into the elevator and decided to walk a couple more blocks downtown to check out some other PR-event kind of party that someone else knew about.

lisa — Lisa stopped on the way there to show off some of her Tawny Kitaen moves on a filthy street-mattress. Getting bed bugs never looked so fucking sexy!

posh tony — We basically hid out in some booth in the back...

pauly — ...and got our GRUB ON!

lisa — Deeeee-lish.

lisa, pauly — We may have also had a tiny, private dancer party in the hallway.

lisa — I'm not sure if this photo was about learning to whistle or molars.

amanda, lisa, pauly, posh tony, scott ward — After filling our gullets with treats and booze, someone realized that we were just a few short blocks away from Winnie's! Which is the best karaoke bar in Chinatown (where all the songs are still on LASER DISC)! Check out the rocking troupe we had. Hahaha.

lisa, pauly, posh tony — Hahaha. YES!

ben, sarah h — Ben and Sarah!

ben, catrinel, maureen — Maureen and Cat (and Ben).

Yes, that's right, folks. Just like I promised. It's a karaoke machine that uses motherfucking LASERDISCS!

lisa — Lisa in love.

posh tony — A couple minutes later and Antony was called up to sing!

posh tony — Don't let his funny face fool you - homeboy can sing.

amanda, lisa — Lisa's face says it all.

scott ward — Then Scott sang.

lisa — Lisa really loved Scott's song too! (I'm starting to suspect that maybe she was just drunk!)

pauly — Hmmmm, maybe not though because Pauly looks pretty smitten as well.

amanda, scott ward — Scott crooning to the crowd.

jesse oxfeld — Jesse Oxfeld (formerly of Gawker) took the stage next.

amanda, jesse oxfeld, lisa, pauly — Killed it. Look at Pauly singing and pointing. Must've been a Jovi tune.

What song will the glorious 11-inch-disc-playing-machine play next?

Hahaha. Man, you can just see the reverence and respect for that machine in her eyes!

lisa — Then Lisa sang!

I don't remember what song she sang, but a quick search for lyrics that contain the words seen here on the screen tells me that Google's basically accusing Lisa of singing a David Matthew's Band song! Oh, snap!

lisa, pauly — We left Winnie's around 1:15am. Not because it was late. Not because we were too drunk (hey, you can never be too drunk for karaoke, right?). Not even because we'd run out of songs that we wanted to sing.

pauly, posh tony — We ended up leaving Winnie's because they didn't have that many songs that we knew. Which I guess can be equally attributed to the fact that half the songs are in Mandarin and that...

lisa, pauly, posh tony — ...the selection is limited to songs that existed when FUCKING LASERDISCS were being manufactured! Hahaha. So we did the only thing that made sense...

amanda, posh tony — ...we walked up to 2nd on 2nd so that we could continue singing karaoke! Check out our posse totally digging into the books and furiously jotting down songs. Hahaha.

lisa, me — There are very few things we take seriously. Karaoke, however, is one of them.

lisa — Lisa went first. (Typical).

pauly — Then Pauly went up and sang karaoke for the very first time! (Also known as "cherryoke")

pauly — He sang Summer Wind by Frank Sinatra!

pauly — Softer than a piper man one day it called to YOU!

pauly — Yay, Pauly!

lisa — Then Lisa sang!

lisa — Dreams by Fleetwood Mac (which always makes me think of Karen every time I hear it because she's responsible for me buying Rumours).

Then this guy sang! He was awesome just by virtue of being...

...one of the few other people in a karaoke bar at 2am on a Thursday night!

lisa — Holy moly, you're goooooor-geous! You have to be careful with Lisa - she can get a big head pretty quickly, so it's important to always balance out the super-pretty photos of her looking all windswept and dreamy with...

lisa — ...pictures of her flashing her cans while making retard faces! Hahaha.

posh tony — Speaking of retard faces.....just sayin'.

lisa — Then Lisa sang again!

lisa — I don't remember what song and I don't have any screen pics to clue me in....

lisa — ...but I'm including pics because Lisa never fails to "bring her," as the Canadians are fond of saying.

lisa — And just when you thought that the "kneeling move" couldn't be taken any further...

lisa — ...Lisa turned her "kneeling move" into a "kneeling SPLIT move" and blew everyone's minds.

amanda — Then Amanda sang!

amanda — Naughty Girls (Need Love Too) by Samantha Foxx. (Which is exactly the kind of song you always want to sing at karaoke but never get to do until you're faced with a totally empty room and you can try out all sorts of new songs!).

The next guy that came up sang his goddamned heart out. But as incredible as his performance was...

...it was sort of hard to stay focused on him.

lisa — Lisa knows why.

lisa, scott ward — Yep, that about sums it up. (PS - Check out the awesome new nipple-censoring technology I'm employing! Broken hearts! Pretty sweet, right? I hardly even use Photoshop anymore - all about Picnik.com's API these days).

scott ward — The next girl that sang wasn't with our group, but since it was now almost 3am and there were only two other people at the place besides our group, this is when the distinction between "us and them" broke down and we all became ONE DRUNK KARAOKE GROUP.

scott ward — Which everyone seemed to understand meant that anyone had the right to join the person that was performing and "help them out." Scott started off with a low-key assist, mostly taking over "pigeon necking" dance duties.

scott ward — But eventually worked his way up to "duet status!" Success!

scott ward — And he ended with some nice "hero worship" moves at the end, you know, just to remind everyone whose song it was. Nicely done.

lisa — Then the only other guy that was there sang! Lisa took the assist on this one. She started slow with some background dance moves...

lisa — ...slowly moved them closer so that he was aware of her "presence"....

lisa — ...and then parlayed them into a really nice face-to-face halftime dance breakdown.

lisa, scott ward — And check out this one! How about crouching down behind the guy and then using his shoulder...

lisa — ...to pull yourself up into an explosive "FUCK YEAH!" Now that's what I call teamwork.

posh tony — Posh Tony loves teamwork.

lisa — And for the grand finale, how about a little behind the back boobie flash? Nicely played, Lis.

lisa — I have no idea what song Scott sang last, but whatever it was, Lisa was fucking STOKED on it.

lisa, scott ward — So stoked on it that she barely let Scott get any solo time in before she rushed up on stage for the assist!

lisa, scott ward — Hahaha.

lisa, scott ward — "Er, wait a minute...wasn't this MY song?"

lisa, scott ward — I think Lisa got a little too "handsy" with the mic and what started out as...

lisa, scott ward — ...a solo song, temporarily blossomed into a duet for just a brief moment and then it...

lisa, scott ward — ...slowly started morphing into something...

lisa, scott ward — ..darker and darker until finally....

lisa, scott ward — ...Scott ended up choking Lisa out ~~WWF~~ er, WWE-style.

scott ward — Let that be a lesson about the potential pitfalls of trying to turn someone's solo karaoke jam into a group sing-a-long!

amanda, lisa — But at the end of the karaoke day, we still managed to stay on the bouncer's good side. He even gave Lisa...

lisa, scott ward — ...and Scott hugs on the way out! Oh, and Lisa also managed to pay Scott back for the choke out with an awesome comedy-rimming! How about a close up?

lisa — Suuuuure thing.