Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Betty Hollywood Says...
friday, I had a ghetto l.a. bday party on the patio of el cid. ended up getting rained out. and rain, in l.a. ?? oy. everyone took off before the midnite hour. we ended up at justin's recording studio, chillin, drinking and watching the rain. sunni and I got home around 3am and slept until 1pm the next day. we got up on saturday and headed to an l.a. galaxy game where we were invited by shoe designer faryl robin. we got to see very cute fall shoes and drink margaritas in the event suite box with a bundle of beckham sightings. sunday, I headed to fashion week for my front row seat at the sue wong show. it was to bed early for my monday morning call with my "how do I look?" shoot. whew. what a weekend!
Lisa Says...
Call me a lame-o, I don't care, but I went apple pickin'. And pumpkin pickin'. And I went to pacem interris, the sculpture garden I used to go to in high school when I used to skip school.I highly recommend these 2 farms, only an hour and a half outside of the city:
Pochuck Valley Farms (for the best apple picking) Pennings Farm Market (for the best pumpkins.)
These are in Vernon, NJ and Warwick NY. About 20 minutes from each other. Both of these have nice little stores where you can buy hot mulled cider and donuts and all sorts of pies and yummies. Plus, the foliage up there is great. I grew up in this area, and while I'm glad I don't live there because it would make commuting hell, its nice to go back.There's an awesome walk along the appalachian trail only a couple miles from pochuck farms. The first mile of it is just a simple boardwalk through the corn fields, then you walk through a field full of angry cows (I can send you a youtube link for proof.) If you're driving, a 5 minute drive from pennings is pacem in terris, as I mentioned above- it's a nice little place. Bonus points, if you hang around warwick long enough, across the street from pennings farm is the warwick drive in.
PS- If you bring your young child to pennings, which has some animals, and don't watch your young child while he is kicking the goat in the face, I will yell at your young child. And I love kids, But I also love goats. Luckily, if you're a parent of a young child who kicks goats in the faces, I probably won't be there to yell, since I did this all this weekend.
Pochuck Valley Farms (for the best apple picking) Pennings Farm Market (for the best pumpkins.)
These are in Vernon, NJ and Warwick NY. About 20 minutes from each other. Both of these have nice little stores where you can buy hot mulled cider and donuts and all sorts of pies and yummies. Plus, the foliage up there is great. I grew up in this area, and while I'm glad I don't live there because it would make commuting hell, its nice to go back.There's an awesome walk along the appalachian trail only a couple miles from pochuck farms. The first mile of it is just a simple boardwalk through the corn fields, then you walk through a field full of angry cows (I can send you a youtube link for proof.) If you're driving, a 5 minute drive from pennings is pacem in terris, as I mentioned above- it's a nice little place. Bonus points, if you hang around warwick long enough, across the street from pennings farm is the warwick drive in.
PS- If you bring your young child to pennings, which has some animals, and don't watch your young child while he is kicking the goat in the face, I will yell at your young child. And I love kids, But I also love goats. Luckily, if you're a parent of a young child who kicks goats in the faces, I probably won't be there to yell, since I did this all this weekend.
Monday, October 15, 2007
Charlie Says...
here's my weekend. i don't think my words speak the amount of frustration that consumed me. Alright so this past weekend. Start off friday night at Nicole's place, had a few beers, a failed attempt at watching Intervention because it was not on, much to Nicole' s devastation, but fun none the less. I leave there with the intention of seeing one friend for one drink around the corner from my house. That one drink somehow turned into seven. So yeah, it made for an unpleasant morning of travel on saturday. I wake up still drunk, great, mom is proud, go outside to wait for the car that is to pick me up then another guy i travel with and then onto jfk. So here's my thoughts on hired cars, if i get in one and you drive one, as a "professional" driver i expect you to know how to get places. So first the car is 15 minutes late, great start, i get in, and then they say "where to," oh great, is there not communication between the people who take the calls for cars and the people who drive them. someone called them and said hey go pick up this guy at this address then the other one at this one then go to jfk. Pen and Paper, memory, check it out. So i find the address we're going to, i tell this to the driver to only get a response of "where is that, do you know how to get there?" and i have no idea how to get there. So far we're twenty minutes into the trip and they were filled by being late to pick me up and not knowing where to go. Oh and i should mention all this hassle is to get me to Buffalo, fucking buffalo, just take a minute to absorb that, BUFFALO. After numerous wrong turns we find this guy's apartment and he gets in. Again with the remembering where we're going thing, he gets in and we get a "ok now where are we going?" Honestly. So anyways, we get to the airport, i feel like the inside of a mcdonald's toilet bowl, and just what i want to learn, my flight to BUFFALO is delayed. The delay sucked but whatever i fell asleep on the floor of the airport and felt better when waking two hours later thinking i missed the flight but only to find out it was still delayed for another hour. I get to Buffalo and we go straight to a bowling alley where we are gonna shoot a video of the comedian i work with bowling with some of the Buffalo Bills. Well only one Bill showed up, but he was a good sport and it was great. So that night we decide to go have some nice local buffalo flavor and go out to dinner. The hotel guy suggests we go to this place down the street that's like 3 floors and is a grill and a brewery. Ok great, how can you screw up grilling and beer. So this place we went to brewed all it's own beer, i've been to places like this before and was excited about it because at least there's good beer or something different. So we start trying the beers and before ask the waitress what she recommends and says everything is great blah blah blah. We try two different beers, and they were awful. Not like "oh this tastes just like cheap 2 dollar beer", no, this tasted, honest to god, like someone filled a glass up with water then tore open a packet, and on the packet it said "beer flavor." It was so so so so bad. And the food didn't help either, everything was awful. I felt bad for the 10 residents of Buffalo, because i thought they were getting duped into thinking what good beer was, and it was just awful. So whatever rest of the weekend unfolded, don't go to buffalo it's horrible. i don't know why it exists, i mean i know there's a history to it, but it's pointless. it's a dead city. So this happened today traveling back from Buffalo. So one of the guys i work with the one in the above story about the car, is kind of not so sharp, well he is smart, he went to Harvard, but when it comes to the outside world, there wasn't a book for him to study. I could go on about little things he does but lets share this one. We get off the plane today at jfk, it's early still, it was a 7am flight, we get off, he checked a bag, i did not, and i'm hungry, i say "hey i'm gonna grab something to eat you go get your bag and i'll meet you at baggage claim." sounds great- he agrees- he's on his way, i get my muffin. I head towards baggage claim, go down the stairs and baggage claim is completely empty, there are just two people there and they looked like they were picking up family. So i look around, i don't see this guy. go back up stairs see if i missed a turn, but i'm now outside the security area so this is pretty much the only place i can go. Go back down, look around some more, don't see him. I look over to one of two luggage carousels and there's one lone bag circling, and i recognize the bag, walk over to it, look at the tag, yup it's this guy's bag i'm with. So i call him, "Hey where are you?" "i'm waiting for my bag" "yeah no you're not i have it" so long story kinda short, somehow he gets lost decides to not follow the signs, ends up in a completely different terminal and goes to that baggage claim. Unbelievable. And all i wanted to do was get back home without any hassle and just be home and get in my own bed and rest. Oh well.
My Weekend
Friday night I ate dinner, took a nap, and then I went off to work. I am currently casting a tv show for the Lifetime Network (hee hee I love it!) involving matchmaking and we are hitting various locations looking for single men for this project. First thing of note: NO KIDDING HERE, PLEASE PAY ATTENTION TO THIS BECAUSE IT IS VERY UNUSUAL: My two casting assistants, who I just met, who do not know each other, who were separately recommended to me by people at my office, are named Allison Hope and Alyson Faith!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I mean, how can I NOT do a good job here with Hope and Faith on my team. They are also both singers and are each highly entertaining. We are having zero trouble running up to guys and demanding, "Are you single?" In fact, we were in Sing Sing karaoke bar, and Allison Hope decided to sing "Hell is for Children," and she totally worked the room, walking up to everyone, making little jokes between verses, and then doing this remarkable thing: while on the mic for her song, a hot casting prospect walked in and she went up to him and asked him, amplified, "Are you single?"
A bit of a phenomenon occurred when she did that. I heard her say it, and then I observed a physically visible flinch in the room coming from all the women. It felt like a combination of, like, the women thinking how declasse it is to ask such a vulgar, forward thing, like where is this girl's GAME, to come right out with a desperate sounding question like that, and also like "Can you ask that?", like they all heard the holy grail question aloud and couldn't believe it could be asked, and were stunned and liberated to hear it actually happen, and involuntarily jumping at the notion that maybe they too could cut through all the time wasting and just sort the singles from the doubles! Incredible. It turns out that the guy was not interested in being on the show, mirroring what would probably happen if the ladies worked up the nerve now to just ask that question- the answer would always be no, or not interested. Sigh. Anyway, it was very uplifting to learn that just about everybody around you at any given time is VERY INTERESTING! Each guy we spoke with had traveled and lived lots of places, or was the fifth generation with the same name in a family line of farmers, or spoke 3 languages, or had a really cool job, or had just taken his first ride after a terrible motorcycle accident a year ago, or is a professional hula hooper. My advice to you all is to get talking to the people around you. TOTALLY flying in the face of what I previously believed, the surrounding folks stealing your barstool are actually pretty developed people. So we rounded up a bunch of excellent single male candidates, had a shot of whiskey and headed home.
Saturday night: I went out to dinner with my chums Meg and Lisa, at a hot new NYC resto called Spitzer's Corner, not to be confused with Schiller's, also a hot NYC resto but not new. The decor is really good, I think- it's all big wooden communal tables, large glass windows that tilt out into awnings, long horizontal lines, wood walls that looks like a scandinavian sauna... cozy but more industrial than quaint and you wish they put a boxy fireplace right near your table. But you don't need to worry about a fire because Spitzer's is the restaurant of hot. Every customer, hot, hot, hot. And the beer list is amazing!! Full, long, varied, flavors jumping out at you from the descriptions of the beers...mmmmm and you should go here for drinks even if you don't eat. There were people playing cards at the table, but this place is much more chic hotspot than Knights of Columbus Hall. The food was also great, we all liked our meals, and Meg's potato gratin was a standout even though it was merely a side. Before we got seated, we were waiting for Lisa to come in from Williamsburg, so we were looking around the place and our eyes spied outside the large windows a very exciting prospect! There was a temporary Steve Madden liquidation shop erected just across the street, inside which we could vividly see people going crazy throwing shoes around. Attracted like magnets, Meg and I left our name and sped across the street. NY ladies, this is the type of tip you wish you heard after it's too late so listen up: the shoes are $20 a pair, 2 for $30. This includes boots! WHAT! Yes it's true. Bring a friend if you have one, so if you both only find one pair you like, you can have one of you pay for both and get em for $15 each. The shoes were mostly summery but at these prices you must get them anyway and save them for next spring, or take them on your winter vacation. I got a pair of dark brown wooden platforms with a jade patent leather slingback, and also a pair of electric blue patent all purpose flats that are happily cutting into the back of my heels right now! Worth it!! The sale goes on til end of month I believe so roll on over there! Also, if you are a Sasquatch, they had more selection in the size 10 and 11 dept than anywhere else, so don't worry your big feet about it! After the spree and feed I went off to cast more single men. Another note for you ladies on the hunt out there: all the fellas in the karaoke bars I was looking in are not yet 30. Don't go in there for that reason if you are looking for men over 30. Just go in to SING!!! Always fun. People tear it up too, in the private rooms. I was looking thru the window of each one, hunting down a hottie I saw go downstairs that I thought would be good for the show, and I saw people leaping around on the couches, two girls holding wrists and spinning, lots of arms heads and hair flinging around...its all in the name of hipdom but at least people are abandoned of their normal too cool for schoolness you usually see. In fact they get so buckwild that there is a list on the wall of infractions that you can be heavily fined for! Smoking commands a $200 fine!!! Only you can prevent forest fires!! Where was I? Oh, right....caught up in the spirit of matchmaking, I had a male friend of mine come out to work puposely to meet one of my casting assistants, and they hit it off! No wonder I am kicking booty butt on this job, I am a natural born matchmaker!!
Sunday I slept real late after this bit of working at night. Cleaned up a bit, tried to give clothes to my roommate, she tried to buy some shirts for me, but neither end worked out. Then I went to Kuntry Karaoke at Rodeo Bar to cast some more. There are some good-ass country singers out there. My casting assistant Alyson Faith got up and sang, and the guy who runs the party came up to me afterward to tell me how good she was. I have provided a link to her website in the right hand column if you wanna see her deal. One bowl of texas chili with huge beef chunks went in the belly. Then I found this guy DJ, who turns out to be an opera singer! SCORE! (for the show I mean!) I asked him if he knew about Opera on Tap, and he said that he indeed performs there so I think I am gonna go on down and see him sing one Thursday for free in Freddy's BackRoom Bar- you are ALL invited!! I also met A. Faith's friend Stacy Styles- a prominent DJ whom I had heard of before but never seen. After parting ways with my team, I got into a cab and there were three DJ Stacy Styles stickers plastered on the cab wall. Unbelievable! I had just walked away from her!
Then I got home, fed my Donkey, looked at Dlisted.com, and hit the hizay. Cheers!
A bit of a phenomenon occurred when she did that. I heard her say it, and then I observed a physically visible flinch in the room coming from all the women. It felt like a combination of, like, the women thinking how declasse it is to ask such a vulgar, forward thing, like where is this girl's GAME, to come right out with a desperate sounding question like that, and also like "Can you ask that?", like they all heard the holy grail question aloud and couldn't believe it could be asked, and were stunned and liberated to hear it actually happen, and involuntarily jumping at the notion that maybe they too could cut through all the time wasting and just sort the singles from the doubles! Incredible. It turns out that the guy was not interested in being on the show, mirroring what would probably happen if the ladies worked up the nerve now to just ask that question- the answer would always be no, or not interested. Sigh. Anyway, it was very uplifting to learn that just about everybody around you at any given time is VERY INTERESTING! Each guy we spoke with had traveled and lived lots of places, or was the fifth generation with the same name in a family line of farmers, or spoke 3 languages, or had a really cool job, or had just taken his first ride after a terrible motorcycle accident a year ago, or is a professional hula hooper. My advice to you all is to get talking to the people around you. TOTALLY flying in the face of what I previously believed, the surrounding folks stealing your barstool are actually pretty developed people. So we rounded up a bunch of excellent single male candidates, had a shot of whiskey and headed home.
Saturday night: I went out to dinner with my chums Meg and Lisa, at a hot new NYC resto called Spitzer's Corner, not to be confused with Schiller's, also a hot NYC resto but not new. The decor is really good, I think- it's all big wooden communal tables, large glass windows that tilt out into awnings, long horizontal lines, wood walls that looks like a scandinavian sauna... cozy but more industrial than quaint and you wish they put a boxy fireplace right near your table. But you don't need to worry about a fire because Spitzer's is the restaurant of hot. Every customer, hot, hot, hot. And the beer list is amazing!! Full, long, varied, flavors jumping out at you from the descriptions of the beers...mmmmm and you should go here for drinks even if you don't eat. There were people playing cards at the table, but this place is much more chic hotspot than Knights of Columbus Hall. The food was also great, we all liked our meals, and Meg's potato gratin was a standout even though it was merely a side. Before we got seated, we were waiting for Lisa to come in from Williamsburg, so we were looking around the place and our eyes spied outside the large windows a very exciting prospect! There was a temporary Steve Madden liquidation shop erected just across the street, inside which we could vividly see people going crazy throwing shoes around. Attracted like magnets, Meg and I left our name and sped across the street. NY ladies, this is the type of tip you wish you heard after it's too late so listen up: the shoes are $20 a pair, 2 for $30. This includes boots! WHAT! Yes it's true. Bring a friend if you have one, so if you both only find one pair you like, you can have one of you pay for both and get em for $15 each. The shoes were mostly summery but at these prices you must get them anyway and save them for next spring, or take them on your winter vacation. I got a pair of dark brown wooden platforms with a jade patent leather slingback, and also a pair of electric blue patent all purpose flats that are happily cutting into the back of my heels right now! Worth it!! The sale goes on til end of month I believe so roll on over there! Also, if you are a Sasquatch, they had more selection in the size 10 and 11 dept than anywhere else, so don't worry your big feet about it! After the spree and feed I went off to cast more single men. Another note for you ladies on the hunt out there: all the fellas in the karaoke bars I was looking in are not yet 30. Don't go in there for that reason if you are looking for men over 30. Just go in to SING!!! Always fun. People tear it up too, in the private rooms. I was looking thru the window of each one, hunting down a hottie I saw go downstairs that I thought would be good for the show, and I saw people leaping around on the couches, two girls holding wrists and spinning, lots of arms heads and hair flinging around...its all in the name of hipdom but at least people are abandoned of their normal too cool for schoolness you usually see. In fact they get so buckwild that there is a list on the wall of infractions that you can be heavily fined for! Smoking commands a $200 fine!!! Only you can prevent forest fires!! Where was I? Oh, right....caught up in the spirit of matchmaking, I had a male friend of mine come out to work puposely to meet one of my casting assistants, and they hit it off! No wonder I am kicking booty butt on this job, I am a natural born matchmaker!!
Sunday I slept real late after this bit of working at night. Cleaned up a bit, tried to give clothes to my roommate, she tried to buy some shirts for me, but neither end worked out. Then I went to Kuntry Karaoke at Rodeo Bar to cast some more. There are some good-ass country singers out there. My casting assistant Alyson Faith got up and sang, and the guy who runs the party came up to me afterward to tell me how good she was. I have provided a link to her website in the right hand column if you wanna see her deal. One bowl of texas chili with huge beef chunks went in the belly. Then I found this guy DJ, who turns out to be an opera singer! SCORE! (for the show I mean!) I asked him if he knew about Opera on Tap, and he said that he indeed performs there so I think I am gonna go on down and see him sing one Thursday for free in Freddy's BackRoom Bar- you are ALL invited!! I also met A. Faith's friend Stacy Styles- a prominent DJ whom I had heard of before but never seen. After parting ways with my team, I got into a cab and there were three DJ Stacy Styles stickers plastered on the cab wall. Unbelievable! I had just walked away from her!
Then I got home, fed my Donkey, looked at Dlisted.com, and hit the hizay. Cheers!
Vegan Crabcakes Do Too Exist!
A reader wrote in to inquire where Lisa Says et up her delicious vegan crabcakes in Maryland. He googled around and could not find them anywhere. Lisa Says was kind enough to supply him with the place to get them. Here it is:
One World Café
And, bien sur, a link has been provided for you in the right hand column to go and see what else is on their menu!
Nicole
One World Café
And, bien sur, a link has been provided for you in the right hand column to go and see what else is on their menu!
Nicole
Thursday, October 4, 2007
Lisa Says...
Last weekend I ate sweet market-fresh vegetables at “Vegetate” in D.C., along with some half-priced wines. Then the next day, I had vegan Maryland crabcakes in Baltimore. Its true; my life has been reduced to food and ferrets. And I’m ok with that, for now.
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
Juliana Says...
This weekend I trekked to San Francisco to visit my girls C & E out there. I stayed with E in her brand spanking new pad that she just bought… Yup, yet another new homeowner! Everyone around me seems to be at the age where they're ready (& able) to make commitments to pets, partners, kids, real estate or a combination therein… yet I can't seem to even decide on a plant! Anyway, I've been to SF a bunch of times already & have seen the sights, so now when I go it’s just to hang out with my girls who I only get to see for major holidays or weddings these days. I headed out from lovely JFK super-early Friday a.m. in order to get more QT with them. (BTW, have you guys noticed how generic JFK feels? It only took them 30+ years to semi-finish it and basically they’ve left it with this whole-generic-airplane-hangar-that-could-be-in-any-city-feel to it…I mean it seriously reminds me of the one in Bs. As! Jeez.)
Didn’t do much Friday besides hang out with my girls and catch up. However, the next day, after we woke up super-early (because I went to sleep like at 10PM night before!!), E & I went for a 3-mile walk around Merritt Lake which is this huge lake in the center of town. It’s lovely – I mean it literally sparkles! Be forewarned, however, like all bodies of water in highly-populated places, it’s filled with geese and their droppings. You had to skip about in the grass not to step in it! Anyway, after we got back and got ready, C met up with us and we headed out to San Fran via the BART (their subway, which compared to New York’s is a luxury) to check out the LOVE FEST.
Leave it to San Fran to have something called the LOVE FEST. Basically, it’s this crazy parade of DJs on floats that all end up in front of City Hall where everyone converges to party & dance... it was pretty wild. No joke, dirty old men were walking around butt-naked with cock-rings, stroking themselves... ugh. It was nasty. I still get ill just remembering... Otherwise, everyone was dressed up in outrageous outfits – some of them cute (guys dressed in bunny costumes with their naked butts showing – gives a new meaning to getting some tail), some not so cute (see dirty old men reference above) – doing a lot of drugs & drinking... in front of City Hall... with the cops looking on. Interestingly, house and trance music seem to still be really big there (there wasn’t anything else) so each DJ float had its own version of it. It was pretty cool to see actually, since everyone there just seems to let it all hang out –- although not always necessarily in a good way -- and not care. At least our freaks here are usually under the radar & semi-discreet. Did I mention that this was IN FRONT OF CITY HALL?? It was sponsored by Heineken & Red Bull so folks were drinking beer and cocktails (myself included), “smoking” up a storm (none for me) and just getting lit (maybe from some 2nd-hand contact high). Anyway, I’m bad at guess-timating numbers of people, but there had to be definitely several thousands – which, you could totally tell from the Porto-Potty usage (good god those things are nasty!)
After several hours of drinking, dancing and chatting with folks (we met up with a couple of the girls’ friends) we headed off to dinner at this cute place in the Mission and then headed home since some of us (not me) were not feeling well at all. Alas, it was another early night for moi, which actually was fine because no joke, all weekend I was nodding off by 10PM (jet lag SUCKS as you get older!) Sunday we just hung around lazily and then headed over to C’s lovely house overlooking the SF Bay (yup, yet another recent homeowner) where she made us one of her spectacular meals (the girl can COOK! I always tell her she should open her own place, but she says she doesn’t enjoy it… with talent like that, who would’ve thunk it??) And then it was back to SFO for an incredibly uncomfortable and seemingly interminable return red-eye flight back to good old NYC. My trips to San Fran are always short weekenders – but I always end up feeling like it’s more than enough time. I’m not that into SF (and granted I stayed in Oakland this time, but even when they used to live in San Fran proper I wasn’t impressed.) Don’t get me wrong, it’s a lovely city and the people are super-nice (which, honestly, is part of the problem for me – I find the friendliness freaky) but there's something just too chill and laid-back for me… I’m always happy to come home to NYC to its neurotic speed, constant background noise and true grime. I guess I am a NYer after all.
Didn’t do much Friday besides hang out with my girls and catch up. However, the next day, after we woke up super-early (because I went to sleep like at 10PM night before!!), E & I went for a 3-mile walk around Merritt Lake which is this huge lake in the center of town. It’s lovely – I mean it literally sparkles! Be forewarned, however, like all bodies of water in highly-populated places, it’s filled with geese and their droppings. You had to skip about in the grass not to step in it! Anyway, after we got back and got ready, C met up with us and we headed out to San Fran via the BART (their subway, which compared to New York’s is a luxury) to check out the LOVE FEST.
Leave it to San Fran to have something called the LOVE FEST. Basically, it’s this crazy parade of DJs on floats that all end up in front of City Hall where everyone converges to party & dance... it was pretty wild. No joke, dirty old men were walking around butt-naked with cock-rings, stroking themselves... ugh. It was nasty. I still get ill just remembering... Otherwise, everyone was dressed up in outrageous outfits – some of them cute (guys dressed in bunny costumes with their naked butts showing – gives a new meaning to getting some tail), some not so cute (see dirty old men reference above) – doing a lot of drugs & drinking... in front of City Hall... with the cops looking on. Interestingly, house and trance music seem to still be really big there (there wasn’t anything else) so each DJ float had its own version of it. It was pretty cool to see actually, since everyone there just seems to let it all hang out –- although not always necessarily in a good way -- and not care. At least our freaks here are usually under the radar & semi-discreet. Did I mention that this was IN FRONT OF CITY HALL?? It was sponsored by Heineken & Red Bull so folks were drinking beer and cocktails (myself included), “smoking” up a storm (none for me) and just getting lit (maybe from some 2nd-hand contact high). Anyway, I’m bad at guess-timating numbers of people, but there had to be definitely several thousands – which, you could totally tell from the Porto-Potty usage (good god those things are nasty!)
After several hours of drinking, dancing and chatting with folks (we met up with a couple of the girls’ friends) we headed off to dinner at this cute place in the Mission and then headed home since some of us (not me) were not feeling well at all. Alas, it was another early night for moi, which actually was fine because no joke, all weekend I was nodding off by 10PM (jet lag SUCKS as you get older!) Sunday we just hung around lazily and then headed over to C’s lovely house overlooking the SF Bay (yup, yet another recent homeowner) where she made us one of her spectacular meals (the girl can COOK! I always tell her she should open her own place, but she says she doesn’t enjoy it… with talent like that, who would’ve thunk it??) And then it was back to SFO for an incredibly uncomfortable and seemingly interminable return red-eye flight back to good old NYC. My trips to San Fran are always short weekenders – but I always end up feeling like it’s more than enough time. I’m not that into SF (and granted I stayed in Oakland this time, but even when they used to live in San Fran proper I wasn’t impressed.) Don’t get me wrong, it’s a lovely city and the people are super-nice (which, honestly, is part of the problem for me – I find the friendliness freaky) but there's something just too chill and laid-back for me… I’m always happy to come home to NYC to its neurotic speed, constant background noise and true grime. I guess I am a NYer after all.
My Weekend
Friday was my typical night of Intervention, except that it was a repeat of the Laney episode which I had seen at least twice before. I could not watch Laney take pills in an attempted overdose and see how the EMTs were not allowed to help her if she was conscious and told them not to, which she was doing against her own best interest of survival. So I watched some Best Week Ever crap and waited for the next 'Vention, a classic with a screeching gambler whose parents had to sell their house to cover his debts, and an agoraphobe who could only leave her house to meet her shopping addiction, until her agoraphobia took over and she was forced to impulsively buy whatever came up on the Home Shopping Network.
Saturday I got up and out and off to the Oysterfest on Stone Street in lower Manhattan. Now pay close attention- the Oysterfest, attended for the second year in a row by me, is in my TOP TWO fun things to do in ALL OF NYC!!! (The other one is the parties at the Hotel QT, where they have a swimming pool in the lobby, along with a swim-up bar, group sauna and group steam room.) The Oysterfest has a respectable crowd with a smattering of the chic, the freak and the funk. There is live music, all kinds of beers (we drank nothing but Moretti all day), oysters ripped open right in front of ya, clams, oyster stew (the only drawback of the day, with its literally three little oyster chips in there), lobster bisque, crab cakes, bbq chicken sandwiches, mini po-boys, pulled pork sandwiches, and a great deal with a Moretti and a slice of pizza for $6- the pizza part of this deal costing $1!!! We got prime seats at a table the moment we arrived, just steps from the Moretti tent and 3 oyster stands, and never ever left them all day. There were even good bathroom facilites close by- a restaurant ten feet from our table had excellent clean & stocked toilettes all the day, for those of you who care about this sort of detail, and there are many of you, admit it. I ate probably thirty oysters amongst other delicacies from the above list. We made new friends, saw old ones, and stuffed our craws, while engulfed in perfect weather and a setting which mirrored Amsterdam, France, or a German beer fest. Exquisite!!
While wrapping up the night, some drunk dude with an oven stuffer roaster gut grabbed me and started telling me that I was super cute but that I was too short. "Too short. Too short!," he said to me. I said, "Well, you're too fat," and patted him on his belly. This caused no shortage of hilarity to Sarah's friend Jeff, a ball buster himself. He could not even believe I said it. Well, Jeff, I am not that short and I will NOT be called out for it!
Sunday I cleaned my desk area in my home office. I have been doing a lot of professional organizing work lately and it feels remiss to have just finished organizing and filing into binders a huge towering raft of papers for a client and then to see a mess on my own desk. So I TCB'ed that. It looks great and I freed up a lot of drawer space for my myriad projects. Feels great! Looks great! (In fact just before creating this entry, I overhauled my storage closet with my awesome roommate Sarah, a job done handily in just over an hour with the two of us soldiers on it.) After making my desk less pesky, more desky, I split for the gym to take a yoga class with some teacher I had never seen before. One of the poses she had us do indicated that we were to put the heel of our foot right in our perineum. I am not sure half of us knew what that was, but I sure did and opted out. Try sitting with all your weight on your own foot in your ass! After this fiasco, I put my feet nowhere near my ass and walked over to the South Street Seaport to meet Andy with the plan of going dancing and hammock swinging at the outdoor Green Fairy Garden on the grounds of Spiegelworld. When we walked up to the ticket booth I got flustered and could not remember the name of the event, so I mumbled "Whatever it is you've got going on tonight I want tickets for that," to which the boothmaster replied "You want to see Absinthe at 7:30?" Now many of you know that I have been trying for weeks to see this show Absinthe inside the actual Spiegeltent, and planned for it to be the crown jewel in my birthday celebration, but nobody could go, friends had to work, it is kind of expensive, etc. So like a birthday balloon, I let that one go. I believed that Friday night was the final performance anyway, so I did not expect to ever see this highly lauded show. I about fell over when the guy said the show was going on that very night! I explained to Andy what it was and he was down for it, until I told him the price. Then I convinced him to pay it, until we learned it would likely be standing room only. Then we found out that standing room was just over half the price of seats. We went back and forth like this thru all these phases of understanding about the show. Finally I said to Andy that I would be willing to endure all circumstances presented to us for the sake of seeing this show because every now and then in life you have to see a SPECTACLE, and this world-class acrobatic, burlesque, Berlin-esque, bawdy, hilarious musical cabaret was looking to be quite a spectacle indeed. Andy countered with the classic and well -serving "It is better to regret something you have done than something you haven't done," and moments later we had SRO for the spectacle. And it was very much so!!! Nudity! Hot bodies! A charming and decadent host named Gazillionaire who habitually shoved his crotch into the audience members' faces, female and male. Rollerskating acts! A girl inside a HUGE BUBBLE! A William Tell trick! An androgynous singer who looked more like a man but sang like a castrato practically, and who also did a spot-on impression of Janis Joplin! A guy who transformed into a woman during his act and proceeded to mount a pogo stick tricked out to look like a motorcyle with a side mirror, in lucite stiletto heels, and bounce on it staccato fast with no hands because his hands were busy juggling machetes simultaneously, just a yard from the audiences faces! UNREAL!!! All of this, mind you, took place inside a beautiful "tent" made of teak and mirrors and stained glass, and was witnessed by one of the coolest, best-looking and well-dressed crowds I have seen in NYC, land of cool crowds. Andy and I had grins plastered on our faces the whole time, and cried out in delight and whooped with laughter too throughout the highly entertaining show. And as far as our brokebacks hurting from standing, trusty Andy taught me a pigeon-toed, bent-kneed Kung Fu stance that uses different muscles than the ones normally used for standing up in such a situation as this, and each time I appeared uncomfortable in the stance, he would lean over and whisper in my ear, "It's okay grasshopper. Go lower, sink into the Earth!" Very encouraging. After many rounds of applause, we left, Andy thanking me effusively for my always stocked cabinet of fun things to do, and me thanking him for his spontaneity and follow through. When we went outside the tent, we took a better look around than we had when we were rushing into the show. What a sight for brown eyes! (Sometimes I make up my own nonsense phrases) There was a view of all three bridges from Manhat to BK, and a large yellow half moon hanging in the sky underneath the bridges like a sloth. Then there was a red and blue striped big top with mini xmas ornament sized disco balls strung back and forth underneath the top of it, over our heads. There was even furniture inside to take a dance break on. The view to the other side of the tent was a big clipper ship looming over the dock. Quite an unusual juxtaposition. It was as if we had run away to join the circus and the ship was what had sailed us there.
The Melting Pot was having their 5th anniversary, and it appeared they had a loyal and regular following. I have been feeling a bit old lately after my latest birthday, and so I just kind of stood there and tapped my toe to the rhythm, left in the role of observer. But then when some great piece of house business kicked in, much to my surprise, I started throwing down and was stunned by my arsenal of moves, moves I didn't even know I had, or had forgotten about! I was young again! Dancing a fool! So I cut their rug, while gazing out at the gorgeous view of the bridges and the bad moon rising, and clapping my hands, stomping my feet and hootin and hollerin with the multiculti crowd. Again Andy and I were beaming. Things looked good, things sounded good, our bouncy bodies felt good...and then the MC introduced a pair of brother DJs, stepping up to the one and twos, who were at most 15 years old, probably 14 and 15. That window into my youth that opened when the great song came on slammed shut. Old again! So we took a load off on one of the daybeds and drank seltzers (see? OLD!) , and finally decided to get out of there. Damn that was a satisfying scenario. Places and things like this are the reason why I never think the other American cities I visit are as fun. I don't care what you say, Chicago does not have shenanigans like this!
Saturday I got up and out and off to the Oysterfest on Stone Street in lower Manhattan. Now pay close attention- the Oysterfest, attended for the second year in a row by me, is in my TOP TWO fun things to do in ALL OF NYC!!! (The other one is the parties at the Hotel QT, where they have a swimming pool in the lobby, along with a swim-up bar, group sauna and group steam room.) The Oysterfest has a respectable crowd with a smattering of the chic, the freak and the funk. There is live music, all kinds of beers (we drank nothing but Moretti all day), oysters ripped open right in front of ya, clams, oyster stew (the only drawback of the day, with its literally three little oyster chips in there), lobster bisque, crab cakes, bbq chicken sandwiches, mini po-boys, pulled pork sandwiches, and a great deal with a Moretti and a slice of pizza for $6- the pizza part of this deal costing $1!!! We got prime seats at a table the moment we arrived, just steps from the Moretti tent and 3 oyster stands, and never ever left them all day. There were even good bathroom facilites close by- a restaurant ten feet from our table had excellent clean & stocked toilettes all the day, for those of you who care about this sort of detail, and there are many of you, admit it. I ate probably thirty oysters amongst other delicacies from the above list. We made new friends, saw old ones, and stuffed our craws, while engulfed in perfect weather and a setting which mirrored Amsterdam, France, or a German beer fest. Exquisite!!
While wrapping up the night, some drunk dude with an oven stuffer roaster gut grabbed me and started telling me that I was super cute but that I was too short. "Too short. Too short!," he said to me. I said, "Well, you're too fat," and patted him on his belly. This caused no shortage of hilarity to Sarah's friend Jeff, a ball buster himself. He could not even believe I said it. Well, Jeff, I am not that short and I will NOT be called out for it!
Sunday I cleaned my desk area in my home office. I have been doing a lot of professional organizing work lately and it feels remiss to have just finished organizing and filing into binders a huge towering raft of papers for a client and then to see a mess on my own desk. So I TCB'ed that. It looks great and I freed up a lot of drawer space for my myriad projects. Feels great! Looks great! (In fact just before creating this entry, I overhauled my storage closet with my awesome roommate Sarah, a job done handily in just over an hour with the two of us soldiers on it.) After making my desk less pesky, more desky, I split for the gym to take a yoga class with some teacher I had never seen before. One of the poses she had us do indicated that we were to put the heel of our foot right in our perineum. I am not sure half of us knew what that was, but I sure did and opted out. Try sitting with all your weight on your own foot in your ass! After this fiasco, I put my feet nowhere near my ass and walked over to the South Street Seaport to meet Andy with the plan of going dancing and hammock swinging at the outdoor Green Fairy Garden on the grounds of Spiegelworld. When we walked up to the ticket booth I got flustered and could not remember the name of the event, so I mumbled "Whatever it is you've got going on tonight I want tickets for that," to which the boothmaster replied "You want to see Absinthe at 7:30?" Now many of you know that I have been trying for weeks to see this show Absinthe inside the actual Spiegeltent, and planned for it to be the crown jewel in my birthday celebration, but nobody could go, friends had to work, it is kind of expensive, etc. So like a birthday balloon, I let that one go. I believed that Friday night was the final performance anyway, so I did not expect to ever see this highly lauded show. I about fell over when the guy said the show was going on that very night! I explained to Andy what it was and he was down for it, until I told him the price. Then I convinced him to pay it, until we learned it would likely be standing room only. Then we found out that standing room was just over half the price of seats. We went back and forth like this thru all these phases of understanding about the show. Finally I said to Andy that I would be willing to endure all circumstances presented to us for the sake of seeing this show because every now and then in life you have to see a SPECTACLE, and this world-class acrobatic, burlesque, Berlin-esque, bawdy, hilarious musical cabaret was looking to be quite a spectacle indeed. Andy countered with the classic and well -serving "It is better to regret something you have done than something you haven't done," and moments later we had SRO for the spectacle. And it was very much so!!! Nudity! Hot bodies! A charming and decadent host named Gazillionaire who habitually shoved his crotch into the audience members' faces, female and male. Rollerskating acts! A girl inside a HUGE BUBBLE! A William Tell trick! An androgynous singer who looked more like a man but sang like a castrato practically, and who also did a spot-on impression of Janis Joplin! A guy who transformed into a woman during his act and proceeded to mount a pogo stick tricked out to look like a motorcyle with a side mirror, in lucite stiletto heels, and bounce on it staccato fast with no hands because his hands were busy juggling machetes simultaneously, just a yard from the audiences faces! UNREAL!!! All of this, mind you, took place inside a beautiful "tent" made of teak and mirrors and stained glass, and was witnessed by one of the coolest, best-looking and well-dressed crowds I have seen in NYC, land of cool crowds. Andy and I had grins plastered on our faces the whole time, and cried out in delight and whooped with laughter too throughout the highly entertaining show. And as far as our brokebacks hurting from standing, trusty Andy taught me a pigeon-toed, bent-kneed Kung Fu stance that uses different muscles than the ones normally used for standing up in such a situation as this, and each time I appeared uncomfortable in the stance, he would lean over and whisper in my ear, "It's okay grasshopper. Go lower, sink into the Earth!" Very encouraging. After many rounds of applause, we left, Andy thanking me effusively for my always stocked cabinet of fun things to do, and me thanking him for his spontaneity and follow through. When we went outside the tent, we took a better look around than we had when we were rushing into the show. What a sight for brown eyes! (Sometimes I make up my own nonsense phrases) There was a view of all three bridges from Manhat to BK, and a large yellow half moon hanging in the sky underneath the bridges like a sloth. Then there was a red and blue striped big top with mini xmas ornament sized disco balls strung back and forth underneath the top of it, over our heads. There was even furniture inside to take a dance break on. The view to the other side of the tent was a big clipper ship looming over the dock. Quite an unusual juxtaposition. It was as if we had run away to join the circus and the ship was what had sailed us there.
The Melting Pot was having their 5th anniversary, and it appeared they had a loyal and regular following. I have been feeling a bit old lately after my latest birthday, and so I just kind of stood there and tapped my toe to the rhythm, left in the role of observer. But then when some great piece of house business kicked in, much to my surprise, I started throwing down and was stunned by my arsenal of moves, moves I didn't even know I had, or had forgotten about! I was young again! Dancing a fool! So I cut their rug, while gazing out at the gorgeous view of the bridges and the bad moon rising, and clapping my hands, stomping my feet and hootin and hollerin with the multiculti crowd. Again Andy and I were beaming. Things looked good, things sounded good, our bouncy bodies felt good...and then the MC introduced a pair of brother DJs, stepping up to the one and twos, who were at most 15 years old, probably 14 and 15. That window into my youth that opened when the great song came on slammed shut. Old again! So we took a load off on one of the daybeds and drank seltzers (see? OLD!) , and finally decided to get out of there. Damn that was a satisfying scenario. Places and things like this are the reason why I never think the other American cities I visit are as fun. I don't care what you say, Chicago does not have shenanigans like this!
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Andy Says...
Friday night I stayed home and watched HBO's Rome, far and away the best TV EVAH. My cousin downloaded the entire series, but episode 12 is corrupt. Now I have to netflix it. I had a date on Saturday for brunch with an Israeli girl. I went to her nabe (Williamsburg) and ate at a rooftop spot the name of which escapes me. Then I painted the hallway of my new apartment which I love. On Saturday night I studied bong science with my amigo Rusty, and watched a documentary about Jimi Hendrix. The remarkable thing about this movie-watching was that it was via netflix's new streaming video system. He has a laptop with a video out and connected it to his big-ass flatscreen TV. The resolution and quality were most impressive. DVD via mail is a dying delivery system. You've been warned.Sunday I futzed about the house until evening, when the amazing Nicole dragged me out to see Absinthe at Spiegelworld. You missed it, suckas. It rocked my world and now I want to see all burlesque shows in NYC. Afterward we danced to house music at Melting Pot. Good DJs on Pier 17, an amazing spot. Sadly Spiegelworld is closing down as summer's gone. Melting Pot is worth a return visit if they move to a new location.
Finally!
Someone gets it!! Someone realizes that you don't have to have a fully glamorous weekend to post on this blog! I really just want to know whatever it is that you did- even if that entails cutting your toenails, watching paint dry, and alphabetizing your spice rack. Noone understands! They are all ashamed to send me something unless it is fabulous. FEH I SAY! Do like Jon did and just report what you did!
BTW, this is rather insulting towards me as I suggest that texting with me all night long is not the most special, VIP, glam thing one could do with their free time.
Nicole
BTW, this is rather insulting towards me as I suggest that texting with me all night long is not the most special, VIP, glam thing one could do with their free time.
Nicole
Love Shack!
Gentle Readers, the place Amber-Lea (which appropriately means golden meadow) was staying this past weekend is called Lazy Meadow. I recommend it highly and in fact recommended it to Amber-Lea. The place is a funky, 50s/60s/70s themed motel with turquoise or pink kitchens in some rooms, and now has themed Airstream trailers too, that is owned by Kate Pierson from the B-52's. The decor was provided by the set designers for the Love Shack video. Half the reason I want to own a B&B in my later years (did you know that about me?) stems from this place. It's so fabulous! The fruit and vegetable market A-L mentions is right across the road, and further down the road is the World's Largest Kaleidoscope- not to be missed! This motel hits the mark on so many levels-charm, kitsch, peacefulness, simplicity, odd amenities, nearby attractions...I can't praise it highly enough! A link has been provided to the right for your viewing pleasure. If you decide to go, let me know- I will come too!
Nicole
Nicole
Amber-Lea Says...
The end of the week came on a Thursday this time. I was handed the keys to a PT Cruiser - butter yellow - but it had a CD player, and that and four wheels was all I really needed to take me far away from the city that never sleeps.
A shiny, shiny Airstream trailer set on the bank of a large creek welcomed me with a giant Tiki head on the door, letting me know that things were a little different around those parts. The next four days were an in-between time with no clear boundaries. I sat on a rock in the middle of a stream, listening to the burble. I was ignored totally by bats, deer, rabbits, hawks, and an osprey. I drank tea by the side of the creek and a bottle of Jack Daniels by the fire(s) that took 45 minutes to ignite (the wood was damp from the sporadic rain). I listened to the fruit and vegetable man say something to me about the Mets while I smelled tomatoes and squeezed the zucchini bread. I admired the audacious mustache of Tedd, the caretaker. I did nothing that I would qualify as "work" (unless you count tindering and tending the fire, which, since it was fun, I don't consider work).
Most importantly, I learned that I would not grow bored by myself in the woods.
On Sunday evening, I suffered a fair amount of anxiety-inducing re-entry shock in the East Village and so I drank more Jack Daniels and went to Williamsburg to see the Twilight Sad.
A shiny, shiny Airstream trailer set on the bank of a large creek welcomed me with a giant Tiki head on the door, letting me know that things were a little different around those parts. The next four days were an in-between time with no clear boundaries. I sat on a rock in the middle of a stream, listening to the burble. I was ignored totally by bats, deer, rabbits, hawks, and an osprey. I drank tea by the side of the creek and a bottle of Jack Daniels by the fire(s) that took 45 minutes to ignite (the wood was damp from the sporadic rain). I listened to the fruit and vegetable man say something to me about the Mets while I smelled tomatoes and squeezed the zucchini bread. I admired the audacious mustache of Tedd, the caretaker. I did nothing that I would qualify as "work" (unless you count tindering and tending the fire, which, since it was fun, I don't consider work).
Most importantly, I learned that I would not grow bored by myself in the woods.
On Sunday evening, I suffered a fair amount of anxiety-inducing re-entry shock in the East Village and so I drank more Jack Daniels and went to Williamsburg to see the Twilight Sad.
MAZEL!!!
CONGRATULATIONS to L.A. Confidential on the recent nuptials!!
I cannot think of a better place to spend my honeymoon than at a Justin Timberlake concert!
Did you guys consummate during "My Love?"
Nicole
I cannot think of a better place to spend my honeymoon than at a Justin Timberlake concert!
Did you guys consummate during "My Love?"
Nicole
L.A. Confidential Says...
Well...first I went to Canada and got married. Yay married. Then I flew to LA and did a lot of nothing but hanging out with the dogs. Then I called in sick to work and went to the JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE concert, second row. Now, let me point out that the tickets I purchased were second row as well. Second row from the back. However, I married a bit of a ticket snob so those seats just weren't going to work out. Anyway- Justin. He is a sexy beast. Then back to Seattle...Now off to LA again. Kisses.
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