My Memoirs

CAPITOL Q

2011-02-16T11:19:00.000-08:00

Joe York and the Southern Foodways Alliance present an amazing portrait of Skylight Inn in Ayden, NC, part of the Historic BBQ Trail and a place I visited back in 2009 for The Guardian.

There are a bunch of other great videos on the site too. So if you — like I — are procrastinating, go there now.

And thusly do I shred!

2011-02-14T05:21:00.000-08:00

Untitled from joshua david stein on Vimeo.

I started skiing on Friday — for the first time ever — in Jackson Hole, WY and, happily, did not die. In fact, it might be said, I shredded. It might also be said, I shredded at a very moderate level.

Something I enjoy about skiing is despite the encumbrances of privilege — the many layers of Goretex and fleece, the mythos of apres-ski, neon colors and snow white skin — it does feel very pure when you're doing it. All of skiing, as far as I can tell, can be distilled from the toe equivalent of Fingerspitzengefuhl, though not in a Rommelian way. That though skiing carries with it vast socio-economic implications, the sport can be reduced to tiny and deeply personal micro-movements and weight distribution between ones toe, ones boot, ones mountain.

But, of course, like most sports, one travels great distances and endures great danger to travel deeper into oneself. As the Franco-Swiss-cum-Arab explorer Isabelle Eberhardt wrote before she died in Ain Sefra in 1904, "For me it seems that by advancing into unknown territories, I enter into my life."

So here I am, wearing second hand very large ski gear, entering into my own life.

[Thanks to Sam Rendall for the video (and for taking me up Casper on my last day and to Derek Goodson for the gear and support]

Hipsters, Courage and a Dying Bird

2011-02-09T07:59:00.000-08:00

To celebrate my new position at Departures Magazine, I went to get myself a peach bran muffin and pick up all 35 pounds of our laundry. On the way home, I saw a sparrow flutter clumsily to the ground and land with a soft but terrible thud. The bird had obviously been injured and had, i thought, probably broken its wing on the landing. I put the laundry bag down and went closer. At that moment — when I was looming on the stoop — the door opened. Two hipster girls — bright red lipstick, messy head, going to work at 10:30am, flannel, Rachel Comey shoes — appeared.

"Uh," said the one with the redder lips and blonder hair, "can I help you?"

"This bird just fell and I think he's hurt.'

"Oh," clucked the brunette, "that's sad."

"Oh my gaaaad!," cried the blonde, "that's like the most depressing thing I've heard!"

"Yeah," I said, "I'm going to see what I can do. I don't want it to die on the street."

"This is so depressing," said the blonde again, "now I'm going to have to KIILLLLL myself! But I don't know WHAT I'd do with it!"

The women walked off, the blonde still bemoaning how depressing the sight of a dying sparrow on her doorstep was and how dark a pall it had cast on her day. She was right, a dying bird is depressing.

I ran home, dropped off the laundry, grabbed a bucket and a towel and headed back to the bird. By the time I got there, the bird was in even worse shape. It was a slightly trembling bundle of feathers, huddled in the cold. Oh my gaaaaad, it was so depressing. I picked up the bird gingerly in a paper towel and put it in the bucket. Then I headed to the East Williamsburg Animal Clinic.

Along the way I thought about those two women, to whom action never occurred. They seemed so ready and equipped to comment, to be moved, to loudly proclaim how deeply affected they were, but utterly unable — and in fact, I don't think the thought came to them — to visualize a world in which they could change the outcome of events. This, by the way, from a subculture which seems to celebrate all that the sparrow stood for, that shops at boutiques called Cat, Bird and Catbird, that sways to Bonnie Prince Billys One With Birds.

Anyway, I was ready to write a post excoriating hipsters for their lack of courage, and not even courage since that seems to imply they contemplated action and declined, but rather the inability to believe that they can affect change. Then I thought of an altercation I saw on the L train about six months ago. A black teenager was listening to music on his phone. This, I think anybody can agree, is among the more annoying things to have happen on the subway. It ranks up there with cutting ones nails (unacceptable) and sitting with ones legs akimbo.

The subway was fairly crowded and on the same side — a few passengers down — from the kid was a middle-aged white guy who looked like a chimera between Mark Ruffalo and Vincent Schiavelli. Mor on the Schiavelli side, actually. You could tell the guy wasn't all there from the twitchy, trembly way he moved. He radiated nervousness and instability. The man started complaining about the kid's listening to music. He started off sotto voce but you could see his rage bubbling.

At this point, I wasn't sure whose side I was on. On one hand, listening to music outloud on the subway is really annoying. On the other hand, well...I guess I was on the unhinged man's side. But that soon changed.

"What is it," he finally said, loudly, looking over at the kid "with you people? I don't come into your house and blast classical music, do I?"

You people. The words caromed through the car like lightning. First of all, I knew whose side I was on. The man had lost me with his racism. Music is annoying; racism is repugnant. Secondly, the car was, I would say, galvanized, unwillingly. The man's racism implied his race, I felt, and therefore I was acutely aware of the skin color of those around me. Not great. Thirdly, the kid pretended he couldn't hear the man and kept his music going full blast.

In a way, how could you blame him? He was backed into a corner so that if he did capitulate, which I'm sure he wanted to, he would have been seen as weak. The unhinged man had left him with no viable exit strategy that would allow him to maintain face. Call it Hosni Mubarak on the L train.

The music still blared and the guy got up. He took off his leather belt and began wrapping it around his hand. Immediately the entire section of the car got up, en masse, and moved to the periphery. It was exciting, we were about to see a fight. I also got up and moved away and, though I hate to admit it, there was a voyeuristic joy in my breast at the thought of a confrontation. Oh my gaaaaad, it was so dramatic.

And then, just as the man was about to take a swing at the kid — still listening to music, eyes frozen forward, still sitting down — a young man who seemed to embody hipsterism (though, as per a conversation just had mid-post with my friend Kyle, the term is like an ever-retreating point, clear on the horizon and miserably diffuse up close) approached the man.

In fact, the hipster came from the periphery, where he was sitting. He hadn't run away, eager to watch, but approached, eager to help. In a calm voice he laid his hand on the man's shoulder and said, "hey man, you seem upset. Why don't you sit down and talk to me about it?" The rage in the man's gray eyes seemed to quiver. Either he was going to take a shot at the hipster or he was going to de-escalate. The fist clutching his belt slackened. So did he. He slumped down on the bench and began a long tale of how he had just survived cancer and how his wife had just died of cancer and how he was losing all he had held and still held dear.

It was clear to everyone that the situation had come to a close. The rest of the ride was tense but not volcanic. And as I think about my actions and the actions of the hipster, how I initially ran away and how he almost instinctually (though who knows? maybe he too hesitated) diffused the situation, I'm full of shame for my part and of admiration for his.

Anyway, that's what I was thinking when I arrived at the Clinic as a vet came out from the back office and grasped my sparrow, undaintily, from the bucket.

"He's got a ruptured air sac," she said, "and a bruised wing. But he'l be okay."

The Tragedy of the Unused Madonna Tickets

2011-02-04T05:57:00.000-08:00

If memory serves, Sophia R____ always wore either a double breasted blazer skirt suit or very little at all. When I was nine and Madonna was on her Blonde Ambition Tour, there was a knock on my door. My mother was at work and father too. Rebecca, my sister, was out so I answered it.

Standing before me was a young pretty woman wearing a grey double breasted blazer and matching skirt. On her shoulders, pad. Above her, a big eighties cloud of brown hair. "Hello," she said, a Southern drawl further tenderized by an interdental lisp, "this is for Bob." Bob is my father. We called Bob Bob too. And Marcia, my mother, Marcia. It was a progessive remnant from their days as hippies, though it was my mom who was the counter and my father who was the culture. This woman handed me a large manila envelope that had Bob written on it. "Who is it from?" I asked. "I'm his secretary," said this woman

Even at eight a boy knows his father's secretary. Bob's secretary was a nice African American lady named Camille who used to take my sister and I to a German diner when we'd visit Bob at Merck Pharmaceuticals in Rahway. The woman in the pant suit was neither old nor black. Something was strange but what, no eight year old could tell. "I'll guess I'll take it," I said. The woman turned and I watched her tramp down our suburban steps, under the sycamore tree whose roots raised bumps in the driveway, threatening to breakthrough the black top, and onto the street. She glanced back at the house with a look whose significance both distance and youth kept from me and climbed into a Camaro, (also not Camille's car), and drove off.

Later I realized that look must have been meant as a good bye. The package, I found out, contained what was meant to be the farewell to my father, a dramatic end of the affair. This woman was Sophia R___, b. 1972, was my father's mistress. No secretary she but a lover! The envelope, I later learned, contained two tickets to see Madonna at the now-bygone Spectrum and a note, "Good bye, Bob. I hope you and Marcia enjoy the show."

Though Bob and Sophia R_____ continued their romance, eventually allowing it to blossom into marriage then demise, neither Bob nor Marcia nor Sophia R______ made it to the Spectrum. The tickets went unused.

Snowbuggy White!

2011-01-31T07:20:00.001-08:00

From the Columbia campus. [Thanks to my wife for the photograph (and loving me.)]

Jesus F. Christ, Enough of These Precious Ads Already

2011-01-29T14:16:00.001-08:00

Why do ad agencies think melancholia leads to purchasing? Iron & Wine doesn't make me want to buy anything. Not an iron & Wine cd, not insurance,not anything. Watching pretty things float or bounce, accompanied by a man singing about loneliness, makes me annoyed at that very thing that I am doing.

Spring by AT & T

Drifters by Travelers Insurance

Such Great Heights by M & M

And the original Ur-precious commercial:

Bouncy Balls by Bravia

When Desserts Look Like IPhones

2011-01-20T06:19:00.001-08:00

Chocolate praline, left, from Ducasse's Benoit; iPhone G4, right, from Job's Apple

My New Tattoo

2011-01-19T05:25:00.001-08:00

Apologies to E.B. White and career criminals. Thanks to Daniel Santoro of Smith Street Tattoo Parlor.

The Stereotype is True: Bloggers are Cat-Friendly

2011-01-14T06:26:00.000-08:00

The other week on Eater I put together a poll in response to the overwhelming stereotype that bloggers have more cats than non-bloggers. That — along with the idea that they a) live in their mother's basements and b) live in a fly-over state and c) never get dressed — form the base coat of most blogger stereotypes. I thought I would debunk that once and for all. Well, I didn't.

It turns out, according to The Humane Society, 33% of American households own at least one cat. However, our study found 66.4% of bloggers own at least one cat with a slightly higher percentage of those owning multiple cats. Sadly, the cats-owning editor of Eater, Raphael Brion decided against publishing these shocking revelations. However, the truth shall not be swept under the litter box, no matter how uncomfortable or allergic it might be.

WIKILEAKS: The Culinary Conspiracy of The Food Network

2010-12-06T13:51:00.000-08:00

Much has been made and with good cause over Wikileak's data dump of diplomatic cables. But overlooked in the 250,000 thick pile is this one, from Robert Tuschman, of the Food Network, to his minders back at the CIA. In it Tuschman reveals the strangely altruistic plan he and his fellow masterminds have developed. In short, Tuschman et al have determinedly undermined the reality television drama by offering shows of sub par quality in an effort to turn Americans away from the television and towards locavorism. Weird.

Roald Dahl: I CAN HAS BFG

2010-09-06T06:40:00.000-07:00

Inspired by Big Sometimes Friendly Giant [NYM]

2010-06-09T20:40:00.001-07:00

The Strange Uneasy Return of Boxing to Yankee Stadium

Ha venido par aver la turbia sangre.

[I came to see the river of blood.]

‑-Federico Garcia Lorca, Poet in New York

The last time boxing came to Yankee Stadium it was on a Tuesday night nearly a quarter century ago. On a hot September night in 1976, Muhammad Ali beat Ken Norton. The Bay City Rollers’ Saturday Night was at the top of the charts and the Bronx was one year away from burning. Last Saturday night, boxing again descended upon the Bronx as the Puerto Rican superstar Miguel Cotto faced the underdog, Israeli fighter Yuri Foreman. Legions of boxing fans materialized like baseball players in Field of Dreams. Reggaeton’s insistent dem bow riddim, syncopated with the rolling clatter of the 4 train passing, poured from every open orifice of the Escalades, shiny water buffalo looking for a sign to park.

The Bronx being the Bronx-like, Cotto’s fans were preponderant and, on the whole, more colorful and exuberant in their affiliation. The Puerto Rican flag was draped like fondant across backs and atop heads, used as a stencil and shaved into hair, wrapped up into little beads and made into necklaces. As the stands filled and daylight faded, large Puerto Rican flags unfurled in the nosebleed sections. Chants of Cotto crescendoed and evaporated. Surprisingly good Philly cheese steaks and predictably bad Bud Lights were ingested on the 100 level. Yuri Foreman fans were there too but they were rather assimilated and smaller in number. Foreman—who was born in Belarus, grew up in Israel, trains in DUMBO and attends rabbinical school in Gowanus—fights under an Israeli flag yet from a reporter’s unofficial survey, only one Israeli flag was evident outside the stadium. [It was held by a Muslim Kosovar and an Armenian Jew outside of Gate 4.] The Foreman fans had the Yankee pinstripes on their side, chromatically at least. But the red, white and blue lights of police cars—and lo, were there lots!—were firmly belonged in the Puerto Rican color scheme.

As the night progressed, Puerto Rican fighters on the undercard consistently beat their opponents, the crowd grew increasingly impatient for the main event. I sat behind an old AK named Myron “Suge” Sugermann who told me, “I’m the last of the Jewish gangsters,” which shockingly proved to be correct and next to Bert “Randolph” Sugar, the famous boxing raconteur. I was the youthful savory in an old man sugar sandwich. Sugermann—who greets everybody with a “Shalom Aleichem, baby”—told me about how the Jewish mob used to crack Nazi heads in Newark in the 30s. Bert “Randolph” Sugar wore sunglasses, gnawed Churchill-like at a fresh cigar, cussed and grumbled his way through the undercard. Finally, Cotto emerged to wild whoops, looking so focused he seemed sad. A dull roar filled the stadium like rolling thunder. Daddy Yankee reached an insurmountable pitch. Then Foreman emerged, called to the ring by a shofar and his rebbe’s chanting. The crowd booed (naturally) and I felt uneasy (also, naturally).

The smaller man and smaller draw, Foreman needed only to put on a good show to impress. He did but the end of the fight, nine rounds later, was controversial and sad. Foreman’s knee, already injured, was completely gone, his leg immobilized, the man beaten, his face red. His wife begged for the match to end. A white towel was thrown into the ring—a cliché that actually happens—but angrily thrown out again by the referee. The fight continued but Foreman limped like a club-footed pigeon around the ring, skittering like a sandcrab each time Cotto punched him. The crowd, unsettled by Foreman’s futile and valiant effort, was largely silent. It was Satyagraha in the ring. From behind me, a row of Puerto Rican boxing journalists agreed, “El tiene muy corazon.” He has heart, that kid. After a few more minutes of that beating, the fight ended in yet it still felt unresolved. The streams that flowed—currents of Cotto’s red, white and blue, eddies of Foreman’s blue and white—from Yankee Stadium into the Bronx, onto trains and into cars, were slow, brooding and uneasy. By 4am, the tide had ebbed again and Yankee Stadium was a silent sentinel, lambent in, what Garcia Lorca once called, the alma mentido de New York, the counterfeit dawn of New York.

Could This Possibly Be the World's Worst Music Video?

2010-02-23T10:17:00.000-08:00

Final Placement is a Christian Rock band from Midland Texas. The motto of Final Placement, according to the band's Facebook page is "The world is gone but not lost it can still be saved, all it takes is the people to listen. Maybe if they will hear the message and change." Though their hearts may have been in the right place, this video is the indisputable herald for the coming of the Dark Lord Satan.

The Guilt of Quitting Facebook

2010-01-13T12:54:00.001-08:00

Facebook, why are you so clingy and why do you remind me of a Jewish mother? I'm pretty sure none of these people will miss me. And if they can, they can email. [Or, since one is my wife, she can just talk to me.]

I Love Nwe Yrok

2009-11-20T08:10:00.000-08:00

Illiteracy at the base of the Williamsburg Bridge.

Quite Possibly The Most Hilarious Consecutive 100 Seconds Caught on Film

2009-11-18T10:40:00.001-08:00

Holiday Gift Ideas from OUT

2009-11-17T06:56:00.000-08:00

Are you looking for gifts for your loved ones? You don't have to be a 'mo to like these gifts, this guide or, apparently, to star in the videos. Check out more of them in

Out's Annual Gift Guide

Awesomely Passive Aggressive Illustrations

2009-11-16T12:11:00.000-08:00

The New York Times opens a review of the most annoying vegetarian book by the most annoying vegetarian author with an "illustration" by carnivorous designer Paul Sahre of a pig's decapitated head with the book in it's craw. You can read my even less enthusiastic review of the book at Boldtype.

Update: Confirmed: A real pig's head was used.

2009-11-15T08:03:00.000-08:00

A Thing I Am Looking Forward To

Gainsbourg - Vie Héroïque - Trailer HD [VF]

2009-10-19T11:45:00.000-07:00

FergusStock: The Lost Illustrations

On Friday I headed over to The Breslin for night two of FergusStock 2009. I wrote about it for The Moment but here are some extra illustrations. Enjoy.

Typos I'd Like To See

2009-05-04T10:36:00.001-07:00

[NYT]

The Saddest Washer Review In The World

2009-04-28T13:07:00.000-07:00

The saddest washing machine review ever. Click to enlarge. [via]

Spotted at the Minetta Tavern 9:30pm

2009-04-23T05:49:00.000-07:00

Standing by the pedestal: Sick fuck Simon Hammerstein, with his beard Jessica Joffe. Take that as you will. In the back, scruffy Serge Becker. Floating from table to table, Keith McNally. Let it be said: There was a higher incidence of pocket squares tucked squarely in the pockets of gentlemen's blazers than any other room in New York City at a commensurate time except perhaps the 21 Club. And also that that Black Label Burger is highly but not over rated.

Meet The West Village Monster

2009-04-22T06:09:00.000-07:00

Remember the Montauk Monster of last year? In the West Village yesterday, its cousin washed up in a trash bin on the corner of Greenwich Avenue and Charles Street. I tried to take him home but his tail was gone. Monster.

I Dated Jenny Petherbridge

2009-04-15T13:55:00.000-07:00

I read the following passage the other day and it so strongly reminded me of an ex-girlfriend of mine I began to believe in time machines, that Djuna Barnes somehow travelled to New York a couple of years ago, studied this woman then said, "Fuck this," hopped back in her tin-foil space craft and headed back to 1920's Paris.

Her walls, her cupboards, her bureaux, were teeming with the second-hand dealings with life. It takes a bold and authentic robber to get first-hand plunder. Someone else's marriage ring was on her finger; the photograph taken of Robin for Nora say upon her table. The books in her library were other people's selections. She lived among her own things like a visitor to a room kept "exactly like it was when--"

...

When anyone was witty about a contemporary event, she would look perplexed and a little dismayed, as if someone had done something that really shout not have been done; therefore her attention had been narrowed down to listening for faux pas She frequently talked about something being the "death of her" and certainly anything could have been had she been the first to suffer it...Hovering, trembling, tip-toeing, she would unwind anecdote after anecdote in a light rapid lisping voice which one always expected to change, to drop and to become the "every day" voice,; but it never did. The stories were humorous, well told. She would smile, toss her hands up, widen her eyes; immediatey everyone in the room had a certain feeling of something lost, sensing that there was one person who was missing the omporance of the moment, who had not heard the story; the teller herself.

...

No one could intrude upon her because there was no place for intrusion. This inadequacy made her insubordinate--she could not participate in a great love, she could only report it. Since her emotional reactions were without distinction, she had to fall back on the emotions of the past, great loves already lived and reated, and over those she seemed to suffer and grow glad.

When she fell in love it was with a perfect fury of accumulated dishonesty; she became instantly a dealer in second-hand and therefore incalculable emotions. As, from the solid archives of usage, she had stolen or appropriated the dignity of speech, so she appropriated the most passionate love that she knew, Nora's for Robin, She was a "squatter" by instinct.

Bad News: Toby Young In On Next Season of Top Chef

2009-04-15T11:12:00.001-07:00

Bald viscous piece of shit Toby Young has, says a well-placed tipster, been confirmed as a judge in next season's Top Chef. Fucking Bravo piece of shit idiot producers. Padma's beauty can't sustain Young's shittiness for another season. It barely did this last one.

Everything that is Wrong With a Certain Type of Woman and Vanity Fair in Two Paragraphs

2009-04-07T11:09:00.001-07:00

Hello. Look this Vanity Fair blog post and you'll see why, despite Graydon Carter being a fucker par excellence, the magazine is despised. It is also why young Harvard-educated writers who write for Vanity Fair and live in the UES are also despised. (Above right) If you are like me, when you read any sentence in bold you'll spit out, "You Fucking Fuck, Fuck You!" Why so angry? Though so clear it obviates the need for explanation, here it goes. Kate Ahlborn, Harvard 07, insists on adopting this inane exoticization of Brooklyn which is not funny and makes her look like an asshole. She also makes the obligatory Bard reference and Feist-drops as if she is the only finishing school twat to have liked the video. They all did. They all spent time at Bard! Argh! But equally infuriating is the entire tone of the piece which boils down to, "I went to an art performance. It made me uncomfortable. It was weird. I didn't like it." People like this should not write things down and certainly not anywhere where anyone must read it.

Somehow it happened that in all the years I’ve lived in New York City, I’d never been to Brooklyn. But when I heard that choreographer Noémie Lafrance had a new show opening in Williamsburg, I decided it was as good an occasion as any to venture beyond Manhattan for the first time. I loved the music video she choreographed for Feist’s “1234” in 2007, and “Rapture”—her piece for aerialists staged on the side of a Frank Gehry building at Bard College—was undeniably awesome. So on Tuesday night, I boarded theL train (heading away from the West Village) and made my way to hipsterville. I’d heard from my more global friends that Brooklyn is a charming borough inhabited by cool young families, gourmet cheese shops, and creative intellectuals. It has parks! And trees! And slow walkers aren’t mowed down on the sidewalk!But I’m what you might call a bona fide Manhattanite. Or, to be more precise, a bona fide Upper East Sider. I’ve traveled the world, I said to myself—how exotic could Brooklyn really be?

Perhaps my tweed J. Crew jacket and Tory Burch ballet flatsweren’t the best wardrobe choice for that day, but I overcame the fact that I was a total Williamsburg misfit and hoped my foreigner status wouldn’t be glaringly obvious to the natives. (It was.) After narrowly escaping death by skateboard on the Bedford subway platform, I made my way to a rickety building in what felt to me like Brooklyn’s outer banks. (It wasn’t.) A sign instructed people heading to Lafrance’s performance to go up to the second floor, where I was warmly greeted, asked to surrender my coat and bag, and told to wash my hands.

Kate Ahlborn, go back to the Upper East Side. Watch Scrubs. Listen to Feist. Stay the fuck out of Brooklyn.
[Photo: Nick McGlynn]

Who's Who in the Monkey Bar Mural

2009-03-30T12:59:00.000-07:00

I wrote about the Graydon Carter's soon-to-open Monkey Bar today for Urbandaddy What didn't make it in to the piece is the part where I interviewed Ed Sorel, the guy responsible for the mural in the backroom. With great surety, I can assure you that a large part of dinner conversation at the Monkey Bar will be a pissing contest game wherein one Associate Editor for a dying dead tree magazine will try to outdo another by recognizing who is depicted. It won't be easy. But, in the interest of pissing better, here's Mr. Sorel to give you a guide:

There was a question of who to put in, and laying it out. It took months, the question is the theme. The theme of the waverly inn was the Greenwich Village. The theme was at first Graydon had wanted it to be cafe society between the wars but who constituted cafe society was a kind of a blur so we decided essentially on a who's who of who is in New York between the wars. We have Fred Astaire, this is the Fred Astaire who appeared on Broadway with his sister. There's also Henry Luce, Herb Ross, Conde Nast, Blanche and Adolph Ochs, the Fitzgeralds--Zelda and F Scott, Billie Rose, Dorothy Parker and Edna Ferber.

So start Google image searching like a fiend and try to get your friend at Conde--like stories of whore fucking, everybody seems to have at least one!--to get you a reservation.

[Photo: Courtesy of the one and the only, Urbandaddy.]

Fucking Ikea Piece of Shit Crapssuck

2009-03-30T12:18:00.000-07:00

Ikea, Swedish utopian lifestyle supplier, is one of those places where everything works great until it doesn't and from then on, you are doomed and there is no escaping your doom. This weekend, Wifeana and I went to Red Hook to by desks. They fucked up one of the orders and didn't include hardware. Today I went back to demand I get screwed. Screw me they did. After waiting for an hour for them to move through 4 numbers at the Returns desk, the obese woman finally called my number--385. But of course, she didn't know what part I was talking about and, after fifteen minutes of research, when she finally did figure out that yes, it was indeed purchased yesterday at IKEA and yes indeed they do carry it (which I knew because I purchased it at Ikea yesterday). After a half hour of aimlessly lolling about amongst the Blue Bins, she returned with a baggie full of screws. Only later when I returned home did I realize she had given me the wrong screws. What do you expect from people who can't spell Thursday? Now I have to reenter this crapsuck cycle of shitty Ikea bullshit and I'll never--I feel--be able to escape. Is this what being an undocumented immigrant is like? I think so.

But the real point of the post is thus: Ikea's uber simple sans serif straightforwardness only works as long as they maintain a base level of competence. Usually their system of cheap and easily assembled products does work. But there exists no mechanism, or no well working mechanism, for remedying what happens if something does go horribly wrong. The system can't cope and can't fix itself. Instead, it sucks you into a blue-and-yellow inferno which stretches from here to the last Thrusday in hell.

Psychological Evaluation of JDS, Age 9

2009-03-24T06:38:00.000-07:00

In 1991, when I was nine years and five months old, my parents took my to a psychologist to be evaluated. Last weekend, over my sister's wedding, my mother thought it would be a good idea to finally show me the evaluations. This is what I learned: Over the course of eighteen years, I haven't changed at all.

Where Hipsters Come From....Surprisingly Not Only From Hell and Exurbs

2009-03-18T05:19:00.000-07:00

From 1967's Hustlers, Beats, and Others by Ned Polsky:

[Beats] resent any label whatever, and regard a concern with labelling as basically square. But insofar as they speak of themselves generically and are forced to choose among evils, they prefer the word "beat." Until recently "hipster" meant simply aone who is hip, roughly the equivalent of the beat. Beats recognized that the hipster is more of an "operator"--has a more consciously patterned ifestyle (such as a concern to dress well) and makes more frequent economic raids on the frontiers of the square world--but emphasized their social bonds with hipsters, such as their liking for drugs, for jazz music, and above all, their common scorn for bourgeois career orientations. Among Village beats today, however, "hipster" usually has a pejorative connotation: one who is a mannered showoff regarding his hipness, who "comes on"" too strongly in hiptalk, etc. In their own eyes, beats are hip but are definitely not hipsters.

Although beats are characteristically ignorant of history, even of their own history, most know the oft-discussed origin of "beat" as applied to the postwar disaffected but all are in the dark about "hip." The few Village beats with any opinion suppose that it comes from the "hep" of early 1940's jivetalk. Actually "hep" and "hip" are doublets; both come directly from a much earlier phrase, "to be on the hip" to be a devotee of opium smoking--during which activity one lies on one's hip. The phrase is obsolete, the activity obsolescent.

The Subtle Charm of the Economist

2009-03-09T10:41:00.001-07:00

From a Correction on page 61 of the current issue of The Economist.

This Woman Has An Amazing Voice

2009-03-05T07:54:00.001-08:00

If all law school classes are this fun, sign me up. Let me in, give me financial aid, then sign me up.

Ben Bearly

2009-03-01T18:27:00.000-08:00

My friend Ben got married to Emily last weekend at the Gramercy Park Hotel. Lovely ceremony. Ben made a crossword puzzle that went in the wedding program. My favorite clue was "Gustapo" [sic]. The answer was SS. During the toasts someone brought up this video which I had forgotten about but which is wonderful. Embedding is disabled but it's worth the click through.

Ben Bearly [Youtube]

Heavenly Light

2009-03-01T08:38:00.000-08:00

No big fan of the New York Times' Vows section I but Katie Orlinsky's photograph of Christie Love and Rev. J. Lee Hill Jr. in today's edition is pretty wonderful.

A Very Sad Video from The Rocky Mountain News Now Defunct Newsroom

2009-02-28T06:10:00.001-08:00

Final Edition from Matthew Roberts on Vimeo.

Understatement of the Month: "Complex Relationship With the News Media"

2009-02-16T05:26:00.000-08:00

RIP: The Business Lunch

2009-02-11T06:19:00.000-08:00

Free lunch used to be one of the few perks of freelancing. The sting of Freelancer's Union shitty expensive health insurance was offset by editors who put your cheeseburger on the company card. No longer. No one wants to pay checks. This woman, a movie producer whose picture accompanied the New York Times article on said phenomenon, apparently has no problem paying for elective surgery. She's from LA. Obviously. [NYT]

"Fucking Shit," he realized, "I live in the new McKibben Lofts."

2009-02-08T16:24:00.000-08:00

Update: Totally just ran into the dude on the stairwell. He apologized and turns out he's super nice. Maybe I'm just a crotchety old man,

My wife and I live in a former factory on Knickerbocker Avenue in Bushwick. The building is directly off the Morgan Avenue stop in a neighborhood sometimes idiotically called Morgantown. When we moved in two months ago, we were one of the first tenants in the building. Like pioneers, we had neither heat nor electricity. We built a sod hut and burned old copies of The Nation to stay warm. I read Willa Cather every night by candlelight. But now the apartments are filling up, warrens of cubbyhole-sized drywall rooms are being erected and last night, a truly horrendous loft party was thrown in one of the empty apartments. The techno lasted until 7:30 am. Fucking shit, I realized, we had moved in to the new McKibben Lofts.

The party was thrown in the apartment of a 34 year old anime loving Brazilian graphic designer. It featured the truly uninspiring music of No Regular Play. How do I know? It was on this kid's fucking Twitter. But it was more than the mmm-tsk mmm-tsk music that kept me up. It was the pure rage, blind seething impotent rage. Why would someone listen to this music? Why so loud? Why so late? Could they not have given us a quick heads up. "Hey guys," he could have said, "I'll be playing horrible music very loudly all night long on Saturday. Just wanted to let you know." I even entered into the den of techno--it was lit by a blue light!--at six in the morning to ask that they turn the sonic rape down. "I'll ask," said the party's host. Ask? ASK? FUCK YOU MEAN YOU'LL ASK. IT'S YOUR FUCKING PARTY. YOU TELL! TELL!

But it was more than just his bad taste in house music and sullen sodding indifference that drove me mad. I was angry that this building, which we had simply through the timing of our arrival come to think of as at least partially ours, was being hijacked by the beer-drinking sticker-sticking bad house music-listening twenty somethings. (Even if the primary perp was fucking 34 years old.) But the true waking nightmare wasn't the moment. My anger and fear wasn't inflamed merely by the hellish bump of the music nor the smoke wafting from the hallway nor even the beer pooled in the stairwell. It was that this might just be the future.

Look Ma, I'm On the Front Page of the NYTIMES!

2009-02-06T08:49:00.000-08:00

A Few Recent Pieces

2009-02-05T10:12:00.000-08:00

I've been writing about The City for The Moment, the New York Times "blog that spans the T Magazine Universe"

I also wrote about Michelle Obama's fashion at the inauguration though that is old news now.

I filled in on Gawker for a weekend. Stressful. Fun

I profiled Sandra Lee and Andy Samberg for March's OUT magazine

I'm finishing up the 3rd edition of StyleCity's guide to New York City

I'm actively looking for freelance gigs! Send 'em my way.

I'm also actively looking for a couch.

Fuck, Marry, Kill: Oscar/Top Chef Edition

2009-02-05T09:32:00.000-08:00

I'd go with effing Padma, marrying Kate and k'ing Blanchett, if only because of that unforgivable modern dance in the gazebo scene in Benjamin Button. You?

Australia Australia Australia We Love Your Men

2009-02-04T08:02:00.000-08:00

The only two worthwhile things Australia ever gave us are Cory Delaney and this swarthy pigeon smuggler. According to the BBC,

Australian customs officials say [two] live birds were wrapped in padded envelopes and held to the man's legs by a pair of tights under his trousers. Officials also found two eggs in a vitamin container in the man's luggage. Australia has strict quarantine rules on the importation of wildlife, plants and food. The man, 23, could face up to 10 years in jail...Customs officials say they also seized seeds in the man's money belt and an undeclared aubergine, following the flight on Sunday.

As for the rest of that continent's contributions: drunk fat girls on the Tube, condiments that taste like shit and Mel Gibson.

2009-01-15T13:27:00.001-08:00

Signs of the End of Times

2008-12-14T10:28:00.001-08:00

We can no longer spell. That Playstation ad on Houston and Lafayette is gone. Illy files its "pumpkin latte" drink, already a desecration, under "Reach and Creamy." Soup kitchens--that is kitchens in which soup is made--have lines out the door. And The New Museum, once a sign of a resurgent Bowery with Ugo Rondinone's rainbow sign acting as a beacon of good things to come, has forebodingly changed its message. "Hell ye! Hell ye! The end is nigh!"

Leo Rosten: Insufferable.

2008-11-19T06:13:00.000-08:00

Last week I picked up a used copy of Leo Rosten's People I Have Loved, Known or Admired from the one dollar racks in front of the Strand. Yippee, I thought. I had liked The Joys of Yiddish when I found it in my grandparent's basement in Kokomo, IN. So clever, so vibrant, so Jewy. But as I started reading Rosten's book, I realized this guy is truly terrible. All the corny jokes, the volubility, the wisecracking that is lovable when my grandfather does not age well. Read years later, it comes across as bad, undisciplined, try-y writing. One opening paragraph in particular is intolerable.

I've known Wilbur since he was knee high to a romalea microptera--and the fact that I write "Romalea microptera" instead of grasshopper shows you the peculiar influence he (Wilbur, not the grasshopper) has had on my life.

It's like someone is doing that sharp-shooter motion and clicking their tongue after every sentence. Oy!

More Wenn Poetry

2008-11-17T10:06:00.001-08:00

The Hanson Brothers end their barefoot walk bringing attention to the poverty and AIDS crises in Africa, San Diego, California 16.11.08

Ted Danson seen buying groceries at Whole Foods in Brentwood, Los Angeles-16.11.08

Lindsay Lohan leaving her hotel carrying a can of CokeLondon, England - 16.11.08

Actor Arnold Vosloo taking his pit bull terrier for a walk. Santa Monica, California 15.11.08

Amy Winehouse steps out of her house and approaches a taxi, but then apaprently changes her mind. London, England--16.11.08

Victoria Beckham shops at Saks Fifth Avenue with her son Cruz Beckham, who is dressed in a Robin costume
Los Angeles, California - 14.11.08

Yanni, the famous pianist, out jogging in Acapulco before performing a string of concerts in the Mexican city
Acapulco, Mexico - 13.11.08

I Saw The Death of Print On Broadway

2008-11-17T09:49:00.000-08:00

Though I'm not one to read too much into happenstance omens, oh man, I passed this on Broadway the other day. A puddle of wet magazines discarded among the autumn leaves and dog shit. The crow flies! We're all doomed! What does this inauspicious muddle of magazines tell us? Who is the first to go? Well, judging from this pile, W Magazine is on the way out. Ditto GOOD although we all knew that. And, of course, PRINT is a goner. Deadsville.

On Offering from Wenn.

2008-10-23T08:04:00.000-07:00

This is evidently some of the things the public would like to see pictures of. A collection of captions from Wenn, a photowire service used by newspapers and magazines.

Paul O'Grady signs copies of his new book 'Paul O'Grady: At my mothers knee..and other low joints' at Foyles book store

Joaquin Cortes attends a judgement on the paternity of his former personal assistant Katie Asumu's son.

Mickey Rourke goes for an evening stroll along the Via Condotti with his dog Loki

Judd Nelson leaving the Chateau Marmont hotel, unrecognizable wearing round rimmed glasses and sporting a beard

Omarosa signs copies of her book 'The Bitch Switch: Knowing How to Turn It On and Off'

Tila Tequila hosts the grand opening of 'Tacos and Tequlias'

Janice Dickinson looking very happy as she leaves a pharmacy

Anika Noni Rose from 'Dreamgirls' and her son visit a bank

A very tired looking Lily Allen arrives home, talking on her mobile phone

Paris Hilton arrives back at her hotel, and poses for pictures in a red dress

Reese Witherspoon getting back to her car after leaving a children's book store. She seems to have fallen over and badly grazed her right knee

Celebrities out and about on Robertson Boulevard

Kelly Brook walks arm-in-arm with her boyfriend Danny Cipriani, holding a pot of Creme De La Mer face cream

Katie Price aka Jordan leaving Movida nightclub appearing rather worse for wear, and carrying a model of the Eiffel Tower

Shawn 'Jay-Z' Carter celebrates Sean 'Diddy' Combs' appearance on the 'Black on Black L'Uomo Vogue' cover at 1 Oak

Elbow performing at Liverpool University

Christina Ricci out and about in Beverly Hills

Eva Mendes leaving her gym in West Hollywood

Rapper T.I. went shopping at Niketown today with friends and a documentary film crew while under house arrest

Charlie Sheen and his wife Brooke Mueller are expecting twins, her mother has confirmed

'Dancing With The Stars' professional dancer Karina Smirnoff is embarrassed after a magazine article about her and fellow dancer Maksim Chmerkovskiy is read out by her stylist, Ricardo Lauritzen of B2V salon

Carrie Underwood has her waxwork figure unveiled at Madame Tussauds in Times Square

Rachael Ray shopping at Curve on Robertson Boulevard

BEST HED/LEDE I'VE READ IN A WHILE

2008-10-17T12:47:00.001-07:00

[NYT]

Two Condoms and A Novel

2008-10-13T12:08:00.001-07:00

Found on the street, just south of Delancey by the base of the Williamsburg Bridge: Two Magnum condom wrappers, some lube and a copy of the Stranger. Better than a Joseph Cornell box!

El Bulli's Genius Bully Ferran Adria Destroys Times

2008-10-13T05:59:00.001-07:00

The crowd that filtered in to the Times Center which, Lord Almighty is like some sort of spacious temple, was giddy with anticipation to see Ferran Adria, chef of El Bulli, TV personality and chef Anthony Bourdain and interlocutor Eric Asimov. They queued for an hour or more. One woman did the entire Saturday crossword puzzle, in pen, in an hour.

Once inside the auditorium, four chairs sat on the stage. "Oh my god," said the woman next to me, "who is the fourth chair for?" Red Red Wine played over the speaker. "Oh my god," said the woman next to me, "this is my ring tone." She was here to see Eric Asimov, the wine guy from the Times. "I hear he is the grandson of Isaac Asimov. Someone who knew him personally told me." He's not. He's his nephew. Drew Neirporent sat in the second row. Behind me some cute asian girl kept on looking at me like she thought I had dirty hair, which is accurate.

Soon enough Mr. Asimov sauntered on stage with a strange and compelling strut. He was followed by a very tall Bourdain and a very bull-like Adria. The fourth chair was for the translator, a very very cute Spaniard. Though Adria speaks English, he prefers Spanish. Vale! Adria was clearly the star. Bourdain was his back up. Eric Asimov said a total of about three things, none of them relevant and all of them ignored. He would ask a question and even before it was translated to Adria, the chef would be answering. His reply rarely had anything to do with Asimov's query but were consistently enlightening. He was simply reading his manifesto, interrupted occasionally by a question and pausing momentarily to allow Bouraain to interject. What really stuck with me is Ferria's insistence that he was creating a new language, a language spoken by avant garde cuisiniers around the world. With this new language he was engaging his diners in conversation. "Cuisine is a dialogue" he said on numerous occasions.

Bourdain manned up to approaching El Bulli with a hostile attitude. But after he ate there---he was the first person to actually eat with Adria---he said. it was like "Eric Clapton seeing Jimi Hendrix play." That makes Bourdain Clapton to Adria's Hendrix which is, well, a tad overly self-regarding but he said it with a smile. He then called his meal, "the most important meal on the planet." Asimov did ask one good question for which Adria's non-answer is germane. "There's not going to be an El Bulli in Las Vegas?" he asked. Adria replied, "El Bulli has become a monster. It's impossible to tame." Which is, what, a yes or just another moment of disregard?

Other tidbits: The are 70 people who work at El Bulli for 50 diners. Adria supervises their staff meal every day. The meal he's most excited for in New York? Katz's Delicatessen.

Joseph Stalin Dictator Special No Choice

2008-10-01T06:15:00.000-07:00

For lunch yesterday I found myself in the culinary chamberpot of Midtown Manhattan. Thankfully Zach Brooks at Midtown Lunch offers a handy map of carts/delis worth their salt. Instead of getting an overpriced wilted salad from Digby's, I gamboled over to Hallo Berlin!, a German soul food cart on 54th and 5th Avenue.

Now I'm not one for ironic Stalin nostalgia (especially after reading the Gulag Archipelago...ok, ok, I'm only on Volume One which is DEPRESSING) but how could you say nyet to a special called the "Joseph Stalin Dictator Special No Choice" when it contains one Berliner Knockfrank, one Bratwurst, topped with German fries, Red & White cabbage, satueed Onion and Small Soup all for $8.00? Quite simply, you can't. Next to that the Angela Merkel Democracy Special, which comes with free choice of any two wurst and a bonus Bavarian Meatball, pales in comparison. No soup! Cabage? No good.

They Came For Israel For Vesuvio

2008-09-12T07:49:00.000-07:00

Sad Soho bakery Vesuvio has been closed due to oven trouble according to a note in the window. For the tourists who flock, somewhat annoyingly, to the area, this is a tragedy. Israelis, Indians and Sicilians have been writing well-wishing notes. It's like the Wailing Wall. Except for one fuck who wrote, "More lies." Actually, upon reflection, that's exactly what I'd stick in the Wailing Wall too.

I Heart Joshua Stein

2008-09-03T07:36:00.001-07:00

It took me 27 years to find this joke.

2008-08-31T09:39:00.000-07:00

We (wifey and me) just got back from our mini-honeymoon (a night at the Bowery, a night at the Greenwich Hotel). Walking home from Tribeca on Collister Street, one of those great Tribeca alleys, we found this graffiti. Somewhat disappointingly there's a website called Rodstuartlovesthehamptons and the whole thing seems rather engineered. It's safe to say there's no website behind this piece of street prophesy:

2008-08-25T15:42:00.000-07:00

From Gay Talese's 1961 book New york: A Serendipiter's Journey:

At 7 a.m. a floridly robust little man, looking very Parisien in a blue beret and turtle-necked sweater, moves in a hurried step along Park Avenue visiting his wealthy lady friends--making certain that each is given a brisk, before-brekfast rubdown. The uniformed doormen greet him warmly and call him either "Biz" or "Mac"
because he is Biz Mackey, a ladies' masseur extraordinaire.

Mr. Mackey is spry and straight-spined, and always carries a black leather grip containing liniments, creams and the towels of his trade. Up the elevator he goes; then, half an hour later, he is down again, and off to another lady--an opera singer, a movie actress, a lady police lieutenant.

Biz Mackey, a former featherweight prizefighter, started rubbing women the right way in Paris, in the twenties. He lost a fight during a European tour and decided he'd had enough. A friend suggested he go to school for masseurs and six months later he had his first customer--Claire Luce, the actress then starring in the Folies-Bergere.

DuMont Disaster

2008-08-15T06:13:00.000-07:00

After a rainstorm. Dumont. 7:30. Dinner Rush. Packed. Back and Front. In and Out. In a moment, smoke. Kitchen. Fire? No. Exhaust stopped working. Diners flee to garden like bees smoked from hive. No more burgers. Anger. Disgruntled diners. New waitress. We order Strip Steak. She writes Skirt. We get Hanger. "They're the same thing in my mind," she says. Not true. Steaks on the house. Nice.

A birthday group from the outer boroughs, smoking, in front. Outside. Unhappy. "She doesn't want cake this year. She wants a fry volcano," says a fat girl smoking Parliaments. "We gotta get some fries and make them into a cone and put ketchup on them." Another guy in the party, "But these fries are mad expensive. Where's the closest McDonald's?" The Parliament girl, "We can use [Dumont's] plates. What the fuck are they gonna say? You can't use our plate?" They look at each other. "We should have gone to Falafel Chula."

[Photo: Sarah Is Me]

A Big Announcement.

2008-08-13T08:18:00.001-07:00

Dear Friends,

I'm getting married. That's me in the World War I Italian Infantry uniform, holding a rose. The woman behind me in traditional housewife garb is my fiancée. Her name is Ana Mascarenhas Heeren. I met her the first day I ever came to New York back in 1999. That's long enough to know she is brilliant, beautiful and Brazilian. Also that I love her and will forever. Nuptials are set soon (August 29) at City Hall for families. At some point after that, we'll have a much larger raucous celebration.

JDS

Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeehit, Lion!

2008-08-07T04:07:00.001-07:00

Clay Davis is alive and well and living as a ballsy Mexican lady who isn't afraid of lions. [NYT]

New Yorker Cover Insulting to Crustaceans, Jews, Humans, Hamptons, Porches

2008-07-22T11:47:00.000-07:00

Once again in a failed attempt at satire, the staff at the New Yorker has managed to publish an incendiary cartoon cover. It seems like last week's Obama kerfluffle didn't teach them anything. This week's cover depicts a bunch of affluent whites carousing while their crustacean dinner escapes through the kitchen window with the aid of a red-and-white tablecloth. Clearly this is a veiled attack against the Jews. In this case, the humanoid character with the Semitic nose (on the right) is shown drinking some sort of red wine. Not only are lobsters a food no self-respecting Jew would eat (shellfish aren't kosher) but this diner is shown with a glass of red wine in front of him. Red wine does not go with lobster. Karen MacNeil, chair of the professional wine studies program at The Culinary Institute of America recommends an Albariño from Galicia or a Oregon Pinot Gris. At any rate such an insulting depiction of American Jewry should not go unmentioned.

Then there is the issue of the lobsters, a noble and brave species, who have in the past, faced their fate with the sealy Stoic resolve of a true warrior. Like good Soviet soldiers, they would never retreat. Better to die nobly than live as a coward. This cover, in which the lobsters prefer ignoble escape, is an insult to homards worldwide.

The Princes of Google Image Search

2008-07-22T05:52:00.000-07:00

How did John Paczkowsk, the senior editor at the website All Things Digital and a graduate of Brown University somehow rise to the primo spot in Google Image Search for "John," one of the most common male names? How did Josh Trentine, the CEO of Overload Personal Training, become the prince of all Josh's on Moderate Safe Search All Images? And Peter! Professor Peter Guttorp, a Swedish Professor of Statistics. These men have no right to crow from atop their perches. Especially John. Peter, I'm completely happy with. "He received a B.S. in mathematics, mathematical statistics, and musicology from the University of Lund, Sweden, in 1974, and a Ph.D. in Statistics from the University of California at Berkeley, in 1980. He joined the University of Washington faculty in September 1980." That's great. Also, the top three Peters all have full beards.

As for Josh, though I'm not entirely happy with an orange bodybuilder representing visually my namesake, it's slightly better than 2nd place:

Long Journey Into the Knight

2008-07-21T18:10:00.001-07:00

I wrote about Batman for Huffpo. Check it out.

Wall-E and the Fall of Man

2008-07-07T07:52:00.001-07:00

I, like you and me and everyone we know, wrote about Wall-E and the Fall of Man [Huffington Post]

American Blogged (Foreigners Dirty!)

2008-07-03T06:36:00.000-07:00

On a recent trip to Atlantic City, I escaped the Las Vegas colonial outpost for the seedier spectacular boardwalk. There was a light drizzle and the boardwalk was mostly empty. Crap souvenir shops faced the dunes beyond which the Atlantic Ocean stretched darkly. Cheek-to-jowl, stores sold t-shirts that read, "Atlantic Fucking City" or that pictured Tweetie Bird in baggy shorts. (I thought that trend disappeared in the nineties but perhaps it's resurgent.) One store proudly proclaimed, "American Owned" (right) which, yay! Hey! I'm American too. We all love our country right? Then I noticed a woman in a sari in the store next door (left). Ah, I thought. I get it. You, sir, are forming a dialectical pair! What you are really saying is "Don't Buy From the Dirty Foreigner/Terrorist!" Why didn't you just say so? I will buy my creepy clowny AC t-shirts from you, my fellow American because implied racism masked as patriotism is something all Americans share!

It Came From the New Yorker

2008-06-29T14:32:00.000-07:00

Introducing a new and hopefully one-time feature in which we feature a sentence found in the pages of the august publication The New Yorker which induces its reader to dry heavee while reading the said sentence on the J train, much to the displeasure and discomfort of his fellow passengers. Today's sentence comes from Atul Gawande's essay on itching called, The Itch. Without further ado, presenting "It Came From the New Yorker" June 20, 2008 edition:

One morning, after she was awakened by her bedside alarm, she sat up and, she recalled, “this fluid came down my face, this greenish liquid.” She pressed a square of gauze to her head and went to see her doctor again. M. showed the doctor the fluid on the dressing. The doctor looked closely at the wound. She shined a light on it and in M.’s eyes. Then she walked out of the room and called an ambulance. Only in the Emergency Department at Massachusetts General Hospital, after the doctors started swarming, and one told her she needed surgery now, did M. learn what had happened. She had scratched through her skull during the night—and all the way into her brain.

Please join us next week for "It Came From the New Yorker" and have your air sickness bag ready!

Portrait of The Artist As A Young Punk

2008-06-27T17:04:00.000-07:00

When I was just a baby, my mama told me, "Ace, always be a good boy, don't ever pierce your face"
But I shot my face full of metal, just to watch her sigh.
Now when I see those older photos
I hang my head and ask why?

Blogging Live from the Borgata

2008-06-27T16:59:00.000-07:00

Right now I am at the Water Club, the new non-gaming hotel in Atlantic City which is adjoined by a long interminable passage way to the Borgata, a newish gaming hotel in Atlantic City. The external architecture is all aviator glasses. Inside--in the gaming portion of the hotel--it smells weird and reminds me of hell. It's a modern voluntary Gulag where the old go to lose their money and the young to lose their youth. I feel like I've somehow entered into an automated phone system like Dennis Quaid in Innerspace. Logic, to the extent to which it exists here, is completely internal. The outside world is sealed off and 27 floors below me. And down there too are sad fat people in khaki and Hawaiian shirts who haven't yet figured out that the house always wins. This perhaps explains why I've blockaded myself into my room where, thankfully, An American Tail: Fievel Goes West is on.

Leaving New York

2008-06-25T08:46:00.000-07:00

Someone with very nice handwriting is moving away from New York City to Austin. He spent a great deal of time making a To Do list before he left. Then he left the list on a sidewalk in Soho. His loss is our gain. The abandoned list provides not only some life lessons but a primer on what a strategic evacuation from the city might look like:

So sad! Return Blue Jeans! Return Toothpaste to work!But also: I believe in karma!

Wednesday In Review

2008-06-25T08:18:00.001-07:00

There are now ten million millionaires in the world. Every floor of a new 1,378 foot tower in Dubai will rotate 360 degrees, separately. A dog with cancer was voted the Ugliest dog in the world. A dog with no front legs gets wheels instead. It may be the cutest dog in the world. Pussy hound Anthony Weiner wants more models to receive H1-B visas to stay in America. Mastercard, along with Visa, agreed to pay American Express $1.8 billion. Top Chef is coming to Williamsburg. Real World has already come to downtown Brooklyn.

There Will Be Yellow

2008-06-20T12:31:00.000-07:00

The space that used to be the old schooly Buffa's Restaurant in NoLIta was recently taken over by Hecho Inc--the design company behind the Box--and turned into something called Delicatessen. I walked by it today. Plywood is down. Windows are up. In short, it'll be yellow and glossy on the outside with garage-type glass doors a la Soho Park which is across the street. It looks a lot, in fact, like a downtown version of Cafeteria, the Chelsea restaurant owned by Mark Thomas Amadei, one of the co-owners of Delicatessen. It's like Cafeteria mixed with the color scheme from S'Mac. Dicey maybe delicious but for now, dicey.

Rejected Tiger Accepted By Dog!

2008-06-20T07:26:00.001-07:00

More Laliberte Insanity...A Lot of It

2008-06-19T13:27:00.000-07:00

I posted a while back about the soon-to-be karmic reckoning of Kristian Laliberte's perfidy. He's not happy about this and sent me a lengthy and insane email. He thinks I'm writing a story about him. I'm not. God, that kind of seems like torture. Also, Laliberte--even while defending himself from throwing his friends under the bus--throws his friends under the bus. Particularly absurd parts are in bold:

Hi Josh,
I wish I didn't have to write this email. I have to leave for the airport in about one hour, but I wanted to send this to you before I got to a computer free area.I have received several texts, calls, and emails regarding an article you are writing about me. I am sure you've managed to scrounge up enough testimonials from former friends or writers at "serious" publications to construct an amusing account of my alleged actions.
>You claim you have proof of me sending reports of people to contacts at such illustrious and trustworthy news outlets like Gawker (your former alma mater) and Page Six. I'm sure your story is based on emails sent from someone who hacked into my gmail and forwarded emails (mostly doctored) to an anonymous yahoo account (gaydavidvid@yahoo.com), and also hacked into my facebook and wrote a string of graphic, disgusting, and damaging emails to specific individuals. The self-same person had interactions via my gmail with people who assumed it was me writing. I am not perfect--I've made mistakes, but the extent and depth of the perpertrator's obsession with discrediting me has led him or her to severely alter the truth.
I know you have certain strong feelings for me, as evidenced by your blog. I get that your line of work is to infiltrate people's private lives and dig up dirt that may or may not be true. I understand that you have to pretend to like people like me when you interview us when your whole plan of attack is to trash us (even though that particular aspect of your personality scares the shit out of me). I even realize that you have no scruples about sending my private correspondence to you to other sites to further publicize your career at the gossip rags you so eloquently write for.
However, the particular article you are now writing is based on a series of events you can have little knowledge of, despite how much information your "sources" may have provided you. I am in the midst of a criminal investigation against the individual (s) who broke into my facebook and my gmail. This criminal investigation will result in said individuals charged with crimes ranging from identity theft and fraud to harassment and stalking.I don't want to have to rope my lawyer into this conversation, but I feel like I have little choice if you continue to question people who have been involved in this sick person's singular vendetta against me.
I know for a fact that the people behind this sinister prank will be revealed in as little as two weeks time. They made a lot of stupid mistakes--logging in from a private computer, sending information to people that I never knew, talking about events that I was out of the country for, etc. I really don't want you to be involved with hindering a criminal and legal investigation--which I think your baseless article will be doing. I'm sure you have some fantastic pull quotes from unscrupulous editors or people that I have never been friends with---but again, they mean nothing in the face of the fact that someone HACKED into my gmail and facebook and manipulated and twisted information.
I readily admit I've made mistakes. I was naive to trust people like you when I moved to New York. I didn't understand the toxic nature that defines the very insulated social world that I work in. At this point and time however, I know who my real friends are, I love my job and my family and I have very little time for anything other than those three major components of my life. Your suggestions of me air kissing those who hate me are so off base it's laughable. I'm a germophobic and notoriously shy. I rarely approach someone unless I'm introduced to them--although I'd probably make an exception for David Beckham :).
Please let me know if you need to speak to the defectives or lawyers who are in the process of identifying and prosecuting the people behind this pretty despicable act. I don't know who had the time to mount such a crazy campaign to hurt me, but I can hazard several guesses.
I don't dislike you, although I have every reason to. I actually enjoy your writing style, even though you divulge more personal information than I'd be comfortable revealing. However it's clear that you despise me. I am not even sure if a lawyer's cease and desist letter will stop you from doing what you want, but again, I don't want it to come to that. I have no vendetta against you, and I can't believe I even have to interrupt my packing to address this ridiculous article.
This line from your blog doesn't even make sense: . He's sent items to nearly every single gossip columnist reporting on the relationship-breaking contretemps of nearly every single friend he's had.
If you knew me even a little, you know that I've kept my friends I've had since day one in this city except for two people, one of whom has written an expose betraying all those he/she used to work with (and is writing a follow up about the very "socials" she/he befriended) and the other who's severe drug problems, thievery, rampant stds, and bulemia forced me to cut off the friendship. As for your allegations concerning anyone involving socialiterank.com--I never knew who wrote it until they themselves revealed it. I certainly would never send tips to a website that consistently and cruelly trashed me. I guess I'm just so confused about how much time you think I might have to do all you are intimating. I am not sure about writing freelance, but starting a clothing and a pr firm takes so much time that by the time I'm out I'm just there to spend time with my friends, not gossip about them. I know personal information that about people. If I had been a "rat" that information would have long been known. The fact that I still have the same friends that I had when I graduated Columbia in 2005 says alot.

Please just leave me alone . I don't know if your homophobic or what--but its starting to creep me out. Your investigative campaign is hurtful in the extreme. Stop emailing my friends about me. Stop writing about me. Stop thinking about me. Just leave. me. alone.
Thanks so much for your time,
I hope this email may have somewhat illuminated your clarity of what you are attempting to write about.
Best,
Kristian

The Axe Detailer!

2008-06-19T10:31:00.001-07:00

I got a sponge bath and wrote about it for the NY Times. [NYT]

Jay Z Bites Kanye In New Lil Wayne

2008-06-16T06:26:00.000-07:00

In the outstanding new Lil Wayne album I thought one of Jay-Z's rhymes quite outstanding and also outstanding familiar. In "Mr. Carter" Jay says:

"I see Euros

That's right, plural "

Meanwhile, in Kanye West's song Gone, the mercurial rapper shanghais these words into his rhyming scheme:

"My dawg worked at Taco Bell, hooked us up plural

Fired a week later the manager count the churros

Sometimes I can't believe it when I look up in the mirrow

How we out in Europe, spend in Euros

They claim you never know what you got 'til it's GONE"

File Under Cassandra Complex: GABE STULMAN OUT AT LITTLE OWL

2008-06-16T05:57:00.000-07:00

I! TOLD! YOU! SO.

Ghost Riders in NYMag

2008-06-16T05:48:00.000-07:00

Also a piece I've been working very hard on and that means a lot to me just ran in New York Magazine. It's called Ghost Riders and tells the story of every one of the 35 cyclists who have died in New York City whose deaths are memorialized by Ghost Bikes. Other victims--whose Ghost Bikes have been removed or neglected--aren't included. [Photos by Christopher Griffith]

Beyond the Velvet Rope...

2008-06-16T05:39:00.000-07:00

This Sunday my story about clubs inside of clubs, the fetus in fetu of nightlife, came out in Page Six Magazine. Check it out. [JPG/ Text]

From Russia With Love

2008-06-15T06:06:00.000-07:00

Happily I awoke on Sunday morning to see a line of young buxom women in bikinis and wet t-shirts, chests protruding, on the cover of the NYT online. Supposedly it's a story about Russia [NYT]

The End of the World Is Nigh

2008-06-11T05:20:00.000-07:00

26 Dolphins Commit Mass Suicide in Cornwall [Guardian]

Confessions of A Freelancer

2008-06-11T04:03:00.000-07:00

I'm writing about a slightly amoral but charming guy---you'll read the piece soon, I promise--and wanted to describe his actions as immoral and negating all that is good in the world. I tried "uncalculatingly Jarrysian" after Alfred Jarry but that got spell-checked to Parisian. Then I thought, and this is embarrassing, "uncalculatingly Hobbesian" sounds good. Sadly, I have no idea what Hobbesian means, other than it has to do with Thomas Hobbes. But I'll use it anyway. Function follows form! Fake it til you make it. Etc.

Lower East Side Roller Coaster Mall Mystery Revealed!

2008-06-09T07:38:00.001-07:00

Back in the shitshow days of my youth when I lived in a tiny fifth floor walkup in the Lower East Side, I came home from work one day severely put out and what I thought was the latest nail in the coffin of the neighborhood: a large sign for a huge mall with a 200' roller coaster protruding out of the top of it. I was working at Gawker at the time and conjectured it was a prop from J.J. Abram's movie that was filming then. I was wrong. This weekend I went to see You Don't Mess with The Zohan, after reading a breathlessly Jewy review by A.O. Scott. Long story short, it's not J.J. Abram's that was responsible for the mall. It was Adam Sandler. (Slightly less satisfying) The mall is part of a plan by evil developer in the movie named Walbridge played by boxing announcer Michael Buffer.

How are Bdelloid Rotifiers Like Married Couples?

2008-06-04T07:29:00.001-07:00

From Olivia Judson's NYT blog:

As far as anyone can tell, the bdelloid rotifers are ancient asexuals: they appear to have been living entirely without sex for more than 85 million years. And each time we learn more details of their lifestyle, the wackier it becomes.

Evolving to live without sex is easy; all sorts of organisms do it the whole time.

HEY-O!

Was Ex-White House Press Man Scott McClellan Once Fuckable?

2008-06-01T14:24:00.000-07:00

The year was 1986. The place was Austin, TX. Scottie McClellan was the man men wanted to be and women wanted to be with. A golden child with a tennis racket in one hand, a glint in his eye and a problematic future ahead of him. A high school classmate of Scott's write:

He was a senior when I was a sophmore and there was a golden light bathed around him at all times. He was sweet and smart and all the things that senior boys should be (when you're a brace face sophomore)... He was also on the tennis team (HOT!) and in the Senior Senate with - wait for it- Ian Moore. Ian was in the same class and was, as you can image, completely cool. He was a blonde, beautiful, entitled guy. Outstandingly attractive (although never a big one with the ladies?). Unrecognizable now. It all comes from the Austin High< Yearbook, The Comet/1986.

Girlfriend On The Wii

2008-05-30T13:41:00.000-07:00

Nintendo's Wii Fit has been getting a lot of press, including these two NYTimes articles that were nearly identical: here and here. It's also spawned a Youtube genre heretofore unexploited, namely: guys taping their ladies playing Wii Fit's Hula game. Above, best of show.

This Can't End Well

2008-05-28T15:49:00.001-07:00

[Link]

Two Moments of Sharon Stone Wisdom

2008-05-28T07:50:00.000-07:00

Sharon Stone:

Well you know it was very interesting. at first I was not happy at how the Chinese are treating the Tibetans because I don't think anyone should be unkind to anyone else. And so I had been concerned about how to think and what to do about that because I don't like...that. Then I was very concerned about how we should deal with the Olympics because they are not being very nice to the Dalai Lama who is a good friend of mine. And then all this earthquake and all this stuff happened and I thought is HTat karma, that you're not nice that the bad things happen to you. Then I got a letter from the Tibetan foundation that they wanted to go and be helpful and that made me cry. And they asked me if I would write a quote about that and I said I would. That was a big lesson to me: that sometimes you have to learn to put your head down and be of service to people who aren't nice to you and that's a big lesson to me.

Sharon Stone:

Have you ever fucked on cocaine, Nick? It's nice.

I Love Money!!!

2008-05-27T11:02:00.001-07:00

Look! The world we live in is horrible! Though it is true, I do love money. Thanks NB and CS!

Kristian Laliberte Gets His Revenge

2008-05-27T10:36:00.000-07:00

Weird that I know this and that I'm posting it here but sometimes I like to pass on unsubstantiated rumors. This latest one involves a man named Kristian Laliberte. If you don't know who he is, (this means you, Papa Frank!) I've written about Laliberte a couple of times in the past. He always pops up at these socialite events and air-kisses the people who hate him. I used to feel sorry for him because he must have known that he was kissing the cheek that would soon throw him under the bus. But now, according to a good and reliable source, Laliberte was at least as duplicitous as his haters.

Recently, as reported on Gawker, someone hacked into...oh fuck this. I don't care about any of it. This is the kernel:

Kristian Laliberte has been selling his friends up the river from day one. He sent the Olivia Palermo email to Socialite Rank that caused no small amount of pain for that woman. He's sent items to nearly every single gossip columnist reporting on the relationship-breaking contretemps of nearly every single friend he's had. Anyway, someone---who I could not find out---hacked into his Gmail account and sent those tipster letters to another anonymous account. They plan on revealing all Laliberte's perfidy in a few weeks time.

In some ways I feel bad for those betrayed by Laliberte. On the other hand, his careful observations leaked to major publications were perhaps the least he could do to repay his acquaintances for all their faux-friendships and duplicity.

Times Reporter Doesn't Know What A Pound Is. Awk.

2008-05-26T20:59:00.000-07:00

In its ongoing slavering over anything Barack-related, a New York Times reporter wrote this of Obama's head aid, Reggie Love. "Mr. Love is raffish, always joking with the Secret Service, offering closed-fist high-fives to members of the news media and making frequent appearances in the daily pool reports." The reporter in this case is named Ashley Parker. It is cute how she doesn't know that a closed-fist high-five is also called a pound in the parlance of well, nearly anybody who would refer to it. It's adorable really. Like when grandparents or presidents say "the Google." But then I came across Ashley Parker's byline in this incredibly annoying On Language article she wrote in 2006 and realized it's actually annoying. Like when grandparents or presidents say "the Google." From the piece:

“Rudabega!” she began. “This is maj awk. And the def of typ. Ashley gets away with everything. But I get caught the first time. And it is the first time — I prom. I prom, madre. So true. I’m sor. I’m really sor.”

The entire article was about that ceaselessly annoying linguistic habit of a certain type of girl to abbreviate words that have no business being abridged. I'm sure it's the article that launched a thousand awks, typs and proms. Parker was id'd as "an editorial assistant at The Times, where she does off-the-heez research for Maureen Dowd." Groan. There will be no closed-fist high-fives for members of the new media for that.

Gia Kourlas, Kind of a Bitch

2008-05-21T06:30:00.000-07:00

New York Times dance critic lady Gia Kourlas went to the same American Ballet Theatre Opening Night Gala that I went to but she hated it. From her review:

No matter the sense of occasion that a ballet gala affords — the gowns, the celebrity sightings, the air kisses — once the actual dancing gets under way, it’s best to consider the expression “one step forward, two steps back.”

Then she poo-poo'd Irina Dvorovenko and Maxim Beloserkovsky, the husband-and-wife duo who performed Jessica Lang's (crap) "Splendid Isolation III" calling them "overwrought" which they weren't. Diana Vishneva who met her end with much flapping of her wings, much beautiful flapping of her wings really, gets called only "somewhat improved." Also Kourlas mistakes pedagogical dancing of Etudes as insipid because she missed the point. All this would have been cool if she hadn't raved about the dumbest hokiest shitshow I've ever seen at the ballet, The Last Judgement of Paris. In this reinterpreted version, three ex-principle dancers are old whores. They waddle and strut and waft their twats across the stage. This is definitely not what I want to see. Ballet should be beautiful. Not an ugly joke. Anyway, Kourlas writes:

The highlight was the revival of “Judgment of Paris,” a comic gem from 1938 (and out of Ballet Theater’s repertory since 1958) by Antony Tudor, in which the Greek legend is set in a dive, a bar so dilapidated that you practically smell its stale smoke. The misery extends to its staff: a wearied Waiter (Victor Barbee) and three creaky chorus girls.

Kourlas is right that the entire theatre ate it up but only because it was easy, vulgar and thickly nostalgic. The real gems of the evening were the actual moments of beauty (Cornejo's massive jumps in Le Corsaire and Angel Corella in Giselle.) Oh yeah, and when this old white dude in a tuxedo asked a distinguished black dude (one of the few people of color) in a tux where his seat was. The black man gave the guy a withering look and chuckled, "I don't work here." This left the cute date of Old Whitey giggling very uncomfortably.

The Worst Moving Company In the World

2008-05-20T10:24:00.000-07:00

The White Glove Moving Company was founded 17 years ago. Apparently in that time they haven't figured out that having a man with what appears to be Ectrodactyly (monstrous fingers) painted on the side of their truck might not be such a good business practice. Well, to be fair, he only has monstrous fingers on one hand. On the other hand, he is missing three fingers and a thumb. It should also be noted yes, he is wearing a tuxedo t-shirt and holding Manhattan on a tray propped up by his monster hands.

What Is Your Neighbor Watching?

2008-05-19T06:19:00.000-07:00

Netflix has this nifty feature that allows you to see the top 5 favorite movies in your zip code. My zipcode, 11211, is Williamsburg. There are approximately 84,422 people living here. 53,734 whites, 4,087 blacks, 409 Native Americans, 1,900 Asians, 19,887 Others. The most popular movies are

La Jetée: In a devastated Paris in the aftermath of WWIII, The few surviving humans begin researching time travel, hoping to send someone back to the pre-war world for food, supplies and maybe a solution to their dire position

The Holy Mountain: A Christlike figure wanders through bizarre, grotesque scenarios filled with religious and sacrilegious imagery.

Blow Up: A successful mod photographer in London whose world is bounded by fashion, pop music, marijuana, and easy sex, feels his life is boring and despairing

Do The Right Thing: On the hottest day of the year on a street in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, everyone's hate and bigotry smolders and builds until it explodes into violence.

Solaris: A troubled psychologist is sent to investigate the crew of an isolated research station orbiting a bizarre planet.

Despair, pretension, easy sex, pop music, violence, hate, photography, isolation, trouble. Yup, sounds like 11211.

[Click on image to enlarge]

Coney Island

2008-05-14T06:15:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I biked from Williamsburg to Coney Island. It didn't take that long and I got to see a lot of Jews, which is always nice.

This is Why Bloomberg Is My Hero

2008-05-13T10:27:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking for a while of getting a Michael Bloomberg tattoo on my back to go with the Serge Gainsbourg one. My back will be, as I envision it, a pantheon of Jewish male role models. I was waiting to see if Bloomberg was going to run for president (in which case I'd hold off until after the election. Who wants a loser tattooed on his back?) but this clip pretty much has cemented my conviction. Although! I'm not sure if I agree that the reporter is implying Bloomberg is lying. He may just be implying that the claim being made is on a disputed issue.

My Mom Came To Visit

2008-05-13T06:16:00.000-07:00

My mother Marcia came to New York for Mother's Day. I made her pose in front of annoying street art inspired ad campaigns. This one is looks like a Shepard Fairey but is instead an ad for the upcoming Disney movie Beverly Hills Chihuahua. [Thanks, Dog Art Today!] We also had rice pudding at Rice to Riches, a NoLIta store and clearly a mob front.

The Judgment of Paris. It's A-OK!

2008-05-12T15:27:00.001-07:00

I recently reviewed CompanyXIV's The Judgment of Paris for the Brooklyn Paper. Check it out!

I Saw Niko Bellic In Soho

2008-05-12T15:07:00.000-07:00

Walking along Spring Street today, I spotted Niko Bellic, the Eastern European protagonist of the bestselling ~~video game~~ media phenomenon known as Grand Theft Auto IV. Little known fact about Niko. He shops at the French Connection! And his girlfriend's feet were tired.

Is This the End of Williamsburg?

2008-05-09T06:03:00.000-07:00

At 9:55 pm last night, on the way home from Diner, we saw a private Action dump truck knock over a traffic light and street sign. A loud crash, a puff of smoke, a tumbling post, a final crash. Silence. Jews poked their heads out of their offices. On the street lay Bedford Avenue, in shambles. The dumptruck dudes got out, looked at each other and then beat it. A cop car drove by but apparently didn't notice the enormous pole and traffic light laying across the middle of the intersection. Another cop car drove by but didn't stop. Finally, I called 3-1-1. They said they couldn't help me but transferred me to 9-1-1. They didn't know where Havemeyer was. I hung up and jogged to another cop car parked at the Williamsburg Bridge Bus Depot. "There's a street sign that a dump truck just crashed into. It's in the middle of Broadway and Bedford," I said. "Oh yeah?" asked the cop. "Yeah. Maybe you want to check it out?" I suggested helpfully. No dice. The cops just sat there. Then another cop car pulled up and they chatted for a while. I don't think law enforcement officials realize that the famed Williamsburg hipster nonchalance doesn't apply when one is fulfilling one's duty as a representative of civil society.

Let Them Eat Kate (Moss)

2008-05-08T07:40:00.000-07:00

The other night, after the Topic magazine party at the Rusty Knot and before misero Mexican food at Tortilla Flats, i stopped by this Agent Provocateur party at Milk Studios. I was excited because Kate Moss was going to be there. Kate Moss, as many of you know, is extremely attractive. The good news: She was there. The bad news: She wasn't doing press. The good news: There was a gift bag.

This was particularly heartening since Agent Provocateur is a lingerie line and I was pretty sure there would be lingerie I could bring home to my girlfriend that would further endear me to her. The gift bag came in a big pink AP bag. Inside the bag was a big AP box, wrapped with black satin ribbon. "Sweet!" I thought, as I stuffed the bag in my backpack and shoved off.

The bad news: All that was inside the box was a small t-shirt with the words "Let Them Eat Kate" on it. Hmmm, disappointing! This is certainly not lingerie. This isn't even something I think most women would wear. It is a little vulgar, from a cunnilingual standpoint. It would also be strange, I imagine, to wear if your name is not Kate. And finally, I jumped in with Moss in the elevator down, she's all bones and an East London accent. There's no nourishment there anyway.