Recession Schmecession

So I just found out that there was no recession in 2001. It was all a figment of my imagination. After I graduated college unemployed that May, I lived with 4 unemployed Ivy league friends in Harlem, all waking up at 2pm every afternoon to spend the summer day playing 1st person shooter video games, simply because we could think of nothing better to do. It was the lack of a recession in late 2001 that drove me as a reverse-illegal immigrant across the border of Mexico where I lived for a year in seach of occupation. (Really.) I have quite a vivid imagination! I wonder what the hilarious Odd Todd would say about this... he's been living a lie.

The Blushing Bride

This was the name of my drink of choice at the wedding on Saturday, and I really don't think they had me in mind when they set out pitchers of the stuff. But I have the Blushing Bride to thank for a photo from Chris's album that pretty succinctly sums up this whole summer.

Actually, this one makes a useful supplement.

Slow Sucks...

That was one of the maxims projected on the wall last night above the Nike-tracksuit wearing bartenders serving free Grey Goose and champange at Nom de Guerre, for Nike's "Vision of Speed" party featuring photography work by Steven Klein and exhibits of Nikewear about to make the international stage in Athens.  All the spandex-and-mesh suited mannequins looked anatomically correct, and I heard of at least one attempt by a guest to strip one.  I chatted with a Nike employee about the Oregon Project, was a dumping ground for servers looking to get rid of their tasty crab cakes, and (stop the presses) became heavily inebriated.

I also finally got around to slipping on a Livestrong yellow bracelet; I knew about them from cyclist buddies a while ago but never picked one up.  All in all, Nike throws a fun party.

And about the race finish I forgot to mention Monday: 
 
Long Live Armstrong.

No Anemia Here

The contents of my lunch salad today:

• lettuce
• chicken
• artichoke hearts
• black olives
• feta cheese
• a piece of wood with a nail through it
• balsamic vinagrette

I have the offending ingredient on my desk wrapped in a napkin, but am unsure on what to do with it; I'm a bit hesitant to take the plentiful legal advice offered to me of "suck it up, take a bite with it in your mouth, and when we're done with them you'll own the place," since I'm not entirely sure what I would do with a basement level Wall St. eatery operated by cheerful Lebanese, served by talkative Mexicans, and cashiered by hot, hot Poles.  Even if they'd tried to kill me.

Yankee Hater

The logo on my newest acquisition, a hat sitting atop my computer at work.  Yankee Hater written in small font on the side.  Next time you hear the meatheads up at the Bronx stadium jeering "Baustun Suhcks!!" think of this and admit we're smarter.
Gothamist: Yankee Hater

208.8 miles

Sunday afternoon, while I was hungover from a crew wedding and post-euphoric after a wild Red Sox win vs. New York, a friend credentialed to be at the DNC called up on a whim and asked if I was bored.  Would I like to fly up to Boston?  Although I had to be back in time for work the next morning, I immediately said “Sure!”  We made the 4pm USAir Shuttle (side note: Delta is WAY better), got picked up by my brother, and tooled around town for a bit.  The plan was to hit a bar near Fenway to watch the rubber game at 8pm that night.  However, as I walked near Yawkey Way, a nice-looking guy trying to scalp his tickets offered up some really nice grandstand seats for a hundred bucks.  We jumped at them!  The game was fantastic, and I have reaffirmed my baseball nerdiness.  I should probably be amazed that a rivalry can remain so over-hyped and yet consistently deliver upon it time after time, but I’m really not—it’s the Sox.  I crashed that night around 2:30am, and woke up before 5am to steal my brother’s car and commute to work, in Lower Manhattan.  Sleepy driving should be a professional sport.

Vintage

I'm sitting in a pew Saturday afternoon at 3:30 attending a wedding ceremony, my third this summer (and I have worn flip-flops to all three).  The service took nearly 3 hours of standing up and sitting back down (and I think that after he stopped crying at the altar, a friend of mine got married in there somewhere too.)  However, I didn't register much of it, because the Red Sox-Yankees game started at 3:15, and I have a new cell phone.  I shut off the sound and went exploring, looking for a way to pay for and download a program that could give me live-update baseball scores.  (I also stumbled across Tetris and doodled with that for a while.)  When I finally did happen across ESPN: Bottom Line, I happily load it up as the priest is doling out some rite.  The process finishes as he and the congregation conclude with "Amen," and then, into the silence of that house of prayer, despite the mute button, my phone offers up to God the ESPN theme jingle,  "DA---NA---NA... DA-NA-NA!"  Everybody turns and looks at me.  Freakin' Catholics.

Piggly Wiggly

This weekend, Patio Bar will be playing host to an event at the apex of the Rower-Animal's cultural and traditional gathering ceremonies; a Pig Roast.  Granted, we were more likely to marinate our kill in keg beer than New Orleans creole sauces and play hiphop from speakers on the boathouse than listen to a live country band cover Dwight Yokum, but the Pig Roast as an institution stands strong.  I will be sure to gather the neandertal tribe together this sunday for a feeding.

A word on push-ups

No, I do not mean the insidious exercises that sculpt strong arms and a broad chest. I'm talking about those incredible flesh holsters girls can use that would make such a workout an exercise in futility. Last night at the Maritime hotel, I was eating dinner with a circle of new friends. A customer arrived at the top of the stairs to the dining area by our table, and one girl I was sitting with leaned across me and whispered to her friend "it's that Victoria's Secret model." Now, I'm normally all for subtlety. But this scenario did not call for normal. I swiveled my head around, and was met directly at eye level with what appeared at first glance to be some NASA experiment in anti-gravity. A pair of breasts lifted upward, outward and together all at the same time walked directly past me (apparently they were attached to somebody who was transporting them around, but I didn't notice details like that) giving an extendedly unimpeded view. Out of earshot, one of my tablemates said something. It was repeated (I still don't know what it was), followed by "Andrew?" which I did register. I swiveled my head back, and saw all 7 at the table were looking at me and smiling. "Sorry, did someone ask something? I was looking at boobs," was all I could say. Push-up bras... keep on pushin'.

The Rage of the Age

Yesterday after work, I arrived home and hadn't even gotten my shoes off when my roommate announced I was coming with her to an open-bar magazine party on the patio of the Soho Grand for "Sup", the creation of a friend of hers.  Afterwards, a large group made its way to Cipriani, a hotspot full of beautiful people that my friend who met up for drinks described as "a weird dream."  The crowd was thick and there seemed to be an entourage or two present.  Despite the overbooking and lack of reservation, my roommate was able to hook up a table for 7 in the back and free bellinis while we waited; I'm still not very clear on how this all happened, as I was working on a nice buzz at the time.  As we sat at our table I realized what the security outfit was for-- at the next table over was an album premiere dinner for a rapper, and there were "Won-G" posters scattered about their chairs.  I picked one up, along with a postcard bragging of his video single with Paris Hilton.  You absolutely need to check out his website, it's hilarious.

Won-G, the second oldest of Macneal and Evelyne's eleven children, was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. At three years old he fell from a seven-story window, miraculously landing on his feet. It is probably no coincidence that Won-G's Haitian birth name, Wondge, means "One True God".

...Probably.  A few hundred-dollar bottles of wine and a visit by Al Sharpton later, and my table was ready to have a little fun with theirs; skipping right to it, I am now in possesion of a signed Won-G album slip, across the top of which he had written for me his 310 area code cell phone number.  Won-G seemed a little overwhelmed, actually.  I think he thought everybody around him was in the music industry, even me, and his schmoozing skills were underdeveloped for the crush of Cipriani.   

The dinner was very good, but I was a bit too busy oggling to enjoy it very much.  The tab came to over a thousand dollars, but a wonderful couple my roommate met at the bar and had sit with us picked up half of it.  I was told to put away my wallet.  Last night was the sort of night I feel I ought to expect from New York City.  Now if I can just get the fuzz from my hangover off my brain... sitting here at work is killing me, even if I did sleep in until five minutes to 9.

Well they ran out of episodes of Reno 9-1-1, so I'm back bitch!

-Dave Chappelle

So there was that vacation last week, where it rained the whole time. And I'm 25 now. That pretty much sums up the first gap I've had in blogging. On to the new...
When I came back on Saturday night, I dropped my bag and went right out with my very cool temporary roommate to a roof party on Stanton. It was all very hipster; I even got in a little low-level celebrity banter, chatting with David Cross for a bit. Left and barhopped for a bit until last call, when an extremely hodgepodge group of patchwork friends, pickups, and so-and-so-who-knows-so-and-so's made there way back to my balcony for an afterparty. Very fun time with only one broken wine glass and almost no problems... with the single exception of the wasted stranger left ditched by the boy she was hooking up with after everyone had left. After staggering into a few closets while doing her screeching impersonation of the birds she saves at work for the ASPCA and unsuccessfully searching for "her medication," I finally get her to crash, where I see her arms are deeply scarred by countless self-mutilation cuts. I spend a rather uneasy night on the couch. In the morning I leave for breakfast with my two newest guests from Mexico, waking my roommate and telling her one of her friends' guests hadn't made it out last night and she would have to take care of it. Late that night, I found out she ended up taking the girl to the emergency room, because on the bus ride home a passing police siren sent her into an epileptic seizure. So I suppose the moral is, come to my parties-- they're so good they leave you twitching?

Cancer?

Happy Birthday, Jessica Simpson! A kindred 7/10'er wishes you all the best.

Also on 7/10, in 1943 the allies invaded Sicily, and in my born year 1979 Skylab fell out of orbit. Hooray for ominous portends!

Ok, vacation on the vineyard for a week time. I'm out. Ciao!

Iceman's RICO

Say hello to my new wingman... Slider.

(not to be confused with...)

screw healthcare: nationalize cell service!

I was a late convert, lasting well past graduation without a cellphone; I kept insisting I didn't need to be in-touch 24/7, and believing that land line existence was retro and therefore cool. Poppycock. Mobile phones are super, and I love having mine. I store every number I get ahold of, I play video poker on the can, I call on a whim from airplanes to see if interference actually causes crashes (it doesn't). My phone is my best inanimate friend, and as far as users go I don't think I'm so bad, either. It's a good relationship on the hardware end. So why, pray tell, the $h*@(*!ing *^$%!~# do the wizards-behind-the-curtain cell service companies all uniformly suck so much ass they're gagging on intestine? Is it that hard to get it right? The front line of this 3 ring circus, the wireless store, is an establishment with an atmosphere of legitimacy on par with that of snakeoil vendors and sideshow purveyors. I walked into the Verizon store at lunch today, a long-standing customer with a few quick questions about keeping my plan intact but purchasing a new phone. The sales rep., pen extended, acted like I just got off a boat from Mars when I told him I didn't think I was going to sign a 2 year plan with him that very moment. A few hours later, on the phone with a customer support rep., I swear to God I was not in fact speaking with a human being but some sort of snazzed up Speak-and-Spell. Hearing a woman say "I'm sorry I couldn't be of assistance, is there anything else I can help you with today?" 3 times consecutively in the exact same tone as if she didn't remember that she also didn't help 10 seconds earlier was almost enough to make me stab my broken-off antenna in my ear and try and end it.

SUV in the City

I drove from home down to NYC last night in diluvian rain accompanying 90 degree heat, without air-conditioning. On the plus side, my sweat-addled brain pushed my foot down to 80mph+ despite the 20-foot visibility, and aside from a few traffic bottlenecks from horrible hydroplaned auto wrecks, made fantastic time; 3 hours from Boston to NY in holiday traffic. I need a video game sponsor. And now I have a Jeep Grand Cherokee parked under the W'Burg bridge for 4 days to use as I will! So exciting. All told, the weekend was a smash; on friday I skipped out of work at 1:35pm in time to make the final 2:30 $70 youthfare (under 25) Delta Shuttle trip of my life, and am consigning my future travel plans exclusively on the $10 Fung Wah Bus, as the shuttle price increase to $241 that I will experience on July 10 is a bit steep for this paralegal. My dad took me straight from the airport to the Woods Hole ferry terminal for our trip to the Vineyard, and the two of us cruised in style in his 1965 Pontiac GTO, which was making the crossing to take part in the Edgartown July 4th Parade's "classic car" spectacle. A great ride, capped with a platter of fried clams from Sandys' for dinner. The actual weekend itself is a rather addled blur of family gorgings, sunbathing, wrestling with maritime mechanical problems, fireworks, cutting foot on an oarlock diving into the water from my rowboat to save a non-swimmer, drinking sam adams light on the porch, and preppy, preppy, preppy pants.

Red Sox-Yankees, post-apocalypse year 1

They say you are hurt most by those you truly love. In which case, I see pre-nupitual agreements and wedding bells in the future for me and the cuddly, ham-handed Sox slugger David Ortiz; they way I feel his cleats spiking into my cardiac tissue, this must mean we're meant to last. I attended last night's Bronx contest with full Boston regalia and pride, a role I'm growing used to at this point. And with my team uneasily perched deep into the game on a 2-0 lead bowtied to the flutter of Timmy Knuckles' magically skittish pitches, I heartily accepted my status as a Yankee peanut target (my only response was a barbed one-timer "You're throwing better than [Yankee pitcher] Jon Lieber!" that drew some ire), even as my spider-sense alarm tingled louder and louder. And that warning turned into a 3-alarm fire in the 7th inning, when AL Player of the Week David Ortiz booted a lazy, 2-out ground ball with the bases loaded right THROUGH the webbing of his glove. He discarded the glove as "unlucky" immediately afterwards, but too late to save me from quietly taking another emotional black eye from the team that has been spousally abusing me since the tender 1986 age of 7 years old, when I first saw a Sox first baseman do a Buster Keaton coordination impression on the New York stage with a game on the line. But I'll be back. They didn't mean it, and it only happened because they love me so much...