Archive for June, 2006
Thursday, June 29th, 2006
The Wikipedia entry for the town I lived in during high school foregoes meaningful trivia and important history, instead listing at the top of the page a very important political fact: “The town banned using bedsheets as curtains in 2006.” It was just time, okay?
This morning I’d like to use a bedsheet as a bedsheet and crawl back into my bed. Last night I hit First Taste at HiFi to see Sarah and to swap cameras for the week; a Boy Kill Boy party at Calling All Kids! at Sapphire (which I was supposed to photograph, but it was pretty much just the band who showed up); and Whip It! at Stereo to see friends and maybe take a picture of Madonna.
Every time I start to hate this city and dread going out, I think about the year I spent in a basement with nothing to do, and I try to flash forward and think of current times as memories – I know in the future I will miss the familiar comfort of hanging out with the Brearly girls at HiFi on Wednesdays and going to Stolen Transmission on Thursdays and having Outsideshapes and Basementshapes on Saturdays – and then it all becomes a much nicer idea.
A little P!ATD bulltish: the single that’s on the radio now (the one with the stupidly long name) contains the words “it’s much better to face these kinds of things with a sense of poise and rationality.” A google search for “poison rationality” in relation to the song brings up 1050 hits, and “poisoned rationality” yields 419. That means at least 1400 people who have posted to the internet since that song hit the air not long ago probably don’t know the word “poise.”
Tuesday, June 27th, 2006
Such strange things to think about early on a Tuesday morning. Gawker linked to a paper written by Rivers Cuomo last year when he was at Harvard. It’s about his stint of self-induced celibacy, and I went into it thinking I was going to be bored and/or annoyed. By the end I actually was really into it. I mean, it takes five minutes to read, but it’s pretty well and honestly written for being what it is. You should read it. And it ends well.
It made me think about some things. Namely, a guy from last night, G. He and I went out late last year, and then we fought about stupid things and broke up. Last night G came out with me and Mario (who you know better as Perez Hilton) after he got off work. I didn’t realize I was going to like him again. G looked good, and he was subdued but attentive (the way I liked him best). But, him looking good was never the problem. If I had to ask permission to date G again – from other people in my life, not from him – I would probably get a “no.” Not because he particularly did anything life-shattering, but because most people would think we just don’t really work.
I think he’s going to read this and think I’m a big weirdo. I also think maybe I might want to see him again.
Anyway, here’s Mario.
For those who skim and may jumble the sentences above, Mario and I are not dating. No internet rumors, please. He’s the kind of guy who gets calls from Courtney Love in my car on the way to Butter, which was cleared out by the fire department. I’m the kind of guy who wakes up at 7:30 and hates the D train.
Monday, June 26th, 2006
Ten High over Isle Thai
City Aquatic with Sheets
Day Labor Entendre
Chelsea Within, Chelsea Without
Girl Before A Camera
Female Figure with Head of Mac
Flattering Bust of Hillary Faye
He Has Come to His Senses
American [Former] Goth-ic
Abandoner, Still Esteemed
Thirteen Tales of Furey
Diana Unhinged
Um. Janelle & Stevil Touching Tongues at MisShapes.
I guess I didn’t really try very hard with that last one. But hey, did you see the part where I got some love from Mandy Moore, who is very tall and totally lovable? Gay love, sure, but I suppose it was Pride weekend. What did I do to celebrate? I sat on the couch and watched a Project Runway marathon, and then Diana called and we went out dancing. Gay people on floats generally piss me off. As does Jennifer Lopez when she’s wearing her Singer Hat.
Andrea left for Milwaukee this weekend, which is no fun for us after a week of her staying on our couch. Our apartment was sort of a halfway house for a week, and while it was a great week for early morning dancing to “Discotech” and late night learning High School Musical dance moves with Chelsea, it’s also nice to be able to relax again.
Also, I’ll clear out my queue of sightings of famous people that I have yet to detail to my mom (the only person who even pretends to care the least bit about who I see): Jason Bateman walking one of those dogs that’s both cute and ugly, Jerry O’Connell & Rebecca Romijn eating & walking around at the weird little Ear Inn while we were drinking after work at two on Friday afternoon, Beck (who looked me up and down and smiled while I was drunk and wearing something insane), Leo Fitzpatrick pushing a bicycle, and Whoopi Goldberg again on Prince Street making me happy just by being there.
And this is mostly untrue, but flattering nonetheless.
Saturday, June 24th, 2006
Do Kathy and I look twenty times better at the Stolen Transmission/Young Love prom party last night than either of us did in high school?
How exactly did Andrea conjure a prom dress from her Milwaukee-to-NYC travel bag with all the stealth and preparedness of Mary Poppins?
And how did that Young Love sticker find a new way to dance from her cleavage to my mouth?
Are you blown away yet?
Is that TrueBling or GirlProps around Karen’s neck?
Does it help to know that she wore it all day at Six Flags and there’s no alloy stain on her sternum?
Am I making a concerted effort to portray Robin as a pants-down, fall-over drunk even though she consistently drinks less than I do?
And finally, did Brandon stop by for a minute after his Roseland show, while sick, just to show some young love to his darlin’?
The night before, I hung out with Sarah at HiFi and Nouveau at Fat Baby,
Emily pressed her face against mine,
Chelsea made us all feel like we wasted our youths,
Shannon got squirted by anonymous pistols,
(Annaonymous, indeed):
and Kathy and Andrea went all lezzie, as they are wont to do.
I am staying in tonight with these two and Kai, and we are eating homemade guacamole UNTIL WE POP WITH VEGAN DELIGHT! (But don’t worry, tomorrow I’ll be back to eating cheeseburgers.)
Thursday, June 22nd, 2006
1. Young Love, performing tonight at Annex (Orchard between Stanton & Rivington). Click to see the flyer larger:
2. Julian Gilbert’s nightlife photos, because even when I feel like crap he manages to make magic happen with his camera.
3. The actual story behind changelings, which I just learned from NPR. I remember reading about them when I was little. The whole “a fairy swapped our newborn baby for a fairy baby, and that’s why our baby looks funny” story was apparently just a convoluted mythological rationalization for leaving deformed or unwanted babies in the woods (because the fairies might come take their hideous changeling back and return the perfect baby the couple knew they had given birth to). When I told Kathy what I learned from NPR, she said “yeah, but I guess you turned out all right.”
Wednesday, June 21st, 2006
I just passed Jake Gyllenhaal on Sixth Avenue. White shirt, red shorts. Della (or Justin) might say he was a “little slice of heaven right here on Earth.” I don’t know what else to say… except maybe that this totally makes up for the fact that I had to walk by Eric Nies last week sitting on a bench outside the Houston St. American Apparel, inside of which was Dov Charney giving some sort of employee speech for everyone to see. It was a parade of rathernots. And Jake made it right.
Tuesday, June 20th, 2006
Last weekend I saw a car on the freeway with a vanity plate that said “1HOTBM” and called my mom to tell her about it because I was going to drop one from laughing so hard.
I’m thanked by name in the preface of a book! It’s a textbook about geriatric medicine, but hey. A book is a book. Points if you have any clue why my name is in a book about old peoples’ coughs.
I had an existential moment today when a friend named Bear had to forego my extra Madonna ticket and it went to another friend named Anna Rexia. This made me think that my stage name (which happens to also be my actual name) is so boring that it’s got to be hip on some level. When you hear “Brad Walsh,” don’t you expect an out-of-uniform quarterback to bound out of a corner in a blue button-down and khaki shorts? Nope! It’s just me in some crap!
So. Things to do. Tomorrow (Wednesday) is First Taste at HiFi early, and Nouveau at Fat Baby late. Thursday is Stolen Transmission at Annex. Friday I may be staying in purely for the air conditioning. Saturday I’m going with people to the Coney Island Mermaid Parade in the afternoon, then watching High School Musical with Chelsea and learning all the dances so that we can do them at MisShapes and Rated X. Because that’s totally rufus.
I WANT A SUMMER VACATION!
Saturday, June 17th, 2006
The girls surprised me with a 100% homemade customize-your-own pizza bar in our kitchen as we were Waiting For Tonight:
I got Ohio inked under my skin on my right arm. Now no matter where I go I know where I came from:
Ain’t It Funny how amazing Young Love is live?
Don’t be fooled by the drinks that Robin got,
she used to drink a little now she drinks a lot.
Dana was looking just a little too hard at me,
and Sarah was standing just a little too close to me (but I liked it):
DJ just played that song, cause she knew that it turned me on.
This is Me… Drunk.
I found out that Karen’s love don’t cost a thing:
I’m Real when I say that Sam E. is my favorite.
Let’s Get Plowed
All our pride is all we have.
Andrea was my Maid in Manhattan but failed to clean the stray flower out of my teeth:
Then we were Waiting for Tomorrow Morning, when we saw Prince, Tamar, and Sheila E (!) at Good Morning America:
and I stumbled home at 10am (not exactly Walking on Sunshine) to some tiny pies with tiny lattice crusts and birthday candles.
Thursday, June 15th, 2006
I used to think that Spring Street was the place to be if you were looking to spot some famous people, and it was (Goldie & Kurt, John Cusack, Elizabeth Berkley, Simon LeBon, etc.)… but it wasn’t until I started walking home from work on Prince Street instead of Spring that I realized I had it all wrong. Prince between West Broadway and regular-type Broadway has more tabloid fodder crawling around it than St. Mark’s has Hep-C-infected punks of yesteryear. In a month I’ve seen Chloe Sevigny, Amy Sedaris, Blythe Danner, Claire Danes, Adam Brody, Whoopi Goldberg, Daniel V, and yesterday, Kirsten Dunst. And I don’t even really pay close attention! Much more interesting than Private Benjamin and Jesse Spano. Kathy went apeshit over Cusack, but as as far as I’m concerned, he was reason enough to make the move to Prince.
So, today I’m 24. Trent commemorated it on Pink is the New Blog and made me feel quite special:
Thank you thank you thank you to everyone who’s sent me birthday messages, you’ve made me feel very good today! Some of you even sent me presents! I will thank you properly soon. I am leaving work today and doing something CRAZY before tonight’s partying.
