Things that I have been doing lately instead of updating my blog:
-Working
-Wishing I could take a nap
-Wishing my laptop wasn't broken (the hard drive is only a year and a half old and it is already glitching out on me, I really really really hate hard drives)
-Trying to find a Nintendo Wii
-Playing around with said Wii once one was found

Rock bands that need to go away:
-Foo Fighters

Things in my living room that have been hit by the Wiimote:
-The coffee table
-The fireplace
-The couch
-Other people

Christmas Songs that should be removed from the playlist of the radio station I listen to while at work, and replaced with gems from the Motown era:
-Dominic the Donkey
-The one with Bruce Springstein
-99% of the songs recorded since the early 90's

Things realized for the first time after watching parts of the Wizard of Oz last night:
-The munchkins pull together an elaborate welcoming comittee within a few minutes of Dorothy falling out of the sky
-Those that have been chosen as representatives of the Lollipop Guild are much surlier than one would expect members of said organization to be
-When Dorothy and her gang finally reach the Wizard, he gives them basically nothing but acts like these items will improve their lives tremendously, resulting in what this particular blogger believes to be the first reacharound filmed in motion picture history

Vote!

I'm kinda saddened by the closing of Tower Records. This will probably shock and amaze everyone that knows me, but back when I was young and not at work 24 hours a day, I could spend hours and hours browsing the racks and listening stations at Tower Records. Growing up in suburbia, having a music store open until midnight on Sunday was a godsend, and Tower was the only place you could find imports and indie records. Of course, the internet has changed everything, and instead of looking at a new band's CD and wondering what they sound like, we can go online and find out immediately (that's a good thing - this would have saved me thousands of dollars years ago*).

I wonder what the corner of 4th and Broadway is going to feel like without Tower there. When I was a teenager first learning my way around the village, this was one of my major landmarks I used to orient myself. Please let it not be another Jamba Juice!

* OK, I'm exaggerating

Underground Dragon linked to The Marmaduke Project, which tries to make the comic strip funny by altering it (executive summary : only putting in completely new captions seems to work). In a coincidence that simply cannot be explained, I came across the Joe Mathlete Explains Today's Marmaduke blog, which is marvelous, because all these years I thought Marmaduke wasn't funny, but when it's explained to me, it's batshit hilarious.

There was a program on the Food Network this weekend that was about Paula Deen's culinary travels in Europe with her mute boyfriend/husband.

Paula Deen ordered a sandwich. The sandwich consisted of bread, butter, and french fries.

My iPod broke. Again. My last one puttered out after 2 years and 3 months. This one lasted a whopping one year and three months. Apple has officially made the crappiest product ever that I can't live without.

It's amazing how the weather in NYC today is almost exactly the same as it was five years ago this very day. Beautiful, sunny, with that chill in the air foreboding the end of the summer, sweaty August mornings becoming a distant memory.

I can remember everything that happened around me that day. I remember the look on the guy's face that let me in the office once I got out of the elevator. I remember seeing so many of my co-workers in a different light. I remember how my breakfast tasted, and how I didn't eat it until after noon, at which time I devoured it nervously. I remember not knowing what to do, at all. I remember every single stop the subway made on the way home. I still become extremely angry when I see a sign, a TV spot, or a T-shirt with the words "we shall never forget."

For five years I've regretted not sending a note to my partner before I left work that day, in case I didn't make it home. I should have sent him a note telling him how much he's meant to me, how relieved I was that he was safe, and how I couldn't wait to get home to him. How could I have forgotten to do something so important?

New favorite TV Chef: Daisy Martinez. (not to be confused with Daisy Fuentes)

She shows you how to make real authentic latin cuisine, and after watching only three episodes I've been exposed to so much that I would never have seen on the Food Network. Her show is also on PBS-HD, so the food looks really good, too.

OK, next we need a TV show devoted to Indian cooking.

Here's a great article about a bar closing. Well, of course, it's about more than that, although there's an important point that's not lingered upon for too long - does a crackdown on nightlife truly improve the "quality of life" of the general population? And why does the city that never sleeps suddenly treat bars and clubs as a nuissance? You don't make friends and have hilarious discussions with random strangers at banks or Jamba Juice.

Lessons learned from the MTV Video Music Awards:

-Jared Leto is in a rock band? And they're, like, emo? And he wears eye-liner?
-All rock stars wear eye-liner now?
-People actually like Panic! At the Disco?
-How did Justin Timberlake suddenly become the savior of pop music? His new stuff is amazing.
-Jack Black isn't funny after all.
-Sarah Silverman is.
-When all is said and done, MTV tries way too hard to be hip and relevant.

Do yourself a favor and run (not walk) to the closest megaplex and go see Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan when it is released later this year. It is amazing.

Editors Note: The following post was started two weeks ago. Then work got in the way. Ergo, let's pretend it's two weeks ago and everyone's excited about the new Superman movie.

Yet again, 4th of July weekend is the best weekend ever. Yours truly was blessed with a five day weekend, and ho boy did it rock.

Saturday night we went out to Roxy, and had a surprisingly fun time. The crowd at the club has changed pretty drastically since the dark days of 2001 where everybody on the dancefloor was a shirtless steroids-addicted Chelsea clone, completely zombified by the apparently enjoyable mixture of crystal meth and ghb. The crowd is actually a bit more diverse and, for lack of a better word, normal now. Mike Cruz was spinning what felt like an endless onslaught of vocal tracks (remixed circa 1997) of three varieties (I got my man, I got yo' man, You can have my man - he a skeez!) but after 4 a.m. the music became a little more underground and started to resemble actual house music (side rant here - why are gay clubs with second tier DJs stuck in this horrible rut of playing this unmelodic Hi-NRG screaming diva stuff that was tired in 1999? Please try throwing in something a little more forward thinking or minimal, this is NYC not Syosset, Long Island).

Anyway, we ended up closing the place. The whole night the other half was in this sense of amazement, like when Principal Victoria on South Park got stoned before the annual Christmas play. And rightfully so - we didn't have to take care of complete strangers about to overdose! At 5 a.m. he was up on one of the speakers struttin' his stuff, a few classics from my old Tunnel and Vinyl days were dropped, and later we walked home in the morning sun, completely deaf (this is actually pretty cool when you haven't done it in a while).

Sunday night was the Madonna concert, and hence by far the highlight of the weekend. I've deliberately missed her past two tours because of the exhorbitant ticket prices and my usual inability to enjoy big stadium concerts. But with Esther falling off horses, I wasn't sure how much longer I would have the opportunity to see her be the Madonna we currently know and love, so I splurged. Thankfully so. She's brilliant.

The night of the fourth we walked over to Columbia Street to watch the fireworks. So, OK, Columbia street is only about five blocks from where I live, yet I hadn't been over there in years. Figure that one out. Needless to say, there's a lot of fun stuff going on over there. The fireworks were fantastic. No matter how old and jaded you get, watching colors explode in the sky never loses its thrill.

I love a parade. Well, actually, I could care less about most of them, but I particularly enjoy the Gay Pride parade. This is because:

-In my daily life, one so rarely has the opportunity to cheer and clap for people walking down the street that they've never met before. Doing so fills me with the warm and satisfying feeling that I am an altruistic person.
-I like to watch the lesbians try to get all the free stuff they can.
-I like to watch people dance on top of moving platforms while trying not to fall.
-I like to yell "woo." I like to yell "woo" a lot.

Plus, I think it's just a crime to not go out and support the thing. Despite how homophobic the country seems today, it's easy to forget how much things have actually improved over the years. Joe My God posted the Daily News' reporting of the Stonewall Riots today, get ready for your stomach to churn.

It's equally important to go out drinking right after the parade (how could you not!), so after a couple boring beers at Nowhere, xes ended up being the best place to go, with a nice mix of natives and tourists whooping it up.

Just as we were about to leave at a responsible hour, Peppermint Gummybear and her karaoke extravaganza had to come along and make sure I had a really difficult Monday.

Peppermint began the show by requesting the audience provide the word of the day. In pure Pee Wee's Playhouse fashion, whenever anyone said or sang the word of the day, the crowd was to scream real loud. Of course, the crowd starts shouting suggestions like hookers at a fishnet stocking convention. The husbear continues to suggest a certain part of the male anatomy. But it was my suggestion that ultimately won Ms. Gummybear over. After explaining the meaning of the word to her and much of the crowd, it was deemed word of the evening. I felt honored and famous.

The word was "odgeda."

I didn't actually get up on stage to perform any songs (my voice was a bit hoarse after a day of wooing), but if requested I was prepared to go up and seriously work it out to Felix Da Housecat's "Silver Screen." It's important to have a back-up plan at all times.

Felix Da Housecat - Silver Screen

Spiderman update part 2: Came home last night after Pride weekend warm-up drinks at XL and dinner at Elmo with Phyllis and George Glass. Took a cab home, but the ride was cut short by massive activity on Court Street. The area surrounding the Cobble Hill Cinema was blocked off, with production, camera operators, and extras in full effect. The marquee of the cinema had been changed to read "Stuyvesant Cinema" (or something like that), with Bridge on the River Kwai listed as one of the movies. They basically just seemed to be shooting extras waiting in line to get into the theatre (the extras were annoying by the way, as we walked by the movie theatre one extra remarked to another "Oh, they're just normal people." Excuse me, Senor Non-speaking Role?) Catering service was in full effect too, but I was too tired to try to steal a bite of anything. No star sightings, but we basically stood around for only a couple minutes before giving in to exhaustion.

UPDATE: 423 Smith has some pictures of the whole shebang. The fake smoke alluded to there smelled really odd, like the New York Aquarium had just evaporated.

Update on the Spiderman front: When I got home yesterday much of Smith and Court was coned off for no parking (although a few creative individuals had apparently gotten out of their cars, threw the large orange cones onto the sidewalk, and parked anyway). There was a large camera crane on Court, but no actors, catering service, or actual cameras in sight. This isn't the first time my neighborhood's been overtaken by camera crews (one bizarre morning I ran into the "can you hear me now" guy), but I'm just really curious about the whole thing, even though you just know that this whole production will account for a whole whopping 30 seconds in the film.

Cool tidbit of the day: Spiderman 3 will be filming right up the block from me. If my building gets in the final cut, will my property value skyrocket? Do you think Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst will start going to Area Yoga?

So, I just finished reading The Da Vinci Code.

I'm usually very sceptical of these hugely popular novels (i.e. anything written by Michael Crichton, Tom Clancy, etc), because they're never any good. But, a co-worker had just finished reading it and was gushing about it. He insisted that I borrow it, so I figured I'd give it a shot.

The Da Vinci Code is an interesting novel, in that the narrative is often completely interrupted by long passages of historical information. Half way through the book, though, you realize why this is the case. The historical data is interesting, the actual story is not.

There are creative and there are lazy methods of building suspense. Dan Brown seems to be a fan of the latter approach, and makes no attempts to hide it. After the halfway point of the novel, with most of the historical information covered and hence less to distract from the narrative, you realize the story isn't all that different from any generic murder mystery of the past 30 years. The protagonists and antagonists are hollow, and the supporting characters all seem to blend into one by the end of the book.

OK, so I need something good to read next. Any suggestions?

Kevin Aviance was the victim of a gay bashing this weekend, after leaving the Phoenix.

I'm in disbelief that something like this could happen in a part of town I frequently hang out in. The Phoenix is one of my favorite bars. A great selection of beers on tap, a jukebox that always has the latest hipster selections, a Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga machine, and some of the friendliest (and cutest) bartenders in the city.

I've left there many a night in a condition probably not best suited for dealing with an altercation such as this (to the fine folks at Stella Artois, thank you). I think many of us take the city's generally permissive atmosphere for granted, forgetting that there are still a few idiots here.

I wish Kevin a speedy recovery. His performances may not always be on point, but his hosting of Danny Tenaglia's Clubzilla party seven years ago this month was flawless (right, Gina?).

Get well soon, Ms. Aviance. May the rhythm always be your bitch.

So, yesterday I came across these videos of Madonna at Coachella and I was like "woah, it would have been amazing to see that show right up next to the stage." Little did I know that these videos were imbedded with subliminal images that would cause me to dream about seeing Madonna perform live in my high school gym. In my dream she performed her heart out even though there were only a few people in the audience, but her show was so inspiring and awesome that we all started rollerskating around the gym like experts, doing stunts that would make the guys from Jackass proud.

Oh, but back to the concert clips. Watching these makes me realize why concert videos are so boring - so much of the excitement of seeing an artist perform live comes from the fact that everyone around you at the concert is absolutely flipping out. When the camera is right next to the stage the sound from the audience becomes an anonymous wave of woos and yeahs. I'd like to see more concert footage from the audience perspective, so that you can really hear people screaming, you can hear that really excited guy behind you go "oh my God!" at the beginning of every song, and the guy next to him scream every single word to every single song until he loses his voice half way through the show.

Besides affecting my subconscious and informing a critique of concert footage, these clips also made me realize how much less I sing along to music nowadays. With most of my music listening being either on the subway or in my office, I can't exactly belt it out like I used to driving in my car or in my room studying. No wonder I've been dying to go out to a karaoke party for ages!

You know you're getting old when dreams about forgetting your schedule or locker combination in high school are replaced by dreams of forgetting certain things you really needed on a business trip, and not knowing where to go once your plane lands.

I also dreamed last night that Christina Aguilera was putting out an album of covers, which included a cover of Michael Jackson's "Jam" that was one of the most beautiful, ethereal songs I had ever heard (it sounded nothing like the original). Who knows where that came from.

So, the major life event that I never blogged about (didn't wanna jinx anything) is complete. We are now home owners (well, co-op owners, we don't own a house I suppose, just part of it).

We closed and moved last week. There are people that like to pack and there are people that like to unpack. I hate packing, not because it's boring (although it is), but because I can't shake the feeling that as soon as I pack something I'm going to need it. So what if I have all my bank statements going back to when I was in college, and I haven't used them in years? I may need them tomorrow! You never know!

So, as soon as the movers left I was ripping boxes open so that we could get settled in as quickly as possible. The older I get, the more I feel the need to "nest" once in a new home.

My main concern was my cat. When we first moved to our last apartment she hid behind the radiator for two days and wouldn't budge. Here, she was running up and down the hallway leading to the main bedroom at 3 a.m., waking up both us and our new downstairs neighbors in the process. She hasn't done that since she was about six months old.

Owning your own place is odd, there's now this huge shadow looming over you due to this new mortgage that everyone except you is convinced that you can afford. But, there's a certain happiness that overcomes you when you unlock the door and walk into your living room after work. This place is yours.

I'm just loving the new place. It's so great not living right on top of Smith Street anymore. It's not that our old place was terribly noisy, but there were the too frequent wake-up calls from the bar-goers next door (buy us a couple beers and ask us for a few good stories) and it feels a bit more calming to leave your apartment and not be right on a main street. I can also sleep through the night without hearing the latest reggaeton track blasting from the cars on the street.

No Daddy Yankee at four o'clock in the morning... it's a good thing.

Who knew?

"99 Luftballons" is a Cold-War era protest song that tells the story of 99 red balloons floating into the air, triggering an apocalypse when the military sends planes to intercept them.

And you thought it just had a snazzy keyboard riff.

I go through odd musical phases sometimes. For some reason, lately, I've really been feeling freestyle (well, it's probably because I've been listening to the classic dance station all day at work that plays way too many ballads). Not freestyle as in MCs rhyming off the top of their heads, I mean that odd post-disco stuff from the 80's. It's a form of music that's totally ripped on by house and techno purists (myself included), but damn if there weren't some gems from this era. It's also fun picking up on stuff that flew right over my head when I was a kid, like how Coro's "Fallen Angel" samples Kraftwerk's "Numbers" (how's that for street cred, yo?).

As with most music on now defunct independent labels, the bulk of this stuff is currently unavailable for purchase or download, and I can't help but feel that there will be some sort of organization created within the next few years that will preserve (by digitally cataloging) much of this stuff, as well as early house, techno, and rave (for a good laugh, of course). I'm sure I have Lisette Melendez' "Together Forever" in mint condition somewhere (you really must watch the video).

And no, I have no idea why it's called "freestyle". Yeah, it really doesn't make any sense.

Tarantino was an Elvis impersonator on the Golden Girls? Now I've seen everything! Just a fun diversion as you spend your Tuesday wishing you had a four day weekend instead of a plain old three.

Here's some fantastic photos of our neighborhood from the olden days. I often kick myself for not taking a picture of every block down Smith (which has changed drastically) and Court (surprisingly, not nearly as much) when I first moved out here eight years ago. My memory completely fails me when I try to remember what used to reside in the current locations of Boat or Quench or even Cafe Luluc. With a second round of major changes rumoured to be in the near future, maybe it's still a good idea to get the camera out.

The Village Voice has a pretty darn tootin' hilarious play by play review of last night's Grammy awards. I tuned in 3 minutes late, and just caught Madonna's performance. I then spent the next 3 and a half hours waiting to see the Gorillaz' performance, only to find out at the end of the show that I had missed them by tuning in three minutes late. Oh well, that's what the internet is for, I suppose.

Their Pazz and Jop poll of the year's top albums and singles is out as well. I generally hold this list in higher regard than the other year end lists that come flooding around come mid-December, but I'm a bit disappointed by how indie leaning the albums list is. I'm just not all that convinced that anybody is going to care about Spoon in five years.

So, in the spirit of useless lists, and since I caught so much flack for last year's country club unfriendly list, here's what got the most airtime on my iPod this year.

Albums:
Kanye West:Late Registration - Anyone who can make a half blazing, half touching album, and then publicly speak out against homophobia in hip-hop gets two thumbs up in my book.
Madonna:Confessions of a Dancefloor - Amazingly enough, some of the best dance music I heard this year. Props to her for getting a filter breakdown on MTV.
Gorillaz:Demon Days - Music this eclectic and leftfield isn't supposed to be this popular.
Common:Be - Finally, a Common album that doesn't put you to sleep.
The Arcade Fire:Funeral - Yeah, I'm a year late.
Herbert:Bodily Functions - Yeah, I'm five years late.
Richie Hawtin:DE9 Transitions - Minimal seems to be the only thing preventing clubland from becoming an electro dumping ground. Electro must die a bloody death in '06 (please!).
M.I.A.:Arular - Like crack and red bull, great in small doses.
Depeche Mode:Playing the Angel - Is it safe to add Exciter to my used-CD-store-trade-in-pile now?

Singles:
Madonna-Hung Up
Gwen Stefani-Hollaback Girl
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah-The Skin of my Country Yellow Teeth
Ciara-1, 2 Step
Cam'ron feat. Kanye West and Syleena Johnston-Down and Out
Amerie-1 Thing
The Killers-Mr. Brightside (Thin White Duke Mix)
The Game-Hate It Or Love It
Jennifer Lopez-Get Right
Sizequeen-Tribal Madness
Lindstrom-I Feel Space
Gorillaz-Feel Good Inc.

So, apparently some cats can see cathode ray TV pictures and some can't. This is why some kitties will start swatting at the TV frantically when Animal Planet is on, and some will wonder why their parental guardians are just staring at this box instead of petting them.

My cat was of the latter variety until we got the new idiot box. Then I realized something while I was watching Equator on Discovery HD - my cat was flipping the fuck out.

I can't remember what animal it was, but to my cat it looked like a really really really big dog, it was running really fast, and that was enough. On my way to the kitchen I realized that her eyes were fixated on the TV, her heart was beating a thousand beats a minute, and she was panting as if she just ran a marathon.

After a few commercial breaks she seemed to realize no animals were going to go jumping out of the big box, so when the focus of the program turned to seagulls Larry decided to get a closer look. She sat right in front of the TV and watched the birds fly by. When they flew off the screen, she looked at the side of the room wondering where they went.

I often wonder what she thinks the TV actually is. My best guess is that she thinks it's a new window that's popped up out of nowhere. Whenever I watch a nature program now, I call Larry over to look at the animals with me, and try to figure out what on Earth my cat could be thinking.

...and now a word from our sponsor.

So, basically, everyone is so in love with their iPods that they can't bring themselves to state the obvious.

Those earbuds suck.

They don't sit in your ear well, have to be dangerously loud for you to hear anything, and I think a tin can could provide more bass.

At this point enters the best fourteen dollars you will ever spend. They sit in your ear and actually cancel out a good portion of the nails-on-chalkboard squeaky subway breaks. But, the sound, my god the sound! With the volume set to only 50% you still feel like you are in your living room listening to your home stereo. Everything sounds so much warmer, and bass is very well represented without the distortion and clipping from Apple's earbuds.

Kicking Apple's earbuds to the curb - it's a good thing.

Sometimes you see something and you go "Wow, that would be really cool... if I was 8." And with that, I present to you.... Star Wars Transformers!!!!

So, it just happens to be the case that the first book I've finished this year (I am going to be reading like crazy now that school is over) is also a complete and utter lie (kind of).

I dunno. There were rumblings of the author's "creative license" before I started reading the book, so I kind of took everything with a grain of salt as I was reading it. Overall, I liked it. It wasn't amazing, I wasn't in complete awe by the end like I was with, say, "The Corrections" or "Life of Pi." Parts of it did seem a bit exaggerated, and it runs out of steam towards the end.

I'm currently reading "The Kid : What Happened After My Boyfriend and I Decided to Go Get Pregnant" by Dan Savage of Savage Love fame. It's easily the funniest thing I've read since the last Sedaris novel (why is it that only gay writers have a sense of humor these days) sprinkled with actual information about adoption (which is rather timely, considering the urge to raise a kid spiked way up as soon as I turned 30 for some reason).

In literature, as in life, if you want to have a good time stick with the perv and stay away from the crackhead. :)