April 29, 2004
Last night was Nicky Lewis' annual birthday extravaganza.
He wore his crown all night.
We went to Mekong on Prince Street for dinner. Then some dive in China Town for Kareoke. Then on to Dentention for more drinking.
Jim and I share our wedding anniversary with Nick's birthday. When we planned the wedding, we did this on purpose. Ok, that's not true. At the time when we were planning the wedding, I was really only thinking about myself. ME ME ME. Somehow Nick did not factor into my thought process. But I do know how Nick feels about his birthday - kinda like a five year old feels about Christmas. So at our wedding, during the reception, we brought out a birthday cake for Mr. Lewis and sang Happy Birthday. He looked confused and frightened all at once. Good times.
So last night, when the cake - or in this case, cannolli - came out, we're all singing and the singing is all kinds of fucked up because Jim and I are singing happy birthday to Nick and everyone else seems to be singing random words and some guy is holding the flaming canollis in front of me and I keep trying to casually signal him over to Nick. And I'm thinking, "What the fuck is this dude's problem?! He knows where Nicks sitting!" while continuing to smile and sing. And then it dawned on me - the cannolli was for Jim and myself. Happy Anniversary! Big shout out to Lisa G. and Nick for being cute.
Also of note, ABC news was at the divey kareoke bar with us rolling tape. Although I stayed far away from the camera man, others with our party were front and center:
Also I would just like to say I KNOW I CAN'T SING. I have repeatedly said, I do not sing, I yell. And that yelling is done out of tune. This fact is not going to stop me from grabbing the mic. Liquor me up and you best have brought earplugs as well. Cos there is no shaming me into stopping, no begging me to keep it down. I will not be silenced.
The other thing I would like to point out is that I took some of the worst pictures ever last night. 89 of them.Peoples backs and arms, people looking not-that-great, 2 shots of the ceiling? I have no explanation. Here are the best of the worst.
Yeah, I know this ebay link has been circulating the net for some time now. I even heard the guy in the dress was on some news channel last night. But if you haven't seen it, it's still funny.
April 27, 2004
Caught Jay Z's video for 99 Problems - Hot. Lots of recognizable Brooklyn landmarks. Mark Romanek, who directed the beautiful and haunting Hurt video for Johnny Cash, did this one as well. MTV prefaced its viewing with some long disclaimer on how this is one of only a few violent videos they have shown in the history of the network to which Jim added, "out of the millions of misogynist ones." Right on brother! Can I get a fuckin - A?
Working for the hippies like working for the man.
Extreme example of cultural difference.
Interesting conclusion to Harvard Business School study - downloads don't affect CD sales. Record industry must jump quickly to new conclusion on how to blame consumers for their slumping sales.
News flash! Woman looks great for a 32 year old.
Ex-Pogues singer Shane MacGowan doing what he does best - drinkin' and fightin'.
If I knew sororities were this much fun I would have joined one.
April 26, 2004
I'm about to take some Nyquil and get into bed. I would like to give props to myself for being sick all weekend, yet sucking it up and still being a gracious host to our special out-of-town guest, Jen.
Here she is enjoying a view of the East River on Saturday:
That night
we ended up at Balkas Kaffeen
Detention after seeing Lubricated
Goat at Lit. Fun for the whole family. See
it here.
April 19, 2004
For reasons not quite clear - I have a few theories, but no real facts - I spent Saturday morning from 5am until Saturday evening around 4pm vomiting. I threw up until there was nothing left but bile and then threw up some more. I had spent Friday evening getting an early dinner with Anne at Relish, came home watched School of Rock with Jim, went to bed and woke up choking on puke. No fun. Especially if you are a pseudo barfing-virgin like me. I seriously throw up rarely if at all. So I was ill prepared for the vomit onslaught. I found myself in the bathroom draped over the toilet every fifteen minutes yelling, "I'm dying!" in between wretching intervals, tears streaming down my cheeks. At some point, around, oh say, 12pm I realized that if I drank tons of water and Pepto Bismol that I still puked, but it felt better coming out. Plus it was a pleasant pink color instead of that nasty yellow-greenish shade the bile had been.
Jim gallantly went out and got the Pepto even though he had been told to stay in bed - doctor's orders - because he had a spot removed off of his stomach and had five inches of stiches across his abdomen. Oh, check it out, Jim was convinced that the doctor was going to butcher his stomach up, as he had a mole removed from his back a year ago that left a big ugly scar. So imagine his delight when he went in for surgery and recognized the doctor - from Extreme Makeover. Needless to say, Jim's stomach was artfully stitched up. They did however sew his belly button closed. Weird, no?
Watched the Chris Rock special from my sickbed Saturday night.
Watch out for falling objects.
Why did this crack me up so much today? I have no answers.
April 18, 2004
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Celebrating
sunny skies. No time to be in front of a computer.
Yay Spring!
April 14, 2004
I like Modest Mouse even better since reading this interview. Jail time, drug abuse...its all in there.
Talk to the chicken, cos the ear ain't listenin'.
Sometimes poetic justice really does exist.
The Passion of the Christ really got some people thinking. And then those people whipped the Easter Bunny.
Another bubble bursting article on reality television, but this one makes a really good story.
This will make you think twice about your next massage appointment.
April 8, 2004
You know that google bombing thing with weapons of mass destruction? Try googling miserable failure and then hit "i'm feeling lucky" and you get this. (Thanks Charlie). Googling has become an obsession according to the NY Times. I gotta say - I use google as a spell check, and I recommend it highly. It works much better than the programs that are actually designed for that purpose. Not sure about the Gmail yet though, will wait and see.
Okay,we were watching the news last night when the newscaster breaks the story that our no-murder streak has come to an end. That's right, for 9 whole days there were no murders in the Bronx. That's the longest stretch in ten years. TEN YEARS. So when you're feeling nostalgic for old-skool crime ridden NYC, I guess you can just make the trip uptown where, it seems, the anarchy lives on.
We finally watched Party Monster the other night. You know, the murder, the mayhem, the make up? Strangely enough, Seth Green did a great James St. James imitation. Macaulay Culkin? Not so good. And it pains me to say that as I really root for the guy. As we all know, Micheal Alig is in prison now, and has a blog (of course). The most psychedelic blog ever. Close to unreadable. Natasha Lyonne was in the film as well, almost unrecognizable as Brooke.
Which Micheal Alig Club Kid are you?
Mark McGrath describes his new reality show as The Apprentice meets The Real World. Please someone, kill him.
Taking friendster a step further - dodgeball.
Simpons movie acomin'. Yay.
Rob Coddry from the Daily Show speaks.
Kelly Osbourne follows in the family tradition of getting fucked up, then going to rehab. Oh wait, that's my family. How cool.
Close on her heels Jeff Tweedy checks himself in too. Feels like 1995 all over again. Am I being overly cynical for not buying the migraine headache story?
I'll leave you with these tips. I care, I really do.
April 5, later
Jimmy has to share his birthday with Kurt Cobain's suicide. Not the worst thing to share a birthday with, but due to his middle child syndrome it still probably bugs him.
Here's a sweet short piece from Kurt Loder on the subject.
Here are a bunch of people's where-I-was-when-I-found-out-Kurt-Cobain died stories. Personally, I was working at a bar that had live music at the time and was subjected to four bands doing bad Nirvana covers that night. In between the bands, the only Nirvana 45 we had on the jukebox - Oh The Guilt - was playing over and over and over. A combination of cynicism and too much drug injestion made it impossible for me to really feel anything concerning the event at the time.
But I do remember the first time I heard the Nevermind album. I had heard Bleach, I had seen Nirvana, some idiot guy slept had at our place once and left his copy of Sliver from the Sub Pop singles club by accident - and I kept it, blah blah blah. Basically, I knew who Nirvana was and I wasn't expecting anything that earth shattering. At the time I really thought Mudhoney were the shit and Nirvana was the poor mans grunge. But I was so taken by Nevermind when I sat down with it, that I decided I had to go share it with someone. So I headed downtown. Ok, it is 1991 and at the time I am living in the Upper East Side at 81st and 3rd. I walked all the way down to Lisa G's house on the Lower East Side (Clinton & Stanton) carrying one of those huge-ass Sony Sports Discmen, before discmen even had skip guard on them. So I was walking carefully and holding it in my hand like a small pizza. And when I finally got there and go "You have got to hear this now." She's all "I don't have a CD player". So we sat under her loft bed, each with one earphone in and played the album over and over, stopping only to repeat things for lyric clarity. It was one of the best days ever.
Oh, and when I was searching for a photo of that discman from the nineties - because they really have to be seen to be believed - I came across this article: Working at MTV in the early 90's was apparently akin to working in Logan's Run. Must be like a day care center now.
The Height Gap. I know this article looks like it would be boring, but its not. For real, yo.
Breast baring as an act of power.
April 5, 2004
Whoa is me, I'm exhausted from sleeping for two days... cue the violins now...My life is so tough...
So Jim's surprise party went off without a hitch. He was surprised, and that being the point, I would have to say the night was a resounding success.
My brother played the decoy in a long, twisted and utterly ridiculous plan we had concocted to surprise Jim. Kevin's role was to take Jim to a gallery opening, then out for a drink, then to arrive at our house at 10pm, where supposedly a few people would be meeting to go to dinner in Queens. (Yeah, Queens - I know, the story is crazy) The last conversation I had with Kevin was on Friday afternoon. He wanted to know what to do if Jim insisted that they leave and get back to our house.
Me: "Stall him any way you have to."
Flash forward to Saturday night. It's like 9:40 and Jim calls. The room quiets down and I take the call in our bedroom. Remember, Jim thinks we have reservations somewhere for 10:30, so he is anxious about getting home.
"Noreen, I'll be home soon. I'm sorry. I'm getting in a cab as soon as I get your brother."
And now I'm like, what the fuck, did Kevin ditch Jim or something? So I go "Where is Kevin?"
Long pause. "Baby, I don't know. I told him we had to go and then he said he had to go to the bathroom and never came back. He has litterally been in the bathroom for 10 or 15 minutes...Uh, I think there's something wrong with him."
The lesson: if all else fails you can always blame diarrhea.
Definitely the thing I was most proud of was getting Jim's family up here for the evening without his knowledge. He looked like he was gonna faint when he saw his brother Tom. It was awesome.
The fact that I took Monday off from work to chill out and clean my apartment also helped with the stress factor. I feel like I am still recovering, even with all the sleep I have gotten. There were, however, two individuals who were here for quite some time that evening who were due in Conneticut the next morning to be at a christening where they would be named co-godfathers of an innocent child. Haven't gotten the down low on what went on in CT, I can only assume it was not pretty.
Jay was in the hallway on his cell phone when Jim M. walked out and announced his girlfriend was ordering him to leave. I tried to get a shot of him on his way out. This is it:
And for once I was not the one harrassing everyone with a camera. For sure I was taking pictures, but I was one of many self appointed paparazzi of the evening. I would like you all to turn in your work to: noreen@allrockkitty.com. I would also like to say that at one point, when Jennie was leaning in for a shot of some random person with her brand new digi cam, Claudia turned to her and said "Don't be that girl."
My god, I am that girl. Sad.
As I write this Jim is playing with his brand new toy, a Play Station 2, generously given to him by friends for his b-day.
Look, its the psychotic birthday boy and he is THIRTY years old:
April 1, 2004
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