Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Another Hipster After-Party

The Party: After-Party for Fever Ray's Webster Hall Show
Location: Arrow Bar in the East Village
Money Wasted: $3 on a diet coke ("I'm riding my bike" / "free jameson? kewl!")
Overall Rating: 3/5
Total Party Count: 11

Last night marked my one week anniversary of party-a-day, but rather than resting on my laurels (not an option, natch), I compromised with a disco nap and set my bberry alarm for 11:30pm.

A few snooze button hits later, I got my hair did and hopped on my bike to the after-party of fever ray's webster hall show at Arrow Bar (the last time I was there it was called 85A, but maybe that was 2005). It was still crowded when I got there at 1:30, saw some friends but I think a couple had already left. I was planning to pop in for a quick visit cause I srsly didn't even want to go, but once again, partying prevailed! I'm really getting the hang of this thing!


fashion hipsters (this is most ppl in nyc i think)


new friends i will never see again

Getting to a party past its peek is generally a good idea because its less of a hassle plus everyone is already drunk and will just assume you are too, even though you are just naturally weird, and you'll totally have saved 400 cals / $30 (not that Id ever spend that much on drinks, but i think normal people do??). Also if people are there that long, you know they are committed to partying! On the flip side, its pretty unlikely that your soulmate is just hanging around some crappy bar at 3am on a Tuesday night. Well maybe yours is, but I dont think mine is?? ANYWAY listen i dont want to turn this into some sex-in-the-city-type-shit. I gotta get ready for my next party now, and its NOT a hipster party tonight, which scares me. Will I be accepted into general society? The experiment continues.

BTW, before I go, I just wanted to inform you that Arrow Bar is conveniently located a block up from the 24hr Food Town, which turns out is a delightful and fairly economical way to do your weekly grocery shopping when you have a hectic partying schedule. Going to supermarkets is also best done late night when the crowds have thinned, and youre almost certain to have the whole supermarket to yourself (but that also means no supermarket soulmate)
Share This: Facebook Digg Delicious Twitter

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Repentance Party

The Party: Breaking of the Yom Kippur Fast
Location: My Family's House in Brooklyn

While Yom Kippur, the holiest day of my religion, still isn't important enough to warrant holiday status at my office of civil servitude, I naturally took a day off to mourn. But next, how to interject partying into the saddest day of the year while located at my parents house in brooklyn? Well, the breaking-of-the-fast dinner with my family of 7 was the closest I was going to get ....its a Monday night anyway.

I cheated my way through fasting by waking up at 3pm and suffering for a mere 4 hours before stuffing my face. I don't know how I'd have filled up the day if I woke up any earlier like a good normal person. It was a struggle even keeping myself alive for 4 hours when the NY Times seemed like it had just been sitting there for years..... Global Warming is Real.... We Need More Troops....Its Hard To Be a Gay Teen..... College Tuition is Expensive.... Imagine If We Had a Cure For AIDS- But We Don't... Roman Polanski is Going to Jail for Rape of a Minor (this was from Yom Kippur 1978).

Even more exciting was my little sister subjecting me to Dr. Oz on DVR--- It was the episode where he gives health advice to fat people. Thank God I have my party blog to keep me marginally entertained with life.

Here's my mom & sister at tonights party, completely oblivious as of yet to my party project (sorry mom- i was planning to tell you after the book deal)



And heres me, needing some help from Dr. Oz
Share This: Facebook Digg Delicious Twitter

Monday, September 28, 2009

Sandie's Big Gay House Party

Party #1: Sandie's Big Gay House Party on Bleecker St.
Party #2: Phoenix After-Party at Tribeca Grand

While I restricted myself to a 1-mile party radius due to inclement weather, i fulfilled & surpassed my party-a-day quota last night.

My coworker buboo so kindly invited me to a houseparty on bleecker st, hosted by a man named sandy who directed a groundbreaking documentary a couple years ago about gay orthodox jews, "Trembling Before G-d". I wasn't sure to what extent this would be a gay party or a film party or a jewish party, but with the lack of interest from 97% of the men there, well, it was easy to meet all 3 straight jews. One made fun of the channel I work for, another gave me vodka shots and fed me pickled herring (not bad!), and the final one told me about his mom explaining how to give oral when he was 10 whilst living in a teepee. All in all it was a fine way to spend a rainy night.

me & buboo gone wild!


But wait, there's more- I headed over to Tribeca Grand around 2:30, and unlike the night prior, there was something of a party going on. I think it was an after-party for the band Phoenix, and its possible that holy ghost were DJing, but i really couldn't tell you for sure. I ended up talking for a while with this guy who does A&R for Shady Records.... he assumed I'm hip-hop-tarded and followed that up with "Eminem's Label..... He's really cleaned up in the last year."

Share This: Facebook Digg Delicious Twitter

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Stoop(id) Party

Party #1: Beets @ Dead Herring for Cathys Bday
Party #2: Someones Going Away Party @ a bar
Party #3: Rooftop on Canal St.

Last night I went to the venue dead herring in williamsburg for cathy's bday party / show where the beets and german measles and some other bands were playing. But when I say "went", what I really mean is I "sat outside on the stoop with kevin for 2 hours" and when I say "party" I mean "I saw a lot of people I knew, and I was happy to see them, but I had nothing to say." I love the Beets and I thought it would be a super fun party night, but in reality I wasn't in the mood to go deaf in a smelly room plus i was just standing there and realized "crap, i have experienced this identical night about 109 times already."

After catching sean take a leak we left to get coffee and bibimbap and hang out on different steps. Sitting on bedford & grand on a friday night is basically a party in itself. My friend doug walked by and mentioned he was headed to a going away PARTY so duh, i tagged along for the project. It was a low key gathering at this bar The Palace in greenpoint, where I chatted with doug's friends for a bit and had a beer for $1.50 and then it was back to the city for me.



I returned to manhattan around 3:30am with the feeling that while I had technically been to 2 parties, I hadn't successfully fulfilled my party quota. I swung by Tribeca Grand to see if anything was still going on, but all I saw were some hot messes and a janitor vacuuming (FYI, late night trips to Tribeca Grand are not a thing I normally do, its just an experiment for this blog). Luckily my friend Alex informed me that he was at a rooftop party on canal st. - bingo! 10 minutes and 6 flights of stairs later I am on a huge fancy rooftop.


I couldn't find alex at first but it didnt matter- no one at this party seemed to know each other or whose party it was or what planet we were on. I did a little research and found a Yale alumni magazine in the bathroom, but apparently you can purchase it for $4.75 even if you're not an alum. The bathroom had this sign on the door:


A birthday cake with candles came out around 5:30am. Who waits til 5 to sing happy birthday?? After the cake presentation I felt satisfied that my party-a-day obligation had been fulfilled.

Well, time to party again! Tonight should be an interesting one.
Share This: Facebook Digg Delicious Twitter

Friday, September 25, 2009

(My Mental) HEALTH After-Party

The Party: HEALTH's Unofficial Afterparty
Location: Lulu's in Greenpoint
Money Wasted: $15 to get home
Overall Rating: 4/5

I'm only on day #4 , but thus far Party-A-Day has been improving my bad 'tude. In fact, yesterday I had good reason to stay home & die, but instead I subjected myself to a sequence of social situations all night, and here i am, no worse for the wear!

Katie gets an award for the early section of the evening, skipping her manicure to have delicious wild rice salad at Spring St. Natural, and facilitating entry to the Tanlines / Pictureplane / HEALTH show at Bowery Ballroom. But after "her boyfriends band" finished their set she departed to the big Gary Olsen Birthday Bash at Bruar Falls, which was my original party plan for the evening, but I decided to stick around Bowery. After all, I was at Bruar last night, and this is not the Bruar-Falls-A-Day project. Gary is well-loved and has plenty of friends in the world, I wasn't too worried about him (sorry gary, happy birthday!) , and I knew there would be other opportunities to fulfill my party-a-day obligation.

I hung around with some free drinks at Bowery until everyone loaded up their gear and decided where we were afterpartying, though for all practical purposes we were totally already afterpartying. There was mass confusion as to where we were going (Heathers! Happy Ending! Pizza! House party in Greenpoint!) but most of us ended up at...... LULU'S . Yes, it was slightly preposterous to go to greenpoint when i live like 5 minutes from Bowery Ballroom, but hey, thats how the party blog rolls.

When we pulled up to Lulu's in the tanlines party car I became well aware that this party was going to be around 10% the size of Gary's bash, but my party choice for the evening was cemented and I totally embraced Lulu's, its surprisingly delicious free customizable pizza and awesome crowd of a few good friends and a couple new acquaintances. Its impossible to know for sure where I would have had the most fun, but when I hopped in a cab home at 3am I didn't want to die, and hey, that's what I call a party!







Share This: Facebook Digg Delicious Twitter

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Sisterhood Vs. Daddyhood

The Party: Tom Tom Magazine Website Launch Party
Location: Bruar Falls in Williamsburg
Money Wasted: $0
Overall Rating: 3/5

As promised, last night was the official start of The Party-a-Day Project! No more practice parties-- This is the real deal now. My party of choice was the Tom Tom Magazine Website Launch Party at Bruar Falls . Heres a Little Shirley Beans fun fact for you: I play the drums (more or less), and being that Tom Tom is a magazine all about female percussionists, and indeed I am even going to have my photo in their first issue, how could I not party? Furthermore, I saw that 15 of my friends RSVP'd to the event on ye olde facebook.

As you can imagine, this event was the premiere destination for ladies who drum.....and the ladies who love them! I don't know what happened to those who RSVP'd on facebook (here's looking at you, Schechter, Erin, Carlen, Cassie, Hope, Bodor, Turbow, Dafna, Erin, and Jerry Zeinfeld) but as Mr. K.R. astutely observed, it was "kind of a very lesbian scene." Now, being a Smith graduate ("etc etc etc etc"), perhaps I have a fair amount of familiarity with this sort of thing, but suffice to say its not my usual scene these days. Regardless, I knew a lot of people there, so it was cool to bro down with the ladies for a bit, mostly listening to Dylan, Patty and Fiona talk about the master cleanse. We might start it on Monday. Soon I may have to Party-a-Day on nothing but lemonade with cayenne pepper. Am I up to the challenge? I think so. In the meantime, I bummed an amazing banana-walnut bar off cathy (who has a birthday PARTY on friday).



Mid-evening, Miss Katie sent me the following riddle

If I'm at daddys....And you're at daddy's.... Is that a party?


No, that is not a party. But with my official party out of the way for the evening, that was irrelevant. With Keren in tow, I betrayed my sisterhood for Daddy's, and what do you know, some of my favorite personalities were in the house! Had so much meaningful convo that I forgot it was set to rain at 2am, and next thing you know I am standing outside daddys in an anorak waiting for Northside to transport me and my bike back to manhattan.

While I'd prefer not to spend $23 getting home, the party-a-day project thus far has been nice.
Might hit up Bruar again tonight for Gary Olsen's birthday party.
Share This: Facebook Digg Delicious Twitter

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Partying for Practice: The Drums Afterparty

The Party: The Drums After-Party
Location: White Slab Palace in the LES
Peak Attendance: about 40 people
Money Wasted: $0
Overall Rating: 3/5


So, technically, the Party-A-Day project doesn't begin until tonight, but to get into the spirit of things, I followed through on a party last night.

I headed towards the Mercury Lounge to see Knight School & The Drums, but I missed Knight School because I wasted too much time at K-Mart, an errand I chose to perform knowing that once the Party-A-Day project officially begins, I may not have time for such lavish shopping expeditions. Its weird how K-Mart, smack in the middle of downtown, is completely deserted, yet the Target in Brooklyn has nary a shopping cart to spare. Perhaps its a shocking reminder of how in NYC, even when it comes to discount megastores, image is everything.

So I got there in time to see The Drums, who were pretty amazing. Next thing I know I'm in the green room (I know, I'm soooo kewl), and then I heard the word "afterparty." It's not that I wanted to party, but I had to do it, yknow, for practice.

So The Drums DJed at White Slab Palace , your typical LES bar on the corner of Delancey & Allen (I thought it was called White Slob Palace, which is a far better name). They tagteamed from their ipods-- St. Etienne, Joy Division, Camera Obscura, Love is All, Knight School, Cats on Fire. There were about 6 people dancing, me occasionally being one of them cuz Im forcing myself to party (for this project). 4 of the other dancing people were members of The Drums, all the while banging a tambourine really really loudly, completely oblivious to how much they were pissing off the bartenders.

Party Detour: There was a party in the room next door, a "virgo party"- a party only for Virgos I guess. The bartender (who was a virgo) told me there were cupcakes and escorted me there, but there was not a cupcake to be found. or a party either, really.

Anyway, I wrapped up the night with a trip to Great N.Y. Noodletown on Bayard & Bowery at 2am with my boys Kevin & Chris (from Knight School). This part was actually the highlight of the night. Maybe the moral of Practice Party Night was that hanging out and eating cheap chinese is more fun that partying, but sometimes you have to party to get to that place.
Share This: Facebook Digg Delicious Twitter

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Pre-Partying

Hello and welcome to my new blog- The Party-A-Day Project! Yes, thats right, I'm going to attend one party (or more!) every day, maybe forever -- all for your internet pleasure!

This project is to commence tomorrow night. I have no idea where this adventure will take me. I may very well attend a wife swapping party! But more likely, I am leaning towards the Tom Tom Magazine website launch party at Bruar Falls.

Don't worry, I'll be sure to hold on to this weeks entirely revolting issue of Time Out NY aka "The Sex Issue" which comes chock full of gross party ideas. There are currently about 15 copies of said
magazine floating around my office.
This annual issue always makes for a slightly awkward week around here.
Share This: Facebook Digg Delicious Twitter