I went jogging along the Hudson River after work today. It was a pristine spring evening. The cherry blossoms were almost shining like the river in the setting sun. I ran past 125th street and there were some billboards there. One of them was for a Discovery Channel show called The Deadliest Catch.
Shot from the Deadliest Catch
I walking down Lexington Avenue yesterday when Rancid’s Ruby Soho started to play on my Zune. An immediate smile grew on my face and I quickly created a punk playlist then and there.
Tags:bonefest, hank's saloon, Music, nyc, Open Mic, punk, stagebuddy.com, sweet beat
Dear Hans,
I’ve been dating this girl for about 8 months. I’m 28. It’s about time I look for someone to settle down with and have been thinking she’s the one. This weekend we had some friends over and played Trivial Pursuit. Everything was going great until she had no idea who LBJ was. I don’t need the woman who raises my children to be a genius, but I do have certain expectations of what she should know. Frankly, I was shocked. Do I need to get over myself and just follow my heart? Or should I let little bits of trivia dictate my happiness for years to come?
Signed,
Quizzical in Kew Gardens
"I, Lyndon Baines Johnson, swear that I am not a character from Doonesbury."
Tags:Dating, holding hans with brian hansbury
Kaleidoscope, East Village
I’d never seen or heard of Kaleidoscope, though based on their location I must have walked by countless times. They caught my attention based on three things: their BYOB option on Sunday and Monday, they take reservations, and they have an extensive menu.
I could tell service was going to be good even before we sat down. Two of us sat at the bar as we waited for the final member of our party to arrive and we noticed there were about 2-3 others at the bar in the midst of conversation with the bartender. We began chatting and learned they were regulars and they proceeded to go through the menu options with us making suggestions — Always a good sign.
Tags:Asian Fusian, BYOB, Dish Buzz, East Village, lara ruth
Before I dive into a post regarding my now completely nonexistent love life, I thought I would give you a few ‘in-the-event-you-weren’t-paying-attention’ tidbits.
Tags:carrie prejean, del shores, gay life, hot bartender, logo, miss california, national organization for marriage, nom, perez hilton, sordid lives the series, The Paulinator, travel for work
Seeing Gimme Shelter author Mary Elizabeth Williams address the hungry weekday dinner crowd at the Indian Road Cafe was like watching Debra Barone bake an unappreciated casserole, rein in her fussy toddlers for bedtime, and fend off nosy in-laws – all while balancing a book on her head.
Although none of Williams’ in-laws were in sight, and her two daughters are far past toddler years, Williams’ debut Gimme Shelter, a personal account of her search for affordable family housing in New York City on a $400,000 budget, was the focus of the evening. And she managed to scream out a chapter of it over the happy hour din.
[flash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfUuFLZM-VQ]
Tags:Everybody Loves Raymond, Gimme Shelter, Indian Road Cafe, Inwood, Mary Elizabeth Williams, National Alliance to End Homelessness
Kari Ferrel aka Hipster Grifter
The New York media circuits have been going crazy the last week over the Hipster Grifter, initially reported by the New York Observer.
Long story short, pathological liar/con artist extraordinaire Kari Ferrell has been scamming men and friends alike here in Brooklyn. Her penchant for bearded men a.k.a. hipsters have taken her through a slew of men who have fallen under her false claims of lung cancer, pregnancy, and lies to get money.
Tags:beards, Brooklyn, Hipster Grifter, media, New York Observer
Strange Bedfellows (photo by Moira Stone)
After interviewing Dorothy Fortenberry and Josh Conkel last week about Caitlin and the Swan I was ready for anything. A shocking comedy, a satirical poke at the female-friendship meme, a sly wink that came with a taboo nod, or perhaps even a mish-mash of Animal Farm, The Seagull, and Babe, Pig in the City. What I wasn’t ready for was characters presented as a smart group of women, who were more Mary, Rhoda and Phyllis than Miranda, Carry and Samantha. Gosh, can we all just admit that women have been gathering around bottles of wine and comparing things long before Sex and The City made bitching about men over cosmo/apple/flirt/tinis fashionable? Since the dawn of the cork screw chicks have been meeting to compare their lives against each others, their own lives against what they’d envision, and most of all … to compare how far each gal is willing to go in the quest to have the perfect relationship.
Tags:Caitlin and The Swan, Dorothy Fortenberry, Josh Conkel, THE MANAGEMENT, theatre, Theatre Buzz
When I stock up my fridge, my priority is not giving myself a heart-attack (usually), either by ingesting my body-weight in saturated fat, or by spending a month’s paycheck in Whole Foods (which is, I find scarily easily to do). Brooklyn Beet CSA wants to change all that. Now, instead of buying anonymous vacuum-wrapped veggies that have been sat in cold storage for weeks, I can get a weekly batch of fresh, seasonal produce from local farmers that I can put names and faces to.
In fact, after a meeting at the local YWCA, I now know that my vegetables will grow up listening to Ana Angel’s young son playing his guitar in the fields where his mother is watering her crops by hand, while my fruit will come from the orchards of ‘celeb farmer’ Amy Hepworth,whose family have been working the land for seven generations. Best of all, the organization offers subsided shares for low-income families, and asks all members to pitch in with helping weigh-out and distribute the farm shares once harvest season starts in late June. Even for a cynical old Brit like me it’s a pretty heart-warming prospect. Especially since the produce promises to be still dirty from the ground, and as Uncle Monty says in Withnail and I, “There is a certain je ne sais quoi, oh so very special, about a firm young carrot.” Read more »
Tags:Brooklyn, Brooklyn Beet CSA, community, Food, local, organic, vegetables
This morning I woke up to the sound of birds chirping outside of my window, spring sunlight streaming through the curtains, and the smell of freshly brewed coffee. Such an idyllic start to one’s day is reminiscent of living in the countryside and not in the middle of Harlem. But this was a good morning. Actually they have pretty much all been great mornings waking up in New York, despite the occasional hangover or cacophony of traffic and construction making its way into my small bedroom on the 4th floor of a walk-up.
In the three years that I have lived in New York, I never once regretted moving here and I rarely felt the need for a vacation from it. And yet here I am, staring at my calendar and counting down the days that I have left; yesterday marked the start of my final two weeks of living in Manhattan. This is the perfect time to start writing a column about living in New York, right?
Tags:memories, nyc
