Shopping on Lower Broadway on a Sunday Afternoon

Seriously, really? Am I this much of a glutton for punishment? Just walking down the street sent my swine flu paranoia anxiety through the roof, and I wont even mention trying to navigate around the throngs of clueless tourists on the inside of any of the stores. I was too shy to get a good shot but that dude in front of the column in the second shot was wearing wayfarers and standing with another young fraternity type wearing the exact same thing. Hello Hollister, have you burned down yet?

Kris Kuksi + Candice Tripp @ Joshua Liner, Anniversary party @ PPOW Gallery

Pretty insane work from Kris Kuksi and some really nice paintings from Candice Tripp are up at Joshua Liner currently, but some jerk who worked the gallery kept telling me I was getting too close to the pieces. Other than that and some horrifyingly dressed attendees (I came close to rubbing my right cheek on a man's faux fur applique on the back of his denim vest - shudder) this all smiles all around.






Not really sure how I ended up at this spot, but it was weird and huge and awkward and empty. I came for the drinks but stayed for the snacks and neat-o projections.

Wired Store Opening Party, Pankabestia @169 Bowery

No amount of free booze would have ever made the insane overcrowding at the Wired store's opening party last Friday passable. Yuppies, normies, old nerds, Moby, Chris Noth, and a staff of dozens of people all having anxiety attacks = theeeeeee wooooooooorrrrrssssssssssssst. Should I mention there was a portion of the floor on the top floor (before I discovered the also-crowded basement, ummm, pleasant) that was rigged up so you could see downstairs? Scary. Frightening. Terrible. There were products to discover, I think, but I was too busy getting rubbed up on by mid-life crisis after mid-life crisis to really pay attention.






Pankabestia, on the other hand was much more tolerable, perhaps because I got there after it was over and the only people left were my (very drunk) buddies who nearly tackled me to the ground when I walked in. Swoon and her crew keep outdoing themselves with each new incarnation of the Swimming Cities. The amount of intricate work that goes into each float blows me away and shit, floating down a river in Venice with a bunch of stinky buds sounds like a crazy blast, right?

Slater Bradley @ Team Gallery (not pictured), Munny World @ Eloquent Delinquents, Ron English @ Opera Gallery and Alex Lukas @ Glowlab

Thank god for free champagne.

Too sleepy for life

No swine flu, but I felt rotten enough this morning to stay in bed all day. I spent most of the time worrying that my office is perfectly fine with my intern posing as me and wondering if they'll figure they don't need me that much anymore and let me go. What the hell would I do without my job? Oh god, I'm going back to sleep.

3/10

Too sleepy for anxiety

While ignoring an un-welcomed out-of-town guest who was looking for love in all the wrong places (namely my bed, where I wanted to sleep, a lot, with my clothes on, untouched) I joined some friends for dinner and $1 oysters . I was a little weary of impending intestinal doom but dug in anyway and well, so far so good. However, a hint of a cold seems to have embedded itself in my face and my new concern is that I'm coming down with ye olde swiney flu. Uh-oh.

2/10

Lunch run @ Banh Mi Saigon

It's freakishly nice out in New York today, so I took advantage and ran down to Banh Mi Saigon to grab one of their cheapo sandwiches. They were, of course, completely slammed when I got there and handed me a number for my place in line, something I'd never experienced there before. I found a spot to linger at in the back and heard the next number being called - 26. What? Mine was 101, but there were only 10 or so other people in the store and on the benches out front. After a few minutes of shuffling about anxiously, I realized the numbers were out of order, got my order and booked it out of there before I started thinking too hard about what exactly "Men's" Pocky could mean.

4/10

Grass Widow and The Beets @The Brooklyn Museu

First Saturdays at The Brooklyn Museum are usually decently cluster fuck-y, but add to that 3 buzzy bands and a far-too-lengthy performance by a local high school marching band and you have all the right ingredients for a pretty stiff anxiety cocktail. San Francisco's Grass Widow sounded great, and seeing them was a treat after missing the two sold out shows they played earlier in the week, but grumpy entitled photographers pushed, huffed, puffed, and argued in the front of the stage so much that it made the experience unpleasant for everyone within ear shot. Add to that a crowd of bratty kids, confused older people, and uber-hipsters and ugh, I don't even want to think about it anymore. We didn't even stick around long enough to get a look at the exhibit.

8/10

Dave Choi @ The Hogar Collection + 303Grand

One of my favorite stretches of Williamsburg saw two little openings last night, both of which were a-ok. The first one we hit up, at The Hogar Collection had almost zero anxiety factor, aside from the incredibly attractive attendees and those maniacs letting their child dangerously close to that eye gouge-ready buddah sculpture. What are people thinking? I cringed at least 4 times.

5/10







The scene down the street at group opening at 303 Grand was way different. Super crowded, it looked like a Chelsea opening had barfed up a couple fashiony girls in the mix who were dutifully mean-mugging. Some of the photography was nice and that glass blown crutch was awesome - I'm pretty surprised some tipsy dumb-dumb didn't knock it over as I expected. Once I stepped outside for some air and a cigarette, two neighborhood dudes who noticed me eyeing their hooptie would not relent with suggestions of "letting me see the inside," so much so that I had to cross the street. The vanity plate said "Stalkers," maybe this means I'll be seeing them again soon?

7/10

Stretch cab-o on Broadway

So long I couldn't fit it all in the frame. That's just unreasonable.

1/10

L Train To Manhattan, 10:00 am, The morning of the Yankees Parade.

Yay! Hooray!! The Yankees won!! Holy shit!! WOOHOOO!! Oh wait, I want to fucking die because there are 30 teenagers in my train car screaming at the top of their lungs and some jabroni next to me keeps swishing around and sighing like it's my fault the train is so packed we're 1.3 inches away and one false movement from headbutting each other. The only reason this doesn't get a 10 is because there was a cute family in front of me making small talk about how crowded the train was, how sweet.

9/10

OAK Soho Store Party

Store opening parties can be fun, and watching "models" and total normies teeter in too-high heels and complicated frocks in a rando basement should have been more fun but the vibe was weird as hell. Maybe it was because they ran out of free beer when we got there, but probably because some nutjob was carrying her newborn baby around - seriously, the thing was 2 months old, tops - like some sort of high-end barfing accessory.

6/10