Top anything of anything of 2006 posted in 2007

OK HERE IS MY LAME FUCKING TOP WHATEVER LIST. THESE THINGS ARE OBNOXIOUS. MINE IS HASTILY THROWN TOGETHER IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER FOR NO PARTICULAR REASON. FUCK YOU.

1. The day I listened to Ma$e- "Harlem World" all day. I heard "Jealous Guys" about 8 times. "I go by the name of Puff Daddy, and I'm a Scorpio....and I'm not a jealous guy." November 10th, a day that will live in infamy.

2. The chicken provolone sandwich from Bread Market on 52nd.

3. Ratatat- Lex. Again, shit sounds like Yngwie Malmsteen chopped up into a huge 6.arena banger.

4. Hot Chip- over and over. We'll give you laid back, motherfucker.

5. Turbulence- Notorious. The only dancehall I listened to all year.

6. T.I.'s verse on Justin Timberlakes's "My love". "If you don't come I ain't gon' die" he says. This guy.....

7. Denny greens meltdown after COMPLETELY shooting himself in the balls and handing them over for the Chicago Bears.


8. Darkplace. God damnit.



9. The trailer for 300. This could be the greatest or worst movie ever, I don't care. The trailer kicks fucking ass. In the year 2000, there will be awards shows for trailers. I called it.


10. My finding a house in queens. Second only to the first time had sex there. Christened the joint.

11. Beautiful/Decay Issue P release party. I promoted it, and you didn't go. Fools.

12. Clark- Body Riddle. One of the most listenable experimental IDM albums I've heard in a long time. Not just listenable, the sounds this guy comes up with are downright loveable. The transition from the track "Herzog" into the song "Ted" makes me moist.


13. The Jamie Lidell/Battles/Chris Clark show in NYC. The highlight for me was....all of it.

14. This. Both the video and the song. Fuck.


15. Feast. Own that movie. 80 minutes of people dying in horrific ways for no apparent reason.


16. TV on the Radio: Wolf like me. I spent weeks ONLY listening to that track. I'm not joking.

17. My Fantasy Football team, week 12. Thanks Drew Brees

18. Scoring E-40’s spare alcohol.

19. These:
http://www.nicekicks.com/511/nike/nike-sb/pee-wee-herman-dunks-sb/

20. This video. Because fucking with drunk passed out people sits right next to people falling down as the funniest possible shit in the world. Also because Kanye had a shit fit in the UK when this video beat out his video for "touch the sky" as "Best Video Ever" or something.


21. Gnarls Barkley. Fuck the hype. Somehow they created the most universally appealing music in decades. The hood loved it, my 16 year old sister loved it, my Dad loved it.


22. Clipse- Hell hath no fury. Remember when Neptunes made sparse-ass dirty beats? It's all here.


23. Ghostface- Fishscale. For a lot of reasons, the name, the track "Shaky Dog", and the "Directions to Heart Street" skit.

24. Liars- Drum's not Dead. I don't know why. That album does things to me.

25. This video. Whenever it came on at work, I was unable to stand for about 9 minutes. So much damn sex appeal.


26. Seeing this live. Good god. And yes, he is "playing" old NES systems. I saw dude actually blow on the cartridge. The crowd might be the real star here. They make being dorks look almost sweet. Almost.


27. My drunk ex-friend in full on histrionic mode. She will kill me for this.


28. This too. For no real reason other than the NES nostalgia.


29. Every blowjob I received in a cab this year.

Ok thats it, shittiest list ever.

Day after a Holiday Party.

This business starts their weekend on Thursday. Hangovers are reason enough to call in. A 400 dollar bar tab at marquee is a business meeting. Bloodshot eyes and brushing teeth in the office bathroom is par for the course.

"This wine is too damn good and there is WAY too much of it around here", I said, fuzzy already with only a marinated olive and some hummus in me.
My boss just laughed, poured me another full glass and ordered another bottle.

Glasses went up for the end of an era. Yesterday, Ahmet Ertegun died at the age of 83. Ahmet Ertegun, the man immortalized in the film "Ray" (Ray Charles hilariously calls him "Omelette" at one point) by Curtis Armstrong (Booger from Revenge of the Nerds) was the founding chairman of Atlantic Records. He started the company with a 10,000 dollar loan from his dentist and it went on to become well...what it is today, a major label, which is nothing to sneeze at.

This is how he went out though. He fell at a Rolling Stones show. He suffered a head injury, went into a coma, and then died. The events that lead to his demise happened at a rock concert. I might be saying this prematurely, but, good for him. Seriously, a music man like that I would think would be happy to go out for music. I always want to die listening to slayer, but the stones would be somewhere in my top ten bands to die listening to. Again, good for him. Right when I found out I blasted Otis Redding's "Happy Song" (Ertegun worked closely on Redding's career) at amazingly loud volume.

Still fuzzy, I put up my glass for the end of an era with some lawyers i didn't know. I had heard something like this a few days ago. The guys from TV on the Radio were...um...on the radio talking about the death of the music industry. I feel it to be severeley ailing, Mr. Ertegun in a coma after rocking out a Stones show. Clutching at whatever it can to keep going, fistful of money in hand. Warner Music Group's partnership with Youtube is an example of this. Its the classic move to "keep friend's close and enemies closer". No one needs a record label to make music anymore, no one needs record labels to get music heard.

There are these things called "the internet", "cd burning", "blogs", "myspace" and a shitload of others that we have at our disposal to force our shitty art on "the public", albeit a much more narrow public, but "public" nonetheless. Shit, even I have an album, a record label, and a few people who listen to it. Here. Thats all I need really, my music is crap (except for "fuck the levels", that shit is genius), but I'm going to make the shit anyway because I can. Of course we want people to like it, we want to get paid for it, but if we didn't have all of that we would still make the shit anyway. I said "shit" a lot in this paragraph.

We presented a man who has more many than God with a 700 dollar bottle of wine and some crystal wine holder by some artist. We thought it was a wastebasket. "Is that where the company is going?", my co-worker said at an uncomfortably loud level. Happy Hanukka.

My boss broke a glass, I got her a cab, and I went to get drunk and listen to Das Efx in the basement of some club.

R.I.P. Music Biz.

The Queen's English

"If you don't come I ain't gon' die..."
Inadvertently my new motto....

A word about the "Queens English", I've been hanging out with a bunch of kids from Queens for a while now, and I've noticed a few things about the way they talk. I'm a fucking anthropologist now apparently. Keep in mind this might be a regional thing, not just Queens, but hey...

A few points on how to speak in Queens.

First thing you need to know is you have to say "yo" before almost everything you say. Second, you have to say "bro" after everything you say. You'd think the "yo" part would sound kind of corny, but once you hear it in conversation, it sounds so natural you wonder why the hell you haven't been using it all along. As a prefix to a sentence, its a fuckload better than "like". And "bro"? I'm not joking, if you think you are saying it too much, say it 5 times more. These people say "bro" a LOT bro. See Ari's impersonation of E in one of the most recent episodes of Entourage for an illustration. Its pretty accurate. I would take this any day over the preferred suffix in my homeland, "eh?", which makes you just want to stick a motherfucker all the way back to Montreal.

Another thing, if you are talking about a person, even if they are in the room, it is perfectly OK to call them "this guy". Example:
"Yo, this guy thinks he's Charles Bronson with that mustache bro."
Or, if they aren't in the room
"Yo I've been calling this guy all day bro, motherfucker can't pick up his phone bro"

Furthermore, if someone has used too much of something, they have "OD'd" (pronounced um.... 'Oh deeeed').
"Yo man this guy Od'd on the Cool Water tonight bro".

That brings me to "Yo man", (pronounced 'YO Maaaaaaaaaaan') this is an expression of disgust, used to let the person know they are fuckin' up. You don't really need to say more outside of this short phrase to let someone know you aren't pleased. You are not ready to hurt them, just peeved...they served you a 7 and water instead of a CC and water, or they forgot to take their nasty shoes off in your house. Yeah, like that.

Finally, "Brick". This one is new to me about 2 days ago. "Brick" means "cold". I don't fucking understand how, but it is definitely the case. My roommate explained that it is called "brick" because the cold is like being hit in the face with a brick...I don't buy it but I don't have a choice. A popular variation is, "Man it is Brick City out there today." I tried this when I walked into a shoe store in Astoria on Saturday. Guy asked me how it was out there, I responded with an enthusiastic, "Brick CITY out there bro", guy just gave a knowing nod and a smile and went to hit on his big-assed co-worker behind the counter. This phrase is not to be confused to mean "New Jersey"...I'm 90 percent sure a few parts New Jersey call themselves "Brick City" sometimes, but I stay far the fuck away from Jersey and anyone who lives there so I've never had verification.

So there you have it. Oh yeah, ugly girls are known as "busted", which is just plain fun to say.

EDIT: "Custy": This is short for "Customer", namely the customer of a drug dealer. Ghostface uses this term in his verse on that new Beyonce track. I don't know what its called so don't ask.

Apparently there are various levels a "Custy" can achieve. The highest is "Best Custy". If you are one of these, you can basically hit up your dealer at any hour of the night, and he will hook you up straight out of his personal stash. Depending on the drug, you are probably also allowed some amount of credit. But...

"Number six: that God damn credit, dead it
You think a crackhead payin you back, shit forget it"
-Notorious B.I.G., Ten Crack Commandments

Obviously.


More to come later.

Drinking on the job #2

Date: December 8th, 2006. 4:28 pm.
Type of alcohol: Champagne, the shitty variety.
Number of Drinks: 1 plastic glass.
Purpose: Surprising Brian McKnight. Dude had no idea a bunch of jerks who don't know him were going to be there pretending they "go way back".
Buzz?: Maybe for the first 4 minutes.
Fun Fact: I was supposed to be working, but the DTs and the shakes led me to the champers downstairs at my old employer.

Getting back on the horse?

Ah fuck,

So you are all going to this party if you are in the NYC area this weekend. Last time we ran out of free sparks 10 minutes before we said we would, and people were seriously angry...about fucking SPARKS.

My favorite moment was 2 hours and 10 minutes into working there, this exchange happened:

Stupid Girl: "You said there was free booze. It's all gone"
Me [making change and giving wristbands to 3 people at once]: "I'm sorry ma'am but there is nothing I can do."
Stupid Girl: "You are taking advantage of poor college kids with this party."
Me [putting wristbands on 4 people at once]: "Look, we have two theatres of movies, two rooms of music, and tons of other cool shit, if you came for the free sparks you came for the wrong reason."
Stupid Girl: "I want my five dollars back"
Me [counting out change from a hundred]: "No refunds"
Stupid Girl: "I want to talk to your boss"
Me [trying to get security guards to stop the throng of people with cool sneakers from beating down the door]: "He's the guy running around with skulls on his t-shirt. Anyway, he said he wont do refunds because he is a big Jew. You understand."
Stupid Girl: "This bullshit and you are being a jerk."
Me: "Look, I will buy you a fucking happy meal, just leave me alone."

Whatever, she had like 2 hours to get her free booze. So yes, you will be there, it always gets crazy packed full of gorgeous women, gift bags, great music, and yes, free sparks. Get the fuck in there. I don't usually recommend parties, but I am recommending this one because I write for them and I help them out because they fucking rule.

So this party being this weekend means I'm out this week every night "promoting", which means I have an excuse to go to 2-6 different bars and clubs every night to pass out flyers. It could be my return to debauched form. I've been a little bit of a wimp lately and I'm ready to balance that out with some outright stupidity. I will let you know if this actually happens.

Drinking on the Job. #1

I think I am going to have to document every time I drink on the job. With this format.

Date: Decmber 1st, 2006
Type of alcohol: Champagne, the shitty variety
Number of Drinks: 2 plastic glasses
Purpose: Presenting one of our artists with a platinum plaque.
Buzz?: Maybe for the first 10 minutes.
Fun Fact: It is perfectly acceptable to walk in to a 'platinum presentation', speak to only one person, swallow two glasses of champagne in record time, and walk out.

I am also going to start taking inventory of other things that go on here.