Got the November issue of Nylon yesterday. Flipped open the cover to find an impressive gatefold attached to it. The gatefold looked eerily like the cover. Each page had the same model as the cover sometimes wearing the same necklaces as what’s shown on the cover. At first I thought these four pages were just a mini fashion story associated with the cover, but then I saw the Virgin Mobile logo on the last page, making the final shot an ad for Virgin Mobile, which then begs the question is every preceding photo, including the cover, part of the ad?
As a journalist I was shocked that NYLON blatanly slept with their advertisers. I understand they might be having financial problems, but this pairing of cover art with Virgin Mobile ad is just weird and kinda sad.

*place your mouse over the image, right click, and select to open the link in a new window to scroll though the larger image.

Not sure if any of you have made it out to Rocky Sullivans irish pub, but if you haven’t – you better. I went last night for the first time, a great experience. On Thursday nights they have a team trivia contest with mulitple rounds and free beer giveaways in between games. The atmosphere is that of an old pub where the only important things are the people and the cold beer. The place doesn’t look like much but is packed full of good spirits. The have something going on just about everyday during the week, mostly a venue for Celtic music and sports. If you are ever close to 28th and Lex you should stop by…

When you live in NYC, you find creative ways to deal with the issue of inadequate closet space. One such way is by farming out wardrobe storage to places like City Closet. There was a time when I whined about having to pay almost as much as my rent to just park my car. But times change and now I don’t even blink at shelling out $50/month to park my closet.

I signed up with City Closet last Spring after 5+ years of struggling in vein to accommodate the wardrobes of two people into the mortgaged shoe box we call home. I finally gave up. I know I only have myself to blame. I know I don’t really need 4 winter coats or 6 pairs of New Balance sneakers or 5 pairs of Merrell loafers or 3 pairs of Hush Puppies or 17 backpacks or 30 pairs of jeans or… well you get the picture. But I WANT those things and if it means paying fifty bucks a month to store half of them someplace else for part of the year, so be it. When you live in NYC, you also find ways to justify the silliest of things to yourself.

This weekend City Closet will bring my warm, snuggly sweaters and boots back to me and I will pack my shorts, sandals and sleeveless shirts away in the cedar closet on wheels they will call home for the next 6 months.

For the record, as much as I love the concept behind City Closet, I can’t really recommend the company as a whole. My customer service experiences with them have been pretty lousy actually, from the word go. I’d go into more detail, but I can’t risk my suede coat being returned to me with “bitch” spray painted across the back :)

The spirit of Motown is alive and well on Lexington avenue my friends. Grabbed lunch yesterday at the corner deli by my office. Did it up cafteria style – walking around the troughs, saying excuse me a lot. As i was loading up on some pasta salad thang those first sweet sweet notes of The Tempts’ ‘My Girl’ came on over the house speakers. The second those lyrics dripped down from above “I got sunshine (hold it for a sec) on a cloudy day (do do do do do)” I KID YOU NOT WHEN I TELL YOU THAT SIX PEOPLE (seven including me) ALL STARTING SINGING AT THE SAME TIME. We took a second to acknowledge one another, but only for a moment mind you, because we still had more singing to do. “When it’s cold outside (hold it)…” This heavy-set woman by the rice hit me off with some southern hospitality sangin’, throaty and passionate. “I got the month of May…” My man, two-tone flannel laying waste to the fruit salad was our alto. He was backed up by none other than the black leather bandit known not only for his doo, but for his wop as well. Never has a man picked out only the chicken from the brocoli and chicken with such soul, such rhythm. A young girl with her hair pulled back provided a faint yet impactful melody, as she deftly weaved her way through the crowd en route to the garbonzo beans. I can easily say with no hesitation whatsoever that it was the greatest moment in my entire life.

(Because i didn’t say anything yesterday – Fuck the Texas Billionaire Boys Club and all that they represent).

I had hoped to introduce myself to you all today under more cheerful circumstances, but I don’t have the heart to fake cheerfulness today. Forgive me?

That extra name you might have noticed added to the Bloggers list on the left is mine. I look forward to sharing my quintessentially New York views with you from now on. I’d give you a little taste of my wit and wisdom now, but again… I just don’t have it in me.

After I’ve worked through the melancholy and misery phase, I am hoping to jump directly to rancor and fury. Rancor and fury are sooo much more New York ;)

today, i’m sad to be an american

I went this morning to vote in my new Brooklyn neighborhood and I can

metroblogging co-founder Sean Bonner has set up a site that chronicles the voting stories being posted on metroblogging city sites.

Voting in Brooklyn provided no celebrity sitings, no long lines, and no drama but it did help me feel like a real member of this country and that was a nice, grown-up, responsible feeling. I was pleased to see the sizable crowd spilling out onto the sidewalk was an accurate sampling of my South Williamsburg neighborhood-young, scruffy, artso types (”Hey! There’s the singer for Les Savy Fav.”) and Puerto Rican moms and pops. The volunteers spoke English and Spanish and dispatched everyone to their respective district booths fairly efficiently. Because I knew one of the volunteers, she’s done a great job with my taxes for the past two years at the local HR Block and I wish I could remember her name, she sent me to my booth without checking my ID. That made me feel like a real member of this crazy little community. There was an old guy in a wheelchair ahead of me in the booth and a volunteer was in there helping him. Eventually he came out all smiles, like, “Hey, I did it!” I have a soft spot for old guys so I gave him a smile and a thumbs up. Once I got into the booth I couldn’t believe the weird, Jetson’s-like lever box that I had to do my voting with. “What is this, the Fifties?” I can’t imagine that it even worked, but I hope to Hell it did. It’s sort of bad, but I didn’t know anything about any of them except Kerry and Bush so I blindly voted for all the Senators and such. I hope that doesn’t backfire on me. Since then, I’ve been anticipating the count. I know Kerry’s going to win this state, but I hope, whoever wins, that my vote does really get counted. It’s nice to actually participate in this moment and I’d hate to think that that weird contraption might have broken down or something weird like that. But you know, it’s as if day-to-day, I can read the papers and form my opinions, and I certainly laugh at all of Will Ferrell’s Dubya impersonations, but until I got that 5 minutes in the lever booth, this country’s problems and potential didn’t actually, physically, touch me. I rocked it.