And on the third day the devil showed me this:

After TK got out of jail we met up and went to the Ronnie Spector show at McCarren Pool. It probably isn't a post's worth of photos except I really just wanted an excuse to show you the dude above. Look at him! He got on the slip'n'slide in that outfit! He was with a heavily tattooed mohawked Burning Man gay. Every time I go to the pool I see a dude who looks like this dude. All the East Village "freak flag" holdovers. Looking like extras from The Doom Generation or any number of shitty Gregg Araki films.


Look! There they go!


Dudes were only slightly amused. Note the "bitch please" look.


But maybe this is worth posting just for the sake of this kid who I believe to be the cutest kid, like, ever. Time and time again people kept taking him on the slip'n'slide. Lil' dude got to go like thirty times! Every other person who went on it had that kid in their clutches. He was the accessory of the day.

And on the second day the Lord gave me Visions

Day 2 of Freedom Fest, aka an epic 4th of July Weekend brought me first to the emergency room. Ahh, that sweet sickly smell and morbid air of the bums of Beth Israel. How I will not miss thee. Thankfully I was in and out in about 30 minutes. My stitches are gone and my hand looks super gnarly, all dry and cracked and exposed, but the pain is reasonably minor and I am blessedly functional again. I was supposed to get them out on the 4th, but I refused to give the emergency room any part of that day. It hurt like a motherfucker and I spent a good portion of the 5th partially limp from Percocet.



But ahh Glasslands. King Tuff played with TK Webb and the Visions and another band from Baltimore who was a like an American pubrock translation of Queen. Aka, perfect 2 am 5th of July ragers.

Taking pictures at Glasslands is a nightmare with my camera so I am not going to bother posting a bunch of crappy pictures of my friends playing. But during the Visions there was an oblivious dance-off. These two ragers kept it going for a while.





Curly-haired dude was pictured shirtless in the last post. He was the serious champion of the weekend. I was introduced to him, promptly forgot his name, he was super bummed on me that I didn't want some of his beer and then Glen saw him later directing traffic at 2 am in the middle of Bedford Ave. And that was before the weekend even began. He pretty much solidified himself as the most committed to getting awesome of anyone all weekend long.



But get awesome dude had some serious superfan competition during the Vision's set. No one knew where she came from but this girl danced from the first song to the last. Her arms outstretched, legs extended, knees raised, arms bent, hips shaking, ass shaking kneeling to the ground, reaching up the sky. Words cannot accurately describe the insanity. We really wanted get awesome dude and spirit dancer to commune and create some wonderful two-person moves but alas it didn't happen. And double alas the moment I got stuck in between them in the crowd. Treacherous.





The pictures do not do her justice and unfortunately it was too dark to film (trust me I tried.)

TK got arrested for pissing on the street (he had an outstanding warrant) and spent the night in jail. While he was getting arrested get awesome dude walked by and gave him a look. TK said, "Hey man, it's fine, I'll be out tomorrow." Get awesome dude responded, "Dude, I don't give a fuck about you. I just wanted to say that set ruled!" and walked away.

After the show we went to my buddy Hensley's house. We got there super late, like 3 am, and arrived to a rooftop populated by about 12 very drunk folk. This pretty much sums it up:




Hensley's got gayface and Orin's got deadface


And this is the funniest picture of Angela I've ever seen.

4th of Jew-lie

I didn't rage this year. I've been busy with work and planning for travel. I totally lamed out for this year's festivities but had a great time even though I was in bed watching Raging Bull by 11 pm. My company was good, the Freedom Fest BBQ ruled, the friend quotient in the crowd was substantial, and the rain managed to threaten not ruin.


Both girls behind Glen in this picture look like they are about to hurl.


The ribs were ruling.


Sam definitely won the best dressed prize.


Sparks and shorts bustier one-piece? Excellent combo.


Bros.


Glen amongst shirtless bros. Seriously, I was in the bathroom line during almost the entirety of this set but thankfully still had a good view. About six of my dude friends were topless for most of it, but unfortunately they were dancing too hard for me to get a good shot.


This picture was taken about 20 seconds before something came flying off of the crowd-surfing J and hit me square between the eyes. My hand was already bandaged thanks to my stitches having one day left and I spent the rest of the party with a Coors tallboy held to my head to keep the swelling down. I had a minor knot and a bit of blood. What's a holiday without some carnage, especially on my part?

Not that long after I got hit the cops broke up the fun and I exited the party beer can still held to head. The cops hassled me about it and I bitched back and showed them the swelling. They decided to be cool about it but still lectured me. It wasn't open, such dicks.

We regrouped and went to watch the fireworks from a rooftop on Meserole. It was one of those fancy new loft buildings, the elevator took us all the way up to the roof where there were two entrances into apartments, sunken rooftop rooms leading down a spiral staircase into a massive kitchen featuring a bathroom bigger than one of the bedrooms in my pad.

Of course, scum that we are, one of the dudes I rolled in with went around the corner to piss on the roof. He was sternly berated by a friend of the occupants. Definitely not that kind of party. More chips and dip and electronic music, but fireworks are fireworks and they seem even better on a rooftop beneath the mist of a light rain and in the arms of a fellow. Next to us the hosts stood, a married couple, with their beautiful little boy on the father's shoulders. Watching fireworks is so much more amazing when watching them next to baby eyes. The little one was amazed and amazing. A heartfelt wholesome rendezvous in an otherwise debauched weekend.

Why I've been busy

The Good The Bad & The Ugly 

End of an Era

 

After 8 years

The Good The Bad & The Ugly

is shutting its doors!

 

***NO FEAR***

Judi Rosen New York

will live on

STAY TUNED!

 

3-day closing party

featuring booze, babes, and bargains

 

FINAL SALES DAYS

7/11 - 7/12

1pm - 8pm

 

Friday, July 11

Deep discounts, samples and other goodies from past seasons.

Free champagne

treats provided by

Heartschallenger ice cream truck.

Featuring DJs Billy and Lil' JR 

 

Saturday, July 12

Heartschallenger ice cream truck

Jams courtesy of

J Penry

Sunday, July 13

4-7 pm

We’ll be grilling, chilling, and swilling! 

PARTY DOCTORS ARE IN THE HOUSE!! 

Sam Jayne and Ivan Sunshine of Love as Laughter

 

The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

85 Kenmare Street


New York, NY  10012


P.  212.473.3769


info@goodbaduglynyc.com

 

Buds drinking Buds

Jake was in town for two days. I missed him the first day because I hadn't slept the night before (thanks to the ER trip) and couldn't fathom going out.



We went to the Charleston and Pete Macy was drunk as all get out. He was leaving the next day for tour. Early Man is going on tour with Skeletonwitch and Valient Thorr...check them in a city near you. I like the above picture because I was just reading this hilarious entry about photobombers.



Check out the ultimate triple fist: beer, whisky, and Slim Jim. A true champion.



I got mauled. Who would pick on a girl with a bandaged hand like that? So unfair.

FID

If I am good at anything it's fucking up. Seriously, it's a talent. To willfully make bad decisions and not give a fuck. I mean wow, I value my life but the caliber of my fuck up ability is extraordinary. I see my friends who have the strength to make responsible well thought-out decisions and I envy them. On many points I am quite judicious and clear-headed. I'll work through a case of the plague and I am very rarely late. I have a great concept of time and I always pay my rent, but when it comes to personal decisions I am a retard. I guess part of me just doesn't give a fuck, it's probably a miracle I quit drinking, maybe vanity outweighed my internal case of the FID ("Fuck it dude".) I can't help it. This extends to buying things I should because I think they are hilarious, going on massive trips I can't afford, and of course the inevitable sleeping around. If I want to do something I'll most likely do it, shouldn't isn't a good enough reason. I try to be good, try to resist temptations but then I just get horny and bored.

Speaking of being a fuck up, I came to a depressing realization the other day. I was talking to someone about how I primarily identify myself as a writer even though I am too gutless to pursue it as a career path. The freelancing world scares me and the idea of submitting things for publication terrifies me, I have no idea where to start and refuse to look into it. Maybe it's selective laziness. I'll go out of my way to do mundane things on a daily basis but when it's the stuff I care about I flake and avoid. It's part of the art of poor decision making. I was telling someone about my job and how I work in fashion. He currently interns for Harpers and I told him the publishing world seems scary to me. But then I backtracked saying that the fashion world seems equally as scary to most if not scarier and then mid-sentence I realized that fashion doesn't scare me because I don't care. If I fail in this industry I won't be crushed. I'll probably be happier to have it out of my system. And because I ultimately don't care, because my dreams aren't wrapped up in it, I probably won't fail. Essentially I've given up before I've even begun.

A job is something to me that I don't mind doing. I hope one day that will chance and it will be something I love. I used to think I couldn't be one of those people who was content pursuing my art on my own time. I didn't think that my income and artistic drive should have to be separate. In a dream world writing would be my job but I don't know if I'll ever have the guts to try and make that happen.

I told this all to my mother and she told me it was very depressing. Thanks mom.

Skulled

I do not like skulls. Wearing a symbol of the self in death. Mortality is just a t-shirt away. Silk screened onto silk scarves, littering the neckline or dangling from one's ears in a pewter head shop mess. They've lost their menace. They are a signifier of tough for those who do not know harshness. For those who do not know pain. Our own bones are pain, alarm when we see them, that sick flash of white when our insides become out, it can mean doom or at least partial physical damnation, yet the skulls of our imagination not sourced from our actual departed brethren still mark the smiling lipless grin of death.

Not that I am going to entirely beg off a fascination with morbidity. More and more the morose bores me. I am not troubled by it. It doesn't upset me and I understand it, but it does not intrigue me. It seems like an exercise of the sheltered. Those who do not know true terror like to imagine it and through such imagination they feel as though they do know it. That they will be prepared to meet it when it comes. Prolonged exposure to imaginations of terror make us falsely familiar. I cannot empathize with the raped and pillaged. I cannot know the sight of watching my loves slaughtered. I do not know the feeling of being torn limb from limb, but I can pay someone $200 to get a grinning death's head tattooed on my arm to show the world I think I know the meaning of pain.

Somewhere in art the wires get crossed and alienation becomes synonymous with death. the artist talks of suffocation, of a creative death with falsely suicidal malaise. Cut off from expression we say we feel dead, if we are emotionally lacking we say we are dead inside, but despite our boasts and dramatics we do not know death. We cannot feel death, have no claim on its finality. If our eternal mortality, the end of all ends becomes a ringer in a series of social cliches where does that leave us? "A fate worse than death?" Were you ever so embarrassed you could have just died? Really? Were you? Shame and death never the two shall meet.