It’s confirmed. By magnanimous decree of David Karp’s Big Dick (we hear), tonight’s soup kitchen benefit party is an OFFICIAL Tumblr meet-up. Now you HAVE to come. PASS IT ON. Expected attendees: Keith Gessen, Borough of Manhattan President Scott Stringer and Alex Pareene (birthday shots!) - JUST TO NAME A FEW.
I’ll be there, if only because it got the decree.
I’m a “dog” guy. I like dogs. Not small kickdogs that just kind of sit there and bark and are decidedly anti-fetching, though some of those are nice and occasionally have “personality.” Most of them are annoying, if only because they’ve devolved into an accessory.
Nope. I like dogs. A boxer. A golden retriever. A Labrador. Those are dogs. Some dogs are a little too much dog for me: St. Bernards, Dobermans, Great Danes, etc (N.B. Whenever I hear of Great Danes, I’m reminded of what someone once told me a long time ago: “Bad hearts. Huge shits.”). We used to have Kommondors - we had three, actually: Harpo, Julie, Simon - which is a dog you might recognize from the cover of Beck’s Odelay. Now: there’s a dog. And we had it in Las Vegas. There was a tough motherfuckin’ dog. Sweet as can be, but mangled a few cats and an “exotic” bird that got in our backyard. Hey, you gotta protect the family, you know? Besides which: THEY’RE JUST CATS.
ANYWAY. I get to see my dogs this weekend. All six (six?) of them. They’re a decent if not temperamental group. A few kickdogs in there. They all follow Helen around like they’re the fuckin’ Outsiders or something, and anyone who rings our doorbell is a pack of Socs*. Goddamn, those dogs go apeshit when someone rings the doorbell. It’s insane. You could shoot holes through our walls with a .22, and they might look up. But someone rings the doorbell, and all six of ‘em will freak the fuck out.
Don’t get me wrong. I like my dogs. Especially Hannah. She’s the lab. I do not mind a good game of fetch with her around the front yard. She has done nothing to hurt me (though she did take one of the Shitzu’s eyes out in a particularly brutal fight; now Barton - Coen Bros, anyone? - has one eye and my dad couldn’t stop calling Hannah “The Bride” for a few weeks, to Helen’s intense dismay). I particularly like, miss, and look forward to seeing this dog.
Which is why I would never - never, not in a million fucking years - buy this for her. She loves her toys. Loves them. Has a strong, sentimental affection for them. What kind of cruel psychopath would freeze them in a block of ice? I don’t care how goddamn hot it is outside! Don’t do that to my dog. If you froze something I loved in a block of ice, I would flip out. I can’t even begin to process what she would go through the first time she saw that..
“WHATTHEFUCKWHYAREMYTOYSINTHISREALLYCOLD
THINGIDON’TGETITPLEASEPLEASPLEASEPLEASEPLEASE
COMEOUTCOMEOUT
IWANTMYTOYYYYYYYYYYYYSSSSSSSSSSS!
OWTHISISCOLDFUCKYOUUNIVERSE!”
*Pronounced “Soh-sh”, for all you assholes who never read S.E. Hinton.
[video]
*vampire weekend.
Yes, yes, I know: it’s a picture of Vampire Weekend. But it wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for where Vampire Weekend is in this picture: Kilby Court, in Salt Lake City, Utah. It is, bar none, one of the best (and more obscure) music venues in America. It’s run by my good friend Will Sartain (whose music in it’s own right: pretty spectacular) and owned by Phil Sherburne, a carpenter by trade. His wife is concert-poster artist Leah Bell, whose work you’ve probably seen at some point or another. It’s a little larger than a one-car garage, and looks exactly like what you’re seeing above.
Quite literally, almost any punk or “indie” band that you’ve listened to in the last six years, and several that you haven’t, have played there several times. Some of the best shows I saw included The Velvet Teen (a band that, in a just world, would be far more famous than Coldplay or Keane) on their Elysium tour (they used a mini-disc for the massive orchestrations, and played over it), and The Good Life, who, over the course of a two hour set, got so plastered that they couldn’t remember how to play some of the requests from the audience, which they took like champs, honoring every one they could. Also, I think I saw Mates of State there when they were still on Polyvinyl, but my last year in town was really, really hazy.
ANYWAY. Listen: there are very, very few reasons to visit Salt Lake City. There are even less things to do there. God forbid you get stuck there and you aren’t skiing, do yourself a favor, and stop by Kilby Court, and look at the list of all of the bands that have played in this tiny little shack. It’s kind of an incredible place.
Oh, by the way: there’s often a lot of love for Alex Pareene around these parts. There’s a reason. Reading a post like that is like watching someone casually knock in a half-court shot.
For Dana and 99: the sink at the Gawker offices. Enjoy.
The story: a (Republican) Clark County assemblywoman is charged with cutting her husband with a “kitchen” knife. They were having a dinner party. Things got “heated” between the couple. People dispersed. And he shows up with a stab wound blaming her for it. It goes to court. He pleads the fifth. He’s granted immunity. And he testifies:
“I grabbed that knife and I jammed it through my arm,” he said. Turns out it was a steak knife, too.
So she’s cleared, and he’s fine, even though he didn’t show up to an earlier hearing because of an “improperly served subpoena.” Oh, and this:
Maineri also told Las Vegas police while he was at the hospital that Allen stabbed him but he recanted after he learned she was facing arrest, according to a Las Vegas police report.
So how long does it take to come up with a good story? About three weeks. Either way, like any good snake-oil salesman, she gets the last line in:
“Early voting starts the 26th,” she added, smiling. “Don’t forget to get voters out.”
The Culture Wars: A Tale of Two Pussies. Below is the full proposal I emailed Keith Gessen, author of All the Sad Young Literary Men, and his acceptance. (I got permission this time.) For a chance to win the book, come to this Soup Kitchen benefit on Wednesday (only a $10 cover charge!) and buy a special raffle ticket from me. (Maybe another $5? I have to figure that out.) Gessen will be in attendance to explain his writing process to the winner and probably even buy a round of drinks. Mock all you want but we did good here, and that’s the important takeaway. I have to believe the n+1 Youth Center for Comparative Literature Studies, saddled by a gun store perhaps (pirates are for pussies), is not too far behind.
Keith! Good Wednesday, how are ya? Me, I sweat like a chazer in this heat BUT ENOUGH ABOUT ME… perhaps you’ve heard by now that I won the eBay auction for the FSU version of your book. Man, what a roller coaster ride! Almost lost my muffin through the last clothoid loop. (Google it, Keith. I did.)Now, to be honest, my original plan for the book was to burn it upon pick-up at Gawker HQ (preferably right there in the office using Denton’s evil eye laser), then stuff the ashes in an urn, mark it with “pussy” and mail it to you.
Dramatic, huh?
Two things dissuaded me from that: 1) I was reminded of the ugly history of book burning and how Jew-on-Jew desecration wouldn’t serve anyone’s cause. 2) More importantly, I remembered that *I* am the pussy. There’s no way I would actually go through with that. After studied consultation, I concluded you were right on all points in our previous exchange. If we were Facebook friends, I would send you a “You Win!” sticker if such a thing were available in their virtual marketplace.
So now what? I dunno, the other YM malcontents have some lofty ideas which mainly involve Foster caressing the pages, sleeping with it under his pillow and waiting for gifts from the Truth Fairy, but I just don’t think their hearts are in the *right* place. My main interest in this auction was of course the philanthropic angle.
Don’t believe me? You might need heavy metal toothpicks to prop your eyes open for this but I’ve taught laptop skills to 2nd graders in Harlem, worked with a Roma community in Transylvania, done urban farming in East New York and currently I’m involved with a soup kitchen project. Hey hey, links!
http://blog.nycares.org/?p=181
http://flinyc.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pV_Z6CltlK0
http://krucoff.com/2007/04/farm-team.html
http://youngmanhattanite.tumblr.com/post/42334400/apparently-this-will-be-running-on-mnn-cableNot to mention my generous contributions to Donors Choose.
http://youngmanhattanite.com/2007/07/your-pre-algebra-remonstrations.html
http://youngmanhattanite.com/2007/10/tv-party-tonight.html
http://youngmanhattanite.com/2007/11/giving-because-it-hurts.html
http://youngmanhattanite.com/2008/02/you-wont-find-change-in-voting-booth.htmlDoes it sound like I’m bragging? Good ear. If I may, an extended quote from Joey Kurtzman of Jewcy on similar efforts:
“Do you find all this self-satisfaction nauseating? Of course you do. I don’t like it either. We encounter arrogance and self-promotion all the time, but it’s jarring to hear someone even discuss the dollar value of their charitable contributions, much less boast about it. How could it be otherwise, when we’ve been indoctrinated with all that insufferable Judeo-Christian twaddle about good deeds being noblest when done quietly, without public display or recognition? It’s Jesus’s favorite talking point. The Pharisees couldn’t walk an old lady across the Cardo without sending the Lamb of God off on another tiresome rant about the hypocrisy of good deeds done for public display.
And it wasn’t just Jesus. In the Mishneh Torah, Maimonides broke charity down into eight forms, and the more selfless your intentions, the more noble the charity.
It’s all a bunch of destructive hippy-dippy bullshit. The real hero is the person who gives, and then struts and preens in public like they just fucked the prom queen.”
Amen, Brother Joey.
OK, fine, but what’s my point? Here it is: let’s use your book for good. Better, let’s use it for GREAT. I am willing to offer it without further defacement as a door prize for this soup kitchen benefit next Wednesday - http://nycsoup.org/index060408_files/Page589.htm - if you would agree to attend to personally congratulate and explain the prize to the winner. I am certain through Gawker’s promotion of this we could get a decent turnout, a Tumblr’s quorum even, and then less people would go hungry. It’s like chicken soup for the stomach.
Regards,
AKAnd remember, Keith. We get the emails we deserve. Even the simpering, schizophrenic ones.
Dear Andrew—
Sure, I’d be glad to come. We should consult the Talmud—or, failing that, Jewcy.com—as to whether a book can be offered to charity twice, but otherwise I’ll be happy to explain how I replaced the Crimson Sports Grille with the 4th Quarter Bar.
Although I think they should charge a lot more than $10 at the door.
And, yes, I’m sure you’re right that we get the emails, and comments, and just about everything else that we deserve. You know—more or less.
Best,
Keith
Andrew Krucoff Wins The Culture War -
The most expensive practical joke to date.
This has been, by far and away, the highlight of my week.