Nerve Insider : About last night

From The Archives: About Last Night…The Boyfriend

Nicole Ankowski — Mon, 19 May 2008 21:19:00 GMT

I got my first boyfriend when I was fourteen. It lasted one month, and the month happened to be February. So for Valentines Day he gave me a small stuffed Grateful Dead dancing bear from the head shop he hung out at, and a butterfly necklace from Claire’s that broke the next day. Just like Carrie Hill Wilner, ten years later I still don’t know what exactly makes a boyfriend, but I do know that somewhere in between Meg Ryan movies and popping the big question, we do get some pretty great stories out of these guys…

Check out Carrie Hill Wilner’s “About Last Night…The Boyfriend” and follow her deceptively endearing journey to discovering that sometimes wanting that “confusing horrible freak-out sex” can really be quite comforting… — Alexandra Godfrey

About Last Night: TimeOut NY Horny Party

Peter Smith — Tue, 13 May 2008 18:00:00 GMT

I suppose waking up on Tuesday morning clutching a free-drink token, two business cards and a hand-written invitation to a burlesque show is a good sign that you've given Monday night the hard fucking it deserves. Still, I've got to admit I left TimeOut New York's "Horny Party" more sexually frustrated than I was when I went in. No fault of the good people at TimeOut — they provided a bottle to spin and plenty of good-looking young folks, as you can see from the photos my coworkers have kindly used to blackmail me into writing this. The problem may be more that, having recently emerged from a long relationship, I have misplaced whatever game I once had. In any event, a tip of the hat to TimeOut. I got drunk, and I lost my heart to a beautiful burlesque dancer named Runaround Sue. (Pictured below — sadly, I wasn't the only one getting handwritten invitations.) (Sidenote: is it just me, or is there something kind of weirdly sexless about burlesque? It's like crocheting or something. Or maybe I'm just not comfortable enough with my [raging] sexuality to watch a pretty girl undress in public without feeling like a dog begging for scraps.) Thanks to friend and former Nerve intern Lux over at Fleshbot for the hard evidence.

About Last Night: Flight of the Conchords at Town Hall New York

Nicole Ankowski — Wed, 07 May 2008 15:30:00 GMT

Who Would You Rather: Bret or Jemaine? At last night’s Flight of the Conchords’ show at Town Hall New York, that fateful question seemed to be the main point of contention between audience members, and the boys themselves. And the guy next to me, and me. (What a hard life, huh?)

My personal dilemma: who was Jemaine’s new hairstyle most reminiscent of? Greg Brady? Farrah Fawcett? …but I’m getting ahead of myself.

I was lucky enough to have snagged one of red velour-covered seats at last night’s sold-out concert, though I wasn’t sure what to expect. As a fan of the HBO series, and a long-time deliberator between whom I would rather (Jemaine. Definitely Jemaine.), I still had never bought one of their albums. (Sorry, guys.) After the comedic stylings of Todd Barry warmed up the crowd (everyone loves a good Trader Joe’s joke) the lights went down, and the crowd’s energy went up. The hipster-esque crowd morphed into a humming, fidgeting vat of pheromones. Thank God the AC was on high or the place would have melted.

Then the Kiwi digi-folk-paradist gods came onstage to thundering applause…looking just like themselves. Hey, I’ll freely admit that I spent the first 20 minutes mentally going, “Wow, Bret (“Brit”) looks just like he does on TV! Only maybe his teeth are whiter. And his moustache is slightly more pronounced. And he’s not wearing an 80s sweatshirt emblazoned with an owl or a deer or any other woodland creature. And, he just said ‘fuck’! Oh my Lord, he just said ‘fuck’ again. Bret on the show wouldn’t say ‘fuck’!” (Yes, I have an MFA.)

I’ll also freely admit that for at least five minutes I thought a spider had landed on my head or back. I was a little distracted.

But I was soon drawn back in. The boys are as endearing live as they are on the show, and play basically the same characters. Bret told tales of his imaginary wife and children, and their children’s children, and their children’s children’s children…maybe you had to be there. The crowd loved each and every song, from the good ol’ classics like “Business Time” to new songs featuring women fleeing relationships via bus or coma. The theater was lush with soft Kiwi lust. The first woman to shout out “I love you Bret!” caused a mild ripple of sighing agreement. More fans shouted out to Bret, including the guy next to me who was about to jump out of his seat. (And who kept stretching his neck with head-rolling exercises. Understandable, but still disconcerting to see – out of the corner of your eye – a pale, slack face rolling slowly toward you, Exorcist-like. I wanted to give him a neck rub to make him stop it already, but I think he only would have accepted such assistance from Bret.)

Of course, to a Jemaine supporter such as myself, these Bret-oriented catcalls smacked of insult. I was just about to shout my support of Jemaine’s body when another woman to the left of the house did it better, and louder. Though it did come off like a sad condescension, after the myriad pro-Bret catcalls. “We love you, um, too, Jemaine!”

Even when Bret had all the men in the audience shout “We love you, Jemaine” … the taller and more myopic Conchord still seemed a tad despondent. Only one person shouted Murray’s name; but wouldn’t we all have liked to see some Ginger Balls?

The show went on, with myriad audience requests – only five or so for “Freebird” – which Jemaine happily obliged, singing the one line he knew. By the end of the night, the tide had turned and women were screaming for Jemaine’s body. (His tight white shirt, unbuttoned one daring button past what most American dudes allow, did show it off in all its hulking glory.) After a two-song encore, the boys sadly disappeared…despite their onstage banter (promise?) of hanging out and receiving kisses from fans.

I would totally have had them sign my breasts and get a pic. Just for you guys. Alas, we were all left to wander into the night, singing their songs in our heads and carrying love in our hearts…

Oh yes. And the one remaining, vital question of the evening: how best to describe Jemaine’s new, slightly longer hairstyle? I will grant you that he has dark hair, was sitting in front of a black curtain, and that I am probably legally blind…but with my smudged glasses I studied him. Oh how I studied him. The thick curls of Patrick Dempsey? The lush brunette glory of Greg Brady? The way the sides of his bangs flipped back: a new (utterly masculine) take on the Farrah Fawcett flip?

But then it hit me, like a vision of David Bowie a-glitter and a-glow, above my bed: Andy Samberg.

Wait till the new season. You’ll see.

Unless he gets a haircut. Or, I need new glasses.

— Nicole Ankowski

About Last Night: The Weirdest, Most Wonderful Part of the Brooklyn Museum’s © MURAKAMI Exhibit

Nicole Ankowski — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 21:27:00 GMT

Nope. Not her.

Okay, so we missed Kanye West performing last Thursday as part of the Brooklyn Museum’s opening celebration for © MURAKAMI. (Sad!) But with slightly less fanfare, we did check out the exhibit this weekend. (Glad!) And what was the most delightful and most weird feature from all of its multi-leveled, Louis Vuitton’d glory?

Not the chick above.

Not this dude.

After an extremely formal poll of, um, the five people I was with, it was this video. Meet half-human, half-android Inochi. See him discovering his sexuality:

Yes, there are life-sized Inochi sculptures, wee-wees included, at the museum. You can look, but don’t touch…

Wanna buy your own piece of the Murakami experience? The Modern Materialist will show you how.

About Last Night: Yael Naim at the Bowery Ballroom

Nicole Ankowski — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 20:25:00 GMT

We just squeezed in to the sold-out show featuring Yael Naim, that French-Israeli songstress of MacBook Air fame. She kicked off her U.S. tour last night at the Bowery Ballroom, and celebrated the U.S. release of her new album by shining love and light and her fabulous, fabulous cheekbones down on the lucky, multilingual crowd last night.

I have to say, I’ll leave the music critiquing to the music critics…But as a woman, DAMN, those cheekbones! It’s patently not fair to give all that talent to one woman, along with long, flowing tresses, cheekbones to rival Angelina’s, and a dimple to boot. But, yes, on to the show…

What struck me most about the entire show was the pure delight Yael seemed to take in being there. You can’t say that about every jaded musician you see. Sometimes it seemed she was having more fun than the audience was, and the audience was having quite a grand time. (I personally don’t think you can rawk out to “New Soul,” but some folks definitely did. There was seriously a three-person, “New Soul” mosh pit goin’ on.)

Yael’s a big fan of the sing-a-long, which might have gone over a tad better if everyone knew all of her songs…or the language that she was singing in. But all in all, she glimmered and glowed and thoroughly embraced an extended, kick-ass version of Britney Spears’ “Toxic.” The woman is having fun, and the fact that she looks like a hot yoga teacher doesn’t hurt.

She even played “New Soul” twice –why the hell not?

And can I just mention her band? Of course, her songwriting collaborator and partner David Donatien was there, looking cool and slightly bemused throughout the evening. Then there was her keyboardist, who looked like Doogie Howser’s hot, younger French cousin. (Only, with more hair). Dude played the keyboards as if each key was a woman’s (or man’s) nipple; that was some seriously seductive keyboard tappin’. And my fave band member of the night (and I’m so sorry, I don’t know your name) was her bass/guitar player. Mr. Guitar Man looked like Dog the Bounty Hunter’s hep-cat, ex-pat cousin. (Only, with more hair.) And he could emote like there was no tomorrow.

Ah, but there are, thankfully, many more tomorrows on the tour. See if they’re coming to a neighborhood near you.

And here's "New Soul"...Yael told us, in her adorable, intoxicatingly cute-sexy way, that she wrote "New Soul" because she used to believe that she was, in fact, an old soul. When she got a little older and that realized that old souls are supposed to be especially wise and enlightened, and she didn't feel that way...well, the rest, as Steve Jobs might say, is history:

About Last Night: Lit 'n' Porn at the Sienese Shredder Issue Release Party

Nicole Ankowski — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 22:42:00 GMT

“Like a child looking through The Joy of Sex for the first time” — Emily Farris [photo courtesy Daniel Krieger]

We love literature and we love smut…so naturally we had to check out the Sienese Shredder’s release party last night, as they found a way to combine both in their second annual issue. The journal “brings together poetry, critical writing, visual arts, unpublished rarities, oddball ephemera” and, you know, a bit o’ porn.

Nerve editor Will Doig got his culture on, and met photographer Susan Unterberg (far right) who showed him her photographs of human thumbs that look like penises, and goldfish mouths that look like vaginas.

Will was the only one there not wearing glasses, except for Nerve's Scanner blogger Emily Farris, who (full disclosure) organized the party. Other artsy attendees included painter and filmmaker Alfred Leslie, writer/director Whit Stillman (Metropolitan, The Last Days of Disco), editor-in-chief of Art in America Elizabeth Baker, poet/painter Sarah Plimpton, and a ton of other really smart people who probably give good cocktail-hour conversation.

But we really liked the human-thumb penis pics. Though we’ve never seen vaginas like these. And you hopefully haven't seen a penis like that second photo:

[thumb/fish/penis/vagina photos courtesy Susan Unterberg and Sienese Shredder]

About Last Night: We Crash the Playgirl Party…

Nicole Ankowski — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 17:29:00 GMT

We figured, why not check out Playgirl’s April Issue Launch Party? It was at a bar called “Happy Endings,” it was within walking distance from Nerve…and it promised free vodka and goodie bags. Plus: we really hoped that there would be male waiters wearing bowties and no shirts. I mean, if you’re gonna throw a Playgirl party, you might as well go all the way, right?

The line outside was cold, but inside the transexual ladies were hot. There was little seating, few men, and (sadly) no shirtless waiters. (WTF, Playgirl?) There were some great pick-up lines. Our fave of the night, from two tall, European dudes with indeterminate accents: “Who are better liars, men or women?” One of our savvy ladies immediately recognized this as a Mystery pick-up line. Mystery must have trained the guys himself, because when we said as much they were completely unfazed:
“Vat? Ees a good pick-up line, no? Ees so good, because zee women can tell zee men ve are bastards!” (Later, we're pretty sure we saw them, naked, in the magazine. Who knew?!)

Playgirl stopped serving the free alcohol at 8:57 pm. Yes, our cheap asses noted the time (it was cold outside!). We were sad:

We grabbed our goodie bags on the way out, and examined the loot after stopping for late-night pizza and drunken photo shoots. Sadly, I can't show you some of the pics that really amused the pizza guys. But we enjoyed our goodie bags:

Lessons learned: Playboy is sexier than Playgirl. And this from a straight gal.

Free vodka is not worth losing toes to frostbite.

If you drunkenly give a strange guy on the street extra lube from your goodie bag, he will follow you. And offer you a ride to New Jersey. Do not accept.

And, we are so not Playgirl's target audience: