I've had to spend a lot more time in Williamsburg than normal. Today I went up because Ben has this hilarious story about finding his stolen bike in Greenpoint. The asshole that took it from his apartment building not only stole it six months ago but he also parked it in front of Ben's favorite Mexican restaurant in Greenpoint.
And he's even using Ben's lock! We were about to stake out the place and pound the guy when Ben realized that he had ridden the bike to his favorite restaurant, locked it up, forgot he left his bike and then walked home.
The best part being that Ben tossed away his only key when the bike got "stolen." So today I had to go to Greenpoint to steal Ben's bike for him.
Do I know how to steal a bike? No. Did I know how to knock out a wall and plumb a sink last week? No. But when I was a kid I used to hang out with this crazy, wild-eyed scientist who would let me play electric guitar on his obscenely giant amp. And he told me something very important, "If you put your mind to it--you can google anything.
The method that seemed best was to jam a car-jack in the U-Lock and crank it out. I also brought my hack saw just in case Jo had the car. Ben texts when I get out of the Subway, "I'm getting my haircut a block away. I'll be done in ten."
This Puerto Rican guy hanging out on a plastic chair in front of the laundromat goes, "That your bike?"
"It's my friend's," I say, wary of looking like I'm about to hack a lock off a bike. "He lost his key."
"It's been here a while...I thought maybe no one come back for it."
"Right...he's been traveling."
"Be careful. One time this happen to me. I lost my bike key and I had to do this."
"I brought a hack saw."
"You don need hack saw. Go in the place and ask the guy at the thrift store for a crow bar."
I can't believe it's that easy but I go into the thrift store and tell this guy that I'm trying to spring my friend's bike for him and the neck-beard, wicked-Greenpoint dude who's wearing his sunglasses in doors of his glorified thrift shop goes, "Whatever." And hands me a crow bar.
I try and bend it and nothing works that well. I get it bent one way and I bend it the other way. The U-Lock now just looks like it was de-shoed in a horse-and-buggy collision. "Hang on," my amigo says. He comes back out of the thrift shop wielding a length of pip and an elbow joint on the end.
Two minutes later I show up at Ben's barber and lock his bike to the front gate. We're both pretty thrilled.
"I checked," he says when I get there. "Cara did unfriend you on facebook. If you can't find her and I can that means you're blocked."
Cara is a girl from our high school who was all over me last week (she volunteered to pretend to be my wife at IKEA and also asked me to write for her weddings magazine). I cannot express how much anguish I have expended today over this.
Here is a girl I have literally not seen in ten years. Not one single thing in my life would be different if she didn't friend me on facebook. I'm not writing for her magazine (just like last week!) she's not coming to my bbq (just like last week!). Only now she unfriended me on Facebook.
I walked to Williamsburg and Igor asked if I wanted to go to IKEA so I did. But as I walked among the bearded hordes and even took myself to my favorite li'l geek shop across from my old loft in Williamsburg I was still depressed. Can't you hide my constant-drip of feed info? It's not connected to my Twitter. I really do JUST NEED TO SHARE THINGS. I have an account at this store and it still had about $200 on it and I want to get a new portable hard drive. But they have been on order for two weeks.
The guy at the store looked at me as if he wanted to stop me from crying. "Is there anything else I can help you with?"
"Can you make Cara re-friend me?"
"What?"
"I said, 'How much is the Philip Starck Parrot Speaker System?'"
"$1600."
"Does it come in a color that you would describe as 'Piano Black?'"
"Let's see...yes. In fact we have it in stock."
"I'll take it. Now."
Right now I'm trying to be funny JUST to cheer myself up. But I am not laughing about this. A person who sat behind me in math class and congratulated me on Esquire NOW WANTS TO PRETEND WE'VE NEVER MET. It's going to be awkward when I see her at the reunion in November.
Igor called from the car and we had this super long day that involved IKEA, Bed Bath & Beyond and us as the internet-era Hunter Thompson/Ralph Steadman reporting on a guy who just got out of the Peace Corps. His girlfriend thinks he's partying in Amsterdam. Instead he hired a band to play her favorite song and waited for her in disguise on the Central Park Promenade so he could propose to her.
Even that--and I FUCKING LOVE WEDDING AND PROPOSALS AND BANDS AND DIAMONDS--couldn't take away the searing pain of being unfriended by this girl that I don't really know.
The only way--the ONLY WAY--this could even be remotely cool is if her husband (also a Sullivan) read hers and my facebook messages to each other about how we can just pretend to be married and she won't even have to get her luggage un-monogrammed. Maybe he's jealous?
In Bed Bath & Beyond I got a call from the club where I was supposed to DJ that night. The guy was being chatty for no reason and so I just said, "Are we still on for tonight?"
"No, listen, the fire department came by again and we don't have a permit for as many people as your party. We're probably going to get shut down. So we can't have a DJ tonight and we can only let in 34 people."
"I feel like you just unfriended me."
"What?"
"Nevermind."
Right then Omri texted, "think your dj holeyness can handle a friday at beauty bar??? "
His holeyness is going to fill in at the only bar I ever wanted to work on Friday nights. But even that doesn't take away the pain of being unfriended.
Anyway, after that Igor and I drove from his house to my house in Fort Greene. It covers the entire swath of Brooklyn. My day started in Greenpoint and through the twee girls capital of the world, down through the goddam Hassidim, through the surprisingly Dominican neighborhood, through the blackest parts of the world and to my house, which is a little of all those things.
Or, to put it as the very talented Leila would say:
A Note After Today's Frightened Rabbit Show
Dear Brooklyn boys:
Stop wearing plaid shirts and listening to Grizzly Bear, or Frightened Rabbit, or any other Adjective Animal bands. Shave off your facial hair and spend a little less time glancing at your iPhones. Much like you, I sometimes prefer being a type of person over being an individual, so I get it-- but your type of person does not intrigue me. Get your acts together.
Love,
Leila
Although if Brooklyn boys paid half as much attention to how they dress as they did to their iphones and beards I'm sure people would start to notice that I don't actually dress that well. I just have a few nice things.
Like about a million years ago when I was staying at The Chelsea my former agent told me about this literary society that I should joine. In general I don't do "the ask." I don't friend people on facebook, I don't go around with a demo tape. But this group looked like a good idea. I made a date with the director to get coffee and then right after that I had the best week of my life.
She replied that she would like to meet me. Then I replied:
Let's definitely meet for coffee next week. Should we nail down a day? Should we just say Tuesday and should we just admit that we want this coffee to really be something out of a champagne bottle?
Yours,
Brendan
And then I never heard back from her. Kerri once told me that I "don't know when to quit" and I still have no idea what she's talking about.
A year (almost) goes by and now that I'm a bigshot I have mutual facebook friends with the director. I add her (which again: I don't do) and she responds to that email from a year ago, "Is this you?"
The Hyannisport in me gave a kind reply. The Southie in me was like, "HOW DO YOU LIKE ME NOW??"
So then she asks me if I'd like to DJ a thing on my birthday, which --since I'm such a facebook whore--I would do just so that I have a good birthday party.
She emails back a week later, "Can I call you today?"
On the phone she tells me that there's a problem. "The outdoor venue can't have any speakers. So I have to cancel..." And then as a consolation prize she offers me a gig that could easily be described as my lifelong goal.
We meet for the first time at the showroom the day before. I run a complete soundcheck and even bring my own turntables (which I have never once done for a gig--unless you count my gig at Bard in 2004 when I was living out of my car anyway and had the turntables in the trunk).
Soundcheck goes awful and never gets better. They matched me up with some fag from the store. Literal quote:
Me: Take this XLR and plug the male end into the limiter. Fag: I can't tell the male end from the female end.
Day of is even worse. The speakers are clipping. Guest are arriving and I have to make adjustments in the downstairs bunker office and hope it sounds good by the time I get upstairs.
Everyone get there but stays by the bar. I can't hear my transitions, but I keep being told that it's too loud at the bar. Yike. I can't do this to the legendary MR.
I just keep it low and I text the director, "Please present the guest-of-honor to the DJ-of-honor."
A writer from the Times comes over, then a reporter from Jezebel, which is the most hilarious website about women's mags. I'm talking to the Jezebel girl about being the only straight male in my Women's Studies Department and other things I've done. She goes, "Jesus, well you've led an interesting life. Why are you DJ'ing a book party in a jewelry store."
"Well I--" the director, followed by an array of photographers, then presents me with the guest of honor. "This looks a little staged but I was just telling my friend here from Jezebel this and there's no reason not to say it now. Growing up with your movies I was made to believe that if you stay true to yourself--even if you're nerdy or awkward or into music--even if you're a nerdy, awkward boy who's into music--if you stay true to yourself then maybe someday you get to dance with the prettiest girl in school."
She lights up. I cannot be the first person to say this to her but I am the first person to say this to her at her bookparty. I take her hand, "And tonight, for me, that dream comes true." She looks me right in the eyes and tells me how much that means to her.
MR gives me a huge smile and beholds my goofy face, "You and I look like we could be related. We have the same skin and freckles. We definitely might be related."
I later pretend that I said, "Or maybe we're just perfect for each other."
But what I really said was, "Are your parents from Chicago too?" I take off my headphones and give her the little socialite hug that you give to an older woman you've just met (touch only bones: spine, shoulder blade. Nothing in the middle and never let two hips touch). And when I say old I mean reportedly she had a phase after her daughter was born where she didn't look sixteen years old. Reportedly.
"I read your book and I must say I loved it. It made me want to clean my closet right away. Why do people have so many t-shirts?"
"Wow, you really did read it."
"Your section about how people as your Mom if she's MR's grandmother when they see her last name made me DIE. I totally did that to my friend Justin's mom at a show. Come DJ with me," I take off my headphones and hand them to her. She takes them and puts them on for a second. Then she takes them off. I put them around your neck, "Your neck is your rack and these are you weapon. Keep them on the rack until you need to move in for the kill." I place the headphones around her neck.
"Wow this really brings me back," she pages through my 45s case. "Wow you have everything. Nobody spins vinyl anymore. Are these all yours?"
"I learned on vinyl," I say as I page past a Blondie record.
"She's supposed to be here tonight," MR tells me. Only she calls her Debbie.
"I think I heard that too." I do not get star struck. But my heart was racing so hard that I couldn't speak. I had to make a joke. "Did you meet my assistant?"
"He's the cutest."
"He's a real ladykiller."
Just then the kid grabs the record exactly like we all did as kids (I'm playing "Thriller"). It scrapes off the end of the platter. The needle eats into the felt. Yike.
I throw on "Hurt So Good." We play around for an hour and she is the sweetest person alive. I can't remember anything else that happened because I was in the middle of an out of body experience right then. But today the Times reads:
At the after-party, Brendan Sullivan played '80's hits from 45 r.p.m. singles.
After the reading she went to her after-party in SoHo at the Swarvski Crystalized. Ms. MR had changed into a beige satin and lace dress. The space was as bright white as the inside of a refrigerator; even the toilet paper holders were crystal.
In the back, Brendan Sullivan, 27, a former D.J. for LG, spun 45 r.p.m. records. In her early movies, Ms. Ringwald’s characters had a soft spot for misfits and geeks; on Tuesday night, she rolled with the in-crowd.
Or maybe not. “Her movies made me believe that the nerdy boy who was into music might get to dance with the hottest girl in school,” said Mr. Sullivan, who has a haze of freckles across his nose. “Tonight, I do.”
A couple weeks ago Ben and I took a trip home for the first time since we graduated high school. On the way to the highway we realized we were driving by his ex girlfriend's house. Her parents were very supportive of both of us when we got kicked off the school paper. And they later left the Catholic parish to join my mother's church.
After about an hour in their house (we meant to leave the car running and two hours later I got piano tuning advice from her dad) Ben explained the problem of HD video editing. "We are at a point where you are only limited by the size of your hard drive. Tools that once only existed in Hollywood are now on every single person's laptop. The only thing you are limited by now is your capabilities."
I now do about eleven interviews a week. I see my own facebook photos and I still look like the pity-case in Lenscrafters glasses to me. Only I'm living my own life. The difference between me and Legs McNeil or (ahem) Herman Melville or (aww shucks) Robert Penn Warren is that I have seen greatness in a way that no one will ever get to see again. The things I've seen cannot be written about, engagingly, by one person in that same person's lifetime.
But I will try. Unfortunately I am limited. By my own meager capabilities.
As for the roses, you could not help feeling they understood that roses are the only flowers that impress people at garden-parties; the only flowers that everybody is certain of knowing. Hundreds, yes, literally hundreds, had come out in a single night; the green bushes bowed down as though they had been visited by archangels.
-Katherin Mansfield "The Garden Party"
Let's see if I can explain the severity of my garden party through the guest list. Because of certain security needs I had to have in place I demanded that everyone at my party RSVP themselves and their guest.
When Leila asked me who was coming to the party I told her it was going to be, "The one-night-only Breakfast Anytime Reunion Special." She wrote:
I wanted to just go around and ask everyone their names, so that I would know which stories they were featured in. But I guess that would have been weird of me.
I was talking with Elyse and Jackie ("Are you the Jackie?" I asked her-- right, so much for not being weird), and we all agreed that it was a damn shame only one ex-girlfriend was present. "I wish they were all here," Elyse said. "We could line them up chronologically..."
Alphabetical that means that:
Adrianne's ex boyfriend and a fellow writer Adam came with his girlfriend Lisa, who also works with Igor and I at Vice Magazine. If you can call interviewing homeless people and drawing cartoons about horses buying vibrators work.
Afton and Pete canelled at the last minute.
Camille, my friend from Trinidad came and cooked killer skewers and told me, "Big tings gwan!" She brought her totally white boyfriend Alex.
At the door Brendon James stopped my friend and former barback St. Michael and told him guest would not be admitted without a bottle of wine. He said, "I don't think the host would really send his sponsor to a liquor store," and walked in with his adorable girlfriend Amanda.
Jake and I were scene-friends, then we were at Winter Music in Miami together. Then we had a party. Now we're grown up friends and he is now engaged to Bianca, the girl he met at our now defunct party "One Night Stand."
Caroline didn't get the part on 30 Rock, but she and Katie came late and stayed for the inner-circle-only time.
Cyra and Dino came and I think the next party I'm going to have will be Dino's intervention at my house because he came over to help move the piano last week and wouldn't stay for dinner because he had to get to Jersey to score Oxycotin.
Somebody asked Dana how we knew each other and with great alacrity she said, "I used to be friends with a girl that Brendan used to date." Wow. She brought Jered.
Another Dana came. She's doing a graduate research paper on my work. No big deal.
Dave, my old roommate from Chicago, came with Maya!
You can't really call Deryck a drag queen, since he has a goatee but he did come in drag.
Elyse and John came which was amazing since they were the first people I saw when I got my check from Esquire.
Emily came! Which was wonderful. A couple weeks ago she sent me an email "because I feel like I've been a jerk to you." I had a big crush on her in college and it probably shows. She's dating a guy in Maine now so I almost never see her. She had a housewarming party a couple weeks ago and I brought Leila. Emily brought a dish in the baking sheet I left at her house. So neighborly.
Heddle stayed the whole night, which was so nice. She and I have a great relationship because the first time we met I blogged about her breasts and last week when I found out I wasn't being evicted we went out to celebrate. I confronted her on giving Laura bad intel on me and she started sobbing. I felt so bad. I haven't cleaned up that much eyemakeup since I was a backup dancer. People in the bar thought we broke up or something. Then they let us stay and smoke until about 5AM.
Frances and Julia--my dates and roommates to Ben's wedding--came too even though Jeff couldn't make it.
I've been writing novels nonstop for five years and my fucking neighbor Jessica already sold her first one based on a proposal that Leila and Laura's agent shopped around.
Stein, my Soho House Sponsor, came with Linds whose mom would take care of me and my brother when my grandparents were dying.
Julie--story forthcoming--is the reason my roommate moved out. Can't thank her enough!
June D, my co-DeeJ at Romanticide is thinking about renting out my basement for storage for her vintage clothing business. Holla!
Karsten and I are the only two waiters from the ill-fated Jean Jorges Steakhouse to leave the industry.
Laia and Nick hadn't seen the castle since we renovated. Since Laia and I always dreamed of writing for fashion magazines she was maybe the only guest who understood how important this day was.
I had never met Landon before but he CAME WITH NIKKI. Several people have commented that he is "the ugs-version" of me, which is supposed to be supportive but I don't see it that way. If that makes me that handsome version of him then WHAT MAKES HIM SO FUCKING SPECIAL. Nikki and I talked and I gleaned nothing that I don't already know from obsessively reading her twitter but not following her. She's doing a line for Urban Outfitters and not just so she can stay awake and party (wait for it...). "How's that new line you're doing...the uhm, The Brass Ring." "You mean 'Double-in-Brass.'" "Wow, that was so 'Mom' the way I said it." "Seriously." Nikki did look amazing and goddesslike and if I ever mentioned before that she was getting older or less attractive it was the light playing tricks on me. She looks more beautiful than when we were in love.
Laura. Oh Laura... If everything was everything, but everything is over. Everything could be everything--if only we were older.
Lauren is a recovering model who just broke up with her fiance. I knew she was funny but I didn't know the extent of her range. Ashley got drunk and started saying, out loud, "I hate all of you. I HATE ALL OF YOU." And when everyone exchanged glances of how to get the drunk-bitch back to Manhattan, Lauren mimed her answer by doing the "drop kick" motion like with a football. Only she lost her balance in the follow through and when her kick-foot crested her post-foot slipped and she fell flat on her ass.
Lexa--another fucking person younger than me with a book deal.
Demos came with his unbelievably hot wife who did a thing on AMTM.
Megan from Dolce & Gabbana dressed me in a tux and brought her awesome husband Todd.
Mike from Beauty Bar came and the Esquire people present couldn't believe that they got to meet the man that LG popped out of a cake for.
Nicky Digital RSVPd with his scene-name spelled with an e and an accent.
TKOmri did give me his real name but he made me promise I wouldn't tell anyone. I got the email and wrote back, "That is the jewiest name I have ever heard. Holy shit that is so fucking Hollywood. Do you sign your name in Hebrew characters? Please do from now on."
Patrick is becoming my new favorite person. It's like our birth mother was so committed to success that she had us as twins and sent one of us to Law School and the other became a DJ who's never had a real job.
Last week my friend from the Obama team in Florida through a dinner party and I was seated next to the other unaccompanied guest, Rachel. There is an unwritten rule about parties that your newest friend is always the best guest who stays the longest and does something awesome like make sangria and buy a new dress when everyone else just bitches about the dress code and picks up a six pack on the way.
Sandflower! stayed over and when I finally got to bed I woke her up in my room and told her there was an air mattress in the back room. I'm almost positive she thought I was kicker her out.
Sloane Crosley RSVPd and then couldn't make it. She wrote in Esquire, "When Brendan Sullivan says the most important thing we need to know about LG is that she has just started, well--that's actually the most important thing you need to know about any of us. Behold, one of many observations from the Clinton profile that could easily be pasted into Sullivan's LG tribute: "the aspiration, as much as the accomplishment, is what gave her meaning." Which made me feel like I may have been wrong because a year ago I read Sloane's book and I wrote:
I had this really weird sensation when I read this book. Sloane Crosley and I live in the same city and cross paths on occasion, but if I ever met her in a social context I would fucking hate her. Sloane's writing is unbelievably hilarious. She has the wry eye of a much older, sadder woman. The shit she says is just unbelievably honest, funny and without the faux-fem minstrelry of non-fic chick lit.
However, I can tell that what makes her so fucking funny is that she's got to be one of those Westchester NPR-worshiping vodkatonicaholics who stand in the subway entrance to finish cellphone conversations. If we ever were to meet I'm sure we would have two separate one-sided conversations where we both tried to say funny things faster than the other. We'd probably have some uptown/downtown bullshit too"
Tavit made the burgers that he made for Ben's Batchelor Party.
Theo and Cousin Tommy got to bask in the new kitchen they helped build.
Whitney from the magazine and I rock out on the piano all night long.
There was certainly a moment where the magic of the party took effect. Everyone was wine drunk and dipping into cheeses and skewers on the grill. Six girls and my cousin swung in the hammock together until it collapsed. Angus called Julie from Haiti when I was out in the garden. I hung on to the tree and leaned over and shushed the whole party, "Everybody! Everybody!"
Patrick goes, "Speech! Speech!"
"Fuck that. No. But Angus is on the phone in Haiti. On the count of three let's say thank you. 1 2 3."
"THANK YOU ANGUS."
It only proved that I should never get a roommate ever again and that I should never eat out or go out. I should just have barbecues all summer long.
How to Throw a Party in a Kitchen You Haven't Built Yet
(Also, I really hate it when other people have blogs full of cameraphone pictures. But I'm renovating my house. If I could find my camera battery charger: I'D BE DONE RENOVATING.)
Friday:
This finally happened. It only took my grandad's hammer, a six pack of beer, 5 slices of pizza and two good friends.
Saturday:
Cousin Tommy to the rescue.
Sunday
2:00PM After not finding the faucet I wanted at Lowe's I trudge all the way to Redhook to go to Ikea. On my bicycle. 3:00PM I swing by the hardwear store for a drill bit to put in my faucet-hole. The screwgun I've borrowed from my landlord takes the bit, chews away at the countertop, stops, sighs... Elyse comes over and primes and edges everything. She measures out a hole in the plaster and faces it with a single piece of reycled oak from the renovations. Brilliant. I go to three hardwear stores looking for a hand drill. The jolly old man I finally find who has one tells me, "Now we are going back in time, my friend."
From now on I am convinced: powertools are for pussies.
8:00PM Elyse leaves me alone. Instead I have to negotiate the incessant median between affordable IKEA furniture and the fact that I only own tools from the factory where my friend's dad's work. Stanley tools. Seriously, if you ever get an American lawnmower or a Harley Davidson in Brooklyn--gimme a call.
I have nothing but the recurring playlist I made for Leila's Euro trip entitled, "Work All Day; Go Out at Night Next--International Flight." The music is exactly the kind of music you would hear if you stayed up all night partying somewhere in Europe where a guy with no socks would ask you "If you wana make fuck?" The sink is the most satisfying part because plumbing is so internationally standard that I feel like I'm building it out of legos.
Monday 8:30AM: Every single possible detail that I can finish without the hardwear store being open is done. I have been up for 24 hours. My sink needs two pipes and a fitting. Without them I am completely screwed. None of the pipes fit. I go to bed. The party starts in ten hours.
10:30AM: First hardwear store visit of the day. Even exchange on the pipes. The hardwear store guy is my new best friend and he tells me, "Anybody can build a bachelor pad. But you build an eco-pad? Phwewww, that's the real--" and then he makes a cartoon whistle and a duel hand motion which I learn is "panty dropper."
11:00AM: Trudging back to the hardwear store. Nothing fits. Nothing works. Plumbing is bullshit. Basis of civilization? Fuck that. Not with non-T connectors and...shit...I'm tired... I've installed this whole thing wrong. I get back to my place and tear the plumbing apart and put it back together. Pressure, gravity, angles. That's all it is. I run my sink for the first time in four days. In an hour I'm unloading my first load from the dishwasher.
1:00PM: Dolce & Gabbana agreed to dress me for the event, but I had to go to the head office of celebrity dressing and PR to get it. This is cooler and less-exciting than you think. The purpose of this office is to have people going to award shows wear their clothes. It's other purpose is to make sure the models don't steal anything that comes and goes to magazines. That way if they send a jacket to Cosmo and it doesn't get used it comes back and they send it to, well, let's say Esquire Magazine. I walk in the office and everyone is excited that the guy who wrote the LG piece is coming in. The magazine is on the black glass coffee table. I make quick work of the back room and go with the first suit I try on. Silk vest, torn couture pants from the runway, a tuxedo shirt, and a jeweled tuxedo jacket. The other JTJ in the collection is regularly worn by Adam Lambert. I go with the demure version of that.
2:00PM: Theo comes over. Earlier this week Theo had been over helping and he said, "I read your thing about how people underestimate your ability to build things." "Oh, thanks. Yeah. I really bothers me." "Yeah, but...can you really build things?" This time he walked in to new countertops, new sink, plumbing, etc. Awesome. Only the entire apartment is covered in drywall plaster, paint drips and half-demoed walls. Theo grabs a broom and starts right away. We haul out three contractor bags worth of shit.
5:00PM: It's probably dickish to invite your friends over and demand they wear their best clothes and still be painting things white two hours before the party, right?
6:30PM: I abort a propane mission to Lowe's and get someone else to bring it. I ask Ben first, but he can't because he is coming and he is bringing his wife and they're driving with another couple. I trot home and have Theo wait a few so that he can answer the door when the bartender and door guy show up.
7:00PM I'm out of the shower but I still have paint on my arms. Trevor shows up to bartend in a Ted Baker suit. I get dressed and we catch up. Brendon James, the door guy from Trash shows up looking awesome in a bowtie and single-faced Rayban aviators. Karsten shows up with the wrong kind of propane. Ben and his wife show up and I beg him for a favor. We make up and he drives to Lowes and gets me the propane we need for the grill. Tonight's gonna be a good good night.
The Vespa still has a bunch of parking tickets so the day before my party I was riding my bicycle to Redhook to get a new faucet. That morning I fielded calls from lots of close friends, most of them in some way incensed about the dress code for the Esquire Party.
The problem being that I have friends who have known me since I delivered pizza in my Lensecrafters glasses. This party was supposed to vaguely mark my passage into a new phase in my life. The Esquire piece is enough to renovate my kitchen, join Soho House and not need to be beholden to roommates anymore.
So I made the party "formal resort."
Even with the links I included: no one could figure out what that meant. Try a little harder guys. Google it.
I'm in the middle of renovations; I'm one day away from hosting 80 people in my house; I'm on the side of the road in Redhook buying a faucet for a sink that doesn't exist yet. Ben texts me, "Great. I'll see you tomorrow and you'll see how casually I would dress in the Hamptons."
This really pissed me off. I get it that other people don't see things the way I do. But this isn't some silly party at my house. This is a big deal to me and I wanted to share the big deal with my friends. Instead of arguing with Ben I text his wife, "Will you dress him for me? I don't have time for this."
"How about I put him in a tie and sweater? Is that resort-formal?"
Keep in mind I'm riding my bicycle. But I was like, The word 'formal' isn't somehow silent because it includes a word that means 'expensive hotel.' So I wrote back, "Dolce & Gabbana is not only dressing me, but they're going to be there. Don't let him embarrass me."
My thinking was: I show up to things dress ridiculous all the time. Close friends seemed to think the dresscode might be an afterthought. Something I felt the need to put on the invitation. No. Assholes. The dress code is so that when I introduce my dearest friends to my career-friends you will know that they both take me seriously.
Ben texts me, "Just so you know. Your text turned this from something Joanna was looking forward to into something she no longer wants to attend."
"If you're going to be a baby about wearing a sweater v. a jacket with the tie she's making you wear: be my guest. But I'm having a party tomorrow and I don't even have a sink in my kitchen."
Ben was being, and this is rare with him, a total middle-child. I wanted our mom to shake him and scream, "It's not all about you; try to be a part of this family."
Instead we fought for an hour and I told him he was acting like this prissy girl he dated in high school, "You're being Jessie Johnson about this."
"Jessie Johnson wouldn't get angry about this. Jessie Johnson would throw a party in her basement and demand that all her friends dress up in some weird color scheme."
After an hour of fighting I pulled over and texted him, "I would just like to acknowledge that your comment was both funny and poignant. Touche, Ben."
What I've learned so far: having someone quote you to yourself is like hearing your work remixed. You take the part you like and repeat it. But publishing on a major magazine is like having your song covered. It's flattering that they like it, but it still sounds like they're singing it.
This week I am renovating my kitchen, purchasing and restoring a piano, and installing a new gas dryer. People keep giving me this look when I bring this up.
"Do you even know how to play a piano?" "You should have all gas pipe work done by a certified professional." "It's very easy to cost thousands in damage if you don't know what you're doing."
The assumption is that my brother is the handy person. The mechanic, the one with his CDL, the guy to call when you have car trouble. They treat us like the twins from Twins. He does all of this stuff which we need and call upon him for. Brendan does all the faggy shit no one needs or asked for in the first place. ("Oh great...you're writing a book that I'm going to probably have to read part of..." "Thanks for being in a weird pop group that I not only don't get, but that I'm inundated by." "Thanks for inviting me...to a thing really late at night...in a city we had three hours away and three hours past when I go to bed.")
So I'm renovating my apartment and I the thing I bite my tongue about it: I CAN DO EVERYTHING YOU PEOPLE CAN DO. In general: if I can see the parts that make up something I can turn it into almost anything. I made a lamp out of a blender. I brought a 1965 scoot back from the dead.
When I first discovered that writing was like IKEA furniture pieces I just ran with it. You mean I can take this part and put it with that part and make this huge thing? ALL BY MYSELF?
So I looked around my kitchen and realized that it is designed by an inept moron. The way he even measured studs proves he had a sense of humor. So I figured that I could remix my kitchen. I can do stuff like that as long as I can see the pieces and where they fit together and what holds them there.
I root around and realize that the cabinets are just boxes screwed into the studs. If I take the screws out: the boxes can be screwed in anywhere. So I pull everything apart. And the goddam thing still hangs there. I try a bunch of really moronic techniques. ("Maybe if I wiggle it...") I take a hammer and crack down on it once, just in case the wood had swollen and stuck together.
The cabinets are hanging there as if they were chasing a rabbit and a wise-cracking duck and they accidentally ran off a cliff. The cabinets should fall but they won't until they look down.
So I figure there are screws I can't see. Like if someone went into the dry wall it probably bit into these cabinets, which can hold my full weight now. I tear the drywall out with a claw hammer. Part of what keeps me going is my apartment would be so lovely if you could see out the goddam garden instead of just at these ugly ass cabinet which stand in the way of the window.
I'm like Leila getting her teeth bleached at this point. Only I refuse to puss out.
Remember the Seinfeld where he gets new cabinets and it ruins everything? That's the apartment I've lived in since 2005.
It takes so long that at 6:30 I have to break for an interview, then I forgot that Jackie read my new novel (it's about a character based on her) and we agreed to meet up. I'm scrambling to get the fucking paint off of me in the shower and get out the door in time.
At dinner I can barely speak I'm so exhausted. We're about to go get a drink and then decide to bail on it. We're too tired. It's 8:30 in Williamsburg and we're both yawning.
When I get home I discover that there are eleven screws that obviously just magically appeared. At the bottom of the cabinets.
On the way home from work on Saturday I took a cab to Leila's house. We planned on going to Easter together at my aunt's house in West Hartford the next day and didn't want to fuck it up. In Leila's words, "It's probably better for you to stay on my couch if we both have to get up at 10 AM--also known as THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT."
Things looked good for me, at least then (now everything is fucked) and I figured I would need the weekend with the family. I did the math and I realized that I had been single for three months (an achievement!) and that meant that since my birthday last year (in may) I had only dated one person. Look at me! I'm maturing and getting to that point where--
Thanks, Nikki, I'm really proud of you but when I go home drunk at night and actually watch Taxi TV it's because I'm ALREADY THINKING ABOUT YOU.
The next day, because I'm so mature, I sent this to Adrianne and her response was, "It's so weird for me to see a video of her--she's a CHARACTER, not a living breathing human being."
Also, Leila lives out by the Park in Brooklyn, which meant this 8 minute loop on Taxi TV played three times. Sigh. I know there's an 'off' button, but one of my biggest problems is I never know when to shut it down.
I don't remember the story entirely--and not quite sure I was present, but that doesn't really matter. In high school our friend Steph got this job lifeguarding at a country club on the other side of the high way. Lots of kids in our high school would lifeguard for the town pools and ponds, but Steph branched out. Like all summer jobs this means she met and got to sleep with all different kinds of people. Toward the end of the summer her parents went out of town and she through a party and invited everyone--my asshole friends from high school and the new assholes from lifeguarding.
Most of my friends didn't drink, so they thought of the keg at this party as a source of mischief. They stole the tap (one of them took a shit on the keg while no one was watching). But hours before that when people had yet to be introduced two of the lifeguards started wrestling. Everyone loved this diversion and since we were all mature high school boys we started cheering them on. "Get him by the balls!" "Put your cock in his mouth!"
And then when one of them got turned over on the ground, ass-up, John decided to forgo the ass-comment and instead hollered "Lift his wallet!"
The guys stopped fighting and looked at each other for a second. "Lift his wallet?"
"That's fucked up, man."
"You think that's funny?"
"What do you mean 'Lift his wallet?'"
And it never ended. One of us would come out of the bathroom and a lifeguard would corner us, "'Lift his wallet?' Do we look like thieves to you?"
"You don't know me well enough to talk to me like that." We were terrified. Even though we outnumbered these tan, brawny lifeguards we didn't want to get a punch in the face. John was particularly terrified because he knew he'd go down in a punch. And the lifeguard might kick him in the stomach. Then he'd lift his wallet.
"Lift his wallet?" You would have thought that he'd said this at, like, a wrestling match against one of the black high schools. Or some other scenario where that had been the most offensive thing said. Lift his wallet?
The storygoes on from there when we stole the beer tap and took off and involved one kid from our team defecting and coming at us shaking and saying, "I told them that if I couldn't get the beer tap back that they could kick my ass. Please, guys. You have to do this for me." It upset me that my friends would act like this, as a guest in someone else's home. I also felt bad knowing I had at least one friend who would do anything to be cool, even with boys from another high school whom he'd never see again. There is something very uncool about doing something just to be cool.
But it took us a week after the party before we realized--wait? Were they fucking with us? Or why did we give a shit about them? Who gets bent out of shape about "Lift his wallet?"
Then it immediately became a teenage boy thing. It was in our twin language, part of our lingo. If you were waiting in the vice pricinpal's office and you saw a friend in there, fresh and shaky from the teacher throwing him out, you might go, "What happened?"
"I got in a fight after gym class with Steven Michaelson."
"Did you lift his wallet?"
That was over ten years ago now, but the other day I'd had my first iced coffee of the season and I was in a good mood. People were interviewing me for things I had done! I had a Friday night off! Esquire.com wants to run a fifteen part series with my pictures telling a story! I had just finished renovating my basement, which including hanging a new door. When I finished I realized that I would have to be careful when I have people over because when you see how well hung this door is: you're gonna wanna fuck it.
So I walked down Flatbush on my way home from Gorilla and called up my friend John who lives in Mystic. "Sully? Hello?"
"Lift his wallet!"
We both begin laughing like morons and I'm still smiling about it right now. "Lift his wallet??" he keeps laughing and I have this huge grin on my mouth as I strut through Brooklyn with an iced coffee straw in my mouth. "What are you doing tonight?"
"I have my first Friday night off since the nineties."
"Murphy's Law is playing in Providence."
"You get the tickets and I'll meet you there," I say, jubilant from the unspoken connection between two friends who would not, in fact, ever lift his wallet.
"We're probably going to get pretty hammered. Are you rich? Can we get a hotel in Providence."
"Just like old times," I say. "I'll get a hotel only if you promise we can go to Spike's Junkyard Dogs afterwards and then pay too much money to go into Club Hell and not talk to girls."
"Deal."
"But if you're kinda broke I know what we can do."
In unison: "Lift his wallet?"
When I got home I remembered two things: 1) I hate doing anything in Penn Station and I would have to go there at 8 on a Friday. 2) I live across the street from the Penn Station of Long Island. If I want a cup of coffee in the morning it's actually easier for me to walk across the street, board a LIRR train, get a coffee in the dining car and then go back home. Fuck coffeeshops.
So I go into the station and after talking to several people with terrible Lawn Guy Land accents I discover that I can board a train at 5:23 which will take me to the end of the line and from there I can take the Ferry to New London. Woo hoo!
I board the train and tell John the plan. He'll swoop in and pick me up in New London, we'll rock it to Providence and it will be awesome because we're too old to go to Murphy's Law shows and so is Murphy's Law.
On the train in Long Island I was just offended at how rude these people could be. Not to be my grandmother, but here are people with all the money in the world and they can't sit up straight or speak English. I kept to myself--remember I'm in a good mood! But just to be certain, just to make sure I didn't leave anything out, I start to look up how and when I can and will get from the station to the Ferry. Maybe I should call a car service ahead of time.
"What time is the last Ferry?"
"8:00"
"I though there was one at 11:30?"
"Not this time of year."
Fuck. I get off the train at Jamaica station--which means not only am I in Long Island I'm in Queens. Everyone around me needs a punch in the face and more breadsticks. I wrestle my way to the ticket booth and return my $23 LIRR ticket. Then I need a way to get to another station. But the only way from Jamaica is to take the LIRR to Penn Station.
So for $6.80 and two hours wasted on my life I got to Penn Station, which is twenty minutes from my house and free with my metrocard. I call John and before I can speak he goes, "Did you already leave? I think we have a new plan. Oakes wants us to hang in New Haven and my brother said we could crash this super-fancy party at the New Haven Lawn Club."
"I actually just called to say my plan fell through. I'm in Manhattan."
"Just take the train to New Haven. Here's the only thing, though. It's really, really dressy. This is a members-only club from 1815. The Bushes were members."
"I'm still wearing my clothes from last night, but that happens to be a tuxedo shirt and vest," I look up, with the phone perched on my shoulder, "and I'm standing in front of a tuxedo shop. Pick me up in New Haven at 8:08."
Inside the tuxedo place I buy a purple bowtie. And that's when I hear, "Brendan?"
I look up and see my friend from Business Traveller Magazine. "What are you up to?"
"I'm crashing a party at a country club," and then I remember that I'm supposed to pass along a message. She used to date this guy I know from DJ'ing. He really broke her heart a few years ago. I think he had a period where he didn't know what he wanted and now he's older and realized that dicking over a bunch of girls and then having all of them leave him in disgust was not the plan. The thing I like about this is him pathetically texting and wanting to apologize. Because I would love to do that. "T. texted me. He wants you to know that he's sorry and he's changed and blah blah blah."
"Ugh, he even contacted me at work. I had to get a new phone number."
"I figured I would pass it along if I saw you. This doesn't work, does it?"
"No."
"What are you doing?"
"I have a date tonight. A first date. And I wanted to pick up a scarf or something to wear."
"So you wouldn't recommend me doing this to all of my ex girlfriends--even the ones I didn't really dick over?"
"No."
The train to New Haven at 7 on a Friday is packed. I can't get a seat anywhere. Six cars are full and I want a drink because I am going to have my awesome ride trains and drink and read books Friday night. Finally I get to the dining car and it's closed, so I take a seat on the banquette thing they have where the hanging poles all have cup holders. Something good will come of this.
That's when I realize that the girl next to me is a very attractive person my age. I'm tying my bowtie in the window reflection and she says to her traveling partner, "I can't believe you're leaving me in West Port, I have to go all the way to Madison and I haven't a thing to read."
She is basically the kinds of girls who wouldn't talk to me in high school Mostly because they all went to boarding schools. I offer her my never-read copy of Jonathan Ames' The Alcoholic.
But of course we get to talking and she asks me about my hairbrained scheme and shows me pictures of her dog and by the time we reach New Haven we're best friends.
In New Haven I put on my game face. We're going to a fancy party and I cannot look like I do not belong. Not belonging is all I've ever done in my life and I'm tied of it. I roll my shoulders back, straighten my wedding-dress-white dinner jacket and tune my bowtie. I scan the parking line without taking off my Wayfarers and John walks up to me in a normal-person suit. "Well," he says. "As long as we don't stick out like sore thumbs we should be okay."
At the New Haven Lawn Club the party started right after work. A couple of Yalies started this company ten years prior as a bank that lends off of the money transacted between your student loan payments, dining hall purchases, etc. It's a great idea. The upper-brass met for a black-tie dinner beforehand and they could all bring a date before converging with the rest of the staff after. Now it's after 9.
In general, people who don't party get very excited/nervous about an open bar party with their coworkers. Usually there's a hint of entitlement, the same way most people don't mind bringing a pen home from work or sending a personal fax.
Two New Haven police officers stood at the door.
I was reading about this in Proust last week, about going to a party where you're not exactly on the guest list, but to which you are well acquainted and in fact know the entire guest list.
...This doorman, clad in black like an executioner and surrounded by a troop of footmen in the most cheerful liveries, lusty fellows ready to lay hands on an intruder and show him the door. The doorman asked for my name and I gave it to him as mechanically as a condemned man allowing himself to be attached to the block.
But the cops were just on the lookout because we were in Gun Wavin', Crack-Cravin'-New Haven. I walked right past them.
In general I hate bouncers I don't know. I go through great pains and personal losses to make sure that women of a certain weight can walk through the doors where I work. But everyone hates bouncers. I know this isn't a mitigating circumstance but imagine how much more I hate them than you do. Last week I was out with this new management company and we were told we'd have to wait 45 minutes for a table. The manager said to me, semi-expectantly, "Can you believe that? Imagine what would happen if I told them who you are.."
Thanks. But don't. That would be pretty much the only thing that could really embarrass me.
Two minutes later I'm having the following kinds of ceviche:
Lobster
Crab
scallop
mackerel
I go up to the catering bar and notice that all the nametags come from the club, meaning these people would have the night off--or worse just work a regular Friday--if it weren't for this giant party. Everyone speaks cordially, terse and serviceable. I order a white wine to stay inconspicuous (people who crash parties always order top shelf, which is so lame--who would do tha--) and my coconspirator orders a Johnny Walker Black on the rocks. They ask me which white I want and I use my Kenyon-voice to select the Pinot Blanc.
Within ten minutes I've sampled each ceviche. One thing I really hate about myself is that I don't like Salmon. I think it tastes like semen and everytime I try and relate that to another person I'm met by personal differences.
Our sponsoring-host comes up just then. He introduces us to a really cool friend of theirs who works at the company and came stag. He introduces me in the best possible way I could ever want to be introduced. "When I went off to college my little brother [John, present] was in 7th grade and I asked my friend Jay to ask his friend Brendan in 8th grade to watch out for my brother. He walked up to one kid in school, wearing a shaved head and a Cocksparrer shirt, and said, 'You like Phish? Phish sucks.' It turned out that he said that to this black kid who told his teachers that some Skinhead came up to him and said he hated him. So the biggest of these kids threatened to beat the shit out of my little brother. But I'm locked away in school, so I call up Jay and I say, this Junior High punk just threatened my little brother. Jay and I knew each other from the scene and we both had little brothers and Jay had to take the bus to the Junior high school to walk home everyday. So he shows up one Friday, walks through school with his tattoos and rams his skateboard through a circle of dudes and says, 'Which one of you motherfuckers threatened my boys' little brother??' He found the kid and said, 'You ever so much as look at him in the hallway and I'll come here myself and knock your fucken teeth out. You know my little brother?' The kid nods. 'My little brother'll keep an eye on you and if you ever fucken make trouble for my little brother and I'll be here twice as fast and I'll care half as much what happens after I get here. Got it?"
That's how I was introduced to the one black dude at the (1815) New Haven Lawn Club.
Then he turns to me and whispers, "Walk away, walk away for a minute. Just walk. Walk away." Right then the hostess arrives. John hits the bar, I descend the stairs to the bathroom and admire the handy work of the original Trumbull oil painting on the wall.
Inside the main room they have a perpetual wedding-reception, basically like the used to have at Tavern-on-the-Green. They have lights and a wedding-DJ behind a board spinning a record specifically for the ladies. For All the Single Ladies.
Here I am invisible as anywhere else in my life. Only here a chef prepares Duck Confit Tacos in cilantro aioli. Last month in Esquire Tina Fey referred to a donut shop in Greenpoint and said, "I was filming there on location and bought their creme-filled donut. It's the first time I understood what it means to be a man. If I had a penis--I woulda stuck it in there." That's how I felt about these tacos. If I had a food-penis to stick in things I ate I would make love to them. Instead I have a tongue and no food-vagina. So I just ate them and called it even.
I shot the shit with the bartenders and floated from room to room. They hired a pianist to play on a baby grand on one room and I just wanted to sit next to him and learn a new song. In the next room I gave stock tips.
Everyone's girlfriend was drunk, which meant it was a good time to wear a stark-white dinner jacket and a purple bowtie.
"Walk away?" I hear whispered in my ear. And then, "Walkawaywalkawaywalkaway..."
They took all the good food. The bar pulled all the good bottles and stopped giving away liquor at midnight. Right then I shoulda been kinda pissed, but then again no one invited me to this party on purpose. But I had come here for a show and would never see it. Instead I had this. Is that good enough?
Just then all the cute waitresses came around with trays of shotglasses. In the glass they had 1.5 oz of milk. And perched on top they had one fresh-baked, mini chocolate cookie, about the size of one of those "stamped, stretched" souvenir pennies you get at Niagra Falls. The molten chocolate couldn't fit in your mouth without burning it. So you had to savour it.
I went outside and when I came in I discovered the Matriarch of the party had some pressing questions for my Sponsor-host. Later I would learn that he had been asked whom he was and where he worked and he said, "The Californian office."
Obviously they didn't buy this. Because there is no California office. He played this out saying, "No, I'm from a California office...I'm a..."
The hostess approached me then, at the height of her own party--Lady Capulet asking who was that fellow who would not dance--and said to [unspoken winner of "Best Dressed"] me, "And who are you?(sic)"
"Oh, I'm a guest." I gestured to the slack-tie, stag-employees I had met, who were in confederacy around me.
"Thank you for coming!" she said, to everyone's great relief.
John came back from the bar with another drink and the husband of the grande-dame came up to him to keep talking. Everyone had celebrated 10 years of having-a-great-idea and believing in it. John put the glass to his face and gave me another and uttered, "What am I supposed to do??"
I took a sip of the fantastic white Bordeaux and spoke into my wineglass as if they were twin dixie-cups on a string, "We're fine. But you need to do everything I say and we'll be okay."
"What do I do??" he squealed into the glass.
"Here's what you have to do right now," I looked him straight in the eye. My right hand had my penultimate glass of wine, my left hand held a cooling cookie and a glass of milk.
