Archive for May, 2007
Stoked for Allison Stokke
With all of the terrible female role-models out there (not naming names…Paris Hilton…ahem…Lindsay Lohan…ahem), its wonderful to see a a young lady who is not only beautiful, but talented and deserving of much attention. Enter Allison Stokke, a southern California highschool pole-vaulter and holder of several amatuer records. Apparently she has been taking the blogosphere by storm, and we thought we would add to the groundswell and applaud her for her accomplishments. Jump High!
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Bright Eyes
Conor Obrest is ending his ridiculous 2007 tour tomorrow night, after an insane 7 straight nights at Town Hall with Gilian Welch. When you book seven nights at New York’s famed Town Hall, you’re bound to have some friends show up. Some of the special guest performances have included: Lou Reed, Rilo Kiley’s Jenny Lewis and Ben Kweller for guest turns, and Norah Jones and the Willies.
The NY Times reported that tickets to the shows were all sold out after only two weeks. Mr. Oberst, 27, has a particularly obsessive fan base. “Many, many bands cannot do what Bright Eyes are doing,” John Moore, a partner in Bowery Presents, the promotion company that helped book the shows, said in an e-mail message. The above picture is from Tuesday night’s performance.
[digg=http://digg.com/music/Conor_Oberst_of_Bright_Eyes_in_New_York]
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“Like opening a birthday present”
Though we have reported on our nights at The Box before, our accounts are likely a bit off, given the hypnotic trances we often find ourselves under after each visit. That is precisely why, a report from an insider there is exactly what you need to get a better idea of just what goes on, although it is all ”mysterious, very mysterious.” NY Mag first reported on the box back in February, but it’s the report from Michael Harr today that we really enjoyed:
Here’s some excerpts:
What’s the wildest thing you’ve seen onstage?
I’m not at liberty to go into details of what the show contains. The show changes every night. It’s like opening a birthday present.How does the average Joe reserve a table there? How selective is the process?
What they would normally do is go through the Website, e-mail one of the managers or even the owner, and tell them how big their party is. The Box would tell them the price depending on where they are [tables cost between $600 and $2,000]. They’d have a table reservation for after midnight or at midnight.Can someone get in just because they’re dressed well and in keeping with the spirit of the place — say in a tuxedo and top hat?
No. We still have to know them.What’s the vibe like after the show is over?
When the curtains are drawn, it doesn’t mean that the carnival has ended. We keep people entertained while the stage show isn’t running.How so?
That I can’t say. It’s mysterious, very mysterious.
We agree on the mysteriousness. For us it’s trying to figure out the next day just what happened the night before and whether we were in an amazing out-of-this-world type fantasy, or a bizarre nightmare.
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Where will they be?
We are unleashing the first in our series of “Where will they be? Play along.
With all the current talk about Nello’s, we have decided to profile our favorite Nello’s patron, the precocious, six and a half year old darling, Madisonne.
Madisonne is best described as a professional dress twirler and can be found parading around the upper east side’s Nello’s on Saturday afternoons in one of the hundreds of dresses she owns by Luna Luna Copenhagen. She is in fact, the favorite of Nello Balan’s little cupcakes and is usually accompanied by her no-name sister who is 2 years her junior and whom Madisonne goes back and forth with being completely supportive of and utterly disgusted with.
Madisonne’s hobbies consist of heading the Brearley after school ballet program (which she helped start last fall), shopping, collecting ponies (real ones), curling her hair into ringlets “just like the fabulous Tinsley does”, and pouting. Madisonne has recently shown an interest in fashion to her mother’s delight. She can most frequently be found in the dressing room at Berkley Girl on Madison Avenue (though lately she is beginning to think that the store that tailors to 8-12 year olds is a little too immature for her tastes and thus has branched out to the Bergdorf children’s section, Bambini for teens and Olive & Bette’s downtown.). Her favorite “dress down” item is her Pucci inspired “Flowers by Zoe” skirt. If she can’t twirl in it, she won’t buy, end of discussion.
Madisonne’s dislikes include her younger sister (half of the time), bratz dolls (“so unlady-like”), people that spell her name “Madison” or “Madisen”, Claire’s stores, lame birthday parties that she feels obliged to attend to, and her co-parts from Spence that “dress in clothes from Ibiza and Calypso and think they are “free spirits”.
Where will Madisonne be in 15 years?
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From our Inbox
This morning in our inbox:
From: moxie@xxxxxx.com
Sent: Thursday, May 31, 2007 7:06 AM
To: guestofaguest@gmail.com
Subject: Last nightSaw Mr. Leo Dicaprio at Lure last night with what looked like his parents. Was his mom for sure, not sure about the older dude since I’ve never seen a picture of his dad. Titanic is one of my all time favorite movies, and, while I rarely get starstruck, I was definitely taken aback. He was so cute & more manly than I imagined. He should be a model. I wanted to get a pic but realized that would be totally lame.
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Mystery Solved
Remember when we were appalled with the price tag of our brunch one Saturday at the posh Nellos resturaunt? We couldn’t figure out why this place had stayed on the radar for so long as the go-to upper east side brunch venue. Well today the mystery was solved. The food and location have nothing to do with it. It’s all about press. The NY Times reports today on just how much $1,000 can get you. For Nello Balan, that much in the form of a gift to a Page Six editor can get you a hell of a lot.
“A database check shows that in the two years after the gift was made, around Christmas 1997, according to The Post, Mr. Balan or his restaurant, Nello, were mentioned at least 15 times in Page Six, almost always favorably.”
Now we get it. This also reconfirms how shitty the print journalism jobs are paying these days…These editors will do almost anything for a grand.
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Do I Look Stupid?
Today’s Page Six is reporting that Lydia Hearst, daughter of Patty Hearst, (and heir to William Randolph Hearst’s fortune), has escaped death. Apparently Hearst told them that she “almost died” in her sleep at the Chateau Marmont in West Hollywood last night when the old-fashioned gas oven in her suite was left on overnight. Hearst asked the hotel to turn the oven off after she saw “the misty, shaky air pour out.” She’s in L.A. promoting her “Lydia” bag for Puma. “Of course, I’ll stay here again,” Hearst said. “But can you imagine if I was found dead, naked in bed? It would have been me and John Belushi who died here!”
Wait a minute (head scratch), isn’t CO2, the gas that kills you both odorless and colorless? Furthermore, since when have socialites become so completely helpless that they can’t turn off a stove on their own?!
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The Winner
Line to get inside Pink Elephant, Southampton, Saturday night:
And the winlner for this weekend’s best night spot in the Hamptons goes to Pink Elephant. Even without the redesign new fish hanging from the celing (the work of designer Steve Lewis), without the celebrity girlfriends hanging off of the owner’s arms (Heather Graham has been dating Charles Ferri the co-owner of Star Room since last summer), and without the famous gatekeepers like Rich Thomas at the door, Pink manages to win our vote for best spot and here’s why:
The crowd was the hottest, the music made us want to boogie, and the infamous “scent machine” was in full effect:
Mark Birnbaum, Richie Akiva (owner of Butter), Eugene Remm (owner of TenJune along with Mark).
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Everything You Need To Know: The Guido
[Guido here, guido there, guido everywhere!]
[Image Source: NJGuido.com]
What is a Guido? This is a question that has occupied some of the finest minds of our generation. Although some have come remarkably close to capturing the zeitgeist of the Guido, none have completely wrapped their mind around the profundity of this question. Rather than attempt at what others have failed, we thought it better to lay down the agreed upon facts and our own individual findings and let you come to your own conclusions. After all, the Guido has a slightly different place in all of our hearts.
The Guido is primarily indigenous to StrongLong Island, however, researchers note that the New Jersey shore, Rhode Island and Massachusetts, also enjoy thriving Guido populations. Whether the Guido came about in a Lazarus-like autogenesis or started as a few blue-collared boys led astray, no one quite knows. What we do know is that with the advent of dance music, mainstream steroid use and the reality tv show “Growing up Gotti,” the population of this species has swelled and looks poised to continue healthy and sustained growth-rate into the future.
The StrongLong Island Guido resides almost entirely in Nassau County and the Five Towns. The preponderance of World Gym franchises, fake tanning salons and barbers willing to give a man a “blowout” haircut, make these locations a desirable habitat for the Guido. The importance of the Guido bouffant cannot be overlooked. Guidos don’t like sideburns, they frequently sport negative sideburns and a shaved neckline (”blowout”) in combination with a thin chin-strap of facial hair. Hair product use is common as is bird-shit -like coloring. The Guido’s mindset usually maintains that the shorter your hair, the tougher you are, however, many Guidos prefer a spiked dew, and in that case they generally apply a gallon of spluge and spike the front, top, side and rear of their head, creating a sonic-the-hedgehog or spiked helmet look.
In the summertime these creatures often migrate further east, and can be found lurking in the dark recesses of the Hamptons, such as the hamlets of East Quogue, HarlemHampton Bays and any mattress they can find north of montauk highway. The Guido’s mode of transportation is always leased and usually overcrowded. Due to their life prioritization structures of hard-partying first, it is difficult for them to obtain gainful employment and acquire meaningful assets. They are known for traveling light; men sporting only a fannypack for assorted stimulants, and women even less, a toothbrush and occasionally a tube of toothpaste.
The Guido’s diet consists mainly of Red Bull, Stacker 2 and a variety of other Met-Rx Supplements (which makes them very gassy). Their leisure time includes flexing, posing, going to the gym to work on their barstool bodies (i.e. blasting their bis and tris) and doing “loser laps” in their cars down main streets and cat-calling at girls.
Appearance is a religion for the Guido. Male forms often wax eyebrows, fake tan, and are often looking for any excuse to take off their shirts. The men are known to regularly try on two or three different outfits before going out, and the women about one or two. Fake boobs, butt implants, synthetic bodies and tattoos are expected. Bandanas, dew-rags, earrings, gum-chewing and sky-diving glasses during the night or day, are almost more common on men than women.
Having said all this, the best way to try defining the Guido is by understanding how the Guido defines himself…and that is how he parties. Some of their favorite watering holes in the summer include Neptunes in East Quogue, Canoe Place Inn, Foggey Goggle and of course Boardy Barn Sundays in Hampton Bays. At these mating grounds, you will see the Guido and the Guidette engaging in dance-offs, grunting, flexing and cackling discordantly. Much of what they learn in aerobics class and from pole-dancing, they bring to their recreational dancing. It is very athletic, and can best be described as an ecstasy-driven Dionysian release.
Be on the lookout for these creatures this summer. Although their temperament outside dancing can be moderate, they are prone to bouts of roid-rage and can be territorial, especially should the male Guidos come into contact with males of different species, namely the WASP, the Euro, and the Hipster. So don’t say we didn’t warn you, and enjoy!
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Beauty Ambassador?!
Okay this seriously must be a joke. Word on the street is that Tinsley Mortimer has been named the Dior Beauty Ambassador in the U.S. She will be consulting alongside celebrity makeup artist Pati Dubroff to host Dior Beauty events and help launch their products.
The brand stated that “Her unique combination of style, visibility, and nonstop energy will help round out Dior Beauty’s roster of bold-face names, including Sharon Stone and Charlize Theron.”
Are they on drugs?! I can see having her be a spokesperson for Cipriani’s Sunday night parties (remember this?) but DIOR BEAUTY??
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The Varvatos Experience
This Sunday, John Varvatos “Hit the Beach” and opened his sixth free-standing store with Frederic Fekkai, Tom Felicia, and Jerry Della Femina playing hosts to the event. The 1,800 square foot store on 54 Newton Lane, offers clothing, accessories and furnishings from the well-known menswear designer. While shopping in a Varvatos store is nothing new for us, this Monday’s was not just a shopping trip but an experience!…It was filled with vinyl records, vintage photographs, and mid-century furnishings not just to look at but all for sale.
John Varvatos took what he calls an “anti-designer” approach. “I’ve been collecting on my travels for the last four or five months, going to flea markets,” he says. “I found pieces I’d want in my home—but they’re going to be holding clothing, and other than the cash register, everything’s for sale.”
LOVE!
From Men’s Style.com:
While the space will host regular gigs and parties on Saturday nights—including an August 4 bash for shutterbug Bob Gruen—it will also be open by appointment at the very un-rock-’n'-roll hour of 7:30 a.m. “People used to come and hang out in my original store in SoHo,” Varvatos explains. “So every Saturday or Sunday, we’ll have stacks and stacks of New York Timeses—come in and pick one up, we’re giving them away, and we’ll have coffee and true breakfast for people.”
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