New York, I Love You: Ho Crusty

Mmmmmmm....Just the way I like it!

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Mustache fever

After a heavily champagne drizzled baby shower in Manhattan's Upper West Side a few weeks ago, I made the pilgrimage to the very last stop on the F train down in sunny Coney Island. Our friend Neil was defending his Best Styled Mustache title in The Second Annual Coney Island Beard And Mustache Competition.

You would think that in a city like Brooklyn, filled with countless numbers of ironic hipsters sporting all styles of ridiculous facial hair, an event like this would be massive but it was quite small, boasting a modest 34 male and female contestants. Some were creative while others merely showed off their natural manly facial hair growing chops.

We didn't stick around for the judging and sadly found out later that our friend was dethroned of his title. We did, however, get to see a guy hammer nails and shove a drill up his nose, a woman swallow many swords a bearded lady juggle three machetes and facial-haired hopefuls drink whiskey shots out of a tube hanging from a man's nose.

You know, just another day in the life in the NYC! Check out some pics below.



And speaking of Mustaches, Jimmy Fallon held a Mustache contest of his very own last night called "Ultimate Mustache Fighter," where Geraldo Rivera's mustache took on John Stossel's mustache in a boxing ring. Most definitely worth a watch!

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Lazy Travelogue: The Portland edition

Several weeks ago, I had the distinct pleasure of sashaying across the country to the quaint city of Portland (Oregon -- not Maine, an important distinction) for the nuptials of my dear friends Charles and Kathleen.

The wedding was on Sunday but we flew in Friday night to catch the bachelor and bachelorette parties. The boys hit up some strip clubs (typical) while the girls met up at The Fez for 80's night with the notorious DJ Gregarious.

That seemed pretty PG-13 to me, but as I tossed back my third or fourth $4.50 vodka soda and wondered if it was fair to consider Interpol and MGMT "80's," the evening took an interesting turn when Gregarious and his DJ partner ran up on stage to get down to their own bad selves in the buff!

Naturally, we jumped up on stage ourselves to join the naked dance party.

So if you find yourself in the ever so conservative town of Portland, OR, here are some Lazy recommendations of things to check out:

1. DJ Gregarious's naked romp at the Fez
2. Contortionist stripper, Satori, at Mary's Club
3. Voodoo Doughnut, where you can order doughnuts shaped like male appendages and female glands. (Just check out the menu…)

Anyone sense a theme here? Seriously Portland, maybe you should change your name to "Pornland?"

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Damn, that's my jam: Telefon Tel Aviv

Many people dubbed this past summer "The Summer of Death." But tragedy struck much earlier for me, as far back as January, with the death of Charlie Cooper, one half of the electronic music duo Telefon Tel Aviv.

I was lucky enough to catch Telefon Tel Aviv at the old Knitting Factory in May of 2008 (after an infamous David Mancuso loft party, mind you) when they were thrown onto the bill at the last minute to open up for Apparat (Score!)

I was somewhat apprehensive about seeing them again in light of Charlie's death but their last album, Immolate Yourself, a far more mature and fuller sound than the simple glitchy IDM I had loved from the duo early on, is such a beautiful opus that I couldn't pass up the chance to hear it on a loud system surrounded by other fans at Mercury Lounge earlier this month.

Joshua Eustis and "new member" Fredo Nogueira (who has previously worked with the duo) played many songs from Immolate Yourself, dedicating the OMD inspired "Helen of Troy" to the late John Hughes and ending it all with a cover of Bruce Springsteen's "I'm On Fire."

It was a decent show but sadly not as good as the last time I saw them.

Eustis remains undecided about the future of Telefon Tel Aviv but I'm certain we haven't heard the last of him and interested to see what he'll do next.

In the meantime, check out "I Made A Tree On The Wold," my favorite track from Immolate Yourself. It contains no beats -- just four minutes and 39 seconds of pure ambient goodness. Enjoy!

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BANSKY Strikes Again

Thanks to Arrested Motion for posting Banksy's latest stand against global retailer, Ikea. B has been busy this summer, he opened a show at the beginning of summer entitled Banksy vs. the Bristol Museum. Check out videos and images over at BBC.

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A little help for all those beauty pageant contestants.

Sooo, did anyone realize just how peace filled the month of September is? I didn't. Did you know that September 21st is the end all be all of peace? No? Okay, well lets get in a quick refresher before it's too late, and we're on stage under those bright Mrs America pageant lights and we have to back up the answer "world peace" with some facts.

The International Day of Peace was established by the United Nations in 1981, and it was celebrated for the first time in September 1982. It was unanimously decided in 2002 that it would be officially celebrated on September 21st as a day not only of peace but of ceasefire all over the world from then on. Now, this peace day is all about action. The website suggests anything from lighting a candle or having a private get together to public concerts and forums. People from all over the world are encouraged to participate.You can get involved on a local scale by following efforts on facebook and twitter.

Then we have, and here's where it get's a little tricky, Peace one day...umm day, also on September 21st. Launched in 1999 by filmaker Jeremy Gilley whose mission was to document his efforts to establish a worldwide annual day of non-violence and ceasefire on a fixed calendar date. It was through his efforts that the UN decided to adopt September 21st as the International Day of Peace. It is Gilley's mission to not only get the individual involved in observing peace but also governments, national and regional organizations, including those in the United Nations system. By 2012 Gilley hopes to introduce 3 billion people to Peace Day.

So next time contestants, back up your tired old wish for world peace answer with a little effort on your part. Have an International Day of Peace get together, organize a peaceful demonstration to educate others, light a single candle and have a moment of silence, for goodness sake.

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Autolux @ MHOW

Back in the day, circa 2005, when Soundclash Champion Graham M. was the gracious soul supplying me with habitual doses of MP3's in the form of cd's, I was introduced to some pretty choice bands including Ms. John Soda and Hot Chip. Last night, I had the chance to see one of those bands, the elusive, obscure, phenomenal Autolux.

Autolux never played in Atlanta and by the time I moved to New York, the only way to see them was on their opening tour with Nine Inch Nails (AKA large venues and opening sets.) Therefore, I'd never seen them. Add to that the fact that they haven't released anything since 2005's Future Perfect, a record that can only be described as "Perfect" itself, I had somewhat forgotten about them. But last night's show didn't only remind me how much I love them, it severely pshyched me up for what's to come from this band.

They played 50% old material and 50% new material. The new stuff sounded amazing. The encore blew my mind.

Their newest album, entitled Transit Transit, won't see the light of day until at least 2010 because none of the labels the band is talking to "want to put it out in the fourth quarter." Boo! Maybe if they changed their name to "Autotune" it would get automatically released and snatched up by the public like hot cakes because that's all anyone wants to hear these days.

At any rate, I'm sure it will eventually come out and rock everyone’s face off the moment it does. Autolux = awesome! Don’t sleep.

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The freedom

I've resisted twitter for as long as I can.

In the past few months a favorite pastime during the lunch hour at work is gathering around the one ancient desktop in the office and perusing fun websites. It so slow it takes the WHOLE lunch hour. When I say this computer is ancient I mean it's tower should probably take up a whole room and be covered in blinking lights circa 1950's sci-fi. When I say slow I mean this tortoise never, ever beat the hare. Usually the websites range from cute animals, awww, to hipsters and douche bags gone wild, whoa! Recently someone came in with a new one, twitter.com/shitmydadsays. In one word it's hilarious. In two words it's freaking hilarious.
So, this 28 year old dude lives with his 73 year old dad and twitters about the shit he says on a fairly regular basis. Granted not a terribly exciting premise unless the old guy is suffering from dementia...which...really...isn't funny. Anyway dementia aside, this guy is funny. He's old, he's tired, and cranky and has no filter whatsoever. Ahhh the freedom of kids and seniors. It kind of makes me impatient to get old and just say whatever I want without consequence, watch out for twitter.com/shitIsay in about forty years or so.

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