August 11 -- NYC ILE/M/Triggerfest ahoy!

Hey hey! If that's the gameplan, I'll try my damnest to get my ass out of CT and into the scary city. Though I do hope that the proportion of music talk : other talk is balanced heavily in favor of the other talk. If I hear people bla-bla-blahing about Air & Daft Punk directly after introductions, I'll hurl. And if I drink a mixture of cranberry juice & vodka, I'll hurl.

I'm sure there'll be some music talk along the way, but it does not define us. Instead, we will spend our collective time offering praise and good wishes to Ally, as we all well know she controls our fates. Besides which, clearly the right way to have a Midori Sour is to be with someone who knows how a good one is supposed to taste.

Dude, as long as this meet up goes without someone *coughcoughotiswheelercough* screaming insanely that I'm a whore and they want to die like an asshole, it's totally not a success. You better believe music discussion is off topic.

So should I be the person picking a meet up place? Be advised that Steph is definitely in.

No dice. In Buffalo for a wedding.

Besides, Sterl won't be there to set me off.

Ah, ya bastard Jimmy. I met Sterling, I had hoped to see you as well! Same damn excuse Dan gave! ;-)

Anyway, yes to Ally asking to select a Good Spot. Steph coming along = very cool.

...what's a Midori Sour?

You will find out, my friend. Heh heh heh.

By the way, if anyone can hook me up with the name & number of a hotel/motel in the general vicinity of the NYC hoe-down, I'll buy them drinks & stuff. (Ally, if you could somehow find a way to get me into a Ritz for cheap ... oh, my heart can't stand such dreaming...) I guess I'll take some of my upcoming vacation time in The City That Doesn't Wear Clean Undies.

I'd love to help you but our soonest NYC Ritz opening isn't til October, can't do anything for anyone, including myself and my man and my best friend for fuck's sake. It really blows cos I'd love to not have to TRAVEL to stay in a Ritz, I mean fuck going to Washington. Fucking Washington. It was so great but still. Trains, pff. Hello. I'll see what I can do with other hotels, if people need places and shit there are hotels but I don't know the comparative cost and I could only rent one room at a time you know. And you'd have to all pretend to be my dad,m because they'rea ll like technically this discount is only for yourself and immediate family, and I'm all fuck you, bitch, and they'rea ll, we don't make the rules, slutbag.

Um anyhow midori sours are like NOTHING YOU'VE EVER HAD, I promise. They're green.

Let's not meet at Potion, let's go someplace different. I actually will research this this weekend, I promise you.

Yeah, no Potion Lounge, fuck the Potion Lounge, they don't like me. Don't sweat it, Ally or anyone else, I still think you're a whore and I still want to go out like a dumb asshole or a jackass or whatever the quote was, so the meet will be a success. Except! August 11 is the day American Pie 2 opens, so I will be late.

Any drink involving Midori is great. I wonder if I could run away to NYC for the weekend... I'd probably be in too much trouble with our "tour manager" tho if I disappear to NYC the day before we leave. But then again, isn't that what rock'n'roll is all about?

August 10, surely. Whoever heard of a movie opening on a Saturday?

Ned: Others will attest as to how charming and dashing I am and how I do, in fact, exist. Ask Ally and Tracer and bnw... and Fred and Sundar. I think that's everyone.

Others: You should go to Brooklyn.

We are NOT going to Brooklyn, that's out of the way for everyone besides the people in Brooklyn, for god's sake.

Otis, AP2 doesn't come out on the 11th, because as Ned said the 11th is a frigging Saturday. It comes out on the 10th, you want you morons up in West Mass should come down on that Fri and we'll all go see AP2 and then trash my roof again? I'm going to trash my roof regardless. I can show you where Ramon puked on me, and I'm trying to figure out a way to bring the ghetto blaster up there without buying batteries, because I wanna show up that prick with the megaphone.

No Potion Lounge, because Cesar remembers you two morons, and he remembers me and Ian being all pissed off and avoiding the group. He'd probably have Jimmy kill you for making me so mad. We should go to some really ridiculous hotel bar where they won't let anyone in and then laugh at everyone as they close the ropes on them, except I doubt we all could get in there too.

I WILL FIND A PLACE, except now it's not this weekend because I guess I'm going to Amherst this weekend instead of next. Can I come to your shed and play with the pickaxe, Otis?

The shed has been painted and had windows installed. It is no longer anyone's vision of hell, there's no point in hanging out there. You can nonetheless play with my pickaxe. My new vision of hell is swimming in the middle of the night. I hate swimming more than anything in the world. I do it nightly.

You are right, American Pie 2 comes out on the 10th. I refuse to see it in New York though. American Pie is totally a drive-in movie.

And Manhattan is out of the way for everyone except those who live in Manhattan. Touché.

Jimmy: All the trains from L.I./NJ/CT/PA/Mass (etc) come straight into Grand Central or Penn. The subways are more plentiful in Manhattan as well. Expecting people from NJ/CT/PA/Mass (etc) to go to Brooklyn to please you is just a good way to make sure no one shows up.

Otis: Dude, there are drive ins on Long Island, jesus. Anyhow, I really just wanna play with a pickaxe, I don't care what it looks like in the shed. I wanna go swimming. I'm apparently going to Great Adventure or something like that so I should go swimming too, to make it a real all-American weekend. I should find the USA hat Ramon spent $20 on at the Seaport and bring that too.

Sadly, I wll not be able to come to the par-tay and not say anything to anybody due a wedding in St. Lou.

Jimmy - Were you in Union Square today? If not, I think I saw your evil twin.

bnw -- T'wern't in Union to-day. Closest I got was when the D tran stopped between 34th and 4th. Barely made it to Bryant Park fer lunch too. Jeez. So many tourists these days...

AND SO MANY WEDDINGS IN AUGUST. Yow.

Ally: But wouldn't it be fun to have all those sheltered Mass-a-two-shits-ians take a field-trip to dirty Brooklyn?! I mean we [you all] could all go to the Heights for drinks...

You know, it would actually be fun put it that way. I mean, they thought ASTORIA was a "hell hole"...

Or O'Connor's in Park Slope, not only named Best Musician's Bar in New York according the Voice's Best of NY thingie, but Best Dark and Cheap Family-Owned Bar. Stellar jukebox, "vintage" ( =never serviced) decor, and a bartender named Spike. And of course I'm not saying all this because it's a block from my house, silly!

Ally: Brooklyn's out of what way? Where are you going?

Astoria is one giant suburban HELLHOLE. Long Island City is the nice place. Nothing but warehouses and art museums, kinda like what Soho used to be 30 or 40 years ago.

Uh... I like Asstoria.

Anything named best ANYTHING in the voice is not worth the time.

Pfft, whatever. Ally, I am realizing that our taste in bars is diametrically opposed. Ordering a Midori Sour at O'Connors, for instance, would earn you a scowl and maybe the boot. So maybe you just shouldn't come.

Have your own meet in Brooklyn then. Myself, Ned, Steph, and the mass crowd will be in Manhattan. Like I said, ANYTHING propped by something as disgusting as the Village Voice really doesn't deserve anyone's time - I mean, my god, the Voice.

I want to go to O'Connor's in Park Slope, that place sounds great, so long as Tracer promises not to play Jonathan Richman on the jukebox. Manhattan's a hellhole. Brooklyn's the place to be.

As long as there's a consensus of sorts, I have no preference as to where the coven convenes. I'm just hoping to a reaming by the Social Coordination Cock.

(And that's COV-en, not CUV-en.)

Otis: Holla.

The Mod: Word.

That sounds like a great bar, Ally. You are on crack, hello.

"I'm just hoping to a reaming..."????

AVOID a reaming. That's what I meant to say.

And this ends the pedant section of this message.

What do you read Ally? The Press? Their listings are always wrong.

Why the hell do you have to read anything to know where to go? That's what friends are for, hello? I'm feeling Queens right now anyhow because Steph has some fantastic new friends in Queens, we should hang with them. But I've decided I don't know any of you people anymore anyhow, so I'm not going to come.

Hm. So I'm wandering the streets, then.

No, we'll go out to dinner or something then I'll direct you to where everyone else is going to be, don't worry. But I'm only going unless Otis goes, and if it's in Brooklyn he has to drive me. And wear a chauffer's hat.

I'd pay money to see that, oh yes. :-)

Well, Ned, I think the chauffer outfit would only go with the butterfly wings, handcuffs, and Israeli army uniforms, but that's just me, and I might have issues.

Everyone else: I just want to make a minor point before I give up caring about this altogether, and go wherever the consensus is, showing up drunk and belligerent and with at least two people who have nothing to do with anything. What everyone seems to miss when planning these meets (and railing on me for picking locations "convenient to me", as if it's my fault I have a better address than the rest of you) is that OUT OF TOWNERS WANT TO COME. Which means it's not particularly nice or friendly to pick someplace with complex directions or that would take a long time to get to, because we are not 100% talking about natives here. I have no idea where Ned's staying, but I'd be willing to bet the midtown/slightly downtown/slightly uptown area would be easier for him to get to, as it would for anyone coming from out of town (ie the train stations are both in midtown, all the subway lines have stops in the area, etc). Which is what my consideration is. If I wanted to just be insular and pick a place I really wanted to go to cos I liked it, I'd pick places that'd be a great big huge pain in the ass to get to for people besides upper west siders. But I don't. And that's all I have to say, let the drunken belligerence commence on the 11th.

I am broke, Ned, how much would you pay? It would have to be enough to cover the price of the chauffeur's hat.

I will pay for your hat. You just have to come. You know why, I told you all about this at the diner, when Ramon was having his hissy fit. And you have to come next week too. I will totally buy you a chauffer's hat of your choice as long as you do those things.

Oh Ally. It's not like we're all rushing off somewhere afterwards. And yr reservations re: O'Connor's are unfounded. The place is spectacularly down to earth. Esp. considering all the press they've been getting. Probably has something to do with Bklyn keeping the poseurs out. :) But I Do Not Care and will go wit de flo.

Speak for yourself as to who will and won't be rushing off.

Good point.

I am starting to get jealous of the London roof party. Who's got a roof?

My roof is awesome. We're going to build a beach and put a pool table up there, eventually.

Sounds like a "tall order" for the 11th. But I'll pitch in if you want to get astroturf instead.

I, uh, didn't invite this party to my roof. I was just saying I had a kick ass roof.

No pool table, no beach. I dunno Ally it sounds to me like your roof sucks.

To rephrase: who's got a kick-ass roof that they'll allow their friends onto? I quite like the idea of Ned attending roof parties on 2 continents. Otherwise, you know, we can go to O'Connor's (shoots Ally meaningful glance).

Shoot me as many meaningful glances as you want, none of you are invited to my house.