Best Party, After Party, and More Parties

Friday night the Ladies of Two Gold (Erin, Liesel, Natalie, and Amber) held an Arrested Development marathon, a.k.a., "The Best Sort of Party You Could Possibly Throw."



Natalie and Liesel made frozen bananas! Here's Natalie and Stephen enjoying their bananas.



Uh-oh, Michael has to save the company again!



Me. Captivated.



Trish and Alice-Lynn. Captivated.



Everyone, chillin'. Captivated.



Buster learning about the claw in "Afternoon Delight," possibly the funniest episode of Season Two? (Or would that be "Good Grief" or "Motherboy XXX"?)



Two Gold Street is certainly an apartment building with healthy self-esteem.



The next afternoon just about everyone from the night before met up for dumplings from Eldridge street, a.k.a. "The Best Sort of After-party Imaginable." Here Jeff chows.



Hey, it's Liesel! And Amber!



And, once again, Stephen and Natalie!



And this is Me! (If you look closely, you'll see that I'm giving the beef pancake another shot after having a disasterously gristley one back in March.)



Then Natalie, Stephen, Jeff and I rolled up to Bryant Smith's birthday party in Sheep's Meadow. On our way out of the subway station I found a copy of the brand newest Vanity Fair just sitting beside a trashcan so I brought it to the park and read the big Jennifer Aniston interview that everyone is talking about to a rapt audience. Of course I don't have any pictures of that, but people seemed to enjoy it. Anyway, here's the birthday boy himself and Jeff Butler.



Now Saturday night all sorts of stuff was supposed to be going down and I was going to check out this party up in Inwood before stopping by Mike Lemmon's surprise going away party, but then I started feeling guilty, like what's the point of a surprise party if you're not there for the surprise? So I decided to go to the Mike party first and then catch the Inwood party (a decision pretty much made on the way up to Inwood) . . . it was a good little farewell Meg threw Mike with a nice slideshow and everything and Mike was even caught completely by surprise, which was incredible considering all the times I nearly derailed the event by trying to make other plans with him or whatever.



And then Amber and I sort of decided not to do the Inwood party but went downtown to MisShapes instead. For those who don't know, why don't I say that MisShapes is like the Studio 54 of Hipster Club Nights right now . . . and for those who do know then I'm sure you can't believe I called MisShapes the Studio 54 of Hipster Club Nights because everyone knows MisShapes is so over now. Whatever, there was a decent sized mass at the door and groups were getting turned away by the keen-eyed doorman in charge of keeping the party cool but Amber and I got right in . . . I give Amber the credit for this.



And you know who I saw right away when we got to the main floor? Mark the Cobrasnake! (Dude with the beard)



And, more or less, Mark saw us too. (Okay, that second photo is nothing to be proud of but Hey, I'm on the Cobrasnake! [I think that's a picture of me overreacting to the brightness of dude's flash, or laughing at a joke])

On the dance floor Amber keeps it cool and nonchalant.



And I show off my version of the Lucky Lucky Dance. (look who is in the background now, Cobrasnake buddy!)



The floor was crowded and lively . . .



But a lively crowd is sometimes better conveyed without a flash . . .



. . . you know?



A night at a club consists of a cast of characters only relevant to those in attendance, so you can't understand the "importance" of this photo of the guy in blue.



All in all, it was good to finally check out MisShapes (something I've been meaning to do since February '04) but the music was a little different than I had expected (rather un-Brit Poppy for something named after a Pulp song and rather heavy on the 80's babysitter music and "ironic" metal hits). But I've got it checked off from my Cool New Yorker Things To Do List, and who knows, maybe I'll wind up swinging by again in hopes of being photographed a little better.