Best Use of My Bonus Hour

I got in tonight in time to watch my clocks switch from 1:59 to 1:00. Sure, I could use this extra hour for sleeping . . . but why not post Halloween party photos instead?

Okay. The theme for my costume this year was "If You Can't Beat 'Em, Join 'Em." Everyone tells me I look like Buster from Arrested Development, or that I act like him. I don't know how to respond to this other than "Well, then I guess I look like Buster." So I decided that I'd dress up as Buster (How do you dress up as buster? striped shirt under zip up sweater, buy some reading glasses, make a claw out of two hangers and a big plastic cup, get a new haircut that's really short) for the big halloween parties tonight.

These are some test photos that I took of myself before going out:





Here I'm practicing realizing that I have a claw . . .



. . . and yelling, "I'm a Monster!!"







Then I made my way up to the Stake Center for the big Mormon party.

Tina was Mr. Peanut.



Karisa was eaten by rats.



Amy and Bracken were sneaky. (You see, they're married)



Mary Kate was seen with Buster.



Here's a better look at Di as Mary Kate Olsen.



Josh had been wounded.



Mindy and Emily were 80s girl and gypsy.



These guys took my picture, so I took their picture.



I slow danced with Patricia.



Laura was an Upper East Side Mom and my claw was backwards.



I was let down by how few people knew who Buster was, or, how few people that I knew knew who Buster was showed up for the party. But the people who did know what I was up to appreciated my effort, and I appreciated that.

After the "big party" I split my evening between a party with my former coworkers at Sony (Hot Cop Omer is seen here with his prisoner) and a Stake party afterparty that was being so carefully documented by other wielders of digital cameras that I felt no reason to click away myself.



An excellent photo of Omer and I was taken on Omer's camera. I hope to get a copy of that photo and put it right here . . . in the future.

Best Low Key Concert

Last night I slipped into the Bowery Ballroom and saw Ambulance Ltd play with We Are Scientists. I sat at a table in the balcony. I took no notes as to the set list. I brought no camera to take pictures with. The lack of pressure to make use of my resources was as exhilarating and enjoyable as flying cross country with absolutely no money in your wallet. (Try it some time, you'll see what I'm getting at.) As usual, Ambulance was dead on and much better than they needed to be.

I was excited to see We Are Scientists because I'm into their song "Nobody Move Nobody Get Hurt." When I first found out that there was a band called We Are Scientists and they had a song called "Nobody Move Nobody Get Hurt" I assumed that it was an ironic cover of the Eazy-E song of the same name (okay, officially his song is just called "Nobody Move") but it turns out that W.A.S.' song is NOT the same as Eazy-E's . . . but still, it's dang good.

After the show I was reunited with many of my old TVT colleagues. They remembered me far too fondly.

Best It Turns Out It's Not Just Me

Since yesterday I've been smelling syrup, and I thought it was just me . . . like, I figured I stepped in a waffle on my way to workschool (Why'd I write work? I don't have a job. Why do I think I have a job? I know it isn't true) or something, but then I discovered this collection of news at Gothamist.

Weird. weird.

I guess this disproves Demetri Martin's observation: "Whenever I investigate a smell, I find that the answer is always bad. It's never: "What is that? *sniff* muffins!"" Or at least his observation is disproved until it turns out that anthrax has a sweet, sugary smell.

Best Excess in Remindering

If you're like me (in what specific sense I mean that I'm not yet sure) then you've been getting a lot of emails from your friends and from people you barely know reminding you that New York Doll comes out today in New York and Los Angeles. With that in mind, let me just say that today, in New York and Los Angeles, New York Doll comes out. And you've got to see it.

Now I brag. (But if you know me, you already know all this stuff)

I got a copy of New York Doll about three months ago and if I know you, then I probably tried to show it to you (and perhaps I succeeded). To be succinct, this is a magnificent, magnificent movie and I couldn't possibly recommend it more. The only negative reviews I've read about it were written by rock snobs that feel the relevance of the Dolls is overstated in the movie and to that I say: "You are a rock snob." If you think there is any part of you that could possibly enjoy a true story where someone who has had it rough gets what he wants most in the world, then you will have a great, great time watching New York Doll.

Need to know more? Go to the official website.

If you don't live in New York or Los Angeles (what, there's other cities?) don't worry, it looks like NY Doll is coming to where you live, too.

Best Tiny Videos of Gigantic Wrestlers

Here you are, shakey footage from my Canon S45 of the previously-mentioned sumo wrestlers from Saturday night going at it as only previously-mentioned sumo wrestlers can.

(It seems some consider YouSendIt to be old-fashioned when it comes to hosting videos, but it's how I'm going to continue to roll, for the time being. If any of these links die, let me know and I'll try to revive them.)

Here we've got a good early match. Nothing too fancy.

This video is important for several reasons: First, the wrestler on the right was a real ham (think very early Hulk Hogan with lots of gestures to the crowd for applause) and, subsequently, a fan-favorite. Second, the fellow, (his name was Bjorn or something, I think? He was from Norway . . . maybe?) does a few sumo-leg raises right before the match. (We learned to love those.) Third, this is a good chance for you to see how some matches are won by stupid luck (much cheaper than dumb luck.)

Watch this video! Maybe you don't feel like downloading the other videos, but make sure to watch this one. It features the little (200lbs) wrestler we called Scrappy going up against a 400lbs giant. Also, this video is evidence that I'm growing up into my Dad . . . I grew up listening to him yell at BYU football games on TV games, and now, listen to me, as Scrappy takes care of his Goliath I swear I make the same noise(s) my Dad makes when the Cougs are headed for a touch-down.

Here you can see how tricky it can be to get a fellow out of the ring.

Here's an early match where the fellow that winds up winning the tournament makes short work of a fairly huge opponent.

This is another video of the popular blonde guy. It's one of the better-looking videos I've got as I filmed it while standing by a gate on my way to get some nachos.

The heartbreak of the evening: our beloved Scrappy finally tastes defeat after coming so far. (Be patient, the match starts after 50 seconds)

Oh, oh! Watch this one! Watch this one! The winner is an absolutely ruthless villain . . . and guess what, he makes it to the . . .

FINAL MATCH!! Huge Japanese Guy vs. Eastern European Villain. Not to give away the ending (oh, wait, I already did, at least twice) but, while I couldn't tell when I saw it happen (and neither could he), the Huge Japanese Guy actually wins because the Eastern European Villain took a step out of the ring as he tossed the Huge Japanese Guy.

Just so you know, it takes forever to get these videos uploaded.

PS Looking for Demetri? Patience. It'll be a while.

Best Night of My Whole Life Since 1997*

So, Saturday was Craig's birthday and after a Peep dinner Jenna, Craig (of course), Kristin and I hopped in a cab and headed up to Madison Square Garden for . . .



The S.U.M.O. World Sumo Challenge Battle of Giants!



That's right. Based on a hunch and an impulse, we went and saw some sumo wrestling. We didn't know exactly what we were getting ourselves into . . . but at the beginning all the wrestlers stood around the ring and we said things like "Oh, those guys aren't Japanese!" and "Hey, is this like the WWF or something?" and "Those guys aren't that big!"



Well, I don't really know anything about how things are in Japan, but the sumo we saw seemed pretty decent, not very WWFy, and it turns out that Eastern Europeans make pretty good sumo wrestlers.



I discovered it was better to tape the short matches with my camera than photograph them, so tomorrow you can expect to find a post of a bunch of wrestling videos. So you've got that to look forward to.



If you leave your camera zoomed-in you get crazy shots of your friends going nuts for the sumo wrestling action.



Turns out all sorts of people were at the wrestling show, having a truly awesome time.



We saw so many matches! So many matches! I have no idea how many, but they started off with 24 wrestlers and a few hours later, it was time for the championship match between The Really Big Japanese Guy and the Bad Sport (it will all make more sense tomorrow when you see the video.)



It was a tense battle, but our beloved Really Big Japanese Guy won. The crowd was furious to find that his prize money was only $10,000.



Hey, do you know those subway safety ads that say "It's No Laughing Matter" that tell you not to lean against the doors and tell jokes?



I imagine you're familiar with Honda's Big Ruckus, right?



*You see, about exactly 8 years ago when I was living in Mexico City I went and saw the Lucha Libre and It. Was. Amazing. A highlight of my existence.

Best Return to the Bowery Ballroom

Friday night I went to see the Rapture at the Bowery Ballroom. I hadn't been to the Bowery for months and months. It was the Rapture's first show anywhere for a long time (not counting a few little recent sets at Crash Mansion and the Tribeca Grand) and they had lots of new material to debut.

Ugh. Another "Doors Open at 9 PM" concert. Don't they know I'm too eager to start my nights to show up places after 10 on a Fridays?



Mahi Mahi was the first opening band of the night. They're the kind of band that is sufficiently fun live, but probably really boring to listen to on a record.



They were like Death from Above 1979 minus the guitar plus a keyboard plus a whole lot of vocoder (all of a sudden does it sound like I'm describing the best band in the world? Trust me, they weren't as good as the band as I seem to be describing)



The second opening band was Cut Copy, whom I had seen a few nights before with Franz Ferdinand. I was pretty excited to see them again, and up close.



I've heard Cut Copy described as like the dance-punk version of Daft Punk, so it was funny to me that they used actual Daft Punk songs as backing tracks for a few numbers.



I don't have enough to say about them to go with each photo.









Merlin Bronques was there, of course, avoiding taking pictures of me, of course.



Check it out, Cut Copy is from Australia, but they play on Chevy mats.



When the Rapture set up they placed a brand new guitar at the front of the stage . . . the tags were still on it and everything. I found this to be odd, like when kids leave the tags on their shoes or hats.



I'll be honest. I didn't really care for the the Rapture's new stuff. Mostly because I hadn't heard it before, but also because the songs had rapping and VanHalen-style fret-tapping. I kept thinking "Man, just play one of your old songs!" But when they played an old song, I always thought "Man, didn't you just play this song?"









Wait a second . . . don't the two main Rapture guys look like Simon and Garfunkle, I mean, just a little bit?



You'll see here that Mr. Rapture-Guitarist's guitar has tags hanging off of it, meaning he broke a string on his first guitar and switched right away to his brand-new guitar.



I think the audience's secret was that as much as we like any old Rapture song (any old Raptures song, I said) we were all mostly hanging in there to hear "House of Jealous Lovers" and when the song finally hit . . .



People went crazy. (Maybe shake your computer monitor around a bit to better simulate a crowd going crazy?)

Best That You Actually Read This Post Because It's About a Super-Awesome Night But I Only Took Two Pictures

Danny Mulligrub from freshman year was in town for a day shooting some additional stuff for the documentary about lady skateboarders he's been working on for the past while. Tuesday night he asked if I wanted to hang out with him and his friend Judah. I said sure. Here's a picture from when we were waiting on the corner for Judah to pick us up. (It is a picture of Danny)



It turns out that Danny's friend Judah is Judah Friedlander. Who is Judah Friedlander? Well, I've twice reported seeing Judah on the street as a celebrity-sighting (but I've seen him around more than that.) If you clicked either of this links, maybe you wound up clicking more links to find out more about Judah . . . but if you didn't, this is a link to his website. And if you didn't click on that link, let me just tell you that Judah is a stand-up comic who is a commentator on VH1's "Best Week Ever" and who has appeared in lots of movies, like "Meet the Parents" and "American Splendor" and, I don't know, other movies. Oh! You may know him as the guy that gives out hugs in "that one Dave Matthews video." Anyway, Danny and Judah are friends and maybe now, after a night of New York adventures, Judah and I are friends? I guess it all comes down to whether or not he remembers me when I next see him on the street and say "Hey, Judah . . . it's me, Brigham, Danny's friend?"

Okay, anyway. Judah took us up to Caroline's in Times Square where he single-handedly saved a very dismal night of comedy for a room full of drunken tourists. Sure, Judah killed the crowd with his great jokes, but I was more impressed that he could drive to Times Square and find a parking spot like it was no big deal.

This is a very sneaky photo I took of Judah telling jokes:



After that he gave us a quick backstage tour of the club (mostly all the backstage is is a kitchen) and we drove down to the village because he had a set to do at the Comedy Cellar. I don't know if I should be bragging about Tuesday night like I was caught up in some crazy celebrity encounter or making a new homeboy, but it was a great time. We talked about the in's and out's of stand up comedy, joke selection, reading an audience, and whatnot. It was a great time, and it's always fun to get into places for free and stuff. At the Comedy Cellar we also saw Dave Atell and Godfrey (the latest 7up spokesperson.) What I was really impressed with was how the comedians still really went at even as the club got emptier and emptier (not a lot of people want to hear jokes at 2AM on a Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, imagine that.)

Oh, blah blah blah. What else should I say. It was a great New York night, and now it's Thursday night, and I've been schoolin' all day long, but I had Cafe Havana for lunch and it was $1.25 Big Mac night. So, yeah. Whatever.