Best First Concert of the Summer

After waking up Thursday morning and dealing with an enormous package that had arrived and wouldn't fit through my apartment door (more on that later) my first day of summer was off with a start, a start that consisted of me walking around everywhere and finally replacing my year and a half old New Balances (the soles of which had been worn down into the foam). But in the PM I met up with Amber and we went to the Canal Room to see Fischerspooner. At the show we ran into this fellow Steve, and the three of us secured a spot in the very front of the club.



After a good, long wait (at least it was well-deejayed—dude even played the Slits version of "'Heard it Through the Grapevine") Fischerspooner took the stage. Mr. Casey Spooner was backed-up for the evening by a band dressed like Warriors-esque baseball players. Look at this girl who was in the band—look at how she likes beer. Remember that for later.



It show was: brilliant. That about sums the whole thing up. Even when the band was playing songs I totally didn't know (I only know three Fischerspooner songs, afterall) I was still really liking it. It was so magnificently loud and the bass-situaton was so epic (definitely besting Dizzee Rascal a few weeks ago, I'm serious) I thought it was going to burst my chest open.



When you stand in the very front of the very center of a venue, it really puts you in the middle the action. Mr. Spooner kept making direct eye-contact with me, spat a mouthful of water all over us, and even did that lean out and sing into the audience thing right into my face, so much so that I wondered if I was supposed to do that thing where a member of the audience sings back into the microphone. I don't know how that would have gone, though. Although I said that I only know three FS songs, I didn't mean that I know the words to them.



There were video-projections during the whole show. Back in High School if there were videos being projected during a show was pretty much the make or break issue for me. In fact, between the art-techno of the band and the spiraling computer graphics, the whole event was very Culture-esque, Pete.



Casey Spooner is without a doubt the most tempermental and demanding artist I've seen live since Keith Jarrett (who spends half his shows complaining about the piano he has been given and threatening to walk off the stage). A couple times Casey stopped songs so that he could get a drink (don't forget that that girl liked beer, I'm going to get back to that) and even stopped the grand-finale number, "Emerge", a few minutes into the song because the crowd wasn't giving him back enough love.



But the crowd got itself worked up real good . . .



And the resulting second shot at "Emerge" killed.



There were confetti cannons and everything.



Now, remember how I said that girl liked beer? Near the end of the show Steve suddenly darts from his ideal spot up against the stage, disappears for a few minutes, and then returns with a Budweiser that he hands to the baseball girl. Did she appreciate it? Check out the makeup that rubbed off onto Steve's face.



So, yeah, so far my summer has been great.

Best It's All Done.

I don't know which would be more proper: for me to pop my collar or to brush my shoulder off, but either way, I just finished my last final of the year. The Best Summer Ever begins . . . Now.

I can't wait to start cleaning my apartment.

Muchas gracias to all who supported me or put up with me during these weeks called finals. At least it won't happen again for nearly eight months.

Best Music Review I've Read . . . Ever?

Tiny Mixtapes on Nine Inch Nails' "With Teeth".
Click.
Brilliant.

I have finally finished my Admiralty Law final and will soon be starting my Con Law final. And then, on Thursday morning, it will be summer. Admiralty was the most ridiculously complicated test for a two credit course I've ever taken. But that ship has now sailed, and I can no longer introduce myself to people by saying, "Hey, I'm Brigham. I go to NYU Law and I'm taking Admiralty Law, that's the law of the sea." I'll miss those days.

Best Content that I Didn't Provide

Sorry, I am definitely not posting anything myself today. But might I recommend the three following internet attractions?

My favorite blog used to be Curbed (don't go there, it's not my favorite anymore), but now I'm obsessed with the low airline fairs posted daily at newyorkairfares.blogspot.com.

Do you like camping? Better said, do you like it when other people go camping and have pictures of it? Still not interested? Do you like marshmallows? My sister and brother-in-law's blog has fun camping photos, with marshmallows.

The Chronicles of Narnia trailer is up. Lord of the Rings has ruined everything. Why does it have to be so large-scale and orc-y? The impression I had from those books was that everything took place around pine needles and fireplaces.

Second-Best Month Ever?

As this is the sort of thing I'm really into, here's what last month's Steady Mobbin' traffic looked like:



As you can see, by the slight crookedness of the line, it looks like I had maybe 2 fewer visits in April than in March. Two straight months of roughly 1050 hits? I'm not going to complain about that.

But it's worth pointing out that April was on the way to absolutely demolish March for the first three weeks of the month . . . but then, Steady Mobbin' went totally out of style:



So, of course, I was momentarily concerned that no one would ever come to briggie.blogspot.com again (because, you know, average daily hits in the 30's is absolutely unacceptable, right?) but look at what happened in the first week of May (for best effect, please ignore the tapering off at the end of the week):



Don't worry. I'm only going to force charts and graphs on you once a month.

Last Month's Charts and Graphs. Click.

Best 22 Hours of My Life (Dedicated to International Law)

I've taken numerous 24 Hr. Take Home Exams as a law student, but the one I just uploaded was the closest to actually being a 24 Hr. Take Home. With the exception of the time I spent sleeping from 1:30 to 6:30 last night, and when I sort of fell asleep on the couch yesterday afternoon, and when my neighbor had me come over to his apartment to see if I wanted to buy it (of course I wanted to buy it, he should have asked me if I could buy it), and, okay, two or three phone calls and of course my dinnerlunch, and when I watched last night's musical performance on Letterman,okay, as I was saying, with the exception of all those instances, the last 22 hours were nothing but reading and typing for me. BUT here's the thing, I felt absolutely brilliant about it the whole time, like I always knew what to say or do, but being on top of things for 16 or 17 hours straight (let's not get caught up with the math) doesn't make up for the fact that I had to be on top of something for 16 or 17 hours. But whatever, boo hoo hoo, I'm done. Here comes a nap, then comes the Admiralty Law.

Oh, yeah, and also, there are free donuts at the Law School during finals. Which is great. But it's not like I had to say that. (That it's great that there are free donuts)

Best Reason for No New Content Today

There's no better way to say "Feliz Cinco de Mayo" than "International Law Final." At least that's how I'll be celebrating. So why not scour the Steady Mobbin' Archives? Read The Smoker? Or polish your manners?

Best Birthday Get-Together

The idea was that it was going to be a Birthday Get-Together. But it pretty much wound up being a Birthday Party, there was nothing I could do about it. Being the person having the birthday is a lot of work, so the photography situation was handled by Lexia Snow and Ashley Furst.

I spent the first portion of the party in the kitchen making guacamole, with frequent help from people like Tina (who's head you can see in the background.)



If you got to the party early enough, I gave you a job. For example, Sariah got to wash the dishes while I scrubbed the toilet, Laura assembled my Swiffer Duster, Jenna and Tina had to figure out exactly how small I wanted my onions chopped, and, as seen here, Amber was placed in charge of an arts and crafts task that never made it onto the wall (for want of sticky-tack, not for lack of perfectly straight edges)



Elna Baker, before she made the party her private Internet Cafe (just playin', Elna)



Richie. Usually he doesn't look like this.



But Bryant usually looks like this.



Jen and Jenna tend to look like this.



Apparently heads just aren't a very hot subject for party photography these days, because this is supposed to be Ryan.



And this is supposed to be Bryant talking with Emily.



But, seriously, had Jason's head been left out of this photo, I would have had some strong words for Lexia.



Ah yes, Lauren Patricia Laura and Lexia.



I choose for this photo to show that Dave, Emily's head, and Jeff Mulcock were, in fact, at my party. And that Elna got her email taken care of for the week (just playin', Elna).



And I choose for this photo to show why the girls are always talking about Ryan Barnhart.



Still working on the guacamole. What? You expect the peppers and garlic to roast themselves?



For a while now I've been wanting to premiere my Thomas the Tank-Engine Table here on the blog. I found it on 6th Avenue either waiting for a bus or sitting in the trash (so hard to tell) like a month or so ago. A strong helper was in the neighborhood, so we carried it back to my place and now I finally have a place to keep, well, everything, as you can see here.



The futon had a two-conversation minimum at all times.



When I got my camera back at the end of the evening it was full of about 300 pictures like this one that Lexia and Patricia had taken of themselves.



It was really hard on Patricia when she realized how enormous my arm was (seriously, why's my arm so huge in this picture? I look like a Rob Liefeld drawing)



But then I tried to make it up to Patricia by letting her co-star in my first truly great photo as a 28-year old.



Meanwhile, in the alternative party universe photographed by Ashley things happened like me sitting on the couch with Amber and Rebekah.



And Ashley and Rebekah posing for a photo. (This was before we all found out that Ashley was going to be a television star. Seriously. I'm not making some lame joke about Ashley being a TV star. Am I allowed to even talk about this? I don't know what rules they have about talking about Latin-American Idol. Crap! Can I even say that?)



And Kurt and Erin hanging out in the kitchen once I was finally out of there.



Ashley with the Enkes. In case you were wondering if I got any awesome birthday presents, Yes, of course I did. But the photographers were so jealous of them that there aren't any photos. Besides, I'm not going to be all "Hey, look at me, look at how great all my presents and cards were", instead, I'm going to be all "Hey, look at me, look how great all my friends are, look at how lucky I was to have such a totally awesome party." Also, muchas gracias to everyone for being fairly well-behaved, I didn't get a single noise complaint from downstairs (or maybe I just couldn't hear my phone?) Oh, and something I didn't take a picture of was that after everyone else had left, Karisa and her parents came by. That part was really fun, too.



Epilogue Just when I thought everything had mellowed and I could go about just being 28, I went over to the Fursts' for Sunday Dinner (big crowd of people enjoying chorizo that tasted as good as Kentucky Fried Chicken) and guess what, a birthday cake made out of all the chocolate and chocolate-based substances available in New York happened. See those 28 candles? They didn't stand a chance against me.



Thanks again to everyone. It was the best. Also, no Firearm update this week. There's no way I can do the infamous Abercrombie issue justice right now.

Best Birthday Dinner

After a healthy day's worth of studying I met up with Jenna, Amber, and Mike for my birthday dinner at the Stanton Social. Here's a picture of all of us looking good . . .



And here's a picture of me looking squinty while everyone else looks great . . .



After ordering the food I opened some presents. Like a Spider-Man Beach Towel from my mom. (No, Mom wasn't there, I just brought my birthday package along to dinner.)



And magazines from Amber.



The Stanton Social is one of these tapa-ish, small-dish food-sharing restaurants. Here Mike admires our Kobe Beef Sliders. Maybe next time I go to the Stanton Social I'll just order 10 of them and call that a dinner.



Starting on the left we've got our french onion soup dumplings (served in an escargot dish), in the background are the amazing tamarind glazed scallop and foie gras satays (yes, I'm reading the menu right now to make sure I get these names straight), and then, in the foreground getting forked, is the last bit of the warm piquillo peppers (or, as our waitress said, "If you like peppers stuffed with goat cheese, you will love these.")



There's the red snapper tacos (with fiery mango & avocado salsa), endive & mache salad, and "Essex Street Pickles from 'The Pickle Guy.'" For some reason, I didn't get a picture of the dry rubbed chipotle shrimp. Probably because we ate them too fast.



When the last item on the menu is "Essex Street Pickles from 'The Pickle Guy'", it's pretty hard not to order them. And then make lots of jokes about the Pickle Guy. Yet, the street pickles were one of the most generous plates we received. And Jenna totally liked them.



Meanwhile, Mike tried to fit one of the enormous red snapper tacos into his mouth. Yeah, good luck with that, Mike.



And I indulged in a little prop-comedy. Or something.



Oh yeah, and we had dessert. Warm donuts with caramel and chocolate fondue. It's possible that some of the donuts wound up in the fondue and some of the fruit wound up in the caramel.



Outside, there was rain. So Jenna got out her umbrella.



My umbrella (and hair, apparently) didn't fare nearly as well.



So, yeah. It was a good dinner at a good restaurant. Wait, I mean it was a Best Birthday Dinner. But when they said they were "small plates" they weren't kidding. All right, maybe tomorrow I'll find time to post pictures from my actual party, we'll see.

Best Birthday Weekend Possible

Pictures and words later. It's finals.

P.S. Did anyone go to Coachella?

Best 28 Years of My Life

Hey, it's my birthday. I'm throwing myself a party tonight. 101 West 12th Apt. 15B, that's the NW corner of 12th Street and 6th Avenue. Super close to the 1,2,3,9,F,V, and L. Medium close to the A,C,E,B, and D. If you're reading this, you can come. I think it starts around 9:30. I live in an uptight building, please don't stand around in the hallway talking on your cell phone.

Best "Are you Kidding Me? How Genius is America?"

Living in Manhattan is great, but you miss out on some things, like that 7-11 sells rootbeer float big gulps now? How long was this in the lab? Buying one of these will probably be the first thing I do when I go home in May. Also, you can get IBC Rootbeer from a fountain now? How amazing is that?



Photo stollen from ollietamale.

Best Late-Night Interview I've Ever Seen

Dave Letterman is interviewing Paris Hilton right now and the man is absolutely killing it. He's all up in her business and not giving her an inch and it's hilarious. She's clearly trying to let it roll off her back like it's nothing but she isn't as unflappable as she wishes she were. They'll be talking about this tomorrow on the internerd. I haven't liked TV so much since "My Super Sweet 16."

Updated! A portion of the interview can be found here. Just imagine Dave going on with the same bit for another two commercial breaks worth of material and it'll be like you watched it yourself last night.

Also Check this out. A new Michael Showalter movie. What does it mean? It means people are going to be laughing and that I should have paid more attention to the Tribeca Film Festival.

Best Holiday for Fathers and Sons

Happy Take Your Daughter to Work Day!

Best New Weekly Feature, Week Four

It's hard to write these posts about the Firearm when it's finals time, but I said I'd do these every week, so I'm doing them every week.

Volume 1, Issue 6

First of all, perhaps by now you've noticed that each issue features a different little statement up by the title. Thinking up and agreeing on these statements for each issue was one of the things Andrew and I enjoyed most while making the Firearm. This week's statement, "Amor et cautela" (Love and Caution) was one of the first statements we wanted to have . . . better said, we wanted it to say "Love and caution" up there in Latin, but it took us a while to figure out what "Love and caution" was in latin. In fact, we had assigned Andrea Clemmens, a friend of the Firearm, to look it up for us . . . Andrea was great at many things and great for many reasons, but Latin-translation research was not one of those things or reasons.

From the Editor Sleeping With Women In anticipation of Andrew contributing his own commentary to this post, I'm not even going to touch this one. Okay, I'll touch it a little. The summer before I moved into Apartment 120, the residents of Apt 120 (and some of their close associates) went on this enormous bike trip to raise money for this disease (exact details escape me, but you can check out the website for their incredibly successful endeavor). This means I moved into an apartment full of guys who had a lifetime's worth of stories about a huge bike trip that I had to catch up on, this being just one of them.

Editorial Get a Grip! An honest to goodness editorial by me to the Anthrax-fearing denisons of Utah Valley. After writing this article numerous people stopped me on campus to tell me their own great Anthrax-panic stories, there were some really good ones, like an incident involving the University of Utah football team and the chalk used to mark the field, I kid you not.

Communication Phone Message Here's the truth. This is a message Andrew and I left on Dan Hoopes' cell phone. "Rob" and "Matt" were made up names. Everyone else is real. We just felt like leaving Dan a really long message, it wasn't until later that we decided this message would make a "good" article for The Firearm.

Sports Girls Intramural Flag Football I am terribly proud of this little bit of art. I suppose that if this post were perfect, I'd have discovered the old list of 107 girl's flag football teams from that year and made a comment about each team name. Too bad I don't have the list anymore. Eventually I heard from girls who's team name I put down, as well as girls who's team name did well. I guess this is as good a time as any for me to say that I had always wanted to write an article for the Firearm about the BYU Girls Lacrosse team, and I wanted to call it "Lacrosse is My Life," after Hunter S. Thompson's "Polo is My Life." I never wrote such an article, instead, I remained fascinated by the fact that BYU had a women's lacrosse team made up of East Coast girls who had grown up loving lacrosse.

Volume 1, Issue 7

From the Editor Get Ready He wasn't kidding. Issue 8 of Volume 1 was one of the most epic issues of The Firearm ever made and involved actual journalistic daring-do. Just come around next week, you'll see what I mean.

Campus Life Creepy Guys Club This article was born of a conversation I had had after my Hemingway class the year before with Andrew and Adam Bateman. A conversation where I think we were all joking, right? At about this time, people were bugging us, asking for their names to be used in articles, so I popped a few guys' names into this article and then thought, "Wait, what if they're mad that I'm making them into some of the Creepy Guys?" Turns out they were totally psyched to have been in the Firearm. So it goes. In the second to last paragraph, the stuff I wrote about the Hostess Cupcake? I thought it was too creepy and wanted to take it out of the article, but Andrew insisted I keep it in, as creepiness is what I was going for, anyway.

Police Beat Thanksgiving Vacation Another signature bit of Andrew-style Andrew writing. "Rebecca Clark" was the name (still is, I suppose) of one of our teachers from that semester. It was a very small class, maybe there were ten of us, Andrew and I managed to turn the whole bunch into fiends for the Firearm, Rebecca included.

Positivity Corner Things I'm Thankful for On BYU Campus I was always concerned that The Firearm not be considered a negative or cynical paper, so I wrote this bit to bring positivity to the forefront. Each of the 11 items was something that would bring a smile to any Cougar's face, especially Tyler Bruford. Seriously, if you were at BYU between 1995 and 2002, you knew Tyler and also couldn't believe how Tyler was at absolutely every party or event around campus that was worth being at. It just got to be a given that you'd be seeing Bruford, that's why I wasn't even surprised to see him at the bonfire I went to in Newport over break.

Counterpoint Girls Can Be Creepy Too Absolutely a true story. I didn't mean for this article to indicate that such advances aren't, uhm exciting or anything, but the girl wasn't trying to insinuate, she was trying to conversate, and her stabs at wit got away from her. If I remember correctly, she was some sort of turbo-blond in a turquoise shirt.