Last night, Gawker operative Stephen Kosloff braved a joint birthday party for people he didn't know. These are his stories.
Today we have a non film festival report for you and your mittens. Some readers may find it offensive to their gestalt. The event was a birthday party for Jason Kim and Louis Sarmiento, who turned 30. JK = promoter, LS = publisher of Fashion Week Daily and other titles.
The locale was Rendez Vous, a restaurant in the meat-packing district, and then later Kiss and Fly, a club right above it. More on Kiss and Fly in a moment.
Do you feel disoriented when you look at this picture? I know I do, and when I feel disoriented, what I like to do is offer to paypal $7.52 to the first person who e-mails me with the definition of the word "pleonasm." Why $7.52? No fucking idea! Why pleonasm? Because it's a great word, and it deserves more play in the media. A LOT more play, so nyaaaaaah!! This is not a joke. Those dollars have your name on them if you are a word nerd or a fast Googler.
No one at Kiss and Fly was more suprised than I was to see my mom there.
Oh I'm juss foolin' with ya. This woman is not my mother, nor is she my accountant, nor is she my driver. She is Sasckya Porto, a former Miss Brazil, model, and a Playboy playmate. Beyond "uffda" I have nothing more to add to the matter.
Speaking of awkward moments, I was totally wearing the same outfit.
These women, including Hayley Collins on the right, felt very "exposed." Get it? Exposed? Ha ha / Step right this way / The halibut is fresh / but that's not what I'm here to discuss. What I'm here to discuss is what a suck-fest the club Kiss and Fly is.
What a shocker, right? A club in the meat-packing district that sucks? But what I'm bringing you from the trenches is some specific information about this club's brand of suckiness.
Ready? OK, let's go!
I ordered two drinks and put them on my Amex and when I looked at the bill, they had added a 20% tip onto the price of the drinks. And the two drinks were I think over $20, so a $5 tip for two drinks. Gaaaaaaaaaaaay.
Did I get angry? No, I turned to art. I went home and composed a ballad, and the title of the ballad is "Kiss and Fly Can Kiss My Half Russian-Jewish Ass."
If my intuition serves, you woke up this morning and the first thought that entered your mind was "How do photographers prepare, mentally and emotionally, to shoot night life?"
Good question! Having received the invitation to the birthday party, I thought that probably the best way to prepare for it, spiritually and emotionally, was to dive into Joel Kraemer's biography of Maimonides, which, as you can imagine, was an invaluable resource.
The woman on the right was bemoaning the status of her job or relationship or something and I was like, "Well, at least you — unlike Maimonedes — have not suffered 'well-known calamities in Egypt'" (P. 255, paragraph 3). Informers trying to get him whacked, penury, sickness, the works.
Sometimes photographers, in their efforts to report on their subjects, are stymied or met with larynx gouges. This subject would not divulge her name, but she did divulge her neck and her home town: Vegas.
She told me what she does for a living too, but then swore me to mumness, and when I swear, I swear sincerely, like this: FUCK SHIT PISS!
You can find more of Stephen's work here.
