That Boy is a Monster, Twice Over

Here we go again.

Since Lady Gaga announced the second American leg of her tour last week, obvs Meghan and I had to get tickets. There was this whole unfortunate fiasco when she was here in January at Radio City—we were on Ticketmaster forever refreshing refreshing refreshing after we lost the FRONT ROW tickets I'd gotten but accidentally let expire. We did get tickets, and they were good seats and we had an amazing, life changing experience (that I never really accounted on this blog... whoops!).

This time, my luck struck again, and this time, I didn't let them expire. Though we were (somewhat... breathe... breath...) prepared to pay the $180 for good orchestra tickets, when the two minute wait was up and I was lucky enough to get tickets, they were for the standing room only general admission pit for only $80! AKA Gaga Little Monster Heaven.



Y'all. We obvs had to freak out. Like a lot. To illustrate how amazing this is, Meg and I both added countdowns to our sidebars (see mine to the right), and I made this little graphic above. Also updated my desk art. Yeah. Amazing. The show is July 6 at Madison Square Garden. Hello amazing summer part one.


2010 for the win. For. the. WIN. WIN. WIN.

MyNY: Hope in East Harlem, Again

Walking to the train this morning, I saw this message written on the sidewalk. Again? Really? Either a local church is taking this message old school viral or East Harlem really, really wants me to become my dream. I'll take it either way.

Snippets from IM: Disappearing Act

Meghan: if i get a weird vibe, i wont follow through
Meghan: ill drop off the face of the earth like christopher columbus
Zachary: amelia earhart up outta this bitch
Meghan: lolz niiiiiice
Zachary: vroom vroom what? whereshego?
Zachary: chillin on an island
Meghan: swimming with jacques cousteau
Zachary: feedin elvis apple sauce
Meghan: freestyling with tupac and biggie
Zachary: bangin jfk
Meghan: doing princess di's nails
Zachary: nice
Meghan: putterrrrrrrrrr
Zachary: huh?
Meghan: putter putter
Meghan: her plane taking off
Meghan: the prrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrttttrtrtrtrt noise
Zachary: .......ah.

From the Desk of an Actual

As I've said before, I'm a huge fan of New York magazine's Daily Intel blog's 21 Questions feature, especially when they feature writers. Yesterday's post was about Jennifer Mascia, a New York Times journalist and author of a new memoir called "Never Tell Our Business to Strangers." Jennifer is a crazy young and inspiring 32 and lives in my lovely hood, East Harlem.

My favorite thing Jennifer said in her interview was her description of her job. This might be the most perfect definition of being a journalist that I've ever read:

Yes! She also stays up crazy late, hates teenagers and loves New York pizza. Hello, future me. Or present me, really.

MyNY: Hope in East Harlem

Jen, Meghan and I were walking back from nom nomming at Joy Burger Bar, the best burger place in the city (for real!), and noticed this inspirational message written on the back of an abandoned dresser in a trash pile on the street. Thanks, NYC!


A few minutes later, a bus drove by us on Third Avenue, and where the bus number would usually be identified on the back, it said "Call Cops 911" instead. We called cops 911.

Snow Country for Cold Men

Hilarious snow pun, right? It's from a commenter on Meghan's blog, a few weeks back when she wrote a post about snow puns and the so-called Snowpocolypse of 2010. The real Snowpocolypse, though, happened last Thursday/Friday, when the city got like 15 inches of snow or something. Okay, fine, I didn't look up the number. But it was a lot. My office even got a "work from home" snow day!

Of course, I was out on a date until 3 a.m. the night of the Snowpocolypse, which according Jenny was when the storm was the worst. How is the worst storm time determined and then advertised as such? I do not know. What I do know, however, is that I was down in the East Village and saw about four people in six blocks or so, then came uptown (alone, mind you!) and saw about zero people in four blocks. Long sentence short: no one was out.

There were these huge piles of snow that were taller than my boots when I stepped in them, and the steps of my mini-stoop were covered and there was a tall pile of snow I had to step over and be careful not to knock over when I opened the front door to my building. So I took some photos, natch.

From the Desk of a Would-Be

Do you ever look around and realize, shit, I've sort of accomplished what I set out to do? I'm pretty much exactly where I thought I wanted to be two years ago? That happened to me the other day. We were in the midst of an issue close and I paused to look at what I'd been doing all day and went, huh, I forgot I'm living my dream. My desk was cluttered and strewn with all the stereotypical things I hoped it would be when I was in college. I was busy, working for a national magazine on a real story about real world issues. What? When did this happen?

I took a snapshot of my desk, which I annotated here. Please note that I did not stage any of this. This is actually what it looked like. (Oh, and because I'm a lazy journalist, I didn't go back and fix typos. So eat that.)

Worry not, though, dear readers: it's not all work and no play at my office. Below, my little art project(s).


Yep, living the dream.

Snippets from IM: In Which We Hate the New "We Are the World"

Jenny: dude did you watch the we are the world yet?
Zachary: yeah
Zachary: snorzzzzzing
Zachary: when t-pain comes on it's over
Zachary: everything before that is good
Jenny: from my twitter: Autotune, Pussy Cat Dolls betch, rando rap break, Justin "my PARENTS weren't even born for the first one" Beiber. #WeAreTheWorldFail
Zachary: nice
Jenny: thanks. i wanted to say so much more but 140 characters ya know
Zachary: me too man
Zachary: here's mine from a few weeks ago: Ugh, We Are the World. Amazing for the first few minutes, but everything past Weezy is a shitshow. Kanye could die and I would not be sad.
Jenny: LOLZ
Zachary: originally mine said "with barb and celine in the room, why did tpain and weezy get solos?" or something
Jenny: i MEAN give me J-hud, celine and bstrizzy and i'm good
Zachary: obvs we're on the same page
Jenny: oh our minds
Jenny: and why did that fucking pussy cat doll betch get so much play
Zachary: i didnt even know who she was
Jenny: uh yeah
Jenny: ew
Zachary: grody
Zachary: i wont even talk about that justin kid
Zachary: he doesnt deserve it
Jenny: i mean he opened the fucking thing. i'm like UH WHY ARE YOU EVEN THERE!!!
Zachary: dont even want to talk about it
Zachary: the whole thing was a SHITshow
Zachary: in the shots with barbra just in amongst the crowd
Zachary: im like DUDE
Zachary: bstriz does NOT sing chorus
Jenny: bahaa
Jenny: when the random ass rap break started in the middle i literally stopped it and took my headphones out
Jenny: i had to reassess
Zachary: right
Jenny: i do love that riff ms. celine blows in the middle
Zachary: yeah def
Jenny: oh b-strizzy i LOVE that betch
Jenny: miley cyrus i will kill you. i kick you and then i will kill you.
Zachary: bbbbbbbbbbbbbah

An Ode to Summer, in Photos

Oh, summer, how I miss thee. Let me count the ways:

How I loathe the fur-lined coats...

And miss the raggedy cut-off shorts.

How I despise the knitted hats and leather gloves...

And yearn for the sensible summer sweaters and plain white tees.

How I detest the layering of coats and clothing, wearing boots...

And desire the carefree days of shirts, shorts and Converse sneakers.

How I abhor carrying thirty pounds of coats, hats, and scarves everywhere we go...


And long for the simpler, lighter, a-tee-is-too-much days.


Despite the wrapping up, winter has its fun times...


But being outside makes everything better.


And the worst, by far, is the dreaded winter coat check...


Give me summer or give me death!

For The Love of Suspenders: A Tale of Strapped Commitment

A few weeks ago my friend Susan posted this on my Facebook wall. We'd been out a few nights before and I was, of course, wearing suspenders. It's kind of my thing. But it got me thinking about how committed I really am to the straps. And how many times I've worn them. We're in a long-term relationship, suspenders and I, and we go way way back to April 2007, almost three full years ago.

In college I was really into vests, but I always had a desire to try out suspenders. A annual party the theater department at Ole Miss put on gave me the perfect opportunity to either a) look really cute wearing suspenders or b) look ironically foolish but acceptable because the party was themed and ridiculous. Jenny and I powered over to Walmart, home of cheap $7 grandpa suspenders, and my love was born.

The very first time.

These were fat suspenders, though, because Walmart isn't exactly trendy. I knew I'd need some skinny ones, and moving to New York for my internship in the summer of 07 provided the shopping range I needed. I looked and looked and looked, finally finding a pair of skinny black suspenders sitting on a random table at H&M. There weren't any others around, so I grabbed these and went. Since then, they have made many appearances. Here are a bunch:


Yep, about 18 different recorded instances of suspender wearage in just under three years, and many undocumented times as well. As you can see, I found a pair of skinny silver/grey suspenders sometime last year, and they've made it to their fair share of city outing. As much as I wear suspenders, though, I actually only own three pairs, counting the original fatties from Walmart. And speaking of, my relationship with suspenders came full circle at the Lady Gaga concert a few weeks ago, when my first pair became my special bedazzled bling pair. Three years later, they have evolved and they still hold up.


This look is a commitment, and one I don't feel will be gone anytime soon. I will be that little old man, still wearing suspenders, still living the scrappy, strappy old dream.

The Social Network: It Sees You When You're Sleeping, It Knows When You're Awake

Social networking weirdness alert.

I'm on Foursquare, the "next Twitter" app for iPhone and other smartphones that lets you check in at different places you visit and gain points for each check-in. Accumulate enough points and you earn a badge. Check in more times than anyone else and you become the mayor of that location. You can leave tips at various places for future patrons who see your tips when then check in later. It's silly and unquantifiable, which is why it actually isn't the next Twitter (yet), but I'll try anything for a while.

Anyway, I went to dinner with Jenny last week at this Thai place called Room Service in Hell's Kitchen. Naturally I'm trying to recruit all of my friends to Foursquare, so Jenny checked in as well. We're hanging out, getting drinks, reading the tips for the restaurant, etc. Jenny checks a tip from Jenna R. that she left in December: "Try the coconut crusted calamari!" We didn't take her advice.


Jenny taps on her photo and it comes up full screen. Jenny has this talent/freakish skill for recognizing faces of strangers, so she looks at the photo, looks to the table next to ours and turns back to me with wide eyes. "Is this the girl sitting next to me!?" she asks me as she shows me the photo. The waiter approaches Could-Be-Jenna-R's table. "We'll start with the coconut crusted calamari," she says.

Of course we fall out laughing. And then get weirded out. And then laugh more. Because what are the chances? This girl left a tip two months ago and now we happen to be using the same service and she's sitting right beside us? Bizarre. Of course we had to try to snap photos of her to confirm that this actually happened. Here she is in a few different views.


I was tempted to ask her if she was Jenna R. Jenny actually had a brilliant plan of saying "JENNy" really loudly and seeing if Jenna R. looked at us, but when I tried it, she didn't flinch. She was engrossed in her conversation, though, and literally never noticed us. Typical New Yorker.

So, Jenna R., if you're out there and you find this, I'm sorry I posted your photos online without your permission, and I should have asked if it was you sitting beside us. Tweet me if you see this.

PS: Just for fun, here's a photo of super sleuth Jenny from the same night, because why not?