I guess I can't lead off this blog post with "Oh my god you guys" because I can't repeat myself like that in good conscience. Still, despite my usual ability to spin a story out of anything, I'm completely at a loss for words. People of Brooklyn, you know how to fucking party. I'd say revel in it, but if you're anything like me (sore and your body crying out for alcohol) reveling is the last thing on your mind. This recap going up on Tuesday as opposed to Monday, for instance, is a direct result of my having an after-party on my roof and being up drinking until SUNRISE.
Here's a stat: Bird Dog bought twenty thirty-six packs of premium Budweiser beer and we ran out of them well before the party was over. You animals drank seven hundred and twenty beers and then demanded more! One of you was so drunk and spoiled that you thought you could claim to have been Saturday night's bartender and come back to the trough and steal the beer that belonged to my friends and me. Listen up you fucking waif: being young and pretty doesn't last forever, so don't get used to trying to pull that shit. Furthermore, don't get angry when you get called out, that's just embarrassing.
Sorry, didn't mean to get angry. Sunday night was great even if the cops came and even if you all eventually disregarded the whole thing about not throwing bottles off the roof. It probably makes me a shitty official festival blogger but I can't pick a standout band because the music was incidental to me running around with my shirt off and trying to figure out how many beers I could fit in my body in one weekend. How were Darlings? I wanted to see them but by the time they were on I was, well, this is where I was at:
I don't know about the love Sunday night either. I definitely saw some of you getting close to each other Saturday. All I saw Sunday was a drunken couple having one of those cringe-worthy arguments that happen in public sometimes, what with the grabbing and the crying and the carrying on like no one else is around. I'm sure they're nice people otherwise.
Aside from the fact that it brought the wrath of New York's finest, kudos to the person or persons who brought fireworks with them. Troy Patterson might think otherwise, but Sunday night, there was something about those magnificent whistles and pops that made the atmosphere that much anarchic and celebratory.
I don't know, I think this post was kind of downer. I didn't mean for it to be, I'm just sad that it's all over. BUT! Stay tuned for another post or two about what did it all mean and what does the future hold.
Oh my god you guys. Man. Anyone else fall asleep with their shoes on? Was it just me? Because I definitely did that. I was supposed to go for a nice day of no rain and free music and got just what I was asking for. So hooray for that. I was there for almost all of it, from the calm, beach-like atmosphere when the sun was out to Ava Luna's darkness destroying set to the Trader Joe's late-shift kids showing up to that moment where I knew I had too much of everything and was just wandering around the roof grinning.
1000 internets to all the wonderful bands that played last night, hopefully you got to catch all of them and weren't just spending all your time on the line for the bathroom. One of my roommates said that toilet line must be what it's like to live in Hati, and at the risk of stirring up the Brooklyn Vegan hornet's nest again, I'm going to wholeheartedly agree with that. So when you see Bird Dog, thank him for letting you experience a piece of life in the Third World.
Hey did anyone find a camo shoulder bag? It had my notebook in it, I'm kind of bummed it's gone. Also because that means I need to buy a new one I guess? Uggggggggggh. I blame the introduction of Turbo Shandy to my drinking diet and the fact that at some point I was actually drinking coffee brandy straight out of the bottle.
I argued with someone as to whether or not Day One of the festival delivered on all the promises of the blog and then offered to make out with her just to make sure it did. Because bloggers = sexy. Regardless of my misadventures, I saw you all there, including you sketchy people who didn't want to be friendly, and you were all poor and beautiful and some of you were actually making out with each other. Way to go.
Did anyone have a moment with a guy or a girl thought you inextricably screwed up with him or her? Was there anything off about the night and you wish you had a chance to do it again? Well good news, there's a whole second day of music and sun and booze! It's like Bonnaroo in your backyard!
Tonight's outlandish promise: your intrepid correspondent actually manages to get his shoes off and fall asleep in his bed.
NUMBER 1: WHAT ELSE ARE YOU GONNA DO? I’m not gonna lie to you folks, I’ve about exhausted my repertoire of persuasive rhetoric in convincing you to come the Bushwick Rooftop Festival. I’ve appealed to your laziness and gluttony and your insecurity. I’ve mocked yourpoverty and tugged at your heartstrings. At this point, if you don’t want to come to the Bushwick Rooftop Festival, I don’t know what else there is to say.
Except for this: what else are you gonna do?
I know, it’s Memorial Day weekend and you’ve been invited to a million different things. Probably barbecues for the most part. Maybe even a barbecue hosted by the rich family of that girl you’re shtupping and you need to make a good impression. Well the Bushwick Rooftop Festival is a barbecue too. Really, we’re gonna have burgers. We’ll also have live music, lots of live music, plenty to go around. So bring the rich girl’s family, I’ll distract the father with a long pointless story about one of my many romantic failures and you the girlie can get drunk.
All I’m saying is that you know that no matter what you’re going to be doing this weekend, nothing will come close in quality to 24 hours of music on two enormous roofs in the heart of New York’s most vibrant art scene. BAM! I can write like a real promoter, I was just fucking with y’all all along.
On a personal note, I’d like to thank Bird Dog for giving me the opportunity to say whatever the hell I wanted and call it promotion. I want to thank you kids for reading (you DID read all these, didn’t you?) and coming along on this magical journey. The blog isn’t totally dead yet, I’m sure we’ll have a postgame wrap-up at the end of the weekend with pictures and other things, but until then, it’s been a blast. Find me during the festival and let’s chat.
I know that this is the second LCD Soundsystem video I've used to introduce a post, but James Murphy is the King Of Brooklyn and he just, speaks to me man. Ya dig? NUMBER 2: IT'S REAL
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the Bushwick Rooftop Festival occurs the same weekend that Sex and the City 2 opens. Bird Dog will never admit to it, but the completely antithetical nature of the two events give the kind of stunning contrast to your potential weekends that can only come from careful planning.
Go on, gaze in horror at the Photoshop-smooth face of Sarah Jessica-Parker. Do so and know that this movie is not for us. I know people want a little escapism every now and again, but think critically for once in your miserable life. This is a movie about four incredibly rich women completely unaffected by the worst financial downturn in a generation who have so many problems being rich and bored that they get away from it all in Abu Dhabi. Abu Dhabi is located in the United Arab Emirates, which is famously home to Dubai, a place whose wealth vanished into the sands it was built on when we realized the entire fucking world was overleveraged.
In short: four cartoon characters with no connection to the real world visit a cartoon fantasyland that represents everything that was wrong with the world in the days of the real estate bubble. Perfect fit.
But oh that escapism. I’d ask what you have to escape from but I’ve already gone over the fact that you’re poor and the only thing you can afford to do is attend the Bushwick Rooftop Festival. But really, I think air conditioned movie escapism isn’t even necessary in New York City. Why escape into some movie studio’s fairytale version of New York when you can escape into the real New York, a place with endless options and adventures in every bar, if not on every corner? Why escape into something that’s not only an obvious cash grab but is apparently grossly offensive to anyone who can record a reading on an EEG? Sex and the City 2 is plastic consumption porn for desperate souls living someplace where a movie is the only option.
The Bushwick Rooftop Festival, on the other hand, is alive! It’s unpredictable and ramshackle, which is just beautiful. Shit, Bird Dog hasn’t even found enough people to bartend yet (which by the way, if you’d like to drink for free, you should volunteer). Yeah maybe we’re hipster scum, but we’re just a couple days away from turning a lot of hard work into an explosion of passion and energy. I’ll escape into that any day.
The current thinking likewise requires women to divest themselves of all their antiquated notions, and pants, and thereby “free” themselves to couple according to “their own wishes.” By this reckoning, it is the duty of every enlightened female to put across in order to show how enlightened she is. She won’t submit or succumb, perhaps she will even aggressively pursue. And because banging a lot of guys is a demonstration of enlightenment, the traditional blandishments are no longer required in order to get girls into bed. Also de rigueur for girls is a lot of noise about the condition of their own libido, which evidently makes them not unladylike or blabby, but “equal.” Any woman with the slightest bit of restraint is going to be yelled at for being a dowdy, outmoded essentialist. An enemy of the state, practically. And meanwhile, no romance for anybody. (via The Awl)
NUMBER 3: EVERYONE GETS LAID
It was bound to happen, no? When you spend over a week trying to convince a group of people why they should attend the event you’re throwing, eventually you’re going to end up aiming for the groin. I don’t think that’s a problem though. Even paragons of lameness Blink-182 recognized that one of the primal motivators that sends young people to see live music is the chance that they can meet that special someone, even if she’s only around for a couple days or he ends up being a total psychopath.
It won't be like this. I promise.
When I say, “Everyone gets laid” what I’m really saying is that you have the chance to do so. But the line wouldn’t have been as funny if Al Czervik had included the possibility of failure.
Don’t worry about the failure. I know, some of us you are too awkward, too unfashionable, too skittish to pick a guy or girl up at a party. Meeting people and convincing them that you’re a person worth hanging out with is hard enough. Meeting a person and convincing her that letting you stick your tongue down her throat is a good idea can be even harder. Especially when you’re prone to blurting out things like “Spines can be sexy!”
It won't be like this either. Way too cute.
Of course, there’s going to be alcohol. Alcohol always helps. There will also be music. Glorious, sometimes sensual music. You’ll be drunk and you’ll be dancing when you see someone that’s on the same wavelength as you. Talk to him! Ask that girl if you can buy her an exceptionally cheap beer, maybe she’s out of money! It’s a big roof, wander until you fall in with a group of strangers and start talking with them. At some point it’s just going to be you and one other girl. Then a break in the conversation, a shy smile or a maybe a flash of recognition at what you both want. Go with it.
Maybe like this. You could do worse.
I also can’t, in good conscience, make the promise that everyone gets off, because like the quote above argues, the sexual revolution has probably been way better for dudes than for chicks. Maybe we can start this weekend on making it more equal. We must be more excellent to each other. I can’t speak for ladies because I am not one, but guys, maybe we can not be complete assholes? Don't do something dumb like letting her hear you call her a slut the next day when you talk to your boys. In fact, it's 2010, guys: stop calling girls sluts. For starters, your peers judge you on how often you can GET IT WET with as many partners as possible, so why should women have to bear the brunt of your scorn just because they want to fuck guys other than you? Also, in attempt to make things equal, some genius came up with the term “manwhore”, which, in the spirit of every 21st century portmanteau, is fucking retarded and meaningless. Do you understand your regressive views on open and equal sexuality are killing the English language? Have some fucking respect, if not for your partner then for us poor slobs who like decent goddamn prose.
This dude knows what I'm talking about.
Still, the promise is there. If the promise of ecstasy is there, there’s also the promise of heartbreak, believe me I understand that.
I am CONSTANTLY on this tip.
There’s also the promise though, of lying in bed next to each other, where you feel like you can live for days. That’s a Rescue Bird line and if they play “Melt” I swear I’ll start weeping like a child.
If you see me wandering around and singing this song to myself, don't worry, I'm just drunk/on drugs.
Hey guys, I know I've been a little mean the last couple of posts, but sometimes in advertising and promotion you have to break someone down a bit and make him question himself before he'll be willing to listen to your pitch. It's like how High Life tells you you're a dumb bitch for drinking Bud Light but then they roll out this ad:
Things will be nice for the remainder of the blog though, so no hard feelings?
NUMBER 4: THAT VIEW
I read somewhere once that people who have a roof in New York always try to make a “thing” out of it. That is to say, we can’t just enjoy the fact that we’re on a roof and it’s nice out, it has to mean something in the greater scheme of living in New York. Yeah, guilty, we’re navel gazers, so what? If you could go up and see the world’s most awesome skyline every time you were on your roof, wouldn’t you be super inspired and want to share it with everyone? Let’s face it, some second tier cities might claim otherwise, but New York’s skyline is by far the best.
Sometimes I go up on my roof to look at the skyline. I live on the top floor of a three floor walk-up and while the roof isn’t huge, the view up there still stretches from the Brooklyn Bridge to the Citi building. I stare at the lights and as hard as I try, I can’t see anything in front of me that isn’t under the control of a nebbish billionaire with a God complex.
Sometimes I wish it really did look like that
Jonah Weiner, writing about Staten Island’s relationship to Manhattan in Slate, calls the Manhattan skyline a “twinkling kingdom” in the eyes of Working Girl’s Melanie Griffith. Like Melanie Griffith, so many young people in the city are strivers, even if they aren’t willing to admit it. We come here and move to Brooklyn, in part because it’s all we can afford and no one wants to live in Queens. Then we work and when we’re not hustling, we stare at the skyline and tell ourselves that soon enough we’ll be in those skyscrapers looking down on the next generation of kids trying to get into the kingdom.
So you’ll be up there on the expansive rooftop of 75 Stewart Ave, listening to Gunfight. In between one of the songs maybe you’ll stop to look around and see the same things I do: history, beauty, a reason to keep moving forward.
Does anyone else but me consider the name "The Great Recession" incredibly stupid? Like, if you've got kids, are you going to tell them that's what it was called? I think I'd just die of shame, especially considering our grandparents lived through the goddamn Great Depression. Now THAT sounds like a terrible thing to live through.
NUMBER 5: YOU'RE POOR
Continuing with our ongoing coverage of how you’re broke as a joke, we come to perhaps the best part about the Bushwick Rooftop Festival. Have I mentioned yet that admission to this incredible party is the very reasonable NOTHING? No? Maybe I should have mentioned that earlier, because SHIT IS FREE LIKE AIR SON. Where else can you possibly see eleven bands in a day and then dance all night to DJs for no money? Not at your damn house, I’ll tell you that much. You can show up to the Bushwick Rooftop Festival with no money in your wallet and you can have as good a time as anyone else there.
Just picture yourself there in your skinny jeans
Well OK, maybe not, because food and beer cost money, but they will be reasonably priced. This ain’t Get Raped By A Guy Screaming Along To Sevendust ’99. HAH! Callback!
I don't know about the love Sunday night either. I definitely saw some of you getting close to each other Saturday. All I saw Sunday was a drunken couple having one of those cringe-worthy arguments that happen in public sometimes, what with the grabbing and the crying and the carrying on like no one else is around. I'm sure they're nice people otherwise.
