Early Obituary: Bamn!

On St. Mark's Place in the East Village, a new take on the self-serve fast-food joint has been getting a great deal of media attention not only in New York, but nationally. Calling itself Bamn!, this new 'eatery' bills itself as a 25-hour automat. Basically, you can plop in $2 in quarters, push a white button and out pops a teriyaki burger.

For a while, it became a good place to grab a quick meal on the go; it's certainly unique in this day and age.

It was a concept that quickly lost flavor, though, in my mind. Same selection day in and day out. Same class of tourist-y people gawking at the concept. And despite the whole "25 hours a day" hook, it remains suspiciously unopen when I walk to the subway each morning. I'd like to think Bamn! will be around for the long run, but the owners need to change the fare up a bit.

But, each time I pass it, it's feeling more and more like a novelty act, something that will soon disappear from the East Village landscape.

[Photo by Tina Fineberg of the Associated Press]

Tired of Lifestyle Porn

Thrillist. Daily Candy. Urban Daddy. Very Short List. And now, from the New York Times, comes Urbanite. I'm signed up for each of these e-newsletters (often dubbed 'lifestyle porn'), and I'm feeling a little fatigued from all of it.

So many choices to be found within, so little time. Is it just me, or is this category -- while catering to different niches, for the most part -- becoming oversubscribed?

Of these, I'm most partial to the erudite Very Short List, which started its run in early September. While some might find it boring (Gawker did), it's become the one I look to each morning. As News.com describes it, the e-newsletter "carries recommendations of unheralded cultural and entertainment products, including books, CDs and DVDs." Now in beta, it offers contributions from Kurt Andersen and is hard to find for those seeking it out-- a bracketed search of its name doesn't even come up its site among the first 10 pages of results on Google. Here's to hoping this one catches on further.

Funky Beer Memories

Halloween. What does one do when their refrigerator dies and there are two cases of beer within that were on their way to becoming funky? Obviously, it's time to take off the wig, put away the candy and invite the friends over. That's how my Halloween night started and why I'm now cleaning up my apartment.

While I'm more than a little peeved at the thought of eating out for the near future, this brings back some fond meories of when I was a senior in high school. My good friends and I had gone to a Bridgeport, Conn. liquor store and bought a ton of beer, which was then transferred to the trunk of my car-- a Peugot, which we referred to as the clown car because of the amount of people we could fit in there. Every other day for about a month, we put fresh ice in there; my car became known as a party on wheels. Definitely good times, even with what soon became skanky beer, until my father made me open up the trunk and I got in a load of trouble.

Ah, good memories.

Next-Generation Gawker

Congratulations to Emily Gould, the new co-editor of Gawker.

To many, this hire of the site's formerly anonymous "Unsolicited" author is an intriguing choice. New York Magazine's Daily Intelligencer blog -- led by Jesse Oxfeld, no stranger to the Gawker masthead -- said "[w]e know virtually nothing about Miss Gould, except that she runs a blog called Emily Magazine". Later, he amended his post to link to two pieces she had written for the magazine.

Others quickly followed up, with this Galleycat post cataloguing some of her more recent articles and work in the publishing field. There, this line caught my eye-- "when reached for comment, Gould would only confirm that she wrote "Unsolicited," stressing that she was "under strict orders not to say anything more.""

Hmmm. And Gawker has been mum on the hire itself as well, allowing others to break the news. Anyone willing to bet that there is a feature article in the works that will unveil the new Gawker team in place, which is why they're staying mum? (Wouldn't be a stretch, really.) David Carr at The New York Times, care to comment? New York Magazine? Hello, New York Observer? Jon Friedman of MarketWatch, stay put in your corner.

Going with my gut here on this, though. As I said in my last post on Gawker here, Gawker has gone from 3 years combined experience of its editors in June to, now, two relative newbies (Gould and Alex Balk, who joined in July)-- this would be a good time to reintroduce the site to the marketplace.

Anyway, congrats to Gawker on what looks like a sterling addition.

UPDATE: Looks like I'm fantastically wrong as there is nary a peep from the major papers within the last month.

Someone Dances Horribly, I Cover My Eyes

I have no idea when this picture was taken (Megu?), but I love it-- funny as hell. That's Matt Caldecutt dancing in the background.

Ah, Bachelor Party Memories

It's that time of the year again. I seem to have been on a spate of bachelor parties recently, so I thought I'd share one memory that came awhile back. Names and locations have been omitted for the sake of everyone involved.

A group of 8 are at [popular NYU college bar], where a dance party has broken out. The place is, understandably, full of underage NYU types. Figuring that the bachelor would soon be a popular man, the best man informed the DJ that there was a soon-to-be-ex-bachelor in residence. The underage types blinked, look at the guy and resumed dancing, shifting away from the guy as if he had announced he was fungus-laden.

We ducked out five minutes later.

The Show Doesn't Need to Go On

Encore: "An extra or repeated performance; usually given in response to audience demand."

A long while back, the concert encore was an extraordinary experience, done only on rare occasions. Now, sadly, it has crossed the chassis to be overdone. It has now become expected, de rigueur. Clap your hands, say yeah and chant the band's name-- they're more than likely going to be coming out again anyway. But how many times has a band truly warranted an encore, really?

While I'm all for getting more bang for your concert buck, the encore needs to become more special, returning to the status it once was. I've probably been to about 100 concerts in my lifetime -- the majority in smaller venues, not the arenas -- and can think of maybe one-tenth of those artists that truly deserved another round. The rest just played on some more, as I look at my watch and sigh.

Maybe I've been reading too much Idolator recently, but can we stop encouraging this for the lesser performances?

My "Daily Show" Nitpick

Is it just me or has "The Daily Show" laid an egg with its new "Seat of Heat" feature? The segment -- which reminds me of original host Craig Kilborn's "5 Questions" -- comes directly after the guest interview, where Jon Stewart posits an absurdist question to the guest. It doesn't make the guest squirm or really add anything, but more often than not falls flat.

Seriously, guys, you can do far better than this-- please add more Stewart/Colbert rapport or push the time to the front end of the show, please.

Pelecanos Brings the "Drama"

Talk about a novel staying with you.

Although I finished George Pelecanos' "Drama City" a few months back, I have found myself drawn back to the novel again and again-- it's truly his best work to date. It looks like the author's work on "The Wire" has carried over to his first stand-alone novel, as the sensibilities and the slow-boil pacing are very similar to the show; also, certain characters here evoke memories of some of the key players in the series' two recent seasons.

An urban portrait of redemption, it follows Lorenzo Brown, back on the streets after a prison term and trying to live a sober, straight life as "dog police". But after a number of senseless killings, he is drawn back into the fold of his former life, in order to try to do the right thing. It has shades of Richard Price's "Clockers", albeit capturing a narrower view of urban life.

Really, try it out. It's a rough, magnificent work by a more mature Pelecanos and I hope his next works continue along this track.

Related thought: Am I the only one who buys certain authors in a certain format? All of my James Ellroy novels are hardcover, all of my Pelecanos are softcover...and a certain Robert Wilson book taunts me from my bookshelf every morning, as it is the only non-trade paperback of all of his books I have. Damn you, "A Small Death in Lisbon".

Jessica Coen's Freaky Fridays

Talk about a coincidental, weird occurence: The Friday before Jessica Coen was added to the Gawker team and masthead fell on the 13th. She started that next Monday (August 16, 2004).

And her last day at Gawker -- tomorrow -- also falls on a Friday the 13th. I take it that she doesn't suffer from paraskevidekatriaphobia.

All the best to JCo, the longest-running Gawker editor ever and a genuinely funny person. I find it extremely sad that in little more than 3 months' time, Gawker has lost the two editors who had three-years-plus experience between them.

Here's to Alex Balk, the new co-editor and Chris Mohney bringing the funny as much as JCo and JKO did.