Flying Money & Fromoters

Once you’ve lived in New York five years, you think you’ve seen the maximum douchiness this city has to offer. Alas, no. Go here to see the sad insanity I witnessed this past weekend. The party foul was conducted by a promoter; someone you’d think would be classy and know better. This segways into my next topic which is ‘friends who pretend to be promoters but are not.’ For the purposes of this discussion, let’s call them Fromoters (‘F’ standing for both friend and fake.)

Fromoters are concept I fail to understand. You’ll recognize them in your life because they are:

-Guilty of group texting you and your entire posse of friends
-Out and about as if they had a press schedule
-Blowing up your facebook feed like it’s their job and
-Incessantly trying to organize group ‘brunch’

Let’s not confuse the fromoter disease with the generous friend who takes on the burdened role of organizer to help everyone get together. Occasionally taking the hit to play organizer is both selfless and kind. How would everyone ever get together otherwise? The fromoter on the other hand, thrives on being the centerfold of this endless string of group events. It’s the nectar from which their ego suckles. And they will batter you with invites, reminders, and updates until your mobile device explodes.

When promoters harass you, you can let it go. It’s their job. The fromoter on the other hand, doesn’t have the excuse of having to text you to pay their rent. What’s mind boggling to me is that the work of promoting in the city is so cutthroat, exhausting, cruel, and time consuming that I’m amazed anyone would take on such a stressful duty voluntarily. And while working promoters understand that their job is a job and rejection is 99% of the deal, fromoters as your friends have a hard time taking no for an answer.

How to best handle the fromoters in your life? How to stay on good terms while asking them to politely only contact you four times a day?

I don’t have the answer to that yet.

Feel free to leave thoughts.

Caught in the 'Net

As a product of my environment, a poster child of today’s “Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs” society, and an undeniable slave to trend of all genres, I spend most of my waking hours connected to, thinking about, and using the internet. One of the most revolutionary developments of my adolescent life was, undoubtedly, wi-fi. No longer were we confined to sitting in front of a computer in a specific and probably parentally monitored location. With Wi-Fi, we could take our heavy and awkward larger-than-normal-desktops-are-today laptops anywhere in the house that we wanted, and chat on IM for hours. Unobserved behind our locked bedroom doors until way past what curfew would have been if we had actually left the house.

So, how have all of these experiences, activities, and technological advancements affected my 20s? I am obsessed, dependent on, and constantly connected to the internet. Thanks, Al Gore, for life as I know it.

When I have a question where do I go – a family friend who happens to be an expert in that field, a book? No, absolutely not. It doesn’t even cross my mind that I could utilize resources like that. I go to what I have come to consider a sort of virtual friend – the site I fondly refer to as Wiki. Wiki, and now her sister sites of wic-tionary, wikibooks, wikiversity, wikinews, wikispecies, wikiquote, wikisource, and meta-wiki pretty much cover the spread of useful and non-useful information. Now, I wont pretend to have any idea what the majority of wiki’s sisters can do for me, or how they really differ or contribute anything to the original protégé website of wikipedia, but they do exist, which reassures me that I will never be at a loss for facts, correct or not. The way I see it, even if I don’t get the right answer from wiki, I may still have gained new cocktail conversation starters. It's a win-win.

As a resource, the nerdnet is invaluable, no question; just as valuable, in fact, as it is as an entertainment venue. I can spend hours bouncing from site to site. My homepage NYtimes.com provides hours of entertainment in and of itself! Should I venture past the maze of the New York Times, I happen to particularly enjoy thesuperficial.com, the Washington Post’s Crossword puzzles Monday-Thursday (other days are a little too challenging and the failure of not completing the puzzle is a day ruin-er every time), my email, facebook, asmallworld, various virtual shopping venues, google searching, and, of course, youtube.

Out of all of those sites, I would like to devote a little bit of extra time and laudation to youtube. As far as the usefulness and entertainment value of the web, google-image, I think, was on to something. Something that youtube took and ran with. The idea of being able to search not only for movies, homemade videos, some TV shows, music videos, and even historical events like the Queen of England's holiday address this year, all in one site….it’s a generation Y’s wet dream.

As a child of the ‘80’s, I take for granted that video killed the radio star. Music videos hold a very special go-to place in my search for motivation during workouts, as well as for entertainment during my work day. My most recent conquest of entertainment is the following:



I was actually searching for one of my personal favorites, Mickey Avalon, and from his song, Jane Fonda, I found this little gem. Obviously, the name of the “artist”, Princess Superstar, attracted me to click and anxiously await the loading of the video. I have to admit that the lyrics were just perplexing, yet catchy/irritating enough to make me watch it again. The Princess’s costumes and her sick-nasty dance moves left me with a feeling of overwhelming confusion mixed, I have to admit, with a little enthusiasm (my typical reaction to any form of overstimulation – in this case, for having seen something so ridiculous); as well as a little contempt for Princess Superstar who 1. has such a cool name, and 2. actually has some kind of contract.

Is it art? Certainly, not. Is it even good? All signs point to no, and yet I watched it, not twice, but three times. Maybe I was searching for some sort of explanation or intrinsic theme. I found none. I did, however, find her on wikipedia.

Again, rather indicative, I think, of my generation's culture.