The Last Days of DIY

Magick City

Me at Magick City / 2022

Final Party at #475Kent

That time is gone. Despite rumors of an #indiesleaze revival, the social paradigms that made that era what it was have phased out (as they should have). The #music and #fashion can be revived; but the #culturalattitude was distinctive, and it expired. 

(Though it may continue through remaining members of #indiebands who know they’ll get laid as long as their band names still strikes recognition. #notnamingnames )

It also won’t be the same because #NorthBK is not the warehouse party wonderland it once was. The spaces that housed our depravity have been replaced. And this past weekend we partied at two more for the last time. 

#475Kent and #MagickCity

We know these places played host to some of the best parties. But as we spilled our drinks on these grimey floors for the last time, we discovered our memories were piecemeal. We stood around kegs or on the side of the decks and offered our individual fragments trying to collectively reconstruct nights none of us were “fully present” for to begin with. 

It doesn’t matter that we can’t piece it all together. We were there. We remember the sentiment if not the specifics. More importantly, lasting friendships were born there.

So long #475Kent and @magickcity

Thanks for all the parties. 

In the 00s and early 10s, before the high rises and hotels, #Williamsburg and #Greenpoint were an expanse of rundown warehouses. These spaces were home to many #DIYs and a slew of #loftparties. 9/10x if you were partying, you were in a warehouse.

Those days the #Indiescene was in its prime and #debauchery was an aesthetic. You didn’t have to be here to see it. The grainy images of people snorting drugs off bathroom floors were captured by a local media agency devoted to documenting exactly what its title promised- #VICEmagazine. Pictures of our deviance could be found in #americanapparel stores across the country.  

If you were here though, your luck was to be dancing, drenched in the collective #sweat of party denizens while someone from #DFArecords played a #djset unannounced. The #cigarettesmoke #bo and #bodyheat made steam too thick to escape from cracked loft windows. 

A party never ran out of #djs or #dancers

It only ever ran out of #booze and toilet paper

It was gross 

It was #heaven

Magick City with Meg

Magick City 2023

Worse-Case-Scenario Tourettes

For years I would join my friend Jane’s family on their vacation in the Outer Banks. We spent most of our time lazing on the beach with G&Ts but every once in a while we would take an excursion. My favorite excursion was a fifteen minute drive up the coast to a place called Orange Blossom, a bakery known for its amazingly delicious oversized apple fritters.

People would come from all different parts of the island to score one of these bad boys. They were delectable and in demand. Sometimes they would sell out and you would have to wait twenty minutes till the next batch came out of the oven. You may find yourself at the end of a 10 person deep line waiting for the next batch, and you couldn’t be certain how many fritters each person might take. You’d be waiting in mouth-watering anticipation wondering if your fritter was this batch, the next or even another one after.

Anyway one morning Jane, her father and I arrived to join a line of about seven or eight people, all waiting for the next batch with that quality of irritability that is distinctive to early mornings, when coffee is needed and hunger acute. At the front of the line was a very tall woman, probably in her fifties, she had wiry blond hair and equally wiry energy, as if she caused her own unique form of electrocution.

As the scent grew stronger we knew the next batch was headed our way. Soon enough it arrived and the very large tin tray was placed on top of the counter with a dozen golden apple fritters. You could feel the excitement in the air as your nostrils widened and saliva collected in your mouth.

Shortly after the tray was set down, the baker retrieved her thin plastic gloves from underneath the counter, but as she turned away to put them on, something terrible happened.

You see up until the fritters arrived the wiry woman had been chatting with the couple in line behind her, praising these peerless pastries; her speech no doubt fueled her excitement and added exponentially to her already nervous energy, which resulted in the following inexplicable catastrophe:

As the baker turned around to put her hands in the gloves, the woman suddenly made an extremely elaborate gesture for which there was seemingly no precipitating cause. A gesture so spontaneous and unprompted that you could only imagine she had a form of physical Tourettes, specifically a kind of Tourettes that compels one to carry out– with uncontrollable urgency and fervor– any worst-case-scenario action that a given context could warrant. She had ​Worst-Case-Scenario Tourettes​.

With her unnecessary unbounded movement, the woman hit the tin tray from underneath with such great force that the fritters flew!

Everyone’s eyes grew wide. Their faces contorted in horror. The chipper impatience of the fritter-fiends transformed to anxious foreboding as the fritters soared into the air. Their sweet anticipations turned to preemptive bitterness as they watched the fritter descend. The silence of disbelief amplified the thud of every fritter as it hit the sandy tiled bakery floor.

Only three fritters landed back on the tray. No one spoke. We watched the baker put all three into a bag and hand them to the offender. The sweet warm crispy apple deliciousness our mouths anticipated was replaced by sour disgust and a collective sense of injustice.