I feel brain dead. I have been sitting in front of my computer for the last 30 minutes trying to think of something to blog about.  I just have complete writers block.  Instead of just writing about how I have nothing to write about I will give you a review of the comedy show I saw last night.  I had not slept in 30+ hours last night so I went to comedy because two of my favorite comics Reggie Watts and Pete Holmes were going to be performing at Seth Herzog’s show Sweet.  I was running late and I missed the subway so I had to take a cab which really pissed me off because I had no money.  Luckily when I got there Seth’s mom was standing at the door and she got me in for free because she is amazing.

Seth’s opening monologue was a repeat of the X-mas material I saw him do at least twice last year.  Still, people who don’t obsessively stalk comedians and hadn’t seen it were pretty amused.  Seth decided that the slogan for 2008 was going to be “It’s not your year so just wait, 2008” followed by “Everything is fine, 2009”.  (or something like that) so don’t worry, after your shitty year coming up, things WILL get better. He then danced around in his underwear which is consistently funny.  Never seen Seth dance?  Watch the master at work.

Seth’s first guest was Chris Hardwick who was the host of MTV’s Singled Out who was not Jenny McCarthy.  I just vaguely remember that show and I did not recognize him at all, but he was pretty fucking funny.  He was just sort of blowing through material and getting a lot of laughs in the process.  I don’t think he is in NYC often, but if you ever get a chance to see him it is probably worth it.  Watch Chris and his partner sing on Jimmy Kimmel.

After that Seth brought out another retread with his Jesus impression.  He bitched about how his birthday and X-mas were the same day.  He bought out some shitty gifts people had given Jesus as Christmas/Birthday combo gifts.  This was Pete Holmes time to shine.  He kept hilariously interrupting Seth from his job as co-host/ DJ. Pete is one of the funniest people I know and while watching him co-host is not as rewarding as seeing him do his own material he is still quick witted and amusing enough to be one of the better co-hosts Seth has had.  Click here to see Pete do his own material and murder the crowd with hilarity.

The second comic of the evening was my friend A.D. Miles.  I had not seen miles in a while and it was great to see him.  He did a lot of new stuff I had not heard and then read from his “Cookbook for the Single Vegan” which he said was like a comedian finding a brick of gold.  It seems since he found it he brings it on stage with him every time and it is constantly both sad and funny.  It has just the saddest recipes in it.  The book starts with a delicious butternut squash recipe and ends with a mouth watering meal of Draino and sleeping pills.  Watch A.D miles defend his art to a comedy agent on Dog Bites Man.

Then Seth and his mom did their thing.  For those not familiar, Seth brings up his mom every week and they talk about stuff.  Some times it is tedious and boring, and sometimes it is the high light of the show.  They have a very strange relationship and it often turns sexual and very weird.  Last night she told a pretty interesting story about some insane man she went Christmas caroling with or something.  There is no point in explaining it, you just need to see her to understand.  Unfortunately she has managed to remain off YouTube for some reason.  You will just have to make it out to a show.

When Seth’s mom got off stage Reggie Watts had not shown up yet and to kill time Seth and Pete called up another comic in the audience who was in town from Chicago.  His name was Kumail Nanjiani (like email except with a Ku) and he was the highlight of the night.  He was not really prepared to go on but he had me and everyone else in tears.  He did jokes about Ghostbusters and Heroin and it was great.  I looked at his schedule and he is going to be in NYC a lot over the next two months and I plan on seeing him a few times.  Check him out.

After that Reggie Watts took the stage.  I brought two friends to the show just on the idea that they would have their heads exploded by Reggie.  There is nothing I can say or show you on video that can prepare you for Reggie Watts.  Simply he loops his voice to make weird songs.  He can do almost anything with his voice and he uses it as a weapon for mass hysteria.  Last night he did two songs that while not the best I have ever seen him he put on a show good enough to completely mind-fuck my friends.   They were completely blown away as is everyone I have ever brought to see Reggie.  Watch the mind-fuck here.

So yeah, amazing line up, great show.  And I just spent an hour working on a blog that I thought I was going to spend 10 minutes max on.  I hope you check out all that video and find some new favorite comics.

My friend and comedian Seth Herzog throws a big shindig every year and I came out to shoot some photos.  It was a crazy party in the penthouse and roof of a midtown high rise.  The view was pretty amazing.  Their were tons of people there and the DJ was pretty amazing… That being said I just sort of was wondering around trying to get photos of all the good costumes and not really trying to have fun.  I am pretty sure everyone there had a blast though.  I just got a little burnt out shooting Halloween costumes.  I was talking to Nikola last night about how sometimes when you have such crazy things to take photos of you sort of lose something.  I don’t compose as well.  I kept thinking about how to get the whole costume in and now how to get a good shot.  I love Halloween, but I think after 6 days of it, I am glad it’s over.  This party was a good way to end it.  Check out the party here.

PS. To all the new people I gave out my card to last night: Add me on myspace. If one of my photos is my main image I will put you in my top 8.

Last Thursday the Washington Capitals beat the Vegas Golden Knights to win the first Stanley Cup in team history. It was the first major Championship in my hometown of DC since 1992 and the first championship team that I have rooted for in my life. After celebrating all night at the NYC Caps Crew bar Jojo’s Philosophy in the West Village I started planning my trip to the Capitals parade in DC. 

My plan was going to go down with a few people on Monday afternoon, beating rush hour and getting to my parent’s place in Northern VA with plenty of time to sleep, but on Sunday night the Capitals announced that star players Alexander Ovechkin and Braden Holtby were going to be in NYC with the Stanley Cup for the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. I couldn’t believe it. Not only was the Stanley Cup going to be in NYC, but they are going to the show where my friend Seth Herzog works as the warm up comic. Heroically Seth got me backstage where I not only got to check off a major bucket list item and hold the Stanley Cup but I got to meet Holtby and Ovechkin. Ovechkin just happens to be my favorite human of all time. 

After Fallon was over I met up with my friend Sam who I have been watching hockey with since 1991 and my friend Justin who is part of the NYC Caps Crew and we drove south and got to my parents house around 2am. After a few hours of sleep we hit the parade. We got to the National Mall around 9am and it was packed with people already. We found a spot near the end of the parade route under a tree which was ideal given that we were going to have to stand there for four hours. When the parade finally started I made my way a bit closer to the street but still was behind a ton of people. I brought my camera just because I felt like I had to, but I didn’t even bring a long lens so my parade photos were pretty pointless. I got a few decent shots, but mostly garbage. I was just happy to be there.

I shot a few more photos of the crowd on the mall, but we were so far from the rally stage and just exhausted so we texted all of our friends and had them meet us in Arlington at the Arlington Rooftop Bar & Grill for an after party thrown by Russian Machine Never Breaks. RMNB is probably my favorite sports blog of all time and it was great to finally meet Ian who runs it. A bunch of the NYC Caps Crew made it out too, and I got to hang out with my friend Jamie who with Sam is one of my oldest, closest friends and is another person I’ve been watching Caps games with since childhood. I ran into a ton of people I know from hockey Twitter as well and it was just a really good time. 

I decided not to go out after that because I hadn’t slept at all and was pretty exhausted so I came home and edited these photos and crashed, but my Championship week isn’t quite over. Today I am going to get a Stanley Cup tattoo at Jinx Proof tattoos in DC which was the first place I ever got tattooed almost exactly 20 years ago.

It’s been one hell of a week after a lifetime of sports related suffering. I realize many of you can’t possibly imagine why I would care so much about sports but if you are interested in knowing a little bit more about how I felt, I wrote something for the NYC Caps Crew blog about it. Some of it might not make any sense if you aren’t a Caps fan, but I actually started crying while writing it, so it means a lot to me. And if you still don’t care about sports, don’t worry, I will go back to posting parties and nudity ASAP and won’t bug you with any more sports related content until September when football season starts…

Click here to see my photos from the Washington Capitals first ever Championship Parade & the RMNB after party.

I had plans right now but she’s apparently hung over and moving slowly so it looks like I have time to get up some more SXSW photos.

Thursday I didn’t have any actual work to do so I took it pretty easy. I started my day by seeing a movie. The SXSW Film Festival is pretty wonderful and I have covered it several times in the past, but this year I only got to see one movie but it was a good one. The Big Sick is a new film by Michael Showalter of the State & Stella. His movie Hello, My Name Is Doris was at SXSW a few years ago and I loved it but not nearly as much as the Big Sick. The movie was written by Kumail Nanjiani and his wife Emily Gordon about a real life incident where she got really sick and ended up in a coma. Kumail plays himself and it is so god damn funny and sad and amazing and I spent 80% of the movie either laughing or crying or both. I met Kumail about a week after he moved from Chicago to NYC after seeing him to stand up. He did one of the funniest sets I had ever seen and he was just in the audience of the show. One of the comedians was running late so the host Seth Herzog put him on and he killed it so hard. After that I saw him probably a dozen times before he moved to LA. For a time my two favorite comedians in NYC were him and Pete Holmes and Pete now has an amazing show on HBO and Kumail is in one of the best movies I have seen this year. Amazingly both of those projects came from a SXSW live podcast taping with Judd Appatow who produced both projects and told the story about that meetin in the Q&A.

Speaking of the Q&A one of the people to ask a question was fellow Chicago comedian Hannibal Buress. I didn’t even realize he was in town so I hit him up and he told me to come by the MTV Woodie Awards because he was giving out an award. I took forever to get there and I got there just in time to see him give the award. I got to see Rick Ross play too which was not awful. I went with Hannibal’s crew to Mohawk for the House of Vans party and saw a handful of rappers that were all from Chicago (to continue on the theme). I got to see the Cool Kids for the first time since probably 2008 and finally French Montana played.

So yeah we finally get to the point of this meandering name dropping post. French Montana (who is not at all from Chicago) headlined the Vans party. I was sort of near the stage so when he stared playing I took a few photos. Then A$AP Ferg showed up which was kinda funny because the day before I shot Playboi Carti and A$SAP Rocky showed up. Seemed like A$AP Mob was following me. Then the next song Rocky showed up again. After they left I shot one more French Montana song before calling it a night.

Don’t worry this post is almost over. I didn’t shoot a ton of photos yesterday but here are a handful of photos of French Montana and friends. The end.

Click here to see the photos of French Montana, A$AP Ferg & A$AP Rocky at Mohawk. 

Finally I am back home and I nearly feel like a human after two weeks of constant sleep deprivation and a steady diet of tacos and bbq. I have a TON of SXSW photos to get up into a quick seven updates. Let’s start off with an easy one that’s a bit different from my normal SXSW coverage… the SXSW Gaming Convention.

Did you even know that SXSW had a gaming convention? I didn’t until a couple years ago when my friend Seth Herzog hosted a cosplay competition there. The convention is pretty far away from the rest of SXSW but the shuttle bus stops there on the way to some of the theaters that were part of the film fest so I got off at the gaming convention when I had a few hours between movies.

I love shooting conventions because I love passionate fans of anything. Photographing fans and conventions is part of a larger project I am working on and this seemed like a perfect opportunity to shoot some gamers. In the two hours there I got a bunch of stuff that might end up in my final fan project and I got a decent gallery for the Village Voice as well. PLUS I got to see over 100 people watch kids play Street Fighter like they were watching an actual boxing match. Wild shit.

Click here to see all my shots from the 2015 SXSW Gaming Convention!

In 2006, one week before I moved to NYC I came up here with a band I was managing at the time, The Gaskets. I had already signed a lease so I brought up a car load of stuff and ended up sleeping on the floor of my apartment because I was so happy to have my first New York apartment. Eight years later I am still in that apartment, but that has nothing to do with this post.

That night The Gaskets played a show at some bar that probably doesn’t exist anymore but while we were there we met comedian Zak Orth and his girlfriend (now wife) Kat. They loved the Gaskets and ended up taking us all to Ruff Club and Kat invited me to a weekly comedy show called Sweet at the Slipper Room in the LES.

I immediately became a regular and was going nearly ever week for probably a year or two. At some point the Slipper Room had some crazy renovations and it was closed for a few years. Sweet moved all over the place and ended up at Ella for a while before moving back to the Slipper Room when it opened a couple years ago. Clearly my timeline is very precise. During the move I started going to Sweet less and less often but I still try and make sure to check it out every now and then. It’s always very funny and an excellent place to take a lady.

Anyway, Sweet turned 10 this week and I caught the last of three anniversary shows last night. The show is hosted by Seth Herzog who is actually one of my oldest friends in NYC since I met him the first week I moved to NYC. I think he hated me for a while because we were both hanging out with the same girl but I’ve always loved the guy. Really proud of him and the show and how big it has become.

Last night Seth pulled out all the stops. Normally he has one co-host but this week he had four! Dion Flynn was the most active co-host, but Questlove was DJing, Jess Hudak was singing and playing piano as comedians came on and Seth’s mom, a weekly show highlight, asked comedians questions before they left the stage. She also freestyle rapped at some point.

The show opened with an extended monologue from Seth recounting the last 10 years of the show followed by a supremely weird act by the owners of the Slipper Room that involved ironing a veal cutlet that Seth then ate. If he is dead right now let it be said that he gave his life for comedy.

Up next was Ted Alexandro who I have seen do stand up a bunch of times but I never realized that he has a web series that he does with my old friend Hollis James. I found that out while googling him to make sure I got his name right and I haven’t watched it yet, but I will and clearly you guys should too. He did a bit about a pot brownie that lasted 36 hours and then performed a song for Seth and his mom to dance to. It was that kinda night.

At some point there were a series of contests to win Seth Olenick’s new book of comedy portraits Funny Business. I was pretty jealous of the winners and I gotta get a copy of the book at some point. As a big photo book collector and comedy nerd it’s a must have for my shelf.

Next up was the always hilarious Kurt Braunohler who used to host a show with Kristen Schaal called Hot Tub that was always fantastic. I’ve known Kurt for years too as he was a judge on the first LVHRD events I ever went to. My buddy Drop The Lime was another judge that night. And Doug from LVHRD was at Sweet last night. LVHRD doesn’t exist anymore but it’s worth a Google… Oh, by the way it was probably the best Kurt set I have seen and I have seen a lot of his sets.

After Seth’s mom freestyled with Shockwave and Victor Varnado my dude Hannibal Burress killed it as always. I haven’t seen him since he did a joke where he told me to fuck myself in the middle of his last Comedy Central special so it was good to see him and find out that he didn’t actually want to murder me. He’s one of the funniest humans on earth so normally a show would go down hill from there but this was no ordinary comedy show!

Next up was the legendary Jeff Ross. Now that Joan Rivers is dead he’s just gotta outlive Don Rickles to become the greatest living insult comic. He did a set making fun of Joan Rivers which was probably the most touching roast I’ve ever seen the guy give and then went into other dead celebrity jokes including Robin Williams. If pretty much any other comedian did that they would be booed off the stage, but you know Joan and Robin would have been more upset if he didn’t do stand up on their graves.

Artie Lange was essentially the closer and did a set that went from hilarious to offensive to depressing and back again. This is a guy who nearly stabbed himself to death while losing his mind on heroin just a couple years ago. He’s dangerously overweight and constantly joked about his own death.  His jokes stepped over the line into just blatantly racist a number of times. Yet for all that he still managed to kill at points in his set. He said “you have to live a little bit for comedy” and he’s a guy who has lived 10 lives for comedy. It was brilliant and sad at the same time and his set alone was well worth the price of admission.

The night ended with a cameo from regular Sweet co-host Justin Long who you couldn’t walk a block in the LES without running into him a few years ago. (He literally ran into me once actually.) He’s in LA now but was in NYC promoting a movie and got a chance to stop by Sweet. He and most of the other comedians then performed the creepiest rendition of We Are The World ever where they took turns impersonating celebrities. The perfect ending to a fantastic night of super weird underground comedy, which is exactly what Sweet has delivered every week for the last 10 years.

So congrats Seth and everyone else go look at the photos!

Click here to see all the pictures from the 10th anniversary of Sweet at The Slipper Room.

It’s not Flashback Friday or Throwback Thursday or whatever bullshit alliteration thing that exists on the internets. I am however going to take you guys back in time to February 2008 with some very cool, but very terrible photos from the last two shows of the underground comedy show Invite Them Up. I had an awful early digital camera at the time, but I think these are worth looking at anyway.

I had been living in NYC for about a year and a half and I was shooting party photos every day and all that shit, but I also was going to underground comedy shows a couple nights a week. For some reason I rarely took photos at these events but there are a couple of exceptions.

In late February the legendary Invite Them Upended. Eugene Mirman and Bobby Tisdale had been hosting it for five years and for the last year I was a constant regular. The show was at the Rififi nightclub (the original home of the party Trash) and Rififi was going to be closing and Invite Them Up decided to get ahead of that and end early. (Brett Gelman and Jon Daly took over Wednesday nights until they escaped to LA.)

To end the run Invite Them Up held three farewell shows so they could invite all their favorite comics to play. And the line up was impressive at the time, but even more so looking back on it. It’s amazing how many people have gone on to huge things. John Oliver, Dimitri Martin, Jon Benjamin, Pete Holmes, Brett Gelman and Seth Herzog all have had their own TV shows since then. Mike Birbiglia turned his hit one man show into a fantastic movie. Zach Galifinakis was a big name at the time but I don’t think anyone would have predicted his post Hangover fame. Todd Barry played all three and did one of best comedy sets I have ever seen just making fun of Rififi off the top of his head. He also played drums with Yo La Tengo. Chelsea Peretti and Kristen Schaal are two of the funniest women on TV and Leo Alan and Jon Glaser seem to be on everything that exists on Comedy Central. Oh yeah and Jim Gaffigan and Michael Showalter performed too… you may have heard of them. Seriously when I found the flyers to these shows in a box recently I couldn’t believe how good the line up was.

Also, just in the crowd shots after the show there are pictures of Reggie Watts, Kumail Nanjiani (probably a year before I actually met him), Jon Daly, Larry Murphy and a bunch of other hilarious humans. And I only photographed two of the days!

At the end of the third show, Eugene and Bobby brought up a time capsule that everyone could put stuff in to be opened five years later in 2013. I wonder if they ever opened it because I am pretty sure that Jon Benjamin put a vile of his urine in it. I don’t even remember what I put in it. Whatever the case I think these photos serve as a pretty good time capsule of the last nights of a legendary comedy show that will never happen again.

Now click here to see photos from the last two Invite Them Up comedy shows in February 2008!

I shot two events last night and I am gonna try to get them both up tomorrow and then get the rest of the SXSW Music stuff up on Tuesday and Wednesday. Sunday is a slow traffic day so I bring you my most half assed SXSW gallery… the SXSW Interactive gallery. SXSWi has become a huge part of SXSW. When I first started going SXSWi was barely part of the festival, but now it’s probably the biggest tech conference in the US. CES is boring and stodgy compared to the huge parties and branding events at SXSWi. But the big problem with SXSWi is that it’s really photographically boring. No one wants to see nerds partying so it’s hard to make look interesting.

I hit up the SXSW Trade Show which isn’t specifically just Interactive but it seems to be very tech and web heavy even when it comes to the music side of things. Not much film stuff is represented so I am counting it as SXSWi. I also photographed a Nerdist event that my friend Seth Herzog was hosting. It was a cosplay contest which means a bunch of nerds dressed up as video game characters and stuff. It’s pretty awesome and is worth looking at if you are a) into cosplay b) into making fun of people who are into cosplay. Either way there are some awesome costumes.

And that’s that. Enjoy and I will see you guys tomorrow with some crazy non-SXSW photos!

Click here to see all my photos from the 2013 SXSW Interactive Festival.

Last night I decided to head down to the brand new Slipper Room to watch my man Barry Obama put a licking on Mitt Romney while comedians entertained me for just five dollars that all went to hurricane relief. This is America at it’s finest. The entire six years I have lived in NYC I have been going to my friend Seth Herzog’s weekly comedy show Sweet. As it happens on Tuesday Seth has done a lot of political themed nights like Super Tuesday Sweet and election watching Sweets. Always a good time because nothing is better than watching comedians make fun of our insane political process.

Last night Seth had his mom, who I love dearly, co-host. She was actually one of the funnier co-hosts he’s had and as always it got really awkward. Seth brought out Jordan Carlos doing a great Barack Obama impression. Rob Cantrell was up next and told a story about how he saw Run DMC, Whodini, Grandmaster Flash and the Fat Boys in 1986. It was hilarious and all but I was mostly just thinking about how jealous I was. Holy shit that would have been an epic show. Finally Driven By Boredom regular Hannibal Buress showed up and killed it as always.

After the jokes, shit got serious as we watched election results. Thanks to my near obsession with Nate Silver I knew Obama had it sealed up as soon as they called Wisconsin so I headed home early and by the time I got to my apartment CNN had called the election for Barack. I spent the rest of the night making fun of republicans on Twitter and then got an email about how my flight to Miami tomorrow got upgraded to first class. It was a fucking perfect day. God bless America.

Click here to see all the photos from the Sweet Election Party Special at The Slipper Room.