Lit Lounge 8th Anniversary – 2.22.10

June 29, 2026July 16, 2026

I have had these photos ready to go for months now. That whole getting hacked thing caused most of the delay because even though we recently solved that problem the one thing that we lost permanently was my old archives. I had an internal use only version of my old website that didn’t have any of the images, just the text, that way I could go back and check my archives. I could pull up a random folder, like for example a folder only called 2.22.10 and then I could type 2.22.10 into my archival site and pull up that night. I could then see what the party was, what I was doing in my life and what happened that night. It was a great tool and it was deleted forever.

My former webmaster thought she had a back up so she sent me those files, I sent them to the guy who unfucked my website and he uploaded all the files she sent and it turns out it was just some random early version of the current site that only had four posts. No idea what happened there. Since then, I have found my backup of the site, but it’s not the archive site, it’s just the whole ass website, so I can hopefully build back a new archives site, but that probably won’t happen for a while because I have spent all my money on my goddamn house. Anyway long story short I don’t have my notes from February 22nd, 2010… but I do have some memories.

First things first I know it was Lit Lounge’s 8th anniversary party. I actually had to look up which anniversary it was, but I knew it was an anniversary. Lit was one of my all time favorite bars. Before I even moved to NYC one of the best days of my life ended dancing at Lit (it almost ended at an emergency room, but that’s another story). The bar had an art gallery in the back, and incredibly seedy basement, and multiple lockable bathrooms. There are not a lot of places on earth more conducive to debauchery.

The other thing I remember from this night, is that earlier that day the US beat Canada in a huge Olympic hockey game. We of course then lost to them in the gold medal game in heartbreaking fashion, but the reason I remember that day is because in the Lit photo gallery there are a few photos that I shot on a 70-200mm lens, and it’s the only time I have ever brought that lens to the club and the only reason I brought it to the club was because I brought it to watch US hockey at a bar in the East Village and the only reason I brought it to that bar in the first place was because I had just bought it and it was snowing and I had my friend Vicky meet me at the bar and we shot topless photos in the snow. I actually really loved those photos and I am going to re-edit those right now and upload them to Girls of Driven By Boredom, so if you are seeing this, they are up there right now.

You know I love a tangent, but let’s get back to it… What else? For some reason that POS rapist Ron Jeremy was there that night. I used to run into him all the time and he always sucked even before I knew all the shit he did. Aside from that, so, so many of my friends were there and so many girls I had crushes on and went on one date and then just became friends with after it didn’t work out because I was a mess back then. I guess I wasn’t so bad if they still wanted to be friends with me, but I was not really someone anyone took seriously as a romantic partner. Oh and speaking of dates, the girl who I went on my first ever internet dating site date was randomly at the party. We lived in Richmond, VA and we met on a site called Make Out Club (iykyk). She moved to NYC first and then when I moved there she moved back to RVA, but just happened to be in NYC that night.

Anyway, I honestly don’t really remember anything else and this has gone on long enough, but I know people are going to dig these photos because pretty much everyone from like 5 different downtown scenes was there because Lit had something different going on every night. Shit, even my terrible punk band used to play there. Man I miss that spot.

Anyway check the gallery below, and then if you feel like it you can go look at some photos of my old friend Vicky topless in the snow taken earlier that day. She isn’t in this gallery at all, but I promise you will dig the photos if you like that sort of thing. Okay bye.

Another Friday Night – 9.14.07

August 5, 2025

I’ve probably spent less than a year of my life total working you standard 9-5, Monday-Friday job. Between graduating from college and moving to NYC I did some temp work at a few offices and my last job ever before becoming a photographer was digitizing books in a library and I did that for about six months, but other than that I’ve either worked retail/food service, or been a full time photographer. So for me, a Friday night is just like any other night of the week, but back in the late 2000s, Friday night meant two things: Trash & Ruff Club.

Ruff Club, held at the Annex, was the first weekly party in NYC that I ever went to and Trash was probably my favorite weekly of all time. Back in 2007 it was held at Rififi which was by far my favorite of it’s four locations. If I was going to hit only one party that night it would be Trash, but like most nights of the week, I would hit at least two parties. I’d usually start my night at Trash and then end up walking down to the LES for Ruff so I could take the JMZ home or just walk over the bridge to Williamsburg. But Rififi was near the L train so I could always do it the other way around.

This Friday night in September wasn’t any sort of special occasion, and the photos were taken before I had a professional camera, but the night feels pretty representative of that time period. Multiple parties, multiple subcultures, a ton of friends and a bunch of time just spent hanging out in the street outside of bars. It was such a fun time in my life and also still in that full Indie Sleaze era of American Apparel and insane accessories and of course flip phones.

I went back and looked at what I had written about that night at the time and it seemed the night was kinda a bust. I sounded kinda depressed about the whole thing and not sure why. Apparently the door person at Annex tried to get me to pay $5 which instead of just paying, I apparently made it a whole thing until Sophia Lamar brought me in and then apparently I was super apologetic to the door person for making it a whole thing. (That’s three apparentlys in one sentence, are you impressed yet?) I was working at a busboy at a restaurant at that time so I am sure I could have used the $5, but mostly I think I just wanted to feel important. My site was starting to blow up and right around that time I quit my busboy job and tried to make it as a full time photographer. I only made it nine months before having to get that book scanning job, but it felt like I was really doing it. In December of 2008 after the economy collapsed I got laid off of that job and I never worked another day job again, so I guess I did make it, just not that Friday night…

Girl Talk – 8.23.09

April 30, 2025

I want to start this throwback post with an even older tangent. It’s 2004 and I am going to art school in Richmond, VA. In my free time I am managing this two man dance pop band called The Gaskets. They are one of the biggest bands in Richmond, but they have just about zero following anywhere else. So when we got a slot on this electronic music showcase in NYC we couldn’t have been more excited about the opportunity.

We drive up to NYC the night before the show and stay with my friends in downtown Brooklyn. The next day we jump on the subway and see some movies or whatever we did, it was 20 years ago, my memory is a bit hazy. But what I do remember is that when we get back to Brooklyn, our car is gone. Apparently we parked too close to a hydrant and got towed. We have to be at this show and their one instrument, a Yamaha RM1X sequencer, is locked in the truck of the car. Turns out our car is at the impound lot at the Navy Yard and it’s gonna cost $250 to get it out, and that doesn’t include the ticket. The lot closes in in less than an hour. We don’t think we are going to make it but we get on the Subway and get down there as soon as we can. I can only imagine what it looked like to locals when they see three hipsters absolutely sprinting through a pretty bad neighborhood trying to get there before the lot closes. I think we actually got there slightly after it closed but we somehow managed to get it out anyway.

When we get to the show it’s in the basement of the Delancey. There might be 25 people there max. The show was pretty fun anyway. These days when you hear electronic music you are probably thinking EDM, but this was a lot of supremely weird noise acts and the kind of rappers that are more influenced by jam bands than hip hip. The Tom Tom Club because their son was performing. My friend Luca, aka Drop the Lime/ Curses also played that night, but I didn’t we didn’t become friends until years later. There was another artist there who would hit play on his laptop and then just kinda run around the crowd. I didn’t get it at all. He went by the name Girl Talk.

A year later The Gaskets get asked to play this big art party in Richmond. Half gallery, half show at one of the bigger venues in the city. Not a lot of local acts could headline there, maybe us, Municipal Waste and Avail so we just sort of assumed The Gaskets were the headliner, but when the flyers went up, Girl Talk was headlining. I was legitimately pissed. Not only were we not headlining, but we were opening for some guy who played other people’s music and just ran around the club. I didn’t get it. We almost dropped off the bill. But when that night came I finally understood what Girl Talk was all about.

Girl Talk doesn’t make sense when there are 20 people in the crowd, but when there are hundreds, it is absolute chaos. I have photographed him a half dozen times and his shows are more fun than probably any other DJ although he used to have t-shirts that said I’m Not A DJ so maybe I shouldn’t call him a DJ. But whatever the case he’s so much fucking fun live.

Okay, now, after all that, we finally get to these photos that I am re-uploading. We go back in time to summer 2009 and the infamous Jelly NYC Pool Parties are on the Williamsburg waterfront, which I guess is now Domino Park. These parties were always a blast, but they also brought out a bunch of randos and as someone who was very serious about being a hipster, they were a little to basic or something for me. I pretty sure that’s a joke, but I would always rather be in some small bar than outside at festival or something. That being said the Jelly parties were legendary.

Going back through my original blog post apparently it started raining in the middle of the show and that’s why I started shooting the crowd more than the actual performance. I was trying to protect my camera a bit and there was as much chaos in the crowd as on stage. People were pushing through trying to get on stage to join the fun. A bunch of photographers were up there too, ruining my shots so the crowd was the better option anyway. Nothing annoys me more than photographers getting in the way of the show. Stop making that shit about you. The only exception if if you are working directly for the artist or the event, and even then, get your shots and get out of the way.

Anyway, the show was still a blast and after the show I ran into a bunch of friends. Man I miss just knowing people wherever I went. RIP Curtis. A few of us went over to Brooklyn Bowl for the after party. I honestly just went because Brooklyn Bowl had pretty damn good food and I wanted some BBQ but I did take a some photos there too that are at the end of this gallery.

These photos really capture a moment in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. You can just see the beginning of the end of the short time period where it was the center of cool. The waterfront is still there but apartment buildings were going up where there were factories. The Jelly NYC parties were still happening but they were no longer at McCarren park pool. The crowd was becoming less hipster, and more finance bro. You can just see it changing in these photos.

Okay, once again I have written 1000 words for no reason. I need to make these shorter and sweeter so I can do them more often, but I like writing and hopefully a few people are getting something out of this stuff. Hopefully I will be back soon but in the meantime enjoy some photos from August 2009.