We were on-hand for the massive iPhone 7 launch in New York City Friday. There was a huge media presence at the Fifth Ave store. And WPLJ-FM was handing out smoothies.
At Grand Central terminal, the line was in the Apple store upstairs, rather than clogging the main floor during rush hour.
Twisted Sister were on Fox and Friends Friday morning promoting their DVD and their final tour. They only have one date left in the New York area, October 1st in Lakewood, New Jersey.
Fans, including me, got to Fox News bright and early today. They came on stage shortly after 8am and performed until around 9:15am. Dee Snider and Twisted Sister were amazing. This is most likely their last TV appearance.
The Fox News hosts are used to country bands performing. They appeared to be in shock when they heard Burn in Hell and SMF.
We filmed the entire show. Enjoy!
Show After the Show
7. You Can’t Stop Rock ‘n’ Roll and SMF – Note: Fox wouldn’t let Dee use curse words so the crowd had to help out.
Today, Littlefield Brooklyn hosted the 5th annual tribute to the late Beastie Boys member Adam ‘MCA’ Yauch. Organizer, Michael Kearney and the rest of the MCA Day crew truly outdid themselves this year.
It was art, it was celebs, it was music, it was a party, it was a touching tribute to the great Adam Yauch. Cablevision News12 was there covering it.
Jim Shearer (MTV/VH1, The Brouhaha podcast) belted out some major Beastie Boys tunes along with Jeremy Shatan (The Young Aborigines, yes Mike D and Yauch’s first band) on bass and Lyle Preslar (Minor Threat) on guitar. Side note: It’s pretty interesting that these punk musicians became a director at a hospital (Jeremy) and a lawyer (Lyle).
The legendary Champagne Jerry later came out and did a few songs with them, as well as some on his own. Jerry is larger-than-life and often performs at Joe’s Pub with Ad-Rock, in the village. I highly recommend going.
Neil Usatan of Oscilloscope wore his lab coat on stage while he recalled fond memories of Adam Yauch.
Surprise guest, Santigold, performed some of her songs.
Beastie Boys artist, Cey Adams, returned this year to thank everyone for coming. He’s been to every MCA Day, including the first.
At 8am, I arrived at the site of Westfield’s Oculus/World Trade Center mall for both the mall’s grand opening, as well as for the grand opening of the new Apple Store. All the stores which had finished being constructed were set to open at 12pm.
There were two people standing outside the store (3 including me), creating a makeshift line. I expected to see a massive line like I had seen two weeks earlier at the opening of Williamsburg, Brooklyn store. Then again, this is the financial district on a Tuesday. Everyone in that area is at work. And the mall was still under major construction.
At 9am, there were 10 people standing in front of the store. The same awesome security company that Apple always uses was there with the same number of guards. Apple staffers seemed devastated by the small turnout.
Security relocated us to an official waiting area far, far away from the store front. We were down a set of stairs, past the Path train. We stood by a ladder which the mall was using to replace lights.
At 10am, it was like magic. The line started to grow, not just with mall people, but with diehard Apple fans. Security handed out paper tickets to make sure people didn’t cut the line.
At 11am, the line was longer than I could see. Hundreds of people.
At 11:50am, security escorted the first 20 of us closer to the store. They took our tickets and then carefully led us to the entrance of the Apple store. The mall was packed. The Apple store itself was absolutely packed with Apple Store employees. I’ve never seen so many.
Security was super-concerned about people cutting the line so they created a human wall to protect the integrity of our line. Note: there were no metal barricades. They were concerned it wasn’t enough so security asked 50 or so Apple Store employees to help out. It was like Apple’s own version of hands-across-America.
There were a lot of people eyeing up the line because they wanted to rush it when the doors opened.
Twelve noon came and went because Westfield (the mall’s management company) had execs touring the mall and the CEO had a ribbon-cutting ceremony. By the way, you’ll notice one of the Westfield execs was wearing a Coke can dress.
At 12:10pm, the CEO finished and Apple started their countdown. Everyone received a black Apple shirt with pink lettering. I went to the second floor. Shortly thereafter, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Apple Retail, Angela Ahrendts, came upstairs. Most people didn’t recognize her, but once they did, she was surrounded. She spoke with people for fifteen minutes and was very personable. When the crowd around her became too much, she exited via a hidden back elevator.
Had a lot of fun, met a lot of great people in line and in the store. No, I don’t know if anyone was able to penetrate the human wall.
Here are two pix I snuck of Fyvush Finkel when I saw him walking around 3rd ave in 2012.
Rest in Peace.
Today, I got a chance to see Michael Ian Black’s new show, Debate Wars, in New York City (thanks to Gotham Casting). Debate Wars is a comedy debate show moderated by Michael Ian Black where two teams of comedians and improvisers enter the “Debatium” to settle, once and for all, the greatest arguments of all time. It’s exclusive to NBCUniversal-owned Seeso, the newly launched ad-free comedy streaming channel.
The show was really funny. The taping lasted 90 minutes. There is so much good material, I don’t know how they’ll be able to edit it down to 30 minutes. I won’t give any details and ruin it for everyone.
Our panel consisted of Andy Dick, Eugene Mirman (Bob’s Burgers), Janeane Garofalo, Phoebe Robinson. I was lucky enough to pick some of Andy Dick’s note cards off the floor after the show. He left the stage so I wasn’t able to get him to autograph the cards.
I spoke to Michael ever-so-briefly after the show. He’s a really nice guy. Very intelligent. I’d love to have dinner or a drink with him.
Future episodes will feature Aparna Nancherla, Todd Barry, Judah Friedlander, Jo Firestone, Connor Ratliff, Guy Branum, Dave Hill and Gilbert Gottfried.
Caught Everlast and House of Pain at the Wellmont in Montclair, New Jersey Friday night. Good show, but ridiculously short.
Hardcore band, Cro Mag, didn’t fit the audience of mostly forty-something husband and wives. They were on for maybe twenty minutes.
House of Pain came on at 9:05 and were off by 10PM. I think they may have mis-estimated the time because they added songs the next night in New York’s Irving Plaza.
For the price they charged, there should have been a better opening act and a longer House of Pain set.
Either this guy had bugs, itchy dry scalp or was thinking really hard. When I first saw him, he was rubbing his ears uncontrollable. Then, he switched to his head.
The people next to him were mortified.
Last Friday, I was walking back from lunch and I see this nut job (let’s call him Candy Hater) knocking candy all over the 42nd Street sidewalk. The poor Indian owner of the newspaper stand kept yelling “Stop It!,” but he wouldn’t stop.
In the video, you see some woman buy something while all this is going on. It didn’t faze her at all. But hey, this is New York City.
Candy Hater noticed me filming which got him to stop. He started following me. Then, we got face-to-face. Candy Hater repeatedly told me to delete my video, “you faggot ass niggar.”
After a few seconds, he got tired of yelling and walked away…walked away in and out of moving traffic.
There wasn’t a single cop to be found on one of the most tourist-filled spots in the world.
Thanks to Mayor Bill DeBlasio for nothing.
Saw Motorhead at Megadeth’s Gigantour January 2012 at The Theater at Madison Square Garden, New York City. Awesome show. Glad I got to see Lemmy annihilate.