About a month ago, my fiancée alerted me to one particular ad which she found somewhat distressing. Of course the minute that I decided I should take a photo of this sign, it vanished, Keyser Söze style. Well good news folks, it’s back! On the northeast corner of 10th Street and 3rd Avenue, the bright orange ad for juggling lessons.

What’s so disturbing about juggling? That would be the association with clowns, which Adrianne just happens to be irrationally afraid of. Now I can’t blame her, clowns are fucking scary. As a child I would lie awake for hours, terrorized by the glazed clay clown face on my wall. Thank you to my older brother or sister who made this for me. It haunts my nightmares.

But back on topic, the juggling ad. Let’s take a closer look.

If you can’t make out everything I’ve transcribed it below, maintaining most of the formatting of the original.

Juggling

Lessons

And Stilt Walking Lessons

Juggling is great fun! Its good exercise for your eyes and the rest of your body as well. It builds Hand-Eye coordination and can be very relaxing
Welcome to the world of Juggling

$50 per lesson
.
.

• *Stress Reliever

• *Stay focused in stressful circumstances

• *Develop confidence

• *Develop a healthy body and peaceful mind

This sign raises so many questions.

1) Is there really a demand for juggling lessons? Isn’t this something you can kind of teach yourself by watching someone on YouTube do it? Answer - yes!

YouTube - Link to video link

2) Stilt walking is the undercard? That’s something I could get behind. Who doesn’t want to know how to walk on stilts? Do I have to bring my own?

3) Stress reliever? Develop confidence? From juggling? You’re kidding right?

4) What’s up with all the asterisks? Is there a disclaimer on the back of your ad? You are just kidding aren’t you.

5) Who has the balls (pun intended?) to post an ad like this? A clown? A former clown? Eliot Spitzer?

Welcome to the world of juggling! Discuss amongst yourselves.

Photo courtesy of feastoffools.

Kathy Griffin has fans? Imagine that! Fans so passionate about her work that they would seek her out to officiate their wedding? Yeah, I didn’t buy it either, but apparently she does. Meet Mr. Brian Anstey and Ms. Elka Shapiro of Queens.

Anstey, 31, is a fifth-grade teacher; Shapiro, 29, is a marketing director. Neither is affiliated with a religion, and “the major factor in our relationship is laughter,” Shapiro said.

Griffin flew in from Los Angeles for the wedding at the Queens County Farm Museum. She performed a 10-minute service that ranged from telling raunchy jokes to having the bride recite the reception menu, according to the Daily News.

“It’s so unusual and something we’ll always remember,” Shapiro said.

While I appreciate the concept, I have to question the couples’ judgement. Was Kathy Griffin really their first choice? Couldn’t these folks have aimed just a tad higher? Steve Gutenberg? Pauly Shore? Carrot Top?

My own marriage on the horizon, I am seriously considering taking this idea and running with it. Adrianne and I already want to invite musician Daniel Johnston to our wedding, perhaps he’d consider doing us the honor? Ok, that’s probably a disaster waiting to happen.

What about Mr. Met? I mean, the Mets official website says he’s available for weddings. He does “make any occasion Amazin’!” It says it right there. Let’s check the Universal Life Church to see what he’ll need to do to get ordained. “Applying for ordination in the name of a fictitious person or animal, or the submission of a person’s name without his or her permission is fraud.” Son of a bitch!

Back to the drawing board. Perhaps the guy who played Booger in the Revenge of the Nerds films? Yeah, Curtis Armstrong. Oddly enough I think my fiancée would really enjoy being married by a guy wearing a ratty old t-shirt that reads “Who Pooted?”

What do you fine folks think? Any suggestions?

[No joke: NYC couple wed by Kathy Griffin - Yahoo! News]
[Comedian Kathy Griffin weds couple in Queens - NY Daily News]

Mr. Met Photo courtesy of snowdog101.

Round 1 - Pepe’s Cheese Bitches vs Cojones Grandes

Pepe’s Cheese Bitches came into the night ranked fourth in the Early Division. Matching up against Cojones Grandes, the team they defeated in the last week of the regular season, confidence levels were high. Perhaps they were too high as you can see below.

YouTube - Link to video link

On the brink of elimination, the Cheese Bitches bounced back. Systematically eliminating their green shirted foes one by one. In the rubber match Pepe’s stayed strong with another solid victory and advanced to the second round of the playoffs.

Round 2 - Pepe’s Cheese Bitches vs McBalls

This season McBalls were the Yankees to Pepe’s Blue Jays (says the diehard Mets fan). McBalls roster had a ton of depth and no obvious weakness. Pepe’s plays in Canada and can’t afford to buy uniforms for their players.

All that being said, the Bitches hoped to compete against the dodgeball powerhouse that is McBalls and were swiftly denied time and time again. The Cheese Bitches were simply overmatched and understaffed. Their road to glory ended here.

I don’t have video of this match, but you can see the teams battle it out in an exhibition game on SportsNet NY’s Street Games.

Round 3 - McBalls vs Care Bears

I didn’t stick around for this match as there was post-dodgeball drinking to be done. I do know that McBalls beat the Care Bears. Enjoy this photo in lieu of actual game footage.

Round 4 - McBalls vs Money Shots

As with the above match vs the Care Bears, I was not around to see the details of this match either. McBalls won. Hooray McBalls!

Well folks, that’s the end of this season of dodgeball. If you’re interested in playing in the best dodgeball league in New York City head on over to the New York City Social Sports Club site and sign up for the spring season today.

Tell ‘em Pepe sent ya.

Previously on This Week in Dodgeball:

[This Week in Dodgeball: The Final Countdown]
[This Week in Dodgeball: No Time for Love, Doctor Jones]
[This Week In Dodgeball: Kickin’ It Old School]

Photo and video courtesy of Dwidson Metayer.

El Dia Del Mustache, viva la revolución! Conceived of by a band of mustachioed pioneers back in 2004, EDDM is a celebration of manliness and of course, the mustache.

In the first two hours of an El Dia Del Mustache event, The Board nominates party attendees for the various competitive categories. During the voting, nominees take the stage category by category and the winners are determined by the fervor of the crowd.

Categories include best in show, novelty ’stache, dad’s ’stache and the Ron Jeremy inspired molester’s ’stache. You just have to follow four simple rules.

1. Remember, the first rule of El Dia is that we do not criticize another man’s ’stache. Above all else, do not break this rule.
2. For those of you who are new to the game, costumes and funny outfits are OK, but they have no effect on the voting process. This is not Halloween.
3. There must be NO root growth beneath the cusp of the lower lip.This means no Fu Manchus, no goatees, no soul patches, etc. The hair can extend in an outwards or upwards direction (in fact, it is encouraged) but can not extend below the cusp of the lower lip. Gentlemen, we are talking about traditional mustaches here.
4. Above all else, remember to have fun. El Dia Del Mustache is like Christmas morning for adult men. Relish in it.

If you don’t already have plans for weekend and you’ve got a mustache you’re in luck. This Saturday, March 8th take a stroll by No Idea around 3pm and join in on the jubilation that is El Dia Del Mustache 6.

Don’t have a mustache? No problem. You’ve got approximately 3 days to get started. Don’t know how? El Dia’s got you covered.

No Idea
30 E 20th St (between Park and Broadway)
http://www.noideabar.com/
212.777.0100

[El Dia Del Mustache]

Photo courtesy of tomconlon4 by way of El Dia Del Mustache.

My office is in Times Square. If you don’t live in New York, you probably imagine that working in the heart of the city would be exhilarating, and it was the first few days on the job. Those of you who frequent the area know better. The thought of navigating the throngs of tourists during rush hour can make you want to stab yourself in the eyes.

Before you do, have a look at Raul Vincent Enriquez’s new public art project I in the Sky.

I in the Sky comprises a street-level photo-booth at the chashama gallery paired with the Condé Nast Lumacom electronic display sign. The Lumacom will broadcast digital portraits taken by photo-booth visitors that have been animated by Enriquez to resemble flip-book images. The process will take about 20 minutes and is free of charge.

Enriquez’s exhibition began appearing on the Times Square Lumacom about two weeks ago and runs through April 26th. When the Lumacom isn’t unnecessarily obstructing the views of underprivileged Condé Nasties it displays a sequence of various faces, animated using Enriquez’s “special technique” (the secret — his camera steals your soul). The result can be jarring, amusing and sometimes downright frightening. Have a look for yourself.

YouTube - Link to video link

Scariest. Burrito. Ever.

YouTube - Link to video link

“I find portraits to be a timeless and accessible art form”, said Enriquez. “In each portrait, several photos are sequenced and animated, framed to create the impression of extreme eye contact. My goal is to make provocative art that captures viewers”.

I told you they were watching. If you’d like to get in on the action, you can have your photo taken every Thursday through Saturday from 12-8pm at chashama (112 W 44th St, between 6th and 7th Ave).

A monitor in the chashama studio displays even more examples of Enriquez’s technique. You may want to put your children to bed before viewing the following clip.

YouTube - Link to video link

If you don’t have a view of the Lumacom from your office, they suggest that I in the Sky and the Lumacom are best seen in Manhattan on 42nd Street between 7th and 8th Avenues, and 9th Avenue at 44th Street. The portraits are also viewable from the New Jersey side of the Hudson.

chashama
112 W 44th St (between 6th and 7th Ave)
http://www.chashama.org

[More Video of I in the Sky - YouTube]

Madison Square Park is quite possibly one of the best parks in Manhattan. For starters it has the Shake Shack, where I had a delectable burger today for lunch.

Beyond Danny Meyer’s ode to fast food, Madison Square Park has the most amazing public art installations. Last year the park was home to one of my favorites, Roxy Paine’s trio of Conjoined, Defunct and Erratic. Not being a professional art critic, I’ll leave the descriptions to madisonsquarepark.org.

Conjoined is a 40-feet-tall sculpture of two trees whose branches cantilever in space and connect in mid air. Paine creates two different tree species with each branch of one joining to a branch of the other. For the observer, it is unclear where one tree begins and the other ends. Conjoined, with its gleaming steel branches and improbable marriage of two species, embodies man’s complex relationship with the empirical and utopian. As Ralph Waldo Emerson writes, “We want the Exact and the Vast; we want our Dreams, and our Mathematics.”

Defunct is a 42-feet-tall stainless steel sculpture of a dead or dying tree infiltrated with fungus. The trunk and limbs have deteriorated from disease or old age. The beauty of the once daunting, vibrant tree is shadowed by the growing rot and shelf fungus. The death of the tree has given life to the fungus. Defunct, a meditation on loss and life, describes the symbiosis between industry and earth, between production and natural selection.

Paine’s Erratic is his newest transformation of a natural phenomenon. Erratic is a stainless steel boulder measuring 7 feet high by 15 feet wide. The term “erratic” refers to a rock that is found in an area where it bears little or no relationship to the underlying geology. Essentially, it is a boulder that has been carried by a glacier hundreds of miles away from its original geographic location. Erratic’s slick exterior leaves its origin unexplained. It is a boulder displaced from somewhere between a mountain and a steel factory.

So basically they’re some shiny trees and rocks and they made me smile. You got a problem with that?

I was surprised to find these beauties being chopped to pieces today as I waited on line at the Shake Shack. They had a good run, I suppose it’s time to let another artist have their turn at bat.

And who is the next contestant on The Price is Right? That’d be British artist Richard Deacon, bringing his Seven Works to Madison Square Park. If these pictures are any indication, color me unimpressed. Any way we can reassemble the stainless steel trees? No? Crap.

If you can’t make it down to Madison Square Park before Paine’s work is gone for good, you’re in luck. I snapped a bunch of photos of the stainless steel tree carnage so you don’t have to.

Sure, you could go to the Empire State Building’s official website to check the lighting schedule, but they only display about two weeks worth of lighting information at any given time.

While this may seem adequate, once you’ve seen What Color is the Empire State Building? there is no turning back. Why read a description of the lights when you can view them in all their tri-colored glory. If you’re a Mac user, you can even download a handy dashboard widget, enabling you to become the defacto expert on Empire State Building lighting in your office.

Never feel emasculated by the Empire State Building lights again. Take that, American Heart Association, Go Red for Women Luncheon!

As one of these fantasy baseball managers, I have returned to the daily habit of checking Rotoworld for the latest news and rumors about players around the major and minor leagues. Today I caught a crucial piece of news that I had missed last night.

Kaz Matsui was a mysterious scratch from Friday’s lineup. The official diagnosis given was hemorrhoids. However, manager Cecil Cooper said after the game “it wasn’t what we thought it was.” Cooper guaranteed the second baseman will play on Saturday.

Wow. Is nothing sacred? Did Kaz volunteer this information to the team? I don’t know about you, but if I ever come down with a nasty case of ‘rhoids you’re never going to know about it.

This got me thinking. Are hemorrhoids a common ailment that keeps baseball players sidelined? A quick google search for ‘baseball hemorrhoids’ revealed that it was not. The last player publicly suffering from hemorrhoids was George Brett on the Kansas City Royals way back in 1980.

On that occasion, Brett removed himself from game two of the World Series versus the Philadelphia Phillies. Kaz is lucky it’s only spring training.

“Every time I got in the on-deck circle, every time I went someplace, everybody always had to make the wisecrack about hemorrhoids,” Brett recalls. But that unwelcome notoriety was erased when Brett hit the pine-tar home run three years later.

“Ever since July 24, 1983, now I’m the pine-tar guy. What would you rather be remembered as? So, in all honesty, it was the greatest thing that ever happened in my career.”

Man, that’s rough. So Kaz is going to have to do something in the realm of the famous pine tar incident or learn to live with the hemorrhoid cracks for the remainder of his career. Good luck with that.

While George Brett was the only other player to declare his hemorrhoids with pride, he wasn’t the only other baseball person. Don Zimmer, then bench coach of the New York Yankees, was featured in a Preparation H commercial in 2002.

“When I was approached by Preparation H, I thought this was a natural fit for me since I do use the product,” Zimmer said. “I also saw this as a great opportunity to poke a little fun at myself while being able to help others that are afflicted by this ailment.”

Ew Don, too much information.

Well, at least Kaz has another option. I’m sure Preparation H would love to break into the Japanese market. I’m imagining Bill Murray’s commercial for Suntory whiskey in the movie Lost in Translation, but with Kaz Matsui and hemorrhoid cream. Hopefully it won’t hurt his game with the ladies.

Yahoo is reporting that Kaz’s condition was “misdiagnosed as hemorrhoids”. I’m not a doctor, but what? How hard is it for a doctor to tell if the thing dangling from your ass is a hemorrhoid or not? Perhaps Matsui should get a second opinion. I hear the doctors in hemorrhoid city are excellent.

YouTube - Link to video link

[UPDATE - 3/4/2008]

Hemorrhoids are officially no longer the most painful / embarrassing injury in baseball. Twisted testicles are.

Relax, Sam Champion isn’t dead. He hasn’t even been fired by ABC News for doing something scandalous. In fact, Sam Champion is better than ever, and I’m simply using his name for comedic effect (that and to generate traffic to Why Love NY from what I assume are the millions of people searching for the phrase “Sam Champion’s penis”).

No, I really just want to point out a new feature that has been added to the site — weather! Look over to your right… a little further, now up a bit… just a little more… bingo!

Thanks to the wonderful WeatherIcon plugin for WordPress ABC can actually go ahead and fire Sam Champion while their millions of viewers come to Why Love NY to get the weather report (and with any luck, photos of the aforementioned weatherman’s wang).

The forecast will update automatically throughout the day, reporting the weather as recorded from Central Park’s Belvedere Castle. Now you have two reasons to come back to Why Love NY.

According to Rising Sun:

A team of highly unskilled non-academics perform improvised abridged versions of the great works of literature as chosen by the audience based on nothing more than an unabridged plot summary. Sporknotes is a 45 Minute set of Intellectual mockery and Literary blasphemy, set in motion by audience suggestions of both Classic & Obscure Literature, the troupe of improvisers and actors bring the stories to life with little to no knowledge of the story line, guided only by online student study guides!

Still confused? Me too. Sporknotes is inspired by SparkNotes, which appear to be the hipper version of CliffsNotes minus the Cliff. Cast members improv the stories you neglected to read in high school and the best part is that you get to pick which ones.

Still scratching your head? Ok, check out this video.

YouTube - Link to video link

Alright, perhaps the show has something to do with Rocky? Admittedly, it’s tough to discern what is going on in the clip, but the concept has potential. The show kicks off tonight at 10:30pm at the Kraine Theater in the East Village and runs through March 7th.

Tickets are only $12, and the show will be playing on the following dates and times.

Thursday 2/28, 10:30PM
Friday 2/29, 9PM
Sunday 3/2, 2:30PM
Thursday 3/6, 6PM
Friday 3/7, 6PM

Check it out people, before it’s too late! Oh, and that’s a Snork up there at the top of the page. You can thank Captain Aardsy for inspiring that.

The Kraine Theater
85 E 4th St (between 2nd and 3rd Ave)
212.777.6088