April 20, 2002
Big Apple Blog Bash Recap! (No pictures, though.) First of all, great big buckets of thank yous go out to the doubly effervescent Asparagirl and Orchid for organizing the shindig. It was even more successful than the first NYC Blogger Bash, and far more successful than the sparsely attended "Let's Help the Illuminated Donkey Re-Tile His Bathroom Blog Bash" last month. There were at least 30-40 good-hearted souls at the quite cool Musical Box last night, and there wasn't a rotten apple in the bushel.
Before I continue this rambling: to those of you out there who might not be near one of the big blogging epicenters, I cannot suggest strongly enough that you still try and organize your own blog bash, as you will not meet a smarter, friendlier, more interesting, or more wickedly cute group of folks anywhere. Where have all the good folks gone? Well, they're all blogging, meaning that they're spending large amounts of time alone...typing away...searching the web...which is a touch depressing when I think about it so let's just move on, shall we?
My evening did not get off to a promising start as an insane storm knocked my building's power out (still out when I returned home many hours later), forcing me to dress in the dark and halting my last minute blog-cramming ("Oh, Mike, of course I know who you are! You do that...blog about the...stuff."), not to mention precipitating an extremely wet walk to the PATH. Everything had calmed down by the time I made my way into NYC and over to Alphabet City, where I was met on Avenue B by a mischievously friendly face (and hat) from the aforementioned NYCBB1, Nick Marsala. If there's trouble happening, Mr. Marsala is most likely on the scene. Nick was accompanied by the dangerously delightful Ravenwolf, a charmer who made the evening a success before we even found the bar.
I finally made my way in, ordered a beer, put on my nametag (nice touch!), and discovered a few other friendly faces: Amy Langfield, Clay Waters, Raghu (I still owe you a drink, buddy), and of course, Megan McArdle, once again the center of attention. Let me just say that after spending several hours next to Megan and Asparagirl, I can totally see what drove Sean Penn nuts. I still see the flashbulbs when I close my eyes.
The night was spent talking, drinking, eating free pizza (well, free to me; thanks a dozen, Mr. Steve Kuhn!), rocking out to some 80's hits, meeting new people and matching faces to some long-read blogs. In the latter category were the mysterious Dr. Weevil (cue theme song), the dashingly sly Lane McFadden, and the extremely interesting Walter Olson of Overlawyered.com, which is a perfect example of what these blogs are good for.
Among the new faces (and blogs) I enjoyed meeting were the charming Sasha Castel, (sorry, ran out of adjectives) Ernest Miller of LawMeme, the Pigs and Fishes posse, Caryn Solly, Damien Falgoust, Paul Frankenstein, and many, many others who now remind me how bad I am with names. Feel free to e-mail me if you were one of the forgotten.
There were even a couple of non-blogging "lurkers" at the event, reminding us all that, unbelievable as it may sound, there are people out there who might be reading this and yet do not have a blog of their own. Shocking, I know. On that note, there's nothing cooler than somebody telling me that he reads The Donk regularly and enjoys it, and whoever that guy was I thank him heartily.
It almost goes without saying that I had a great time, and that all of these people are even more interesting and fun to be around than you would imagine by reading their sites. As for what I learned? I learned that you shouldn't trust the bartender when he says a beer is very Hefeweizen-like (at least not enough to put the lemon in), that if you have a specific editorial vision and goal then adding assistants might not be a good idea (of course, this means nothing to us at The Donk, but it's still interesting), that right now there a girl in her teens preparing to carry on the Megan/Asparagirl doppelganger line, that it's far more difficult to give away pizza to drunk people in a bar than you might imagine, that if you have enough beers you can pretend that all those flashbulbs are really people trying to take pictures of you, that Duran Duran gets the party started quickly, that just because a site may mention the word "Donkey" people think you're a Democrat, that if you wear your nametags out on the streets of Manhattan people will give you strange looks, and finally, that bloggers are good peoples. See you next time, kids!
Before I continue this rambling: to those of you out there who might not be near one of the big blogging epicenters, I cannot suggest strongly enough that you still try and organize your own blog bash, as you will not meet a smarter, friendlier, more interesting, or more wickedly cute group of folks anywhere. Where have all the good folks gone? Well, they're all blogging, meaning that they're spending large amounts of time alone...typing away...searching the web...which is a touch depressing when I think about it so let's just move on, shall we?
My evening did not get off to a promising start as an insane storm knocked my building's power out (still out when I returned home many hours later), forcing me to dress in the dark and halting my last minute blog-cramming ("Oh, Mike, of course I know who you are! You do that...blog about the...stuff."), not to mention precipitating an extremely wet walk to the PATH. Everything had calmed down by the time I made my way into NYC and over to Alphabet City, where I was met on Avenue B by a mischievously friendly face (and hat) from the aforementioned NYCBB1, Nick Marsala. If there's trouble happening, Mr. Marsala is most likely on the scene. Nick was accompanied by the dangerously delightful Ravenwolf, a charmer who made the evening a success before we even found the bar.
I finally made my way in, ordered a beer, put on my nametag (nice touch!), and discovered a few other friendly faces: Amy Langfield, Clay Waters, Raghu (I still owe you a drink, buddy), and of course, Megan McArdle, once again the center of attention. Let me just say that after spending several hours next to Megan and Asparagirl, I can totally see what drove Sean Penn nuts. I still see the flashbulbs when I close my eyes.
The night was spent talking, drinking, eating free pizza (well, free to me; thanks a dozen, Mr. Steve Kuhn!), rocking out to some 80's hits, meeting new people and matching faces to some long-read blogs. In the latter category were the mysterious Dr. Weevil (cue theme song), the dashingly sly Lane McFadden, and the extremely interesting Walter Olson of Overlawyered.com, which is a perfect example of what these blogs are good for.
Among the new faces (and blogs) I enjoyed meeting were the charming Sasha Castel, (sorry, ran out of adjectives) Ernest Miller of LawMeme, the Pigs and Fishes posse, Caryn Solly, Damien Falgoust, Paul Frankenstein, and many, many others who now remind me how bad I am with names. Feel free to e-mail me if you were one of the forgotten.
There were even a couple of non-blogging "lurkers" at the event, reminding us all that, unbelievable as it may sound, there are people out there who might be reading this and yet do not have a blog of their own. Shocking, I know. On that note, there's nothing cooler than somebody telling me that he reads The Donk regularly and enjoys it, and whoever that guy was I thank him heartily.
It almost goes without saying that I had a great time, and that all of these people are even more interesting and fun to be around than you would imagine by reading their sites. As for what I learned? I learned that you shouldn't trust the bartender when he says a beer is very Hefeweizen-like (at least not enough to put the lemon in), that if you have a specific editorial vision and goal then adding assistants might not be a good idea (of course, this means nothing to us at The Donk, but it's still interesting), that right now there a girl in her teens preparing to carry on the Megan/Asparagirl doppelganger line, that it's far more difficult to give away pizza to drunk people in a bar than you might imagine, that if you have enough beers you can pretend that all those flashbulbs are really people trying to take pictures of you, that Duran Duran gets the party started quickly, that just because a site may mention the word "Donkey" people think you're a Democrat, that if you wear your nametags out on the streets of Manhattan people will give you strange looks, and finally, that bloggers are good peoples. See you next time, kids!
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