MeFiNYC Winter 2003

January 10, 2003 11:03 PM

MeFiNYC Winter 2003 was great fun, unless you happened to be the monkey. It had sex, drugs, death threats, and '80s pop.
posted by riffola to MetaFilter Gatherings at 11:03 PM (72 comments total)

Where's the [more] that's supposed to be [inside]?

*sniff, sob*
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 11:52 PM on January 10, 2003

Pictures! I (and I know I'm not alone) demand pictures!

of course, the guy that doesn't drink (IIRC) is the one home in time to post the MeTa thread :)
posted by Ufez Jones at 11:54 PM on January 10, 2003

Oh fine here ya go MeFiNYC Winter 2003 pictures. :)
posted by riffola at 11:55 PM on January 10, 2003

Hee hee. Looks like you guys had fun.
posted by Hildago at 11:59 PM on January 10, 2003

If I had a nickel for every time I got drunk with friends and a monkey showed up and then we put a condom on a monkey, then prayed to that monkey...

I'd be broke
posted by mathowie (staff) at 6:39 AM on January 11, 2003

And simultaneously all three of them were struck crippling gas pain...

Actually pips and I had a blast, great seeing some old pals and meeting some new ones...Koko may need gender dysphoria therapy but that's a whole other story.
posted by jonmc at 10:15 AM on January 11, 2003

More pictures here. I had a great time meeting everyone!
posted by Songdog at 10:16 AM on January 11, 2003

ufez, yeah I was one of the two there that didn't drink alchohol.

Re: The death threat, a banned MeFi member came into #mefi and threatened to kill a fellow MeFi member at MeFiNYC.
posted by riffola at 10:16 AM on January 11, 2003

Yah, 'twas fun to meet a group of such interesting folks.

And monkeys.
posted by Vidiot at 10:20 AM on January 11, 2003

By the way folks, please let me know (songdog at songdog dot net) if I butchered your name or anything, and I'll fix the captions. You can also post comments on the pics, if you want to.
posted by Songdog at 10:29 AM on January 11, 2003

Next meet up is at a Karaoke bar, so far seven have agreed to it.
posted by riffola at 10:40 AM on January 11, 2003

There are way too many of you in NYC...it's like a monopoly. Plus it makes me feel so provincial. Stop it.
posted by rushmc at 10:48 AM on January 11, 2003

Will you post mp3s?
posted by Fabulon7 at 10:48 AM on January 11, 2003

Goneill's red eyes seem to be catching. Sorry I couldn't be there as well! It's good to see pictures of everyone - but jeez, be more careful with the monkeys, will you?
posted by yhbc at 10:50 AM on January 11, 2003

Re: The death threat, a banned MeFi member came into #mefi and threatened to kill a fellow MeFi member at MeFiNYC.

Details please? Was this serious? *drums fingers on tabletop*
posted by y2karl at 11:08 AM on January 11, 2003

Can we get nametags next time?

Or at least bring palm pilots and beam our names around?

I met a bunch of people, but since I'm 10% deaf, I couldn't hear who they were.

Plus, I was there with someone, and I saw no pictures of me. I'm hurt.
posted by swerdloff at 11:10 AM on January 11, 2003

This picture is insane?

I had a delightful time and... guess what? Meeting you freaks made me like MetaFilter much more than I did before.
posted by RJ Reynolds at 11:23 AM on January 11, 2003

Re: The death threat, a banned MeFi member came into #mefi and threatened to kill a fellow MeFi member at MeFiNYC.

I can see the New York Post headline,

GEEKS MOWED DOWN IN EAST VILLAGE WATERING HOLE! Rabbit Fur and Pancake Batter Found at Scene. Authorities Baffled.
posted by jonmc at 11:25 AM on January 11, 2003

swerdloff - you could all wear shirts, or for those of you who hit it off particularly well, perhaps something a little more intimate...
posted by jonson at 11:33 AM on January 11, 2003

Oh, no.
posted by nicwolff at 11:54 AM on January 11, 2003

But it came in handy, nic, you have to admit. btw, sorry i didn't have time to make you and jonmc breakfast.
posted by RJ Reynolds at 12:10 PM on January 11, 2003

There is the disturbing possibility that publically discussing the "death threat" might tend to encourage attention-seeking sociopathic nutters...

...but, not surprisingly, that's a risk that I'm certainly willing to take.

Whassup?

(Or, was the incident smaller than its implication?)
posted by Opus Dark at 12:10 PM on January 11, 2003

So sad I wasn't able to make it to this one. Looking forward to next time (summer?)
posted by adampsyche at 12:32 PM on January 11, 2003

Oh, it should be sooner than summer.
posted by Songdog at 12:33 PM on January 11, 2003

Point, I forgot about the shirts. And nothing says "I'm friendly" like asking a total stranger to turn around so I can look at his or her back.

If anyofyoucallmeacheekymonkeyforthatthere'sgonnabetrouble.

I still like nametags, though. Hell, someone develop RFID nametags so rather than looking, it'll announce the people nearest to you in a little grid like system on your palm. "Nearby mefites" or something.
posted by swerdloff at 12:41 PM on January 11, 2003

we're discussing a pan-european meetup in Amsterdam in #mefi...i'll fly over too (as long as it's off-season)...

and more on the death threat tk
posted by amberglow at 12:41 PM on January 11, 2003

swerdloff - You'd have really seemed friendly if we were wearing the other item that jonson suggested. Fortunately none of were...or were we?
posted by Songdog at 12:44 PM on January 11, 2003

It was great to meet everyone and shake koko's hand. (I left before the gender switch; I'm not sure whether to be sorry or relieved.)
posted by languagehat at 12:56 PM on January 11, 2003

So, did he--as he claims in his email to me--threaten to kick ...'s ass or kill him? There is, to some, a bit of difference. Curious mind wants to know.
posted by y2karl at 1:29 PM on January 11, 2003

oh how sad I am to have missed out. But MeFiRoke? That's just damned frightening.
posted by BT at 1:35 PM on January 11, 2003

amsterdam?
ach im gonna have to get one of those mefi shirts now..
aye cheers for posting the photos , it looked quite jolly..
why , miss witchstone , you're beautiful !
i didnt know frank black was a mefi member ! wow !
posted by sgt.serenity at 3:25 PM on January 11, 2003

So the night ended as they all end: former strangers walking off into the darkness, as couples or alone, in the biting snow.

We are, some of us, reclusive. We withdraw into a corner and observe. Not Jonmc nor his woman: outgoing, engaging, the grout in the evening. No, we are observers: standers-aside, chroniclers, journalers, voyeurs with pretentions of anthropological distance. On the edge you could see clearly:

Digital cameras, the new curse, ever-present, mediating through 3.1 megapixels every event, large or small, and a number of shots of backs of heads and floor. Having now seen the contact sheets and having made my selects with the wax pencil, I can say with certainty that the evening was not fully captured: we seemed many more than we were, and we mixed, and like the tide we ebbed and flowed from the table to the window seat, from the bar to the dart boards, and trips and trains of people to the bathrooms.

Everyone was frightened of the pool table—for which I take credit having given due warning—except for Metrocake, who is frightened of nothing except tickling of the midsection, although ass grabs were fair play. I have never cupped an ass as much. Too, men with pierced lips and coke-habit thinness may grab a breast in metal bars, where I felt both old and young for knowing the words to Ratt songs. You were not there: jpoulos was. I have yet today to wash my ass-cupping hands: they feel sainted and holy, and the orthodox church on Second Street has asked for them after my death, though the Mormons are in competition. Perhaps one to each, for I have two to spare, though my heart is taken; it is a baked potato and I have three seconds to live.

Evanizer: a man or two among men, but chagrinned, I think, at the surplus of straight booty. RJ Reynolds: dapper, be-tied, in the company of the Gawker girl, who, sharp and conscious, appeared to be addressing three or four layers of subtext in each sentence, or perhaps composing the nth post of the day in her head to appease the blogger-driver, her boss; a paid blogger's life is rich only in subtext. RJ, and Riffola, and myself: the Undrinking. Sober 'til the end and better for it, or richer, and certainly more patient.

I have a list of free things to do: a zine from Goneill cut-and-pasted, so old school it made me feel both young and old. The night was an education, a growing, and we passed from childhood to adolescence to adulthood and quickly again to infancy. Regulars began to arrive around 11 and we no longer had the floor: other people, better dressed, perhaps, but unfriendlier they were, and though we were the irregulars, we felt like arrivistés, and we danced in the hot lights of the darts floor. We flirted, fondled, felt the regulars and they began to like us, admire us, because we were real. Unlikely names we gave, true, but authentic. The genuine article of eager, willing-to-meet, not-afraid-of-this-interwebnet-type-thingy people.
posted by Mo Nickels at 3:50 PM on January 11, 2003

Word.
posted by Stan Chin at 3:54 PM on January 11, 2003

I mean witchstone. That's the ass. I swear, I had nothing to drink.

Oh yeah: cowboy sally was there. Very cheery.
posted by Mo Nickels at 3:55 PM on January 11, 2003

Mo Nickels, I wasn't too terribly jealous until I read that, and now I'm considering keeping a JetBlue flight to NYC on standby at all times in case of another meetup.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 3:55 PM on January 11, 2003

I am seething with jealousy.
posted by ColdChef at 3:59 PM on January 11, 2003

Mo -- thanks for clearing up the ass-thing. You had me thinking, "Um, but I..." for quite a few minutes there.

Also, I'm not at all ticklish, much to my husband's chagrin...
posted by metrocake at 4:02 PM on January 11, 2003

mo nickels that is one badass post.

some fucking bastard from new orleans didn't leave a message.
posted by goneill at 4:04 PM on January 11, 2003

Wait, there was fondling? Shit...can I have a do-over?
posted by Vidiot at 4:09 PM on January 11, 2003

:: after viewing pictures ::

O dear Gods. OK, see, Evan, there's a *reason* why I duck out of photographs...

:: aghast! ::
posted by metrocake at 4:10 PM on January 11, 2003

Thank you Mo, I don't think I've ever been called "grout" before. Spackle, sure, but grout, no.

Wait, there was fondling?

Yes, vidiot, there was...and next time at least kiss me first.
posted by jonmc at 4:13 PM on January 11, 2003

some fucking bastard from new orleans didn't leave a message.

Words escaped me. Sorry.
posted by ColdChef at 4:16 PM on January 11, 2003

...well, you did whip out the condom right away...
posted by Vidiot at 4:17 PM on January 11, 2003

"OK, see, Evan, there's a *reason* why I duck out of photographs... "

Metrocake honey, I'd hit it.

:)
posted by mr_crash_davis at 4:31 PM on January 11, 2003

crash, brotha, not that I disagree, but I've met metrocakes man, he could pound most people into yogurt.
posted by jonmc at 4:35 PM on January 11, 2003

that was you! well, i never...
posted by goneill at 4:35 PM on January 11, 2003

I cloned Timmy's phone.
posted by ColdChef at 4:54 PM on January 11, 2003

Not Jonmc nor his woman
"his woman"?
posted by quonsar at 5:15 PM on January 11, 2003

Exhibit A, brother quonsar. going on 8 years together now.
posted by jonmc at 5:28 PM on January 11, 2003

timmy, where are you timmy?
posted by goneill at 5:37 PM on January 11, 2003

Wow. Mo's thousand words paint a much more compelling picture than the garish amalgam dispensed by the digicams...Hallelujah...I hereby resurrect my treasured preconceptions.
posted by Opus Dark at 5:53 PM on January 11, 2003

More pictures here....
posted by evanizer at 7:19 PM on January 11, 2003

Thanks for the pics, Evan (you monkeyhater, you). Did anyone buy you a drink like I begged them to?
posted by ColdChef at 7:24 PM on January 11, 2003

jonmc: i thought mo nickels use of "his woman" was an odd turn of phrase for this liberated age. i wasn't calling into question your competence in "acquiring" one.
posted by quonsar at 7:29 PM on January 11, 2003

heh. Competence.

I can hear the babes now, "That jonmc. Damn, he's competent, girlfreind..."
posted by jonmc at 7:31 PM on January 11, 2003

All of you are just a bunch of wanton crackwhore trollops!
_{and I missed out}

posted by Quixoticlife at 8:12 PM on January 11, 2003

We flirted, fondled, felt the regulars and they began to like us, admire us, because we were real.

That is a wonderful thing.
posted by Quixoticlife at 8:20 PM on January 11, 2003

*curses the gods for keeping him away*

next time folks... next time
posted by 10sball at 10:42 PM on January 11, 2003

Jesus, people. I was afraid I would come off as worse than I did, both in the pictures and in person.

You all, however, came off way better now that I have seen you in all your various states of carousal. Your occasional online vindictivenesses and contentiousnesses pale in the face of your grace, at least in that place.

Thanks, everyone, for a lovely evening. [claps hands] Again! Again! Can we? Huh, can we?
posted by chicobangs at 11:49 PM on January 11, 2003

I've got pictures -- but they're mostly of monkies. (And they're FUNNY, damnit!)
posted by metrocake at 9:40 AM on January 12, 2003

metrocake, great pictures. What's odd is that I failed to notice the "Sleep Late" sign.
posted by riffola at 9:44 AM on January 12, 2003

too much not to drink, riff.
posted by quonsar at 10:21 AM on January 12, 2003

So the night ended as they all end: former strangers walking off into the darkness, as couples or alone, in the biting snow...

When the deep purple scrolls
In a diarrhetic flow
All this bombast makes one want to cry
Your drunken fuchsia screed
Far too tedious to read--
This is your deep purple prose

And yet still it does ring
Endless bombast dizzying
You may be gone
But the flood pours on
In sodden reams
Enough to make the eyes bleed
If once again I must read
Far too much deep purple prose

At the length of your endless spiel
My mind, it will always reel
Reading your deep purple prose
posted by y2karl at 10:30 AM on January 12, 2003

(Thanks, y2karl: you seem to be the only one who picked up my intent—to make something of nothing.)
posted by Mo Nickels at 10:42 AM on January 12, 2003

If that was your intent, then you've also managed to make nothing out of something...
There's a job waiting for you at Gawker, I think.
posted by Opus Dark at 10:58 AM on January 12, 2003

*turns green with envy*
posted by dg at 4:07 PM on January 12, 2003

*reminds self not to get in front of group with digital cameras anymore*

All of those pictures seemed like a good idea at the time. I guess my vodka and tonics were doing the thinking.

And evanizer, you still owe me for the lap dance. You said you'd pay me ten bucks to get off of you.
posted by witchstone at 7:33 AM on January 13, 2003

You said you'd pay me ten bucks to get off of you.

Hmm. The first time I read that I transposed some of the words at the end. Very different meaning, I assure you. Although, in context, the original is the only one that makes sense.
posted by pardonyou? at 7:49 AM on January 13, 2003

Ah, I'm glad that the only record of my presence involves my imitation of being disgusted. Or bulemic.

Seriously, it was fun meeting y'all.
posted by mkultra at 8:39 AM on January 13, 2003

May I add that evanizer has great taste in hats.
posted by languagehat at 9:27 AM on January 13, 2003

No.
posted by witchstone at 9:39 AM on January 13, 2003

And to think, all the while I'm down with the stomach flu, cringing on cold bathroom tiles in Queens.
posted by muckster at 12:44 AM on January 14, 2003