Sign up for Lush Life
|
Sign up for Lush Life Recent Stories:Search |
StoriesIggy Pop: corporate Stooge or just The Idiot?By Dave Harrison
It's a sad day when you stumble across Iggy Pop, the godfather of punk himself, jumping around like a hyper child in need of Ritalin, hawking insurance. In our version, Iggy was flipping the channels one night after coming home from a long evening of cutting his chest, smearing it with peanut butter and shooting up Draino, when he comes across an hour-long infomercial for the Yacht Rock Hits collection, hosted by Air Supply. Completely baffled and angered, he switches channels, only to find Smokey Robinson selling hair products, Linda Ronstadt promoting her line of sweaters on QVC and Robert Plant exhorting the comfort and pleasure of a particular brand of adult diapers. "We have to change this," he says out loud in his empty living room. "The rock star corporate puppet model needs an overhaul and I'm the man to do it!" After minutes of searching the Internet, Iggy finds a small car insurance company that only seems to operate in Northern Ireland, and lays out his plan to them. He will do the commercial for free, but it has to be short and of a quality and ferocity unknown in rock 'n roll advertising up until now. They agree (mostly because he only asks for a bag of cocaine and a pair of leather chaps as payment) and an ad is made where Iggy flails around and yells about his birth certificate. He is convinced that it will be a hit. Unfortunately, much like the first Stooges record, no one cares and his vision does not change the face of corporate advertising. The Air Supply ad continues to play, Smokey and Linda still sell their products to mass acclaim and Iggy is left hoping that someday, maybe years from now, people will understand his ideas. He is a visionary, and sometimes it takes more than a single viewing of Swiftcover in order to understand the complexity and depth of what he is saying about society. Maybe it will take some time, but he will eventually be acknowledged for being ahead of the trends yet again. He turns off the television and goes to sleep with a smile on his face. Or, more likely, he needed some money to buy golf clubs and this company offered him a butt-load of money to whore himself out. Yeah, that's probably it... Real World Brooklyn betting lines: Yes, we suspect it will be this maddeningBy Dave Harrison
Real World Brooklyn premieres tonight on MTV, ending the speculations among hipsters everywhere about who are these people and what will MTV do to Brooklyn’s nightlife. With only hours to go before the premier, Brooklyn and the rest of the country will have to find out together. Yes, there is little else to do except sit on your second-hand couch in your loft and stare open-mouthed at your television, watching the train wreck. Well, sort of. We are Lush Life are not ones for sitting idly while this show of mass destruction takes to the air waves. Tonight, we are taking bets on what we think will go down during this charade. Feel free to ad your own, but here is what we are betting on: — Cast gets lost trying to find their apartment, instead ends up drunkenly sleeping on Firmhokken beds at Red Hook Ikea: 2-1 — Cast member brings home an employee from Barcade: 4-1
— After getting the secret phone number for Milk & Honey the cast is bared from ever returning for attempting to order Chocolatinis: 3-1 — The cast opens their own shop in Williamsburg, selling coffee tables made out of recycled laundry detergent bottles. No one shops there: 5-1 — Half the cast ends up in the ER after drinking the Chateau Diana, the — Homely girl joins a hipster knitting circle, and finds sexual empowerment in knitting her own sexy underwear and vibrator covers: 5-2 — After hearing about Electroclash the cast takes a trip to Luxx on Grand St., only to find Trash Bar in it's place. They sing karaoke until 3am and one of them goes home with Eric, the bartender: 4-1 — Punk cast member goes vegan after eating a faux chili dog at Foodswings, chastises the rest of the group for the rest of the season for eating meat: 12-1 — After buying coke from a small child on a bicycle, the group goes out dancing, but mistakenly ends up at a Russian club in Brighton Beach. Hilarity ensues: 8-1 So, sit back tonight with a drink in your hand and see if we're right. Either way, Real World Brooklyn can definitely be as ridiculous as we think it might. ArchipelagoBy Allan Katz
With the president telling the world he’s got a plan to save everybody’s economies and casual lower-impact fare on every restaurateur’s mind, isn’t it a little Clinton-era for a name chef to fly into town to cook Japanese-French fusion in a beautifully appointed restaurant on the western tip of Soho? Well, we at Lush Life are suckers for a good throwback (I’m still bumpin’ Latyrx like it’s ‘98), and Archipelago is no exception. Being fortunate enough to attend a friends and family seating, we got a taste of what their site means when it proclaims a “new wave of French-Japanese nouvelle cuisine.” In culinary terms, it’s not far off from Asiate, the first restaurant that comes to mind from that proclamation. The kitchen perches itself on a high-wire with Salmon crackling in one hand and Cabernet-Yuzu reduction for a reinterpreted Cote de Beuf in the other. Like Norie Sugie, Chef Osaka seems to be plenty cool with taking risks when culling preparations from both cultures. The space is decidedly different, though. The warmth of the room’s design, the open kitchen, and the casually confident service immediately encourage you to relax, you’re safely downtown, not umpteen stories above Columbus Circle. Highlights included Usuzukuri, an artfully composed appetizer featuring Fluke cradling bites of scallion and yuzu bathed by a clam gelee. The sensation that this thing is great doesn’t hit you until the finish. There’s a definite pay-off in the restraint placed upon the flavor of each ingredient to create a harmonious plate. The menu has an entire section between mains and dessert, Shokuji. I thought, “Alright… clever… ‘Appetizer: The Sequel.’” After ordering the Chawan Mushi, I don’t care whatever American dining habits may eventually make of the course. It’s my official remedy for winter. At first glimpse, it’s deceptively plain. As a server uncovers a small pot there’s no fanfare for the single large ravioli staring up at you. Breaking it releases a perfectly spiced filling of green curry that enlivens the layers of dashi custard and sticky rice risotto that were hidden beneath it. Made aromatic by the chicken jus that ties it all together, this is an intensely satisfying dish that would be perfect alongside a good lager at the bar while the wind howls outside. More surprising than the Chawan Mushi was a vodka martini that explodes the notion that a vodka martini be little more than a chaser for post-Botox treatment pharmaceuticals. Yeah, that is my notion. The Parisian uses Grey Goose as a canvas upon which to delicately paint an aperitif teeming with soft and savory flavors. This is not just a Vesper without gin and bitters. And this wouldn’t be the Lush Life if we didn’t tell you how to make one (way easier to make than Usuzukuri), so before you get to the slideshow here’s our adaptation of GM Susan Lee’s recipe… The Parisian
This may be more like a rhinoceros than water or Elvis Costello at The Apollo TheaterBy Dave Harrison
At Lush Life, the perks are endless. One of the greatest things about writing for this blog is the opportunity to experience once in a lifetime events for free. So today, I get a call from Lindsey, asking me if I would like to go see Elvis Costello at The Apollo. Of course I said yes, considering that Mr. Costello is one of my all-time favorite artists. Sure, he hasn't put out a consistently great album since the Reagan administration, but hell, he might play "Radio, Radio," and that's good enough for me. Secondly, she tells me that he is appearing with Jenny Lewis from Rilo Kiley (a guilty pleasure, I admit), and She & Him. She tells me to meet Leo (our other main Lush Lifer) at the theater at 7pm. What follows is a timeline of my experience at the show. It may not be all that literary, but it's a look inside the mind of a pretty big Costello fan as his dreams and worship of an idol is slowly crushed. Enjoy!
9:09pm: Elvis interviews Jakob Dylan. He is wearing a cowboy hat. The stage just got a lot less attractive. Now there are two stupid hats on one stage. Dylan just used the word "compadre". What an asshole.
We trashed the Mr. & Miss Williamsburg Pageant and all we got was this lousy emailBy Dave Harrison
We speak our mind here at Lush Life, whether or not it gets us in trouble. Unlike some other "blogs" that are simply shills for companies and business interests, we speak our minds when something rubs us the wrong way. That's why it was of little surprise to us when we checked our email not six hours after posting about the upcoming Mr. & Mrs. Williamsburg Pageant and found this: From: "mrandmiss williamsburg" Yes, that's right, we had our press passes revoked for a FREE EVENT! How much do you want to bet that this woman sits around googling herself all day? Oh, when she's not out stealing beer.... Stay Classy Long IslandBy Ryan Patrick
“Hey there muscly arm, wanna popsicle, they’re in my basement”
Photo Courtesy of PlainOldBob.Com |
|