Here’s my review of Soul Daddy, the winning restaurant from America’s Next Great Restaurant.

(Thanks to blog reader JK for taking all the photos.)

Hello! Here’s my bin Laden-saturated recap of the final episode of America’s Next Great Restaurant! Read it and weep.

Holy smokes, we’ve got a big Lollygaggin’ show planned for you this Thursday! Guests will be Janeane Garofalo, Max Silvestri, and two great cartoonists: Michael Kupperman (Tales Designed to Thrizzle) and Scott Dikkers (Jim’s Journal, the Onion).

Also, I will interview a man who was trapped inside the Park Slope Food Coop and lived to tell the tale!

Please come and bring a friend!

Hello blog!

I’m hosting a live cartoon event tonight called Fisticuffs. It features New Yorker cartoonists making up funny cartoons on the spot based on audience suggestions. It’s going to be really fun.

We’re rounding up cartoonists, putting them into teams and letting them battle it out the only way cartoonists know how to battle—by drawing cartoons! The format is simple: The audience provides the topics and the cartoonists let it rip. It’s like Iron Chef, but the secret ingredient is punch lines instead of asparagus. Cartoonists don’t often perform in public without the benefit of their usual crutches: a comfortable desk, oodles of time, bathtubs full of whiskey. So this is a rare opportunity. There will also be a surprise musical guest for your entertainment, just in case you actually need more entertainment.

Date & Time: Wed, Apr 27, 2011, 7:00pm
Location: 92YTribeca, 200 Hudson Street
Venue: 92YTribeca Mainstage
Price: $15.00

I will probably interrupt the proceedings to discuss the burning issue of Jake Gyllenhaal’s height.

Hope to see you there!

Your pal,
David Rees

Kale wars! Oldboy! Christ’s ascension! Monkey brains! The latest ANGR recap is here.

Please enjoy the latest ANGR recap, which has been stripped of a few obnoxious jokes for your reading pleasure.

Photos by Eric Stephan

Here’s the latest recap of America’s Next Great Restaurant.

I got some nice feedback about last week’s Friday Face Off.

From longtime a reader (and accomplished musician):

Hey, just saw your latest blog post — I haven’t had time to check it out thoroughly but I just want to say that the only KP song I know is California Girls (sic), which I think is an awesome song.  I remember being really against it when I first heard it, in large part because I’m a huge music snob, etc. etc. but I have concluded that it is a truly great pop song.  The thing that clinched it for me was seeing her on SNL and I realized that she is a pretty impressive musician and performer, and she was actually singing while jumping around instead of lip synching and her band is actually funking it up and can play.  So there you go.  Am I jealous of her and other super-successful musicians?  Yes, and it makes me hate so many of them, but I have decided that KP is legit.  So there we go.  One person’s opinion.

From reader RO:

Thank you thank you thank you for the Friday Face-Off. This Friday’s FFO was awesome! It made my day.

Backstory: The previous night I’d been disappointed to learn that the video I submitted for a (REDACTED) competition had not been recognized for its obvious greatness. I was bumming. Then your FFO brought me back up.

I should probably also say that FFO played a major influence in my video. FFO feels very cutting-edge, insofar as it celebrates this new phenomenon of making public what are often private or at least very personal expressions of joy via the internet …. In spite of the rough production quality of these videos, there’s usually a strong visceral appeal that makes you just a little more in love with the human race after experiencing it. Who doesn’t want that?

ANSWER: We all want that!

Speaking of music and personal expression, boy did I get a real taste last night. After I was done hosting Lollygaggin’ (which was so much fun, thanks to everyone who came out), a gang of us went to a bar to sing karaoke. The Thursday-night karaoke scene at this place is kinda insular — mostly people who know each other and sing with a lot of talent even if I don’t always like their repertoire (Tool, Rob Zombie, et al). Last night the place was more crowded than usual and I saw a guy holding a huge tray of shots and I said “What’s the occasion” and he said everyone had just come from a wake; turns out the karaoke scene had lost a good friend. The deceased was best friends with the karaoke DJ (who is himself a talented singer). So the first song of the night was dedicated to the late friend. It was “With or Without You” by the famous Irish band U2. And the performance of the song was … the karaoke DJ and another friend hugging in silence on stage for the duration of the (wordless) song. Very intense. It motivated all of us to bring our A-game. Unfortunately they didn’t have the song I wanted (“Cowboy Song” by Thin Lizzy), and I didn’t totally kill “When You Were Young” by the Killers. But that’s okay because blog reader JK went a little haywire on “Just the Two Of Us,” and took the crowd into an unfamiliar emotional realm, which seemed appropriate for the evening.

Hello everybody on the internet. The next Lollygaggin’ show is tomorrow night (Thursday). We’ve put together a great line-up of super-funny females.

Please come to the show! It starts at 7:00 PM and only costs $5. Luca is a nice, low-key bar and I think it’s the perfect place to lollygag.

Best wishes from your friend,
David Rees