Well, it's not the matchup that the media, the NBA, TheSportsWatchers.com or even most fans wanted to see, but it is the matchup we have been dealt. And we at Black Oak Nights Entertainment are dealing with it like any rational thinking person would: by drinking!
The Orlando Magic and the Los Angeles Lakers will face off in the NBA Finals beginning this Thursday, June 4th at 9 P.M.
Game 1 will be on ABC and televised live from Los Angeles. However, you can still enjoy the action in an arena-like setting right here in New York City by joining the fine folks at Black Oak Nights for an evening of NBA basketball at the uptown Village Pourhouse.
That's right, Black Oak Nights will be leading the troops to the Upper West Side to watch what promises to be an entertaining series between superstars Kobe Bryant and Dwight Howard.
The Village Pourhouse (located at 982 Amsterdam Avenue, New York, NY) is the absolute perfect spot to enjoy this series.
They have plenty of televisions, and all of them are assured to be tuned to the NBA Finals, so you will never be too far away from the action.
The menu is full of bar delicacies and complete entrees that are sure to satisfy the hunger of most patrons.
I personally recommend the Smothered Hand Cut Fries, but that's just one of the many incredibly exquisite appetizers and meals to choose from.
Thursday nights are also Trivia and Beer Pong Nights, and there will be $5 Jager Bombs, Car Bombs, Dr. Pepper Drops and Skittle Bombs from 10pm to midnight.
So come by this Thursday night with a slew of other young, black professionals, and check out what Village Pourhouse and the Upper West Side have to offer!
The game tips at 9pm ET, and Black Oak Nights and the crew should be arriving a half-hour or so before that to get situated in one of the booths (before it gets too crazy). Once again, Village Pourhouse is located at 982 Amsterdam Avenue, and it is between 108th and 109th Streets. Your best bet is to take the 1 train to 110th Street and Broadway and walk over 1 avenue to Amsterdam.
I will see you all on Thursday, and stay tuned for information on where we will be watching Game 2 of the series!
This past Thursday I decided to check out the VelvetList New York City afterwork party being held at D’Or at the Dream Hotel (204 West 55th Street, New York, NY). Any of you familiar with D’Or knows that it is a very trendy place with a lot of unusually shaped rooms that combine to offer party-goers both the crowded club experience as well as privacy. And anyone familiar with the VelvetList afterwork parties knows that they typically do them better than anyone else in New York City.
However, this wasn’t exactly my greatest experience with a VelvetList afterwork party. Before I start talking about D’Or, let me take you back to 2007, when VelvetList was responsible for the famed Myst afterwork party.
The Myst afterwork party literally started right after work, at 5p.m., and they had tremendous drink specials for the first 2 hours of the party. It took everyone a while to get off work, get on the subway, and walk the hike from the C-train stop to Myst’s location between 10th and 11th avenue, but by 6:30, the place would be filled to capacity. Everyone took advantage of the drink specials, so by 7 p.m. it was a completely club-worthy place. I’m swear to you, by 7:30, there is no way you could decipher between being in a club at 1:00 am in the morning, or the reality of the fact that you were partying at a time of the week when you’re typically watching Jeopardy.
Fast-forward to the afterwork party at D’Or this past Thursday, and needless to say, it wasn’t quite the same experience. First, unlike Myst, it wasn’t free. Granted, it was only $5, but on principal, if I’m coming out on a Thursday evening, there are a plethora of happy hours I can go to for free, so my $5 better go a long way.
And I thought my $5 would go a long way. Afterall, they 100% advertised an open-bar from 5pm-6pm. Of course, there was no such open bar. They did give me one drink ticket, which apparently could only be used on their “dinner buffet”. Speaking of the dinner buffet, it really wasn’t anything that great. It was a nice little latin spread, full of rice, rice and beans, and a very meager chicken-dish. It wasn’t bad, and I certainly won’t complain since it was technically only $5 by way of the cover charge, however, let’s just say I won’t be in the meal line should I return to D’Or—which won’t be anytime soon.
Now, let’s get to the actual party.
Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t a bad party, but it certainly wasn’t Myst circa Summer of 2007. In fact, it was very different from it. People did not really trickle in, so much as come in all at once, which I can only imagine was the result of them holding people up outside, which in my opinion is a cardinal sin when throwing an “afterwork” party. Sure, you may get away with that in May, but by late July, no one is trying to stand out in the sun to pay money for a fancy happy hour. It’s just not going to happen.
Once the place was more or less alive with people, which happened by about 7 o’clock or so, it was more or less your average party. There was a very diverse crowd; many latinos, more than a handful of Caucasians, and I would say that about 1 out of every 6 people in D’Or was a young black professional. You won’t get any complaints from me on the racial demographics of the party, but the gender demographics were way out of whack. To put it simply, by 8 o’clock, it was Sausage Fest 2009 up in that piece.
A lot of females claim to like it when the ratio of women to men is in their favor. Because that often means that if a young lady is interested in meeting or dancing with a lot of guys, then said young lady will have the opportunity to do so, and she is likely to have her pick of the litter as well. However, when you are in a racially diverse afterwork function like this, what often tends to happen is one of two things.
One, many people tend to come in groups—you know, from their jobs. But those “groups” often tend to be quite evened out in terms of their male to female ratio. That effectively makes everyone else in the club, not involved in said groups, subject to an even greater Sausage Fest than they appear to be in, because many of the young ladies in the club only intend to talk, sing, laugh or dance with their co-workers or other people they came with.
On the other hand, what can also end up happening is one racial group can end up become significantly more prominent than the other. That can ultimately result in a group of latinos, whites or blacks huddling up in one or two areas with an equal male to female ratios, and when you’re amongst your own, the natural tendency may become to dance with your own. It’s nothing racial or racist, but let’s be real, it happens.. When one big sect of the party is grouped together like that, the rest of the club is left to socialize among themselves, and once again, you may end up with a bigger Sausage Fest than the numbers would suggest.
Well at D’Or, you can bet on both of these sausage fest theorems to come to fruition, and you’ll find yourself looking for the nearest exit sooner than you had anticipated.
Overall though, the VelvetList’s afterwork party at D’Or wasn’t all bad, it was just poorly planned. However, it is only in its second week of operation, so perhaps it needs some more time to grow. That being said, it has a lot of room for growth, and I won’t be back until a sufficient amount of time has passed, so that I at least know they have had to time rectify their party planning problems.
Today I embarked upon an article that has essentially changed my entire life. It’s an old New York Times article, from mid-March, on parties. But this not your typical Friday or Saturday night party. Not even the rare Sunday night party. Instead, this was about partying on Saturday afternoon, and I’m not talking your Mom & Dad’s anniversary, either.
Who would have known that I was missing out on so much? All this time I have been in New York City, I have been partying at night time. Of course, things like the Superbowl, Election Night, Graduations and Dinners have caused me to attend special events during the day, but never a club-like atmosphere at 3:30 in the morning. Apparently, I’ve been missing out.
At 3:30 on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon, the most popular thing going on in Chelsea is not sleep (like it is in the rest of Manhattan), instead it’s brunch. If you’re like me, you don’t attend a whole lot of brunches, if any, but once or twice now, I’ve been invited out to his awkward part of the day to attend brunch. But I have never attended a brunch like the ones going on at Bagatelle.
Needless to say, Bagatelle is probably not your Black Oak Nights kind of crowd. But it seems fun nonetheless. It’s an even mired in lavish spending, late afternoon breakfast, and a party scene that is a cross between Webster Hall and Carmines.
According to this article and my over-elite Columbia friends, you can have a really good time at Bagatelle—for a really high price. For $500, you can get two magnums of Veuve Clicquot Champagne brought ot your with lighted sparklers. Not an exciting enough occurrence? How about the jaw-dropping $2,500 you can spend on a jeroboam of Veuve Clicquot and 2 magnums of Dom Perignon, all served via a waiter being carried by other waiters.
Other than bottle service at 3:30, what makes Bagatelle a real afternoon party is the wild dancing, frequent hook-ups and people on tables.
So I was thinking, what if Black Oak Nights took this show on the road and offered up a brunch at Bagatelle. I could try to talk them down on some of these prices given the state of the economy (i.e. common sense) and perhaps make it worth everyone’s while?
What do you all think?
Another work week is drawing to its end, and that means another weekend of partying has arrived. There are plenty of things going on this weekend, here are 3 of the top events going down this weekend in New York City.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Primetime Thursdays
Check out this weekly event going down at Prime, located at 511 West 28th Street. It’s a beautiful venue, and the party is even more breathtaking. Over the past couple of weeks, many swanky crowds have come through the doors, including the entourages of Red Café, Fabulous and Ghostface Killa. This week, there will be a special Hip Hop vs. Reggae Faceoff, which should be an entertaining display of some of music’s biggest and greatest innovators. Ladies are free until 12:30 with RSVP (646-261-1328), and Fellas are free until midnight. So check out Primetime Thursdays tonight and every Thursday night over at Prime.
Friday, October 17, 2008
World Famous Fridays
In an exhibition of pure, unadulterated fun, World Famous Fridays at Club H2O (24th Street between 7th and 8th Avenues) is one of the best places to get down at the end of the week. I’ve been to the event a couple of times, and it was well worth the price of admission. But you don’t even have to pay the price of admission if you get there before midnight because everyone who does is free. After midnight, it’s $20. The event is a broad diversity of the African Diaspora, and the music will reflect that with plenty of R&B, Hip-Hop and Reggae music. There are plenty of bottle specials and great opportunities for birthdays and other private parties. Holla at Club H2O for the details.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
BB King
One of the longest running events in New York City is Saturday Night Live at BB King’s on 42nd Street. So excuse me if you’ve already been, but then again, if you’ve been there you probably already know that it is well worth the return visit. It’s set up in the lovely venue that is BB King’s and young, black professionals from all over New York City come through to partake in the mayhem that ensues. The music, the eye candy, the drinks, the food, and everything else is top notch, and the high quality crew of people that keep coming every week will tell you the same thing. It’s free if you RSVP (text 646-270-2807), and it’s $20 if you don’t. DJ Self and DJ Norie are on the 1’s and 2’s along with other notable names spinning tunes, as well.
