winter solstice

The winter really affects me. I wish it didn't, and I suppose I could power through if I really tried, but mostly I just end up depressed and/or unmotivated to do anything but curl up with a book or a movie. Anyway, 2011 so far has underwhelmed me, but January always underwhelms me. I can't remember a stellar January, ever.

A couple sort of cool things, though. Skins premieres on MTV tonight and I interviewed the cast and creator, which was extremely cool. I've seen the first couple of episodes and I really like it, perhaps despite myself. It makes me long for teenagedom, doing stupid shit and raging with hormones and living a completely free life. I think even for people like me who don't actively long for the high school glory days, we spend a large part of our adult lives trying to recapture that spirit. Anyway, here's the story.

I also interviewed SNL's Seth Meyers for the February issue. I obvs have a huge crush on him so you can imagine my excitement about this. My dream is that Meyers will find my Stefon Twitter and invite me on SNL Weekend Update to battle the real Stefon. For now, I will settle for talking to him.

More to come soon, I hope. I made ice cream out of snow the other day. It was awesome.

A conversation with Ciara

A few weeks back I interviewed Ciara at her album release party in the West Village. Then I reviewed her album Basic Instinct, which comes out tomorrow. The album is basically a buffet of female power anthems. It makes me miss living in Atlanta, driving around in summer with my windows down and my speakers cranked.

When I met Ciara for the interview, we were both wearing fur vests. It was sort of hilarious. Here's a photo of us together. Sorry for the crappy quality.

I hung out with Big Boi on his tour bus

About a month ago I found out that Outkast's Big Boi was coming to Brooklyn Bowl as a part of his national tour in support of his incredible, groundbreaking, motherfucking epic album Sir Luscious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty. After I finished having a fit of pure joy, I decided to pitch a concert review to my online editor at Gotham. She accepted.

I went to the show and Jenny came along as my photographer. The show was incredible. Life-changing, even. Afterward, I found myself sitting on Big's tour bus, talking to him about life, God and Hemingway. Please read the story here, let me know your thoughts and spread it around if you deem it worthy. I've never written a concert review before, so I really wanna know what everyone has to say.

I wanted to say here what I left out of the story: Big Boi (real name: Antwan Patton) is an amazing human being. When I got on the bus and walked in on him sitting near his wife and son, I felt like I was being welcomed into his living room - which I'm confident had everything to do with his Southern roots. He was kind and gracious and completely down-to-Earth. He shook my hand and laughed and smiled with me. His positive energy was tangible, and I was completely floored and humbled by the kindness of everyone on his team.  I sat next to arguably the most innovative rapper alive and he treated me like an equal. I will never forget it.

What follows is the most epic photo of me that has ever been taken. I'm hoping for more to follow.

PS, here's the New York Times review. The videographers there interviewed Big right before I did, though the video itself is MIA.

PPS, If 17-year-old Meghan could see this, she would squeal louder than all the speakers in her Camry bumping Speakerboxx.