Will's New York Nite Life

Birdland

This is the first of what we predict will be many runs at the Carlyle for Jill Kargman; after all, East 76th St is ground zero for shallow, rich upper East siders - her peeps. She’s spent her whole career thus far milking for laughs, as in both her hit Bravo TV series “Odd Mom Out” and her comedic memoir “Sometimes I Feel Like a Nut.” In a certain way, it makes perfect sense that Jill Kargman compares her parents to the Addams Family - after all, she comes out looking like Morticia, with her straight black hair, funereal pallor, and widow’s weeds-type black dress. Her show constantly finds the hysterical humor in the bleakest situations imaginable - one of the most cheerful anecdotes, comparatively, is the tale of going shopping with her parents for a cemetery plot. The majority of her stories, perhaps coincidentally, are about the worst possible things happening to women: rape, beatings, infidelity, which she somehow makes seem both hilarious and poignant, especially when she leavens them with thoughtful interpretations of what she describes as some of the “rape-iest” songs of the 1980s, the early MTV era - like Bon Jovi’s, “Wanted Dead or Alive.”

92nd Street Y (92Y)

Rose Theater (Rose Hall, Jazz at Lincoln Center)

Jazz Standard

Even if you don’t think Balkan band music is your cup of borscht, this annual extravaganza will have you dancing on tables and shouting “opa!” within minutes of your arrival. This is the world’s ultimate party music, and it’s seductive charms are impossible to resist, especially with no less than 50 bands - and dozens of attendant artisans dancers, singers, craftsmen, chefs on hand. This annual festival, hosted by the New York-based 12-piece brass band Zlatne Uste (which means “Golden Lips”) is the superbowl of Balkan debauchery and good clean fun. There’s so much music - you’ll hear everything from Mozart to Duke Ellington’s “Caravan” so much revelry, so much vodka, so many joyful and attractive people from all over the world, that the major thing you have to worry about is waking up a few days later and finding that you’ve gone and gotten married to a belly dancer named Victoria from Sofia, or maybe Sophia from Victoria.

Various Venues

By: Will Friedwald

By: Will Friedwald