November 30, 2010

Michael Mundy took these incredible shots of me in our apartment for his An Afternoon With project.

September 14, 2010

I was featured on the blog From the desk of ..., a blog in which Kate Donnelly, the author, describes this way: "What's on your desk? How do you work? What about your lighting? Clean and tidy? Creatively sprawled? Feel like you need to tidy up-maybe you shouldn't. This is a collaborative snapshot of what makes us uniquely us."

Here is my submission:

"My desk is styled, at all times, as if it was to be photographed. I see visually and parts of my home are framed and created for maximum visual impact. Especially my desk. Because I write a lot I surround myself with color and items -toys, posters, electronics, art- to distract me. To fight off boredom. So I have constant visual inspiration.

I sit at a Blu Dot Strut table and have an Eames Aluminum Group desk chair in orange wool. My file cabinet is an Ikea one, but I have removed the castors. The flooring is an industrial grade Flor tile -good because I often spill the food at my desk and also I love the scratchy texture on my feet.

The office is in a nook of the apartment and we (Georgi, my boyfriend, and I) painted it very dark. There is no natural light but we make up for that with bright things. I love things! And my boyfriend does not, so the office is where my collections and current-obsessions get to live.

What you see in these pics, in no particular order:

-my two computers: MacBook Pro 17 inch which I use here and an Air which I take to and from work
-Harmon Kardon speakers I have had for almost ten years and they're still my favorites
-pencils and pens in old jars
-colored boxes full of receipts and notecards
-sketchbooks and Moleskins
-an old Campbell's Soup recipe holder i keep my business cards in
-a steel pencil box
-a toy boat a friend just sent from Spain ( I collect toys, you can see the giant case)
-a plastic Eames elephant I often times sit my travel bag on
-My mail and notecards catalogs etc.
-The book I just finished Dancer from the Dance. I never read at my desk, but I always place the book I am reading here.
-A few portraits waiting to be framed from the Barcelona artist David Gómez
-my iPad, iPod, iPhone. Yes, I am a loser.
-coffee! Always on my desk!
-some bracelets I brought back as gifts from the Black Sea last week

And the art: posters of Madonna, Elton John, and Lady Gaga I collaborated with Kii Arens on creating. A vintage poster from Communist Bulgaria (my partner is Bulgarian). A poster I designed for fabulis in Milton Glazer's "I Love NY" style. A House Industries Alexander Girard lithograph (gift of Andy Cruz). A robot poster designed by Gerry & Joe Simboli (1960s graphic designers, and a gift from them). A poster of SF-drag queen Juanita More! as a Warhol Liz Taylor. And another Warhol-esque shot of Mike Tyson as Monroe (screen-print from eBay for $10!). A Friends With You Lithograph. Another Kii poster-Liza Minelli! And also a matchbook cut to look like the Manhattan skyline by Toby Wong (RIP).

Basically, my workspace is visual overload. It is where things that make me smile live. And when Liza Minelli is looking down at you how can you not smile?"

September 13, 2010

The illustrator Richard Haines sketched both Georgi and me.

David Gomez Maestre did these amazing portraits of Georgi and me. I adore them.

Real Good Movie from Bradford Shellhammer on Vimeo.

A film I worked on for Blu Dot, my former employer. We left Real Good chairs all over NYC and this is what happened.

I hosted a reception for the film at the Soho showroom upon release.

Start Me Up Final Cut from Bradford Shellhammer on Vimeo.

The final edit of the fabulis demo reel. I sing at the end.

Piggy from Bradford Shellhammer on Vimeo.

An outtake with me oinking like a pig.

Dwell Magazine from Bradford Shellhammer on Vimeo.

Dwell and director Gary Nadeau came to our Chelsea apartment and shot this funny little movie.

September 12, 2010

Looking At Me from Bradford Shellhammer on Vimeo.

Molly Peck films me looking into a camera. A living portrait.

Monster by David Fudge from Bradford Shellhammer on Vimeo.

David Fudge directs this moody video to a Gaga song. Many a NY gay make a cameo and I get more screen time than I'd imagined as I did not know the song then.

September 11, 2010

Cyndi Lauper Sings Sultry Blues At The Town Hall

Cyndi Lauper's sold out show at New York City's Town Hall in Times Square Wednesday night was a bittersweet performance. Playing her hometown, the Queens native, on tour supporting her new album, Memphis Blues, looked and sounded radiant. Her set list, however, was anything but. The singer-songwriter ran through ten blues covers before finally launching into recognizable material.

That ten-song blues set, coupled by the extreme heat in the theater, made the first portion of the show hard to sit through at times. Lauper wore a black top hat with a feather, giant platinum curls, and a black body-hugging pants suit, skin tight and shear. At 57 she's never looked better or more fit.

She's also never sounded better, and she showed it off to dazzling effect last night. Lauper has always had that voice: multi-octave, completely unique, full of raw emotion. One time in the middle of show she recalled the words of Janis Joplin who stressed feeling the music over perfecting the lyrics. She called what she does an "imperfect art."

Imperfect summed up the show. More honky-tonk than blues, Lauper's new material worked often and missed almost as much. Her voice was lost on the opener "Just Your Fool," though her stage presence was commanding. She recovered nicely on "Shattered Dreams," where pianist Allen Toussaint joined her on stage. That song showcased her vocal range perfectly. From there she hit some real highs. Her version of B.B. King's "How Blue Can You Get?" was humorous and emotive. She breathed life into the song, life missing on the album version that features Johnny Lang. Without Lang onstage, Lauper took control of the stomper and brought the house down. It was one of the only times in the blues portion of the performance to elicit a big response.

The decision to play her new album in near entirety was a noble task. Lauper's undeniable love for the blues, early rock, and the blues musicians on her album, like Ann Peebles and Charlie Musselwhite, who was on stage with Ms. Lauper Wednesday night, is obvious. Often times throughout the evening the loopy singer would lose concentration and babble on about nothing really. It was cute and a needed break from the heavy material. But almost every time she talked nonsense, which anyone who caught her on this year's Celebrity Apprentice has witnessed, she always ended her thoughts urging the audience to take to the Internet and discover these musicians.

Yet Lauper is far more than a blues musician. She is a pop star and many fans were let down by parts of Wednesday night's show. Whether she likes it or not, Lauper is an 80's icon. Her fans, her diehard fans, on display in droves at Town Hall, have stuck by her many incarnations: singer-songwriter, disco diva, and gay rights activist. This new blues persona is just another journey on her musical path.

And had she worked in blues interpretations of more of her back catalog the show would have been better received. It was not until the 11th song in her 14 song set that the audience came alive.

With her trusted dulcimer Lauper performed "Who Let in the Rain," a single, and a flop, from her under-appreciated Hat Full Of Stars album. The song, not a 80's relic, and unknown by most but her diehard fans, managed to bring the house down.

Why? The answer seemed simple. That song, co-written by Lauper, was pure Lauper material. The singer truly connected with the song--even in a new blues arrangement it still captivated the audience. Towards the end she belted "Who let in the, who let in the, who let in the ..." and the crowd would have been fine if it never stopped. It was triumphant, raw, and classic Cyndi.

From there she launched into a few hits. "Change of Heart," with Musselwhite's harmonica, was a revelation and "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" -- also turned into a blues stomper -- went on for nearly ten minutes. Both songs worked in the blues format, a perfect marriage of the Cyndi Lauper of past and now.

It's too bad more of her compositions did not get the same treatment. She left out "Time After Time," her brilliant ballad, covered by many artists since its debut. That song is an American classic and should never go unheard at a Lauper show.

But Lauper finished on her feet. Strumming the dulcimer, eyes looking up towards the heavens, she sang "True Colors" finally. Her voice, stronger with each year, rang clear. She's an acquired taste. She's not everyone's cup of tea. But, damn, can she sing. I just wish she'd sung more of her own material and less material of those she respects and admires.

It is her voice and her compositions which her fans respect and admire most.

published by The Huffington Post

I partnered with Mike Piscadlo, our summer intern, to create this awesome T-shirt for fabulis. We gave these out to many of our members on a European cruise this summer and I wanted the shirt to feel like an early 80s design from OP.

I think we succeeded.

Jason and I were profiled in the LA magazine Frontiers. Read below:

What Makes You Fab?
Lesley Goldberg
8/4/2010

"Our goal is to make the big gay world a whole lot smaller and to make it easier and more fun to figure out where to go, what to do and who to meet," says Jason Goldberg, the founder and CEO of Fabulis.com, a new social networking site created specifically for gay men.

The Internet entrepreneur--he previously created online recruiting space Jobster and news and information site Socialmedian--opted for a more personal business for his third dot-com experience.

"I wanted to do something that was more personal this time, something for me and my friends and other people like us," he says of the site he created in January, which went live April 23 and has already amassed 50,000 members. "What I decided to do was build Fabulis around something I found a personal need for: a gay social network that isn't just about sex and hook-ups but about how to figure out where to go, what to do and who to meet."

While other social networking sites--like Facebook--may be great at connecting people to long-lost friends from high school and the like, Goldberg and Fabulis marketing maven Bradford Shellhammer say their site connects people with what's next: who else they can meet with shared interests, others in the same city and linking users with events and places specific to the gay community.

"There really wasn't anything else like that out there; the guides that are at people's disposal out there online are generally very generic--like Trip Advisor or Zagat or Urban Spoon--they're a more mainstream view of where to go and things to do," Goldberg says. "We thought there was a very unique opportunity to create a more gay take on them. We also noticed that by now everyone in this big gay world is on Facebook, which is great because it gets people really used to information sharing and discovering information and things to do through their networks. While Facebook is great for sharing with people you already know, it's not great for meeting new people. We saw with a gay opportunity especially there's desire and need to figure out, 'who else can I meet and that can be among my circle of friends, in my city or if I'm traveling somewhere else? I'm going to London next week, what's going on there, who can I meet along the way?' That's the genesis idea of Fabulis--to build this network."

Think Facebook with all the elements of Yelp, Foursquare and Formspring.me--specific to the gay community, and at your fingertips via Fabulis' new iPhone application.

"We want a thriving community where people are coming back and using the site regularly and getting value from it," Goldberg says. "A lot of the users of social networks are global and we can get users to carry the big gay world around in their pocket with them for instant access--who's nearby, what events are going on, etc. We think that can make celebrating gay life more interactive and more immediate."

Shellhammer says his favorite feature on Fabulis is Ask Me--where users post specific questions to other users, like what song on your iTunes inspires you, and beyond. Shellhammer, an avid traveler, is often asked to recommend must-see places and off-the-map restaurants near and far.

"We launched [Ask Me] two months ago and we have had half a million questions that have been posed and answered by users," he says. "It's interesting in the sense that on Facebook or other social networking sites the information is something that you're coming up with and putting out there. This feature has other people stimulating you to answer their questions and it's often not information you would have shared on your own."

As the site continues to grow--Goldberg says a thousand new users register every other day--Shellhammer suggests it's the gay community's interest in meeting new people that drives Fabulis' business model.

"Oftentimes we create our own communities out of the traditional family units," he says. "We're hungry and always welcoming of new people in our lives--I'm not talking about just sexually, though that's a part of it for gay men. Whenever I'm traveling, I always want to know what friends of mine have friends in those different ports. It's just something that comes with being gay. I think oftentimes straight people--because they have families--they're not so eager to meet new people.

"The big picture for the site is making it much easier to meet new gay people anywhere in the world," Shellhammer says.

July 22, 2010

I worked with the design house Parke & Ronen to create a bathing suit for fabulis. The result was successful, black shiny poly with red topstitching and our fabulis logo embroidered in red.

July 1, 2010

Mashable has written a lovely review of fabulis today. Article here and text below.

Gay Social Network Fabulis Gets Backing from GeoCities Founder

Gay social network Fabulis is getting a quarter of a million dollars toward its seed round from David Bohnett, who founded GeoCities at the tender age of 16. This brings the network's total seed money to $825,000, VentureBeat reports.

Bohnett's venture capital firm, Baroda Ventures, typically backs early-stage new and social media companies, including an ad platform and online video network, as well as e-commerce and e-ticketing websites. The majority of these investments have clear revenue models in place and Fabulis is no different in that respect.

This site, which features a quick and painless Facebook integration for signup, helps gay guys figure out where to go, what to do, who to meet and more. It's not exclusive to gay men -- or "out" gays, as the case may be -- and allows "friends of gay guys" to sign up for the site and get in on the fun as well. Users can tag themselves in any way they choose -- a nice change from the more heteronormative websites such as Facebook or MySpace, which offer only the most bipolar of gender and sexual preference identifiers.

The interface is gorgeous too, with Vimeo-reminiscent features that scream "accessible" and "intuitive." In addition to self-tagging, which lets you easily find others who identify themselves in the same way, the site also features an anonymous Q&A function... sound familiar? You can add photos and share travel/outing plans on the site, too.

Event planning via Fabulis is a bit like Facebook Events, but with a prettier interface. You can RSVP, get details and directions, and see who else is attending from the site. And each event has a "Buzz" section consisting of users' comments on the event.

The site features a virtual currency/points system, "Fabulis Bits," which can be earned through site participation or partner offers; they can also be bought outright. Bits can be spent when asking other users questions and setting a "price" for your profile's Q&A is an option for all users. You can also use your bits to unlock special site features and upvote other members. Additionally, the site has special, timed offers and sweepstakes, presumably to create urgency around special deals for travel and other purchases.

Finally, Fabulis has an asymmetric friendship model: You can "follow" people who don't follow you back, just like Twitter. And Fabulis also has messaging with autocomplete, so you can keep in touch with all your contacts without having to navigate around the site too much.

All in all, this new website has grabbed some of the best elements from incredibly beautiful, successful and viral web applications and given them a treatment that is, well, fabulous. Startups, if you want to see a new, niche network done right, get over to Fabulis and start taking notes.

And to the Fabulis founders, we want to ask: When will you roll out a site for the sisters? Lesbians and other queer women should get a Fabulis of their own -- and we think advertisers and corporate partners would agree with us on this.

June 24, 2010

San Francisco's venerable newspaper featured us in the below story. Link here.

It was during one of his many trips between work in Germany and his boyfriend in New York that Jason Goldberg envisioned a better way to go out for dancing, dinner, or a drink.

The entrepreneur with dot-com successes like Jobster and Socialmedian under his belt sensed an opportunity to answer the most pressing questions of our time. As he put it: "Where to go? What to do? Who to meet?"

He christened the new venture "Fabulis," and quickly assembled a team to build a brand new online social planner for gay men.

When Goldberg and his boyfriend Christian Schoenherr traveled, Fabulis creative director Bradford Shellhammer explained, "they realized there was a problem. We've all experienced it. 'What do I do tonight, what restaurant should I go to, where can I meet cool locals?'"

Existing sites didn't help, since they were all limited to either families or hookups.
"People told us that they've gone on Manhunt to find out where they should eat when they were in Rome," said Shellhammer.

The Fabulis mission is simple: help gay men discover new events and meet new friends. To that end, the site scans Facebook events, analyzes attendance, and showcases trends - something Goldberg calls "the velocity of fabulousness."

About $625,000 has been raised for the project so far. "It was the easiest fundraising I've ever done in my career," said Goldberg. "It took 72 hours to raise the finances for Fabulis."

Among the investors: the Washington Post , along with Allen Morgan, Lars Hinrichs, and Don Baer - all investors in Goldberg's prior company, Socialmedian.

There's also an advisory board of heavy-hitters: British Queer Eye host Julian Bennett, co-producer of The Office Halsted Sullivan, former GLAAD president Neil Giuliano, Grey Gardens producer/director Michael Sucsy, and former Clinton LGBT adviser Richard Socarides, whom Goldberg met while working as a White House aide in the 1990s.
Socarides, in fact, is the first person Goldberg ever came out to - "over the White House e-mail system," he laughed.

During a limited sneak-peak in April, the site came under fire for a feature that numerically ranked users by perceived popularity. That won't last, said Goldberg.
"We're going to move very quickly away from the focus of the site being a kind of a popularity contest. ... the homepage is no longer a ranking of members. It's plans."
Concerns about the site's cliquishness may be reignited by a messaging system. Contacting certain users will require "bits," credits that users earn by recruiting new users, interacting with the site, or laying down cash.

"People will have to spend some bits in order to message people they're not following," said Goldberg. "And you're able to set the price in order to message you."

Although the site only recently introduced its event-tracking features, the site boasted 14,000 registered users at launch. At a Fabulis-sponsored party this spring at Blackbird in the Castro, the site's brand new users were enthusiastic.

"The Internet has totally taken the place of sending out a flier," said event planner J. Aleczander. "It's very green!"

Jack Shamama, editor of the Gay Porn Blog, was a fan of the social ranking feature. "It's fun and silly," he said, "but it makes you feel cute."

"I have no idea what it is," said Adrian Albino, "but it's definitely going to be something."
With so many initial users, advertising and sales opportunities abound.

"We believe that we can have a decent percent of our users paying us," said Goldberg, "in addition to having a premium sponsorships with advertisers and promoters who want to reach this audience."

The Fabulis team is in it for the long haul, and doesn't rule out an initial public offering.
"Our plan is to build a hundred million dollar-plus business, targeting the gay market," said Goldberg, "And if we do that, we can definitely be a public company in the future."
Goldberg and Shellhammer have been pleased so far with interaction on the site and its Facebook fan page.

"People are asking questions, interacting with one another, posting photos," said Shellhammer. "It proves this theory that there are gay men all over the world who are hungry for interaction with other gay men. In a different way."