Who shouldn’t go on “Dancing with the Stars”: Peter Davis on Fox News
Check out this segment on Fox News about “Who shouldn’t go on ‘Dancing with the Stars’” Our very own Peter Davis gives his thoughts!
Peter Davis’s School Daze: Beach Club Blues
Sixth grade was dunzo! I snatched my skateboard, stashed in a bush outside Barclay School, and hit the sidewalk with a slap and roar of joy. After narrowly avoiding prison, aka Grace Farm, that boarding school for “troubled youth” in the boondocks of Maine, I celebrated the start of summer with eight packs of Pop Rocks, all shoved in my mouth at one time. Each sugary snap created a chorus of freedom ringing down East 74th Street.
My parents love “the country,” meaning Southampton, but I way prefer the city unless it’s summer when I can boogie board. So I quietly sat in our green station wagon with my headphones on as my parents drove the two hours to Southampton. My punk rock playlist drowned out most of their annoying conversation, which centered on some “ghastly” (my mom’s favorite word for anything she didn’t like from people to someone’s shoes) divorced woman who had been black balled from the beach club where I basically spent every day all summer. Read More
Get Out of Town: Safari Chic
Krista Krieger is obsessed with Africa. She has been to the continent three times since January and stopped counting after more than twelve trips. In 2007, after funding the renovation of a preschool she had visited, Krieger joined the board of the Africa Foundation which works with its corporate partner &Beyond to raise money for basic necessities in the war-torn and economically desperate African villages. “Africa Foundation does a lot of brick-and-mortar type projects, so it’s easy to show donors where the money has gone,” Krieger explains. “This is one of the main things that attracted me to the organization—the transparency of where the funds have gone.” Read More
School Daze: Disgraceful at Grace Farm
“The three Ds: discipline, decency and dignity,” declared Fräulein Eggar, the headmistress of Grace Farm, an all-boys boarding school for “troubled youth” from grades 5 through 9. “These are the foundation that make Grace Farm a place where young men become gentlemen.” I squiggled in the wood chair, averting Fräulein Eggar’s steely blue eyes that were stretched into evil slits by the tightly pulled bun of grey hair that sat atop her head like a snowball. I imagined Fräulein Eggar’s bun as a packed, icy snowball that I could grab and hurl at her weirdly generous forehead. Bull’s-eye!
My mother, dressed in a black Chanel tweed suit and pearls as if going to a funeral, nudged me in the side. I reluctantly looked at Fräulein Eggar as she continued her Grace Farm propaganda. “Our students are required to put in four hours of work detail every day,” she continued, like a judge sentencing a criminal to death row. “We pride ourselves on a tidy campus and the student body rakes leaves, cleans the lavatories and serves all meals in the dining quarters.” At the word lavatory, my mind started to wander from Grace Farm’s militaristic Maine bucolic blah to my concrete stomping ground on the Upper East Side. I missed my skateboard. I missed my Sour Patch Kids stash. I could hear each Sour Patch Kid wailing in despair for my return.
Fräulein Eggar made an irritating scratchy throat sound (gross) and my mother poked me again. “So Charles Campbell,” Fräulein Eggar demanded, “how do you see yourself benefiting and contributing to the community of Grace Farm?” Read More
School Daze: Guilty as Charged
The cold steel cuffs were cranked tightly around thin wrists. What would juvenile jail be like? Could you eat Sour Patch Kids in the slammer? Play video games? Make prank calls? The idea of prison was overwhelming.
“Please unlock these things,” begged my BF of the semester Topper Livingston. “They hurt.”
I had subdued Top with handcuffs that I had purchased, along with a BB gun and a complete toy cop accessory pack (fake shield and hat and billy club—my favorite) in the unused maid’s room of my parents’ apartment.
“You’re my prisoner. Busted dude. You’ll be un-cuffed when you post bail.” Bail was set at a mere $200, a bargain for his crime: stealing four stink bombs from my backpack.
“I don’t like guns,” Lourdes, our devoted housekeeper, announced in her thick Spanish accent, as she walked by again and saw the BB gun trained on Topper’s right temple, “guns aren’t nice.”
I finally removed Top’s handcuffs, setting him free for the discounted bond of $75 and a $75 IOU to be paid in cash or candy over the remaining term.
But maybe I was the one who should be in handcuffs—real handcuffs—and behind real bars? Read More
Goods for Good Gala: Malawi, Motorbikes and an Accidental Strip Club Foray
Last night, The Observer rushed over to the West Side in order to make the cocktail hour of what we assumed would be another long-winded charity dinner. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that!) MSNBC’s Luke Russert, we were told, would be headlining the Gala for Good honoring leaders of Malawi alongside Victoria’s Secret angel Behati Prinsloo.
“The story writes itself!” we thought to ourselves giddily. Though on entering the dark and gloomy building whose address corresponded to our hastily written notes, we were in for a rough surprise. Read More
New Yorkers Raise Big Bucks For Foster Kids, Doutzen Kroes Is Hot
It’s unusual to attend an event in New York that has no photographer present, and for a certain circle it’s even unusual to attend an event where you don’t know the photographer by name. But when one sees living legend Bill Cunningham snapping away—you know you’re at a good party. Last night at the Mandarin Oriental, New Yorkers For Children threw a good party (not to mention raised over half a mil for kids in foster care).
As the room filled to capacity it became clear why Bill Cunningham was here: this night was about the dresses—almost to the point of sensory overload. Read More
School Daze: Peeping Charlie
When my successful numbers racket was busted and disbanded in fifth grade at Barclay school, I needed another way to feed my addiction to video games, gummy bears and smoke bombs. After my cool 500 clams a day (fixed lottery drawings and my spinning toy roulette wheel) dried up, I felt like my quaint Upper East Side ‘hood had become my own personal skid row. Read More
Making the Scene At Double Seven
Disclosure: Scene magazine is a partner of the Observer, though not part of the Observer Media Group.
Last night Scene magazine celebrated their first issue at Double Seven in Manhattan’s Meat Packing District. Amid the low light, flowing vodka and throbbing music, the people behind New York City’s newest glossy relaxed after coming up with Read More
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Photographers Finally Leave Anthony Weiner's Apartment Alone
