• by Kelly Samardak , December 7, 2009

Tck Tck Tck, Wired Store, New York
December 4, 2009 

If you think reducing slides in a Powerpoint deck or cutting words out of your byline is difficult, imagine working with representatives from 192 countries to deforest 176 pages of a draft climate agreement.  The teams meeting at the Copenhagen climate summit, day one being today, are talking about our PLANET.  Lives and stuff, not burgers and fried mac and cheese (mmm).   The hope is these teams will walk away with a clear case to present to the political big wigs at their talks beginning Dec. 15. Kofi Annan will address the conference, supporting his project Tck Tck Tck, a campaign "calling for a fair and ambitious climate change agreement."  This past Friday night, the Wired Store played pregame host, celebrating Kofi Annan's address ahead of time.

Good start to the night: the clipboard guy in big Carol Channing glasses at the entrance was friendly.  My dude and I were greeted immediately with Tck Tck Tck dogtags, and the space, while peppered with little gadgets like the Brush Bot and bigger gadgets like the all-electric Zero S motorcycle, was easy to navigate, the open bar line was manageable, and the people, well...  the people were watchable.   Pink striped hair, three-piece suits, suspenders, satin dresses, leggings as pants (no!!), tiny skirts with patterned tights and booties, and even one gal wearing what looked like retro two-piece bottoms, stockings, a cop's hat (maybe? Maybe nautical?), a matted fur-like jacket, and eyes sparkled and smeared delivered optical candy from strangers all night.   But don't you worry, this party wasn't just for the eyes, the ears were far from neglected.

Mark Ronson, in his blue and black checkered shirt, fancy glossed rockabilly hair swoop, and bored stoicism mask, flipped his fingers across his green-lit turntable, cradling one headphone with his neck pit, the other ear exposed to the constant "Mrrrrrrr" of the quickly filling event space.  Either he didn't spin long or I arrived late, but he disappeared quickly after I grabbed his soul .

While I spoke with someone from guest hip hop artist Theophilus London's entourage (one of The Lovers, perhaps?), I spotted Walt Ribiero bopping around with a Heineken.   I have a feeling Walt is powered by cotton candy and marshmallow Peeps.  I dare you, if you meet him, to catch him in a bad mood.  Walt was with his pal David Chaitt, music industry entrepreneur and writer.  

Throughout the night, while popping chicken raisin puffs and spicy triangles of happiness (even pizza!) into my mouth I met Peter Kleeman Co-Founder of Space Age Museum, a project he started with his dad as a hobby, but has managed to morph itself into a full-blown real deal.   Museums tend to bore me, but come on -- Space Age?  How fun!  He was with spacing out with Jacky Tran (aka Waxyjax) of BBH, Quiz Bowl Productions, and Trashmenagerie.com.

I also popped in for a little catchup with Matt Caldecutt of Trylon SMR.  He was sipping some Veev vodka with his friend Meredith.  I later saw him lurking by the step-and-repeat with writer Peter Feld.  Just when I thought the only Peter on earth was my dad, I met two in one night. Anyway. Toby Daniels, Cofounder & Director at ThinkSocial and founder of SocialMediaWeek, was keeping a tall cocktail table warm with Rocketboom's Elspeth Rountree, who I think was offended that I described her as "a long-stemmed lass" in my coverage of the Motorola Droid party.  "I'm more than a long-stemmed lass!" she insisted.  Hey, man, I can't identify people wearing a long coat in the dark, especially if I'm  behind them -- and we've never met. Now we've met.  Elspeth joined Toby's friend Ben in poking fun at Toby for saying things like "lift" and "tube."  He's an English fellow, if you haven't figured that out yet.

While trying to get Israel Mirsky, Director of Marketing at [x+1], to pose "like a tiger" a la George Costanza ("Seinfeld," Google it!) on a curvy lounge chair, I also met Charnay ("like Chardonay, no 'duh'" he said) and his friend Me Love.  They wouldn't pose for me either, but this didn't stop me from hunting for victims.  I figured in an hour people would be sauced enough to get all wild feline on that thing.

Delilah (feat. model Jamie Burke) hit the stage and ripped through their set Hulk style.  Don't snark at the whole "model as frontman" - he wasn't worried about keeping his nails done and his face pretty, he and the band just rocked.   After Jamie Burke nearly broke his face falling into a pile of electrical equipment, I did another round of picture-taking and found a bunch of Gamer zombies playing basketball that was so lifelike it souped my brain.  Behind them I found Damien Basile, brand communications strategist and event planner Christina Coster.  Nearby, talking business was ADA Music's (well, now WEA) David Factor and Miguel Banuelos, Head of Mobile Marketing and Promotions, Ericsson, Inc.

By the coat check I saw a glowing red light.  This led me to the secret downstairs lair.  This lair was like the adults room during an all ages death metal show.  It was so sedate, save a few buzzed revelers, that I wanted to take a nap on one of the couches.  It was downstairs that I met Kyle Landry, sister to gogogo PR master Jenna Landry and Jenna's dad.  I talked with Jenna's dad for a while about train filled man-caves and photography. 

Because I had already met one of The Lovers from Theophilus London and The Lovers, I had to stick around for the Theophilus performance.  It was awesome.  If you like rap and hip hop with a dash of dance and a gentle dusting of hipster, you will love his guy.  He slithered and popped all over the intimate stage, once announcing his need for a new girlfriend -- any interested parties should apply at the end of his set, he said.  He wrapped it up by calling a gaggle of females onto the stage who wiggles and bounced, one nearly busting her butt on a speaker (watch those heels girls!), to his finale.

Whether this party helped the environment, I'll never know -- but as an awareness builder, it worked.  Maybe I'm too absorbed in my own nonsense, but until Friday I didn't even know there was a climate summit going on in Copenhagen this week.  Let's hope their consortium is better at chopping down content than I am.

Full size photos of all performers and guests are on Flickr!

Send invitations to kelly@mediapost.com!