Strippers Down In Austin -or- "For All I Know He's Hanging By His Neck In His Fucking Closet

As promised....more blog action.

Let's see... I guess I'll start with Friday after work. I came home around 4ish, and took a quick shower. I waited for Mike and Emily to arrive and we headed down to Ambler (RIP fun) where we would pick up Katie. From Ambler we made our trip into the city. Friday night there was a band called "forgetters" playing at the Barbary. I thought they were pretty great. Blake from Jawbreaker and the original drummer from Against Me! formed a band with the girl (I can't remember her name... but she was all kinds of cute) from Bitchin'. They were... punkrock... and... kind of dismal I think. I don't know that their lyrics were so uplifting, or upbeat. I am looking forward to hearing some recorded output. They did play 3 Thorns of Life songs, and those were pretty good.

From there, we leave. We head back to my house and I make some of the usual bullshit food I always make. It was as mediocre as it always was, but it was much needed. I was very hungry and I think my company might have been as well. She was surviving on a hamburger bun, a beer and a rum drink. Food was needed, and pretty good. We sat around and talked and watched TV for hours and then around 3:30am we went to sleep.

Saturday morning. Brandon shows up and wakes me around 7:30am. I say my goodbyes and pile into Brandon's car to go to the grocery store. We picked up a bunch of food for our trip and then headed back to my house to meet with Glenn. Glenn arrives, we pack up the car and head out. We get up to the boat rental place around 10:45a. Sign some forms, get our boats and head north. We launched the boat at noon. We stopped for the night around 5pm and made dinner and had some drinks around the fire. Glenn is an excellent person to do some outdoorsy shit with. There's always careful consideration put into everything, and that's a pretty excellent thing. It starts to rain later, so we climb under shelter and then eventually into our tents.

Waking up the next morning was a real treat (minus the hangover). We were totally dry and it was still raining. I was surprised to say the least. I put all of my dry clothes in a bag, and put that bag in another plastic bag because i figured i would wake up soaked. Not the case... we did a fine job.

We pack up our camp and head back down the river. We finished canoing around 3:00pm and head back to the car. We were tired, stinky, and hungry. I got home around 4:30ish, and Emily came over. I had eaten before she arrived, so she got some food and we watched TV and drink whiskey and cokes for a bit. It was a nice night, and a great end to my weekend.

Now I'm completely wiped out and looking forward to a relaxing night followed by some sleep. More to come sometime soon, but right now I'm just dying to eat, drink tons of water, and get some awesome sleep.

Hey blog, you never write me anymore... what gives? Jerk

Little Silver Heart -or- I'm Just Too Damn Tired

Well... the birthday weekend was nothing more than a total success, by most measuring sticks. The three girls that planned, financed and cared are 3 of the most wonderful people in my life. Once again, it's amazing to care about people, and it's more amazing to be cared about.

Saturday (Day #3 of my 5 day weekend of awesomeness)

I woke up, wrote in this here BLAHG, then went out for some errands with Bucket. We got back around 3:30p and I took some inventory of how I thought the night might work out. I had no idea. I took a shower and put on my Sunday best and headed out to the surprise location with Bucket, Brian and Mike. I put a black canvas bag on my head as to not have any idea where we were going. I did fine for a while, and then got lost... my sense of direction gave up on me. The end of the trip landed us in Brian's parent's driveway. I knew it well, I know it well. I've been down that driveway what feels like a million times. They guys went inside and i stood outside to wait. Brian told me he needed to go inside and pick up a record, and to use the bathroom. I waited and waited... then around the corner of the house comes each and every one of my friends. It was great. I showed ZERO emotion and everyone probably thought I knew about it in advance or just plain didn't care. I was totally floored... and when I'm feeling anything I tend to shut down and stare at my shoes, look at the sky... anything but face actual human emotion. What the hell is wrong with me? There's nothing in my past to explain this... I don't get it.

Anyhow... there was food, beer, liquor, cake, pictures (thanks Mom and Dad!), a 5 foot cut-out of me, fake moustaches, a fire, Brian's dad... but most importantly my friends from all over. Downingtown, Philly, Collegeville, Blue Bell... everywhere... all there to celebrate my dumbass. It was awesome. We drank and talked and partied until it was time to fall down... from several perspectives this proved to be true. Around midnight Mike drove back to my house and we crashed for the evening.

Day #4.

I woke up around 7:30a, said some goodbyes, and called everyone in attendance the night before to thank them, as well as wake them up. Most people were surprised that I was awake... I was even a little shocked. I welled up a bunch of times in the backyard just thinking about the night before and how much everything meant to me. It would have been embarrassing had anyone else been there...

I came inside after calling 20+ people and woke Brendan up. We drank some hot cider and rum to chase away the demons from the previous night and played video games for a bit. After we finished with the video games we watched Dirty Work. It was awesome. #10 for the month... yes... really. Brandon came over shortly after the movie started and we hung out and watched the movie together. After the movie we watched football... all day. I slept on and off on the couch all the while. At night i took myself upstairs, cleaned myself up, and went to bed.

Day #5. The End.

I turned 30. My knees hurt, I shit my pants, I got an AARP card, I got a prostate exam (Thanks Brian!), and started making plans for retirement. No... none of this. I went to work. Great. Brian showed up at lunchtime and took me out for Chinese food. We had the buffet... no big deal. I worked until 4:00p and went home. Took a quick shower and headed to Hattrick's to meet Emily, Jaime and Drew. We sat there for a bit while some patrons bought me drinks... whiskey tasted pretty good, and then it was time to leave... it was before 8pm, which was a bit later than I was hoping for, but it worked out no less.

Emily gave me a ride to my house and she came inside for a little while. I made awful pasta, awfuller sauce and cheese... we ate that. It was cheap, and pretty good. I'm a sucker for cheap food. We watched Dirty Work and fell asleep for a few minutes. Around 11:30p, we woke up and departed for the evening. If I was writing the big book of birthdays, this one would have ended just like this.

So yeah, I'm still here, life still goes on, and I wish I turned 40 tomorrow so i could do it all over again. Thanks to everyone who wished me happy birthday, came to see me, called me, or anything... it was great... if i could do it every day for the rest of my life I would never forget the value of this one night, and seeing everyone smile and hug... it just really warms my heart.

That's all. No more for today. Perhaps more tomorrow in my entry entitled "Strippers Down In Austin -or- "For All I Know He's Hanging By His Neck In His Fucking Closet."

I'm going to have a 5 day birthday party every year for the rest of my life -or- I need a roadmap to get out of these eyes

Birthday Celebration Day #1

I leave work to head over to the watering hole to get myself some dude fuel. After several beers and a few shots of whiskey I get on the bus to head home. I get home around 5:45pm and wait for Mike to arrive. Mike arrives. We piddle around for a few minutes and then head down to the North Star to watch Off With Their Heads. The first band did nothing for me... it's the old singer from Bigwig playing in a similar style band... i sit and watch through an open window but cannot get into the lack of intensity put forth by their lead singer.

Off With Their Heads is next... I talked with Ryan outside for a few minutes and tried to squeeze either song off of their split with The Measure [sa] into their set. He says he doesn't know them, and that it won't be happening. Oh well. They rip through about 10 songs in 25 minutes and leave the stage. Mike and I go outside and begin our conversation on what American Idiot is really all about. We see eye to eye and head inside to watch the Casualties.

There was a part of me a bunch of years back that really liked the Casualties. I kind of still do... i think it's more nostalgia based than anything, but the few songs I remembered were pretty cool to see again live.

Youth Bridage played next, and I don't really remember too much about their set. On the way home, Mike makes me try to appreciate Oasis. It didn't work. The dude is just a whiney, nasaly stupid jerk. I think I share a birthday with him... great. If you ask me I needed to be born to bring some sense of evenness based on the amount of suck that was born a few years before me.

Birthday Celebration Day #2

I leave work at 3:15p and head home to take a shower and a nap. The nap proves to be the best decision i've made in a long time. all 52 minutes of it. I shower and head out to the bus stop. Get on the bus and head into Hatfield. I meet up with Emily, Maria and Jaime at the bar. We sit on the porch and have some pretty entertaining conversation. Bucket and Jeremy showed up a bit later, and the conversation and drinking continues. Shots were bought, hugs were given and a good time is had. After a short while Emily and I return to my house. I made pasta and we ate it. It totally needed to happen. We watch a bit of TV and retire for the evening. I like sleeping next to someone an awful lot, but it makes waking up alone a pretty lonely experience. It's a good outweighing the bad thing... you won't hear me complaining. Emily leaves in the morning and I think about staying up for the day, but I remember that tonight could wind up being late, and since we're going out to celebrate the best goddamn thing in the world (me), I should at least be aware and awake enough to enjoy it.

So here I am... sitting on this couch, getting ready to head to the grocery store, and wearing a new shirt. I'm very excited to go out with my friends tonight and would die in a heartbeat for each and every one of my friends and relatives. I've said it 10 million times, but without my friends I'm nothing. Without my family, I am nothing. It's amazing to be shaped by outside forces when you swore you'd never do it. Friends and family are just that important to me.

I'll report back on day #3 of birthday radicalness. Who the hell knows what's in store? I think everyone but me... awesome.

I'm like, psychic and shit -or- I like when I'm right about something positive

Well... there was some pretty serious baby action yesterday. I high fived a child, held another one, and watched a baby eat cake on his first birthday. It was a great day! I woke up real early and laid around trying to figure out what to do with myself. I decided I would call Jeff and see if he wanted to meet up to shoot pool. He did. So we did. We hung out from noon until about 1:45p and then I came back home.

When I arrived back at the mansion I found that Brian was still asleep. He stumbled out of bed and downstairs around 2:30p. I was enjoying a Crown Royal and cola and listening to Lucero. He got himself together and we took off for Kyle's house. I slept on the way, as I typically do when I'm in the car for more than 5 minutes. We got there and I ran into all sorts of friends that I haven't seen in a really long time. It was nice to see everyone, and the party was fantastic. The weather held up, and we spent a bunch of time outside watching some kids do some kid stuff.

Around 11p Brian and I left the party. I, once again, slept in the car the whole way home. I woke up, in the car, in the driveway to this girl that I know telling me that I should come inside and not sleep in the car all night. She had a very good point. From there my night gets a bit hazy. I was just a little bit drinky and very tired, but it was nice to come home to friends. If you see my previous entry, "The Time Is Never Right -or- These Words Are Never Right" you will note that the last sentence was "Maybe I'll get to see someone later...", I was totally right. I was very much ok with that, as I thought I might be.

1 week left in my 20's. 1 week left until I become a bitter old man. I've got to pack a lot of awesome in this week and make the best of it. I know, deep down, that nothing really will change with me turning 30, but I'll have that number hanging over my head for a little while. I'm looking forward to this weekend. I'd like to have some friends over on Friday to celebrate my last Friday as a youthful 29 year old... we'll see. Three of my four favorite girls (Mom being #1) are taking me out on Saturday, from what I understand... should be mighty interesting, but it's, once again, a wonderfully untouchable thing to have friends who care about you, and to care about your friends. I don't think enough people realize how important friends are. I do.


I'm all done now. Listen to the new Banner Pilot... all kinds of good. Perfect lyrics. It really fits in with me right now... I love it.

Goodbye blog. I gotta take a goddamn shower and get all ready to go to work tomorrow. Great.

The Time Is Never Right -or- These Words Are Never Right

Quick one here. I've only got 6 minutes. I gotta make it count.

I need to leave in 6 minutes to meet Jeff Bean over at the Indian for some pool and a beer or two. From there I will come home, and then head to Downingtown with Brian. We're going to see Pat, Kristen, and Kyle... it's the youngsters birthday, so we're gonna get him all liquored up and then head to the mall to chase girls... should be quite the event.

I'm looking forward to going. I haven't seen Pat in forever, I haven't seen Kirsten in forever, and I've only met the Gomer Kyle once. I got him a stuffed Papa Smurf for his birthday, I hope he digs it. I also got my cat a small mouse filled with catnip. He's not too stoked on that, actually, I kind of think he resents me for it. "What? You don't think I could kill one of these myself? Foolish human." I know he's going to kill me, I'm just not sure how.

Last night Drew, Maria, Jaime, Emily and I went to Hattrick's to have a few drinks and enjoy good company. We ended up staying later than I thought we would, but afterwards we stopped at the grocery store and got the makings for some tacos. I forgot to get the taco seasoning, so we kind of needed to wing it. All in all, i think it was a marginal success. I farted and pooped this morning, so that means the plumbing is still in check.

Shit! I gotta go, I've overshot my timeframe, and now grumpy old Jeff is going to get all grumpy and old all over the place. Enough about me for the day...

Maybe I'll get to see someone later... i might be OK with that.

My shoes are all soaked and my socks are all cotton - or - I can't wait anymore. I'm restless.

Goddamn. I love this weather. More than I love myself, and that's saying something. I'm high up on the list of my favorite people in the world. There's hardly anyone better than me. I've got great taste in music, I'm a pretty fun guy, it's nice waking up next to me every morning, I shower every day, I always smell nice, I've got a great personality and above all... I've got me a perfect cat.

Enough about me, let's talk about you. Uhm.. you know what, I don't really wanna do that. This is my blog after all.. if you wanna talk about you, get your own goddamn blog. It's easy. Then you, and you alone, can write all of your insanely uncollected thoughts down and talk about how kick ass you are. That's pretty much what we've got going on behind this here computer screen... me kicking ass.

I'm the least confident person ever. The above paragraphs are no direct reflection of how I actually feel about myself. I'm shy, unless I've been drinking, I consider myself to be relatively boring, I wake up alone a lot, I don't really shower all that much, I don't smell to great, and my personality... well, it leave a lot to be desired. However, my taste in music? Unrivaled.

I might be driving/riding to Indianapolis on 9/26/09 to get me a kitty cat. You see, I've got this douchebag friend named Punkrockjeff. He is pretty much losing everything... house, truck and cat. He's moving back in with the family, and his dad is having no parts of the PRJ bringing a kitty into the house. He's got his claws, which is good... he's an inside cat... which I like, and I've met the little dude and he seems to be pretty cool. I'm wondering if this will actually happen, and once I get the little bastard home, how Mr. Jim is going to handle things. I'm sure it will be fine, but only time will tell.

All right... enough of me doing nothing... time to work. I'm gonna dole out some hugs tonight, so you watch yourselves or you might just be the recipient of a half falling down goofy grin hug from this half-worthless sack of shit.

Man... this was not what I was aiming for when I started this one.

Needs more rain. Needs less me. Needs more you. Good morning sunshine. You're running out of time, you're not getting any younger, you're certainly not getting any better... but you are learning more and more every day and for what it's worth, it's worth all the while. Ew... awful Green Day lyric that wasn't supposed to happen... but my fingers wouldn't stop, and now i'm past the point of no return.

I wanna sit and watch it rain later.

Yeah She's a Doormat, So Be Sure To Wipe Your Feet - or- Bloody Mary Mornings and Pink Sky Heartache

So, blog. I'm going to cut to the chase. We've spent a lot of time together discussing things and sharing interests. You're always there to listen, and I'm seldom there to talk. My heart just isn't in it anymore. It's not me, it's you.

WHOA! It's Sunday children! That's amazing. You know what's even better? LABOR DAY! That means I get an additional day in my week where I don't have to do a gosh darn thing. I'm all about this. I'll bet you $1 that i sit on this couch, looking at this cat, and watching TV.

I'm listening to Dear Landlord right now, which if you review "Today: Birthday, Father's Day, Basement Show" you'd find out that Dear Landlord is just goddamn amazing. They will be a high point of Florida this year. Especially after the record came out on No Idea Records and what have you... they're going to be bigger than Jesus. Mark my words.

Last night I went to Lancaster with Bucket. We went to see the Felice Brothers. I had a pretty good time. There were drinks on the top level of a parking garage, and good times had across the board. $2 lagers was the theme of the night and even though the room wasn't as crowded as I would have thought, they ran out of beer. Lancaster likes their discount drinks.

Mike came back. He exists. He's alive. These are all good things. We hadn't seen him in a bit, and his phone was stolen so he didn't have any of our phone numbers. But he dropped in yesterday and we watched Dirty Work... three times. Yeah. Three times, and you know what? It never got boring, for me.

That's all for now, i think. Brandon is coming over and we're going to shoot some pool. I'm looking forward to not playing drunk guys and playing Brandon. Hopefully that happens. I need to watch more baseball. It's something I really love, but it's something I haven't taken the time to do. The Cubs season has really brought me down this year and I haven't spent enough time with something I really love. Damnit.

I'm sorry blog, I didn't to imply that you're the one at fault here. It's as much me as it is you. I mean, if you still wanted to stay the night, that's fine. But tomorrow morning, we should probably part ways... wait... why are you crying? I thought you didn't care anymore. Me? Of course I care... I wasn't... oh forget that this ever happened. I'm sorry. It's me.

(the blog curls up next to Noah on a blanket on a rooftop. the skyline is visible in the background. the stage lights fade. an audible sigh is heard. Credits.)

I'll never tell anybody -or- Every scar is a valid reason for every drink

I've been on this Alkaline Trio and Lucero kick recently that I can't seem to let go of. I'm not arguing at all, as they are two of my favorite bands ever, but it only seems to show up every once in a while. It's all so strange but all so comforting. Music is perfect. There's a song for every moment of your life, but much like a "Where's Waldo" book, it's up to you to find that shit. Once you do, in your darkest day, you can still feel on top of the world... and on your worst day you'll never feel better. There's no words to describe how amazing music is. I'm a nerd. I get it. I've got a creepy ear.

What the hell did I do yesterday? Let me retrace my steps a little bit and maybe I can fill you in on the gory details. Oh. I remember. Brandon came over and we went to the Indian and shot some pool. It was fun, for the most part. I would have much preferred to play against him but there were drunk guys at the bar and they wanted to play. We beat them 5-1 out of 6 games. They were embarrassed, but we played virtually free pool, so what am I gonna do? Not complain about it. That's what.

He came back to the house after playing pool and we ordered a pizza we had no chance in eating. Words can't do that justice either... it was just way out of line. I had 2 slices and there was no more. I felt like hell when I woke up, which is always nice.

Speaking of waking up. I did some work today. I enjoyed the day, and managed to a get a bunch of stuff done despite Charles being there. I left around 6:00 and went to the bar, had a beer and left for the bus. I got home around 6:45p and took a shower. My ear is doomed. It's getting revenge after many years of abuse. I don't blame it one bit. I've avoided this for a long time, but this time my ear wins. Good for it. It doesn't sit around putting holes in me, so why should I? This paragraph is making me feel stupid.

Armageddon is a terribly amazing song. Listen to it. Alkaline Trio wrote it. It works.

I'm all done now. I'm going to sit here and think about stuff, and do laundry, and maybe watch Dirty Work. We'll see. Sounds like a good series of plans if you ask this guy.

Is your washing machine a silent killer? Details at 11.

I can't do anything right now at work. I'm at a standstill. Month end is running and that is usually the time of the month where I piss Patrick off. Not today. I walked into my office this morning to a sign that read "It's month end, Dummy." I left that note for myself yesterday before I left the office. It helped. Without the note he would have stormed downstairs and kicked a hole through my stomach. I made the right call.

Sunday. I woke up early, typed in this old blog for a little while and sat around feeling helpless and somewhat sorry for myself. I played guitar for a while, and had a vodka and iced tea. It was really good. So good in fact, that I had a bunch more. I was in search of something to free my mind from where it was stuck. I wish I had handled it a bit differently, but I didn't, and I'll live with that. Around 4pm someone asked me if I could use a little bit of company. Someone was right. So 6 records, a few drinks, a gyro, a barefoot walk and a few cigarettes later I was falling asleep. I woke up to a dark room, full of confusion sleeping on a pillow fashioned from a sweatshirt. It was 3:40am. I was awake. I dozed on and off for the next 2 hours and then woke up to go to work.

Work wasn't really all that great. As far as what I accomplished yesterday I'd say work was a total success, but I was feeling down most of the day. I will be picking up a small amount of work in the upcoming weeks listing items on eBay for our company. There was mention in our meeting of being paid extra for it, but I'm really not concerned about the pay. I certainly wouldn't turn it down, but it's nothing I expect. It'll just be nice to help out.

"Note to self: get ass wart cream for the huge wart on my ass."

Month end is done. I can start working. I hope I have a great day.

It's been a while since I've spent a weekend at the ol' Blog Cabin -or- Sorry Pat, I've never had an original thought

It's been a long time kids. I haven't posted in this thing in quite some time. So a bunch of shit has happened in the last month, I'm not sure what exactly has happened, but let me try to put together a bunch of words to convey how awesome my life has been for the past month.

My life has been awesome the past month. There. That's quick and to the point, it gets across the meaning I was shooting for. If only every situation could be this blunt. We would really have to interact with each other much less, which depending on the circumstance might not be the worst thing to ever happen.

My Uncle passed away last night, presumably in his sleep. He has been unresponsive for a day or two, and last night his time came. I wish I could make an 8 hour trip and hug the shit out of my mom because I know she's having a hard time with this. He was her brother. They are figuring out how the funeral or viewing will work, but there's also the thought of leaving his ashes in the ocean, which is kind of sweet. It was huge for her to be able to go and visit him in the hospital when she did so they could have dialog and talk. I've seen a bunch of amazing series of events this year, and everything seems like it's written in story book form. Had they gone down this weekend they wouldn't have been able to visit and would have been there when he passed away. Circumstances are amazing.

-segue-

My friend and coworker Zeke had a stoke 2 Thursdays ago. It was crazy. He's 34. He stopped in the warehouse between jobs and pushed past me and headed to the bathroom. I could hear him throwing up from my office which is about 20' away and several walls. He came out and after a little bit, he headed off with Rich to his second job. On the way he slept, and once they got to the job he couldn't feel his legs. He went to get out of the van and fell to the ground. Rich, the fucking hero he is, gathered Zeke up and put him back in the van and rushed to a hospital in the Langhorne area. They took Zeke in and pumped him with IV stuff, and waited for Dawn to come be with him. If Rich would have waited at all to get him to the hospital, like 20 minutes, could have killed Zeke. There's a ton of circumstantial goofiness that goes along with this story, but wow... it really makes you think about life, and how quickly one can disappear. I've felt more ups and downs this year than any before... it's good for the soul I suppose.

FUN STUFF! I went canoeing with Glenn down the Delaware River. We left at 9am on a Saturday morning and came back around 5pm on a Sunday afternoon. I had a blast and I'm pretty sure Glenn did too. I'd like to get this done again one more time this year, but we'll have to see what schedules allow for, and what have you. I lost a GREAT pair of sandals on my journey. At about 3pm on the first day. It made for a pretty fun next day plus, with out any shoes. I pooped outside. I was not stoked, but if i didn't poop outside I was going to poop inside... my pants. We drank tons of beers, built a fire, made steaks and pancakes. I left the stupid poles for my tent at home so I slept in Glenn's tent while he slept in a hammock between two trees. I felt like a jackass, and still do.

I borrowed a guitar from Mike in the hopes of being able to learn something. It's a slow process, but it's something I'm enjoying. I'm looking forward to being able to put 4 chords together and play a song. I have a bunch of songs in mind, but I still need much more work until I'm confident enough to give it a try. I'm having a lot of fun with picking exercises and learning how to play these few chords as cleanly and confidently as I can.

Bucket moved in. Umm... i think everybody who reads this has already met Bucket... but this time he came equipped with really short shorts. It's sort of amazing.

I'm done now. I think I'm going to sit here and be kind of miserable today. I don't think I'm feeling a whole lot like being very social, but I really wish North Carolina was 3 towns away and not an eight hour drive. I'm glad my dad is there for my mom, but I wish I could be there too.

Post 54, Where Are You -or- Crying Tears Into the Morning Sky

A lot of shit has gone down since my past post, but let me take 2 steps back, and then a step or two forward and we'll see if I can't end up back in the same place. Paula Abdul, keep your whore mouth shut!

1. Kill time with someone - Check!
2. Get new plugs for my ears, as I lost one in Baltimore - Check!
3. Eat a bunch of food - Check!
4. Play some pool and have a few beers - FAIL!
5. Help Brandon hang a TV in his living room - Check (sort of.... Bedroom)


Well, that all went well... if I was a doctor that kind of performance would be totally inexcusable.. but if I was a baseball player, I'd be Hall Of Fame bound. I'm not, and I'm not. I'm just some dude who considers 4 out of 5 to be a pretty good haul, and the one I've missed is the one I care about least.

Friday. I worked. It was GREAT. Bucket came up around 3:30p and we left for my house. We stopped on the way to my house and picked up some cocktails (read: 30 pack of PBR and a fifth of Mount Gay Extra Old). We got back here and I climbed into the shower. I had a feeling that I should be less dirty than I usually am, and I'm glad I did because I would have been a mess. We left to go to Hattrick's where we met Emily, Maria, Jaime and Jeremy. We bullshitted for quite a while and had a few drinks. Bucket, Emily and I left and came to our house, then left our house in route to the grocery store. Tacos were on the menu, and probably still on the counter. I was kind of a slob this weekend... umm, and part of this week so far. We came back to the house to make and eat said tacos. Around 1am Emily left. I walked her to her car to ensure a small gang of skateboarding ruffians didn't get pepper sprayed, and I walked back to my house.

TRAGEDY STRIKES

I came inside and laid down on the couch. What I didn't know is I failed to close and latch the front door all the way. Me of all fucking people. I'm crazy about that door ever since losing my first cat and I will never know how I was not aware enough to shut my own front door.
I wake up at 8:45am and look for my kitty. I didn't see him anywhere. I started in the basement and worked my way to the attic, and then worked back from the attic and down to the basement. I was panicked, crying, helpless, scared and feeling very alone. I remember all of these things I said, and did and looking back on it, if it happened again right now I would react exactly the same. There is no concept of overreacting when something like that happens. You can't control the emotions that come rushing in, and you certainly can't control the intensity of those emotions. No one wants to feel like that, but in a sick way it was comforting to know I was still capable. I called everyone who was at my house the following day, I called Jaime, my mom, Mike and Brian. I went looking... everywhere. The surrounding blocks near my house, the highway that is 1 block away, thinking the worst...

People started calling me back and I kept looking. Finally I was walking back to my house to have another big ol' freak out, and who do I see coming to me from the bushes? Jim. Screaming. He was not happy about getting out, but was taking it seemingly better than his older brother was. I grabbed him and brought him inside and kind of collapsed on the floor with him. I was a sobby mess. It was really bad. But I found my boy, and I was really worried I would never see him again. I wish the same thing would have happened with his sister, but I haven't given up that I won't get a chance to have that reunion.

I love my friends with all of my heart. I hope they all know that I would do anything for them too. No matter how small, huge, or just fucking crazy. I would do it all with no questions asked in a heartbeat. Keep your friends as close as you can and to hell with your acquaintances.

Mike came over a little later in the afternoon and we spent some time listening to records. We left in the afternoon around 2 to go and meet Drew in the city and poke around in some record stores. I bought some records and a few CD's. I also stopped by Infinite and picked up some new plugs for my ears. They're a light red glass and 1/16" bigger than what I had before. They went in with relative ease, which made me happy. I need to remember to take them out at night so they don't wind up falling out and breaking. That will totally piss me off.

From South Philly, Mike and I said goodbye to Drew and headed over to Lincoln Financial Field. There was Gold Cup Soccer being played and we thought it might be kind of cool to check out. We were totally right. The first game was Canada vs. Honduras. Honduras won 1-0. The second game was U.S.A. vs. Panama. U.S.A. advances from that game. The semi-finals are being played right now, and I'd kind of get in to watching it. The Cubs are in town against the Phillies so I'm glued to that currently. Ted Lilly just gave up a 3 run shot... soccer is looking better. Ugh. I can't do 3 days of this.

We came home around midnight and I went to sleep.

I woke up the next morning pretty early, feeling a little bit rough from the night before... it was a rollercoaster and I was kind of a wreck towards the end of the day. Brandon came over around 2pm and we started with the TV hanging project. I'm not going into the gory details of how this all went down, but let's just say I got home at 7:45p, and I worked on hanging the TV for about 1 hour. It was mayhem. I'm glad it's over, but it was fun nonetheless.

Today, I worked. I'm now sitting here, drinking a PBR, listening to Against Me!, and watching the Cubs down 3-0 to the Phillies. I wonder what this week has up it's sleeve. I'm headed to a baseball game tomorrow night (which I fear will be rained out), and nothing planned for a while.

Goodbye.

How To Steal A Million or Post 53: Where It All Comes Together

Not entirely sure what the next few days hold in store for me. I can make a small list of things I'd like to do, you know what? Maybe I'll just do that.

1. Kill time with someone
2. Get new plugs for my ears, as I lost one in Baltimore
3. Eat a bunch of food
4. Play some pool and have a few beers
5. Help Brandon hang a TV in his living room

This seems like kind of a full weekend, I guess. I would also like to do some horsing around with my cat, watch some baseball and look into getting some new shoes. We'll see how much of this actually happens. I'm thinking I'll knock out article 1 today, and perhaps tomorrow... a guy can hope. I want it all... kill me for being selfish.

I guess I need to get to work now. This huge pile of work ain't gonna do itself. This one is short, but that will happen. I really don't have much to talk about right now. I'll come up with something for next time.

F the Home Run Derby. That is all.

Wednesday! Wednesday! Wednesday!. You'll Pay For The Whole Seat But You'll Only Need The Edge.

Damn. Flys sure do like me today, but at least that's a start. Last night Bucket came over and we sat on the porch and drank a few rum drinks. We got a bit out of line, but my friend had some blues to lose and I'm glad I could help him out. He's a good man, and guys like us are few and far between. I've somehow managed to surround myself with them, and for this I am very fortunate. Woke up with a nice burn on my knee, oops. He did the same. We wanted something to remember the night by. We got it. I've peroxided myself up and now am bandaided. Maria made me do it. Thank you Maria. My mom will be happy.

Work sure was work today. I got all kinds of tired while I was there from moving lots of furniture and going about my daily duties. I had some good ideas this morning, and wrote them down to break them out at a better time. I don't know when that will be yet, but I think I'll know when the time comes. I'll probably lose the list by then, or my ideas will change. Damn flies! They're everywhere out here.

I just found something better to do so I will cut this short. Who knows what the hell I'll wind up doing tonight. Hopefully something fun, followed by eating, and something else fun.

Goodbye Blogosphere.

49 more posts until a real milestone is reached.

What have I been up to since Insubordination Fest? I'll recap briefly and then try to some up with something to talk about. I don't know how successful I'm going to be in doing this, but I'll give it a shot.

Work hasn't been exactly spectacular, but I've got my motivations and know what I need to be better at. I had some thoughts today about work, and how things could unfold, and I'm a little creeped out by the thought of it. I'm going to do my best to make an impact in the next week and prove that the only dead part of my brain is the little distinguished gray patch up front. The other 98% works just fine, and I need to find a way to prove this. I'm not sure what this is as of right now, but I'll be damned if I don't figure it out.

I've been writing almost too much again lately. Trying to keep a couple of journals on my computer to empty my brain into and slow down the whirlwind of thought that is taking place in my 10% active brain. Topics are all over the place, but after I get finished I feel a strong sense of relief for at least a couple of hours. I feel like I'm typing the same shit over and over again but figuring out different ways of saying it. I've also started writing somewhat "creatively" or at least as "creative" as I can. I'd like to write short stories someday, but right now it's turning out to be hacked up poetry crap and stuff that would flow well in song form. I wrote a short poem about spiders that I'm sort of fond of. I won't post it here because it's embarrassing. No one will ever read that one. But anyhow, it's nice to write, it's an awesome outlet.

The 4th of July weekend was awesome. Good drinks with a great friend on Friday, a kickass sandwich, Twilight Zone putting me to bed and the following morning was spent with another 6 hours of the Twilight Zone. I left the next afternoon for the city and spent some time with Drew, Joe, Mick, Jesse, Laura, Danielle, and Sarah. We BBQ'd and drank some beers, then piled in some sober cars and drove to Glenside to watch some fireworks. I'm a fan. I like shitty fireworks better than crazy elaborate fireworks. I'm a pretty simple guy, believe it or not. Ha. I sat up late talking to Jesse (Blatz, Criminals, runs Alternative Tentacles records) about what the hell "Summer Casual" means. He got me all figured out, and it should be a pretty interested wardrobe for the wedding. I'm very excited for Saturday to see Zeke and Dawn "tie the knot" and spend the evening with friends having some dinner, drinks, watching some dancing and sharing the night with some wonderful people. I'm nervous, but I think that's probably more than normal.

Today was Brian's birthday. That son of a bitch turned 28 and I gave him a few records for his gift. He seemed happy. He went out to dinner with his parents and came back in pretty good spirits. That dude doesn't seem like he's having all that much fun sometimes, but he was in a good mood today and that goes a long way with me.

I don't think I've got much else to say right now. I slept for 3 hours in the middle of the day and it's going to totally ruin sleeping tonight. I'm pissed. Another night of no sleep. Oh well. I'll get back on a schedule tomorrow provided I don't fall asleep in the middle of the late afternoon again.

I need to do three things: (in no certain order)

Be brutally honest about everything
Be confident in everything I do
Never forget that my life is going to be lived for me

That's all kids! Have a blast. You're running out of time to make this year the best year of your life, and if you fuck it all up you've only got yourself to blame.

Post 50. I feel like there should be a celebration.

Post 50. Right here. This is where the groundbreaking shit starts to happen. This is where i stop talking about my somewhat boring life, and start talking about all of the awesome things I've got planned for the rest of the year. This is where the bullshit stops, and the real me begins.

This is actually just another dumb post. I'm going to talk about a few things... actually write. I'm going to write about a few things. First stop, Baltimore MD.

Insubordination Fest is an annual event that I have attended since it's second show. It's a blast. The music almost takes a back seat to all of the awesome friendships formed, the crazy antics, and of course... the beers. We left on Thursday afternoon for MD and enjoyed a wonderful scenic drive down 95 South. Truth be told, I slept from the time we got on the NE Extension to the time we got about 30 minutes outside of Baltimore. We got to our hotel in the Inner Harbor, checked in, paid out the nose for parking the car for 3 days, and then left for the Ottobar.

The Ottobar is in a wonderful part of Baltimore so we parked pretty close to the venue. Upon walking in I ran into Danny, Dave Nobody, Phrank, Nick Valentine and a bunch of other people I can't quite remember right now. I remembered from last year that the upstairs bar was open for happy hour from 6pm to 9pm. After a quick check of what time it was, i noted that it was 6pm, and headed upstairs for some happy hour action. $1 Natty Boh's and cheap shots for 3 hours put me in pretty awesome form for the night. The highlights of this evening, although a little bit hazy, were Short Attention, Delay, The Max Levine Ensemble, Charlie Brown Gets A Valentine and Teenage Bottlerocket. We left the Ottobar and went back to the hotel after the show. I had a little too much fun so I went to sleep in the closet. I woke up in Brian's bed at 4:30am freezing cold, sleeping next to a fat guy who wasn't sharing the blankets. Boo.

Woke up Friday around 11:30am and was pretty sure that it would be the last I would see of the world. I stumbled downstairs and lit a cigarette trying to figure out up from down, left from right, and right from wrong. I figured out all of the above, and went back upstairs and laid on the floor. A little while later we went to the Lexington Market for some crab cakes. They were out of this world. Happiness can be eaten, and it can be eaten in the form of a crab cake. Here we met up with my total mancrush ChrisCrusher, his girlfriend Ali, Elliot from Wilkes-Barre, and Cameron from Seattle. DrewPeabottom and MsPeabottom showed up a bit later and then we left for the hotel room.

It was pool party time. I sat in a beach chair and drank a Natty Boh with my shirt off. There were ladies everywhere. I was scared for my life. I pooped in the hotel, it was awesome. it was the closest I'll ever come to giving birth... I was very happy, a little empty, and ready for Friday night's show.

We walked back to the hotel room to cut the sleeves off of our shirts and then walked back across town to Sonar. This is where we would spend the next 2 days. Walking in I ran into Drew and we went to the bar to get a couple of Boh's. We hung out for a bit and waited for the music to start. Highlights of this day were The Steinways last show, The Copyrights, Boris The Sprinkler, The Dead Milkmen, House Boat, The Menzingers and the Dopamines playing the best set I've seen in quite a long time, probably dating back to the last Ergs! show. PunkRockJeff showed up and it's always nice to see him. He came out from Milwaukee on what should have been a 13 hour drive, but it took him 16. I love this devotion for something as perfect as friendships and music. He told me when he got there he only drove out to punch me in the balls. More on that later. I left pretty sober because I wanted to make sure I remembered the Boris The Sprinkler set. The last time I saw them was 1997 in Duluth, MN on the night of my Senior Prom. They were just as good Friday night as they were when i was 17. Maybe ever better.

Saturday morning. Wake up, clear out the cobwebs and head off to find some cheap food. Nothing is open in Baltimore on Saturday... it's really mystifying. I settled for some Burger King and waited for 12 minutes after placing my order for two Whopper Jrs. Wow. I ate them on the way back to Sonar and met up with Brian and Mike in front of the venue. Saturday was another one of those, "Oh no, I'll bet I fall down" days. Jeff and I were enjoying some bands, knocking back drinks and having a blast. Highlights of the last night of Insubordination Fest were Dear Landlord (so good... again and again), The Measure [sa], Psyched To Die, The Leftovers, Kepi Ghoulie, Dillinger Four, and the Arrivals. We went outside after the show to say goodbye to people we probably won't see until next June and then went to Crusher and Ali's hotel room for a little late night after party action. TahoeJeff played his Uke and we sang along to various songs in different keys. It was awesome. I walked back to the hotel at 4:30am armed with a small pocket knife, and bloodshot eyes and fell asleep safely in the hallway closet of the hotel room. I woke up the next day and decided I wanted to try to stop smoking cigarettes.


Next topic! Stupid fucking cigarettes!

It's not going 100% so far, but I can count the number of smokes I've had since Sunday morning on one hand, and i think that's pretty good. Had this been a "normal" week I'd need about 8 hands to count them up. There are a few times when it's all i can do to not walk up to the store and buy a pack... even if just to hold one, or have the rectangle in my pocket. I'm going to try this time, and I'm going to be strong about it. I don't anticipate that I will fail, but I certainly worry about it. We'll see what happens... if at first you don't.. something something.

I'm done writing now. I'll let you all know how this thing works out. Keep your unit(s) on ya(s).

Today: Birthday, Fathers Day, Basement Show.

I lied. I said I would update this thing before Friday, and I didn't. I failed. Oh well. I'm going to try and recap what I've been up to for the past week, and maybe I'll search out something to talk about after, before, or during... we'll see how it all works out.

Last night was goddamn awesome. Brian, Mike, Emily (Happy Birthday!) and I went to the Cafe Metropolis in Wilkes-Barre PA to see a show. It was the first time I've dragged Emily to a show, and based on what I can pull out of a situation I think she had a good time. Maybe we'll do this again someday... who knows.

The bill (in reverse order) was The Menzingers (Scranton, PA), The Copyrights (Elgin, IL), Dear Landlord (Minneapolis, MN/Elgin, Illinois), and Highlites (Doylestown, PA). It really was a great lineup and the room was really positive and fun. It's been a while since I've gone to a show and not had a few beers but just stayed in the back of the crowd and watched everything. It's still really refreshing and awesome to me to have all of these people get together in a room where "aggressive" music is played and there is no bullshit. No fights. No trouble. No cops. Everyone came with the intention of checking out some music, and everyone had fun. It was nice to see Elliot, as he is one of the most entertaining people I've met and has the most genuine contagious laugh ever.

Highlites started the show and reminded me of a less tight Ghost Town Trio. I wasn't much for their sound but it wasn't unlikeable. I just found a demo on the Internet and I will download it and listen to it. Sometimes things translate better when they are recorded, and the live show lacks... or the other way around... who knows. I'll give it a shot and see. The worst that happens is the files occupy some space on my hard drive.

Dear Landlord was next. I've been waiting since the Disgraceland show with Off With Their Heads to see them again. They ripped through a bunch of songs on the new record which I hadn't heard, and I'm always stoked to hear new songs live before hearing them on record. They were pretty much untouchable. Best set of the night, easily. Get 'er Done, High Fives, Crashing, I live in Hell were the highlights of the set. It was nice to see a good collection of kids there to check them out, and hopefully this will bring them back to this side of the country soon.

After a short break, the Copyrights were set up and ready to play. They, also, were excellent. I've seen them a bunch of times and typically they're a bit drunk and not sounding so tight. They sounded VERY good last night. Planet Earth 1994, Cashiers, Shits Fucked, 57 North, Thinking With The Lights On were the highlights. I would have been thrilled to hear The Company and Graveyards Down The Street but Luke wasn't playing drums for them and was replaced by Ronnie from the Arrivals. Luke will be back with them in Baltimore (!!!) for Insubordination Fest this coming weekend and I'm thinking I might have a shot at hearing those songs. We'll see. I'm going to ask Fletcher if there's a chance and hearing The Company tonight. That would make my Sunday. My weekend has already been made.

The Menzingers were The Menzingers. I like them live, but I'm not much for them recorded. They can command a room, which is important for a band, and they were playing a record release show in their hometown. It's nice to see the support they get at home. I saw them play in Gainesville, FL last year and the support they got there was pretty excellent. Florida was the first time I had seen them, and I'm happy to see a band of guys from right up the NE Extension do well for themselves. There were 2 highlights of their set for me... the first was Richard Coury and the second was them letting everyone know not to buy records and shirts from them but to support the out of town bands so they could get to their next city. Classy shit, to say the least.

Oh, tonight. Copyrights, Dear Landlord, The Measure [sa], and the Menzingers in a basement in "stab you in the face, take your wallet and rape you" West Philadelphia. I'm REALLY excited for this one. I'm going to have a drink or two and "rage" with some friends. I'm very excited for this. I get to see a bunch of friends and sweat like it's my job in someone's basement.

I thought of it! I know what I'm going to "talk" about for this entry. Punk Rock. How I got into it. My first show. All of that stuff that probably helped shape who I am today, some of the outcomes will be negative, most will be positive, but I'm happy to have the values I have today, and being 100% comfortable with who I am.

Halloween. Duluth, MN 1995. I got a flier for a band called Johnny Pantsless and Matt (best friend in High School) and myself thought we should go check this out. I already had a Fugazi CD and a Green Day CD so I had clearly been around the block and knew exactly was I was getting into. WRONG. I don't remember the lineup for the night, but I remember a band called Flux Skapacitor and Johnny Pantsless (Jesse now plays in a band called Pretty Boy Thorson and the Falling Angels... 7/6!!) were playing. The opening band was dressed up like KISS and played covers. I didn't know very many of them, but something that sticks in my mind is a cover of Screeching Weasel's "Hey Suburbia" but the lyrics were changed to be about the OJ Simpson trial. There were a bunch of kids who were just like me in this old abandoned telephone company called The Receyclabell. It was great. Between bands we'd go outside and hang out with other kids who were just like us. There was never any bullshit. I didn't see a fight at a show until I came to Philadelphia, and never understood the motivation to do so.

We came to this same space over and over again for the next 2 years. I saw bands like Slapstick, The Umpires, Digger, Ferd Mert, Backwards Struggle and the Riff Randells. Then a few other places in Duluth caught our eye. One was a YMCA in West Duluth (I played my first punk show there!), the other was a Ballet recital room above a record store called The Electric Fetus. We'd frequent these places almost every weekend and slowly met friends, girls, bands and collected a disgusting amount of music... all of which I still have, and still listen to. I met my first "real" (kind of crazy when I think about it now) girlfriend at a punk show. Her name was Anna and ultimately taught me several lessons... most of which I'm not sure I learned anything from.

There was a really amazing sense of community at these shows. People you never talked to before were immediately friends and people we would hang out with for the next couple of years. We (John Laney, Matt Olmem, (I don't know who played bass! shit!), and myself) formed a band called The Screw-Ups and we played two shows. One was at the afore mentioned YMCA and the other was at a small coffee shop in downtown Duluth called the Orphium Room. We never got paid. We didn't want to. We wrote songs about being in high school, girls, and we also played a few cover songs. Our set couldn't have been more than 20 minutes long. My parents had rented a house to a couple of lived behind our garage and eventually they moved out. We took the living room of this house and turned it into our practice space. We practiced for HOURS. Hours of practice to play 10 songs to a room of people for 20 minutes. My voice was shot and I remember thinking I wasn't going to be able to sing (scream) when we played our second show... we made it through ok. I wish we could have had these shows taped, or ever tried to record something. It sounds like a trainwreck of bad musicians and screamy screechy 17 year old vocals in my head and I'm sure that's exactly what it was. That is what I had always wanted to do. Write some songs with some friends and play them for a group of people who wanted to hear them. I think I'm glad I got that out of my system when I did, but I still have the crazy desire to do this again someday... even at age (almost) 30. I think it would be different now because I know about more than how I'm tired of jocks, don't appreciate stares from people who hate me based on no reason or the cute girl in my anatomy class who never knew I existed. I know much more now that I did... everything was written to be very straight forward and not metaphorically. I think I could write better now, but I'm afraid to find out I can't... so I don't.

Fast forward to right now. June 21st 2009 1:25pm. I'm typing out this blog, drinking a beer, and waiting to go to a show with my friends tonight. Not much has changed, but the lines on our faces have gotten deeper, life means more and I appreciate the smaller things much more than I ever did before. Looking back on it, if I wouldn't have gone down this path I don't know what I would be doing with myself, but I know in the back of my head I would have never had this much fun.

Thursday - Saturday of this week is going to be the best. Every year at the end of June about 500 kids descend on the city of Baltimore for 3 days of friendship, punkrock, high fives, drinks and then sad "see you next year" hugs. It's so much fun. I've met the majority of the people there through an Internet message board and formed these awesome friendships. I love most of them like family, and I wish we all lived in one city and that every show was this good. I'm very excited for this weekend.

Otherwise, the past week or so has progressed like any other week, so just go back a few entries and read those... I'm a creature of habit. I like finding a formula of what works and sticking to it. I've been spoiled as of late. I know this. I'm completely enjoying every second of it.

My battery is going to die. Oh no!

Thought... something brief.

I don't have time to write now. But I will make time before Friday.

I promise. It's not that I've been busy, it's just that I haven't been busy.

When you're young, when you're dumb.... when you're something something something...

Bom Bum BOOOOOM! Wednesday. The day which represents the beginning of the end of every crappy thing you've done for the past 2 days. It's day that I welcome with open arms. A day that means you're one day further away from Monday, but one day closer to Friday. I'm making way too much of this. It's Wednesday. Great.

I don't really have any time or anything to day right now. I'm empty.

I watched something pretty awesome yesterday.

All these hours I've been sleeping peacefully your imagination has been running wild.

WHOA! I'm some kind of Nostradamus! I spelled that wrong! You'll see in the last post "It's Friday night at the middle school mixer, I've got my eye on you" that i stated (predicted) that I would round out an evening with beer and tacos. I don't mean to get all "Psychic Dude" on you... but see? I'm magical, and there ain't a goddamn thing you can do about it! Ha! Doom wins again! Why? Because Doom always wins! Yay!

Seriously, though? Fuck today.

Let's start back a bit further and try and recap some of the awesomeness that has been every day that has led up to today. Friday? Go ahead. I'm sure you've got some questions from me... fire away. Hey, you... the kid in the back with stupid shirt and the glasses... oh.. what? Oh. You were stretching... i thought you had your hand up. My bad. Fine. Once again, a less that responsive audience... I'll do what I do worst, and just ramble on and try and create some semblance of meaning with all of these words... Check it out.

Friday I went to work, and golly gee wasn't that just the time of my life. No. Not really. I did get news from Bucket that he would be up in our area around 3:30pm. So let it be written, so let it be done... Bucket was there at 3:30pm like clockwork. We went back to my house and I took a shower, and drank 3 beers. 1 of which was in the shower. The other 2 were porch beers. From there we left to meet the usual crew of suspects, misfits, jerks, and friends. We had fun. Well... i don't want to speak for everyone else, but I had fun. I think everybody in Hatfield knows I had fun. Oops. At least I didn't sing karaoke... that would have just put me over the "having a reasonable amount of fun" part and right into "ohboyihopeidon'trememberthisville". Ha. Came back to the house I live in shortly after a stop to the grocery store. Tacos were made, eaten, and eventually (not that same evening [i think]) pooped. Woke up. Walked around and fell asleep on the front porch for a little bit, and next thing I know... it's SATURDAY!

What did I do with my Saturday? Another great question. Any takers? Eh... screw it. I'm talking to myself here. Bucket came over around 4pm and we ate some cookies and devised an afternoon plan of epic proportions. We put it into action... it went like this... (my plan, at least... it seemed others had different agendas)

First stop would be Dairy Queen where I would purchase 1 Chili Cheese Dog. The Chili Cheese Dog was to be eaten en route to McDonalds. Once I had arrived my plan was to get a $1 chicken sandwich, and a $1 double cheeseburger. There was no chicken sandwich, so some improvisation needed to be done. The order was a $1 Double Cheeseburger and a 4 piece Chicken McNuggets. I combined the two, so I had a double cheeseburger with 4 pieces of (creepy) "chicken" adorning the burger. I ate that on the way to Burger King. While at burger king, I "enjoyed" a spicy chicken sandwich, and a Whopper Jr. Only the bread from one sandwich was used, as to not get too filled up. My journey had only begun. I ate my Spicy Chicken Burger disaster on my way to Wendy's. The tank was starting to fill up at this point, but as a friend (Juan) once told me "there's nothing to it, but to do it". I ordered a Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger and a Chicken Sandwich of some kind, and proceeded to make sandwich #3 for the journey. I ate that on the way to Dunkin' Donuts where I rounded the entire "meal" off with a Glazed Donut. This "afternoon plan of epic proportions" probably took about 3 months off of my life, and I haven't eaten as much fast food this year as I did on Saturday. I felt like a CHAMP (gas, funny poo, stomach pains etc.) until about 3pm the next day.

Sunday? ... to hell with it. Here's what I did. I woke up around 4:30am and hung out for a little bit. Bucket was asleep on the couch and I wasn't sure what to do with myself. I went back to sleep. It seemed like the most logical course of action. I finally woke up at 9am and did next to nothing to the next ton of hours. Brandon came over and night and we played pool for a bit, watched some baseball, and ate Chinese food. It was pretty awesome. A lazy Sunday was kind of what the Dr. (me) ordered, and it worked out very stress free, and awesome. Unlike my previous say (Saturday) spent bettering myself and eating healthy.

Today! This one was one for the goddamn books. Someone, somewhere will write about this day in a book titled "Top 100 Shittiest Days Ever". I woke up early so I could get ready for court. Fun. I got ready for court. I left the house at 9:45am and was on my way to what should be my last day of dealing with being jerked around and feeling like a dipshit. I desperately want to move on to something else that makes me feel stupid... this one is just getting out of hand. I love riding the train. I can't get enough of a long local train ride. There's all kinds of fun stuff to look at as you pass through different neighborhoods, there's quality people watching to do and I can listen to music and be left alone. It's kind of nice. I'm enjoying myself doing nothing on the train, listening to Dear Landlord ("Trying To Keep Four Walls From Doing Their Worst" has referenced this band, and an entry in late May. It's not too late to order this record.) as I recall and my phone rings. It's "Joe Awesome Lawyer" and he's letting me know that I'll be there on my own, again, and that there is no need for him to be there. Great. What the hell kind of "return" have I seen on my initial "investment" of $5K for legal defense? Nothing. A series of phone calls that turn out to be a bigger series of fucking letdowns. Once again, and certainly not the last time, Great.

I get to the Criminal Justice Center on 13th and Filbert (or as I like to call it, my home away from home) and waited 1 hour for the mornings work to finish, and the afternoon (Scheduled: 12pm) to start. I walk in, date and sign 2 papers, walk 5 feet, date and sign 1 paper. Give a woman my phone number, and I'm gone. Just like that. Just like I've done several times before. Just like my time means nothing. Just like their time means nothing. Everyone is happy. Someone shows up, something gets signed, people fall asleep in a courthouse, people have shitty haircuts and pseudo-important looks, plenty of money changes hands and nothing else ever changes. It amazes me. I could show up with my underwear outside of my pants, 3 sheets to the wind drunk and carrying a pants load of fresh crap and I would get the same result! I'll never get it. I don't want to get it. I just want to shake this dark cloud.

Then I got on the train (awesome. relief!) and head back to Lansdale. I get off of the train just in time to see my bus leaving. 1 hour wait. Nothing to do. I contemplated eating french fries with gravy at Huey's, but didn't.

Now I'm sitting here, pissed off, and feeling once again like the goddamn fool. Awesome. I hope every part of the American Legal System is this effective, this efficient, and knows how to spend your money and mine just as carefully as they can. I know that this had absorbed thousands and thousands of dollars by now, and it just blows my fucking mind.

Sorry I cursed so much Mom. I'll make it up to you in my future entry "There's a Unicorn in my Backyard. Like... right now."

It's Friday night, at the middle school mixer. I've got my eye on you.

Well... I drank a few beers last night, and ate some late night Chinese food. Needless to say... I'm not feeling so well this morning. I've got demons riding go-karts racing inside my head... I think the direct quote from the almighty Rev. N0rb is "Screamin' Demon Martians Riding Go-Karts In My Head"... whatever. I feel like poop coated in dirt and sweat. Gross. It's really humid in the basement today, perhaps it's time to open up a door... or make a window I can open. I hate not seeing outside. It might be raining fire for all I know right now...

I forgot about this entry for a few days, so everything is going to seem all out of sorts. Whatever... I'll get caught up and make sense of this.. eventually.. probably not. So yeah, Chinese food before bed is a terrible idea. Don't do it... unless you haven't eaten in a while and you're hungry... in which case, you should aim for the stars and have someone feed you Chinese food while you're asleep. Be careful though, i don't want anyone to choke.

People are so stupid, so unappreciative, and so ridiculous. I can't put my finger on what makes horrible people do horrible things, but I'm sure it's something I'm glad I don't understand.

I have nothing to talk about right now. I have to call a bunch of customers and put on my "happy to talk with you" voice... there's a fake smile that goes along with that as well, and I don't know why because I rarely if ever see the people I'm talking to.

Also. I hate it when people say "down the shore". As in... Judy is down the shore. That's just goddamn stupid. I have ZERO patience or time for that kind of stupid. "Judy is at the shore". It's so much more practical. Bunch of idiots. Well... this has been uplifting and positive.

I want to eat tacos. Right now. A beer would be nice too. Right now.

Images of idiocy.

Here. I haven't showed these pictures to my mom yet.

Sorry your son was such a dope. I'll do better, I promise.

We didn't come here to die!

Monday! It was the worst day in a long time. I got to work at 6:45a and didn't escape it's awful clutches until 5:15p. I was not happy. Too much work, and not enough hourly pay to compensate me for that time. I came home, took a shower, drank 2 beers, and walked up to watch a little league game. The day turned around pretty fast. I went to sleep early, and pretty happy. The day started terribly, and ended up pretty darn nice.

Tuesday! This was the BEST day in a long time. The more I thought... it was probably one of the best days this year, workwise. I got a bunch of everything done, I was able to pay close attention to everything because I finally had the time to do it. I still got there and left at the same times (actually 5pm today), but the time passed by pretty nicely, and I left feeling like I'd accomplished something... a feeling I haven't had in forever. I wonder what tomorrow is going to bring... hopefully more good... we'll see...

I wonder how many times I could talk about my cat that ran away in this thing. God. I'm a little crazy about that I guess. Safe-crazy... I think... not cutting myself and spinning in circles to paint some scuzzy public bathroom red "just so I can feel" kind of crazy. But, in talking about my cat today I started thinking about something, and now it's stuck in my brain.

Jaime and I were riding on the bus, and in a typical fit of just saying something to start talking about anything other than work I said "I'm going to paint Jim black and pretend he's Willow". Now, was I really going to paint the cat when I got home? Probably not. Certainly possible, but I would have had to stop and buy paint, and I don't think I could paint him and live with myself in good conscience. But Jaime's response was "You should get a kitten". Hmm... there's something I hadn't thought about. I think I've always considered that as replacing Willow, and if i couldn't hang on to a measly cat for a few years, why the hell should I get another one? Just to lose that one too? Maybe to get another shot at not succeeding and not knowing if the well being of an animal is the prize for the loser? Maybe to try and recreate that love I had for that cat?

Isn't that why we get new pets anyhow? A pet dies, and it's an awful thing. They become as much of our family as the relatives in some other state that you never see, if not more. They become eating, shitting, demanding memories of our families. Don't they ultimately turn out to be almost the same friend as pets past? They all do downright adorable stuff, have similar mannerisms, and depending on the animal could be all but exactly the same as their predecessors.

So, anyhow, I thought about this for about the next 5 - 15 seconds and thought... "Next time, I'm going to rescue an adult cat, and not a kitten." Why? The first thing that came to mind was a child's face when they are given a kitten versus a child's face when they are given a cat. Kittens are all kinds of cute regardless of markings, if they've just scratched the holy shit out of you, if they've peed on your pillow, or if they've eaten too fast and thrown up in their food bowl. They're just kittens after all, and my blood pressure goes through the roof at the thought of anyone who doesn't think a kitten is cute. I can understand not liking cats... but kittens? Come now.... it's just crazy talk.

Rescuing an adult cat would be kind of awesome. I'm sure it's traumatic for the cat, because at that point they've been through who knows what, and might come into the house and never warm up to anyone. Looking at the flipside of that coin, they could sit in a cage, never get to run around a house with no one else home, never get to eat whenever they wanted to, never get selected to live at someones house, and end up being put to death because no one wants them. Which is better? I say having a mangy cat around the house that hates you. Eventually he/she is bound to realize that he/she is dependent on you and possibly rub up against your leg on accident in the kitchen while you're making dinner, or get confused and jump up on the same couch you're sitting on.

Someone ALWAYS wants a kitten. Eventually I'm sure 1 out of 10 of those people who can't live without a kitten gives it up because they have kids, or they can't afford it, or it's tearing their house apart or they're just generally awful people and have issues with seeing something until its end. (This is the part where I regretfully admit that my stupid cat ran away, conceivably because she hated me, and I wasn't attentive enough to her while she was here so I'm a terrible cat owner. Fuck you.) Anyhow, when those people give up their kittens (turned cats) where do they go? They let them loose outside, never to be seen again, or they take them to shelters and hopefully someone adopts them. I could be that somebody!

I'm not decided on this, and in fact I'm months if not years away from choosing to get another cat, but I guess what I'm trying to say is... I realized that today I have a soul... that was mildly refreshing because sometimes I feel kind of dead inside. I can't believe the first thing I thought of was a look on a kid's face... I can't stand children.

I don't have anything else to talk about. I'm all done now.

It is now my duty to completely drain you.

Ugh. Last night was a terrible nights sleep. I remember seeing the clock at least once an hour from the time I laid down with the soothing sounds of SportsCenter whispering me to sleep to the time I woke up to the shade in my room banging off of the window frame. My brain has been unable to sit still... it's like a grey half dead version of me.

I did have a pretty solid idea around 3:30am though. I'm going to try and describe myself using ~100 words. It will be in paragraph form, and should be almost a flow of my life... I don't think it makes sense now, but perhaps at the end of this entry it will... let's try something.

Birth. Parents. Screams. Tears. Joy. Vomit. Sounds. Stumbling. Toys. Falling. Walking. Running. Cats. Dogs. Grandparents. Datsun. Laundramat. Donuts. Town. Krogers. Witches Shoes. Moving. North. School. Soccer. Basketball. Duluth. Alone. Trouble. Death. Friends. Outside. Baseball. Theater. Punkrock. Driving. Speaking. Ribbons. Cigarettes. Acknowledgement. Trinka. Graduation. Pride. Moving East. Apartment. Abandoned. Cheated. Melted. House. College. Disaster. Manager. Brian. Apartment. Alcohol. Misplaced Feeling. Indiana. Accident. Mortality. Love. Vinyl. Govervnment. NJ. Shore. Late. Fired. West Chester. Pat. Stereo. Collective. Bucket. Cats (again). Fear. Hate. Bong. Cops. Steve. Idiot. Advancement. Relocation. Knife. Souderton. Promotion. Landlord. Bored. Denver. Implosion. Heartbreak. Home. Lonely. Disolve. Basements. Rebirth. Drunk. Car. Smash. Scared. Friends. Scum. Artificial. Sunrise. Fridays. Hands.

Well, that was fun. I wonder if I did one of those every year if I could eventually come up with 20,000 words to describe my life from beginning to end, and I wonder if I could continue to be able to associate memories with 1 word. I look above at that words I've entered and I could probably talk for way too long about each and every one of those words. It's funny how something that I've experienced can represent hours worth of conversation but can really be summed up with just 1 simple word. Words are fun.

This one is short, but I've got shit to do.

IMPORTANT UPDATE!!

I don't think I like deviled eggs anymore. The thought of them is kind of giving me the creeps.

All I wanna know is a goddamn thing.

I wonder if posting a picture in this thing will work. I've never tried that before. Let's start off with something simple, and then perhaps I'll try to incorporate pictures into this... here we go.

^^Can anyone see that?^^

If so, that is a picture of two of the three Ergs! playing a short set in a parking lot in Baltimore during Insubordination Fest '07. We were all packed in the Ottobar in Baltimore when all of the sudden a transformer went outside. Not like... Starskreem kind of transformer... more like an electric transformer. We all milled around outside for what felt like forever... then someone broke out and acoustic guitar and we all sat in the parking lot and watched. Two-Thergs, Eric Peabody, and Jon and Lucas playing Charlies Brown Gets A Valentine songs. It was pretty great. Memories.

I messed up making hard boiled eggs last night. Are you kidding me? First I learn that I'm a fool because there are 9 year olds that know not only words I've never heard of, but also how to spell them? Yesterday was a mighty humbling day to say the least. Screwed up hard boiled eggs... sheesh.. what do I do for an encore? Oh, I know... I'll need a 2nd or 3rd shot at making a glass of water. I'm a moron.

I'm going for Deviled Eggs: Round 2 right now. I'm confident in the first part. The hard boiled eggs part. If I ruin it this time, rest assured this will be my last blog entry. If I cut one of those little bastards in half and theres a gooey yolk inside I'm going to promptly run as fast as I can up to the top floor of the house, shedding clothes along the way. When I get to the top floor I'm going to dive, naked through the pane glass window and 3 floors down to my ultimately hilarious death. Naked and bloody in the front yard after a 3 story fall. With my luck, I'll survive and be unable to move laying there with the neighbors dog peeing on me, kids skateboarding on me and putting fireworks on me. The landlord will probably tell me it was really unacceptable for me to jump out of the 3rd floor and merely cripple myself.

Oh man, this segue kicks ass, and I'm oddly proud myself. This is probably sort of weird, and I know several people who have had pretty life changing experience based on it, but I'm kind of wanted to put on "paper" something I've been thinking about for a long time. Suicide. I can't fathom how life could be SO bad that there's no escape other than the ultimate escape. I think everyone had their fair share of issues, some more deep seeded than others, some more unthinkable than others... but how crazy must it be to have something looming so large that you find taking your own life to be the solution? I can't imagine. That person has to think there is no one in the world who has bigger problems than they do. It's the ultimate in selfish. "No one could ever feel as horrible, and want to die as much as I do". Think about that. Maybe I just don't know what having problems is like...

I'm pretty stoked on being alive. I like the variables, I like the soaring highs, dread the crushing lows, I like a lazy day where you know you've got things to do... but don't bother with the effort. I like sunny days, cloudy days, thunderstorms, wind... I just have a pretty bizarre appreciation for what makes the next day unlike the previous. Even if the events are the same... wake up, go to work, come home, sleep. I like that every day has the possibility of being something totally out of control, something surprisingly perfect, or maybe even the worst day of your life. I don't deal well with change, but I deal very well with the unknown.

I've had two Parasites records for a really long time, and I think I might have listened to them many years ago and not liked them so much... what was I thinking? They're so good! Nice poppy summery kind of music... for me at least.

This is all I've got for today. Mike and I are going to the batting cages. Then I'm going to come home and put down these deviled eggs. I really hope they are as good as I remember them being, if not, this build up is going to be quite the let down. BLAHG.

My week has been very much like "Cliffhangers" from the Price Is Right

Since no one is leaving anything in the comments section, I assume because folks are really busy, and possibly not able to escape their busy schedules to give me something to write about, I'm going to reach out to 5 people and ask for topics. The 1st person is sitting in the other room on his computer, the 2nd person is in North Carolina, and gave birth to me, the 3rd is a huge reason I still have a job, the 4th is living in Seattle and no doubt doing awesome things, and the 5th is in Seattle doing married dude stuff.

1. Brian - BBQ - burgers - variations of burgers
2. Mom - my dream summer vacation
3. Maria - Something I held or hold in childlike wonder
4. ChrisCrusher - The Spelling Bee (which is amazing, because we're both watching it)
5. Nick - Missing in action. No response. He's dead to me. :)

I was going to pick one of the 5 (now 4) and write about that, but I've got some time on my hands and nothing to do, so I'm going to take a little bit from each one of these... or perhaps this will end up being way too long.


BBQ - Burgers

Waking up this morning I cleared the cobwebs, got myself a glass of water and worked on figuring out what I was going to do with myself for the day. All I could think about (and still can think about) is eating a cheeseburger. Not just meat, cheese, and bun... but some kind of awesome cheeseburger. I think because it was morning I was thinking about eating a chili cheeseburger with an over medium egg. Eggs always sound appealing to me in the morning, but I rarely eat breakfast... I just don't have time in the morning before leaving for work to bother with breakfast, and I'm not willing to sacrifice sleep for food. Ever. The burger I've got my heart set on would be a medium burger, with bleu cheese, roasted red pepper, and avocado. It sounds so good right now, and I'm pretty excited to make this dream a reality.

Thinking about burgers past, and BBQ past I've got a few memories to share, which are only going to continue to make me hungry and excited for the prospect of a late afternoon burger.

Brandon, Brian and I bought 4 pounds of bacon one night and went to Brian's parents house. We mixed up the 4 pounds of bacon with a bottle of BBQ sauce and went out to the porch to get to eating. We grilled the bacon on Brian's parents grill, and ate the entire 4 pounds between the 3 of us. That night probably took at least 1 year off of my life, but it was delicious. I remember waking up the next morning and feeling like I wasn't able to move, and that there was no shot at any kind of healthy poop.

There was a pretty amazing burger we made one evening which involved a medium burger (all burgers should be medium... none of this over cooked hockey puck crap) stuffed with cheese, a sunny side up egg, chili, onion rings, mozzerlla sticks and bacon. Brian just referred to this as the "Death Burger". I remember thinking that was probably going to be way too much to sit between a bun and be anywhere near good... but wow. That burger was nothing short of amazing, and probably also shaved somewhere near a year off of my life.

I love eating. I don't want to live in a world where eating isn't one of the best things ever. I think it's totally OK to take a little bit of time off of the end of your life in order to live a life where the delicious is key, and the consciousness of healthy can take the back seat. We'll make it up in the later days of life by eating vegetables, wheat bread, diet everything, and low sodium blah blah blah.

My Dream Summer Vacation

Well, I think my dream summer vacation, mind you this is a dream, but it's my dream and here is how it goes.

There is no airplane involved, there is no bus or train involved. There are two people, which in this dream would consist of my imaginary girlfriend and I, and a car that could get us where we needed to go. We'd leave Philadelphia and head west.

First stop? Columbus, Ohio. Brian, Mike and I took a trip to Chicago a year or 2 back and stopped in Columbus and I had the best pizza i've ever had, in my life. Which says a lot, because I'm always game for eating pizza, and I'd like to think I've eaten more than my fair share of pizza and truely believe that I know what makes good pizza. This place, Hound Dogs, had an nice thick crust pizza, with a good buttery crust, and the toppings were fresh, the amount of cheese used was just perfect, and the atmosphere was pretty amazing. The afternoon stop would be at Hound Dogs for beers and pizza, and then we would head to any of the basements in Columbus that have shows. In my dream vacation I would be able to decide who is going to play in this basement, and it would be Delay, Pretty Boy Thorson and the Falling Angels, the Dopamines, and Tim Barry.

From there, we would travel further west to Chicago. A Cubs game would be the first thing we would do. An afternoon game, in August Chicago heat with a few Old Styles, a Wrigley dog, and a Cubs victory. We would sing "Go, Cubs, Go" after the game and head out to the streets to mingle with other Cubs fans, watch the players come out, and check out all of the street performers. After the Wrigleyville festivities we would head to Lou Malnati's for deep dish Chicago pizza, but it would be take out, and not eating in. We would take that pizza to the shore of Lake Michigan, eat dinner, and fall asleep as the sun went down. Waking up the next day we would head into the city to the loop, the place with the burgers named after heavy metal bands, and then to a show to see the Copyrights and the Lawrence Arms. We would sit up late that night and discuss how wonderful the city is and how we don't look forward to making the trip back east to resume our lives and the normal day to day routines that made this vacation nothing but mandatory.

We'd decide to set up shop in Chicago. Leaving behind all that we know, but not leaving behind what we love... taking that with us, and knowing that we didn't need anything but each other to remain happy, and there was no such thing as starting over, only finding our happiness in growing old together, and living not for anything but each other. Forgetting about the hassles and headaches of the lives we shared with so many other people, and just knowing that each other is all we need. Wow. My dream kicks ass. My dream vacation involves falling in, and being in love. What a kick in the face...

Also, in my dream my imaginary girlfriend would have to love punkrock, baseball, beer, and pizza... and me.

Something I held or hold in childlike wonder

There's a few things on this list. There are things that I have held or hold very close. Music is first and foremost. There aren't any emotions that can't be felt or conveyed through a perfect song. Hope, fear, strength, love, regret, positivity, negativity, hate, lonliness, sadness... everything. It can all be felt through the perfect song, or record.

My cat. Every time I see him is like the first time I've ever laid eyes on him. He's perfect to me. His sister was also perfect to me, and I held her in the highest regard. Every time he sees something he's seen a thousand times he gets that look of amazement or realization on his face. His little memory must be capable of retaining little to no information for little to no amount of time. He remembers the simple things, and the things he does on a daily basis such as the litter box, where he sleeps, where his food and water are, and who he trusts. His sister remembered all of the same things except but her list of things she trusted was limited to very few things, and I was lucky enough to be one of those things. I miss her greatly. I truly held her in childlike wonder. I just got sad. I don't think I want to think about this anymore.

The Spelling Bee

I think the dedication these kids have to spelling is absolutely fucking amazing. It goes beyond reading books and memorizing words, how they're pronounced and how they're spelled. It goes deeply into cultural studies which I had never figured. These kids are in 8th grade! They're so much more cultured than most anyone I know. The real shitter of this whole thing, is the majority of the kids who are competing in this don't speak English as their first language. Come on! You've got to be kidding me. It really goes to show how behind, as Americans, our educational system really is. People who have come from other countries are kicking our asses at spelling words that are part of our OUR language. I'm amazed. I don't really know what else to say about the Spelling Bee, other than it's making me feel really stupid. 8th graders. Making me feel stupid. Great.

Another observation on the Spelling Bee. Holy crap. This is the most awkward group of kids ever crammed together in an auditorium. EVER. There's also 8th graders who have a better shot at growing a moustache than I do. I've been watching this thing for 3 hours now, and it's running past it's allotted TV time slot. They have to put the College Women's Softball World Series on another channel to accommodate the awesomeness that is, The Spelling Bee.

Eww... my landlord just got here, and is destined to piss me off. I can't stand him. I don't know if I've talked about this before, but I'd like to watch him get pulled apart my horses. He just informed me that having a lightbulb out in a closet is unacceptable. He can eat shit. Really? Is it the landlords duty to let us know that having a lightbulb out in a space that isn't even a room is unacceptable? Once again... eat shit, dude. Here he comes up the steps... the house, for the most part, meets his expectations for how other people should live. He can eat shit.


Bye. I'm done now. I need fun, and don't know where to find it today.

Trying to keep four walls from doing their worst.

Hmm... since my miserable Wednesday night, what have I been getting into? Then I'm going to attack my first topic in a very roundabout way. Pat made some crazy suggestion about Asbury Park, NJ and the declining something, and the building of stuff, and other things I'm not totally processing. Instead, I'm going to recap the top 3 shows I've seen in Asbury Park, NJ over the past 10+ years I've lived on the East Coast. Believe you me, children... this one isn't going to be easy. I'm going to list them in no particular order, because I think once I narrow it down to 3 shows, placing them 1 through 3 would be more difficult then the initial process of weeding out. However, the best show and one of the most bittersweet perfect nights of my life were spent in Asbury Park, NJ. I will always think of that November night when ever I think about live music, friends, or NJ. On with the show(s)...

The Cramps/Bouncing Souls/Blanks 77. 2/6/1998. Stone Pony.

This was my first Asbury Park show. My first NJ show, and the only time I would ever see the Cramps. Lux Interoir passed away this year, so the chances of seeing the Cramps again are beyond slim, and right next door to none. Blanks 77 started off the show with their fast, drunk and fun brand of 1977 style punkrock. They played mostly songs off of their first record Killer Blanks and a few songs off of their (at the time) upcoming record Tanked and Pogoed. The first time I saw the Blanks was at a ballet studio above a record store in Duluth, MN in 1996. I picked up their demo tape at that show (with the Quincy Punx) and fell in love with music right around that time. I remember being at that show and everyone who walked in through their painted/studded leather jackets in a huge pile. In my mind, that pile was like a small mountain, but thinking logically about it, it couldn't have been more than 25 jackets. Anyhow, I'm off topic.

Next to play that night was The Bouncing Souls. This would be the first time I'd seen the Souls in their home town, and it was shortly after the release of Maniacal Laughter. It was fantastic. They ripped through most of the perviously mentioned record, and played songs off of The Good The Bad and the Argyle.

The Cramps were next, and the room was really hot, and really crazy for a February night by the ocean. They exhausted their catalog and put on a pretty amazing show. I wasn't so into this band at the beginning of the night, but by the end of the night I was hooked, and proceeded to gobble up their back catalog in the years that followed this show. What a cool introduction to NJ, and punkrock on the East Coast.

Teenage Bottlerocket/The Unlovables/Psyched To Die/The Jurks Asbury Lanes. 10/22/2008.

The Bouncing Souls, living in Asbury Park, NJ worked with some local kids and opened up a bowling alley/show space on 4th street in Asbury Park. As of this show I had been there many times, but the gist of the place is a bar/bowling alley/show space. It's all ages, and embodies everything that should be about a safe fun place for kids and adults to hang out and see live music. Every major city should have a venue like this. The first time I was there, I knew that I was in the middle of something special that would be talked about and thought about for the rest of my life.

The Jurks were terrible. Case and point. I'd debate this all day long. They were awful. Next.

Psyched To Die played the 4 songs off of their recently released demo. Mike from the Ergs! plays in Psyched To Die and I was looking forward to hearing what the new project would sound like. They're more in the vein of early to mid 80's hardcore mixing elements from both the East and West Coast scenes. The set couldn't have been more than 10 minutes, and they didn't stop from the first count off to the last note.

New York City's The Unlovables played next. Mike Erg, once again playing double duty for the night, played drums for the band. They played songs off of both LP's and their early EP. I never got to see this band when Chelsea was sharing vocal duties with Hallie, but the early stuff reflects that their voices formed an almost perfect union.

Teenage Bottlerocket was next. They had just released Warning Device and the set was very heavy on that. They played a few tunes off of their 2nd release Total and at my request played One Helluva Party from Sack's (Kody's "party band") Get Wrecked. The atmosphere at this show was unbeatable, and by the end of the night I was ready to do some sleeping after some tough drinking at the Lanes bar... which I'm thinking heavily involved the keg of Pabst kept in the corner behind the bar.

The Ergs!/The Ergs!/The Ergs! - Asbury Lanes - 11/15/2008

The Ergs! came from South Amboy NJ and played pop punk songs... about girls, and everything else. They were excellent musicians, quality entertainers, and great guys. In November of last year they played their last two shows to a sold out Asbury Lanes. Friends from all over the world flew/drove in to Philadelphia and New York to be there for this night. We took full advantage of the evening and had the time of our lives. Tons of beer, sweat, high fives, hugs, butthole punches, and smiles graced the evening, and I wish that I lived with these friends and for this music for the rest of my life. We started the night before with the Ergs! last Philadelphia show, and went to an after party in Roxbourough. That night gets a little hazy, but I remember waking up on the couch bed, next to Jon and Dave and hearing nothing but a chorus of snores and disrupted breathing as we all tried to sleep off the previous nights destruction. We packed into cars and made the 2 hour trip to NJ so we could enjoy the day we'd all been waiting for. The supporting bands for the shows were Lemuria (Buffalo, NY), and Hunchback (NJ). There was a several hour break between shows for people to take a breather, get something to eat, and come back for the night cap. In between shows I went and hung out with my friend Chris from Seattle, who was incredible for his companionship for those hours. I had been going through quite the mess, and was determined to let my bad day start the next day, and not ruin my last night with pop punks finest. We drank some beers, peed in the hotel, and were generally chaotic until it was time to go back to the Lanes for the 2nd show. I was walking from the hotel to the car to put a poster away and I had a can of beer in my hand. I saw a police car approaching and attempted to ditch my beer in a pile of downed tree limbs. Sure enough, he saw me and stopped to talk to me and explain that I can't drink outside in NJ, and I needed to pick up my can before he gave me a ticket for public consumption and littering. I picked up my beer and crushed it in my hands. SLICE. Right into the tip of my middle finger and the blood started to flow. I still have a pretty kick ass reminder scar from this... just one more thing to never allow me to forget this night. I can look at the tip of my finger and instantly think of Rex, Dave, Drew, Brian, Mike, Jaime, The Ergs!, Mick, AllAgesDave throwing up and missing the show, hugging people I knew from the Internet, that overpriced shitty diner, ChrisCrusher and how amazing of a person and friend he is and how cute Sheena is.... off topic... back to it... I kept my "game face" on, thanked him for his kindness and proceeded to the car. I got back to the Lanes in time for the Ergs! to set up and get started. Highlights from this set were Ashley Sugarnotch, If You See Him Again, Pray For Rain, Your Cheated Heart, 1000 Letters... I could go on and on... They ended the night with the epic 17 minute jam Upstairs/Downstairs. The band ended the show by having Hunchback join them on stage to tear through the noisy version of U/D and destroying their instruments. They went out the best way possible. On the way home i threw my red Chuck Taylors out the window. They were filthy, soaked with beer, and I knew they would never see a night as amazing as the one they had just been though. I miss my friends from around the country, and would love to see them again... I'll see them in Baltimore this year, and we'll all share stories about how magical this evening was. This is embarrassing, but as I sit here and write this I'm all choked up with happiness. This was the best show, and best time I've ever had at a show all bottled up in one long, perfect day.

Do yourself a favor... http://www.noidearecords.com/ Pre-order the new Dear Landlord record. They're from Minneapolis, and are a much better band than anyone else wasting time making music right now. Mom, this one might not be up your alley... but, you get a shirt! I love shirts!

I'm gonna do stuff now. Come to think about it, I'm going to listen to the Ergs! now. If Lucy was here, and I was Charlie Brown... she would surely call me a Bloghead. I kill me. Have the best weekend ever, make it better than last weekend, but don't overdo it and ruin next weekend... every weekend needs to be better than the past, but a perfect setup for weekends to come. Get out there and enjoy.

Comment. Topics. Do something. I'm ready to write...