Wednesday, August 22, 2007

For Jay: Nobody Else Look!

These are from a road trip we took in 2005 to Plevna, Ontario, Canada.

We left at 3:00am after a night at the Regal Beagle.

The place was pretty rural.

We took the boat to the store everyday. Just like on Dawson's Creek!

This was our cabin. It had a bathroom.

But, Derek didn't know that.


There you go Jay, now can we all look at the blog again?

Stop Looking, I'm Web Counting

Jan 1 1999-

Three friends, Mike, Shawn, Jay, and myself spent the day hiking about in the Delaware Water Gap region of the U.S.A. On the drive back I glance over at the odometer of Shawn's car. Shawn's car was about to turn over, hit the 100,000 marker. I lean over pointing at the odometer about to tell Shawn that in a few miles the car is going to reach a historic milestone. He shushs me before I can speak. It was odd, but Shawn is an odd dude. Five minutes later Shawn cries out, "Shit!" He missed watching the odometer spin to 100,000. He had shushed me because he intended to pull over the side of the road and drive slowly while we all watched the car turn 100,000.

The next summer, I'm sitting in the back seat of a purple Saturn being driven by my friend Lauren, her soon to be husband was sitting shotgun. His name is Mike. As we are peeling down the highway, Mike realizes we missed her car as it hit the 100,000 mile marker.

Then in the fall of 2001, I'm driving my car. Totally solo trip. My car hits 100,000 and I miss it.

Tonight I scroll to the bottom of this page and I see there is a counter. The counter takes in all hits, not just unique hits. I learned this through empirical experimentation. Well, I'm not missing this counter turn over. I'm going to have to ask that no one look at the page for a little while. I'm going to be visiting this page then another one then coming back to this one over and over for 99,136 times until I watch this page turn over.

I think we can all agree that I've earned the right to see something turn over to 100,000, so it's fair for you guys not to look at the page. I'm sorta busy right now, with moving and partying, so it might take a while. I'll post on here when you can look again.

The King

Daft Hands

Denton Tall Tales #11

When I first arrived in Denton I couldn't speak any English. I understood it very well but had trouble speaking. I started school towards the end of kindergarten.

There were no ESL programs at the school and I was actually the first student they ever had that couldn't speak English. They weren’t quite sure what to do with me, so they put me in the RETARDED KIDS CLASS. I can remember complaining to my mom that all of the other kids were real weird. I had recess with the normal kids and they would speak jibberish to me as if they were speaking another language. I would call them dirty words in Portuguese. When I did learn English I told my mom that I never wanted to speak Portuguese ever again. She would try and talk to me around the house but I would just ignore her unless it was in English. I may have been traumatized.

Growing up I was called both a Spic and a Mexican. I don’t speak Spanish nor have I ever been to Mexico.

Yacht Bullshit

July 4, Landenberg, PA-

"Jay, aren't you stoked to go see Hall and Oats?" The question zoomed at me from all angles. You fucking hip mutha fuckers and your chic rock, with tinges of irony embedded. Of course I wasn't excited to go see them. Just like I'm not excited when my parents put on their soft rock radio station in the car, as they have for my entire life. Just like I'm bummed that I can sing along to all the songs because of my childhood spent in an inescapable box of the same smooth music on repeat. The Celtics will have a bigger rotation this year than Magic 98.3 in New Jersey has ever had. Who understands that Celtics reference? At any rate, I wasn't stoked.

It seems to me they caught on because of the internet phenomenon Yacht Rock, which was very entertaining. That's fine, but where do we draw the line? When did the return of the 80's fashion intersect with the return of 80's excess and 70's soft rock kings? Shortly after the Birthday party for U.S.A. Hall and Oats start popping up everywhere. I'm watching an online promo for the new Chromeo album and the singer, Dave 1 holds up a Hall and Oats album. I'm watching an episode of the Flight of the Conchords and Daryl Hall has a cameo. And then yesterday on Pitchfork they have a lengthy interview with Mr. Hall. In it he calls Robert Fripp a girl and uses the term 'reverse racism,' which last I checked is same as regular racism. I could be wrong, maybe I'm just being a wigger.

I don't care how much you inject this smoothed out shit into my life. Much like the Bush administration, I'm taking a stand against revisionist history. Isn't it enough that I like Justin Timberlake and Nelly Furtado now? It's got to stop somewhere and I'm planting my foot. I'm not stoked and will never be stoked on Hall and Oats.

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/feature/44913-interview-daryl-hall

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Burrito Club Philly: tomorrow


"BURRITO CLUB 2 WILL MEET AT 7PM WEDNESDAY AUGUST 22 AT JOSE'S (10TH AND BUTTONWOOD, A BLOCK SOUTH OF SPRING GARDEN). SCORECARDS SHOULD BE READY BY THEN." - Doug (the father of burrito club.)

"I don't have a date for this Burrito Club either, Nicole, you interested?" - Jason


(and yes, i do realize that i spelled burrito wrong)

B-MORE BLUNTS BEEF and BEER BBBBQ WRAP-UP

To everyone who attended the BBBBQ:

Hi, How is it going? I hope the rest of your weekend was fun.
You looked really great the other night. I really liked what you did with your hair and that outfit you had on was very flattering. It had been so long since i last saw you, and when i looked into your eyes this wave of emotion came over me. I think i miss you....
The few hours we spent together were magical. Hotdogs and Natty Boh never tasted so good. I forgot how funny a story teller you were too. Wow...
I guess what im trying to say is......I had a lot of fun with you, and id like to do it again real soon. maybe?

AT THE NEXT B-MORE BLUNTS BEEF and BEER BBBBQ!!!!!!........2008 SON!!!!!!!

In all seriousness, thanks to everyone who came out. I had a lot of fun and im looking forward to next years. Lets keep this annual tradition going and keep the good times coming. I love you all......

Highlights included: getting drunk, paying 3 bucks for a six-pack of natty bohs, seeing how much baltimore has grown, asking the driver of the chinatown bus to turn around after he passed baltimore and hearing the entire bus collectively 'sigh' when he did, having to return to my seat on said bus while everyone gave me the stinkeye, anna giving me a book about rats (!), reminiscing about every event that happened during my childhood and realizing that Urn was always there, hotdogs, going to the most lesbian of bars and being the only dudes in the place, watching patrick still try and hit on lesbian girls, having to go back into the bar to drag patrick out, peter and his cadillac, lance and patrick sleeping in the same bed together but neither of them remembering how that happened......fun. fun. Fun!!!

Denton Tall Tales #10


Billie Jean was a girl that I went to elementary school with. She was probably 3-4 years older than me. She had very large thick glasses and was tall and I think she was kind of well developed for her age, but I could be making that last part up because I don’t think I was paying much attention in those days. I also think that she may have been slightly retarded, I'm not sure about that one either.

We all played a game called the Billie Jean Touch. It was exactly the same as the Coodies game, except we called it Billie Jean. Lets say you accidentally bumped into Billie Jean in the hallway, well, you would have to get rid of her touch. So then you would touch someone else and PROCLAIM, “You have the Billie Jean touch!!!” You could guard yourself from the Billie Jean touch by putting your two fingers together. This would insure that the Touch would not be transmitted to you.

Billie Jean got pregnant in sixth grade. I'm not even sure if i knew where babies came from then. Whenever she would walk past us in the hallway we would sing, “Billie Jean is not my lover…..” And make sure we didn’t get her touch.

Monday, August 20, 2007

Dick can see the Future!

Snagged from Frank151.com
Maybe this just all slipped his mind some 10ish years later...

Fine art paintings........

We are nearing the end of our latest art exhibition at ARSENAL, and I wanted to send out these images from the show in case you haven't been able to make it down to the store. I know everyone is poor, but Cory's paintings are super funny, he's a good dude, and sometimes you just gotta support the arts. Kevin Bacon loves Philly, "because of the arts", and look how well things are going for him. And even if you're not a Kevin Bacon fan, or you're just extremely cynical and wonder to yourself, "how is it that they weren't allowed to dance in that town for their entire lives, but when they have that huge party in the end of the movie, there are people pulling off some of the most extreme break dancing moves that took Turbo and Ozone their whole lives to perfect?" anyway, back to my point, these paintings are awesome, and you should buy them so you can make your life better, and so the next time you bring a guy or girl home with you, they don't have to look at your Bob Marley Legend, Belushi "college", Pink Floyd, Magic Eye, Drinking Games, Happy Face with bullet, or any of those other shitty posters you bought for your dorm room 10+ years ago.

side note: Cory is on a poster tour right now selling those same shitty posters to a whole new batch of freshman, for real.


ARSENAL
623 N. 2nd St.
Philadelphia, PA 19123
215-627-3462
www.arsenalphilly.com





............more art paintings





Padre Pio 8.18.2007

So, I went to see Padre Pio on Friday and if you weren't there you missed out.

Set List (i think)
1.AmericanPizza
2.PizzAttack
3.PizzaSummer
4.Club Wizards
5.Under Pressure (yes, that Under Pressure)



Screaming Eagle


Coach




Savage Assault


Fans


Special Guest

Your last chance to see Derek play before it's Father Derek.

R. Kells as Mr. Show BIz



Genius?

Denton Tall Tales #9

Big City Fashions was your one-stop location for all things bootleg. Well not quite all things, pretty much just beanies and t-shirts, and colored jean shorts. It was located in the heart of town, on main street, and was roughly the size of a walk-in closet.

I’m not sure where they got their merchandise from but I’m pretty sure it came from Baltimore. They would have the same exact beanie, but with different logos embroidered on it. Nike, Polo, Tommy Hilfiger, Nautica. Then next to that they would have the t-shirts. Nike, Polo, Tommy Hilfiger, Nautica. Then the colored jean shorts. Nike, Polo, Tommy Hilfiger, Nautica. I once saw a shirt there that said “Boatica” on it. And I also saw one of the greatest shirts ever created there, and possibly one of my greatest purchase regrets: A white t-shirt that had the logos of every “high-class” clothing company on it. It was a Polo x Versace x Tommy Hilfiger x Nautica x Nike x Gucci x Louis Vuitton bootleg collaboration! Truly classic and to this day I get teary eyed thinking about how I could have passed up such an exclusive item. And for only $10.
Sadly Big City went out of business after about a year. Also I’m not sure if anyone knew that the items they were selling were fake. I feel like in general people actually thought they were buying $20 orange Polo jean shorts, and were getting the deal of the decade.

One of the greatest snaps of my life was when I said that Russ’s mom worked at big city fashions. I remember people laughing really hard, and re-snapping that one.

Morris Day and the Mother Fucking Time

OK so one week out and I'm gonna start out "wif" a good one. I'm gonna leave the journey out to be documented by Alex since he was the one snapping pics, my camera was dead, all I'll say about it is A: Kansas Sucks! and B: Hitting a tractor trailer "re-tread" dead center doing 75mph at about 1:00am in the middle of Illinois will really mess up your evening...

Ok so apparently there are only 2 street festivals a year allowed in all of L.A., one being the Halloween parade in West Hollywood, and the other, which I hit up on Saturday, is Sunset Junction (27 years strong). It's a huge block party with rides, crappy carnival food, an abundance of brewski's, some of the weirdest characters you will ever come across and 3 stages of tunes... This year the highlight, for me, was Morris Day and the Time! I was genuinely excited to see the Time even though all I really knew about Morris is what I had seen on Purple Rain, but you have to admit that's enough to get excited about right there...
Anyway thanks to Snack's I finally charged up my camera and took a stroll down there to check it all out... What follows are some ok pics, and more crappy pics/vids of what I came across...
Enjoy...










Sunset was PACKED, this was for the Blonde Redheads who I had never heard of but were rather good...


Seriously just because there is a DJ, does there automatically have to be a really shitty "break'n" circle? These things should be out-lawed already!


We were all anxiously awaiting the Time on Santa Monica...


And Jonny Law was perched on the rooftops flashing his mag-lite at people...


Awwwwww Yeah!












It's called "The Bird!"





So I know the quality on this sucks and it's shakey as all hell but you have to check the entrance, the fur, 2 mirrors, the man's a pimp!



Now take a look at the choreography, this is a very very small sample, the man's still got it!


And OF COURSE:


I'm gonna go ahead and make a bold claim that this was easily one of the top 5 show's I've ever seen! These guys were funny, sounded great, got the crowd involed and were stylish as hell! Morris is a true entertainer and anyone who get's on a stage should take notes!

On a side note step your post's up "son" I've seen all these pics before, old news!

Catch ya next week although I don't know how it's gonna stand up to this week....
B

Why you blasting me?

Why not?


Saturday, August 18, 2007

My Bi-annual Trip To Philly (by mictastic)

Wow. This is my first blog post since I gave up on my old blog back in the xanga.com days. I'd like to say that I'm not sure why I didn't make my blogging name mictastic. I guess it's because that's what Andrew P. introduces me to people as, and I figure that a blog name should be something separate from your real nickname.
I was going to type a whole write-up of my recent trip to Philly, but I tend to ramble, and no one wants to read a novel of a blog from someone they hardly know. Instead, I am going to just write up a review of the Plastic Little show A.P. Dubs, Snaxxx, and I went to:
I'm not sure where Snaxxx stands on this situation, but Andrew P. and I are pretty jaded about shows. For the most part, we both agree that we like to roll in late, just in time to see the band we are fix'n to see, and get out. Both of us thought this would be the case with this particular show since we almost didn't go since we thought we missed it. As it turns out, much to our chagrin, we got there pretty close to the beginning of the show.
We walked into the studio to find out that there was an independent movie being shown. Think of the worst film school stereotype of a movie you can and multiply it by a thousand. That is what Warcraft and I rolled in on.
I don't even know what the hell to tell anyone about this movie. There were two main characters from what I could tell, one guy had no shirt on and a neck brace (we'll call him n.b.). The other guy had on sunglasses (we'll call him s.g.) and a sweatband (I think, it was very hot in there and the movie hurt my head so badly that it blurred some details). The dude with the sweatband was verbally abusing the guy with the neck brace. In between insults, there would be mass amounts of time where there would be these weird collages on the screen spinning or random images that made no sense while these awful noises would be blasted through the P.A. Every so often, one of the before mentioned characters would flash over the spinning collage or image, either screaming or laughing. To get the full effect of the movie, you need to picture these collage sequences happening every 45 seconds, thus disrupting the flow of the the already nonsensical film. To help you, the reader remember to do this, I will randomly type *'s to remind you to think about that.
Anyways, S.G. condescendingly tells N.B. to go get him some milk. * N.B. looks uncomfortable with his instructions, and nervously runs around random scenery *. After some running, he runs past two guys leaning against a fence. * After some flashes, N.B. ends up standing between the dudes by the fence. The next scene is a slow motion montage of the three of those dudes in a basement smashing a guitar. I think the two dudes wind up dead? I can't remember. Next, N.B. runs around in an alley*, and finds a broken piece of wood. He picks it up and paints it white. (I thought he was doing this to trick s.g., who i hypothesized was a vampire, which would explain N.B.'s neck brace as a means of protection. I was way off, this movie made no fucking sense). *
Anyways, N.B. hands S.G. the wood, S.G. pretends to be fooled, but then revels that he knows it is a piece of wood painted white, and says that he will saw off N.B.'s legs if he doesn't get a glass of milk in 5 seconds. N.B. fails to produce, and the viewers of the film are punished with him by being forced to sit through a * moment. Then out of nowhere, there is a dude dressed in a yellow and purple spandex suit. He was wearing a matching mask that looked like a cat mask mixed with a bondage mask. The cat guy runs in place for a minute, and then there is a chase scene between him and S.G. It's not a normal chase scene though, it's a pretty big **** chase scene, complete with a wacky dance scene of the cat dude dancing over the normal * bullshit. Shortly after this, the movie ends, but I don't remember how. All I know is that I hated it.
The worse thing about that movie is that I think it cost a decent amount of money to make. It looked like some of it was shot on real film, not video. But I might just not know what time talking about. So maybe that's not the worse part after all. I guess the worst part was just the fact that we stayed in that hot ass room and watched the whole thing. Our bad.
Man, after typing out all of that, I'm too tired to type about the rest of the show. Just know it was a bunch of artsy bullshit meets hip hop that ended in a train wreck. Then, Plastic Little played, which was awesome.
Moral of the story, if you ever go see a show at 6th and Bainbridge, show up late.
-tastic