Pumpkin Lobotomy

Halloween is like my Christmas... by far my favorite holiday of the year. Here are some shots from our carving session Wednesday night:

#1 Listened to Misfits Collection I & II on vinyl during the whole process.




Removing the guts:

Braineaters:

Maeve and I had an informal dance party. She pogoed on the bed listening to "We are 138". She really digs the Misfits.


Maeve, the official jack-o-lantern quality assurance inspector:


Light it up!

Usually Amy and I would watch Sleepy Hollow too, but it was game 5 so we did that instead. Happy Halloween!!!

Phinally? Too Cliche....

When I was one, the Phillies won the World Series. I was way too young to remember anything. Since that time, I've seen many Philadelphia phlops. When I was a freshman in high school, I remember watching Joe Carter send Mitch Williams pitch into another zip code and realizing that it could be a while before the Phillies win the World Series. Since then we've watched the Flyers, Sixers and Eagles all make it to their respective championships only to lose in the finals. While I could really care less about the Eagles or the Flyers, it would have been nice to see Philly take one home.

Out of all the Philadelphia Phranchises, the Phillies are my phavorite and to phinally see them win was such a great experience. I felt like I was going to throw up for most of the game last night, but once Lidge threw the last pitch, I was euphoric. The excitement was huge, even more so than when Christian Laettner hit the game winner against Kentucky for Duke in the NCAA tournament or when Pete Sampras won his match after puking on the court (Two of my top sports memories of all time). It just didn't seem possible. With each series, different guys stepped up to contribute, making it a satisfying effort from all members. Plus, minus Myers, the team seems like a bunch of nice guys. I'm especially happy for Jamie Moyer, the pride of Souderton.



Thanks to my grandfather, I've always rooted for the Phillies. He was a great baseball player and a diehard Phillies Phan, even back to the days of the Philadelphia Athletics. There would rarely be a summer afternoon where I would show up at his house and he did not have a game on the TV or the radio. I'm sure somewhere he is smiling.



It would sound really good to say that this picture was taken during the game, but I am pretty sure Maeve was watching the Backyardigans.

Poppin' bottles in celebration. Maeve and her milk. Notice the '83 Phillies shirt.


A better shot of the shirt. So Maeve is right around my age when the Phillies won with Carlton in '80. I am looking forward 2037 when we can celebrate another Phillies victory with her son or daughter!

Mantra

Words to live by...

I Wish I

This man is coming to Metuchen, NJ soon to speak:

London Calling

Sea Monster

The front that blew through last night and brought a ton of rain, delayed the Phillies game for ninety minutes and made for a soggy Halloween party departed and left us with head high waves for most of the day.

I didn't hit it until the afternoon, allowing the tide to fill in a little bit, but when I got to Strathmere, it was still a little low, causing every other wave to detonate rather than peel at the head high level. Luckily, there were three guys out already and four trying to paddle out, but I think that only the other guy and myself actually made it out to the line up with the other two.

From there it was a fun afternoon. You really had to choose your waves carefully because there was a healthy mix of closeouts along with the head high peelers, plus it was a pain in the ass battling to get back out. Mostly lefts to be had, but the best ride of the afternoon came for me on a rouge right that came out of nowhere. Rode my Tucker banana board and it performed so well. Easy to paddle, loose and fast. I was glad that it paddled so well when the occasional outside set would pop up and we'd be scratching to make it over them.

Later in the afternoon the wind got on it a little bit and things started to chop up a bit, so it was time to call it an afternoon. Despite the cold water, it was the best session I've had in the last few weeks. I didn't have my camera on me so I grabbed my cell phone to grab a pick of this tree that washed up on the beach and some of the swell in the background. Some lady told me there was a line of trees that were washed away at the Point and were showing up all over the beach. Weird.

Black Wave

Tonight is the annual Halloween party, so I thought I would put up last year's flyer, which was far superior to this year's. I always loved the black background flyers that I would pick up at double decker, like for the Circle Storm show, FP at Scarlett's way back when and more recently the Atari and Floorpunch reunion flyer. Dave Koenig makes some sick flyers, so that was kind of what I wanted to do. I printed out a bunch of old horror movie characters and made the collage you see below. The lettering sucks, but I don't have a whole lot great fonts on my computer, unfortunately.

The Skipper

I hope to own one of Skip Frye's boards someday. Considering lams can go on ebay for ridiculous amounts, my chances are not good. My neighbor has two of them at least (plus a tattoo of the logo below!) and even if they are water-logged or beat up, they are beautiful boards. Here is a picture of one of the lams :


Here is said neighbor, dressed for a surf contest:


Here is Skip showing off some of his boards that are probably headed to Japan:

Malicious Mischief

So many memories and famous quotes from 3rd Floor Hassler at Moravian: "Reuther I can't", penny-lockings, floor meeting-no pants, "Laugh it up fuckers", "I like to cook hotdogs in wine", wall portraits, six packs of tacos, bucket golf, hallway bowling, return of the mack, sure fire ways to sober up and the list goes on and on. Below is one particular genius move from two of the residents of that floor. Our floor window did not have a cage on it like others, so one night two residents decided that the vacumm cleaner needed to commit sucide. Window up and vacuum cleaner out. Simple as that. Little did the floor know it would earn them a spot in the newspaper. I always thought it would be a good idea to get on the roof and outline the vacuum cleaner in chalk, but I never did it. It's the third one from the bottom below.

Drive this Seven Inch Stake Through My Philadelphia Heart

The Almighty Ink & Dagger. I was in high school when they first began playing shows and to say I was pysched on them was an understatement. I think "Drive This" was the peak for them, mainly because I think that record is flawless. Songwise incredible, but I think the artwork and layout is one of my all time favorites. "The Fine Art of Original Sin" had a couple great tracks, but nowhere near the consistency of "Drive This". Things started to unravel after that, ending with Sean McCabe's passing away (R.I.P). All of Sean's projects (including his work at the Earth Crisis Middlesex show) are legendary in my book and his stories and antics are some of the funniest I have ever heard. I still love listening to the Crud is Cult stuff and the xOnPointx demo. Thought posting some I & D would be appropriate for this time of year.



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Mondrian Was A Liar

Against my better judgment, I gave Maeve a sharpie and let her go to town on her pumpkin. She actually did a really good job for never holding one before and put her stamp on its face. She even managed to keep the marker off of herself, the furniture or her toys.

Getting started...


Checking out her progress....


I can't believe I messed up!


What do I think?


The finished product, right between her Halloween cards from Aunt Maddie and Aunt Caroline.

12XU

Decided to redo the fin on my silver spoon. Sprayed Navy with a nod minor threat. As my neighbor commented, "You got a sheep on your fin! That's great!".

Hay is for Horses

Here's a few pictures from yesterday's pumpkin extravaganza on the boardwalk yesterday. Amy has more pictures, but they'll go up on Maeve's babysite.

Julianne, Hilarie, Maeve and Natalie hanging in the hay.


Maeve trying to crawl out of my arms.

Maeve with Amy, her pumpkin and her sippy cup.


Maeve cruising with a few friends after the hayride. This was one of five shops/arcades that she ran into on the boardwalk on her own, leaving us running after her.

Piss Poor

That's what I would call this attempt at surf photography. We took Maeve up to the boardwalk with friends of ours for pumpkins and hayrides only to find that tomorrow's swell was filling in a little early. By mid afternoon there were a bunch of guys on it, mostly at 8th street to the left of the Music Pier. There looked to be somewhat of a drift, but not that bad and you had to wait a while in between waves, but the winds made the waves pretty clean and easy to get into from the looks of things. I rushed down to the beach to grab these two pics before I had to catch up with the toddler pumpkin brigade making its way to the arcade. These pics are garbage, but a good indication of what it was like out there today.

Shore Style

Found this postcard at the local second-hand store and it kind of reminded me of the left side of 59th street. Yesterday was the first day I needed a full suit in the water and the first day it really started to feel like Fall in the water. I didn't end up paddling out until around 5:30 on the right side of the pier and surfed until dark by myself. Nothing that spectacular, but it was just fun to get out after enduring such a long flat spell. Monday's calling for clean waves, well overhead so we'll see what happens.

Electric Wedding

A weird shot of the Hershey house in West Chester. A very cool place for a wedding.

You're Done

That's right L.A.! Manny, Rusty Martin, Casey Blake and the rest of the boners on L.A. just got shown up again at Dodgers Stadium, 5-1, finishing them and the series. Philadelphia is off to the World Series and the D-bags get to clean out their lockers. No more listening to Joe Buck and Tim McCarver gush about Manny! I thought I Hate You's song title would be appropriate for the title of this one. Have a nice off-season Dodgers.

Boys in the Hood...

and some that are not. My neighbors kill it:

Jimmy Hyde very casual on a borrowed Bing traditional noserider.

Kirk Battles on winter wave at Waverly.

Will Tucker...shaper to the stars.

These guys are a little bit further outside the neighborhood, but still rip.

Monk, the ageless wonder. That day was heavy and unmakeable, but he still kept pulling in without a leash.
Harry Gale stuffs it.

Jamie Kelly about to get slotted.

I wish I had the photo credits for these pics, but I don't, so I apologize. Thought I would post some good local pics in honor of the waist high waves that are supposed to be filling in today.

Hits from Hell

Like a lot of people, I usually just listen to this man for most of October in preparation for Halloween:

High School Psychopaths

For those involved (and there were many), this piece of paper should bring a smile to your face, although at the time, it was pretty upsetting. At first I wasn't going to write out the whole thing, but I think the story needs to be told in full.

It was the end of our Junior year at LHS and many of the names listed on that piece of paper worked for the newspaper there, Liberty Life. The newspaper had a meeting room that was the size of a quarter of a classroom, where staff could go and work on articles, etc. during their study hall periods. Being the sports editor, I was in there with a cast of characters, many of whom worked for the paper, but a lot that just came to hang out, which was fine by us. The incident started out with our editor in chief (a classmate of ours who will remain nameless), telling us we were not allowed to have water in the office. It was the age of the mini-super-soaker key chains and of course everyone had them and would spray each other every chance they got.

Being that said editor in chief was usually a total dick, myself and Matt Eby wanted to do the exact opposite of whatever he said. It could not be handled lightly however. For the next week we hatched a plan that we thought (at the time) would be fool proof and the perfect "fuck you" to our beloved editor. The players were recruited and everything was set. I remember Eby and I driving around on the golf cart at the Sand Island Tennis Courts the night before, discussing whether we were really going through with it.

The plan was to bring in as much possible water as we could. Full size super soakers hidden in the ceiling, water balloons and I think Kip Reybitz even brought in a full jug of water just for fun. This contraband was hidden all around the room to ensure that no one would be on to the plans for our assault. There were at least ten kids recruited for the job, many of whom had nothing to do with the newspaper, but would prove helpful to our plan. What was that plan? Basically to soak the shit out our editor in chief when he came in for his seventh period study hall. What if he runs out of the room you ask? That's why someone (it wasn't me) recruited the runningback of our football team to hold the door shut to ensure he couldn't escape. All ten students were hidden around the room and in cabinets so nothing seemed off. The only clue that something was going on was that we had put tarps over the computer to ensure that they were not damaged (Can you say premeditation?). Of course, the planning was way over done, with some kids having multiple balloons and soakers for just one kid. Ridiculous.

Everything was in place and our friends were strategically hidden around the room. We nervously awaited E.I.C's arrival to the Liberty Life room as our hearts were tearing out of our chests. By this point, things were totally over the top and we knew there was no way we could get away with it, but so many people knew about what was going to happen, there was no way we could back down. Finally, the door slowly opened and the E.IC. took two steps in the door. I remember clearly he extended his hand and stammered, "G-g-g-g-guys, there better not be any water in here!"

Barely able to contain ourselves, we waited for Roberto Somavilla to ask Craig if he had seen "Mission Impossible", which was the code word for our assault to begin. Roberto barely got the question out and it was on. The next few moments were a blur. I remember water flying every direction and then things taking an unexpected turn. E.I.C. decided to fight back and began swinging his bookbag around violently toward the mob. I remember his bookbag being opened and his papers flying around the room amidst the massive amounts of H2o in the air. It was pure chaos. Finally, once the barrage had finally ceased things became eerily quiet as no one had really planned out what was the next step after the soaking. We all just stood there blankly as E.I.C. started to storm out only to have Kip run up to his dripping wet frame and try to squeeze part of his gallon jug of water on him as he left the room. That was probably my favorite moment because it summed Kip up so well, always over the top. Hilarious.

And then we were left standing there, having put so much water all over the room, the floor and ourselves. Phil, our buddy who we got to distract our adviser, Mr. Hudak, couldn't hold Mr. H off anymore and he came storming in the room. I think all he could muster was, "WHAT THE HELL...." and that was it. We all scattered and headed to our last period class. During Calculus, the reports were already coming in: E.I.C. was seen sitting in the office across the hall dripping wet...he's calling the cops...criminal charges...suspension....parents, etc. It was a mess.

The water war had gone down on the Friday before exams which was perfect in our eyes: the last day of classes. Things had transpired way too quickly for any action to be taken before the end of the day. However, what we didn't anticipate was having to wait the entire weekend for what the repercussions of our actions would be. It was without a doubt one of the worst weekends ever. All I did was sit around and speculate what was going to happen to us. I couldn't eat and my speculation of what was going to happen to us was way worse than any actual punishment. When my first exam rolled around, I was more nervous about what was going to happen to me than with taking the exam.

I rolled into my American Literature exam and nervously chatted with a few of my fellow water warriors about if they had heard anything. No word. I sat and slowly got my mind into the exam and forgot about whether I was going to get in trouble or not. I relaxed and tried to remember what I could about Bartleby the Scrivener. After the exam I was feeling much better.
Heading to my chemistry exam, I was confident that nothing was to come of our actions.

Little did I realize as I was sweating out my Chemistry exam that Vice Principal Seaman (real name) had entered the room and began handing out pieces of paper to people. Finally, he handed me the above paper and I realized that we were not out of the woods by any stretch. We ended up facing the music with our Principal, the E.I.C. and all the parties involved but emerged without getting in too much trouble. We weren't suspended from exams and basically resolved everything at the meeting. What I love about that little piece of paper is, those names are just the people that were in that Chemistry exam. VP Seaman had multiple notes with multiple names listed on them for all of the people that were involved and many that were not. I guess he was operating off of the E.I.C.'s memory of the incident.

While this should be the part where I reflect on the incident and put it into perspective, it's not going to happen. High School shouldn't be taken seriously.

Pose Hard

The show I regret most missing? This one:

I suck.

Here's video from ROTP's set:

Party Wave

A throwback picture of Ocean City in the earl days. Judging by what looks to be the Golden Galleon building in the distance, it could be 11th or 12th street? Looks like it was crowded then too. Hopefully there will be swell filling in next week. Saw one poor soul sitting at 8th street this morning searching for ripples to ride.

Pearl Fat

I used to love to collect show flyers when I was back in high school and keep a collection in a scrapbook. The flyer below has to be one of my all time favorites for a number of reasons and their is a pretty good story that goes a long with it. The flyer is from a Scarlett's show from around the early nineties and from my estimation that would make me a freshman or sophomore in high school. Around this time m friends and I had just discovered punk from some of the older kids in our school. I remember buying my first Descendents cassette at Play It Again around this time and getting whatever was recommended to me by the McCallums or their friends. We didn't really know a whole lot at this point, but were really into it. Our friends were in Aisle Nine who were pretty much a pop punk band until later on in their career when they took a more political slant on things. I'm not exactly sure how Plow made it on this bill, seeing as they were really the only legitimate band playing the show, but another reason I like the flyer is that it is before their name change to Plow United. The Natural Disasters, if I remember correctly, were made up of some big dudes who went to Liberty High School with us and pretty much played bad classic rock and Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, etc. They could actually play their instruments too, which was a big negative. And of course their was the almighty Palace of Meat. They basically worshiped all things GG Allin and had hilarious songs titles and were a complete mess.

Most members of the bands all went to the same high school and things started buzzing around mid-week that one of the members of Palace had made a special flyer for the show. The flyer depicted one of the members of the Natural Disasters in an unflattering picture and apparently word had gotten out to him and he was pissed. I can't remember who had the flyers at lunch the one day, but we crowded around to check out the flyer. At first I didn't think anything of it. It had a bunch of monsters drawn on it and said something about the Ick with the band names on it. Then it was folded over to reveal the flyer's genius. When folded over it revealed the message "Rick is Gay" and a drawing of Rick complete with a Pearl Fat t-shirt, flys buzzing under his armpit, and standard chain wallet that Rick always sported. . The drawing was dead on and we could not stop cracking up. Adding to the controversy was the fact that Rick was at least six two, two hundred plus and thought he was the man when it came to music or anything in general. I somehow convinced either someone from Palace or Aisle Nine to give me a copy.

The whole week was spent discussing the different rumors, threats and jokes that were going around about the show; in other words, a great week, especially for someone who hated high school. Of course, things were anti-climactic, the show went off with little or no drama, but I am glad that I snagged one of those flyers for my collection.

Unfolded:


Folded:

Cookie Puss

Maeve's first attempt at an Oreo cookie was a success.

Cold World

Our Refrigerator

West Chester Protest City

This weekend, Amy and I attended a wedding up in West Chester Pennsylvania. Since Amy graduated from WCU, we took the opportunity to stroll around downtown yesterday and enjoy what turned out to be a great day. As we were driving around looking for a parking space, we drove by dueling camps of protesters set up on opposite sides of High Street. On one side were people rallying for peace and for the troops to come home. On the other side were people who wanted "victory" in Iraq and people who wanted to yell at the peaceniks.


We approach the scene and I grab a shot from the car.


The guy with the "Honk for Victory" was a complete jackass.


The other side of the street.


My favorite poster of the whole lot.


The years have not been kind to Uncle Sam. We sleep a lot better at night knowing that this gentlemen is an official "jihad" profiler. Is he aware that "Jihad" is a verb and not person?