So THIS is Christmas?

Holy crap, what happened to 2010?

Last I remember we were riding the F train home at 2am on January 1st watching an outstanding young gentleman who looked like Danny from New Kids On The Block. Danny was soused beyond belief and had his arm around his equally soused underage girlfriend. They were slouched sideways in their subway seat. If you were to trace a shape in the air around them you'd get a pretty decent parallelogram. They had both obviously boarded the train at the Times Square station and were decorated with crooked party hats, noisemakers, and residual confetti. Danny was spending those first few minutes of 2010 pointing at one of his friends also on the train slurring "Loogit this fuggin guy, loogit this fuggin guy!" He wasn't trying to pick a fight, he was just a drunk happy dude who found something amusing about That Fuggin' Guy. I was happy for every second that Danny was focused on That Fuggin' Guy, because that was one less second we were at risk of having to watch him make out with his girlfriend any more than we already did.

And... POOF! There went the year - full speed ahead. Here we are at the end of December already. Christmas has come and gone. It always used to pretty much be my favorite most ass-kickingest holiday of the year, but it was a bit of a toughy this year being away from our families and homies. Sure as heck don't miss the Minnesota weather, that's fer damned sher, but the peeps are another story. It's too bad that whoever invented the vacuum tube Habitrail thingies at drive thru bank stations that you send thermoses through couldn't also invent a people sized one. I figure with one of those we could hop in, be in Minnesota in about an hour, and then just hop back in the capsule and zip back to Brooklyn on the same night. Missing family sucks. Especially at this time of year. I have tons of cool Christmas memories that I always look back on quite fondly when I'm in Miss-Mode like this. And when I do so, my brain does this:

I'm sorry. What I MEANT to say is my brain does this:

*******insert Wayne and Garth's "diddlyooop... diddlyooop..." wavy hand gesture here representing being transported to another time*******

My Pyraminx was just like this!

THUD! I've landed in 1982. It's Christmas Day at Grandma Gert & Grampa Claire's. To this day whenever I smell turkey and/or hear Johnny Mathis, I am instantly transported to their home on Palace Ave. in St. Paul. Someone gave me a sweet Tron tee shirt at this particular get-together. I believe it may have been my Aunt Dolly. I hadn't seen Tron yet but was a big Star Wars fan and the Tron dude looked Star Wars-y enough, so that deemed the shirt worthy of wearing. A nearby candle tipped over on the table I'd set the shirt on after unwrapping and some wax ended up splattering on it. I was quite devastated by this until someone suggested we put it in the freezer and the wax would freeze and break off. Worked like a charm. Also on this evening my Aunt Jeannie gave me a Pyraminx which I became completely enamored with and was eventually able to solve every time. Couldn't do the Rubik's Cube back then, still can't. But Pyraminx? I had that shit covered. My sister received a kid's activity book from someone that night (I think?) called GOOD TIMES that completely blew my fucking mind. I was able to score my own copy on Ebay about 10 years ago for $10 and it's still just as fun to thumb through. It's a treasure trove of cool facts and activities that deserves a journal entry of its own, so maybe I'll just shut up about that for now.             

Diddelyoop... diddelyoop... diddelyoop...

1983: Walk, Man. On this Christmas Day my sister and I each unwrapped our very own Sony Walkman AM/FM radios - complete with headphones with the bitchin' orange foam covering. Portable music has always been a pretty intense addiction of mine and this is where it started. To be able to put on headphones and listen to music.. and walk around without worrying about cords coming unplugged from a stereo receiver? The sense of freedom was almost too much for me to fathom. It was like floating. I remember on the way to Gert and Claire's that afternoon Lisa and I were cranking our new portable music headphone devices in the back of the station wagon. We were both tuned in to WLOL and Stray Cat Strut was on. Yes please. There's a scene in National Lampoon's Vacation when Russ and Audrey are in the back of the Wagon Queen Family Truckster rocking out with their headphones on. That toadilly always reminds me of that Christmas Day with my sis.  

The night before, my Aunt Lucy gave me an issue of the heavy metal magazine KERRANG! with KISS in it. This magazine contained the first pictures of them I'd ever seen playing live without makeup. It came with a bonus yellow flexi-disc with a live version of Quiet Riot's "Slick Black Cadillac" on it. I still have that mag and it's awesome to skim through it every now and again. I smell the new electronics smell of the new TV we got around that time as well as new brown living room carpet we had installed that Febrooary whenever I read that magazine. Weird how memories trigger different things like that.

Diddelyoop... diddelyoop... diddelyoop...

The year: 1984. By far my favorite Christmas vacation in my entire 13 year school district 833 prison tenure.

It's the weekend after Christmas. I'm at Cottage Grove's go-to store for all of your heavy metal needs: In Concert. I'd just talked myself out of buying the Twisted Sister Velcro wallet and was staring at the cassette tape display case. I am deep in the throes of a major crisis. Do I want to spend $7.98 of my Christmas money on Helix's Walkin' The Razor's Edge or hold out for something better? Back before the internets, buying an album was a considerably difficult decision for me - there was no way to hear any of the songs unless I'd heard anything on MTV or the radio. If I forked over $8 and didn't like the album, tough titty - I was stuck with it. I usually had to go by how cool the album art and song titles were. I decided that Helix looked "metal" enough for my liking and ended up purchasing the tape. I raced home to throw it in the tape player... Brian Vollmer's first "GIMME AN 'R'!" kicked things off and I thought Man, I want to make heavy shit like this when I grow up. Whenever I take a trip down memory lane and listen to that record I realize that my definition of "heavy" has substantially changed for the better over the years.

Later that week I attended my first KISS concert at the St. Paul Civic Center with my Aunt Cookie. Some new band called Queensryche had just released an album entitled The Warning. I remember seeing it advertised in Circus magazine. I couldn't understand a word Geoff Tate was singing but still thought that they kicked ass, as did KISS. Being that this was my first arena concert I didn't know what it was going to be like. Were we going to meet KISS? Did they walk through the crowd and sweat on people while they were playing? Would some unruly drunken fan stab someone like I'd heard my sister said happened at an Aerosmith concert a year or two earlier? Would they surprise everyone and come out with makeup on?

Nothing like that happened. Cookie and I were given a good solid rock show, complete with confetti and pyro that blinded us - we could feel the heat on our faces even from our borderline nosebleed seats. Paul Stanley made fun of people who listened to Thompson Twins and did a bit with a Michael Jackson doll where he held it to the microphone and mimicked Michael. He played his cracked mirror guitar and occasionally one of the 8 million reflections from the spotlights hitting it would zoom across my face or shirt. I remember feeling as if I'd been baptized every time that happened and thinking Dude. The light reflecting off of Paul Stanley's guitar just hit me! It sounds funny now but that shit's pretty much the most rad thing ever when you're an 11 year old KISS fan. The clip I've pasted here is from that tour - same guitar. Cookie and I dined at the Taco Bell on Robert St. in West St. Paul prior to that concert. This was right around the time I'd developed a liking for hot sauce. I used 3 packets of HOT sauce per taco (there was no "Fire" sauce back then).

Hey, check out how awesome the internet is. I'm going to figure out the exact day of that show. Hold on a sec.

December 29th 1984. That was on a Saturday.

Way cool.

I received a little action figure that Christmas from Cookie called a STINKY. It was a little blue rubber elephant monster looking thing and its odor was "rotten eggs". That thing really smelled like ass. Needless to say it was an instant favorite.

Diddelyoo... diddelyoo... diddelyoo...

Christmas Break 1985 This was the year I started playing guitar. "Santa" left me a Leo Kottke greatest hits record. I also got a telescope and a Radio Shack electronics learning lab. Sadly there weren't any hot chicks on our block who disrobed in front of open windows like there are in the movies. It was too cold to go outside and stargaze, so I pointed it out our living room window and saw a murder happen in the neighbor's window.


Just kidding just kidding just kidding.

I was able to get a pretty good view of the oil refinery that was 5 or 6 miles away from our house. It wasn't my favorite constellation Orion, but it got the job done. For New Years I got to travel via Amtrak to my Aunt Sue's house in LaCrosse - all by myself! They shoot off fireworks from a bluff on New Years Eve in LaCrosse which I had to see to believe. Fireworks were only supposed to be a 4th of July warm weather thing from all I'd known at that point. Seeing them at 12:01am on January 1st 1986 from the inside of a car was pretty damned cool.

*******

Blimey, I could go on and on about other highlights of Christmas past. I haven't even touched on The Great KISS solo album Chirstmas of 1979. Maybe next year. It's nice to be able to play these little home movies back in my brain every December. The weird thing is I don't even have to play them - they play themselves automatically. I catch a whiff of Christmas tree and am suddenly back in 1984 with my brother Chuck dropping Christmas ornaments strategically in our tree to see how far they'd fall. I see a tray of cookies and think of my Great Aunt Chris. I smell wrapping paper and I remember gift tags that said To: Mike From: Santa in handwriting that I never really realized looked a lot like my Mom's. And it doesn't matter what time of the year it is if smell turkey in the oven (which usually happens at the grocery store): It's 1982 and I'm back at Gert and Claire's again.

Brains are weird.

I think I'd like to make my version of A Christmas Story out of that kick-ass 1984 Christmas some day. Instead of a Red Rider BB gun I'll be asking for a dual cassette boom box with EQ and detachable speakers. It would be difficult to cast who would play me. I'm going through a list of current celebs in that age group and it's tough with all of the great talent out there. Jaden Smith would probably be the best fit.

Happy Holidays, y'all. May your 2011 not suck at all!

2010 List of Shit I'm Thankful For

I never really understood Thanksgiving. As a kid it was just a lame warm-up holiday to the cool one that happened 3 weeks later where Santa came and we got presents and money. As I got older I grew to appreciate it more as an opportunity to hang with family and eat like there was no tomorrow. Now that we live in Brooklyn things are a little different. In some ways not so fun (we miss the shit out of our families) but in other ways I guess it's nice to just be able to stay home and have a small, quiet din-din.

Alas, this is our second Thanksgiving here and it's not quite as odd as the first one was. Granted last Thanksgiving was a blast in its own new way, it was our first major holiday away from the Fam (Columbus Day was a real bitch too if you want to count that but we somehow pulled through). Here we are on Thanksgiving Part II. Our first year in Brooklyn zoomed by at the speed of a Slayer record playing at 78rpm. We've busted our asses and are still here as a result of said ass busting. Things are just getting started! Here is what I am giving thanks to:

• My lovely wifey, of course. No duuuuh. I thank her for having an awesome brain, good scents of humor, being very easy to look at, and for being cool with packing up and moving 1,200 miles east last year. I don't know of too many spouses that would partake in such shenanigans.
• I am thankful that we survived our first year as New Yorkers with flying colors. Contrary to what Emo Philips told me when talking to him backstage at ACME Comedy Club in 2007 (true story), it didn't eat us alive. It hasn't been easy all of the time, but learning how to play the guitar wasn't either and look - I'm still playing it over 20 years later. No pain/no gain. Thank you, New York.
• I am immensely thankful for the CVS Ear Wax Removal Syringe. I'll just leave it at that. 

• The Number 7. This blog has been brought to you by the number 7. It is my favorite number in the world. I'm not superstitious and don't do things like open a door and close it 7 times or stop and make a clicking noise 7 times every time I hear a trigger word. I've just always liked the number. I always thought it looked cool on the 16 ounce green glass 7UP bottles at my grandma's and on my dad's Heinz 57 sauce. I was born in July, the 7th month. I was 7 when I got my first KISS record. Married to the lovely wifey on 7/7/7. I have 7 stars in my tattoo. 7/8 is my favorite and most comfortable meter to play/write music in. We moved to 7th Ave in Brooklyn - pure coincidence on the street number. My new job that I really enjoy going to is on the 7th floor, also a coincidence (not like I could really hold out for a job until I found one on a 7th floor). I just bought a bottle of Jack Daniel's (more on that later) which has "No. 7" on it. Just like Jack's jackass in Grizzly Adams. Steve Vai's got it for the number 7 too.. I read an interview where he said he makes every seventh song on each of his CDs some sort of big-time ballad. It's true! Although Eight Is Enough, 7 is truly where it's at for this fella.
• I am incredibly grateful that if we want or need something, be it butter, beer, milk, or whatever, we can walk outside and find it within a 2 block radius of our apartment 24/7. The delivery services here are quite convenient too.
• I'm thankful that I don't stock shelves at the Target in Atlantic Center.
• I grew my beard back this year after a year or two of going without. Turns out that I missed the little fella more than I thought I did. Frank likes to rub his face on it, so I guess he missed it too.
• I am thankful that Stevie Wonder's Sir Duke is on right now. That song will always kick major ass in my book.. one of my favorite unison riffs ever.
• I'm glad that the few family peeps and friends who have made it out here to visit made it out here. I hope to see more of you make it out here!
• On that note, we visited MN over the summer. We didn't miss the state/Twin Cities so much, but we sure miss family (Jesus, can I say that enough?) so it was really awesome to see everyone. It had been almost a year and it was great to see everyone. Mad props to my incredibly awesome Grandma Alice and her way cool twin bro John and his rad wife Chris for coming to see us when we were there. I want to be like them when I grow up. Represent.
• I heard that this is Shrek's last year as a balloon in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. I am thankful that there is one less Shrek promotional vehicle in the world, even if it's just for one day. ENOUGH WITH SHREK ALREADY.
• We got to see Jeff Beck in June. I never, ever thought I'd see him live. Not in a meelion years. Mind-blowingly awesome. He does things with the electric guitar that no one else can, and even if they could get close to what he can do, Jeff was still the first one to do it. We were also interviewed by a Rochester news crew while quite soused on the patio of a bar not too far from the show about attending the Rochester Jazz Festival. Peep this and tell me he's not amazing.
• Smash Mouth headlined the Rochester Jazz Festival, by the way. What the name of all things that don't suck is that all about? Not thankful for that. We heard the entire set from our hotel room.
• I'm thankful that there's a Taylor Swift Thanksgiving special and a Beyonce one on tonight as well... and that I won't be watching either of them.
• I'm thankful to be in a no football household. No football on Thanksgiving or pretty much ever is cool with me. Kudos to you if you're a football person, but I'm not. People always ask me about the Vikings out here and they may as well be asking me about how to perform brain surgery.
• I'm thankful for Line 6's POD HD500. That thing kicks total ass.
• I am thankful for a co-worker at my previous job for reminding me how NOT to treat people in the workplace.
• I got to play Iced Ink music in Montreal and some pretty cool spots in NYC. Sorry again to the guys that I had to pull the plug on the band as a live entity, but in hindsight that's what I get for moving here and trying to overachieve without first taking a breather.
• Our automatic cat feeder. The cats no longer wake us up at 5am (unless it's empty like it was the other day)
• I'm thankful that if I don't like something, I'm at a point in life where I'm able to speak up and change it - even if it makes me feel like a dickhead. And I quote Rick Nelson: "You can't please everyone, so you've got to please yourself."
• On that note, I didn't like where my work situation was heading and was able to change it by busting my arse to find a new job much closer to home. I seem to have just enough leverage on my resume to do that kind of thing now. I really dig my new job. Like, a LOT. My condolences to the person who took over for me... I wouldn't wish that upon too many people.
• Jack Daniel's. It was the first hard liquor to tickle my taste buds way back in 1988. Sorry to break the news to you, Mom and Dad. I have a fear of throwing up which is something that has saved me from many a hangover throughout the years (not to mention a lot of trouble). As a result I only had enough sips back in '88 to cop a decent buzz and I knew damn well when to stop. Hadn't really touched it since but I just bought a bottle. Sipping on that stuff is bringing back some really cool, fun memories. Memories like sitting in the passenger seat of Gyro's Mustang and cruising Maplewood for chicks while blasting Motley Crue and sipping JD (sorry again, Mom and Dad). My recent JD renaissance reminded me of Gyro's Mustang's dashboard: it was black with a white Tron-like grid pattern on it. I think it had maroon upholstery in it. I can smell the strawberry air freshener. Good times & warm fuzzies.
• Gyro! There's someone I need to track down. He was amongst the very small group of die hard KISS fans I bonded with in my early teenage years. We talked like Yoda all of the time for no reason. Didn't help us much in the chick department.  
• Them Crooked Vultures. They kick total ass.
• Joe Satriani's new album is actually really good too. I lost interest in him in the mid 1990s and have tried all of his records since but they've all left me kinda empty. His new record Black Swans and Wormhole Wizards actually kicks ass, more so in a Jeff Beck kind of way than a Joe Satriani/irritating one trick pony guitar shredder kind of way (I actually discovered Jeff Beck via a Satriani interview in the 80's where Joe cited him as one of the greatest 'lectric guitarists ever). It is a good F5 of why I was so inspired listening to Satriani as a teenager.
• The new peeps I've met since moving here. Y'all rule. Even if I only see some of you once every few months.
• I'm thankful that it's only 3:39 right now and we're about to assemble a delicious Thanksgiving feast for two. The cats will be getting some primo canned food and catnip as well. 

As stud muffin Gary Lumpkin used to say on Good Company, "There you have it." And as a sign I drove past in St. Paul Park one year read, "Be Thankful, Eat A Turkey."

Lost in Translation

Peep this.

I just went and picked up a sammich at the Subway shop on West End Ave. and 61st Street. I ordered a 6" turkey on roasted garlic bread. Sounds simple enough, doesn't it?

The distinguished young sandwich artist standing across the counter before me was at the ready. He put on a fresh pair of exam gloves and looked at them as though they were his paintbrushes. The sandwich artist grabbed a footlong bat of roasted garlic bread, sliced it, and started filling it up with turkey. Okay, so I'm getting a footlong now. I guess it's only $1 or so more if that and I'm kinda hungry anyways... no skin off my back. He then grabbed a tile of flatbread, put turkey and cheese on it, and asked if I wanted either one or both toasted.

Says I: "Uh, sorry, but I did not order another sandwich, much less one on flatbread.. cancel that one, please." He then went over to the footlong and started scooping the bread-meat out of the loaf, essentially leaving a hollowed out bread-bowl pod. "This good.. you mean like this?" he asked.

Okay. So that's how this is gonna go down? I explained to him once more as clear as possible that I only ordered one sammich, NOT 2. Just the 6" footlong that he was making for me. I went into caveman mode and pointed to it and nodded my head yes, pointed to the flatbread and shook my head no. Big sandwich. Yes. Sandwich on bread tile. No. Please, thankyou, etc.

I thought to myself He clearly understands my order now, right?

"Okay. Lettuce tomato?" he asked, pulling both the scalloped loaf of bread and flatbread canvases toward the pallet of fresh fixins. Every time I told him what I wanted on my 6" footlong he would throw it on the flatbread as well. This sandwich order discombobulation continued to the bitter end. I contemplated leaving in lieu of sticking around for whatever sheer terror was about to transpire at the cash register. The man couldn't operate a loaf of bread... how could he possibly ring me up - especially without any pictures on the buttons?

I was going to add a beverage to my order but refrained from doing so. There was no need to complicate matters more than they already were. The way things were going he'd probably snap his fingers and a team of sandwich artists would suddenly emerge from the back room with a 6 foot party sub loaf crammed full of oatmeal raisin cookies.

In the end I was charged for only 1 footlong and left with two sammiches. Not a bad deal. I can only hope that this particular sandwich artist changes professions someday. I'd love to see what would happen if he ended up being my teller at the Bank of America counter and had to exchange my $10 bill for a roll of quarters.

My life is about to change forever

Tomorrow I'm expecting the UPS man to deliver a box to me that contains a brand new 3rd generation Kindle e-book reader. Thanks to all of the electronics purchases I make on behalf of my employer, I recently racked up enough bonus points to cash in for one. Six months ago I could have cared less about such a doodad, but I'm currently going on almost a year of reading roughly 2 hours a day on the train to and from work. I have 30+ notches in my finished book belt since last October which is prolly more books than I've read (through to the end at least) in the last 20 years combined. And a lot of these books I've been reading don't even have pictures! I know! It's amazing how my attention span with books significantly increased when suddenly the only alternative I had to reading them was staring at Docker and pantsuit-adorned asses 12" from my face when sitting in a crowded train.

The problem with reading books on the subway is they're just another gall damned cumbersome thing to carry, not to mention at least once or twice a day while I'm reading someone will brush past me getting on or off the train and inadvertently flip a few pages. In order for that to happen after tomorrow, someone will have to bend down and press the page turn button on the side of the Kindle.. and I will take that Kindle and whap them on the head with it providing there's room on the train for my arms to adequately pivot.

I've always had this weird thing with trying to keep my books in pristine shape when I read them. Not so easy to do when I have to shove my books in my backpack every day.. by the time I'm done with them they're far from mint (I still haven't read my Dave Mustaine book for that reason). That won't be an issue anymore being that there are no covers or dust jackets to worry about with e-books.

Another great life change I anticipate with Kindle ownership: it plays mp3s. This will really come in handy when I jog around the park because now instead of bringing my iPod along for the run as I always do, I'll bring the Kindle to a) play music and b) read as I run. I have a cartoon bubble over my head of running, listening to Slayer, and reading some Mark Twain - all at once. Sure, I might crash into another runner, tree, or maybe even a cyclist, but that's OK. As long as I have my Kindle I can use its 3G service to email someone for help.

My Kindle will hold up to 3,500 books. That's fucking sweet, man. Can you say "book burning party"? The wife and I have quite the little book collection on the 6 tier bookshelves in our living room area that surround our television. Now we can get rid of those unsightly books and I can put the Kindle on one of the many empty shelves in their place. The rest can be filled up with dirty dishes, beer bottles, unopened mail... the sky is the limit. I'm so excited to get all of that shelf space back! I almost want to burn them now just to get an early start.

I wonder why it's called a Kindle? I know the people at Amazon are clever sometimes... Maybe that's some sort of sarcastic name and it's actually nonflammable. I'm going to go throw some lighter fluid and a Zippo in my backpack for when it arrives in my office... I'll spray it all over the box, set it on fire, and once all that can be burned has been burned there will be one thing remaining in the pile of soot: my sweet new Kindle. When co-workers inevitably walk by to see what all of the fire and fuss is about I will hiss at them so they know to keep their distance. Leave me alone, man. Sue me if you have to. When I have to do that thing in court where I put my hand on the ho-lee bible I'll be able to download it to my Kindle on the spot via the Amazon store in less than 60 seconds.

My Hanes T-Shirts Are Sealed for Freshness

I noticed something about my 3 pack of Hanes Premium shirts when throwing it into my basket at Target yesterday: the top of the bag is resealable. Well I'll be damned. This is something that I've noticed before, but I didn't notice notice it. I never really stopped to think about why that Ziploc-style technology is there.

I'm all for sealing my shirts in a bag and keeping them fresh; there is nothing like that first time you wear a shirt or pair of socks after buying them. You get that one day of pure absolute joy and then after the first washing they just become another t-shirt or another pair of socks. But here's the problem: the 3 shirts are all stacked together like flapjacks, folded over a square of cardboard, and then secured together with a few pieces of clear tape. If you're like me, you wear only one Hanes Premium t-shirt at a time. Am I supposed to remove the glob of shirts from the package, get my one shirt, and then fold and tape the two remaining shirts back onto the cardboard and stuff them back into the resealable bag? That seems like a lot of work, but it dawned on me that maybe that's why my white t-shirts are "spoiling". They seem to develop yellow stains in the pits after a while. Could it be because I'm not storing them in the resealable bag?

Call me crazy but I've always just removed them from the bag after buying, refolded them, and stashed 'em in my dresser drawer with my other white tees. Could it be that the yella pit stains are contagious and transfer from my old shirts to the new ones? Should I be throwing out the older ones and keeping the new ones that aren't in use in the resealable bag just as an extra measure of protection? Do I need to have our dresser fumigated or swabbed for traces of yellow pit stain bacteria? Maybe a black light test is in order.. I saw that on Dateline once and haven't looked at hotel room TV remote controls and faucet knobs the same since. One thing I'm guessing wouldn't be too contaminated in a black light test is the bible in the nightstand drawer. Chances are if you're someone who reads the bible you already have your own good book in tow laced with your own personal holy DNA and bacteria.

Back to the shirts in the resealable bag. I pay a premium for my premium shirts which I thought all this time was just for thicker fabric. The regular flimsy Kleenex-thin white tees reveal my chest hair and upper arm tats which is something I'm not cool with; it looks trashy and grody. But now I see part of that premium also goes towards the deluxe resealable packaging. Although I'm not going to dilly dally with stuffing my new shirts back in that bag I'll at least try and repurpose it. It's too bad they don't make loaves of bread as tall and wide as the bag dimensions.. it would make a killer sandwich carrier. Perhaps Hanes could get into the bread business. Flatbread might work. Is there such thing as a square pita? The Ziploc-style seal is much nicer than those on the deli meat bags we get with the little white square pull tab that always falls off, so maybe the next time we go get a pound of smoked Boar's Head toikey I'll throw the bag at the clerk and say "Fillerup!" I will request a stack of extra large slices - that way I can also reuse the cardboard by taping the turkey slices onto it (that probably looks a lot cooler in my head than it does in written word form).

It would also make a good resealable bag for 45rpm records. The problem with that is I don't have any. Part of the premium I pay is for this deluxe bag and I'm not just going to throw it away... At least not until I get a hold of the people at Dateline to do an expose on my theory of yellow pit stains being contagious to other shirts. I might have them bring the bag back to their labs to see if there's some sort of stain-blocking particles in the bag that they could clone and turn into an underarm spray.

Adventures in Podiatric Space Taco Selection

I've been a jogger of sorts on/off since my high school days. Mostly "on" for a week or two then "off" for a few years. This past year however I have really taken a shining to it now that we're spoiled by living a mere 2 blocks from one of the coolest parks in Brooklyn to run around. The scenery is something I now look forward to every morning. I've got trees, trails, grassy fields, horse poop, water, an unspent condom, an empty enema box... it's really quite breathtaking. I've been doing about 20 miles a week and as a result my feet and knees have been letting me know lately that I need better shoes. Apparently running shoes are supposed to be replaced every 300-500 miles. I did not know this. My current pair was approaching the 3 year mark and had the support of a pair of flip flops. I've been ignoring the fact that I need to buy new ones for the plain and simple fact that I don't want to spend money on the f'in things. It's much more fun to spend money on more important needs such as beer and pizza.

All that I can say after buying a new pair of running shoes this weekend is that running shoes are pretty much the ugliest fucking things ever. It's not much better for chicks either, but dude running shoes win the ugly race by a long shot. There are decent looking options that appear to be running shoes, but after doing some pretty extensive research on running shoe ratings I found that basically anything I'd instinctively walk up to and want to buy was not a practical option if I was planning on doing anything more than regular old walking in 'em. Dropping what to me is a substantial amount of money on something I wouldn't want to be caught dead in is not a fun shopping conflict to be in the middle of. Hmmmm.... On that note I think I'll tie a pair of Chuck Taylors around my waist in the event that something happens to me. Hopefully I'd be able to change back into those and throw my running shoes into the bushes with the crushed beer cans and enema box.

Is there such thing as a running shoe that doesn't look like a space caterpillar wrapped in a doily crochetted by an intergalactic alien grandmother? Seriously.

What the fuck is this?



For reals?? Did the shoe trailer accidentally get dropped off at the Edge shaving gel factory? Why silver? Why shave gel blue? Do the stripes on the side make you run faster? Do the little red nubs on the bottom that look like LED lights illuminate or blast you off the ground into the mothership? I know that running shoes are a result of some highly sophisticated engineering and foot nerdery, but that doesn't mean they can't camouflage said nerdery. You're pretty much left with no choice but to have your feet adorned with shoes that yell out to the world "LOOK AT ME EVERYONE! MY FEET ARE IN SPACE TACOS!"

Maybe they make them look like that so that you have to run from people who are trying to beat you up because you're wearing such ugly shoes. Exercise via fear. Perhaps it's a ploy to get you to run more and wear them out faster so that you go buy them more frequently with aspirations of the manufacturer opting for newer, less shaving-gel-burrito-from-Pluto aesthetics. The particular shoe that I was sold on provided me with the option to pick my own custom colors on the Nike website for an additional $30. Bryn had mentioned that this was maybe why they make the standard shoes so gall damned ugly - it makes you consider paying even more just to get something that doesn't look like Stevie Wonder chose the colors while standing in one of those cash tornado booths filled with ugly color swatches.

I ended up going with the peculiar looking chunk of rubber and other space-age fibers to the left. Yeah, they're pretty rad. Out of the 4 available colors this was the least nauseating choice. The others were black with white and baby blue accents (yes, that combo is for dudes), light grey with white and fluorescent radioactive urine-colored accents, and then white with puke grey and bright blue accents. Alas, this particular specimen was one of the higher rated podiatric space tacos within my budget and the very instant I put 'em on, my feet were in absolute bliss. For Christ's sake though, why all of the busy stuff? Who was the genius that decided on off-tan, brown, white, orange, and maroon? It's not like I'm Tim Gunn or anything or that I have anyone to impress - especially while running. It just boggles my mind that people have to abandon basically all and any taste when it comes to buying footwear for running. I accept the fact that although the build of my running shoes are just a few strands of DNA from Gene Simmons' dragon boots, they're saving my knees and feet. But this color combo madness needs to stop.

I'm sure there are those who see a pair of shoes that look like the design was based off of a late 1990's Aiwa 3 CD changer bookshelf stereo system and think "Wow, those are really sweet. I absolutely must have them and wear them at once!" I ask that those of you on that side of the fence take my running shoe rant with a grain of salt. I'm a dude who has adhered to a strict diet of Chuck Taylors since the late 1980s and maybe am just a little narrow minded. I'm guessing that the pro-running shoe design fans are far outnumbered by the anti fans, though.

Anyways. My run this morning was an incredibly cushy ride in my sweet new A&W root beer colored kicks, so I should be thankful that at least they're serving their purpose. I paid close attention to the shoes of other runners in the park and realized we're all on the ugly shoe train together. Perhaps we all need to gather in the middle of the park to protest and have a shoe burning. Do you hear us now, Nike?

(Insert Twisted Sister's We're Not Gonna Take It here)

No rallying until I hit the 450 mile mark with mine though... I paid good money for these ugly-ass sunnofabitches. In the mean time I guess there's always that Croc burning protest idea I can start putting together.

Enema Enigma

Men At Work's "Business As Usual" was cranking through my earbuds and I was on the home stretch of my morning run through Prospect Paahk today when something caught my eye. Occasionally I'll see a stray empty beer can, a few fast food wrappers, and other assorted garbage that presumably ends up there as a result of someone mistaking beautiful, flourishing park foliage for a waste receptacle. I can see where it's pretty easy to mix the two up.

Today's standout garbage item was something much more unique and thought provoking than your run of the mill nugget of garbage. Even more thought provoking than the unrolled prophylactic that I ran past on the park's east side dirt path for about a month until it mysteriously disappeared. Did a dog eat it? Was it finally used? Did a kid pick it up and inflate it? I'll never know and it's causing me to lose sleep. At any rate, this morning's bright and shining mystery star on the ground was none other than an empty enema box.

An empty enema box? In Prospect Paaahk?! On a 50' stretch of trail that goes through a tunnel of trees?

If only empty enema boxes could talk.

Instant Everything™

Instead of screwing around on Facebook when I'm mentally restless I'm going to try and focus at least some of that energy on journaling instead when the urge to type brain Twinkies emerges. Even if it's just a short entry and not a mile long book like I've been doing lately what little I post on this thing. Facebook is fun and all but it's a little too instantaneous and time stamped. I don't like the fact that I can post something and potentially have someone read it and think "Hmm... so Mike hasn't responded to my email/voicemail yet but he has time to post on Facebook?" A few times people have called me out on that. Sure, I'm guilty, but a) I'm horseshit at answering my phone much less putting forth the effort to press and hold the 1 key on it to check voicemail, and 2) maybe you need to make your messages stick out a little bit more or at least interesting enough for me to make it past the first few words. Did you ever think of that, lame email/voicemail leaver? It's not all my fault. It takes two slices of bread to fulfill my attention defect disorder sandwich of correspondence.

So anyways, this new Google Instant thing sort of concerns me. If you're not yet familiar with it, try Googling it and a million links will vomit themselves up in your browser without you even having to press enter. I tried searching for something this morning and it looked like my web browser was having a seizure every time I typed in a character. At first I thought it was a cool hallucinogenic side effect of the 16oz Red Bull I'd slammed but it turned out that my browser was the one that was doing the jitterbug.

Does the world really need this? I've been an avid Google user ever since being blessed with a Gmail invitation from a friend back in the invite-only days. I'm starting to notice that the more changes they make to the Gmail interface and the Google search engine over time they're really not making life easier. Sure.. that's what they're doing on the surface. But at the same time they're slowly turning our brains into lazy mushy globs of mashed potatoes, and not even real ones. Yeah - powdered ones. I recall the days of searching the innernets for something and if I happened to misspell a word or two (shocking I know, but even awesome people like me make mistakes) it would kick back zero or very few results. Usually the only results were meaningless sites that happened to feature the identical misspelling that you'd just fed into the search engine. It was at least reassuring to know there was another human out there who made an identical fuck-up, and even went so far as to accidentally publish it on a website.

Looks like those days are becoming extinct. I suppose it's convenient. But so was watching Jerry Blackwell's big sweaty ass on AWA on Sunday mornings and drinking Pepsi instead of doing my homework in 5th grade. As a result of computers thinking for me I'm finding that I no longer pay close attention to how I spell stuff. I've talked to other people who are going through the same thing. That's fine and dandy on a computer, but when I have to hand write something or type into one of the few text applications left in the computer world without spell check I'm pretty much fucked with most of the words my inner proofreader stops me and taps my shoulder on. This is not good. That helpful skill has been overwritten with other information.. like the echoing sound of a robotic auto pilot voice in my head that tells me "DON'T WORRY, YOUR FRIEND MR. COMPUTERMACHINE WILL FIX IT FOR YOU. THANK YOU AND HAVE A NICE DAY, YOU JUST KEEP ON MAKING MISTAKES NOW, YOU HEAR?"

If this keeps going, what's next? Google Fridge? I open the fridge and if I think of the letter B, butter, beer, and broccoli suddenly swoosh to the front and center? Google TV? Google purse? Google chewless chewing gum that blows its own bubbles and loses flavor after 10 minutes all by itself? Google poop-and-dingleberry magnet toilet paper? Can we not just leave the entertaining psychic computer stuff to 20Q?

I dunno. Call me old fashioned but sometimes I enjoy the whole process of having to think and react in order to accomplish something. Sometimes. Just some occasional combustion up in the ol' noggin to shake the dust off. Such as when I want my shoes tied: I bend over and tie them and bask in the fruits of my labor with a rewarding walk from point A to B without my shoes falling off. I do not need a Google Shoelace app to accomplish this. I love my iPod but still find the greatest joy in dropping a needle down on a record and looking at the massive 12x12" album art printed on the cardboard sleeve. It's nice to still have to press COPY on the copy machines at work if I want something that's on 8.5 x 11 duplicated.

I have this fear one day of satellites being blown to bits by aliens and the internet as a whole crapping out like an old car. You never know, someone's pet hamster could get stuck in the internet pipes or something. What will the people who have subconsciously become dependent on technological conveniences do at that time besides hit things when they don't work and then stand there and drool? I'm slightly scared... I think I'm going to head on over to Google.com to find help. Sadly that involves either typing Google.com into my web browser or pressing its home page button. That sounds incredibly exhausting to have to do. Maybe if I sit and stare at the screen it will go to Google.com and do all of the rest of the work for me.

I'm getting verrryyyy sleeeepppyyyyyyy.....

My nose hair trimmer has been seen on TV

I'm ecstatic about my new nose hair trimmer. It's the first one I've ever bought, and It. Is. BAAAYud. AYYYYuusssss.

Since spending my entire 5th grade school year looking at my teacher Mr. Basil's nose hairs that were so unkempt that they practically could have been French braided, I've always wondered at what point in my life I would start a) noticing such things coming out of my nose, and as a result b) have to do something about it. I now know the answer: My 37th birthday. That's the magic number where my olfactory filaments began to try and grow out onto my face like the ornamental vines on the side of my old apartment building on 24th and Hennepin. In the past I've had instances where I've tamed a few sporadic strands trying to peek out. Those were easily managed with beard trimmer attachments built specifically for nasal cavity landscaping.

That was then, this is now. Things seem to be getting a little more unwieldy in my beak, and it seems they just don't make those beard trimmer attachments like they used to - that is unless ripping the hairs out with a dull reverse pencil sharpener is what it used to feel like and I just don't remember. I've tried carving them down with the regular flat clipper attachment by bending my nasal cartilage to a point to where I could get the corner of the clippers in there, but that only calms the savage beasts that are my nose hairs for a day or two. Plus when you've got a cat who likes to hop up on the sink and get all up in your binnit like Frank does, I could end up with one big nostril if he caught me off guard mid-trim.

The first thing that caught my eye on the packaging and made it stand out amongst the rest at Bed Bath & Beyond was the AS SEEN ON TV emblem (or AS ON TV as the seductive propaganda to the left says). If you see an ad for a nose trimmer on TV, yup, that's the same one I use. I'm a distinguished gentleman who will settle for nothing less than the finest trimmer available for my nose hair.

Check out all of the functionality built into this thing. Look at how happy and confident the man using it is. His nostrils are crisp and clean. He's in it to win it. He's going to go into that interview and land that job. And then when he goes and meets up with the guys for a round of Coors Lights at Applebees to celebrate, the chicks will be lining up to talk to him. Anyone who knows anything about well built machinery will tell you that the AS SEEN ON TV emblem basically means you can rest assured that this product consists of nothing but the highest quality parts and most superior craftsmanship that money can buy. It's almost as if the manufacturer is shooting itself in the foot by selling such a fine product. Once you buy one, you'll never need another because it will outlast you. And your children. And quite possibly their children. On my deathbed I will pass this nose hair trimmer down from my generation to the next. I haven't just bought a nose hair trimmer... it's an heirloom forged from the finest plastic and metallic-looking substance that is hopefully mercury/lead free that one could ever ask for. I'm almost tempted to make an appointment with a jeweler to take it in and have my name engraved (or melted as the case may be) into its shaft.

As you can also see in the graphic, it has a built in light which is incredibly handy when trimming that hard to see hair on the back of your neck. All these years I thought it was because my eyes were on the opposite side of my head, but it turns out that's not the case. Inadequate lighting is to blame. That and not owning this fantastic apparatus any sooner. The light is also useful when I wake up in the middle of the night and feel an extra long brow or beard follicle when I randomly brush my hand across my face. I can run to the bathroom mirror, take advantage of the simultaneous light/trimmer feature, and crawl back into bed without disturbing the wife or cats whatsoever.

It also comes with a pen-style cap which protects the "now 50% more power" blade when not in use. What's awesome about that is the pen cap has a clip on it so that I can keep it securely in my shirt pocket for those unexpected times when I need precise nose hair, brow, beard, ear, or neck hair trimming on the go. There's been so many times where I'm sitting on the train or in a meeting and suddenly remember that I forgot to trim my nose hairs or those dozen or so beard hairs that are longer than the rest. Those days are gone. Now it's just a matter of saying "Excuse me" during that meeting, asking the person next to me to hold up a CD or other reflective surface, removing the trimmer from my pocket, and giving the nose hairs a little touch up. I can feel the righteousness now of putting the cap back on, sticking it back in my shirt pocket, shaking the clippings off the pie chart printout in front of me on the table, and saying "All right gentlemen.. carry on."

The next time you see me and you're taken aback by how attractive and youthful I look, take a good long gander at my well groomed nostrils. Because that's where all of that new found youthful radiance is coming from. All with the help of my $9.99+tax Men's Precision Groomer. You know. It's the one you've probably seen on TV.

I AM (met) OZZY

As far as my personal views on religion (and/or lack thereof) go, Ferris Bueller put it best when he said "A person should not believe in an -ism; he should believe in himself." Whenever I find myself in situations where people are stating their religious beliefs and it inevitably becomes my turn to chime in, I usually just say that my religion is "Musician". It usually garners a chuckle or two, but I'm not kidding.

My primary denomination of Musician would probably be ROCK, first and foremost. Thanks to my darling sister telling me about groups like KISS and Alice Cooper at the ripe age of 5 or so, rock music perked my interest and quickly became an obsession. Whenever Moms or Pops took me to K-Mart and I grew tired of ogling the Star Wars junk, I would always walk over to the record department and gaze at album covers and posters, wondering about things like how the guitar player on the AC/DC record cover was still alive if he was impaled by a guitar like that... and if Alice Cooper really was as blue as he looked on the From the Inside album cover. Although I didn't own any rock albums, I always felt connected to the cover art and would stare at it whenever I could. Eventually that obsession gave way to buying those records and listening to them... which led to buying rock and roll magazines, which led to picking up the guitar (shout outs to my parents as well on making that one happen), and ultimately 25 years later led us to New York.

My rock/metal magazine phase kicked into high gear around 1980-81. They became my comic books - I spent countless hours looking through them until they would ultimately fall apart and become wallpaper in my bedroom. Many of those mags featured articles on (and more importantly pictures of) Ozzy Osbourne. Ozzy pretty much scared the crap out of me more so than anyone else I'd laid eyes on in those magazines. Meat Loaf was the scariest rocker prior to that, basically because in most of the photos I could never tell if he was a dude or a chick (I was still uncertain when I first heard Paradise By The Dashboard Light but eventually figured it out). To me, he was just a big sweaty androgynous something-something who wore shirts that looked like wedding cakes.

I would see the pictures of Ozzy and read all of the interviews and stories and think Holy crap... that dude is truly crazy; if I were in the same room with him he might bite me in the face! Other than maybe Popeye, Ozzy was the first person I'd ever seen with tattoos. And they were scary ones. Tattoos are about as pedestrian as eyeglasses nowadays, but the flaming blue demon head on Ozzy's upper right chest was the first large tattoo I'd ever seen and it had me convinced that his threshold of insanity knew no bounds (I wasn't too far off the mark). I never actually heard Ozzy until Bark at the Moon came out in late 1983 and I saw the video for it. I'd just gotten over the phobia of our basement that the movie Poltergeist had sparked, and when I saw the Bark video it was back to square one - I pretty much promised myself that I would never go down there again. Our basement had a creepy crawlspace which contained a frighteningly realistic dwarf-sized stuffed clown doll that our grandpa allegedly dumpster dived and brought over to us kids as a "present". My siblings will testify that in addition to the dead basement bugs and scary clown doll, the crawlspace was infested with Krenner-eating monsters eagerly awaiting to kidnap us into their underworld. After experiencing the Bark at the Moon video (which looks completely ridiculous when I watch it now, thankfully) I was convinced that Clown and the Krenner-eaters were most likely accompanied by a rabid pack of Ozzywolves.

About a year or so later I was playing video games with my home boy Troy and he popped in the Bark tape. "So Tired" came on and I thought Huh... this stuff is actually pretty damn good. He can't be THAT much of a freak, can he? Around that same time my Aunt Lucy brought me some old Black Sabbath tapes to listen to (I have been blessed with some really cool aunts). I had read about Ozzy being in Sabbath in my old magazines and now FINALLY got to hear them. At first it was a little too slow and syrupy for me, but after a few more listens it clicked. The Wizard became an instant favorite tune of mine and is to this day. Although I never got into Ozzy's music as much as I did KISS, Zappa, and all of the other big ones, I always put him at the very top of the heap as far as heavy rock music royalty goes (yes, even above KISS). Ozzy is more than the dope on The Osbournes and/or the guy who bit a bat's head off... he basically helped invent heavy music as we know it. For example: Without Black Sabbath there would probably be no Melvins, and without Melvins my life would be very sad. He has released a wealth of material since, most of it rules, and I still consider him to be the king as far as heavy metal goes. Some may beg to differ with all of that, but that's just how the mental waffles stacked up over time in my little noggin. It is what it is.

That said, my "religion" left me with no choice but to go pay my dues for a few hours with Wife last Tuesday at the Borders bookstore in Columbus Circle where Ozzy was doing an I AM OZZY book signing. I had high hopes to A) get a book signed for Troy - not only for his birthday, but as a thank you for being my gateway to Ozzy records, and B) make some sort of connection with the man himself for a few split seconds. I always make a point of it to say something slightly left of field in situations like this to break the "Dude you fucking RULE" monotony (I once met Dave Grohl and asked him what he had for breakfast). Thankfully we were there early enough to get a decent spot in line. A river of people ran throughout the entire store, and an additional gaggle of Ozzyheads were staged outside of the store hoping to get in. As we got closer to the table I felt fireworks in my belly similar to those I felt when standing before KISS during a signing they did at Sam Goody in the Mall of America in '92. We were about 20 feet away from Ozzy now and had a great view of him. He appeared to be in a "Let's get these f*&king books signed already" mode - not really looking up all that much. His hair was hanging in his expressionless face as he signed book after book. The only movements he was exhibiting were a) his mouth chewing gum, and b) his right hand swirling over books with a Sharpie as the Borders gimps hurriedly passed them under his hands like an assembly line. From a distance it looked like he was drawing an infinite series of slow-motion loops. I wasn't sure what I was going to say and we were just seconds away...

Bryn went first and got her book signed, and when he looked up at her I instantly heard that infamous blurry Ozzy voice in my head: "Bullocks, an I haffta go home to Sharrin?" My book was slipped beneath his hands and life was suddenly in fast-forward. He started squiggling his name in my book and I peered into those trademark circular Ozzy sunglasses. It was like looking into the top of two cups of black coffee; I could just barely make out his eyes. The fireworks in my belly turned into an all-out fireworks factory fire. It was my turn. I had to remind myself: Quick... think... don't just stand there - say something, dumbass!

The first few pages of his book contain a strategically placed blank page which I found to be quite the humorous and priceless literary inclusion on his part. I decided to use that as my ice breaker for our 5 second rendezvous. Belly fireworks ablaze, I felt my mouth open and heard it say "The blank page is absolutely brilliant, I seriously can't stop reading it." He stopped his name doodling, looked up for a moment, and although I still couldn't really see his eyes all that well I could tell he was looking at me. This officially confirmed that I'd just jostled the little Ozzy hamster wheel in his head and that it was starting to rotate a little. Victory! He broke into a nice big pearly white-bearing goofy open mouth smile and bobbed his head up and down - and although he didn't say anything, I could see exactly what he was thinking: "Haaaaaaaaaaaa, yeah, ah know, that woss a real good one, roit?"

We were rushed towards the exit by the Borders gimps much like the mall elves rushed the kids away from Santa in A Christmas Story. I looked at the inside of the book. I thought about how he was already back to scribbling in other people's books and giving them their moments. He had probably already forgotten about what I'd just said to him, but I was happy to have said something that briefly changed his disposition and crack him up.

Yet another priceless moment to cross off of our "Cool shit in life that we didn't know we were gonna get to do" list. And thankfully this is as close as he came to biting our faces off or turning into a werewolf:

There is life outside of watching Dick's big ball drop on NYE

December 31st, 1981

The kitchen/dining room area in our family's house on Ideal Avenue was empty and the lights were off which meant the coast was clear. Either a) Moms and Pops went out that particular evening and my sister's friend Tessy was babysitting us, or b) They had people over and were in the living room or basement entertaining (I can't recall). I unplugged the portable black & white TV on the kitchen counter top and for the next 3 hours held it hostage in my bedroom to watch Dick Clark's Rockin' New Years Eve. As far as I was concerned, all that existed in the world that night were me, a 16oz glass bottle of Pepsi, and that TV. I put the TV on my bed so I could lay down like a king and watch the New Year ring in beneath the comfort of my Mom-made quilt. It was about to become 1982.

One thing I did a lot when I was a kid was watch TV shows with a perpetual and insatiable hope that KISS was going to be on. Unfortunately for me that was never the case... but for some reason I didn't ever let that stop me until I was 10 or 11 and wised up. It kind of happened with Scooby Doo and CHiPs when there were KISS-like guests worked into an episode, but never the real KISS. This was back when you had to actually watch shows of this type in order to know who was on them - there was no magical innernets back then that you could run to at any given minute for such info. There were the TV listings in the paper of course, but usually for shows like this it only said SPECIAL GUESTS. At any rate, due to this disadvantageous television intake ritual of mine I was prepared to be Rocked by this Rockin' New Years Eve special that KISS would inevitably not appear on.

Although there was no KISS, there were a lot of other great performers. I vividly remember Dick Clark saying "Please welcome 1981's queen of rock and roll, PAT! BENETARRrrrrr!" I briefly wondered who made her the Queen and pictured her with a crown on her head. She was wearing a crown, I guess - it was just in the form of a headband. Pat Benatar and her band commenced with a severely ass kicking performance of Hit Me With Your Best Shot. Much like Joan Jett, 8-year-old-Me was slightly afraid of her - to me she looked like a tough chick at the mall who you'd go out of your way to avoid making eye contact with lest you want to be beaten to a pulp or knifed. The Village People were on as well. Back then to me 5 dudes in costumes, two of which were scary to me in a good pseudo-Gene Simmons kind of way were better than no KISS at all (the biker and the Indian... and I guess the construction worker was pretty badass to me as well due to him having a lightning bolt on his hat and a screwdriver in his mouth). I want to say that Christopher Cross performed on this particular Rockin' New Years Eve, but that and other details have evaporated over time.


I had a great time watching the show and waiting for KISS to not appear. That New Years turned out to be the benchmark of New Years Eves to come; likely due to a) Having the TV in my room for one night, b) It's the first one that I somewhat clearly remember... and c) It was my first exposure to the anticipation of a gigantic ball dropping on top of a building located on a faraway planet called "Times Square". Having only downtown St. Paul on the way to Grandma Gertie's as a reference point of what cities were supposed to be, when the camera first panned over the crowd and the buildings and the lights it looked like the most massive thing in the world - a place that I surely would never visit in this lifetime. I'm not sure if it was that year that I made the connection that Times Square = New York, but it happened eventually. And I knew that KISS were from New York (yeah, here we go with the KISS thing again). Back then, to lil kids like me they were the biggest monsters in the world. In my mind they were 10 feet tall. Combine that, the hugeness of the Times Square footage, and maybe some misconstrued perspective of buildings courtesy of my Spider Man album cover, and from that point on I assumed New York City was hands down the most gigantic fucking place in the world. Not necessarily in a buildings per square mile sense, more so in overall height and massiveness of the buildings sense. Everything looked double in size to me. In New York Groove Ace Frehley sang To the left and to the right, buildings towering to the sky which is something I always took quite literally... right up until the first time we walked through Times Square in 2007 and I thought "Huh. It looks a lot more compact than it does in books and on TV." It really does. It is indeed huge - but not as huge as TV makes it look. Same goes for the Statue of Liberty. It's big... but not as big as I thought it would be.

Every single year since then I've made a point of it to watch that dang ball drop and would always think Man, if I ever lived there (this was long before I had any idea that I someday would) I would TOTALLY go to Times Square on New Years Eve. I didn't watch it one New Years in 94 or 95 - the one night I went out to some dive sports bar in the Cottage Grove mall and got blurry off of drinks with my friends and thought about the ball dropping when 11:59 came - but other than that I NEVER missed it.

---

Like, dude, we totally live here now

Fast forward to 2009. After all those years of watching the ball drop on TV we actually live where it happens now. As mentioned in other blawgs, I now walk through Times Square nearly every day on my lunch hour. I still compare the image of it embedded in my head at a young age vs. what it really is - a gigantic, dirty pinball machine crammed with buildings that are slightly more compact than I thought they would be. Some of them do indeed tower to the sky, though. And it is out of sight, in the dead of night.

One of the most frequently axed questions that people had for us (and understandably so) was "You going to watch the ball drop?" Nope, we didn't. It definitely crossed my mind, but after going to watch fireworks when we were here as tourists last year on Pier 11 I'm not sure that it would be all that and a bag of chips. One thing they don't show on televised major public events is everyone standing in one spot for 3 hours so they don't lose it, and then everyone trying to leave at once when the event is over. Everyone's been drinking, everyone has to pee, and most places after events like that do not offer up public restroom accommodations. A smart move on their part, but when we were waiting in line for restrooms at a nearby Burger King for 20 minutes and longing to just get back to the hotel to sit down, yeah... it's not the big party it's all cracked up to be on TV. I think the trick is to get so inebriated that you're oblivious that you're "trapped" within such circumstances. I prefer to have memories of going to such events, so that's not really an option. Plus at $6-8 a beer that would be a pretty expensive buzz to maintain for an entire night.

Ultimately we ended up attending a party at a photographer's studio in SOHO that we were invited to by our dear friend JB (thanks, JB!) Never really having access to such events back in MN, I don't think that either Bryn or I really had any idea what we were in store for. Alls I knew is if we spent our first New Years Eve in New York watching the ball drop on TV when it was happening a mere 2 miles away from us, that would feel just plain old wrong. As some things can be when you don't see 'em coming, it was amazing. It turns out that this photographer's clients include Billy Joel, Sting, Miles Davis, and countless others. His walls were plastered with decades worth of work (one of my favorites being an Innoncent Man-era Billy Joel promo shot that I recall seeing at Great American Music when that album came out). His main floor gallery had photos of Fast Times-era Phoebe Cates and Jennifer Jason Leigh. This picture of Miles Davis which I've seen countless times while standing at in the music biography section at Barnes and Noble. I spotted a few familiar photos of John Lennon. DAMN. There were only 2 dozen or so people there if that and a potluck spread right smack dab in his basement which is half studio/half kitchen - it was pretty surreal thinking about all of the famous people (talented ones that I admire, no less) that have set foot in that studio.

Good times were had, midnight arrived, we all did the HAPPY NEW YEAR deal, and shortly thereafter I had a brief out of body experience for about 10 seconds experiencing the following thoughts pert near simultaneously:

1. Holy shit


2. We're in New York


3. It's New Years Eve


4. We're at a party in New York on New Years Eve


5. Said party is hosted by an extremely talented and successful photographer


6. This is like something out of a movie


7. Actually, this is something that happens in movies


8. Thank goodness Jennifer Aniston isn't here making one of her dumb pouty heartbroken faces
   


9. Is this life imitating art or does art imitate life?


10. I love the music that he's playing and that it's kept at a conversation-friendly volume
    


11. Do I have one more beer left? I'm really kind of tired of beer but if I have one left I guess I'll drink it


12. Should there be movie cameras in the room or is this just what life is like for some people here?
    


13. Seriously.. we're really here and doing this?

After that stream of thoughts it occurred to me that for the first time in 29 years (save for that one year at the white trash Cottage Grove bar) I didn't watch the ball drop on TV, much less even think about it. Ironically it happened to be the first year we actually could have watched it in person. There wasn't a TV in the room, and who knows, maybe there wasn't a TV in the entire building. Maybe when you achieve that level of success as an artist you don't need a TV because you're too busy being creative and doing what you love. Maybe there is no need for escape real life for a while, at least via a television. In all of the years prior to this I'd always make a point of it to watch the ball drop even if it was on a TV in the background - my New Years Eve would always threaten to feel incomplete without it otherwise. But there we were in SOHO at a small party with Food, Folks and Fun (© McDonald's) welcoming 2010 in without the help of a 4 ton illuminated jewel encrusted ball slowly plummeting to the roof of One Times Square. And it was really, really fun. Not particularly loud, crowded, or rowdy - I will quote the Three Bears and say that it was just right.

Who knows what next New Years Eve will bring or where we'll be. The 2009-2010 transition was definitely right up there on the Most Awesome list next to that fateful New Years Eve of 1981 watching a much younger and fully functional Dick Clark, the Queen of Rock & Roll, and the gayest boy band in the world. I hear Dick isn't doing so well and was planning on appearing on the show on New Years Eve but wasn't sure if it was going to pan out for him which is kinda sad. All I know is that I learned that I can still have a really good time on New Years Eve without Dick Clark - and we certainly did on Thursday night.

I guess that means I can tell people that I was Dickless on New Years Eve and it was one of the best times I've had since we've moved here. That would sure get some interesting reactions at work on Monday morning.

Happy Freakin' New Year.