The Essence of Schwenk

My friend Kelsey whined at me during a Gmail chat the other day, complaining that I've been spending too much time writing for America in 100 Days, and not enough writing here at Conshohocken Freedom. Sorry, Kelsey. I hate to disappoint you.

If I had anything to write about, it would be about how stupid the Steelers are, and how stupid our friend Brent is for being from Pittsburgh and being a Steelers fan. Usually I'd be ripping on the next team on the Eagles' schedule, which in this case is the Cardinals - but the Steelers are so stupid that I can't even begin to think about Arizona.

But Brent knows how stupid he is, and I don't want to spend my time writing about it right now. Instead, I'll share with you an old video of a friend of mine from college, who decided to take a breather during a gave of 100-cup beirut. Sorry it's sideways, but it still gets the point across; my favorite part is when he waves to the people across the street.

But shhh... don't tell him.

Happy new month

Frankly, I prefer to celebrate 12 times a year.

Anyway, I know it's been a while, and I don't have much energy to write, after savoring every bite of one of the most delicious meals of my life this evening, courtesy of Nectar in Berwyn. But here's a video I just stumbled upon in a moment of googleboxing, which isn't quite the old Orson Welles video but it's close.

Enjoy! And question reality every now and then.

Cyclists

For starters, I have to apologize to those of you who might wish that I produced writing of slightly more substance here on Conshohocken Freedom than I do. Sadly, I have no time for such frivolous pursuits. I do, however, have a lot of things I'd like to bitch and piss and moan about, and it feels much better to do so in some sort of a public venue, such as this. Thus, in case you haven't noticed, the bulk of my writing here has degraded into a collection of rants, raves and phenomenally written complaints.

Not that there's anything wrong with that. And frankly, this early morning's post will be no different. Today we're bitching about cyclists.

You see, there was a time when the best mode of personal transportation may very well have been a bicycle. Regardless, it is not the case today. In fact, the most popular method these days for that sort of activity is probably a car. And to compensate for this fact, they've built roads. Paved roads, lots and lots of 'em that stretch for miles and miles in every which direction. And these roads are maintained in large part by fees levied upon car drivers, in exchange for the ability to use those roads as they were intended.

Cyclists don't pay anything extra to maintain these roads. And you might argue, that's ridiculous, Tom, a bicycle couldn't do even a hint of damage to a road, so why should they have to pay for their maintenance?

I say, perhaps they should. After all, there are plenty of places where the shoulder of the road is designated specifically as a bike lane. And where there aren't bike lanes, that's no fucking problem for most of them anyway. They get in the middle of the goddamn lane of traffic, slowing every single fucking car behind them down to a crawl so that they can enjoy their fucking bike ride in full view of the public.

This is the big problem. This is what makes me madder than I ever get on the road, when these fucking assholes who are all decked out in cyclist gear - the goggles, the helmet, the spandex - decide they've got every right to use up the road as someone in a car, despite the fact that they're almost inevitably going half the fucking speed limit. This is not due to any lack of cycling skill of their behalf, it's simply impossible for most anybody to ride a bike 35 mph on even a flat road for any extended period of time.

Let's pretend for a moment that the idiot on the bike, all covered in cycling logos as if he's a professional, corporate-sponsored athlete, were instead behind the wheel of a car going 20 in a 35 with a line of traffic behind him. I'm pretty sure he'd cause someone to have an aneurism. So why the fuck do we let cyclists get away with it?

The other night at work, Bernadette, Miguel and I were discussing own individual hatreds for cyclists, specifically large groups of them, deciding that like a flock of hens or a murder of crows, the best term was a cock of cyclists.

But moreover, Bernadette noted that cyclists can be good in certain situations, such as the annual bike race in Manayunk which involves heavy drinking by practically ever single spectator (or else someone's lost).

This led Bernadette to her compromise. The best way to turn these terrible people into something that works to our benefit is to cling to the bike race all year round, and simply drink every time you're driving and you see a cyclists. That way, you'll actually be excited to see a cyclist on the road, even if he is making you late for work.

Thanks, cyclist! I get to drink now!

Not that I'm condoning drinking and driving. But let me tell you, when those motherfuckers ride gleefully down the road in my lane without a care in the world, it makes me want to not just break the law, but smash it into tiny little fucking pieces all over the back of their heads.

We have sidewalks and biking trails for a reason, guys. Get. the. fuck. out. of. the. way.

Thank you.

Fast Food

I've always been fortunate enough to have a metabolism that allows for problem-free consumption of pretty much anything I sink my teeth into. I've had some bouts with massive quantities of some of the fattiest foods you can imagine, including a year-long love affair with Grandma Utz's potato chips, which are baked in lard for maximum flavor, and for most, maximum weight gain. This has never been too much of a problem for me, as I usually find a way to hover around 160-165 lbs. without any regard to my diet.

And if you've followed my blog to any degree, you'll remember when I was finding my footing as to what I'd be writing about here, and I spent a large amount of my time writing about cheesesteaks. I still eat cheesesteaks on a pretty regular basis, but I haven't found the need (or frankly, the time) to tell any luminous stories about chopped beef and cheese lately. My point being, I still don't eat the healthiest foods the world has to offer.

But fast food is where I draw the line.

Fast food is disgusting. Food served quickly is okay, but I define fast food as coming from specific establishments like McDonald's, Wendy's, Burger King, KFC, Taco Bell, and so forth.

Sure, it tastes good when the time is right, or when you've had far too much to drink the night before and your stomach needs a good grease lining. And it's usually as cheap a meal as you'll be able to find anywhere.

But the meat in the burgers or tacos or whatever you're eating doesn't actually taste the way you think it does. That flavor that closely resembles real beef is nothing more than a chemical made in a lab, specifically selected for its flavor as if it were a cologne for your mouth. in actuality, the meat you're eating is a flavorless mixture of miscellaneous cow parts and the contents of their stomachs and bowels.

Wikipedia claims that the notions that KFC uses genetically modified abominations of chickens as their product, and that they're not allowed to use the term Kentucky Fried Chicken anymore due to a legal action by the state of Kentucky, are both 'urban legends'. But I believe them anyway.

This brings me back to Conshohocken. My home in Conshy is close to the center of town, where the streets are dotted with a plethora of delicious delis, sandwich shops and restaurants that serve up really good food on fairly short notice. The closest fast food is McDonald's, the fucking devil himself, on the other side of the bridge. But right next to McDonald's is Wawa, glorious 24-hour Wawa, home to Sizzlis, Classic Hoagies and the most awkward door exchanges for your buck. And there's nothing in the world that would make me go for McDonald's over Wawa. Even if Wawa was closed for some inexplicable reason, I'd rather get food from the Lukoil station than the fucking McDonald's.

Thus, it's been a long, long time since the last time I ate any fast food. So here's to Pete's Deli, Dimeo's Pizza and the many other Conshohocken businesses who give me food I can enjoy.

Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

I was never so privileged as many of the kids I knew growing up, with regard to various material goods. On second thought, maybe privileged isn't the right word - maybe spoiled is a better one. Regardless, my parents didn't waste a whole hell of a lot of their money buying useless crap for me. Sure, they spent enough to keep me entertained, but I was usually near the end of the train when it came to buying new stuff. The big new video game system would come out and everyone would be talking about it and making me feel generally left out but indignant at the same time. And eventually I'd get to play it at someone's house, or wait the necessary amount of time for a newer, more advanced system to come out so that I could buy the old one at a get-this-out-of-my-store discount price. It all worked out in the end.

Well, during high school, my friend Kyle was heavy into video games, for any system you could think of. At one point he had Playstation, Nintendo 64, Sega Dreamcast AND its predecessor, the rarely-seen Sega CD, all hooked up to his TV at the same time. And with a little direction from my friend Kyle, I got my filthy mitts on a used N64 and a short stack of games.

Sure, I had played more than my share of Goldeneye. Weeks worth, in fact. I was even fairly adept with its spinoff game, Perfect Dark. I knew Slippy, Falco and the rest of the Star Fox gang. And I'd enjoyed long hours of Mario 64 and MarioKart 64 on more occasions than I could number.

But I'd never played the Ocarina before.

By the way, right around here is where I'd like to bitch for a second about blogger.com, the site that hosts Conshohocken Freedom. They've got a great, free service that I figured out pretty quickly. But just recently, all of my posts have this really annoying behavior when I put images in. The one at the very top lets the text wrap around it, but none of the subsequent ones do. They used to, all the time. It's a goddamn disgrace.

Anyway, this was and continues to be the game to trounce all games, one that designed by marvelously clever Japanese programmers to incorporate content suitable for practically any age, confounding puzzles and challenges (for even a moderately intelligent high schooler), fierce battles with various creatures and an endless array of irritatingly catchy tunes.

The game is based upon the classic Zelda theme of elf-boy must save princess. On the way, I spent more than a month twisting and toiling through this seemingly endless game, eventually giving way to the extremely helpful video game guide. I don't know if I would have made it without that guide, frankly. There are so many portions of the game, so many accessible areas, and so much stuff to do that if you can get it started, you're not going to stop until you beat it.

I thought of this because I brought it over to my girlfriend Bernadette's house the other day so I could play it when she's doing homework. In my mind, there is no topping this game, no matter how much money it costs or how new it is.

And don't try to convince me otherwise.

The Flash

Today I was driving home from work at the P.R. company, along my typical route at typical speeds. One leg of this 20-or-so-minute drive involves a few miles on Barren Hill Rd., a winding, two-lane road passing by houses and few residential streets. It's hard to drive the speed limit on this road (35 mph), especially when there's on one in front of you, but going too fast (i.e. 50 mph or more) is not an option either, as the road is not a straight shot in any way.

So I'm cruising along at around 42 or 43 mph, about 2/3 of the way along Barren Hill Rd. when an approaching car flashes its high beams at me, five times in rapid succession. My first instinct was that either my lights weren't on, or that my high beams were on and the approaching driver didn't appreciate it.

But this didn't make any sense, as it was 4:30 in the afternoon (too early for headlights to be necessary and too early for high beams to blind anyone). My low beams were on.

Then I realized that this car was doing me a rare but invaluable favor. The flash can mean three things: fix your lights, go ahead (i.e. at a stop sign) or SLOW DOWN, there's a cop up ahead. In this instance it could only mean the last of the three, and I knew it.

It may not have been entirely necessary, as I wasn't going all that fast. But I heeded that car's warning and took it down to about 36 or 37 mph. And sure enough, about 500 feet later, there he was. A cop car sat at an angle in a driveway, ready to pounce at any moment.

So three cheers to that random stranger in the passing car. Despite the fact that this sort of maneuver is morally suspicious and clearly illegal, that driver stuck his or her neck out and saved me quite a bit of hassle, as well as possibly a speeding ticket and points on my license.

Thank you, sir or madam, for your thoughtfulness and courtesy. I hope I can return the favor someday.

Eating in Conshy: Sit-Down Breakfast

After living here in town for more than a year now, I've provided myself with plenty of opportunities to sample the local fare. There are plenty of places to get a bite on the go, and considerably fewer for sitting down to eat. Luckily, the former of the two of usually my preferred method, and I've indulged on many, many occasions.

And as near as I can tell, I've pretty much exhausted the options for sit-down breakfast. With two categories to consider, here is my judgement.

The first is the 401 Diner, named for its address on Fayette St. This place has the look of an old school diner from the outside, and inside follows suit, with a jukebox that skips incessantly and waitresses whose voices are baritone or bass from decades of smoking. Food is reasonable in price, size and quality, but this so-called "diner" has one fundamental flaw. They are not open 24 hours a day. In my book, that's pretty much the definition of a diner, so this place loses some points for that reason alone.

The only other place in town for a sit-down meal is Boccella's, a small, quaint operation at 521 Fayette St. This place first caught my eye after the day of the Pennsylvania democratic primary, when Hillary Clinton came to town and got a chicken cheesesteak here. Myself being an ardent Barack Obama supporter, it made me avoid this place for a time.

But soon I caved, going here one morning with Bernadette and our co-worker Shar. They had a very good breakfast menu, inside a comfortable atmosphere (though somewhat small) with young servers. This is usually a warning sign for me of trouble to come, as none of them looked older than 16. But these kids were on.

While the 401 Diner wins with regard to hours (open for dinner every night with breakfast all day), they lost those points for not being a 24-7 operation. And Boccella's, while nowhere near to a 24-7 place (closing as early as 3 pm some days), beats the crap out of that stupid diner. Their food is superior by leaps and bounds, their service is friendly and expedient, and their prices are just as reasonable.

Thus, the best dine-in breakfast in town is at Boccella's.

Post-Election Coverage

Last night was a good night for me (see my endorsement from yesterday), as about 120 million people cast their votes for president, giving us a new president-elect in Barack Obama.

However, this was not the only race I was following. You may remember my remarks on Michele Bachmann, a congresswoman from Minnesota who wears her ignorance on her sleeve and isn't afraid to make a fool of herself on national TV. To my dismay, the brilliant people of Minnesota were incapable of removing her from office last night, handing her a victory by just a few percentage points.

And let's not forget Ted Stevens, the six-term Alaska senator who is most famous in my mind for his hilarious, gut-busting comments regarding the internet. Let's revisit:

"I just the other day got, an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. Why? Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the internet commercially... They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the internet. And again, the internet is not something you just dump something on. It's not a truck. It's a series of tubes. And if you don't understand those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and its going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material."

What a fucking asshole. More recently, he was found guilty of seven counts of making false statements amid a personal bribery scandal - one week before the election. This would usually be something that would prevent a politician from holding onto their seat. But leave it to the lunatics in Alaska to allow him to do exactly that: as of this moment, he holds a 1.5% lead in his race, which has not yet been called (according to NYTimes.com).

High fives all around for Obama's victory and everything, but I'll be very cautious of Central Minnesotans and pretty much all Alaskans for a long, long time.

Barack Obama for President

Today's the day, dear readers, and this is my official endorsement.

After two consecutive elections in which the correct choice was undeniably clear, yet both times forsaken for the single worst president I think I'll ever have to live through, I have very little faith remaining in the common sense of my fellow Americans. Our own inability to see through the bullshit has left us in a dire state of need. We need another Republican driving this country into the ground just about as much as I need a fucking bullet in my head.

But I have not lost all faith. After all, just two years ago, Pennsylvanians came together to oust former senator Rick Santorum, the most vile, sinister piece of shit who has ever spoken in English. And we did so by a wide margin - a sign, perhaps, that we're coming to our senses.

Thousands of Americans and nearly 100,000 innocent Iraqi civilians have been killed since we marched into war in Iraq, scorned, lied to and taken for idiots by a crafty, arrogant Bush administration. Billions upon billions of dollars have been squandered in this conflict, which was supposed to pay for itself in oil...which, by the way, has been the bane of our wallets and pocketbooks in these past years.

The gap between rich and poor in America is greater now than it has ever been. Our environment has been neglected to a dangerous point, both nationally and globally. And in the eyes of the rest of the world, we are not the America we used to be. We're a bunch of assholes with the shittiest president we've ever had, and we've lost any place of reverence in the global community.

Fuck you, George Bush. I wish I could take the whole country by the hand and chant it in unison. But to be frank, the notion of a black president is something that many would have thought impossible even a few years ago. If electing Barack Obama isn't a big, fat "fuck you" to George Bush, then I don't know what is.

So mark it down. Conshohocken Freedom gleefully endorses Barack Obama for President of the United States.

Now get out and vote!

Sightseeing

You're probably all really mad at me for not having written anything for so long. I'm sorry. In the meanwhile, it's not as if I've been lounging around watching cartoons and drinking soda. God knows I'd prefer nothing else in the world, but no - aside from my usual heavy workload, I've been out doing stuff. Let's talk about it with the help of a few photos.

This photo features the line, in which I was standing, outside The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. This was way back on October 8th. I'd traveled up to enjoy this marvelous Comedy Central program from the studio audience, rather than the boring old "watch from home" scenario.

This is Dave, the cool-as-Tom-Jones fellow using his textular device on the left. To his sideis Ian, doing his best monkey impression on the right. These two gentlemen, along with Ian's dad (Papa J), were the impetus and accompaniment for this little journey.

...And here we have the all-too-appropriate sign over the door.

Now, here's where we hit a snag. We were informed on numerous occasions that we were obligated to turn off and put away any electronic devices that could record any of the performance in any way - cameras, cell phones, Ipods, anything. This was, of course, a huge disappointment for me, and I realized that I'd feel like a huge jackass if I didn't at least try.

So from my right pocket, I pulled my camera out just slightly, cleverly turning off the flash. And I managed to snap three photos, of quality ranging from poor to marginally visible due to the severity of the situation. I was, at this point, pretty satisfied with myself.

But of course, I had to push it. After Jon Stewart put on a very good show, with Michelle Obama as the clearly exhausted but very amicable and gracious guest, the crowd of close to 200 began to disperse. An usher/intern type person had thanked us for our attendance and directed us toward the exits. And in the fray, I thought I had a fantastic opportunity for a photo. I popped my camera up and snapped a killer shot of the stage, only to look back at the usher/intern girl as she pointed directly at me and sent a security guard my way, who promptly made me delete my photos. Huuuuge bummer.

This ended up being the most concrete proof of my visit. But things soon took a turn for the better; once the show was done, I parted company with my crew and galloped headlong into the depths of the city.

I was able to meet up with a handful of friends, including (from left to right) Kelsey, Bill, myself and Cheese. The bunch of us date back to college, to my fraternity days in Phi Mu Delta at Susquehanna University. Also included in the evening were my friends Tats (another fraternity brother of mine) and Noah, not pictured here.

We insulated our stomachs with delicious pizza from a place called Ultimate Pizza, at 401 E. 57th Street, just a few blocks from Cheese's and Tats's apartment. Buffalo chicken on the left, BBQ chicken on the right. Buffalo was better.

...Aaaaand here's the drinking establishment where we enjoyed a few beverages.

Now, as is usually the case, I had to be home in time to work at 4:30 the next afternoon, so I would have to make some moves the next morning in order to make it home in time. They began with this, an immaculate scribbling of directions on the front of this Chinese menu, courtesy of Tats and his flawless sense of direction.

Rode the subway with my new metro card, a brilliant invention that Philly's opposite-of-beloved SEPTA just cannot seem to wrap its mind around. I purchased this metro card from a machine, one that operated 24 hours a day, another concept that seems just slightly out of SEPTA's reach.

Long story shorter, I made it home with plenty of time before work. Interestingly enough, the wait was shorter for a Greyhound from the Port Authority to Center City Philadelphia (about 35 minutes in line) than the wait for a SETPA train from Market East to Conshohocken (about 50 minutes, even on a weekday).

The sightseeing continued three days later, on a Saturday that was also to include a day at work, only this time beginning at 2:30 or 3 or something. Again, let's go to the photos.

I didn't catch this girl's name. This girl was a volunteer for the Obama campaign, handing out stickers that acted as admission to a big Barack Obama for President campaign stop in Germantown, in Northwest Philadelphia. This was one of four local stops of which his campaign had notified me through email.

The email said that the doors would open at 9:00 for the 11:30 event. I didn't think it would be too big a deal if I showed up at 9:15, which I did. But after parking about eight blocks from the site of the speech, passing car after car checkered with Obama/Biden stickers, I encountered this, the line. This line stretched around for another five blocks or so, bringing my foot travel at this point to about thirteen blocks - several above my comfort level.

The line began to fill in behind me within minutes. We crawled slowly forward, one step at a time with long, frequent breaks between movements. I ended up standing in line for more than two hours, with an ever-growing line snaking through the streets of Germantown behind me.

As I approached Vernon Park, the site of the rally, a sizeable crowd had collected across the street. I assume these were the people who'd shown up far too late and didn't try to brave the line. Who's the wiser between me and them, I'm not 100% sure.

Finally in, a few minutes after the scheduled 11:30 start. The volunteers outside were nice enough to warn us that there would be an "airport-style security checkpoint" on the way in, which I'd anticipated, but still took as a friendly gesture. The park supposedly holds as many as 10,000 people, but I have no idea how many they managed to pile in before the rally finally began, around 11:45, considering how close I was to missing some or all of it.

There were some big names who came out to start things off, including Mayor Michael Nutter, Senator Bob Casey and Governor Ed Rendell, all good people who each took a brief turn at the microphone. 

Soon, Senator Barack Obama came out and delivered a fiery speech, frought with motions with his right hand. He talked about Wall Street tanking, John McCain being a dick and how stupid you'd have to be to not vote for him. In lighter terms than I've used, of course, but that's the jist of what he went over. A rousing speech that lasted about a half hour, it was well worthy of the afternoon I devoted to it.

After a weekend filled with work at the restaurant, I would usually be dilligently zipping off to my P.R. job in Mt. Airy on Monday morning. However, this weekend I'd arranged for the day off in order to make room for a third sightseeing adventure, and the last one I'll mention here.

Here's a sight from Monday, October 13, during my drive west to State College, Pa. for a concert billed as "Change Rocks". The show would feature the Allman Brothers Band (or the remnants thereof, plus Warren Haynes) opening for The Dead, or a rare reunion of the surviving members of the Grateful Dead - Phil Lesh, Mickey Hart, Billy Kreutzmann and Bob Weir, referenced above. Big fucking deal for me, as I happen to be a huge fan of the Grateful Dead and an avid collector of their music, in case I haven't already had that conversation with you before.

On the right we have Ryan Miller, a guy who I graduated from high school with and worked with at John Harvard's Brew House in Wayne, Pa. for several years before they closed in December. Nice guy. To the right of him stands Jami Salvucci, sister of Joey Salvucci, my good buddy and former (and future) roommate, pictured all the way to the right. At this point the sunglassed guy talking to him was asking us for a beer, if I remember correctly.

Here's Sarah, that brilliant maker of culinary miracles.

On the left, Coleen, a good friend and opener of minds as a philosophy professor. On the right, Dolla Bill, whose mind Coleen is in the process of opening further.

After some time in the parking lot, we made our way into the Bryce Jordan Center. At this point, I was getting a little tired of waiting in lines.

Though we were rewarded with a pleasant view.

And as a fitting end, upon entry to the venue, I was forced to remove the batteries from my camera. Naturally. Wouldn't want me taking any photos of the most terrific concerts I might ever be fortunate enough to see in my entire life.

The show was great, with the Allman Brothers Band opening, Barack Obama speaking during the break (not in person, just on a big screen), and The Dead (Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann with Warren Haynes and a few others) played a setlist from out of a dream. A magical evening that I'm sorry to say I wasn't able to document for posterity.

On a side note, don't expect me to ever put this many photos into one post again, because it took fucking forever.

New Web Site, Bitches

Today saw the launch of America in 100 Days, a new home for my writing. Note, I didn't say THE new home, just A new home. This is the site where I will document my upcoming road trip across the country, as well as the planning leading up to it and the possible or likely destinations which lie in our paths. Sarah and Joey will be welcome to publish their own material therein as well, which I'm not sure that they will.

Bearing in mind that this will be mostly me writing, I'm trying to make a legitimate travel blog of it. So I might curb my language juuuuust a tad. For posterity's sake. Otherwise, this will take up some free time (of which I have very little), but I will continue to rant and rave about various nonsense here on Conshohocken Freedom as often as humanly possible.

Long and the short of it, there's my excuse for a dry couple of weeks here on Conshohocken Freedom. I swear I have a very long post to put up very soon.

Fuck You, Michele Bachmann

Hey guys. So I'm in the process of writing a good long post about a few recent adventures, and using a lot of photos, which is making it go really slowly. This website is not exactly the most conducive towards sharing photos in the way I'd like to. But I had to take a break and show you this.

THIS fucking blithering idiot, named Michele Bachmann, should no more be a member of congress than she should be in a fucking zoo. These comments were made just days ago, and not in the 1950's, as the context may have suggested. THIS woman deserves not only to be voted out of office, but put in stocks and splattered with rotten tomatoes and horse droppings.

The best thing you can do is visit Tinklenberg for Congress, the webpage of Elwyn Tinklenberg, her challenger this year for her Congressional seat, and give him money to beat her. I gave him $20 yesterday, money that I should be saving. But fuck, if you need another reason to help him beat this terrible Michele Bachmann woman, just watch the video again.

Dumbass of the Week

Here's an idea, an every-weekend winner of who made us all embarassed to be humans. This week, it's a tie:

1. O.J. Simpson. This dumb shit brutally murdered his wife Nicole Simpson, and her friend Ron Goldman about fifteen years ago or something. He then jumped into a white Ford Bronco, sped down a highway on national television with a fleet of police behind him, then surrendered, and spent god knows how long on trial, again on national television, before by some unbelievable stroke of luck for him, he was acquitted of those murders. Even though it was incredibly obvious to all involved that he was guilty, especially after the release of his book, If I Did It.

Now, thirteen years after his acquittal to the day, this idiot has been found guilty of kidnapping and armed robbery for breaking into some dude's house with five other guys to steal back some sports memoribilia. Minimum of fifteen years. Why push your luck, y'know?

2. Sarah Palin. This fucking moron was selected by the maverick John McCain to help him buck the policies of the last eight years and start anew with the exact same policies. She is the first female VP candidate for the GOP, and she is more embarassing than Dan Quayle. Her most outrageous steps away from sanity include firing a librarian for not allowing her to ban books, and her Pentecostal history (see the movie "Borat" for an example of this behavior, which involves "speaking in tongues" like a crazy person).

Most recently, she had a widely publicized interview with Katie Couric, in which she could not name any magazines or newspapers which she read to keep up with local and global affairs. Nor could she name a single U.S. Supreme Court decision, aside from Roe v. Wade, with which she did not agree.

And her explanation for not being able to answer these fairly important questions for most people running for national office? She said, in an interview on FOX News, that she was not being asked the questions she wanted. She was looking for opportunities to bash Barack Obama, and instead she had to answer substantive questions about herself and what she knows about the world she'd be a major influence upon if she were successful in her hilarious bid for the vice presidency.

Fuck you both for making the world turn slower.

Things I Hate: Moshing

I'm sure you're all familiar with The Colbert Report, a show on Comedy Central that I'd gladly list among my favorite programs on TV. There are plenty of reasons I enjoy it as much as I do, but one in particular makes his show especially enjoyable. Stephen Colbert employs a variety of ongoing series within his show that are all so funny, that regardless of whether it's "Threatdown", "The Word" or "Better Know a District" (my personal favorite), I'm always excited to see the next part in any of them. So I figure, why not try to do that here, with a handful of series like "Drink This Beer" or "Raise Your Glass", or today's "Things I Hate"? So expect to see more of this kind of thing in the near future. And full credit to Stephen Colbert (and his writers) for the concept. Feel free to interview me anytime.

Now, on to my little riff here. Last Saturday, September 20th (a long time ago, I know), I was fortunate enough to be in attendance for a ridiculous concert at the Electric Factory, featuring none other than the Mars Volta. The last time this group played in Philly was at the TLA, a venue on South Street that sells out good shows immediately, without fail.

 Naturally, I was intensely excited to have a ticket to see this heavy, crazy, louder-than-I-usually-tolerate band, whose concerts had been talked up significantly to me by my roommate, Ian. He'd turned me on to their music, which I've been listening to religiously for almost the last year or so.

And their performance was everything I'd hoped it would be, featuring a handful of their best songs (all of which have impossible names to remember, like "Viscera Eyes" and "Meccamputecture"). I was enjoying the show extremely - I was in a very good place for about the first half of the show.

Then, all of a sudden, three fucking morons come smashing forward through the crowd, leaping and pushing and smashing and disturbing a whole section of concert-goers.

Moshers. Those motherfuckers. You can't yell at them to stop pushing you, because they're not going to do it. You can't push them back, because it just encourages them. But we were a full 100 feet from the stage, and these assholes had to stop directly next to me for their little piss-me-off fest. Well, it fucking worked, and I stormed outside in a fit of rage to inhale a cigarette.

Once I came back in and found my company, we watched from further to the rear, never getting back into the good spot we'd been in, both physically and mentally. A big fucking bummer it what it was.

To those people who ruined my Mars Volta experience, I say, grow the fuck up. Nobody pays $50 a ticket to have a bunch of lugheads push you all over the floor.

Off to work. Later.

The Deathlist

I've been debating over whether or not I can write about this on Conshohocken Freedom. Sure, I throw a little language around every now and then, but for the most part this blog is pretty acceptable on most levels, unless you're Amish or work for Microsoft. After today's post that'll probably no longer apply.

My mom had a particularly memorable friend when I was younger, a big cantankerous woman named Rennie. Rennie worked answering phones for the late Sears, Roebuck & Co., going in to work at some godawful hour in the morning. And since I was 11 or 12 years old or so, she made it a habit of calling our house on every morning when a person of particular fame or notoriety had passed away - inevitably getting the answering machine, and leaving the message for my mother in very plain terms: 

"Stanley Kubrick." *click*

She would only call for the ones that actually mattered, and every now and then she'd call and tell us about someone who really made us sad to see go. But her calls helped us deal with some otherwise unfortunate instances with something of a sense of humor.

Over the years, Rennie's early morning phone calls began to subside, but our interest in celebrity deaths did not. Quite the contrary, in fact.

The three of us formulated game of sorts... which of us specifically had the idea, I don't remember. The object of the game was to showcase our abilities of forecasting the death of any particular celebrity or public figure. So the three of us each made up our own list of five names, each belonging to news-worthy individuals that we thought were getting a little long on the tooth. And whichever of us happened to have someone on their list kick the bucket, then the other two would have to split the cost of a case of beer for the winner. And the only guideline is that we can't add a terminally ill person to our lists, nor can we add someone on death row, etc. No cheating, goddammit.

This game, of course, is ongoing. If someone on my list should die, I'd merely replace them with a new, bordering-on-death celebrity and eagerly cross my fingers. Indeed, since we started playing this game (several years ago), each of us have claimed a victory or two. I was the proud recipient of one case of beer after I read the news of Chief Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist's passing a few years back. So you see, as long as people keep dying, we can keep playing this hilarious, somewhat unsettling game.

As long as we're on the topic, I'll share my list with you. It goes:

1. Mickey Rooney. This wrinkled old bag of crap is 88 years old, and according to Wikipedia, a Guinness World Record holder for the longest career in stage and screen. He certainly looks like he holds that record. He won one of those hokey Lifetime Achievement Awards at the Oscars... in 1983. He's probably crawling with diabetes. Seems like a good pick.

2. Dick Clark. This guy has been on my list for some time now, kinda lingering around the way Keith Richards will for the rest of time. He's had a reputation for looking much younger than he actually is - 79 years young today. This was based largely on his commanding TV presence. But then he had a stroke in 200

4, going until New Years 2007 without doing anything big. And that was one of the most terrifying telecasts I've ever been party to. For that performance, he'll stay on this list until he runs a marathon on live TV.

3. Dick Van Dyke. The chimney sweep from Mary Poppins, I think I picked him just because I was surprised he was still alive. He's 82 and I never hear about him in the news under any circumstances, even with his name signed up for google alerts. So we'll see about this one.

4. Dick Van Patten. This is basically continuing my trend of Dicks in the list. This guy was on Eight is Enough when I was too young to know what it was (maybe before I was born), and is most notable for playing the Abbot in Robin Hood: Men in Tights. He's 79 and a type 2 diabetic. I have faith in that diabetes. Even used to have Wilford Brimley on the list.

5. Amy Winehouse. My dark horse pick, chosen not due to her age (24) or propensity towards diabetes, but for her maniacal, uncontrollable social behavior and drug abuse. Winehouse, singer of popular children's songs like "Rehab", manages to land herself in the London tabloids on nearly a daily basis. She has emphysema, an appropriate pairing to the video of her smoking crack on Youtube. To be honest, I think she's the best pick of them all.

Now please bear in mind, I'm not a bad person. I don't want these people to die. I want them to live for as long as their bodies will carry them. But to be frank, the day some punk kid in the Philly suburbs writes a blog post about how he thinks I'm getting close to death, I'll know in my heart that I've finally made it. Hats off to these people for doing so.

And believe you me, when someone finally croaks, you'll be hearing about it right here.

Raise Your Glass: Richard Wright (1943-2008)

I have to take a moment now to make note of the passing of one Richard Wright, a British keyboardist and founding member of Pink Floyd. Wright played with this mind-blowing band through the years that saw them produce some of the most incredible music I've ever been a party to. Their most well-known album, Dark Side of the Moon, was released in 1973 and discovered by me around 2000. This album played an huge role in my musical upbringing, which from there spread through the entire Pink Floyd catalogue, up through Animals and down through The Wall. This eventually gave way to The Beatles, and The Doors, and Neil Young, and of course, the Grateful Dead. And the rest is history.

So raise your glass. This guy changed the world.

Reebok update

My good friends from college, George and Sarah, dropped by a few days ago as they were passing through Conshy. While they were here, Sarah remarked on the catfish swimming around the bottom, a catfish that you faithful readers may remember from a previous post. I told her about Reebok's history of savagery and cannibalism within the confines of these 65 gallons of water, of the scores of fish (well, maybe six or seven) that had been lain to rest within the fearless, gaping gullet of this vicious beast. And I pointed to a small red fish (and by small I mean about 2 1/2 inches long), noting that his size and slimness made him look like the perfect next victim. We all got a good laugh.

Well, not three days later, that poor little fucker was gone. And Ian discovered his absence at a relatively early stage of the digestion process, bringing my attention to it as I arrived home from work last night. In the photo shown here, you should note the large bulge, right around the belly area. As I snapped photos Reebok swam slowly and gleefully around the floor of the tank, at this point the largest fish of them all. He is the undisputed king of this little aquatic world and he continues to assert himself as such.

Just an update. I know you've all been wondering.

Mondo's Wedding

"You know, sometimes in life, you gotta marry people, bury 'em and have babies too."

-Chuck Hemcher

This weekend allowed me a rare day off from the restaurant, one on which I'd have no time whatsoever to relax.

This was the day of my co-worker, Monica (Mondo)'s wedding to her fiancee John, with myself and three co-workers - Bernadette, Erin and Shar Lee (pictured here) - on the guest list. The clouds were thick, and the ceremony was supposed to be outdoors, somewhere in Bucks County. So the four of us conglomerated together at work for a beer, and eventually got on the road.

The scenic side of Bucks County is a marvelous thing to behold. Thriving in foliage and rich in color, the drive up the turnpike and north on 611 made this 45-minute jaunt into the countryside seem a little more like a vacation. We checked in at the Plumsteadville Inn, which bore a charming exterior and a huge, completely vacant parking lot. We found our way inside, greeted by a vacant receptionist's desk, and wondered aloud (louder as the moments passed) if there was anyone home.

I tried calling the number on their business card, which made the phone sitting directly in front of me on the desk start ringing. After about 10 minutes of waiting, we found someone cleaning a room who came downstairs and took care of us. We walked up a staircase toward our room, and met with this eerily familiar (red rum...) hallway. All four of us caught the reference immediately - I wondered if they didn't leave it looking like that just as some kind of sick joke.

More on that crazy fucking place later. For now, we were running late, and these three girls got ready for this wedding at (relative) lightning speed. Once we were on the road, we were in line to arrive right on time for the 3:00 ceremony, which was apparently going to last only about ten minutes or so. But of course, our directions failed us, as did the signage, and we ended up driving in circles and calling people for directions. Eventually, finally, we found a sign for our destination - the Van Sant Airport in Erwinna, Pa. - and followed it through winding roads and into the depths of Bucks County. When we finally arrived, it was almost 3:30 but the ceremony hadn't quite started yet, according to the dude in the parking lot who directed us toward where we needed to go. We made it by about five minutes, and enjoyed a very brief ceremony (closer to five minutes) with no prolonging God talk. Better yet, my seat for the wedding itself and for the reception were one and the same. We had beers in front of us the whole ceremony. It was glorious.

So we spent the next five hours or so eating (briefly) and drinking (more than we ate) and even dancing. Bern (pictured center) got me on my feet for a couple of slow songs, and I got my extra kick of motivation when Otis Day's "Shout" came on.

Afterwards, we traveled deeper into the wild toward a place called the Indian Rock Inn, apparently another B&B, like the Shining place where we'd dropped our stuff earlier but decidedly less creepy. The bar was small, and there was one middle-aged woman behind the bar with no help, twisting off bottlecaps with her bare fucking hands and getting visibly more irritated with each person in wedding clothes who walked through the door. Once things settled down a little and everyone had their first round, I asked about food, which she said wasn't available at that hour (9:00 on a Saturday). But then food started coming out for people at cocktail tables, and Bern, sensing my growing rage within, asked the woman who brought their food out, who was happy to give us a menu, saying they'd kept the kitchen open late because they knew we were coming. Let this be a note to any large group of people going to a restaurant: call ahead. And do it because cool things like kitchens staying open late can happen with enough notice, and the staff isn't pissed off at being jumped by a huge group of people all wanting drinks at the same time.

I got wings (phenomenal) and quail, which I hadn't eaten in something like ten years. It wasn't what I remembered it to be, thanks mostly to an overpowering honey glaze and slightly tougher meat. Still, it goes down as one of the greatest late night (as in the last thing the kitchen will be doing all night) meals I've ever enjoyed.

Back to the Plumsteadville Inn. This place was really fucking weird, as I've already showed above with the photo of the hallway. Let's call that Exhibit A. Moving on from there...

Exhibit B: The television. As you can see in this picture, the grainy, jumpy picture on the screen of this awfully small (no more than 13") television is provided by none other than an old-fashioned, god-fearing antenna. If I'm not mistaken, these things won't even work about six months from now. We dug deeper into this mystery while we were drinking at the Indian Rock Inn, where the bartender (who, I should mention, did improve her demeanor considerably once everyone had a drink and she realized how much money she was making) informed us that Comcast cable is not available in these here parts. Verizon FIOS is available about three miles away, but that's three miles away. So satellite is the only way to go, and apparently the Plumsteadville Inn had not utilized this option.
I just had to mention this because I haven't used an antenna to get TV reception in probably ten years. And the only thing it picked up was Chris Wallace interviewing the "master" political strategist Karl Rove on FOX, which made me want to drink gasoline.

Exhibit C: The beds. We had originally planned to have three occupants - Bern, Shar and myself. So twin beds, rather than a larger bed and a cot, made more sense for fairness's sake. Then we talked Erin into staying, so we figured we could stash two of us on each of the "twin beds" we'd been promised.
This turned out to be just barely possible. These were comfortable beds but were hardly more than two feet wide. Granted, we probably shouldn't have expected for four people to be comfortable in one room, but jeez, those beds were small.

Exhibit D: The closet. This is easily the most convenient place to get murdered that I've ever seen. This closet, mere feet from Exhibit C, reached back a good five feet and enjoyed enough room to store an entire wardrobe. It stayed dark no matter how light the room was, because the light switch for this particular closet was, well, a dead end. And beyond this big, creepy closet, there was a second closet about half its size (much less creepy, though) in the bathroom, as well as a giant bureau with about ten drawers. Whoever thought all this was necessary is a complete lunatic.

Exhibit E: The sink. What the fuck. Look at this goddamn thing. I can understand that this place might be going for the "charming" or "antiquated" effect. Fine. But there was a point in time when people realized that they can make their water pour not just hot or cold, independent of each other (as was the case with this ridiculous device). The sinks we have today can make all kinds of water - warm, tepid, cool, you name it.
These devices make our lives much easier, and allow us to wash our hands comfortably, rather than alternating from uncomfortably cold to blisteringly hot.
There's a point at which we need to embrace change for its most basic reason - intelligence. But whoever had the great idea of leaving this stupid sink installed is probably not too big on the whole "intelligence" thing.
If the bar had been open at any point during our visit, I might have had better things to say, because the bar looked like a very cool place to throw some back. Alas...

All in all, a fun way to spend the bulk of the weekend. Congratulations to Mon & John, and thanks to them for giving me something to write about.