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.

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.

America in 100 Days

Pretty sweet, don't you think? Thanks to Joey's deep Phi Sigma Kappa roots, his good friend and fraternity brother Eric Perinotti (also my friend, as confirmed by Facebook) whipped up this pretty little icon for our trip. Hats off to him for being the man.

The plan for our trip west has evolved considerably since we conceived the idea (which you can read more about here). We've altered our trip route to include a few scenic Florida destinations, including Key West and Pensacola. We've purchased a domain name (www.americain100days.com) and two years of web hosting, to develop as a medium with which to document every step of this great adventure (and possibly a way to help finance it). And now we've got this logo.

Good start. Still eight and a half months to go.

Cable News

One thing I look forward to every Christmas (or Jimmy Buffett day, as I prefer to call it) is the 24-hr marathon of "A Christmas Story" on...I'm gonna say TBS. Whatever network it is, the movie plays from like 10 at night on Christmas Eve, for a full 24 hours. As soon as the movie ends, it plays it again. It's one of the most pleasant parts of the holiday, a holiday meant to bring families and loved ones together and so on. A very warm, enriching experience.

Today is not Christmas. Today is 9/11. And right on cue, I turned on the TV this morning to see the all-too-familiar spectacle of the two main towers of the World Trade Center, aflame, spewing billows of black smoke into the Manhattan skyline. Why, might you ask, would that be on TV?

Because MSNBC, the sensitive empathizers that they are, decides every year that just one day of 9/11/2001 wasn't enough. No, and they didn't get enough scared people to listen to them go on and on about it in the months after it happened, either. No sir.

In lieu of actual news coverage this morning, and every 9/11, they replay the tape of their live coverage from the morning of 9/11/2001. They match it up to real time, and press play, and let us all sit here and remember how fucked up that morning was.

Guess what? I'm pretty fucking sure I remember without you assholes making a morning of TV out of it again. Even stupid, shitty Fox News doesn't take it as far as MSNBC. All Fox News is doing is showing video of George W. Bush at memorials to mark the occasion.

What's probably going on is a little case of 9/11 envy. The advent of Fox News came on 9/11/2001, when they realized their purpose: to talk about 9/11 endlessly. Show footage of frightening Muslim radicals, tell people they've got antharax in their mailbox and, eventually, nestle the terror alert snugly next to the time of day and stock ticker.

MSNBC, Fox News and CNN - they're all full of shit, and they all want your attention so they can fill your head with their opinions, and they'll scare the shit out of you if that's what it takes to get you to watch them. Or, on the right day, they'll shamelessly turn a national tragedy into a push for ratings. Whoever came up with that idea deserves a firm kick to the groin.

Drink This Beer: Dogfish Head Punkin Ale

Going along with my theme of shorter, more frequent blog posts, it makes sense for me to bring to your attention any particular strokes of brilliance in, say, movie-making (such as in my last post) or other regular parts of my lifestyle - such as, in this case, beer.

This is Dogfish Head, a beer brewed out of Rehobeth Beach, Delaware - the least famous of all 50 states, including South Dakota. Dogfish Head is probably best known for their IPA - specifically, their 60-Minute and 90-Minute IPA's, both of which will set the wallet back a pretty penny but make up for it and more on the palate. And for those of you who don't know (including me, until just now when I looked it up on Wikipedia), the 60-Minute and 90-Minute monikers are based on the length of time during which the wort is boiled, and as the time is extended, the hops being added to the wort lend more flavor to the final product. Makes sense.
This batch is one I'd never seen before the other day, when I sauntered into A. Piermani & Sons (my friendly local beer distributor) and saw this delicious, unique box sitting unassumingly on the shelf. It had no price tag, but shit, this is September - and to my knowledge, just about as early as you can hope to find a case of Pumpkin or Octoberfest beer on the shelves. Granted, I had enjoyed a case of delicious Sam Adams Octoberfest the weekend prior. But Sam Adams and a small craft brewery like Dogfish Head are two very different things. After all, Sam Adams is the largest American-owned brewery in the country (with Yuengling a close second).
This was not a cheap case, as I should have guessed by the absence of a price tag on the side. That is not a point that I allow to play into my decision-making process, however, when I shop at Piermani's. I live a fairly frugal life, rarely tossing any money away on buying new electronics, expensive clothes, etc. I have more t-shirts than I'll ever need, most of which are relics from college. But I love beer. And thus far, I've never balked at a beer purchase unless it's unreasonably expensive - as in over $50 or so.
This case came to $46.75. That's almost two dollars a bottle. And handing over my debit card, I remembered the only other time I'd paid that much for beer: about two months ago, when I bought a case of Weyerbacher Merry Monk's, a 9% ABV belgian wheat beer that took me more than three weeks to finish.
This one won't take so long. It's 7% ABV, a deep amber color with a fresh, roasty malt flavor, a reminder of Autumn on the way. It's stronger (smarter) than your average beer, but very well balanced - unlike the far-too-overwhelming flavor of the Merry Monk. It bears a strong resemblance to the Sam Adams Octoberfest, but with a richer flavor and obviously more alcohol.
Only problem is, you're gonna have to be within spitting distance of this small Delaware brewery in order to get your hands on it. If you can, and you've got nearly fifty dollars to spare, don't hesitate for a second.

UPDATE: Just stumbled across a good mainstream guide to the Philly beer scene. Check it out here.

Movie Recommendation -The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters

Okay. It's been more than two weeks since my last real, solid hunk of time (and inspiration) that would bring me to write a good blog post. I like to get into detail, and I get carried away with writing when I can actually get started. So this will be the first of what should hopefully be many smaller posts in the future, to fill these long, unnecessary voids between thoughts and happenings in my life and Conshohocken.

Today I'd like to tell you about a hilarious movie that I viewed recently, a documentary called "The King of Kong." It follows a long-standing rivalry between a couple of hilarious, and more importantly, real people regarding the all-time high score in arcade Donkey Kong. This movie contains absolutely no third-person narration, only interviews with all the ridiculous characters who take part in this ridiculous story. I call them "characters" and a "story" because they're literally right out of a comic book. Every single person in this movie, save the "challenger" Steve Wiebe, comes off as either a super-eccentric or just a straight-up lunatic. And they're all video game nerds, which makes them even funnier.

Watchable documentaries are few and far between, and even fewer of them are laugh-out-loud hilarious. This one manages a rare notch in both categories. And it's only 90 minutes long or so, which means you can watch it late at night and hopefully stay awake through the whole thing.

That's all for now. I am at work, after all. Look forward to a good post about visitors from New York, coming soon.