Free for all at the Whiskey Bar

Well well well, look who it is again...ME! Yeah, I've been endlessly lazy in updating this thing for a while. Been kind of busy at work which is when I write this thing. But today looks pretty mellow and I'm enjoying my coffee and breakfast, so I figured I'd give it a go. Today's entry is bullet pointed for easy reading:

Heidi Montag...who gives a fuck. Seriously folks? I can understand loving someone for what they do (music, acting, sports, porn, etc.) but holy shit creek, this girl is famous for doing...nothing?! Why in the world do so many people give a damn about this girl and her newly altered/fucked up face. I think it's amazing actually, reading a few of the articles I have come across about everyone so so bummed on the surgery and how it has made her look. Well, I have news for you lady, when you get 10+ surgeries, that is what is going to the happen. The plastic should never out-cover the real amount of skin on your body, if it does...you start to look like Heidi Montag.

-The Superbowl is this weekend, but I don't really care too much anymore. I'm not the gambling type, and the Jets didn't make it so I'm going to go to my friends party and drink a bunch of beers and just have a good time. Baseball starts again soon and all will be right in the world. I know some people find baseball to be a slow moving sport but I think it is the most fun I have at any sports event. Going down to the Bronx, getting a few beers, and heading into the game on a nice warm night is one of the best feelings. I've been doing it since I was 14 (sans the beers for the first few years) and I think I'll continue to do it regardless of where I end up living.

-Lady Gaga looked like Marilyn Manson at the Grammy's.

-I've been on a diet/working out again and I'm feeling pretty good about it.

-I'm super busy at work, which sucks, but also assures me I'm not loosing my job anytime soon, which is awesome.

-I bought a new bass rig but had to bring it into the shop to have new input jacks wired in. Haven't even been able to sit down and play with it yet. Total bummer. But when it is done I'll be able to shake my house apart (my roommates are going to love me even more now).

That's it really, nothing else going on. There are a bunch of awesome things coming from Cloud 9 in the coming months so keep an eye on that, things are moving fast.

Later Folks.

2010

I got one question. Where the fuck is my flying car?

Remember when you were a kid and thought about the year 2010 like it was some futuristic thing? Or watched an older movie where they made the future seem super awesome? Yeah, me too, so what the hell happened?! It's 2010, the economy sucks, there are no flying cards, and I still can't teleport to my girlfriends house (Still have to sit in traffic on the New Jersey Turnpike for that one). Aside being let down by old Sci-Fi movies, 2010 is going to be awesome. Personally, 2009 was a pretty knock up year so I'm really looking forward to 2010. Let me recap some of the highlights:

Moving

Nothing too crazy, I moved out of my parents house, and it's the best move ever. I love my folks but it was time.

Travel

This year marked the first time I have left North America for vacation. My girlfriend and I took a trip to Ireland in the fall and I have to say it was one of the best times I've ever had. I've always enjoyed Irish culture and music so the choice to go was a pretty easy one. We traveled the country for a week and I got to the city of Dublin, down to little villages dotted in between the rolling green hills (for those of you who have never been, it is true, everything is REALLY green). Got to see a lot of awesome sites like the Cliffs of Moher, St. Patricks Cathedral, and of course, the Guinness store house (Yes, the Guinness IS way better in Ireland).

Music

The reason you are reading this blog is because you are either a friend of mine, a fan of my band Cloud 9, or a stalker (which would be awesome, send nudes). Regardless of which category you fall into, you probably know that my band Cloud 9 released a record this year, "Evolution #9". We put a lot of months into this record and I think it came out great. The songs are awesome and the sound is something that I am very happy with. When this record came out, it was another moment that made me happy I decided to stick around with these guys back in '08. Also, a lesser known fact, I started another band this year. Salty Harbor Hooligans is a little idea I have had for a few years that finally came to see the light of day. As I said before, I've always been a fan of folk/Irish music and I had written a few songs back in college in that vein. After my buddy Mike Clark from college moved down to New Jersey, we got the idea together (along with Mac from Cloud 9) to jam out on a few originals and a bunch of covers. We did that a few times and played our first show at a local Irish pub where I am known to frequent. The show went great and we are actually lining up a few shows in 2010 when we can. For fans of whiskey and yelling.

General Positive Outlook

This one might sound a little weird. Let me start by saying that on a daily basis over the past year, I've noticed that more people than you would like to imagine are VERY unhappy with some aspect of their life. Be it their girlfriend, boyfriend, husband, wife, job, band, etc. there is something that is pissing them off or bumming them out on a daily basis. This translates to them being a really shitty person to everyone they come in contact with during their day. With seeing these people, I made an effort to try and be way more positive this past year. I mean we are all human and will all have those downer days, but for the most part I have found the stuff that brings people down can be turned around if they just grow a pair of nuts and take charge of their lives. At the chance of soundings like an asshole, people need to man up and run their life, not let life control them.


With all that stuff going on in 2009, 2010 was looking like it was going to be awesome even before New Years hit. Now that we are in 2010 it is still looking awesome. Work on the new Cloud 9 record has begun, Salty Harbor Hooligans might get off the bar stool long enough to record a record this year, and I am feeling great about the new year. I'm also trying to get back into shape because the holiday season has done HELL on me. Hopefully it all pans out, if not, fuck it, grab a bottle of whiskey and watch the world burn.

LATER

I can't control my fingers, I can't control my brain.

Good afternoon, Internet. How is everyone doing on this fine afternoon? Looking up German midget porn on your blackberry while pretending to do work? Right on, I feel you. As for me, it seems to be just another Wednesday in this office. Banged out a bunch of work this morning, went to the gym, got lunch, and now I sit here speaking with all of you while I enjoy my sandwich and listening to music. Today's play list is the new record from upstate hardcore group, Another Breath. I must say, I highly recommend this record if you are into the punk/hardcore genre of music. This is the bands third album, and it just keeps getting better. This record, titled "The God Complex" is another look into the mind of, well, a mad man. The lead singer of Another Breath is one of the craziest dudes I've ever met. Granted, I've only met him twice in my entire life, both at shows, but he also wrote a blog while they were recording the record and searching for distribution. After they finished the record he picked up with a personal blog which he updates almost every day. This guy is completely insane, but not in that, "I'm going to kill you in your sleep" insane. More like the, "Holy shit, what the fuck am I suppose to do in this world" insane. His blog, as well as his lyrics for Another Breath records, deal with the day to day struggle of being alive on this planet. Feelings of remorse, grief, strife, agony, confusion and anger all get thrown in the mix. In one blog he talked about how he read one of Henry Rollins' books, and found a new respect for a man he never liked that much in the first place, mostly being he saw that Henry was just as crazy, if not crazier, than him. Which lead me to a very interesting question.

Are musicians really out of their fucking minds?

This is a question I've thought about over the years, and I can't really pin down a true answer. When I tell people I'm in a band, and we don't really make any money personally, their answer is usually something along the lines of, "That's crazy! How do you get by?". We spend our own personal money to make things in the band happen, and as much as it rules when we get paid and can fund the band with itself, I don't think I'd ever stop playing music just because of money issues. But thinking into that question; am I crazy? Should I stop wasting money on something that isn't really paying me back? (aside from free drinks and food sometimes). Non-musicians will usually say it's a crazy way to live your life while musicians don't know any other way. Is the passion behind creating music that strong, or are there just a SHIT tone more insane people walking the earth then we thought? I'd like to believe it's the passion, but then again, some musicians really are just bat-shit crazy and there isn't anything you can do about it but let them make their music, and hope they don't loose it one day and blow up their recording studio. Any way you slice it, I think it takes a person who is a little off axis to create something truly amazing. I mean, if normal people could do it, it wouldn't be different would it? It would just be more of the same shit. For this reason alone, I always liked to think of myself as a little off-center as they say, and that is the part of myself that I love the most. The part that comes out when you step on stage and you forget all about your life, your job, your bank accounts, your 401K, your health insurance, your rent, your bills. You let it all fly in the wind and live in that moment.

Live in this moment, because it's fleeting, and it's never coming back.

I remember Halloween

Another Halloween came and went this past weekend, and I must say it was a damn good one. The band played a Halloween show on Friday night, which was one of the better shows in recent memory as far as how well we performed as a band. Some of the costumes were also just amazing. Ernie (from Bert and Ernie), Bobby Light, and Green Man were just some of the high lights. The show went of very well aside from a very stupid, and very drunken fight between my roommate and my friend. No one remembered anything in the morning about it, and no real punches were thrown, so all in all it wasn't as bad as it could have been. The band decided to go with the group costume of the Reservoir Dogs, which ended up being awesome. Everyone caught on pretty quickly (thanks in part to name tags we wore to make it a little more obvious what we were going for), and everyone had a great time. Although Saturday wasn't much to talk about. I decided that staying up until 7am drinking on Saturday morning was a GREAT idea, so when I woke up on Saturday afternoon, I have a hangover that wouldn't quit. I would have spent the day in bed, but I had to get up and go meet my landlord to sign the lease to my apartment. I sat in his house for about 35 minutes, all while focusing EVERY ounce of effort on not throwing up on this nice old mans kitchen table and my lease agreement. After that I had to go home because I promised my dad that I would come over and help him around the house, which I ended up not doing because I took a nap before I went over, and by the time I showed up, it was raining and getting dark. He bought me dinner but I only got about 5 bites down before I felt the urge to vomit again. Needless to say Saturday was kind of a bust, as far as being a normal human goes. I drove down to my girlfriends house and just hung out with her, and we were both passed out by 11:30.

I'd say the weekend was a success because the show Friday night made up for being a hungover piece of shit the rest of the weekend. All in the name of rock 'n' roll, right? Anyway, this week looks like it will be the same deal. Thursday night I'm going out to Brooklyn to catch a fantastic band that goes by the name Fucked Up. They are playing their new album front to back, with the help of the Vivian Girls and Andrew W.K., so I plan on partying hard all night. Friday we pack up and make the trip up to Syracuse for a show, then over to Rochester the next night. All in all this Thursday-Sunday should be interesting to say the least.

Oh yeah, and my truck decided to get REALLY loud on Saturday afternoon, which means I get to leave work today, and crawl around under it to figure out what the hell is wrong. Fantastic. Happy Monday Fuckers.

Yup.

Good Morning Internet, how's it going? Good? That's great. I'm pretty awesome as well. Well shit, where do I begin. It has been a few weeks and so much has happened that I can bore you with!

One reason for my lull in writing this thing is that I was in Ireland. Yup, it was pretty awesome. I went on a guided tour of most of the southern part of the country. I got to see a lot of the land, a bunch of the pretty cool land marks, and a lot of pubs. Irish people drinking a lot is not a stereotype, because it is completely true. I've never seen so many pubs in my life as I did in every town in Ireland. Anywhere we went there were pubs on every corner. The up side to this is that you are never too far from a drink, and most of these bars are bands playing. Not shitty New Jersey Shore cover bands, but old school traditional Irish bands with a couple dudes in their 60s drinking beer and rocking away on tin whistles and mandolins. Also, Ireland was just another proof to my theory that people who live in the North East are just fucking mean. I've been to Canada, Ireland, and all over the US, and I have to say that people are way more pleasant then they are in the Tri-State area. People randomly say hi to you on the start, are way more positive about life in general, and are just more fun to be around. People in this area of the world are just cold, bitter, and pissed off for the most part. It is kind of a let down when you come home from vacation and the customs counter is rambling off about "fuck this, fuck that". Oh well, New York is still awesome in my book, even if we are pricks.

The band is cranking right along and thinking about our next record. We have about half the songs written with a few more in the works. Hopefully we can spend some time this Winter molding what we have into another great record because it looks like were going to spend a little time off from shows comes the snow season. We always try to be productive as possible, but driving around the North East in the dead of winter can get a little nasty. Also, it has already snowed here. You heard me right, in October it has snowed in New York already. Nothing real, but there were flakes falling a few weeks back, which leads me to believe we are going to get ass raped with snow this weekend. The farmers almanac feels the same way, so we shall see what happens comes November and December.

Fun stuff, huh? Yeah, I've been having a blast. Besides that stuff, I'm back to normal life after vacation. Sitting at work right now having a coffee and figuring out how I'm going to act like I'm doing work for the next 7 hours. I'll figure something out. We're all going out after work to shoot pool at this thing which should be a good time. Nothing like drinking beers with your co-workers and waiting for someone to get drunk and tell you about how they really feel about your boss. It is always a blast.

Anyway, I'm out of here, time to think about doing some work. But I doubt it will actually happen. Later brah.

8am...awesome

Morning all. It is 9:15 in the morning, and this day is already awesome. As I was walking out to my car this morning (I park on the street because my place doesn't have a lot of driveway parking) and I see something on the windshield. Originally I thought it was going to be a ticket, but that wouldn't make sense being that I knew I was parked on the correct side of the road. I walk up to the car, and what is it? A note! That's right, my new neighbors had decided to leave me a little "Welcome to the neighborhood" note. At first I thought this was kind of nice, and a little random, but who cares, maybe they are all nice people. As I read it though, I realized it was more of a note outlining the "rules". Really? People fucking do this? Don't you have anything better to be doing with your day then typing up "rules" of your neighborhood for the new neighbor? FUCK. Anyway, I will outline the two main parts of this note.

So, the first request was that I not turn around in peoples driveways, as there is "plenty of room to turn around curb-to-curb". The reason for this request was because "it is very expensive to repair driveways". I was fucking speechless. Expensive to repair driveways? Holy shit folks. I know that laying a driveway costs a pretty penny, but I have to say I HIGHLY doubt that someone pulling in and out of your driveway in the morning is really taking years off the life of your driveway. I tried to figure out if this was a logic request, and honestly, I have to say, no. These people are just dicks, plain and simple. Anyway, moving right along...

"If you live above Grove Ave., you may park above it, and if you live below Grove, please park below it." Basically, I live on a pretty steep hill, and Grove Ave. is a side street which is towards the top of the hill. As most people, I wouldn't really want to leave my car parked on a steep hill everyday for hours on end, because my car is getting older, and I don't want to put the stress on the e-brake and transmission, so I park on top of the hill where it is nice and flat. Apparently this a big no-no in their eyes. Sorry to inform these people, but it is a STREET, not their personal road. Anyone can park where ever the hell they feel like it, as long as it follows the parking regulations on the street. If these new neighbors of mine think I'm going to start parking on a hill that rivals those in San Francisco, they are poorly mistaken.

Sorry for the personal rant today, I just had to express how insane this note sounded to me. Asking me to follow some set of neighborhood parking regulations? No thanks lady, I'll park up here with the good people of the block. Anyway, I'm off to a boring ass meeting at work. Stay Gold, bitches.

Is that piss?!

Hellooooooooooo internets, what's shaking? I'm good, thanks for asking.

Haven't written in a while, so I figured that a nice quite Friday at work would be a great time to get back on the blog train. New York has slowly fallen into the fall season, and I have to say I'm loving it. I love the summer as much as anyone. Beaches, BBQs, summer vacations to places, drinking in pools, you know how it goes. But I have to say my favorite season is fall. I'm a huge fan off hoodie and jeans weather and this is the perfect time of year for me. It is so nice to watch the trees change and I just feel way more comfortable this time of year, they sweating my ass off in mid-July when it's cracking 100 and my beer never stays cold. Anyway, I don't really have much going on as usual. Just hanging out, drinking beers, playing music. The band is off to Philly this weekend, which is awesome because I haven't been down there in a year or 2, and I really love that city. I usually try and get down there once a year around this time because of this awesome haunted house. Now usually haunted houses are kind of lame, but I love them anyway, because hey, it is just fun. But this one takes the cake on scaring you. It is a haunted house put together inside Eastern State Penitentiary, which is the old prison in Philly that is now shut down. You go inside the prison and spend half an hour getting walked through this place, all while having the ever loving shit out of you. It is very worth the 20 bucks, so I highly recommend it to anyone in the Philly area the month of October.

As to not make this entry super short, I'll tell a really funny criminal story that I heard a while back. My friend Billy used to work at a place called Oak Beverage. They are a really big beer distributor in my area and have all kinds of trucks coming in and out all day. One morning, a guy is pulling out of the place with an 18-wheeler full of beer. He gets about 5 blocks from the yard, and a guy on the sidewalk stops him at a stop sign. The guy jumps up on the truck and asks for directions to some where, while his partner snuck into the cab from the other side and put a gun to the guys head. They forced him out of the cab and stole it. Being he was only 5 blocks from work, he walked back and told his boss, who then called the police. The cops picked up the guys about 2 miles from where they stole the truck, but neither of the guys could really get the truck moving to fast, as they couldn't operate the transmission that well. Lesson learned, if you are going to steal a truck, make sure you can drive it.

Well, that is about it, there is a little story you can tell you friends. It was pretty funny the first time I heard it, hopefully you think it is pretty sweet also. Later friends.