As I was laboriously and tediously uploading yet another pretentious video to YouTube this morning, I thought for the first time in a long time to take stock of how many folks have viewed my large and eclectic library of uploads. Turns out, there’s not many surprises. Most of my videos don’t get seen more than the few dozen times they get clicked on when I initially post and “advertise” them on social media. But a select few have gained some traction and are being seen by strangers on at least a semi-regular basis. Now, most of these “successful” videos are music-related and of interest to only the target audience. And it’s pretty easy to get views this way. Some of them I knew would be of use to a fan base, because I made them because I personally noticed their absence on YouTube. But a few of these were genuine surprises. Here they are, in ascending order:
1. “Two-Fifty” by Chris Walla
Views: 1,021
By far my favorite song by the lead guitarist of Death Cab for Cutie’s solo work, I slapped this little video together when I noticed almost none of his solo songs were on YouTube. If you dig it (or are curious about my photograph selection) sit tight…it just might be making an appearance soon on my 100 Songs list.
2. “Black Friday in Erie”
Views: 1,178
This was one of the two larger surprises for me. But history has taught me one thing: videos with the word “Black Friday” and a specific town in them are recipes for getting hits from searches.
3. “Knot Comes Loose” by My Morning Jacket
Views: 1,316
I knew exactly what I was doing when I chose this song to record at this concert. You may have guessed that I am the type of man who watches A LOT of video of his favorite bands performing live. So I just happened to know that there was ZERO video of My Morning Jacket playing “Knot Comes Loose”, as far as I knew, anywhere on the internet. That is because it is a very rare live song. So when I recognized the first few chords, I started taping. And this is still the only video of it to have surfaced, although the sound quality is regrettably sub-par (most amateur recording devices don’t like being so close to enormous speakers), I anticipate this one to keep gaining a few hundred views a month for the foreseeable future, as any YouTube search for the song live results in my video being the top return.
4. “A Walk Across the McBride Viaduct”
Views: 1,561
This was BY FAR my biggest surprise. I had watched the view count for awhile after originally posting it (following this blog entry…and I’ll now offer an unspecified prize for anyone who can identify what movie the quote in the song I use comes from…NO GOOGLING, we’re on the honor system here, folks), as I was aware there was no other video online of the viaduct post-closure, and it being such a hot-button topic in this city, I thought some folks might be looking for some video. But in the weeks following it’s posting, it hovered at about 20 views, and I never looked again, until now. Now mind you, in the YouTube universe, all these numbers are TINY, but 1.500 is a lot bigger than 20. The viaduct pops up as headline news about once every three months, so I imagine searches for it come in spurts.
5. “St. Peter’s Cathedral” by Death Cab For Cutie
Views: 2,667
This one was a no-brainer. I posted it shortly after their newest album came out. There were already plenty of posted versions of the studio track, but none had scrolling lyrics like mine does. As per usual, I didn’t post this to try to get views or win some sort of popularity contest, it’s just the video I wanted and nobody had made it yet. Videos like this are not any sort of “artistic endeavor”, you can slap one together in 20 minutes (I do try to make the lyric scrolling pace with the music and be visually appealing without being obnoxious, which is more than I can say for lots of the practitioners of the form.) This one’s view count will keep climbing, pretty much forever.
6. “Black Friday ’09, Wal-Mart, 5am”
Views: 6,348
I knew this one was huge, because I watched it take off in the few days after I first posted it. I got about 2,000 hits that week, and gets about 2,000 hits every year now, the week or two following Black Friday. It’s certainly not because of how awesome the video is, it’s just because a YouTube search for “Black Friday Carlisle” turns this up in the top 3 or 4 results. And while Carlisle, PA is not metropolis, I imagine lots of people, following the big day, do searches for their specific area. A YouTube search for “Black Friday Carlisle Wal Mart” returns my video as the #1 result. My buddy Burke makes a nice appearance here.
My homeslice Paul and I just had a public tiff on my blog. Which sucks, because there aren’t many people in this life more important to me than Paul is, so I thought maybe I’d write a blog about our friendship. Although it should be noted that we do have a nice history of being little bitches to each other and arguing about stupid shit, but that was mostly over a decade ago, while we were cooking together at the same restaurant, probably sleep-deprived and hung-over, but still. We fight.
I’m sure I knew who Paul was before he knew who I was. Why? Because he played football for my high school. He was a year ahead of me, and we weren’t within light years of each other’s social groups. I wasn’t extremely aware of him, but I was aware of him. Years later, I’d frequently have dreams that I’d been transported back to high school (with all of my intervening memories and experiences intact) and I’d seek out Paul, who, when I found him, had also been transported with his memory intact. And so there we were, in high school, finally knowing each other. They were weird dreams.
In the months following high school, I became a regular at the restaurant Paul worked at. I frequented it late at night with my friend Jeremy and his girlfriend Cory (who I would later coup d-etat away from him); Jeremy had known Paul in high school, so Paul would come visit our table. I remember being suspicious, because Jeremy had been the star of the soccer team, and here was this Paul guy, also an athlete. And Cory, although she didn’t attend our high school, was the captain of her cheerleading squad. I suspected I might soon find myself on the outside. I know you’ve all seen pictures of me in wrestling or baseball uniforms, but I assure you, I was no athlete.
Fate is a fickle broad. Before I knew what was happening, suddenly, I worked at that restaurant, too, and before long, I was a cook there, too, and before long, I was working overnights in the kitchen with Paul, too. And (long story short here) we ended up going to the same college and being roommates and having the same group of college friends. Paul and I had quite rapidly become insperable, the kind of friends that when you show up somewhere alone, people always ask you where the other one is; although how that sort of thing happens is beyond me. All these years later, it just seems natural that Paul and I are hetero-lifemates, but back then, it didn’t seem so simple. Paul and I are quite different men (as good friends often are). We share some simliar interests, but actually have more differences than similarities. And not just the surface items like, he’s into sports and I’m not, or I’m into poetry and he’s not, as these differences are what can make a friendship keep ticking over the years (the male friends I do have whose interests most align with mine, I mostly don’t care for all that much, and I just keep them around because I might need them some day…for what, I have no idea). But Paul and I’s differences seemed a bit deeper than that to me. Mostly, he was a good soul and I was a bad one.
Now, he’ll probably want to argue with that, and he certainly could make a case for it. After all, we were damn young, and drunk and tired pretty much ceaselessly, and in college, and—dare I say it—completely captivating to the opposite gender. Neither of us were perfect young men. But in Paul, one could see the seed of a quality adult, and a man who could discern right from wrong (even if he still sometimes chose to ignore that distinction), and how to be honest, and forthright, and helpful.
I, on the other hand, was a total shit. It was probably obvious fairly early on that, while a whole bunch of us were partying constantly, I was the only one who couldn’t have stopped if I tried. And no matter what you believe about how much I am to blame for that addiction, the fact is that being a drunk is not often accompanied by positive personality traits. All those positive traits I listed above for Paul, think of their opposites, and apply them to the me of back then.
But somehow, we fit together. We picked up some company on the way (“Nature Boy” Chris Davey, Burke “Testudo” Bowen, Heidi “Heidi” Dagen, “Mello” Cory Kelso, “Sultry” Joel Holtry, and quite a few others) and within a year of meeting Paul, I suddenly had a brand new group of friends and a new lifestyle, the old high school chums all-but forgotten. And this was just in time, of course, for my descent into serious alcoholic oblivion.
There are lots of people to thank for how they handled my alcoholism and for what they did to help me, but as far as my friends go, nobody can really get more credit than Paul, a fact I’ve never really told him (fuck! I’m crying now!). Paul never made me feel like I was a bad person because I was unable to stop drinking. He always seemed to understand that it was like any other addiction; for instance, his own reliance on cigarettes. Now, he never said that to me, but his actions and the way he treated me suggest he thought that way. He never told me I needed to stop, or slow down (that might sound reckless to you, but it’s my philosophy that “intevention” methodologies are counteractive. Making somebody feel like shit never chased an addiction out of their skin, a philosophy my parents also seemed to share, which is another big reason I think I’m alive today); when I would, on rare occasions, talk to him about my addiction and my fear relating to it (being in the grip of an addiction to a mind-altering substance is absolutely terrifying), he was understanding and helpful, never demeaning or judgmental, but forthright and honest in ways that showed a maturity and understanding that I’m not sure I could master even now, at age 34.
I still remember the day I decided—firmly, absolutely—that I could get sober, and that I would go to rehab and attempt to live the rest of my life and not die ASAP. I was at the apartment of Paul and his girlfriend at the time, Shelley. I was drinking, but I wasn’t sad, I was just talking to them about being addicted, and how much it sucked. I’ll never be sure which one of them said it first, but someone said, “Why don’t you just go to rehab?”, and they said it so…normally. Like it was just something you could do, if you wanted. Now, obviously the time was right, and there were plenty of other factors and people that contributed to that moment in time, but I said, “OK. I’m going to!” And I got the phone book and called a rehab and reserved a bed, that very afternoon, and then called my mom and dad (by then, that was two seperate phone calls) and told them “I’m going to rehab“. It would be close to a year by the time I celebrated my final sobriety date of April 3rd, but that afternoon in Paul’s apartment stands out as the beginning of the beginning. And he’s been so beautifully understanding and intuitive in regards to my sobriety. He was my first friend to order an alcoholic beverage when out to dinner with me; it was time, I was OK with it, and he just knew. He knew that at that point I’d prefer him to do what he’d normally do. It was more important to me that I not feel like the freak. He was the first friend of mine who seemed to understand that I hadn’t really changed; sure, I had always been known as the guy who drinks all the time, but the core me was the same and now more me than before; the diseased filter had simply been removed. Many friends felt the need to treat me, for a few years, like a kid who had just barely recovered from Leukemia. Paul seemed to know that was unnecessary, and just kept treating me like the same guy from before, only without a drink in my hand.
I would love (really, I would) to just keep writing and writing and tell tons of little stories from our lives together. Paul and I have lots of great stories. But maybe I’ll just hit some highlights (and maybe there will be more blogs like this in the future…I feel as though I could write a book. Tonight. In two hours. But anyway, the highlights):
—Paul and I share an intense love for two bands: Seven Mary Three and Hey Rosetta! And these loves mark two distinct eras in our lives: college (7m3) and now (HR). In an intereting twist, the first TWO times I saw both these bands, it was Paul and I together (along with others). And these were amazing experiences that have shaped my idea of how concert-going should feel: like you are touching the hand of god. It rarely is that good, but it is an ideal to strive for. In many other ways, Paul and I’s musical tastes diverge, but they align where it counts. (hey Paul…the trip to see 7m3 in York…remember D’Marco Farr? And please always remember, I called the opener in DC (“Peel”), and also, remember that fancy restaurant you picked for us to eat at in Ithaca, NY, the night we saw Hey Rosetta!? That night was the beginning of my ongoing love affair with the Americano. But I now drink them iced.)
–The Chair of Good and Evil. Paul and I found a horrid, ratty, falling-apart recliner by a dumpster when we lived in college. For reasons unbeknownst to us, we took it into our dorm room. It really was a horrible chair. It’s existence to us was more of a joke than anything else. We wrote all over it in magic marker. Quotes from movies, things we said all the time, lines from 7m3 songs (“A little motivation goes a long way down, down, down.”) I somehow got the chair to my dad’s house for a year or two after college, but I’m sure it’s long gone by now.
–Remember that dorm room I mentioned? Yeah, we got kicked out of it.
–“Circus Midgets Ate My Balls”. That’s all I’m saying about that.
–Movies we watched dozens or even hundreds of times together, even if they weren’t that good: “Friday”, “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation”, “The Borrowers“, “Mallrats”.
–The first time I visted Paul after I got sober and moved to New Jersey, we played golf and I beat him. Which is the only time I can remember beating him at anything other than MarioKart. So I bring it up here again, even 8 years later. The gloating continues.
–I had the disctinct pleasure of giving the toast at Paul’s wedding to his fantastic wife, Liz. I have never felt more honored in my life, and that honor continues to this day.
–Paul is a big Baltimore Orioles fan, so for his “bachelor party”, fellow Paul bud “Mello” Cory Kelso and I took him to an Orioles game, making the odd fact true: the last major league baseball game I attended was a Baltimore Orioles game.
–Mr. Turnpike, Nature Boy, and the Wise Guy (Man) in the Back Seat
–Ham on Both Ends
–Aint got me on tape.
I love you, Paul. You continue to be the model for the type of man I want to be. Thank you for being part of my life (and helping to save it).
L-R, Paul, Me, Davey (code names: Mr. Turnpike, Wise Guy in the Back Seat, Nature Boy)
Davey, me, and Paul, the first time we ever saw Hey Rosetta!, in Ithaca, NY.
Picture of Paul on the day I beat him at golf. He sucked that day.
So. That was a pretty insane trip home (and lots of other places). I’m not even sure where to begin. This may end up being a ridiculously long and disjointed blog entry. I apologize in advance. If it ends up not being extremely long and disjointed, I will come back and delete this intro, and you will never read it.
First, I should like to thank my family (Dad, Mom, Sister) for their various forms of hospitality and much-needed displays of unconditional love. Yay human spirit and the familial bond! I feel pretty damn good about my family. You guys rule! And thank you to all my friends who made me feel as if I never moved away. I am blessed beyond belief with deep, intense, loyal friendships! In addition, a big frowny face to those who I had to miss on this trip (most notably, loyal blog reader and renowned Muse, Cory. Little does she know, my next trip home is going to be so all about her, she will have to call the cops on me. And the truly lovely Mercedes, whom I am unabashedly smitten with. Also, on-again-off-again blog reader Tiff, who I had *promised* a certain something to…well, next time, ok???). I was stretched a little thin to do and see everything and everyone I wanted, but it was fairly satisfying nonetheless.
My Zany Itinerary
Let me just show you the zaniness of where I’ve been the last week and a half. I am going to include tomorrow, as I go to Pittsburgh tomorrow for a work seminar. Here’s where I was, for the most part, the last ten days:
3/25: Erie, PA/ Carlisle, PA
3/26: Carlisle, PA/ Asbury Pary, NJ
3/27: Mantua, NJ
3/28: Brooklyn, NY/ Newark, NJ
3/29: Manhattan, NY/ Mantua, NJ
3/30: Mantua, NJ/ Carlisle, PA
3/31: Carlisle, PA
4/1: Carlisle, PA
4/2: Carlisle, PA/ Erie, PA
4/3: Erie, PA
4/4: Pittsburgh, PA
4/5: Pittsburgh, PA/ Erie, PA
And I aint even tired yet. Bring. It. On.
My Newville Tour
Early on in my trip, I had a little extra time to kill early in the morning, and I drove into Newville (the small town I grew up in) and walked around the town for the first time in many years (I have been there plenty as of late, but not actually walked around). I took some pictures of major landmarks in my life, also making sure to get a few pictures of some of the places that have played large parts in some of my blog entries. Here is a bit of a pictorial tour of Newville:
My first house, 66 Big Spring Avenue. My bedroom was the top two windows on the right of the picture.
I have been trying to upload the famous picture of my mother and I admiring my grandmother’s garden, but I am having some trouble, so here is a link to that picture on Facebook. And here is a picture of that back yard area today:
One of my most popular blog entries ever was “The Fruit that Ate Itself“, about me being bullied in a local church yard. I snapped some pics of that area in current day:
The church yard itself.
The line of trees is where the dreaded swingset and slide had been.
The Senior Center where the "fight" ended. Those are the bushes I flew through in the climactic moment.
If you’ve read my blog entry “Down the Rabbit Hole“, you may be interested to see this cellar door on one of my childhood neighbor’s homes:
OK, so just a few more pics here, but not related to any previous blog, just some Seth-historic stuff:
The very spot where I got on a school bus for the very first time.
This was my corner when I was a crossign guard.
Friendies
I had almost too much fun with friendies to try to sum things up here. I’ll hit some highlights:
I surprised Kate with my presence not once but twice, and she lost. her. shit. each time. First, Michael and I surprised her at her house:
It was also on this visit that this picture of Michael happened:
A few days later, I was strolling through Carlisle wasting a few minutes before picking up another friend, when I came across Kate and her family at the local eatery The Green Room. As I was leaving them I took this pic of Kate, her husband Matt, and their son Dylan:
Let me just take this moment to say, as I was strolling around Carlisle that night, I was struck by just how freaking cool of a town it is. Those of you who still live there, please do not take it for granted. First, it is totally adorable. And such a great pedestrian town! And for a relatively small town in central Pennsylvania, it is arts-friendly. Open mic nights, free music, poetry readings, public displays of photography, and on and on, are quite common. The area known as the square and the surrounding blocks are humming with a vibrant intellectual life (not to mention some fantastic cuisine). Please partake of what the gem of a town has to offer!
My brief time with Burke was spent in some fairly intense conversation that may, in fact, make me think about my life differently. Oh, and Johnny Depp is a fucking sellout.
I spent some truly hilarious time with Jenny. Jenny is quickly becoming a Major Friend. (if her name is unfamiliar to you, this was the last woman to be an “official girlfriend”…and if my hunch is true– that I am a lifetime bachelor– she may go down in the history books as the last woman to be an official Seth girlfriend…what a distinction!). Anyway, I sure do love this woman. She has the special ability to make me laugh until I am worried about my health…without saying anything. She has a non-verbal humor akin to Kramer. She can just look at me and I lose my shit. Here we are, loving life:
Of course, you know I saw Michael, and it resulted in a moment of hilarity that I am pretty sure you “had to be there” for, but we decided that Merle Haggard had at one point recorded the “classic” song “You’re Gonna Make Daddy Fart (and Momma Aint Gonna Be Happy)”. I still laugh when I type that.
Mary and I had one helluva time trying to find parking in downtown Harrisburg—notable because it’s usually not THAT hard. Sure, those few blocks in the very center of town are tough, but we were unable to find ANY spots on the street ANYWHERE. When we finally did park (in a garage) we ended up just hanging around Strawberry Square , when in fact we had intended to go to the Susquehanna Art Museum. I’m still not sure in the least how this distraction occurred, but we had a blast. But the major news from this venture is that Mary has OK’d some photographs of herself! You may or may not know that pictures of Mary are quite rare. She just hates pictures of herself, and of course I love taking pictures of people, so this is a friction. Plus, she really is one of the most exquisite women in existence, so I always feel as though the world in general is being deprived of some joy by the absence of Mary pictures. When I take a Mary picture, I have to show her, wheneupon she then either insists on immediate deletion, OKs the picture for my own personal collection but not anyone else’s eyes, or (the most rare) OKs a picture for online distribution. So here, lucky world, are 4 new Mary pictures:
That's the back of Mary's head in the lower right.
Staying at Dad’s
It is with much chagrin that I realize I did not take a single picture of my papa and me on this trip. *sad face* Nonetheless, I must say, spending time with my dad just gets more and more pleasant as the two of us age. It never stops surprising me how we continue to grow into friends (while he retains his essential papa-ness). He is one cool dude and we somehow never run out of things to talk about.
This also marked the first time in recent memory that I have stayed at Dad’s for multiple days without my sister also being there. In this sense it was entirely unique. The last time I stayed at my dad’s by myself for more than one night was way back when I was still drinking and on-again, off-again living there. So this was new, and really, really great. In a lot of ways, it felt like a true homecoming, learning how that house and I interact when I’m a grown-up, and sober, and left all alone with it. Turns out we get along just fine. And I sleep magnificently in my old bedroom. But it’s tough getting used to that shower again.
Hey Rosetta!
I’m gonna really have to shrink down the Hey Rosetta! story, or I’ll be here all day. So, in summary:
Here are pictures from Paul and I’s show in Asbury Park, NJ. It was a fantastic time, both Paul-wise (Paul, thanks for helping me see that not all my close friends have to be women!) and band-wise. Really, one of the more satisfying concert-going experiences I’ve had.
Then, I made an audible call and went to see them by myself twice more over the next three days, in New York City (more on NYC later). Long story short, I ended up basically knowing the band. But they started talking to me. I suppose when you are a band that is really famous and successful in Canada, and then you come to the states and are playing bars where most of the people are ignoring you, and there is a short fat guy with gray hair jumping around and screaming your lyrics, when he shows up to your NEXT show in a different state, it is worth taking note. So as I was taking this picture of the chalk board advertising their show in Brooklyn, a few of the band members were walking out of the bar and saw me and introduced themselves.
Because shows like this entail a lot of waiting around (if you insist, like I do, on front row) in small bars with no “backstage” area for bands, as well as lots of changing-out of gear between bands (not to mention trips to very small bathrooms), the two shows in New York would prove extremely fertile ground for me talking to the band. This went way beyond my previous “thank you, your music has meant so much to me” that I’ve been able to give other bands. This was basically a getting-to-know-you situation. Specifically cellist Romesh Thavanathan, lead guitarist Adam Hogan, and violinist Kinley Dowling spoke quite a bit to me and I was definitely on a first-name basis with them by the end of my second New York show, and I’d had a chance to speak to every member of this six-piece band. Certainly, this was fairly incredible, but also….in some ways, not as great as you’d think. Parts of this experience were awkward. I may blog more about this at some point, just because it was pretty intriguing (ever have your favorite band watch you as they are playing?) But don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t trade it for the world. It was an amazing experience. Here is a video I took of “Red Song” at Union Hall in Park Slope, Brooklyn, followed by a few select pictures of the New York shows:
I also managed to snag handwritten setlists off the stage two of the three nights. Here are scans of the setlists:
So now, for the benefit of probably just myself and maybe Paul, here is some Hey Rosetta! setlist discussion: on the first setlist shown, Bandages was skipped. On the second shown (from my thrid concert, Manhattan) ‘Bandages’ and ‘Red Heart’ were swapped in position (as were the two songs where a swap is indicated, ‘Yer Spring’ and ‘Welcome’…and talk about a way to open a show! “Lions For Scottie” into “Welcome”!) Here are all three setlists for shows I went to this tour:
Asbury Park, NJ
1. New Goodbye
2. Yer Spring
3. New Glass
4. Bricks
5. Another Pilot
6. There’s an Arc
7. Seeds
8. Red Heart
1. New Goodbye
2. Yer Spring
3. New Glass
4. Bricks
5. Another Pilot
6. There’s an Arc
7. Welcome
8. Red Song
9. We Made a Pact
10. Seeds
11. Red Heart
12. A Thousand Suns*
*’Bandages’ is on the setlist in the 12 spot, but ‘A Thousand Suns’ was played.
Manhattan, NY
1. Lions For Scottie
2. Welcome
3. Yer Spring
4. New Glass
5. Yer Fall
6. There’s an Arc
7. I’ve Been Asleep For a Long, Long Time
8. Holy Shit
9. New Sum
10. Seeds
11. New Goodbye
Encore:
1. Bandages
2. Red Heart
And now, for the record, the sum total of Hey Rosetta! songs I’ve seen, including the two acoustic shows I saw last year:
1. Red Heart–5 times
2. Bricks–4 times
3. I’ve Been Asleep For a Long, Long Time–3 times
4. Lions for Scottie–3 times
5. Bandages–3 times
6. New Goodbye–3 times
7. Yer Spring–3 times
8. New Glass–3 times
9. There’s an Arc–3 times
10. Seeds–3 times
11. Seventeen–2 times
12. Red Song–2 times
13. We Made a Pact–2 times
14. Another Pilot–2 times
15. Welcome–2 times
16. A Thousand Suns–1 time
17. Yer Fall–1 time
18. Holy Shit–1 time
19. New Sum–1 time
Mom’s/ Sisters
So my mom now lives with my sister, which makes visiting everybody much easier! It was quite nice to see everybody all at once! In the same breath, however, I must admit it made me feel as though I did a poor job of paying ample attention to everyone. When you are seeing a gaggle of loved ones all at once for the first time in a long time, it can be a strain to give equal time. I think specifically of the nephews, who I love uncontrollably but whom I was not able to give the sort of attention they are accustomed to receiving from me. When it came down to it, my mom and my sister were the center of my focus (not to mention the antics of Pumpkin Latte). Don’t get me wrong, I had a lovely time! I guess I’m just feeling some guilt, cause those boys worked up a good amount of anticipation for my arrival and I almost certainly dissapointed. That being said, the time with Momma and Sis was marvelous. LOTS of laughs, and a new momma/ son tradition: I claim her and I are going to do the Jumble together, and then I end up freaking out over how amazing she is at it, while I add absolutely nothing to the process (she really is amazing at the Jumble). Also, I “T”d my sister, which always rules. A brief but incredibly heartwarming time. Some select pics:
Sister and Pumpkin Latte, as she was taking their picture
Sis, Me, Mom
New York
The New York trip is another thing I shall have to gloss over, or I’ll be writing this blog entry until next week. I did what I typically do: I drive right into the city, pay a thousand dollars to park, and just walk around. I usually have very little plan other than one or two fairly simple goals. This trip’s goals: see sunrise from inside Central Park, and buy a New York Times from a newsstand and read the whole thing from inside a midtown Manhattan Starbucks during the morning commute hours. I’m not sure why I wanted to do these things, but once the goals were in my mind, I could not seem to let them go. I accomplished both, and although being in Central Park during sunrise was magical, it was not easy to get any great pictures of the event, due to the vast amount of:
a) Tall trees, and
b) skyscrapers
These things blocked the view of the actual sunrise rather effectively, but feeling the world come alive from within the park was quite joyous. Here is the best picture I got of the sunrise:
I spent almost two hours in the Starbucks, enjoying my latte and an incredible issue of the NYT. I suppose for a moment I felt as hip as I’ve always suspected I am. It was a quality time.
I spent the rest of the day wandering around, taking pictures, eating, even napping briefly in the tranquil section of Central Park known as the Woodlands. I also visited, for the first time, the Central Park Zoo, which was a lovely treat. Here is some video I took of the Sea Lions being fed (and putting on a little show) followed by some pictures:
Sunset, Brooklyn
Me in Central Park
Some Things I Learned
1. 8 months is not long enough to forget how to get around (but it IS long enough to cause some occasional navigation confusion)
2. When you are a single man in your 30s who moves away from everyone he knows and doesn’t visit home for 8 months, a surprising amount of people from all demographics will just straight-up ask you about your sex life. This is fodder for an entire blog entry at some point that will be in the form of a “rant”. FYI, nobody need worry about my sex life, mkay?
3. You may think where you live is boring, but leave it for a little while and then come back; you may just find it’s really cool.
4. There are really hot ladies everywhere.
5. Don’t tell people you got fat. You may think it will make your fatness less awkward, but it makes it moreso.
6. Things change. Buildings get knocked down, businesses change their name, streets get re-directed. Accept these things as a natural course of existence. (reminds me of a Hey Rosetta! song: “The schools that we went to have all been closed./ And all of my teachers are dead, I suppose.”)
7. You can walk further than you think you can.
8. If you move and your sports allegiances change a little bit, you can just kinda keep that to yourself on your first few visits home.
9. As you leave places you have stayed for just a day or two, remember to gather all your various “chargers”. We have a lot of chargers in this day and age.
10. Family and friends really are the best things in the world, even if saying so sounds cheesy and cliche. Fuck it, it’s true!
I Almost Forgot…
Today is my 8 year sobriety anniversary! The original purpose of this vacation was for me to have off and see my loved ones leading up to the big day. (I just have to complete my anniversary tradition of watching “Dark Days” on the anniversary itself) So…yay me! But also…yay you! Thanks everybody for putting up with my horribleness when I was horrible, and then helping me live such a satisfying and fantastic life in my sobriety! What a treat, to be able to celebrate the week leading up to it in the way I did. And how neat is it that I almost forgot today was the day??? That must mean life is pretty good. I love you, everybody!
It’s half—or maybe more accurately, a quarter—of a house. It’s a nice place, probably a hundred years old. The floors are hardwood, the walls a standard white drywall, flat paint combo. It’s in a near-constant state of furniture re-arrangement; like the lives of the two men who live here, the apartment is fluid, grasping, ever on the verge of something.
The day I moved in with Duane was the day I moved back to Pennsylvania from New Jersey. In my previous life in Pennsylvania, I hadn’t spent much time in this area of Carlisle. I had visited Duane here a few times, and had always had trouble finding it. This time, I found it easily, pulling up in my ’83 Ford Escort, with my life jammed into the tiny backseat. At first, the house actually seems a bit towering and hulking, it’s front porch extending far into the world beyond the front door, and the porch roof arching upwards like the peak of a great barn. The brown, white, and earth-toned exterior of the house makes it something you can and do easily drive past without noticing, but once you’re familiar with it, it’s comforting, like oatmeal, or sand.
The day I moved in was the most relaxed “move-in” in the history of the world. Duane acted like I had already been living there forever. After discussing where our individual “spaces” were, we settled in to just co-existing rather quickly. I set my coffee maker up immediately. That night, some old friends came over. I felt ecstatically at home in these four rooms, with their hardwoods, their flux, their smell of socks.
After a few months, life here had become life, and it moved with an interesting rhythm. I worked a lot, coming home late at night through the side entrance into our disgusting kitchen, and hibernating with well-deserved sleeps in the sizeable back bedroom I had taken over. I went to a lot of AA meetings, and voraciously read the AA literature while laying on my twin bed, with my window open during this hot summer of 2003. Life swam.
I furiously and studiously worked the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, and saw from them true change in my life. It was magical and uplifting.
The first four steps are easy. Then you get to Step 5: “Admitted to a higher power, to ourselves, and to another human being, the exact nature of our wrongs.” This is where we take the “inventory” we made in step four—where we write down every shitty thing we did to our loved ones before and during our addiction—and admit them to whatever Higher Power we’ve chosen to take over our will (this can be, essentially, whatever you want it to be), fully admit it to ourselves, and (the tricky part) somebody else.
Ideally this should be someone else in recovery, but for some reason, I chose my friend Burke. And I called him immediately after having finished writing down the fourth step—once again, laying on my twin bed, with my window open and a nice breeze blowing, during the hot summer of 2003. I told him I needed him over there immediately. Burke, being the great friend he is, was confused, but obliged.
Burke sat in the rickety wooden chair, at the over-varnished decades-old computer desk that Duane had given me, after he found it in the basement. Instead of a computer, a typewriter sat on it. I sat on my bed, cross-legged, and read to Burke from my notebook.
I told them I was going to work, but really…
Then I just left her standing there…
I never called back…they had no idea where…
…I just opened his wallet, really…
…screamed, yelled, I have no idea why…
It was hard, but it was also easy. I’m glad I chose Burke. He’s guileless, and despite his cynical exterior, there’s not a judgmental bone in his body. I knew this could be between him and I (and of course, all my loved ones, when I went and admitted to wrongdoings from this list to all of them in the ninth step) and, of course, that room. That home. Although I’d never lived there before, it was a homecoming. The end of something, and the beginning. Those hardwoods, that drywall, that smell of socks, and great friends like Duane and Burke and everyone else who was around at West North: it was the time of my life.
1. Oh hi, billhanna. I see you ‘liked’ goatees on Facebook yesterday. Our adversarial relationship about facial hair will continue to the grave. THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!
2. Anyone who knows Tasha, check out the link, she just got a radical new haircut! I love it!
3. I have quite few friends who are talented musicians—one of them is the great Bootney Lee (real name Ryan Straub). I double-dare you to click on the link and check his music out.
4. Guess who I’m going to see next month, as the three of us meet up in central New York for a Hey Rosetta! show??? Well that would be none other than my life-long buddies Paul and Davey! (he’s Chris Davey, but we call him Davey). This is going to be exceptional as it’s been a few years since we were together, all 3 of us. And did I mention it’s a Hey Rosetta show??? I still haven’t seen them live–the shows I was supposed to go to awhile back had to be skipped because life is like that. I am uber pumped for this!
5. It has been way too long since I tagged my friend Amanda. I mean that just like it sounds, too.
6. You know who rules? My mom! She just quit smoking!!! Raise the roof!
7. I’m still tickled pink about the Doctor Strange drinking glass that Tony Magni gave me as a going away present when I moved to Erie. Thanks Tony!
8. My friend Denise has a very under-appreciated photo blog. Click to link to check it out!!! She’s way talented!
9. The lovely Sarah P. has just had a baby! Huzzah! She doesn’t have any sort of online presence so I’ve linked to a picture of Big Ben, which is in England, which is where I met her!
10. My dad is one cool mofo. What’s my evidence? Every single day I become more and more like him, and I am most definitely one cool mofo. Dad, we are some cool dudes!
11. I tag Ron all the damn time, I aint saying anything about him!
12. Big days for my buddy Burke, who has just started going back to school while also remaining a steadfast David Hasselhoff fan. Kudos, wanker!
13. I could probably talk about Mary all day, but I’m pretty sure she’d friend-disown me. She dislikes scrutiny.
14. My dear, dear friend Michael (that’s a lady named Michael) sent me the most lovely letter in the mail yesterday. She sure is a freaking great friend!! It was quite touching, it brought a tear to my eye. Everyone should have a friend like Michael!
15. California buddy Kyle is finally off the unemployment and working at a bank!!! Yay Kyle! Now: no more excuses for sneaking into movies, you heathen!
16. My freaking cool-as-shit sister just got a job working at a law firm! What what! Dellingers can do anything!!! Click the link to read her badass blog!
17. Also in the world of talented musician friends of mine: Duane, who records under the name DreamlandNoise. Click the link for just a small sampling of his superb “space funk”.
18. What to say about my girl Cory? She recently moved back to central PA, like, RIGHT after I left it. *frown face* She’s just the shiznit in every way, and is quite a talented artist. I’ve linked to some of her art but you might not be able to see it if you’re not FB friends with her. Which would be your loss.
I know, I know, I can hear what you’re saying, fearless, intrepid readers: how dare I give you such exhaustive detail of all the activity leading up to the move and then abandon you for DAYS as the event unfolds? It must have been like the cruelest of television season-ending cliffhangers! Well, eff you. Life got in the way of blogging.
(I don’t know why the Erie Journals have a tone of distaste for you, the loyal reader. I swear, I love you. It’s just the tone these entries seem to want to take!)
Anyway, as usual, I’m gonna have to skim over some details because just too much has happened since I posted last. You saw the picture entries of the move itself, and I would like to once again thank Burke, Paul, Liz and Michael for helping me move. Also, thanks go to Mom and Mary for helping me clean, Dad for letting me crash at his house at a very crucial and odd moment for me, Duane for his last minute computer help, and probably somebody else who helped and I’m forgetting and I’m sorry I’m forgetting you. I truly do have some amazing friends and family!
Long story short, the move was difficult. It essentially went off as I had planned—and believe it or not, I consider myself something of a good planner—but what I never considered during my planning was that there was very little time for me to sleep, recover, and be sane. And despite that, I would have made it work if it hadn’t for some godawful reason taken Michael and I eight hours to drive back from Erie after unloading all my stuff into my new apartment. It was like we drove into some sort of black hole/time warp/weird thing. I just kept driving that U-Haul, pointing forward and pressing the gas, and it was like nothing was happening…
So anyway, that drive forced me to change my plans a tad, and instead of ending up here in Erie Thursday morning, I rolled in here around 10:30 Thursday night. So yeah, the plan had to be altered. Still. I claim this as a triumph in my life, as I single-handedly planned all of it. This is not an attempt to be egotistical here folks. Those that have known me since my teen years will know this is just a monumental achievement!
I’ll tell you what was friggen strange was walking into this apartment in Erie Thursday night. It was dark. A thunderstorm had just passed through. The world was chilly but not cold, and becalmed, and silent with a hint of breeze. I’d just been here, in this apartment the day before, but that had been in blazing sunlight, with one of my best friends, doing heavy, sweaty work and grunting and counting to three and lifting. So now I approach the front door for the first time ever in darkness, and I am all alone, and I am not going “home” that night, and it is quiet everywhere as my brand new key jingles in the lock and I open the unfamiliar door and the room is pitch black and all I can smell is fresh paint and the afterscent of rain and I get lucky guessing where the light switch is and the overhead light pops on and there in the midst of all this unfamiliarity is, quite all of a sudden, the entirety of my belongings, sitting in a massive disarray, exactly how Michael and I had left them just a little over 24 hours before.
I know that may sound like a NOT great experience, but that is only because I’ve failed as a narrator. Yes, it was surreal, and perhaps somber and disquieitng, but also rather thrilling, not like a roller coaster but my own personal fun house—my life as a hall of mirrors. If, in 24 hours, one’s life can become so utterly different (and yet, so entirely the same), it makes you question just what it is that defines your life. Oddly, during those first few moments inside the apartment door, it became clear to me that stuff does, in fact, play a role in my identity, but thankfully, just not a very large one. It was a relief to feel the sensation flush through me from head to toe that the truly important element in this equation was me, no matter which TV was sitting in the corner (though I loved the fact that it was my TV).
The first few minutes after entering the apartment were a flurry of activity, marked by one observation and two activities. The observation was complete silence. No television, no radio, not even any incoming text messages, and no neighbors making noise of any kind. In such an unfamliar setting, I really did need something. And so my first two activities were: getting the TV hooked up to the DVD player (cable and internet wouldn’t come till the next day) and—actually the very first order of business—getting some blinds up on the two street-facing living room windows. As I said, it was night time and the windows are facing the residential street and the only light I had to work with at this point was the bright overhead light, so I felt very, very exposed. I had actually anticipated this and had even brought two cheapy Wal-Mart vinyl mini-blinds up with me right away. I had never in my life put up a blind of any kind, so less than two minutes after entering the apartment, I was opening and attempting to figure out these blinds. It is perhaps of note that the apartment is FULL of stuff, so I have very little room to work. As a reminder, here was how Michael and I left the living room:
The day before, right before Michael and I left, I measured the windows in anticipation of the blinds, and stopped by Wal-Mart immediately before leaving for Erie that afternoon, to buy the blinds. Well folks, turns out I’m not a champ at measuring. Luckily, I over-measured, so the blinds I bought were too long by about two inches. I did not see this as a problem. Believe it or not, I have a toolbox, and in that toolbox is a saw. So less than ten minutes after getting there, I’ve got these vinyl mini-blinds sitting on those white Gonella bread boxes you see in the picture above and I am sawing one inch off both sides. (mind you, I am just sawing the bar across the top, not the actual blinds. I’m not a maniac!). Amazingly, this worked like a charm and I very quickly had privacy, at least from the street side of the apartment (and only when in the living room).
After that it was the TV, and the couch, as my chair were all entirely buried underneath God-knows-what and I was definitely craving a sit-down. As you can guess by looking at the pic of the living room above, getting the couch to in any reasonable way face a television would require some finagling. But I managed it very quickly. I had procured a few movies from the Redbox in Carlisle before leaving for Erie, and I quickly had the new DeNiro flick “Everybody’s Fine” playing, and I was laying on the couch, and I was just gonna watch a few minutes and then get up and start the long, arduous process of getting the apartment in order because after all, I didn’t really have to sleep at any reasonable time and obviously I had no plans in the near future and then…I was sound asleep. I woke up at 10am the next morning feeling like a million very, very confused bucks. And then the work began.
As this is a fairly long entry already, I’m going to end here for now so as to not tire you out, Fearless Reader. Since everything I’m saying is in the past, it’s not really of the essence to tell it all now, so I’ll bring us up to the present day in an entry tomorrow. Thanks for reading, shitbirds!
Putting the finishing touches on packing. Homies Burke and Paul will be here soon to help me get it on the U-Haul. I still have some stuff on the walls and some stuff to throw out but otherwise I’m mostly done:
Just a few more notes on the 7mary3 show last night, for the few of my readers who do care.
I just CANNOT piece the setlist together, and no one over on the message board is posting about the show. So. I can tell you how it began:
1. Last Kiss
2. Settle Up
3. RockCrown
4. Was a Ghost
5. Roderigo
6. Headstrong
That’s as far as I can get in sequence. The rest of the songs played were:
Sleepwalking, Dislocated, Over Your Shoulder, My My, Out For Blood, Cumbersome, Honey of Generation, Blue Letter, Water’s Edge, Wait, Laughing Out Loud, Big Bird. There may be a few others I can’t quite remember.
“Out For Blood” is the new song. It’s good. It’s rock-alt-country-blues. Think thi bonus song on Orange Ave. It’s like that.
“Big Bird” is a cover they’ve been doing for quite some time. It’s by a guy named Eddie Floyd. It rules. It was their show closer. Here is a video of Seven Mary Three playing the song (though not at the Allentown show):
Turnout for this show was much, much better than the Reading show I went to a few months ago. It was still fairly sad. There were perhaps 50 people watching 7m3, but after the (literally) fifteen people at the Reading show, it felt like freakin’ Madison Square Garden. And there were GOOD fans. They weren’t “Cumberfucks”, as they are called on the 7m3 message boards. These fans knew all the albums. And they cheered and sang along. Made me feel good!
Immediately after the applause had died down after the opening song, a really drunk guy yelled “Jason Ross! You are STILL the shit!” I winced, unsure how the famously moody Ross would react. He loved it! Exchanging grins with guitarist Thomas Juliano, Ross said “Thank you. Every day I wake up and I say to myself…’Am I still the shit?’ And some days, somebody tells me.” *Long pause* “And some days, they don’t.” GOOD STUFF.
This band was in a terrific mood all night. You could see Jason Ross’s smile clear as day through his ridiculous beard. Juliano was jumping around the stage like a 19 year old. Even Casey Daniel was moving around, grinning ear-to-ear.
Thomas Juliano
Sometime during the first few songs, somebody yelled out “Roderigo”, a song from their first album that is a major concert rarity. Next song, they played it! (it wasn’t on the setlist, I could see the setlist from where I was standing. Songs removed from the setlist: “Upside Down” and “Dreaming Against Me”.). Anyway, this must have made the crowd basically think the band was going to continue taking requests. The rest of the night, in between songs, seemingly everyone was shouting out song names (even I, once, shouted for “Where Are You Calling From?”…more of a longshot than ‘Roderigo’!). You might think this woul dpiss off some bands, but they just kept laughing. At one point Ross turned to Juliano and in a very funny voice said “They’re all screaming at me!”. Later, he made a ‘calm down’ motion with his hands and whispered “I’ve got a list.” You had to be there, but trust me, very funny stuff.
After seeing them twice touring on their new album, I can say with certainty that at this point in my life, “Was a Ghost” is my favorite part of a 7m3 show. It’s not a huge rocker, but it’s just really freakin good, and it gets a whole lot better in the live setting. These guys really know how to play this song!
After the show, Burke and I were leaving the pit in front of the stage when I saw that Jason Ross was hanging out down in the actual club, talking to fans, signing things, etc. So I gave Burke my camera and waited my turn. Now, I’ve spoken to Ross once before (and you can read that blog entry here), but Ross was NOT in a good mood that day, so I just shook his hand and said thank you. THIS time, though, I emoted a bit, telling him the music had “meant alot to me” and had “gotten me through some tough times”. He probably hears stuff like that alot, but it felt good to say it anyway, even if it is cheesy and cliche. Because it’s also true. Oh, and the picture:
What a show! I’m not sure if I’ll ever get the setlist up (I have a really good feeling no one else is going to post it for me to copy it and I have very little faith I can do it from memory). but highlights:
–“Roderigo”. Period. I had never seen it live and I don’t expect to ever again.
–A re-tooled “Dislocated” with an AMAZING jam session in the middle.
–“Sleepwalking”!!!!!!! my first time ever seeing it!!! LOVELOVELOVE!!!
–“Cumbersome” in the middle of the set! Craziness!
–They debuted a new song called “Out For Blood”…great song!
I think I’ll probably have a full-length blog on the experience tomorrow. Oh, also, I got to talk to Jason after the show and get my pic with him:
In one fashion, I am extremely unfortunate that this huge snowstorm came this weekend, as I had awesome—awesome—plans with my sister and mother to go to New York. It would have been GREAT! (we are totally rescheduling for January). In another fashion, however, I am extremely fortunate that it came this weekend, as I have off work, and I don’t have to get into my car until 11am Monday. In my line of work, where we work 3 out of every 4 weekends, this could only be seen as extremely fortunate.
The extremely sucky event of canceling my mom/sister trip did however lead to a fairly sweet event, in that I could now attend the Soulgrass Freedom Junction show that took place last night (friend Kate is the singer of the band, and she friggen rules), and a bizarre amount of people I knew ended up being there. Platonic soulmate Michael was also celebrating her graduation from graduate school (she’s gonna be a counselor!), so it was a pretty incredible night all around.
Duane, Burke, and Michael at the Soulgrass show
Kate belting out "White Rabbit"
So anyway, long story short, I didn’t get home and go to bed until 4am, which put my waking hours that day at 23–I had gotten up at 5am the previous day for work. Regardless of this really long day, I woke up with a shot at 6am, only 2 hours after falling asleep. I went to the window and saw a SHIT-TON of snow out there. I suppose it was the prospect of an entire weekend off with a major snowstorm happening that got me even more awake. I’m not sure why this was exciting to me, but it was. I was jazzed! So far, I’ve had an amazing day:
7am: I leave the apartment, dressed very inappropriately, with no plan whatsoever. I end up walking essentially all over town, ending up at Wal-Mart (all told, about 3 miles one way), as well as stopping for a nice breakfast at Fay’s Country Kitchen.
Breakfast at Fay's
What really amazed my about this trip was how absolutely desolate the world was. I mean, sure, there were some people around, but for the most part, all was silence (and it wasn’t 7am the whole time…all was silence at 9am, too). By the time I got home, I estimate my travel distance at 6.5 miles, on foot, in the snow…and I somehow had more energy than when I left?!?! This has been happening to me alot lately. I’m starting to get worried that I have bi-polar disorder, but I only suffer from the manic periods. I seem to have almost no need for rest. I’m not gonna complain until I end up in the hospital.
9am: Return home and finished watching The Orphan, which I had started when I got home from the show the night before. It sucks. Then watched the majority of Angels & Demons. It sucks too. Shower.
Noon: I leave the apartment again, walking back to Wal-Mart (that’s where the movie theater is, my destination wasn’t actually Wal-Mart). It was a little colder this time, and the snow seemed a bit more wet. There were more cars on the road than there were in the morning, but less pedestrians. I am still loving being in the snow and seemingly all alone in my town of Carlisle. I get to the movie theater around 1pm and watch Invictus (it sucks). There were 6 other people in the theater, which you might think is a lot of people for a blizzard day, but is actually very few people when you consider it’s 1pm on a Saturday. After the movie, I walked around the Wal-Mart plaza, quite blown away by the amount of businesses that had closed early (Applebees, Subway, Holiday Hair, Game Stop and even the Chinese Buffet were closed!!! Other than the big box stores, the only thing open was Panera Bread). Then I finally headed for home. Took this largely boring video on this leg of the journey:
The only really interesting part of this video is when I look at the ground, you can see how deep the snow is. Here’s another picture from this leg of the journey, looking at the ground. You can see my foot is entirely covered:
I stopped at Vinnie’s pizza (formerly Genova’s) and had a few slices. I was all alone and it seemed there hadn’t been anyone there pretty much all day. The guy behind the counter and I had a pretty good conversation about the storm and how many places were closed, and he ended up sitting with me while I ate. I must have been burning immense amounts of calories all day, because I ate the three (sizable) slices like they were jelly beans. I chugged the rest of my large Dr. Pepper, bid adieu to my temporary Vinnie’s friend, and set out to…um…find more food.
5pm: Arrive at the Hamilton. Devour two Hawchie Dogs and order a Blockbuster to-go, so I have something to eat later. As I leave, it’s getting dark and the snow—now very wet—is very unpleasant blowing directly into my face. Finally arrive home around 5:30. After about 10 minutes of rest, I find that I am now not tired at all, and in fact, am considering going back out soon.
Early this morning, Burke and I found ourselves awake in the wee early hours of Black Friday with nothing to do. We realized we shuld probably go to the nearby hub of consumerism, Wal-Mart, and just see what all this hoopla was about. This was the nightmare of humanity we encountered:
Notes From the Fire 
