Hearing the Old Man's Voice Again

Im watching Little Monsters and something occurs to me: in the scene where Daniel Stern is watching TV (about 8:30 in on the clip here), he flips from a Celtics/Knicks game to a Phillies game where Harry Kalas announces "fastball inside to Schmidt..." then it cuts to him yelling at the Savage bros. that hes got a Celtics game the Sox and the Masters all on and he can't watch them all w/o the remote. How could the Phillies be playing the Red Sox huh?!?! and why would he be getting the Philadelphia feed. Two things: A - im a huge nerd for reazling this and B - it was nice to hear the old mans voice again

Netflix is a strange new world

netflix is wierd. Under "Movies you'll love", they recommended Goodfellas b/c I liked Sopranos Season 1 and Chappelle's show Season 1. I'm sorry, what does Chappelle have to do with Goodfellas? Its probably the same thing the Incredibles has to do with The Princess Bride, Spiderman and Raiders of the Lost Ark. Also, about half of their recommendations are based upon the fact that I liked The Royal Tennenbaums and Eternal Sunshine. Also, they think I will like Forgetting Sarah Marshall b/c I like A - 40-yr Old Virgin. check. B - Knocked Up. check. aaaand C - The Dark Knight. what?!? Seriously? Now the whole "movies you'll love" page is pretty accurate (partially b/c I spent like an hr one night rating movies). I like all of these movies, but I just find it absurd how they put random films together for these suggestions.

So, short review of things I've watched so far while having Netflix:

Breaking Bad Season 2 = amazing
500 Days of Summer = meh
Up = made me smile
Transformers 2 = made me grimace
The Hurt Locker = deserved it
9 = liked the imagery but plot was kinda lame
The Inbetweeners = brilliant

Tour blog 3

OK, OK, OK. So Penn State at 6am we (Bill in particular) had an idea. Hey since we're all wasted and it's morning out, how funny would it be if we all strolled down to campus and went to class?!? What followed is the funniest shit I've seen in a looong time. At 7am we started walking. RIDICULOUS!! We've got it all on tape and I don't really wanna ruin it for ya, but trust me, hilarious! I'll post some of the videos but Tom Beal has the best shit which will be on our tour DVD later. Long story short, Penn State was thus: waaay to much traffic, no one came to the show, the show was bad (I fucked up waaaay worse than usual), met some cool people. Eddie and Merideth from Cherry Darling Productions ruled, some amature Playboy model loves us, acoustic jams at Gregs apt, and then went to class and harrassed a music theory class and then a slew of pre-freshmen campus tours. I think there atleast a dozen or so kids who are definitely NOT going to Penn State now. Or maybe they definitely ARE. It's open to interpretation.

Over n out

Tour blog 2

For the sake of time spent reading per blog, this is everything leading up to yesterday/today. More to come The people at Scourge House in Cleveland Heights are the coolest motherfuckers on the planet. Is like god jizzed there and then they built a house on top of it! They let us stay, all the bands all the kids ruled. They actually knew the words to heart attaque. Let us crash, we smoked a shit ton of salvia and had a blast. By far the best show of the tour. Big ups to max, warren, noah, and esp. Branden(new best friend)!! Anyone ever goin on tour in the midwest hit these kids upppp.

Swing state in lake villa I'll was chill as shit too. It was a hooka lounge wit all these gnarly ass metal bands and then us. We fucked up a bunch but the kids dug us a bunch. Shout out to Pops and Screams of Winter (if your lookin for some bad ass head bangin metal, look these dudes up.

Pittsburgh was at the Stay Young house. Thank you so much to Tony and Cassie n all their roomie for hookin us up. Cassie was the sweetest person I encountered while booking this. Soooo willing to help. Prawn fucking killed it. Go see em in Philly w/ eveyone everywhere aug 14. Ape Up from Boston was the shit too. Big ups!! Also mad thanks to Kristen Fleurh for lettin us crash and annoy her roomate all night drinkin n watchin the State on her broke ass dvd player. What follows in Penn State was legendary. More on that in a minute. We fuckin love all of you.

Over n out

Tour blog 1

So it's 8:20am on Thursday, July 23rd. You have no idea how many emails and myspace messages I sent out with the subject "July 23rd". Actually not nearly enough as some upcoming dates, but still enough. This girl Cassie is letting us play in her house in Pittsburgh and has been super nice and helpful to us. Kristen Fleuhr is letting us crash at her apartment and has also been super nice. I just hope we get on the road by when we say we will we still hafta go and abandon Plic's car and Bill has to return a rental. (side not, I now own the only running automobile in the band... my how the tables have turned.) Anyways, we'll be leaving my house to meet up with the rest of the guys in about an hour. For god's sake wish us luck. I will try to update this once a day. Next stop the Steel City and I swear if I see Sidney, I promise you all I will punch him square in the mouth.

over n out.

Philadelphians Abroad!!!

So i've been playing music with the same band for 8 years now. We've recorded demos, we've even recorded a legit EP and full-length. But until yesterday, I still felt that we were still not the band I've always wanted us to be. We had never toured. And with yesterday's booking of our show in Rochester, NY, our tour is complete. Now of course we'll hafta deal with finding a van, I hafta learn how to drive it and we'll hafta deal with a ll the touring/road bullshit that every other band I've ever loved has had to deal with... and ya know what? I can't wait. It feels like I'm finally a part of this this long elusive club. I've seen all my favorite bands and where they've played and those places still seem untouchable (after touring, my next goal is to play a show at the Church). But now it seems atleast I can have something to boast. I've seen bands I was friends with, we were all on the same playing field and they went out and toured while we sat around on our asses.

I had alot of self-doubt and I'm terrible with rejection. So that's why I think i avoided booking a tour all those other years. I just can't take being told "yea you guys arent any good". Marty McFly had the same affliction. But now it's gonna happen. It feels like the 8 years I've spent doing this have not all been wasted. This is a huge milestone for me. Also it forced me to man up and get a drivers license, another milestone. One last reason why this is great for me. I've always had a little brother complex when it comes to the band Blue Collar. Seeing them practice in their basement when I was in 8th grade is what inspired me to start my own punk band. All my friends loved them and I wanted the same but I never got it. Kids went to my shows cuz it was something to do. Kids went to go see them cuz they WANTED to. And while they wrote great songs and had a great live show when they played the same bar night after night in the NE, they never took the plunge and went on the road. I realize Vinny's passing put a wrench in those spokes and believe me, I was so sad to see him go. But even now with this new version of the band, they're still stuck playing the Ashton twice a month. Well now I feel we've finally passed them by and the next time I see em will be in the rear view mirror of my van.

I realize this blog is kinda braggy (I don't mean for it to be braggy) and it kinda seems like I'm talkin shit, but I don't care. I'm finally fuckin proud of myself and it's a damn good feeling.

Licenses and Futures

So i finally got my drivers license. It's been close to 7 years now. I've been the butt of plenty of jokes by now, everyone from my best friends to even my parents. It wasnt nearly as hard as I had pictured all those years. I guess when it comes down to it I was just scared of growing up. Getting a license (and later health insurance) was just a sign I was becoming an adult and I think I wanted to just perpetually live in a world without responsibility (eventhough I was more than happy to get out of my house and pay rent/bills). I've been doing a good deal of reflecting recently, what with the tour coming up and my impending license test. I've been wondering if I died now if my life would be widely considered a success.

Tonite in the midst of a Phils game I attended w/ my dad, a band emailed me back about a show (I know he hates me using my blackberry during the games) and said "maybe we'll get you on this show" and then 5 minutes later sent a message back titles "Fuck it, you're in!" wherein apparently the listened to our shit and decided even if they had to sacrifice their own slot, they would make sure we played b/c they like what they heard so much. It really touched me and made me feel like someone appreciated the work I've been doing for years.

I think it's been a success so far and I've always believed in futures.