WONDERFULLY DEXTEROUS WOODLAND CREATURES (trained by geoffrey stevens)

Retro Front Porch Discoveries

2008-08-05T19:20:00.017-04:00

I've always had a soft spot for old party invitations. While we were cleaning out our old front porch at 51 Faxon, Nick and I stumbled upon a treasure trove of them buried in a long-dormant bureau. Some of them were still sealed in their packages, while a few had been filled out but never sent. I'm quite fond of the 2 frog ones, but that cocktail invite at the very end is a classic. Enjoy...

Also found: an exercise guide and a complete Tupperware catalog from the late 70s!

Midnight Screenings Have Officially Jumped The Shark

2008-08-05T18:37:00.003-04:00

I almost want to go just to see who's actually there...and then ask them why.

The Joey Harrington Party!

2008-06-25T15:05:00.012-04:00

Some photos recalling the fun, happy times we had at the Joey Harrington Party, held outside The Varsity of Atlanta, GA in late August of 2007. Diane Arbus, eat your heart out.

World's Most Overdramatic Death Scene

2008-06-25T14:55:00.005-04:00

From the comedy I directed my sophomore year in the spring of 2001, DROP DEAD.

The Theater's Greatest Death Scene from Geoffrey Stevens on Vimeo.

And here's my favorite scene of the show, later on in Act 2. It's a play within a play, and everything's going horribly wrong. The old lady in the show can't remember any of her lines, so the director has her lines piped into her with the aid of some headphones...and to disastrous results, of course.

Drop Dead Act 2 Hilarity from Geoffrey Stevens on Vimeo.

"Spring water sure is tasty."

2008-06-25T14:50:00.001-04:00

Well, fortunately Nick landed himself a wife that "tolerates" his gaseous ways (and the laughter that inevitably follows each and every belch and fart).

Nick's Future Wife from Geoffrey Stevens on Vimeo.

"This is the original rat's nest."

2008-06-25T14:45:00.002-04:00

The night before visiting Vanderbilt University in Tennessee during my 1998 April school vacation, I relented after much maternal prodding and let my mom remove the braids that had been in my hair for the past 6 months. Afterward, it wasn't a very pretty sight.

Geoffrey's Monster Hair from Geoffrey Stevens on Vimeo.

A Stevens Family Christmas, 2001

2008-06-25T14:40:00.001-04:00

Light the tree and let's get the morning gift-giving festivities started before Nick takes another pratfall, gets the dog riled up, and sends himself into hysterics

A Stevens Family Christmas, 2001 from Geoffrey Stevens on Vimeo.

"Can you tape my dance?"

2008-06-25T14:36:00.002-04:00

Admittedly not one of my prouder moments. I'd like to think I have better anger-management skills now. As for my dancing skills...?

And yes, farts and belches have always made the Stevens boys laugh.

A Stevens Family Dance Show Gone Wrong from Geoffrey Stevens on Vimeo.

"Cuz I like syrup, and it's so yummy."

2008-06-25T14:32:00.001-04:00

Aww. Kids. Aren't they just adorable?

Paul Loves Yummy Syrup from Geoffrey Stevens on Vimeo.

A 1989 Nick Stevens Bedroom Tour

2008-06-25T14:25:00.002-04:00

Yeah, I was only a mildly irritating younger brother. I cringe every time I hear that long, falsetto "Hiiiiiiii." But having the power to evoke that sort emotional reaction from me so quickly is also why I love this clip.

A Nick Stevens Bedroom Tour, 1989 from Geoffrey Stevens on Vimeo.

Snow Shoveling in the Stevens Family

2008-06-25T14:24:00.000-04:00

A Post-Snow Shoveling Stevens Family Moment from Geoffrey Stevens on Vimeo.

"Let's Go, Jeffa!"

2008-06-25T14:12:00.003-04:00

I felt a little embarrassed at my Harvard graduation. While everyone else's parents and family members were politely clapping and cheering when their name was called to collect their diploma, my dad decided to unleash one of his supersonic thumb whistles on the indoors crowd, and my uncle added a "All right, Jeffrey! All right! Yeah!" for good measure. But then my dad had to cup his hands around his mouth and scream, "Let's go, Jeffa!" like I had just made a diving catch in the outfield to end the inning. I love you both and I'm so glad you're that proud of me, but take it easy, guys!

I didn't fully regain my sense of humor about that moment until I watched the videotape, where Dad's unexpected monster whistle startles the old lady seated in front of him and nearly bursts her eardrum (or so the old drama queen makes it seem).

Geoffrey's Harvard Graduation from Geoffrey Stevens on Vimeo.

A Stevens Family Summer Vacation, 1997

2008-05-21T20:31:00.003-04:00

Paul: Is that on?
Me: Yeah.
Paul: (after a pause) Why?
Me: Something like this deserves to be taped.

Darn right it deserves to be taped! Though nothing beats the comedic timing of my Mom's repetitive pleas for all of us to stop everything we're doing to look for the cottage's one sharp knife that has somehow gone missing.

And bonus points to my cousin Paul for stepping on the dog food dish and knocking its contents to the floor.

Cape Cod Vacation, 1997 from Geoffrey Stevens on Vimeo.

A Stevens Family Christmas, 2000

2008-05-21T20:29:00.002-04:00

"Joy to the world, Geoff is born!"

Nick can sometimes be an Annoying Older Brother, Exhibit A.

A Stevens Family Christmas, 2000 from Geoffrey Stevens on Vimeo.

Our Mom's A Chipmunk

2008-05-21T20:27:00.001-04:00

Our Mom's A Chipmunk from Geoffrey Stevens on Vimeo.

Sloshball '08, get out and vote!

2008-05-16T01:58:00.003-04:00

"The non-stop barking beagle"

2008-04-15T12:17:00.002-04:00

This is what happens when the Stevens family goes on vacation to Cape Cod and they leave their untrained beagle puppy in the cottage while they go out to dinner.

They come back after dinner and find notes like these, written on the back of a Parenting magazing envelope, left on their door.

"Goodnight, Geoff"

2008-04-11T18:17:00.004-04:00

Yup, that's what Nick says to me as he's heading off to his first day of junior year...at 7 in the morning.

Also, watch for the late reveal of the jeans.

"Goodnight, Geoff." from Geoffrey Stevens on Vimeo.

"Airball!"

2008-04-10T13:37:00.006-04:00

In this installment of Stevens Family Videos, dated July of '96, Nick (with an assist from our Dad) tries shooting some hoops in our back yard, but his aim, touch, and luck ain't too hot...

Basketball, Stevens Style! from Geoffrey Stevens on Vimeo.

"I Got A Zoomer!"

2008-04-09T16:26:00.005-04:00

In today's clip, the Stevens Family deals with the attack of the April Fool's Day blizzard of '97. Also included: rare footage of my dad shoveling snow- could be a collector's item.

The April Fool's Blizzard from Geoffrey Stevens on Vimeo.

"Let's Go To Rockingham Park!"

2008-04-07T18:07:00.001-04:00

And neither of us can catch the hat. Gets me every time.

"I'm gonna strangle you, ma"

2008-04-07T18:03:00.004-04:00

Dated January 10th, 1988. Nick wakes up one morning and comes downstairs to the kitchen, displaying his physique while by only sporting underwear and a yellow Panda t-shirt. Luckily, my mom had rented a video camera that weekend to record my 7th birthday party.

Nick In His Panda Shirt from Geoffrey Stevens on Vimeo.

NB- The movie Nick saw the night before? Arnold Schwarzenegger's "The Running Man."

Beisbol Esta' Aqui, Amigos!

2008-04-02T19:07:00.004-04:00

Now that the 2008 baseball has fully arrived, I'm reminded of some funny exchanges between announcers Joe Buck and Tim McCarver during last year's All-Star game:

Tim McCarver: If his hobby wasn't cooking, his name would be Little Papi.
Joe Buck: (prolonged awkward silence)

AND LATER ON...

Tim McCarver: I'll have to ask Chase (Utley) if he limits his dancing to weddings only.
Joe Buck: (another prolonged awkward silence) I...I don't know.

Pete Holmes Vs. My Dad

2008-04-01T13:16:00.003-04:00

Comedian Pete Holmes Vs. My Dad, George Stevens

For some reason, my Dad feels the need to pipe up at comedy shows and take it upon himself to help answer the performers' rhetorical questions. He had done this at a Shark Show before and peeved many a comedian, so I guess this is his delayed comeuppance.

And for the record, Pete Holmes is one of the nicest, most genial comedians around, and one of the funniest, too. His set just wasn't going great that night for some reason and he was feeling a bit off, so he decided to take his frustrations out on my dad. As you can see, it helped!

Jack Bradley's Greatest Falls!

2008-03-28T16:27:00.006-04:00

JACK BRADLEY'S GREATEST FALLS!

Jack Bradley's Greatest Falls! from Geoffrey Stevens on Vimeo.

Since getting a DVD recorder for Christmas (thanks Mom and Dad!) I've been busy converting all the old Stevens family home videos from deacying VHS tapes to DVD, a more permanent medium for safe-keeping. I gotta say, there is some serious gold on these tapes.

The first installment of the Stevens Family Videos, embedded above, is Jack Bradley's Greatest Falls, from the fall of 1989.

Happy Holidays, Y'all!

2007-12-21T03:54:00.002-05:00

OK, You Got Me. I Molest Gorillas

2007-11-28T22:12:00.001-05:00

My Summer Jammy Jam

2007-07-20T14:58:00.000-04:00

http://youtube.com/watch?v=fo_QVq2lGMs

When I first heard this song, I didn't like it at all, but after watching the video a few times, which is AMAZING, this quickly became my official summer jam of 2007.

You might remember this group Justice- when their video won Best Video at the MTV Europe Music Video Awards, a clearly DRUNK Kanye West got up in the middle of their acceptance speech and said HE should have won for his Touch The Sky video instead. Classy! At least it gave them a ton of free publicity.

Now I wanna see Tony Shalhoub follow in Kanye's footsteps this fall when he loses an Emmy (Hh yes, he will lose. He must!) to Alec Baldwin, Ricky Gervais, or Steve Carrell.

Best Actor In A Comedy Series

2007-07-19T10:28:00.000-04:00

If Tony Shalhoub wins one more Emmy for Monk, especially this year over the 3 top actors on this list, then there is something severely wrong with A) the Emmy voting process, B) The Emmy voters themselves, or C) The World. Take your pick!

ACTOR IN A COMEDY SERIES
Alec Baldwin, 30 Rock
Steve Carell, The Office
Ricky Gervais, Extras
Tony Shalhoub, Monk
Charlie Sheen, Two and a Half Men

Oh, and NBC? Are you still debating on canceling 30 ROCK after it scored you 10 freakin' Emmy Nominations? Think you can still find a spot on your loaded fall lineup for the funniest show on TV?

Youtube Comment

2007-02-23T14:48:00.000-05:00

While watching a Youtube clip of Matt Damon dooing a Matthew McConaughey impression on Letterman, I ran across this comment. Best laugh of the day for me right here:
______________________
tubepotatoes1 (2 months ago)
underrated? the guy has been in a ton of movies and gets paid millions to be in each one. If you want to talk about under rated why don't you go talk to Tim Medows
----------------------

I love that the poster digs Tim Meadows, cites the injustice that Tim Meadows still hasn't been recognized as a serious talent in Hollywood, and feels the need to bring his name up out of thin air in the conversation, yet can't spell Meadows' surname correctly. Really, have Matt Damon and Tim Meadows EVER in the history of time been compared to each other? Tubepotatoes1, I salute you for your bravery and keen acumen!

Toy Thoughts

2007-02-14T12:01:00.000-05:00

These dolls frighten me. Especially when they have fully functional working parts. I see dolls like these in toy stores now and I can't help but think of that creepy Soderbergh film, Bubble, set in a souther doll factory. The trailer for that film was disturbing.

These dolls, and all the ridiculous care they require, remind me of that insipid Tamagotchi mini- craze back in the late 90s. What on earth were we thinking? I guess the tomigatchi could keep us company while we waited in line overnight for a Furby. Anyone seen or heard of those things lately? I gotta admit, I was shocked hasbro still had a website up and running for those guys. I've still never seen one in person or met someone who had one or even knew of someone having one.

Just give me a plain old battery/computer chip-free Gizmo and I'll be happy. Though, much like an electronic Furby, I can't let Gizmo get wet, either. Oh well, guess I'll have to swim those laps today all by my lonesome. Gizmo can look on pool-side, he's my life coach.

Man Vs...

2007-01-15T18:52:00.000-05:00

.
.
.

Man Vs...

2007-01-12T21:03:00.000-05:00

Man Vs...

2007-01-12T21:01:00.000-05:00

File Name of the Day

2007-01-12T13:30:00.000-05:00

In the day-to-day drudgery that is insurance adjustment office temp work, you have to relish and enjoy the little things, like funny or odd file names.

Today's award for best insured client name goes to: JAMES F. CRAPOTTAR

There's just no way around that one from my perspective...

Man Vs...

2007-01-11T00:17:00.001-05:00

Man Vs...

2007-01-11T00:09:00.001-05:00

Man Vs...

2007-01-11T00:01:00.001-05:00

Man Vs...

2007-01-10T23:44:00.000-05:00

Man Vs...

2007-01-10T23:31:00.000-05:00

The funniest box of crackers...

2007-01-10T23:22:00.000-05:00

...I've ever seen.

I can picture an old married couple eating these, a couple of active seniors reminiscing about the good old days.

A Geoff Stevens Original Christmas Card

2006-12-20T03:35:00.000-05:00

.
.
.
.
.
.

Stevens Bros. Halloween Costume Hall of Fame

2006-11-09T18:39:00.002-05:00

Ingenious way of incorporating my crutches into the costume, huh? That night, Nick came along with my Dad as I trick-or-treated the neighborhood. The result? We got unmercifully egged in a drive-by on Liberty Street. Nick found the yolk inside the pocket of his new jacket.

Pirates often spurned swords for well-endowed vibrators. That's me as Oscar the Grouch in the corner.

Check out the killer cape my grandma made for me. That thing's still in mint condition in the back of my closet.

You're guaranteed to see this haunting visage in your nightmares tonight.

Hey everyone! It's the world's saddest rodeo clown!

Ah, the greatest photo Walker Evans never took.

Watch out for the chubby, mullet-clad teenage Terminator!

Love Is What I Do

2006-09-19T12:23:00.000-04:00

Two weeks ago, Nick's good friend and college roommate, Kevin, the "swing" for several of the show's principle characters, got to play the lead role in the Wedding Singer while the usual Robbie Hart was on vacation for the week. He's been on Broadway and off-Broadway for the last 10 years in Les Miz and Altar Boyz, but I had never seen him perform, and neither had my Mom. She drove down to NY last Friday, looking almost more excited than she did on Nick's wedding day, and a bunch of us- me, Mom, Nick, Emily, and Krister- went to see Kevin play the title role on Friday night.

The show was a lot of fun, and it was a thrilling experience to see Kevin up on stage for two and a half hours. The play itself was a lot better than I expected, thoroughly entertaining and never boring. Watching Kevin, I had a smile on my face for the whole show, so much that I gave myself a headache after a while, but I couldn't help it.

The big surprise of the show, though, was Konstantine from last year's American Idol. I never saw any of that season since I was in Turkey the whole time, but he really impressed me playing the role of Robbie Hart's best friend.

After the show, we got to cut through through the velevet rope, walk through the actor's door, and check out the stage. Here's a shot of me, Kevin, and Mom on stage, though it was so dark you can barely tell where we are.

The most staifying part of the evening was seeing Kevin come outside afterwards and greet all the fans who wanted to talk to him, take a photo, and even get his autograph.

Here's another shot of Mom and I outside the theater before heading home.

With Mom's limited mobility, we couldn't walk to a less crowded area to hail a cab- we must have stood on the corner of 9th Ave. for about 20 minutes before we flagged down a free taxi.

Noooooo!

2006-09-19T12:21:00.000-04:00

Now that the Red Sox have been out of the playoff race for a while, the Pink Hats have decided to descend upon the Patriots and Foxboro Stadium this season. I guess it was only a matter of time, but it still hurts.

The Wire on Critical Fire

2006-09-18T15:37:00.000-04:00

The Wire has been getting rave reviews and pleas of "Please Watch This Show!" for the past few weeks, leading up to its season 4 premiere last week. A lot of critics and writers are calling it the best show on TV, ever. I don't think they're too far off on that assessment.

I didn't even know about the show until season 2 was already over. I had read some great reviews in EW and elsewhere, but it wasn't a show a lot of people, at least that I knew of, were watching. On a lark, I bought the first season DVD right before I left for Turkey, thinking I'd need some good, dense TV shows to watch while I was overseas. Best decision I ever made. I started netflixing season 2 as soon as I got home in the summer of '05, and I just finished watching season 3 on DVD a few days ago. Season 4 just started up last week and for the first time, and it feels strange, I'm watching it in real time.

A friend of mine is having twins in the next few weeks, and he invited all his friends to a baby shower this weekend. Us guys, we didn't know what to get them- did they really need more baby clothes and kids' books? Krister came up with the plan of having a bunch of us pool our resources and buy the father-to-be the first 3 seasons of The Wire, since we all know he's going to be on serious lockdown once the kids arrive. He was ecstatic when he opened up the gift this past Saturday, although I don't think his very-pregnant wife was as thrilled as he was.

World Trade Center misfires

2006-09-18T15:01:00.000-04:00

Seems like they fumbled up the facts surrounding the rescue in World Trade Center and missed out on some of the more interesting plotlines and backstories.

United 93 is now out on video and, if you can stomach it, I highly recommend seeing it. It's the best movie I've seen so far this year.

Nick and Em on Wikipedia

2006-09-18T14:45:00.000-04:00

Nick pointed out to me last week that a picture of he and Emily shopping for vegetables accompanies the Wikipedia article for the Union Square Farmers Market. Pretty random, huh? Some NY lawyer and wikipedia maven snapped the photo and wrote the article sometime last fall apparently.

Homework

2006-09-18T12:44:00.000-04:00

I read this Slate article about elemtary school homework and outside reading, and it brought back a funny memory from 3rd grade.

My class was given an assignment to read for 30 minutes over the weekend. My teacher passed out little forms where we could fill in our name and have a parent sign on the bottom stating that we did, in fact, read a book for half an hour. On Friday night, with my whole family sitting in the clubhouse at the Raynham dog track, watching greyhounds run around in circles chasing a white motorizied bunny rabbit, it hit me that I had forgotten the form and left it in my desk at school. Oh the terror! Sound the alarm!

I was terrified- I wouldn't be able to complete my homework assignment, and I wouldn't be able to watch the "Fun Film" on Thursday afternoons for those kids who hadn't forgotten to do/bring in their homework all week. My stomach was too busy doing somersaults to realize that, DUH!, I could have had my Mom just write out a note herself saying that I read a book for 30 minutes. Where was that "outside the box" thinking when I truly needed it?

After sitting there watching the dog races while my stomach churned with dread and worry, a bright idea finally hit me- have my Mom actually follow me into school on Monday morning, come to my classroom, and sign my little reading form. Yeah, that'll solve all my problems! After that 20-minute panic attack, I could go back to enjoying quality time with Mom, Dad, and Gogo at the dog track. I still wonder why my mom didn't think of writing a new form from scratch for me, but she went along with my plan and came in with me on Monday morning nevertheless. My teacher, Miss Mavilia, told me she was impressed that my Mom came all the way to the classroom just to sign a sheet of paper.

A third grader should never be that worried over a homework assignment. I don't know what I was thinking...

The Speedy Fung-Wah

2006-09-06T12:48:00.000-04:00

Yesterday a Fun-Wah bus en route from New York to Boston rolled over onto its driver's side when it drove too fast on an off-ramp.

Was I surprised? Not really. Since my car expired earlier this year, Fung-Wah (and occassionally Greyhound) has been my primary way of getting back and forth from Boston to New York. It's hard to tell how fast the bus is driving when I'm in the back, it's dark, and I'm sleeping for most of the trip, but I was startled when one late trip from Boston to New York clocked in at 3 hours and 15 minutes. Sure, it was late and the roads weren't heavily trafficked, but when 4 hours or a little bit more is the standard, 3:15 is a little to rapid for my taste.

I took the Fung-Wah back to NY on a 9pm bus from Boston and arrived at 12:30am on the nose. It's nice to get back earlier than expected, but at what cost? I don't care which shortcuts the bus took- a trip that short in a full-size motor coach is a difficult feat if you're driving at the speed limit, or even a few miles over it.

I'm sure I'll use Fung-Wah again in the future- after all, they have buses going back and forth between NY and Boston all day, every day, and two incidents in the last 2 years where nobody's gotten seriously hurt isn't that horrible a record, but if it's a more convenient, I may spend the extra 5 bucks and add an extra 45 minutes to my trip and take Greyhound.

Jerome Jerome Jerome

2006-09-06T12:34:00.000-04:00

How many times can Chicago Cubs manager Dusty Baker mention his departing pitcher's first name in a single interview? The answer? A lot.

"It didn't work out," manager Dusty Baker said. "We were trying to wait on Jerome to work out. I know Oakland had probably been coveting Jerome for a while. They got a bird's-eye view of Jerome. … They have a very good idea of Jerome. I have a pretty good idea of Jerome, but I didn't see the Jerome that I had hope to see, or we had hoped to see."

A Look Back At The Wedding Day (LONG!)

2006-08-21T15:46:00.000-04:00

This entry on Nick's wedding day has been a long time coming (was it really over 2 months ago already???). I already wrote in detail about day 1 and day 2 back in mid-June, so I felt I needed to wrap this up to make the trilogy complete. Let's see if I can remember everything now, or at least the good parts.

When I woke up in the morning, after a late night hanging out with the guys in the lobby trading old Nick stories and Nick rhapsodizing about Patches behind the stove, I realized that Nick was already awake, out of bed, and gone. He was on the pre-wedding morning jog around the neighborhood surrounding the hotel. I went down to the lobby for breakfast and there were loads of wedding people down there eating and chatting. Nick arrived back from his jog with a giant bag of popcorn in tow. There was a giant Walmart just down the road, so he popped in, bought a bag of freshly popped corn, and jogged back with it. Walmart's popcorn is so good, too, almost movie-theater caliber, but everyone saw him and wondered, "Who comes back from a sweaty jog with a sack of popcorn?" It was good thinking, because it came into play later in the day.

As Nick entered the lobby, a group of people instantly surrounded him, wanting to wish him well, see how he was feeling, and ask questions. Looking back now, I should have stepped up as the best man and acted like a bodyguard for him, because he just got peppered with endless logistical questions and whatnot when he really needed to hurry back up to the hotel room and get showered and changed for the wedding. I don't think there was one time we got dressed or ready to leave the hotel when we weren't in the 2-minute hurry-up offense mode.

By the time we got up to the hotel room, we barely had anytime to get ready. Nick still had to shower, shave, iron his shirt, get his suit ready, etc., and not much time to do it. It was a frantic 15 minutes while the two of us ran around the room helter skelter. Neither of us had the chance to eat breakfast, so I threw a frozen pizza into the microwave. A few of the groomsmen were already down in front of the hotel in the van assigned to drive us to the church and we weren't even dressed yet. Once I got everything on, I grabbed the pizza and the bag of popcorn and Nick started down to the lobby more or less half dressed. I think he had on his socks, shoes, pants, and his shirt not even buttoned up all the way. He'd have to assemble the rest of his outfit while sitting in the front seat of the van during the ride.

The groomsmen were impressed by the pizza, but none of them were brave enough to eat it in the car- something about being afraid of getting grease on their tuxes or some nonsense. Someone commented that it really wouldn't be a Stevens wedding without someone holding and eating a pizza while in a moving vehicle. So true.

We got to the church really early, so there was a lot of waiting around before any fireworks happened. It amazed me watching everybody arrive, so many friends and family members descending upon the church in huge bunches.

Eventually Nick and I went to some meeting room in the back of the church so we could be sequestered and out of sight when Emily arrived. We were in there for, I'd say, a good 20 minutes, just waiting for the action to get under way while the woman in charge of flowers stopped by to attach our colorful boutonnieres. Nick wasn't nervous or anything, he was just energetic and ready to get the show on the road. If his knees and legs are jumpy even when he's sluggish, you can imagine what he was like while we were sequestered. At one point I started singing the chorus of Huey Lewis' "If This Is It," and then Nick, pacing around the room, picked it up and continued to sing the ENTIRE SONG, word for word. Afterwards, he remarked, "Wow, I had no idea I remembered or even knew all the lyrics to that song. That's crazy." Yes, it was.

Eventually Wilson and Emily's Dad came to get us. We walked down the hall, through the lobby and into a little room adjacent to the main room of the church, where all the groomsmen were piled in. There were 8 of us stacked in there, ready to bust out the door into the church on our cue.

It was a long wedding. It wasn't a Catholic ceremony with a full mass and all that fuss, but it somehow ended up being just as long, or even longer. Before the groomsmen even entered, a few tunes had to be strummed on the guitar and then some flutes performed a number or two. When it was finally our time to enter, I couldn't believe what a packed house I saw. With a crowd of 250, there wasn't an empty seat in the house. A few more and it would have been SRO.

The ceremony was long, but it went smoothly. The Halls had a 12-year-old girl enter before Emily and walk around the entire church ringing a bell. She had to walk up and down every row and it went on for a while. People started to laugh, and even the bell ringer herself started laughing at the interminable ringing. Has anyone ever seen this performed before? Twenty seconds of bell-ringing? Fine. But almost a full minute? Make it stop!

There were two readings during the ceremony- one delivered by Emily's grandmother, Eloise (she got a rousing ovation afterwards), and the other from my Aunt Patty. She read a passage from "Fahrenheit 451," which I also used as the closing paragraph of my high school graduation speech. Nick asked me a week earlier if I had any recommendations, and when I mentioned that, he said it was perfect. The only problem was I had to find it. I didn't know where I had any hardcopies of my speech, so right before I left the house in Braintree the previous weekend, I searched around Nick's room for my old 3.5 inch computer discs that stored all my high school work. I grabbed the one I thought might have my speech (we don't have any computers at the house anymore that have a 3.5 inch disc slot!) and lo and behold, I guessed the right one. I brought it in to work and retrieved the speech off one of the computers there, and found a lot of other funny stuff stored on there, including all of my email correspondence back and forth with Nick from 1999. What a time capsule...

There were a few more songs during the ceremony. Some family friend who was an opera singer did a song, and he also performed a duet with Wilson’s sister, Kate, who had a very impressive voice. The best song of all, though, was the Lord’s Prayer sung as a an a capella quartet by Emily’s dad, Bill, her brother, Daniel, Wilson, and Wilson’s dad, Pinckney. It really blew everyone away, and I had goose bumps all over. It was so good, I didn’t want the song to end. I was ready to call out for an encore, but thought it best for the wedding to, you know, proceed. Nick and Emily had to finally tie the know at some point or another.

Once the ceremony concluded, we in the wedding party lines up in the foyer in a reception line. Since it was raining/drizzling, there was no way we could have it outdoors. Thus, in order to exit the main church room, you had to go through the reception line, or do your best to skirt out of it. The line just went on and on and on...I felt bad for all the people trapped inside, sitting in the pews, just waiting to get out.

And because of the rain, all the wedding photos had to be taken inside at the church instead of at the reception (a shame, since the reception site, Caramoor, was ridiculously beautiful and photogenic). Once the receiving line died away, all the family stuck around for photos.

At this point, one of the two buses Nick had hired to ferry wedding-goers from the church to the reception (a 45-minute drive) should have left. The first bus was full and everyone was ready to go, yet Bus 1 couldn’t leave because the driver of Bus 2 didn’t have directions and intended to follow Bus 1. Terrible plan. So while we’re hanging out in the church taking about a hundred photos with the wedding photographer, there was a large group of wedding guests aboard Bus 1, growing more disgruntled and angrier by the minute. And all the while, we thought the first bus had left long ago since they had pulled around to the front of the church out of view. Guests with cars who drove themselves to the wedding got there a good hour before everyone else. And they also got first crack at all the delectable appetizers!

While taking photos, I liberally passed around the bag of Walmart popcorn, and people were just scarfing it down. A good thing, too, because I don’t think we were served dinner until around 8 o’clock and the wedding started around 1:30 in the afternoon. Once on the bus, the groomsmen and I went to town on the popcorn, and the bag was completely empty by the time we got to Caramoor.

Now, I opted to travel on one of the rented buses while Dad drove with my mom in his minivan. They didn’t come with directions to anything for the entire weekend, so they had to follow the buses to the reception. There was one big problem, though- the buses were flying down the roads at breakneck speeds in rainy, slippery conditions, and my Mom absolutely hates for anyone to drive fast, especially when she’s in the front passenger seat. From what she and Dad told me, she more or less lost it on the ride to the reception. Yelling, screaming, crying, thinking they were going to crash and die at any moment. She called Patty on her cell phone and asked her if she could tell the driver to slow down, but that didn’t do any good.

When we arrived at Caramoor and I saw Mom and Dad getting out of the can, she had tears streaming down her face and she was going on and on about how she thought she was going to die. Dad, meanwhile, stifling an eruption of his own, looked like he was ready to pull his hair out. How would you like to be charged with following 2 reckless, speeding buses in the rain while having someone shout and cry in your ear for 45 minutes non-stop? I was so glad I opted for the bus.

We had a cocktail-hour sort of deal under a medium-sized tent. They had a full bar, Nick’s jazz trio he hired was playing some great tunes, and the stone floor beneath us had little swastika symbols on it. Ahh, remember the good ole days when the swastika symbol didn’t have any affiliation with Nazi Germany?

The challenge for all of us at this time was to snag some appetizers. Waiters were walking around with some of the more unpopular offerings- some peach-like fruit hollowed out and filled with something not very appetizing-looking, while the in-demand appetizers like the mini-cheeseburgers, the crab cakes, and the ham biscuits were nearly impossible to find. I learned from Ari and Dan that the best strategy was to stake out the waiter’s entrance to the tent- that was really the only way to get anything, because they’d only be walking around for less than 30 seconds before their tray was empty. Meanwhile, the waiters with the fruit couldn’t pay people to take it off their trays. In the end, I was able to nab one of everything, save for the biscuits, which I heard were amazing from the guests who drove to the reception, got there an hour earlier than everyone else, and devoured them all before us bus-riding folk even arrived.

Amid all this bus-riding and appetizer hunting, I had a best man’s speech to organize and prepare. I really had no idea what I was going to talk about before the morning of the wedding, despite my Mom constantly asking me about the speech in the week’s leading up to the wedding day. I had some ideas, but in the end I ended up going in a completely different direction. I made sure to put a pen and a little waiter’s notebook in my jacket before I left in the morning. I jotted some phrases and bullet points down on the bus ride, and then I organized everything and attempted to put it in a mini-outline when I stepped away from the cocktail hour tent for a few minutes.

All in all, I was happy with how the toast went. I got a nice loud ovation just when the woman from the band called me up to the stage, and then another round of applause during the toast, too. I basically talked about how important Nick has been in my life, what a great guy he is, and how happy I am to see him succeeding in life now that everyone else is recognizing what I knew all along. I talked about Emily a lot, too, I didn’t want to make it all about Nick, and I told some funny stories about her and the two of them, though Nick told me afterwards that I probably should have explained what chiggers are (Emily got a bade case of chigger bites down in Tennessee last summer). My toast probably went on a little too long, but I couldn’t help it. I wish I had a timer up there to look at or some sort of red light that someone could have flashed. Not having written it out or been able to practice it at all beforehand, I was winging it, and I had no idea how long it would be- with just 7 or 8 bullet points hastily scribbled down on a tiny piece of paper, I didn’t think I’d go long.

I was pleased as punch over how much people appreciated it. I had people coming up to me all night long, a lot of them strangers I had never met, going out of their way to say what a great toast I delivered. Even when I ran into Nick’s friends here and there over the course of the summer, someone would pull me aside and compliment me on it. I guess if someone still feels compelled to say, “Great job on that speech” two months after the wedding, I did a good job in honoring Nick and Emily.

It didn’t help my concentration that I had a massive headache at the time. I felt one coming on when we first arrived at the church, but I certainly didn’t bring my backpack to the wedding ceremony, so I didn’t have any Advil on my person. Mom had some prescription paid medication in her pocketbook, but it didn’t do a thing. A whole pill of a percocet-like pill and it might as well have been a placebo. Later in the day during the reception, Dad gave me a couple of his prescription pain pills, and those didn’t do anything, either. I couldn’t believe it, and my head was POUNDING. At one point I stole away to a bathroom stall for a goof 20-30 minutes to massage my head and my pressure points, but that didn’t help, either. Nothing helped alleviate it until I got back to the hotel at the very end of the evening. I downed 3 advil and within 15 minutes I could feel the headache loosen its grip and 10 minutes later it was completely gone after about 12 hours of head pounding. Advil did the trick while Vicodin couldn’t even make a dent?

After the cocktail hour, they had us all move into the main tent, which was ENORMOUS. Apparently they give concerts there all summer, and they could easily fit a few thousand people under there. The tent went way up, so high, and there was a massive stage encircled with Greeks columns. It looked like we were celebrating at the Caramoor Parthenon. It was all so big, so giant, and so meticulously put together, I don’t know how anyone COULDN’T be impressed. I know I was.

Nick and Emily entered the main tent, for the first time being introduced as Mr. and Mrs. Stevens, and Nick had them walk into the opening of Coldplay’s “In My Place.” I made sure to have Paul go over to Nick later in the evening and say, “You know how I know you’re gay? Because you entered your wedding reception to Coldplay.”

I taped their entrance and their first dance on our new family video camera and I was lucky I did because Emily’s parents, amid all the wedding hoopla, completely forgot to videotape any of the reception. They had three camera tape the ceremony, but once they got to the reception it slipped their minds entirely. The next day, they thought they had no video recordings at all of the reception, but I relieved their worried and let them know I got caught the first dance and I circled around the tent, making sure to get all the guests for at least a few frames during the band’s first few songs. Aren’t I the swellest?

Aside from forgetting to videotape, Emily’s dad also forgot to bring the slideshow DVD that he premiered the night before at the rehearsal dinner. He had the grounds crew set up the projector, the dvd player, and all that stuff, and the DVD itself was nowhere to be found. Apparently, when we were packing everything up the night before, instead of leaving the disc in the player, Krister took it out and handed it to Mr. Hall, who put it in his jacket pocket, which was now sitting up in his bedroom at home. It was one of those “Oh, well” kind of moments. Would have been nice, but at least we all got to see it the night before.

It was pretty late by the time we were served our dinner, probably around 8 o’clock, I’d guess. By that time, people were HUNGRY. The food was fantastic- I, and many others, just wished there was more of it. I looked at everyone’s plates at my table after dinner, and they were completely empty. We had an extra setting at the table, and that plate of food disappeared in a heartbeat. After such a long day, I could have eaten an entire second plate of food without giving it a second thought.

Having a wedding with an open bar, there are always going to be at least a few people who drink a bit too much and get a little wild and crazy. Somehow, all those people ended up on Nick’s guest list. My cousin Andy, a year older than me, was hammered by the time cocktail hour had concluded. He could not even walk in a straight line, and I saw some of his brothers helping him into the main tent. My Aunt Donna, who blames it on her empty stomach, was equally sloshed. She came up to me during the night and gave me a giant hug. The she proceeded to walk away and crash into the bar, rolling a little bit on the edge of the table and knocking everything over onto the ground- awesome! My younger cousins, all of them way underage, got tanked on the wine at the dinner tables, and two of them were served at the bar no problem. And a lot of Nick’s friends, who can usually handle their liquor just fine, looked completely out of it at times. There was some mass consumption going on that night.

My cousins Kev and Mike, at the end of the night when little bottles of bubbles were being passed out, they assumed the little bottles were liquor. They unscrewed the caps and downed their bottles in one gulp- when they realized that what they had just ingested was not vodka, but in fact soap, they sprinted to the bathroom and gagged themselves until they threw it up. Gotta love weddings!

Once the reception was officially over, it was time for Nick and Emily to climb into their white convertible, cans attached to the back, and drive off. But since they had both been drinking at the wedding, it was actually me who did the driving. Well, they drove off to the end of the parking lot and then we pulled a switcheroo. Luckily, I had Gabe Roth in the passenger seat to keep me company and be my navigational Chewbacca for the journey back to Emily’s house. A journey for which we had no directions whatsoever while we were in the dark, out in the woods, in the middle of nowhere. It also started raining on the ride home, which doesn’t jibe with the idea of driving off in a convertible. While we were getting wet as we tried to find our way home (with a trail of cars following US) we never did put the top up, and I’m not sure why.

Eventually, after a series of guesses and wrong turns, we found our way back to Emily’s house in Westport. Meanwhile, back at the reception site, my Dad got his minivan stuck in a giant puddle of mud. When he started his car, I guess he backed up before pulling out and he got himself stuck really deep. He gassed it, and the car didn’t move an inch. A bunch of people came to my parent’s aid- Emily’s brother, her uncle, and her aunt. So they get in the back and start pushing his van while he’s gassing it trying to get out. The tires are sputtering and mud is flying everywhere, especially on everyone pushing in the rear. They got the car out eventually, but not before everyone was caked in mud from head to toe. We could still see numerous mud hand print on the back of the van the next day.

And even though we had a hard time finding our way back in the convertible, I’m glad I skipped the bus ride. One of my younger cousin’s, John, got really sick, and just started yakking everywhere. Apparently, it smelled fantastic. And this wasn’t a boot and rally- some people on the bus were really worried about him and didn’t think he was going to be OK. One of Nick’s friends, who can get a little over-emotional at times, started crying for him, and she went and sat next to him to try and soothe him, I guess.

I heard stories from other people about the two crazy bus drivers and how certifiably insane they were. One woman, she just started telling stories to anyone who listened, and if someone lent her an ear she’d just go off and ramble on about her twisted past.

And aside from being crazy, they were both terrible drivers. At one point, she actually drove over a street sign in Westport. Knocked it down and drove right over it. With the puking, the crazy rantings, and the safe driving, it really sounded like I lucked out getting the “just married” convertible ride home. A little rain sounds better than that!

Once we got back to the Hall house, we had a wedding after-party for about 2 hours. They had a keg out back, some snacks, and leftover wedding cake. I was just amazed how many people were still standing and able to hold coherent conversations after such a long day.

Once that after-party ended, we all got back on the bus (by this time the driver had covered the throw-up with a bag of kitty litter) to head towards the hotel. Once we got at the hotel, there was more hanging out and partying in the lobby there for another hour.

My cousins, full of bad ideas by this point, started calling up escort services from a newspaper they found in the lobby, trying to get some girls to drop in on them in their rooms later on, but I found out the next morning they had no luck.

So, that’s about all the pertinent stuff I can remember at this point. This is almost 7 pages, single spaced, while I’m typing it in Microsoft Word, so I think that should be sufficient for a blog entry. And to think, I tried my best to describe everything with the least amount of details possible, and it still came out this long. If you’re still reading, I salute you.

Moustachio Strikes Again (Unsuccessfully)!

2006-08-01T10:34:00.000-04:00

Ever the ignoble cad, the love-starved DJ Moustachio prowled around the upstairs of Mo Pitkins this past weekend and went so far as to make a pass at his own sister-in-law! She promptly rebuffed him with a hearty, endearing smile. Those at the table wondered aloud, over their manchego fries, their reuben sandwiches, and their numerous cans of Modelo, as to how she summoned the fortitude to resist him, especially with that manly tuft of chest hair peeking out of his brand new Hanes V-neck T-shirt. Some phenomena simply cannot be explained.

The Return To Cool

2006-08-01T10:28:00.000-04:00

The HVAC system was up and running in my office building when I came into work Monday morning, but the hot, sweaty, greenhouse memories of last week will not be forgotten anytime soon. I actually miss it a little bit. With all the lights turned off, fans blowing everywhere, engineers trudging around in t-shirts, shorts, and black dress shoes; it felt like we were in a bunker of some kind. It gave the ho-hum place a little character for a while. The biggest difference of all has to be the noise. Usually, my office is disturbingly quiet. You can practically hear footsteps from across the building. But with the fans running and the windows open last week, you could barely make out the PA announcements or hear the phone ringing 2 feet from your ears.

My old producer just bought a NY Paper for 10 million dollars?!

2006-07-31T17:32:00.000-04:00

The bottom of my stomach nearly dropped to the floor when I was paging through a copy of today's New York Post, fished out of the top of a garbage barrel in the subway, looking for movie times when I saw that the guy who helped produce my first 2 plays at Harvard just bought the New York Observer for a cool 10 million dollars.

Yup, 25-year-old Jared Kushner, producer of the Adams Pool Theater's Drop Dead and Hooters, now OWNS the eponymous salmon-colored New York weekly. My first reaction was disbelief. My 2nd reaction? Nausea! I'm a little shell-shocked. I think I need to go outside and get some fresh air.

Hazen and Sauna

2006-07-28T10:22:00.000-04:00

We haven't had any A/C in the office all week because of a fire on the 5th floor the building (24 stories in all) on Monday morning. Not everyone is affected though. Some floors have air and electricity, certain sections of floors have electeicity, but no air, and many cobinations there of. The elevator's have A/C, so when you step off those in the morning onto the 11th floor, you can feel the heavy, humid heat hit you like a bag of bricks. We're keeping most of the office lights out to stay cool as possible, although the lights in the bathroom simply don't work. We were peeing in absolute darkness until someone finally put some office lamps on the sink counter.

Yesterday, someone brought in one of those large clock-like thermometers that hang on the wall. I walked by it around 4 o'clock and nearly fainted when I saw the reading- 88 degrees! No wonder I was sweating bullets while barely moving a muscle in my office chair. It's bearable in the morning, but from 2-5, the greenhouse effect kicks in and we all start roasting and basting in our own sweat. Nobody comes to work in a suit or a shirt and tie anymore- it looks like we're all going to the gym in our shorts and t-shirts.

Meanhwhile, the office comptroller sent this email out to everyone yesterday explaining why it's taking so long to fix the air conditioning. Oh, the irony!

Work to repair the damaged buss section has been ongoing since the outage occurred on Monday -

Fortunately, the damaged pieces are manufactured by Siemens Corp, a tenant in the building, who has been without power on two of their floors - They have been able to expedite the shipping of replacement parts - those parts are in the process of being installed -

The current estimate for power and air restoration is after hours Friday, so one more day -

We'll send any updates as they are received -

Voice Over Shirts- Get 'em while they're hot

2006-07-27T10:24:00.000-04:00

Nick and I are now in the T-shirt selling business. Check 'em out!

Newest Ipod Accessories!

2006-07-26T23:59:00.000-04:00

With Microsoft aiming to soon dethrone Apple and their eponymous Ipod with its own portable music player, Nick came up with an idea for last weekend's Shark Show- what are some ridiculous, inappropriate items that Apple could Ipod-ize to increase its current market share? I came up with the images and did the photoshopping while Nick presented the slide show with his commentary at the show last Saturday night. Take a look at these advertisements for products that will hopefully never see the light of day...

Moustachio allays the female throngs

2006-07-24T14:07:00.000-04:00

Now please, ladies. You're gonna have to calm down. Please, I beg you! Try your best to collect yourselves, for everyone's sake here. We don't want to make a scene now, do we? No, we definitely don't want that, and we don't need one, either. Like I said, you're all going to get a turn, don't worry. I ain't going anywhere. No, no, I promise. Just take a number, have a seat- yes, on those leather couches behind you is perfect, and I'll get to you all as soon as humanly possible. If you brought a book or some kind of reading material, I admire your forethought. I'm only one man, remember. Albeit a sexy, moustachio-clad man, but nevertheless, there's only one of me. OK, #725 please step forward and away we go...

Goodbye My Friend, Goodbye My Lover...

2006-07-24T09:46:00.000-04:00

Krispy Kreme, producer of the world's greatest donut when served fresh and hot off the assembly line, is shutting down all Massacusetts stores, save for one shop located on Route 1 in Dedham. All the KK locations in NYC have closed, too, except for one on the upper east side. What caused the old KK to go downhill so badly and so quickly here in New England?

Read about it in the Boston Globe.

Some interesting stats found in the article:

--- Customer tastes have changed, said Honey Dew Donuts founder Dick Bowen. When he opened the first Honey Dew 33 years ago, 70 percent of sales came from doughnuts. Today coffee accounts for more than 60 percent of sales for the 150-store chain and doughnuts for 12 percent.

--- With 63 percent of its sales coming from beverages, Dunkin' Donuts has repositioned itself as a coffee company.

--- Minus land costs, it's a $2 million investment to open a Krispy Kreme locally, compared with about $500,000 to open a Dunkin' Donuts.

Sending a signal to Masspirg street reps

2006-07-20T16:31:00.000-04:00

For anyone who lives in Boston or has spent any time in the surrounding area, you might want to invest in one of these tshirts. Much like the recent college grad who started making them, I agree with and believe in Masspirg's goals and aims, but I hate, repeat, absolutely hate being accosted (or aggressivley approached) by clipboard-holding Masspirg reps on the sidewalk while I'm walking from point A to point B. And quite frankly, at the moment I don't really have the kind of money they're looking for anyway. Wouldn't they fare better staking out Beacon Hill and Newton instead? People speed up their pace, turn their head, quickly try to throw their headphones over their ears, or even cross the street to avoid these eager, friendly-looking college-age reps. Don't let their guise fool you- they are either feared or loathed by the masses.

2006-07-14T16:03:00.000-04:00

You can't deny the Americana deliciousness that is Mo Pitkins' deep-fried macaroni and cheese.

Also, did you know there's a restaurant in New York solely devoted to macaroni and cheese now? It's called SMAC, and it's located over on 12th street between 1st and 2nd Avenue. I had myself a small crock-pot of their 4-cheese variety covered in bread crumbs before going to see Brick (which I loved) Wednesday night.

Usher on Broadway? "Yeah!"

2006-07-14T11:25:00.000-04:00

Ouch. Stunt casting, or just plain bad casting? You decide.

Usher will soon be playing the lawyer Billy Flynn in Chicago.

Think they'll work some of his trademark back-flips into the Fosse choreography? Maybe Lil' Jon will cameo as a chorus boy.

Looking Into The Past

2006-07-13T17:13:00.000-04:00

I had a lot of free time at work today (i.e., they gave me nothing to do or to work on the entire day), so I logged onto myspace (which somehow has become unblocked in the office recently, along with everything else that used to be blocked) and browsed around looking for Braintree High School grads. When you’re sitting there strapped to a desk for 8 straight hours, web activities like this are about as wild as you can get.

It’s funny looking at the profiles of people I haven’t seen or even thought of for 7 years. Some people look unrecognizable, and others look exactly the same. Some have moved far away, some have gotten married, and some even have children by now at age 25. Then there are those I don’t even remember at all. My graduating class was a shade over 300 people. Around a third of them are on myspace, and I feel like I never met or even laid eyes on a third of those.

The class of ’99 never had a 5-year reunion (our class president was living in Australia at the time, and nobody else picked up the ball to organize it, or so the story goes), so logging onto myspace and doing a class of ’99 search is almost feels like the next best thing, or at least a virtual replacement until our 10th year reunion rolls around.

While I was poring over old photos for a slideshow that was displayed at Nick’s wedding, I came across a Polaroid of me and my first-ever crush all the way back from elementary school- her name was Siobhan. I met her on the first day of 1st grade, and man, was I in love. Yes, I was only 6 at the time, but I adored her to no end. She was the most beautiful girl I had ever met. We were never good friends or anything, but we were in the same class in 3rd grade, and for one term we were assigned to sit next to each other. I was in heaven! She was just a really cool girl, and Siobhan even played for the boys’ little league baseball team instead of playing softball with the girls. I was impressed.

You can’t imagine how dismayed I was when I showed up for the first day of 6th grade and she was nowhere to be seen. She hadn’t moved away, but her parents had enrolled her in a private catholic school across town, Archbishop Williams, commonly referred to as Archie’s. I never saw her again. I was 11, madly (and secretly) in love, and absolutely devastated. That was 14 years ago, but I never forgot about her. She was my first love, after all, even if she (or anyone else, for that matter) had no idea.

So when I was browsing through BHS grads yesterday online, I thought, “Hey, I wonder if Siobhan is on here.” I clicked on Archbishop Williams, scrolled through a few pages, and there she was. I was stunned. She looked like I pictured she would, and she still lived in the south shore area. I didn’t see her listing any colleges; I was surprised because I always thought she was pretty smart. And then I saw it- she had a child. And she wasn’t married, either. Now I was even more stunned. The wind was knocked out of me like I took a blow to the stomach. I sort of sat there in my chair for a good 10 seconds, dazed.

I suppose I had idealized her in my mind all these years- perhaps I expected to see her...well, I don’t know what I expected. Enrolled in grad school somewhere on the west coast, saving poor Ugandan orphans in her spare time? I don’t know. I just didn’t expect her to be, you know...a mom.

For me right now, the idea of having kids is just so intangible and unthinkable; I have trouble wrapping my head around the idea that anyone I grew up with and went to school with is now a parent. I’m having a difficult enough time picturing some of my classmates married!

I just watched my 32-year-old brother get married last month, and that was hard to believe. Now, in the end of September I’ll watch a girl I’ve known since 6th grade get married at St. Francis church in Braintree. As for me, I’m in arrested development, just trying to figure out how to meet girls, go on a date, and enter a relationship. I have a lot of catching up to do.

The Maritime

2006-07-13T16:56:00.000-04:00

I love walking by this building. I pass by it everytime I go from the Chelsea pool to the 14th street subway, and it reminds me of some structure out of Blade Runner's production design department.

Free Chips? The Way To Go

2006-07-12T12:54:00.000-04:00

I know recently wrote about the gut-filling wonder of Chipotle, but I've recently "discovered" another mexican-themed place with an even better selling hook. Burritoville offers all you can eat chips and salsa while you're eating your meal and/or waiting for your order. How's the salsa? Some of the best I've tasted in a long time. Once can waltz up to the counter, pile fresh chips onto a plate and choose from an assortment of salsas and taco sauces. This, my friend, is what I call a deal. I'm shocked my brother, carbohydrate lover chip master that he is, doesn't patronize this joint more often.

There's really no need for Chipotle to follow this business model, though, as I still can't finish their super-sized burrito anyway.

Dual Business

2006-07-12T12:45:00.000-04:00

On my way from the subway exit to the office this morning, I walked by a man wearing a sandwich board as he passed out flyers for a local business. His sign was advertising a shoe repair store, but there was a sticker on top of the board making special note that they also specialize in buying and selling gold and silver. Huh? What do precious metals have to do with fixing the heel on a boot?

That sign reminded me of Nick's barber shop ( 2 1/2 years ago I received my last short hair cut there, and it was not a good one) over near 1st and 14th. Not only can you go there to get your hair cut, but you can buy watch batteries there, too!

Last Saturday

2006-07-11T15:14:00.000-04:00

This past Saturday my level 3 improv class had its graduation performance. We had about 10 audience members in attendance, which was rather abysmal, espeically when compared to the level 3 performace before ours, which had a veritable crowd of 40 to watch their Harolds. Ten people in our class (we actually started 8 weeks ago with the max enrollment of 16, but it dwindled fast), and all we could manage was 10-member audience. And I, alone, was resonsible for nearly a third of the atendees!

I was glad it came to an end, as level 3 wasn't nearly as fun nor did it have as good a student body as my level 1 or level 2 classes. I'm baffled by this phenomenon, but does the talent and humor level of the other students in the class go down as you advance through the higher levels? This is what we would call an indirect relationship. One variable goes up, the other goes down. I'm crossing my fingers that level 4 will go better, but it didn't seem promising when by far the 2 worst improsers of the class emailed everyone to let them know they starting level 4 classes the following week. I'm glad I decided to take a breather- I don't know if I could have taken another class with those two. They got on my nerves and frustrated me that much. I have plenty of detailed-filled stories to back up my claims, but I won't get into them here and now.

My class actually rented a space and got together to practice the night before the show, but I didn't go. Not that I'm some social butterfly, but I could think of better things to do from 8-11pm on a Friday night in July. I opted instead to go to the 3rd and final NY performance of God's Pottery and their concert to Save Lavert. I'd already seen the workshop and the previous 2 shows, but I really likes the show and I was happy to support Krister and Wilson before they jaunt off to the Fringe Fest in Scotland for a month (where they are performing every night non-stop!).

After the God's Pottery show at UCB, the GP Boys and I headed over to the Triple Crown on 28th and 7th where Shayna Ferm was having a co-ed bachelor/bachelorette karaoke party. I didn't know a lot of people there (recognized a few from comedy shows, though), but I did my old failsafe song, Lou Rawls' "Never Gonna Find Another Love Like Mine," and acquitted myself rather well, I'm proud to write. People were cheering me on, Shayna kept saying she had no idea I could sign like that, and I had a few people come up to me afterwards saying, "That was really impressive!" Nick and Emily were just getting out of The Da Vinci Code, and shame on him for being late, because the second girl who got up to do a song stole his trademark number, Tina Turner's "Private Dancer."

It was a quality Friday night, but back to the improv show for another moment. We started warming up a little after 3:30, and our teacher, who's pretty passive and a little too under-involved for my taste, didn't direct us in any way. He just kinda sat there and told us, "Warm up," so we had to direct ourselves, which felt a little odd, but we're adults and level 3 grads, so I suppose we could handle it. We played this one game that involves a lot of running around the stage, getting the blood pumping and your heart rate up. I've never had a problem with it before, but one of the guys in the group, a rather awkward, uncoordinated fellow, managed to run by me with his arm outstretched in a clothesline fashion and his hand balled up in a fist. He ended up clocking me right in the chest. It made a loud pop and everyone running around on the stage just stopped. The punch went right into my solar plexis and completely knocked and and all wind out of me for a few moments, moreso because it was so unexpected and surprising.

I was really angry at the guy- it really did hurt, and it was still a little sore that night- but I shrugged it off the best I could and we collectively decided that there was no need to play that game any longer. Four o'clcok came and both of the girls in the class still hadn't arrived. We started strategizing what to do with our teacher with only 8 people present for the show, only then to have the 2 girls waltz in a few minutes after 4 with nary an apology or an explanation. Awesome. Way to keep class morale up!

Overall, the show wasn't the disaster I predicted. I was only in the first Harold (we drew straws to see which 2 got to go twice), and it seemed to move all right, though one scene was just DOA the whole way through. With only 10 people in the seats, it was pretty quiet, and even quieter after Nick and Emily made a getaway before the 2nd Harold began. We went out for a drink afterwards, but aside from the one guy I already knew and befriended from level 2, we never really bonded or came together as a class. I'm glad the class has concluded and now I'm free to move onto the next level when it's offered.

Afterwards, I F-trained it on down to the lower east side and got my Shark Show DJing and teching on. It was a good show, not quite matching the shocking high of the previous week, but solid nevertheless. Even though the crowds have only been in the high 20s and low 30s since summer began, the shows have gotten a lot better and more organized and pre-planned since the spring. We have the entire month of August off, which is a blessing, because it's nearly impossible to get people in the seats- either nobody wants to see comedy in the late summer or everyone's out of town over the weekend. It's a smart move.

A Three Hankie Affair

2006-07-06T15:49:00.000-04:00

I've seen a lot of tear-inducing movies of late. I don't know if it's my film selection or just me and my free-wheeling emotions.

Last week I "netflixed" (is this word, as a verb, entered into the OED yet? It should be) Eight Below. Wow, you know, I actually typed out 'Snow Dogs' first and then realized that I would never be caught dead renting that Cuba Gooding, Jr. movie. And don't get on me for watching Eight Below, either. It was a terrific film. I thought it would be Disney drivel when it was released in theaters over the winter, but when all the glowing reviews started coming in, I changed my mind and decided I wanted to see it, though I didn't deem it worthy of an $11 ticket at the theater. And you know what? I was wrong- I think I would have enjoyed it even more on the big screen since the cinematography of the Arctic landscape (they used Northwestern Canada to sub in for Antarctica) was so well shot.

Eight Below, while being very earnest, is also a tear-jerkey, especially for a dog/animal loving person such as myself. A powerful storm hits the area where a scientific tema is stationed and the have to be flown out of the region immediately. With no room on the plane for the sled dogs, they're left behind to fend for themselves for six months while Paul Walker tries like the dickens to convince someone to fly him back down there to rescue them.

After the first 45 minutes of setup and exposition, this movie quickly becomes a cry-a-thon. Now, I didn't start out anf out bawling, but there were at least 3-4 moments where my eyes started to well up with moisture. And the movie doesn't hammer it home incessantly, either. It's just a dramatic story, and one actually based on fact (from when a Japanese team was evacuated and some of their dogs managed to survive the winter until they returned). The dogs are constantly in peril while their owner is powerless to save them until the winter passes. This formula equals eye misting everytime, people.

Two weeks ago I attended an Onion-sponsored screening of The Iron Giant, the animated movie from 1999 that Brad Bird directed before The Incredibles. After that monster hit for Pixar, this gem of a forgotten, ignored movied started getting the recognition it deserved. I watched a horribly scratched print of it when I worked at Quincy Cinemas back in the summer of '99 when I worked there, and I always felt a little cheated. Getting to see it in the theater again, with a sold out, appreciative audience to boot, was a wonderful, fortunate experience. And even though I've seen it about 7 times now and showed it to all my students in Turkey last year, I still got choked up near the end. That's some powerful stuff right there. If you haven't seen it, or if, god forbid, you've never heard of this movie, get thee to a video store or put it high up in your queue soon. It's quick, clean, rich, and full of odd bits of humor at every unforeseen turn. It's about time The Iron Giant gets its due from the masses.

And lastly, my worst offense by far, has to be The Notebook, which I rented back in April. And no, I wasn't forced to watch it with a girl, either. On Nick and Emily's advice, I rented it of my own volition and watched it by myself at my apartment. See, I'm fessing up; this is full disclosure, people. I have no secrets to hide. I sat alone on my couch one night, watched The Notebook, and enjoyed the hell out of it. And I cried. More than once.

Ahhh, I feel like a great weight has been lifted. Again, this was one of those movies I'd never deign worth seeing in the theater, though I remember noticing how its box office receipts hardly decreased from week to week when it was out 2 or 3 summers ago. I'm a big fan of Gosling and McAdams, and the movie just worked, much aided by their undeniable chemistry and well, talent, too.

My only qualm was with the final 10 minutes. It just went overboard a little too far, nearly pushing it into Movie of the Week territory. And for me, the ending was too much of a downer. I know it's supposed to be romantic and bitter-sweet, but I just tasted the bitter part. They could have just ended the movie in the past and not gone back to the present-day happenings and I would have been far happier (because we all knew what was going on in the present day wouldn't have a happy endind- why show it in full, graphic detail like that after such a sweet finale in the flashbacks?).

Those are my 3 tear-inducing movies of 2006 so far.

It's funny how my 2 of my 3 worst tear-jerkers were Michael Keaton movies. Number one all time has to be the Gary Sinine/ John Malkovich version of Of Mice and Men. I watched that in 6th grade and bawled my eyes out for over an hour after it ended. I was a wreck.

Number 2 is My Life with Michael Keaton, where he plays a man who finds out he only has a few months to live. With a baby on the way, he videotapes himself so his son can watch the tapes one day and know who his father really was. I remember watching it in my den one hot summer afternoon, and Nick was home from college at the time. He walked in from doing some yard work and watched the last 15 minutes with me, and we both ended up reaching for the paper towels multiple times in the homestretch. And Nick hadn't even watched the first hour and a half! That movie slayed us.

And number 3 is Jack Frost. Not a movie I'd ever pay to see in the theater or rent, mind you- I watched it for free on an airplane. It was January of 2000- Mom, Nick, and I had just boarded our Alitalia flight headed for Rome, and we were all excited because this was our first trip ever outside the country. It was a red-eye flight, so after dinner had been served a lot of the passengers, my mom included, went to sleep, but Nick and I were so wired, we decided to watch Jack Frost, a movie we were utterly and completely apathetic to. Well, halfway into the movie, the both of us have tears streaming down our cheeks and we're trying our best to hold it in and save face. We were on an airpane for cryin' out loud. It was our first international trip. "Pull yourselves together!" we thought. But we couldn't. Not when the little kid was making a snowman all by himself in his front yard right after his Dad died.

And the ending, it really stuck it to us. There was no holding back at that point. We could only fight off the lumps in our throats for so long before we had to let it out. As Jack Frost ended and the credits began to roll, our Mom woke up beside us and was shocked awake by the sight of the two of us going on and crying like babies. She thought something terrible had happened. "What's wrong?!" she bellowed out. Nothing, Mom. It was just this damn movie, Jack Frost. Yeah, that got the better of both us that night.

Like I said, full disclosure. I have no secrets. I'm in touch with my emotions (maybe a bit too much at times) and you're all gonna just have to deal with it.

Wild Wedding Weekend, Day 2

2006-06-28T15:52:00.000-04:00

I wanted to get some more stories and notes from the wedding weekend down before the Ebbinghaus effect kicks into gear and I forget all the good stuff...

I woke up Friday morning and Nick was already up and out of the room (yup, Nick got to share a double bed with his brother leading up to his wedding day), hitting the hotel gym for a morning workout. No relapsing allowed just days before the honeymoon, you know.

Somehow Dad managed to forget all his toiletries, underwear, socks, and tshirts at home. I thought his bag was rather light when bringing it up to the room the day before. I don't know how he managed to forget all that stuff, but he did. And now he had to go shopping. Unbeknownst to us, there was a giant Walmart 500 yards from the hotel, but we didn't know the area well. We ended up driving around Westport for half an hour before Dad stopped at some fancy clothes store and bought the world's most expensive pair of socks. Later, we came across a Walgreens, and he must have spent over 20 minutes in there, doing god knows what. After all the driving, the searching, and the shopping, Mom and I were ready to ring his neck.

Our next stop was the local Men's Wearhouse. Dad's tux fitted even worse than mine. While my problem was only a tight jacket, Dad's pants didn't even reach down to his ankles. With the pants pulled up to his natural wasitline, they looked like tuxedo capri pants. I wish I had taken a picture, because it was absurd how off his inseam measurements were. Also, Nick still hadn't bought shoes for the wedding. He wanted me to return my size 11's (which I couldn't wear anyway) for some size 12's.

By now it was lunchtime, so Dad, Mom, and I drove over to Emily's house, where her Uncle Ed was making everyone lunch for HIS birthday. It felt weird that was was preparing his own birthday meal (an amazing cold cut antipasto spread), but then he didn't eat, either! We hung out at the Hall house, chowing down, getting to know members of the other family, and foling the wedding programs.

After lunch, I went with Nick who had some last-minute shopping to do. And with his wallet and credit cards still in NYC, he needed my credit card and my help. We shot over to the local J Crew- he hadn't picked out a wedding day gift for Emily yet. We looked around for a few minutes and decided on a swimsuit and sandals. Without me, I know Nick would have spent 20 minutes trying to decide which one to get, but with me there, I was quick to pick out my favorite, offer some best man opinions, and then I searched the baskets of sandals for the correct size and color. Boom, in and out in no time flat.

We had to clear up some confusion with Nick's friends coming up to CT on the MetroNorth train- apparently in his directions email to everyone, he told them to get off at the wrong stop, a stop a little further away and without any cabs. We quicly sent out a mass phone text to as many people as we could think of, but most ended up getting out at the wrong stop. They all got to the hotel or the dinner on time. They just had to think craftily or hunt down a cab. In the pouring rain.

When we returned to the hotel, I think I chowed down on some crackers and Trader Joe's black bean salsa (guess it was a good idea for Mom to bring along some hotel room food after all) and pretty soon it was time to get dressed for the rehearsal and the proceeding dinner. Finally, it was time to bust out my first suit, a light-weight blue pinstriped suit from Polo that Mom gave me for Christmas. I even still had the shirt she gave it to me with in the plastic wrap. I ended up wearing a brand new outfit- suit, shirt, socks, underwear, tshirt, shoes, all new. The tie was the only holdover.

We got a little rushed when Nick and I had to put his grommsmen gifts together. He gave everyone a metal red sox bucket filled with an expensive bottle of bourbon (which everyone was ecstatic about receiving) and a personally inscribed space pen. It was raining heavily at this point as we went out to Dad's van to retrive all the items. We got locked out of the back door of the hotel- our key just wouldn't open it- so we had to walk around the entire building to the front lobby. Great time! We assembled all the gifts together, loaded them on a luggage cart and brought them back down into the car so he could pass them out after the dinner.

As we were pulling out of the parking lot, we collectively realized that nobody knew how to get from the Norwalk hotel to the church in Westport. Not even Nick. He started yelling, going red in the face, and doing his angry-man dance. For the second night in a row we were already running behind and now we had no idea how to get to where we were going. My rehearsal dinner invitations, which Mom left in the hotel room anyway, only had directions from the church to the restaurant.

My Aunt Patty came to the rescue and she said she knew how to drive to the church, so we all followed her. She ended up bringing us to the restuarant, not the church. I was driving my Dad's van at the time while Nick was driving our Mom's car, but I'm pretty sure his head exploded at this point. We were all on our cellphones with each other, trying to figure out where we were going. Since I had written out directions from the church to the restaurant, I was able to work backwards and navigate us the rest of the way.

We got there a half hour late, but you know what? The Halls were running even later than us, and they knew where they were going! We saved face bigtime, and ended up being the first group to arrive, so all that tension washed away in a few seconds.

I always thought weddings were pretty straightforward, and perhaps a lot of them are pretty cut and dry, but ours did not fall into that category. We all NEEDED that rehearsal, and probably could have used another run-through thereafter. Everyone was excited and anxious to get to the dinner, kick back, have a few drinks, and tell some stories, but first we had to figure out where to stand, where to walk, when and where to enter, who escorts whom, who does what and when, etc. It was a lot to take in, and Emily's mom was still making decisions with the pastor throughout the rehearsal.

With the actual rehearsal checked off the to-do list, it was time for dinner at The Three Bears Restaurant. But not before helping Emily's dad set up the sound system and projector for his "Nick and Emily through the years" slide show. As best man, and with both my parents just kicking back and enjoying the evening, it was my job to make sure the night ran smoothly. I waited out in the parking lot for Emily's dad while everyone was inside feasting on appetizers and having drinks , and of course Bill was the last to arrive. We carried all the equipment inside, and with Krister's help, we decided where to place it and set it up.

We had a big, boisterous crowd of 65 for dinner. The Three Bears was one of those old, old restuarants that have been around forever, and we had the main dining room all to ourselves. A few minutes into dinner, it was time to start the toasts. I had barely gotten started on my shrimp and pasta dish, but I was hosting the event and in charge of organizing the toasts, calling people up, etc.

We thought my Dad was going to do one of his infamous poems, but he surprised us with a short, heart-felt story about Nick when he was a little kid, and how Nick wanted to eat the same diet as Dad while our Dad was recuperating from something major. Oscar, forgoing a slide show, made a color-copied sheet of photos he distributed to everyone while talking about Nick and how each photo captured a certain part of his personality or history. My Aunt Patty came up with my Aunt Julie and they sang a couple oldies with re-written lyrics about Nick and Emily. The memorable/creepy part was she had life-size masks made of Nick and Emily from some photographs she had taken of them last summer. All of a sudden there were 4 Nicks and 4 Emilys dancing and singing. Nick put on an Emily mask, and Emily put on a Nick mask, so when they kissed and mock-made out in front of everyone, it messed with my head.

Emily's dad, Bill, ended the toasts and presentations with an Imovie slide show comprised of pictures of Nick and Emily from when they were little tykes to thew present day. A wonderful 6 1/2 minute show, and a perfect way to end the night (Bill was going to put the slide show on a loop at the reception the next day, but he forgot to bring the DVD with him. They had the projector set up, ready to go and everything, and no disc. That's one of those, "Oh, wells.") The dinner was so much fun, it was hard to believe there was still a wedding to throw the next day.

The only negative of the night was my dinner being taken away before I had a chance to eat it. I was up MCing the toasts so I never had the chance to finish it. Overzealous waiters kept coming by my table trying to take my plate away, but I'd catcg them before they could and shoo them away, but eventually they snatched it up when I wasn't looking. When I told Nick, Mom, and Dad, this, they got some waiter's attention and had them bring out some prime rib for me. They were basically, like, "Yeah, we just paid $6,000 for this dinner, so you're gonna get some food."

Back at the hotel, we had this room reserved for all of just off the mian lobby stocked with food and beer (the first night, Nick and I went downstairs to check it out and came upon 2 random businessmen sitting there enjoying our Coronas and Heinekens. Once they got the hint that they belonged to us and, no, the giant tub of beer wasn't free for all guests, they sheepishly put their empties on the serving table and left without even a "sorry" or any outward sign of acknowledgement. Fabulous manners we have nowadays, right?). I brought down the private Sam Adams stash from the hotel room for reinforcements, and all of Nick's friends settled in down there for a few late-night drinks, and we started sharing our best Nick stories from yesteryear. This was exactly the one thing the bachelor party lacked- a hearty "bull session" and a mini Nick roasting.

A lot of new stories and old classics were shared- one highlight including Nick's roommate recounting their NYU dorm days and how they and their suitemates, with such limited privacy, would masturbate in their dorm room. He described his "Spiderman" technique to us all, and I think some guys actually started tearing up they were laughing so hard. Nick shared his Patched the Cat story, and for the rest of the weekend, all of us were yelling out. "Patches!" in my Mom's low, raspy voice.

With all the rain, there was no par-3 golf to be played the morning of the wedding, so we all stayed up late, knowing dear Nick would be a married man in less than half a day's time.

The Arizona...Brandon-Backs?

2006-06-28T11:38:00.000-04:00

Has anyone ever seen a pitching box score quite like this?

ARIZONA DIAMONDBACKS
Pitchers IP H R ER BB SO HR ERA
Brandon Webb 7 9 7 7 2 5 1 2.85
Brandon Medders 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 3.44
Brandon Lyon (L,1-2) 1 3 4 4 1 0 1 5.20

This Time Last Year

2006-06-21T12:49:00.000-04:00

Also, on this day and at this exact time a year ago, I was on a jet flying from Izmir to Istanbul to meet Nick at the airport for a 10-day vacation along the Turkish coast before returning home. Three days exploring Istanbul, a hellacious midnight bus ride, 5 days hanging out in Izmir, a visit to Ephesus, and a day-trip to Olu Deniz, one of the prettiest beaches and lagoons I've ever set foot on. God, I'd do anything for another 10 days like that. I guess everything's a trade-off, but I really enjoyed my time over there.

Instead, today I'm sitting at a desk on the 11th floor of an office building on 36th and 7th in Manhattan. It's the first day of summer, all the high school kids are finally out on vacation, and it's 85 degrees outside, yet none of that is really registering with me yet. I've been sitting at my desk since 9:15, but I haven't been given a single thing to do. Am I really getting paid to sit here quietly at my desk by the corner window?

What a Difference A Year Makes

2006-06-21T12:29:00.000-04:00

This time last year I was waking up at 4 in the morning to watch the NBA Finals, and last night I completely forgot they were on as the Heat defeated the Mavericks to win the championship.

2006-06-19T16:43:00.000-04:00

It's no mere coincidence that somebody named Geoff won the US Open yesterday.

My Dad came down to New York for Father's Day weekend on Saturday afternoon, and my brother and I treated him to a Saturday night Shark Show followed by dinner, and on Sunday we treated him to breakfast at his favorite New York diner before we all drove up to Emily's parents' house in Westport, CT.

We had a golf match to play. The 3 Stevens men versus the Hall men, Emily's brother, Daniel, and her father, Bill. It was hot and hazy, but we didn't tee off on the Stratford 9-hole, par 3 course until 4pm. The Halls started out strong, with both of their first shots landing on the green, while the Stevens clan did not look good. My tee shot went straight down the fairway, but both Dad's and Nick's took a sharp, grounding turn to the left, an easy ground ball to the short stop.

The Halls were up by 2 holes with 3 to play, and then my putting game decided to come to life (or rather, it decided to give birth, as I never really had a putting game until yesterday). I sunk an improbable, sloping 25-foot put to win hole #6, and then on hole 8 I sunk a curving 20-footer. Nick darn near fainted from shock, and I couldn't really believe it myself. I guess this new set of clubs I got for Christmas are working out so far. I just needed to play with them a few times to get used to them. And my short-range chipping game, where I usually have at most a 50% success rate of chipping the ball up into the air and onto the green, suddenly found me today. I usually end up hitting grounders or knee high line drives that fly 20 yards over the green or fall 10 yards short, but today, my friends, I had "the touch."

I wasn't teeing off very well for most of the day, instead depending on my irons to regain the distance on my second shot, but on the last hole, I used a 3-iron off the tee and my shot flew straight as an arrow for 150 yards, landing on the far left side of the green. Hallelujah! I should have parred the hole, but I lasered my second putt too hard and it bounced over the cup. Still we won the last hole, came from behind, and stole the match from the Hall fellows.

It was a good day for the golfing Geoffs on the links this Sunday, except mt performance might have been even more stunning than Geoff Ogilvy's.

So Tony

2006-06-13T10:10:00.000-04:00

Unfortunately, Megan didn't take home the statue, but goddamn does that husband of hers, Kevin Kern, look handsome!

She did get to perform a part of Hernando's Hideaway with The Connick (Jr. edition) later in the evening.

I've been wanting to see The Pajama Game for a while now, but it had a limited run and sold out really fast. The last public show was Sunday afternoon and while they're still performing it this week, tickets go from $250-$1000 towards some charity. It will be back this fall, apparently, for a full commercial run (minus The Connick, I assume), and hopefully Megan will still be in the cast.

Nick, the lucky bastard, somehow ended up getting free tickets for he and Emily. A fan of the Booker Show who works at the theater emailed him and wanted to give Nick free tickets after the Booker Show went off the air simply because he liked Nick and would miss the show. Better yet, when Nick and Emily arrived, they got their mezzanine tickets bumped up to the center aisle in the orchestra!

I almost forgot, not only did Megan and Kevin go to the Tonys this year, but one of the guys, Steve Rosen, from Utah Arm, Nick's old sketch group, got to go onstage and make an annoucement as his character from Spamalot. All them NYU kids is doin' well.

I thought on the whole it was a great show this year. I probably enjoyed it more than any other straight guy you know. I realize nobody watches the Tonys, really, and I'm sure the ratings will be lousy, but they do a woderful job of advertising all the shows. After it was over, you really feel like you want to go out and see every production featured in the telecast.

Rehearsal Dinner Invite Picture

2006-06-12T12:25:00.000-04:00

Rehearsal Dinner Invite Picture
Originally uploaded by geoffreystevens.

I used this picture of Nick and Emily for the last-minute rehearsal dinner invitation I whipped up last week. I took this this shot of them down in Tennessee last July. It was a hot day, and they were invaraibly sweaty and very shiny from the camera flash, so I went in on photoshop and by zooming in and using the cloning tool, I gave their skin a lustrous, matte finish. Ahhhhh...

2006-06-09T14:48:00.000-04:00

From an article in today's Boston Globe:

In Boston, school officials do not make condoms available, but students can get them at 13 school-based health centers, as long as they have permission from their parents and a referral from a primary care physician.

What?! You gotta be kidding me. Do you think any Boston public school student is going to jump through all of those hoops just to get a free condom? First they have to travel to a health center, then they need written consent from their parents, and a doctor's note to top it all off? I'd be shocked if these Boston high schoolers would be brave enough to do all that when they can just shell out a few bucks for some at the local pharmacy, and they don't need a note for those.

2006-06-09T13:07:00.000-04:00

Time for a summer cellar cleaning session yet? Because we had so much fun over Thanksgiving break...

Thankfully, Nick and I already got raking and cleaning up the yard checked off the list over Memorial Day weekend, but unfortunately we managed to contract poison ivy all over our bodies in the process- hands, arms, legs, feet, you name it. A week after exposure, and I still had new splotches emerging every day.

2006-06-09T12:55:00.000-04:00

I was never a big Michelle Williams fan. In fact, during those Dawson's Creek years, I just plain despised the girl, but time has softened my stance, and now I actually like her a lot. In fact, I may just have a lil'celebrity crush on her.

A few months ago I rented Michael Showalter's (he of Wet, Hot American Summer fame)most recent film, The Baxter, and Michelle Williams played the female lead. I haven't the slightest idea what she's like in real life, but I fell head over heels for the character she played in this movie. That's exactly the girl I'm looking for. Too bad she, you know, only exists in a movie.

The Baxter is nowhere near as funny as WHAS, but I still enjoyed it, probably because I like Showlater and Williams (especially when they're in a scene together) so much.

And living here in New York now, I can see Showalter live just about anytime I want. He hosts a show Monday nights at Rififi, and he intermittently does stand-up at the downtown haunts. Nick even got him to be a celebrity "Battle of the Funny Bands 2" judge when the Shark Show hosted the finals in late-April.

2006-06-09T12:54:00.000-04:00

Who's up for company bowling night???

How can softball not be fun?

2006-06-08T12:24:00.000-04:00

The company I temp for has a softball team in the New York Engineers and Architects Softball League, so I signed up for the team when the season began in the beginning of May.

That first game, in the far west side of Midtown at Clinton-DeWitt Park, felt really strange because I was by far the youngest guy there. There were some guys in their late 20s or early 30s on my team who I had never even seen before (perhaps they were from another branch?), and the opposing team had a lot of older gentlemen. That first game never got to be played, though. The league, with proper permits and all, somehow booked us to play on a field that had already been reserved far in advance. It didn’t seem like a good omen for the season to come.

Now, I love playing softball/baseball, and I fancy myself an OK hitter and an above average second baseman. I did play for 10 years with baseball summer camp and all the fixings, although I’ll admit it has been 10 years since I’ve played regularly in an organized league. What bothers me about this team and this league is how ridiculously competitive all the players are. This is just a recreational summer softball league, but all these players take the game so seriously. And it ends up taking most of the fun out of it for me, since I’m just...not of that mindset, especially when it comes to softball.

Instead of playing second base at our game this past Monday, the manager penciled me in to right-center (we play with 4 outfielders). I don’t want to make up excuses for my play, but I played the infield my whole “career” and I’m a tad rusty at reading fly balls off the hitter’s bat. OK, really rusty. I misplayed two line drives hit in my direction in the first inning and I thought the rest of the team was going to stone me when I got back to the bench. One ended up going over my head when I thought for sure it was going to drop way in front of me. It was hit directly at me and I couldn’t read it to save my life.

After the inning was over the manager came over and gave me a speech about keeping the ball in front of me (as if I didn’t know that already) and then the left-center fielder, who fancied himself to be quite the knowledgeable ball player, came over and gave me a long-winded, patronizing lecture as if I had never played ball before. I just nodded, said yes, and apologized, but what I really wanted to do was scream at the rest of the team and tell them to chill out, relax, and to stop worrying so much about other people. I didn’t like being bossed around like that, especially by a bunch of people that don’t know me from a whole in the wall.

I guess that’s the problem- I’m the temp, the new guy on the team, and they, in fact, don’t know anything about me, or whether or not I actually know how to play. They stick me in the very bottom of the lineup, put me on the bench for the first half of the game if we have more than 10 players, and proceed to over coach me if I make the slightest mistake. So I messed up in the outfield and misplayed a few balls. And for that I deserve a sneer, a condescending shake of the head, and a cold shoulder from my teammates?! Grow up, fellas; it’s a softball game, and nobody’s life or career depends on the outcome.

Maybe it’s just the engineer/scientist mentality they all share, but my entire team is entirely too competitive. I don't have that killer instinct/take no prisoners attitiude. If the umpire makes a close call, a bunch of them will start screaming, get red in the face, and run up to the ump and argue the call. I’ve seen it happen a few times now, and none of these incidents involved jocular play-arguing, either. Maybe that’s fun for them, but I see that happen and I feel like picking up my glove and leaving.

Sometimes seeing other players’ competitive zeal can be humorous, too: out-of-shape men in cleats, kneepads, and tight baseball pants, the pitchers, who are almost always the overweight guys who can’t play a position in the field, and anyone attempting an ill-fated slide.

So for right now, even though we won this week’s game, I’m not too popular with the rest of the team, and I have a feeling this crew has a long memory. Until I wheel out a triple or make some dazzling outfield catch, I’m in the dog house. I couldn’t even make eye contact with one of my teammates when I passed him in the hall this morning.

Nick & Emily's Wild Wedding Weekend (Day 1)

2006-06-06T16:53:00.000-04:00

Ahh, the big Nick Stevens/Emily Hall Grand Wedding Weekend had finally arrived!

This was easily one of the craziest, most frantic, whirlwind long weekends I've ever experienced in my 25 years. And somehow at the end of all of it, Nick and Emily were able to get married, quite happily, I must add.

The weekend started in Thursday for all of us. I had improv class the night before and skipped going out with the gang afterwards because I had a lot of packing to do. I got back to Brooklyn and went to work, trying my best not to forget anything I'd need over the next 4 days. With 4 hours of sleep, I woke up Thursday morning and made my way into work. Earlier in the week I had brought my boombox (which I'd later learn I didn't need to bring to Westport) into work in my suitcase earlier in the week, so I had to pack everything into my 2 backpacks and my gym bag. It was a HOT, HUMID day. I had one of my backpacks hanging in the front like a Bjorn baby holder, and by the time I stepped into my climate-controlled office, I was DRENCHED from head to toe. The tshirt and polo shirt I had on never actually dried. When I finally took it off once we pulled into the Norwalk Hilton Hotel at 7pm, it was still wet.

Luckily my boss was out all week on vacation, so I was able to put the finishing touches on the rehearsal dinner invites (originally my parent's responsibility, then taken on by Nick, which was then passed down to me), print them out, and cut them.

Around 11, I took my break and saddled on over to the Men's Wearhouse a few blocks away by the Empire State Building. Apparently some of the other groomsmen who went to different locations had a satisfactory time getting measured and picking up their tuxedos, but this wasn't the case for those of us who opted to patronize the 34th Street franchise. The tux department was staffed by two of the surliest, unfriednliest, and helpless women I've ever encountered. I thought it was just me, but Oscar went there to get measured and he was ignored for 10 minutes before they decided to notice him.

Anyway, I was just there to pick up the tux, so I didn't think it would take more than 10 minutes. I was wrong. They had me try on the entire tuxedo, and the jacket didn't fit too well. They gave me a 40S, which will fit sometimes depending on the cut of the coat, but this one was really tight when I buttoned it up. I wish I had never mentioned it to them, because what followed was a complete waste of an hour in my life as one of the women called Men's Wearhouse in Texas to see if they could ship a 42S up to New York in time for the wedding (in short, they couldn't). The only replacement they had on the premises for me was a 41R, which looked like a zoot suit jacket on my short frame, and I staunchly told them I'd rather have the original coat instead. She ended up having a tailor move the buttons over a little bit so it wasn't as tight when I buttoned it, so I still had to return later in the day to pick it up. In the end, I never buttoned the jacket at the wedding anyway since we all had black vests underneath.

If you ever need to get a tux at Men's Wearhouse, avoid the 34th and Broadway location AT ALL COSTS. I can't stress that enough.

After I scarfed down a small french fry and a whooper junior, I settled back into my desk at the office. Fortunately, there was zero work for me to do there today (and my boss was gone) so nobody noticed the 90 minute tux run that I had originally figured to take a half hour AT MOST.

The original plan was for Nick and I to take the 3pm metro north train to Norwalk and get picked up there by our parents, who would drive down from Braintree in one car. But plans soon changed when Nick had too much luggage to haul up to Grand Central and Mom realized she had too much to do in Braintree to leave with Dad in the same car. Nobody's really sure what she had to do besides drop Rollie off at the dog kennel and buy a few snacks at the hotel room, but she didn't end up leaving Braintree till well past 3 o'clock. Apparently she had stressed herself out over Rollie having a cough in the days prior, but come on now.

Instead, Dad launched from Braintree in his van around 10:30. He planned on picking me up first (where he could also pick up the free used computer I got from Hazen and Sawyer that's been sitting underneath my desk for the last 4 months), and then scooting across town to pick up Nick before turning around and darting back up to CT.

Dad got in some Friday afternoon traffic on I-95, which was to be expected, but the coup de grace came when he received a $90 ticket from a police officer in Manhattan for not wearing his seat belt. He actually had it on driving down to NY, but he unfastened it to reach into his wallet to pay the Triboro Bridge toll and didn't bother putting it back on. He was stopped at a light a few blocks away from me when a cop, walking on the adjacent sidewalk, hollered at him to pull over. The policeman told him he'd only get a warning and not to have fear, it wouldn't count against his MA insurance rates, but I've never heard of a $90 warning before. And I see people driving around Manhattan all the time without a seat belt, and my Dad, with his MA plates, just so happens to get pulled over. He got slapped with a $170 no standing ticket the last time he visited (and he was in the car with the motor running, no less!), so he doesn't have a lot of automotive luck here in NY so far this year.

Finally, at 3 o'clock, I got a call from Dad on my cell phone that he's waiting outside on the corner of 36th and 7th. With the computer, I have to take two trips, so I went down first with my bags. I got to the intersection, and wouldn't you know it, I don't see Dad ANYWHERE. I called him up and said, "Dad- I'm here. Where are you?"

Yelling loudly, he barked, "I'm right here! 36th and 7th! Right in front of Pronto Pizza!"

I responded, calmly, "Dad, I'm looking around, and I don't see your car anywhere. And there's definitely no Pronto Pizza on 36th and 7th. Can you look around and find the street sign, because you're not at the right intersection."

"I'm right here! 36th and 7th! Why can't you see me? Here, I'll honk the horn."

All I heard was the honk coming over the cell phone.

"Did you hear that?!"

"Yeah, Dad, but I only heard it over the phone. You're not on 36th and 7th, so let's try to figure out where you actually are."

Turned out he was on 36th and Broadway, an avenue away. It took him some time to figure out how to backtrack his way to 36th and 7th, and in the end, the closest he could get without popping a blood vessel was 35th and 7th. At this point in the day, the roads were crowded and the sidewlks were jammed, and everyone was sweating bullets from the heat. I made my second trip back upstairs to get the computer and then we navigated our way downtown to Nick's apartment on 18th and 3rd.

We arrived, very late, and Nick still wasn't ready, either; there was something he was furiously looking for in the apartment that he couldn't find. I got a coffee at the corner shop while we waited because I was ready to fall asleep at any moment, and then I got scolded by Nick for not getting HIM one after he loaded his things into the van and we had driven off.

"Here, I got a medium. You can have some of mine."

"No, it's fine; I don't want any."

Huh?

It was no 4:30 and the northbound FDR lanes were at a near stand still. Nick started yelling and venting his anger about the traffic, but eventually it loosened up. Once we got on I-95, it was smooth sailing for a while until we hit CT, where the electronic road sides above the highway warned us of delays from Exit 4-18. Awesome!

We arrived at the Norwalk Hilton Garden Hotel a shade after 7, and Mom hadn't arrived yet. She had called us for directions a while ago while we were on the road, but she misheard them and ended up driving in the wrong direction. Dad went inside to check in and he soon re-emerged from the lobby to tell us that the Hilton had no record of our reservation (even though it was the FIRST reservation made over 6 months ago) and that the rooms were not paid for or held under a credit card, either.

Dad didn't have a credit card (?!) and Nick, attempting not to forget anything, left his wallet, his bank card, his driver's license, and his neck ties back at his apartment (luckily a friend of his from CA, Chadd, was staying there for the night and could bring them Saturday morning). I gave Dad my credit card and he went back in to find us a room. Turned out our reservation was there all along, but the guy at the front desk was just incompetent and couldn't find it. He stuck us up on the 3rd floor in the boonies, the farthest walk possible from the front desk (not good for my Mom who can barely walk), while mostly everyone else in town for the wedding was down on the first floor. When they discovered their error the next day, they asked us to move, after we had already unpacked and had a million things to do, and we told them "NO WAY."

While we were unpacking everything from Dad's loaded van onto the luggage carts, Mom finally arrived, her car filled with...groceries?

"Mom, when are we gonna have the time to eat all this?!"

"It's for when you have people back to your room."

"I don't think anyone's coming back to the room. We have a pretty full schedule."

(silence)

Once we finally got up to the room, we only had a few minutes before this 8pm dinner that friends of the Hall family were throwing in Nick and Emily's honor was schedules to begin. And none of us were nearly ready to leave. Mom was exhausted from the drive and in a bunch of pain, and for other reasons I can't write about here, she decided not to attend the dinner. Nick got furious, went into a mini-breakdown, and we were all bent out of shape and we didn't know what to do, but we pulled ourselves together, got out of our stinky, sweaty clothes, showered, and got ready as quickly as we could while Mom fell asleep in her bed.

By the time Dad, Nick, and I left the hotel, it was past 9 o'clock, and a group of 30 people were all waiting for us to arrive before they ate dinner. We felt horrible and terribly guilty, and we tried to get there as fast as we could. It started to downpour outside, and I mean DOWNPOUR. Before we made it to the beach dinner, we still had to stop at a minimart and pick up soda and ice for the party, delaying our incredibly late arrival even further.

We showed up at 9:30, if you can believe it. Miraculously, nobody was mad at us, or at least they didn't voice their displeasure, and we were welcomed with hugs, open arms, and a delicious spread of food. The party was held at this house with a sp[rawling front porch directly on the water. They filled the interior with tube lighting, giving the room a warm, mystical glow. Before we ate, they had us all join hands in a giant circle, and they all sang a song (some sort of blessing or lords prayer, perhaps?). It was just...amazing. It felt like something out of a movie, us all in a circle, singing a beautiful song in the candlelight while the rain stormed down into the ocean water all around us.

The only downside to the evening was Dad, who decided to single out a pretty cousin of Emily's who was there by herseld since her heart surgeon husband couldn't make the trip. He did his Dad-thing and talked to/flirted with her the entire night and barely spoke to all the other family members he hadn't even met yet. Looking back on it now, Nick and I should have intervened or said something to him, because it was a little embarrassing and it did not go unnoticed by the Hall family. Nick and I were talking about it afterwards, and we both thought, "Can't Mom and Dad just act like normal human beings for just a few days without doing something weird?!"

Looking back on this day and the whole weekend, I think I was by far the most rational and level-headed of the family. I'm not gloating or anything; that's just the truth. I rarely lose my cool, unlike others in the family. Nick's temper can be wicked at times, and he can fly off the handle pretty quickly, while Mom and Dad start yelling at and blaming each other at the drop of a hat. Me, I hate yelling at people, and I hate being yelled at even worse.

So yeah, all this, and that was just Day 1.

Chipotle Paunch Bomb

2006-05-22T10:43:00.000-04:00

Has anyone eaten at this mexican fast-food chain Chipotle yet? Word on the street is it was started by and once owned by McDonald's, but it recently went public. They've been popping up all around NY in the last year, and there always seems to be a substantial crown inside, so I decided to give it a try one night.

It reminded me of an authentic tacqeria, where you tell them what you want in your burrito as you move along the counter a la Subway. In fact, that's really all this is- a Mexican Subway. My main complaint with the ingredients was the white rice. Come on, guys, plain white rice? Even Taco Bell gives you something a bit more flavorful and colorful than a sack of Uncle Ben's. Rice, aside, the burrito was impressive. It was also one of the biggest, heaviest, overstuffed burritos I've ever seen. I was starving when I walked through the door, but I could only get through three-quarters of the burrito before I had to cry uncle, and I really should have stopped at the halfway point once my stomach started grumbling, "No mas, por favor!"

This was around 6 o'clock, and by the time 10pm rolled around, I was ready for bed. This burrito literally knocked me out like a tranquilizer dart that hit me directly in the gut. My body must have overtaxed itself so much trying to digest that burrito that I couldn't keep my eyes open past 10...on a Friday night! The paunch bomb of all paunch bombs did me in and there was nothing to do but sleep it off.

On United 93...

2006-05-19T14:58:00.000-04:00

Pretty much exactly what I was thinking, too...

This is an amazing movie that just nobody wants to see right now. I hope it will find an audience someday. It's terrifying, but an important movie that shouldn't be discarded and forgotten.

Do We Really Need To See This?

2006-05-12T13:07:00.000-04:00

from Ty Burr's review of Poseidon in today's Boston Globe:

That's entertainment? Maybe, but it plays with queasy dissonance in a post-9/11 world. There will be people who won't go to ''United 93" because they think it will be depressing yet will go to ''Poseidon" expecting an exciting night at the movies, and I guess I don't understand how their brains work. Maybe the prospect of a second-tier cast dying for the sins of previous bad movies is enough of a camp factor to tilt the scales (although Rossum will have to do hundreds of these to atone for ''The Phantom of the Opera"). In a world of fresh horror, though, ''Poseidon" seems a strangely punishing form of make-believe.

Hiccups Trifecta

2006-05-10T10:26:00.000-04:00

How often do people get the hiccups? Maybe, once every couple of months, right? I don't really keep count, but that seems about average for me. Well, on Saturday during Nick's 24-hour Atlantic City bachelor party extravganza, I contracted a mean, persistent case of the hiccups 3 times in an 8-hour period. And each time I got them, they wouldn't go away for at least 30 minutes to an hour. Do you have any idea what a prolonged series of hiccups can do to your body?

Aside from being really annoying, I actually started to get sore, especially in my neck and shoulders. I tried holding my breath, relaxing the muscles in my diaphragm, etc., and nothing worked.

Thye first round hit after we checked into the Borgata and made our way down to the sports book area to watch the Kentucky Derby. This one lasted about a half hour.

The second round came on when a few of us were tossing around Nick's XFL football on the roof the parking garage after the race. The scene felt like out of a Michael Bay movie- 4 guys throwing around a football on a roof deck overlooking Atlantic City in a hazy red sunset. The formidable Borgata building behind us, and a giant windfarm looming in the distance...oh, and me with a raging case of the hiccups. Ever try catching a 30-yard pass in mid-hiccup? I don't recommend it.

Round three came on when 4 of us were crammed in the back of a cab on our way from one strip club to another (actually, they were only bikini bars- I know). Aside from everyone in the cab finding my hiccups enormously aggravating, they were starting to hurt. Each hiccups came and I'd have to wince and brace myself. For the hiccups!

I woke up Sunday morning, and I felt like I'd been in a boxing match the night before. All these muscles in my neck, shoulder, and upper back that I didn't even know existed were calling out in pain. Four days later, and I'm still popping Advil and stretching constantly to ease the tension.

Oh, what a world we live in people, where something innocuous as the hiccups can get the best of you if they last long enough!

Bumble and Bumbling

2006-05-09T14:47:00.000-04:00

Yesterday after work I hustled down to Bumble and Bumble, way over on the far west side of 13th street, to see if I could be a model for their students program and get a cool haircut for free before Nick's wedding on June 3rd (coming up fast, ain't it?). Thankfully, my long locks and curly mane passed muster and made the grade. The evaluating stylist signed my application and directed me over to the booking desk.

I figured it might be a few weeks before they could see me, but I almost lost my balance when the girl behind the counter penciled me in for a cut on the 10th...of August! Well, if I get my hair trimmed now, I'll actually be due for another cut by the time that appointment rolls around.

When I was leaving I asked some other approved models when they managed to get their appointments scheduled- May 12th. Wow, a whole 4 days! What a back log! And I have only...around 99 to go.

Fake Inner Racist goes for a swim!

2006-05-09T14:25:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, while swimming laps at the NYC Parks and Recreation Pool in Chelsea, the Fake Inner Racist in me thought: "A black lifeguard? Isn't that like, an oxymoron? They can't be serious; is this some kind of joke? We all know black people can't swim- to save their lives and especially mine. I've seen Survivor, man, and those black dudes just sink right to the bottom of the ocean everytime."

The lifeguard most often on duty at the Williamsburg pool directs most of his attention to any cute girl in the slow lane who doesn't know how to swim. He saunters over and offers her a free lesson in the crawl while swimmers in other lanes could be drowing en masse and he'd never know. Correction: if the drowning victim were a hot girl who lost her top in the process, he'd be all over that.

Moratorium Addendum: Brokeback Humor

2006-05-09T14:19:00.000-04:00

I am pleading for a cease and desist to all Brokeback Mountain-related humor. Any jokes that mention the phrase, "just can't quit you" are seriously played, my players, and are simply devoid of all humor whatsover by now, May of 2006. If you go the easy route, make the joke, and someone does indeed laugh, just know that you're not funny- it's merely a polite courtesy giggle at best.

A Grave Case of McPhee-ver

2006-05-09T13:47:00.000-04:00

Anyone else suffering from the McPhee-ver lately? And when I say "suffering," I mean "enjoying immensely."

Geoffrey's Spring Book Round-Up

2006-05-08T12:45:00.000-04:00

I've been doing my best taking advantage of my New York Public Library card (and immaturely smirking everytime I type nypl.org into my naviagtion bar). Here's a quick rundown of the books I've consumed over the last few months...

Teacher Man by Frank McCourt
I hadn't read Angela's Ashes or 'Tis, but I saw nothing but stellar reviews when this was a released a few months ago. It took while to get it through the library with all the reserves and requests, but it was well worth the wait. For anyone, like me, who's been thrown into the classroom with minimal training and asked to teach, this book's for you. McCourt taught English in the New York public school system for nearly 30 years, and this collection of stories, recollections, and memoirs is humorous, enveloping, and reflective.

Education of a Coach by Dave Halberstam
A must-read for any big time Patriots/Bill Belichick fan, Halberstam probably devotes more ink to Bill's father, Steve, who was a great football mind and college scout in his own right. A wonderful, insightful look into Belichick's mind, his uprninging, and his relationship with his father.

Open Wide by Dade Hayes and Jonathan Bing
This book follows and tracks 3 movie studio marketing teams as they try to get the word out on their big summer tent-pole film released over July 4th weekend of 2003: Terminator 2, Legally Blonde 2, and Sinbad (that disastrous animated movie that time has already forgotten). Tjis one really puts the "business" in showbusiness, and it discourages anyone who reads it from making a Hollywood movie. The hoops writers and directors must jump through to get their movies made, and then the whole product is torn to shreds once market-research comes back from the field with an unfavorable rating. This books pretty detail-oriented, but has some fascinating parts nevertheless. Sort of takes the fun out of seeing a movie when you realize all the work that goes into the marketing and audience-research behind these movies.

Men And Cartoons by Jonathan Lethem
Great, diverse collection of short stories, many of them involving superheroes in everyday, unusual circumstances. This was the first piece of literature I've read of Lethem's, although I've heard good things about his work for some time.

Killing Yourself To Live by Chuck Klosterman
From the author of Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, one of the most entertaining books I've read in recent memory, comes a new book about Klosterman's road-trip across America visiting places where great rock stars have died. It sounds like a hard sell, but it's a very easy read. You learn a lot about Chuck and a bunch about the rock stars and how they died, but Klosterman's reporting skills around the towns he visits come in handy. I had no idea there would be so much backstory about Klosterman's love life and the significant women in his past and present, but I found it compelling and forthright. Lots of laughs, but a few tears also.

Freaks of the Storm by Randy Cerveny
I'm currently in the middle of this one about the world's strangest true weather stories. A lot of bizarre weather-related things going on in this here world.

Rebels On The Backlot: Six Maverick Directors And How They Connquered The Studio System by Sharon Waxman
Guess the title is fairly self-explanatory. I had wanted to read this for a long time, mainly because these are some of my favorite directors and they made most of my favorite movies during a formative time of my life. This one follows the lives and careers of David O. Russell, Quentin Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson, Spike Jonze, David Fincher, Steven Soderbergh as they fight the evil, senseless, suffocating studio systems while trying to get their movies made. Filled with great anecdotes, behind-the-scenes stories, and everything in between.

Front Cover: Great Book Jacket And Cover Design by Alan Powers
Great stuff. Definitely worth a gander.

Don't Get Too Comfortable by David Rakoff
I was a little disappointed in this, Rakoff's second collection of essays, after enjoying Fraud so much. He seems to be grumpier and grouchier with age, and that doesn't equal more humor, bigger laughs, and deeper insight. There are a few nuggets here and there, but I was put off by how many times Rakoff had to mention that he was a single, embittered New York-area gay man in his 40's. No matter what the story or subject matter, that always managed to be brought up and discussed, no matter what the context. It got old real quick.

Ice Haven by Daniel Clowes
From the author of Ghost World is this graphic novel about a group of disparate neighbors who populate a small town. I'm not a huge graphic novel reader- I've read Jimmy Corrigan, Maus, and maybe one or two others, but I've enjoyed them all, and I'd like to read more in the future. I really appreciate Clowes' art style, and his sense of humor can be a bit chilling at times. At times sad, comically perverse, and outright odd, it's a quick read, perhaps to quick. I was left a little mystified by the sudden conclusion, and I wished it was a little longer.

Calling Out A Moratorium

2006-05-08T12:22:00.000-04:00

Some of you heavy users may not like this, but people saying "Anyhoo" has got to come to an end. Soon!

While we're at it, I'm still very leery of "Twenty Four Seven." It's just not passing muster, and whenever anyone over the age of 35 utters it, I just want to laugh.

Doggone It!

2006-05-05T15:17:00.000-04:00

For Mom's Christmas present last year, Nick thought it would be a good idea to buy her tickets to the big, grandaddy-o of dogs shows, the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, held every year in mid-February at Madison Square Garden. She loves dogs, we used to watch it on TV together every year, and she always said she'd make it there one day, so Nick and I thought it would make a terrific gift. Nick bought one ticket for Mom, and since he had the radio show to do every weeknight, he bought a ticket for me so I could accompany her.

The show is spread out over 2 days, so Nick got tickets for the second night, where they judge 3 breeds and then pick the best in show to cap off the event. Being 11 weeks away, we thought that would give our Mom plenty of time to make arrangements for a trip down to NY, seeing as she doesn't work anymore and that she has a rather light schedule these days.

Unfortunately, Mom wasn't feeling that well come February 14th, so Nick and I were stuck with these two tickets he had purchased way back in December. We thought she'd make the drive down, but she cancelled the trip the night before. We didn't have enough time to post them on craigslist or sell them, and nobody we knew was free and/or interested in going to a dog show on Valentine's Day night. Not wanting to eat the tickets entirely, I called 5 or so people to no avail and decided just to go on my own. I love dogs, too, but it turned out to be a lot more entertaining than I thought it would be.

After work, I walked 2 blocks south to the Garden, and I saw all these owners and handlers walking around with their dogs outside- all the nearby hotels were booked solid with owners, handlers, and canines. I stood outside for a few minutes, wondering if there was any way I could scalp my second, unused ticket, but I had no luck. There were a few creepy-looking scalpers roaming around, but they didn't seem to be that successful, so I gave up quickly andf went inside.

The cool thing about going to this show is you don't just find your seat, sit down, and watch the judging. The Garden's open all day long while each Best of Breed competition is going on, and they let everyone walk back into the doggy clubhouse where the dogs nap in their crates, where the handlers groom them relentlessly, and audience members can schmooze with the owners and find out how to buy a dog just like that one in the show. It was literally like walking into a live version
of 'Best In Show.' I bumped into every character from that movie 10 times over.

It felt like a giant sociology petrie dish in this "benching area." Owners actually sitting inside the crates with their dogs while reading a paperback novel to kill time (there's a LOT of waiting around), loads of gay men, blow dryer and brush in hand, quibbling over how to comb their dogs hair, and loads of midwestern women in the 40-55 age range, some dog owners, some paid guests like myself.

These dogs were treated better than most people. Every dog had their own personal fan attached to their crate.

At one point I found myself in a sea of 15 borzois surrounding me at every angle. I know they're just dogs, but those big fellas with their long, horse-like faces give me the willies, especially seeing so many at once.

I know it was a dog show, but for me it turned into more of a perverse people-watching show, the unintentional comedy scale being upended and broken again and again.

Once I found my seat inside the arena at 8pm, the show began and I was treated to more wacko characters sitting in front of me and behind me. When the golden retriever won best of group (man, middle america sure does love golden retrievers, pugs, and german shephards. I mean, how mainstream can they get? This golden retriever could have had one eye and two legs and this crowd would have fainted with praise over it.) A woman and mother of 2 in front of me started crying with joy and her two kids jumped up and down like it was Christmas morning. She had a girl and a boy, and the boy was 11 or 12, just on the cusp of puberty. In a year or two he'll be listening to Puddle of Mudd, contemplating drugs and obsessing over girls, but for tonight he's jumping up and down with his mother and younger sister, yelling in a hihg-pitched voice bound to start breaking any day. Were they the owners? No, they just had a golden retiever at home and liked them. It's like watching a passionate crowd root for their favorite team at a football game, except here they're all cheering on supremely-groomed canines.

Most annoying of all throughout the night was this middle-aged woman sitting directly behind me with her daughter. She was either the owner of or had something to do with the Australian cattle dog in the competition. She didn't stop yapping about how great this dog "Rebel" was the entire night, and she was talking to anyone around her that would listen, directlyu into my ear. The coup de grace was when she referred to the dog as her grandson and then broke into a tale about her great-grandson. This was, at most, a 45 year old woman. Some confused elderly woman with a southern twang sitting a few seats away to he right was puzzled. "Now, are you talking about a person or are you talking about the dog?" because we were all a little confused. Ultimately we could have cared less, but we were confused nevertheless. Of course, she stopped her yapping when old Rebel didn't place in the hearding group. She actually started crying foul and saying the judges were too
narrow-minded, that one day Australia would get its due, and that the olde english sheep dog winning was so blah and 5 years ago. This woman also brought along her 5-year-old daughter with her, and that back-and-forth dialogue, as exasperating as it was, was pretty funny. In my head I kept thinking, "This is great stuff! I should be writing it all down!"

As the hound group competetion was about to begin, some nerdy, heavy-set guy way up in the back screamed out for the entire Garden to hear, "Release The Hounds!!!" and it got a huge laugh. I laughed, too, but for all the wrong reasons. I think there were some high-fives shared afterwards between the screamer and his circle of hound-lovin' compatriots.

The crowd was ready to tear the roof off for that retriever in the finals, but the colored bull terrier (not a particularly attractive dog, but I'll admit he was very steady and poised) ended up taking home the crown.

I know Best In Show already did a great job lampooning this subculture, but this was a treasure trove for untapped unintentional humor, and I was only there for a mere 5 hours. You really have to see it and experience it to believe it. As cynical as I may come across in this recap, I ended up enjoying myself and having a much better time than I had originally anticipated, even though I was there solo.

Sticky Space Bars

2006-04-25T16:58:00.000-04:00

I think I'd be more apt to write here and spend less of my work downtime reading a book and checking my email if I had a better keyboard. The standard office-issue keypad in these parts is a black Dell model. And it's not a quiet key, so the rap-tap-tap of the keys is a bit louder than I'd prefer, especially in this eerily quiet office space. If I get on a typing tear and I'm going at full-steam, I get a little paranoid that those around me will catch on and realize how little I have to do during the day.

But, truth be told, this keybpard is just bad. Plain and simple. My biggest beef is the space bar; it sticks something terrible, and it drives me NUTS. Every sentence I type has at least two words combined, and then I have to go back and space them out. I talked to IT, and they had me use an air blower to dislodge tiny particles that could be deep down in the keyboard causing the problems, but it didn't help (though, admittedly, there was a lot of junk doen there).

I guess my IBM laptop has spoiled me. At this point, I'll take just about any laptop keyboard over a standard desktop board. After 7 years of laptop typing on a Fujitsu and an IBM, going back to the old keyboard feels clunky and laborious. When I interned at the newspaper in Cyprus, I brought my laptop into work and spurned the regular old computer they assigned me. I still have no idea how I was able to hook my laptop up to their network, but I fiddled around with it for about 15 minutes, and somehow I hooked it up.

So for now I'm stunk with this old clunker, but I'm going to take some action soon.

2006-04-11T16:16:00.000-04:00

Whenever I've made a reference to OK Soda in the past, I'm always met with a puzzled look and a, "Huh? What's that?" Then I usually say something along the lines of, "You don't remember OK Soda? It was put out by Coke for like, less than a year when I was in middle school, so somewhere in the early-to-mid-90s. They had this crazy, anti-ad ad campaign. Everything was in black and white, the commericals, the cans. And the cans had this weird comic book art on them. Oh, and you could call this 1-800 number and leave a message about how OK Soda invariably made you feel OK. How did it taste? Well, sort of like Coke mixed with orange soda and a sip of Dr. Pepper. Man, I wish it were still around." And whoever I'm telling this to usually looks at me like OK Soda was something I've made up in my fantastical imagination.

Well, thanks to Wikipedia, I now know why so many people don't remember OK- because most of the country never drank it or saw it! It was only test-marketed in a select number of cities (Boston being one of the lucky municipalities) for a 7 month window starting in the summer of 1994. Then it was yanked from the shelves, never to be seen or consumed again.

Postal

2006-03-24T11:38:00.000-05:00

Gotta love post office efficiency.

Early this morning before work, I went to the post office to send the license plates to my deceased 1996 Saab (with only 89.000 miles- can you believe it?!) back to my insurance company in Braintree so the insurance can be officially cancelled.

This post office, on 38th and 7th, is one busy place. Go in at mid-day and the line is 20 deep. I wish I were joking. So I go in the morning to avoid the crowds. Except this morning, there's only 1 person working out of a possible 14 windows. One window open? Are they nuts? I got in line, behind 5 people, and by the time I got to the front there were a good 6 or 7 people behind me. I don't get it- if you have all those windows, and you know you're one of the busiest post offices in town, why not staff it accordingly, or at least have more than 1 window open?

At least this office is better than the one in Bushwick. In my neighborhood, it's the most ghetto, stripped down post office. Bring your own pen, because you're not gonna find one to use there. And you're divided from all the employees by thick, bullet-proof plexiglass. It feels more like a high-security detention center than a post office.

Me, Ahead of the Real Estate Curve?

2006-03-24T10:57:00.000-05:00

Well, what do you know? Helloooooo Bushwick! You have arrived. According to the NY Times Magazine, I'm currently living in the cool, hip, 'it' neighborhood of the future. You could have fooled me, but the NY Times is the paper of record, so let's go with that.

A really nice, boutique restaurant just opened up 2 blocks away from me and I've never seen a business so out of place. Amid the warehouses, mechanic shops, and the slew of Dominican and Puerto Rican families arguing outside on their stoops, is this little, fine dining restaurant. I haven't patronized it yet, but I should soon- otherwise it might not be around too much longer.

Long live the 'Wick and the Jefferson St. L stop.

A Great Day To Be In Tampa

2006-03-22T10:26:00.000-05:00

Horny teenaged boys and their equally horny, foxy, cradle-robbing female teachers are celebrating throughout the streets of Tampa, Florida today.

Noisiest Sneakers

2006-03-17T15:58:00.000-05:00

I asked my parents for a pair of New Balance 587s for Christmas and I was happy to get them. They're very comfortable, they fit well, and I think they look pretty old-school and retro. Only thing is, they are the NOISIEST pair of sneakers I've ever worn. They make this extra-loud squishy song with every step I take, as if I spent the day trolling around a wading pool.

When I'm walking about outside, nobody can hear it and they don't stand out, but when I wear them around my office on casual Fridays, it's like someone attached a microphone to both my feet. It doesn't help that my office can be deathly quiet. My floor is a bunch of design engineers tooling around on AutoCad all day long, black computer screens with intricate neon-colored lines and sqiggles (you could probably squeak in a quick game of Snood without anyone noticing). I walk down the 100-foot hall and the sound of my steps reverberates throughout the maze of cubicles. Hey everyone, the temp's walking down the hall to the bathroom again! There goes the temp- must have to make some copies.

One of my bosses mentioned how loud my shoes were, and I was like, "Yeah, it's ridiculous. I don't know what to do to make them stop." She said she thought it had something to do with air being trapped inside them somewhere. Who knows...

I've tried changing my gait or walking "softly" but no change in my steps can dampen these 587s. They're broadcasting loud and clear, amplified by this ultra-quiet office.

Sensitive Joe Rogan's War of Myspace Words

2006-03-03T16:09:00.000-05:00

I always thought those myspace pages belonging to celebrities were run by deceitful publicity teams, deceptive super-fans, or ironic haters, but it turns out there are a few profiles created and maintained by real celebrities. I'll admit, calling Joe Rogan a celebrity is a bit of a stretch, but this back-and-forth he had with a certain Rogan misanthropist is worth highlighting. I found this on defamer.com, quite an indespensable source.

Joe Rogan's Myspace page (you'll probably have to log in to see it)

————————- Original Message ————————- From: Kevin Date: Mar 2, 2006 9:01 AM
hahah, Joe Rogan… This is the funniest form I have ever seen you in. You’re only accomplishment, in my memory, is taking a highly successful show (The Man Show) and running it into the ground merely by your presence alone. I also don’t think playing second-fiddle to Brooke Shields is much of an accomplishment.

————————- Original Message ————————-
From: Joe Rogan
Date: Mar 2, 2006 9:09 AM

I was never on a show with Brooke Shields. I was however on 2 shows that made it to syndication, fear factor and newsradio, which means I never have to worry about money for the rest of my life. Think about that when you’re getting told what to do by your boss and struggling to pay your bills. I agree that the man show sucked, but unfortunately there wasn’t a whole lot I could do about it at the time. I did however, make a fuck load of money from it, and had the time of my life. You’re an ugly, fat faced zero, and I’m a famous multi millionaire. Those are the facts there, dear sweet kevin :)