Monthly Archive for June, 2004

TGI Tuesday

Published
by
Andy
on 6/8/2004
in Log
. 0 Comments

I’m terribly sorry about not posting on Monday. Not a lot happened Sunday night, I guess. I was going to go to the Great Bamboozle concert to see Jesse Malin and Patti Smith, but it was $30 just to get in and I just wasn’t feeling it. Cindy went. She said it was OK. Rachel and Toni and I just rented some movies. (The El Mariachi trilogy, highly recommended!)

Monday was about as exciting as Sunday. I slept poorly Sunday night, so Monday was a little rough. After work, I basically just went home and crashed on the couch for a few hours. When Rachel came home from work, she had the energy to cook a whole meal, spare ribs and all. Yum.

Tune in next whenever for another exciting episode! Take care…

ON AIR: The Von Bondies - Right of Way

Parrot Bay Coconut Shrimp

Published
by
Andy
on 6/6/2004
in Observations
. 0 Comments

I have a tendancy to find the establishment less than satisfactory. I don’t like to do things that are mainstream or “popular.” If I do do something popular, most of you who know me well will know that I try to justify it by citing a novel reason for doing it. I say I don’t like fast food restaurants, but my brother knows late night McDonald’s cheeseburger runs are an expression of my rebellion against the establishment’s “healthy” diet regimen. Wendy’s is OK because because Dave Thomas was cool and the 99 cent menu appeals to my dirt-poor college student nature. So there is always a good reason when I jump on a bandwagon. One of those bandwagons is Parrot Bay Coconut Shrimp from the national restaurant chain Red Lobster. I probably wouldn’t go to Red Lobster if it weren’t for Coconut Shrimp. Whenever Michelle and I elect to go to RL, the conversation usually goes something like this:

Michelle: “You know what sounds good?”

Andy: “What?”

Michelle: “Coconut Shrimp.”

Andy: “Let’s go.”

That’s how it goes. That stuff is dangerous. It’s like a drug. Pina Colada sauce? The icing on the cake. Besides the cheddar biscuits, there’s really no other reason to go to Red Lobster, unless you want an above average margarita.

So anyway, that’s what I had for dinner tonight.

Also, I was tipped off to an interesting story the other day by Michelle. It’s a column about how Al Gore is a lunatic. Not sure how much is jest and how much is serious. This should especially be interesting to die-hard Gore apologists such as Stephen. Read the article by clicking here. Give it a second to load. Thank Michelle for this gem.

No regular Law & Order tonight. Had to settle for SVU. Take care…

ON AIR: The Poem Adept - Able Glass Note

New York 2

Published
by
Andy
on 6/5/2004
in Log
. 0 Comments

So my big plans turned out to be another trip to the city. Another late night trip, but different destinations. Again we didn’t get to the city until after 10 p.m., and didn’t get back home until after 6 a.m. What we did in between, however, was great fun.

The group last night was comprised of me, Toni, Janice, and my friend and fellow Ball Stater Erica, who is interning at a newspaper in Newark. It was Erica’s first real trip to the city. Rachel had to work. We originally went with the intention of seeing a band, Ambulance Ltd., at this place called Rothco. I think that’s what it was called. Unfortunately, when we got there, we found out that it was not a bar with a cover charge as we expected, but a ticketed affair. We had no tickets, and they were sold out. So that ruined that. We were not discouraged, thought. After all, we were in New York city, surely we could find something to fill the time.

Rothco (?) was in the Lower East Side. Since we couldn’t go to the show, we decided to get something to eat. We went to this restaurant called Bereket Turkish Kebab House. I had a Chicken Shish sandwich. In my mind it was similar to a Greek gyro, but I suppose they might take offense to that. Either way, it was very good. The place had a lot of personality. It was set up kind of like a lunch counter, and the cooks joked with the customers, and seemed to be having fun.

After that we wandered around until we came to this restaurant/pub called the Olive Tree Restaurant. There we shared some pitchers of something. The tables in the restaurant were made of slate, and provided on the table was chalk. We talked and enjoyed chalk games. Then we took turns trying to draw one another. It was fun.

While we were at the Olive Tree, we had contact with a little stardom. You know that show, I think it’s on FX, called Insomniac? Well the guy that does that show, Dave Atell, was in the restaurant that night. Actually, he was in and out of the restaurant the whole time we were there. In the basement of the restaurant was this place called the Comedy Celar. Atell was on the billing for that night, so he must have just been wandering around the neighborhood until he was on. We didn’t talk to him, just noticed him. Today when I mentioned that to Rachel, she said a friend of hers had dated him for a while, and that he was pretty wierd. A drunk, too. But who am I too judge. Personally I don’t find his show that entertaining.

After that experience, we decided to go to Greenwich Village. We had to park on 5th Avenue, then walk through Washington Square Park. That’s a scary place at night. Three guys asked me if I wanted a “smoke.” The park was cool, though. It had a big arch monument, and a huge fountain in the middle. In Greenwich Village (most people pronounce it like “grenitch,” but maybe that’s just the accent), we went to a neat record store. I think it was called Bleeker Bob’s Records. Very old school. More vinyl than CDs. Didn’t find anything, though, so we moved on.

Our next destination was a restaurant called Tiffany. It was about 4 a.m. by this time. It was a nice little diner. Kind of dark inside, but nice nevertheless. We all had coffee and varying deserts. I had a huge piece of lemon mirangue pie. It was darn good. I’m still more of a key lime kind of guy, but I managed. The restaurant was classy, like something out of a movie. Hell, maybe it’s been in a movie. We decided that would be our last stop, so we paid and headed back toward the car.

We had to walk through Washington Square Park again, and the girls were not only offered drugs but propositioned in the same breath. I should have said something. They were being total creeps, but there were about 5 rough looking guys in their group and only one in ours. I reminded myself to choose my battles. The girls just laughed it off. We made it the rest of the way to the car without incident.

We entered and left the city via the Lincoln Tunnel this time, because we had to pick up and drop off Erica, who is living a little north of Newark. This afforded us the opportunity to drive by Times Square. We didn’t actually drive through it, but saw it from a block away. Pretty nifty. The Lincoln Tunnel is much like Holland Tunnel. Less curvy, I think. We got a little turned around trying to find the entrance.

So we dropped Erica off safely and then I had to keep Toni awake for the hour drive back to Neptune on the Parkway. It was hard since I was pretty tired, too. But what can you do?

That pretty much concludes my second trip to NYC. I crashed pretty hard when I got home, and woke up about noon. It’s raining outside. Kind of a glum day. Maybe I’ll go to the bookstore.

Oh, yeah, about Ambulance Ltd.: There’s a big concert Sunday in Asbury Park called the Great Bamboozle, and Ambulance Ltd. is going to be there. Toni and Cindy are going. Patti Smith is going to be there, too. So is Jesse Malin, Sonic Youth, and My Morning Jacket. Should be a good show. I might go, but it costs some bucks to get in. I might suck it up and go anyway. It’s at the Stone Pony, which you probably know by now as one of my favorite places out here.

So New York rocks, and I’ll be going again soon. Stay tuned. Take care…

ON AIR: Massive Attack - Man Next Door

Amature Movie Review

Published
by
Andy
on 6/4/2004
in Reviews
. 0 Comments

It doesn’t seem like it’s been long since I last posted, but I’ll give you a taste of what happened. The kids (well, kids in their 30s) at work decided it would be a good idea to see a 12:01 showing of the new Harry Potter flick. Having little else to do, I obliged. Which to fans anticipate more, the release of the latest film or the latest book? I haven’t read any reviews of the film yet, which is unusual for me, so I’m going to give it a quick untainted review:

Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban

3 stars out of 4

I’ve decided what it is that I think Harry Potter is. It’s a combination of Encyclopedia Brown and Lord of the Rings, with a little bit of Bewitched thrown in for good measure. Every one of the Harry Potter movies have been a magical whodunnit. It borrows a lot. The Dementors look an awful lot like the Ringwraiths from LOTR. Also, the last Harry Potter film had a small, goblin-like creature who talked funny. Ring a bell? Maybe it’s just coincidence. Maybe I’m just looking too hard.

There’s a story formula emerging. Basically, whoever you think is the bad guy at the beginning turns out to be a good guy, and the New Professor turns out to be less than good. It’s really easy. All you have to do is give a good guy a really sinister sounding name. It helps to prejudice the audience.

As for this movie, it’s much darker than I remember the first two being. That could have to do with the change of directors, or maybe it’s just following the tone of the books. Either way, I like it. The film also had a mischevious Halloween feeling that I haven’t felt since “The Nightmare Before Christmas.” I think it has a lot to do with the color palette. They should release these films on Halloween. They’d sell more Harry Potter costumes.

I feel bad for the young actors in the movie. Unfortunately, the characters are aging one year at a time while the actors are aging two. Now they’re young adults being asked to play tweens. It’s easy to see that they’ve gotten taller, ganglier. They’ve lost that pudgy “kidness” that they had in the first two films. I’m afraid that by the time the seventh film comes along they’ll be old enough to drink. I don’t know. They could pull it off.

The special effects in this movie are the most fun part of it. There’s another scene involving time travel that approaches genius. A Quidditch match in a rainstorm is also pretty neat. The writing is solid, and the characters are well developed. You hardly even notice Dumbledore is played by a different actor. (Originally played by Richard Harris, who died in 2002 of hodgkin’s disease.)

My biggest complaint about this movie compared to the first two films is that Hogwart’s seemed like an afterthought, like just a backdrop for the character action. In the first two films you really got a sense of the place, you believed these kids were there for a real school term. The action in this movie could have taken place in one day the way the pacing was set.

Also, and this may have something to do with it, in the first two films, there are many scenes in the great hall area. In Azkaban, they were only there a couple of times. I think the great hall scenes really helped to establish the “schoolness” of Hogwart’s, and especially served to slow down the action so you could actually believe the story was taking place over a whole school year.

I’m not a huge Potthead, so I don’t have a lot of prejudice going into this. I haven’t read this book, so I can’t compare the film to it. It works as a film, though. It’s not perfect by any means, but they have 4 more chances to get it right.

END REVIEW

Anyway, so we went to the 12:01 showing, but before that we went to TGI Friday’s for a little warmer-upper. That pretty much concludes my account of Thursday’s events. I have big plans for tonight, though, so stay tuned. Take care…

ON AIR: Death Cab for Cutie - Title and Registration

Latvia is close to Russia

Published
by
Andy
on 6/3/2004
in Observations
. 0 Comments

Turns out I’m getting some press from people I don’t even know. Here’s two links to places that are apparently watching me: NJ weblogs, and Dynamobuzz. It’s always fun to have an audience of strangers. Give me a break. Everyone’s googled themselves.

Looks like I’m actually getting some interest in my transcontinental road trip. Anyone willing to fund this crazy expedition? Just email me. For Lin: If my T-Bird can’t make it, your Camry definitely won’t make it. Plus, we don’t name cars. It’s just unsettling. And shame on you Stephen for perpetuating it! Tilly is the name of a landmark out here. I was going to post a picture, but the only one I could find was all copyrighted and stuff. So here’s a link to it instead.

You might have noticed that to the right, my profile has changed a little. One of the sites above didn’t seem to understand what my blog was about. So I thought I’d clarify a little.

For anyone who’s interested, you can see some of the pages I’m doing here at Newspagedesigner. I’ll even provide this handy link that will take you right to my section. Check out some of the other BSU people here. Some of us aren’t on that particular list, so you might have to search for them by name.

OK, enough with announcements and stuff. What did I do yesterday? I know you’ve all been dying to read my latest post, because my midweek adventures are among the most exciting. Right?

Anyway, after what felt like an extremely long day at work, I left. I’ve been given another assignment. Wait, did I write about that last time? I don’t remember. Either way, it’s not terribly exciting, just developing a style for headlines in photos for a section.

After work, I had my daily dose of that show. When Rachel returned, she thought since it was such a nice night we should go to the boardwalk. So we did. Most of the boros or townships have boardwalks, and they all connect. I realized when I got there that I’d been living a mile or so from the ATLANTIC OCEAN for going on four weeks and I’d only seen the damn thing twice. TWICE. It’s almost like I forgot it was there. I wonder if that’s what it’s like for people who’ve lived here their whole lives. Rachel is one of those, and she told me she’d never been out on a boat in the ocean. The ocean is pretty amazing. I mean, I’ve been to Lake Michigan plenty of times, and on a clear day if you squint and look very carefully, you can see the other side, see the tall buildings of Chicago. Last night the moon was very bright (I think it was full?), so the whole ocean was lit by moonlight. I squinted and looked very carefully and all I could see was ocean. There were lights on the horizon, which Rachel said were probably ships. The ocean is awesome in every sense of the word. It’s no wonder ancient (and even some modern) cultures worshiped the sea as a god. The boardwalk is about 75 to 100 yards from the actual shore. The waves that were coming in weren’t huge, but they were what we would consider big at Lake Michigan. Modern technology has made size and distance irrelevant. Sometimes I think we forget what a marvel it was for our ancestors to cross this ocean in a wooden ship. For that matter, we forget how big our world really is relative to us. Look up at the clouds today and try to imagine how big they really are. The Earth is giant and powerful.

That’s the thing about this global warming crap. Anyone seen that new movie? We humans are audacious to think we can “destroy” the world. Even if we could affect the world enough to make it inhospitable for us, Earth would keep on turning, keep on going around the sun. Our planet has proven itself time and time again to be rather resilient, and every day it displays the power it has over us. How are our internal clocks set? When do you get tired? Are we the Earth’s bitches, or what?

END RANT

So after our walk, Rachel and I stopped at this little bar/snack shop across the street from the boardwalk called D’Jais. (Careful, their Web site has some stupid sound right when you open it.) We had some pizza that was not so great. The guy behind the counter was interesting. He was from Latvia, and his father was Russian. He had an accent. (Rachel has a thing for accents; she said next time we’re in public together I’m her brother.) He talked about coming to America, and how we’re so wastful. In Russia, if someone threw food on the ground, they would be “kicked.” In some countries, he said, the have a special plate for bread. That’s how important food is. However, he seemed to think that we Americans have earned our arrogance, and that he doesn’t blame us for being such. Any country that had as much money as we do would be the same way.

I also found out today, to my great disappointment, that there is no 27th precinct in NYC. It’s the fictional precinct of the guys on Law & Order. It also apparently encompasses all of Manhatten. I was kinda hoping to be able to visit the building while I was there sometime, but I guess that’s not possible. Since it doesn’t exist. Too bad.

OK, I’ve been typing this on and off all day at work, so forgive me if it’s a little jumpy. I’m sure there’s more I meant to say but it will just have to wait. Take care…

ON AIR: Elliot Smith - Son of Sam