JELLY OF THE MONTH CLUB

When he was handing me the sealed envelope it was like that Alex Olson song in the new Lakai video, "You used to be so beautiful..." Then I opened it up and saw the week little sum I would still be taxed on, "And now your gonna die die die die die."
The last possible thing I expected before Christmas is getting royally screwed by my job. My Christmas bonus was literally ninety percent less than it was last year, and I worked three times as hard. There aren't going to be too many posts from here on out until the new year. I need to distance myself from photography.
It probably wasn't the best move to call in with all my vulgarities and scream at my boss.
Don't let this happen to you. If you worked your ass off and get screwed and don't say anything then they'll keep taking advantage. All I needed was a good excuse, now I have one.
Of course it's demeaning when he tells me this and that about when he was my age and he was a little broke and he had to sell his guitar but realized twenty years later when his father was sick that Christmas isn't about money, it's about family.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, I screamed in my head and told him I had to get off the phone.
All the meanwhile I had two friends outside my car with the windows getting foggy and the doors locked.
Give me a Goose Island, I'm out.

SLICED UP.

You know your girlfriend is rad when she slices you with a razor blade. Congrats on the homemade butterfly stitch, you're like Swayze in "Road House."

WINTRY MIX

It is nasty outside. Luckily I put on my spiky snow tires the other day on the Marquis or I would have surely gotten into an accident. Snow tires are a must, I highly recommend them for anyone with a car near snow.

OLD MAN, LOOK AT MY LIFE, I'M A LOT LIKE YOU WERE.

FORGET ABOUT IT JAKE, IT'S CHINATOWN

Wasn't too hyped on his bloggable exposure.

YOU BETTER NOT POUT, YOU BETTER NOT CRY.

So it must be mentioned that I had some drinks on Sunday night but I got home safely and ended up watching half of "Enemy Mine" (An epic movie for those who knew what was happening when the Bears won their last championship and a severe disappointment for anyone oblivious to it.) I woke up feeling sincerely ill, stiff body aching, headache from hell. I felt like I'd guzzled a bottle of Nighttrain with a bunch of flu'd up bums on the Bowery.
Of course I made the serious mistake of agreeing to do some photo assignments because I need the work, even though I'd already puked a good number of times.
What I had can be called double trouble. Waking up thinking it's a hangover, but it's actually the twenty-four hour flu.
My first public pukings were shy and timid like a little boy on his first day of school. Ducking into the dead end near 120th street and 135th avenue In South Ozone Park while on assignment and opening my car door. Until some screw-ball pulled up right behind me with his car running and was just watching me. Creepy.
But after my second assignment and stuck in traffic, stomach violently thrusting, I had overcome that shy-ness and would just pull out of traffic near any old curb, open my door and let the world see the sickness within me come out. Bile and foamy, teeth feeling disgustingly chalky. Headache still getting worse at three am on Tuesday morning. Ouch is the word. I couldn't take any alkaseltzer because there was absolutely nothing in my stomach. Rough days.
So don't share any glasses with anyone and wash yo hands thoroughly because there's some kind of monster twenty four hour flu going around. YOU DO NOT WANT THIS IN YOUR LIFE.

MY LITTLE DEUCE COUPE.

Its bad enough your car is dead and you have to push into a parallel park, but now you got some kid taking photo's right after hitting that doller menu at Wendy's. I've almost perfected the art of someone screaming at me and me acting completely oblivious to it. It really helps if you mush a bunch of words together and make a rainman voice and catch them off guard by saying something like, "Me randy 'gon lollipops with unicorns and Spielbergs." They'll be like, "Ahh, just leave that kid alone and let's figure out where to get a new car battery."

DUDE, YOU'RE SUPER COOL!

When I was a little thirteen year old skate grommet me and my friend Brendan used to always write letters into skate companies trying to scam free shit.
We would take the addresses from the bottom of the advertisements, stick a stamp on the envelope and hope something free would come back to us.
He had a professional letter he'd typed into his computer and he would just change the name of the company and sign it but every letter was the same. I wasn't that advanced so I hand wrote each one.
Pure jealousy boiled within my veins when Brendan kept getting free stuff. Some New Deal wheels, a Maple blank board, etc.
Then one day I got a phone call from San Francisco. I guess I had included my phone number as well. The funny thing is I had seen Lavar McBride in Thrashers "Sponsor Me," and I had gotten him confused with Stevie Williams.
So I wrote a letter to Stevie Williams from a "Profile Skateboards" ad saying he was my favorite skater and thissa and a thatta.
Stevie Williams is on the phone with me after grade school saying "I'm gonna send you a board, shoes, wheels," Basically the whole universe to me at the time, even if I had written a letter to the wrong guy and gotten them confused, we're talkin' free product here. Brendan had nothing on this game!
Every day I literally ran home from school awaiting my big glorious box sent strait from S.F., then the capital of skateboarding for sure. (Maybe even still so today.)
Nothing. I talked it up so much around the neighborhood how Stevie was sending me a package, that when nothing came it had turned into a neighborhood joke. Brendan was telling me how he had pranked me and that it was all a joke. I was the laughing-stock of the getting-free-skateboard-shit letter writing universe. Times were tough but I moved along with my head down.
My parents had to scream at me for making phone calls to San Francisco. Who did I know there? How could I know anyone there? Why don't you get rid of that skateboard and start playing team sports again?
I hold nothing against the young Stevie, maybe he wanted his ego stroked, or maybe he just forgot.
My first calls to Profile were normal, they told me he was out skating, I could respect that. After twenty or so phone calls they knew my voice and just hung up. (I eventually hung out with Stevie when he was on Chocolate, he didn't have an i.d. while everyone was in the bars, and neither did I so we hung out, and he was cool as hell. I never mentioned the letter though, I would have been playing myself hard. on the same night Keenan Milton was there and to my amazement he would jump over every garbage can walking down the street and jump over the Chicago Sun Times newspaper stands which are pretty damn tall. Then, after a couple drinks entered his stomach he caught his foot on one of the newspaper stands and took a slam, getting up laughing heartily. I was amazed!)
Then I got one thing back. Eric Dressen sent me one Dogtown sticker with a pen-written note that looked like he had scribbled it in three seconds that read, "Dude, Your'e Super Cool!"
So, walking down Jamaica Avenue and 120th street, I saw some guy in a corvette with a santa hat and thought to myself, Man that dude is super cool!

SITTTTTING IN THE PARK, WAITING FOR YOOOOUUUU.

These days it's hard to tell, I don't know if this kid has never stood on a skateboard in his life or if he's pro disguising himself.

Jump in the station wagon girls we are all going to get manicures and pedicures, my treat.

CLICK ON THE FLYER.

I don't have time to figure out these strange computer mishaps.

THE MERRY X-MAS BLOW-OUT!!!

Davey James and I will be throwing down some records this Sunday so make it out if you can. It will be our last Sunday before New Years and then hopefully we'll be doing Thursday's.
Also, Apple Pie of Youngphilosopher.com will be throwing a nice get-together tomorrow night at Sweet Paradise (14 Orchard St. between Hester and Canal, 6-9 pm.) I will also be playing a couple records at this get together as well. The usual stuff, Ice-T, Suicidal Tendancies, Stevie Wonder, and then other shit that only old nerdy record losers have ever heard of, like Jack Scott's "Goodbye Baby."
I guess I will not need to be posting this new photo since it's being used as a flyer.
There will be a special offering of Flaming Hot Cheetos to those who take the night up one notch.
Sincerely,

BRAINCLOUD VS. THE VOLCANO.

Two sanitation workers were rushed to the hospital after throwing away some severely contaminated garbage.This guy's job has got to be strange. He leaves his house in the morning knowing he'll be getting completely dipped in protective gear and handling some serious waste. Ouch.

THE TRUTH ABOUT MIDTOWN PAJAMA'S.

Walking down the street, lifting my backpack like I'm in a gym. Saw Mr. Afternoon Pajama's and knew I needed a picture. I asked him nonchallantly and his reply, with cigarette and mutt in hand, was kind of like, "Ahh, just get it over with already. Can't you see I'm walking my dog?" I didn't know if that was a yes or a no but none-the-less I got one off.

Gilbert O'Sullivan

I will rarely put up a YouTube but this one was a must.

WAKE UP, WAKE UP, WAKE UP IT'S THE SECOND OF THE MONTH.

The beauty of film, is that you can severely fuck up a shot and it might come out great. I love this picture. I don't know how it happened. I did not use some art-school trick or rewind my film. In actuality I dropped my camera, a new little cheap-ass thingy that was 90.00 in the 90's and 25.00 in 2005. This picture is somehow three in one.
We were extremely happy to be getting home one cold night when it was rainy, about 4 am, and these guys came out of nowhere and were along our same wavelength for sure.
If you have a record player and you do not have Genesis "In the Beginnning," then you should hunt that one down. It could save your winter. Just trust me.