Tidbits: Confusion

Am I keeping PoYB alive, or driving it further into the depths of death? I wish people like Bono, Mick Jagger, the makers of CSI, and Charlie Sheen's addiction would ask themselves these questions.

Tidbits: White Lies

Does anybody have grandparents that actually give them Werther's Originals? I think that's just some shit TV made up like AIDS and Jim Belushi's career.

Tidbits: Golden Age

I yearn for the good old days, when drinking at work and hitting women were considered equally acceptable. Now everyone's so goddamn proper.

Tidbits: Mustaches, a Cautionary Tale

Tidbits is a column that I'll be adding to whenever the fuck I feel it is time to post shit. It'll probably be musings on the finer things in life such as wine, cheese, gourmet food, Danny Glover films, and penis jokes. Nothing stupid. Today's Tidbit is about one of the greatest things a man should never pull off. The mustache.

I wear a beard for one very good reason. I can't live up to a mustache. A beard is unassuming. A beard is welcoming. A beard is warm. A beard means you're a good man. A mustache means you're a great man. Great men have mustaches. Salvador Dali, Friedrich Nietzsche, Rollie Fingers, Burt Reynolds, John Wilkes Booth, at least one of the Village People. It's gotta be hard to live up to that. When you wear a mustache you set the bar so high. If you'll allow the first ever Puke on Your Birthday Pole Vaulting Analogy, wearing a beard is like setting the bar an inch above the leader. Wearing a mustache is like saying, "Fuck it, you did twelve feet, I'm going for nineteen and a half." Almost nobody can live up to that, which, if you'll allow the second ever Puke on Your Birthday Pole Vaulting Analogy, is why most mustache wearers ended up metaphorically impaling themselves on their pole vaulting pole.

I think it actually leads to pedophilia. I imagine two police constables talking to each other while booking a pedophile:

"What could this distinguished-looking gentleman possibly have done?"

"He touches children."

It must be so hard trying to live up to a mustache, and I guess they take it out on the kids.

What Puke on Your Birthday Has Done

See you around, kids.

I JUST GAVE IN MY APPLICATION PLEASE DON'T READ THIS

Ah shit. I guess I knew this day would come.

One of our writers, whose name I will not mention due to reasons that will be obvious in a moment, sent me a Facebook message today. In this message he described how he—GASP—wanted to find a job, and Puke would not help him in this endeavor.

Yes, dear reader, we live in a world that breeds bosses who would be malevolent enough to check your Facebook and your Twitter and your fucking blog to make sure you don't drink alcohol. If you used to drink Lionshead lukewarm in the woods, fuck your chances of law school, right?!?!

I shake my fist at this world. I'm pissed. My good friend, [name], can't express his true feelings and words because he needs a full time job? It's bullshit. We live in a country that was founded on the idea of free speech, and this young doodie has to go back and delete upwards of 25 blog posts in which he has expressed a free speech.

This hurts, dear reader. I wish I could do something about it. Alas, I can't.

Well, not really. I could write another blog post about the issue, and tell any and all potential employers who REALLY writes on this blog. Because all this time, you thought it was Joe [last name] and Mike [last name] and their cohorts, didn't you? Well, I got news for you old farts. Google was wrong. If you got here by googling your potential employee's last name, you came to the wrong place.

Here are the TRUE identities of those who write on this blog:


WRITER #1: Joe Jonas



Yes, the guy who wrote about Facebook etiquette, smoking bans, and Miley Cyrus is really the teen heartthrob himself, Joe Jonas. Known to his friends as "The Jonas Brother Who Banged Taylor Swift," this Jonas brother once banged Taylor Swift. He was also the subject of a "revenge song" written by Taylor Swift. Here's hoping that Taylor Swift reads this blog, realizes that Joe Jonas is the true author of such posts as "An Hour of Power: The Aftermath" and falls back in love with him. I mean, me. Because I'm Joe Jonas.


WRITER #2: Mike O'Malley



Oh, potential employer, you thought this writer was another guy of such aplomb as to write such posts as... ah shit, I can't remember any posts that Mike wrote, because he just deleted all of them. That's right, Mike O'Malley, the main star of Yes, Dear, needs his blog to be cleared of any trace of his name. Those Aggro Crags on eBay don't sell for much money these days!


WRITER #3: Dave Navarro



Yup, this is the guitarist from Jane's Addiction and, according to Wikipedia, the guitarist in a group called Camp Freddy. He wrote such wonderful posts as the one about genetics and the one about walls. He has a goatee and definitely doesn't work for Lafayette Redeemer.


WRITER #4: Nick Green



Nick plays baseball for a team that sucked enough to not make the playoffs this year, the San Diego Padres. You may not know him because you don't know anything about baseball, and you especially wouldn't know any baseball player's name that doesn't end in "Utley." This dude has not only quick fingers that type about how he won't smoke anymore, but also a weird thread (via google) in which people argue about whether he'd be a good boyfriend. He writes for Puke, ladies! Start lining up!!


WRITERS PREVIOUS: Frank, Harry, Mandy, aka The Others



FRANK IS THE SMOKE MONSTER, AND DEFINITELY SOMEONE YOU SHOULD HIRE AS A FULL TIME EMPLOYEE.


See? We don't deserve to be overlooked as a potential worker for your job opening. We are normal people like Joe Jonas and Mike O'Malley, definitely not random jabronis from the Northeast. Most assuredly not!

But just in case you want to assume that the person you want to employ at one point wrote for this blog, and you don't believe a word this blog post says about Mike "O'Malley," because, c'mon, Mike O'Malley is way too serious an actor to write on such a shitty blog, well... here are the things that your Mike S****** did:

• Has a surname that rhymes with "give plaque"
  
• Sucked a professor's penis at the U. of P. for that A- on his resume.
• Sold drugs, but only those he could steal from his mother's drug cabinet
• Stuck his finger in someone's rimhole while wearing a ring
• Murdered in the second degree
• Burned / arsoned a building due to his reckless flicking of a Clove cigarette
• Caused cancer via Clove cigarette
• Wrote an inflammatory Facebook status about dressing up as a knife-wielding bear
• Was a male stripper at Woody's, hitting on women's boyfriends, furthermore blowing those who we could only assume but not confirm were gay
• Provided scratchy toilet paper to patrons
• Changed the music at his buddy's party because "Lady Gaga was so last year"
• Shanked a teacher
• Skanked with a teacher
  
• Can't finish his meal
• His biggest flaw: "I care about people too much, and I work too hard."

Hey Law School. Enroll this guy.

Rising from the Ashes of Cathy

I hate to have to write a blog post about something like this and have to move a beautifully written piece by our very own David N***** down a spot on the homepage. What I'm about to write about might ruin your day, so go read his celebration of a beloved team first (or go read it on his own blog, Composed of Words, which is like Puke on Your Birthday's runty little step-brother who gets all his hand-me-downs).

Now that you've basked in the glory of another Red October, I bring you an update on my jaded relationship with the funny pages. As you may or may not have heard, our dear beloved Cathy has been removed from syndication. Her obsession with diets and her unbalanced passive-aggressive feelings for her mother will be laid to rest with her.

There were parties in the streets during her funeral. We cracked open the finest beers and shared hugs with family and friends as we bid farewell to our self-conscious swimsuit-obsessed brethren. We laughed about all the good memories we had with Cathy, like the one time I lined my bird cage with her awful comic strip, or the one time I lined my dog cage with her awful comic strip.

Yes, it was a beautiful day indeed.

Unfortunately, when God closes the door on one annoying woman, he opens up a window for a dead grandmother's ghost to fly through.

The Family Circus is being made into a movie.

What angry celestial being had to rain on my parade? What did I do in my life to deserve this? Where did it all go wrong? WHY OH GOD WHY?!

Out of all the comics strips in the Inquirer, why did the movie execs have to choose Family Circus as its next movie franchise? We could have been blessed with the witty tirades of Rat and Pig from Pearls Before Swine, but instead we are stuck with little kids who insist on taking every goddamn thing literally. We had the chance to see a Stripes-esque comedy based on that goofy and lovable Beetle Bailey, yet we are instead tortured by children who somehow leave dotted lines behind them as they lead a path of destruction. Shit, I'd rather watch Blondie take a nap on the couch for two hours then have to put up with this noise.

Any studious and attentive fan of Puke knows how much I utterly loathe this Family Circus. The fact that it will be turned into a major motion picture makes me rue the day Anthemius of Tralles used the camera obscura to make the first film.

You bet your ass I'll be stealing this movie from Megavideo.com and posting a scathing tirade of a review on this blog when the time comes. Until then, beware the steam coming out of my ears.

Baseball: There's Nothing like a Winning Team

Alas, October baseball is upon us. Once again, our work and school days drag out as we wait for that first pitch to be hurled. It truly is the most wonderful time of the year... if your team makes the postseason.

Months ago, during the Flyers' improbable run at immortality that fell short of a Stanley Cup to the better team, I wrote about the psychology of sports. The premise of the piece: why does the concept of sports make us happy? During that sudden, came-out-of-nowhere run, I had an incredible time. Every game was a party. Any time your team makes the postseason with a legitimate chance at proving themselves as the undisputed best team, you're going to have fun. When the Eagles went to the NFC Championship Game four straight times and the Superbowl once, the work and school weeks felt like years leading up to those Sundays. Every postseason trip of every sport turns into a party for said team's fans. The atmosphere of the city and the stadium is nothing less than electric. The further into the playoffs your team goes, the crazier and more electric the party becomes.

Which brings me back to the baseball postseason. Here in Philadelphia, celebrating the success of the Phillies beyond September has fallen from unique to routine. What was once a rarity in this city has become an annual tradition. The novelty of October baseball has faded in this city and that's not a bad thing. If I had to choose a Philadelphia team to be successful year after year, I would pick the Phillies. Why? Because baseball is the best sport to have a successful team.

I don't want to downplay the fun I had during that Flyers run, any of the Eagles runs, or the 2001 Sixers run. Those were some good times to be a Philly sports fan. But when the Phillies are successful, it's just more fun. Hear me out.

I know it's cliché, but I'm going to say it—baseball is America's pastime. The folk lore of the Great Bambino, Joltin' Joe DiMaggio, Yogi Berra, Ted Williams, and countless more resonate throughout the hearts of baseball fans across America when they sit down and watch their team play October baseball.

Baseball is a game of unforgettable numbers that are forever married to unforgettable names: Hank Aaron, 755. Joe DiMaggio, 56. Cy Young, 511. Pete Rose, 4,256. Nolan Ryan, 5,714. Cal Ripken, 2,632. Ty Cobb, .367. You get the point. The hair on the back of your neck stands up when discussing these ridiculous, legendary career performances.

When your team excels in baseball, there is so much history to talk about and to compare.

On October 8, 1956, Don Larsen threw the first no-hitter, and only perfect game, in postseason history. That name and that accomplishment seemed untouchable and even laughable if mentioned as a wish. Then, on October 6, 2010, Roy Halladay no-hit the Cincinnati Reds—a game that will go down as the second greatest game ever pitched. The rarity of this accomplishment makes the moment almost as special to the fans as it is to the player. I don't know about you, but I'd rather see a Phillies pitcher hurl a no-hitter in the postseason than see Mike Richards score eight goals in one playoff game. I'm just saying.

Perhaps the most important number in baseball, and the cardinal reason why October baseball is so euphoric, is 162. The baseball season is 162 games long. In six months, there are a total of eighteen days when the teams do not play baseball. Six of those eighteen days (three Mondays in August and three Thursdays in September) are often used for makeup games. Teams play double headers. Teams will play in one time zone one night and another the next night. Baseball is a marathon. There is no such thing as a baseball team having an amazing season from beginning to end. Take, for instance, the Phillies. In May of this season, the Phillies went 30 scoreless innings spanning over 119 plate appearances. Those 30 innings included a three-game sweep by the Mets in which the Phillies did not score a single run. Fast forward to October 3, 2010, through a string of sporadic losing streaks and scoring droughts, the Phillies finished 97-65. The best record in baseball.

A lot can and does happen in 162 games. Winning streaks, losing streaks, scoring droughts, injuries, and personnel changes are what make baseball, baseball. The highs and lows of the long season make achieving a postseason spot so sweet.

Finally, having a successful baseball team is the ultimate gift to sports fans because you have six months to endure with your team. I love getting home from work on summer nights and watching the Phils. Sitting on my couch in the basement, with the back door open and beer in hand while watching the game is one of my favorite ways to spend a night. More so, there's nothing like a night at the ballpark. Not too many things in the world are better than tailgating on warm summer evenings with a bunch of your best friends. Then, those warm evenings become brisk nights, and that's when you know you have a good team.

Some of us have played football. Some, hockey. Some, basketball, soccer, ran, rowed, swam, bowled, and golfed. But all of us have played baseball. It's America's sport. It's competitive but endearing. Challenging but charming.

Those of you who know me know that I'm an avid sports fan. You've seen me at my best and at my worst with all my teams. You also know that baseball is my passion. Obviously, this post is completely biased, but I made a strong argument. Right?

Oh, and in what other sport can you watch your team get hammered after certain wins? That's some good reality television.

Bill and Ted's Excellent Wake of Destruction and Sadness

It seems like a pretty easy-going thing. To sit at home on the couch, tune in to Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, and eat food should be a walk in the park. I guess my mind just works differently. For those of you who are stupid, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure is—for most—a delightful buddy comedy about two slackers on a quest to finish a high school history assignment. Besieged by delusions of grandeur, valley dude sensibilities, an implied dependency on marijuana, and a lack of working knowledge in the operation of time machines, the presentation is, surprisingly, not easy to assemble.

I'll spare you the plot summary, as you can easily read it at the source from which I paraphrased several sentences in the last paragraph, Wikipedia. You've probably already watched it, and you've probably found it to be a delightful romp, a light look into the lives of Theodore Logan and Bill S. Preston, Esq. I found it to be an excellent representation of America's throwaway culture. A fantastic satire about the modern man's unscrupulous use of resources. A fabulous example of the "act now, worry later" attitude we all sport. It's disgusting. No scruples at all.

"Hey asshole," you are certainly exclaiming. "How could you find anything wrong with this movie?"

To which I wittily retort, "Fuck you."

The reason I find this movie so disturbing is due to the sure repercussions that all of history would have had to endure because these two douchebags ended up cheating their way into a great presentation. They could have entirely changed the course of history, and we'd have never been the same for it.

As Bill and Ted assemble a pantheon of history's best and brightest, they give no thought to how it would affect these people's lives. Socrates (pronounced "So-crates") could surely never convey another rational philosophical thought, without first being distracted by the vivid memory of the strangest day of his life. You can't just take a man out of ancient Greece, put him on stage at San Dimas High, take him BACK to ancient Greece, and expect him to live out a normal life, I've tried. How much of an asshole would Socrates look like if he went up to Plato, said, "Dude, guess what just happened to me," and started relaying stories about the shopping mall and electricity?

Napoleon was surely exiled for his attempts to introduce bowling and ice cream boats to the French (though, in our protagonists' defense, he was on his way down that path). Would Abraham Lincoln have ever signed the Emancipation Proclamation, let alone have been elected President of THE United States, if his mind was ensnared in thoughts of San Dimas' beautiful babes? How could Freud have psychoanalyzed anybody? He would've been committed to an institution himself. What if Joan of Arc hadn't seen a society where, as ridiculous as it may be, women are equals? She surely never would've gotten all antsy to join the military, which means she wouldn't have been burned on that stake either.

Lest we motherfucking forget what would have perhaps been the worst injustice, had Bill and Ted gotten their way in real life. Imagine yourself sitting at home watching the MTV VMAs just a short time ago:

"The VMA for best video goes to ... Wyld Stallyns! They've won every award tonight, that's amazing."

That's a world I just don't want to live in.

My Study Abroad Blog!

I'm tired of writing about bullshit nonsense here on Puke on Your Birthday. It's childish and inane. I want to reinvent this blog, and it starts now. Because, if you haven't noticed, I'm currently in the middle of my STUDY ABROAD SEMESTER!

Yes, humble reader, I am living in the heart of the quiet square-mile known as Rockledge. It's far away from all my family, friends, and loved ones, and I miss you all dearly! So I decided to make create this blog to keep in touch with y'all.

I promise I'll write every single fucking day I'm here. I'll regale you of stories about this far-off land, and how it's probably a lot better than my shitty hometown. I'll post pictures of me hanging out with a bunch of strangers that you don't care about doing activities that you can't have possibly ever done, all the while drinking beer that's better than any beer you'll have in the States. I imagine faithful readers are already lining up in intense anticipation.

So come with me on this journey, in a land that you probably couldn't afford visiting or else you'd be here with me in person instead of following on this blog.

Make sure you check in with me daily as I post everything about this trip. I hope all is well back in the States!

[That was the last post he ever wrote for his travel abroad blog.]

My Stomach in Knots

Ask any one of my Comm major friends, and they'll talk at length about the wonder and magic of cinema. How each movie brings about a sense of joy and accomplishment. How every feature film digested is a gift, a gift that should be cherished, both for the time you spent watching the film and the positive aspect it may have on your life.

I'll agree for the most part. Movies like Ferris Bueller make me aspire to be the guy who's friends with everyone. Movies like Dazed and Confused make me giddy with nostalgia about a younger age. Willy Wonka makes me dream vivid dreams. Clerks just makes me laugh because of its perfect balance of intellectual ideas and crude humor.

Most movies that I watch either have me leave the theater with a sense of joy, excitement, energy, or all three. Even the movies that don't make me feel anything in particular are bearable, if not simply boring.

There are, however, a small select group of movies that make me feel awful. These movies not only leave me with a sense of darkness and doom, but that feeling sticks by me through the years. It affects me in more ways than a movie should.

Sometimes it is clearly evident why a particular movie makes me feel this way. Sometimes it's deeper psychologically, and decades could pass and I still won't know why a movie makes me feel lost and sad. But they do.

Let me chronicle three select movies that make me feel shitty, and allow me to wax poetic about why they make me feel the way they make me feel.

1) Pink Floyd's The Wall

The three movies I will describe in this post will most likely all be summed up in one word—"disturbing." The Wall is the most straightforward of the three. I know why this one is disturbing. It's a simple mix of horrifying images and the fact that I saw these images at the wrong time in my life.

Consider the scene in which all the kids march endlessly into a meat grinder. A gruesome image, no doubt, but it's gruesome in more ways than your typical horror movie. Say Freddy Krueger pushed a random teen into such a grinder. He would be a tragic victim no doubt, but a victim of a bizarre and diabolical creature.

But these kids were marching into a meat grinder because their teachers told them to. Their teachers! The very same people I saw every day at school! It was expected of us, as students in the educational system, to walk into these very meat grinders, and there was nothing we could do about it. This metaphor may seem obvious and crude to Pink Floyd's critics, but to a young adolescent boy like me, these images gave me a pit in my stomach I feel every time I face an authority figure.

Honestly, I know it sounds silly, but that's just how I feel. Pink Floyd's The Wall somehow hit me in just the wrong ways. My stomach is churning just writing about it. But that's nothing. Wait until we get to...

2) Kids

This one I just saw the other day, and it was the very one that prompted me to reflect on movies that made me ill. It is also the one whose psychological wounds on me are the freshest, so bear with me.

If you haven't seen Kids yet, you're in for something, alright. It is the day-in-the-life tale of a bunch of hooligans who seemingly want to do nothing but drink forties, do any drugs they can get a hold of, and fuck the living daylights out of virgins through means of lies and alcohol. In between, they rape, steal, and quite possibly kill someone for no damn reason.

As soon as I typed the word "hooligans" in the preceding paragraph, I thought for the briefest of moments that I was sounding like an old man, shaking his fist at the young punks stepping on his azaleas in his yard. After all, since when have we at Puke ever been angry at a little underage drinking? Have we ever come out to say that drugs are wrong? Have we not even talked about stealing from the local 7 Eleven before? To call these kids "sinful" because they drank and smoked and stole, would we not be hypocrites?

See, that's why this makes me so goddamn uneasy.

The kids in this movie acted like savages and basically did whatever they wanted. I consider them (hypothetically, of course, since this is fictional) horrible, horrible human beings. I see their behavior over the course of one day in their lives, and I am sick to my fucking stomach that I could possibly inhabit the same earth as people like this.

The fact that these people may actually exist makes me sick. The fact that I could have acted even remotely in any way like they do makes me even sicker.

This is distressing in a retrospective way. I look back to the days I spent in the woods and pray to God that I did not adhere to the code of conduct that the Kids kids do. Of course I've never raped anyone! That much is evident. But what if, back when I was sixteen, I kissed a girl when she did not want to? Doesn't this make me guilty of the same crimes?

Furthermore, do my actions today reflect in any way the actions of those kids? I have been thinking about this lately when I crack open my first beer. It's not a pleasant feeling. I know in the back of my mind that, obviously, things are different then they are in that movie. I am 21 years old. I have no interest in taking advantage or women. Yet, the feeling lingers.

Kids was tough to digest. But I will sooner or later. Unlike...

3) Say Anything...

I know, I know. Laugh it up. A romantic film featuring John Cusack. This movie makes me feel awful. The weird thing is, I'm not even sure I know why. But since I am here and I'm already typing, I'll give it a try.

For a while, the thing that stuck out for me was that damn scene when the Lloyd Dobler's female friends tell him, in regards to Diane Court, that she is going to hurt him. Lloyd blurts out, "maybe I want to be hurt!" And that stuck with me for a while. I could not possibly fathom why someone would want to be hurt by a woman. It's a pretty awful feeling.

But that can't be the reason I feel the same way now, could it? Because I've been hurt, and life goes on, and I've learned to except that Lloyd was just a lonely guy who was willing to take the risk of getting hurt if it meant a chance at getting the chick of his dreams. No, that wasn't it.

Could it be the fact that Lloyd spends the entirety of the movie chasing a girl blindly, even though she is clearly kind of a douche and he deserves much better? That can't be it either. I mean, it's impossible that this is why it makes me uncomfortable. The fact that I am mature enough to make an adequate character judgment about Diane Court means that I am more mature than Lloyd Dobler. I do not relate to him in any way in regards to his actions with the girl he likes.

Does that make sense? Fuck, probably not. But this is tough. Why, oh why am I, and have been for the last few years, so torn up about a damn chick flick? I don't know. All I know is that I can't watch this film ever again.

Maybe this is my subconscious way of being "different," as I am wont to do. Like it would be funny to say I am fucked up in the head while watching Say Anything. Hell, I got a strange and lengthy blog post about it. Fuck.

Well, that turned out weirder than I thought it would. I promise I'll write something better next time. Goodnight, humble reader.

Happy 251st, Puke on Your Birthday

Happy 250th, Puke on Your Birthday

We were drunk and idealistic.

Isn't that what dreams are made of, here in our little corner of Philadelphia? We get drunk and we dream big. We make plans. We grow together as friends. We sip our cold cheap beer and we appreciate our fine lives, yet yearn for more.

It was a typical Friday night. It was a night that yielded no radical change in our childhoods, produced no particularly striking memories, nor really was a "great" night in any sense of the word. It was a few friends, on an abandoned unfinished street, with a case of forties and a desire to express ourselves in more elegant ways than a drunken toast. We were the forefathers of Puke on Your Birthday.

The few of our friends that actually become more august and ornate in speech with the help of alcohol happened to be huddled on that cool night in June. It was during the "blog" phase, when adolescent tripe like xanga and livejournal were becoming middle school antiquities. We three—Joseph, Michael, Amanda—had our fair share of these embarrassing websites with our signatures on them, and we craved blog literature we could actually be PROUD of.

Three Gmail accounts, one inane yet appropriate name, and 57 combined years of Northeast Philly bullshit later, and we had ourselves a blog to call our own. Puke on Your Birthday.

Editors have come and gone. A quick Facebook mass-message yielded David, full of career aspirations as a journalist, and Nicholas, with a sarcastic wit, a sharp pen, and a copybook full of lyrics. Amanda found her words better suited for City Paper—ya know, a place where people write articles and people actually read said articles—and meanwhile, Harry and Francis did absolutely nothing except remain loyal readers.

We've run the gamut of tales opinions that this fair neighborhood could offer. We've discussed anything from the Power Rangers to Chad Kroeger to old swimming pools to bumper stickers to I-95 to adderal to VFW parties to body hair to Degrassi to Taking Back Sunday to the fact that Kev C***** is a huge bitch when it comes to finishing his meal.

We've loved and lost. We've grown up and taken on real responsibilities. We've spent time with old friends and made new ones.

We've drank a lot in the process.

And it's all been here. Our lives as we've known them have been filtered through the last 250 posts on a stupid fucking blog. It's all true. It's all here.

As we sat on that curb, Hurricanes in hand, with the cool breeze on our necks all those months ago, we made a vow to let the world know who we were. This is who we are. We are Puke on Your Birthday.

We are Puke on Your Birthday.

Humble reader, thank you, thank you, thank you, from the bottom of our hearts, for taking the time to read our blog. I hope it's been just as much a pleasure for you to read it as it has been to write it.

Love,
Joey

It's Not Halloween

Above: a failed Halloween

There are forty days until Halloween. Despite this fact, my lovely girlfriend has been persistent in her attempts to think of a great Halloween costume for us. She has been adamant in her quest since, oh, about Fourth of July.

Of course, the subject came up tonight as we got a bit tipsy on South Street. "What ever will we dress as for Halloween? It quickly approaches!" It is September 21st. Yes, my friends, Halloween is, um, just around the corner.

And so, I promised her that I would brainstorm ideas. And since I'm am a bit of a jackass and just a bit tipsy on a school night, I'll instead brainstorm on Puke on Your Birthday.

Of course, I don't have any actual ideas. It's still fucking September, for Christ's sake. But what I can come up with for you, my dear humble reader, is a definitive list of things that we will assuredly NOT be dressing up as on this Hallows' Eve. They are, in list form, the follows:

• Superman and Superwoman (no, there is no such thing as "Superwoman")
• Cole Hamels and his teacup maltese, Reese
• Lady Gaga and a gay man who dresses like Lady Gaga
• Lady Gaga and a straight man who expresses a secret by dressing as Lady Gaga
• Hermione Granger and the troll that attacked her in the bathroom
• Sorority sister and fraternity brother (because we haven't pledged yet)
• Hedwig and the Angry Inch
• Snooki and the Situation (as much as I'd love to)
• Kev C***** and the meal he cannot finish (alternatively, Kev and his blue bowtie)
• Emma Carew and Charles Dabernow Schmendiman, because, c'mon, that would be fucking lame
• Two Boy Scouts—minus the rum and coke in the Camelback backpack this time
• A pig and a nurse, as the H1N1 virus... dude, that's soooooo 2009
• The Joker and Rachel Dawes, because Dwyer pretty much has dibs on that infinitely
• Okonkwo and Alice in Wonderland
• Lindsey and Sam Weir—if we wear those outfits, and someone fucking spoils the ending of that series for me, I'll never forgive myself
• Mets fans—I have some dignity left, ya know
• Salt-N-Pepa

So yeah, that narrows it down a bit. I'm sure we'll think of something better soon.

I regret including Salt-N-Pepa on that list, because now Pam won't stop singing "Shoop." Seriously, she knows every word.

One final note: This is Pam's and my first collaborative post together. Aren't we cute?

Franzke v. Wheels

Quick, listen to this and tell me it doesn't bring a tear to your eye:

Jimmy Rollins NLCS 2009 Game 4

Now, listen to this:

Werth's Walk-Off, Sept. 19, 2010

Therein lies the crucial difference between our radio commentators and our television commentators.

Scott Franzke is the fucking man. When Jimmy Rollins hit the game winning single in the NLCS Game 4 against the Dodgers, you could truly feel the utter excitement in his voice. Likewise with Larry Anderson, who gleefully whoops along in the background. These are true Phillies fans. They are rooting for the home team right alongside us.

I don't want to comment too much about Tom McCarthy, because his job of replacing Harry Kalas is just about damn near impossible, and he has been doing just about the best he can. It's Chris Wheeler that really grinds my gears.

Listen to his comments in the second video. His first reaction is a flat "Wow." It's almost if he is bored. Second, he starts to comment on the damn pitches that the pitcher made. Third, he makes a comment that he didn't have faith that the ball would go over the fence. Who the fuck wants to hear this noise?

I grow tired and weary of Wheels and his endless discussion about pitches. Here's a typical snippet of what I hear on my TV:

TMac: "And Ryan Howard smokes one into right center field for a base hit!"
Wheels: "Ya see, he got that fast ball up and right down the center that the pitcher is so wont to throw, and Howard was able to get the barrel of the bat on top of it."
TMac: "And with that hit, the Phillies take a two-run lead!"
Wheels: "Ya know, Howard isn't the fastest runner out there, so Werth is really going to have to hit the ball well for Howard to come home."

See what's wrong here? It's sat uncomfortably in my stomach this whole season, the reason that Chris Wheeler pisses me off so much, but I couldn't really describe it in words until recently. Here it is:

The difference is that Scott Franzke and Larry Anderson are true Phillies fans, while Chris Wheeler is a true baseball fan.

It comes out in every facet of their game-calling. For example, say Jason Heyward is up to bat for the Atlanta Braves. When Scott Franzke talks about the hitting prowess of the young sensation, he talks about it full knowing that the fact that he is a great young player does not bode well for the Phillies at all. He'll read Heyward's excellent statistics with a sense of trepidation, furthermore appreciating that this is not a good thing for us.

When Wheels is in the same situation, he gets excited. There is a twinkle in his eye and a pip in his step while he verbally masturbates all over Jason Heyward. He is happy. He should not be happy as a Phillies fan. But he is!

And I don't want to exaggerate here and say that Wheels isn't a Phillies fan at all. No, he isn't Joe Buck. But his appreciation for the game is not filtered as it should be. Franzke is a baseball fan because he is a Phillies fan at heart. Wheels is a Phillies fan because he is a baseball fan and works for the Phillies.

Luckily for us Phillies fans, we don't need to depend on Wheels for our Phillies coverage. It's pretty easy to watch the Phillies at a bar and on mute. You cannot, however, listen to the radio without any sound.

Embarrassing Drunk Tweet

Nicely done, @mcdwyer.



Do you drunk tweet? What was your worst ever?

What a Wonderful View

Since I started driving in April of 2004, one of my favorite places to drive was I-95 South between Center City and the stadiums. In that ten-minute span, you got an interesting point of view of South Philly. You could see the streets, the tops of houses, the balconies, and the overall endearment that South Philly so naturally possesses. Philly has a reputation of being a tough, gritty, blue collar town, and South Philly is the epitome of said reputation. I'm sure drivers from up and down the east coast enjoyed the view as well.

The view from I-95 North between the stadiums and Center City was spine-tingling. The Philadelphia skyline never gets old. After living in London for three and half months, my first view of the skyline on that drive back from the airport was chilling. The hairs on the back of my neck were steadfast but my body was putty. Again, I'm sure any outsider enjoyed the view as well.

Both views are no more. Sound barriers have gone up on that portion of 95. I'm pissed. Both 95 North and South just became more boring than they already were. No more charming South Philly houses. No more captivating skyline. What this basically does is hide Philly. Sure, you can see the skyline from numerous other spots on 95, but that particular view, in my opinion, was the best. As far as a view of the neighborhoods go, brief glimpses of the Northeast are the weak replacements we are granted.

The reason for these barriers is a mystery. I walked the streets of South Philly both day and night. The noise was not overpowering or even notable for that matter. I'm sure some of you are saying, "Well, Dave, try living there. I'm sure the residents had trouble sleeping."

Think again: http://www.philadelphiaspeaks.com/forum/queen-village-bella-vista-hawthorne/13666-anyone-live-close-95-noise-question.html. [Editor's note from 2021: broken link, couldn't find anything relevant on the Wayback Machine.] Enjoy that.

Another reason for the barriers could be protection. This too, would make no sense. Have you ever heard of a car going through the three-feet-high cement barrier with a steel barricade on top and landing on the streets of South Philly? Neither have I.

I don't see the reason for it, and I never will. I could probably just google the answer, but I want it to be a mystery because sometimes resentment is fun. Right?

Formspring Bullshit

A few months ago, I started seeing some bullshit spam popping up on my precious Facebook newsfeed. It was asking me to "ask me any question and I'll answer it truthfully!"

Now, considering how often I am asked to choose between Pirates and Ninjas, asked to buy ten dozens beets for a Ville of farms, and asked to delete ten friends to get a free Whopper Jr., I promptly deleted all and any trace that this so-called "Formspring" from my coveted FB.

But, alas! Puke tries to—nay, succeeds—in keeping up with the trends, and in that regard, we here on our exceptional and influential blog must succumb to the masses. We created a Formspring.

Here are the questions we were asked, followed by a truthful answer (no fingers behind our backs, promise).

Question: Do your balls hang low, do they wobble to and fro, can you tie them in a knot, can you tie them in a bow?

Answer: I can't speak for everyone here at Puke, but my balls don't hang that low. They creep up towards my taint. They wobble when I'm scared. I can tie them in neither knots nor bows, but I can make a hot dog like those guys in Puppetry of the Penis taught me.

Question: Do you like girls?

Answer: I can't speak for everyone here at Puke, but I like girls. My girlfriend might disagree, because she thinks I'm gay, but... I like girls. I swear! I swear!

Question: What's your favorite snack?

Answer: I can't speak for everyone here at Puke, but I think Tastykake Butterscotch Krimpets are the bomb-diggety. Not only are they tasty, and not only are they featured as Maniac Magee's favorite brain food, but they also gave me the opportunity to use the word "bomb-diggety."

Question: How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

Answer: I can't speak for everyone here at Puke, but I can honestly say you're an ass.

Question: What's your favorite childhood memory?

Answer: I can't speak for everyone here at Puke, but I have a few memories that top the charts, mainly: 1) Harry Potter's release and they fact that I avoided any and all spoilers, 2) When Ms. Peg yelled "That ball is dead!!!!" in the schoolyard, and yet we all realized the ball was never alive to begin with, 3) That time I stole a playpen ball from McDonald's, and promptly used that ball in a backyard wiffleball game, only to strike out and humiliate myself in front of all two of my friends at the time, 4) those 547,043 hours I spent playing Super Mario World, 5) Getting on Windows 95 for the first time and wondering how the fuck AOL email worked.

Question: What are your thoughts on Barack Obama?

Answer: I can't speak for everyone here at Puke, but I think he'd be a lot cooler if he smoked cigarettes still. I don't smoke myself, but I consider smoking to be cool as fuck. We need a badass leader who is going to blaze his own path (pun intentional), not one who will succumb to the will of some pansy anti-smoking lobbyists.

Question: When did you lose your virginity?

Answer: I can't speak for everyone here at Puke... actually, I can. We're all virgins.

Question: When are you going to give up on Puke? No one fucking cares about your pathetic blog anymore. Fuck you guys. I think PoYB jumped the shark when Mandy B** left your staff. I miss her ramblings about the letter "B" and her cheating on tests. I also think that you guys lost a bunch of potential when Frank and Harry were staff members but never contributed. I bet you Frank could have wrote a witty piece about a timely viral news article, and Harry could have killed with an analysis about our very own Philadelphia Eagles. Come to think of it, they were the three writers that held the weight of Puke on their shoulders. Without them, Joe, Dave, Mike, and Nick simply make up a contingent of four local losers who write nothing but filth and boner jokes. My question, I suppose, is this: When will you fucking grown up and stop writing on this fucking blog?

Answer: Did someone mention boner jokes??

At the Movies, with Puke on Your Birthday

I am kind of a dumbass when it comes to movies. Too many times, someone will reference a movie, and I'll shoot them a quizzical look, and they'll exclaim, "Wait, you've never seen [such and such a movie]?!?!" And I'll be embarrassed.

But I've been embarrassed for a while, haven't I? There was a list of movies that I made back in April that I wanted to see this summer, and at summer's end, I'm proud to say I made great headway toward meeting my goal. Sure, I never got around to seeing Scarface or The Goonies, but fuck it, right? I saw a plethora of worthy movies, many of which weren't even on the list.

Goddamn it, I was a movie buff this summer.

At this point, if I were a blogger of lofty goals, I'd sit here until the cock crowed and give a 750-word review of each cinematic feature I digested this season. Fortunately for our quick-fingered generation of tweeters, I am going to make this short and sweet.

I will review each movie, but each review will be 140 characters or less. I'm not Ebert & Roeper, yo, and I'm not going to waste my time expounding on the general quality or overarching themes of these movies. Just enjoy my quick reflection on each film, and feel free to comment with your own review (but keep it under 140 characters, you rambling, long-winded show-off).

SUMMER 2010 MOVIE REVIEWS
By Joe K***

Die Hard
Snape killed Asian Dumbledore.

Toy Story 2
It took me eleven years to confirm that indeed it's better than the original.

Up
It didn't take me very long to confirm that Pixar cannot fucking do wrong.

Capitalism: A Love Story
I liked this because I am poor.

Memento
At first seemed like a mindfuckery, but was surprisingly easily enjoyable and memorable.

Synecdoche, NY
At first seemed like a mindfuckery, continued to fuck my mind through two hours, and now I don't even understand its Wikipedia page.

Degrassi Takes Manhattan
Do I love Degrassi because I'm drunk, or am I drunk because I love Degrassi?

The Big Lebowski
Dude...

Reservoir Dogs
I like it because of its interesting and exciting plot structure, not because it means I'm cool; however, I am cool.

Bull Durham
I liked it, but I'd like it a lot more if the threesome of Costner, Sarandon, and baseball didn't make baseball the awkward third wheel.

Adventureland
I wanted this to be the summer adolescence movie to end all summer adolescence movies; instead, it was just kind of sad.

Citizen Kane
It was a nearly impossible task to live up to the "Best Movie of All Time" status; it didn't, but it was still okay... I guess...

Big Fan
A great character study of a sad and innocent man—despite the fact that Philadelphia fans are the bad guys (y'all know how I feel about that).

25th Hour
It was 9/11, I sold heroin, etc., etc.

When Harry Met Sally...
"You suck, but I love you anyway" is both a summary of what Harry said to Sally in his famous monologue, and what I think of the movie.

Okay! So those are the movies I saw this summer. I have many people to thank. There's Netflix for shoving movie after movie down my throat. There's my mailman for faithfully delivering said Netflix while he faithfully listens to his iPod. There's each and every friend who makes me feel like the biggest asshole in the world every time we talk about cinema. There's people like Roger Ebert who are snobby enough to make me feel unapologetic about not being a movie buff. And there's my faithful laptop—I knew you were capable of other tasks besides looking at my girlfriend's Facebook profile.

Yay for movies!

PUKE IS FUCKING SLACKING

Damn it, it happened again. I slacked on Puke on Your Birthday. This tends to happen a few times a year. I feel awful—I do!—because a multitude of people come up to me on the streets to tell me that I should update the blog. And when I say a "multitude of people," of course I mean "my girlfriend takes pity on my need to express my irrelevant thoughts on a vast interweb filled with other useless shit, so much so that my verbose bullshit is but a minuscule pimple on the oily face of the general American consciousness."

But please, take heed. I haven't had access to the internet! And as much as I would love to scribble drunkenly on the back of the envelope in which my minimum wage paycheck was delivered in and tie it to a pigeon only to have said pigeon fly it to the interweb's hypothetical central location center and have said pigeon somehow put it on Puke on Your Birthday because, damn it, my pets are going to do what I say they'll do... it just doesn't fucking work that way.

But 'lo and behold, you beautiful, beautiful reader (that's me addressing my girlfriend again, though I'm sure all you other readers are beautiful in your own unique way), my stronghold that I call "'Stock" (short for "the Woodstock Street house") is now fully equipped with a wireless router, and my out-of-date laptop now has full access to Facebook, Twitter, porn, La Salle email, and blogging—in that order.

So, in celebration of this joyous occasion, one that pretty much makes this house a home, I will get Puke back on its feet by posting every day for the next 759,543 days.

Of course that's a hyperbole, you fuck! But I have some ideas for blog posts that I've been sitting on for a long time. For instance, I want to write about my travel study to Rockledge this summer—you know, a bitter sarcastic prose piece about why I like non-traveling to Rockledge as opposed to traveling across the vast seas...

[At this point I'm going to digress and talk about how Kev C***** is a sexy man. He walked in from his "coaches meeting for soccer," at which point I chuckled because we all know soccer is not a sport, and thus needs no coaches. A bunch of savages running around barefooted kicking each other in the shins and whirling their penises around in a counterclockwise motion and calling themselves "Fred" and only "Fred" well, fuck, I'd say he isn't a coach... he is just wasting his time. End digression.]

...and some other ideas I have:

—A post in which I talk about all the disgusting things you can find on the internet, most of which will most likely force Blogspot to cancel Puke's account.

—Part 3 of a multipart series on my complex and profound thoughts about Degrassi (formerly Degrassi: The Next Generation, though it was changed because, ten years after it started, the thirteen-year-old girls don't really give a fuck what the first Generation was anymore).

—A follow up to the post we did about Formspring and answer those BURNING questions that you guys wanted to ask us (speaking of BURNING, I have herpes).

—A wrap-up of my quest to watch a shit ton of movies that I wanted to watch this summer. I'm going to give a short review of each, featuring gratuitous foul language, naked tits flowing, and absolutely NO MENTION of The Goonies. Because, well, fuck that.

—I have in my notes something about hypothetical questions, and asking our readership to answer said questions. I weep because our readership have all grown up and stopped caring about frivolous balderdash such as Puke.

—My thoughts about Freaks and Geeks. Ah, fuck, that's already been done. Nevermind.

—A well-thought, scholarly essay about Ke$ha, though NOT about the alleged existence of a naked picture of said Ke$ha. Which reminds me, I need to check Google Images.

—Something about drinking for our weekly "Thirsty Thursday" column. Hey, remember when we actually followed through with our "weekly columns"?

—Our blow-out EXTRAVA-FUCKING-GANZA for our motherfucking 250TH BLOG POST! I'll most likely try to make fun of everything I've ever written in this post, assuming that Nick, Mike, or Dave doesn't accidentally write the 250th post unknowingly, in which case I will delete the post I am currently writing now, write the TRUE 250th post, and ceremoniously flog the fuck out of whoever ruined my small chance at glory.

So much potential! Puke on Your Birthday is riding high. It rises from the ashes like so many other phoenix-related clichés. Etc., etc., god bless you, humble reader.

[This post was written by: 1) nine Natural Lights, 2) Thesaurus.com, 3) Ryan Howard's sixth strikeout in the Astros series, 4) Kev's raging hard-on, 5) Yoshi getting third place in the Flower Cup in Mario Kart 64, 6) my robot, 7) something moderately clever, 8) fuck fuck fuck I'm drunk, 9) the mouse that lives in our oven.]

Fuck the Mets

Love at first sight.

On Humor, Epilogue

Dave N*****'s joke:

"Three vampires walk into a bar. The first two order a pint of blood. The third orders a cup of hot water. When they ask him why he didn't order blood, he takes out a bloody tampon and says, 'I'm making tea.'"

There. Since the whole world reads Puke on Your Birthday, the whole world has now heard this joke, and you never have to fucking tell it again.

On Humor, 3: Not Funny

Every once in a while, there comes along a movie that, if you're cool, you'll think is hilarious. It becomes the Hot Comedy. Everyone can quote it, and everyone quotes it liberally. You're cool if you can quote it. Years later, you can use a quote, and you'll be the life of the fucking party.

Over-quoting is one of my pet peeves, especially if said quotes are used out of context. Kids, don't piss me off by making some of these movie references:

1) From Anchorman:
"Milk was a bad choice!"

Some of my friends will wake up, hungover, and drink milk just so they can drop this quote. I question my friendships sometimes.


You ruined milk for me, you ass.


2) From The Hangover:
"You're in my wolfpack."

The WCW/NWO feud made this cool first. Stop it.


The original Wolfpack.


3) From Superbad:
"Fuck my life."


Yeah? Every time something bad happens, you consider your life worthy of being fucked? Hyperbole I think is the word.


Fads like this wouldn't exist.

I could go on, but I hate myself for even wasting my time. Plus, I sound really pretentious. Plus, I'm probably a hypocrite. Plus, we all know this is just caused by my lame innate desire to separate myself from what is considered "cool."

Now go watch Family Guy, you assholes.

On Humor, 2: Young Funny

I'll admit, I love Young Money. Maybe it has something to do with the charisma of Lil' Wayne. Perhaps it's the sexiness of Nicki Minaj. It could be simply because Drake used to be a handicapped, boner-challenged Canadian junior high basketball star.

But I think, rather, it's because their lyrics are just really fucking funny, probably for both intentional and unintentional reasons. Not all them, mind you. Some are just fucking lazy. Take for instance, "It's going down / basement." Nice? Meh.

I'll give the rap crew credit though for making me laugh a lot more than they made roll my eyes. Here are my top ten funniest Young Money lyrics:

10) I'm attracted to her for her attractive ass.

9) Flow tighter than a dick in the butt.

8) Fresh to death like I got dressed in the coffin, with a party in my pocket, blue and red dolphins.

7) Got them writing love letters in they journal, keep em on these toes like a midget at the urinal

6) And she wetter than a stream, I drink medicine to lean, keep a cup in my hand like I'm begging for some cheese

5) It's 'bout a minute past pissing, I'm about to get shitty.

4) Girl I am hotter than poppa bears porridge, baby can I put ma private parts in ya storage

3) I told you, I get paid by the letter like A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y ZZ Top, yeah, he rocks.

2) Maybe it's time I put this pussy on your sideburns.

1) I pick the buck up and buck fuck then buck fuck again, I will butt fuck your friend, then suck up her twin, I put the buck up to him then buck fuck and buck fuck and buck fuck again.

On Humor, 1: Yo Momma

In 2006, MTV capitalized on a craze that had been sweeping a nation of fourth graders for generations:

Watch some excerpts on YouTube, if you dare.

"Yo momma's so fat, she looks like she's smuggling a Volkswagen." "Yo momma's so fat, she stepped on the scale and saw her phone number." "Yo momma's so big, she plays pool with the planets." These jokes are (respectively) lame, improbable, and illogical, and yet, they tickle my funny bone just so.

Yo momma jokes are like Troll 2, The Human Centipede, every Katy Perry song, and about three-quarters of Degrassi—they are so bad, they become good again. I'm a big fan of yo momma jokes for this reason. It's not because they are funny in any traditional sense of comedy. It's just that when I hear them, I become that giggling, snotty fourth grade loser, laughing at awful jokes, and reveling in my immaturity.

In this vein, I present you with some of my own home-brewed yo momma jokes. Feel free to add your own in the comments section.

"Yo momma's so fat she bought two of Kevin Smith's plane tickets."

"Yo momma's so fat she ate 68 Joey Chestnuts."

"Yo momma's so ugly, Harry Potter and Ron Weasley beat her up in the bathroom on Halloween while Hermione cried in the stall."

"Yo momma's so ugly, people in general would rather kiss Snooki."

"Yo momma's so poor, because she has so many fucking student loans to pay off."

"Yo momma's so fat, scientists who run tests about obesity are forced to use outliers in their statistics."

"Yo momma's so hairy, Edward Scissorhands sprained his wrist."

"Yo momma's so fat, Sisyphus now has to roll her up the hill."

"Yo momma's so fat, but Jack Black would probably still find her attractive in that movie Shallow Hal."

"Yo momma's so hairy, something something something Robin Williams' knuckles something something."

"Yo momma's so stupid, she thought the quantum wave function containing the probability information for a system collapses from a given initial state to a particular eigenstate of the inobservable!"

"Yo momma's so fat, but come on, let's not exaggerate here."

Warped Shore 2010

"Guys, this was the worst Warped Shore ever. It was terrible." —Dave N*****

Dear Head of Publicity at La Salle...

... you are a genius.

Older Than My Entertainers

I woke up one day and I was 23. I didn't believe it the day I woke up, and I don't believe it now. That's not good. I don't believe it because I'm stagnant. I'm right where I was when I was 22, and 21, and 20. You get the point. At one point in time, 23 seemed so old and so grown up. It doesn't anymore. I'm struggling to pay my student loans with a degree in journalism that, to this point, has not done much for me. Sure, a few interviews here and there, a few articles, but it seems that without five years of professional experience in the publishing world, the working world has little to offer. How does that make sense to somebody who just earned their journalism degree?

This is not meant to be a "woe is me" post. That little anecdote was to let you, the reader, know where I'm coming from. Now, at 23, my two main points of entertainment, music and sports, are made and done by people who are younger than me. That's weird to me. It all started when I was 21 and heard a few songs by the band All Time Low. The songs were catchy, so I decided to give them a chance by putting effort into listening to their music and showing a bit of fandom. Upon this fandom, I found out that three of the four members were 20 and one was still nineteen. That was a weird moment for me. And so it began: me being older than people in positions that I once idolized.

I know everybody goes through said phase, but I think what is most disheartening for me is my lack of full-time employment despite my draining search.

Shortly after my first encounter with younger success, the Eagles drafted DeSean Jackson, who is my age. The next year, they drafted LeSean McCoy, who is younger. Flyers star, James van Riemsdyk, is younger than my younger sister, pitching phenom Stephen Strasburg turns 22 this year, neither the Braves power hitting monster, Jason Heyward, nor Marlins outfielder, Mike Stanton, can legally buy beer. The list goes on and on and on. It will continue to go on, so I'll stop talking about it. It's just weird for me. My dad told me to get used to it. I will, eventually.

I enjoy seeing bands like Taking Back Sunday and Brand New simply because the crowd is older, which makes for a chill time. It creates a nostalgic bond between everybody in the building. Perhaps a subconscious reason for my fondness of these shows is that the bands are older than me. I'm not sure if that's a reason. Maybe. That's the beauty of subconscious thought.

I currently play guitar and I remember playing just about every sport there is. I was good, but in retrospect, I really wish I tried harder.

Like I said, I'd be dealing with this a lot better if I was employed full-time in my desired field. In the field I invested over $50,000 over four years to get into. I know I'll find something eventually.

If you're going through the same phase, how do you feel?

This is me venting. This is me ending this post.

Best Ad Ever?

This is a half-page ad I found in the weekend edition of the Metro yesterday:

click to enlarge

Let's play a game. How many mistakes can you find in this slaughtering of the English language? I counted too many to comprehend. I guess the Metro needed the money this week...

Subcultures and Transcendence

Youth Culture: Identity in a Postmodern World is a collection of essays written by various Ph.D.s in psychology and analysts of youth culture with their take on, well, youth culture. Linda Andes, a research professional in the youth culture realm, wrote an essay called "Growing Up Punk: Meaning and Commitment Careers in a Contemporary Youth Culture." In a nutshell, the essay describes the phases one goes through when they grow up in a certain subculture. Using punk as her vehicle, Andes is covering all subcultures in the essay. One phase that caught my mind and stuck to me was the "transcendence" phase. In my own words (a shorter and simplified version of Andes' explanation), the transcendence phase can be described as the time when one doesn't necessarily leave their subculture, but begins to announce themselves less and less. By "announce themselves less," I mean a change in one's style of clothing, how one acts and how one judges others. There are many other traits that be can attributed to subcultures as well. The reason this phase hit me so hard was because I realized that I'm in this phase.

Let me take you back to 2003. I was a sophomore in high school and Taking Back Sunday and Coheed and Cambria were still relatively unknown to the general public, and thus, "cool" to listen to. Not only were they cool to listen to, but it was cool to dress like them and look like them. Growing your hair long, wearing ultra-tight jeans that projected the outline your crotch, wearing shirts and hoodies that made it difficult to breathe, listening to bands that wouldn't be caught dead on MTV or on Y100, playing your instruments like those bands, hanging out with similar people, and harshly judging those unlike yourself; all of these examples fall into the subculture that I belonged to. I believe it was called "emo" by most outsiders, but I'll save that rant for another day.

Anyway, fast-forward to the present. I'm sitting at my laptop wearing khaki shorts, white Reeboks and a slightly tight "Phila. Dept. of Rec. Golf Camp" T-shirt. Oh, and I have very short hair. I still listen to Taking Back Sunday—in fact, I even went to their show a few nights ago. I also still listen to Coheed and Cambria and plethora of other bands that fall into the same music genre. It's the music I like. It's the music I prefer. I used to feel the need to tell the entire world that I listen to said music with the way I dressed and how I grew my hair. I enjoyed the polite stares from others who were like me. I enjoyed the unspoken bond formed with numerous people a day. It was fun at the time, but in retrospect, it was also exhausting. It was exhausting caring so much about how my hair looked and waiting for it to get longer, worrying about the next shirt I bought and if it didn't hug my chest well enough, and hoping my jeans were tight enough.

I no longer feel the need to announce my involvement in the subculture. I wouldn't say that I've left the subculture. I still listen to the music and occasionally go to the shows, but the only people who really need to know that are the ones who already know—my friends and family. I don't need a million fake friends brought together by a style of music and dress. By no means am I bashing subcultures either. They're a beautiful thing. They give you an identity. They bring people together for a common cause. My days under the command of a subculture helped me meet a good amount of my friends, helped me discover some amazing bands, and gave a solid definition to my teenage years. I subconsciously wanted that result. If I could go back in time, I would do it all over again.

There are some people I know who haven't yet reached the transcendence phase, and maybe they never will. That's cool too. To each his own. For example, the two subcultures that seem to never let go of their followers are the "gangsta" subculture and the "athlete" subculture. I still see the same old gangstas from high school wearing T-shirts down to their knees, high top sneakers, and shorts down to their ankles, while sporting shaved heads with pointed sideburns that go along great with the tough sneers permanently engraved into their faces. I also see the same old athletes, and former athletes, wearing socks with their Adidas slip-ons, basketball shorts, and a lanyard with their keys and some kind of ID card attached to the end.

Call it growing up, call it "getting what I wanted and that's enough," or call it whatever you want. I'm in the transcendence phase of life in my subculture and I'm enjoying it. I'm no longer exhausted. I'm content. I'm content with my clothes, my hair, my friends, and my life. My subculture helped me achieve that. I didn't even realize my change in overall style and mentality until I read the Linda Andes piece. It's so subtle to the person going through it.

I could be wrong. It's quite possible there is no such thing as a "transcendence" phase. Perhaps phases don't exist. Perhaps subcultures don't exist. Maybe one's style is one's style. You decide.