Day 6: I Have Never Read an Entire Newspaper

I picked up a copy of The Philadelphia Inquirer today (which is feeling mighty thin these days), and in reading the entire thing, here are a few things I learned:

• The Philly Airport now has direct flights to Iceland
• trump probably didn’t do anything yesterday that was detrimental to our national security, since a story about Icelandic flights was the cover photo
• Michael Flynn is fucked
• Michael Cohen is this guy
• Michael Dubke is quitting
• trump loves people named Michael
• A gas industry supporter was quoted in saying, "It’s ridiculous that there should be a taxpayer- or ratepayer-funded bailout for one sector of of our energy market," and no shame or irony was noted.
• "Ulaanbaatar" is a funny word, and also a city in Mongolia, and also where the Philadelphia Orchestra is playing this week
• Children drowned in rivers; children died in car crashes; children were shot; the world is a depressing place
• I didn’t know it was possible, but Kathy Lee Griffin somehow found a way to go too far in a trump critique.
• If I ever wanted to be a biomedical technician, CCP appears to be a legitimate option (if this puff piece is to be believed)
• Penn grad students are petitioning to unionize; they are trying to do it quickly because when trump appoints members to the National Labor Relations Board, the Board won’t be so union-friendly; anyone that voted for trump in the hopes that he would be union-friendly, despite trump explicitly being anti-union, is a sucker
• The sky is blue; the grass is green; more condos might be built in Philadelphia
• I’ll be honest, there was a Business section story that I literally had no fucking clue what they were talking about. I can’t understand business mumbo jumbo. I did recognize one acronym though—SAP—because I have a friend that works for them. What does her job entail? I probably understand that even less than I did the article.
• I also apparently don’t know how the stock market works
• Kansas abortion doctors now need to disclose their doctors’ histories "on white paper in black, 12-point times New Roman type," jesus fucking christ
• The number of anti-Muslim organizations in the U.S. grew from 34 in 2015 to 101 in 2016. MAGA????
• Act for America, the country’s largest anti-Muslim group, is protesting in 23 cities around the US this summer, but they aren’t coming to Philly because they are fucking pussies, and they know that any protest by them in our city is gonna be overwhelmingly drowned out by the counter-protests.
• P.J. Fitzpatrick, Inc., has a three-day sale, during which you can get their Gutter Cleaning Special for $189 $149!
• There’s outrage that a man who misused campaign funds is also misusing taxpayer money by continuing to collect a paycheck while doing nothing. SHOCKER.
• Pennsylvania is the third-worst gerrymanded state in the US. No jokes in this bullet point. It’s just wrong.
• If you’re the type of person to keep eleven underage girls for years in your prison basement for "educational" purposes, you are probably also the type of person to have long hair and a unkempt beard.
• Nothing good can come from going to a trump rally, especially when you are the CEO of an organization dedicated to helping the Hispanic community, a community that probably doesn’t want you clapping along while racist nutjobs chant "build the wall!"
• Little Pete’s was allegedly popular
• Teens gather in large groups and act like assholes down the shore (okay, I knew that already), but the Inquirer thought it relevant to hilariously note that many of the young hooligans were brandishing their fidget spinners
• A woman from Bristol, Bucks County, was stabbed to death while she was at J and Tioga in Kensington. I don’t want to make assumptions regarding why she went to that corner from Bucks County, but...
• No one from the Lafayette Redeemer Retirement Home passed away yesterday
• Vince Velasquez was hurt in yesterday’s Phillies loss (I learned that yesterday, specifically, they lost, even though they’ve lost 24 of the last 30 so, like, I could’ve just assumed this without reading the damn sports section)
• Oh shit, I learned that the Phillies are playing today at 1:10 PM. Jeez, it sure is tough following this team.
• The Eagles have a new player named Torrey Smith, and he legitimately sounds like a smart and well-spoken dude (per quotes captured by Mike Sielski, the son of my eighth grade English teacher)
• Last season, the Eagles recorded 20 sacks in their first six games, and fourteen sacks in their final ten (I did not know this because I’ve never listened to more than 30 seconds of 94 WIP in my life, and don’t plan to, Joe’s New Summer be damned)
• It’s May and the Inquirer has four Eagles articles...
• A drugged-up Tiger Woods asked his arresting officers if they were able to recite the National Anthem backwards
• The Flyers signed a player who is eight years younger than me
• The Gwynedd Mercy lacrosse team favors listening to Queen after their games. Ugh.
• The staff writer who wrote about the Gwynedd Mercy lacrosse team is named Aaron Carter, from my favorite party
• La Salle College High School won a lacrosse game, because La Salle College High School now exclusively enrolls lacrosse kids only. All 1,200 students have some lacrosse background.
• Inquirer readers answered a poll of "Which struggling Phillie will get back on track first?" which is like choosing which McDonald’s bathroom stall is clean enough to have diarrhea in
• There’s a great new way to self-tan, because apparently that’s still a thing
• Out recently is a book called Postcards from the End of America, written by a guy that hangs out at Friendly Lounge
• According to a recent Belgian research study, Parental Burnout is REAL!!!
• America paid 1.7 million additional dollars to watch Boss Baby last week
• Singles meet to chat and have fun at 215-474-0019 (gay) and 215-474-0200 (straight)
• The Beetle Bailey boys love to sexually harass the comic strip’s one female character; Jeremy from Zits is a typical teen minus the fidget spinners and beachside brawls; Dagwood overeats with no concern for heart disease; the pig from Pearls Before Swine made a pun; the Family Circus kids take everything literally; the comics are still printed in the Inquirer
  
• If you’re a Virgo, you’ll perk up quickly this afternoon
• CNBC has a Shark Tank marathon tonight

That was an interesting, if not enlightening, experience. I think the problem is I spent $1.50 for exactly the same, and less, content I could get at Philly.com. And I feel like all the important stuff about politics was all shit I read yesterday on Reddit. And reading all the obituaries was fucking brutal.

Love,
Joey

Day 5: I Have Never Eaten a Gyro from a Lunch Cart

My original plan for my lunch break today was to head to Chinatown and explore some weird fruit, but the rain and my lack of poncho limited the scope of today’s travels, so instead I chose the pedestrian adventure of a Halal cart.

Is it pedestrian, though? Living and working in Philadelphia, it’s easy to take for granted all the extraordinary opportunities at our fingertips. Are there three Halal carts on every block in Center City? Absolutely. Head to Bumblefuck, Montana, though, and they might not even know what a gyro is, let alone eat them regularly.

So, in order to distance myself from Montana (seriously, who the fuck elects someone who violently assaults a reporter?), let’s look at what a gyro is, and then let’s chomp down.

According to Wikipedia (where else could I read such a detailed description of "gyro"?), a gyro is "part of the sandwich family" (try not to get sucked down that Wikihole, it’s a doozy), consisting of meat (e.g. chicken, lamb, pork, etc.) with tomato, onion, and tzatziki sauce, on flat pita, and folded over. Interestingly, wiki goes deep on how exactly this meat is supposed to be made (on a "vertical rotisserie," which surprisingly does not have its own wiki page).

I chose Kashif Ahmad’s cart, located on 16th St., based on this guide. Did the jabroni who wrote this article pick a random fucking food cart within spitting distance of the subway exit doors? Almost assuredly. But I felt that it gave my destination a little more purpose, the fact that I was choosing this cart based on recommendation, and not also just picking any random fucking food cart around my building.

In addition, it was the only cart on the block that didn’t boldly advertise the fact that these were "NEW YORK GYROS." Did I say "fuck Montana"? New York is worse. Fuck New York.

The menu was simple, and I chose what I thought would be the most authentic tasting experience. I bought a "Mix Gyro," which was clarified to me as meaning I could pick two different flavors of gyro. I decided on lamb and falafel. I know! Falafel isn’t even mentioned on the Wikipedia page! Does this mean it wasn’t a gyro? If so, fuck Wikipedia!

I also chose tzatziki sauce AND a bit of hot sauce. And this particular cart substitutes cucumbers for onions. I had no preference for anything. The sky was the limit.

It was a fat ass gyro sandwich. And it tasted amazing. It fell apart after a few bites, but I had a fork, and it tasted just as great apart as it did together.

AND it was only $5. Not bad! I tipped a dollar, because I can’t fucking imagine having to smell that tasty gyro aroma while you’re fasting for Ramadan. Also during Ramadan, you have to refrain from ejaculating, which is an additional challenge, especially when you’re eating a gyro.

I didn’t get a picture of my sandwich because I’m not an annoying millennial fuck with a lame Instagram account, but I hope a few of my words above and a generic Google-images photo sufficiently painted a picture for you.

Love,
Joey

Day 4: I Have Never Reassessed My Bucket List

If you want to gain a great insight into the mind of a teenager, take a look at his Bucket List that he made in high school. It’s incredible how juvenile one’s desires can be when fucking math homework is your biggest worry in life.

I’m going to assume everyone reading knows what a “bucket list” is. Basically, you make a list of things you’d like to do before you die (or, "kick the bucket," if you will). The activity was popularized by the Morgan Freeman / Jack Nicholson flick of the same name. In last 2006 or early 2007, I made a Bucket List. And it’s... weird. Check it out:

    1. Climb the tallest mountain on any given continent.
    2. Brew my own beer, and actually enjoy it
    3. Stay up for 48 hours straight
    4. Be an extra in a big-time movie
    5. Have anal sex (pitcher, not catcher)
    6. Finish Edward Forty Hands in a respectable time, and don’t throw up
    7. Sleep on the beach
    8. Visit every major league baseball stadium in the MLB
    9. Go back to Philmont
    10. Get to the top of the Statue of Liberty (the rim of the torch)
    11. Patent something
    12. Learn to play the banjo
    13. Have a keg in Presentation B.V.M.
    14. Throw a big party where I invite everyone I’ve ever met
    15. Go back and read all the books I should’ve read in school but didn’t
    16. Write a poem and get it published
    17. Get Katie M***** to hook up with a girl
    18. Live down the shore for a summer
    19. Go skydiving
    20. Buy an animal at the zoo (but keep it at the zoo)
    21. Drink with Jim W****
    22. Go on another Kairos
    23. Get a permit to drive school buses
    24. Build a treehouse
    25. Skinny dip in all four oceans
    26. Go to the Super Bowl
    27. Attend a taping of Jerry Springer, or a similar show if cancelled
    28. Go to Times Square for New Year's
    29. Get into a legitimate fight that I provoke
    30. Ride every ride in Disney World on the same trip (less than one week)
    31. Finish a game of Monopoly in one sitting, and win
    32. Moon Mrs. Ponisiak (if dead, another teacher I don’t like)
    33. Build a go kart and race it in a derby
    34. Smoke a cigar with my dad
    35. Walk the train tracks for a day or two and see where it leads me
    36. Break a bone
    37. Get to the top of the Water Tower at Burholme and tag my name on it
    38. Go to Las Vegas for a weekend with $20 and come back with more than that
    39. Get a tattoo
    40. Visit the Playboy Mansion
    41. Make the trip to White Castle when you NEED to go
    42. Throw the opening pitch in a major league baseball game
    43. Slap the ass of a girl from the cast of Full House
    44. Live in a nudist colony for a weekend
    45. Go 20 games of beer pong in a row
    46. Get a Guinness World Record
    47. Discover the meaning of the end of Broken Flowers
    48. Visit all seven continents
    49. Spit on someone from America’s Next Top Model
    50. Live to see my thirtieth birthday

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So for today’s new activity, I’m going to do something I’ve never done before, and go back to reassess this list, and see if any of it is still reasonable to complete. Is this stretching what one could consider "doing something new"? Maybe, but it’s a holiday, and it’s my blog, so give me a fucking break.

I’ve broken the list into five categories: 1) Things I WON’T do (i.e. I am consciously choosing not to do them, even though they are theoretically possible); 2) Things I CAN’T do (i.e. they probably aren’t even possible); 3) Things I HAVE done (i.e. already completed in the past ten years); 4) Things I CAN do, just not this summer (i.e. they are possible to do, and I wouldn’t mind doing it, but just not at this time in my life); 5) Things I CAN DO, this summer, during this project.

I WON’T

Stay up for 48 hours straight: This would not be healthy. Plus, logistically, if I’m doing something new every day, then this would be multiple days. Not happening.

Have anal sex (pitcher, not catcher): My penis is too wide.

Get to the top of the Statue of Liberty (the rim of the torch): Fuck NY, I refuse to give a shit about any NY bullshit on this list.

Throw a big party where I invite everyone I’ve ever met: This was an idea I was infatuated with when I was younger, ever since I read The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test. As I’ve grown older, though, I’ve come to realize that there are many people in my life I’d rather not invite to a party, thank you, to say nothing of the logistics of hosting such an event.

Go back and read all the books I should’ve read in school but didn’t: There are plenty of good books out there, so I’m not gonna waste my time worrying about finally finishing Frankenstein, that 40/100 12th grade quiz I took on it be damned!

Get Katie M**** to hook up with a girl: Last name edited out for posterity, and also due to the fact that this shit looks pretty bad / inappropriate / illegal(?).

Go skydiving: Suggested twice on my Facebook post asking for ideas for this summer, it’s the only idea that I shot down because I just really don’t want to. I don’t trust skydiving, and while I’m excited to experience all kinds of new shit this summer, I’m not willing to die over it.

Buy an animal at the zoo (but keep it at the zoo): Me and Pam don’t fuck with zoos anymore. Animal rights, yo.

Go on another Kairos: As the years pass by, my experience at Kairos seems less and less vital to my becoming an adult. It felt meaningful at the time, but I don’t want to go back.

Go to Times Square for New Year's: Again, fuck NY. Going to NY for New Year's honestly sounds like my personal nightmare at this point.

Ride every ride in Disney World on the same trip (less than one week): Wasn’t there an episode of Boy Meets World in which they attempted this? I must’ve seen that episode right before writing this list. No, as I approach my thirties, I’d rather take it easy on vacation, not rush around and do everything. Also, there’s way too many other places I wanna explore before I go back to Disney.

Visit the Playboy Mansion: Ah, yup, definitely a seventeen-year-old who wrote this goddamn list...

Slap the ass of a girl from the cast of Full House: I will not commit sexual assault.

Spit on someone from America’s Next Top Model: I will not commit assault, period. Jesus Christ, what was wrong with me?

I CAN’T

Climb the tallest mountain on any given continent / Skinny dip in all four oceans: I am many things, but a globetrotter is not one of them. Time to stop pretending I’m ever going to get around the world enough to do such things as skinny dip in multiple major bodies of water.

Moon Mrs. Ponisiak (if dead, another teacher I don’t like): Yes, because it made sense to include such a juvenile grudge against a teacher in a lifelong wish list. I don’t even know if Mrs. Ponisiak is alive (yes, I know there is a stipulation, but if she is dead, I wouldn't be able to think of another teacher from my life I dislike if I tried).

Smoke a cigar with my dad: Seeing as my pops is a former cigarette smoker, I don’t think it’d be right of me to ask him to risk acquiring that habit again.

Break a bone: WHY did I write something in here that I could only happen by chance? Unless seventeen-year-old Joe is suggesting I should break one of my bones on purpose?

Get to the top of the water tower at Burholme and tag my name on it: The water tower is a metaphor. I can’t trespass on that thing literally.

Go to Las Vegas for a weekend with $20 and come back with more than that: Having lived in Vegas (and considering how unlucky I am in gambling), I can honestly say it is not possible to double your money quick enough to sustain a Vegas Vacation.

Visit all seven continents: Seems redundant? And I can’t go to Antarctica.

I HAVE ALREADY

Finish Edward Forty Hands in a respectable time, and don’t throw up: I went to college, so...

Drink with Jim W****: Seventeen-year-old Joe didn’t quite grasp the concept that some people didn’t have a problem with actually drinking alcohol, they just didn’t want to break the law while doing it. So when Jimbo turned 21, beers were shared.

Attend a taping of Jerry Springer, or a similar show if cancelled: Anyone have a copy of this?!

Get into a legitimate fight that I provoke: I was a sophomore in college. I was drunk. I was stupid. I thought I was being chivalrous, defending my then-girlfriend against some dude who... accidentally bumped into her at a party? After getting kicked and punched for a few minutes by the kid’s frat brothers, I learned my lesson.

Make the trip to White Castle when you NEED to go: Maybe this is the biggest stretch in my interpretation of the list, because what does it mean "when I NEED to go"? When I was nineteen-going-on-20, I thought this meant that I NEEDED to meet this girl that I liked at her local White Castle, because the distance during Christmas break was killing our relationship. I met her there, we shared a few burgers, and... I guess it was a good effort, Joe.

Go 20 games of beer pong in a row: I suppose a clarification would have been nice: WHO exactly are you supposed to be beating in beer pong to achieve this life goal? Because me and Harry tore it up at his family’s Christmas party, winning 20 in a row, but, like, does winning beer pong games against aunts and uncle really make me more of a man?

I CAN, BUT NOT THIS SUMMER

• Be an extra in a big-time movie
• Sleep on the beach
• Visit every major league baseball stadium in the MLB
• Go back to Philmont
• Patent something
• Learn to play the banjo
• Have a keg in Presentation B.V.M.
• Write a poem and get it published
• Live down the shore for a summer
• Get a permit to drive school buses
• Build a treehouse
• Go to the Super Bowl
• Build a go kart and race it in a derby
• Walk the train tracks for a day or two and see where it leads me
• Throw the opening pitch in a major league baseball game
• Live in a nudist colony for a weekend
• Get a Guinness World Record
• Discover the meaning of the end of Broken Flowers
• Live to see my thirtieth birthday

I CAN, THIS SUMMER

Brew my own beer, and actually enjoy it: There’s a big box with a beer-brewing starter kit in my basement somewhere. I don’t know why I haven’t tried to do this yet. Summer 2017 seems like a great time to give it a try.

Finish a game of Monopoly in one sitting, and win: Pam hates playing board games with me, but maybe I can convince her to torture herself through eight hours of Monopoly.

Get a tattoo: I’ll save my explanation for when it actually happens.

Love,
Joey

Day 3: I Have Never Used a Fidget Spinner

I am a miser when it comes to the latest trends for children (stop trying to flip that water bottle, please), but I came into work today, and a fidget spinner was on my desk, so fuck it.

Does everyone reading this even know what a fidget spinner is? It’s a little toy that you hold by the bearing in the middle, and usually they have three points, and the thing spins around while you pinch it with your hand, and mostly you just look like a douchebag.

But my coworker thought I need one, because I am often fidgeting at my desk. She’s right, ya know. I do fidget constantly. "Shaky leg syndrome," some call it. Ask my wife Pam, and she’ll roll her eyes hard and talk about the earthquakes she sits through at dinner. I know my coworker has been feeling that same annoyance in the two months I’ve worked alongside of her, but she’s way too nice to call me out on it. So instead she bought me a child’s toy.

You see, some scientists claim that these fidget spinners help children to concentrate. They allegedly allow one to release his pent-up energy through the constant spinning of the toy, instead of, say, playing the air drums, or mumbling curse words under your breath. The science behind it, of course, is unproven. In fact, some teachers (and if I was a teacher, I’d be in this boat) claim that fidget spinners actually increase the distractions in the classroom, not diminish them.

I dunno. Sitting here at work, trying to type some notes, I found it to be a distraction too. Maybe my hands are too big to realistically use one. Maybe the slight contortions of my hand are painful on this day specifically, since they are all cut up from a drunk bike crash Friday night. Maybe I’m just not truly getting into the spirit of fidget spinning. Whatever the case may be, I don’t feel less distracted.

If I’m being honest with myself, I don’t mind messing around with the thing. I appreciate how it’s heavier than it appears, and the weight in my hand is comforting. And much like spinning a top on a table, it’s interesting to see how long you can get it to spin in your hand.

But seriously, guys, the people who say this is supposed to help children are full of shit. Ultimately, I think that’s what annoys me the most about bullshit fads like this. Why are people trying to defend as anything more than that? 20 years ago, when I was dumping my money into a Crazy Bone collection, no one was defending that shit as, like, a way to improve reaction time or as a cognitive brain exercise or whatever. They were just toys. Until I see a peer-reviewed scientific study on fidget spinners, then I’m just gonna assume this is just another way to get parents to piss away their money.

Love,
Joey

Day 2: I Have Never Explored Graffiti Pier

If Day 1 of Summer 2017 started with a bang (beers to the face at seven in the morning), then Day 2 was a slow burn, a contemplative bullshit session at one of Philly’s most serene, most mysteriously unknown locations.

Take Cumberland St. till it dead-ends near the Delaware River, and instead of following the abandoned road to the right, you take the dirt path to the left. Avoid the still mosquito puddles and ample mud, and hug the right side of the path, and eventually you end up at the monolith known as Graffiti Pier.

What I’m assuming used to be the unloading area for locomotives stocked with cargo bound for the Delaware River boats, has now become a giant, abandoned cement structure, every inch filled with graffiti.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Check out these links! It’s really neat!:

Philly Daily Hiker — a nice basic description of Graffiti Pier.

Philly Magazine — a bit more detailed. Also confirmation that the Pier was originally used to unload that sweet Port Richmond coal.

Hidden City Philadelphia — first, some speculation that I-95 construction near Graffiti Pier could lead to the Pier becoming condos or some bullshit; then, some pictures that I would’ve loved to take but couldn’t because my phone is fucking garbage and cannot take pictures.

Some Douchebag’s Video — Seriously, who owns a goddamn drone? I linked to minute 1:11, because the one minute and ten seconds previous are insufferable.

The video that clued me in to Graffiti Pier’s existence.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I’d call it ironic that this big abandoned slab of concrete that is filled with graffiti of every color from hundreds of artists and "artists," this colorful landmark along the river, is really tabula rasa. It’s whatever its visitors choose to make of it. Take these examples observed during the course of only three short hours:

• A middle-aged guy, not three minutes into our stay at the end of the pier, hooking a fish and, after a struggle, pulling her up. Snapchat photos will no doubt show him, smiling, holding a trout that, no shit, was two feet long at least!
• A bunch of teenagers rolling up on their bikes, somehow avoiding rolling right into the river, acting tough—until the senior member of their group grabbed a snake and showed the rest, at which point they scattered and betrayed their true childlike nature.
• A snake, thrown into the river, probably to drown(?!).
• Four douchey bros, cheesesteaks in hand, sitting on the edge of the river, no doubt doing their very best to live that Authentic Philly Experience™.
• Dozens of young hipster girls, each one with jeans ripped with larger tears than the last, pouting lips and leaning against the giant colorful cement slabs, no doubt searching for their next great Instagram pic.
• A drag queen during a photo shoot, staking her claim as the "edgy urban" drag queen of the Riverwards.
• A guy who asked me if I know of "any good stick-up boys," which, even in the context of this Urban Dictionary definition, still doesn’t make any sense to me.
• Two teenage girls, older than their years suggest, sitting criss-cross-legged, passing a blunt back and forth, escaping everything in their lives behind the No Trespassing sign.
• A man with his infant son, a teen with his elderly parents, a 20-something in a prom dress, all reaching the end of Graffiti Pier, who knows, possibly to just say that they did.
• A professional graffiti artist—so it would seem—glancing at his notes, painting with precision.
• Ten guys surrounding a charcoal grill, cooking hot dogs, on a fucking abandoned coal-delivery pier.
• And: Four young adults, sitting in lawn chairs, getting drunk on PBR, bullshitting and pretty loudly doing so, listening to the soft sounds of an indie rock iPod, building a small pile of empty beer cans, relaxing next to the lapping of the wake against the wood siding of the pier, soaking in a summer breeze and a lazy sun and the gentle toot of the passing cargo ships.

Summer is beautiful, especially when you’re laughing with friends and you’re drinking beers and you’re in one of the most unique spots in your city.

Love,
Joey

Joe's New Summer, Day 1: I Have Never Attended Eggs with Peg

Though the clock indicated an early morning hour, it still felt like it was the middle of the night. The sky was inky black, and fog surrounded. I stood still, plastic bag full of biscuit sandwiches, on the corner of a seemingly abandoned highway. Slowly, a car approached, down the exit ramp, headlamp steady, three sharp beeps of the car horn, and out of the fog the vehicle slowed down. I hopped in. We sped up along the entrance ramp. The Summer of 2017 officially began.

Before I was an "adult," I considered summer sacrosanct. Three months during which I could be ME. There was a sense of freedom. Maybe Bruce Springsteen had a lot to do with it. These days, summer is marked by the weather only. My work schedule is the same. There’s nothing special about it. Usually.

Whatever the case, there I was, 4:30 in the morning, in Steve’s car, the Friday before Memorial Day, bound for North Wildwood, the only shore point that matters. Summer begins!

If you listen to Preston and Steve—I certainly don’t—you’ll know that Misters Preston and Steve have a tradition on the Friday before Memorial Day, in which they broadcast their bro show from the infamous Keenan’s Irish Pub in North Wildwood.

During the broadcast, they play such games as "Will This Teenager Wear a Diaper" and "These Middle-Aged Residents of Northeast Philly Will Simulate a Handjob," and meanwhile, hundreds of people from Philadelphia (I assume) crowd around. This vaunted tradition is known as "Eggs with Peg," as I assume (again) there was someone named Peg involved at some point? And we eat eggs while drinking Coors Light in Peg’s memory? Fuck, don’t ask me. Google it?!

The main purpose, of course, is to start drinking at 7 AM.

(As a sidenote, it’s 4:30 PM writing this, so you can imagine my inebriation level typing. I’m sorry. Get used to it.)

So yes, we started drinking at 7 AM. I can’t say that drinking that early is necessarily NEW to me. Talk to the security guards before the Wing Bowl last year, or talk to Kev C***** about how he showed up at my dorm room at 4 AM before the Phillies Parade, and how we chugged a few dozen Natty Lights. If Chase Utley can drink enough to drop swear words in front of the entire city, I think it’s okay if me and my boys drink enough to, I dunno, pee on City Hall and stumble south on Broad Street for a few hours.

Fuck. I digress.

So, okay, there we were, in Keenan’s. Posting up at the bar well before seven, we were the first unfortunate souls sold alcohol after an impromptu National Anthem. If you doubt that the NEWTs started chanting "USA!" afterward the anthem, then you obviously didn’t grow up in the NEast.

The purpose of this blog is to talk about the NEW SHIT that I’ve done. Yes, attending "Eggs with Peg" was new! But what about the OLD SHIT that I’ve done? How about how I RUINED EVERYTHING? AGAIN? I’m sorry for crashing a bachelorette party. I hope the shots I bought for everyone made it less weird.

Look, it’s obvious that we got pretty drunk. We started drinking at 7 AM. What else did you expect?! I was drunk when we left Keenan’s. I was drunk when I poured some Twisted Tea Half and Half into a soda cup at Sam’s Pizza when we scarfed down some boardwalk pies. I am drunk now, typing, during a rain storm back in Philly.

I haven’t decided what the point of writing about my New Summer Experiences should be yet, but if I had a gun to my head and had to decide right now, I’d say that the POINT of writing about today, an incredibly long, drunk, shore morning, it’s this (and forgive me, it’s a common refrain in my writing): We are still "young," we can afford to chug beers before the sun comes up; we are free to laugh while breathing that salty bay breeze; we can irk responsibility, if not throughout the summer, then only today, the first day of this great season.

On that note, hello! This is Joe’s New Summer blog, where I document my summer, during which I will attempt to experience something NEW every day. I can’t promise I will write every day, but I can promise I will write something FOR every day. Eventually.

There’s no time like the present to experience everything I possibly can. If you are so inclined to read my bullshit ramblings, well, then I appreciate you following along for the ride.

SUMMER 2017, LET’S DO THIS SHIT.

Love,
Joey