PoYB from the Vault: Some Primo Emo Shit

For today's entry into the "From the Vault" series, we scrape the vault clean of any last emo bullshit that I've ever typed as an emotional teenager. I place them humbly here, in the hopes that by responding to them now, we can metaphorically burn them in a large funeral pyre, and start fresh.

First up, we have something I wrote on my pre-PoYB Blogspot blog, in the aftermath of getting banned from most housing at La Salle.

a) Optimism, b) Obligatory Emo Post, c) the Cheese Wheel
April 19, 2009

There's an episode of Scrubs that sticks out in my mind on this insomniac of a night. It's the one in an earlier season where Elliot dumps her boyfriend for J.D., and J.D. realizes that he always wants what he can't have, and once he has it, he usually loses his desire for it.

While I wouldn't consider myself much like J.D. in too many ways, I think we share this strange trait, especially when it comes to situations like this. It's the end of the semester, I am starting to become tired of the life I lead presently, I'm hoping and praying that summer will come soon, that summer will somehow rid me of some of the shit that's keeping me down at the moment.

It's like this all the time. I'm never satisfied, and I'm always ready to move on. It was like this in the spring last year, when all I wanted was summer, and then at the end of summer all I wanted was to do was get back to school, and now I'm at school and all I want to do is get the fuck out of here. It's an unfortunate trend that I...

I was about to say that it's an unfortunate trend that I have no control over. But I do. I put myself in these positions. I need to try to find joy in where I am, not where I am going.

It's been kind of a rough semester. (I'm trying to decide whether that statement is due to my late-night pessimism or if it's actually true.) I guess the main reason it's been tough is my whole townhouse-ban thing.

I fucked up, yet again, and got myself in deep shit with Community Development. I do my fair share of blaming other people: if I hadn't attempted a clandestine Miller Lite forty bottle delivery through the fence in August 2007; if Katie hadn't remembered me and looked up my file and given me another write up; if Michal hadn't set out to bust me on St. Patty's day; if that SDR lady would've had some pity and let me go; if Holly hadn't tried to kick me out of my home; if Alan had known his sanction would have gotten me so upset; if this school wasn't so stupid about alcohol policy; if...

But it all comes back to me. I bought that forty in the first place. I ran away from Katie when I could've stayed and explained my situation. I brought beer into my room when I knew Michal was out to get me. I got cocky and brought in beer in a very conspicuous way. I underestimated Holly. I put Alan in a tough position. I've known about the alcohol policy and haven't done shit to keep myself out of trouble.

And now I pay the consequence.

Fuck! I'm torn between self-pity and self-annoyance because I have got to stop pitying myself. It could be infinity times worse. I've gotten out of too many tight spots. I still get to see friends from the townhouses even if I can't see them in the townhouses.

Yeah, I don't really do my schoolwork anymore, and sometimes the workload builds it, but eventually it gets done and I get satisfactory grades and my parents will be happy.

Yeah, I've grown apart from a lot of people, due to my extracurriculars keeping me to busy, people getting new friends, and my bloody fucking townhouse ban keeping me from visiting the people (person) I so desperately want to visit. But the semester and all my fucking extracurriculars and the goddamn fucking chain link fence that's keeping me from those houses, they'll all disappear in less than three weeks, and things will get better.

And let's not forget the good things this semester has brought. It gave me my first lead in a play, a memory I will always cherish. It gave me four pretty incredible teachers in the classroom, and thus four people to respect and look up to. It gave some great times, despite the trouble that spawned from them. It gave me a chance to begin anew next semester on Beechwood. And though I complain about hitting many roadblocks in terms of my relationships, I've managed to dodge a few and I ended up closer to certain people, and for that I am incredible thankful.

The next three weeks will be rough. There's a lot of shit that needs to be taken care of. I'm going to be very busy. And shit's going to keep happening to me that could make me angrier and sadder (see for example: my big Phillies game tomorrow being flushed down the fucking toilet due to rain).

But I'm aware of my situation, and I'm keeping my head above water. I'm focusing on the positives. I'm enjoying what I have, and trying to ignore the things I don't. I am not going to be sad, because that's pointless and needless and a waste of time.

I know, I know, you hear this every fucking month or so. "I need to just make it until such-and-such, and then life will be better. I can't wait." But shit! I can't help but think it's true. Maybe one day I'll find myself in a position where I'm not doing this anymore. That will be a good day.

Okay, alright, that wasn't that bad. It was still a fair share of complaining about a situation that I and only I got myself in, but hey, at least I admitted that in the blog post itself. And things got better! They always do!

The second one I'm about to post is a doozy. This is from my old Xanga, Shelter from the Storm. I'm pretty sure I just completely skipped this post back when I was recapping my Xanga a few months ago, simply because I couldn't bear to read it again. But here it is for you, now, in full.

We'll meet back up at the end to discuss, but just as a slight trigger warning, I do allude to some suicidal thoughts here. Have I ever ACTUALLY and SERIOUSLY considered suicidal thoughts? No, I have not. I don't know where my headspace was when I wrote this maudlin post, no doubt it was bad, but I have to have been exaggerating here, at least a little bit. So please don't be worried about me now, and please don't feel bad for the Joe back then. The post is what it is.

"Describe an Enmeshment Issue You Are Facing": A Paper for Mr. Jackson's 4th Period Psychology Class
November 5, 2006

            I looked up "enmeshment" on the internet, and the term "co-dependence" came up a lot, so I figure I should talk about my drinking problem. I'll start out by saying that I've never drank by myself, so at least I have that going for me. But otherwise, I think my drinking has gotten out of control.
            On Kairos, this was a main part of my talk. The main problem I had with drinking was that, to drink, I had to lie to my parents about it. After 37-51, I had a talk with my parents about how I wouldn't lie to them about drinking anymore. And honestly, I haven't. But I have continued to drink.
            And the terrible part about it is that my parents don't seem to say anything about it. I have told my parents numerous times, "yeah, I drank tonight." Any normal Mom would say "You are grounded! Don’t ever do it again!" But my Mom just says, “Go to bed, Joe.”
            So where is the motivation to stop? I don't have any motivation. I keep on drinking, every freaking weekend. Every weekend, I go out and by a case of beer. I get wasted with my friends. I go home drunk. My parents say goodnight, and I pass out on my bed. I am hungover the next morning. I do stupid shit when I am drunk.
            The thing that depresses me the most when I am drunk is the stuff that goes on when girls are drunk with me. When I am around drunk girls, and I am drunk too, inevitable I make out with them. Guys normally thing this is great and swell, but honestly it depresses the shit out of me. I'm drunk! You are drunk! What the hell is the point of making out?!?! Why do you waste your time with me???
            And the sad part is this: sometimes I kind of DO want to make out with the girl. My id definitely gets out of control when it comes to girls in this situation. And I want to stop putting myself in that position.
            But I have neither the will nor the way to stop drinking. That's the part that kills me the most, that even though I HATE the person I become when I drink—all loose and carefree (my id, basically)—I can’t help it! Perhaps this is an addiction. This co-dependency is most definitely a case of enmeshment for me.
            The thing that made me face this reality was a conversation I had with a coworker tonight. She confronted me about a situation I put myself in the other day. Last Sunday, I picked up my coworker, and when we got to work, I had a few beers. I went to work drunk!
            She obviously saw the problem of my actions; I did too, I guess, subconsciously. Honestly, there is a problem here. You are working under the influence.
            I never thought I'd become one of these types of people. The kind of kid that feels that he needs to drink to get through a workday. The type of kid that plans his Friday night around the acquirement of alcohol. The type of kid that feels that he has the right to womanize girls just because he is a little tipsy.
            I want to change, I really do. I realize that this is a problem. From what I've heard, the first step to change is admitting you have a problem. I've been admitting this for over two years, and nothing has changed. This closet thing I can come up with to a solution is this:
            Say I try to abstain from drinking for the rest of 2006. Perhaps I try to abstain for the rest of senior year. That might be alright, it might work, but I have a feeling that when those two months are up, I'll be craving beer more than ever. And I'll get drunk, I'll make out with a girl, and the cycle will start all over again.
            So what the heck can I do? Sometimes I feel like it would be easier to just die young.
            And I'm drunk as I write this. Maybe that's why I read over it, and realize that it has NOTHING to do with enmeshment. Or maybe it does. Who knows.
            What I do know is this. Mr. Jackson, perhaps we can discuss this problem I have after you are done reading this. Because, 1) I’m not sure if it is a problem at all, 2) if it is a problem, maybe we can come up with a solution. I don’t know what else to do.

Whew boy, I don't even know where to start. I guess I will start here: I'm not going to downplay this post by calling it "dumb" like I usually do. I think it's a good representation of how self-pitying and toxically self-reflective seventeen-year-old Joe was at the time. I was a fucking teenager. Obviously I've grown since then. But it's always, always important to remember where you came from. If I look back at this and truly think it was dumb, well then, good, maybe you won't overreact like that again.

But, then again, don't I act like this sometimes anyway? Not the drinking-before-work thing (what a teenage thing to do), but the constant struggle with my maybe-addiction to alcohol. At the beginning of this year I was finishing up a six-month sobriety stint, and here I was on PoYB, bitching and moaning about it. What exactly has changed, really, when you think about it?

I guess these days I feel like I have at least a little more control over my drinking, and I have a more adult attitude about it, in general. I know when enough is enough, 80% of the time. As for the other 20%, I have my partner in life to bitch me out the next morning, deservedly so. Having a baby seems to have helped greatly in this regard. (And, on the opposite note, I now unabashedly love making out drunk and in public, and I no longer feel guilt over it, since it's mostly Pam who is on the other end of the make-out.)

For the record, I did not hand in this paper to my psychology teacher. There's no fucking way I could've! Not only is it a clear overshare, but also I probably would've had social services knocking at our door. And my parents didn't deserve that shit. For the further record, I should also mention that I greatly understated in the post how much my mom and dad cared about my drinking. It was NOT just a "go to bed!" situation. They were worried, sincerely, as they've told me so numerous times in the twelve years since. For that, I feel bad, but honestly, at the end of the day, sometimes you just gotta let kids make their own mistakes. If it had gotten out of control, they would've stepped in.

So anyways... No, I am no longer the boy who wrote these flowery posts filled with crocodile tears. No longer do I "not know what else to do." I know my flaws, and yeah, I'm gonna write about them, but I want to try to spurn myself into action by writing about it. I can't wallow in self-pity. I have to fucking do something about it.

I'm embarrassed by what I wrote a decade ago (and I always will be, hello 2028 Joe, thanks for reading), and that's why I'm burying this shit on a Saturday morning. But I am reposting what I wrote, warts and all, because I don't want to forget what an emo kid I was, and what an emo kid I am. Maybe I'll try to avoid being an emo kid in the future.

Or maybe I'll just keep typing away.

Best Albums of 2018 So Far

I've never been a fan of making mid-year best-of lists (note that this is the first time I've ever done it here on PoYB). But every music website I visit seems to churn these pieces out every year, so why not us? I'm actually posting this shit at the halfway mark, unlike websites that post theirs in like mid-May. Why.

The following ten albums are the best 2018 albums I've heard so far, and they are presented in alphabetical order by band (come back in December to find out where they rank!):

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what people call low self​-​esteem is really just seeing yourself the way that other people see you by awakebutstillinbed

If you think the album title or band name is ridiculous, please listen to the vocals to hear what ridiculous sounds like. Shannon Taylor sings like a food blender. It fucking works.

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Sleepwalkers by Brian Fallon

Yeah, this sounds like the Gaslight Anthem. Fallon admitted he leaned into that type of sound on this record. But, like, are you serious fucking complaining about that?

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LONER by Caroline Rose

Definitely the frontrunner for Pam's favorite 2018 album, and so we listen to a lot of LONER. I'm cool with her blasting fun singer-songwriter rock-pop any time she wants.

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AT WORK by DARK THOUGHTS

They do the Ramones better than the Ramones do the Ramones. I can't think of a band with such a wide gap between how much I want to see them in concert and how much I fear seeing them in concert. I'm almost 30 years old. DARK THOUGHTS is a young man's game.

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I'll Be Your Girl by the Decemberists

After their disappointing last album, it was a relief to hear my fourth favorite band of all time come back from the brink of inessential to deliver a collection of wonderful synth-tinged (but still very nerdy lit-rock) tunes.

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Love is for Losers by the Longshot

Yes, this is Billy Joe Armstrong of Green Day. It's his side-project, but he didn't move his sound all that much to the side. Still, something about ditching Mike Dirnt and Tré Cool revitalized that classic snotty Green Day sound.

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Little Dark Age by MGMT

If you're like me and you love Congratulations and you hate the self-titled album and you still haven't heard Oracular Spectacular because the singles were enough, thank you, than you'll love Little Dark Age, an MGMT album for MGMT semi-fans.

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Wide Awake! by Parquet Courts

I took a dig at Parquet Courts a few months ago in a The Albums That Matter column, and they responded by putting out what is quite possibly the best album of the year. The first song ends with a yell of "FUCK TOM BRADY!" What else could possibly top that?!

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Hope Downs by Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever

The baby likes this album. At least a half dozen times in the past two weeks, I've calmed her down by getting up and dancing around to this album with her, and she shuts the fuck up right away every time. I've been using "Real Estate on three cups of coffee" as a descriptor, which I stole, but is totally accurate.

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Superorganism by Superorganism

A bunch of fucking kids making weird squishy computer noises lead by a squeaky-voiced anime character shouldn't work, but it does! This is an album of hits!

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It was so fucking tough leaving these albums off (and they have a legitimate or even probable chance of making the jump up the rankings come December): Father John Misty's God's Favorite Customer; Natalie Prass' The Future and the Past; Titus Andronicus' A Productive Cough; Iceage's Beyondless; Middle Kids' Lost Friends; The Go! Team's Semicircle; The Voidz's Virtue; Car Seat Headrest's Twin Fantasy; Hop Along's Bark Your Head Off, Dog; ughhhhh so many others.)

In Defense of Port Richmond

I unabashedly love my neighborhood.

Pam and I moved to Port Richmond in the final weeks of 2013, so we are approaching our five-year anniversary of owning our wonderful, cramped, beautiful, old, falling apart, historic, rehabilitated and repaired, loving, warm, comfy and cozy home. This is not a defense of our home; if you're reading, you've probably been one of the sardines we've jammed in the house during a party, and so you have your own opinions (and I have mine, and those opinions are overwhelmingly positive).

I instead want to defend the neighborhood in which our home is located. Consider this an open letter to my wife, who spends at the very least a few spare minutes every day cursing Port Richmond and counting the days we'll get the fuck out of here. Pam, please, reconsider.

Port Richmond is located in East Philadelphia, if "East Philadelphia" were such a thing. Since Philadelphia is T-shaped with the T's base pointing NW, there's no part of the city that is significantly more east than any other part, and since Philadelphians are particular about their nomenclatures and fiery about their opinions regarding such, I will refrain from saying the phrase "East Philly" again.

Instead, we'll say that Port Richmond is located in the "Riverwards" section of Philadelphia, consisting of P.R., Kensington, and Fishtown. If you called the whole area "Kensington," you probably wouldn't be wrong either. "Kensington" is a term used like "England," in that it is a group of sections but also a specific section in that group. I bring all this up because other defense of Port Richmond probably compare Port Richmond to desolate, blown out, ghost town blocks of Kensington, and you need to be clear about what they refer to when they say "Kensington." It's not Port Richmond, even though it technically is in a larger sense.

Port Richmond as I know it has four distinct boundaries, creating a long rectangle that lays diagonally, because the rectangle lays along a diagonal portion of the Delaware River (where the ports used to be, hence the name). The Delaware, thus, makes up the SE boundary of Port Richmond. The equally long NW boundary is Aramingo Avenue. Lehigh Ave. at the SW and Castor Ave. at the NE cap each end of the neighborhood. Anything outside these boundaries I cannot speak for, but inside these boundaries is my 'hood, and oh man how I love this goddamn stupid place with all my heart.

Port Richmond is one of those neighborhoods that, for the most part, is untouched by both gentrification/hipsterdom and heroin/crime epidemics alike. I mean, yeah, clearly there's some heroin users and vagabonds around these parts, and yeah, there are some new bars opening and plenty of young people moving in, but for the most part, Port Richmond is comfortably "old school."

This can be both good and bad. A few months ago, on an unseasonably warm spring night, I sat out front and got drunk with my good friend Kev. Lots of people walked by, and you know what? I felt comfortable and safe. People said hi. People were friendly. I felt the warmth of Port Richmond. There was no fear that I would be mugged (like in Kensington), but there was also no fear that I was, like, blocking the sidewalk or getting in the way or not being "proper" or whatever (try sitting "out front" somewhere in Old City).

This is unequivocally a good thing. I don't feel weird leaving my front door open when we are hanging out or when I'm running to the corner store, because I know there's a lot of neighbors around, and we are looking out for each other, even if I don't exactly know all their names. All neighborhoods used to be similar to this, when neighbors were friends and actually gave a fuck about each other. Port Richmond is about as close to that ideal as you could possibly hope for in the 21st Century.

What's bad about being "old school"? Well, just take a look at the "Eyes and Ears of Port Richmond" FB group. Wait a day or two, and eventually you'll see a post that goes something like this: "I saw a BLACK man walking down my street. Should I call the police?!" I think this part of Port Richmond is sad and backwards. But the way I look at it is that I can only influence my family when it comes to loving your fellow human and not being a racist piece of shit, and I want my daughter to grow up to not be a racist fuck, of course. That is how I will improve my neighborhood, by raising a neighborhood resident to be better than the residents I think are shitty, and eventually if enough people do that, the good will outnumber the bad.

Speaking of all that, I guess I've been thinking a lot about Port Richmond lately as it relates to raising a kid here. And I honestly think P.R. is a great place to raise a kid with the sort of ideals I want to instill in her (and eventually, perhaps, them). Living in the city is vital, in my opinion, to building empathy in a child. I want my kid to see the good and the bad sides of human life. I want her to feel the warmth of her neighbors packing into Campbell Square to see an Irish band play, just as I want her to feel the chill of a heroin junkie dipping out on the 15 bus right in front of her.

I think the term is "street smarts" (I have no idea if this is appropriation or not). I want her to be the opposite of "sheltered." I want my kid(s) to experience everything that life has to offer, and it's all right here. Port Richmond is a shining example of a neighborhood that feels small but is also irrefutably part of a huge, crowded, exciting city.

You don't get this shit in the sterile suburbs. Port Richmond is bursting with life. Sit down at the Malt House at the bar in between a toothless old lady local and a young transplant with tattoos all up and down his arm. Ask the rowdy teenagers to please not hang out on your stoop when the baby is sleeping, and watch as they politely say "sorry" and move along. Yeah, there's trash all over the front of your property, but just go outside and pick it up, it gives you a chance to improve your neighborhood, and it gives you an opportunity to connect with your neighbor who is right out there with you, and she's shaking her head too, and you both say sarcastically, "this is fun!" even though it's not, but you're in it together.

It's like that episode of The Sopranos, the one where basically nothing happens, and the episode ends with the gang all chilling in front of Satriale's, when there is a small car crash, and a couple of the guys go over to see if everything is okay, but it's not a big deal, and the camera pans around and floats upward, basically it's a slice of life scene. This is their neighborhood, and they feel comfortable there, even though there's always some shit going on like an idiot crashing his car. I feel that way about Port Richmond. Yeah, it's not ideal that a meth-looking lady is hanging out under your tree and you see her drop a candy wrapper on the goddamn ground and you have to go out and tell her to please pick it up, but ya know what? I would choose that any fucking day of the week over twiddling my fucking thumbs on some cul-de-sac in the Northeast. LIFE. Port Richmond's got it.

My kid(s) are gonna have a fucking blast growing up here, living with and growing accustomed to the hustle and bustle of the city (and yeah, probably getting into some mild trouble, it's called growing up!).

And yeah, there's room for improvements, of course. But it's clear to everyone who lives here that Port Richmond is heading in the right direction. It's been "up-and-coming" ever since we moved here, and who knows if P.R. will ever actually fulfill that promise of being the next quasi-Fishtown. It doesn't matter. Me and Pam and our family get to be here for whatever improvements are coming. We get to be part of that. We get to chip in and help! I'm truly excited to be a member of this neighborhood and see how it grows. It's better to be perpetually up-and-coming then irreversibly down-and-out.

So next time a car drives down our block blasting music at 10 PM right goddamn after we got the baby to go to sleep, next time a guy with a shopping cart starts rattling through our recycling bin, next time yet another car gets smashed up at the corner of Clearfield and Thompson, I want you (Pam) to remember the good parts about this neighborhood. Port Richmond is the perfect place to live, perfect not despite, but BECAUSE of all its imperfections.

There are plenty of houses for sale in our vicinity, so if you (the reader) looking to buy, you know what I'll recommend. And if not, come visit. We'll go to Byrne's and sit on the patio for happy hour and wings, and get drunk and maybe sit outside our house for a nightcap and do some people watching and just generally enjoy our neighborhood. Port Richmond. I fucking love it.

TV Review: Westworld (Season 2)

Puke on Your Birthday reviews entertainment every Wednesday, taking a break from the usual inane nonsense and inconsequential bullshit typically posted here. This week, we tackle recently finished season of HBO's Westworld.

(Some spoilers below, but either you are reading this having watched the most recent season, or you are reading because you are never going to watch this shit, right?)

Westworld
HBO
Seasons 1 and 2 available on HBO apps; Season 3 release TBD

Westworld, during its second season, became one of the most controversial TV shows on air, but I don't mean that how you think I mean it. I don't mean that the plot or the presentation itself was controversial. I mean that TV watchers in general argued about whether Westworld was worth watching at all. One side argued that it was a worthwhile show, full of suspense and action and fun plot twists. The other side states that Westworld is a little too much for them, that they just don't "get it," due to its endless labyrinth of mysteries and confusion. I find that I fall somewhere in the middle, but I would argue that the tension between those two sides, the thrilled and the confused, that tension is in itself what makes Westworld so great.

I've never had to work so hard to follow along with a show. Probably nine out of the ten episodes this season ended with me and Pam turning to each other and saying "What the fuck was that?" Reading recaps online became a necessity for the first time in my life. But I cannot hold this against Westworld, for every episode captivated me truly, even during those (many, many) moments I didn't know what was going on exactly.

Did I completely understand why all the characters were headed toward "The Valley" this season? Kind of, I guess? William seemed like he had unfinished business of some kind with Ford. Dolores was trying to set the hosts free. The Ghost Nation were looking for a mythical door. And Bernard, uhhh, was confused about pretty much everything except where he had to go? But the events that lead up to these characters setting on the path to the Valley were legitimately thrilling. And that (very Lost-esque) moment in the finale where you realized all the character were about to converge at the same place at the same time was a great, if still somewhat confusing, payoff.

Is this why we watch Westworld? For moments like this?

I'm a big fan of when a character's motivation informs the viewers how they should be watching the show, and Westworld might have the best example of this in William (the "Man in Black"). William obsesses constantly about "the game," how he should be playing it, how to solve the mysteries of the game, and so on. Not only does this inform the viewer of William's character motivation (albeit a thin one, sure), but it also serves as an example of how we, the viewers, should be watching Westworld. This is not only a TV show. It's a game that we're all playing.

So fuck yeah, this show is confusing. You don't know how many times I turned to Pam and had to confirm something that was currently happening on screen (and she could only confirm it for me about 50% of the time due to her own confusion). Do you think I honestly understood what the fuck Delores was doing this whole season? Something about creating a world for the hosts? But how?! But... that's part of the point, I think. Westworld is built to be confusing. It's meant to layer mysteries and puzzles on top of one another, and gradually pull the rugs out from the viewer one episode and one rug at the time.

If this is not your cup of tea, then I completely understand. I can't really hold anyone's hatred of Westworld against them. But Westworld is intriguing enough to me to keep me coming back week after week, even if there are no satisfying conclusions to anything, pretty much ever.

Look, I'm not claiming that this is one of the greatest shows ever. Typically, the best dramas work in two distinct and intertwining ways: intriguing mysteries, and deep, real, interesting, relatable characters. Westworld only worries itself with the former. The characters on Westworld are more often than not character sketches, at best. When Lee Sizemore all of a sudden decided to sacrifice himself, it was almost laughable, because it practically came out of nowhere. In a drama that concerned itself with the characters, this would have been a heartfelt moment. In a drama that concerns itself with a twisted and layered plot only, a sacrifice, heroic or no, just becomes another step in the plot.

(You deserve yourself a TV show that can do both, so check out The Leftovers, please.)

And I'm not trying to make excuses for Westworld, but again... I think this is all kind of the point. I mean, one of the main theses from the finale of this season was that humans are, basically, even more primitive than the hosts. Humans just like to believe they are more complicated than the basic core motivations that they actually are.

So, is this really the show that we should be complaining about when it lacks human moments? Wouldn't that be the antithesis to the whole point that the show is trying to make? In a show that's trying to prove that humans are no better than robots, why would the human characters featured in the show have more depth than a robot?

As a sidenote, I had a big problem with critics' takes on Westworld this season, and it got me thinking about a problem I have with TV criticism in general. AVClub's Westworld reviewer, Zach Handlen, spent a lot of time nitpicking every goddamn thing on every goddamn episode of Westworld this season, but his main concern was what I explained above—he felt that the characters lacked sufficient motivation for the viewers to care about them.

I take offense to that, not because he's wrong, but because, if that's what you want, why the fuck are you watching Westworld? Clearly by this point you have to know what Westworld is and strives to be as a show, and the reasons it gives audiences for coming back. Why is he the one reviewing this show every week when he doesn't understand HOW to watch Westworld? It's like purposefully buying a tomato pie and then complaining that yeah, it's fine, but it would be REALLY good with cheese. Just buy a fucking pizza!

In my mind, Westworld did what it set out to do, and you can't really fault it for that. It made its audience concentrate really hard on what was going on, and sometimes go over their head despite the intense concentration. It had some thrilling action sequences (William's duel with the Confederados, for the best example). It moved the plot from A to B in an intriguing and complicated way, and set up the stakes for Season 3 and beyond.

If that's what you like in a TV show, then Westworld could be a winner for you. If you want nuanced character studies, you should probably look elsewhere. I fucking love the latter, but as far as the former goes, there's really nothing quite like Westworld on TV right now, so I'm along for the ride.

GRADE: 3 pukes out of 5

The Albums That Matter: Antisocialites

Joe runs through every album on his iPod, mostly in alphabetical order, and offers some brief thoughts. Check out previous columns HERE.

Antisocialites

Alvvays

2017

Did you hear that? The sharp cracking sound, like a belt against raw cow hide? That's the sound of me smacking 2017 Joe in the face for completely overlooking Antisocialites. This is the 45th entry in this ongoing series, but it's the very first time I'm gobsmacked at how good the album was and how seriously I had dropped the ball in the past.

The music on this album is a well-worn '80s-tinged dream pop. Lots of blaring, extended hits on the synth in these songs. It creates a nice atmosphere to get lost in. Molly Rankin's dreamy voice helps. It's soft but still somehow soars. She does a great job at inflecting the notes at all the right moments to punctuate the songs with some nice hooks.

Like, listen to "Plimsol Punks," Rankin is all over the place on that song, hitting notes in all directions, and it never doesn't work. Or on "Not My Baby," how she takes the simple refrain of "I'm really not there" and turns the word "there" into a soaring chorus all its own. Or on "Saved by a Waif," how crazy she goes when singing about a haircut. It's fucking great! The best comparison I can make is that it sounds a lot like the Pain of Being Pure at Heart's s/t album. That's high praise coming from this tPoBPaH fan.

The lyrics in these songs are what really hooked me and made me regret not hearing it sooner. I was going to say at first that it was a breakup album, but the more I listened, the more I figured out that was only part of it. At its core, this is a very youthful album, chock full of songs about silly loves and losses, about summer's freedoms, about making mistakes and being young and dumb enough for it to be all okay in the end.

In this way, I kind of hear a lot of, weirdly enough, the Hold Steady in these songs. Not the music, of course, but in terms of the broad picture Rankin is trying to paint with these songs. The Hold Steady and Alvvays seem to share the love of singing about a reckless abandon that only happens when you're young. In fact, I now have a crackpot, Inception-like theory that the protagonist in Antisocialites is actually a character in a Hold Steady song. "Molly Mayhem" (as she specifically called in the song "Hey") is in a Hold Steady song about showing up drunk at your FWB's door at three in the morning, and laughing about it the next day, and other crazy shit happens, all documented by Molly Mayhem throughout Antisocialites.

Clearly this album has been on my mind a lot in the past 24 hours. It's funny how sometimes a great piece of music can be staring you right in the face and you don't even take notice of it. I guess you should be on the lookout for this wonderful LP on PoYB's End-of-Decade List as I make my penance.

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

If this album sounds interesting, try this song: "Your Type"

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Stray Observations

• Molly Rankin is a little more than four months older than I am, which means she's a lot closer in age to the type of shit she's singing about than Craig Finn is. That's probably why she seems more like a Hold Steady character to me than a Hold Steady-type narrator of youngster dramatics.
• Not mentioned above is a creepy incident that occurred last autumn at an Alvvays concert, when some fucking jerkoff got on stage and tried to force himself on Rankin. I didn't know how to tie it in to the post proper, but it had to be mentioned because, like, maybe men should be held accountable for this shit?
• Shout out to guitarist and co-songwriter Alec O'Hanley, who I did not mention above, but who co-wrote every song. I have a bad habit sometimes of just assuming the lead singer does everything.
• ALBUM COVER: A bunch of people standing on a cliff, watching a large fire. Perhaps these are the antisocialites, watching as the socialites burn? 
• You know, I didn't even consider why the album is called Antisocialites. A socialite is "a person who is well known in fashionable society and is fond of social activities and entertainment." I mean, yeah, there are a lot of moments on this album where our protagonist feels awkward and out of place, but I read that as normal young adult behavior, as opposed to the behavior of someone who is NOT fond of social activities, ya know?
• I didn't mention that this is Alvvays' second album. I have never heard their 2014 self-titled debut album, but obviously it's shooting to the top of my Listen To Next list as we speak.

NEXT TIME: Apocalipstick by Cherry Glazerr

Five Questions, June 2018

Joe answers five questions that he wondered aloud to himself throughout the month.

1) Do those "Baby on Board" car adornments actually help or do anything at all?

Look, unless a scientific research study is cited or a pediatric doctor tells me something about my baby and our baby-raising practices, I don't believe it. There are too many bullshit rumors and old wives' tales to contend with. Call me a skeptical parent. Do I really need a Baby on Board sign? You know the one. I found no evidence that the placards actually make it safer for babies in a car. In fact, some evidence suggests that the damn things CAUSE accidents, as in the parents can't see out a certain part of the window because the Baby on Board thingy is blocking their view, and that causes an accident. I can buy that. We were told by the hospital that we should not have a rearview mirror for the baby because it just serves as a distraction. I can see Baby on Board being the same.

2) Can you text from space??

This is a very dumb question. It was inspired by an equally dumb commercial I saw recently, with a woman up in space, but even though she was in space she was still able to text her husband who was on earth about some bullshit about their new low-lease car. There is not much information on this subject on the internet, as most of us will never have to send a text from space. This Q&A suggests that you can, but can we take the word of a stranger on the internet? Probably not. This article indicates that internet connection is "slower than dial-up" in outer space; it does not mention texting specifically, but we can assume that if internet is that slow, than texting would be worse.

3) What is Oscar saying in the roast episode of The Office???

Michael gets roasted, and Oscar goes off in Spanish. Apparently I'm not the only one wondering this, because it looks like this gets asked like every other week on the Office subreddit. He apparently says: "You give me an ulcer every time I wake up and I have to come to work. I have to come to work for you. For you!" Hmm. Underwhelming.

4) Does Publishers Clearing House actually award prizes????

I'll be honest, I had never even heard of Publishers Clearing House before the subject was brought up by the old heads at a family party. Apparently the company sells magazine subscriptions, and offers the random chance at huge monetary prizes if you buy a subscription, but it's dubious as to whether prizes are actually awarded at all. And this company still exists! No doubt scamming old people everywhere! But okay, let's see if one actually has a chance at these prizes. According to the wiki, there has been numerous lawsuits in all 50 states regarding the fact that PCH may have overstated the odds of winning, but there's no mention of prizes actually being awarded or not. This news site claims that, yes, prizes are awarded every year, but does not give any examples. This article also indicates that the prizes are real, but that many scammers are using the PCH name to get money out of people with no chance of winning. This Boston CBS affiliate gives some anecdotal evidence that prizes were awarded. So it looks like the bottom line is this—Publishers Clearing House is a real company that gives out real prizes, but you should still be skeptical if you are told you won (haven't you seen Nebraska?).

5) What the fuck is the difference between some of those baseball pitches?????

Okay, it's time. I've been watching baseball for over a decade now. It's time to learn what the difference between a curveball and a breaking ball and sinker is. Let's go through it. This is a really good illustration of each pitch.

The easiest is the four-seam fastball. It goes straight and fast. Some other fastballs have some movement, but are still fast. The two-seam fastball moves downward slightly. The cutter breaks away from the batter. The splitter is a fastball until is slows down all of a sudden.

"Breaking Balls" is really describing a category of pitches, all pitches that have dramatic movement. Curveball goes up and then down. Slider (Brad Lidge's specialty, you'll recall), goes down and away. There are a few other slight variations on these pitches, like the "slurveball."

Finally, you have your changeups. They are slower pitches, but they are meant to throw off the batter because the movement of the pitcher's arm is identical to a fastball, and so batters swing early.

This was a question that was easy to answer, but tougher to put into practice. I still can't tell the difference during an actual game between some of these pitches. But I'm gonna work on it, I promise! Tom McCarthy, help me out!

The Hate That Hits Close to Home

A couple months ago on PoYB, I was contemplating whether I should friend my grandparents on Facebook. This past week, I finally took the plunge. It was a mistake.

There are millions of senior citizens in this country currently brainwashed by conservative media through social media apps. I know this. I also knew that my grandparents were part of this phenomenon. I've sat next to grandma (not her preferred nomenclature, but it's the internet, let's not drop actual names here) while she has browsed FB. I've side-eyed the fact that she scrolls past pro-trump FB posts.

But yo, I didn't realize how bad it was until I friended her. She accepted my request, and then the deluge started. She shares one to two dozen articles or pictures a day that are political in nature, and they started to crop up on my timeline at an alarming pace. A lot of them were either fake news or wildly misleading. Most of them were incredibly hateful. Racist posts about Obama, arguments that immigrants don't deserve basic human rights, lies and lies and lies. 

It was sincerely depressing. I love my grandma with all my heart. I would die for that lady. And I was raised to love my neighbor, ya know? So to see my grandma spout such vile, hateful views (most based on bunk information to boot), it just fucking rocks my world, in a very bad way. I mean, I'm talking that I saw my grandma, in real time, like a comment (re:Clinton) that said "Kill this bitch." My grandma! Saying that a human being deserved to die! What the fuck?!

It's not that I'm "offended" or what other bullshit insults conservative nutbags usually lob my way. I see more violent and destructive worldviews elsewhere on the internet before breakfast than I do all day on grandma's FB. It's just that I didn't realize that grandma was a strong mouthpiece for these views. Or maybe I didn't want to know until now, I dunno.

I tried my best to go through each post and fact check (and trust me, there was a lot that was factually incorrect), but it just got to be too much. It was too depressing. I was so distraught that I straight up called grandma to just see what the fuck was happening. I began and ended my phone with an affirmation of love, because I really do love her, but the conversation in between was equally as disheartening as what she was sharing. She did not own up to her worldviews ("oh, I just share things, you know, a lot of people say a lot of different things, who knows"), and she turned down my request to sit down with her to go over how to properly fact check articles and memes (no explanation, just a "No...").

I don't know how to fix the situation if she is denying there is a situation at all. I don't know how to tell her that if "a lot of people say a lot of different things," but she herself is only saying one very specific and hateful thing, then that is a problem. I don't know how to beat the Russian trolls that have infiltrated her brain. I don't know how to get through to my grandma.

To further the anguish, of course the other hateful ignorant Facebookers came of the woodwork to defend the lies and hate, in response to my fact checking and appeals to reason on grandma's posts. Strangers on the internet, telling me how much of an asshole I am because I don't want children locked in cages along the border. It's a tale as old as time, but it still makes me feel like shit on each and every occasion.

Two nights ago, I went to sleep with five pending notifications of comments from strangers, no doubt bashing me and using recycled conservative lies to do so. I told myself I was just going to deal with it in the morning. But somewhere between the first and second half-conscious bottle-feeding sessions, I had a revelation. I don't have to fucking respond to these people. I don't even have to look at what they wrote. It's going to be false information, it's going to be hateful opinions, and it's going to make me feel like complete and utter shit. Why bother? Why let strangers do that to me? Why even respond when they are just going to come back threefold with more bullshit?

So I just didn't even look at what they had to say. I can't believe it took me this long to figure that out.

But it's different when it hits close to home, isn't it? I can let all kinds of strangers say all manner of hateful things to me, but what about when it's my grandma who is saying this shit? What then?

I don't know if I have any answers. All I can do is keep fact-checking grandma, keep trying to reach out to her, keep trying to get her to love instead of hate. I don't know if it's already too late. It might be. But I have to keep trying.

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

(Postscript: I know I tend to gloss over a lot of the WHY in these sparse political posts. To make my argument stronger, I should probably give some examples of what grandma posts, and my fact-checking responses, right? I should explain why I believe trump is a fascist and immigrants deserve basic human rights? Yeah, probably. But there's a time and a place for that, and I know that not too many people read this, and so to spend another 20,000 words explaining this all in detail would be akin to shouting into the void. PLEASE, I'm begging you, if you want to have that conversation (or if you believe that I'm full of shit and that I am not informed on any of this), contact me. Comment below, or hit me up to have share beer and a discussion. Assuming you actually want to have a discussion, as opposed to shouting lies at me through social media, because then, well, you read the above post, and you know I'm done with that. Anyways THANKS FOR READING this has been another great PoYB post goodnight all!!!!)

Acid Test Graduation Party

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test is the type of novel that only a sixteen-year-old could be obsessed with. I was that sixteen-year-old. It's basically On the Road with more drug use, and is also (mostly?) nonfiction. It was the climax of the story that I was particularly infatuated with. Ken Kesey (our protagonist) and his gang (the band of Merry Pranksters) decide to throw one last party—the "Acid Test Graduation"—to which they invite every character they've met throughout the entire book. Not everyone shows up, of course, but the idea that this party was some culmination of their lives enthralled this young amateur party-thrower.

As you can see on my old bucket list (from when I was a teenager, of course), one of the goals of my young life was to throw a party to which I would invite everyone I've ever met in my entire life. And I would take it seriously, even perhaps using private detectives to track down long-lost elementary school friends and single-serving cruise ship mates, etc.

The idea truly is as infeasible as it sounds. It's never going to happen. But if it did....

If it did, here are the first 100 guests on the guest list.

1. The girl (a daughter of one of my parents' friends) whose Game Boy Camera pictures I deleted for no discernible reason during a summer BBQ, like I didn't know what I was doing, and they were pictures of her recently deceased dogs no less, something I've felt shitty about since but didn't speak up to admit it was me, even when she was crying, and I have no idea who she is or where, but the memory is burned in my brain.
2. Our landlord from senior week, a guy who sat on the bottom step of our house the whole week, drinking beer, and making sure the police didn't raid the house as we (two dozen eighteen-year-olds) were drinking copious amounts of alcohol (which may or may not be a common thing these days).
3. The bus driver from my bachelor party, who not only drove us to the strip club for a few extra bucks, but also used those extra bucks to buy a few lap dances for himself while waiting for us to finish up the keg.
4. The girl from my grade school who had her kids taken by social services and decided that the best way to get them back was to rap about it on Facebook Live.
5. The moms at that Union game who got the dregs of a beer "accidentally" spilled on them on my buddy in a very drunken attempt to start hitting on them.
6. The midnight shift workers of the Fox Chase Dunkin Donuts who had to put up with some unsavory shit from a teenage Joe.
7. The guy who used to sell "coke weed" at the corner of 13th and Locust, which to this day I'm still not sure if that's a hybrid of coke and weed or if there was a missing conjunction in his speech.
8. The cop who busted me and Harry for curfew, because my hometown is a ridiculously strict one-square-mile borough (we were waiting outside at four in the morning, you see, because I didn't want to hop back through the family room window we had originally snuck out through and scare the fuck out of my aunt while she was getting ready for work, like, I sincerely believed that if we did that she would have a real, true heart attack).
9. The DJ who had never heard of "Heaven Is a Halfpipe" by hip-hop/rock fusion band OPM at the Philadelphia Protestant Home Family Picnic in the Summer of 2000.
10. The tattoo-clad, motorcycle-riding couple from Central PA staying at the same bed and breakfast as us in Gettysburg, with whom we shared a pleasant breakfast, pleasant because we all painstakingly avoid any talk of politics, because we all knew I'd eventually get my ass beat if they revealed their inevitable trump fandom and I held them to task, and so violence was avoided so why not invite them to my party.
11. The mentally challenged Lawndale-area resident whom we called "Fireman Joe" because he would walk around town whooping like a firetruck siren.
12. Paul "The Big Show" Wight, whom I met at a Pep Boys in the late '90s.
13. My buddy from college who made his own homemade vapes for smoking weed before vapes were even a thing, and who got away with setting the fire alarms off in the dorm because, after he set them off with his weed smoke, he threw a bag of popcorn in the microwave and put it on for an HOUR, right before evacuating the building, literally throwing the fire marshal investigators off the scent.
14. The girl who made fun of me for wearing plaid shorts and sandals to a Fucked Up concert (I didn't know I was attending a concert when I got dressed that night!)
15. Pete Lafferty, head of Greek Life at La Salle, who was extremely agitated when he saw me chugging from a Hurricane 40oz bottle on stage in front of two hundred other students (because, from his vantage point, he couldn't see the sign that said "IT'S JUST APPLE JUICE"), and also he looked like Todd Packer.
16. The lifeguard at Penbryn Pool who made me and a few friends pick up trash in the fields around the club because we had the audacity to jump in the big pool during adult swim.
17. The girl who claimed to not believe in God anymore because I didn't think we should date.
18. The guy at Tavern on Camac who wanted to fight me because I claimed Russell Crowe was the best singer in Les Misérables.
19. Jack L****'s mom, who let her high school-aged son throw massive keg parties at her house while she was home, who was most assuredly fined by the police at some point for it, and who may or may not have hooked up with one of her son's friends at one of the parties (the dude was eighteen and his name rhymed with "sleazy," so no need for child services here, I assure you).
20. Patty from Treetops Cafe at La Salle, a cynical old lady who used to make the most bangin' bacon, egg, and cheese sandwiches on weekday mornings when I was cramming for (or just starting to study for) an exam in a couple hours.
21. Every person that shared the hot tub with me and Pam at the Candlewood Suites in Las Vegas over a five-month period (mostly Eastern European expats performing in a Cirque du Soleil show).
22. My buddy from college who was on thin ice with the disciplinarians already, and then got super drunk at the keg party I threw in the dorms, and some jerkoff pulled the fire alarm, and my buddy was very drunk, and so he slept through the alarm, and the RAs found him passed out drunk, and the next day we said our goodbyes as he packed up his belongings and left campus housing forever.
23. The only four teenagers arrested out of the big group of them who were responsible for stealing my shit cell phone in Fishtown (all of them pussies for being too scared to fight me when confronted) (and none of them ultimately charged).
24. Our butler in Jamaica, who immediately offered us weed as soon as we started our honeymoon (i.e., "Do you partake in Bob Marley's culture?").
25. The janitor at La Salle High School who moderated the stage crew in the theater and whose big claim to fame was that he ate 23 slices of pizza in one sitting
26. My old boss at Avis Budget Group, who had me take an anonymous survey about my employment experience so far, and then cornered me and yelled at me for rating my experience as unsatisfactory.
27. The bartender at The Field House who purposefully waited until the open bar period was over before asking me what I wanted so as to avoid giving me one final beer because he was pissed that us poor college kids couldn't tip him enough (or tip him at all, to be honest).
28. The couple on the 15 bus who is always high as shit on heroin together, right there on the bus, and usually drop a drink all over the floor while nodding out.
29. Those hot girl scouts we met during Beach Jam 2005 in Wildwood.
30. The Northern Irish drunk who tried arguing with me and Pam that Americans should be ashamed of themselves for disrespecting the Queen during the American Revolution.
31. Eugene, a resident at the Lafayette Redeemer, who got drunk every day, and when my buddy Dave delivered a dinner tray to his apartment, he came to the door with only a T-shirt on and his dick hanging out.
32. The stripper who was signed in as a guest to La Salle's North Dorms in the Spring of 2008 to perform a show in a very crowded dorm room, and her security guard, who was also signed in, and was very concerned that La Salle security would have a problem with the fact that he was carrying a gun.
33. The Dave Chappelle and John C. Reilly lookalikes who frequent the shuffleboard table at McNally's and hit on the increasingly younger women who still go there on Saturday nights (R.I.P. McNally's).
34. Ashley W***.
35. Pat Egan, who attended one of my Phillies group outings, and who for years was calling 97.5 the Fanatic pretending to be a black man from Swedesboro, which if you listen to the voice is pretty much the audio equivalent of wearing blackface, and despite all this still has a job with 97.5 the Fanatic.
36. The chick on the school bus whom I had a crush on throughout my whole junior and senior years of high school, and never said a word to, and then who coincidentally I ran into during my freshman year of college, drunk at the swim team house, and actually had a conversation with her then, only to disappointingly find out that she was normal after all (and I guess I probably took that as a sign that I should stop trying to flirt with women at keg parties when I had a girlfriend, but I find signs in everything so...).
37. Our neighbor, who is about fifty years old, speaks mostly Polish, and is continuously hammering nails into things all day, usually involving his years-long project of building a rickety scaffolding in his backyard for no reason other than to give the weeds somewhere to grow (and who, as Pam posits, smokes weed all the damn time, but I don't believe this theory one bit).
38. The bartender in Milwaukee who taught me and Pam the Milwaukee Bar Dice game, which apparently is a thing in Milwaukee because every subsequent bartender we asked about it that weekend promptly whipped out the dice, and I wish I could remember what bar we learned it at, and I wish I could remember how to play, and I wish I could remember anything besides the fact that the first bartender looked strikingly like Patrick Stickles.
39. Chantal Claret, frontwoman of the former band Morningwood, who introduced herself to me when I was seventeen years old at a concert where her band was opening(?) for Valencia(?), and you better believe that this clueless, mostly-classic-rock-inclined, hormonal but barely pubescent seventeen-year-old was extremely confused when a very attractive girl randomly approached him at a club and introduced herself as "Morningwood" (and you better believe that same seventeen-year-old popped a boner all over again when he heard a Morningwood song on a car commercial).
40. The Dancing Guy at 5th and Spring Garden, who, well, just watch.
41. Kathleen the librarian who had zero issues or concerns when one of her student employees would go three weeks without showing up to work because he was too intoxicated and/or hungover to shelve books on the mezzanine for four straight hours.
42. The girl from grade school who was teased a decent amount, because she was somewhat strange, for instance she insisted on praying for Richie Gannon of all people during morning prayers every day, and also, yeah, she smelled a little bit, but who doesn't when they are ten years old, and I'll insist that no one's treatment of her reached the point where one could consider it "bullying," and she seems happy these days based on her minimal social media presence, so fuck it, she's invited.
43. The Philly cop who allowed me to ride around the district with him while on the beat (in preparation for my then-eventual and now-former job as a police dispatcher), and whom I later read about in the papers as the very same cop who got in a drunken fender bender with a college kid in Manayunk, and when this kid tries to call the police, the drunk police officer right in front of him grabs his phone and throws it in the river, and somehow some way the police finally held one of their own responsible for his actions and fired him.
44. The girl from college who kept a list of all the boys she hooked up with in college above her dorm room door (they were all nicknames, not actual names, so she wasn't calling out all us drunk jabronis directly, but still), until one night in a drunken stupor I got into her dorm and stole the list (my nickname was "Next January," for reasons I refuse to type out on a public blog), and held on to that list for way longer than I should've, until I drunkenly (see a pattern?) gave this list to her roommate five years later to give back to her, and the next morning decided that that was a bit too weird of a thing to do, and never followed up, and yeah, I kind've tried to forget about the whole thing unless she wants to come to the party I'm throwing.
45. My cousin's best man, who, to the total dismay of my uncle, spent a large portion of his best man's speech talking about the marijuana plants my cousin was growing in his basement.
46. The only goddamn SEPTA bus driver who didn't accept my old police department ID as a free bus trip coupon back when I used to do that shit.
47. (Speaking of stealing free transportation from large corporations) Pam's old coworker who eventually got fired for tailgating another car out of the workplace parking lot before the boom barrier came down and getting caught for it, and yo that parking lot is fucking expensive so I can't imagine how much money that company lost, but at the same time, c'mon, it's fucking parking money, is that worth firing a dedicated worker over?
48. Our tour guide in Gettysburg who claimed that a certain bullet hole in the brick facade of a Civil War-era house had magical properties, in that if you were a woman who stuck her ring finger in the hole, you would be engaged within the year, and when Pam indicated that she was already married, he said that if you were a married woman who stuck her finger in the hole, you would be pregnant within the year, and when Pam indicated that she was already pregnant, he said that she should just stick her goddamn finger in the bullet hole and see what happens.
49. The poor girl who walked in on me taking a shit in the Green Rock Tavern unisex bathroom, even though I locked the door (it was broken), and I was yelling "don't come in!!" (it was loud), so like whose fault is that, but still even so I apologized to her afterward, and she gave me just the dirtiest goddamn look, which okay, I guess is a fair reaction to witnessing someone of the male gender having violent diarrhea in a bar bathroom. 
50. Judge Younge, a.k.a. the Black Dolores Umbridge.
51. Father Harrison, a.k.a. the Catholic Lucius Malfoy. 
52. The guy who used to hang out at the Gallery who was literally missing a nose and looked like
    Voldemort (okay, I'll stop with the HP references).
53. My friend's Uncle Fran, who takes so many candid photos that I had to block him on Facebook (even though that meant I lost my tag in a great photo of the whole gang playing a rowdy game of LCR at a bachelor party), but we're gonna need a lot of pictures taken at this party so who else?
54. Kev's dad, who gets the invite as an apology for drumming on his souped-up '60s classic car with my drumsticks during a blackout drunk approximation of the Led Zeppelin "Moby Dick" drum solo at a backyard graduation BBQ.
55. This dude Ian who I used to work with, a crust punk who didn't wash his clothes or shower as far as I could tell, and would spend his nights (sincerely every single night) drinking malt liquor with his crust punk friends and playing a game called "Tire Ball" which, if I recall correctly, involved throwing tires around a pole and also smashing glass malt liquor bottles at other people's feet(?), which is all a lifestyle I didn't understand in the slightest but was endlessly fascinated by.
56. The West Tavern karaoke DJ from that crazy night with La Salle friends, who are the farthest thing from fighters, but just something about this dude's cocky attitude on the mic really got my drunk theater friends' goat, between the singing over people, to being overly protective of his shitty speakers, and then yeah, true, everyone was fucking loaded (e.g., one friend singing the lyrics to Smash Mouth's "All Star" over the music to "Imagine"), the night devolved into a shouting match ("You're a terrible DJ! You're a terrible DJ!"), and I think a few people might've thrown down if the DJ had squared up, and that's how we got kicked out of West Tavern, and so yeah that dude is invited to the party (as long as he has read Pam's epic Yelp review of the bar).
57. The sixteen-year-old kid who delivered take-out tacos to a house party in West Chester (in a blizzard!) and was convinced by the more mischievous of the party guests to shotgun a beer and smoke a blunt before he went back to work.
58. The fourteen-year-old girl at the Port Richmond playground who asked the grown man in a caveman (or was it Howard Stern?) costume for a goodnight kiss at one in the morning, and only after said kiss occurred did she reveal her age, thus making the caveman/Stern man worried, for some fucking reason, that he would have a hard time finding a job(?!) if anyone found out about this (it probably did not set the caveman at ease that then there was a Facebook post on the neighborhood group page indicating similar teenage girls were doing similar sexual acts at a playground, and the poster had video footage to prove it (whether this constitutes child pornography or not, who I am to say)).
59. The bartender at Murph's in Fishtown who gave us an incorrect bill after an all-day Eagles watch party, then when Pam told him that he added drinks that she didn't drink, he flipped out and said he was checking the security cameras, which prompted Pam to call him an asshole, which in turn prompted me to grab Pam and get the fuck out of Murph's as quick as possible.
60. I guess my daughter is invited.
61. This ornery old dude at Boy Scout summer camp (Camp Hart) during the summers of the mid-'00s, nicknamed "Tex," moderator of the "first year camper" program, who taught us the basic bullshit of camp life (knots, cooking, crafts, and what have you), and who wasn't afraid to make fun of the weird kid who, e.g., would consistently show up to campground gatherings with Cheeto dust on his face, and so on.
62. I can't invite any of my former clients to this party because of confidentiality laws, but fuck it, let's invite at least one, so how about the guy who kept calling and threatening that he was going to shoot me in the face and bury me underground if I came anywhere near his kids, yeah he's invited because fuck that guy.
63. "The Griep," who was the disciplinarian at Mount St. Joseph's Academy back when I was in high school, and who banned boys from visiting the all-girl Mount St. Joe's once she was in charge, and who literally had to chase me away from that place on a couple occasions (as previously noted, I was a young pubescent horny teenager, and ain't no Griep was gonna keep me away from those all-girl schools, ya hear?).
64. Ed's country bumpkin cousin who wore a mesh shirt to a party that one time.
65. Mayor Kenney, who was taking a tour of my work building last year and shaking hands with anyone there (it was the very start of the workday, so... it was just me there), and so I shook his hand, and perhaps I should have told him that he is invited to this party as well and we will be providing Philadelphia-bought soda for all the guests.
66. The homeless guy working the crowds in the Jetro parking lot during the Phillies season in the Fall of 2007, who was trying to get money from people by tricking them with the "ball under the cups" game, except the only problem was that he was hopped up on some type of drug and he couldn't quite get the ball to stay under those cups, and so I'm pretty sure he was one of those rare buskers who was losing money that evening.
67. Every deaf person I've ever met, who should not worry about inviting a translator because I am also inviting my good friend Kristin.
68. Brother Jerry at La Salle, who would often make appearances in the St. Albert's 2nd Floor hallway in the middle of the night, blackout drunk, like unable to speak he was so drunk, and who even made an appearance after the infamous Halloween 2007 floor-wide drunken ceiling punchout festival, and so there's Brother Jerry and all these dumb drunk college freshman in a (since-lost) photo, everyone huddled together with dozens of smashed ceiling tiles littering the floor around them, Brother Jerry right in the middle, either approving of the massive vandalism or too drunk to realize that it had happened (he memorably kicked down all the doors on 2nd Albert's the next morning, trying to figure out what happened, clearly not remembering that he had already witnessed the destruction the night before).
69. The only stripper to give me an actual lap dance in the past eight years.
70. Everyone in this photo, whoever the fuck they are (besides Ed, Ryan, and my dad, clearly) (seriously, haven't talked to any of the other ones probably since the camera flashed, are they even real people?) (and also yes I embarrassed to say I played soccer).
71. My college friend who is the former La Salle Explorer mascot, and who would often come up behind me in full mascot costume while I was taking a piss at the urinal and say "this is the drunkest I've ever been," and who, sure, is probably only invited to this party if he wears that atrociously-smelling Explorer costume one last time.
72. That guy that one time in Byrne's Tavern whose laugh sounded like he was drowning, like the laugh was so absurd that me and Pam crack up every time we mention that fucking guy at Byrne's and his goddamn laugh, so yeah I want him there.
73. The waitstaff at El Azteca from the old days, when we were underage and used to get fucking ripped at that place on BYO tequila and Natty Light bottles, and especially the one meek waiter who came to our table and sheepishly asked if that whoever stole the giant electric air freshener from the bathroom could please return it.
74. The obnoxious chick at the UA Riverview Plaza movie theater on Christmas night 2012 during a showing of Les Misérables who was making so much noise chatting and being an asshole and kicking the seats that I turned around a quarter of the way through the movie and whispered "quiet!" to which she replied, in a full voice, and I quote: "who the fuck is you?"
75. I know I literally just wrote up the long story and reflection about him the other day, but to the short basketball manager from that one episode of Jerry Springer, please, let me make it up to you, come to my party.
76. The couple who owns and operates Oxford Beer Distributor, who, bless their hearts, totally accepted that fake Colorado ID I was showing around in 2008, and thus have been serving me alcohol for over a decade now (seriously, if I'm having a party and need large quantities of beer, Oxford Beer is the only place I trust).
77. Gordon from the Fox Chase Wawa, nightshift Gordon, he of the yellow-tinted sunglasses worn at all times, who busted me for stealing a bag of pistachios but couldn't catch me as I ran, who allegedly got fired from Wawa for clipping his toenails behind the hoagie station (if that's not a true story—though I have no reason to believe it's not—then it's one of my favorite neighborhood urban legends of all time).
78. Jerry, my barber for the first 25 years of my life, who, okay, was not the best barber in the world, and would often leave long clumps of hair in the back that he missed (I dubbed them my "Jerry curls"), but loyalty is fucking thing in the barbering world, so it's probably for the best for all parties involved that he is mostly retired these days.
79. Whichever employee at that Mexican resort cursed me with the nickname "Sexy Sweater."
80. The kid with the most wicked fucking slapshot in the league, the Cheltenham Athletic Association League, to be specific, who indeed slapshot that puck right at my penis one day, and I wasn't wearing a cup because only chumps wear cups, and I regretted everything that day, but I guess I am pretty fortunate it hit my dick and not a ball on either side, or else you might not be reading about the daughter I have right now.
81. That guy who both works at the Suburban Station Taco Bell and also works out at my gym, meaning I've seen him every day for the past three years so why not invite him to the party.
82. The charity mugger who just now tried to chase me down and get me to donate money to the "ChildFund" which smells so strongly of bullshit that it makes me sad, but she was also complimenting my hair as she chased me, and that's my first hair compliment from a stranger since I cut off my manbun, so that made me feel good, or at least evened out with my feelings of revulsion for charity muggers in general.
83. My little cousin, just for the simple reason that he tricked my grandmother into buy him coils for his vape by photoshopping a picture of one of them on an Amazon description for bike parts.
84. Miss Big Booty, a Las Vegas vagrant who walked into the Vegas dive bar Champagne's and sat down at our table like it was nothing, but we were drunk and so talked to her a bit before the bouncer booted Booty, and she seemed nice, and her nickname was clearly accurate, and a decade ago her friends allegedly gave her a ride to Vegas and just fucking left her there and she's been there ever since so maybe her friends can do the same thing if they drive to Philly as long as they get here in time for the party.
85. Chase, the kid who was moving into the Woodstock House after I moved out, but it was the end of the year when I still lived there and the dude lights up a blunt right in the middle of the living room like an asshole, and he ended up being the only person I ever kicked out of that house, and then but after he moved in later, he was literally kicked out of house permanently after he stole a bunch of DVDs from one of his roommates, and boys will be boys but La Salle boys will be gentlemen WITH EXCEPTIONS.
86. Our favorite security guard from that cruise we took in the summer of 2006, even though I don't know his name... and I don't remember why he was our favorite... and I really don't remember much from that cruise at all except that this picture exists so it must be true right?
87. Mrs. Sawyer, the Honors Math teacher in grade school (so, the only teacher I've ever had for five years straight), who drank a Diet Coke every period of the day, and once, allegedly, was cleaning out her car of empty Diet Coke cans when a man tried to carjack her, and she (again, allegedly) chased him away by throwing full Diet Coke cans at his head.
88. Officer Gallagher, the D.A.R.E. officer in Cheltenham who made me put on the Scruff McGruff costume for a school assembly.
89. The Catholic priest who loudly called me out for receiving communion even though I was clearly a sinner... all this at my grandmom's funeral (true story).
90. The guy who sold us the kegs for our wedding and made fun of me when I said I wanted seven kegs when he recommended about three for the amount of people we had, and guess who fucking looked like a stupid jackass simpleton when the K*** Wedding Reception killed over six fucking kegs?
91. The speaker we had one day at an anti-underage drinking seminar I was court-ordered to attend in 2009, this dude might have even been drunk when he was giving his speech, but all he kept talking about was one time he was driving drunk and he got in a car accident with another car, and he got out and attempted to exchange information with the other driver, who he discovered was also drunk, and so they each (bizarrely) took off a ring from their respective hands and exchanged the rings as a peace offering(?), and then they both separately drove off, both still drunk, and the whole time the guy is telling this story and the facilitator of the class has wider and wider eyes and finally she cuts the dude off and shoos him out the door, and assuming he didn't crash his car into a ditch or end up in prison I'd like to invite him to this party please.
92. The guy at the DMV on 8th St. who is in charge of taking pictures and also has a lazy eye which, hey, not a big deal, except that I feel like it would be harder to focus and aim the camera, right, I mean c'mon there's gotta be a better job for this dude in that fucking DMV than picture-taker!
93. The old ice cream truck guy back in Burholme, not Mister Softee or anything legit, I'm talking the knockoff ice cream truck with the Pepto Bismol-colored facade and perpetually playing Christmas music throughout the summer, the guy who everyone believed was also peddling drugs out that bitch, I want that dude at my party.
94. Both girls who made out with me even though they knew quite well that I had mono.
95. Mike's uncle who let our band recording some remarkably shitty songs on his recording equipment in Bumblefuck, PA, and who was also the guitarist in a cult-ish church's band, one that we went to go see, and I was oh so very close to getting up there and starting to speak in tongues and shiver and shake like the rest of the religious nuts on the altar already.
96. The doctor who cut quite a monstrous boil off the bottom of my foot, years ago, I'm talking like a half cup of pus came out of that thing when he sliced it open, a boil that I received (my theory at the time, though it can't possibly be medically accurate) by skinny dipping in the ocean at Ocean City, and cutting my foot on a barnacle, and getting it infected(?), which if that was the case, no matter how big the boil got I was consistently glad that the barnacle didn't cut my penis.
97. How could we forget Rat-faced Andy?!
98. The guy who drove up in his pickup truck to the construction site on which we were consuming Hurricane 40s, on 7/21/08, and told us that he would prefer it that teenagers didn't get drunk on his construction site, but then again fuck it, just make it quick, and after he allowed us to stay and he himself drove off, we got real drunk and talked about whether or not it would be a good idea to start our own blog, a community blog, one where we can talk about the shit we care about, and maybe we'll call it Puke on Your Birthday.
99. Pam.
100. Guys, everyone is invited to this party, and just to prove it, I'm going to copy and paste the guest list from my seventeenth birthday party down below in the comments and say that its still valid for this party, y'all are invited too!!!!