Day 12: I Have Never Taken Part in Craig Laban’s Tuesday Chat

I’ve recently become somewhat addicted to reading Craig Laban, Philly’s premiere food critic. My obsession with the Philly.com food section is, let’s be honest, incongruous with the way I live my life. "Going out to eat" for me and Pam usually consists of bar food, so what the fuck am I doing reading articles about the newest fancy Rittenhouse Italian steakhouse or whatever bullshit?

Frankly, I don’t know. After a bit of reflection, I kind of equate it to people who look at real estate listings for fun in their spare time. Just like you know you’re never gonna afford that Ambler, PA mansion, I know I’m never going to be ordering $8 oysters at Ocean Prime, but it’s still fun to read about. Let’s call it escapism.

Craig Laban has been the go-to food critic in this town since I start perusing the Inquirer occasionally as a child, but I just started appreciating him recently. It was nice, for instance, to see his glowing two-bell review of our favorite neighborhood haunt, Bait and Switch in Port Richmond. It felt personal to me, in a good way.

(His rating system, by the way, is zero to four "bells" instead of stars. As in Liberty Bell. You get it. Zero bells is shit, one bell needs improvement, two bells are great, three bells are excellent, four bells are fucking elite and there are like six restaurants in the city with a four-bell review.)

I honestly don’t know how he is able to visit so many restaurants, bars, etc., every week. Like, the reason there isn’t any pictures of him online has to be that he’s so goddamn fat from eating so much great food, right?

Anyway, in between eating out for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, Laban also apparently makes time for an hour every Tuesday to talk food and drink with the hoi polloi. Today, I and other anonymous internet dwellers chatted with the man himself on Philly.com. I allotted my lunch hour to line up with the chat, and I wrote my questions in advanced.

Other people asked questions, and through Laban’s insight, I learned:

• St. John feta is bangin’ and can be found at DiBruno Bros.
• There is a brewery called La Cabra in Berwyn and it makes a great raspberry ale.
• There’s a sliced pizza place on 21st St. called Rione that just opened.
• Maido has good Japanese curry.
• Nam Phuong at 11th and Washington has a good Vietnamese crepe, and contrary to popular belief, Vietnamese crepes do not have eggs in them.
• The Borgata in Atlantic City has a new Italian restaurant, and it is subpar.
• Gotta try Andy’s Chicken in Fishtown one of these days.

Will I actually go to any of these places? Probably not. But I find it strangely interesting to read this man’s opinions on food.

I was lucky enough to ask two questions:

And:

Cheers to many more food adventures this summer! Though hopefully more that actually involve me eating some food instead of just reading about it.

Love,
Joey
a.k.a. JK
a.k.a. JNS1

Day 11: I Have Never Received a Tarot Card Reading

I’ve never received a psychic reading of any kind because I think—no, because I know that they are bullshit. But I thought that it would be interesting to get one anyway, because it’s just that type of summer. And also, I thought it would be cool to record it and kind of analyze it afterward.

So, written below, is a transcript of my 25-minute tarot card reading. Following that will be a brief discussion on it, what I thought of it, what I see as the psychic’s methods, etc.

Note #1: I had two options going into this. I could play it straight, and answer questions honestly, and not be an asshole; or, I could play it like a joke, and feed her bullshit to see what comes out the other side. I chose the former option. It’s less funny, but I was less of a dick, and I felt a lot less dirty afterward than I would have otherwise.

Note #2: Besides very few "uhs" and "ums" that were cut, I transcribed the conversation word-for-word. Microsoft Word went crazy with the green grammar underlines when I was typing up the draft, because the psychic had a very goofy way of speaking. I was pretty tongue tied too at times. I just wanted to note that when the dialogue sounds ridiculous, it was not because I copied it incorrectly.

Note #3: Technically, recording this conversation was illegal, as PA is a "two-party consent" state when it comes to recording consent. So, in order to avoid legal prosecution, I will not be disclosing to you, humble reader, exactly whom I was speaking to, or where her business is located. For all you know, I could be making this all up, right?! This was all a work of fiction, officer, I swear!

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

Psychic: You can sit right here, make yourself comfortable.

Joe: Thank you.

P: Do you work around here?

J: Yeah, I do. In [censored].

P: Oh okay, what do you do?

J: Uh, social worker.

P: That’s great. That’s beautiful.

J: It’s interesting.

P: Okay, so today, you would like a tarot card reading.

J: Yeah, whatever the $50 one is. I have $50 in cash.

P: That’s fine. Have you ever had a reading before, Joseph?

J: Never.

P: This would be your first time.

J: Mhm.

P: Well congratulations to you!

J: Thank you.

P: Alright, so let’s see what’s going on.

J: Sure.

P: Okay, so just make yourself comfortable. How this is going to work is this: I want you to shuffle the cards like this. While you’re shuffling, you’re going to focus on two wishes. One wish you’re going to say to yourself, and one wish you’re going to state out loud. Don’t let me rush you. Take as much time as possible regarding shuffling. After you’re done, place the cards on the table, and I will read them.

J: I have to think of a good wish.

P: Take your time. This is your moment.

J: Okay.

P: Is there one you want to say out loud?

J: I, uh, wish for financial stability for me and my family.

P: Alright. And the other one you keep to yourself. Okay, place the cards right here. Alright, now I’m going to ask you, because everyone has a psychic ability, everybody was born with this gift. I want you to use your ability and just pick out which deck do you feel will tell you everything you need to know.

J: I’m gonna go with the left one here.

P: Okay Joseph. Whatever I’m going to see in your reading, bad or good, do you want to hear everything or just good?

J: Let’s do everything.

P: Everything? Okay.

[flips cards]

P: We’ll stretch these out like this. Just give me a moment Joseph, to pick up some vibes.

J: Sure.

P: Okay Joseph. The first card reveled to me was this one here. I do see you have a strong and healthy life ahead of you. You are meant to live anywhere between the age of 85 through 87.

J: Wow.

P: Which is very good. But I do see medication. Are you taking anything now?

J: Um... some tums?

P: That’s it?

J: Um... Yea pretty much. Acne medication when I was younger.

P: Okay, and you’re still on it?

J: No, not really.

P: Okay, I’ll tell you what the card is reveling to me. I see three symptoms that could be hereditary in the family. What I do see is blood pressure, heart problems, maybe even diabetic. Is this run in your family?

J: Umm... the, uh... some heart stuff? Yeah, my grandmom had some heart issues. Poor diet, ya know.

P: I understand. I do see that you will be taking medication for one of these symptoms. I don’t see it any time soon. But I see it somewhere in the age of 60, 65. But your health condition is revealing to me as it stands now. A lot of hypertension. Are you going through some type of anxiety?

J: Um... not really. Nothing major, I’d say. Work’s been going okay. I guess day-to-day anxieties. Ya know?

P: Okay, alright. Well I don’t see that you have any issues regarding health. I don’t see you have to worry about what is hereditary. I do see that you will have to treat it the rest of your life, but I don’t see any major situations happening, thank god for that.

J: Yeah, for sure.

P: Yes. Here it’s revealing to me that there’s going to be changes that will take place for you. In fact, I see three. Okay. One of them is revealing to me something regarding love. I do see something in your business career. And I do see you relocating into a new move. Were you planning on moving somewhere?

J: We’re just getting work done in the house now, so, probably not. Maybe in the next 20 years?

P: Okay, well let me tell you what the card is revealing to me. I do see somewhere between five to seven years, there’s going to be a move happening.

J: You mean like, house?

P: Yea. Okay, now you where—where do you live, in the city of Philadelphia?

J: In the city, yeah.

P: Okay, and you purchased a home, is that what it is?

J: Yeah.

P: Well, what I do see is that there’s going to be a reason why you’re going to be moving, and what I’m picking up is it’s going to be work-related. Alright. I feel, um, Joseph, that you will be moving more toward... east.

J: East?

P: I feel, Boston, Massachusetts? I do see, I see more of the east around you. It could be, New Hampshire? But I do see all of the energy of the area, okay? The reason for that is you are going to go on a higher level in your career. Maybe the same field? But in a higher level. In other words, people is going to need you. There’s going to be someone that’s going to be calling you. And I see it happening anywhere between three to four years. Joseph, your name is meant to go very far. I see this very much. You’re meant to do something other than what you’re doing now. Why do I see, um, you becoming some sort of a strong professor?

J: Maybe... due to my beard and bun?

P: No.

J: No?

P: It’s not due to your looks, it’s due to your brain! [laughter] Let me tell you what’s going on. I see you going back to school. I see you studying on something very strong. I do see that you will be very great in a lot of things that you’re meant to complete regarding... advising, teaching, um, helping, I see you there for people, I see you getting involved in organizations, I do see charity that you will be getting involved—maybe donating, but you’re going to be around a lot of wealthy people. You’re also meant to do something else, I don’t know if this is your desire, but I do see you writing. See a lot of writing around you. Did you ever desire writing a book or something?

J: Um, my blog sometimes.

P: Say that again?

J: Uh, blog, like, uh, write on my own website, I guess, sometimes.

P: Okay. What was your desire in writing a book? Did you ever want to do that?

J: Possibly. My wife’s always encouraging it.

P: Oh, really?

J: ...to write, so, I try to write a little every day.

P: I do see that that is something that is in your destiny.

J: Okay.

P: This writing is meant to take you far. You’re meant to touch many souls. Not a couple hundred people, Joseph. I’m going to say a couple... thousands of people, in your writing. You’re meant to deliver people whatever they’re going through. Setting them free. You have a strong spiritual journey ahead of you. Are you aware of this?

J: ...I was not.

P: Does this, like, ever—are—do you ever feel it, do you feel like you’re meant to do something positive and strong to give back to people to help people?

J: I mean, I would hope so, ya know, I think that’s something everyone should want. Ya know?

P: Well that is in your cards. And it’s a spiritual journey thing. It’s a blessing. But I wanna say something, Joseph. You’re struggling with many blockages. Because of that, here it’s revealing to me that there’s a lot of fear. Fear has grasped you, okay? And it’s causing you to believe that you’re meant to stay on one level, and that is not in your destiny. You are looking for direction, because you know you’re meant to do something on a higher level. You don’t know where to turn. So my advice to you is this: what I see, you’re meant to go back to school, and study on what is your heart’s desire. I know you wanna help children, I know you wanna help people, I see that in your heart, okay, but what else is your passion? What exactly did you ever want to desire to do?

J: See, I feel like that’s, uh, been a struggle in my life, to figure out what my passion is, ya know? I definitely didn’t grow up wanting to be "something." I just kind of been going from one job to another, ya know, making sure that I’m able to help support my family, but, otherwise I still feel like I’m still on the path to finding out what my passion is.

P: Okay, well, first of all, you’re worried. I see a lot of worriment around you, and that is under financial status, regarding your finances. But, you will be coming out of it very soon, okay? 2018 is meant to be a very good luck year for you. Alright, because you’re going to be on a strong level when it comes to career. There’s gonna be some good news happening, but first you have to go back to school, or either you’re going to studying on whatever job-related is going to happen, but there is an opportunity happening regarding job. Are you looking into something else to do now?

J: Um, not really. Yeah, I’m just kinda riding this job out for a little bit and see how it goes. There might be some natural advancement in work, but—

P: It’s gonna happen. Someone is going to discover you, and they’re going to take a liking to you, and they’re going to offer you a stronger position in 2018.

J: Okay.

P: So, I wouldn’t worry about finances, because I don’t see that a problem for you at all. Regarding love, um, I do see that your wife is very stable with you, I do see that she loves and cares for you. But why do I feel that there’s been a distance between the both of you guys?

J: Um... I’m not sure? Maybe, I mean, we haven’t different work schedules now, she started working a little more nights. So I guess we don’t see each other as often.

P: What does she do?

J: She’s a nurse.

P: Great. And how is that working out for her?

J: Great! Yeah, she has her Master’s in clinical nurse specialty, so she is definitely succeeding. In her field.

P: Thank god. I also see the energy of three children. Do you have any children right now?

J: Not yet.

P: I see that there’s going to be three children taking place. Thank god, I don’t see a problem, I see them being very healthy. But. There’s something that you’re striving. Your spirit is telling me that you are going through some kind of negative energy battle. You’re struggling with yourself. You’re fighting yourself. I’m going to ask you a question, Joseph. In what way did you want to see a change in your life?

J: Um. Hmm. Uh. I mean I guess the biggest one would be being healthier. With my, ya know, with having a healthier body. I mean, I guess if we’re talking big changes, having children. I’m not worried about it, but, um, that will be a change.

P: And you’ll handle it well. Don’t be afraid of it, because it’ll all come to you, and you’ll handle it well. Okay? But I do see that you’re struggling with yourself in the present time. Let me tell you what I see. I see a lot of fear. I see you struggling with a lot of negative energy, and I don’t mean to… sound like I’m knocking you, but I wanna say, you are struggling with some low self-esteem. And that is your biggest enemy right now. Okay? You feel like you can’t do it. And that is a voice that you need to block out, because I see all this good energy when it comes to good luck for you. Oh yes, you’re going to have to work at it, nothing comes easy to anyone, okay? But this is in your path. You know, this is something you’re gifted, and you’re meant to have on all of this good energy when it comes to studying and being a professor and writing this book and, you’re meant to be around wealthy people and it’s going to be, um, catchable, this wealth. But if you’re on this level that you’re in now, let me tell you what you’re doing to yourself: you’re bringing blockages, and you’re stopping your destiny from flowing in. Just because you have fear, and because you’re feeling low-energy, now you tell me if this has been something you’re going through, if, do you feel this happening to you? Because your spirit is revealing that to me.

J: I mean, I guess there is a bit of a malaise. Uh, right now, just as far as work. In my new position, it’s not as exciting, it’s more of the same thing every day. Which, you know, for the most part I’m okay with, but possibly that. I’m struggling with boredom on some days. That’s definitely a negative feeling I guess.

P: Mhmm, yeah. I see you’re fighting a spiritual battle when it comes to negative energy. You gotta put that under your foot, and say to yourself what I’m telling you. Changes is happening. And doors are going to open in the year 2018. Alright? Having to say that, that’s when the responsibility starts happening, but you have to know that you have to build yourself up strong to face the good energy regarding what is meant to come. Okay? So whatever you’re going through now, build your self-esteem up. Get rid of the fear. Know that you can do it. Because the cards say one thing, but your spirit is telling me another, and that is not healthy. Because you have a good fortune ahead of you. Okay? Is there a question you want to ask me toward your reading?

J: Um… so this all speaks to my future?

P: Yeah, what I told you is hap- is going to happen... doesn’t... it doesn’t mean that it’s going to happen easily. You have to work at it. Work on yourself. Okay? In 2018, you’re going to switch positions, and you’re gonna go on a higher level when it comes to your career. I don’t know exactly, but it has to do something in the medical.

J: Medical?

P: Yes.

J: Okay.

P: And, um, it’s gonna be very good, that’s one of the doors that’s going to lead to other doors that’s going to happen, um, I’m going to say, within years to come. But this move that you’re meant to make because of your career. Ya know? And I know you said that you, ya know, you’ll be moving in twenty years, but, that’s not what your destiny says, and it’s the reason for it is because it’s a good move. But, your wife is definitely on her right path. She, she’s a very strong woman. She’s very strong. She, she’s the one with the positive energy, I do see that. And she’s trying to give that to you, but nobody can, ya know, just take it like that, it has to be built. But other than that there is a lotta light around you when it comes to your future. Finances is gonna change. You’re not going to stay where you’re at in this level, you are going to, in 2018, that’s when it gets better. Because of a different position, when it comes to the medical field.

J: Okay.

P: Alright? Are you satisfied with your reading?

J: Yeah, totally.

P: Good. Good. Basically this is all I see, but thank god it was great.

J: All good things.

P: All good things. Positive things. But accept it. No more fear. Believe in yourself, uh, Joseph, because what you’re about to face, you’re gonna need your strength. On good things.

J: Sure.

P: Okay. And whenever you get a chance, work on writing. Because that’s gonna take you far. But forget about you, god forgive me for saying it, forgive me too what I’m saying. It’s about the people. It’s about—your writing is spiritual, and it’s gonna open up many people’s eyes. You’re meant to write, I know, that has to come from the heart. Okay? So basically that’s all I see, but other than that, that’s great. Looks great.

J: Thank you.

P: Alright?

J: I appreciate that.

P: So yeah, stay where you’re at now, but my high advice to you is either go back to school and study more in the medical, and uh, when this opportunity comes in 2018, you’ll be very prepared for it. Okay? That’s it.

J: Okay, thank you.

P: You’re welcome.

J: ...

P: And that’s $50 for today.

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

Well, even though the price tag was outrageous considering the services rendered, I still considered this a super-interesting social experience. It gave me a deeper understanding on the concept of "psychics," and it made me appreciate being self-aware enough to be able to realize when I’m being bullshitted.

One of the biggest tricks that she employed was the sliding scale of specificity. The more specific her prediction, the farther away that prediction was allegedly going to come true. She was able to pinpoint exactly when I’m going to die—in my mid-80s—but she’s able to make that specific of a claim, because 1) if I live past the age of 87, there’s no way I’ll remember a psychic prediction from 60 years earlier, and plus she’ll be dead already, and 2) if I die before that age, she won’t be held accountable, because I’ll be dead.

But so when the predictions were for more and more recent times, they got less specific. In 5-7 years, for instance, I will be "making a move," possibly to "Boston" or maybe "New Hampshire?" A little less specific, and definitely far enough away that she lacks accountability.

The closest prediction to the current moment was when she talked about 2018, during which will apparently be a "very good luck year" for me. Not specific at all. What this might achieve for people that take her at her word, is that everything that happens next year that could be considered "lucky" would then lead to one thinking, "Oh my god, the psychic was right!" But everything that’s "unlucky" next year would be ignored in this context. Fucking classic confirmation bias.

Something else I noticed she did a few times was say something incredibly vague, ask me a question about it, and then riff on my answer. For example, she went on for a while for me feeling "low-energy" lately, which is 99% wrong. But when she asked me about it, I kind of came up with an answer anyway. I said some bullshit about feeling a "malaise" about doing the same thing at work every day. When I said this, she confirmed that, YES, THIS is what she was talking about, and riffed on it.

Sometimes she didn’t even make a claim, she just said that she "saw" something, and asked me about it. "I see medication," she said. "Do you take any?" My answer was that I do not, so she talked about how I will in the future. If I DID take medication currently, she would’ve made another prediction about that specific medication. Saying she "sees" something is a way to never be wrong.

She did it again when she "saw" the "energy of three children." This literally could lead to a prediction no matter how many children I have. I have none, so she simply predicted I’d have three. If I already had three children, she would’ve just claimed that’s why she saw three. If I had one, she would’ve predicted I’d have two more. If I had four children, she would’ve asked me if there were any problems with one of my children, and if there was, she would’ve claimed that THAT was the reason why she only had the energy of three children, because that fourth child had "blockages" or whatever the fuck.

Occasionally, like a broken watch, she was actually right. I think the closest she came to getting to the truth about Joey was when she asked about writing. I’ve written every day for the past eleven days, and plan on writing again for the next 91, so yeah, I’d reasonably say "writing" is a part of my life right now.

And when she said "writing," and she got a confirmation from me, she KNEW that this was the thing she should concentrate on. Note that she didn’t say that I would be a successful writer without confirming that I even occasionally write. She needed that confirmation first.

This was then tied in to the biggest, scammy-est part of the whole endeavor, which was when she had me give a wish out loud at the beginning of the session. Of course whatever I say is going to be the thesis of the whole reading. I definitely threw her a softball when I talked about my wish for "financial stability." How many people you think walk in that room and talk about money?

(Sidenote: If you’re wondering what my secret, unspoken wish was, it was that the Phillies would win the World Series this decade.)

So when I confirmed that I write, and I had already talked briefly about finances, her thesis became that I will write and make money by writing, and she also threw in some stuff about how my writing will also "open people’s eyes" for good measure. It’s not hard to see the method used here.

My favorite was when she was straight up wrong, and how she dealt with that, and almost as important, how I dealt with that. She claimed that there was some "distance" between me and Pam. Unless I’m missing something (uh, Pam? any insight on this?!), I would classify this as incorrect. We’re doing pretty well.

But I got suckered in, and I made an excuse for her, when I talked about how Pam has been working night shift recently, so there was a physical distance, not an emotional one. I could’ve just said "Nope," but I didn’t. Again, she counts on people to make excuses for her.

Even then, I don’t think my explanation was strong enough for her to riff on, so she flipped the script. She asked what Pam did for a living, and after I spoke glowingly, she started to talk about how I was the problem, with my low energy, anxiety, and self-doubt. See, there is a distance, but it’s just a distance on my side of the relationship.

God, this shit was so interesting, how she pulled these tricks. And you know what? She wasn’t even good at it! I mean, read the fucking transcript. It sounds like she’s reading off a cue card at certain points or something. I can’t imagine how many suckers you could convince or your power if you were actually competent at being a "psychic."

Which leads me to my final point: What is the PURPOSE of going to see a psychic? Unless you are writing some bullshit amateur blog, why even bother? I think the end of our tarot reading really underlined the point.

Toward the end, she spoke a lot of can-do-it platitudes: "No more fear," "Believe in yourself," "It doesn’t mean it’s going to happen easily... you have to work at it," "Build your self-esteem up," "Know that you can do it."

I can imagine that the typical customer of a psychic really does have low self-esteem in some aspects of their lives, or anxieties, or fears. And I can imagine that hearing about good things in the future might be a comfort to these people.

Claiming that her predictions won’t come true without hard work and dedication might seem like a cop-out to some, a way for her to release herself from culpability if (and when) these predictions don’t come true. But I’m choosing to see it a different way. I’m choosing to think that people that see this psychic and others like her honestly need to hear some positive things about their life, and need the motivation to get better on their own.

Is this a scam? FUCK YES. No doubt about it. But at the end of the day, I can see it being emotionally beneficial to people anyway.

Love,
Joey

Day 10: I Have Never Listened to a Podcast

There are some things that I’ve never done in my life because the opportunity was never present for me, or it’s just something I never got around to, or it would require way too much planning for a lazy person like myself. There are other things I’ve never done because, at the end of the day, I knew the idea simply didn’t appeal to me.

Podcasts fall into the latter category. I get the appeal of podcasts, and the subject matter of podcasts in general are so innumerable and so varied that there’s gotta be a podcast out there for everyone. But for me personally, there’s only so much time in the day that I can have my headphones around my ears, so the competition of what I play on them is fierce, but 100 times out of 100, music wins.

I know that it’s comparing apples and oranges to say that "music is better than podcasts," but I love music so much that there really isn’t any time to listen to people talk. Podcasts lack appeal to me simply because music exists.

But I’m trying new shit this summer, of course, and I knew I was going to be hungover as fuck from a wedding the night before, and I needed something new and simple for a Sunday morning, so I put three new albums on my iPod classic, and also one podcast.

Is the concept of a "podcast" so ubiquitous yet that I need not explain what a podcast is? I dunno, I’m picturing my dad reading this blog post, and I can see quite clearly the slightly puzzled look on his face that he gets when millennial technological bullshit is discussed with him, so let’s spend a quick paragraph in explanation.

Podcasts are, generally, audio files that you put on your listening device, and mostly are people talking about certain subjects, or anything at all, really. Each podcast features multiple episodes that you can download. You can "subscribe" to a podcast, meaning that these episodes download automatically, or if your electronics are shit like mine, you can manually download individual episodes as well.

I don’t want to dive to deep into a critique of the specific podcast episode I listened to, because there’s no way that a single 30-minute episode of one Podcast could ever adequately serve as a stand-in for the podcast experience as a whole.

For what it’s worth, a friend recommended a podcast called Reply All, and episode 29, "The Takeover." Reply All is a podcast "about the Internet," and this specific episode was a short oral history of a teen in Australia that created a Facebook group that functioned as "office culture role play." The episode was interesting, and I chuckled a couple times.

Ultimately, though, it left me unfulfilled. Not due to the content—again, critiquing this particular episode would be pointless in this context—but due to the fact that I wasn’t listening to music.

It’s good to get new information and work that academic part of the brain. In learning about the exploits in the fictional offices of Stackswell and Co., I gained a tiny bit better understanding of how humans interact online. I received a modicum of knowledge.

But I listen to music for emotional release, and during most parts of my day, that’s a lot more valuable. When I was driving around Philly in my work van, a bit hungover, on a beautiful Sunday morning, I didn’t want to be strengthening my mind. I wanted my heart to do flips. I wanted to pump my fist and yell at the top of my lungs. Podcasts just didn’t do it for me.

Love,
Joey

Day 9: I Have Never Reported a Problem to Licenses and Inspections

Being a homeowner means protecting your property. And a neighbor’s home juts across the rear of your backyard, and that home is falling apart, with bricks and pieces of the roof falling into your garden, then you gotta take action.

So I made a report with L&I. I know, I know, snitches get stitches.

Will they do anything? Probably not. But maybe this city will surprise me and take action! I’ll be sure to update you guys with any exciting developments!!!

They can’t all be winners. I have a wedding today, give me a break.

Love,
Joey

Day 8: I Have Never Been to a Phillies Game by Myself

Let’s get it out of the way right in the first sentence of this blog post: the Phillies lost by a score of 10-0 tonight. It was, in my recollection, the worst Phillies game I have ever witnessed in person. This is not an exaggeration. There was nothing redeeming about this sorry excuse for a game. The pitching stunk. The hitting was nonexistent. The fielding was egregious.

But hey! It was a beautiful night, and I’m privileged to live in a city with a beautiful baseball stadium, and I had a few bucks burning a hole in my pocket. It couldn’t have been all bad, right?

Well, let’s examine the good and the bad.

GOOD

One of the (only?) good things about having a shit hometown team is that tickets are cheap. Now, it was still a warm Friday night, so the Phillies weren’t dropping tickets for close to nothing. But scalpers were! They act like they are trying to drive a hard bargain, but scalpers have no bargaining power whatsoever in the parking lot of the worst team in baseball.

My plan was to tell every scalper: “I only have $11. Take it or leave it.” Most brushed me off. Just when I was giving up hope, and was walking toward the Phillies ticket window, a dude rushed over—Yo! Tickets! I gave him my spiel. He asked for $15. I said I only have $11. He insisted that there’s no way I’m getting a ticket for $11 at the ticket window. I said, "I’m using credit card there. Do you take credit card?" He mumbled, and gave me a field-level ticket for $11.

BAD

The Phillies really fucking blow. I mean, the game itself was just painful. It was a nine-inning game, but did anyone feel like the Giants had the bases loaded in at least ten innings?

GOOD

There was plenty of pretty girls at the game.

BAD

These girls were disgustingly self-involved millennials who didn’t give a flying FUCK about the Phillies, but instead spent a few hours taking selfie after indulgent selfie.

GOOD

It was African American Heritage Night at the ballpark.

BAD

Doesn’t matter what race you are, if you’re a little kid playing a fucking app game on your parents’ cell phone while you’re at a live baseball game, you’re a little bitch.

BAD

Seriously, I felt super uncomfortable getting drunk by myself while surrounded by many, many young children. Dear Hunter, whose eighth birthday celebration took place at CBP with twelve of your friends: Enjoy life while you can, don’t piss away your innocence, because next thing you know, you’ll be just another while male teenage Hunter at a state college sexually assaulting a girl at a frat house.

GOOD

I was able to drink a beer an inning, if you consider the $11 24oz beers as two beers. I actually went ten beers for nine innings. Shout out to the San Francisco Giants, who loaded the goddamn bases seemingly every inning and gave me a little more time to drink my beer.

BAD

I tried to block this failure out of my mind, but it’s worth noting. My original plan for attending a Phillies game by my lonesome was to listen to the radio while sitting at the stadium, so then at least I’d have two friends keeping me company—Scott Franzke and Larry Anderson. My parents’ generation will talk wistfully about the sweet sounds of Harry Kalas. Honestly, when I my kids are old enough to appreciate baseball, I’ll tell them about all the afternoons and evenings I spent with the best color commentators of my lifetime, Scott and Larry.

BUT I was denied that privilege tonight. I brought my phone with radio capabilities, and I brought my headphones. But when the game started, I noticed, the radio broadcast was AT LEAST 30 seconds lagging behind the live eyeball footage in front of me. I don’t know if this is WIP’s fault, or it was the fault of my shitty phone (probably the latter), but I just couldn’t keep the sweet sounds of Larry and Scott in my ear when they were so far behind. Sorry boys.

GOOD

No sign of the Pistachio Girl.

GOOD

Rupp came into today’s game in an 0-18 slump, prompting a (drunk) lame Seinfeld-referencing tweet:



But Rupp went 2-for-3 tonight! It wasn’t an amazing night, but at least he took my tweet as a challenge and actually did something!

GOOD

Attending a Phillies game is always nice, no matter what’s on the scoreboard.

BAD

Attending a Phillies game by myself was strange and maybe even a little bit boring. Of course, it would’ve helped to be watching an exciting game, but even so. Baseball is a great game because of the moments in between moments, those seconds between pitches to sit, discuss, analyze, bullshit with a friend. That goes away when you’re with yourself only.

BAD

There were a lot of Giants fans tonight, and they made their presence known. I can’t hold it against them—I remember when the Phillies fans used to do that shit all over the country, and I held no quarter then. But what irked me a lot tonight was the drunk A’s fan in the crowd. Yes, the Oakland A’s. Why an A’s fan was belligerent at Citizens Bank Park tonight, I don’t know. But that dude can go fuck himself. His big pet peeve was that, apparently, "Philly people don’t know how to do the wave!" Jesus Christ.

GOOD

A few Phillies fans WERE present tonight, and some even made themselves known, and I was proud of that. I especially enjoyed, on a superficial level, when the crowd got sarcastically into the game. When Eickoff struggled mightily with throwing a strike, throwing ball after ball (walking the opposing pitcher THREE TIMES!), it was then pretty funny, when he actually found the strike zone, that the fans gave him a standing ovation.

REALLY BAD

Now, some fans might have gotten a little out of hand. It was a Friday night and the tickets were cheap, so you know there was gonna be some drunk assholes in the crowd, yelling obscenities. I’ve been that guy many times, so I know how it goes.

The thing you gotta remember is this: we pay money for tickets to see a product, and when that product is lackluster, then we have a right to make our opinions known. Back in the day, when Howard would strike out in the goddamn dirt yet again, you better believe I was yelling at him to do better. This tradition stretches back even to the winter of 1968, when citizens were so pissed at the product on the field, they made their opinions known in a very cold way.

So when a ball was hit somewhat sharply into left field tonight in the top of the 8th, and Phillies left fielder Howie Kendrick made a lackadaisical attempt at catching the ball, ultimately letting it fall about two feet in front of him (so fucking catchable!!!), then you better believe he’s gonna hear about it from the fans.

When I say "hear about it," I mean that there’s a spattering of boos, and that’s mostly it. There’s always gonna be a few people that go above and beyond in their booing. And that person was sure enough in the stands tonight. He was yelling very loudly, deriding Kendrick for not hustling. It was loud and clear enough (and the stadium was empty enough) that Kendrick could definitely hear it.

Was this dude being an asshole? Probably. But, again, the rub: Kendrick fucking deserved it!! Howie is making (according to a quick google search) $10 million this year. That’s a lot of money! He’s gotta make more of an effort!

But here’s where the story takes a sour turn. So this dude is yelling at Kendrick, and Kendrick can obviously hear it. And then, Kendrick turns around, and rubs his fist under his eye in MOCKERY of the fan. As if to say, "Shut up, crybaby!"

Not gonna lie, I was a bit stunned. I’ve never seen a Phillies player shit on a fan like that before, especially not in person.

Let me stress again that we are paying customers for entertainment. When you pay money, you expect the best possible product the "performers" can provide. We had every fucking right to be pissed when Kendrick made a shit play.

For him to turn around and mock the fans for expressing their outrage is just fucking shameful.

I could even see if the scoreboard was reversed, and the Phils were up 10-0, then MAYBE he would have the leeway to pull this bullshit. But the Phillies were shitting the bed. Kendrick had no fucking right to be making fun of fans in that instant. It was insulting.

The Phillies are the worst team in baseball right now, but I love them. I will support them through thick and thin. But when a Phillies player himself starts to dismiss his fans, well, then, that’s a whole different story.

Yo, fuck tonight. It was BAD. Horrible performance by the home team. Shameful. And to shit on the fans that were stupid enough to spend money to see such a terrible performance? Doubly shameful. Fuck the Phillies.

Alright, hit me up if I’ll see you at the game tomorrow night.

Love,
Joey

Day 7: I Have Never Attended a Political Town Hall

There’s a version of this post in an alternate universe that finds me happy that I was able to participate in our democracy. That alternate universe ended on 11/9/16. Instead, I sit here, emotionally wrung out, depressed, feeling pretty helpless.

It didn’t help that, hours ago, trump pulled out from the Paris Climate Accord, against the advice of pretty much everyone else on earth.

It didn’t help that the Town Hall was for Pat Toomey, who has never attended a town hall meeting in Philadelphia, and that streak continued tonight. Instead of that coward facing his constituents, we instead asked our questions to a mannequin in a suit with a large question mark for a head. It was cute at first, but as the night went on, and the questions got more desperate, Toomey’s absence turned insidious.

I just wish we could go back in time as a country to a time when I didn’t have to worry about my family losing their health insurance, my neighbors being deported, my planet being uninhabitable for my grandchildren.

I know that showing up at the Town Hall and taking part in the democratic process is important, and I guess it’s better than nothing, but like, at the end of the day, I still feel like I did nothing. I still feel like we accomplished nothing tonight.

We care a whole fucking lot about our country and the people in it. It’s just fucking depressing that our representatives don’t care at all.

I’m sorry. This is short and depressing and I wish I could write more. Like I said, if you had caught me on a different day, maybe I would be more hopeful. But right now, on this dark Thursday night, I just feel despair for the future of America.

Love,

Joey

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.

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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.

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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

Hang, Pam

I love the iTunes Editors’ Notes for Hang: "Sam France and Jonathan Rado enlist a full orchestra, go bananas." That sums up this album pretty succinctly. I will, however, add some of my own thoughts about Hang here. This album is big and grand and orchestral. I hear influences from the Rolling Stones and Bowie and corny 1970s musicals (think Jesus Christ Superstar). It’s a fun album. I’m sure it goes deeper than that, and they deserve a deep dive but I’m still working my way through just the vocal styling and orchestra at this point. This is my superficial review. I just imagine Foxygen performing some of these tracks a la Dennis Reynolds in the Dayman episode of It’s Always Sunny, tight jumpsuit with flared bottoms. Not an album I would throw on any day... I feel like I need to be in the right mood to listen.

Fav track: "Follow the Leader" (duh)

Light upon the Lake, Pam

Shit, Sean E**** was right. We haven’t posted here since September. Shameful. I assure you, we have been listening to our fair share of music though. So... here we go again! Take two. I have days off now during the week where I’m not forced to run three miles in my free time (wink) so I’m going to attempt to keep writing on here.

I think if you read enough of my "reviews," you’ll find that I don’t like writing negatively about music. When I find that I don’t enjoy listening to something, I tend to just stop listening to it and move on. And so I end up writing my own interpretations of albums here instead of actually reviewing them. So, yes, I do enjoy Light upon the Lake very much.

Okay, so Light upon the Lake, by Whitney. I’ll start by saying this: Whitney is a unique band in my opinion for two reasons. For starters, the drummer is the lead vocalist. Additionally, the lead vocalist (who is also the drummer!) has a really cool, falsetto vocal range.

The first track, "No Woman," starts out subtly and beautifully, easing you into the rest of the album. The vocals paired with the soft guitar, horns, and—do I hear strings even(?)—in the first minute of "No Woman" make for a perfect sample of what the rest of the album holds. The second verse comes in with bongos. How fucking cool. And the lyrics: "I’ve been going through a change / I might never be sure / I’m just walking in a haze / I’m not ready to turn." I’m not ready to move on just yet.

The energy turns up with "The Falls," but sounds lonely still. "Golden Days" is one of my favorites. "It’s shame we can’t get it together now / cause I’m searching for those golden days." Shit. Aren’t we all? By the end of "Dave’s Song," Whitney is rocking but with brass building up in the background the whole time and then it ends as simply as it began.

The title track is perfectly beautiful and profound even. It ponders life moving on around us throughout any transition we experience, with gentle guitar plucks twinkling like stars on the lake.

"No Matter Where We Go" is easily the most fun and carefree song on the album. It has the feel and sound of early Beatles songs like "Love Me Do." Simple and lighthearted. "On My Own" tells the tale of two friends—Eponine longs for Marius but Mariu—GOTCHA. No but seriously, "On My Own" starts out chill: "I’m moving slowly when I’m on my own." The second verse hits but the longing is still there. And there’s a sweet trumpet flare at the end.

"Red Moon" is like an interlude. I just imagine these guys jamming to create "Red Moon." It’s cooler than I will ever be.

"Polly" builds excellently. It starts out slow with simple chords and then by the time the chorus hits, it’s optimistic and bright. And then you wait patiently for that chorus to come back for the rest of the second verse so you can cheer for the protagonist once again.

The last song is "Follow." The music is almost campy. I read that it was written about the death of the lead vocalist’s grandfather. The lyrics capture these sentiments beautifully: "If your troubled mind remembers when it’s coming to an end / it’s like you’re running home again / and I’ll follow you." I’ll remember you as if you’re going home again.

In summation—what a cool band, and what a cool album. I hear themes of longing and transition throughout Light upon the Lake. Dare I say that same longing that plagued someone else who longed for a green light on the dock upon the other side of lake? Instrumentally, it’s eclectic. It’s indie music meets jazz club. Vocally, Julien Erlich has a retro sound that’s at the same time serene and all his own. Light upon the Lake is totally worth the listen.