2003 archive

[ Wed Jan 22, 01:18:06 PM ]
I'm using blogger for the first time and it's pretty damn easy. For those of you who don't know what blogger is, it's a free web publishing tool that lets you post fairly quickly and easily. You don't have to know HTML (although it helps a little) or any crap like that. Anyway, welcome to the Cold Blue Stars website. The band consists of Beth (bass/vocals), Mark (drums), and me (guitar/vocals). More to come ... (hopefully)

[ Sun Jan 26, 08:32:07 AM ]
Mark couldn't come down from NYC to practice yesterday because his car is in the shop. oh well. I guess we'll try to rehearse next week. The spring semester just started so it's been hellish at work. Last night, James came up and we went out to eat at the Round Grill then went for dessert at Thomas Sweet. We headed over to the Court Tavern to watch Brady Kynin, Mariner Four, and Amber Brown Vision play. I spent the night making fun of the various mutants in the audience. God, I'm such an asshole.

[ Sun Feb 02, 02:30:37 PM ]
On Friday, practically everyone I knew showed up at my house and surprised me with a double CD tribute album! It's the best thing I have ever gotten. It's good to know that everyone can take one of my songs and make it better. I am honored that so many people contributed to the project.

Beth and Mark and I practiced on Saturday and we recorded a song called "Bottles and Skulls". I recorded the song on an old tape recorder that I bought at Rutgers Surplus for $3.00. The old condensor mike on the recorder make the drums sound so powerful. The snare drum sounds like it's snapping in half every time! I figure that I'll tape all the songs for our CD differently. I have an old answering machine that I want to try to record with next.

[ Sun Feb 09, 10:01:43 AM ]
James sent me a copy of Cakewalk yesterday. I went to Phil's house to record overdub guitar, vocals, and a little organ part to "Bottles and Skulls" on his ADAT. Like two chimps who find a Rubik's Cube, it took us a while to figure out what we were doing but everything turned out pretty good in the end. We bumped down the ADAT stuff to the computer and mixed and tweaked it on Cakewalk. I will try to get the song up in the Sounds section sometime this week at work.

[ Fri Feb 14, 08:20:09 AM ]
I spent a while trying to tinker with the song on Cakewalk. James got me a copy of Cool Edit and Steinwave which I installed and played with for a bit. I still couldn't get the levels high enough. It's like wrestling a sonic bear. Anyway, I sent it to Erich and he "normalized" it and got it to a decent volume. I posted the song under the Sounds section. Check it out sucker.

[ Tue Feb 18, 05:30:18 AM ]
They're calling it "the Blizzard of '03". Pretty creative name. For the second day in a row, Rutgers University has closed its offices and cancelled classes. Beth and I spent two and a half hours shoveling our driveway yesterday. My back is killing me. She had to go to work today. The van is in the shop so I am stuck at home. I think I will just veg out on the couch and watch movies and read comics. I'm a sloth.

[ Thu Feb 20, 11:03:20 PM ]
I'm still full from eating at the Edison Diner. I got a bunch of neat stuff from Kevin that I am eager to listen to - Buzzcocks, new Crooked Fingers, our yet unnamed music collaboration cassette. Mark and Jen are supposed to come down this weekend and hang out. Maybe we can record another Cold Blue Stars song. Or not. I'm going to post pictures on this site when I get into work later this morning.

[ Mon Feb 24, 12:38:41 PM ]
Mark and Jen came down and spent the night Friday. We hung out and played Rummy Cube until 2:30 AM. Saturday was Beth's birthday. We didn't really have time to rehearse or record. Possibly next week. We did go into the city that night and see Stan's improv troupe, The Office, perform. They were hilarious. We went to Burritoville afterwards and then made the long trek home in the fog and rain. On Sunday, we met up with Kevin, Kristin, and Phil for breakfast at Le Peep and then went to my parents' place for dinner. At this rate, we'll have an EP done by July.

[ Sun Mar 02, 08:51:17 PM ]
Beth, Phil, Kristin, Debra, Karen and I went to the Court Tavern last night and saw Apple of Discord play with Darby Jones and the Slow Wire. The new guitarist, Matt, was really good. They also debuted a few new songs. We only caught the one later in the set (we got there three songs into the set) but it sounded really cool. We ate at Noddle Gourmet after their set and on the way back to the Court to catch the Slow Wire, Phil threw an ice ball at me, missed, and hit Karen square in the face instead. Jesus must love me (and hate Karen).

Today Beth and I went up to Caldwell and helped my sister, Gayle, move her stuff to her new place in Montclair. Her apartment is really nice and it's right near Bloomfield Avenue that runs right through the center of town. Afterwards, we went to a bookstore but I couldn't find anything to get.

I've been listening to the Monorchid constantly. It's really catchy and it has a lot of cool riffs - sinewy guitar lines weaving in and out of each other. I urge whoever is reading this to check it out.

Good night.

[ Thu Mar 06, 11:15:01 PM ]
I added content so there aren't any dead links on the main page anymore. Go on. Try it. Click on Pictures, Reviews, and Shows and prepare for utter disappointment. Unless anyone wants to send me embarrasing pics to post, a review of the one song we have, or want to offer us any shows, those pages aren't going to be changing any time soon. I'm lame, I know.

[ Mon Mar 10, 08:47:28 AM ]
I hung out with Veronica on Friday night in the city. We went to Cafe Orlin for dinner and then just walked around. Interpol was playing at Irving Plaza for two sold out nights. The scalpers wanted way too much for a ticket. Who do they think Interpol is? Barbara Steisand?

On Saturday, Phil and I set up the ADAT in the basement to record the next U.S. Rail record. I was tired and cranky and spent four hours banging on the drums to get a good sound. I could tell Phil was getting annoyed with me. Later on, he gave me a tape of songs that he had been writing but had no real lyrics that we will use for another side project we're going to do called The Adding Machine. I volunteered to write lyrics to his music. We'd be like a regular Elton John and Bernie Taupin except that neither of us is gay. Well, I'M not gay.

[ Mon Mar 17, 07:17:32 AM ]
It's 70 degrees out today and I'm as sick as a dog. I was debating whether or not to come into work but I decided to suck it up and not waste any more sick/vacation days. Anyway, I found a cassette tape of me and Beth goofing around. She had a stomach ache and I was trying to tape record her going to the bathroom. She sees me put the tape recorder at the foot of the door and she starts yelling at me. It's really funny. I'll see if I can convert it to an MP3 and post it soon. Hey, I'm trying to add content to this site, ok?

[ Tue Mar 25, 12:07:58 PM ]
In the tradition of bands like The Who to the Sex Pistols, from Mission of Burma to Warrant, Kevin, Mark and I are reuniting our old punk band, Spy Smasher. We are planning to record an album of new stuff and maybe play a few shows this summer. If you think this is a thinly veiled attempt to fight our insecurities about growing old gracefully and relive past glories of youth then you hit the nail right on the head. I set up a basic web page at http://spy_smasher.tripod.com (God bless you Tripod) but it doesn't have any content at the moment. Kevin has some tapes that were recorded by Sandor in 1993 or 1994 for a seven inch that we'll make some MP3s of and I think I might have some video of a few shows at my parents' place. If anyone as any photos or recordings, please send them our way. Ah, I feel like I'm in high school again.

[ Fri Mar 28, 02:25:51 PM ]
Since Erich is away this week, we had U.S. Rail rehearsal in our living room last night. Unplugged like how a real folk band should be, we sat around the coffee table and ran through a set of the new material. I recorded the practice for posterity's sake. Today I am listening to it and there are some really funny moments. I left the tape running after practice so I recorded an impromptu song by Phil entitled "Debra, Keep Your Ass-Fucking To Yourself". It was pretty catchy actually.

[ Mon Apr 07, 11:19:51 PM ]
So it's been a while since I've posted. Work has been chipping away at me pretty mercilessly. U.S. Rail is getting ready to record what will possibly be our last album. We have around 20 songs to fuck up in the studio. I'm pretty excited about it. This is only my second time recording in a real studio. Here is the track listing so far (names, of course, are always subject to change) ...

1) The Stars Salute You
2) Ringworm
3) Quiet Hour
4) Devil's Knot
5) Here Come the Guns
6) The Ant and the Avalanche
7) Spiro Agnew
8) Weeping Willow
9) Maybe the Moon
10) The Storm Has a Name
11) English Opening aka Phil Likes Black Girls
12) Spinning Wheel
13) Army vs Navy
14) God Bless Henry Hudson
15) Union Square
16) Debra Solo Song

plus three more that the band has yet to learn. We'll have a decent amount of material to pick and choose from. I've already started putting together the cover art. Hopefully we can release it before Joel actually leaves.

Today it snowed about 4-6 inches. It was crazy. I was wearing shorts yesterday! The way it looks now, we won't even have spring - it'll be from winter straight into summer. You know, like that Twilight Zone episode where the earth is getting closer to the sun and people have to stay indoors and everything is melting? The twist at the end is when the main character wakes up from her hallucination and we find that the world is moving away from the sun so it's actually super cold. Reading back on the last few sentences, I have no idea what the hell I was trying to say. What the hell was the point of all that?

Beth practiced her bass parts today while I watched "Crossroads" on Showtime with Britney Spears. The movie is so terrible. The only redeemable parts are at the beginning when she is dancing in a tight shirt and boxer/briefs to Madonna and where she tries to lose her virginity on prom night but chickens out (she is wearing lingerie). ugh. I am a pig.

I wrote six new songs this past weekend. Maybe songs aren't the right word. They are more like fragments which seem to be the way I write mainly. How do people string so many ideas together into a long song? I just don't get it. I was going to post some of them on this site but I think I want to keep the Sounds page restricted to Cold Blue Stars so rest assured that the Sounds page probably won't change for a long long long time.

Good night.

[ Sun Apr 13, 08:15:06 PM ]
I had a pretty busy weekend. Erich, Debra and I rehearsed in the basement to prepare us for recording at the House of Vibes studio. We ran through most of our songs and made notes on how we were going to lay down basic tracks for each song. After rehearsal, Phil and I went down to south Jersey and met up with James. He was with the rest of Apple of Discord at Matt's house laying down demos of new songs. I was taken aback at how nice their rehearsal area was. We listened to their new songs and it sounded really cool. You can see the band evolving from their last album plus the addition of a new member always helps. Hopefully they will score with the rock sluts with their new material. Phil, James and I went to Ring of Honor wrestling that was being held in Phildelphia at this rec center. I've never been to a live wrestling match and it was almost all that I hoped it would be. The only thing that would've made it complete would be midget wrestling. Anyway, I had a blast watching sweaty guys beat the living hell out of each other. We would pass the time between matches making fun of the audience - well, really a guy wearing a Green Lantern hockey jersey. After the main event had ended and people were filing out, wrestler from a side stage door burst out and starting fighting each other. Soon more wrestler joined the fray including Dusty Rhodes. There were like eight wrestlers beating the crap out of each other - smashing each other on the head with chairs and getting split open and gushing blood everywhere. It was fucking chaotic. I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Another weird thing happened that night. We went out to eat at a rib place and after dinner, we were leaving the parking lot and I had inadvertantly pulled out into the middle lane of the road and cut someone off really bad. They honked at me and then cut me off. I chased him and pulled up next to him and he was cursing at me. I rolled down my window and the first thing he says to me is "Do you want to die?" I didn't know if he was threatening me or what so I was like "Do I want to die? What are you talking about?" Phil and James started cracking up. The guy yells "You pulled out into the middle lane. You're a fucking asshole!" and then he speeds away! I was completely speechless. What the hell was he talking about? Evidently though, according to James, I really cut off the guy. How does one come up with a witty retort to that?

Today, Beth and I had breakfast with Kevin and Kristin and Debra. We came home and had a water gun fight. Then we went and returned some movies to the video store and went to Rutgers to the building where I work and went to the roof and shot soda cans with a BB gun. We got home and did our taxes. They say the other sure thing in life is death. Oh well.

[ Wed Apr 16, 11:00:39 PM ]
Beth and I saw the Knicks play against the Indiana Pacers at Madison Square Garden last night. They held their own for the first half but by the end of the third quarter, the Knicks had downward spiralled into hopelessness. The Pacers were up by 17 points that by the middle of the fourth quarter, they were going down the bench getting their rookies and anyone else who was there some playing time. I think at one point, the towel boy who hands everyone Gatorade was out on the court playing for Indiana. I had fun at the game but a little disappointed in the Knicks. After the game, we went to Gray's Papaya and ate the best hot dogs ever and then hit St. Mark's Comics and Kim's Video before heading home. I bought The Microphones "Song Islands" - a collection of their assorted 7"s and B-sides. I haven't had time to listen to it yet. I'm still checking out the Seam CD that Kevin burned for me. I'm going to make a list of desert island discs and post it in the next day or two.

[ Tue Apr 22, 07:40:42 AM ]
Yesterday we recorded at the House of Vibes studio in Highland Park. It was long and tiring but very productive. We started at noon - setting up drums and tweaking them, setting up an old Farfisa organ for Debra to play, and running wires everywhere. It took about three hours to set everything up. James was in the area so he came by to see how we were doing. Erich was doing drum tests so we just sat around and made fun of him. James didn't stay too long though. Debra and I played around with getting weird sounds from the organ. When we were finally ready to record, my guitar was set up as a line instrument into everyone's headphones as well as a vocal mike so I could give cues. It took us a while to get through the first couple of songs. We didn't find our groove until much later when we were doing first takes and keeping them. All in all, we recorded 15 songs before we ran out of time. The engineer, Kurt, had to backup the tapes to 16 bit so we could work with it on Phil's ADAT. I'm supposed to pick them up later today and Erich and I are going to dump them down to computer. I'm pretty happy for the most part. I know that if we had done it on our own, it would have taken us at least a week to set everything up and get a good sound. At least now, we can overdub the other instruments fairly quickly (Phil excluded).

[ Fri Apr 25, 11:16:56 AM ]
After a few mishaps on Tuesday, we finally finished dumping down the ADAT tracks to the computer. They sound really cool with just a scratch guitar track, drums, and Farfisa organ. Erich should be getting his new sound card tomorrow so we can actually start overdubbing the other instruments. Check out the U.S. Rail site for more updates.

[ Fri May 02, 07:27:22 AM ]
Erich and I set up microphones in the basement to record my guitar tracks. It was slow going because we were trying to figure out how to mic things, had to run wires everywhere and get levels straightened out. I recorded tracks for "The Stars Salute You", "Devil's Knot", and "The Storm Has A Name". We were both surprised how well the sound card recorded the guitar parts. We had two mics recording my parts so we could EQ them later. Having infinite tracks is kind of nice. I used to be really against digital recording. From reading interviews with people like Steve Albini, I used to be pretty biased towards analog. I still like analog better but digital recording is kinda OK. or whatever.

[ Mon May 05, 07:42:37 AM ]
On Friday, I played a talent show with my Rutgers folk band at the Cook Student Center. The folk band is called "The Cook'n Professors" (not my choice of band name) and it consists of Dr. Michael Sukhdeo (guitar), Dr. Jim Applegate (banjo/vocals), Dr. Ellen Williams (vocals, percussion), Dr. John Reinfelder (bass), and ... me (harmonica). Imagine US Rail twenty years from now except that I don't age at all and that's pretty much it. The talent show was open to all students and faculty and staff. The grand prize was $250 with second and third getting $100 each. We won the grand prize but forfeited it so that a deserving student could have it (again, not my choice haha). It was pretty fun. The whole thing was a catered affair. They had buffalo wings and Swedish meatballs and vegetable and fruit platters and cookies. Erich, Beth, and Phil came to watch/mock me and eat free food. After the talent show, we went and saw X-Men 2 at Regal Cinemas. I actually really enjoyed the film. It was alot better than the first one which I thought was just OK. Wolverine really racked up the body count in this one.

Saturday, Erich and I spent nine hours in the basement (well, we took about an hour and a half break for food) and I recorded all my acoustic guitar parts for the US Rail record. By the end, my fingers were weak and mushy. Everything sounds great and I am excited when someone other than me will be laying down their parts.

Yesterday, Jaime was having her bridal shower at Joel's house so Beth, Kristin, Jen, and Debra went. That left Joel, Kevin, Mark, Phil and I to hang out. We went to the Fairway driving range where they also have batting cages, go-carts, and miniature golf. I did pretty well at the batting cage. When we raced go-carts, I was actually in the lead for a good amount until Phil passed me and I spent most of the time playing catch-up and the Joel edged by without me seeing him. I ended up in third place. I got creamed in miniature golf though. I got a 70 out of 18 holes compared to the average 48 of everyone else. Ahh, I let them win. Fuckers.

We went to the Fountain Blue diner after golf and ate dinner. Olga was working and hugged us when we came in. It was nice. She's so sweet. There weren't many people I recognized there although I did notice the cute Asian hostess girl with the tongue stud. Beth also noticed me noticing the Asian girl. Not good. After dinner, Beth and I went home and just relaxed, watched TV and then ended up watching Goldzilla Vs MechaGodzilla until 2:00 AM. What a great movie.

[ Thu May 08, 07:45:18 AM ]
Joel came over on Tuesday and recorded his banjo and acoustic parts. Combined with everything else, the record really sounds like it is coming together quite nicely. Last night, I saw X-Men 2 again but with Mark Griffin. He really enjoyed the movie. Tonight I suppose Joel or I will finish up our electric parts and then Debra or Phil will be next. I have to finish up the cover art. oh well.

[ Tue May 13, 10:08:00 PM ]
Like the well-oiled machine that is US Rail, Debra came over last night and recorded almost all of her keyboard parts. We recorded her in MIDI and played around with different sounds ("orchestra hit" being my personal favorite). On Thursday, Debra will finish up her songs and we'll get Phil in there finally. I am really not looking forward to doing vocals. The sound of my voice makes me want to throw up.

[ Fri May 16, 11:26:33 AM ]
Debra finished all her keyboard parts last night. We all hung out in the basement acting goofy while Phil started recording his parts. He got through four songs and he added double bass lines for some songs which sounded really cool actually. This album actually sounds like we know what we're doing for once. I had hoped that we would be able to finish everything by the June 7th Court Tavern show so we could have a record release party but looking at the seemingly infinite number of tracks we're going to have to mix, it seems unlikely at this point. We're also going to have to start actually rehearsing next week too. Beth found a tape that I had been searching around for the past months. I had recorded a 90 minute tape of future US Rail songs but then misplaced the tape. Alot of the music that we had been learning for a few months were songs that I could remember from the tape. It's interesting to hear them now that they've been mutated and lovingly fucked with by the band. oh well.

[ Tue May 20, 02:21:05 PM ]
Mark Griffin is moving back into the area at the end of the month! They were living in Harlem while Jen finished school at Columbia. They are moving in with his mom temporarily until they figure out what they are going to do with themselves. I'm really happy that they'll be around more now. Now we can actually start doing Adding Machine and Cold Blue Stars stuff more often. On the other hand, I'm sad that Joel is leaving. He's always been involved in almost every band I've been in. If you go back far enough on the Sayreville Family Tree of Rock bands - Joel has had a major hand in alot of them. He actually got Jimmy Mack started on the guitar way back in high school by showing him a few chords. Jimmy actually showed me how to play basic guitar chords (which I still use and don't know much more) and Joel introduced me to the bass guitar while in marching band. Then I showed Mark how to play bass. I can't believe I've been playing in bands with these guys for the past fifteen or so years! Holy crap, I feel old.

[ Wed May 21, 12:17:59 PM ]
I didn't think anyone really reads this anymore. To clarify more upcoming projects, Mark Griffin, Kevin Karr and I can finally start the "10 years in the making" next album of Spy Smasher. It will be entitled "SPY SMASHER: OVER THE HILL". Punk rock is dead. Long live punk rock.

[ Mon May 26, 11:14:47 PM ]
The Rutgers folk band that I play in was asked by the Executive Dean of Cook College to back him up at Senior Farewell Night. It's pretty much an awards show for graduating undergraduates with musical interludes performed sporadically throughout. This year the dean wanted to play a few song so he asked Mike Sukhdeo if he could ask us all to play. We agreed and we spent a week at the dean's office learning Carlos Santana songs. Not old Carlos Santana stuff mind you, but the new album garbage that he does with that jackass from Matchbox 20 or whatever. We learned a song from there and the dean changed the lyrics for the graduates - something to the effect "hey now, all you graduates/ put your caps on/ put your gowns on" horrible stuff. During these jam sessions, the dean would play us a bunch of songs and I would sit there and figure out the chords and arrange it. There was this one song that he wanted to play that I figured out and we tried but it just wasn't working so we decided not to do it. At the awards show on Thursday, we played the rewritten Santana song and were about to walk off stage when he turns to us and says "let's play that other song!" We had only played it once and our bass player didn't even the progression so he said "ummm we don't really know that one" and the dean points to me and says "well HE knows it" and he motions for me to start playing. I barely remembered the chords either. I started strumming it and the dean just starts jamming with me. Everyone else just stood there dumbfounded on stage while I totally destroyed the song. It was horrible. Note to future self: Never play with the dean again.

On Friday, there was graduation ceremonies in front of my building in front of Passion Puddle. It was really cold outside so I kept going outside and coming back into the building to warm up and then going back outside again. I saw this girl Robyn that I hadn't seen in a year. It was kind of weird seeing her. It's a long story but things between us got really surreal. It was kind of uncomfortable. Kristin stopped by and hung out with me for a bit before she had to go meet her parents for lunch. Later that night, Kristin, Kevin, Phil, Sergio, Beth and I went and played Lazer Tag in East Brunswick. It was really fucking fun running around this black light-lit maze for half and hour. I kicked ass and got the high score of our group.

On Saturday, I saw the Matrix Reloaded. I had heard mixed reviews from people and purposely kept myself away from any spoilers. I have to say that I really liked it. It definitely had a different tone from the first movie but it was still pretty thought-provoking. I really am curious to find out how it is going to resolve itself in Matrix Revolutions.

Yesterday Beth met my mom and my sisters at David's Bridal to try on dresses while I stayed at home and played video games. I met them later for dinner at Pizzaria Uno's and the seven of us managed to ring up a $171.00 bill! Since my mom was treating we all went hog wild with ordering appetizers, dinners, drinks and desserts. Afterwards, Mark and Jen came by to hang out. I showed Mark all the meshes and skins that I created for Freedom Force and the mod that I am starting. We went to the Omega Diner later that evening for dessert.

Today, Beth and I went to Debra's for her Memorial Day Bar-B-Q. It was ok. The weather was shitty. There were a bunch of people at Debra's that I hadn't seen in a while and some people I've never met. Mary Beth was there with her new boyfriend, Brian, and this kid that Karen met on the internet was there too. I was outside for most of the party grilling all the stuff. Beth and I left early and came home and just vegged out for the rest of the night. I can't believe I have to go back to work tomorrow. Ugh.

[ Mon Jun 02, 09:26:28 AM ]
What a pretty exhausting week it's been. Phil recorded his bass parts on Tuesday. Surprisingly, he blazed through a bunch of songs doing one or two takes each. Why can't he do that at rehearsal? Joel still has to record his electric guitar parts before he leaves next Sunday. Man, we are really getting down to the wire now. We have a show at the Court Tavern on Saturday with the Blakes and True Love. I hope we're actually decent or at least moderately coherent.

My back hurts and my arms feel like limp wet noodles. Beth and I helped Mark and Jen move their stuff at his mom's house on Wednesday. Mark found alot of old comic art that he and I did when we were in high school. Stupid round robin stories involving Captain America fighting Blue Devil or some crap like that. Nostalgic yet horrific at the same time. On Saturday, Mark and I moved his old desk and a dresser to a storage place in Sayreville. Moving sucks. Next time I move, hopefully, it will be on a somewhat permanent basis. After moving Saturday afternoon, we went to my job to install Unreal Tournament on the lab computers. Some of the older machines only had 300 MB of disk space left and Unreal took up about 650 MB. We played a match against each other to 30 frags and didn't realize afer it was done that we had been playing the same board for an hour and a half straight! We also installed Quake 2 to see how smooth it ran and also played a match. By the time we were done, we realized it was 2:00 AM.

I got up pretty late on Sunday and called Mark. Since the Unreal thing wasn't going to happen, we were trying to figure out an alternative plan. We decided to do Lazer Tag in East Brunswick but lunch/dinner first at Harold's New York Deli. I called James and Kevin and Phil and we made plans to meet at my house before 2:00 PM. James got stuck in Turnpike traffic and had to take back roads to my house. We still made our 3:30 reservation and met up with Joel, Erich, and Mark at Harold's in Raritan Center. We ordered a turkey club sandwich, a chicken cheese steak, fries and onion rings. Joel ordered two trays of bacon and toast and ate bacon sandwiches. Harold's is the reason why the rest of the world hates us. Everything at Harold's is giant sized. You can feed a small village with what we ordered. No joke. The club sandwich that was brought out was a foot and a half high! The waiter brought us out two loaves of toasted bread to eat with it. The mayonaisse dish looked like a bowl of vanilla pudding. I can't believe that we actually almost ordered three sandwiches instead of two. Gluttony once again got the better of me and I stuffed myself like a Christmas turkey. I know that I had crossed the line when we were in the car on the way to Lazer Tag and Kevin hit a bump in the road and I could've sworn I felt my stomach rip like a overstuffed potato sack. We got a half hour block in the Lazer Tag maze but after ten minutes, I was already exhausted and sweating profusely. I stalked Phil relentlessly by following his brand new white sneakers. oh man, he looked so absurd. He had on a T-shirt, a floral print button down shirt over it, black Bermuda shorts and these bright white sneakers. They were practically glowing. All Phil needed was a camera around his neck and maybe a flower necklace and he could easily pass for a lost German tourist. After Lazer Tag, we went to the Corner Confectionary in Highland Park for dessert. I couldn't bear to eat anything more so I just nursed a Sprite. We sat there for almost two hours cracking jokes and trading stories. I felt a little better when we got up to leave. The food had at least partially digested. I got home and remembered that I had to go into work and uninstall all the Quake 2 and Unreal stuff off the computers. I somehow managed to persuade Beth to come with me and we came in at 10:00 PM and left around 11:00 PM.

I got up at 7:00 AM today so I could go and get my van registered. I forgot to renew it a few months ago so I had to go in and stand on line. Since my license address didn't match my registration address, I had to get a whole new license too. It was annoying. I spent over an a hour there. In the end, it cost me a total of $76.00 for everything. I am so exhausted at work right now. It's almost lunch time. Maybe I'll go home and eat the leftover sandwiches from Harold's. ugh.

[ Thu Jun 05, 07:46:48 AM ]
Joel has seven songs left to finish. He came over on Tuesday and got through only three of them so I guess we're going to have to record him on Friday too. Sorry for the short and terse entry but I am sicker than sick right now. I just want to go home.

[ Mon Jul 07, 02:00:11 PM ]
Hi kids. It's been a while since I've posted. I apologize. This month has been crazy hectic. We went to SF for Joel's wedding and been playing the last of our shows as U.S. Rail. I've uploaded a bunch of pictures from our trip but I still have to arrange them in some chronological order. If you click here, you can see the first two days of our California trip. I'll post the rest of the trip tomorrow and write some more.

[ Mon Jul 07, 08:54:38 PM ]
Checked the site from home and found that I screwed up the link to the California picture pages. Fixed it now. I'll write more tomorrow.

[ Tue Jul 08, 03:09:03 PM ]
The California trip pictures are completely up! Check them out. The week after we returned from California, we recorded more of Phil's bass parts. We still have to finish up my electric parts and the vocals. Kevin Karr agreed the mix the CD once the basic tracks are done. Hopefully we can put it out before the end of the summer. We also played a show at the Court Tavern which went really well. Alot of people showed up and I completely froze. I hardly said much or moved during the show. 4th of July was fun. Spent it at my parents and ate lots of barbeque and lit off fireworks in the backyard. We also played our very last show this past Sunday at the Zen House. Debra kept trying to say something poignant after the show but I kept ruining it. oh well. Good riddance to bad music.

My friend Dave somehow managed to get Cold Blue Stars on a compilation. He lives in North Carolina and knows a few people so our one song "Bottles and Skulls" will be on a compilation on Eskimo Kiss Records that will be out sometime in September. It's funny. Beth and I were joking that the band should just break up so that we only had one song and that was it. Hmmm.

[ Mon Jul 21, 07:49:11 AM ]
Beth and I are finally getting down to doing our wedding stuff. We went to a bunch of places to register. It's so unbelievably boring picking out silverware or whatnot. At least I get to walk around and scan things. Mental note: don't pretend to do a retina scan with the scanner. It hurts.

On Saturday, Phil, James, this guy named John, and I went to the Rex Plex in Elizabeth to watch Ring of Honor federation wrestling. Phil and I created our own row near the ring so we had a pretty good view of most of it. It was insane. While we were waiting for everything to start, the lights dimmed and all these rave kids came out and got into the ring and were dancing for like fifteen minutes. Then these two guys and a girl showed up and got into the ring. One of the guys had a rainbow skin tight tank top and the other guy had rainbow leg warmers. They were the obvious gay stereotypes complete with lisps and "talk to the hand" motions. The crowd started chanting "You suck dick! You suck dick!" The gay guys were there to teach the ravers how to disco. Outnumbered three to ten, the disco gay guys and girl got their asses handed to them. At that moment, these two guys with long hair and 80s rock T-shirts (Poison and Great White) showed up. Their names were Donny and Marcos. They beat up the raver kids who left the ring and then some guy named Low Key showed up and beat up Donny and Marcos. Mind you, this all happened in the first ten minutes of the event. Other highlights included were the eight man weapons match (I actually feared for my safety) and the dog collar match which ended up mowing through the audience. Phil and I were really getting into it and at various points during the match, we would yell absurd stuff to the wrestlers. Seriously, it was amazingly fun. It's like watching a Broadway play except there is audience participation and you don't need a program to follow what's going on. It's Dickensian. All the characters are broadly drawn archetypes. I'm definitely going again when ROH comes around in November. Any takers?

[ Fri Jul 25, 07:26:58 AM ]
On Wednesday, a bunch of us went to the city and saw Stan's other improv troupe, Evel Cathedral, perform at this place called The Tank. Usually when they ask for suggestions, people shout out right away so I had my suggestion all ready to scream out like a freak. When Stan asked for a suggestion, no one said anything and I almost screamed out like a hyperactive retarded kid. They did my suggestion of "wrestling". Some highlights were Stan as the aging promotor/ex-wrestler known as the Red Devil and the Golden Pharoah having a heart to heart talk with his deformed half rat half human kids. I guess you had to be there. It was funny because later after the show we went outside and there were rats the size of my forearms running around. We pretty much headed home after the show but made a quick stop at Gray's Papaya for a hot dog or two. Or three.

[ Fri Aug 01, 07:19:32 AM ]
Last night, we had our first practice as the Adding Machine. Kevin, Phil, Ronnie, Mark and I didn't get started until 8:30 though. All the amps and drums were stacked in the corner of the basement since the last U.S. Rail show. Still, we managed to learn two new songs. It was pretty loose but enjoyable nonetheless. I tape recorded the rehearsal and have been listening to it this morning at work.

Tonight, we are going to a wake for Kristin's dad. He died two days ago. It was pretty sudden. I haven't actually even talked to her yet because she's been busy doing preparations for the wake and funeral.

[ Mon Aug 25, 08:49:37 AM ]
Sorry about the lack of updates. Phil finished up almost all of his bass parts. He just has one songs left to do. Hopefully Beth and I can start doing vocals next week. Erich said he is going to burn me a copy of the finished songs. I already have Sonar on my computer at home. Check the U.S. Rail webpage for updated news and hopefully soon, he'll post some of the new material.

We got most of our invitations out last week. We got a lot of cool feedback from everyone that really liked the comic. Maybe if I have time, I will post the comic on this site. Maybe.

Beth's grandfather died on Saturday. I will be going with her to West Virginia tomorrow night and will be back probably on Friday.

[ Tue Sep 02, 08:51:54 AM ]
Mark has cancer again. He had headaches for a while and went to the doctor to get it checked out. They found lymph nodes in his chest. The chemotherapy he went through a few years ago didn't kill off all of the cancer. Now both Jen and Mark's lives are rearranged. He can't take the job that Wegman's had offered him and now Jen is going to have to find a nursing job soon. Their insurance runs out by September 1st. They will be paying for insurance until Jen can get it through work. Mark is most likely going to have to go through a more intense chemo sesion than last time. It broke my heart last time to watch him go through it. Blah.

[ Thu Sep 04, 08:19:52 AM ]
Last night Cold Blue Stars rehearsed. We recorded two songs. Hopefully with any luck, I can throw some vocals on it and post it on the site. Hopefully. See previous post.

[ Mon Sep 15, 07:57:01 AM ]
Yesterday Beth and I helped Kevin and Kristin move. They got a really cool 3 bedroom house in Milltown. Moving is not one of my favorite activities and yesterday it was made all the more hellish because of the heat, the humidity, and the fact that there was a street festival on the main strip of Highland Park so we were not allowed to park in front of their building. We had to carry stuff out and walk it down three blocks to where the U-Haul was parked. It pretty much made time go twice as long. There were a bunch of us helping so it wasn't really bad but I was still wishing I was home in air conditioned Arctic splendor playing video games.

I've been listening to the Cold Blue Stars tape that I recorded last week. When I did the vocals to "Bottles and Skulls", I took the cassette tape to Phil's and dumped it from my four-track to his ADAT and added overdubs and then we dumped it to computer. This time I want to try to dump the songs from my four-track to the computer and then add overdubs using SONAR. I'm such a Luddite when it comes to recording. Hopefully it turns out OK.

Preparations for the wedding is going slowly but steady. Beth and I argue over the dumbest things. I think it's just that both of us are stressed. Ah, welcome to the rest of the my fucking life.

[ Mon Sep 22, 09:12:33 AM ]
My body is achey from playing Frisbee Football yesterday with Beth, Phil, Debra, Veronica, Marl and Jen. It was Mark's last weekend before he starts chemo today so we got together for fun and games and made dinner too. I am so completely out of shape. I was winded in about five minutes of playing. We did girls versus boys which turned out surprisingly fair. We managed to win every game but only just barely. Fat guys versus skinny girls makes for a challenging game.

I got the package that I've been waiting for finally but it was missing one crucial piece. Sigh. Why can't things go my way? This special surprise is the whole centerpiece of the wedding ceremony.

I applied for my passport a few weeks ago at the Middlesex Couty Courthouse and had it expedited because we are leaving for our honeymoon the day after our wedding. Well I got a letter in the mail saying that I need to send them three forms of ID that is five years or older. Such bullshit! I kind of think maybe because of all the security measures put in place after September 11 and because I want my passport as quickly as possible and also maybe because of my ethnicity (how's that for racial profiling?) that I ran into all these obstacles. Beth and I searched all through my old documents (W-2 forms, old school IDs, high school diploma) this past weekend and I went back down to the Courthouse today and they said it should be all straightened out now. I was ready to give them blood and hair and sperm samples if they asked.

[ Wed Oct 01, 12:34:48 PM ]
Mark started his chemotherapy on Tuesday last week. He was running a high fever so instead of being released on Friday morning, they kept him until Sunday. I felt sad for Mark. He seemed really tiny lying in that hospital bed. Nurses kept coming in every few minutes taking blood or giving shots or whatnot.

Beth and I almost got arrested on Saturday. We were at Woodbridge Mall earlier in the day looking for picture frames. There was a store devoted completely to Halloween. We browsed through the store and I found these really cool black Zorro masks. I told Beth that we should buy them and wear them all day. We bought two masks and wore them in the car driving home. We went to the hospital to visit Mark that night. As we were walking into the hospital, people were giving us funny looks but nobody said anything. We went to Mark's room and hung out with him for over an hour. As we were leaving the hospital, I had to pee so I went to the men's room and Beth went to the ladies' room. I was standing in the stall when I heard the door open and people come in. Then I heard the walkie talkie say "All units - one went into the men's room" I got really scared so I took the mask off and shoved it into my pocket. I came out of the stall and there were two guards there. One of them asked me "Were you wearing a mask?" I shook my head and said "No". Then he asked me if I saw anyone come in with a mask on and again I shook my head and said "Nope". The other guy walked past me, opened the stall door and looked around the floor and even looked in the toilet. I said "Umm, I just pissed in there." He came out and looked at the other guard and they just walked out and ran down the hall. I immediately power-walked over to where Beth was. She was coming out of the ladies' room but without the mask on. I told her what happened and she said that someone came into the bathroom looking for her but she had taken off her mask so she could go to the bathroom. We quickly got into an elevator to leave. There were these four ladies who had seen us walk by with the masks on and they were looking at us. I just waved to them.

I could see someone getting into a frenzy if we had ski masks or pantyhouse over our heads but Zorro masks? What were we going to do? Put a big "Z" on the walls? Ridiculous.

[ Thu Oct 09, 08:27:11 AM ]
I've been so busy getting stuff organized for the wedding that I haven't been able to post in a while. I apologize. Between getting hammered at work, preparing for the wedding, and quarreling with my wife-to-be, it's been a crazy week. On Sunday, James, Steve, Kevin, and Jason assembled in my basement as Satan's Fingers, the ultimate indie rock wedding band (actually the ONLY indie rock wedding band). We ran through Wagner's Bridal Chorus (which sounded nice) and Mendelsohn's Wedding March (which needs work). Think Black Sabbath molesting Mendelsohn and you have an idea of what it sounds like. I made invitations for the rehearsal dinner and I have to start doing the wedding programs this weekend. Beth has her bachelorette party on Saturday night. I will probably be home secluded in the computer room working on the programs. No strip clubs that night for me.

[ Tue Oct 14, 06:35:01 PM ]
Home stretch. In about four days is the wedding. Bachelor party was Saturday. Went to dinner with James, Phil, Mark, and Nitin. Hung out at Club Risque, a strip club in Philly. I was good. Phil was very bad. He had two lapdances and a body shot. It was like watching a greedy fat kid in a candy store. Went to Dave & Buster's afterwards. It seemed anti-climactic then but it was still fun.

Steve was sick on Sunday. Didn't have practice. Now I don't know what to do. Trying to find an accordionist. Kinda hard on short notice. Sigh.

It will be all over in a week. And by that, I mean the marriage.

Zing.

[ Tue Nov 11, 02:16:44 PM ]
Sorry for the radio silence. I've been busy. I suck, I know. Anyway, Beth and I finally got marrried. A good number of people turned out. It was great. The ceremony was short but fun. I gave the groomsmen swords at the rehearsal dinner the previous night. At the ceremony, Stan objected and tried to stop the wedding. I told him it was over between us. He took it pretty hard. Also, I put a sword through Beth's neck. Sorry the wedding description is so trite. It's just that there is so much documentation from the wedding - ie pictures, video, etc. - that this just feels like a poor rehash. I'll post pictures.

I'll just start post-wedding. Went home immeditely after the reception, quickly packed and left for the airport at 4:30 AM to make a 6:00 AM flight. I slept on the plane most of the way to Mexico. When we got there at 9:00 AM, we had to go through customs. Airport security there doesn't seem as rigid as it is here. As you leave customs, you have to walk through a metal detector and press this gigantic button on the other side. It's a lottery type system - when you press the button, a light flashes, if it is green you are allowed to pass, if it is red, you have to go to a table and literally unpack everything and show it to the custom agents. I'm guessing that they allow more people to pass than stop but it's still a detterent if you're trying to smuggle some junk or whatever b/c there's that slim chance that you'll get caught. Well anyway I was trying to push ahead and get through and Beth made me let another couple get in front of us. They pressed the button and it flashed red. Oh man, were they unhappy. We got through there ok and took a shuttle to our hotel. It was called the El Dorado Royale. We checked in at the front desk where they had champagne waiting for us. I took the glass to be polite but I didn't really feel like drinking at 9:30 in the morning. The place was Fabulous (note the capital "F"). The rooms were humongous. The bathroom was in itself like a bedroom. On the king size bed, there were fresh flowers laid out and in the corner of the bedroom was a jacuzzi/hot tub. We had a giant screen TV and a desk and table to eat at. We were right near the beach too. The sand was powder white and the water was clear blue. It was an all inclusive hotel meaning that all the meals, drinks, etc was included. We would go to one of the four resturaunts located at the hotel and sit down, eat and then leave. If you tip them a dollar, they are all over you like white on rice - getting you drinks, coming back often to see if you need anything. Beth and I would get up every morning at like 10, amble over to the resturaunt and eat breakfast at 11:00, go and sit on the beach and read for like four hours (they had beach waiters coming up and down the beach every fifteen minutes and you could order drinks or food or whatnot), then we'd head over to another resturaunt and eat lunch and then go and sit on the beach again or go back to the room and sleep and then go back out for dinner. It was honestly the laziest i've ever ever been. We were there from Sunday to Thursday. On Wednesday, we took a taxi into a small town called Playa Del Carmen and sat on the beach there and swam in the ocean. We also walked around town and checked out the small shops and stuff. That night, there was a Mexican festival and we got to see a mariachi band play. Beth and I did six shots of tequila each and as we were leaving the festival, these people came over and threw these panchos over us and gigantic sombreros and lifted Beth up and put her on top of a donkey and handed us rifles and told us to shout "vive Mexico!" and then they snapped our picture. It all happened so fast and we were tipsy that we didn't what happened. Then they were like "ok that's $10.00 for the picture." I was confused and dazed but we paid for the picture nonetheless. It's really funny because we look drunk and scared at the same time. We flew back Thursday afternoon. It was friggin cold when we got into Newark. The whole time we were down in Mexico we were careful not to drink the water and only drink bottled water and use it to brush our teeth and whatnot. We were paranoid that we would get sick diarheaa or something but we didn't at all. However when we got back into newark, Beth was really craving McDonald's so we bought cheeseburgers. That night, she had stomach problems. Go figure.

I submitted comic strips to the Rutgers Targum newspaper and got accepted. I am now one of their staff cartoonists and I am doing a strip called Rotten Egg. It's like a cross between Dork and Red Meat except that it's not as funny or well drawn. I get paid a whopping $5.00 for each strip which is kind of nice for lines on paper and stupid humor. I'm going to make a website soon and post the daily strips.

I went with Mark to the hospital on last Monday. I called out of work. He was supposed to get his stem cells harvested but when we got there they told them that they had enough from Saturday so he didn't need to be there. He had a catheter in his neck so they said that they could remove it. This intern came by to remove it and I was taking pictures of the whole process. He took off Mark's bandage and started cutting his stitches. I asked the intern if it was going to spurt blood at all and he was like "it shouldn't" as he pulled out the 8 inch catheter and "SPURT!" Blood was everywhere. The guy got splattered on his shirt and face. I ducked behind him and missed the brunt of it but I did manage to get a picture of it. The guy wasn't happy at all. He said "I didn't think you were going to take a picture at that moment. the flash blinded me!" It was funny yet disturbing all at the same time.

On Friday Beth and I went to cleveland for a reception for the people that couldn't make the wedding. I left work at 1:30 PM so we could make the 9 hour (!) drive. The reception was nice. Her mom had reserved a whole resturaunt and I met a lot of her relatives. There was a VCR and TV setup and the wedding videos were being played. Everybody thoroughly enjoyed the videos and it solidified my reputation among them as a madman.

The drive back wasn't so bad but I think I'm getting sick now. Been taking Vitamin C tablets and Echinacea. Yeah, I know. Echinacea is hippie shit. I'll take what I can get to prevent getting sick. Being sick is the worst thing ever. Ever.

Good night.

[ Mon Nov 24, 01:45:55 PM ]
We ate dinner at Big Ed's Bar-B-Q last night for Erich's birthday. I went against my own philosophy of "If you're at IHOP, you don't order steak, you eat pancakes." and ordered chicken instead of their world-famous ribs. It wasn't as good. Phil sat next to me and ate eight (!) racks of ribs. It was impressive yet revolting at the same time. He was nice and gave me a few ribs to eat. After stuffing ourselves, the group of us (Beth, Phil, Mark, Jen, Kevin, Kristin, Erich, Debra, and me) went back to our house for cake. We ended up watching Queer Eye for the Straight Guy for a while and commenting how it would be awesome if Phil was made over. They'd fix up his apartment, buy him a whole new wardrobe, and clean Phil. Mark, Phil and I went to the city after Queer Eye to catch Stan's improv set at the People's Improv Theater. It was a two-team two-man improv. I liked Stan's set alot. He managed to throw a mention to Mark and me during his set. Although he did call us "gay". Sigh.