Punk Rock Show

Never fell in love ‘till I fell in love with you

Never knew what a good time was till I had a good time with you

If you’ve ever been to it, Chinatown’s quaint rock-and-roll cathedral, the Trocadero Theatre, sticks out like a P.F. Chang’s in Little Italy.  So it’s not hard to imagine myself, just a nervous college freshman in 2006, wandering the streets of Chinatown with my brother wondering if we’d ever find the concert hall in the middle of so many similarly named “Rising Sun” and “Lucky Garden” Chinese restaurants.

After a few anxious minutes of meandering the streets around Market East Station, my brother and I spotted a couple of kids in Operation Ivy t-shirts walking with confidence past us.  The shirts and one of their stiff, blue Mohawks hinted they were going to the show as well.  Surely enough after following them we ended up at the mouth of the club’s unassuming exterior.  We walked down Arch Street to the end of the line with our tickets in hand.  As we passed fellow concertgoers, we noticed very few of them looked like us.  We wore t-shirts and shorts on the hot August night, but we observed several people in denim jackets adorned with metal spikes; others in tattered skintight jeans; and tons of colorful, random hairdos and piercings.  It being my first true punk concert, I can’t deny that mixed in with the excitement and anticipation was a tinge of fear.  I wasn’t like these people, and I felt their stares fall heavily upon my brother and I as bouncers scanned our tickets and we walked into the steamy Trocadero for the first time.  August 20, 2006.  The band was Rancid.

If you wanna get the feeling and you wanna get it right

Then the music gotta be loud

When Rancid finally took the stage and the music started, my brother and I tried to push forward to get closer to the action.  Surprisingly, our push forward was met with an equally strong push that sent us backward.  Once again we drove toward the stage.  This time we were thrown to our left and then back to our right.  It wasn’t before long that we realized we were in the center of one massive circle pit.  The sea of hooligans bounced around the Trocadero floor like waves during a storm. 

            I watched my brother float away from me as I continued to be pushed around like a rag doll.  At first, I was angry.  I had come to listen to Rancid play their mu 

sic; not get shoved by 30 year-olds with unkempt beards and body odor.

            The more songs I heard, the more I found myself jumping around like an idiot.  Sometime between “Salvation” and “Tenderloin”, I found myself voluntarily back in the pit with the punx.  I pushed and shoved and danced and sang.  The more Rancid played the deeper the feeling of ecstasy.  When people in the pit fell, others around immediately paused the pit to help them up.  The steam heat rose from the sold out crowd and licked the Trocadero’s ceiling. 

            It was official; I was hooked.  To me, shows were never just about hearing your favorite bands play music.  It was about getting away from it all and truly let yourself go.

            Today, nearly 7 years since that inaugural Rancid Troc show, my brother and I venture back to Philadelphia to see the band that started it all for me.  It’s Rancid.  It’s the Electric Factory.  See ya in the pit.

Cuz when the music hits

I feel no pain at all

SNL Beat.

I'm really looking forward to seeing the new cast members on SNL this year.  It may take a while for the new faces to find their "niche", but I always love seeing who can rise to the top and become the next star.  NBC desperately needs the next Will Ferrell.  I really hope someone can step up next season and become something special.  All that very person needs is the opportunity. Lorne Michaels, Seth Meyers and company need to give the new faces sufficient airtime. Give them the OPPORTUNITY to succeed or fail--that's all that I ask. Five generic TV minutes per week and a bit part on Update will not suffice. SNL needs to take chances and give air-time to the lesser known cast members ASAP if they want to grow the brand and start a new era of comedy.

Throw shit at the wall and see what sticks.

Keep in mind, this is a big fall for SNL.  The election usually translates into big, big ratings numbers.  I just really hope the writers don't lose sight of the fact that, in addition to producing classic presidential comedy, creating new stars should be NUMBER ONE on the to-do list.

random thoughts about my writing

           

            I wanted to write something today, but nothing came to mind.  Hopefully by punching my fingers into this dirty keyboard, my brain will initiate activity that will in turn produce words, sentences, and something worth reading.

(2 minutes later)

Still nothing.  I think I’m going to make a coffee. 

(2 minutes later)

Okay I’ll just start writing as this coffee cools down. 

            The first topic I want to write about is not having a topic to write about.  You see, I’ve always wanted to be a prolific writer.  Not the J.K. Rowling bestseller type or the Steven King thriller type; I’ve just always wanted to express myself through stories.  I’d love to make music, but I’ve never played an instrument, and my voice is on par with Screech from Saved by the Bell.  So my creative outlet comes with writing.  I’ve decided that this is the most difficult avenue of creativity.  Songwriters write 50-100 words of poignant, terse lyrics, and they are finished.  Novelists have to compose thousands of sentences that have to fit into a framework of an overall story that sometimes doesn’t even make sense.

            I love writing, but I hate talking about it.  When friends and family ask about my novel’s progress, I tell them it’s going well. Then they inevitably ask me what my story is about and I cringe.  I don’t have a grand plot where my protagonist travels to the dangerous Saharan desert to avenge his father’s death.  My plot is centered around my own experiences, which has basically been growing up as a white male in a good family in suburbia.  Sounds boring, right?  I guess so, but I believe that all lives, no matter how trivial or lame they may be, are stories that deserve to be told.  Having said that, I've been scrolling through my 900+ facebook friends looking for a story, a character, a setting.  So if any of you think you sound like a character in a story of mine, it's probably you.

and that's all I have time for.  off to the wildwood boardwalk. later.

-JD

If Cole Goes...

The Mayans forewarned us that the end of days will crash to earth December 21, 2012, but for Phillies fans that day may come a few weeks earlier at the MLB annual winter meetings in Nashville, Tennessee.  Those early December days could very well see Philadelphia’s World Series hero and homegrown southpaw Cole Hamels walk away from this baseball crazed city, leaving the Phillies older and more vulnerable than anyone could imagine last season during a run  that saw them win a franchise-record 102 games. 

                In the event the doomsday does occur, the Phillies must have a bomb shelter.  A place to crawl under while the nuclear fallout poisons the air.  How can losing Cole Hamels be a positive thing?  Let’s take a general manager’s look at what the dollars will look like when the Hamels free-agency meteorite comes crashing down on South Philly.

First, the money the Phillies are committed to pay next season (in millions) :

Cliff Lee – $25

Roy Halladay - $25

Ryan Howard - $20

Chase Utley - $15

Jonathan Papelbon - $13

Jimmy Rollins - $11

Hunter Pence - $11.5 (arbitration estimate)

Carlos Ruiz - $5

Kyle Kendrick - $4.5

Ty Wigginton - $4 (or $0.5 buyout)

Laynce Nix - $1.35

Buyouts

Jose Contreras - $0.5

Placido Polanco $1.0 (or $5.5 option)

·         Note: I’m assuming that Ty Wigginton’s option will be picked up and Polanco’s will not.  This could obviously change, but I’m just basing this off of here and now.

Total Committed Payroll = $136.85 for 11 players.  So the Phillies will need to fill 14 spots for their 25 man roster.  The Phillies brass have maintained that they want to stay below the MLB sanctioned $178 million luxury tax.  So this leaves $41.15 million to work with.  Keep in mind I am not only assuming Kid Cole will be gone but Shane Victorino, too.  

Now, Ruben Amaro Jr. could have another trade up his sleeve, but if Free Agency is the only card he can play, here is a list a potential free agents worth looking at.

Josh Hamilton

Michael Bourn

Melky Cabrera

B.J. Upton

Andre Ethier

Carlos Quentin

Ichiro Suzuki

Kevin Youkilis (Boston Option)

David Wright (New York Option)

                Of those names, I can only see Bourn, Cabrera, Upton, Quentin, and possibly Youkilis becoming available at the end of the year.  Michael Bourn would be cheaper than Victorino and would give the Phillies the true leadoff hitter they’ve always needed.  If Domonic Brown continues to wear shoes on his hands in the field, Melky Cabrera could be an upgrade in left.  That still leaves plenty of room for RAJ to acquire Youkilis, a career .288..389/.489 hitter that could come cheap if he continues to struggle this season. 

                Even with these few additions, the Phillies would be left with room under the almighty luxury tax to go out and trade for arms or bats.  Or they could stash their money in one of Ruben’s cigar boxes and wait for the much richer free agent class of 2013 which boasts names like Lincecum and Garza. 

                Don’t look to the farm system for help.  The trade wave of the past few years has left the crops slashed and burned.  The few bright spots in the system include a couple of arms in Reading and Lakewood.  So who takes the fourth and fifth rotation spots if Cole and Joe were to walk?  Here’s hoping Kyle Kendrick doesn’t assume either of those roles.  Ruben needs to get creative, or we will see a nuclear holocaust reminiscent of the late ‘90’s at the Vet.  

Creative Writing Prompt #100

I found this cool website with 345 creative writing prompts.  Some were lame, but some were actually pretty cool.  I am going to try to do a prompt per night.  The first activity I tried is as follows:

(please realize that I make shit up when I write.  it's a way to make us boring people seem like we have interesting lives ;) )

#100

            Write for 10 minutes using “I used to think…” as your starter.

Check below the fold for my entry.....

The Irony and the Ozzie

 

            Irony is all around us; it's like rain on your wedding day.

It's a free ride when you've already paid.  That’s right.  If Alanis Morissette can understand the concept of irony so too can the Miami Marlins. 

            We were all shocked and appalled when Ozzie Guillen told Time Magazine last week “I love Fidel Castro ... I respect Fidel Castro. You know why? A lot of people have wanted to kill Fidel Castro for the last 60 years, but that motherfucker is still here”.  For the manager of a team that plays a camouflaged boat ride away from Cuba in a shiny new stadium set in the urban “Little Havana” section of Miami, this obviously wasn’t well-taken.  As Guillen and his Marlins dropped two of three from the Phillies earlier in the week, the team’s brass gathered to decide upon an appropriate response to their new manager’s comments. 

            Before I get to my main point, let me educate the reader a little about Fidel Castro’s Cuba.  While in office, Castro turned his country into a suppressive communist state.  While the physical manifestations of his regime may not be clear at first glance, neither will they be any more transparent after a second, third, or fourth look-see.  Reason? Cuba is censored more than Wal-Mart’s cd aisle.  In 2008, Cuba had 28 journalists in prison.  Special permits are required to use the internet for the common people.  All other forms of media and entertainment are heavily censored.  Think Hunger Games, without Lenny Kravitz or Woody Harrelson. 

            NRA people can kiss their rifles and the religious can thump their bibles, but the freedoms that I can’t live without are speech and the press. 

            So, the Miami Marlins decide to suspend Ozzie 5 games for his comments about Castro. 

            Castro throws a journalist in jail for writing something.  The Marlins suspend Guillen for saying something.  On a much, much smaller scale the Marlins are suppressing free speech.  They are not a government; they are a business, but this only underlines the growing power of corporate America.  If the Marlins knew they wouldn’t lose anyone’s money, they wouldn’t even address the Castro comments. 

            As I hope I have expressed, I do not agree with Castro, do not like him, and have empathy for those in socialist Cuba.  However, the punishment for Guillen’s comments should be from his peers and the world around him.  Why should a man’s livelihood be taken away for a political statement?  As you go more and more to left of the political dial, where is the tipping point of acceptable speech?  Saying I love Obama is okay, but if you take it to another a level and say I love Nelson Mandela, is that not okay? 

            If I offended you by this column, good; you have a right to be.  People have the right to offend and the right to be offended.  God Bless the USA.

Reflections on Attending Wrestlemania XXVIII

  I don’t think I was ever more excited to wake up at 4 AM after 3 hours sleep than when I got ready to fly to Miami for Wrestlemania XXVIII on Friday, March 30. The flight was quick with the only inconvenience being that I had to cover my ears with headphones so as to not hear two jackasses behind me try to spoil the ending of the 3^rd book of The Hunger Games. I quickly got in a shuttle with some other wrestling fans to our hotel and made it to the Hyatt Regency Miami just before lunch time. Because my  two buddies Justin and Anthony were not going to arrive for a bit, I decided to venture out, check out the surrounding area, and grab some lunch.