Hot Rod Fallout

Went to the Hot Rod Fallout in Connecticut on Saturday...

Butter Dish

"Don't Postone Joy"

For twenty five cents, you too can "fall in love."


I seem to be putting a lot of Coney Island related stuff up on the ol' blog lately.

Ding-Dong Cart

Now that Autumn has arrived, the ice cream truck that drives around the neighborhood has not been seen. I think it's gone for the season.

I can still remember the first time I heard it. It was the beginning of last Summer, and I had not fully moved into the house yet. My father and I were fixing a lighting fixture in the bathroon, when a faint melodic pinkly tune wafted in the window. We both froze. "Ice cream truck?" we both said in unison, excited at the thought.

Yes. It was an ice cream truck. That familiar, annoying yet comforting sound is easily recognizable. We scrambled around the still empty house looking for money, and flew out the door to trade it for happiness on a stick.

I was already excited about moving into my house, but to learn that it's on an ice cream truck's route....It's nearly too much. I love my neighborhood.

This is the second season that the ice cream truck has been spreading treats around, and I hope that it returns next summer.

It should be noted that I, along with everyone else from Western Massachusetts, call Ice Cream Trucks, "Ding-Dong Carts."
So in the above story, my father and I actually said "Ding-Dong Cart?" in unison. For the sake of allowing non-Western Massers to know what the hell I'm talking about, I made the small word change in the story.

Ding-Dong Cart.

Tiki Time!

I bought this thing at Coney Island. It's so amusing to me. I don't know why, but it makes me giggle everytime it's on.
Simple things for simple minds, i guess!

Honk Honk, Beep Beep.

Whenever I'm driving my car and I detect anything that smells remotely like it could be coming from my car, I freak out. I end up inhaling so deeply over and over again to try and determine what the problem could be that I nearly pass out. Everytime. It's odd because I know nothing about the mechanics of vehicles, so it's not as if I would ever be able to diagnose anything anyway. I'm not even worried about breaking down in the middle of nowhere, I'm worried about getting ripped off by mechanics.

Also, most of the time it ends up being a truck in front of me or another car or whatever. It's generally not even my car emitting the "bring me to the mechanic" odor.

Not this time, however...

As I was driving home from a show Saturday night, my friend Ray mentioned that he could smell burning rubber. I inhaled deeply with purpose and squinted eyes and could smell it too. But then it went away. Then came back. Then went away. Then came back. The smell was wafting in and out of my car like this for the entire hour long drive home from Wormtown.

So I dropped my car off at the mechanic's shop and told 'em to replace the two front tires while it was there. Ok.

I get a call later in the day. The mechaanic tells me there is good news and bad news. I opt to hear the bad news first. I ALWAYS opt for bad news first. I like to get it over with.

"well, you need all four tires to be replaced. Some sort of rod thing was rubbing against something and a bunch of crap needs to be replaced. We also had to remove some sort of plate near your bumper. "
(I paraphrased that. heehee)

"How much is that going to cost?" I ask, clenching the armrest of the chair.

"SIX HUNDRED AND THIRTY ONE DOLLARS."

"Shit. What's the good news?" I ask, feeling naseated.

"That'll get rid of the burning rubber smell!"

oh good. At least I won't be smelling burning rubber on my way to the market to buy Ramen Noodles. Because that's all I'm going to be able to afford to eat for the rest of the month!

What's that smell?

About three years ago, I bought one of those Febreeze "ScentStories" smell-players, or whatever you want to call it. It seems like a dumb gimmicky gadget, but it's really great. I like to burn candles, but I'm always afraid that my damn cat will accidently light his tail on fire. The "Smell-Player" has all the fragrance tossing goodness of a candle, without the potentially cat-scorching flame.

Anyway, the discs for the ScentStories are very difficult to find in stores. I began hoarding them and figured that the product had been discontinued.

TODAY, I got an email from the folks at Febreeze (Yes, i signed up for the ScentStories newsletter, whatever.. I got coupons from it.) and Yankee Candle is now putting out the discs!




This makes me happier than it should.

"Die You Zombie Bastards!" News...

The following information is from the "Die You Zombie Bastards!" newsletter...
A screening in Salem! A gallery opening! Fantastic! I love when people I know are putting great, creative stuff out into the world...

From the newsletter...
1.) T-SHIRTS are selling fast, but we wanna clear 'em out FASTER...
so for the Halloween season we've dropped the price to a mere $10
apiece. Quickly, now! Click on:
http://www.dieyouzombiebastards.com/T-SHIRTS.html

(the sooner we can get these on your backs, the sooner we can whip up
our NEXT limited edition wearable masterpiece. Stay tuned...)


2.) DIE YOU ZOMBIE BASTARDS! will be screened at CinemaSalem in the
Witch City of Salem, Massachusetts. The fine folks at CinemaSalem
and the Salem Fright Festival would like to see it become a Halloween
tradition, so PLEASE come out, raise your fists and chant "DIE YOU
ZOMBIE BASTARDS!"
On Saturday October 27th, you can meet co-writer/co-producer Haig
Demarjian annnnnnd... KID FANTASTICO himself, Doug Williams!
It shows at 11pm on October 27th
and 10:30 on HALLOWEEN NIGHT!
click below to uncover the spooky details:
http://www.cinemasalem.com/


3.) the above-mentioned Haig Demarjian is currently having a solo
show of his very own paintings, drawings and prints. The show is
called EERIE HORRORS FROM BENEATH THE VAULT OF DREAD and is at the
Winfisky Gallery on the Salem State College campus through October
18th. It's a show you don't wanna miss; it includes the debut of a
colossal seven by eighteen foot painting Demarjian has been working
on for two years, and Creep-O-Vision, a multimedia monster
presentation. All are welcome at the gala reception, 6-8pm THIS
WEDNESDAY Oct 10 -- there'll be food, fun, prizes and surprises!
For more info:
http://www.salemstate.edu/arts/spotlight_art.php

In His First Starring Role...

Jalopy

I wish cars were still readily available in these colors...



My car is a boring color. It's that blue-grey color that Cape Cod artist's always use when they're painting pictures of dolphins on driftwood. It's boring and in a crowded parking lot, it's difficult to find my car because it's such a common color. But, I bought my car used, so I didn't have much choice. It was either the dolphin-mobile or another car that was black and had cigarette burn holes on the ceiling upholstery. I went with the former.

My car is in fine working order, but recently I've been obsessed with getting a new vehicle. I don't know why. My plan is to get a new (well, new to me) car in five years. So five more years with the dolphin. And I hope I'll be able to find a car in a color that isn't entirely dull.

Moody

These photos are from my trip to Coney Island in September. I love the color and mood of these photos. My father took this with his video camera. His video camera has a photograph setting to take still captures, but it doesn't do well in certain lighting, so you end up with these sorts of photos. I wish I could buy a camera that took ALL photos like this. I COULD get this effect in Photoshop I guess, but I like the fact that these photos exist like this... they aren't manipulated.

Let me check my schedule.

Last year, after resisting for quite some time, I broke down and bought a weekly planner. I resisted because it's just another thing I'd need to carry around. I finally bought one after cleaning out my bag and throwing out dozens of scraps of paper with info about shows I was going to and a bunch of little appointment cards for various things I needed to not forget.

So I bought a planner. A little fake leather "old man" planner. And it's seriously increased the quality of my life. I never have to worry about missing something. I just need to refer to my little book. It's great.

So I went to the flea-market near my house on Saturday to pick up some cheapo shower curtain liner to use as drop cloths for a painting project, and I saw my exact same generic planner, all spiffy and new for 2008. For a dollar!

Whoo-hoo! I'm so excited that I'm all set for the new year. Right now it's just sitting in my office, ready to go as soon as the ball drops in Times Square. heehee.

Barbie-Mobile

Earlier this Summer, my friend Myk, his girlfriend Allison and I drove to Scranton for a car show that turned out to be not quite worth the 5 hour drive. It was not a totally wasted trip, because on the way there, we saw this...

The trailer in the above picture, taken through my windshield, was towing one of the weirdest things I've seen in a looooong time...

A motorbike covered in Barbie dolls!



In addition to the Barbie dolls, there were a few Jolly Rodger flags too. I don't know.

What do you call a guy hanging on the wall?

I have a backlog of things that I need frame. I also have a stack of things that ARE framed that I haven't gotten around to hanging up. I'll get around to it eventually. I've got other things to do. Like chase the cat around the house with my video camera in hopes he'll do something interesting. You know, important stuff.

This frame situation is the bane of my Mother's existence.

Everytime she visits, she asks if we should hang things on the walls. I've already got a lot of things up around the house, so it's not as if my walls are bare. The un-hung things apparently eat at her soul. I don't know why.

This weekend, I went frame shopping and bought enough frames for all the unframed things I have aquired. Thus, the backlog is gone and my mother will now have to find something else to nag me about.

By the way, you call him "Art."

Ick.

The deck is almost finished. The only things that need to be done are small cosmetic type things that I'm in no hurry for.
My Father is the greatest for building this for me... he even used vacation days to come up and build.

He was up this last weekend building.. He came up on thursday night in order to be up stupidly early on Friday to start the day building.

When I got home from work on Friday evening, I found him sitting on the deck drinking a Corona, slightly buzzed. I tell him the deck looks great and he says he's done for the day.

Then he shows me his hand. His knuckle is a meaty, bloody mess. Holy poop, it looks bad.

He tells me he got it caught in his belt-sander. HE GOT HIS KNUCKLE CAUGHT IN A BELT-SANDER!

What a trooper.

He sleeps

Nothing of note, just some pictures of the devil sleeping. I think the slow change from Summer to Autumn is making this cat insane. He's been more of a jerk this week than usual. I've said this before, but he's really lucky he's adorable.

Top Banana of Coney Island!

See the giant inflatable banana...?

I bought it. I had to.

Obviously.

Win!

Claw-game prizes at Coney Island...

Dining at Coney Island

Return to Coney Island

Went to Coney Island yesterday. We went because this weekend was the last official open weekend of the season. With the land sales and uncertainty of the future of parts of Coney island, we wanted to go one last time. Coney Island will open next season, but it may be quite different.

In process...

Almost done!

I don't know what part of this makes me happier... the deck, or the fence that blocks the demon neighbor's view of my yard.

The Female Elvis

Janis Martin passed away today.

Turn it all around!

the previous post was really whiney and abrasive, so to balance everything out...

A Small List of Things I Like:

soft serve pistacio ice cream
when someone on television winks, and a "twinkle" sound is added
puppies that haven't "grown" into their feet yet
sleeping until you wake up naturally
scrambled eggs, home fries and toast
pantone 3265
the sound of lawnmowers
swingsets
the aloofness of my cat
fake, plastic food
the sound of a tattoo machine just starting up
tacky holiday decorations

See? I'm not always full of piss and vinegar.

Home Depot, you are dead to me.

The following list is composed of things that were supposed to occur this week. The items marked with a "YES!" did, in fact. happen. The items marked "TOOLBAG!" did not happen.

My Father and I go to HOME (Incompetent assholes) DEPOT last week to place an order for deck building materials. YES!

Man at Home Depot gaurantees delivery for Thursday Morning. YES!

My Father drives to Suburbia from his own home, 100 miles away, the night before the delivery date. YES!

Building Supplies are delivered Thursday morning. TOOLBAG! TOOLBAG! TOOLBAG!


Ahem. Let me explain...

Wednesday when I got home from work, my Father was already there, sitting on my couch watching some zombie movie. There was a message on my answering machine from a guy from Home Depot. Let's call him "Idiot."

In the message, Idiot says that part of my order was out of stock and that he looked at my order and thought there wasn't much I could build without the out of stock item, so he went ahead and cancelled my Thursday delivery, and rescheduled it for Saturday, when the out of stock item would be back in stock. He then says to call him if there is a problem with this. He'll be there until 3pm.

Three? It's now 6 in the evening. I call anyway and the woman who answered says to call back in the morning at 6 AM and they should be able to load the in stock portion of my order and deliver it LIKE WE AGREED UPON and i PAID for.. No where in my delivery contract did it say "If an item is out of stock, an Idiot will assume you don't want ALL THE OTHER STUFF you ordered and will reschedule the entire order, leaving you with nothing to work with."

I call back in the morning and explain the situation to Idiot. Idiot says he tried to call four times and then left a message on the fifth call. Funny, because my phone logs all calls that come in and there was only ONE call from Home Depot. He gets flustered and mutters something about calling and he's lying to me.

The out of stock item is a bunch of wood for the top of the deck, so his assumption that we can't do any work until we have the out of stock item is false. More arguing goes on involving me asking several times why he was making judgement calls regarding what part of my order I need when and him tellimg me some crap about the trucks already leaving so nothing can be loaded on them today anyway. Uh, it's 6 in the morning.

I ask him why the out of stock item wasn't flagged as such in their inventory when we ordered the wood a few days ago. He said it was in stock AT THE TIME WE ORDERED IT, but when it came time to load the truck wednesday, that particular wood size had sold out. Huh? So ordering items from Home Depot for delivery is in no way a guarantee that the item will be available when it is time to be delivered. Because they don't put anything aside for anyone's order. They just hope the items won't sell out between the order date and the delivery date. I ask him all this and he says that yes, that is the way it works. That is a horrible way to process orders. How dumb.

I hang up and then my Father calls back. hehehee

I then walk into the other room to get some breakfast and I keep hearing my Father say, "That's not my fucking problem. Rent a truck. We have a contract," several times.

Then I hear the best thing, ever...
"I don't care if all you have in stock is one nail. We ordered it, so you put it on the truck and fucking deliver it."

So yeah, everything is getting delivered on Saturday, but we did get some money off our order and also free delivery, so that's something.

I really hope the delivery shows up on Saturday.

Deck Deck, Goose.

Construction of my deck started last weekend...

There is now a piece of string in my yard that marks where the deck will be. It also keeps people from falling into the post holes that were dug. My neighbors have a little yippy annoying dog that runs into my yard all the time, and it would be quite a shame if one of them tripped and fell into one of the holes while running around my yard yelling at their dog at 3 in the morning, like they do ALMOST NIGHTLY. I feel bad for that dog. It's not her fault that her owners are such jerks.

Another great thing about this deck is that there will be a fence on one end to block the jerks from staring and snickering at me while I'm simply trying to grill a frankfurter in my own yard.

I can't wait.

Food Fighters!

I've been looking for these things for a while now. They were made in the late eighties. These don't seem to have had a very big production run.. it's proving to be very difficult to find any of them. I saw one on Ebay the other day. Just ONE. What the hell?

I think either Mattel only made about 73 of these things, or some weirdo in a basement somewhere is hoarding them. In this day and age of internet bidding sites and flea markets, I think it should be easier to find these toys.

Look at how funny this is...


I really like the fight scene on the package, although the tile looks like bathroom tile, as opposed to kitchen tile...

Look Familiar?

It's the Monkey Head Robot from Sharper Image!

I saw it at Coney Island this weekend. Right next to the chimp-bot was a mannequin that you could make dance around for either 25 or 50 cents, I can't remember. Either way, it's worth it.

More Coney Island...

Nice sign...


This made me laugh...

The Coney Island Rockabilly Festival

I recently bought a video camera, so I recorded a few of the bands this weekend.

They can be seen here...
www.youtube.com/suburbanwonderland

Hot Dogs and Upright Bass

This weekend I went to the Coney Island Rockabilly Festival. Saw great music, went on the Wonder Wheel and waited far too long in a line for a certain famous hot dog.




I kept seeing this dog trotting around on the boardwalk...

The Old Staircase Guard

When I was younger, my Grandparents kept this life-sized, jewel-eyed snake on the bottom of their staircase to keep us kids from going up the stairs and possibly falling and cracking our noggins open. It was a big wooden staircase so i can understand why we were banned from climbing around there unless they were around. The snake worked.. we were all scared of this thing and swore it moved when we went near it.

This past year, both my Grandparents passed away, and their house was sold. I wondered what happened to the snake. It turns out my father had taken it out of the house during the big cleanout before it was put on the market. It now resides in my living room in Suburbia. And it's going to stay there too... this sort of thing is more important to me than anything of monetary value. The snake is full of memories, and you can't buy those.

Graceland.

TODAY IS THE 30TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE DEATH OF ELVIS.

It's in caps because it is important.

Heartbreak Hotel of Horrors...

I'm subscribed to an Elvis news mailing list because I'm a dork, and today I got a message about this Elvis robot thingy...


Creepy, eh?

It sort of reminds me of this monkey head robot that I saw at a Sharper Image last year. Here's a video I found of some guy talking about the monkey head....


The cheese-ball part of me wants to like the Elvis-bot. The sane part of me thinks that if I saw that thing in person, I'd recoil in horror. I don't know. It seems like something some idiot would buy and then have out at parties.

Uh, that being said... I have a tiny Dean Martin robot that makes appearances at shin-digs around here. In my defense though... the Dean-bot is a very cartoony version of Mr. Martin and therefore not nearly as creepy as the Elvis thing. Also, the Dean-bot is an entire robot, not a bust sort of thing like the Elvis.

Truer Words Were Never Said

My friend Myk's birthday was on Saturday, and there was pie. Because pie is better than cake.

It was also my father's birthday, and every year my Father calls Myk and they wish each other a happy birthday. Generally my father will call him at like 5 in the morning and wake him up in the name of comedy, but this year he called at a reasonable hour.

Another reason why not EVERYONE needs a cell phone...

If I am sitting in my car at a stop sign, and you are driving while blathering away on your cell phone and you rear-end me WHILE I'M FULLY STOPPED, I should have the right to hop out of my car and punch you in the throat.

Just sayin'.

An observation

My friend Chet mentioned this the other day...
"Pretty much all of your projects end with "And then I just shellaced the hell out if it."


It's funny because it's true.

My lucky day

This actually happened the day before my identity theft adventure...

I'm building a deck in my backyard. Nothing fancy... just a ground-level platform deck where I can throw a shindig and my friends will have somewhere to sit without their chair-legs sinking into my weed-laden lawn.

Normally, I wouldn't bother with a building permit, but my neighbors to the left hate my very existence. I fear that they would rat me out and cause my little project to be dismantled by the city building inspector. I don't even know WHY they seem so disgusted and put out by me living next to them. I say hello whenever I see them and they refuse to acknowledge me. I don't get it.

Anyway...
I called the building department and was told I would need to show up and present my project to the board. Uh. Oh boy. I know nothing about construction. I had my father help me fill out the permit application, and draw up all the diagrams for the deck.
If they ask me anything, there is a good chance I won't be able to answer them.

So I show up at the board office with a little folder brimming with applications and scematic drawings. I'm nervous. If they deny my application, that's it. There isn't another place I can go for a building permit. There isn't some sort of competing city building department. They're it.

I walk into the room and the committee is sitting behind a giant oak table. I'm on the other side, with my folder of crap.
I start explaining the project and spreading out all these drawings.

Then I hear this: "You don't need a permit. You're building what's called a "patio." He said "patio" in the same way you would say "bread" to someone who just stupidly asked you what you should hold sandwich meat together with. I'm surprised the guy didn't use air-quotes.

As I was walking out, the guy who walked me to the exit of the application room said " No permit! This must be your lucky day!"

And it was. Until the next day when some jackass tried to swipe my identity.

Shove it.

The above picture sums up how I feel right now.
I've been dealing with this whole identity theft crap all day, and I'm still not finished squaring everything up. I've got to go to the bank tomorrow and iron some stuff out. This is crazy.

Everytime I think about this, I picture the Rockettes in a kick-line with top hats singing "Identity Theft" over and over again while kicking and waving their hats in the air. I don't know why.

Aaaannnnnd, to top off my great day... I get home and the sidewalk on my side of the street has been removed. All that is left is really deep, soft dirt the entire length of the street. Something to do with the water lines or something. I hope a new sidewalk gets put in soon. The woman that lives next to me is in a motorized wheelchair and now she can't leave her property because her wheels can't make it through the dirt... she gets stuck.

Yowzaa.

The moths in my wallet are all you will get.

Today, some guy called me and claimed to be from the bank that I took my mortgage out with. He asked me for some information that if he WAS from my mortgage company, he would already know. I didn't answer anything specifically. He did, however, know some things about accounts I hold. He said he was an assistant and that someone would call me back tomorrow with a possible lower rate or something. I hung up and then I called back and the number he called from had been disconnected.

How odd.

I called my mortgage company to see if any calls to my number were logged. None were.

Sooooooooooo, I freaked out and just spent the last 3 hours changing every online password I carry and froze every single ATM and credit card for both me personally and Bag Lunch, and am setting up new accounts. Now I have no access to any of my money, but no one else does either.

This whole thing is probably nothing, but I'm stressed out none the less.

Please leave your name and number...

I don't use a cell phone, and I'm doing just fine. I like not being teathered to an electronic leash. This article, from wired.com is great...

"Ten Reasons To Throw Away Your Cellphone
By Rob Beschizza July 31, 2007

It makes your life more complicated
A phone is just another thing that checks email, holds information and schedules events, and which has to be carefully kept in sync with all the other crud in your life that checks email, holds information and schedules events. The difference? This one likely has a 240 pixel-wide screen and a shabby interface spawned from the hellish loins of Windows CE.

It's horribly expensive
Total Cost of Ownership. Apply that idea to everything, not just cars and mortgages. The fact is that most cellphones will cost you thousands over the life of the contract. Short of paying-as-you-go with a Wal-Mart crapdybar, you're in it for a good $1,000, and about $2,000 or so with a smartphone.

It enslaves you to a one-sided contract
This is the magic that allows the previous item to happen, but is sufficiently vile to warrant an entry of its own. Everyone is at it, but the most iconic example of how times have changed is AT&T: Ma Bell has reglued itself together with almost Marxian inevitability, but now has the advantage of having countless customers under astonishingly abusive contract terms. Take that, deregulation.

It makes you perpetually available
If it's on, they can get you. If it's off, they wonder why they can't get you. It's a lose-lose situation for your Zen.

It is boring
The hype tsunami surrounding Apple's iPhone reveals that even something minimally inventive can completely wire public interest in what is otherwise a completely hidebound and risk-averse industry. Are we in the future yet?

It must constantly be recharged
Unless you want to hoik around a brick, the chances are you're recharging it daily. Screw fuel-cells: with WiFi, BlueTooth, WWAN and whatever else, we need AAA-size disposable fission reactors to keep these buggers awake.

It knows where you are
GPS is in every box, but you can't use it for much. The government loves to watch them without warrants or probable cause: if it's in your pocket, you are Robocop and The Man is Dick Jones.

It encourages stupid people to become a public menace
Forget about whether talking on cellphones while driving should be illegal: the fact remains that it is stupid. I know that you are perfectly capable of the mental gymnastics required for all this — you are a hypercephalic Gadget Lab reader — but it's best that you stop now, so as not to encourage lesser minds to attempt similar feats. Some are now being caught texting while driving. Just pull the car over, for heaven's sake!

Ubiquitous pleather accessory shops
Mallbound Cellphone crap shacks are an offense to nature. On the bright side, they support the whitewashed pegboard industry.

It turns you into a public annoyance
Hell is other people's ringtones."