Riots In The Streets Of Philadelphia

The Philadelphia Phillies won the World Series. Wow, I never thought I would be able to say that. Anyway, I did my best to document the madness that occurred in Center City afterwards. I'll let the photos do the explaining. I took over 700 photos last night, in which about 80 of them were worthwhile. I'll post as many as I can.
























Let me know what you think about my photos.

Cheers to the Phillies winning the World Series!

News Worthiness

Today in my Journalism and Society class, my professor brought up an interesting point about broadcast television and the stories they cover. What should be considered news worthy? Is a story about an old lady's Jesus statue being held hostage actually worthy of being nationally televised? Or do they simply exploit this little old lady in order to entertain their audience?

While I was sitting there in class, I thought about another clip I had seen a few weeks back. It was about a supposed Leprechaun sighting in Alabama. That's right...a leprechaun. Do you really think the TV station felt that people needed to know about this alleged sighting? Or were they only trying to entertain their viewers?



There's no way this story is news worthy. The TV station covered the Leprechaun sighting just to get a laugh out of their audience and it worked. Well, I don't know that for sure but I can say that my friends and I thought it was hilarious.

I must be off to a meeting for The Elitist Magazine (More details about the magazine will come sometime in the future.)

Cheers big ears

It's been a while, how you come back in style.

It has been quite some time since I have updated my blog. I have been doing a lot of physical writing in my notebook/journal but I didn't feel the urge to post it here. However, I am going to start posting daily because I need critics of my writing so that I can improve overall as a writer. So please, if anyone is reading this, criticize any piece of writing you want. I won't hold it against you if it is a negative thing.

Yesterday the Eagles played the Falcons. The Eagles won 27-14. In my opinion, the Eagles did not play well at all except for those few drives that ended in touchdowns. Donovan McNabb did not look like he was in top form. This doesn't surprise me though because lately, Donovan has been very inconsistent, which worries me as an Eagles fan. Anyway, I was able to snap some photos of the game. I hope you enjoy.










Across the street from the Lincoln Financial Field, the Phillies and Cole Hamels could possibly win the World Series tonight. Unlike the Eagles, I have complete confidence in our number 1 man-- Mr. Cole Hamels. The NLCS MVP appears to be unstoppable right now so we'll see what happens tonight. I'll have my camera with me at all times to document the hysteria that will occur if the Phils do win tonight. Tonight has potential to be complete madness. Be safe everyone.

Lets go Phillies.

Cheers

Anonymous

When I was in 7th or 8th grade I had a subscription to Transworld Skateboarding Magazine. I read each magazine I received religiously. One of my favorite skateboarders at the time, Tosh Townend, was in an ad for either Spitfire Wheels or Element Skateboards. Anyway, whatever company it was, they released a series of ads that had a different quote for each issue. This particular quote caught my attention the most so I made sure to write it down somewhere. Eventually, I memorized it. However, I could never find who wrote the quote. Still to this day, 5-6 years later, nothing.

You can choose to go back towards safety or forwards towards growth.
You do not simply exist,
But decide what your existence will be.
Life is ultimately self-determined.
-Anonymous

For me to get a tattoo, it would have to be something meaningful and there would have to be a lot of thought behind it. This quote is a candidate for when/if I get a tattoo. I still haven't decided.

Pretty sweet quote? I think so.

Location: Syracuse

Right now, I find myself in a place I have been many times before-- Syracuse, New York. The only reason I come here is to visit my two friends Michael and Alex. Otherwise I would probably only know about this place because Donovan McNabb played here a while ago. Whenever I come here, we always have a fun and sometimes wild time together. They live in an ideal college house with three other people. Four of the five roommates are in a band together--Minutes Per Second. (The two recordings are pretty raw but still good. They're currently in the studio right now.) This band is awesome especially live. Alex sings and Mike plays rhythm guitar. The lead guitarist, Tyler, rips and Dave, the drummer, kills on the skins. The bassist, Jeff, provides the final piece to the rhythm section. I recommend checking them out. Although, I may be a little bias since my two friends are members but looking past that, they really got something good going on there. I'm in the process of booking them a show in Philadelphia. I'll keep you updated here.
Tonight should be crazy. My friends and I have a date with Mr. Jim Beam tonight, which should lead to a great night and a shitty morning. It's worth it right? I guess I should apologize to my liver now.
Mike and I are taking it easy right now in a local coffee spot--2nd Story Books. This place is sooo sweet. We walk in and they have The Black Keys "Rubber Factory" playing straight through. (If you don't know about these two dudes, make sure you listen to them somehow. Rubber Factory is my favorite by them) To me, it is essential to have good music whenever you are in a public area. If this place had elevator music playing, I would have been back at Mike and Alexs' place by now. However, this is not the case with this place. The environment is very comfortable and laid back, exactly how it should be. Also, I'm glad this is not a Starbucks. I always enjoy supporting a local business instead of feeding the Starbucks' leviathan.

My battery is about to die on here so I must depart.
Don't worry about me, I'll be safe tonight. You be safe, make sure you wear your helmet.

Until next time....
Cheers

Feed The Animals

Tonight I am going to a dance party. Girl Talk's dance party at the Starlight Ballroom on 9th and Spring Garden, which is one of the best venues in Philadelphia. Girl Talk, the name, is a very strange name for an artist(If you even want to call him that.) I am not sure where the DJ himself came up with the name but I am willing to bet there's an enterntaining story behind it. He takes clips from popular songs, that I cannot stand alone, and "mashs" them into one long song. A better way to describe what Girl Talk does is he creates one long remix with hundreds of songs. If you're interested in hearing what this sounds like, go to Girl Talk's Myspace page. (http://www.myspace.com/girltalk) Download the CD...it's FREE. You may pay something but I recommend you don't. In my opinion, he does not deserve to get paid for what he does. He rips off other artist's songs and "mashes" them together. However, I will/did pay to see him do his thing live. Tonight should be very interesting, I can't wait. If anyone else is going and you're reading this right now--make sure you say hey if you see me. I'll be the blond haired kid with yellow adidias.

Cheers

PS-Check out track number 5 "Set It Off". It's my favorite song off Girl Talk's album. He has Jay Z rapping over Radiohead's "Paranoid Android"--that is genius. The best of two genres on top of eachother. After that little segment, he goes right into Mary J Blige--perfect. Girl Talk knows what works and he does what he does very well.

Summer of Radiohead Part Two

The second Radiohead show was on August 12th at the Susquehanna Bank Center in Camden, New Jersey. This time the weather was perfect compared to my last experience with Radiohead. 85 degrees, sunny, not a cloud in the sky--I would have been depressed if it did rain that day. I'm not kidding either. (Feeling hopeless in an endless downpour has a tendency to replay in my mind.) Also this time around I had better tickets, I skipped a class last year to secure my presale tickets. Radiohead likes to be very mysterious when it comes to presale so I did not know where I was sitting until a month before the show. I knew no matter what thouhg, I was going to have pretty sweet seats. The presale was in April which meant I had to wait five months for the show. For the Virginia show, I did not buy the tickets until four days before the concert. My friends and I tend to be very impulsive when it comes to concerts.




^My favorite photo from the show. ^



Weird Fishes/Arpeggi


There There

This show was phenomenal. The other show was great but since I was at my so called "hometown" venue it added to the show. The energy of Philly crowd is so much more intense than any other city I have been to. Philadelphia has an amazing atmosphere for shows, whether you're at the First Unitarian Church or the Susquehanna Bank Center. The only downfall to this show was that I lost my wallet.(Remember to always button that back-pocket button whenever there is one there.) Other than that, I could not have asked for a better way to end a summer that kicked off with the same band-- Radiohead.





Faust Arp






If you ever have the opportunity to see this band, do it.
As Thom would say,....."Cool beans!"

Cheers

Summer of Radiohead

This past summer I had the privilege to experience Radiohead, live, twice on their recent world tour.

My first show was May 11th in Bristow, Virginia(15 miles outside of Washington DC). This trip was suppose to take three and a half hours. However, thanks to the monsoon-like weather, the trip took, my three friends and I, five and half hours to get there. We ended up missing the first 3 songs and a couple hundred people were turned away due to extreme flooding. When we arrived there, there was no chance of us not getting soaked so we just took off running for the venue. Take note that the venue is similar to the Tweet Center aka the Susquehanna Bank Center(how lame is that name...), which means the parking lot is enormous. We get to our seats just in time for the opening drum sample of '15 Step' (Radiohead 2008 Tour Statistics) Besides their amazing music, their stage display was visually stimulating, which only enhanced the experience. I had never scene anything like the lights they used, apparently they are very eco-friendly. (LED Lighting). Seeing this does not surprise me because Thom Yorke, the lead singer, is very outspoken about being environmentally conscious.


One of the first few songs










Fake Plastic Trees



End of the show.


As you can see from the photos, the lights were spectacular. They were definitely fitting for Radiohead's performance. The show overall was unlike anything I have seen before and I have a long list of shows to compare it to. They ended up playing a total of 25 songs, the 6th rarest setlist on the tour so far, which includes the 2 encores. Even though they played that many songs, I left wanting more.

We realize after the show that we have no idea at all where we parked. Remember how I said this place was huge? The monsoon outside never let up so we had to venture out into the pouring 40 degree rain. Bear in mind, I only had jeans and a tee shirt on. To make a long story short, we searched for over an hour throughout this massive parking lot. It was raining so hard that the entire parking lot turned into a gigantic puddle(Sorry, I have no photo of this. My hands were beginning to contract at that point since they were so cold). No way of avoiding the mini-ocean.

Eventually, we gave upand retreat to a nearby building. So we are huddle under an entrance to some random building. This barely provides any cover for us. Turns out 4 Russian abroad students, who came from NYC, cannot find their car either. So 8 guys, 2 with no shirts on, are huddled under a small blue tarp--shivering, trying to keep warm. The spirits were so low between the group. No one was talking. At one point, we thought if we were out here any longer, we might need to be hospitalized.

All we wanted to do was find the damn car and it was not working out for us. The Russian guys bust out 2 joints and offered to share with us. That boasted our spirits just a tad. After that, my two friends were motivated enough to venture out to find the car. They continously held the panic button and it worked.

We did not get home until 6 in the am. Our trip started at 3pm the day before. I couldn't have asked for a better way to kick off summer.

Whoa, this turned out to be an essay. I will post the second show details later.

Cheers