Halloweener

I usually take pride in having an admirable costume whenever I go out for Halloween.

A few years ago I was Wolverine:




I custom-made those claws from Plexiglas from Home Depot and ordered the EXACT same Canadian military dog tag that Wolverine wore. It even took me a few weeks to grow enough facial hair for respectable sideburns.

The year before that, I was a British Rock star -- drunken accent and everything!
(pic to follow later)
I won a prize at a party and everyone was impressed with how well I got into character. Well........actually being drunk kinda helped.....


ANYway.................a last minute decision this year to go to a friend of a friend's party left me with NO time to plan. So, at the risk of my Halloween costume reputation, I was left with no choice but to SETTLE for something.

So what did I decide?

To be a fisherman.

Yes - a fisherman.

Lame, but true.

BUUUUUUUT..................after speaking with my incredibly brilliant acquaintance online, she suggested getting a beard and saying I'm .............................(drum roll)..................
HEMINGWAY!!

Still somewhat lame, but way LESS lame than just a fisherman. Especially with a cigar.

Plus, the party is in SoHo, so I'm banking on most of the attendees being Citiots who've never ventured into the real outdoors and haven't seen waders or a fishing vest or lures before.

We shall see how the evening goes.......



Well, I leave with a video I came across that I found very heart-warming.
Not something you see everyday, and not something that is even smart, but nevertheless, its nice to see. Oh.................it also gets humor points for the gay choice of music and the gayer look of the two Euro dudes.
ENJOY!!

Donnie Darko

Autumn is a bittersweet time of the year.
The comfortable warmth of the Summer seems to quickly give way to chilly winds and dying trees. Sure, the foliage is beautiful and there's something cozy about wearing sweaters, and maybe football is an enjoyable distraction, but the melancholy is unavoidable for me.
The sunlight dwindles as the darkness grows, and along with it some instinctive desire inside of me to embrace a pen and paper and try to create beautiful things with words.......
So yes, I've been writing more lately........

ANYway........ in an attempt to segue into my next topic by using the notion of creativity...............


I recently saw the movie Donnie Darko for the first time.

To quote someone else who I think said it best: "Donnie Darko was a masterpiece of indie film before everyone was making them"


I enjoy the beautiful chaos that is found in a lost mind.
By trying to play on a sci-fi theme and touch on basic principles of time travel, it's actually a sweet and sorrowful story of a young man's complex mind.
If you could go back in your life and take all those hours of pain and darkness away, would you do it????

Its a mad world.............a very mad world.

"..and the dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had"

The Road

I've tried to read more in the past few years.

I can't say I'm as well-versed in literature as I used to be, but I'm trying to change that. Hey, that's what real live does to you after college. In school, you're in a "collegiate" state of mind where you read and learn and focus on education...............(as well as drinking and partying)....... BUT - I've tried to read a new book every few months or so and have managed to be pretty consistent.

Just last week I finished The Road by Cormac Mccarthy.



Its a gritty story of survival for a young boy and his father in a post-apocalyptic world.
Mccarthy's style of writing is brash, to say the least. No punctuation, incomplete sentences............but that's what makes the story so much more real and full of impact.
He cajoles your imagination to envision yourself right beside the characters struggling along with them. I really enjoyed it.

I also just found out it was made into a movie last year starring Viggo Mortensen!
How did I miss that?
I guess I didn't really care since I hadn't heard of it, but I'm glad I read the book first.




My new book:
Ghost Soldiers: The Forgotten Epic Story of World War II's Most Dramatic Mission

Death Cab For Cutie

This past Sunday night -- House of Blues -- Atlantic City...........

I went with Day to see Death Cab For Cutie.......LIVE


I've become a bigger fan of theirs in recent months and was pretty impressed with their live show.

The lead singer, Ben Gibbard, doesn't disappoint or leave anything behind.
Its easy to think that such eloquently beautiful vocals are somewhat digitally enhanced when you hear him sing on your MP3 player, but truth be told, he was just as good live - which was impressive and refreshing.

What a great show....

Here's a few of my favorite tunes from them:

I Like it Better When it's Wet

Sexual innuendos................... gotta love 'em.


SO - quick rundown of the weekend:

Saturday was fun.

Day got us hooked up with invites to the Rutgers New Recruit tailgate with free food, etc.
Then - we got sideline passes to the game versus Morgan State.



Yeah, RU won 38-0, which is nice.
.....and don't get me wrong, I'm a die hard RU fan and have season tix that weren't cheap, but this was an OBVIOUS gimme. But even saying that, we still looked bad out there.
Teel still managed to throw an interception and our defense wasn't as dominant as it should've been against a IAA school. Which means that this weekend against West Virginia - AT West Virginia - will probably mean yet another flashback to about 8 years ago when it was normal to get trounced by 30+ points on a weekly basis.
Ugh............those memories make me cringe........

But what DIDN'T make me cringe was hanging in front of the Morgan State Marching Band! They are incredible.

(quick backstory - I went to Passaic high school and was in the marching band there and we had a rep for putting on GOOD shows which always included a "band dance." We literally all put down our instruments for a good 64 counts or so and did a dance. YES! FOR REAL!! This is unheard of in 99% of all high schools, but we were just too ghetto and proud that we showed it off with pride. The tootsie roll, salsa, whatever, the entire band of 150+ would be doing it on the field for our show, and we always rocked the house and left the fans cheering.)

Anyway, that wasn't a quick backstory, but at least an explanation of why I loved the MSU band so much. Oh......and I was in the Rutgers Marching Band also.........but lets be honest -- the music is LAME. A lot of it is the same crap we played when I was in there from 1998-2002. While MSU is playing Pussy Cat Dolls and Plies!
YEAH!!!!


SooOoOoOoOooo anywayz.......

Sunday was the wet fun!!

I went kayaking with some friends down the Delaware River.

"But B, it was pouring all day on Sunday! You went in the rain?!"

Hellz yeah we did!!

...and it was SO beautiful.
I loved it.

I highly recommend going kayaking in the rain if you get the chance.
Sure, we got soaked to the bone, but I wasn't really cold (thanks, Under Armour) and if you could only see the way rain dances delightfully on the surface of the river when its coming down, or how the birds abound flying over the water and doing dives right by us.
The cranes at the edge of the water watching us as they stalk some fish...........
ahh..........it was so relaxing and enchanting.
Sure, going on a sunny day might be nice, but going in the pouring rain is just so magical.
I'd love to go again sometime.