Family Tradition

Last summer we got a new kitchen floor.

The old one was olive green and black and was the original floor – circa 1973 – of our house. During the course of our occupation, the color started to wear on my wife and I, plus the seams started to curl up. But money was tight so we went about our lives, sucked it up and just dealt with it.

Years past, and two boys later, and it was apparent that the vinyl floor was in need of repair. The constant barrage of makeshift hockey games, toy monster truck rallies and general tomfoolery rendered the floor all but useless.

So we sold some stocks and invested in some faux Italian marble tile vinyl from one of the local chain hardware stores and had it installed. It’s quite nice actually and soon became the springboard to give the kitchen a much need facelift: the yellow walls and cabinets were painted white, our olive green range and hood were replaced by a hand-me-down white stove from my sister-in-law, and the pantry was removed giving the kitchen more space for our growing family.

But there is one problem with the new kitchen floor: I cannot keep it clean to save my soul. I Wet Swiff it on a weekly basis yet there always seems to be a crumb, a leaf, a harden strand of spaghetti staring back at me.

Some days I feel the floor mocks me. “Nan, nan, na, nan, na, you can’t clean me.” I have visions of early ‘70s Saturday morning cartoons; of a Syd & Marty Croft caricature come to life out of the floor dancing with its gaping mouth around me, it’s Witchey Poo apparition of a boss floating over said creature’s shoulder.

The other day I dropped a knife and it stuck into the floor.

I thought I heard someone say “ouch.”

It then occurred to me that maybe I should do like my family did – have a carpet in the kitchen. Growing up I never knew how odd this was until late elementary school when friends started to visit my house and I theirs. “Why do you have a rug in your kitchen?” my friend Tommy asked me in 6th grade. “I don’t know,” I said. “What don’t you have a rug in your kitchen?”

There was only one person who could answer to this question, my father. So one morning over breakfast, I asked my dad why we had a carpet in our kitchen. “Nobody else I know does,” I explained to him. And, typical of my stoic defense contractor dad, he replied, “I don’t like cold feet.”

I don’t like cold feet either, nor do I like to fight the fight of keeping my kitchen floor clean. I think it just might be time to take up the family tradition, I think it might be time to start thinking about putting carpet on the kitchen floor.

The Reverend Craig Finn

Holdin' steady 

To Gentrification!

On my walked back to the club I make a toast to the gentrification of Rosemart Street. 

Walkin'

I walked to ghetto mini mart on Rosemary Street and buy another Hurricane, say hi to the cops as they laugh at some black guy who has bought a forty and not turned his headlights on to leave. 

Time To Kill

I have some time to kill before I meet up with a friend so I go to the mini mart and decide to buy this Budweiser spin-off called Hurricane which is 8.1 percent. I park my truck behind the place that used to be a restaurant called Pyewacket and drink the double deuce while talking on the phone to my actor friend Mike in LA. Some drunk couple comes up and gets into their Carmen Ghia convertable, both slamming their doors into the cars next to them. A short while later, a girl who looks just like the girl that played Blossom in the show of said name - and her friend - get into the car right next to my truck. I am sitting on the curb. "You're not trying to steal my hubcaps are you?" she says with a nervous laugh. "Nope," I say. Beer done. Phone call over. 9:30pm. Still have thirty minutes to kill. 

The Hold Steady

Last thursday night I saw The Hold Steady at the Local 506 here in Chapel Hill, NC.


Story to come... 

Yep, That's How They Roll

Street Shark's style.

Rocking the loafers.

Amen.

Street Sharks (Slight Return)

Wait until you see this guy's shoes. 

Sepia Sharks

Somebody turn me off. 

The Fucking Street Sharks

 

Punk Rock Hootenanny

Sunday night my band the Chest Pains played a show at Chaz's Bull City Records in Durham. We played with Raleigh's Street Sharks (pictured), Richmond's Pink Razors and some other band that opened from Wisconsin.

This shot pretty much sums up the night.

I fulfilled a life long dream of being in a band and having people sing along with you; we played of cover of Government Issue's "Hall OF Fame" [Joyride version] and had a good four or five people singing along during the chorus.

Being A Dad Is Cool

As much as raising kids can make you insane, it can be the most rewarding thing in your life.

left: Spencer Brooks, 5 1/2, 45 lbs. likes sports, art and Thin Lizzy.

right: Cole Burdick, 2 1/2, 35lbs., likes sports, art and the Chest Pains. 

ACC Junkie

The call came out of nowhere.

“I’m in,” I said without having to think twice.

“Okay, cool,” said my neighbor. “Meet me in ten minutes out front.”
“I’ll honk the horn,” he said.

Ten minutes later, right on time, the horn honked.

I slipped on my leather jacket, stuffed my wallet into my back pocket, topped off my head with a knit cap and walked out the door. “Good luck,” said my wife. “Thanks,” I said.

Once inside my neighbor’s car, I got the instructions: We were to go to the Shell gas station at the intersection of Route 54 and Interstate 40 and wait.

The wait was painstakingly long, both of us salivating at the prospect of what would soon be in our possession. My mouth was dry.

“You want anything?” he said as he got out and purchased dry goods from the mini mart inside the gas station.

“Water,” I said.

He came back and we sat and waited in silence, a silence broken occasionally by the sound of my lips slurping water off the tip of my water bottle; a nervous tick.

“This sure is taking long,” said my neighbor.
“It is,” I said back.

I’ve know this guy sitting next to me since I was 13-years-old. Yet suddenly we have nothing to say.

“Can I borrow your cell phone?” he asked breaking the blanket of silence. I handed it to him while disengaging the lock that blocks the phone from being inadvertently dialed when on your person. He dialed a number and asked for another. Then he dialed the second number.

“Hey,” he said.
I heard the garbled voice of someone on the other end of the phone.
“Yeah, it’s me. Where are you at?”

He hung up without a word and handed me the phone as a flash of headlights streaked across our windshield. He got out of his car. I heard the slap of a hand shakes and a “thank you” or two.

He slid back into the front seat, slamming his door in the process.
“We’re golden dude,” he said with a big sly smile on his face as he held out his hand revealing two tickets to the Carolina versus Davidson basketball game.

It’s like he just handed me the Holy Grail: in the ten years I have lived in the Triangle, this is only my second Carolina game.

I finished the last drop of water from my bottle, turned and said to him, “done.”
Then I threw my bottle on the floor board of his car.

“Done,” he said before bursting out in a maniacal cackle as he jammed his car into reverse.

Beer Goggles

The official eye wear of December 2005. 

Holy Smokes

Backyard bonfires... the unofficial hit of the holidays. 

Damaged II

What happens when your older brother rolls into town whom you haven't seen in a year and hasn't been to your digs in five years?

Why you throw down the gauntlet and get wasted.

Here's to more good times in 2006. 

Damaged

What happens when the best man at your wedding - who you haven't talked to in a good year because he's getting divorced - rolls into town for a surprise visit because his father lives in North Carolina... and he comes with his soon-to-be ex wife?

Why you throw down the gauntlet and get wasted. 

Heavy Metal

2-and-a-half year old Cole throwing the goat.

That's my boy. 

The Room of Spencer

And to think, I just had him clean it the other day.

Notice "makeshift" drummer set in the left corner or the Ron Liberti signed rock poster above the bed. 

What Is This?

Spencer art.

Skateboard tricks. Notice the movement of the arms or the guy second from right with the pink deck who is doing the ollie. Or maybe it's the first guy? Or maybe it's a sequence!