Posts Tagged ‘Family & Friends’
Black & Gold
My brother is a quote machine. “I haven’t had a three dollar beers since college!” After last night’s $6 room service Iron City bottles, I understand and appreciate his enthusiasm. We’re at Doubleday’s on Sixth Street in downtown Pittsburgh, our third bar of the night. Every one of ’em have been absolutely throbbing with Steeler…
Read MoreSpectral Morning
My eyes were half-closed and choked with sleep this morning as I stepped into the darkened bathroom. The backyard was framed by the window pane, it’s slender birch trees pale white against the bruised purple sky. They stood like hungry ghosts against the waning night sky, their shoulders wrapped in a veil of pink and…
Read MoreAcross The Road From Hope
How quickly things change. Abbi called me Friday night to tell me her flight from Monteray, Mexico, had landed just as my train to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, pulled out of Penn Station. As I was queueing for a cab at 30th Street Station, she called to informed me that her granmother was in the hospital. Moments…
Read MoreThe Blue Lights
I didn’t know The Olds could lose their shit like this! I’m in Philly with my pals, The Nadas. I snuck out of work early, hopped on Amtrak, and then cabbed over to World Cafe where the guys just opened up for The Subdudes. The Subdudes are a talented-enough New Orleans-based quintet. They sound something…
Read MoreThe Gloaming
Abbi and I walked down Broadway in silence, our breath trailing somewhere behind. Save for the rogue plow and off-duty cab, the snow-covered, ice-choked city was still asleep. Late Friday afternoon, and as the streets locked up with frozen rain and snow and the airlines threw in the towel, I watched online as eight Amtrak…
Read MoreYou’ve Got Nothing To Do Today But Smile
It seemed like a good idea at the time. When my buddy, former Dough and current Buckeye front man, singer/songwriter Chris Abad, announced his engagement to longtime girlfriend Megan Watkins, I responded with cool enthusiasm by raising my post-rehearsal forty ouncer and toasting them both. When he told me he wanted me to perform at…
Read MoreStraight Up And Awkward
Well, that was awkward. It’s not that it was a hundred degrees outside. Or that I was over an hour late. It’s not that the event was a who’s who of NYC Bloggerati. Or that I had to get my name on a yellow Post-It and wait in line for her signature. It’s not that…
Read MoreThe Grand Prize
As a seven-year-old growing up in Oak Park, Illinois, summer vacation was comprised of a week-long fishing trip to northern Minnesota. The drive to Lake Vermillion seemed eternal. Dad stared stoically ahead, piloting our Oldsmobile Cutlass Cruiser. Mom would crack the window, exhaling long ribbons Benson & Hedges smoke. Chris and I struggled over an…
Read MoreThe Squid & The Whale
Nearly twenty-four years to the day that my parents sat Chris and me down to announce their separation, I am still seeking catharsis. It was an afternoon not unlike this. The air was cool. Daylight was scarce. We gathered in the living room — a space reserved solely for guests and holidays. Chris and mom…
Read MoreDon’t Cry Out Loud
I was about nine-years-old that Easter. I had pleaded and begged the Easter Bunny, or more succinctly his appointed designates — my parents — for a copy of Melissa Manchester’s ‘Don’t Cry Out Loud’ vinyl 45. I had it in good faith that it would be nestled in the green plastic Easter grass that morning,…
Read More