And in the same vein as my last post...

...I got a ticket in the mail yesterday for $50.00. It seems I ran a red light in Brooklyn a month ago and photo radar busted me. I don't remember doing it and try to drive responsibly, but the pictures don't lie, and they included the pictures with the ticket, which was quite kind of them.

So yeah, over the last two weeks.... almost $300 in window repairs, $45 for parking on the wrong side of the damn street and $50 for running a red light. Guess that quick trip to GA we were hoping to take at the end of the month is off, because after those expenses, various birthday gifts for wife, mother and son, and then Christas gifts... I'm plum out of money until January. I've got enough to make it all work, which I'm thankful for, as many don't, but yeah, the extra I was planning to use for the trip is now depleted.

There'll be other trips, and timing wise it's a horrible time at work for me to be away as we're in the middle of massive projects that I'm quite involved in, but it's still a bummer.

The good news is, the money I set aside for this weekend's commando run to the great white north is still intact. I'm looking forward to that, even if it'll be hectic and rushed and a lot of driving.

This last weekend we went and saw Toxic Avenger: The Musical in honor of Alison's birthday on Sat. and this is one of those cases where you can believe the hype - it's one of the funniest live theater productions I've ever seen and very much in the spirit of the movie that inspired it. We had a blast with that. The next night we went and saw the 4th Annual Twisted Sister Twisted Christmas on Broadway show, which despite starting two hours later than it was supposed to, was equally impressive and loads of fun.

That's about it for now.

Sometimes I do unintelligent things.

On Tuesday I was sure that it was Wednesday, so I parked on the East side of the street. But it wasn't Wednesday, it was Tuesday, so I got a $45 parking ticket. When I saw the ticket, I paid it online immediately even though I had sixty days to do it. Because of that, without thinking, I put my checking account into overdraft and got hit with a $30 charge.

Last week I went into a Kosher pizza joint around the corner from my office and got confused when I asked for a slice of pepperoni and got glared at. A few days prior to that and I forgot my mother's birthday. Sort of. I got her a gift, but forgot to call her or send it to her. I blame last week's window breaking incident for distracting me but I still felt bad.

Yesterday instead of using the ramp at work to slide a box from the mezzanine level to the ground level in our warehouse I decided to carry it, forgetting that the stairs are narrow. I hit the wall with the box, my hand in between the two, and now have a nice pair of bloody and potentially scarred fingers to show for it.

On the bright side I have a glass of red wine and a Klaus Kinski movie going on right now. My wife kicks ass and despite my periodic scurmishes with stupidity, I like life. So it's not all bad, but yeah, this was kind of a week of odd little mental boners on my part.

You get the good with the bad....

Last weekend we went and saw the Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular. Now, I'm not normally one for Christmas Spectaculars, but Alison's mom wanted to take us and I'd never been to Radio City before and thought that it was a very nice gesture of her to offer, so we all took the train into the city to check it out. The building was beautiful despite the blatant corporate sponsorship (Capital One, do you really need that many logos all over the place?). The show? I was able to enjoy it on a techincal level. The Rockettes, aside from being a bunch of well put together gals, perform with such amazing synchronicity that they're almost like robots. To have to wear those incredibly fake smiles plastered across your face for ninety minutes straight while kicking your legs over your head a few hundred times can't be easy. You've got to respect the training and coordination that goes into putting something like that on - it wasn't necessarily something I need to see again but I'm glad I went once to experience a bit of New York's history and tradition. And after that the mom-in-law took us out for delicious hamburgers, so it was a win in.

So after work last night I found that some kind soul had not only dumped a bag of dirtclods and rocks on the hood of my car, but they'd also had the good sense to toss a big block of wood through the rear panel window of my car while I was in the office. This rear panel of glass is curved and tinted and is also the most expensive piece of glass on the car. I had it fixed today for the princely sum of $277.22 after taxes. Bastard vandals. There was nothing in the car to take, someone just did it for the sake of doing it.


I made up for that last night by going to see the Pixies at the Hammersmith Ballroom in Manhattan. Gorgeous venue, great show, wonderful sound. I'd never seen them live before and watching them it was like having a wave of sound push you. It was almost surreal.


A few low quality camera phone pictures...

Aside from paying for broken cars and checking out overpriced 90s college rock bands (who played the entire Doolittle album from start to finish along with all of the b-sides before mixing it up with a bunch of other material for the two encores), not much else is new. Married life is still good. Tolch is coming this weekend to visit and we're going to have an early birthday party for Alison. The weekend after I'm taking her to the Twisted Sister Christmas show again, then the week after that we're heading back to Canada for a quick visit. The weekend after that we have the Street Dogs/Stigma/Roger Miret show. And then before you know it, it's Christmas. This'll be a busy month coming up for sure, but tonight I think I'm just going to eat Chinese food in my underwear and hang out with my wife and watch movies. There's something to be said for turning off your brain every once in a while.

Gambling, Punk Rock, Stoner Rap... and marriage!

So the marriage certificate arrived the other day. Alison and I are officially husband and wife. It'll take a while to get used to the ring, but it feels good. It feels right. More real, I guess, more official. We'd always said we didn't need to get married and that it wouldn't change things, but it definitely has, and all for the better. Life just feels more solid right now and I know we've done the right thing. I couldn't be happier, really. Sure, life can still be complicated and yeah my back is sore from working in the warehouse today and okay, fine, my credit card bills could be lower than they are but these are minor things, things I can't really be bothered to fret over. Not to say I intend to shirk responsibility in these matters, only to say that money's only money and my back will be fine after a good night's sleep.

But yeah, the wedding was perfect in pretty much every way. I've talked about it elsewhere and don't know that I need to repeat myself at this point but it went off even better than I think either of us imagined. Noland did a really great job on the ceremony, treating it all with the right amount of respect but never coming across as stuff or dulll, while Mr. Miller's guitar playing was entirely appropriate and beautiful in its own goofy way. Alison looked stunningly beautiful and she continues to remind me daily how lucky I am to have her. I'd have liked to have seen more family there from my side, but not everyone can afford to travel and some of those who can afford it just can't do it. Period. So obviously there are no hard feelings there, even if there is a tinge of sadness about it.

So after the wedding she and I went to Atlantic City to see Social Distortion. This was my seventh time seeing them, having been a fan since I was twelve or thirteen, and it was the best show I'd seen in quite some time from them. Mike Ness seems content to play in a rock and roll band now rather than a punk band, and while the merch booth was expensive and far too extensive, at least they didn't play Antifashion and make hypocrites of themselves. Mike's not getting any younger and at this point in the game I can't begrudge him making some money off of the name so long as he keeps putting out good music and putting on good shows and so far he has. Which is good, cause tattoos don't come off all that easily.

The morning after we decided to gamble $20 each and at the first slot I played I left with $965.50, at which point I decided to call it quits for the day. We had a nice dinner and wandered around and under the boardwalk, saw some sights, encountered a weird guy drinking Busch light and watched idiotic surfers catch mediocre waves in really cold temperatures. AC was neat. It's like Coney Island and Vegas rolled in to one. Just be careful where you go, cause parts of it are obviously tough.

A few days after the wedding Teenage Bottlerocket came into town with The Cobra Skulls supporting. It was an early show, I got there just as the Cobra Skulls were going on. Alison, sadly, missed them. They were great. High enegry, agreeable left leaning political rants, great guitar riffs and just a really solid bounciness to them. I talked to the guitar player and the vocalist briefly after the show simply because I wanted to tell them how much I appreciated their music lately. I also felt really old, the only guy over thirty pogoing up front in a see of teenagers. But whatever. Teenage Bottlerocket came on next and we opted to sit at the bar and watch from afar not because it was a rough crowd but because we were tired. They put on a solid show too, and ignored my hollaring at them to 'PLAY A LILLINGTONS SONG!' They did do a cover of Poison's 'Talk Dirty To Me' that was pretty funny, so I guess that counts for something.

Last week I won tickets from a radio station webstite to the Cypress Hill show in Times Square. I still get a kick out of them even if I'm not into weed and their glory days are behind them. We're going to go check it out, cause why not, it's free. If we're bombared with second hand smoke or don't like the environment we can always leave and not have to worry about having wasted money. I think it'll be fun.

Other than that, Halloween is on Sat. and Jackson Heights always has a good Halloween parade where all the kids dress up and cruise up and down the ave. our apt. building is on. It was fun last year and it'll probably be fun this year too, even if it is supposed to rain.

Three weeks and counting...

...till we're gonna done get hitched. Yee-haw.

We got the license the other day (I braved the Queens county clerk's office with a nasty cold). We're working on the vows. We've got some music selected (Dictators and Pogues, of course) and we've got the deposit down on the cake. The money is in place more or less and this is actually shaping up to be a pretty kick ass shindig if I do say so myself.

Weddings are generally boring and stuffy. Ours is going to be fun. Why shouldn't it be? Shouldn't it be a celebration? To Hell with pomp and circumstance, ours is going to be a party.

On a completely unrelated note, see this movie:

Observe And Report

And the new Teenage Bottlerocket album is really good. Can't wait to see them play with the Cobra Skulls in Brooklyn on 10/23.

Some recent additions to the collection...

Check it out, Alison got me this for my birthday a few months back. It's an original video release poster for the one and only Rock N Roll Nightmare, a movie which not only a personal favorite but kind of a notch in my belt in that I helped out on the DVD and after doing so got to meet Thor a few times, even getting to get on stage with him where he wrapped a mic stand around my neck. How cool is this?

Despite the fact that we have no wall space nor money for proper framing, Alison and I continue to acquire all manner of great, oddball, old movie posters. Some day, when we win the lottery or some wealthy distant relative leaves us enough money to buy a house and build a proper movie room we'll get all this stuff on display, until then, they sit in storage, seen only on the internet of all places. Kinda sad when you think about it, I'm of the belief that a lot of this stuff should be on display like a sort of trash film museum, but what can you do.

Without further ado... this arrived last week. A surprise gift from a girlfriend/fiance who continues to win at being awesome. Aside from the fact that it's folded, this guy, an original U.S. theatrical one sheet, is in pretty much perfect condition and it pleases me to no end that I own this.

Turning thirty four had its plus points, one of which was receiving this Japanese theatrical poster for the 80s 'teens vs. commie bastards' classic, Red Dawn. If you don't like this movie I don't want to know you.

Toyboy gave this to Alison as just a sort of random gift for no apparant reason. I've never seen it and don't know if it's ever actually even received an English friendly video release and obviously never caught it during its theatrical run as it was made before I was born. Regardless, it's signed by Jess Franco and Lina Romay, which instantly makes it awesome. I love the artwork and the fact that the three people in that painting look nothing like Lina Romay, Robert Foster or Eva Palmer. I like the pseudo-classy art deco style used here. It's not in great shape, but matted and framed I bet it would look really good.

We picked up this European beauty at the recent Fangoria show in NYC held back in June. Jess Franco's Barbed Wire Dolls, one of my bride-to-be's personal favorites, which makes her an awesome choice for a wife above and beyond her more obvious qualities. It's looking like a Spanish piece to me, givne that it uses the Spanish title, but who knows. Either way, it's in very nice shape and it's a tough one to find, especially in this sort of condition.

The fact that for whatever eason this blog likes to crop the pictures annoys me. But I don't feel like reuploading thing. Sorry.

Poor Rusty, Neglected Blog.

I've been busy. It's a busy time right now, so yeah. But man, I haven't written anything in a while.

Wedding plans are going along really nicely. We've got the venue selected for the reception and the deposit put down on it. I think it's going to be the right spot. It's nice enough to work, but not in the least bit highbrow or pretentious. It's a bit of a pain in the ass to get to from Coney Island, but we'll figure that out. There should be enough cars there that it won't be a problem. If not, if people split cab fare it shouldn't be a big deal. We've also scored Social Distortion tickets for that night, meaning after the reception we're hoping in the Honda and driving to Atlantic City for the night to see one of our favorite bands play. It's definitely a cool coincidence that they're playing there that night!

So yeah, invites have gone out, RSVP's are coming in, and it's all coming up faster than I think either of us realized, but that's not a bad thing at all. It'll be nice to have it all taken care of.

In none wedding news, the Street Dogs are coming back and the opening acts are Vinnie Stigma followed by Roger Miret And The Disasters, so it's almost like seeing the SD's with Agnostic Front. Almost. Hopefully they'll team up and do a few AF classics. I'm sure the crowd would appreciate it. We took the train into Manhattan to get tickets at the box office rather than pay Live Nation's $9 rape fee. A $9 surcharge on a $16 ticket is insane. So we made a day out of the trip into Manhattan last weekend. Wandered around the village, hit a record store and got the new Cobra Skulls album, and snagged a copy of the new 2-disc special edition of Stunt Rock at Kim's a week early. These are important things to take care of. Then we feasted on frozen boozy treats and chicken wings before hitting the Fat Black Pussycat for a pint and heading back to the realitive coolness of our apartment. The heat wave has been kicking this city's ass for two weeks straight now. Hopefully the impending hurricance that's supposed to batter the east coast on Sat. breaks some of the humidity. I'd be grateful for the rain if it did that.

Alison's new job seems to be off to a really good start. She seems to like it there and I get the impression that this school will treat her better than the last one. She deserves it as she works really hard and actually cares about her job. You can't say that about a lot of teachers, at least not from my jaded educational experience, so on a personal level I think it's important to take care of the ones that do. The fact that she was let go from her last position based solely on the fact that she made more than other teachers (and had the qualifications to back that up, mind you) was a bit of a middle finger to her. Seeing her land a better paying position with more opportunity and in what looks to be a better and more professional environment makes me happy. Perfect timing too, as she started last week.

Other than that, I'm looking into hopefully heading back to Canada first weekend in October for my step brothers wedding. We'll have to see if the money is there as I'd need to fly to make it happen but it looks like it'll probably happen. It's both awesome and confusing that he and I are getting married so close to one another, but it's not like we planned it this way. Next weekend my mother and sister descend upon our pad for a night for Alison's wedding shower. Sandra's never been to NYC before and while it's a quick 'arrive Sat. and leave Sun' trip, I'm hopeful that Sat. night at least we'll be able to show her around a bit.

Oh, and the other day all the shelves fell off of the walls in my office. This is what I came into work and saw...