Okay, the title is a lie. The pictures you are about to see chronicle the journey to and from Dewey Beach, DE for the Dewey Beach Popfest. If you’d like to see photos and video of us performing, head over here. I wasn’t thrilled about my performance, but after being stuck in the car for about 10 hours thanks to NJ and DE traffic, I wasn’t much ready to make the rock and roll music. Luckily, the event was well organized, the sound was good, and everyone was friendly, so that helped some. Much of the time, people sat in the back attentively, but we were able to get some people up and dancing in the front area with some minor coercion.
Our setlist:
Here were our lovely female travel companions (“unintentionally” dressed identically during the entire trip, down to the large, white sunglasses):
As for our journey, here are a few things we observed…
Dewey Beach, like the rest of the world loves a really stupid pun. Nothing bugs me more than business names riddled with puns. Most often, it’s coffee shops, but the lodging facilities are getting in on it now. We didn’t stay here, but I hate the name:
The Rusty Rudder, where we played outside (in the back):
We did not, however, make it to the venue that is allegedly, “the greatest rock n roll bar in the world.” It appeared to be closed at the time.
Dewey Beach was also filled with other gaudy, but hilarious nonsense. Lisa demanded a lounging visit to “Crabby Dicks.” No food I could eat there, but they did have a nice copy of an ad placed in a local paper essentially proclaiming the silly innuendo-themed restaurant as a danger to children and all decent persons with modest tastes.
Make note also of my allergic reaction to sunlight.
This reaction was alleviated somewhat by the realization that Travis and I both were wearing the same socks, both obtained on separate earlier bowling excursions to Dorchester’s magical 24-hour pin party, Boston Bowl.
A popular fast-food chain at a rest stop on the way there had a planted edging around the entrance dotted with some lovely flowers and bushes…but wait! The keen Lisa noticed that there was more there than meets the eye as all of the flowers in this decorative area were plastic…pretty tacky, but I would never have noticed. Some cars in the parking lot also made me feel uncomfortable with flourescent proclamations of capturing incendiary spirit.
Lisa and her keen eyes, however, set their sites on everyone else’s pretzels. She claims that she was possessed by “the devil’s pitchfork” (shown here – Lisa on the right, pitchfork on the left).
Alas, we left Dewey Beach and made a stopover in New York City to have a night of good times. Sophia and I met up with David T. Little, master of many musical endeavors including musical performances on The Motion Sick’s first album. We decided to go on over to Red Bamboo for some vegan soul food. While we waited, a car pulled up on the street in front of us. Sophia exclaimed, “Isn’t that Little Steven!” Indeed it was. He heard her say it and looked at her for a moment before pulling out a large, polka-dotted suitcase and leaving the scene. His parking spot, however, was not as fortuitous as he may have believed. The proximal fire hydrant was unquestionably closer than standard fire-hydrant safe-distance regulations. We thought, hey, it’s Little Steven, he has an awesome radio show and played with the boss, so maybe he can park wherever he wants. We went inside to eat and came out to find that Little Steven was about to become $100 poorer (assuming he doesn’t just call the city and remind them how cool he is) as one of NY’s finest was writing him a parking ticket. I took a bunch of pictures, but provided the ones below that are the least revealing. However, I will let you enjoy the copper placing the ticket on Stevie’s windshield and then a blurry closeup of the ticket.
After this encounter, we headed on over to a party in Brooklyn, which was a good-time gathering of musical friends of David’s, some of whom had stepped out of music into legal affairs. Not only were they interesting folk, but they also had a bottle of the yellow-capped Kosher-for-Passover Coke that I’ve been hearing about for many years. The story, as I understand it, roughly goes:
Coke had actual sugar in it. People enjoyed it. Coke made an intentionally crappy product “New Coke” and discontinued “delicious,” sugary Coke. No one liked New Coke, as it was made intentionally to be bad. Coke met the will of the people by bringing back old Coke and calling it “Coke Classic.” However, this time, they replaced the sugar with high-fructose corn syrup, which tastes significantly crappier. The thing was, New Coke was so bad that no one noticed. Now, you can’t get Coke without HFCS. When Passover rolls around, there are apparently enough Coke-craving Jews who are prohibited from eating corn products that it makes sense for Coke to release a limited supply of non-HFCS Coke. This batch had sucrose in it.
I don’t really enjoy Coke, but I tried a few sips and it did have less of a harsh aftertaste. We did also subsequently see a Kosher-for-Passover can of Coke at a bagel place in Queens. I can’t remember the name, but it was something like “Must Eat Bagels…Must!”
We also enjoyed a visit to the rooftop of this swanky building with a great view of the Brooklyn Bridge. It made me realize that “The Brooklyn Rooftops” is a band name that would immediately result in indie success, particularly if the band were Canadian. I get a 10% cut!
My sister Rachel and her fiancé John were kind enough to let us stay at their apartment while they were away visiting my parents. We spent approximately a total of 3 hours there. I guess they actually spent more time cleaning the place for us than we spent inside of it. Sometimes that happens.
Unrelated to any of this, whenever I speak of engaged people, I am reminded of a tid-bit that I only learned about 2 years ago.
fiancé = a man engaged to be married; a man to whom a woman is engaged.
fiancée = a woman engaged to be married; a woman to whom a man is engaged.
It’s too bad we don’t follow that pattern. We’d be men and mene.
Until next time…