Man...This thing won't die!

Welcome to Columbus, Ohio! It's been either snowing or pissing rain since Nancy and I got here.

More to come later...haven't done this in awhile.

This has been a strange summer

Warm but comfortable....little humidity, and this towns's built on a swamp? May have to ask my west coast homies to open a can of whup ass on El Nino before I'm driven into bankruptcy. When is the Premiership starting up, Dammit? Fuck it..I'll get by...always have.

Dayum!

Hey, gang, I haven't been here in two years! Doesn't look like much has changed...still bright and airy and smelling like coconut! I got hitched almost a year ago and am very happy with my girly-girl (tho she sucks at crossword puzzles...lol).This economy blows and I hope everyone's doing the best they can.

That being said, It's been a long time, time to get those creative juices flowing again!

Seeya soon

Irelands Four Courts

If you look in the picture in the right-hand corner, ya might catch a 33 year old dude just getting started to work at a new bar. I felt perfectly at home then and I do now. You have to work in a restaurant for awhile before you begin to feel the respect and sometimes admiration that your superiors might feel for you. Ten years later, Dave says, " Time to get ricky two days off 'fore he collapses and embarasses all of us!"

Either way, Dave, workin those games was my priviledge; getting to know some really cool people and learning the game of football .

They used to call me the Iron-Man but those that were around then are gone, so now I'm just the old dude...lol...it's ok, i can live with it! Dave, when we started, this place wasn't gonna make anyone's map...and since: Washington Post...Times, City Paper, Zagat (i believe, could be wrong), either way we built something of nothing. And there's more to build...with as many new places going up around here, catering is gonna line the coffers. Be bold...don't be afraid to make some of these huge companys think we are the go-to place. Dude...When ya gonna use me at night?

any way, this place isn't going any place but up....Danielle...keep doing that voodoo that you do, so well!

Hey ya Nancy....

Hmmm.....mind odd weekends together? The way I see it, this should make ya happier , cause I'm not sure I could deal with me for 7 days! But you are a doll, and you seem to be able to read me. Three naked days are kinda fun!

Hey Grandma

Been a year, huh? Crazy year too, Nicoles gone along with Satchmo and I've met someone else.
The world keeps turning. I was worried about mom on mothers day but she's such a tough lady; though I know she was hurtin. We miss you. Stephanie and Eddie have gotten their shit together and are making it work and that feels so good to say. Me....holdin on, Grandma, was working six days for about six months, but financially; it kept me going. I love the people I work for. Michaels turning into a budding soccer star so I don't think those great seats at Fenway are coming my way....but, damn he can bat! Max is still among the breathing, though not for trying!
Can't believe it's been a year...don't pretend ya can't hear me woman, didn't work the last time! Love you.

Forest for the trees...

Somekinda fucked up spring; huh? Well, I bet it turns out to be a great summer...the Nationals will flounder again, the economy's gonna go south on fuel prices, the final impact on the housing market is going to become apparent. Hmm. Time to sit back and think on this alil'.

Economic growth has not abated; how many restaurants can this city absorb.

Tourist income alone will keep us going; corporate mentality does not work in Arlington, meaning that a strong restaurant with committed people will be here long after any fiscal down turn. I've been there before....we survived.

I have company for the weekend...mind your own biznatch...


Ya know...the only people that are gonna see this are either dead or doing their own thing...if you see this , gimme a shout.

O.K. Dave-man.....

Bruce shows up with the entire band and plays a setlist that i set for him...after that: I retire from My personal most momentous event would be....


It's my birthday, any birthday, and a bunch of us are at the Stone Pony in Asbury Park, N.J. and rock'roll....lol!!

A very heartfelt congrats to the soon to be newlyweds...

As much as I'd like to see you two united in marriage, you know it's impossible for a day bartender with child support payments to make that trip. But for the people with wherewithal; bring me pictures....lottsa of them! I really don't know Eric that well except to say I know he's a gentleman and Sheila would'nt accept any less , so I just wanna say ya'll have fun, I'm so glad for both of you, and save the seventh to last dance for me!


rick

Mercurial Ambition and the Gastronomic Arts

This is going to sound so fucking weird; but here goes.... A coupla nights ago, I couldn't sleep and all these random thoughts kept hitting me. But only one stuck...and this is where it gets strange but oddly enticing.

What if you took a batch of dry-roasted peanuts and soaked them for two days in buffalo sauce? How does it taste? Fantastic to me ( I tried it!), but I wonder how the rest of America would embrace this?

Regular peanuts have too much oil saturation and the sauce would'nt infiltrate the nut but dry roasted sucks it up like a bedoin at that rare desert spring. O.K....got it if off my chest, but if any of you people get rich off my idea, have eyes in the back of your head..lol.

Nice to be back

I was sitting here thinking

how high the trees grow...how fertile the soil becomes, there I only hear silence. I'm off for a while....yall be good.
rick

Here's to a lady...

When I was about three years old..my mother and father were divorced...my mother worked two jobs and my grandmother was left to tend for us. I've got a picture of grandma from when she was seventeen. told her that had i lived in that era, I would have been all over her...lol...she told me , had i lived then, her brothers would have kicked my ass. True more or less, but my grandmother died at 8:15 tonight. I try and stay tough as most of my family do, but watchin that was too painful, she's outta pain and and for this i thank god, and I'm gonna miss her so much. was five years old and walking outta daycare from a nursery that was about 92 degrees...and i was in such a fog hat my grandmatold the woman that if she ever saw me like that again, she'd be arrested.Ya'll, thanks for being cool!

ya know, i could probably keep you guys entertained for days...

Flashback to 1977....I had a friend named Kenny Humphries, he's dead now so all copyright shit is a non-issue. We all lived in an apartment complex that had a railroad track behind it. Kenny, he was one of thoese guys that saw bad things going to happen, and ran into them with a banshee wail and all 95 lbs of him flailing.

SO, on these tracks ran these little cars that checked the rails for distortion or junk dumped by others. Me and Kenny called 'em putt-putts for the sound they made. Ok, I'm gonna sound pretty bad here, cause it's true and I did it. I'd call it a disclaimer, but if they want to arrest me 30 years later, hit me up.

The plan was, I set off a fire in the woods 3 minutes before the putt-putts scheduled arrival. I hate to say it but it went off like clockwork. The operator stopped to investigate the fire, Kenny jumped in and took off with the putt-putt, howlin the whole time . He got about two miles before being arrrested. They had him reform school for the next two years.

He got out, grew up and became a building contractor. He died young but that story could have a worse ending

LET ALL THE HORNS SOUND, KIDS...I AIN'T DONE YET

Subtitled: The Relative Merits Of Tape....


Alright , Davey, ya made me do it. Tape. Cello in Europe. The magical adhesive! What better tool to hang placards, signs, walked out-on checks with? Tape. Been used in kidnappings, hostage situations and taking the lint off your clothes. Tape...cool stuff. But I wanna tell you a story, completely true and funnier than fuck.


It was July 4, 1976. I was a completely rotten 13 y.o. with completely rotten friends, most a few years older. Early morning and Scott Goetz says to me, "We're gonna do something huge!". I told him cool, cool, fine, even though it always got me in trouble. Well, me and Scott walk to the old Giants supermarket and buy two boxes of those old stick matches. We went back home and cut the heads of all those matches; 20 times-20 times two, you do the math.


Now I'm getting curious, but Scott aint talking, just telling me what to do. He pulls out this huge roll of masking tape and pulls off about 15 feet of it , telling me to keep my side taunt. Then he puts two rocks on each end to keep it there. From there hey told me to lay the match heads in an even way while he rolls it up like a cigr and shoves more match heads down the tube.


Let's move on to Scotts brother, Joey. Inquisitive kid, but not the smartest suit on the rack. Riddle me this, how can a kid thats gotten hurt by so many of his brothers stunts not run the other way? Joey was lookin at this 3 footcigar of tightly wound match heads and I think all he was hearing was John Philips Sousa. Poor kid.


We formed a fuse of maybe 10 match heads and Scott decided we had to wait till the sunset. Cool with me cause i was getting nervous anyway.


Well, as soon as the sun set, Scott told me to light the fuse.. I said uh-uh...I don't know what thats gonna do! He goes, i planned this whole thing...nothing bads gonna happen. So i lit the fuse.


Joey was about six feet behind me and didn't see the rear of the rocket set my jeans on fire.i got that out pretty quick but Joey was chasing it's arc in the sky when it exploded. Dumb fucker was still staring at the burning remnants when they hit his hair and clothes. Me and Scott tackled him and drove him into the grass, rolling him. That kid had little hair and no eyebrows left.



becareful of tape Dave.....and this is a true story...my mom was pretty pissed when she saw my jeans.

On a lighter note

anyone seeing this with Arlington Comcast has gotta go to channel 299...its on demand..pick specials...pick comedy specials....pick lewis black : black on broadway! i haven't laughed this hard since Jackass-The movie.

seeya

Waiting for the snow

does anyone beyond me and ms. happyfeet remember when the olympics were held , summer and winter both, at the same time, but at different locales? just curious.

well, my grandmas on the cusp..my mom doesnt think she'll survive the next round of chemo...my head fucking hurts.

listen, i'm gonna spit this out 'cause maybe it might prepare others when it might happen to them...i lost basically my only good friends, preparing for my grandmothers death and the coffee bitch, all in an 8 month stretch. i have no doubt there's a god, but i'll have coupla questions for him if i manage to make it there.

max is still a pain in the ass but i love the little fucker...thus ends a rambling monologue.

Ah, man, at least i know what happened....

This is officially the last of my mourning publicly for two I considered my only friends. Maybe this happens and you don't see it coming. And maybe God's trying to teach you a thing or two. And maybe, sometimes, you don't appreciate the ones close to you enough. And maybe, ya wish they knew how much ya cared about them.. Enough said...miss ya boys.

Part ll

I don't know how it will be in the years to come. There are monstrous changes taking place in the world, forces shaping a future whose face we do not know. Some of these forces seem evil to us, perhaps not in themselves but because their tendency is to eliminate other things we hold good. It is true that two men can lift a bigger stone than one man. A group can build automobiles quicker and better than one man, and bread from a huge factory is cheaper and more uniform. When our food and clothing and housing all are born in the complication of mass production, mass method is bound to get into our thinking and to eliminate all other thinking. In our time mass or collective production has entered our economics, our politics, and even our religion, so that some nations have substituted the idea collective for the idea God. This in my time is the danger. There is great tension in the world, tension toward a breaking point, and men are unhappy and confused.
At such a time it seems natural and good to me to ask myself these questions. What do I believe in? What must I fight for and what must I fight against?
Our species is the only creative species, and it only has one creative instrument, the individual mind and spirit of a man. Nothing was ever created by two men. There are no good collaborations, whether in music, in poetry, in mathematics, in philosophy. Once the miracle of creation has taken place, the group can build and extend it, but the group never invents anything. The preciousness lies in the lonely mind of a man.

John Steinbeck


Still as true as it was in 1952

Me and Steinbeck been bonding lately

Sometimes a kind of glory lights up the mind of a man. It happens to nearly everyone.You can feel it growing or preparing like a fuse burning toward dynamite. It is a feeling in the stomach, a delight of the nerves, of the forearms. The skin tastes the air and every deep-drawn breath is sweet. Its beginning has the pleasure of a great stretching yawn; it flashes in the brain and the whole world glows outside your eyes. A man may have lived his life in the gray, and the land and trees of him dark and somber. The events, even the important ones, may have trooped by faceless and pale. And then-the glory- that a cricket song sweetens his ears, the smellof the earth rises chanting to his nose, and dappling light under a tree blesses his eyes. Then a man pours outward, a torrent of him,and yet he is not diminished. And I guess a man's importance in the world can be measured by the quality and the number of his glories. It is a lonely thing but it relates us to the world. It is the mother of all creativeness, and it sets each man separate from all other men.

Man...I been working there too long

Paddy was driving down the street in a sweat because he had an important meeting and couldn't find a parking place.

Looking up to heaven he said, "Lord take pity on me. If you find me a parking place I will go to Mass every Sunday for the rest of me life and give up me Irish Whiskey".

Miraculously, a parking place appeared. Paddy looked up again and said, "Never mind, I found one."

Who says Bruce ain't god?

"Dust and Devils" nominated for six grammys at the tender age of 56? Something tells me my brother has been eating his wheaties.

hey, all. thanks for the patience

I know how self-centered people get during rough times, but I never thought I'd end up in the same situation....but you all were kind and so understanding that I feel the need to say thank you....this will only remind me how to treat others in the same circumstance....and I appreciate this.

Rick

January 14

You came upon me carving some kind of little figure out of wood and you said, "Why don't you make something for me?"

I asked you what you wanted, and you said, "A box."

"What for?"

"To put things in."

"What things?"

"Whatever you have," you said.

Well, here's your box. Nearly everything I have is in it, and it is not full. Pain and excitement are in it, and feeling good or bad and evil thoughts and good thoughts-the pleasure of design and some despair and the indescribable joy of creation.

And on top of these are all the gratitude and love I have for you.

And still the box is not full.

John Steinbeck

The boys in happier times, playin foosball (ty sheila!)

Trudging up that hill

So it turns out i needed this blog more than it needed me.

7 months ago, Mark and I went to a memorial, left a friend behind, and ended up in some cheese-dick Mexican place, drinking Newcastle (?) and shooting back some really good tequila. I wish ya could have been there Scott.

I've been racking my brain for the last 48 hours to try and understand how half of the only male people that I've ever let get even remotely close to me, could die within a year. Scott, this is up to us, buddy, if not for us...then for our sons.

Nicole, thank you...I know I must look like a train wreck to you, but without you, I'd be so much worse. So, please indulge me as i steal some meaning from another dude I really admire.....this is for me and you Scotty...



Ants Marching


He wakes up in the morning
does his teeth, bite to eat, and he's rolling
never changes a thing
the week ends the week begins, she thinks

We look at each other
wondering what each other is thinking
but we never say a thing
and these crimes between us grow deeper

Take these chances
place them in a box until a quieter time
lights down you up and die

Goes to visit his mommy
feeds him well, his concerns, he forgets them
and remembers being small
playing under the table and dreaming

Take these chances
place them in a box until a quieter time
lights down you up and die

Driving along this highway
all these cars..and up on the sidewalk
people in every direction
no words exchanged, no time to exchange at all

The little ants are marchin
black and red antannae waving
they all do it the same
they all do it the same way


Candyman tempting the thoughts of a sweet tooth tortured by weight loss
program cutting the corners loose end loose end cut cut on the fence could not
to offend cut cut cut cut cut...

Take these chances
place them in a box until a quieter time
lights down you up and die.

DAVE MATTHEWS-1994

Hang tough with me Scott.

Mark Stewart

So, I thought this year was over, no more pain to feel.

Scott called to inform me that Mark had died Saturday in a traffic accident.

Rob, Mark....me next?

I'm not scared

Just six more years.....

have i sunk this low?

A cicada flits his way into a bar, crash lands on the bartop and chirps for a beer.
The bartender looks at him and says, "Wow, you're pretty popular around here, we even have a drink named after you!"

The cicada looks around stupidly for a second, then replies, "You sell a drink called Steve?"


da-dum-dum-tshhhh........

(i'm so humiliated)

Can Ya Take The Heat

Ya know, probably about 12 people in this world I'd walk across fire for. 5 are family members, 1 i would carry across the flames, the rest either workmates or those i have a great deal of respect for.

But, remember this, these nasty ole feet been walked on for 20 years in the restaraunt biz.......little, tiny coals ain't gonna hinder me much. I'd love to try it though.

...and i accuse the president of flip-flopping...

A couple of days ago, I decided to trash the blog I'd had for nearly a year and a half; I felt it was tired and stale (like mothballs might have been the cure). But, after introspection, I realised it wasn't ever gonna be complete. Change isn't necessarily a bad thing and I'm gonna follow that tack and see where it goes.

I apoligise if I confused anyone, it was a personal matter, but I just need this to be fun again..so please ...welcome to the newest incarnation and I hope I don't disapoint.

Rick