Month: June 2004

Come out tonight to the Tree House open mic. It runs from 8:00PM – 11:00PM. You can sign up in advance here or just come to hang out and drink coffee. Supporting your local coffeehouse makes everyone happier, except Starbucks.

The open mic was really busy last week and as I mentioned earlier, Bernard pulled out all the wardrobe stops.

1. Ben Garvey – I played 99%, All My Dreams are in Cartoon, and Lord Only Knows.

2. Keenan – Natasha’s son sang three songs, all called “I Have More Stuff Than You,” which included chickens, cakes, and various other random material posessions. The best part about his act was when everyone applauded him at the end, Keenan spoke right into the mic and said, “Everyone here clapped except the guy with the duck hat.”

3. Roz King – Was Roz using a different guitar this week? I couldn’t tell.

4. The Freewheelers – They played the “Sound of Silence” and a few other oldies.

5. Sarah Allen – She played that cool helicopter song. Pretty soon she’ll be heading south for North Carolina, so make sure you catch her show on Saturday, June 3rd at the Tree House. Make sure to congratulate her on finishing the Roz King school of music.

6. Jim – He came all the way from Colorado and somehow managed to draw a crowd.

7. Johnny Miles – I’ve known this guy for about a year or so now and I just realized I went to high school with his older brother.

8. Forest Greens – Mike and Sam rocked the house even without Eric.

9. Phil – Started out mellow, and then went heavier. He’s opening for Sarah on Saturday so check it out.

10. Willie – Played some great tunes like he always does.

11. Bob Michel – Jammed out some nice guitar playing during the 2nd song

12. Shannon Cole & Joe – Did an original song that I think is titled “Journey.”

13. Jason Vertucio – Did his version of “You” by the Cure.

14. George Hilman – Got into some Dangerous Liasons up there on stage.

15. Craig Caniglia – He stayed late to play and did some originals, although he neeed to use his friend for a music stand.

Most people who sign up for the open mic have no problem doing things correctly, but once and a while someone posts a joke entry or (for reasons I can’t comprehend) posts a message saying they can’t come.

From now on, you have to identify yourself on the list in some way. Some people like to post nicknames of themselves and that’s fine, but if I can’t tell who it is then the entry is going to be deleted.

I can’t even believe how busy the past week has been. I had a blast and it would take me forever to devote an individual post to each day so let’s plow through all of them…

Wed 6/23 – Open mic at the Tree House
I’ll still do the whole open mic recap as usual, but I have to mention Bernard’s outfit. Gold shiny shirt with a Donald Duck hat. Yes, the one with Donald’s bill as the brim. Photo by Jason Vertucio.

Thursday 6/24 – Rehearsal for Mike and Corinne’s Wedding
Two great friends of mine got married over the weekend and I was the best man! Their rehearsal dinner was really nice and I had a great time. Mike gave me a pair of Phillies tickets, which I just used last night.

Open Mic @ The Crab
After the rehearsal dinner I stopped by the open mic at the Carribean Crab, hosted by Justin Taylor. I played a few songs, busted a string, and listened to the other musicians. Justin played a few and so did Brooke McAleer, Sri (who I knew from his days with the Smith System, and a few others.

Friday 6/25 – Sarah’s Dance Recital
I’ve been going to my sister’s recitals since she was a little kid. The quality of their performances have gone up so much in the last few years and out of all the good dancers in the group, my sister is the best one. Everyone agreed afterwards that not only is she technically a good dancer, but she conveys to the audience that she loves what she does and is having a great time on stage. I’m really proud of her.

Saturday 6/26 – Mike and Corinne’s Wedding
I’ve been friends with Mike since freshman year of high school and I was psyched when he asked me to be his best man. There was a little problem with the transportation (Trolley broke down), but the problem was resolved and everyone got where they needed to be. The morning of the wedding I practiced my speech a few dozen times in front of the mirror. My hand was shaking when the time came for me to give the toast, but after I got started it went pretty smooth. Everyone laughed at my jokes and I only left out one line. I intended to say, “My fiancee would like to point out that Corinne has also drastically improved Mike’s wardrobe.” The reception was awesome and I had a great time. Congratulations to Mike and Corinne and I’ll see you guys when you get back from your honeymoon.

Sunday 6/27 – Dodgeball
My brother and sister asked if I wanted to go see the new movie Dodgeball. I heard it was funny I said yes even though there are a lot of other movies out right now I’d rather see. It sucked and then some. It’s filled to the brim with idiotic jokes. Yes I know it’s supposed to be dumb, but all you need to do is watch Homer Simpson for 10 seconds to realize that dumb jokes can be clever, too. Occasionally I laughed at Rip Torn’s incoherent motivational messages (“You look like a bunch of retards humping a doorknob”), but overall I took nothing from this movie except a slight desire to play dodgeball.

Monday 6/28 – Phillies Game
Jeanne and I used the tickets Mike gave me to see the Phillies stomp the Expos 14-6. David Bell hit for the cycle (homerun, triple, double, single), although I think his triple should have been a ground rule double. It looked a fan touched the ball from where I was sitting and the ball took an odd bounce. Still, it was fun to see Bell have such a great game along with Pat Burrell and Bobby Abreu.

I mentioned JasonZahn.com’s GameShow before. If anyone wants to jump in, this is the perfect time since each new game starts at the begining of the month.

Read my earlier post to learn more about it or visit the site itself.

Here’s a werid story about a guy who sells ads to companies and puts those ads on grafiti covered walls by stenciling in some sort of paint remover. He cleans a spray painted wall in certain places to form an image or a logo.

The Yorkshire graffiti artist known universally as Moose has what he believes is a cast-iron defence against accusations of urban vandalism.

He has devised a brand of street art which not only livens up city streets, but removes grime in the process. His method is to take any dirty inner-city wall or pavement, place a template over it and scrub the concrete clean, revealing an image as sharp as any spray paint which fades with time.

The artist’s labours have brought in contracts from companies as diverse as Microsoft, Channel 4 and the drinks giant Diageo, and created art in improbable places – from Edinburgh signposts to London’s Blackwall Tunnel. But the graffiti has pitched him into a legal spat with municipal leaders in Leeds, where he is based.

Much to the indignation of the artist’s corporate clients, Leeds City Council demanded the “clean-up” of a piece of graffiti promoting Diageo’s Smirnoff vodka in one of the municipality’s gloomiest underpasses.

What an awesome idea.

The web browser everyone should be using these days is Mozilla Firefox. It has built in tabbed browsing, blocks pop ups, and lets you be reasonably sure you won’t get hit by the latest IE security holes. It’s also super fast and you can customize how it looks with easy to install themes.

The other day I downloaded the web developer extension for it and it’s really useful for anyone who works on the web. It lets you outline block elements, do HTML and CSS validation, turn off/on javascript, check cookie data, and a ton of other things.

There is also a less useful, but fun extension that enables “mouse gestures.” This lets you control the browser through pre-programmed mouse movements. For example, if you make an “h” it takes you back to your homepage.

Try out Firefox here.

I got this email today from another Ben Garvey.

what’s up Ben Garvey, this is Ben Garvey, the one from Chicago. I am writing to invite you to my CD release party on Saturday nite in Manhattan, New York. I would love to meet you and see my alter-ego in person. Well, here is the info for the party:

Mission
217 Bowery
Prince/Rivington
Manhattan, NYC
7:00-11:00

The CD is a mix CD of Chicago hip-hop artists.

So there is a hip-hop Ben Garvey, a British folk singing Ben McGarvey, and me the acoustic rocking Ben Garvey from New Jersey.

Why are they all musicians? All I know is I better keep renewing my domain name.

Come out tonight to the Tree House open mic. It runs from 8:00PM – 11:00PM. You can sign up in advance here or just come to hang out and drink coffe. Supporting your local coffeehouse makes everyone happier, except Starbucks.

I got an email from my friend Justin today, formerly of nowayscoob and currently the bass player for Do It For Danny.

yo ben.
good news…i’m running open mic thursdays at the CRAB. remember the CRAB? that fabulous place that everyone loved playing at? well, now it’s gonna be better. cuz i’m runnin it now. anyway, if’n ever you wanna check it out, it starts this week. of course, in case there are too many people there, i’ll hold a special place in my heart for you up on stage. i want it to be fun. i’m gonna have trivia questions and ‘name this movie quote’ and all kindsa shit. it’s gonna be a QUIZMO and an OPEN MIC all wrapped up into one. c’mon out. i dares ya.
justin taylor (in case ya didn’t know)

The Crab is in Oaklyn on the White Horse Pike (Route 30) and they serve alcohol, so check it out if you’re looking for a good local open mic.