NOMA-PALOOZA!

Well, that's what we decided to call it.

All summer, I've been wanting to get to a festival. Mostly, Bonnaroo. But also a few bluegrass festivals, and Burning Man... and I haven't gotten anywhere really. So this was the best I could do.

So last night, Frank and I went to the Union County Music Fest 2008. It was a free concert in Nomahegon Park in Cranford. They had tons of co-sponsors, corporate sponsors, and cooperation from government and the Union County College and just a ton of organizations. And they had booked several really decent (in my opinion, anyway,) bands. People with a bunch of hits -- maybe on the older side, but not just doo-wop, anyway.

It was a great event. And here is my really really really long blog post to tell you all about it. I hope you have time to sit and read. Well, if you don't, it doesn't really matter, because like I told Frank, I really actually do write this stuff for myself. I like to write it and put it together. Read as much as you want. When you get bored, log off. I won't mind.

The concert is continuing today -- but today a huge hurricane is bearing down on Jersey. Today, the Gin Blossoms are supposed to be playing, who I most want to see. The B-52's too. But I don't know if we'll make it.

So anyway -- here is the blog of what I did yesterday.

First, we drove to the festival.

 

I love this picture. This is so "Jersey."

 

Getting to the festival was even easier than I expected. We parked right at Union County College, across the street. Parking was a little confusing at first, but we found it.

 

The first act we saw was Pat DiNizio of the Smithereens on the Wal-Mart stage. We only got there for his last song. He sounded pretty good. He did that "Girl Like You" song. He's our age. Which is a lot older than you want to think about.

And right next to his stage was the BMX bikers doing tricks on a ramp. They were a bunch of little kids.

Then we headed over to the next stage... The whole thing took place in Nomahegon Park, which looks like a very nice place, from what I could see.

 

Cracker

The second band we saw was Cracker. They started at 7:15 on the "Love, Hope, Strength" stage, sponsored by the Hartford. We watched most of the show from the beer tent, which was pretty close to the stage and I had a pretty good view, and Frank had some beer, and I had a glass of wine.

I was amazed at how many songs I knew by Cracker, and I actually liked a lot more than I knew. They are a really good band.

and HOW EXCITING IS THIS!!!! (For me, not necessarily for you.) I'm so excited! It's my first Youtube Video! I took it myself at the concert on my regular camera, which has a video option that I never knew what to do with.

I know I've got a long way to go with the whole video technique. But I'll get it. I'm definitely posting more videos soon!

Honestly, I'm not even sure which song it is. It's recognizable to me, that's all I can tell you.

So here is a better clip, taken by somebody else, at a different concert. Not that you care. But I like it, so I'm putting it on here anyway. It's a great song by Cracker, you know that one that goes "What the world... needs now... is another... folk singer... like I need a hole in my head..."

 

So there you go. Budweiser (and I had wine!), the usual beer fencing, an ATM machine, a port-a-potty (to the left), and some decent music by a national band all right next to us. Free music -- expensive alcohol -- and a great spot. Talk about perfect!!!

For the last few songs, we got out of the beer tent -- they had stopped selling beer anyway -- and we ran to the stage, and managed to edge in at the front.

 

Frank was very impressed by the accordion player. He was great, and you would never have known they had an accordion player if you hadn't seen it. Well, we wouldn't have, anyway.

After Cracker was over, we ran from that stage over to the main stage.

Everclear

Everclear played on the main stage (sponsored by Overlook Hospital) at 8:30 PM.
They started out a bit off in my opinion. The first few songs, including one of my favorites, "Father of Mine", sounded off key or unbalanced or something. But as the show went on, Art Alexakis(the lead singer)'s, voice got better and the mixing got better and everything started sounding right.

One of the highlights for me was when they did "The Girl with the Faraway Eyes" by the Stones. The other cover I knew was "Brown Eyed Girl." They also did "AM Radio", "Volvo Driving Soccer Mom", "Wonderful", and that song "I will buy you a new life," which Art said is a song about love, not a song about money. I love that song.

I tried to take video, but everything I took had audio that was so bad that I couldn't post it. Too much bass, it sounded great in real life, but on the little tiny camera speaker it was grating. I grabbed this video off Youtube -- it isn't the right concert, but it was just like this, and it's one of my favorite songs.

At the end, everyone started packing up. We figured the show was over. There is usually a curfew for these shows, right? Especially in a neighborhood park like this.
The lights were partially up, and people started packing up their gear and getting ready to run.
Then, the band came back out. "What about one more song?" And the lead singer stared pulling girls on stage.
From the back of the festival, little teenagers started running forward -- and the lead singer was quite demanding. "You. You. Not you. Ok. No drinks or cameras or I'll through your ass off the stage. You. And You. Anyone else?" More and more girls were pulled up on stage. It went on for quite some time, and it was interesting and funny and rather uncomfortable all at the same time. I felt really bad for the girls he told NO, NOT YOU!
Finally, when the stage was jam packed, he said to them all that for tonight, there name was Jenny, and that they had to DANCE -- but no stripping! (Although I forget how he worded it!) And then he launched into "Jenny - 867-5309."

 

At one point, he stopped the whole show, and yelled at someone for not dancing enough. "You're over 25, aren't you?" he asked the girl. "Keep dancing!"

Since it's a really popular song from the 80's, and most people know it, it was a really rousing ending. I was ready to go, though. I did what my Dad would do -- I grabbed Frank and started running while the attention was still on the stage. We got out before most of the crowd.

Happy Birthday, Cupcake!

 

Here's Thor, and today's his birthday! He's a wonderful guy, and I decided I'd blog about him on his "SPECIAL DAY" (most of which is being spent at work and in meetings and not so much fun.) (Being old is no fun.)

I met Frank when I was 17. I remember the first time we met, I was hanging out with one of his friends, Mac, and Mac wanted to go to Burger King. Frank worked at Burger King and they were having a scratch off lottery contest thing. Frank wouldn't give us extra scratch off ticket thingies. I thought that was just mean.

I met Frank on other occasions hanging out with his friend Jimmy, but Frank was dating Karen. In fact, Frank and Karen went to the Senior Prom together. They sat at the table behind us. Then, later, when we all were signing year books, Frank wrote his phone number in my girlfriend Annie's yearbook. He only wrote something short in mine.

But during the summer, I had a party at my house and he, Mac, and Ray were the last to leave. We started dating after that, and we've never been apart since. That was in 1981.

The best things about Frank are his sense of humor, his love for music (although he hasn't got any more talent than I do, we both love it) and his intelligence. We have really great conversations. (Sometimes. Sometimes we just sit on the couch and veg.) And of course the fact that he is so hot. (Wait... did I say that out loud?)

Since we've basically grown up together, we have alot of similarities, I guess, but we have way more differences. The good thing is that Frank has learned to be tolerant of my peculiarities, and my messiness, and my general dopiness.

He's a great husband. I couldn't ask for anyone better. So even though neither of us really believe in "soulmates who were destined to be together," I also don't believe that I could have found anyone else who was a better husband and father and partner.

I love you, cupcake. Have a great 45th year!

Back to School...

Frankie and Nicky... I think Frankie was in 5th grade and Nick in 3rd.
(They think this was a long time ago.)


Nicky and Frankie... Nick is a Sophmore and Frank is a Senior.

Time flies when you are having fun.

Burning Man

I mentioned my Burning Man obsession? Yeah, this is it. I wanna go.
Although I must say -- it does look painful.
But we must suffer for art, right?

The psychological end of summer

 

It isn't really over. And Frank and I've been working all summer anyway. But it feels like the end because the kids are going back to school this week.

So we had a small fire to observe the occasion. And I bought some cool lights -- aren't they great???

New Neighbors Coming Soon!

I grew up in the house I'm living in now. I've never lived anywhere else. I never even went away to college. The longest I've ever lived in any other building is when Frankie was in the hospital and I stayed with him for a few months. But it wasn't like I'd moved.

When I was a kid, the next door neighbor that I grew up with was Mrs. T. I love Mrs. T. She was a great neighbor, and really more like family than anything else. Of course, the day finally came when she moved. She went south to live near her daughter. We still miss her.

This is her house. It's gone through a few changes of hands, and it's for sale again. I'm hoping that the new people are friendly.


The houses in our neighborhood are tucked rather close together, and it's hard to be a good neighbor. You can never really know what the other family is expecting in a good neighbor. I've heard the saying that good fences make good neighbors, and I think that there is a certain amount of truth in that.

I am hoping for a family to move in next door, with similar values to ours. I'm hoping for people we can be friendly with, but not necessarily best friends. I'm REALLY hoping for people who can put up with our quirks. We aren't always quiet... sometimes we have parties, and sometimes we play music way too loud.

Our neighborhood has changed a great deal since I was a kid. The ethnic diversity here when I was young was limited to which section of Europe your grandparents came from. Now, we have people from all over the world... some of them recent immigrants, some of them via New York, some of them whose ancestors came over in the 1600's. It's something that appeals to me a great deal. My only hope is that whoever lives here, they play nice with each other, and try to get along.

So keep your fingers crossed for me and my new neighbors!

Driving in New Jersey

 
We went to visit the Jacksons. They've moved an hour away, which is very depressing...


I decided to blog the drive.

Driving in New Jersey is a standard Jersey Joke. The joke goes, "I'm from Joisey." "What exit?"

There are two main highways. Tons of smaller highways, but mostly it's the Parkway or the Turnpike. I won't drive north on the Turnpike if I can help it, but I'll drive south. Mostly, I prefer the parkway. This is the parkway. We were lucky that we didn't have to deal with much traffic on the way down.

The way back, on the other hand, was worse. I was the designated driver, and my glasses weren't working too well. We hit a ton of traffic coming back, stopped because of a fender bender. To be clear, I wasn't IN the fender bender. I was just trying to drive past it. I wasn't even rubbernecking. Anyway, that's another story. This is the way down to Jackson's house.

It's not a very exciting blog entry. But for anyone who's never been to Jersey, and wondered what it's like, this is what it's like.

The New Jersey Parkway. A Toll road.

 
At various times, people object to the tolls on the parkway. EZ pass has made things easier. You don't even have to slow down. At least, Thor doesn't. Your money is automatically deducted as you speed through. I remember when I was in College, and going to visit my sister in college in Rhode Island, and sleeping in the back seat of the car with Jan and Beth and Ann -- was it all four of us going to visit her? But every few miles, we had to slow to a stop, hand crank the window down, throw in a quarter, roll the window back up, pick up speed again. I remember wishing that there was a way to avoid the aggravation. And now there is.

View from the Parkway

 
The Jersey Pinelands are a natural feature of New Jersey. The pine trees, being very pitchy and flammable, catch fire periodically, which is probably what nature intended. Driving down the Parkway you go through the pinelands and occasionally see areas that are growing back after fire damage. It's a real part of Jersey.

Destination: Barnegat

 

That's it. I didn't take any more pictures after this. Barnegat is a very nice neighborhood, and they seem to be very happy down there. But it's too far away.

Kid Rock and Lynyrd Skynyrd in CONCERT at PNC

Sweet Home Alabama