Robin Williams: Great actor, ok father...

I've taken a longer break from writing then usual as of late and have been working on a lot of exciting projects and one of those being the article you're about to read. I had the pleasure of spending some time with the actor, nay, the man known to the masses as sir Robin Williams. A talented actor, a devoted husband and father, I had often found myself restless at night wondering what the man has been up to lately. So, after pulling a few strings I got to sit down with Robin and his family to to ask a few questions and observe a week in the life of the Williams clan.

I arrived at the Williams compound greeted with a "BOO" as Robin jumped out at me behind a fern and started laughing. "Haha you scared me Robin, I'm Seth Powers I'm going to be interviewing you and the family for a little bit" i said nervously. A blank stare fell upon his face and he replied "you really have nothing to be afraid of Steve" as he lead me into through the front door into the living room. "As you can see I've done pretty well for myself" he said as he pointed to a piece of Flub hanging on the wall from his movie "flubber". I had to admit, it was pretty humbling standing next to an actual piece of goo from the movie. "Wow, is that real goo from your movie"? I asked. It's flubber not goo and flubber like all other forms of magic and happiness are make believe and are not real, a real actor would know that" he replied with a smirk. I was embarrassed and quickly changed the subject. "Hey is that your son, handsome young man" "blah blah boogaly woogly sweet baba lama" Robin replied. Robin jr. looked on angrily. "Some times you want to have a talk with your dad and not the genie from Aladdin" he yelled, then he flipped over his Jumanji game board and ran to his room.

I thought this would be a good time to spend some time with misses Robin Williams, but she was out sun bathing with the pool boy the whole week as he serenaded her shirtless with his saxophone. "Oh Robin, yeah he's a real Casanova...who wouldn't want to have sexual intercourse with the man child from Jack"? "And boy was that role a stretch" she said. I was starting to feel awkward at this point, I mean come on! Why don't these people respect this man like I do? He's funny, charming, witty and...suddenly it hit me that I don't really even like Robin Williams at all. I really liked Ray from everybody loves Raymond, how on earth did I mix these two up? I was pretty drunk I guess but geeze, I felt bad for Robert or Rob or whatever his name was and I wanted to find him to apologize so I went back to the house and Robin had locked himself in his room. "Rob come out, I'm sorry I confused you with Ray Romano from everybody loves Raymond" I said. "Rob come out, I'm sorry I con..." It's a yak back he yelled, surprised you didn't know that. He invited me in the room where we talked and laughed and he even farted in a can and tried to get me to smell it just like in "Jack", a tempting offer but I passed.

So anyway, I've been pretty busy lately.

Stories that have made the rounds, but never made it to writing...

In an average week for me I would say something unbelievable, horrible, funny, disturbing happens about 3 times. I have allot of stories that I've accumulated over the twenty three years I've lived on this earth but I also have the pleasure of being surrounded by people who have almost as bad luck as me and are usually out of their minds. This is a story that happened in 2006, there were six of us in a four bedroom house infested with mice and in a rough part of town. All kinds of stuff happened at this house, but this is the story I feel should be told first. The story involves two of my friends, one of which is Mike Katz, and the other is a gremlin that I love dearly, Yabo. So, here is the story of Mufasa the 365 Ib black man.

A typical night, meaning every night, was capped off with drinking loads of cheap beer in our living room and blaring music from Yabo's laptop. During these living room sessions a man wandered onto the porch and introduced himself as "Mufasa" and began explaining that he in fact used to live in our house. Words were exchanged and long story short Yabo did not feel comfortable letting this guy come into our house. We had heard the story and thought it was funny and weird but was quickly forgotten. In a house where Prostitutes are fighting your friends and then out of nowhere giving strangers blow jobs in your front yard, selling drug addicts fake crack and having them come back throwing bricks only to hit the one Innocent bystander in the chest, stoner girl friends fighting stoner girl friends, and two weapon crazy best friends in the addict making mid evil weapons and bombs...well, things don't seem weird when on Colfax ave.

A few weeks had gone by and Yabo had returned from school to an empty and dimly lit house with the door open. He turned the lights on and headed upstairs to hear the shower running and figured that someone got drunk and decided to shower, leaving the house open to all due to their own negligence. So Yabo went about business as usual in his room whether that was drawing demons, eating mac n cheese, or picking his nose while farting I couldn't tell you, but what I can tell you is that it all stopped when the bathroom door opened. I tall sillhouette of a figure stood there and as the steam cleared a freshly showered Mufasa walks out of the bathroom with yabos towel around his naked body. Shocked, Yabo asks "dude, what the fuck are you doing"? Mufasa explains he used to live in this house and it's ok cause he needed a shower. "You gotta get out of here man or I'm calling the cops" Yabo says, while Mufasa assures him that it's ok because "I got you guys a pizza, it's on the counter". Upon further inspection there was in fact a fairly fresh looking large pizza on the counter, which someone would later come to eat because it "looked buttery to them". Exactly how Yabo got him out of the house after that is a mystery to me but he did and that's what mattered.

Following the visit we all heard the story and couldn't get enough of it, we even stumbled across a closet where he stored some of his goods. But none of the stuff we ever found after he left compared to when Mike Katz came home from vacation, not knowing of Mufasa nor his antics, went to his room and came out holding up a pair of size 38 soiled phat farm jean shorts and asking "Uh, who's are these"?

Took a brief hiatus from writing but now I'm back...

It's been a pretty crazy month, I'm still living on Canyon's futon and providing the living room with a certain aroma only a true best friend can produce from his feet. I got a new job, I work for a chill snowboard company and half the clothing has stash pockets for...shhhhhh, ya know, buDZ. Things were really looking somewhat up until I got robbed three blocks from my house by a child with a knife. I've been pretty paranoid latley and my pride, or what's left of my pride, is bruised. Not to mention I have a whole new fear of black people in general, but mainly black children. After all this trama I've been through I figure the least I can do is give my advice and insight on what to do if ever in this situation from the eyes of a twenty something white guy who's super good with advice.


First things first, panic: As soon as I noticed this young man trailing me and following every move I made after picking up a good amount of money, I made sure to make every suspicion I had of this very vocal and aloud. "fuck, I can't believe this kid is following me and I have all this cash and various ipods" I said, then quickly realizing I made a mistake I followed it with a smooth "I wouldn't go messing with me though, espicially since I got diagnosed with being insanely crazy". This let's all young thugs know that yes you do have tons of money but you are also inanely crazy, which means you are capable of doing all types of crazy stuff including wandering around Malcom X ave really high with lots of cash on you.

Step two, run away: I wandered into the street where the young man quickly followed me, I knew at this point that something was wrong cause even though I was a little high I could clearly see him making gestures of slitting my throat towards me. "Yo, what time is it" he asked hopeing that I would pull out my phone, but I came right back with "I don't got the time, especially for this". I'm not sure what I meant by it exactly but when I said it I gave him a look like there was nothing in the world he could say to top that line, while he just looked at me with a "I'ma steal dat phone" stare. The light turned green and I started skating and I looked back and he was chasing me, I skated faster and he ran faster so the chase was one...sort of.

Get caught by thug tween: As fast as I thought I was skating, the kid caught up to me relitively quick. He was yelling "gimme dat phone, gimme dat phone" and the closer he got he began swinging at my head and head realated areas. I stopped short and grabed my board knowing that the joke was on him cause now I had a weapon ...but as soon as I picked the board up he kicked it away."Oh fucking...oh boy", my mind was blank as I stared the cock eyed angry young man face to face. He asked for the phone again and I said "uhhhh, no you....this is like my phone man". The second time he asked he pulled out a knife fromthe pocket of his khakis and put it towards me.

Give your phone to the kid: At this point we're in the middle of the road across from an elementary school where children are laughing and playing, older kids are playing dice and no gooding stop and watch as I'm being threatened at knife point. He has no interest in my wallet, my ipod nor anything but my phone so I pulled out my $40.00 cracked screen phone and he took off. I was left standing in the road sorounded by people who witnessed a grown man being robbed my a child. I skated away from Malcom X ave not knowing where to go or what to do.

I later got to the house, feeling a little high off of both being robbed and smoking before the robbery. I quickly wrote a description of the kid down on a piece of paper and it read "Black youth, 13-16 yrs old, light skinned, crooked eye, white shirt and khakis with short hair". I read over the description later and decided that the chances of finding just one young guy with khakis and a white shirt sporting a crooked eye in my neighborhood was insane, since on my block alone there's a 60/40 crooked eye ratio, so I threw the paper away. I lost my phone, I felt defeated, but somewhere in Bedstuy right now there is a young cock eyed boy looking through cell phone picks on said phone and stubbling on a rather large collection featuring my penis peeing in different spots around NYC and all my troubles float away.

Anyway, my advice is to not get robbed. It's the worst, I would much rather eat snacks or drink beer, maybe drink a few snacks like that drinkable yogurt they have now. Just promise me you won't get robbed by a crooked eyed ruffian in the projects.

"I'm gonna show up"

In what has become sort of trade mark of mine, I quit my job the other day with nothing lined up after it. No prospects, no leads, no friends to recommend me for another job...no friends at all really. When I put in my two weeks notice and walked out of the stock room I felt so empowered until I opened the door and walked out of the store, opened my wallet only to see 15 Colorado IDs I had collected from friends, an expired metro card and a coupon for a restaurant that I'm pretty sure went out of business more then 4 years ago and I realized...I am completely fucked. Later that week I began working through my last two weeks with a new perspective on work that I had never realized, the less you do the better you look.

I came in about thirty minutes late every day, and when I did finally get to work I procrastinated as long as possible. I made small talk with my supervisor, I drew allover the walls of the stock room and I hunted flies downstairs in my socks. In a forty hour work week I think I worked about 2 1/2 hours tops. Every person I worked with was not only impressed by my change of attitude, but insisted I revoke my two weeks notice and stay with the team. These people hated me three days ago, but when I got a "joose" malted beverage at Duane reed across the street and fell asleep under the jackets section of the stock room they all thought it was hilarious and couldn't imagine working without my new "antics". Even my manager took notice of me and asked if I would stay longer, not because I'm a hard worker but she said "you're pretty funny, the first month I didn't even think you knew how to speak English cause you didn't talk and I thought you were gonna shoot the store up".

People at my work got wind of me leaving and came up to me to ask about it. As time went by and my two weeks were winding down, I realized that these two weeks were the best I'd had here in the year I worked there. One of my bosses even asked me to stay a little longer cause she knew I had no back up job, and I accepted. My main boss walked in shortly after and asked when my last day was and asked if I liked cake, this may be a little confusing to some but at my work we have about 6 managers looking over us at all times because were all completely retarded, and I replied "it was gonna be tomorrow but now I'm not sure". Time went on and on what was supposed to be my last day, I called out.

The next day, I came into work thinking nothing of it. I did my usual routine of zoning out for a few hours and avoiding real work until I saw a manager looking at me like I was a ghost. Then I realized, everyone was looking at me like a ghost. People were looking at me and whispering "is that POWERS"? I was confused...until someone told me about the party they had for me the day before. The main boss of my department had bought me an ice cream fudgy the whale cake the day I didn't show up with personalized icing reading "goodbye and good luck Seth, we will all miss you"!!! Luckily, the boss wasn't there the whole day and I was stuck wondering if I still work here or am I just here and not welcome? I work tomorrow at 7am and I decided I'm just gonna show up and see what happens, I mean hopefully this guy doesn't take me quitting and not showing up to my own farewell party and then showing up to work after my last day seriously, right?

An old fashioned flashing...

First things first, I am truly sorry for the lack of stories lately. I've been sleeping on my twenty year old friends futon for the past month and the only time I have to use his laptop is when he goes to the orthodontist to get his braces tighten. Tonight at dinner, this twenty year old told me that his dad said that if said twenty year old ever had a son that I would be sleeping on his couch...jokes on him though cause I'm not even sleeping on a couch so...you know, man. Any who, here's a little insight on what's been going on with me lately.

A few weeks back, on the way to my 6am shift at the stock room I work at on Broadway, I was casually walking down Crosby st. reading the newspaper minding my own business. I say "casually" because I was wearing a Hawaiian shirt and I say "minding my own business" because most people I know are not willing to socialize with me. The streets are completely empty, it's just me and my am new york newspaper. Halfway in reading the "top 5 reasons why we suspect John Mayer may be quiting twitter" I see a jogger approaching me looking me dead in the eye. I thought it was strange at first because he was staring at me pretty hard and I thought "maybe he knows I rubbed deodorant allover this shirt cause I left it under my moldy towel", but then I realized why he was starring at me with that look. As we passed I made eye contact with this man, and as our eyes met he started veering his eyes downward as if he had something he wanted to show me. So, I moved the paper out of my way and low and behold I see a penis in the mans hand and he's shaking it at me. He gives me a little grin and shakes it harder, and stares at me with a little more aggression.

My mind went completely blank, and I just started laughing and I said "what are you doing"? "Are you serious right now"? The man gave a little chuckle and continued the penis shaking...he was really shaking this thing, but with aggression. I don't really know how to describe it but imagine that you were robbing someone with a banana, and for some reason to get your point across you shaked the shit out of it in the persons direction to let them know you were serious, except instead of a banana you were holding your penis. At this point I was just laughing, the man got angry, put his penis away and ran off. I continued to walk to work and kind of forgot about it.

Later that day, I tried to remember if I actually had a man shaking his penis at me or if I somehow dreamed the whole thing. I had to tell somebody about it, so I told this guy I worked with and he didn't really seem to find it as funny as I did. It's pretty crazy how "real" shit gets when a penis is involved, but everyone treated me like I was some kind of victim. "Are you ok"? "Did the penis touch you"? "Was he cumming or something, why was he shaking this darn thing"? After I talked about it, I realized that maybe this wasn't as funny as I thought it was to other people, I mean sure if the penis was wearing a top hat and a monocle and did a evil dance of sorts maybe, but nobody was getting the genius of the penis shake. Also, this man chose me out of everyone else in New York to shake his penis at, like he saw my face and said "Ohhhhh, you're gonna get some penis pal..."

Any who, a jogger walking around in a city filled with millions of people chose me to shake his penis at, so it's kind of ego booster...jealous much?

Recipes for today's spender...

I don't really consider myself much of anything but one thing I can say is that I can make some pretty Delicious meals in the toughest of times. Just because you're broke doesn't mean you can't enjoy the foods you've grown to know and love. I got the recipes to help you get fatter while keeping your wallet fat as well...nice. Here are a few recipes I've been cooking up in my kitchen lately that I know your gonna love. If you don't love these then you're probably a retard or a girl.

1. Seth's famous pb&j ish: I was too broke to get bread, peanut butter or jelly when I came up with this little number. First, make sure you have all of these ingredients before preparing this meal: 1 red otter pop, preferably frozen, 1 hand full of shelled peanuts and 2 parts saltine crackers. Shove the hand full of nuts into your mouth and take a shot of the otter pop. Mash it around your mouth for a bit and then throw in a saltine brand cracker. Concentrate on mixing all this stuff in the mouth so you really get all the flavors, when you can no longer bare it you can go ahead and swallow the medley. It takes a little bit for your stomach to tell your brain that it hates this, so eat it fast ok.

2. Beef steak with broth: This is a great gourmet meal at a thrift store price. You will need 1 pack of beef ramen. Bring water to a boil before putting ramen in. Once cooked, drain the water and mash up the noodles into a ball with your hands. Sprinkle the ball with the beef seasoning packet and then fry the mashed up noodle ball over the stove. The only complaint about this one is the overall taste and the texture of the whole thing is really unappetizing.

3. Bread sandwich: An excellent alternative to the "something" sandwich, all you need for this one is 3 slices of wonder break. Put two of the pieces in a toaster until golden brown. Now, put the third slice in between the two toasted slices and enjoy your bread sandwich. I like to pretend that it's meat and cheese in there, that'd be good.

4. Go to Snice: It's not really a recipe, more of a suggestion on where to go to get free food if your me. It's vegan and my ex girlfriend works there but other then that I have no complaints. I recommend the "whatever Serena gives me for free after hovering around the counter". That shit is usually pretty alright I guess.

5. The end: I couldn't come up with any more recipes, so I decided to end the post on number five instead of just thinking of another stupid recipe and then writing an ending mainly because I'm lazy and I feel sick from eating at Palace fried chicken with Franny...damn, Palace is pretty much the tits. I tried to get Franny to order the "Italian burger" but he wussed out. I'm not really sure what makes the burger Italian because the only difference between that one and the normal one is that its on a hero roll and it has french fries on it, but I'm Italian and I love this thing...so stereotypical.

Trick tip: lurking at the local skateshop

Over the past couple years I've seen a few tricks I've had go away, learned a few new ones and all the while maintained the same great attitude that everybody I know loves...or doesn't like at all. It's never a good feeling when you've been doing something for so long and you start to feel like you're regressing, getting old, feeling fat and your feet hurt. Lately, I've regressed back to my skate shop lurking past and I'm loving it. Over on N.11th and some street lies a little skate shop named "kcdc" and as it turns out I've started feeling pretty comfortable there. But there is an art to lurking and if you don't do it right you could totally be killing a chilled out buzz, and that shit is weak. So, here are a few tips on lurking, and if you keep at it, advanced lurking.

1. The entrance: Judging by the "hello" you get from one of the disgruntled employees you will know exactly how much lurking time you're in for that day. "Hey Seth, what's going on man"? That is a nice and friendly welcoming, you usually get these when you haven't been in the shop for like a solid week. "Seth, back again huh...what do you need"? This is the welcoming you will usually receive, and luckily for me I prefer that one because the angrier the employee gets, the more time I have to complain with somebody, even if their complaints are about me.

2. Browse the merchandise: I usually start off with the boards, this is a good one because you know they aren't gonna have the shape you want in stock because they never do, but you do get to make small talk like "man, still no ______'s in yet huh". Next make your way over to the shoes and ask about a couple models that they have but not in you're size. It's cool because last month you bought a pair of nike's there and they were pretty expensive so you got about a solid two months of shoe section lurking before your next actually purchase. The shoe guy has probably ran to the back to avoid you at this point so now slowly start looking at some clothes. I like to pick out a stupid shirt or some silly board shorts and go "imagine me in these, that'd be a riot right"?

3. Start trying flat ground tricks in the shop: This one is great because you literally just left somewhere you were actually skating to come to the skate shop where it's 119 degrees to skate a five foot cemented area really loudly. Some of the employees are bummed because they're hung over, but every time they look over with an annoyed look just say you were landing whatever trick earlier but now you "don't know what's wrong with you today, I can't believe this". At this point you've worked up a real sweat which leads into the next tip...

4. Making hints on getting free weird drinks: "Damn I'm thirsty, I really need a vita coco or a red bull or something"? Offer to make a run to the store so they at least think you're being slightly sincere but know they have stacks of energy juice back there for days, and guess what? Their luke warm and ready to make your stomach into a bubbling witches cauldron. I mean what else are you supposed to drink, water? Yeah, ok...

5. Take a load off: This is the peak of your lurking mission, similar to the highest high a junkie gets while shooting up. Make you're way over to the bench right after you chug a few piping hot red bulls and kick out however many idiot kids buying shit and lay down on the bench in the middle of the store, ahhhhhh. Your so comfortable at this point that I'm pretty sure it's against NYC laws to kick you out. If you feel so inclined go ahead and take those shoes off for a little bit and subject everybody to your foot odor. Oh yeah, that's what I'm screamin...

6. Make your exit: At this point, all the employees are in the back or out front smoking. You only noticed because you'd been talking while laying down for about twenty minutes and finally asked them for something and got no response. Take a look around you and make sure to leave all garbage and weird shit you were carrying with you at the shop so that if nothing else you have an excuse to come back later. Take a final browse around the store and say "Yeah I might come back and buy so and so tomorrow...". Now from here I would recommend going to the park and lurking over there until you find someone you slightly know from meeting once or twice and barging in on their conversation/picnic, but hey that's just what an advanced lurker would do.

I hope I answered a few questions for all you novice lurkers out there, and maybe for a few of you old pros. Now just sit back, relax, and wonder why they haven't asked you to work or skate for the shop yet. Some people just don't know talent from a hole in the ground I guess.