Top 5 things that are pretty cool but have the worst following...

Sometimes life can be cruel. Every so often you can stumble onto something that is funny or entertaining or kewl but the people who are obsessed with it make it crusty or embarrassing. Here are five things that I've noticed that are ruined by the people who support or engage in it.

1. Mitch Hedberg: I can't deny that I do find Mitch Hedberg's stand up funny when I can get myself to listen to it. You know what's not funny? The chubby guy with bad posture sporting a visor beanie constantly quoting bits of his stand up out of context. I happen to work with a guy like this, and when he's not bragging about the blunt he rolled before work, he's repeating some joke that doesn't tie into any part of reality. "Hey ______, can you go meet the FedEx guy downstairs"? "You can't please everybody and last night they were all in my audience...Mitch Hedberg, man". What does that mean? The way I see it is the least Mitch Hedberg could have done before he died was take all of his die hard fans with him.

2. Sex: I used to love sex up until last night. After drunkenly coming home to watch Seinfeld my roommate came home with a girl and I was awoken to the sounds of my awkward friends orgasm moaning through the plaid sheet that we call a door. Horrified, I opted to sleep on the cum stained futon in the living room. I literally laid awake with the blanket over my head like you do when you're five and you think there's a monster in the house...or like you do when you're 25 and Peter Goldberg. I guess it's no more awkward then pretending that we don't hear each other JOing all the time... my life sucks.

3. Skateboarding: No other activity could attract so many degenerates on earth like skateboarding. Whether you're stopped on the train, street, bodega they will feel comfortable enough to approach you and "rap" about how they used to/currently "shortboard" and how it opened their eyes to alien abductions and eastern medicine. If it weren't for my love of both, and ying yangs, I don't know how I could put up with it.

4. Dollar slice: If you live in NYC and you've been to St. Marks then you know about the infamous dollar slice. "Two brothers pizza"to be more specific is an oasis to all jugalos, teen age punks on dates, train hoppers, scratch ticket enthusiasts and heroin addicts alike. It's also visited by people like me, thrifty assholes who will accept a lesser quality product for a cheaper price. How can I sit there and enjoy shoveling that wet diaper of a slice into my gullet when two 14 year olds with pantyhose arm stockings and dinner plates in their ears are finger fucking in the corner, chin beard Mcgee with the "voices in my head tell me what to do" t shirt is shotgunning his third mountain dew and the seven year old kid finally makes his round to me trying to bum a cigarette?

5. Weed: I have nothing against the idea of getting high at all, in fact sometimes it can be kind of fun. My problem is with the culture around it and the endless paraphernalia that follows it. Say what you will about harder street drugs but none of them are on t-shirts, belt buckles, flags, guitars, tire flaps next to the truck nuts and the sticker of Calvin pissing on George Bushes face and giving you the middle finger. More then 90% of the time I can tell that someone is really into getting high without the novelty "McCronalds" shirt on. I know the day when people can just get high discreetly is very unlikely so until then whoever has the rights to the picture of a pot leaf and has 4:20 trademarked is gonna continue to make millions to fund their chill lifestyle.

Zayn, Zayn, Zayn...

Zayn, you have some explaining to do...

I just logged into my facebook page and received this message, enjoy...

Looks like ol' Zayn got himself into another pickle...

El vortex retirement...

If you are an avid visitor of the slap magazine website, being your thirteen and your parental controls block out thrasher for the hubba ad's or your Neil Thurman, you have already heard the news that El Vortex has announced his retirement from skateboarding. If you don't skateboard, your not gonna understand a single thing in this post so you might as well just skim through this and pretend it was a mock review of Jack Black's "Nacho Libre". Though the decision made me sad, I have come up with a top 5 reasons for both El vortex to come out of retirement and to remain in retirement.

Top 5 reasons El Vortex should come out of retirement:

1. There is nothing better to do in Longmont.
2. Meta Sam is still trying to push 3 cases of El Vortex's spitfire wheels to people with enough common sense to avoid buying wheels that have been yellowed for years. D5 is rumored to have offered a deli zone sand which for a case and a shout out in the next video.
3. Troubled teens are still smoking cigarettes at the skate park, only now they do not have a over thirty Lucha making fun of them in poems in which they can't understand.
4. A high school girl at the skate park saw the El Vortex article on Slap and Neil is claiming to be his secret identity, even though no photos of the real El Vortex show him sporting matching quarter sized flaming suns and ying yang tattoos on his upper arms.
5. Though it's not the most serious notoriety, Colorado should really be known for something better then "home of the skate ninja".

Top 5 reasons that El Vortex should remain retired:

1. Coach is in better shape then him.
2. 70% of his following are now of legal age to purchase alcohol and no longer need to sit through a penny lane open mic night to get a hold of a few Sparks malt beverages.
3. Even Kris with a K voted against him in his last Slap one in a million entry.
4. With no reason to go filming, he can avoid the obligation of inviting creepy Jake along and the awkward free lunch.
5. We can finally find out who he is and end the mystery once and for all. I'm about 90% positive it's either Raul Pinto or Jarred Stoots.

Whatever his decision is in the end I have to say that it's been one of the most entertaining parts of skateboarding in the last ten years. In a sea of Baker Deathwish weed hype videos, which is the ICP of skateboarding, or another talented well behaved robot wonder kid, it was refreshing to see someone have the courage to hide behind a mask and tackle pros visiting town or fart into a camera. RIP El Vortex.

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.