The great Bambino...

Following up on a series of quirky events in my childhood involving the Late great Richard Powers comes the third installment of "Crazy stories my dad told me". The scene takes place in Boulder, Co and a ten year old Seth gets ahold of a baseball that has an epic tale behind it. So here it is, enjoy.

"A grand prize".

My father had always been a pack rat, and like most pack rats every piece of junk that he owned had a unique and very long story attached to why he could not part ways with it. Amongst the hover craft, cases of pezz dispensers and 3d peep show magazines there was one thing that caught my eye...the snake skin baseball. The origins of the baseball changed from time to time but the basic plot remained the same. One faithful night in NYC, my father, along with the social elite of New York, was invited to attend Clint Eastwood's birthday party. He never got into too much detail on how he was invited or if he just showed up but I'm assuming that he snuck in if any of the story is true. So, while mingling and cock tailing he eventually makes his way to talkin with the man of the hour, big Clint. Some time goes by and the two become smitten with each other, my old man's got him in stitches, "He was dyin, I was on fire that night, I told the elephant in the bathtub joke" he explained, which on a unrelated note is my mothers least favorite jokes.

The night winds down, Clint wishes everybody off and then before my dad can get to the door Mr. Eastwood presents him with a gift. The gift, which he received from a celebrity on said celebrity's birth day, was a Snake skin baseball signed by Babe Ruth, and more importantly a symbol of there newly discovered friendship. "It's one of a kind" my dad explained, "and if there are others out there, there aren't that many", hmmmmm. I had heard the tale so many different times. I hated baseball, but something about that baseball called to me, it was my leg lamp. After years of begging, he finally caved in and gave me the baseball. It was one of the happiest days of my young life, I held it and smelled it and thought "this is the greatest moment of my life". Two weeks later however, I had found yet another siren call in the form of a sack of pogs and a tattered playboy magazine, roughly estimated the conversion rate from middle school street cred to us dollars is about $1 million, so I gave up the ball to hopefully finally drop mine. Upon hearing that the ball was missing, my dad was pretty upset and a little skeptical of the story I came up with. Though He had never seen the movie, my dad did know that I never hung with any kid named yeah yeah, I didn't have a tree house and there was no ball eating dog named the "beast " that lived near by, that and he over heard me watching The Sandlot with my friend and discussing the lie.

Fuck me, right?

The King of the Cobras, truley missed...

This morning, while walking to the train at 5 in the morning amongst the hacids and the crack addicts was really when the reality of the situation had hit me. On the train while listening to my ipod on shuffle, which is never a good idea when you get your music off Clays laptop which about 90% of which is dj so and so's shmuck face remix, I heard a song that made me cry. I'm not proud to say that it was T.I.'s dead and gone, which doesn't exactly relate to the situation but none the less it happened. In a crowded subway car I was crying and listening to this song and then all of a sudden I just imagined if Dempsey had been there and seen me and his reaction to the fact that I was crying to T.I. and I started laughing. Dempsey was always quick to call you out, or himself out and make everybody laugh. He was always down for anything and was by far the gnarliest guy you'd ever know. I wish more then anything that I could come out to Colorado and be there with all of my friends who really are my family and share my memories with everybody and help heal the people I care most about but I can't and it sucks. So, I wanted to share a few things that make me smile, laugh, and look back and just think about how crazy it was to be around Jake Dempsey. Here it is, my top 5 for Jake Dempsey, RIP buddy.

1. The 1086 house in Denver- Every night at that house was insane and usually Jake had something to do with it. You couldn't help but just sit back and watch the mayhem unravel and how crazy/awesome/terrifying whatever he was doing was. The rug trick, cheering on chick fights, self surgery, and in the end, no matter what happened it would always bring everybody together to laugh and shout and reminisce about the night before and it brought everybody closer.

2. Any one of the 100's of injuries- No matter how gnarly he was injured, he would never show any pain. He was a super human who didn't skate but yet would eat shit harder then anyone of us at any given moment. You would see him the next morning, cig in his mouth and that glazed over face giggling saying "fucking check this shit out...". Then, after he should be bed ridden and not be able to walk you see him in the back yard cutting down a tree or making a fire pit.

3. Never backed down...ever: My group of friends are always willing to sacrifice themselves before letting a friend get hurt and Jake was the King of that. No matter what went down, even if it was our fault, he was there along with co viking Jari to throw down and get crazy. Brass knuckles, ancient weapons, stink bombs, you name it and Demspey had it.

4. Anything skull or grim reaper related...anything: Yabo and I used to go to Dempseys room and watch tv on his 230" plasma before he threw a remote at it for acting up, and always crack up at the shit Dempsey had. Skull posters, grim reaper bandannas and or a skull guitar ashtray Dempsey owned it, and it was awesome because it was just how Dempsey was, he pulled it off.

5. "I am what I am"- One of the best parts about Dempsey was he never tried to be anything he wasn't. No matter how many crazy fazes the rest of us went through Dempsey was always himself, didn't care what people thought and I always admired that. Jake Dempsey was true blue, and I'm gonna miss him and I know a whole bunch of other people are too.

So, I'm gonna remember the good times I had with Jake and I'm gonna remember the good times I have with all my friends. So, when your drinking your 40oz of king cobra just watch out not to get the rug pulled out from under you by Dempsey, cause he got me every time.

RIP Jake Dempsey

I've been diagnosed with writers block...

Though I've given it a college try about 5 times now, I just can't kick this writers block kick. I don't know what the problem is seeing that I usually have something terrible happen to me daily. So, instead of a new post I'm gonna just try to come up with some ideas "out loud". I'm hoping that this will get the juices flowing inside my head and get some stuff going, maybe a Venn diagram or a thought tree.

1. Shit peddle out yet another top 5: These can really be about any one of a number of things, a whosy whatsy, a thing a majig, etc. I usually try to gear it more towards hurting somebody that I care about's feelings, thus sealing my fate as a complete asshole in their eyes forever.

2. Another ironic restaurant review: Last time I did the Halal cart, maybe this time I'll do a fast food restaurant or something. If I could just figure out a way to get this crappy food for free then I won't feel guilty about sliding this garbage down my gullet. Taint nothing wrong withs a little crown fried chicken every once and ah fuckin a.

3. Figure out some thing about Clay or Peter to poke fun at: These characters are an endless supply of blog posts, though I do start to feel guilty about it. Sometimes when I'm asleep in my bed I kind of think I can feel Clay hovering over me with a pillow or a shoe string ready to choke me to death. I also have this dream where I'm a hot dog and I'm getting chased by a giant hamburger.

4. Make a post of all the poems I wrote in high school: Some were about how miserable it was to be an angsty misunderstood teenager in this capitalist nation of conformity and others were about friends I have now girlfriends that I had crushes on. It's funny to look back on those times and think about the problems I had then and the problems I have now...both being that I have to smoke weed out of a tin foil pipe in shame.

5. A photo update: I don't think I have enough notoriety yet to simply post pictures of myself and my friends doing stuff that everybody else does but it's somehow more important and artistically valid because were "important". Besides, there's enough of that at www.thegreendiamond.com, and their way funnier then our group of friends anyway...right? Clay was on that site once wasn't he...

Well I guess I'm out of ideas guys, sorry...or did I just peddle out some shit on you just now? I know, I just blew your mind.

throw away footage cause all's we get is garbage

Out of the kindness of my heart

Continuing on the theme of the last post, I have more stories from the man, the myth, the legend that is my father, the man who helped spawn yours truly. These next couple of stories are some of my favorites that have stuck with me since I was a child. So with out further a do, heres another story to brighten your day.

The Coney island freak friend show.

Growing up in Bay ridge, BK, my father lived with all girls and his mother. A loaner of sorts, he seeked desperately to find a friend that was a) was not a part of his family b) was not one of his sisters, who as he described them spent their entire lives in the bathroom just to bother him and that all 8 of them were all supermodels....

It can be tough being a kid, and he had it even worse being as he was super fat. He would always tell me how he would have to work twice as hard to be super funny so that people would like him and not just think as the "fat kid" which looking back on my own child hood was true, I mean it's one thing when a fat kid in zip off pants, a bowling shirt and a rat tail is entertaining you. But when said fat kid is just trying to hangout and "talk", well that shit just can't fly.

So, on what seemed to be one of his many excursions to Coney island to have a fun packed afternoon of larfs and the freak show, my dad was in for a surprise. Instead of bringing home 5 hot dogs and a basket of onion rings, he had brought home a best friend known only as "the wolf boy". He began to explain to me that he was not in fact a wolf, but just a kid with a ton of hair all over him...ahhhh, so he's not actually part wolf part boy huh, even when I was 5 I felt like I was being patronized a little. He began hanging out with the wolf boy more and more and before you knew it, they became best friends. So, like most best buds he had asked the wolf boy over for dinner with a warning attached about grandpa and his lack of sensitivity towards but not limited to blacks, jews, asains, fat people, skinny people, indians, everyone in my family, himself and especially wolf boys. If there's one thing I remember from the tales of pappy, it's that he hated wolf people.

As the Dinner began, Pappy immediately asked why his bowl of pasta wasn't being served to him on the floor considering that he's a dog. Wolfboy continued to eat the almost uneatable pasta from my grandmothers, this is a subject of many stories in itself always ending in "how the hell she thought you could boil meat balls I don't know", my father tried changing the subject but it's hard to Vere peoples attention away from the elephant in the room, especially if that elephant looks like teen wolf. With the mix of the food, a gaggle of supermodel sister staring, and Pappy on fire in his joke department Wolfboy quickly got up and ran back to the tent covered beaches of Coney island and back to his family. He was comforted by the bearded lady, the strongest man alive tried desperately to lift his spirits, the stretchy skin guy offered a helping hand, and the guy with no limbs kinda just laid there.

That was the last time my father saw wolfboy, and nobody was happier then Pappy. Until one hot summer day when walking from the Bronx in Manhattan all the way to Bay ridge Brooklyn all for a nickel off baseball cards( insert the "sometimes it's worth the trip Seth"...) Dad glanced at a news paper that just so happened to be on the page that read "wolf boy dead". His death however was a mystery, I think dad tried telling me that he suffocated on his own hair which I liked, but I'm also pretty sure there was a version where he was leaving Nathans hot dog stand and caught a stray silver bullet.

The End

I'm king of the world!

I would like to start off this post by saying that I do not consider myself a liar. I think that I was born with a special gift of storytelling, and when reminiscing about certain events they may seem at times a bit embellished. I guess I got this gift from my late father who was the best storyteller I've ever met. Growing up, I would love listening to his stories and be so fascinated with the idea that in my dads world there really was no distinction between reality and fantasy and anything can, and in the story would, happen. So, here is the first of "my dad's stories and ideas that can't believe actually happened".

"The titanic horse"

Before I begin this story I want to point out that up until I re told this story to a friend the other night did I realize how absurd this whole situation actually was and even more ridiculous is that I totally bought the whole thing up until yesterday. My dad was a pack rat, and in true pack rat fashion his home away from home was the salvation army. Convinced this is how were gonna get rich, my dad would buy everything from old pezz dispensers to ashtrays, vintage toilet seat covers, mannequins, rollerskates, exercise equipment etc. This is around the time that ebay first came out, so he really went all in on buying a bunch of shit that we didn't want/need/know existed. I'm pretty sure the whole time of this ebay fiasco which lasted up until the day he passed he only made like $48.50. Though it was super embarrassing being the family with a lawn covered in junk, it kept my mom pissed enough to not notice the terrible stuff my brother and I were doing, like lighting random fires and killing skunks.

So, one day my dad comes home with the find of a lifetime. It was a statue of some kind covered in sand that he bought at salvation army it smelled like "the ocean". This thing was left to soak in a cooler full bleach/water/broken dreams for about I don't know, like a year before the sand began to fall off. What was starting to become visible was that this was indeed a sculpture of a glass horse. This meant of course that this was a relic from the titanic. How he landed on that theory was beyond me, until I realized that my dad smoked allot of weed when I was growing up. One day, my brother was sneaking to the closet to get "something", I say something like that because until this day I don't think he'd admit that he was getting this old comic book that my dad had called the "peep show" with 3d images of ladies in bras, yeah, it was pretty awesome. So, reaching for the vintage hogan magazine, my brother knocked the cooler and broke the legs off the horse. My brother knew that he was fucked, my dad hadn't stopped talking about this god damn horse since he found it, I mean he would bring friends over to smoke weed and then stare at this amazing horse.

Heartbroken, my dad tried desperately to fix his white whale, but alas it was gone. My dad never forgave me nor my brother for the horse incident and anytime we would need money he would say "well if you didn't break the horse" or "you know how many pizza rolls the horse was worth" or "god, I loved that horse". According to him, my college fund was broken in that cooler. My dad was shattered man, that was until he bought a warehouse full of expired all sports soft drinks, star bucks mocha's and a hover craft at a blind auction on my birthday, but that's a different story.