Show us your guitar.
Submitted by Sean J. O'Rourke.I'm super stoked my Vox Hunt got picked! This is my 1957 Fender Stratocaster. It's daphne blue with a maple neck and all-vintage hardware. I hooked it up with a Seymour Duncan SH-10 Full Shred humbucker about four years ago and it is the most perfect sounding thing I've ever played. I bought this guitar when I was 15 the day after getting a $587.50 tip for serving an actor named Max Raven a bottle of water. Yes, really. After initially calling out sick from my job of selling sodas, waters and italian ices in Jersey City, my friend Jeff had gotten sick during the day and wanted to go home. I agreed to come in for the afternoon and immediately banished to this part of Liberty State Park we just called "the park". You were out there completely by yourself with your cart complete with no shade from the summer sun and screaming kids at the playground some 50 or so feet away (thus: the park). Well about two hours into my ordeal (this is before iPhones and Sidekicks) I was sitting by myself when a man sat down a few feet away and asked for a bottle of water. I sold him a $2.50 bottle of water, he paid me with a $10 bill and told me to keep the change. I was ecstatic, I worked for $6 an hour! We wound up talking about Jersey City and Point Liberty (this upscale development on the water in southern Jersey City) and he tells me his name his Max and he used to be an actor in a ton of mob movies. Max eventually asks me what I was working for, as in was I saving for anything. I told him I was saving for a Fender Stratocaster, that I wanted this exact one since I was 11 years old and had been slowly putting money towards one for the past six weeks. With no hesitance, he reaches into his wallet and pulls out $80 in 20s and says "I hope this helps towards your guitar". At first I refused the money before he insisted he had it and it was no problem whatsoever. I thank him endlessly and he gets up and leaves on a motorcycle. So stoked, I called Jeff to tell him he should have kept his shift and that I got tipped $87.50 for serving a man a bottle of water. It turns out that Max had been known by the staff at the Park for having been really generous both personally and financially to the men and women who worked in the Park. I was so grateful that someone had something that nice to a total stranger. The best was yet to come. After about twenty minutes, Mr. Raven returned and ordered another bottle of water which I gladly gave him on the house. He proceeds to ask if I was working tomorrow, when I said I was, he said "take off work and go get your guitar". Without any hesitation, he reaches in his shirt pocket and pulls out a stack of $20 bills and hands them to me. "$500, I was passing an ATM and I was thinking about you and that guitar". I said I couldn't take $500 from him, he was crazy! But Mr. Raven insisted and I did take the money, and just like that he again sped away on his motorcycle. As I finished up work for the day I called my house and asked my mom if she could pick me up from work. When I got into her car I took my velcro Dale Earnhardt Jr. wallet filled with $20s and put it on the dashboard. My mom asked "what did you rob the place"!? I told her the story and she was totally blown away, just like pretty much I would be if someone had told me something so out of the ordinary. The next day my lovely friend Liz and her mother gave me and my $500 a ride to Guitar Center where I bought my 1957 Fender Stratocaster.
I like to think I've put it to pretty good use:
It's been my main guitar for seven years and through two serious bands and hundreds of jam sessions.
I used it for a public speaking project my freshman year of college based on our most valued possession. As I gave my speech in front of the class, my Fender hung over my back with my guitar strap across my chest. I got an A+.
Its' sweet sounds can be heard during the credits to Fox's John Tucker Must Die as my band Hudson landed a spot in the movie. The song, "Not Giving Up" is the second of two songs in the credits and follows Motion City Soundtrack's "Better Open the Door".
When I played guitar in Racing Kites we used my Fender to record our single "Hands Against the Sky".
It's been rocked out at some of the coolest venues in the tri-state like the Continental, Krome and Maxwell's...and not to mention probably 100 shows on bare concrete floors and church basements.
Gas prices as well as a desire to feel less like a lazy douche has led me on a search to buy a bicycle for the summer. I think bicycles may be the only thing ever to be marketed with the word 'ugly' being a selling point. Apparently it's good to have an ugly bike so nobody will steal it. That said, if anyone is selling a bicycle in the NYC area let me know. As long as 'working' is an honest adjective, we could work something out.
The last time I really wrote an actual blog I was being harassed by a strange man looking for the hotel pool at a Marriot in Concord, New Hampshire. I'm back home in Jersey for the time being and counting down the days until 80-degree temperatures and weeks at a time spent at the beach. All in due time! For now I wanted to share some pictures from Part II of my New England adventure last weekend.
At approximately 6 p.m., a Connecticut State trooper spotted the vehicle on I-95 southbound, at exit 22. The trooper attempted to conduct a motor vehicle stop and was assisted by Fairfield and Westport police officers.
Initially, the suspect attempted to flee from the trooper, refusing to stop. The state police officer, along with Fairfield and Westport police officers pursued the vehicle from exits 22 to 13, where the vehicle finally came to a voluntary stop.
As the trooper and the local officers, approached the vehicle the male suspect, identified as Eric Niles, 19, of Alton Maine, shot himself in the head, while seated in the passenger's side of the vehicle, according to state police.
The female, Kristen Cates, 18, of Bradley, Maine, who was reportedly operating the vehicle during the pursuit, was not injured and was removed from the vehicle.
EMS responded and transported Niles to Norwalk Hospital, where he died Monday morning.
According to media reports, one of the Westport police officers was bit by a pitbull, which was in the suspect's vehicle, at the end of the pursuit, causing minor injury. Another Westport officer was cut when he broke a window in the vehicle. Both officers were treated at Norwalk Hospital.
The Connecticut State Police Central District Major Crime Squad conducted an investigation into the incident. State Police Detectives interviewed Cates and examined and gathered evidence from the vehicle and the scene of the shooting.
According to Maine State Police Spokesman Stephen McCausland, Blake Michaud, 20, of Greenbush, Maine, was found dead at the home of Cates' parents in Bradley, Maine Sunday morning.
Maine State Police, upon investigation have classified the deaths of Niles and Michaud as a murder suicide and a case of domestic violence.
Maine police said Niles entered the house in Bradley early Sunday morning and confronted Michaud and Cates in a bedroom.
After killing Michaud, Niles then abducted Cates in the pickup truck which he stole from his grandfather in Alton, Maine.
The cause of Michaud's death was confirmed by an autopsy on Tuesday.
Maine State Police detectives drove to Connecticut Sunday and interviewed Cates.
McCausland said "Cates was abducted against her will and was not involved in the homicide. She has been released to her parents, who then drove her back to Maine."
According to Maine State Police, no charges are contemplated against her.
She had recently broken up with Niles and took a protection from abuse order out against Niles".
Hey guys. If anyone is interested in seeing some of the sports writing I've been doing for the past few weeks, some of my memorabilia buying guides are up and online here.
In the past fifteen hours I watched "Juno", the end of "Junior" as well as five minutes of World's Most Amazing Videos that featured a pregnant woman jumping from a burning building. I'm getting a vesectomy tomorrow.
"He'd better learn not to talk to me. You shake the tree, a leopard's going to fall out" - Kobe Bryant on J.R. Smith after Kobe put up 49 against the Nuggets in Game 2.
The smell of a barbeque comes dancing in through my window, I think about growing up and it's not so bad.
"The fact is that all of that is completely unrealistic and makes no sense at all. You might as well and try and raise the dead while you're at it, because it's not gonna happen. Like one day she's just gonna be looking at you and you're gonna string together the perfect series of words in the most articulate way you ever have...in ways that even astound you, but should you stop to congratulate yourself and stop making your point so you just continue on. She's gonna look at you and her tears, tears are gonna well up in her eyes and she's gonna go 'I never saw it that way'. When really the fact is that if she could have seen it that way she would have a long long time ago. There's only a few ways that you can explain to this somebody, maybe two things. Number one; I love you. Number two, something that a lot of girl need to learn on their own, and I'm not pushing anybody I'm just saying. One thing a girl's gotta learn to understand is three words: I'm...not...him." - John Mayer
The Boston Celtics shall win their 17th NBA Championship this season.
It's a warm Saturday night in Concord, New Hampshire.
I'm currently smack dab in the middle of my first little excursion since moving back to Jersey some three weeks ago. Around 11:30 yesterday (Friday) morning Bobby 'convinced' me to take a trip with him up here to New England as he has to take a paramedic test here (Concord, NH) tomorrow (Sunday). Ok parentheses. Well anyway, by a little after noon yesterday we were on the Hutch on the way up to Boston, Massachusetts. Anyone who knows me at all knows that my adoration for the Red Sox is exceeded only by my true love for the city of Boston, I always really love coming up here. We got into the city at a little after 5 and got a room at the Hilton Downtown. No sleeping in kitchens this time! We got settled and went out around 7 before grabbing dinner in Quincy Market. After din-din we hiked from the Harbor to Fenway Park where we wound up watching the end of the Sox game from the world-famous Cask N' Flagon across Lansdowne Street from the Monster. Bobby and I went round after round knocking back a good amount of beer. As the game ended with a Sox victory 11-3 the bar became absolutely packed which in turn became an insane dance party.
Boston + Red Sox + Gin + Dance Party = Perfect!
I drank a lot, too much, and before I knew it I was clad in my Varitek jersey, drinking straight gin and dancing like a bastard. I remember eventually catching a cab back to the hotel, demanding ridiculous drugs I would never touch and apparently passing out on the floor of the hotel elevator. Not satisfied with the evening, in a drunken stupor I stumbled out of the hotel and started walking down State Street. Bobby chased me down, bought me a sausage, pepper and onion sandwich and we eventually went back to the hotel and passed out a little after 3:30 a.m.
I woke up suprisingly energetic at a ridiculous 6:26 a.m. and before long I grew tired of Sportscenter and my king-sized bed. After a nice hot shower I took a long walk through some of my favorite streets, taking pictures and flipping through pages of the Metro. There were an absolute ton of people out really early with me, a lot of them running. The Boston Marathon is Monday so there is an overabundance of foreign tourists clad in Adidas track jackets and those ridiculous-looking running shoes. I don't get running shoes, as in why they're designed like they are. I guess they make them so ugly to try and deter motorists from running down (no pun intended) joggers and stealing their footwear.
"Ridiculous" count: 3.
I found my way down near Berklee before grabbing a scrambled egg wrap and orange juice at Finagle a Bagel across the street from Copley Square. One of my favorite iPhone features is using the Maps application, you can just punch in the name of any business and all of their locations in a given distance will show as pins on the map, it's amazing and so helpful. After breakfast I took a nice stroll through the Garden and Common before stopping to enjoy the day on a bench across the street from the State House. I don't care what anyone says, Boston when it's warm is the best place to be on Earth, it's perfect. I've been to the Old Towne a little under ten times in the past three and a half years and everytime I come here, I find it harder and harder to leave. We did eventually leave and make our way up 93 all the way up here to Concord, New Hampshire. This is the farthest north that I've ever been only three and a half weeks since being the southern-most I've ever driven. Pretty exciting stuff. Well anyway, for now it's 1:28 a.m. and a random 20-something just came up to me asking where the pool is before mentioning he's got three girls with him. Random as hell.
Tomorrow Bobby has his test at 7:30 a.m. and afterwards we're apparently heading back down to Beantown so that should be pretty sweet. The weather so far this weekend has been absolutely amazing, it was in the mid-70s this afternoon in Boston and hopefully tomorrow'll be nice too. Yawn.
My mom is considering moving to Florida in the coming months because her company is relocating down there. My mom needs a change and this may be it. She's going to check the area out in three weeks so hopefully she knows what her deal will be. As much as I'm really not in the mood to move for the seventh time (counting college) in the past two and a half years, I don't see myself in Bayonne. I hate that place and I feel so defeated when I return there. I don't know, it's just not home...it's odd I suppose. I need to get my things together with school, as in saying I need to finish. When you don't have specific professional goals as I sometimes don't, it's hard to stay focused on work. I need to change that and I think that my experiences, hits and misses will help me finally wake up and get things done. Alright, that's enough of that. If you've actually read this entire blog I sincerely thank you and hope you at least enjoyed it in a very minimalist way. I'm tired, my sleep schedule is shot and I have absolutely no idea what my room number is. So from the Marriot in Concord, New Hampshire, sleep well.
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Padackles said:
I read the Devils, Boston Red Sox, Martin Brodeur, New Jersey Nets, Jason Kidd, Jimmie Johnson, Sidney Crosby, and Vince... read more
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BUT otherwise... well informative writing. I meant to say this in the previous message, but I post before I could... read more
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After suffering through misery as a young franchise playing in Kansas City from 1974-1976 and in Denver from 1975-1981, the... read more
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I remember when you got that guitar and played it in our backyard. And we used to make jokes that... read more
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