"What Is It?" Contest Results!!!

The winner of the first (of hopefully many) Nothing Terribly Grandiose "What Is It?" Contest is...

ME! That's right, I didn't receive a single email! Which means I get to keep that hard-earned dollar and put it toward something useful, rather than giving it to a fan who guessed that the picture was of Dawkins' eye! Since no one submitted a guess, the dollar is mine.

Of course, my girlfriend saw the picture when I was posting it and guessed correctly what it was, but she was disqualified for two reasons: 1) she did not submit her guess in the form of an email, and 2) she constantly forgets his name is Dawkins, and calls him "Chompers." Come on, Chompers?

At any rate, thanks for making this the best and most successful NTG contest EVER! You guys rule!!!


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The Playground Of The World

Seriously, is there a better place on Earth than Coney Island?

This past Saturday I made the trip with Ben, Aimee, and Cait. This was only my second time spending a day there, but I get the feeling that I could go there a thousand times, and the awesomeness quotient would NEVER decrease!

I kept Pentax on a pretty short leash that day, so there are only a few pictures to share...

The first thing we did when we got off the train was hit the Coney Island Circus Sideshow:





Note that, yes, the man in the top hat has a screwdriver stuck into his face. And for some reason I think it's cool that the clothespin guy is staring right at the camera in that second pic. The show itself was great, really campy and entertaining. Eak the Geek performed the Human Bed of Nails Sandwich, a sword-swallower named Heather Holliday plied her craft, Diamond Donnie V snapped animal traps on his hand and tongue, and a woman named Insectavora performed a fire-breathing/fire-swallowing routine. They politely asked the audience to refrain from photography, and in many other cases I'd shirk the rule and find a surreptitious way to get some shots, but out of respect for the Sideshow, I chose not to. That kind of performance art doesn't get the respect it deserves.

On the way out of the Sideshow, we passed this adorable little display... Coney Island's take on the perpetually drinking bird:



The perpetually vomiting man!!! Obviously, Ben thought it was hilarious. All that watery barf made us hungry, so we hit up the original Nathan's for fish & chips and beer in cardboard cups. I was too busy eating to care about pictures.

After lunch we made our way to the beach, passing a sandcastle building contest:



Now, Coney Island is (or, at least, was) often called The Playground of the World, because it is a haven for global vacationers. So naturally, there are bound to be some... um... European-style bathing suits:



Or who knows, maybe he's just a dude from Queens beating the heat. Either way, this was taken at a pretty extreme zoom, and Pentax chose to focus on the garbage can in the foreground. Maybe the selective autofocus was for our protection... Thanks, Pentax... always looking out for us!

After the beach, we did one of my favorite Coney Island activities, the Eldorado Bumper Cars! Again, I chose to refrain from pictures, and focused instead on applying the principles of Sidewalkology to the track, with the aggression amped up to 100! No time for pictures when you're cutting to the outside, looking for a lane, splitting between two slower drivers while avoiding contact, whipping around a curve, and slamming broadside into one of your friends! Now THAT'S entertainment!

After the bumper cars, we made our way to the tallest ferris wheel in existence, the 150-foot-tall Wonder Wheel. The cars are either stationary or "gliding," that is, they're on tracks that slide the car back and forth with the forces of momentum and gravity. Needless to say, we opted for the gliding car, which Aimee wasn't expecting to be so rollercoaster-esque:



While Aimee held on for dear life (and Ben thoughtfully pointed out that the Brooklyn Cyclones were playing), I took advantage of the Wonder Wheel's spectacular view. This is one of my favorite snaps from the day:



Look for it in the running for Favorites 2005! After the Wonder Wheel, Cait and I decided we hadn't gotten enough whiplash and motion sickness, and she had never ridden on the Brooklyn baseball team's namesake, so we made our way to the Cyclone. Again, I didn't take any decent shots, but when thinking about the Cyclone, I'm constantly reminded of a subway graffiti piece from a couple summers ago...

Chock Full O' Nuts coffee had an ad campaign celebrating New York's grittiness, character, strength, etc..., and related it to their being one of the hallmark coffee brands in the city. This was one of the ads:



The graffiti was Sharpied-on, right near the woman's open mouth. I'll let you figure the rest out...

At the end of the day, we sat on the beach in the dark and relaxed. Of course I unwittingly fell asleep... but not before getting another of my favorite shots from the day:



I'm glad that I was able to get even just a day at Coney this summer. The way schedules are working out, I don't know if I'll get back there before the season ends, which is unfortunate. But that's life.

It really is the Playground of the World... They don't sleep anymore on the beach...


[***You history buffs can check out some info on Coney Island's colorful past HERE and HERE.***]


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The Dakota Room Interview: Joe

My good friend Steve May runs a site called popnirvana.com.

One of his regular features is called the Dakota Room, where he checks in with random friends about where they are in their lives, what's been going on with them... I was his interview subject this time around, actually for my second time.

Check it out HERE. There's a link to my first one at the bottom of the page if you're feeling really ambitious. It's quite different than this time around. It's actually a bit scary for me reading the first one again... it was written by a different guy.


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New Snaps 7.23.05

[***Check out the bottom of this New Snaps for info on the First Ever Nothing Terribly Grandiose "What Is It?" Contest! And no, it has absolutely nothing to do with CRISPIN GLOVER.***]



What the fuck are you still doing up?

Why, working on the latest edition of "New Snaps" of course! And watch your mouth Jackson, my mom reads the page.

So what the fuck's up, people? I know one thing that is... me. Or "I," to be grammatically correct. For mom.

I came home from a late day of work, did a face plant on my bed, and then woke up around 11:45. I got in about four hours, which is survive-able, for me. It's not far from my standard these days anyway, so I've been awake since then staring googly-eyed at various hundreds of my pics. I'm working on compiling a folder of snaps in consideration for the Favorites 2005!

[For you NTG neophytes, I select 100 of my favorite pictures every year, from the thousands of pictures I take. This will be the tradition's second year. Check out Favorites 2004 here.

And in doing so, I managed to compile these snaps. A few of them were taken just tonight (the timestamp on that one of Zack is 4:19am, and I was just getting started) within the confines of my apartment/fire escape. Sometimes the Pentax gets a mind of its own, and just starts snapping... and does... not... STOP...


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Here's a few from the escape tonight:


East Harlem Moon



Right across from my bedroom window, the nearly full moon rose up.


Morning Bird



This bird hung out on the roof of that building for a long time. He kept walking back and forth, flying little puddlejumper missions along the edge.


The Walker



This was one of the lonely souls awake with me.


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The Reservoir



This was from a recent meander through the park with a friend of mine. Wouldn't you know, this dude just walked right into the shot I was taking? Fine, dude... be immortalized, then.


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Significance?



From that same meander. Green bananas and fruit making up a peace symbol, all surrounded by Fruit & Nut bars? Am I missing something or is it just po-mo?


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Guitar Fingers



The G stop in Greenpoint, after a night at the practice space. This is usually what they look like after jamming.


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May's Phone Number



I was out on a location scout with work, riding around in my boss' phat Escalade. Someone had scrawled a phone number into the dirt on his door, under the name "May." I wonder if May owns a car wash...


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Ben and Tom



I could easily explain what's happening in this shot, but I'll leave it unspoken. You figure it out.


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What Is It?



Okay, we here at NTG are going to have a little fun with this... kind of as a gauge to see who's checking us out and how sharp their collective eye is. This is the official First Nothing Terribly Grandiose "What Is It?" Contest. If you can wager a guess at what this picture is, you will win... drumroll please... $1. That's right, one entire US dollar. Simply contact us via EMAIL with your guess. Guesses will be accepted until 9am, Friday July 29, 2005. The first person to enter a correct guess will be awarded the $1 grand prize!


Start guessing!


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Movie Review: Wedding Crashers

What a novel concept... a comedy that's actually funny...

Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson play the eponymous duo, a pair of shameless lotharios who prey on female wedding guests horned up by nuptial jubilation. Their formula has been honed to a science, replete with meticulously crafted lies and a list of rules by which to engage their targets. After a lengthy montage chronicles their annual "wedding season" (and manages to showcase 95% of the trailer moments and the obligatory but always appreciated tittie shots), the movie's focus swings wildly from premise to plot: a wrench is thrown into the pair's formula when Wilson breaks a major rule by falling in love with a target, the daughter of an influential politico.

In almost any other case, 85 remaining minutes of story in a film like this would be torturous. Thankfully, Vaughn and Wilson's chemistry manages to carry the laughs throughout, even at times when the story becomes too melodramatic and disconnected from the carefree sense of raunchy fun established from the beginning. Some third act sluggishness and pacing problems unfortunately crop up, but the payoff provides at least partial redemption. A strong supporting cast keeps the leads from having to shoulder the entire load, particularly (a surprisingly leashed) Christopher Walken as the father of the object of Wilson's desire, and Keir O'Donnell as Walken's maladjusted artist son. The ladies represent too: Isla Fisher stands out as a manic bridesmaid who leeches onto Vaughn, and Jane Seymour proves her milf-mettle as Walken's oversexed wife. Also, an ostentatious cameo by a familiar face (as "Chaz," Vaughn's shady mentor in the world of wedding crashing) keeps things moving at the end.

Overall, NTG gives three stars out of four to "Wedding Crashers," a sharply-written film that eschews pretense and lives up to everything it purports itself to be. In the tradition of "Animal House," it's a fun, filthy comedy that's surprisingly touching and true-to-life.


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Today's Bit of Monday Randomness...

Sunday night television can be a treasure-trove of random nuggets of weirdness...

Zack and I had just finished an hour of Family Guy when we lazily found our way to PBS Thirteen, and saw a story about a man who rides motorcycles with his dog. Not only does the dog ride, but sometimes the man sits behind the dog while the dog steers. I'm not kidding.

Determined to prove that we weren't collectively hallucinating, I looked around online to see if I could find a video clip of what we had just seen. I found nothing about the guy specifically on Thirteen, but I did find this clip:



I'm still keeping an eye out for the one with the dog steering. Just to prove to myself it was real.



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Only His Shadow Stands By Him...

Considering the impact David Eugene Edwards' music has had on me (especially over the past two or so years), seeing Woven Hand play consecutive shows bordered on a religious experience for me. I saw them play Wednesday at Hoboken's staple venue Maxwell's, and Thursday at NYC's Knitting Factory.

The emphasis both nights was on songs from "Consider the Birds," their sophomore release, but they included some 16 Horsepower greats (both nights they played a stomped-out version of "Strawfoot" and closed with "Black Soul Choir"). Hearing these guys (or guy... often DEE sits solo with the lute and jams out) on record is fantastic, but it's only one element of appreciating them; unlike some bands whose live songs are exactly identical to the recorded ones, Woven Hand injects such genuine energy into their set that when David creepily stares at audience members for long periods of time and wails "There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth... We don't know the meaning of grief..." I can't help but believe him. And the songs are so versatile that many can either be rocked out at full volume or stripped down to a single instrument and David's voice, so you really never know what to expect.

As usual, Pentax was in attendance. He bought me a Yuengling. He also snapped some cool moments from both nights... This is a pretty random assortment from both shows, mostly my favorites, arranged linearly as they were taken. No random assortments this time around! As always, for those of you NTG fetishists that absolutely must see every picture I take, drop me a line via elec-tronic mail-ing and I'll load them into a Snapfish album so you can view every single damn one! In the meantime, here's the highlights...

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[editor's note: Great thanks and respect go out David Eugene Edwards and Ordy Garrison for allowing me to photograph their performances.]


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R.I.P. Neil

It is with great sadness that we at Nothing Terribly Grandiose announce the passing of our dear friend, Neil.

Neil, named for legendary American songsmith Neil Young, came to us in late January, when she was moved from her home at Petco to the NTG Central offices on East 116th Street in New York. Her presence immediately brightened all our worlds.

Neil's journey on this earth was not an easy one. When we first met her, she was missing a piece of her tail, a scar from some past battle in the rough neighborhood of Petco. Shortly after we adopted her, she was dealt a crushing blow with the death of her only companion, an orange velvet swordtail named Crazy Horse. Neil and Crazy only knew each other a short while, but in the few days they spent together, they developed a close bond harshly broken by the realities of life.

Neil persevered, and within a matter of days she was blessed with the miracle of childbirth. Until this happened, it was widely believed (or rather, assumed) that Neil was male. This assumption was disproven one miraculous morning when we discovered as many as fifteen tiny fish exploring the tank for the first time. We were overjoyed!

This joy would not last, however. Neil was a dedicated mother, and she did not devour a single one of her children. This is practically unheard of among the fish kingdom, and surely Neil served as an example of love and devotion to her young. Over the coming months, however, while the tiny babies flourished and grew, the harshness of life proved stronger than they could become. Slowly, their numbers began to dwindle until one day in April, Neil's children were gone.

It is impossible to tell how old Neil was when she arrived in our lives, but we at Nothing Terribly Grandiose believe that while her life was fraught with tribulation and grief, the autumn of her years was pleasant and peaceful. It is an honor having known a soul as kind as Neil, and we now move on with hearts heavy with the lesson of love she taught us.

Neil is survived by Neon and Dawkins. She swims into the afterlife to join her children and her dear friends Crazy Horse, Other Neon, That Guppy I Never Named, and The Phantom.

Contributions in lieu of flowers may be sent to the Neil Foundation, c/o the NTG Central Offices, East Harlem, New York.


"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil, for thou art with me." ~Psalm 23


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New Snaps 7.13.05

As usual, this is a mish-mash of snaps from the past month or so...

This is usually the part of the post where I engage in some witty banter with you fine folks... Maybe I'd make some comment that would randomly refer to a certain picture or image, and then I'd paste that image below, as such:


[*editor's note: Many thanks to Raphael for granting NTG the use of his likeness.]

Then there's usually some kind of off-hand comment, which awkwardly leads into the snaps themselves. But the problem is, I haven't really got that much to say this morning. I suppose you could say my mind is elsewhere.

Maybe I'll skip work and go to Midnight Express... While I do that, have a gander at the snaps!


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Words of Wisdom



I was at a friend's recently, and this was sitting on her coffee table. I felt the need to capture the nugget of wisdom someone had left. It's true, we don't.


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Homage to Kubrick



There's something about long, vacant hallways with dim fluorescent lighting that always calls Kubrick to mind... I half-expected to round a corner and see twin girls in blue dresses.

"Come and play with us, Joe... forever... and ever... and ever..."

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My Own Personal Dojo



Every aspiring ninja needs a place to work out. This is mine. It's a perfect square, with a ground of warm stone and a wall of trees around the perimeter. I especially like doing kata here, because it feels like a Shaolin temple.

You can not stop the Legion of Dr. Action. You can only hope to contain us.

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The Hard Questions at Philadelphia International Airport



I heard Philadelphia Airport was recently featured on Fox 29's 10:00 News for its lack of goddamn tissue covers. It's a problem that's sweeping the city. Thanks, Mayor Street! Way to force everyone at the airport to lay toilet paper down! Asshole.


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Herr Franklin?



This is another from Philly Airport, specifically from inside the Independence Brew Pub. My question is, why is Ben Franklin wearing traditional German attire? Is it because he's being associated with beer? Is all beer associated with being German? I'm confused here...

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Lindsay



Tell me this isn't precious. I have no idea how it didn't make it into my wrap-up of the North Carolina trip.


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The Toy Room



I snapped this during my nephew Ryan's birthday party, about a half-hour after Hurricanes Ryan, Andrew, Caitlyn, Shaylin, and Justin swept through the home. The destruction was widespread, almost uprooting plastic basketball hoops and overturning Tonka trucks. North Carolina Governor Mike Easley pledged relief to the devastated residents of the town of Apex.


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Dawkins, At His Most Prehistoric



Not to browbeat pictures of Dawkins, but I just think he's a cool-ass-looking fish. He rarely raises that ridge along his back, but when he does he looks like something out of the Mezozoic period.


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Subway Graffiti, cont'd



Uh, I think what we're supposed to learn from this one is that G-Stone is stone cold... to the bone. We'll keep that in mind, G-Stone.


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St. Marks, 4th of July



More evidence of my penchant for photographing graffiti...


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This Is Some Good-Ass Cheese!



I have eaten goat cheese, and I'll testify that it is the most exciting cheese on the planet.


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Paul's Boutique



Andy, Ben, and Steve pay homage to the Beastie Boys. How many millions of mid-20's white dudes have enacted this same exact picture?


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They Stole My Idea!



Okay, Fox, I want some kind of royalty or restitution. I saw this in a store window on the way to work the other day. Years ago, I was saying to a friend that I thought a good Onion headline (one with a photo but not linked with a whole article) would be a picture of a guy in an American Flag t-shirt, slouching on a couch surrounded by various foods, with the headline "American Idle." I don't care if I never did anything with the idea, the fact that it was in my head makes it exclusively mine. Pay me, Fox! Pay me!!!


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That's it for this time around. I usually close these out with something cool I found in my most recent internet wanderings, and this time's no different.

Until next time, keep it grandiose!


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