If you ever find yourself driving on the NJ Turnpike (you have to be driving though. The bus does not count), I highly recommend including the following songs on your playlist:

“Ooh La La” The Faces, “Starstruck” The Kinks, “Motor Away” Guided By Voices, “Abel” The National, “Stay Positive” The Hold Steady, “Jungleland” Bruce Springsteen, “Money City Maniacs” Sloan, “Tin Soldier” The Small Faces. Preferably in that order. You can thank me later.

this is one of the funniest SNL skits I’ve seen in a long long time. I can still picture that punk rock girl on the Ocean City boardwalk with the Corrosion of Conformity logo stitched to the back of her jean jacket. I might just dig up my 7 Seconds and Dead Kennedy’s records this weekend.

http://widgets.nbc.com/o/4727a250e66f9723/4b756a79e98731ed/4741e3c5156499a7/bbea293a/-cpid/f6f3e0267028fe9d

Another great video featuring a friend of mine. Keep watching because I think this is just about the best use of this amazing Grizzly Bear song.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1Tn5YILz9s]

I have crazy friends. And they are very funny. This all started because I wrote a post on Facebook begging my comedian friends to do a parody of those eHarmony commercials. They called my bluff and did this parody which features 29 dimensions of hilarity.

http://player.ordienetworks.com/flash/fodplayer.swf

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBMJ79ly3B4]

Finally saw this film last week and one scene in particular struck me as unique: the screen splits in two and you see a Scott Walker record spinning in one boxed screen, and then in the other screen you see a musician [who has been talking about Scott's music and influence throughout the documentary] listen in real time to that record. Not only does it look great on screen, but it’s a cool insight into seeing how these musicians listen to music. Do they sing along? Bop their head in time to the song? Facial expression? Neat stuff.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhbK8kQW4LI]

I went with friends to see Doves last night at Terminal 5. The band was in top form, as usual (I have seen them 4 times now and have never been let down. Well, except for the first show at Irving Plaza on the Lost Souls tour when they were plagued by technical difficulties and had to stop the show for a LONG time). I have to say that it was the first time I’ve ever found it difficult to find a space to actually see the band. Like ever. Granted we got there as they were just about to go on. But still. Anyway, great great show. They started out with the mind melting “Jetstream” from their new album Kingdom of Rust (which is nothing short of genius by the way), got the room bouncing with Motown stomper “Black and White Town” from Some Cities, and almost ended with “Cedar Room” from Lost Souls. The reason I say almost ended with “Cedar Room” is because it was the first of the encore songs and the last entire song I heard.

I’d like to blame it on hunger, being slightly drunk (due to having not had time to eat dinner, hence the hunger, and drinking a healthy quantity of beer), and tired (up at 730am and worked out after work, before show), and I just wanted to get home and crawl into bed. But the reality is much more disturbing: I made a calculated decision that if I left at the time I did, I would beat the large crowd leaving the venue, and would have a much better chance of getting a cab.

How lame is that? Would I leave a movie before it was over? Of course not. I’d already paid for my ticket and mortgaged the house in order to buy popcorn and soda as well, and god dammit, I’m not going to miss the ending after having invested so much. So why would I do this at concerts? I asked myself this morning that if I had made it to one of the My Bloody Valentine reunion shows, would I have done the same thing? Answer: probably. I saw them on the Loveless tour anyway. Okay, not a good example. Would I have left early from The Who playing live at Leeds in 1970? Answer: I honestly don’t know. And since The Who is my favorite band of all time — in fact I am probably the biggest Who fanatic on the planet — this is the kind of disturbing, gut wrenching, soul searching question I will spend the rest of my life trying to answer. Or at least, spend the rest of today trying to answer.

So I recently exchanged my coins in the coin arcade machine thing-y at TD Bank. First of all, I have to say that this is the most useful invention since the 311 system (which came in handy when figuring out how to properly dispose of various pieces of furniture during my recent move).

Before throwing all your change into the machine (make sure you sift out all those dust bunnies first!), you can guess the dollar amount of cash you have saved. Usually I bypass this step but for some reason I was feeling lucky this time. And get this: I guessed within $.41, which is shockingly awesome. And my prize? A plastic puke green change holder. I was absolutely gutted. I haven’t felt this cheated since the final Sex Pistols show.

It had been months since I had a month sabbatical planned starting in mid-October, and I still hadn’t figured out what I was going to do. Then one day at work I was listening to ‘Arthur’ by The Kinks. The song “Australia” came on. About ten minutes later I purchased my ticket to Australia.

I was there for nearly a month and traveled between Sydney and Cairns, and most destination points in between including: Coffs Harbour, Byron Bay, Fraser Island, the Whitsunday Islands. I had the experience of a lifetime and have stories that could fill many pages of the Shore Fire Blog. Instead of writing an epic travel diary (which I’ve already done), here are some of the most memorable highlights:

• First five days or so: Jetlag. Not that wimpy jetlag you get from Europe. This was real jetlag from a 15-16 hour time difference. Rather than toss and turn more one morning, I decided to get up, take a walk down to the beach and take some pictures of the sunrise in Bondi Beach:Apparently Australians eat kangaroos. Ew:
• Surfing with dolphins in Coffs Harbour. I was surfing a nice point break one afternoon in Coffs Harbour when about 10 feet in front of me I see a fin pop out of the water. My first thought is, shark! Then I noticed another and another, and realized they were dolphins by the way the fins were bopping up and down in the water. I tried to get them to surf a wave in with me but they blew me off. Typical locals. Sadly I have no pictures of this (don’t have a water proof camera) so you’re gonna have to take my word for it. Pretty amazing.

• Birthday in Byron Bay. Don’t remember much from this but apparently I had a good time.

• 4WDing and camping under the stars on Fraser Island. Fraser Island is the world’s largest sand island. It’s about 120 km long by like 15 km wide. I’ve never seen so many stars in my life. My fun was somewhat stifled by a Dutchman who was crazy paranoid about driving through saltwater. While it’s true that hire companies impose big fines for this, they are renting you a vehicle to DRIVE ON THE BEACH. Of course you’re going to go through a little bit of saltwater. Anyway, I can still hear his voice warning me as I drove: “watch aut! saldwada!” Here’s a view from the 4WD on way to the beach:
And though the ocean looks beautiful and inviting, you cannot swim in it; it’s infested by sharks and stingers. Imagine not being able to swim in this:
• 2 day/night trip to the Whitsunday Islands on a catamaran. The white sand beaches of Whitehaven Beach is surely one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen:
• Being a 39 year old backpacker staying at youth hostels. The kids I roomed with must have thought, “Oh god. Who brought dad with them!!!???!!” Surprisingly I survived this without too many nightmare incidences. However there was this little nugget: there was an Irish couple staying in a private room in my dorm room. At least I think they were Irish. Their accent was hard to decipher as they had lost the ability to form complete sentences. Well, I guess they must have had a fight while out partying because I was woken up at 1:30am to a chorus of “*^@$ off!” “No, you *^@$ off!!” This went on for what seemed like hours. Awesome.

• Election Day in Australia. Once I saw that Obama had won PA I felt safe enough to go out for a quick surf while the rest of the results came in. There was a nice 6 foot swell at Bondi Beach and it would have been a waste spending my last day in Australia inside watching the election results. After surfing I went up to the roof top of my hostel, watched the waves roll in and called a friend of mine in the States, a fellow political junkie.

When it came time for Obama’s speech I decided to venture out to find a larger TV than the 12″ one in my room (also known as “the smallest TV in all of Australia”). I went to a pub around the corner and as I walked in the door, the opening piano chords to “Let It Be” rang through the mostly empty pub (it was like 3pm on a Weds after all). I asked out loud who played the song, and this guy saunters over (obviously already drunk) and gives me one of those half handshake/half hungs with a smile from ear to ear. Seriously? You can’t make this stuff up.

Surfing in New York City? Yes, it’s true. You CAN surf in New York City. And I’m not talking about those silly wave pools. Like, real waves in like, the real ocean. We certainly don’t have the greatest waves in the area (Long Island is much better) but you can’t beat the relative close proximity of surf-able waves in the city. My adopted break is Beach 90th Street in the Rockaway Beach section of Queens. The route I go takes me past the Floyd Bennet Airfield and Recreation Center, over the Marine Parkway Bridge, and along the way views of Riis park, the gorgeous homes of Breezy Point, and, ahem, housing projects (Thanks Robert Moses for that awesome idea). After parking the car and locking up SECURELY (don’t even think about the old hideaway key under the bumper trick), I’m on the beach. From my apartment in the Windsor Terrace section of Brooklyn the total drive time is something like 45 minutes from door to ocean.

Once in the water things get a little surreal when the occasional huge plane takes off or prepares for landing overhead (JFK is really close by). Growing up in Ocean City, NJ the only planes I saw overhead were tiny one engine planes advertising things like a happy hour special at The Waterfront (Tuesday is Ladies night! $5 all you can drink!!) or how many clams you could get for your buck at Smitty’s Clam Bar in Somers Point.

The waves themselves are nothing to write home about in the summer time – the ideal time to surf here is in the winter. But if we’re lucky we’ll get a few nice hurricane or tropical storm swells in August and September. With ocean temperatures still in the upper 60’s or even low 70’s for much of September and the air still quite warm, late summer/early fall can be a real treat for NYC surfers.

But like everything else in the city, it can get really, really crowded in the water. Near collisions are a common occurrence. Bottom line: before you paddle out into a crowd you had better know what you’re doing in order to avoid potential serious injury to the body and/or surfboard. And even if you do know what you’re doing, it can be frustrating because there are simply not enough waves to go around on a good day. But for me, a few decent rides on a beautiful sunny day is more than enough.

Surfing in the city also illustrates the scope and variety of activities one can experience in just one day. For instance, this past Sunday, I played the opening soccer match of the Fall season for my team Gowanus FC in the morning at Bryant HS in Queens; had lunch with a friend in McCarren Park in Williamsburg; then went out to Rockaway Beach for an afternoon of surfing 6-8’ waves courtesy of Hurricane Hanna (I don’t have any pictures so you’re going to have to take my word for it). And it was worth every ache and pain this poor 38 year old body had to endure come Monday morning.

If I hadn’t known any better, I would have thought I was entering the Space Mountain ride at Disney Land. But apparently no; in fact, I was going to see a Paul Weller show at Nokia Theater. After braving the bizarre neon descent taking me underneath Broadway at Times Square, I happened upon a Theater which apparently puts on rock and roll shows. Good thing I left the acid at home.

His-ever-changing-moods seemed decidedly spunky and electrified as he sauntered around the stage. Weller can have a very commanding stage presence and last night was no exception for His first of two shows in NYC. He seemed revitalized, rejuvenated and as excited as the brash arrogant teenager who first graced the stage in the mid-70’s. Perhaps the fact that He had a new band playing with Him had a lot to do with it — with the exception of ex-Ocean Colour Scene guitar maestro Steve Craddock, this was a totally new band. Indeed, Weller die-hards surely would have noticed the conspicuous absence of His long time drummer Steve White.

Early on in the set, He made His purpose known with a Cuban heel stomping rave-up version of “22 Dreams” from His latest album of the same name. After ending the song, a broad smile ran across His face. He knew it was game on. And it certainly was.

Fans were treated to a healthy dose of songs dotting His thirty plus years in rock and roll, including numbers I’ve never heard Him do in his solo career. “Shout To The Top” from the Style Council was the first surprise of the night followed later on by the spooky “Butterfly Collectors” from His Jam days. The audience’s enthusiastic cheers at the end of which prompted Him to announce His surprise that the NYC crowd even knew the song that well. Clearly He underestimated the huge contingent of aging Anglophile mod grups who always flock to His shows, dressed in their best Fred Perry shirts, skinny jeans (even if they have no business wearing skinny jeans anymore) and Clark’s Desert Boots or Wallabees. For my part I went with the Lonsdale t-shirt, Levi cords and trainers. But enough about the fashion, back to the music:

The modtastic set lasted for nearly two hours and ended with two encores. Kelly Jones from The Stereophonics joined the band onstage for rousing encore renditions of “That’s Entertainment,” and “Eaton Rifles” amongst others (oddly though, they didn’t do “Call Me No. 5”, the track they performed together on ‘Illumination’). The final encore ended appropriately with (this having been the eve of the 7th anniversary of 9/11) “All You Need Is Love.” Clearly there was much love to go around between audience and performer. The only sad point of the night was that it had to come to an end.