Tell Me Ya Burger

Steve Westmeyer-Hoagie roll, unknown beef-like substance, 'merican cheese-food, french fries lettuce, tomato, ketchup, mayonnaise, wrapped in brown paper bag. AKA the Fat Cat. 1,600 or so calories.

Eric Market(Post No Bills) - I'd have to combine the Triumph burger and buffalo burger from the Seargentsville Inn. 1/2 lb buffalo patty med rare, toasted Kaiser Roll with lettuce, tomato, deli mustard and Triumphs Cajun mayo. Maybe some apple wood smoked bacon and of course some sharp cheddar. Dill pickle on the side and a big 'ol side of fries with mayo for dipping.

Fredrick Ree(The Turnbucklers)-I like smaller reg. size beef patties doubled up, maybe some Swiss, a lil’ BBQ sauz, those lil’ crispy onion things, lettuce n tomato, toasted bun...boosh...I don’t enjoy furburgers

Dave Slagle(Somerville Town Drunks)- I love burgers.  Especially my BBQ Pulled Pork Cheeseburger: It has two burgers with cheddar cheese, pulled pork and coleslawr in the middle. Topped with bread and butter pickle slices, ketchup, mustard, and of course, love. Toasted bun too

Brian Woolverton(Post No Bills)-  The Post No pork roll, egg and cheeseburger. Hard roll (toasted) with pork roll, egg, cheddar cheese, fried onions, ketchup and hot sauce.

Mike Delin AKA Mookie- Hamburger on a pretzel roll with baby Swiss, pork roll, fried egg, onion ring, mayo and ketchup.  "Fat Mookie."

E Chops(Somerville Town Drunks)- The Palabra Patty Melt:  2 pieces of bread, two slices of cheese- 1 American, 1cheddar, beef patty, pickle chips and BBQ sauce.  Make a grilled cheese with a burger in between.

Scruff (The Tea and Whiskey)- The Locomotive at Burger Express in Carteret: Near as i can tell it's just a standard double quarter-pounder with regular beef patties, American cheese, ketchup and pickles on a hard roll.  Nothing extraordinary about it based on what I know of the ingredients, but when you actually bite into it that shit, it’s magical.

Bobby Cenicola(Somerville Town Drunks)- It all starts out with an Italian meatball made into a patty.  Marinarar sauce on the meat, topped with melted fresh mozzerellar, roasted peppers and grated parmigiana cheese on garlic bread, round roll….”The Digitialian Burger”

Letter to Slagle Clause

Dear Slagle Clause,

Last year you came by on Christmas and gave my sister a black eye.  Is that your idea of a gift?  Did you think that would be funny?  Why would you do that?  Well I’m hoping you come back this year because I’ve been lifting all year and I’m ready to kick your ass.  You got my address and I’ll be waiting.

Ready for a fight,

Tommy

Dear Tommy, 
The reason she got the black eye is because Slagle Clause WARNED her, NO TEETH. She deserved it. You want to try this year? Keep waiting, just like your mother is waiting for child support. Slut.
                                                           Love,
                                                           Slagle Clause

Christmas love/hate

There’s a thin line between love and hate but this thing falls way to the left AND the right of that line

LOVE:

Christmas-Seeing old friends, spending time with family, shopping for gifts for loved ones, receiving gifts, hearing Christmas music everywhere, drinking eggnog, going to midnight mass.  It’s the most wonderful time of the year.

HATE:

Christmas-Seeing old friends you don’t wanna see, spending time with family you don’t even like, having to buy gifts for loved ones, receiving crappy gifts you don’t even want, hearing Christmas music everywhere,  drinking too much eggnog, being guilted into going to midnight mass.  It’s the most horrible time of the year.

Christmas Playlist Thoughts

So things have been hectic with the holiday season as is almost always the case. Gotta send cards to and buy gifts for relatives you see once a year or less regardless of whether or not you’re in a comfortable place financially to do so. It’s never much fun. That being said here’s the best thing I could come up with for this month’s issue. Think of this as my own spin on the 12 days of Christmas. Except instead of gifts it’s just observations I made throughout a slow Monday at my warehouse job. So in no particular order here are:

The Top 12 things the playlist I compiled to listen to at work on Monday December 13, 2010 have reminded me of:

1. Rainfall is The Apples In Stereo’s second greatest song right after Baroque.
2. I do not have a favorite Kinks song. Victoria and Well Respected Man will always be locked in a dual to the death.
3. The beginning of Mephiskapheles’ Bad Toupee is possibly one of the greatest moments in the history of percussion.
4. The snap at the end of the final chorus in The Zombies’ Tell Her No is the single most well placed snap ever recorded.
5. The Grains say “Punk rockers in the USA” as opposed to “UK” in their cover of White Man In Hammersmith Palais. I Hadn’t noticed this on any of my prior listens. It’s a neat little way of making it their own.
6. Time Out For Fun is both Devo’s greatest and most underrated song.
7. No matter what my wife or other people who get super into xmas tell me to the contrary, a song simply having “Christmas” or some variation thereof in the title such as Descendents’ Christmas Vacation or Tom Waits’ Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis counts as a holiday song.
8. While I don’t wish Rivers Cuomo any actual harm or misfortune I do wish something would put him back in a dark enough mindset to write another Pinkerton.
9. When The Ergs were recording their dub version of A Million Perfect Days there was talk of having the studio engineer record a “bong solo” over the instrumental break. The thought makes me chuckle every time I hear the song.
10. Bob Dylan’s holiday album from last year makes him sound a bit like Tom Waits on some tracks. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that Waits takes a cue from this and releases one of his own.
11. Lemuria has gone through a few different bassists in recent history. What if they merged with Motorhead to form Lemmy-ria? Could the world handle something that badass?
12. Every second of Radiohead’s nearly six and a half minute Paranoid Android is totally necessary.

And a partridge in a pear tree. Or something to that effect. See you next year folks.

Beanies and Scarves

That's right, just in time for the Alco-holiday's 2010, we got beanies and scarves.  Beanies are available in a bunch of colors, scarves are pretty limited.  Get em' quick.

Issue #3 "Album I Love"

Mephiskapheles – “Maximum Perversion” – 1997 Moon Ska Records - There are albums that came out at pivotal times in your life that, on top of being great, hold such sentimental value that they always take you back to that time and mindset. I thought of that as I drove into work this morning and Less Than Jake’s “Automatic” came on my ipod. As you all know that’s on their album, “Losing Streak”, arguably their greatest. Listening to that album always takes me back to my teens in the mid to late 90’s when I first saw them headline Ska Against Racism at Montclair University and when I won my cassette copy of that album on one of the wheel games down at Seadside and then played it incessantly in whatever boom box, walkman or car stereo I had access to. But everybody already knows that album rules and doesn’t need me to tell them so. As luck would have it though my ipod seemed to sense I was wistful for the 3^rd wave ska explosion and the next track was “Introduction To The Yellow Passion” from Mephiskapheles’ underrated 2^nd album “Maximum Perversion”. Despite this album coming out at the same time as many of the other benchmarks of the genre it somehow seemed to slip through the cracks for most people, myself included. I actually purchased this album almost a decade after its release. I did however have several compilations (a lost concept- it seems nobody’s putting out good cheap comps like they used to) that had tracks from this album on it. All of those comps are also worth owning, but for now I’m gonna stick with talking about actual albums. Mephiskapheles for the most part were geniuses in the sense that they knew people would enjoy them most in smaller dosages, so they just gave submitted songs to comps like crazy which is how most of us learned about them. That and satanic imagery is always fun for teens trying to be rebellious. Their first album that more people are familiar with, “God Bless Satan” really milks the latter whereas “Maximum Perversion” is more about “okay you know what our gimmick is, and we’re happy you dig it, but check out our musicianship cuz we’re all really awesome at what we do”. Don’t worry they knew what their bread and butter was and still have a couple tracks on there that give props to the Prince Of Darkness. But my personal favorites “Attack Of The Geniuses”, “Bad Toupee” and “Break Your Ankle Punk” don’t seem to be about religion or really much of anything in particular other than showcasing incredible horn and rhythm sections. Seriously there’s a lot going on in ska and drummers typically fade into the woodwork, but this guy makes you take notice. Check this album out you’ll be glad you did. You can most likely find it on Half.com for less than $5 with shipping. What have you really got to lose? (with the possible exception of your soul)  SCRUFF

Issue #1 "Album I Love"

Tom Waits - "Rain Dogs" released 1985 on Island Records –

Today I was cruising around running various errands unemployed people run (getting cotton balls for my fiancé and a cheap vcr from Craig's List for myself if you're wondering) listening to my ipod when
" Union Square" by Tom Waits came on. As I often think whenever a song from Rain Dogs comes on, "holy crap this is a great album".  Tom Waits as you may or may not know is an acquired taste. He's got a gravely voice and loves macabre subject matter and often employs creepy circus/carnival instrumentation to recite said macabre gravelly tirades over. This is one of his more accessible albums which still aren’t to say that many will care for it. It was a favorite of mine to put on during my brief stint working at the Hot Topic in Woodbridge Center back at the turn of the century.  To watch the confusion and annoyance of the younger patrons wondering why we didn't just put on more nu-metal or emo teeny bopper pinup bubblegum what have you, which were sadly the two most prevalent genres at the time? This was the first album by Tom Waits I bought. Like most people of my generation my first introduction to him was seeing the video for "I Don't Want to grow Up" (famously covered by The Ramones) on Beavis and Butthead. Shortly after that I noticed an album by the same guy within my Dad's cd collection. It was 1973's live album "Nighthawks at The Diner" (also flawless and worth owning, but that's for another time). Upon one of the many visits I would make to the no longer existing CD World at Menlo Park Mall back during that time because of their expansive used section and seemingly random selection of non-used albums to put on sale for under $10 I found "Rain Dogs" for the too good to pass up price of $6.98 and it's one of the wisest purchases I've ever made. The opening track "Singapore" has been one of my favorite mixtape/playlist staples ever since.  Other favorites include the closer "Anywhere I Lay My Head" with it's New Orleans jazz funeral outro, the title track "Rain Dogs" featuring the unmistakable staccato guitaring of Mark Ribot, country song it's okay to admit liking "Blind Love" and the almost impossible to classify genre-wise trifecta of "Tango Til They're Sore", "Cemetery Polka" and "Jockey Full Of Bourbon". This album also contains "Downtown Train" which Waits is the original writer of. It's a far cry from the more polished but much less soulful version popularized by Rod Stewart. If you love things you get to describe using words like quirky, atmospheric and peculiar, then odds are you'll love this album. And if for some reason you don't, somebody that's fortunate enough to find it in the used bin after your giving up on it surely will.
Scruff Cardinale