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Just ‘Round the Corner!
If you watch enough television where I live–Charlottesville, Virginia–you will probably see commercials for no less than four furniture stores. There’s Kane Furniture (with a kicky...
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Memories of Concrete and Asphalt
Back in October, my parents came down from Long island to take my son to Kings Dominion, an amusement park just outside of Richmond. Being that he’s only five years old, he was interested in the...
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Amy + Joey 4eva
So I’m not the only person in my generation who is starting to feel a little older because quite a number of the things that I enjoyed when I was in high school are turning 20. We’ve already passed...
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Being Michael Grates
About a week or two ago, I came across a few articles filled with emotional hand-wringing on the part of the generation often referred to as Millenials. I read about how there is a generational...
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Two Liters With a Pie
The flat remains of a two-liter bottle of Diet Pepsi. Yes, that’s my kitchen in the background.A couple of months ago, I was at a work function where food was being served. We had a few tables of...
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Show Me That Panarese Smile
The portrait studio section of an unknown Sears. My sister and I cannot smile. Okay, that’s not entirely true–we have the muscle function that is necessary to smile, but if you ask us to sit for a...
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Bowling, Burgers, and Birthdays
Sayville Bowl, the bowling alley where I spent many a childhood birthday party. I went to a kid’s birthday party a few weeks ago. Normally, these are held at one of those huge playland places that...
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A Banquet, a Song, a Date, a Mug
A few months ago, I was doing the dishes after breakfast, and after putting my coffee mug in the drying rack, I heard it crash to the floor. I sighed and grabbed the broom and dustpan, and while...
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Pop Culture Affidavit, Episode 29 — Now I Can Die in Peace
Twenty years ago, the New York Rangers won their first Stanley Cup since 1940. Join me as I reminisce about that amazing run and talk about my life as a Rangers fan as well as share the memories of...
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June 17, 1994: The Most Important Day of the Nineties
The cover to the 1994 Regents exam in English. Had the events of the evening of June 17, 1994 not proceeded the way they did, i am sure that I would have remembered the day anyway. It wouldn’t have...
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Pop Culture Affidavit Episode 50: The Weirdest Year of Your Life
It’s the 50th episode of Pop Culture Affidavit! For this special episode, I take a look back twenty years to the year I graduated from high school. Along the way, I look at how senior year of high...
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Modern Diner
1:43 a.m. (Conversation on a Diner Napkin) Rain falls to the sidewalk beside a lonely crowded roadside diner, where I’m wondering what it was about her that could have stopped the world for so long....
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Those Lights Were Bright on Broadway
In the liner notes to his live album Songs in the Attic, Billy Joel writes that the performance of “Miami 2017 (I’ve Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway” “demands the gothic reverberation of a vast...
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Fizzy Fuzzy Memories
So I’ve relived my experience with Coke II and it really made me remember one of the things I love about writing this blog–digging up those odd, random things in the culture that I remember and poking...
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When Clothes Shopping Became Cool
The Kids R Us in the Nassau Mall in Levittown, NY. Image from siteride on Flickr. Based on the commercials from the decade, I wonder if today’s youth is under the impression that the 1980s were just...
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Somewhere Else: Roy Rogers
A quick note: This was originally written in December 2002 on my old site “Inane Crap” as part of an occasional series called “Somewhere Else”, which detailed random road trips and travels. Since I...
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Raiders!, Teen Movie Dreams and The Legend of Kung Fool
I can’t get the image of Eric Zala begging his boss for another day off out of my head. It happens about two-thirds of the way through 2015’s Raiders!: The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made,...
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Pop Culture Affidavit Episode 113: Taped Off the Radio
This time around, I’m back to looking at my history with music by going deep into the early 1990s and my early teens, recollecting those nights I spent in my room listening to the radio and rushing to...
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Pop Culture Affidavit Episode 120: When It Was Fun
In 1996, the Sayville, NY-based punk band Wasted Time released their only album, “When It Was Fun.” To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the CD’s release, I’m interviewing the lead singer (and one of...
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School-Aged Showoffs
So I’m sitting here on the second snow day of a week where I was supposed to return to teaching after a two-week winter break. I’m not exactly upset or stressed about any of that, to be honest,...
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