look out baby, cuz here I come

It’s almost time to begin my mini-vacation to the mother country I call Connecticut. I’ll be hitting the road in about half an hour. I’m extremely glad its raining as I’m sure all other drivers on the road will be on their best behavior. It’s definitely going to be a long, long trek. The Jen leaves for Chile on Saturday. Extremely wacky. I do believe this is the farthest and longest we’ve ever been apart. I couldn’t imagine not being able to see and/or touch my hair for that long. Seriously though, I will miss the crap out of her and probably be worried the entire time. I’m sensitive like that. I think its pretty awesome that she is getting the opportunity to get down there. And, I get to meet up with her in Miami for some debaucherous fun.

I’ve been obsessing over the fact that I didn’t get in a run yesterday and ate half a pizza last night. I actually contemplated squeezing in a run before beginning the journey to CT. Alas, I was insane for ever contemplating that. So, waht do I hope to accomplish in Tri-State area?

Relax with my family

Finish a couple short stories

Get magnificently drunk with Alex and the Walk Up in NYC

Get in a boat

Unearth the C64

Be glorious

I think all of that is well in my reach. I’m sure I’ll end up with at least something witty and cute to blog about.

Because that’s what I do.

game over, man. game over.

I'm pretty sure of myself. I've faced all kinds of challenges, overcome all kinds of obstacles. There comes a time in a man’s life when he must fall victim to the talons of domestication. Its been a process, needless to say. I’ve come a long way from the time where my idea of “domestic” was sleeping under a table that had a table cloth and taking out the garbage was engaging in fisticuffs with the trashcan because it “looked at me funny.” I won that one, for the record. Little did I know, not far in the future, I would face an even stronger and more cunning foe.

I’m talking about the toilet bowl.

Man’s best friend when times are good. The toilet is a great thing on nights when praying becomes necessary or for some quality time spent with a magazine. When times are bad, it can be the source of great irritation. One of our toilets has been acting ornery lately. The thing would start running for no other good reason other than to prey upon my sleep problems. In the middle of the night, the soft sonance of water escaping beneath the loose flapper sounded to me like I had my head permanently superglued to the base of Angel Falls.

A few days ago, matters took a turn for the worse. A jiggle was no longer capable of stopping the flow. I removed the top of the tank. She was full, the floater was at its peak. Water gushed unabated from that infernal and tiny hose unabated. There were more problems at work here. Upon further inspection, I soon realized that every bit of rubber inside the tank had rotted. It would be a matter of days before water was leaking out around the bolts. Not on my watch.

It was time to get serious.



I paid a trip to Home Depot and returned with the Fluidmaster 4000 per Steve’s recommendation. “These things are the best. I’ve got them in all my toilets.” Apparently, every rocker must own the Fluidmaster 4000 at some point in theirlife. My time had come. I was about to engage in some bizarre, aqueous rite of passage.

I didn’t expect the fight of a lifetime.

It took me ten minutes or so to disengage the water line from the toilet. It took me a good thirty minutes of cursing to get the bolts off the tank. One of the rubber washers had disintegrated and seeped through to the other side of the porcelain, where it then had congealed around the screw and wing-nut. I thought it was all over, when finally I got the thing to give. My hands were black and the index finger and middle finger of my right hand were stained bright blue thanks to the residue from one of those miracle flush wafers that really do nothing except make the water so blue that you can’t tell if your bowl is dirty (okay, that is brilliant). It was time to get the main tube assembly separated from the tank so that I may install the Cadi-Flush 5 billion or whatever the thing is called. At the time, I might’ve called the flush kit a dirty whore.

Twist. Turn. Wiggle. Tug. Curse. Turn. Tuggle. I invented that one on the spot – a combination of twisting, wiggling, and turning while praying to the baby Jesus that he give me the resolve not to throw the whole tank through the bathroom window. Despite my efforts, I could not get that sucker out. I was missing one vital piece of gear – a plumber’s wrench.

I stumbled into Jen’s office. I was drenched in sweat and covered in the black mystery liquid. My right hand looked like I had stolen it from a Smurf (definitely not Handy). My hair actually looked pretty good, though. All tousled and such. I said to Jen, “This isn’t going to happen. It’s not the easy job you thought it was.” I received a sort of blank stare, followed by: “Do you want me to come look at it?”

“Sure, but I’ve been working at it for a while now.”

She proceeded into the bathroom and turned to me with wide eyes.


“Why did you take the whole thing apart?” She gasped, clearly, the horror was creeping in. “We didn’t need to replace everything!” She wasn’t angry, but there certainly was some exasperation going on. Can’t say I blame her. She had Flusho, the swamp-thing Smurf-man and a destroyed toilet desecrating the sanctuary of her bathroom.

“Everything. Bad. Toilet. Rubber. Leak.” I managed between clenched teeth. I trembled on the threshold of blowing my top.

The beastly bowl had beaten me and was now showboating in front of my woman.


“We’ll look at it later.” Jen said and returned to working on her MBA finals. I stood in the bathroom for a while, staring in disgust at the three-quarter disassembled toilet tank.

Game over.

For now. We have secured a plumbers wrench. And when I have the time, I’m going to go to town.

have a good weekend, from the both of us

It was a long drive home. Long and full of Screaming Trees. And as the journey of the week comes to a close, my hair and I wish you a weekend full of good drinks, good music, and good lovin'.

top ten

I thought it’d be funny to put together a top ten list of hobby/project/complete-lack-of-focus endeavors I’ve come up with over the past year. I had a big pool to choose from. Amazingly enough, I actually managed to accomplish some of these things.

10. Write a novel.
9. Train for a marathon
8. Create an old-school videogame.
7. Write a screenplay
6. Photography
5. Painting
4. Cooking (in the culinary genius sense of the word)
3. Start reading again
2. Record

And number 1 on this list…by a huge margin:













1. Claymation (and I’m not shitting you).

So. What haven’t I accomplished? I have not created an old-school videogame. There is a lot of nostalgia to these games of yore. I sat in front of that C64 for hours as a whipper-snapper. I felt a burning desire to be part of that nostalgia – to make it a living breathing thing. The brilliant idea was hatched months ago. I proposed a creative partnership with good ol’ Brian. He went along with me, full well knowing this project would be forgotten in a week. I scribbled some notes. I might’ve even made a map. Suffice to say, she died on the table. I still think it’s a neat, albeit geeky idea.

I can’t say that I’ve written that screenplay yet, but that is on the near-long term list of goals. By near-long term I mean, those things I can’t quite fit into my schedule right now, but anticipate on making time for them in the next several months. I’ve put photography on that list. I don’t have a professional-grade camera, but I do see a lot of great subjects on my commute to work. Photography is a beautiful art from, and it certainly wouldn’t hurt to try. Painting is on this list. The painting thing is a little more long-long term. It’s dependent on Jen McBusy-MBA-student-erson having the free time to show me the ropes. I think it’d be a good co-activity.

I love to eat. This is no secret. It seemed a logical progression that I would love to cook. I do enjoy cooking, don’t get me wrong. But, come the end of the day (on the days I actually make it home), I’m usually pretty wiped. Cooking from scratch thus becomes a painful, uninspiring, and quite messy ordeal. That’s not to say I won’t cook from time to time. Jen certainly enjoys it. However, serious-cooking likely won’t be a frequent event. A couple times a month I might get creative. Until then, the world is welcome to enjoy a mean veggie-burger/pita/melted-cheese-tomatoey-treat. Lean cuisine has these kick ass frozen meals in a bag. There is some stirring involved, but I can stir “occasionally” without feeling too pressed. A meal in a bag. Brilliant.

Probably one of the most ridiculous things to ever flow past my lips: “Jen, I’m going to do claymation.” It was an odd mix of emotions on her face. Mostly, her expression said something to the effect of “Who are you?” I really don’t know where this idea came from. I mean, I loved playing with clay as a kid. Not to mention, claymation is truly a great lost art. I think the clay I purchased came out of the box once. And as I write this, I’m completely cracking up. I think I was serious about it, too.

So, what did I accomplish this year? I wrote that novel. Related to that, I’ve start reading again and have read some damn good books. Suffice to say, my drive as a writer is both healthy and present. I’ve recorded over the past 8 months, and I am still in the process of recording for both bands. Now, I haven’t officially started training for a marathon, but I do run four to six days a week. I think that’s a good start.

My ass looks so spectacular.

that's justice, chubby.

WashingtonPost Story Uno

I’ll admit. I’ve been irritated all day for various reasons. I’ve been looking for an outlet - target upon which to spew my venom. I innocently hit the front page of WashingtonPost.com for some news. Apparally, (to use a cutting edge word, that you just might not be familiar with yet) Scott Sullivan (WorldCom) is [finally] getting sent to the federal-pound-me-in-the-ass prison for fraud. Scottie is getting five years. I can’t say I kept up-to-date with the whole MCI WorldCom debacle. I do know that there is a massive and largely empty compound bearing that infamous moniker not far from my house. Scottie’s little miscalculation in judgment caused a lot of jobs (I’m assuming by the evidence ion hand). I am also assuming, as with these other big-time fraud cases, that many inculpable people, in addition to losing their jobs, lost their retirement funds. That is crappy. Really crappy. Now, Scottie isn’t the lone keeper of the blame. However, he is still an idiot that fucked a lot of people. Five years seems a little light for the number of people that Scott n’ the gang corn-holed. Perhaps, the sentence should’ve been five years and then, at the last hour, of the last day of his sentence, he gets doused with kerosene and set on fire.

That’s justice, baby. And it smells like KFC.

Then there was this gem that shared the front page (along with all the other breaking news bits).

WashingtonPost Story 2

Is society that culturally depraved? Someone would rather watch a show with this guy than, say, read a good book? Now, I can’t say I read the entire article. Attention deficit prevents that from happening again and again on a regular basis. Not to mention, I was pretty beat after Scott’s article. I did click through the first several pages. Now, if this “comedian’s” end-goal is to cure herpes or cancer, I’m a bastard. I’m sorry funny-man. Be funny and save the world.

However, I don’t think page 4 held any such information. It’s just very sad. Considering that I’ve got such great hair. My hair could (and should) really have its own talk show.

I’ll take two orders of extra-crispy, please.

if you're not going to love yourself.....

It's like Jim Henson is god and I'm his beautiful, beautiful fraggle.
- Phil Rossi

Tonight I'm playing at Stellas (www.stellas.com) along with the lovely Ann as part of Steve Key's acoustic showcase. Short, short set. 9:00 sharp.

the sand pit

We used to have a pool when I was young – that threshold of conscious memory young. The pool was one of those above-ground numbers, circular, with a deadly metal ledge. My sister had a pool party for her birthday one year. I will call it her twelfth birthday party. There were kids galore - running, screaming, frolicking, and of course splashing. The pool was alive with small arms, legs, and the occasional swimmy. We called them “fugles” in the Rossi house.

I still call them fugles. As if that’s a problem.

A plan was hatched, unbeknownst to Ma and Pa Rossi.. The kids in the pool decided they would swim around the circumference to generate the mother of all above-ground whirlpools. They were successful. It was amazing. A vortex of swirling, chlorinated goodness, right in my backyard! Amazement turned to parental horror when the side of the pool blew out, spewing gallons of water and tangles of twelve-year olds onto the yard. Oh, how I wanted to traverse that mighty river. My little feet carried me in the direction of the flow. A restraining hand on my little arm prevented any such adventure whatsoever. Mom was quick.

So, away the water went, down around the big tree, and into Auntie Hilda’s yard. I wonder if any of it went into her pool. I can’t quite recall. Either way, that was the end of the above-ground pool.

The death of the pool brought the sandpit into existence – a pool size indentation in the earth full of sand and pebbles. It became the canvas for imaginary, epic struggles between marauding hordes of monsters and immobile, but fierce, green army men. I loved that sand pit. I excavated canals, built forts and encampments. Created natural disasters. Anything that would leave me covered head to tow in dirt and grit. The sandpit was the backdrop for whatever world I thought up on any given day. I’m not sure what made me think of it just now.

Welcome to my new blog. I’m self absorbed, pretty much anyone that loves me can a test to that. I’m a musician. I play in two bands. I’m a writer. I just finished my first novel and I’m busy on several short stories, and the planning of the next epic. I’m an amateur astronomer (don’t believe me?). I’ve been called a renaissance man. In truth, I just have an attention deficit problem. For years, I had trouble finishing things I started. I still have difficulty. What I do have is a new determination and a supportive woman to make sure that I do actually finish some of my various projects. Project that thus far have turned out to be worthwhile.

So, enjoy this blog. I’m sure there will be many entertaining anecdotes.