Archive for the 'friends' Category

Blogging: On Comments

Posted by Brendan on November 12th, 2006 filed in blogs, calling bullshit, criticism, friends, meta

When I graduated from UMass with a degree in English in 1996, I was so burned out on writing, I thought I’d never put pen to paper, or more accurately, open up a Word document for pleasure, ever again. In fact, as a creative writer I was dead in the water for about 5 years [...]

Read More..>>

Susie Madrak

Posted by Brendan on October 15th, 2006 filed in blogs, death, friends, writing

My friend Susie Madrak’s father is dying.
She’s going through a rough time, expressed with the eloquence and emotion that make me visit her page every day.
Susie is a remarkable writer, and I wish her nothing be my best wishes as she goes through what all of us are going to have to go through eventually. [...]

Read More..>>

Star Strangled Banners

Posted by Brendan on September 6th, 2006 filed in blogs, fascism, friends, politics, war

An old friend from high school, Dave, recently got in touch.
He’s ended up politically pretty much where I’m at, perhaps a bit more vocally paranoid (and I mean that in a good way). he’s also a great writer. Fopr the time being he posts blogs at myspace, but he should be on blogger soon.
In [...]

Read More..>>

Woodstown Photos

Posted by Brendan on September 5th, 2006 filed in bluegrass festival, friends

No pirate costumes for me this time around, and unless someone has pictures of Lucie’s bachelorette party, you won’t get to see me half-naked.

The fiddle player in the glasses was awesome.

The Woodstown festival is where we have our Grillbillies’ Thanksgiving. Festival season in the northeast is pretty much over by Labor Day, and many [...]

Read More..>>

The Priest

Posted by Brendan on August 11th, 2006 filed in Philadelphia, alcohol, anger, biography, culture, friends, punk rock, violence

I was sitting outside at a table at the Dahlak on Sunday with my friend Rich and this punk rock girl I had never met before. She had short blonde hair, and wore thick streaks of pink eyeshadow, almost a Blondie meets Benatar kind of look. She was pissing me off by making the same [...]

Read More..>>

It’s Kelly Bray!

Posted by Brendan on August 7th, 2006 filed in Rock-n-roll, biography, friends, old school, punk rock

One of my best friends in high school was a whackjob named Kelly Bray, described by my mother as “a big pudding of a boy.”
I hadn’t seen Kelly in years until Matt Paddock, the guy who sent me reeling last week with an out-of-the-blue myspace friend request, sent me this shot of my old pal, [...]

Read More..>>

Suicide

Posted by Brendan on August 1st, 2006 filed in biography, fascism, friends, hypocrisy, politics, suicide

In 1985, James Crowley, a kid from my high school who I never liked, hanged himself at the age of 15.
In 1986, my friend Christy Reidy did the job with pills. She was 16 or 17.
A few years later, in 1990, my friend John St. John got drunk and put a hole through his head [...]

Read More..>>

Chris Steeves

Posted by Brendan on November 18th, 2003 filed in friends, old school, punk rock

I was already knee deep into hardocre and punk the day i met Chris Steeves, a tiny mouselike girl with a tongue sharper than razors. I had been talking to Vadim Tchertishny, the Estonian parking lot attendant (motto: “I am tired of being a cog. I want to be a lever.”) when she walked [...]

Read More..>>
Become a StrangeBedfellow!