New Years Eve and Twins Pub Hanging out.

I've had the pleasure of meeting up with my good friends quite often the last few weeks. I have some pictures.

A Overview of My Friends at The Wedding Celebration.

I can't stop thinking about the day my good friend Miguel married the lovely Jennifer. It was the best time I had in so long I am still beaming about it.

Years ago, the late 80's, I was at SVA in New York City. Most of the students were commuters from the surrounding boroughs and New Jersey. A fair amount of us on the other hand had live in the "dorms" at Sloane House. It was there a group of us had met and developed a friendship that still stands. In my case it's the strongest bond I have with anyone who is not a blood relative.

In a nutshell, from my perspective on how we developed our friendship. Miguel (Mig) and Stephen (Pro) casually knew each other a year before I arrived on the scene. the year I arrived I met Al. Al was reading a comic book I liked and I brushed off a pretty girl to talk to him about it. Al and I walked around the hallways of Sloane House and spotted a hand drawn "Bill The Cat" poster on a door. We attracted the attention of the man who drew it, Pro. Later I met Mig when I used to talk to a cute woman who was from Puerto Rico. Occasionally a slim man with thick hair and a thicker beard would talk to her in Spanish. That was Mig. My first impression was that he was mean and I was moving on his women. I had no grasp on Spanish at all at that point.

We bonded on music, classic rock mostly. We'd hang out as a group by this time with other people who we lost touch with over the years. Meantime, I was getting to express my growing liberal views. I grew up in a conservative town and always felt out of place. At SVA, in 1980's New York City I was in heaven. One of the pet liberal causes in 1985-1986 was apartheid. I went to an anti-apartheid meeting at SVA because wellllll, a girl I had a crush on was from South Africa and it was a cause close to her heart and I followed her to the meeting like an eager puppy. I met another person who was born in South Africa at the meeting, His name is Sean and we became fast friends despite the fact that it would be the last time I would attend any more meetings. I'd like to say that the people were too radical at the meeting but it was really because the boycott list was huge and involved pretty much every food product I bought and any alternative that I could switch to.

So I had this group of friends at Sloane House and another group of friends at my SVA foundation class. I went back and forth between the two of them. By the summer break I was solid friends with Al, Pro, Sean and Mig. During the summer we hung out a little. Mostly meeting up in New York. One person I met was Delfin (Del), a super talented cartoonist who had his work Libra published that summer. Sean had moved to Brooklyn like many who felt that Sloane House was merely a stepping stone to enjoying NYC. The draw of Sloane House would be strong however.

My second year, (Remember this is the Scanman telling the tale.) Al and Pro were close enough to share a studio room together and the same went with Mig and me. A new group of people moved into Sloane House. A group of freshmen came in and gravitated to Pro, including a woman he would soon date. Mike (Korn) was hanging around too. Meantime, a transfer student a few years older than us moved in too. His name is Joe. Our group was large enough to break into two factions. One side was Scan, Mig and Sean (who crashed in our studio room). The other was Korn, Pro, Joe with Al being interchangeable between the two groups. It was the ladies' men on one side with the rest of us on the other side. Al was moving over to the other side. Del was in Queens.

I had found part of a movie marquee sign for the film "52 Pick-UP" and hung it in my room. It was the letters PIC, and it became the symbol of our group even though to this day we haven't come up with a decent backronym for it. So we had a name, now we need new members.

My third year at Sloane House 1987-1988 started with Mig and I in trouble with Sloane House for having Sean living in our shared studio. It was against the rules and we risked being kicked out of Sloane House. We had a "trial" and Mig and I had probation but Sean was expelled from Sloane House for a year. After spending time in Brooklyn, Sean took off for Hong Kong to regroup his batteries. Good thing too, He would meet his future wife Sofia there.

Meanwhile, I noticed that a cute woman was moving things into the room next door to mine. I introduced myself and was disappointed when she said it was her brother that was moving in. He introduced himself as Mike but he said we can call him Bucky. He would learn to regret that he introduced himself as that. He was friends with Martin who I didn't get to know for quite a few years.

So, Mig and Pro move in together in Manhattan after they graduated. Soon after Bucky moved in after another roommate moved out. Al moved back home and commuted his last year while Sean moved back to Sloane House. Korn and Joe moved already so the large Sloane House group was splitting up.

Mig, Pro, and Mig moved from 29th street to 22nd street.

After graduating Sean and I moved to Jersey City to be room mates. Sean's girlfriend from Hong Kong moved to the US. They would get married in a private ceremony and moved into their own place.

I took a position as a cartoonist/publisher's assistant and crashed at various places for the next year.

Pro, Mig and Buck moved to a large place in Jersey City.

I moved to Seattle by myself after unsuccessfully convincing Pro and Buck to do the same.

I lost track of Joe and Korn by this point. I didn't know Martin yet.

Al moved in with Mig, Bucky and Pro. I lost track of Delfin.

I got to know Martin on frequent visits to the east coast.

Pro and Al moved into their own place. Buck and Mig still lived in the same place.

I moved to Federal Way, WA with my new girlfriend.

Pro met a woman who would move in with Al and Pro.

Joe came back in the scene opening the Liquid Lounge in Hoboken, Korn got married to Beth moved to Hoboken in some sort of order. Sean had his first son, Ian.

Buck moved to San Francisco, Al moved out of Pro's and moved back to Mig's place.

Al and Mig moved to a new place in Jersey City.

Sean and Sofia moved to Montclair.

Sean, Buck, Pro, Mig, Korn and I attended a wedding of our friend Heather in Vermont.

Al and Mig had a falling out and moved to separate places.

Pro got married for the first time.

I moved back to Seattle after a devastating breakup.

Al moved back upstate.

I reestablished contact with Delfin.

Sean moved to Canada with his family including his new son, Justin. Korn and Beth had their first child, a daughter.

Joe closed the Liquid Lounge. Korn moved to his own house in Bloomfield, New Jersey. Pro got divorced.

Mig buys his own place.

Pro got married to Huly on the sly. I meet a new woman. I lost touch with Joe again but he buys a place in Asbury Park anyway. I'm not aware of Martin's activities.

Sean moved back to the USA.

I moved back to New Jersey to follow my girlfriend. Two days later, Pro moves to Wisconsin. Korn and Beth have their second child, a son.

Bucky marries Diane on the sly and moves outside of San Francisco.

Martin buys his own place in Brooklyn.

Pro moves to LA to pursue an acting career. I had a not so devastating breakup except financially.

I re-establish contact with Joe. Delfin marries on the sly.

Pro moved back to Wisconsin and pursuing his acting career on a more casual basis. Mig marries Jennifer at a festive ceremony that inspired this rambling rant.

So the latest updates:

Scan is single and lives in Union, New Jersey

Pro is married and lives primarily in Madison, Wisconsin.

Mig is married and lives in Jersey City, New Jersey.

Al is single and lives in Monroe, New York. He wasn't at the wedding.

Sean is married with two boys in Montclair, New Jersey.

Joe is single and living in Asbury Park, New Jersey.

Korn is married with two kids and living in Bloomfiled, New Jersey.

Buck is married and back living in San Fransisco, California.

Martin is single and living in Brooklyn, New York.

Delfin is married and living in Astoria, Queens, New York.


That's it in a nutshell, A coconut shell.

Some pics from Miguel's and Jennifer's wedding.

Last Week's Bachelor Party for Miggy.

A Good NYC Outing

So my old friend Pro was in NYC and he wanted to hang at an old hangout called Twins Pub. We met up with our friend Inkboy, first and then met up with the rest of the gang later. Here are the pics.

My New York Day

I don't get into NYC much these days. I live too far to make casual trips, so when I do, I try to make a day of it. So, yesterday I took a ferry ride from my town of Atlantic Highlands to visit my friends who still work in the city. Now, I live three blocks from the ferry berth. It takes a mere 35 minutes to get to Manhattan. This almost makes up for the fact that it costs $37 for a round trip (off-peak) ticket. It's a great ride. The scenery is spectacular! You zoom by Sandy Hook, get a glance of Coney Island. Staten Island looks appealing, believe it or not when you pass under the Verazanno Bridge. The ferry then passes by Governor's Island and the Statue of Liberty is close enough to get a good view. It stops at Pier 11, but I take the ferry to 34th street.














I was planning on meeting up with five of my friends. One of them, Joe called me to let me know he was busty. That was okay because I told Inkboy to invite him at the last minute. Korn called out for being too busy.

So, now we were down to four of us with Sean being late. These are friends I made back in the late 80's when me went to the School Of Visual Arts. It's hard for me to go into Manhattan and not recall what it was like back in the 80's when NYC was a more edgy, fun place to be.

It's expensive there of course but there was a time that we could have afforded to live there making the 80's equivalence of what we make now. During the Rudy years, for example Times Square became "Disneyfied" but still retains its overkill of lights and sound. Downtown is now a place only for the lawyers, Wall Street jerks, and elderly dowagers in rent controlled splendor. It's depressing, it's no longer my city.















Still, I enjoyed my lunch at Virgil's with Inkboy, Sean and Martin, the company at least. My sandwich was not good, but the beer was great. I shoulda gone with the pulled pork. We updated our lives, didn't dwell too much on the past. A good thing.

Inkboy and I finished up and went to SVA to check up on the old haunting grounds. It was an eye opener. The place is a lot cleaner and fixed up from the days we went there. In some ways that's sad. I loved the freedom, the grafitti, the cigarette butts on the ground. We hung out in the cafeteria looking at the people who currently go there. I wondered if these guys do any of the same things we did. do they go to the any divey night clubs? Do they go to the thrift stores? The girls are still cute, though.



















Anyway, I left Inkboy behind and walked all the way down to South Street Seaport. First, I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge. In all the time I lived in NYC, I had never walked across the bridge. I thought "Why the Hell Not?". I then had a $7 dollar bottle of Brooklyn Beer while checking out two of the man-made waterfalls under the Brooklyn Bridge. I love drinking beer at Pier 17 drinking beer. I did it before with an old girlfriend and it was the best time I had with her in NYC. I then went on the Seastreak ferry back to Atlantic Highlands.



















The trip back was a little colder. The sunset was beautiful with the Statue of Liberty in the foreground. Still, the trip was marred a little by the Wall Street douche bags smoking cigars, a cliche of the 90's. The seats indoors are sooo comfortable. This would be an ideal way to travel with the one you love. I recommend it to those in the northern shore area.


It was a good day.

The Dark Knight and Watchmen

So, I saw the Dark Knight featuring my man Pro the other night.













It was a really good movie but went on too long. The hype on Heath Ledger is well earned. You can't take your eyes off him. He's the reason to see the movie. I understand the morbid curiosity in watching him, but even if he had not died, he would still get praise, after all the Joker is a great character and Jack Nicholson got similar praise when the first Batman movie came out.














The movie went on too long though. The subplot with Harvey Dent made for a nice set up for the third Batman movie. It's no spoiler that Harvey Dent was to become the villain Two-Face. It happened very late in the movie but still was significant enough to be a distraction from the rest of the movie.



















Geek Alert!!!!





Anyway, along the way I came across the trailer for the upcoming movie based on the great comic book series of the 80's, The Watchmen. I have to say the period of 1985-88 was the zenith for comic book enthusiasts. The Dark Knight series, Maus, Love and Rockets, and The Watchmen created by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons were published then. Comic Books were taken seriously as art, and no wonder. I read the first issue of Watchmen when I dropped off my buddy Inkboy at his house at the end of my freshman year of SVA. It was such a dense comic book series full of references that took multiple readings to catch up with. Each issue was a greatly anticipated event. Luckily there was a comic book store across the street from our dorms.










So, now the movie is coming out in March 2009. Like V For Vendetta, Alan Moore has disavowed any involvement with the film adaptation.









Yeah, The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen was THAT bad of a movie. I don't care, I loved the comic and am really looking forward to the movie. The cast is relatively unknown (a plus) directed by the guy who somehow made the movie 300 a hit, Zack Snyder. The two best known actors, Billy Crudup and James Earle Haley are either computer generated or hidden beneath a mask. From what I've seen the movie seems true to its source.






Now, I've seen The Spirit previews too. It's directed by Frank Miller, the famed comic book artist. I'm not sure it quite captures the right mood. It seems too Sin City, and I don't like The Spirit's mask. Still, it does have Scarlett Johannson.


Oh well...Geek Time over.