Night shots just didn’t turn out so well, so this is from their school parade.
Not quite a zombie but close…
Since I still haven’t been resurrected by the PSU Alumni Association, I thought I’d get some life out of it. My original idea was to be a zombie but I couldn’t find any costume that I really liked. Then I stumbled across this one:
Here’s one of those freaky strange moments that happen every now and then (really odd that it should happen on Halloween). When I stopped into the Tavern, Pat told me that he had just come from listening to Natalie Berrena sing at the Allen Street Grill (on Tuesday’s she sings at the Grill in a duet separate from her bands – actually I should say bands since she’s singing in two of them). Pat described Natalie’s costume (see photo below) as “a cowgirl riding a horse”. I decided to head up to hear a couple of songs and on the way thought that I’d walk in and jokingly ask her to sing “Wild Horses” by the Stones. I didn’t even know if it was in their repertoire but thought it would be funny anyway. Sure enough, when I walk in, she’s singing it. Downright eerie….
Here’s Nat and her Tuesday night singing partner, Ted McCloskey.
For more of my Halloween photos, check out my Flickr account.
Ronnie’s Riotous Raucous!
After a fabulous feast at Lou Malnatti’s (sorry Shannon) we continued to party at my house amidst the destruction/construction of our kitchen. Most of the evening was spent trying to take a picture of the six of us (guess I better learn how to use the delay). Who could ask for a better 48th birthday, right Ron?
One for the Other Thumb
You may remember this post titled “One for the Thumb” from a year ago (yes it’s hard to believe but the blog has been going for over a year now – I should have put up a first anniversary post but I missed it).
Last night was the 10th Annual Mondo Martini Madness event at Tony’s Big Easy in State College. Originally, I had not planned on entering (I was going to judge instead) but last week my competitive juices got flowing and I signed up again.
Rather than just whipping up any old drink, I’m always looking for some inspiration (it helps to have a story about the cocktail to tell the judges as I’m whipping it up). This year I wanted to find a way to dedicate my drink to the Penn State students who have been incredibly supportive of the football team over the last couple of years. Kirk Herbsteit called them “the best student section in the country” during the Ohio State game last year.
If you’ve watched any of the Penn State games recently you’ve no doubt seen the kids bouncing around to a techno song whenever there is a big defensive play. The song is often mistakenly referred to as “Zombie Nation” (the real name of the song is Kernkraft 400 and the artist’s is Zombie Nation, sort of,… the actual artist is a German DJ named Florian Senftner aka Spank! who books himself as Zombie Nation) – for more on Penn State’s love fest with the song read this Pgh Post Gazette article).
The Zombie theme became the start of my inspiration. There is a drink called a Zombie that was invented by Don the Beachcomber many years ago. The original recipe is a secret and there are many variations out there but one of the more popular uses Apricot Brandy along with three types of rum and various fruit juices.
When I saw Apricot Brandy in the recipe, it got me thinking. One of the things that Joe Paterno is known for is Peachy Paterno ice cream, one of the more popular flavors put out by the world reknown Penn State Creamery (little known factoid – Ben and Jerry ice cream got it’s start when the founders took a correspondence course from Penn State on ice cream making).
Bingo. I now had a unique name for my drink, i.e. “The Zombie Joe” and it would be peach flavored. However, I didn’t think that just a simple variation like changing the brandy from apricot to peach would be original enough to impress the judges so I went after a more radical approach.
The next step was to find out what peach liquors that Tony’s had on stock at his bar. He didn’t have peach brandy nor did he have creme de peche two typical peach liquors. What he did have was peach schnapps and peach vodka. Also, Southern Comfort is considered by many to be a peach flavored liquor (the reality is that peach is only one of many flavors in Southern Comforts secret recipe). Those liquors became the basis for my drink experimentation.
I had one other idea that I wanted to incorporate. Another unique thing that has stood out about our student section the last couple of years has been their commitment to having a “White Out” for big games. They will dress in white, wear white to whatever it takes to make the student section all white for the game. Well white fits in perfectly with my Zombie theme. Check these PSU students out in a shot from the Michigan game – they are some definite Zombie looking fans. That meant my Zombie drink had to be white and just to be sure the judges got the connection with the students, I renamed the drink “The Zombie Joe aka The White Out”.
After much experimentation with the three liquors and various whitening agents, Godiva White Liqour, White Coconut Rum, and Half and Half, I eventually settled on a drink that had equal parts of Peach Schnapps, Peach Vodka, Southern Comfort, and Half and Half. The drink is well shaken and served in a chilled martini glass. As the final piece de resistance I float two dark Necco wafers in the drink to look like Zombie eyes staring back at you as you drink it.
Once again, the judges liked my work and I walked away with my sixth title in the last seven years (I am undefeated only having my string broken when I sat out a year).
For more photos from the event, check out this link.
Making me feel old…
I was down the Tavern Saturday night (like virtually every other Saturday night) when the bartender, Kevin, told me I should hang around later than usual because one of the waitresses, Brianne Kepler, was turning 21 at midnight and was going to stop into the Tavern for her first “official” drink.
Bri’s mother is Anne “Rip” Herpel, one of my ex’s, so I decided to hang around. I’m sure some of you remember Rip, we went out back in the early 70s, and I know she made at least one trip to Chicago. Rip was a Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority sister of Pat Driscoll, who was my roommate Pat Daugherty’s girlfriend (and later first wife) when I got out of the service in Dec 1970. Rip and I started going out around a year later.
Rip and I had an off and on thing for several years. I can remember being down at the Tavern one time sitting at a table with this older couple, Don and Betsy, who had dinner there almost every night. Betsy started giving me grief about Rip saying I really didn’t treat her well. All of a sudden, out of the blue, their son George who was my age and happened to be sitting with them that night, suddenly chirped up “I agree with Mom. Anne’s such a wonderful woman, I’d leave my wife for her.” I’ll skip some of the details but, sure enough, a year and a half later, he did. Needless to say, George is Bri’s dad.
Well at about 11:45 in come George and Anne to surprise Bri (not as big a surprise as Steve, Gary, Ronnie, and I showing up for Shannon’s 21st but a nice surprise for her anyway). Bri showed up right on cue a couple of minutes after midnight and was very much surprised to see her folks there. Here’s a photo of her having her first official drink (some special shot combination that the bartender made up for her) with Pat, Rip, and me (her dad didn’t join us at the bar for some reason).
Speaking of ex-girlfriends – I was recently sent this photo which I thought Marilyn would enjoy seeing. It was taken in St Martin in the Carribean. The woman on the far left is Diane Wooding, an ex of mine and an old roommate of Marilyn’s. Pat Daugherty owns a vacation home down there and invited Diane and a few others down for a vacation. The woman in the back right is Pat’s current wife Ruth.
The girls up front are some of my “nieces”. On the left is Natalie Berrena, whom I have talked about many times on the blog, the one in the middle is Lindsay Werner, whose father worked with Pat and me at the Tavern, and the one on the right is Kiley Campanis, whose parents I don’t know (at least I don’t think I know them). The girls all worked together at the Tavern (the other two women however are unknown to me).
Lindsay now works in NYC and emailed me the photo telling me about how she met one of my ex’s and got to hear Pat and Diane tell “lots of Larry Fall stories” (Given how one of Pat’s favorite sayings is “Don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story, I can only imagine some of the things she must have heard).
Diane is now retired and living part time in Florida near her mother and part time back in Philly.
I get to feel old every time I run into some ex girlfriend or old friend who’s now retired or who has a kid starting college or turning 21, etc. Of course, one thing that I have successfully avoided that would make me feel really really old would be to have a grandchild (how’s that making you feel Steve B?) 🙂
Marilyn & Steve / BBQ & Bocce
Had a nice visit and small BBQ party with Marilyn and Steve yesterday. A few friends, a couple kids, lots to drink and more Pulled Pork.
Bocce and croquet, too.
Tennessee Vacation
More photos (not a lot) can be seen here.
Arts Fest Poster
The Arts Festival promotes itself with a collectible poster that is a work of art in its own right. For the past thirty years, the poster has been created by Lanny Sommese, a Penn State graphic design professor and an internationally known poster artist.
Here area some of Lanny’s past Arts Festival posters:
And some other examples of his award winning posters:
Coexistence: A Bridge To Understanding
Coexistence is an annual traveling exhibition started in Jerusalem dedicated to spreading the message of diversity and acceptance. Lanny is one of only three artist to have more than one poster in the exhibition. Here is his other one:
Click on the photos for the poems that go with the artwork.
Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet won first prize in the International Triennial of Stage Poster in Sofia Hungary in 1995.
No!
No! is part of the Library of Congress’s Witness and Response collection of materials related to the tragic events of 9/11.
HELP
HELP is Lanny’s contribution to the Hurricane Poster Relief Project, an effort dedicated to raising funds for Hurricane Katrina victims.
By now it should be evident that social consciousness plays a big role in Lanny’s art. Lanny teaches his students that their art should first and foremost have a message to convey. In this article about design heroes, one of Lanny’s former students says
The approach to graphic design was conceptual, always about communication, and always with an idea.
Why this sudden interest in poster art you might ask?
Because, in addition to being a famed artist, Lanny is also my partner in the Toftrees Men’s Golf League. While my knee probles have severely limited the amount of golf that I play (I’m down to a round and a half a week), I still make sure I get my 9 holes in on Wednesday nights. So far, Lanny and I have managed to have a decent season in spite of my injury. Halfway through the season, we currently sit in 7th place out of 24 teams.
Lanny has had an interesting life. He went to college on an athletic scholarship to play basketball at the University of Florida, last year’s national champions. I first met Lanny in the early 70s here at Penn State. At the time, Lanny had quite a reputation as a lady’s man and most certainly did not fit the image of a staid college professor. Quite the contrary. He was recently divorced and was often seen with a beautiful girl on his arm.
That’s all changed now. He’s quite settled down, happily married, albeit for the third time, and raising two cute young kids. Here’s a photo of Lanny (he’s in the red tie) and his wife Kristen (she’s the blond). Of course, the fact that she’s a former student of his and younger than his first daughter only adds to the Lanny legend. That age disparity also leads to his grandchildren actually having an aunt and uncle younger than them.
Lanny’s first wife, Donna Gibbons, actually appeared in one of my all time favorite movies “About Last Night” starring Rob Lowe and Demi Moore (pre boob job when she was a cute youngster). “About Last Night” really captured the Chicago singles bar scene in the early 80s. Several scenes in the movie took place in Mothers on Division Street just across from my favorite Chicago haunt, the Lodge. If you remember the movie, Donna Gibbons played Alex, the older women who seduces Rob Lowe.
This seems like a good place to end this post before I start telling Lodge stories. I will make sure to update everyone on Lanny and my’s performance coming down the stretch in our league.
Arts Fest
This is THE big weekend of the summer in State College. 40 years ago, the borough of State College and Penn State joined forces to create The Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts, an event that would showcase the visual and performing arts. The event quickly became embraced by all. Arts
Fest, as it became known colloquially, soon spread well beyond the town. It is now one of the largest Arts Festivals on the East Coast and attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors to the area each July.
The first event consisted of primarily local artists that hung their art on a snow fence that was strung along a stone wall on College Avenue, the main drag in town, in front of Old Main, PSU’s main administrative building.
From those humble beginnings, the event has taken over the town for pretty much the whole second week of July every summer. While the first event just took place on the block long wall mall, the event has now spread across both the campus and the downtown area. Several downtown streets are shut down to handle exhibits, performance stages, and food stands. Pretty much every venue in town that can handle an audience (Beaver Stadium excepted – JoePa doesn’t allow anyone on HIS field) is utilized at some point for the event.
To give you a feel for the extent of the festivel, here’s a schedule of today’s performing artist events. Other days schedules can be viewed by the links at the top of the page. And here’s a list of the over 300 exhibiting artists by media type (the event is now juried so you don’t get near the crap that showed up in the early days of the festival).
The variety of stuff that you can see here is just amazing. Some examples:
Comedy Juggling –
Michael Rosman, a former Ringling Bros clown who is now out on his own. He does a lot of corporate and cruise ship entertaining and has also appeared on Letterman. He actually makes a smoothie by juggling fruit into a blender on top of his head. Check out his video for a glimpse of what he does.
Puppetry –
The National Marionette Theater will be performing their award winning production of Peter Pan (shown here on the right). Their shows are nationally reknown for the detail and complexity of their puppets and the flair of their performances.
A Trash Can Band –
Lidz – is a is a five-man trash can band from Altoona. They make music using trash cans, buckets, paint cans, and other things you can buy at the hardware store. Parents with empressionable young children might want to pass on this show if they ever want to sleep in on another Saturday or Sunday morning.
Musical Variety –
Country – Poverty Neck Hillbillies
Brazilian – Minas
Acapella – The Bobs
Zydeco – Zydeco-a-go-go
Gospel – D’vine
Folk – Patty Larkin
plus many more.
One of the neat things about Arts Fest is that it has become a defacto reunion weekend. The university has tried to artificially create Reunions Weekends with very little success. But the Arts Fest has become the weekend of choice for old friends to reconvene in State College (I can’t remember an Arts Fest weekend that I ever missed even after leaving town – heck I even missed a Phi Psi weekend once – something about getting married got in the way – but I never missed an Arts Fest). Old local bands take advantage of that by getting back together for once a year appearances back in State College. The members obviously love getting together for a set or two and their old fans back in town love seeing them.
I’ve got a few other Arts Fest stories to tell but this post could go on forever. I cut it off here and break my other stories off into other posts.
US Open
We run an interesting competition on US Open Sunday at my golf club. We normally have a Sunday skins game that anywhere from 10-20 of us will play. On US Open Sunday, we toss an extra five bucks into a winner take all kitty. The winner is determined by the lowest score of your net handicap score combined with the score of an Open player of your choice.
I’ve been playing pretty well recently (other than today) which makes me think I’ll have a good chance tomorrow. I decided to pick Jim Furyk as my pro thinking that I can go low on my handicap score and just have to pick a pro that won’t go high on me. Furyk is pretty consistent and I expect him to shoot around a 72 tomorrow. I plan on netting out about a 69 myself.
Tomorrow I’ll report back on whether I managed to live up to my boast or not.