I remember I went to my friend Ben Weiner's birthday party.  It was just him and me and another one of his friends named Mike.  We went with Ben's mom to Chuckie Cheese's and afterwards we went to Toys 'R' Us.  I can't remember how it happened but I think that Ben's mom let us get some Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action figures.  I think I got Splinter.  That was a fun and memorable birthday party indeed!

I remember we were out on the playground by the monkey bars and my friend Ben Weiner and I were fighting for some reason.  Ben ended the fight by kicking me in the groin.  That is the only time I have been kicked in the groin and I still remember what it feels like.  I think a man only needs to have it happen once in his lifetime and he will never forget what it feels like.  I don't think that any of the playground monitors got involved or anything.  I just had to be a man and deal with it.

Me and my friends enjoyed going to coffee houses back in high school.  It was kind of when they first started appearing, before the massive onslaught of Starbucks.  There was one called Gotham City Cafe in downtown Ferndale that we heard about.

So we went.  I think it was Jeremy Davidson, Dave Belch, Justin Harris and me.  Dave and I were in our band varsity jackets and Justin and Jeremy were wearing leather jackets, Jeremy was looking particularly preppy.  It turned out that Gotham City Cafe was a total Goth hang out.  It was very dark and strange in there and people were just kind of sitting on the floor.  I can't recall if we got coffee or just decided to leave.  At any rate, I think that people might have chuckled at our preppy appearance.

We left and drove around the block in front of the Cafe.  I think I yelled "fags" out the window and before we could think, some big guy jumped in a truck and started driving after . . . Read More..

In my senior year in high school, I was the section leader for our trumpet section. It was pretty big. I think we had like 35 members or something. I was pretty outgoing. I would jump around and swivel my hips and say "can you feel it?" like Ace Ventura. At our Band-O-Rama event awards were given out based on student votes. I received the "Spark Plug" award nearly unanimously.

At our state competition, we did a great performance and it was now the time when the awards were announced. They got all the way to 4th place and we got nervous. In 1995 we had received 4th place. In 1993 we got 7th and we got 8th in 1994. Finally, they announced that we got 3rd place. It was so exciting, being my senior year and getting the best placing we ever received. (In Michigan you can't really get first place because Plymouth Canton does every year because they spend tons of money and do totally untraditional things - but that's a different story).

Anyway, I . . . Read More..

Derek Bannasch and I used to do student announcements over the PA in the morning.  We were very eccentric and dramatic with our announcements.  We aspired to achieve the fame of last year's announcing team of Jim Territo and Brandon Williams.

Once, at the closing of the announcements, they signed off by saying "These announcements have been brought to you by Rudy's Meat Market: nobody beats our meat".  Unfortunately for them, they were no longer allowed to give the announcements.

So one morning we closed our announcements by saying "These announcements have been brought to you by Rudy's Meat Market" and that was it.  When I turned around I saw that one of the staff was frowning and they scolded us.

Just to prove that I am the dorkiest user on the site, I have scanned official documents to back up my story ;)