The Brew House

Essay, New York

Prospect

I stared down your hollow hall. Lined with what looked like static stars in a sky divided into fourths. Your beams spending summer swelling, spitting beads of sweat from bubbles, an uneven topography.

Tagged Asher Fusco, Brooklyn, new york city, short essay, subway

Jan 27 2013

Essay, Travel

What Is Required

LBI

Sometimes it gets bad and goes wrong and the walls press in close. The air is cold in spite of the sun and the wind whips through three long-sleeve layers.

What is it you require?

Tagged Asher Fusco, Blind Pilot, new jersey, road trip

Dec 17 2012

Culture, Essay, Music

The Apocalypse by Hip-Hop

So the world might end later this week. If civilization does go all Cormac McCarthy on us, I think I owe a beer to Nas, a spliff to Busta Rhymes and whatever the thinking-man’s drug is to Chuck D. Now, I won’t actually be able to make good on this promise on December 21. I mean, I’ll be dead, probably roasted by nuclear lasers, and I don’t personally know any of these musicians. It just feels like I do. Their apocalyptic thoughts and predictions have been swirling around my head for way too damn long.

Yes, it’s true. Hip-hop musicians actually do have something in common with Glenn Beck: They preach apocalyptic messages all the freaking time. Continue reading →

Tagged 2012, apocalypse, busta rhymes, essay, harold camping, hip-hop, humor, life, lil wayne, mayan calendar, music, Outkast, pop-culture, public enemy, rap

Nov 26 2012

Essay, Movies

Thanksgiving at Twilight

Thanksgiving, which is my favorite holiday by far, makes us engage in behavior that under normal circumstances would appear crazy. This sociologically-documented phenomenon stretches all the way back to the first Thanksgiving on Plymouth Rock. Instead of serving Pocahontas’ and Squanto’s tribes a small pox cocktail like they usually did, John Smith, Christopher Columbus and Ferdinand Magellan shared a meal of turkey, fried green bean casserole and Stove Top stuffing with them, piling all of the food into a giant cornucopia. No muskets were even brought to this feast. Isn’t America great?

In modern times, these behavioral transformations are more subtle Continue reading →

Tagged Bad movies, entertainment, Holidays, humor, life, Mark Dent, Miscellaneous, movies, Stephanie Meyer, Thanksgiving, Twilight, Twilight Breaking Dawn 2

Oct 02 2012

179 Comments

Essay, Food, Travel

A True “College” Bar

“College” has a bar, and it is named KAM’s – all caps, just like R.E.M. and UNICEF. KAM’s is located in Champaign, Ill., on Daniel Street, across from some University of Illinois Greek residences, the Psychology building and hopefully not far from the local hospital. It smells like the inside of a shot glass filled to the brim with Jaeger, tobacco, vomit and lowered expectations, which I guess smell a little bit like Sears. Continue reading →

Tagged Champaign, Champaign bars, college, college towns, drink, food, humor, KAM's, life, playboy top college bar, travel, University of Illinois

Sep 25 2012

Essay, Humor

A Mile Away From Ordinary

I felt kinda scared when I arrived at the track that night, dressed suavely in the guise of darkness, a plain white t-shirt, and a scrummy pair of shorts Clorox can’t save. Because I have paranoia levels befitting a mother of suburban teenagers, I feared the cops could arrive, administer punishment via nightstick and then haul us to county jail. I feared I might faint or die.

OK, I really didn’t think that. That would be overdramatic. But I did anticipate excruciating pain, excruciating but voluntary pain for choosing to participate in an endurance test of sanity better known as the Beer Mile. Continue reading →

Tagged beer mile, beer mile women's world record, beer mile world record, hash house harriers, life, pennsylvania running, running, running and drinking, sports, the beer mile, the mile

Aug 10 2012

Essay, Music, Nostalgia, Uncategorized

No Way It’s Been That Long

Fifteen years ago, a mogul who’d lost his best friend to murder and had his name implicated in the murder of an enemy changed the world of rap music despite the fact that he could barely rap. Remember? Maybe the glare from this glimmering jumpsuit will refresh your memory.

Tagged bad boy records, Diddy, hip-hop, Mark Dent, music, No Way Out, P Diddy, pop music, Puff daddy, rap

Jul 31 2012

Essay, Travel

Away Games

I wanted to sleep on the train, but the excitement and the freshness kept me awake. It was Wednesday afternoon. I had just left O’Hare Airport, deciding to take the train instead of a cab after a friendly elderly woman offered me a free ticket she wasn’t able to use.

Stop after stop, Chicago sprung to life. We passed Addison, and I knew Wrigley’s green walls beckoned close by. We passed Grand, and I knew shoppers walked the streets above the surface headed toward the Magnificent Mile.

Each stop brought me closer to the tall buildings, to the stiff breezes off the lake, to the artificial sunsets produced by the Hancock Observatory, to a refuge. Continue reading →

Tagged Big 10 Media Days, Chicago, Journalism, life, travel

Jul 30 2012

Culture, Essay

One last song in Kansas City

It was the last week of classes, maybe a Wednesday, a warm spring morning in Lawrence, Kansas. I had a week left of college — well, technically, a couple days of classes and then finals — and I had promised my editor at the school paper that I’d file a farewell column that afternoon.

I can’t exactly remember what else I had going on that day. That night would be a party for our last night of production at the student newspaper, and I felt like maybe I had something else to do as well. In any event, I wanted to sit down and write that column. I had an idea of what I wanted to write, and I had already pieced it together in my head, but I needed a solid chunk of time. Maybe two hours or so. That should do it, I told myself.

I also had a class that morning at 9 a.m. … Journalism Ethics.

Too bad, I thought. I went to the library and started writing.