Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina (1993)

I graduated college in May 1993 and thought that was what I was supposed to do with my life.

Either I wasn’t really listening because I was having too good a time at VT (probably), or nobody really grabbed me by the collar and slapped me around and made me realize the whole point of college was so I could get a job and become a productive member of society.

My Senior year roommate, Chris, was getting his MBA after getting his Bachelor’s in Aeronautical Engineering and was having job interviews with Anderson Consulting and Texas Instruments. I kind of wondered at the time if I, with my mighty future degree in Political Science, should also be interviewing for a job, but I was too busy closing down The Balcony five nights a week.

So, graduation came and I had this offer from my former fraternity president, who had spent the year since he graduated at the fraternity’s national headquarters in Illinois, to join him and another Sig in Kill Devil Hills, NC. Since I didn’t have anything better going on, I said, “Sure.”

I’d gotten my driver’s license suspended for a year back in ’92 and had a little trouble finding a job since I couldn’t drive. As a result, I ended up getting a minimum wage position at the front desk of the Best Western Ocean Reef’s Suites.

I’d spend my days working behind the desk dealing with tourists who were angry their rooms weren’t ready when they showed up three hours before check in, and would spend the evenings either at Awful Arthur’s, Port O’Call, or at someone’s shitty beachfront cottage recreating college all over again.

Having been garbing myself in WRV gear for several years, I figured it would be a good idea to actually try and learn how to surf. The problem was, I had no surfboard and no money to buy one.

I was so poor that I was eating Food Lion cold cuts three times per day and drinking King Cobra malt liquor at night. When I finally pulled out of Kill Devil Hills at the end of the summer, I had a chipped front tooth from the surfboard hitting me on the head the day I finally caught my first wave and a negative balance in my bank account.

My roommate, Perry (who is now a psychologist in Florida) had a very nice large surfboard but he absolutely hated letting me and my other roommate (whom we’ll call Beta Puss) use it. Because we had no regard for how fragile they actually were and we’d try to surf in beach break and invariably bring it back with damage on the front end.

So, after Perry had a hissy fit and flat our refused to let us borrow it anymore, I scraped together some coinage and bought a big WRV funboard from a guy for $200.00.

Every day after work, no matter the conditions, I’d take it out and try to catch a wave.

Here I am on a typical day with no surf anywhere waiting for a wave.

I look like an idiot.

The most hilarious part of the whole summer was when I learned that Beta Puss was keeping a diary.

Mind you, at this time I was still in full drunken meathead mode and I was still drinking beer, lifting weights, farting, belching, and generally acting like an uncouth gorilla.

One day when Beta Puss went to work and I had the day off, I “stumbled’ upon his diary.

In it he talked about the great times he and Perry had in Illinois going to Chicago every weekend and how much fun he was anticipating living with his good, morally upstanding fraternity brother at the beach for the Summer.

Then he introduced me to the audience and the tone of his writing quickly changed.

By the time I put the diary down after doubling over in laughter, the diary entries were like something out of a horror novel.

I’ll try to approximate one of his entries about me, but it’s best to imagine it as if read by Werner Herzog:

“For some unimaginable reason, Perry has invited his fraternity brother, Jay Bobb, to live with us.

I cannot comprehend the madness behind this decision.

The enormity of Jay Bobb’s lack of character is beyond understanding.

He walks around in a perpetual state of aggression and flatulence.

I live in terror of hearing the front door open and him announcing his presence by turning up the volume of the CD player to deafening levels of pain and him opening a beer and singing along with the music. He seems to favor a bizarre combination of Chris Isaak and Faith No More.

What would my summer be like without this grotesque oaf living amongst us?

If only he could hear the screaming in my head whenever he is around me.

Beneath his collegiate exterior, he appears to have a malevolent stupidity. Dumb enough to act like he doesn’t know exactly how much I despise him, but cunning enough that it may actually be intentional.

In the face of his smiling and drunken malice, I feel like an asylee trapped in paradisiacal beachfront setting whose beauty only serves to obscure the madness of this entire situation.

I truly hate him.”

“Three O’Clock High”

Buddy Revell: “You and me, we’re gonna have a fight. Today. After school. Three o’clock. In the parking lot. You try and run, I’m gonna track you down. You go to a teacher, it’s only gonna get worse. You sneak home, I’m gonna be under your bed.”

“Live At PJ’s”

In my 20s, I was fortunate (or pathetic) enough that I frequented the same bar so often that when I walked in, I could demand the DJ play my theme song. Twice.

The second time happened later in life in downtown Richmond at a bar called “Rock Bottom” and I would walk in with my friend Patrick and I could just look at the DJ and he’d start playing Rage Against The Machine’s “Killing In The Name Of” and the whole place would go nuts.

(This was when Rage was an elemental force in music. You’d never heard anything like them before. Same with Jane’s Addiction.)

But prior to that, I was a regular at Blacksburg’s The Balcony. Just like everyone else in school.

I remember the first time going there on a fake ID and just being amazed that such a place existed.

It was wall to wall people. It smelled like body odor and sour beer and it was always hot and sweaty.

The bartenders were stacked in a line of five and people were just shouting orders at them while they threw plastic cups of shitty domestic beer in their general direction and raked in the dollar bills hand over fist.

In 1993, I was a Senior and was graduating in a few short months. My fraternity was always holding gatherings there, but I was also coming with my dorm mates from 5th Floor Major Bill. In fact, I was coming with my dorm buddies more than the fraternity guys.

By the end, I calculated I was there Tuesday through Saturday nights. I took Sunday off to prepare for Monday (still do), but by Tuesday I felt I was close enough to Wednesday (Hump Day) that it was practically the weekend. And I had paid attention in class TWO WHOLE DAYS, so a few beers that evening sure weren’t going to hurt anyone, right?

Generally, we ended up at The Balcony, and by the Spring of 1993, I knew practically everyone who worked there, including the DJ.

Jamie always had funny taste in music and that year he was obsessed with The Beastie Boys’ “Check Your Head.” So much so that it became infectious and we all listened to it. But one obscure track became our theme song. #17 – “Live At PJ’s.”

If you know anything about The Beastie Boys, they started off as a punk band playing their own instruments. (That sound would eventually be featured so iconically on “Sabotage.”) But they’d made their name for themselves on a surface level as juvenile rap pranksters on “Licensed To Ill” before releasing their sample masterpiece, “Paul’s Boutique.”

“Live At PJ’s” was literally just a straight forward punk rock song recorded live at a place in New York City literally called “PJ’s.” I’d later spend hours trying to research where that club actually was, but never found a location in which I had any confidence.

We’d go around singing the opening lyrics to “Live At PJ’s” at any opportunity. We thought it was hysterical and brilliant. And it wasn’t too long before I drunkenly buttonholed the DJ at The Balcony late one night and implicitly threatened him with bodily harm if he didn’t play it.

After that, all we would have to do was walk in the door, point to the DJ, and whatever song he was playing would stop and “Live At PJ’s” would start playing.

We were like kingly buffoons entering the throne room for an audience with our equally drunken subjects.

“Well, back to the back to the beat y’all
Down with the sound so sweet y’all
Just how fresh can you get y’all?
Those that are blessed say yes y’all
I’ma come inside and do my thing
I’ma take off my drawers and I’mma let myself swing
Tantalize my tummy with a booboo-snack
But now, I got to get back
Yeah, oh, this one’s for you and you and you…”

LINK

“He Stared Across His Scared Knees…”

“Agamemnon was there. His wife had taken a lover, and when he returned, she slaughtered him in the bath like an ox.

I saw Achilles and Patroclus, and Ajax bearing the wound he gave himself.

They envied me my life, but at least their battles are done…”

“Once You Cross That Bridge, My Friend…”

“Mohammed’s Radio”

“You know the Sheriff’s got his problems, too…”

LINK

Blacksburg, Virginia (1992)

Pope’s roommate Nick (Sigma Pi), Pope And His Amazing Technicolor Cosby Sweater, and me.

I’m wearing a black Oakley corduroy hat (that was a status symbol thingie back then) and a small necklace.

I was never a big necklace guy, but somehow I acquired them…

This picture was taken at The Balcony. Like many VT upperclassmen, we were habitués there.

Senior year, Nick was living in a house with some other fraternity brothers near Progress Street and towards the end of the night, I tried to take over as DJ and play a new song by Ice Cube called “It Was A Good Day.”

Within 30 seconds of putting it on, Nick and his roommates rushed up to me and asked what the fuck I was doing? I told them this was a great song. They told me to turn it off, step away from the CD player, and not so subtly suggested that it was time for me to go home.

Raydeen

When I was about eight or so, my parents bought me and my two brothers an individual Shogun Warrior.

I had no idea what they were (I later learned they were popular in Japan), but we just thought they were amazing.

They all had individual “powers” and my guy, Raydeen, could not only shoot a yellow Eagle like creature out of his midsection, but he also had a bladed spring loaded fist that would shoot about three feet and was likely to put your eye out.

Goals

Coffee Of Cthulhu II