INTERN DIARY: Wednesday 9/19/12 &Thursday 9/20/12

INTERN DIARY: Monday, September 19th, 2012

Luca didn't have to go to school on Monday because it was the Jewish Holiday, Rosh Hashanah.

Mr. Parfenix Really Wants His Rent

So I'm a little behind.  So what?



And if you actually listen to the above message, you'll hear Mr. Parfenix say he's gonna "vanilla box" my house.  Vanilla Box is a real estate term for emptying an apartment, cleaning and clearing it, painting it white, and making it ready for a new tenant to move in and do what they're gonna do to the place.  Also called "Vanilla Shell" and "White Box".

Jimmy Snyder in Jahn's Ice Cream Parlor

Every evening at around 5:30, you can catch Jimmy Snyder in Jahn's enjoying his dinner.

The Jahn's booths.

Snyder has one of those Errol Flynn lower lip mustaches.

Close-up on Snyder's dessert.  It's just peeking out but that's a mound of red jello with whip cream on it.

From the back

70s light fixtures.

Bubble-Rope Mascot

Obviously a sad product of Adobe's Illustrator program, the Bubble-Rope mascot "Gum-Zums" still
has something going for him.  I mean, he seems screwed up and nervous and falling over.
But you would be too if you were getting chewed all the time, just waiting for the day you'd become
one of those black circles on the concrete.

Marshmallow Munchie Especially The SCOTCHEROO

Voortman's Cookies

So the Voortman's "Cookie Kids" Mascots of the massive Voortman's Cookie Empire all have cookies for ears
and are completely deaf.   In the commercials all the Kids are just screaming "What?" to each other and to
the teachers and to the bus driver. But when their little cookie ears grow to be be big and ripe, the Cookie Kid
that sits behind them on the Voortman's Cookie Schoolbus plucks the ear-cookie and puts in in a wrapper for
you to enjoy. 

Slightly less popular are the troublesome Voortman "Living Wafer" Mascots who sit in the back of the bus
and make fun of the Cookie Kids and give them wedgies and wet willies and noogies all the time.
The Living Wafers think they're so cool, smoking cigarettes and making out with each other all the time.
I mean, they are Zero Trans Fat, but what self-respecting wafer isn't these days?

Seriously, these guys are such assholes.

Baseball Mitt Chairs

In the Oyster Bar Foyer that leads the the Rest Rooms

Me in the Chair

INTERN DIARIES: Saturday, Sept. 15th, 1012

Then we texted a bit about meeting up and some other non-diary style stuff.  Then, because he's grown up with one of the major Burger King franchises in Queens, right on his corner, I asked him about it.  It used to be a Roy Rogers, and I used to hang out in there like crazy when I was a teenager, mooching off the Fixins Bar and wasting time.

Fan Art: Wyatt's Pizza Drawing

Wyatt's Pizza Drawing is one of those rare works. Abstract,
but so totally nailing the subject.
Wyatt is obviously insanely talented, and let's face it - he's got great style too.
Wallabees and Bumblebee stripes.  I'm wearing the same tomorrow.

Upon closer inspection, it looks like this Pizza Drawing might be in an entire BOOK
of Pizza Drawings!  The one we're seeing is #25.  You can see the ghost of another
right behind it.  Maybe Wyatt can come on the show and show us his Pizza Book.
Thanks to Wyatt for the drawing, Mirabelle Marden for the photograph of the drawing,
and to Keith Riley, Wyatt's Dad, for having a cool kid like Wyatt.

Meatball Alert

This 20-something hosehead actually tried to hard stare me and Mr. Parfenix the other day on
Ditmars Blvd.  He had some kind of beef that we were in his way when he wanted to cross the
street.  No words were exchanged, but he walked on like he owned Queens.

Flannel Elmo Pajama Pants.  I've seen these at K-mart.  I mean if he was actually some sort of ex-con
or a body builder or something, maybe he could have carried these as tough, but he was walking like
a crippled duck.  

Digital watch, bad Jersey Shore tattoos and some kind of Moroccan bracelet.
Maybe he would have sliced us with that Metrocard in his right hand.

You'd think he was listening to hiphop, or at least some kind of gross neo-death-metal,
but it was super light KTU-style techno.   How you gonna hard stare two grown men and feel like
you're right when you're listening to techno??  Oh, Astoria, you're the best. 

People In My Neighborhood: Elton the Bus Driver

Elton drives the Bus for the kids that go to St. Catherine's on 33rd Street in Astoria

"The hardest thing about the morning shift is I can't listen to Howard Stern while the kids are on the bus,"
said Elton.

INTERN DIARY: September 13 and 14

So this opens with Luca's response text to my text, which I sent out a few hours before he got back to me.  I was asking if he wanted to stop by the workshop for the first time since his surgery next week.  He gives me his sched, then launches into the diary.