Saturday, July 3, 2010

July 2 2010 PHI v PIT Game 2. Uncle Sharkey's Corner


Look, Followers.....Instead of dwelling on the truly putrid display of vagina-ball that was played last night we are going to completely skirt the issue. I refuse to talk about a game in which a team that I love loses a game on a throwing error from a pitcher who so desperately knew that if he didn't act fast he may compromise a game with runs they could spare. In his despair a poor throw was made, lives were lost and--with a team behind him that for some reason refuses to hit the ball--the game went down the fucking drain. Good show, Moyer. You did your best, they didn't. I'm saddened and vomiting.

So instead today I am going to take on a trip down memory lane in the first installment of what I am calling.........

UNCLE SHARKEY'S CORNER !!!!!!!!!!!!

When I was a much younger man I was what you might call a trouble-maker. A lovable scamp but nonetheless a complete asshole to others with no regard in the least. I was quite the fan of the practical joke and torturing people I knew very little. That's really the crux of this tale I am about to tell you. I've never fully documented this tale in written form so it's going to conjure up a magical time for me as well. Sit back and enjoy as we wash away the tears by laughing at other people's
expense.


Once upon a time in Philadelphia, more specifically South St, there used to be an independently run record store just off South on 4th st called C.I. Records. The initials stood for Corrupted Image and was originally a Lancaster, PA based record label run by a man named Jeremy Weiss. The label's sole purpose was to release records by his band, Stand Up, but expanded to a record store that chained into a Philadelphia outlet. A good friend of mine at the time name Pedro was the manager and he lived above the store in a one bedroom rats nest of an a apartment. This was all part of his working arrangements with Jeremy. He ran the store and in compensation lived in the apartment rent free while receiving a meager paycheck. This was not such a bad deal for Pedro who enjoyed his work and the shithole apartment. He was happy to have uprooted his life in York, PA where his family lives to come and run the operations here in Philly and he never complained.

After a few months of hanging around and annoying the fuck out of Pedro--and Jeremy on occasion when he was in town--I got offered a weekend gig there jocking the register. I got a key to the place and 6 dollars an hour under the table.

Oh, what a glorious time it was. I'd come into work each weekend morning and walk upstairs to Pedro's apartment to either cock-block him from fucking his girlfriend or just generally annoying him by waking his hungover lumpy ass. We'd work downstairs all day selling morons bad records and then we'd get pretty lit up in the evenings in his apartment. This was a peaceful time in both our lives. Simple, easy. We, especially Pedro, had it no reason to cry.

After a few months of peace I get a phone call from Jeremy explaining that Pedro was fired and that a new manager was going to be moving into Pedro's apartment. On top of that I was also scaled back to just Sundays. This was an absolute devastating blow to Pedro. He moved his entire life to Philly to work for this piece of shit and now he's tossing him out on his ass with little notice. Something was fishy here but it wasn't apparent.

After helping Pedro move back to fucking York, I did some investigating in the form of interrogating the absolute mental dolt who took over Pedro's job. His name was Kiersten. That's right, HIS name. This hunk of tan wiggery earwax was 6'4", straight edge and newly proficient at breathing while looking at things. His jaw protruded 3 inches past his nose and was not very small. I prodded Kiersten gently into revealing that he was hired for 60 dollars less than Pedro a week and that this was the sole motivation for firing him. 60 fucking dollars, are you kidding me? You're that much of a greedy cunt? Surely there were alternatives to kicking his ass into the street.


After a few weeks I was eventually fired, as well. Kiersten and I didn't get along so well. A bit a of jealousy crept in on his part after he realized I could fart and think simultaneously.

I wanted revenge for Pedro and at that point in my life had really nothing to lose by seeking it save for maybe getting my ass kicked but that never really concerned me.

Not long after getting shit-canned I got a new gig down the street at a place called Rock N Roll +, a chintzy t-shirt shack owned by an absentee Jew. I had pretty much free-reign over the joint while I worked so I took full advantage. 

My revenge for Pedro began with very light harrassment. My first strike was when I stole the sandwich board sign that was displayed just outside their front door on the street. I had a friend go in and show Kiersten a red thing while I swiped the 50 pound  thing and skateboarded with it on my back down the street. That fucking sign stayed in the basement of RNR+ until the day it closed down in 2006.

I would also send people to C.I. that would come into RNR+ to buy weed. This happened often for some reason. The place just looked seedy so I took advantage of this, as well. When inquired about marijuana purchase I would get these burners to get very close to me and whisper "gimme a dollar". They'd always reply stunned with a "Whaaaaah?" Then I would yell "GIMME A DOLLAR!". They would dropp a usually crumpled single on the counter and then I would proceed to tell them that if they walked down to 4th st. and made a right they would find a place called CI Records. They were to go inside and walk immediately upstairs and light up a cigarette. This was the signal for "Kristen" to know that you were there to buy drugs from him, the drug dealer. I would always say "be sure you tell him Sharkey sent ya" as they walked out the door.

I did this maybe 4 or 5 times before the half-owner, Pat from the band Violent Society (who I still think were an awesome band even though he stole records from my friend, Tony) and Keirsten came down with baseball bats threatening me. They were not charmed by my little jokes. I guess most people were doing what I was telling to do and it was pissing off the clean living Kiersten. I was young and dumb and basically laughed them out of the store because they knew and I knew that they were not going to assault me in the store. The police station was right next door.

  The owner of C.I.'s band, Stand Up. This looks like a promo photo for the band Live

Then I got a little more vicious/juvenile with my tactics by pulling the famous age old prank of jamming their window shutter locks full of gum and glue and then writing "Sharkey Rules" above their doorway. This made them fucking furious! They then decided to invite Johnny Law to the party. A day or 2 later a police officer came down to my store to issue me a summons to appear in court to depute charges of vandalism, harassment and destruction of property. I found this really strange considering I wasn't being actually arrested and that they really had no proof that I did anything. Anybody could've written "Sharkey Rules" above the door! I swear to you that this actually happened and somehow I wasn't arrested. It was truly one of the most bizarre things that's ever happened to me. It had such an air of bullshit but still the news was delivered by a boy in blue.

All the while this saga between C.I. Records and I was going I wasn't afraid to run my mouth about all the shit that was going on and why I was doing it. After all, I was a freedom fighter. By doing this I got most of the Philadelphia Punk scene, CI's clientele, in my corner and pretty much most of them stopped shopping there. They saw Jeremy for the garbage bag full of semen that he was. He was a frat-boy in college who was in a shitty band and then started C.I. Records to pretty much profiteer off a scene he felt he could capitalize on in an egregiously blatant manner. He was a fraud and he was cheating the punk scene. Did I care about any of that horse shit? FUCK NO, I just wasn't to get payback for a friend! Fuck politics, I wanted to cause damage. I wanted to hurt an asshole who hurt my friend.

This story comes to a somewhat anti-climactic ending as the charges against me were mysteriously dropped and ,apart from me trying to go into the store every now and again to get punched by Kiersten (he was a big fucker,no consequences were ever suffered. The store eventually folded and was sold to Relapse Records as their retail storefront.  I have since been told from inside sources close to Jeremy that my entire little escapade had hurt their reputation so much in town that they were forced to close. That felt good, such an accomplishment for this burgeoning asshole at such a tender young age. Justice was served and my ego was inflated.

JSIII

P.S. I forgot to mention that about 2 years after all of this happened I would sporadically log onto their Ebay store and bid $1,000,000 on everyone of their auctions under the username JohnSharkeyIII. Just a little reminder.

P.P.S. This is all a fictional tale based on histrorical events. It may or may not have happened this way.

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