The travels, how they travel.

It is 11:30 on Thursday night, which means Allen Koehler himself is returning to New York City in a little over twelve hours. Which means a few things:

It means the summer is officially over.
It means I am going to have to start doing real work.
It means I will no longer be able to update this column while sitting on Allen's sofa that I was keeping for the summer.

I am not ready to have him back.

But with the end of the summer come a few fond memories that spread beyond the scope of the baseball diamond, though they tend to be few. However, along with my trusty partner in crime, Diez, I managed to put together some stories this summer from my travels that I think make for a pretty successful season away from the studio.

Luckily, I had the good fortune of not having a real job this summer, and was able to squeeze in several decent vacations, the first of which took me to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. While I was on this vacation, I managed to miss Diez' birthday, which makes a real shitty partner in crime of me.

Back Story: Over Spring Break this past March, The Allen Koehler Show went to Myrtle Beach for a little while, and Diez and I discovered a really cool restaurant where all the inlet locals went called Creek Ratz, which has live music and really choice southern cuisine. Lots of simple fried fish sandwiches etc. and hush puppies with honey butter that will curl your toes. What makes the place really cool is that everyone (and I mean EVERYONE) in the place knows each other. All the local folks were greeting one another jubliantly at the bar to the sounds of that weeks best Jimmy Buffet cover in the low country. It was a very cool place.

So I missed Diez' birthday in New York. He turned 21. He grew a mustache. How could I have missed such an event. A real drag. But on his birthday, I happened to be at Creek Ratz, which to me connected us a little bit. I also bought him a total yokel t-shirt bearing the slogan "Creek Ratz: We all here 'cuz we ain't all there". How quaintly southern.

Also while I was down south, I watched a guy hook a shark. He caught a fucking shark. With a fishing pole. That. Is. A. Man.

What happened was, on my last day of vacation, I was bathing in the ocean, when a group of people started yelling at my brother (Dobles) and I to get out of the water. I was annoyed. It was my last day of vacation, and I am entitled and from New York. So I yelled "Why??" to which a woman responded "He's got a shark!". Dobles and were dry in five seconds.

We watched this guy start trolling down the beach, clearly struggling with a pole that had a real big boy on its south end. Then the dorsal fin breached the surface of the water. He won the battle, and pulled a shark that was five feet in length if it was an inch, grabbed it by its fucking mouth, took a couple pictures, and threw it BACK INTO THE OCEAN. Did we continue swimming? Yes, but only because Dobles and I are from Maine, and not very bright.

So I got on my flight back from Myrtle Beach, and Diez picked me up from the airport, and drove me to his house, with another of our mutual friends, Steph. We were due for a night on Long Beach Island, a family barbeque, and a killer rainout at the Phillies game. Had we known about the rainout before we were on the road, our spirits may have been less high. But needless to say, we were pumped for a weekend away from the big city.

That evening, we got to LBI, and went to a supposedly famous restaurant called The Chicken or the Egg (AKA the CHEGG). I as usual, over-ordered, and got buffalo chicken fingers, mac 'n' chee, onion rings, fried broccoli, and french fries. Anyone for dessert? The place was money, and if you are ever in LBI, I highly recommend checking this place out.

We also enjoyed a few games of Skee-ball, Jersey shore style. What is the Jersey Shore without it? The amount of tickets we won was negligable, but Steph managed to get us free ice cream because she knew the woman who worked there, even though Diez' brother dropped his whole ice cream down the front of his shirt.

The next day was the most interesting. We became a part of the Diez family barbeque. He has a lesbian aunt who told us a story about her friend who has cancer of the vagina. Not cervical, not uterine. Vagina. And apparantly she had her entire vagina radiationed out, and while I type it, it sounds horrible, but I guess it was the inflection of Aunt Diez' telling of it that made it so bizarrely funny. Plus, the woman donated her body to science. I hope that science didn't need to study her vagina.

Obviously the last of our foray into the Diez family was the Phillies game. Feel free to jump back a post for that story, but I will say this to rain delays:

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

The next weekend, we were obligated to be guests on the Cincinnati edition of the Allen Koehler Show. He was broadcasting on 88.9 Classx out of his hometown for the summer and invited us out to visit the city and check out his setup. We got in on a friday, and of course, because it's Allen, our time was scheduled out to the minute.

Friday night we ate at the Montgomery Inn. The place was money. Guess what? I over-ordered. I got ribs, brisket, pulled pork, jalapeno corncakes, and mac 'n' chee. There are no vegetables in Ohio. I'm convinced.

After the dinner, we went across the river into shit-ass Kentucky to celebrate "Goetta-Fest". I didn't actually eat any of the stuff, but the definition I found on Wikipedia explains it this way:

Goetta is a peasant food of German origin that is popular in the greater Cincinnati area. It is primarily composed of ground meat and oats. Pronounced gétt-aa, ged-da or get-uh Americanized Pronunciation, this dish originated with German settlers from the northwestern regions of Oldenburg, Hannover, and Westphalia who emigrated to the Cincinnati area in the 19th century. The word "Goetta" comes from the Low German word götte.
Goetta was originally a peasant dish, meant to stretch out servings of meat over several meals to conserve money.
The modern popularity of goetta in Cincinnati has led to it being called "Cincinnati Caviar". Glier's Goetta, the largest commercial producer of goetta, produces more than 1,000,000 lb (450 metric tons) annually, around 99% of which is consumed locally in greater Cincinnati.

Why anyone would want to eat this is beyond me. But God help me if those rednecks don't just eat that shit up.

Sticking to the German theme of the night, Allen took us to the Hofbrauhaus, which was a brewery in Newport KY. They made their own beers in house, had a live polka band, and everyone danced on tables to the song "Hang on Sloopy", which oddly enough turns out to be the state song of the state of Ohio, and they were singing it in Kentucky. They sure told me a lot about their intelligence in the great state of Kentucky. This place also didn't mess around when serving a beer. For $8, you get a liter of beer. Look at this thing in the picture above. That's a big ol' beer.

It was enough to get a mom next to us to dance with Diez. God bless that 'stache.

The next day we got the Koehler family barbeque, which was more or less similar to the Diez family barbeque except that there was a greater abundance of cornhole, which is a game similar to horseshoes, in which you throw bean bags onto a slanted board that has a hole at the top. You try to get the bags in the hole for three points, on the board for one point, twenty-one points wins the game. It was addicting, and Mr. Koehler was kind enough to make up a set of boards to send back to Wagner with Allen, so that we may start an Allen Koehler Show sponsored cornhole tournament (in conjunction with the Laundry List- A Music Show Featuring Diez). Look for that later this fall.

Finally, we got to go to the studio and do the Allen Koehler Show which was a really cool experience. Allen had a great guest on, comedian Marcus T, whose website is linked on http://www.allenkoehler.com/ and Diez and I had a great time midwest.

It's been a great summer, and we are excited to get started this fall, with RA training, and welcoming back the Wagner community to the Allen Koehler Show. See you on August 26th, 10pm on the stations of WCBG (Wagner channel 18) or online at http://www.allenkoehler.com/

Over. And Out.

-Gavin