Alright boys and girls, its the final push for the Mustaches for Kids up in the Burgh. Below, you can check out Matt’s progress. Note the cameo by Steve on this weeks update. Looking good Smitty!
You can check out the website for more information.
Here is Matt’s progress so far…

Now, the donation process is a little cumbersome, but it is all worth it.
You can either mail a check to Matt at his work address:
Matthew Nauyalis
500 Cranberry Woods Drive
Cranberry Township, PA 16066
OR
Call Stephanie Pugliese at (412) 471-9474 and she can take a credit card donation in the name of any of the three guys listed above.
Thanks for all your help!

I know, it sounds like an odd way to raise money, but the Make-A-Wish Foundation in Pittsburgh is doing a charity event to raise money and make a child’s dream come true. A couple of my buddies (Matt Nauyalis, Steve Smith and Brian McConnell) up in the Burgh are participating as brave “growers” this year. They have four weeks to grow the best mustache possible and awards will be given at the Stache Bash Finale on March 16th at the Buckhead Saloon in Pittsburgh.
You can check out the website for more information.
Here is Matt’s progress so far…


Now, the donation process is a little cumbersome, but it is all worth it.
You can either mail a check to Matt at his work address:
Matthew Nauyalis
500 Cranberry Woods Drive
Cranberry Township, PA 16066
OR
Call Stephanie Pugliese at (412) 471-9474 and she can take a credit card donation in the name of any of the three guys listed above.
Thanks for all your help!

our boy rome finally left his twenties behind on friday.  abandoning what was left of his youth and deciding to give it one last hurrah before he finds himself in housepants curled up with buddy and just playing suduko all night.

friends came from far and wide to help rome with this celebration.  hell, jean even flew in from california.  evan and eric came up from south cackilacky.  i drove the three miles to his house.  nuts!

so we started out at jerome’s around six thirty or seven.  i was the only one suited up at that point, but that would quickly change.  actually, the guys changed.  anyway.  the people that were in on the limo and joining for dinner slowly started to trickle in.  gabe was last pimp through the door since the limo picked him up at his place…

rome and jean looking rough suited up.

laura lu and patrica looking hot as all get out.

eric and monika dashing in the kitchen.

and everybody is automatically cooler in a limousine.  in my two rides in a limo, i have come to know this as fact.  and with a bottle of bubbly in the ride and some rap blaring, it was only a matter of time before gang signs started getting flashed and everybody looked gangsta.  note the spelling. 

jean, rome, and gabe in the back.

LP smiling while i throw out the gas face.  yeah, i said it.  if you don’t know third bass, you shouldn’t be here!

evan and eric posing as hard asses.

sue and i both are tough.

patty snow puckering up.

too cool to keep the eyes open for j-rod and LP.  jean hanging between them.

dinner at havana was great.  israel and his friend, eric, (yes, there were two erics and two phonetic jareds.) lent to interesting conversation throughout the meal.  we tackled all the big hitters for dining conversation.  politics and religion.  they are usually no-no’s, but for some reason, i have been game on such debates lately.

after a wonderful meal, we piled back into the limo.  it was obvious that we ate some serious grub since we scraped like a mo-hunky leaving the restaurant.  then it was off to loft 1523 to embibe some tasty libations and enjoy the company of yet more comrades.  (that was, like, a three dollar sentence with all those fifty cent words.  you liked that huh?)

loft is a decent place to just kick back a few in a more sofisticated setting.

brian wants you…

rome with the nieghbors, mark and sherrill.

jason snead and i.  chillin’.

brian and sherrill.

leigh, in from out of town with her friend whose name escapes my memory.  seriously, that is what it said on her driver’s license.

when they were looking to close down and kick us out of the bar, a handful of us decided to kick it back to where it all started… jerome’s house.

gabe, hanging late night.

ike throwing out the eyebrow for the intellectual look.  either that, or he was wasted and was over compensating only the one eye to keep open.

time stamp on the picture of jarod drinking what was more than likely his last beer for the night?  roughly 4am.

evan and buddy chilling late night.  apparently, i am having trouble centering people into the pictures.

rome getting his birthday kiss on the cheek.

i took a little time to sober the hell up so that i could navigate back to la casa delYerg.  but i felt a little out of sorts when the clock on the nightstand read five fifteen.  so i called jerome, and the same anamoly was occurring at his house.

i didn’t awaken from my slumber on saturday until about three thirty in the PM.  from what i have heard of other participants, i was one of the early risers.  the guy that was thirty years and one day old was rumored to not rise until the sevenish range.  full recovery for some didn’t take place until monday.  that is a one hell of a time.

thanks to all that organized, it was much appreciated.  happy birthday, brother.

what do you get when you cross a mild mannered NoDa wine bar, a couple of good drink specials, a handful of out going people, and platinum J in all his karaoke splendor?  one hell of a time at dolce vita on thursday, that’s what.

we kicked off around eight or eight thirty after getting all the equipment set up.  and from there, it just took off.  platinum is the ideal guy for running a karaoke night.  not afraid to call people out at all.  and he has a great set up with a decent list of tunes for you to belt out if you are willing.  and sometimes, even if you aren’t willing.  i know i got called out once or twice for “platinum’s picks” a couple of times.  if there was nobody signed up to sing, J would keep things rolling by picking a song of his choice followed by a singer of his choice.  good times.

and it was nice to catch up with my buddy graham.  he moved to NYC last year and we lost touch for the most part since then.  but i slapped him with an email last week and he just happened to be breezing through the CLT for business.

scott and melissa…

scotty belting out another tune.  more than likely, “okie from muskogee”…

 platinum J standing by in amazement as i sound exactly like scott weiland for “interstate love song”…

alexis with the scarf around the mic for what turned out to be a spoken word version of “sweet child o mine”… 

molly kate with bryan…

alexis on a duet with polly… 

bryan and mark belting one out…

great googily moogily.  molly and irma. 

straight cheese from alexis…

hanging…

don’t remember her name, but she took it pretty seriously…

so, it was a good night at DV.  talk was going around at the end of the night to crank up some more karaoke sometime in january, so stay tuned.  you don’t want to miss out twice.

last tuesday was one of the top ten social events of the year for young singles in charlotte.  second string santa.  an unwrapped toy and ten bucks gets you through the door at this great charity event.  paschal told me that there were over 4400 people in attendance.

jarod and i started at sierra’s apartment for a little pregame before walking over.  she was obviously sporting her “ball hair.”  not sure if it is so name because of the shape of the do or because she usually styles it that way for ball type events. 

it was non-stop with the running into people.  and all of them looked fantastic.  it was just a matter of finding the five or six feet to step back and be able to take them all in.  a claustrophobes worst hangout.  but the drinks were flowing…

… and so was the cheese.  giggle giggle.  that was an ambiguous comment.

afterward, we had a couple more beers at sierra’s friends’ new bar.  george herman’s.  note that is babe ruth’s real name.  it was a quaint little joint.  i think it was on graham between 2nd and 3rd.  not bad if you are in the area.

all in all, there is nothing better than justifying a night of drinking by saying that it was “for the kids.”

alright fools.  tomorrow night is karaoke night at dolce vita.  cruise your ass on up north davidson and swing by.  they more than likely have PBR on special and i know they have pineapple sake and wine on special.  that way you can get the appropriate amount of sauced up in order to belt out your favorite tunes.  i personally might throw down on a little bon jovi if the voice is just the right level of raspyness.  kicks off around 7:30pm. 

saturday night, laura lu invited a few of us to join her for a night of theater at the blumenthal for monty python’s spamalot.

thankfully, we found out that it was actually at the oven’s auditorium that day and adjusted our plans accordingly. 

LP, michelle, AD, and i all met up at hawthorne pizza for a quick dinner prior to the show.  the pizza was good, but the conversation was better.  non-stop laughes with the occassional smatterings of the serious.

after a nice dinner and a couple of drinks, we piled into the sexterra and zipped over to ovens.  it was a nice stretch of the legs from the car to the auditorium having to walk under briar creek road.  and along the way, AD and i were teased with the disney on ice trucks next door at the cricket arena.

see, neither of us are huge monty python fans.  british humor has always eluded me.  i have always thought it was more along the lines of subtle silliness.  bean, monty python, benny hill.  all that stuff just wasn’t funny to me.  and i know funny.  at least i think i do.

but we pressed on.

we had good seats in the balcony on the right and, of course, sat boy/girl/boy/girl.  it was a weird cross section of people in the audience in my mind.  a bunch of older couple throughout.  then the four guys behind us that looked like they played D line together in high school.  maybe i just never thought about the population of monty python fans.

i was pleasantly surprised.  the show, in all its splendor, was actually good.  poking fun at itself was an excellent idea.  it helped alleviate the stress associated with a musical in my mind.

i was actually a little upset when the intermission came about because i was having a good time.  but an okay merlot at halftime eased me back into my seat for the second half.  they walked the comedic lines, so to speak, with content on gays, politics, and jews, but they didn’t jump over it a la michael richards style.

it was a great show and i am glad LP invited me.

after the show, the four of us huddled into a booth at city tavern on east for some dessert and a few more drinks.  a little more banter and we called it a night.  the only downfall of the evening being a misstep and a spill taken by LP on the way out of the theater.  woman can’t hold her liquor.  kidding.

but thanks laura.

oh, and screw you three. you will never hear the story about my parent’s visit that would have been funny.

- alright already people. for some reason, some of you actually want to know what goes on in my life. i think its just so that you can feel better about your own.

- but anywho… we catch up with our hero last tuesday night. he was expecting his parents to arrive from pennsyltucky at approximately 12:30am but was bold enough to try and fit in a show at the visualite theater beforehand. citizen cope.

it was cold and raining like ten sonsabitches. not good. especially since there appeared to be a line as rome and i approached the front door. doors were at 8pm and we got there around 9pm, so this was confusing. to add to that feeling, the roid monkeys working the door didn’t have any answers as far as when they were going to start letting people in. the show may have been sold out. but they don’t know?

after twenty-five minutes of standing behind slews of teenagers who could finally smoke because mom wasn’t around, rome and i cut our losses and bailed. good music not listened to by these ears.

but that allowed me to go home and finish folding some laundry before the rents got there. a beer and a half later, i passed out on the couch, thankfully awaken when they called from my neighborhood. god, its good seeing family.

- wednesday was a cold and ugly day in the CLT. doesn’t make for good sightseeing.  so we did what every red blooded amercian does when the weather sucks.  we went to the mall.  a little bit of shopping and people watching at southpark, and we were good to go.

after that, we headed back to la casa delYerg(s) and got cleaned up to go to dinner.  of course, we hit cabo fish taco followed by a few drinks at dolce vita.  where else am i going to take my family?  seriously.

rome joined us for a few glasses of vino and irma and molly kept it entertaining.  it was a good night, but an early night for us.  after all, there was the impending turkey day…

-  it seems like we got up at the butt crack of dawn everyday, but that could have just been the way that i felt since i didn’t really want to get out of bed, but found myself having to since my guests had arisen.  the whole obligation to wake up thing.  that led me to not sleeping in all five of the days that i had off.  poo tinky to that.

we eased into our day though after getting the bird in the oven a little before nine.  and we continued our food prep around ten thirty, keeping in mind a two o’clock dinner time.

the television never really came off the speed channel after i found the show “pinks!” while flipping through.  it kind of took pop back to his yesteryears with the whole drag racing thing.  yeah, dad was a little of a motorhead.

but thankfully, he is also a plumber.  you see, if it is la casa delYerg, the house is fine.  one singular sensation residing under the roof.  when it becomes la casa de los Yergs, some of the strain becomes more that the little house can bear.  especially when asked to swallow a mound of sweet potato peels that made it through the garbage disposal, but not much farther.

this bothered the shit out of the guy whose name is on the mortgage.  yeah, me.  but dad pacified my frustration as we tore apart the under guts of the sink later that afternoon.

around noon thirty or so, we were joined by my sister, lindsay, and her fiancee, conor.  linds is my girl and conuts cracks me the hell up on a regular basis.  and this was their first time in the CLT!  good times ahead!

but the meal!  i set the tables ever so nicely with my cb2 plates and bowls and the pier1 place settings.  and then we feasted.  started with a nice little tossed salad (keep it clean, it was a family affair).  then we did a kind of buffet style dinner.  turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green bean caserole, corn, and rome’s fried okra.  if you got up from that table hungry, it was your own fault.  and of course, there was plenty of vino.  i love that montepulciano.  two bottles?  gonzo in no time flat.  alexis snuck in a little past starting time and got himself a good plate of grub as well…

-  after dinner, we topped it all off with some fucking delicious pumpkin roll and an apple pie that my kick ass neighbors left for me that morning.  we cleaned up and let the tryptophan settle into the bloodstream.  that and some more wine.  alexis split for a little while to go get his pooch, frank, and came back with kat as well.

then the gauntlet was set.  trivial pursuit!  now, i have only lost at trivial pursuit about a dozen times in this (almost) thrity-one years.  and one of those losses came at the hands of my father.

so we huddled around that wonderful wheel of trivia and duked it out.  rome and i vs. dad and sal vs. conor and lindsay.  it was heated.  and then it cooled off.  and then it drug on for what seemed like forever.  this ended with my team’s oppenents conceding and another in a long line of victories for theYerg.

-  friday in the CLT was freaking beautiful!  the sun was shining, the birds were chirping, and the wine hangover wasn’t too bad.  so after some eggs and cornbread, we ventured out.  linds and sal hit the mall.  dad, conor, and i hit kilborne for some disc golf.

this was the first time for both conor and dad.  and at first, conor and i were the only ones playing.  but, i think after dad realized that he wasn’t going to be any worse than conor, he took up some discs on the fourth fairway and started chucking.  this was an experience.  there was a fair amount of swearing, a lot of laughing, and a decent amount of time looking for frisbees.  but after two and a half hours (a normal round there takes about an hour less) we returned to the car with smiles on our faces.

then it was a quick trip down to the mexi-wal-mart.  a little unnerving, but i got the stuff that i needed to go wireless in la casa delYerg.  a little card and a router and i am up and running.  like i needed a reason to stay up even later.

rome, again, joined us for dinner.  turkey day leftovers done shepard’s pie style in a baking pan.  fucking delish.  after that, linds, conor, LP, and i hit dolce vita for a couple of glasses of vino. 

-  saturday we woke up around eight thirty to the sounds of packing.  dad and sal had enjoyed their stay, but it was time to head back north so that dad could get ready for the first day of deer season.  it was really great being able to share a slice of my charlotte life with them like that.

then it was conor, linds, and i.  we took the “jared yerg three dollar tour of charlotte” so named because that is the amount of gas the sexterra might eat up on the trip.  we were blessed with another gorgeous day.  we went from NoDa to plaza midwood, couldn’t get a table at the penguin so decided to keep going.  into elizabeth, down to southpark, up into dilworth, over to southend, through uptown, back into NoDa where we stopped at the rat’s nest.  i got a couple of shirts there and then we hopped back in to see if we could get a table at the penguin.  no dice.  over to thomas street for some back patio grub.  and then i waxed poor conor’s ass in a couple of games of ping pong.

-  saturday night was a great time.  we were invited to patricia’s for a nice paella dinner.  a dozen or so people sharing a nice meal and wonderful conversation together (my soapbox conversation with another guest may soon arrive here).  very adult and a lot of fun.  thanks patricia.

conor, linds, and i got one last picture before heading up to the evening muse for some good tunes.  the guys from the rat’s nest were just finishing up as we got there and then truckstop preachers took the stage.  entertaining as always.  and although it really wasn’t conor and lindsay’s type of music, i think they enjoyed the show.

-  the kids left sunday morning and i was left in an empty house.  kinda still suffering from a familial hangover.  its tough when i only see them a couple of times a year.  and its exhausting afterward.

i hope you all had a wonderful thanksgiving weekend.  now its back to work…

piece out.

- you sound like a big choo choo train.

- hey, there is some great music that is going to be playing at the visualite theater tonight in elizabeth. citizen cope is going to be belting out some smooth tunes. doors are at 8pm, show starts at nine. it is 22 clams at the door and 20 on the pre-sale. should be real good.

- tomorrow night is the turkey day pinot noir sale at dolce vita. get you some good vino, cheap.

- the big bossman was kool and the gang when i explained to him that i was low on vay kay time but that the rents weren’t going to be arriving until late tonight and i wanted to take tomorrow.

- la casa delYerg is pretty much as clean as it is going to get for the holiday. i mean, the people i am having as company are my family. they have lived with me. they know that i am a little bit of a neat freak but don’t need stuff sterilized in the house. so i am going with the “as-is” approach. i will do some last minute stuff tonight, but i am not going overboard.

- by the way, real food is expensive. not like the shit that i buy that comes in cans or in its own microwaveable serving dish. vegetables? shit. you are just paying for convenience there. i mean, you can grow it yourself. nuts. i mean insane. i didn’t buy nuts. i don’t do nuts. only insane.

- enjoy your toooosday!

piece out.

last thursday night, LP roped a couple of us for a show at the evening muse. she had heard that nathan angelo, who we saw open for will hoge last month, was playing there.
LP and i were eventually joined at the muse by AD, rome, and patricia for the show that had andy davis and the animators bookending nathan’s set. all the music was good. got a little bit of the animators and then the animators with nathan sitting in on keyboard…

i handed the camera to AD thinking he would take a bunch of stills…



but AD got a little rambunctious and turned into a video recording machine. first interviewing, then filming while my drunk ass interviewed. it was fun stuff…

a special thanks to all the guys in the bands for putting up with our drunk asses and being a good sport.
i have to tell you, i am really enjoying the andy davis CD to. you can find all these guys on myspace.