I’m taking the month of August off from the blog, but I will be posting a random daily photo from MBIP and various past blogs every day until I return on Saturday, September 1st. I’m taking a short trip to Louisville, Kentucky in a couple of weeks, I need to do a thorough cleaning of The MBIP World Headquarters and most importantly, I’m going to be rehearsing for a one man show that I’m going to be doing. Actually two other people are going to be involved with this but it’s a show I plan on doing at the end of September. I’ll announce all the details of that when I come back in September.

For now, here’s today’s daily photo from the past! Check back for a new photo every day and I’ll be back on Saturday September 1st for a new year of blogging posts!

It’s hard to believe but this photo is over nine years old! This is from a post on my first blog, The Marty Wombacher Show and it’s from a night I went to a book signing by Dee Dee Ramone’s ex-wife Vera Ramone King. I asked her to sign it, “Hi Asshole,” she laughed and said I was crazy. I was tempted to say, “Well at least I never married Dee Dee Ramone!” You can read the whole post here: Vera Ramone King - Poisoned Heart Book Signing.

For two years when I lived in New York, I celebrated Easter at the legendary Mars Bar. You can see those two posts here and here. Well sadly the Mars Bar closed down and a group of us decided to go to another dive bar down the street and have our Easter drink-a-thon there. That picture is me drinking a shot with the bartender, Lisa who was all dressed up in bunny ears. You can read the original post here: Easter Sunday At Milano’s.

One of my all time favorite bands is Cheap Trick. I’ve seen them live in concert numerous times, but February of 2017, I got to meet the band at a meet and greet when they played The Limelight in Pioneer Park. You can see more shots of me with the band and photos from the concert by clicking here: Live, Thursday Night From The Limelight In Peoria...Cheap Trick!

Back in May of 2009 I attended my very first Joey Ramone Birthday Bash at Irving Plaza in New York City. This is the back of someone’s t-shirt from that concert and you can see photos of Bebe Buell, Tommy Ramone and lots of other t-shirts by clicking here: The Joey Ramone 2009 Birthday Bash.

On July 11th, 2010 I went to bar number 183 of my 365 bar crawl and I went to a legendary bar in the West Village called Fedora and met the owner, who of course is named Fedora. It was kind of a bittersweet moment because she told me they were closing the bar because she couldn’t manage it anymore. She was such a sweet woman and I’m glad I got to meet her and document this classic NYC bar. Here’s a link to the original post: Day 183—Sunday, July 11th, 2010 - Fedora

This is a photo of The Beatles that I took at the Warwick Hotel on February 24, 2012 in New York City. The photo was on the wall in the lobby because The Beatles used to stay here and so did The Rolling Stones, James Dean, Elizabeth Taylor and Elvis Presley. I went and took photos of this iconic hotel and had a drink in the bar and you can see the entire post by clicking here: The Bar At The Warwick Hotel.

Comdian Emo Philips wrote the cover story for the last issue of my magazine POP, that I edited and published from 1990 to 1993. I moved to New York in 1993 and I met up with him at Caroline’s Comedy Club in 1998 when he was doing a stand-up act there. Then back in November of 2015, he was performing at The Jukebox Comedy Club here in Peoria and we met up yet again and I was amazed that he remembered who I was! You can read the entire post by clicking here: Saturday Night @ The Jukebox Comedy Club With Emo Philips.

This is me and Randy Jones at Sardi’s Bar in New York City on October, 18, 2011. I went to Sardi’s for a post on my blog, Marty After Dark and spotted Randy, who was a member of the disco band The Village People and went over and said hi and had my picture taken with him. He turned out to be a really nice guy and we had a fun conversation. You can read the whole post by clicking here: Sardi's—10:15PM - Times Square.

Here’s a picture of Nathan’s hot dog stand at Coney Island. I really do miss going out to Coney Island and this photo is from my 365 bar crawl blog. I went to Ruby’s Bar & Grill on September 19th, 2010, you can see more Coney Island photos and the blog post by clicking here: Day 253—Sunday, September 19th, 2010 - Ruby’s Coney Island Bar.

On April 8, 2011, I went to the Charlie Sheen Show at Radio City Music Hall. This was his tour he had when he was in the middle of some sort of mental meltdown and there were some scary-ass people there. You can see pictures from this weird evening and read my story from the evening which included being yelled at by some scary bean-like man and his wheelchair-bound wife by clicking here: Radio City Music Hall—8:00PM Rockefeller Center.

This post is from October 8th, 2011 when I visited Occupy Wall Street which was happening in Zuccotti Park (briefly renamed “Liberty Square”) in the financial district of New York City. I really enjoyed visiting and meeting like-minded people there and went back often to chat and meet people coming to New York to protest and speak their minds. Of course it didn’t end well, Mayor Bloomberg had cops attack the park while the media was unable to report on it because no one was allowed nearby when the park was taken over by cops and those that remained there got beaten up and hauled off to jail, you can read the account of that here: Bloomberg’s disgraceful eviction of Occupy Wall Street. You can read about better times when OWS was just beginning by clicking here: Occupy Wall Street—10:19PM - Liberty Square.

Last April, Anthony Pisano died and he was remembered in this post by EV Grieve. I’m honored he used my photo of Anthony and quoted me in the post. Anthony had a house of treasures in the East Village and he let anyone who had an interest come inside and take a look. You can meet Anthony and take a tour from this Tripping With Marty post back in March of 2012: Anthony Pisano and His House of Treasures.

This is a post from Marty After Dark about the escalators at Penn Station and something I still obsess about to this day! You can read all about this by clicking here: Escalator—12:17AM - Penn Station.

On August 24th, 2010, I hit bar number 226 in my 365 bar crawl. I went to a bar in a Mexican restaurant on Broadway and it was kind of uneventful until I was walking home. As I ventured up Broadway I passed a couple and heard an unmistakeable voice, it was legendary New York DJ, Cousin Brucie! I stopped and asked the gentleman if was indeed Cousin Brucie and he confirmed the fact and said no one had ever recognized him by just hearing him talk on the street! This guy introduced The Beatles when they played at Shea Stadium and we had a nice conversation! Check out his Sirius radio show right here, cousins! And here’s a link to the original post: Day 226—Monday, August 23rd, 2010 - Gonzalez Y Gonzalez (Originally headed for Pravda).

If you’re a Seinfeld or Suzanne Vega fan or both, this diner will be a familiar photo. This is Tom’s Restaurant which was used for the outside shots of the diner made famous on Seinfeld. It’s also the diner that Suzanne Vega sang about in her song, “Tom’s Diner.” I went to check out this historical diner on April 7, 2011 and here’s a link to the original post: April 7, 2011: Tom’s Restaurant.

My friend Brad Elvis has been the drummer in the band The Romantics for about 15 years, many of you remember him as the drummer for The Elvis Brothers and before that he was in the band Screams. In addition to The Romantics gig, he’s also in The Handcuffs, with his wife, Chloe on lead vocals and guitar. The Romantics played a show at Coney Island with Squeeze and Brad put me on the guest list and I had a great time. Click on the link to see photos of Coney Island and The Romantics onstage and backstage: The Romantics at Coney Island.

March 2nd, 2010 was a very important night for me and my 365 bars blog. I went to a bar called Fontana’s which is located on the lower east side of New York near Chinatown. The night was fun, but the important part can’t be seen in the post. Behind the scenes I met a feature writer for the NY Daily News, who’s name is Simone Weichselbaum. She was intrigued by my bar crawl blog, pitched the story to her editor and about a week later I was in the NY Daily News! The the U.P.I. wire service picked it up and it went international and I did radio interviews all over the country, was on several local New York TV news stations and ended up on The Morning Show in Australia which is their version of The Today Show. I had no idea that this night would would be responsible for the blog getting world wide attention! Here’s the link to this post that led to fame, but sadly, no fortune: Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010—Bar 52.

On December 2, 2011, I made a trip to Rockefeller Center to take photos of the giganzo tree there and once I took the photo I realized that there’s not much else to do there! So I started snapping pictures of people getting their photos taken at the tree and met Anthony with his heart-warming Christmas shirt! That guy made the trip worth the trouble it took to get there! Here’s the Marty After Dark link to that post: Christmas Tree - Rockefeller Center.

I only had twelve bars left to go when I flew back to NYC after spending Crhistmas back here in Peoria. By this time I was so sick of doing the 365 bar crawl I could hardly stand it. So when I flew into LaGuardia airport in the middle of a snowstorm in New York and found out that the line for a cab was over two hours, I just said, “Fuck it,” and went to a generic airport bar. I made the best of it and met those two women and it turns out they were from Australia and going to Cancun. I had a nice chat and a couple drinks with them and got ready to count down the days I could finally put the 365 madness to an end! Here’s the link to the post: Day 353—Tuesday, December 28th, 2010 - Figs

I had heard that there was one last porno theater in Brooklyn, so of course I had to go and document it for my Tripping With Marty blog. This turned out to be quite a horrific and scary trip but I did get my pictures. On my way out, I was told never to come back, which was a waste of breath from the creep that told me that. I had no intention of ever coming back to this skeevy and creepy movie theater ever again! Click here to read the entire creepy post: Kings Highway Cinema.

On Tuesday, February 28, 2012, I met two of my friends at Bill’s Gay Nineties for one last drink in that iconic New York piano bar. This was a legendary midtown saloon that had been established in 1924. It was packed with vintage bar and New York memorabilia collected through the years. The bar had been handed down to Barbara, the original owner’s daughter and that’s her pictured with me on my last night there. Barbara was heartbroken because the landlord refused to renew her lease because he wanted some asshole big-shot restaurateur to take it over. I had done several blogs on the possible closing of Bill’s and she thanked me for that. Everyone in New York was wondering when the closing day would be and Barbara said since she had liked what I had written she’d give the scoop to me. I couldn’t believe it! She told me that they had less than a month and that the last day Bill’s would be open was March 24th. I put up the post the next day and later in the afternoon, Barbara called me to tell me the New York Times had called wanting to do a story on Bill’s. She asked the writer how he heard about the closing and his aswer was, “One of those stupid blogs.” Ha ha ha! Cheers to the memory of Bill’s Gay Nineties! Here's the link to the original post: My Last Supper At Bill's Gay Nineties.

This was a post from my 365 bar crawl blog that was just a fun day. It was also a rare daytime bar visit because my parents were coming to town, so I had to get this bar done in the afternoon. The bar was Winnie’s in Chinatown and it was a fun day and I got a free pork chop! That’s me pictured with Q the bartender and some of the regulars at the bar above. You can see all the photos and read about the 54th bar on my 365 bar crawl right here: Day 54 (Where are you?)—Thursday, March 4th - Winnie’s.

On Friday, March 5th, 2010, my parents made their first appearance on the 365 bar crawl blog. They came to visit me in New York and we went to one of their favorite restaurants in the city, The Water Club and after dinner we went to the bar and I took photos for this blog entry which was my 55th bar: Day 55—Friday, March 5th - The bar at the Water Club Restaurant.

This photo is from a Marty After Dark post I did back on November 16, 2011. The post and photo are about a one-off magazine I published called, “Bar Crawl.” I was hoping to do a magazine about bars, but couldn’t get advertisers, so this was the first and last issue. This photo was taken at a horrible frat bar called, Bourbon Street and the girl on the end was so plastered she could hardly talk! You can see the whole link here: Bar Crawl Magazine - 1:47AM—Chelsea.

This photo actually has nothing to do with the post that I’m linking to, but I’ve always liked the irony in the photo. I took it while walking home from this post that I’m featuring today. I went to two record shops in Manhattan and wrote about how record stores were rapidly closing. Sure enough, both of these fine record stores are now closed. Bleecker Bob’s became a yogurt shop, you can read about that here. You can see photos of two record stores that are no longer in business from this 2012 post on Tripping With Marty: A Tale of Two Record Stores.

When I was publishing my magazine fishwrap, I ran into Michael Moore and showed him the magazine and he ended up giving me $3,000 to publish an issue. It was an amazing momnet in my life and this is the paper he scrawled the information on. You can read the entire story here: Michael And Me.

This is a photo of myself and a real NYC character, Frank Wood, who’s a legendary band promoter in the city for over 40 years. You can read about him in this NY Times article. In addition to hanging out with Frank, I met other friends there and it was a return to the first bar I ever went to on the 365 Bar Crawl. You can read the entire post by clicking here: Otto’s Shrunken Head.

I like dark bars and I hate TV sets in bars so when I visited the Russian Vodka Room on my bar crawl, I was in Heaven! They have no windows and no TV sets, plus they have a ton of different kinds of vodka. It's like permanent midnight in there any time of the day! This was a bad time on the bar crawl, by the way. I had gone to 213 bars and still had over 150 days to go. It seemed like it was never going to end and I felt like I had built a hell on earth for myself! Here’s the link to my 213th day of drinking in bars! Day 213—Tuesday, August 10th, 2010 - Russian Vodka Room.

One thing I really miss about not being in New York is going to Coney Island in the summertime. Although, like so much of New York, it’s changed a lot and too much of it now is all new and shiny. I took a picture of this couple dancing at Ruby’s bar on the boardwalk back in May of 2011, before it got refurbished. Click on the link to see Coney Island back when it was still unpolished and a ton of fun! - Coney Island—8:01PM: Brooklyn.

Well, it’s the end of my blog vacation! Tomorrow will be a new post although not an official MBIP post, I’ll explain all of this tomorrow. Then Saturday I’ll be back with daily posts beginning with a “What I Did Over My Summer Vacation” post and MBIP will then return to daily posts. Since this is the end of the August daily pictures I thought I’d put up a photo and a link to the last day of my 365 day bar crawl blog. This was a crazy day and I went to Mike’s Tavern with my mom and my dad and I remember saying to them on the way there, “I wonder if anyone will show up for this?” Well we got there and it was packed with people and I couldn’t believe it and was somewhat overwhelmed! I look kind of shocked in this photo with my mom, dad and Tony Ward, who owned Mike’s back then. Here’s a link to that memorable last day on the 365 bar crawl: Sunday, January 9th, 2011—Bar 365: Mike’s Tavern.

I was voted Best Social Butterfly at Peoria Magazines Best of Peoria list. You can check it out here and thanks to Peoria Magazines and everyone who voted for me! I’ll try and live up to the honor!