im an even bigger asshole for putting this on the internet.

meet my new homies.

meet PJ!  that’s sideshow bob behind PJ, don’t mind him. PJ is BADASS. just ask him. PJ spends his days diving with sea turtles, and his nites driving snowflake home drunk after duffys. just kidding. sort of. oh and he takes his tanning VERY seriously. he’s also a big michael jackson fan and claims to have a theme song based on some doll called PJ Sparkles.  shine, shine, shine.

meet Gus! Gus is the other new manager here, but did beat me by a week on arrival to the island. the first day i met gus he took his heineken with him from the bar and drove me around looking for his new apartment he landed and came pretty close to killing me with his driving. actually a few times that’s happenend. Gus should drive a tank not an izuzu rodeo. Gus is also the yin to my yang or whatever it is i can say to describe that he’s the super mellow manager and i’m… well not. 

meet bryel! she doesn’t work at the shack anymore but i’m trying to keep it OG crew when i arrived here. Bryel worked primarily days, and was so stoked about that (not), that she went to apply for a new job. new job made her take a drugtest and she freaked out that she might not pass cos she smoked pot like once in her life. i found that cute. Bryel drinks vodka/cranberries and is a scorpio.

meet Rich!  Rich spends his nite making drinks at the shack and the rest of his time making babies. no really. dudes got 5 kids. hes like super dad. Rich also has this magical free car that is up for grabs if anyone can find the part that it needs. i tell you its like trying to chase down a leprechaun for his pot of gold. Rich is a virgo and his favourite song this week is a souljah boy song. no shit. rich rules.

meet Brandon! Brandons the dude behind Rich, youve already met Rich remember? sorry Brandon, i dont have any solo shots that convey the awesome that you are on your own. this is a pretty accurate depiction of this duo working together. chances are if you know anyone that has come to st. thomas and got a tattoo at the shack, these guys gave it to them. Brandon is also the father of that little guy gavin down there that i’ve already introduced to you. told you they make the same faces.

meet Jonathan! aka the handsome Jonathan Hardin. I had a solo picture of Jonathan but he didn’t approve of it (vain fucker) so here he is pictured with one of our servers Amanda aka Baby Maggie (more on that later). Actually i guess i’ve been leaving that out, i’ve likened everyone at the shack to a simpsons character, so Jonathan would be our Disco Stu. I was Marge Simpson at first  but think Krusty the Klown might be a better fit for me. Jonathan likes vodka waters and long distance love affairs with married women. jk. sort of. i’m also pretty insistent that jonathan should be magnum PI for halloween but i don’t think he’s feeling me on that one. jonathan is pretty much my ace.

meet Josh! wait you’ve already met Josh. Josh is our Bart Simpson of the shack and he takes great pride in that. this would be a picture of Josh not at work, but that’s not a big deal considering when he was at the shack he didn’t really do much work. unless you count the time he put in on hitting on chicks & pissing me off. love ya josh. 

meet Meghan! on the left (Amanda is getting quite an intro here.) Meghan just recently left island to move to alaska to be with her boyfriend. i talked to her when she landed and asked how alaska was and she goes COLD!  Meghan is also the Lisa Simpson to Josh’s Bart. An undefeated oil wrestling champ by the name of Maggie, and a great storyteller. see example A of her mid story with Jonathan below

if you worked here you would know how classic this shot is.

meet Amanda & Caitlin! figured since you’ve already met Amanda it’s okay to introduce Caitlin to you in the same shot.  Amanda is Caitlin’s niece which is explained in a long somewhat confusing story. Amanda is, or well was the youngest at the shack, so she got the title of Baby Maggie. Caitlin on the other hand was a harder fit for her Simpsons role so we decided she gets to be Snowball, the cat. Which pretty much sums up Caitlin’s demeanor. they are also a part of our duffys dive team aka I’M WITH PJ and  enjoy looking for sea turtles and drinking black cherry cruzan run.

meet Leroy, Tia, Ahkeem, and Ahkeel! they didnt want me to take their picture. Leroy is the OG chef at the shack and would be the one they refer to on the menu when you order Leroys Mahi Mahi Sandwich. Tia is the other day manager and i can’t tell if she secretly hates me or is just humoring me sometimes. Ahkeem and Ahkeel are also in the kitchen and i constantly mix up their names. I try to remember it by assimilating Ahkeems name to Kimbo Slice but then remembering he’s the skinnier one.

i almost forgot! meet KYLE! Kyle just left island to go sail a boat down from the states to here. we’re all just hoping that he doesn’t hit any rough waters in hurricane season. Kyle is one of the nicest southern boys you’ll ever meet and i feel bad for all the shit i gave him when he was working. also because hes the resident mechanic and he might’ve been able to help me fix that magical car of Rich’s. this is also taken on PJ’s last Taco Tuesday so you might see this pic again sometime. it was the only one i had of him to post. kyle is a sweetheart.

these are my new friends down here on island. pretty much my family. i don’t really know many other people and we all work a lot so this is who i hang with. i feel pretty lucky to have landed a job with such rad people. job’s not always easy and we don’t always all get along, but i know that if i ever needed anything i could count on any one of these people to have my back and i hope they all know that i’ve always got theirs too.

come visit us in paradise, we have more fun than you do. and we’re tan.

xo,

jens

he was 14 turning 15 when he wrote this letter, 7th or 8th grade (click to make bigger obvs):

wait, he really did rip this picture of louie lou outta thrasher:

he had met louie when spencer, nesto, harold, the whole lot of them had taken him skateboarding at the banks. my brother went back to Central PA the coolest kid in middle school. and a zillion stickers that he later got in trouble for cos they ended up on lockers in his middle school. i think the exact words were, “we know your sister lives in new york city, tommy.”

also feel that he’s stoked on his robbie gangemi deck too. check out his bros at the time:

ps. my bro loved shaq at one point, that door poster used to be a michael jordan one that i bought him at spencer’s gifts in 1988. 

i love my little bro. 

this is from my best friend Charlie, who made that inside bit out of a tablet he crafted in an early 90′s high school graphics class. this is proof that if you ever made me something, i’ve kept it.  

sidebar>> i, to this day, HATE being called “jenny,” therefore Charlie has called me this since our 10th grade bio class.  asshole. love that dude. xo

and this woman right here, Linda!

makes hands down the best home made ravioli & eggplant sauce EVER!

too bad i missed the footage of Linda dancing in her kitchen. 
 

nikki b is making her way back home to NY.

sorry LA. you just lost one.

your loss = my gain.

see you soon nichol beez! safe travels. xo

i ignore him & am generally mean to him. So just like any boy, it makes him love me more.

even though he’s a total pain in the ass i’m kinda sweet on him. but don’t tell him. or bailey.

ps. my mom made me a cup of coffee in this mug this morning:

how gangster is it that my mom still drinks coffee out of a mug i bought her from Liquid Sky.

rands jens factoid: i worked there from ’96-00. 

pps. i just googled the shit out of liquid sky & am super bummed there’s nothing coming up on google. i’m gonna fix that. me & my scanner. watch out internet world. i’m gonna show you me when i was 19. no really watch out. everything was better when i was 19.