His name...is Joey Wollin (Updated Below)

Joey Wollin. Joe Buds. Broey. Weapon X. Joseph Jamer.

He goes by many names but know this: Joey Wollin is my brother. I love him dearly. Right now, Joey Wollin is riding a gravy train with biscuit wheels. He just graduated from college, he got a brand new job, he just bought his first new car, and people are blogging about him. Some might say, everything’s coming up Joey Wollin, for Joey Wollin.

But where did all this success come from? You might speculate that growing up with wonderful loving parents was the reason. Others may say his dedication to athletics instilled the discipline and work ethic that got Joey Wollin to where he is today. All probable hypotheses, but I think the Joey Wollin owes his true success to the steady of regime of tormenting and random brotherly beatings I subjected him to growing up on the east side of Green Bay.

That came out wrong. I make our childhood sound dysfunctional but the occasional spats we had growing up weren’t THAT bad. Certainly no different from any other brotherly relationship out there.

Well….I guess I forgot to mention the game my cousin Jason and I invented when we were in grade school. The game was called Joey Germs. The premise of the game was simple albeit cruel. The object of the game was that whenever Jason and I were doing something like playing video games or shooting hoops or whatever and Joey Wollin came over to play with us, we would scream, Joey Germs! Joey Germs! and then we would run like hell away from him until he started crying and Mom made us play with him. Then Jason and I would make him do stuff for us under the threat that we would play Joey Germs again.

As I was typing that last paragraph, I was both simultaneously laughing out loud and feeling sick to my stomach with guilt about how absolutely mean that game was.

Bro, if you are reading this, I am really sorry about that. And readers, in case you are wondering, Joey Wollin and I have a great relationship now. I think it was a combination of our love of ping pong, frisbee, and NHL Hockey 94’ for Sega Genesis that brought us together for good. Once thing is certain, the end of his tormenting from yours truly had NOTHING to do with him joining wrestling his sophomore year, and consequently becoming a lean and disciplined fighting machine. Yup, it was definitely me deciding to mature and not that other thing I just mentioned.

For the rest of this blog post, I want to celebrate all things Joey Wollin. I am going home to The G.B. this weekend and hope to recover some Joey Wollin artifacts to help finish this post.

Did I mention that we’re calling Green Bay, The G.B., now? Good, I’m glad we’re all agreed on that.

To be continued…


The game that spawned a million friendships and a million rivalries. I always liked the Quebec Nordiques unless of course Joey Wollin picked them, in which case they became the Quebec Nor-geeks.

6/26/07

So I thought I had a lot more Joey Wollin material to present this evening but most of the stuff I found were us getting along and having a great time, which I know no one wants to see, so I had to dig deep into my archives to find interesting stuff.

The first item we have on the block is a tourney from the first annual Ben Wollin Invitational Ping Pong tournament. You will notice that Joey Wollin took second place, which is no small feat given the FIERCE competition that showed up that day. Nice job, Joe Buds, you defeated many people several grades older than yourself at the time but – ahem ahem – not myself as I was the clear victor in that heavily publicized match. You know I didn’t make it up either because that’s not my handwriting and also, I know how to spell Joe Barrie’s last name, which sure as hell ain’t B-e-r-r-y.



The second items I would like to display are the remnants of a comic book I created in 8th grade. It was called Joey and the Computer and it featured my absent-minded brother making hilarious puns with computer terminology I gleaned from the Sunday Newspaper Best Buy ad that I would obsess over weekly until my parents broke down one Christmas and actually got us a computer. Anyways, it was my dorkiest venture to date, to say the least. I display it now, more so to make fun of me than to my intended target at the time.

This is not unlike the shame I felt when I sarcastically yelled, “Way to go, Miyamoto” when Van Lieshout messed up for the umpteenth time against the Koopa boss on the third pirate ship in Mario 3 one particular Saturday afternoon in the dorm Freshmen year. What I thought was a clever insult at the time was more of an affirmation of my true nerdstromess.



He was trying to get into Windows and he actually went through a window! Get it!? Get it!?



What’s really sad here is that there are over 20 more of these and these three were the best.

This next thing is a post-it note left behind by my brother when I must have left my Stuff: Journal uncharacteristically out in the open. I find it just as reverent now as I did back in 1995.





Joey Wollin, shirtless, at a club in Cancun. Priceless.


Another great pic of Joey Wollin dressed up like a Leprechaun. Funny for so many reasons...

This Things I Have Invented

Last Friday, after bar time, I stumbled into the kitchen with a hankering for a grilled cheese. The problem was that I was hungry enough for more than one grilled cheese but I did not want to eat two grilled cheeses. So that’s when I got creative and invented the triple-decker grilled cheese.

You simply make a grilled cheese normal style, but when one side is done, flip it and then put another layer of cheese and buttered bread on the top part that is done cooking. Then flip it one more time and cook the new third layer. Here’s the secret though: in addition to the second cheese slice, put in a layer of pickles so you effectively has three pieces of bread, two pieces of cheese, and one layer of pickles.

The bread to cheese to pickle ratio is phenomenal. I would even go as far as to say that it the perfect distribution of said ingredients, at least if you are using Kraft cheese singles.

I am really proud of my invention and am happy to add it to my laundry list of other inventions, which include:

1. Peanut Butter and Jelly and Bologna sandwiches

I owe my mother some of the credit for this one but I am definitely the one that made it popular. Anyone that says Peanut Butter and Jelly and Bologna sandwiches are gross has a. never tried it before or b. is lying to you. It’s like eating a PB & J sandwich but with better texture and more protein. They’re awesome, I swear, the shit eats like a meal.

But Ben, you can’t mix sweet and salty, those are two competing sensations on the taste buds! Well, I’ll leave the rebuttal to this argument with our good friends in Hershey, Pennsylvania.

Boo Yah!

2. The Poor Man’s Mocha

When you can’t break away from your cubicle for a gourmet coffee shop run, go for the next best thing, the poor man’s mocha, compliments of me. First you pour a glass of crappy Folgers, then dump in a hot chocolate packet and like four creamers and mix that shit up good. Voila! You’ve got instant Starbucks-grade mocha and four extra dollars in your wallet. You’re welcome.

3. Scrambled Eggs mixed with Stove Top Stuffing

I think this one is pretty much self-explanatory

4. Putting oregano and extra shredded cheese on frozen pizza.

No one ever thought of doing this until I popularized it my Junior year of college. Jack’s pizza has never tasted better since.

5. Ben’s Hamburger Helper

Who needs a fancy schmancy Hamburger Helper kit, retail price $1.79, when you can make macaroni and cheese, retail price $.33, and just add the hamburger meat to that instead? I like to add extra elbow macaroni in my mix, which is great way to turn two meals, into three meals.

These are only a few samples of the many culinary masterpieces that I have created over the years. I'm basically the Rachel Ray of broke ass dudes. I’m actually thinking about opening my own restaurant that caters to the I like to get super full for less than a few bucks crowd, which every master chef aspires to cook for because of the challenge of appealing to clientele with such a sophisticated taste palette.

Oh yeah, when you see somebody playing with fire in some capacity and they burn themselves and someone yells sarcastically at them, “Way to go, Gandalf”, I invented that phrase.

Ditto when someone steps on a piece of broken glass and someone yells sarcastically at them, “Way to go, Die Hard.”


"Ahhhh, I hate running on this broken glass, Professor Snape, Ahhhhh, I mean Hans Gruber!!!"