one cheer

Blast from the Past

2009-08-24T09:44:00.003-04:00

Yes, I've been negligent with this blog this summer. Mea culpa.

The following is a video from a dance piece choreographed by Doris Humphrey, danced by her company in 1946. My first and long-time teacher, Ernestine Stodelle, was a member of this company, and is dancing here. Enjoy!

Craig Explains the Universe

2009-07-25T14:53:00.003-04:00

An ongoing theme here is Why We Love Craig Ferguson (not to be confused with the similar theme, Why We Love David Letterman). Here is the latest reason:

High Five

2009-06-29T19:43:00.006-04:00

Got to Citifield this weekend, the last day of the Subway Series, and the first time I've been to the new Citi Fiield. It's still "Shea" to most of us Mets fans, but damn, the new stadium is really pretty.

The Mets had been trounced by the Yankees both Friday and Saturday, and while I didn't have high expectations, especially with 9 Mets on the disabled list, I was hoping for at least a respectable showing.

When you're a Mets fan, it pays to be an existentialist.

You kind of know when the first pitch is hit for a double (Derek Jeter, of course) that this does not bode well for the rest of thee game. Three runs in the first inning. I was hoping that we would not be tortured like this throughout the whole game. And my, those Yankees fans can be smug.

But the Mets defense for the next 6 innings was hot, truly beautiful to watch. If they could only hit and pitch!

... all hope died when they walked Mariano Cabrera in the top of the 9th with the bases loaded... ouch... an AMERICAN League pitcher. How can they walk an American League pitcher? What do those guys have, like a .126 batting average?

I got out of the Astor Place subway, holding my Citifield program, sporting my Shea Stadium memorial T-shirt, and I was stopped in front of Cooper Union by a young, blond-haired, tee-shirted fellow who said to me, "High five!"
I stopped, my weirdo radar triggered, scanning for incoming. He was a bit inebriated but otherwise seemed to know where he was, and had probably bathed in the last 24-hours. The conversation went like this:

"Where you coming from?" he said.

"Uh..." I was about to say "Shea." "Mets game."

"Oh. You're a Mets fan?"

What? Oh, yeah. Inebriated. "Well, I'm wearing the shirt..."

"Who were they playing?"

"Yankees."

"Oh. So they lost, then."

There are days when I'd have gotten mad at this statement, but this time I laughed. "Yeah. They put up a fight, though."

"So... You married?"

"Yeah."

"Oh. Well... High five!"

I high-fived him again.

"Hey," he said. "How old are you, anyway?"

I laughed. "You're not supposedd to ask a lady her age..."

"Oh, c'mon. I'm 31. You like 31, too, right?"

"Something like that. A bit older."

He high-fived me again, for good measure.

The bowels of Brooklyn... or maybe it was the gall bladder

2009-06-21T14:22:00.004-04:00

Sunday morning, Father’s Day, I’m in the Telephone Bar with my computer. The music on the restaurant stereo is a 60s compilation: first up “My Girl,” now it’s “Build Me Up Buttercup.” Even though this music’s original intention was to be played through tinny AM radio speaker the stuff sounds really good.

Now “Stand By Me.” Yes, songs were short back then.

The older British dude that comes in here on Sundays just walked in. He’s customer 3, Customer 1 left just before I got here. It doesn’t get busy here until 2p or so. Right now, everyone is either at Café Orlin or the Mud Café.

Last night, D, my partner-in-crime, and I went out to the middle of nowhere that is "East" Williamsburg (!!!! I know: what the heck is THAT?) to see a band called the Reveling. Their claim to fame, or at least, the reason one would hunt them down if one weren’t a friend or a relative, is their drummer, the phenomenal Jay Weinberg, son of the famous Max. Happily, it turned out the band he's in is just as good as he is.

After a confusing ride on the J train – normal people don’t take the J train unless they can’t avoid it -- we got out at the scary-looking Lorimer Stop, an elevated stop that was begging to be renovated, much like all the other stops on the J train. We followed a terminally hip couple down one of the staircases to the street; we figured they must know where they were going. They didn’t. Besides, it turned out they weren’t going where we were going, anyway. We had a map we printed out from HopStop.com, and managed to find the right street, and even the address, but there wasn’t a club there.

Now what?

There was still some daylight, which was good, because the neighborhood seemed a bit sketchy. In front of the address, a band was unpacking their gear. The Reveling. We were in the right place. But where was that?

The band was very nice, and pointed toward a door.

“Is this someone’s apartment?” I said.

“Kind of. It’s a recording studio.”

Right.

After walking through a hallway of what looked like dorm rooms, we got to the room where the bands were setting up. It was one of those lovely unfinished spaces that has multiple uses. There was a card table set up that was the “bar,” and the “stage” was a throw rug. There was graffiti all over the walls, not the spray-can or air-brush variety, but the kind you might see in a men’s room stall, executed in red and black Sharpie. (Yes, I have been in a men’s room stall, Go ahead and come to your own conclusions.) I didn’t realize that there was any significance to it, other than self-expression, until I noticed the large red letters that were prominent just behind the stage that read, “Kidney Cancer.” Oh. Of course. These are all band names. The Rodeo Bar in Manhattan has a similar thing, with their bar covered with stickers from various bands who have played there over the years.

We were late; the show was supposed to start at 8p, and it was well after that, but it turned out we were actually really early. It kind of felt that we had come 3 hours early to the prom, and they were still putting the streamers up in the gym. The long-haired dude who was manning the door told us they would probably be starting around 9p, so we went to Bushwick Avenue to get coffee.

They started at 9:30. There were about 12 people in the audience, but somehow, with the lights out, it seemed like a club.

The first band was Aquadora, fronted by the aforementioned long-haired dude. He explained that he usually plays guitar, but both of his wrists were injured in a car accident, so he was just singing tonight. The music was fast, melodic, kind of psychedelic, rock and roll, and it was quite good. Our frontman sang the whole set with his back to the audience, which I thought maybe was his signature pose, but we found out that my friend D was right: he was being shy.

“I’m usually holding my guitar,” he later explained.

Unfortunately, the mics were not working properly, and the vocals were barely audible, almost completely drowned out by the bass and drums. Now I understood why my ex-insignificant other used to obsess about the volume of his vocals.

At one point, a tall, friendly, red-headed guy caught my eye and said – well, yelled, “Are you excited yet?”

Rather than yell back, I gave him a thumbs up.

"I'm excited," he said.

D informed me that this was the Reveling’s bass player, Dennis,

The Reveling was next. While the other band was clearing off the stage, and Jay and his girlfriend were setting up his drums, Dennis was going around offering ear plugs.

“We’re okay,” I said. “That wasn’t that loud.”

“It’s going to be,” Dennis said. We took the earplugs.

Their music was a mix of the Ramones and the Cure. This was their last night of ten-straight nights of gigs, and their front man’s voice was shot. No problem; the band that would follow them, the Young Hearts, all surrounded him and joined in on the vocals. Seven guys singing. And we could just about hear them.

Jay Weinberg was a man possessed, a thrill to watch and a bigger thrill to hear, but that doesn’t at all take away from the other musicians in these three groups, all of them madly energetic, wildly proficient musicians. The Young Hearts had a similar song style to the Reveling, maybe a bit less melodic, but, hard to tell when all you’ve got is the rhythm section. But great energy, and I look forward to hearing these songs with the lyrics and everything.

The Reveling will be playing at the Ace of Clubs at 9 Great Jones St, under the Acme Bar and Grill, on September 18^th. That’s a Friday, so if you’re anywhere near New York City, you should check it out.

The Reveling website. If you get on their mailing list, you can download some of their songs for free.

Aquadora on MySpace.

Young Hearts website.

I would like to add a link for the venue, as well, but I have to double check that I have the right information. (I was told to list it under a different name than what we were originally told.) Stay tuned.

Lost Tunnel of Atlantic Avenue

2009-06-15T04:15:00.005-04:00

It's hard to believe that I've lived in New York City for three decades and have never climbed down a manhole.

Until yesterday, when my friends K and V and I took a tour of Brooklyn's first subway tunnel. Of course, one doesn't have this kind of adventure without it being photo-documented.

The next tunnel tour will be on July 19th, 11 am and 1pm. It's BYOFL (bring your own flashlight).

UPDATE: For some reason, the LA Times had a story about this. Link is here.

New Yorker, Cooler

2009-06-01T16:27:00.003-04:00

Add this to the New York Cool list:

Article from EW here.

New York Cool

2009-05-30T16:10:00.011-04:00

Sometimes what's cool about New York is not what you would think.

Here, briefly, a sampling of events I witnessed or attended in the City this past month, latest thing first:

1) Book Expo America conference. A friend convinced (er.. coerced?) me to attend the Book Expo at the Javitz Center this weekend. Yesterday and today we came home with about as many books as we could uncomfortably handle. Since I've been in the publishing business for 100 years or so, one would think I'd have gone to this event before, but no. I suspect this is because no one I've ever worked for has ever considered me important enough to be sent to such an event.

This morning, we attended a BEA "Breakfast" Round Table event (and the word "breakfast" really needs to be in quotes here, as it turned out to be nothing fancier than muffins and bagels), MC'd by Craig Ferguson. My cohort, M, made a beeline for a table at the front, albeit all the way to the left, as the center ones were reserved for more important people. Sharing the table with us were some folks from Oklahoma. Okay, so I know I tend to be overly cynical, but these people were so completely stereotypical of buttoned up, corn fed , humorless midwesterners that you'd think they were sent by some local casting agency. They sat with their backs to the stage, and although Craig was his usual charming and witty self, our tablemates had these pissy looks on their faces the whole time. Did they come all the way from Oklahoma just to get some fancy New York breakfast, only to be gravely disappointed by the sparse fare? Because they didn't seem any more interested in the three other authors who were speaking, and they left the complimentary copies of the authors' books on their seats. No worries; these books were quickly picked up by book scavengers. One woman came over to our table and scooped up five extra copies of Craig's book. (I'm really thrilled to have an advance copy of Craig's book, too, but I don't need five copies.) I'm sure the other authors' books found homes as well: Except for those folks from Oklahoma, everyone around us seemed to be proper bookophiles.

2) There's a new little restaurant on Avenue B called Fu Sushi. Fu, the 32-year-old who owns the place, was our host, waiter and busboy the evening we were there. The place has innovative concoctions, and super fresh fish. They were even advertizing a fugu night. It's only six months old. I'm hoping it sticks around for a long time.

3) Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Annex. It's a tease, because it's just a sampler of the real thing, but it's a whole lot of fun, nonetheless. It starts with a short multi-screen film reel of the history of rock and rolll, then you are given headphones and MP3 players that are be triggered to play appropriate music as you approach each exhibit. The whole thing ends with the John Lennon in New York exhibit, which is simultaneously fascinating and bone-chilling. If you can look at that paper bag filled with the clothes Lennon was wearing the night he was shot and not shudder just a bit, you have Coca Cola running in your veins.

4) The First Annual Dance Parade. I saw this quite by accident, because it happened to pass right by my door. You might not think so, but it's actually unusual for a bonafide parade to travel down St Marks Place. I've never seen it before, unless you count the time the Hungry March Band followed me home, or any Saturday with the Hare Krishnas. The Dance Parade better as a concept than it was in execution. By the time the various groups of dancers passed by my house, they were so exhausted they barely cared any more. Marching in a parade is one thing; dancing requires a different kind of energy, one that is intensely tasking. Try doing a routine over and over and then try to cover ground while you're doing it. I've done this in both the Halloween Parade and the Mermaid Parade, and let me just say: yikes.

5) The last significant conference at the Javitz Center before the Book Expo was the Furniture Show. This is only significant to me because of the in-store events. Each May my above-mentioned cohort, M, and I hunt down these events to consume whatever hors d'oevres and drink they provide. This year the first few we went to were kind of sparse, your choice of wine or NYC Tap Water and all the pretzels you could eat. But they got better as the month went on, until the last event we went to where the caterers kept offering us more and more food and we had to decline. It seemed this year that the number of tall skinny Italian designers in black leather that attended an event was directly proportional to the lack of food and drink. Maybe that was just a coincidence.

50 Songs for 50 Years

2009-05-26T13:41:00.004-04:00

I created this play list for a friend of mine who, like me, was turning 50 this year. Seeing as that's the case for a lot of friends of mine, I thought I'd share this. Besides, everyone loves a list.

This was harder than you might think. I tried to have a mix of the Billboard Hits and the obscure. There are mostly original songs, but there are a few covers. I was trying, for the most part, to choose songs that my friend might not have, and also songs he probably would like. (This list would be a bit different if I were making it, say, for myself,) Some years just sucked, and some years I would have wanted to have chosen ten or more. That's the way it goes.

1959 Poisoning Pigeons in the Park -- Tom Lehrer
1960 Stay -- Maurice Williams & The Zodiacs
1961 One Mint Julep--The Clovers
1962 Bobby's Girl (Demo - Stereo) -- Marcie Blane
1963 So Much In Love -- The Tymes
1964 Tell Me Why -- The Beatles
1965 Just One Look -- Doris Troy
1966 I'm A Believer -- The Monkees
1967 Try a Little Tenderness -- Otis Redding
1968 Punky's Dilemma -- Simon & Garfunkel
1969 Sugar Sugar -- The Archies
1970 I Think I Love You -- The Partridge Family
1971 Groove Me -- King Floyd
1972 I Saw the Light -- Todd Rundgren
1973 Angie -- The Rolling Stones
1974 You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet -- Bachman-Turner Overdrive
1975 Young Americans -- David Bowie
1976 Still the One -- Orleans
1977 American Girl -- Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
1978 Surrender -- Cheap Trick
1979 Brass In Pocket -- The Pretenders
1980 (Just Like) Starting Over -- John Lennon & Yoko Ono
1981 See Jungle! (Jungle Boy) -- Bow Wow Wow
1982 The Lunatics (Have Taken Over the Asylum) -- Fun Boy Three
1983 Blister in the Sun -- Violent Femmes
1984 It's My Life -- Talk Talk
1985 In Between Days -- The Cure
1986 The Perfect Kiss -- New Order
1987 Sweet Child O' Mine -- Guns N' Roses
1988 A Little Respect (LP Version) -- Erasure
1989 Roam -- The B-52's
1990 Keep On Walking -- Spanic Boys
1991 Losing My Religion -- R.E.M.
1992 If I Had $1,000,000 -- Barenaked Ladies
1993 Mr. Jones -- Counting Crows
1994 Only Wanna Be With You -- Hootie & The Blowfish
1995 Surf the Wild Gowanus -- Simon and the Bar Sinisters
1996 Thirty-Three -- Smashing Pumpkins
1997 Tubthumping -- Chumbawamba
1998 The Boy with the Arab Strap -- Belle and Sebastian
1999 I Need to Know -- Marc Anthony
2000 Mama Told Me Not to Come -- Tom Jones & Stereophonics
2001 Family Affair -- Mary J. Blige
2002 Waitin' On A Sunny Day -- Bruce Springsteen
2003 Belleville Rendez-Vous (Demo) -- Ben Charest
2004 Trouble -- Bonnie McKee
2005 How to Save a Life -- The Fray
2006 See the World -- Gomez
2007 You Can't Always Get What You Want -- Band From TV
2008 Manhattan -- Kings of Leon

Party at Bruce's Place

2009-05-22T09:32:00.005-04:00

Last night Bruce Springsteen and 20,000 of his closest friends in New Jersey had a party in the Izod Center in the Meadowlands.

The thing about Bruce is, to anyone who has not ever seen him live, he seems like a cliché. I can say this, because before 1995, I was one of those people. It's probably irritating to folks who have never seen the Springsteen phenomena to hear about people trying to get tickets to every show, putting everything aside in their schedules to get to the shows, traveling across country, trading their first born for tickets. In New Jersey, it's kind of a given that many of the fans will get to most if not all of the shows he does in the area. This is why scalpers can get $2,000 (yes, you read that correctly) for a ticket in the GA standing area.

There are people, of course, who are not fans of any kind of rock, who would sooner leave their new car unlocked on the street with the keys in the ignition than spend $90 and up for a ticket to a stadium concert. Some of those people did see Springsteen play the Super Bowl, and many of those people have started thinking, "I gotta see that guy."

It is the nature of well presented music to be a brain-eraser. No matter how mad you are at your boss, how worried you are about money, how sad you are about your breakup, there comes a point that you cease to be a disembodied spirit and find you have gotten over your sorry self and are connecting with the performers on the stage.

With Springsteen, it happens dramatically: you feel an electrical charge and you're smiling, another one and you can't help but giggle, then you're raising your arms because Bruce has directed you to do so and blowing out your voice singing along to Born to Run, even though you only know about ten words of the lyrics.

Bruce will be back in New Jersey in the Fall to play Giants' Stadium one last time before they tear it down. Now that Ticketmaster has had their hands slapped for last January's ticket debaucle, maybe we'll get to see the show.

Rollerena's Birthday Bash

2009-04-27T14:06:00.010-04:00

With a Studio 54 theme. Of course. (because it's also the 32nd anniversary of Studio 54)

Me and B, taken with V's iPhone

The great Rollerena herself

Disco ball

A party-goer we were dancing with

I am shocked to report that Rollerena does not have a Wikipedia page. For those of you who are interested, here are two articles about the legend that is Rollerena:

Rollerena: A Forgotten Gem of Recent Gay History in New York City
Rollerena: Diva, activist, skater, legend

The Rest of You, Rattle Your Jewelry

2009-04-02T13:45:00.006-04:00

Okay, so I'm not done with this topic after all.

If you haven't already, check out Ben Sisario's recent article in the NY Times.

I am today addressing this except of that article:
"Two years after the repeal of New York State’s decades-old anti-scalping laws, the ticket marketplace has become a fiercely competitive game in which major corporations compete over resale prices with the fan next door, scalpers have a Washington lobbyist and thousands of tickets disappear in a fraction of a second.

"... Once bought by telephone or at box office windows, tickets for concerts are now mostly bought online, pitting ordinary consumers against a network of professional scalpers who use ever more sophisticated technology to scoop up large numbers of tickets in a flash....

"After lobbying by ticket brokers to decriminalize reselling in the Craigslist era, many states in addition to New York have lifted restrictions on scalping, and large corporations have embraced what is called the secondary market for tickets, like eBay, which owns StubHub. New York’s scalping laws were softened in 2005 and have been suspended since 2007, allowing tickets for most large events to be resold at any price.

"Connecticut and Minnesota also revised their laws in 2007 to permit reselling, and in June, the New York Legislature will have to formalize its repeal or the old restrictions will return. The lobbying in Albany has already begun.

" 'This is a huge consumer rip-off,' said Russ Haven, legislative counsel for the New York Public Interest Research group. “There is no benefit to consumers in unlimited scalping.' "

-----------------------

Legislators should ask themselves: Who is benefiting from unlimited ticket resales? The consumers? (no....) The artists? (no....) the venues? (no....) Or the snake-oil salesmen? (ding ding ding, yes!) Frankly, I can see the reasoning behind softening resale laws a bit: While resalers like Stub Hub charge insane fees -- 15% charged to the seller, and another 15% charged to the buyer, for the same tickets -- on the other hand, when I had to sell tickets I couldn't use, I felt safe using Stub Hub, and the buyer on the other end was guaranteed that the tickets were not forged. But isn't there a middle ground between the old scalper laws and no restrictions at all? A cap on a resale ticket price, for instance? A time delay when tickets can be resold? An 80% tax on the price of a ticket over face value? Something?

I am going to assume that Albany is going to cave on this -- because caving is so easy and thinking about a better plan is so hard -- and I am going to offer here some alternate solutions for artists/venues to make the ticket-selling process a little fairer for consumers.

1) Fans could refuse to buy resold tickets. Ha ha ha ha ha ha, I make myself laugh. The reason that doesn't work, and will never, ever work, and the reason why scalpers have existed as long as popular music has been around, is that music and entertainment is an emotional, often irrational, purchase. The thing is, concert tickets aren't like memorabilia, which is another purchase that is often emotion-driven, but it can be argued that it is a type of investment. You don't spend the money on concert tickets and then own something tangible that you can pass down to your grandchildren or later sell to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. If your kid has an insatiable crush on Taylor Swift, are you not going to try to buy him tickets for his birthday, even if they might cost more than you care to spend?

2) Lotteries. Before the internet, ticket lotteries were a common anti-scalper tactic. You would send in a post card, and either get a pass or an arm band with a number on it, which would entitle you to go buy a certain number of a certain value ticket. Of course, internet sales are easier to coordinate, since it cuts out the need to have people manning the phones or box offices, but the old-school lotteries, while by no means a perfect solution, greatly curtailed a certain amount of scalping.

3) Act like the airlines. A venue could set aside a certain number of seats that sell for face value. Then blocks of seats after another date would sell for a percentage higher. Then the last block of seats go for the highest prices. People are used to paying a cheaper rate for plane tickets bought 2 weeks in advance, and as those cheaper seats sell out, you pay more. The person next to you on a plane most assuredly did not pay the same price for his seat as you did for yours. Concert venues can just build that into their prices. Basically, this is what a lot of venues/artists are doing anyway, when they save blocks of tickets for "resale." This way, they are just being honest about it.

4) Set aside blocks of the best seats for insane amounts of money, and donate the profits, or a percentage of the profits, to a charity. Someone wants to pay a scalper $10,000 for a front row seat to see the Stones? Beat them to it. Have some premium/select seats available. Maybe have that price include champagne and a lap dance from Mick Jagger. Rich people can still feel special that only they can afford these seats, and the money can go to a good cause, or at very least, can be split between the venue and the artist. But it cuts out the snake oil salesmen.

original post:
Ticketmaster, We Have a Problem

Related posts:
Ticketmaster, We Have a Problem, Update
Bruce Gets the Last Word
People in the Cheaper Seats, Clap Your Hands

Fleetwood. And Mac. And Nicks. And Buckingham.

2009-03-20T20:16:00.007-04:00

A short review here.

We went to see Fleetwood Mac at the Garden last night. Missed Broadway's one minute of darkness for Natasha Richardson because that was when the show started, and we were already inside.

The concert was fantastic. (I almost said "awesome" but that word is so overused it's starting to develop the connotation "passable.") Stevie Nicks seemed to be avoiding all of her high notes (especially on "Dreams," which started the show), but still was in great voice and I wonder if she even really needed to do that. Lindsey Buckingham and Mick Fleetwood continue to be the same musical maniacs they've always been. I could have done without the guy in the aisle leaning on me, and worse, breathing on me with his stale beer breath, as he tried to find his lost seat. He eventually went away. And let me just add here: "Yuck."

A few young women across the aisle from us became quite animated at the end of "Silver Springs," angrily pointing and gesturing while singing along- with the lyrics: "You'll never get away from the sound of the woman that loves you." No, none of us women could relate to that.

When Technology Fails

2009-03-15T18:05:00.004-04:00

I got a text message this morning from a friend of mine.

"Stoopid [sic] question. Do you have [my ex husband's] cell number?"

I called her back to tell her I couldn't find it, and she explained that the problem was she was heading over to pick up a few of her things that were still in the apartment, and the buzzer wasn't working. She was supposed to call him when she got there... except....

"Wait a minute," she said, "Did we have land line?"

"You don't remember if you had a land line? You were married.... you were living there... "

"Wait. I think he had a phone in his home office. Let me try this one."

Nope. Disconnected.

I was instructed to send him an email to tell him that she would be outside of his building at the designated time, and that he should either call her, or just let her in.

I got a call an hour later. He hadn't gotten the email (because, of course, he wasn't looking for it), so she had resorted to screaming his name from the street.

He buzzed her in. Problem solved.

People in the Cheaper Seats, Clap Your Hands

2009-03-13T18:36:00.010-04:00

I thought this subject was done for me, but then I wound up having a discussion this morning with someone who got me thinking. He had asked me, and I paraphrase, because I don't remember exactly how he worded it, whether I thought that Springsteen should do what other acts do: charge more for his tickets, since people are going to resell them for more anyway. My response was that -- again, this is approximate -- I love the fact that Bruce keeps his prices down, and what, is music only for the rich?

I kept thinking about this throughout my day, and I realized it's more than that. Because scalping tickets is no longer against the law, at least in this state, scalpers can charge anything they want. If the only solution to ward off resale is to raise the tickets prices to "market value" (kinda like the outrageous and unreasonable rent prices we have here in New York, but that's another rant), that basically means the scalpers are determining what Bruce's ticket prices are going to be, NOT HIM.

It's a price war, only in reverse.

I think Bruce Springsteen might be able to fill a stadium with rich people. Thing is, maybe he doesn't want to.

Okay, I'm done now.

original post(s):
Ticketmaster, We Have a Problem
Ticketmaster, We Have a Problem Update
Bruce Gets the Last Word

A Timely Subject

2009-03-12T23:43:00.005-04:00

This was created for a contest sponsored by AARP. People were asked to submit a video with the theme "U@50." This one came in second. I saw the one that won the grand prize, and I have to say, it looked like an ad for Celebrex (not a good thing) compared to this one.

(Watch it all the way through.)

Shocking

2009-03-11T21:09:00.007-04:00

This was almost too predictable. Didn't we ALL see this coming?

The only news item in recent years that I've found less surprising was when I heard that Paul McCartney and Heather Mills were splitting up.

But one this is a close second:

"Alaska Gov. Palin's daughter, fiance break up

By RACHEL D'ORO – 15 minutes ago

WASILLA, Alaska (AP) — Levi Johnston and Bristol Palin, the teenage daughter of Gov. Sarah Palin, have broken off their engagement, he said Wednesday, about 2 1/2 months after the couple had a baby...."

rest of the story is here.

Gee, who could have guessed THAT relationship would fail?

OMG

2009-03-06T14:52:00.003-05:00

Finally over my bronchitis. I have been neglecting this blog, of course, because I was too busy coughing. Anyway, I had to post these videos, because they are so cool.

The dancing:

The singing:

More Props to Letterman

2009-02-20T09:47:00.011-05:00

I have been woefully negligent of this blog these past two weeks... there's been an evil head cold going around New York, which lingers for weeks. Anyway, while I will be posting a proper entry this weekend, I just had to plug my friend Arthur Neilson's appearance on Letterman tonight.:

"Hey Everybody-
This Friday, Feb 20TH at 11:30 PM, I'm going to be on the "Late Show w/David Letterman".
I'll be performing with Shemekia Copeland. We will be playing the title track, "Never Going Back To Memphis" from her new CD "Never Going Back". Barbara Walters and comedian Mike Birbiglia are on the show as well. Take care. -Arthur"

That's the other great thing about Letterman: his choice of musical guests.

For the twelve or so of you that read this blog, you might remember a video I posted last year with Rosie Flores . Arthur was the guitarist playing with her. If you missed it, the link to that post is here:

http://onecheer.blogspot.com/2008/06/rosie-comes-to-town.html

(As soon as the Letterman clip is available, I will post it here.)

Bruce Gets the Last Word

2009-02-06T15:50:00.005-05:00

I received this via Facebook, but I'm sure it was sent via other means. Just thought I'd post it to clear (some of) the air.

"A Letter to Our Fans
Wed Feb 4th 3:48pm

We know there was much confusion regarding Ticketmaster and TicketsNow during last Monday's on-sale dates. We were as confused as you were, as we were given no advance notice of the major changes in the Ticketmaster-TicketsNow world. (Bear in mind that we are not clients of any ticketing company, and that all those arrangements are between venues and ticketing companies.)

Last Monday, we were informed that Ticketmaster was redirecting your log-in requests for tickets at face value, to their secondary site TicketsNow, which specializes in up-selling tickets at above face value. They did this even when other seats remained available at face value. We condemn this practice.

We perceive this as a pure conflict of interest. Ticketmaster is there to ensure that we have a good, fair sale of our tickets at their face value plus normal ticketing charges. TicketsNow is supposed to be a secondary site where people who already have tickets may exchange, trade, and, unfortunately, speculate with them. We have asked this redirection from Ticketmaster to TicketsNow cease and desist immediately and Ticketmaster has agreed to do so in the future and has removed its unwanted material from their and our site.

We know the many cynical arguments some make in favor of the Ticketmaster system: There are rumors that some artists or managers participate in Ticketmaster charges--we do not. There are rumors that some artists or managers are receiving a percentage of the amount above face value at secondary outlets like TicketsNow--we do not. Some artists or managers may not perceive there to be a conflict between having the distributor of their tickets in effect "scalping" those same tickets through a secondary company like TicketsNow--we do.

While many of you have sent notes to us and your local promoters, you may also send accurate informational letters to Albert Lopez of Ticketmaster [Albert.Lopez@ticketmaster.com] and he will try to address your questions.

A final point for now: the one thing that would make the current ticket situation even worse for the fan than it is now would be Ticketmaster and Live Nation coming up with a single system, thereby returning us to a near monopoly situation in music ticketing. Several newspapers are reporting on this story right now. If you, like us, oppose that idea, you should make it known to your representatives.

The abuse of our fans and our trust by Ticketmaster has made us as furious as it has made many of you. We will continue to do our utmost now and in the future to make sure that these practices are permanently curtailed on our tours.

Bruce Springsteen, Jon Landau and the entire Springsteen Tour Team"

original posts:
Ticketmaster, We Have a Problem
Ticketmaster, We Have a Problem Update

related post:
People in the Cheaper Seats, Clap Your Hands

Ticketmaster, We Have a Problem, Update

2009-02-05T11:30:00.006-05:00

So I wasn't being paranoid:

Springsteen fans cry foul after Ticketmaster snub
Feb. 4, 2009, 10:10 AM EST

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. (AP) -- A New Jersey congressman is demanding an investigation after Bruce Springsteen fans were unable to buy tickets from Ticketmaster's Web site — which then promptly offered them more expensive tickets from a subsidiary. click here for full article from MSN music

Someone commented on this article and said "Ticketmaster sold 55,000 tickets for Springsteen in the first 5 minutes. Those people aren't complaining." That may very well be true, but my question is: Who exactly were they? How many of them were working for Tickets Now and StubHub? My complaint isn't that I didn't get tickets. My complaint is that mysteriously Ticketmasters' own subsidiary somehow had blocks of ticket for resale an hour after they went on sale. That to me is rather fishy.

Ticketmasters' comment was they didn't receive that many complaints. I was all over their website... where exactly do you complain about that? There probably is a customer service line or email address listed somewhere, but not anywhere obvious. Besides, most people, like myself, kind of figured the tickets were just selling out really fast; nothing you can do about that.

original post:
Ticketmaster, We Have a Problem

related posts:
Bruce Gets the Last Word
People in the Cheaper Seats, Clap Your Hands

One of the Many Reasons We Love David Letterman

2009-02-04T13:05:00.007-05:00

It's interviews like this.

Former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich

on CBS' the Late Show, February 3, 2009

Ticketmaster, We Have a Problem

2009-02-03T17:23:00.009-05:00

The day after the Super Bowl, the day after XXX million people watched the soon-to-be-60-year-old-yet-somehow -ageless Bruce Springsteen rock for 12 minutes at halftime, some intelligent person decided that it would be smart for tickets for several cities on the Bruce Springsteen tour to go on sale the next day. All at once.

If you weren't one of the people trying to buy tickets online, you can pretty much imagine what happened.

My experience was apparently shared by countless others who tried to purchase tickets online. I hit the "search for tickets" button at 9:01 am. The browser told me I had a 15-minute wait. And then, after 15 minutes, a screen came up, telling me that the ticketmaster service was down for technical repairs. I kept trying, and this was the message I kept getting, over and over. I tried different browsers, I tried different nights (in my case, both the Thursday and the Saturday May concerts at the Meadowlands, plus Nassau Coliseum), but the same message kept appearing. The website was working fine if you wanted to buy tickets for, say, The Dead. System was working fine for them.

And when I finally got a real message an hour later, it was to tell me that there were no tickets available.

Okay, so clearly the tickets sold out fast, there was a glitch in the software, the system couldn't handle the traffic, etc. etc. But what I found particularly disconcerting (ha! no pun intended) is right on the same page that was telling me there were no tickets available was an ad for "Tickets Now!", Ticketmaster's own ticket brokering site. And, imagine my surprise: they already had tickets to sell.

I had several other friends, in different parts of the country, having the exact same experience.

I was appalled last year to find out that the lazy assholes in Albany decided not to renew New York State's scalping -- I mean, resale ticketing -- laws. What, was that beneath you guys or something, or were you under that delusion that deregulating and letting the market just decide the price of everything is good for the average Joe? I could see maybe revisiting the law, I could see revising it, I could see making it less strict. But you guys just let it lapse. And now when an average person tries to buy tickets, the phone lines are down for an hour and yet somehow the ticket brokers already have have blocks of good seats -- whole sections, I am not making this up -- selling for 3 to ten times face value.

I know what some of you are thinking: "oh it's Springsteen, what do you expect?" I don't expect to be lucky enough to get front row seats, or even decent seats, or even any tickets at all every time. But I do expect to feel like I have a fighting chance. And I'm really mad that there is no law in this state that at least tries to curb the resale of tickets by cooperate scalpers. I mean, at least make them wait 24-hours before they mark them up 200%.

In the old days, pre-internet, to get tickets you camped out all night and waited your turn. If you were a huge fan, you didn't mind sleeping on the sidewalk or the ground for a couple of days. Then they started to get more "civilized." In the 80s the Rolling Stones had a tickets lottery, where you mailed in a request and you got a pass to buy a certain number of tickets, and the color of the pass determined what kind of seats you got. Springsteen used to have a similar thing, with armbands or something.

These days, a lot of performers charge insane amounts for their tickets. I guess they figure that people are wiling to pay $500 and more to see the show, why don't they just charge that, and thus deter the resale issue? It worked with the Rolling Stones. The best seats in Giant's Stadium and MSG were over $400. And there were still some of those tickets available close to the day of the show. Take that, scalpers. If you wanted to go to the one-day Cream reunion at MSG, the tickets were selling for something like $800+ a piece, without the scalpers. And then there was what I hope was just a rumor of the Police selling front row seats for something like $20,000. Sting better be in my lap, servicing me, for that price. Meanwhile Bruce, bless his heart, or whoever is responsible for this, keeps his tickets at around $70 to $100 or so. And it used to be, with the GA seats (the ones where you stand in a herd at the front of the stage and feel Bruce sweat on you), that you had to pick them up at the venue the night of the concert and then there was no reentry, but I don't know if they still do that.

Until they changed the law last year, I found that if I got online right at the minute the tickets went on sale, I almost always could get something. Not something all that good, but something. Other people had other techniques: calling an out-of-town Ticketmaster, for example. The laws certainly didn't stop scalping, but it did make it a little easier for civilians to see their favorite bands. Now it's a free-for-all. Last year Cheetah Girls tickets, face value $40, were being sold for over $300 a piece. Yes, little girls, you can only go see the concert if your parents are rich. (Of course, one could argue that not being able to see the Cheetah Girls in concert is really a blessing, but when a kid's 8, she isn't going to agree with you.)

I will no doubt see Bruce again. I might even be lucky enough to buy a ticket off someone who can't go in May. But Ticketmaster has been in business a long time -- and in business with Bruce a long time. I can't help thinking they deliberately had half the entire tour's tickets go on sale at the same minute so the system would get over loaded and frustrated people would go pay the resale prices. Yeah, that's very cynical of me, but the whole thing seemed rather fishy..

related posts:
Ticketmaster, We Have a Problem Update
Bruce Gets the Last Word
People in the Cheaper Seats, Clap Your Hands

And the Pendulum Swings

2009-01-20T12:59:00.010-05:00

Crowd on the corner of Wall and Nassau Streets, watching President Obama's inaugural address outside of the Stock Exchange.

I can't help seeing a parallel between our new president and our hero of last week, Captain Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger. The captain landed a plane that would most certainly have crashed and caused a terrible tragedy. He was exactly the right man for the job, and as luck would have it, he happened to be right where he was needed, at the moment he was needed.

Many of us feel our country is like that plane, in serous danger of a crash landing. Here's hoping that Barack Obama is indeed the right man for the job, as a lot of us think he truly is, and that he lands our plane heroically.

Note to Rush Limbaugh, who was quoted today saying he hopes President Obama fails: Shame on you. And you call yourself a patriot.

Hey Kids, We've Got Video!

2009-01-18T01:13:00.004-05:00

Video footage of the US Airways Airbus landing on the Hudson.

"In the Unlikely Event of a Water Landing..."

2009-01-16T19:58:00.004-05:00

...you will be rescued by Circle Line!

Plane Crashes into Hudson River
Trela Media/Associated Press
Published: 2009.01.15
A US Airways plane that took off from La Guardia Airport Thursday afternoon landed in the Hudson River, but all the passengers and crew appeared to be safe. more...

Burning Question

2009-01-16T00:30:00.003-05:00

I thought sure that I would find the answer to this in either IMDb or Wikipedia, but to no avail.

I don't usually turn in to Letterman until Two and a Half Men is over, so I often miss his monologue and catch him just as he's about to do the top ten list. But every time I do see his show from the beginning, I see a curious thing:

Just before the announcer says, "Da-vid LETTERman!", Dave runs across the back of the stage, and then enters from stage left.

Why on earth doesn't he just enter from stage right?

A Blast From My Past

2009-01-13T13:48:00.004-05:00

This is a clip from a show I produced at University Settlement in New York the weekend before 9/11. That was when I fancied myself a dancer and spent all my hard-earned cash producing shows that I could choreograph and dance in. After 9/11, there was no more money for that.

"Dog Ears" was an instrumental piece that was included in the show with the dances. (None of my dancing will ever be posted on the internet while I'm still alive, not if I can help it.) The musician and composer is my friend Gary Fieldman, who also composed something we did dance to. The instruments, by the way, are found objects.

A New York Moment

2009-01-10T16:39:00.002-05:00

Uptown R train, Saturday afternoon. I had just left my friend D after some shopping at JnR. We got on the R, me uptown, him downtown. It wasn't too crowded, but then the first stop at Canal about 100 people boarded my car.

A man with a backpack, who at just boarded the train, took off his jeans, revealing a festive pair of Christmas boxers.

A lot of people on the train did not notice him. A lot of other people, like me, noticed him but did the New York thing of pretending not to notice him. I was expecting him to put on a different pair of jeans, or dress slacks, or something, but when he didn't, I couldn't help myself; I started to smile.

He exited the train at Prince Street and just stood there with a silly grin on his face.

"Must be a thing," I thought.

When I got out at 8th Street, there was a man wearing tight black briefs, a girl wearing a coat that just covered her butt with nothing covering her legs, and two other guys in boxers.

Definitely a thing.

Counting Down to 2009

2008-12-31T16:53:00.011-05:00

I am back from the seven days I spent holed up at my parents' house. It's strange to have been there for so long. First of all, there's not much for me to do there except eat and watch television, which may not sound all that bad except for the part where I get stir crazy and want to scream, and the part where everyone starts getting on each other's nerves. Compared to some people's Christmasses (like my friend V's), ours is completely tame and right out of a Frank Capra movie. But now I am back in my city, where I don't need a car to go pick up a Red Bull, and I don't have my well-meaning but obsessive compulsive mother panicking when I run out to the grocery store and don't come back in five minutes.

The song from SNL's "Dancing Lamps" skit has finally stopped repeating in my head (see last post), and tomorrow my friend L. and I are going to go to a couple of movies. During my stint in the low-security captivity of my parent's house, I made my first New Year's resolution in twenty years, a particularly apropos one now that I've reached mid-life and all of the psychological crisis that surrounds it: Avoid becoming pathetic.

That's probably always good advice.

UPDATE: My brother-in-law questioned my New Year's resolution, and I realize in this hasty post that I probably should explain this a bit further.

The thing about hitting middle age is the tendency to turn into a lizard, where the only great urges left are to lie still on a rock in the sun and eat bugs. The next step after that, which is pretty much the state my mother has fallen into, is to turn into a mushroom, where you don't even want to be in the sun, but have convinced yourself that you are content staying inside watching the Law and Order marathon on TV and worrying about the weather in other parts of the country. Not that there's anything wrong with that, not when you are in fact closing in on eighty, like she is. I just worry sometimes that I (and several of my friends -- you know who you are) might be heading there a little too fast.

Notes from SNL’s Stand-by Tickets Line, Part V: Another Line

2008-12-20T10:37:00.017-05:00

This post starts here at Part I

I know, the suspense is killing you.

When last we saw our tired, tweaked, insane heroes, they had all finally gotten their standby tickets and were free to actually go anywhere they wanted, not just the McDonald’s, the Duane Reade and the Tree. And where did they all go? They went to get something to eat, they went home, and they went to sleep, not necessarily in that order.

The Kids, as you recall, were not able to go home if they wanted to be back in time for the show, so they faced another 12 hours wandering around the city, where they were fast running out of money and steam. But off they went, excited about their stand-by tickets.

L. and I were in search of coffee and food. We ended up at the Stardust diner. We ordered coffee before we even looked at the menus, and then ordered the overpriced, oversized breakfasts.

“I forgot to mention,” I said. “The last time we saw SNL, we were sitting behind two giant lights.”

“Yeah, that happens. Partially obstructed view seats.”

“Yeah, these were almost entirely blocked. But still, it would really suck if we didn’t get in after waiting all night. I’ll be happy with anything.”

The wait staff started singing to music-minus-one CDs. Yes, we know it’s the theater district, and therefore all of the wait staff were budding performers, but it was too early to be hearing their signature Christmas song about Kosher wine. (sadly, I am not making that up.). On the other hand, it distracted me from fretting about asking for the wrong tickets, and it kept L. from having to keep hearing about it.

After three cups of coffee and half the eggs in front of us were consumed, L. and I headed home to sleep.

Duh, again.

Sleep never came for either of us, unless you count the fifteen minutes or so between the next caffeine rush. I got a lot of errands done, wrote Part I of this blog post, bought groceries, sorted laundry, took a shower, got dressed, watched the rest of the Craig Ferguson show that I had TiVo’d while we were in line… you get the picture. No sleep. Very, very awake. At 4pm L. texted me: “Are you awake yet?”

I called her right back. “Not yet,” I said. “Still.”

We made plans to meet later. She was going to take the 7 train, because weird weekend things were happening to the E.

So I watched the Saturday afternoon rerun of House and left for Grand Central Station.

That’s right. Two intelligent, savvy New Yorkers decided that the place to meet on a Saturday night two weeks before Christmas was the clock in Grand Central Station. Wall to wall people, and more people than usual because they were having a lights show. Duh one more time.

When L. called to tell me she had arrived, we were four feet away from each other.

And it was worse when we got to Rockefeller Plaza. Every person on the planet was there to see The Tree and the Christmas windows and God knows what else..

“Watch your bag,” L advised.

“No shit.”

And finally, we were inside, and waiting on another line.

“I bet the Kids went home,” L. said.

“Why?”

“Because they were running out of money, had no place to sleep, and no place to park the car.”

“Hmm. True. Sam seemed really unhappy about the whole thing. But you know, they’re young and resourceful. I bet they make it.”

A few minutes later, there they were.

After a loud happy reunion, I asked them if they slept.

“Yeah. At the McDonald’s!”

As it got closer to the moment of truth, The Kids started negotiating. If only two of them got in, Ruvin would let Chris and Sam in. If only one of them got in?

“We’re all going to get in,” Chris said.

I started to feel guilty again. What if The Kids didn’t get in after we — okay, I —convinced them to stay up all night in the city and wait for tickets instead of turning around and heading back to Rhode Island?

Blood on my hands.

The first 29 were called. We waved forlornly to A. and R. as they were whisked away to go through security.

“Okay, this could really suck,” I said.

“By the way," L. said. "If we get separated, just go. Don’t worry about me.”

Kind of like war buddies: “Don’t worry about me. Save yourself!”

They let twenty more of us through security. Still no guarantee of being let upstairs, but we could feel victory in our grasps. A group of people, again, cut off just before me, were let into the elevator.

And then: “Okay, the next 6.”

There was great rejoicing.

The warm-up guy was already announcing the show when we got upstairs. They were now just filling sporadic empty seats. L. and I were extremely lucky and got put in two seats in the front row of the right section (stage left) of the balcony. The Kids were way off in a section even further to our right, a section perpendicular to the stage.

But we all got in. There were several people in back of us that got in as well, seated during a pre-show performance of Maya Rudolph doing Tina Turner.

The show was mad fun. And our host did not look like he was going to have a nervous breakdown this time. The proverbial Christmas miracle, all around.

Note to Hugh: Your joke about Oliver Twist? I think most of us New Yorkers who didn't get that one right away were thinking that suddenly being surrounded by a bunch of dancers is something that might actually happen in New York, especially in Rockefeller Plaza at Christmastime. I was once walking home in the Village and was followed down a street by a marching band. Things like that happen here.

Note to TV Guide: The Singing Lamps were fun. Guess you had to be there.

Either that, or I was punch drunk.

Notes from SNL’s Stand-by Tickets Line, Part IV: Duh

2008-12-17T14:11:00.012-05:00

This post starts here at Part I

The three or so of you who have been following this saga who were not actually there may well be wondering: why on earth would anyone even consider standing in the cold for 5 hours, with no guarantee of any kind of payoff?

I was wondering that more and more as the night went on.

Stand-by tickets do not guarantee you entrance to SNL, but they are the only way to get in to a specific show, other than being close personal friends with your chosen Joe (or Josephine) Heartthrob or Music God.

Both times I did this, it seemed like a good idea in theory. Not so much when we were in the middle of it.

The next three hours went excruciatingly (is that a word?) slow. It’s a little known fact that time virtually stands still between the hours of 4am and 7am. Since sane people are not usually awake at those hours, or if they are, they’re not sober, most people are not aware of this phenomenon.

We did some science experiments. For instance, did you know that you are warmer standing than sitting? A.’s theory was it’s because you are closer to the sun. She’s a school teacher, so we believed her. Also, our brains were beginning to freeze and were no longer working properly.

Hmmm… 4:10am. I think that’s when R. told me to stop looking at my watch.

Closer to 5am more people were arriving to get on line, a full two hours after the Gaggle of Girls had joined us, and it occurred to me we could have gotten there at 4 and still have been fine. At 5:30, they turned on the tree in Rockefeller Plaza. We took turns taking walks over there — what was it, about ten feet? We were being rebels, though. I had read on the NBC site that people aren’t allowed to leave the SNL stand-by line except to pee or similar kinds of emergencies. For us there was no one around to police the line, no one cared, and we were free to wander around all we wanted — to McDonald’s, to the Duane Reade, and now to The Tree.

At six o’clock people in uniforms told us to get our things off the sidewalk and form a proper line. We were in the home stretch.

Ruvin called Chris and Sam (that’s actually her name, not “Debra”), who were still in the car, and told them to get their butts back in line. Sam was really suffering. Again, the only sane person for miles: all she wanted to do was sleep.

Now everyone was in planning mode: dress, or rehearsal?

“Whichever is the lower number,” I kept repeating. “Probably dress.”

Eventually an official SNl representative came out and shouted instructions to the line. She had to do this every 30 people or so. I would think the whole process would be more efficient if they gave her a megaphone and a partner who started at the other end of the line. But I'm not in charge of these things.

Her last words were: “Know what show you want.”

The Kids were in a huddle behind me, and they let out a shout: ‘Dress!”

“Hey,” I said, “You want to influence everyone ahead of you to take dress?”

They thought about this a moment.

“Live!”

In the kaleidoscope that was now my brain, I became nervous about asking what number they were on. I thought, “She wants us to know before we get there?” So when it was my turn, I just asked for dress so I wouldn't cause any trouble.

The post-mortem just past the handoff, where people were comparing their tickets, It turned out Live tickets were at number 16. L. and my dress tickets were numbers 30 and 31.

“How did that happen?” I was crushed.

“The woman in front of A. asked how many tickets were given out, and they said more were given out for the dress rehearsal,” L. said.

“Argh! They did?”

We had gotten through the hard part, and then I blew it on the easy part. And The Kids followed my lead. If we didn’t get in, it would be all my fault.

Next: Part V: Another line

Notes from SNL’s Stand-by Tickets Line, Part III: No, Janice, the McDonalds on 50th Street Does Not Serve Tequila.

2008-12-15T22:27:00.034-05:00

This post starts here at Part I

One of the skateboarders sleeps on his skateboard.
Sometimes in the City That Never Sleeps, that's all you want to do.

The initial excitement of The Kids (as L. and I had started referring to them) joining the line was now waning enough for all of us to realize the ugly realities of the situation: 4 hours to go, 25°, no place to sit, and few distractions.

The Kids did have a blanket and a towel that they had had in the car, so “Debra” wrapped herself up and sat on the towel, leaning against the police barrier. L. meanwhile took this opportunity to call her husband in France. My French is rather sketchy, at best, even though it was my major in college, and his English is nonexistent, so when she handed over the phone to me, I just said “Alo” like an idiot and quickly returned it to L.

There were two guys with skateboards a few people ahead of A. and R., who offered to go on a coffee run, bless their hearts. L. and I were trying not to drink too much, figuring places to relieve oneself would be hard to find, but now it was after 3am and by then coffee was the best idea we had ever heard of. At the suggestion of McDonalds, “Janice” piped up:

“Does McDonald’s have tequila?”

She was kidding. We think.

Someone produced a deck of cards — I think it came from the gaggle of girls, but somehow there seemed to be a few young men with them now who had appeared out of no where, so it could have been one of them. The Gaggle and the Kids started a card game, while The Adults (that would be L. and I, plus A. and R.) amused ourselves with conversations about jobs and travel. I had a lively customs story to impart — not mine, but about a friend of mine, which is what most of my stories are about. L. and I can’t remember what she was talking about now, but she told a story that happened with her ex husband. We think it was about Italy.

“But that was with the first husband,” L. said.

A. and R. nodded. Everyone understands about the First Husband.

Out of nowhere, and to no one in particular, Janice called out: “Who thinks Hugh Laurie is hot?”

Everyone in earshot, young and old(er), male and female, straight or gay, turned around to face her and raised their hands. Janice was satisfied with that answer.

Now that the skateboarders had done the coffee run, a sense of adventure came over the line. Where could we go in this city that never sleeps?

After a bit of discussion, this is what was decided: Two all-night McDonald’s, one at 50th and one at Broadway and 46th Street, and a 24-hour Duane Reade on 48th Street. And maybe a store or two in Times Square.

R. wandered off towards Times Square, and L. went to smoke a cigarette behind a van that was parked across the street. Chris and Debra went to go sleep in their car.

Ruvin said he hoped that Kanye would be singing Heartless, and when I was having trouble remembering which song that was, he played it for me on his phone. It didn’t sound like much coming from that little speaker, and I wondered to myself why I hadn’t thought to bring any one of my 3 iPods. Maybe next time….

Next time? Oh, no, no, no, no, no. No.

R. came back, carrying a newspaper and a People magazine.

“Wow,” I said. “How smart is that?”

“Well… I don’t want to be the First Husband.”

Then it was A.’s turn to take a walk. Not to the McDonald’s. They had rest rooms that were open to the public, but they also had homeless people sleeping at the tables. She headed over to the Duane Reade.

“They don’t have public restrooms there,” I said to R.

“She’ll talk her way in,” R. said, “She’s good at that.”

When she returned, she reported that she had indeed talked her way in. And she bought Ruvin a pair of socks.

Next: Part IV: Duh.

Notes from SNL’s Stand-by Tickets Line, Part II: Spotanuity

2008-12-14T17:49:00.027-05:00

This post starts here at Part I

See how we're all smiling? We'd only been in line about an hour.

Next step: Prepare for this insanity.

My co-conspirator, L., and I decided that, since it wasn’t snowing or hailing, maybe we’d go earlier than 4am, probably around 2. We would watch Craig Ferguson’s monologue, then head up to 30 Rockefeller Plaza.

The E train wasn’t cooperating, but we did manage to get there at our targeted time.

The line was a reasonable length, not as reasonable as two years ago when it was sleeting, but not terrible, maybe about 50 people or so. So we did not turn around and head to a bar and then home. We got in line.

I assumed, from the tents and sleeping bags that most everyone had that there were a lot of regulars in line. There was a very nice couple in front of us, armed with camping chairs, who we found out were only there because the wife counterpart of this couple, who I will refer to as “A.,” wanted to see Hugh Laurie, who she referred to as “my television boyfriend.” Her husband, R., was being a very good sport about the whole thing; they had driven in from New Canaan.

L. and I were bundled in several layers of t-shirts, long underwear, and were wearing double gloves and winter boots. It was something like 28 degrees, but I was starting to sweat. People who were walking by kept asking us what the heck we were doing standing on a line in the middle of the night. A fair question, especially when you consider there was no guarantee that any of us would ever see the inside of the building, much less the show.

Of the four of us — the others in line were trying hard to ignore us, either reading or trying to sleep, which was becoming increasingly more difficult the louder our conversation got — I was the only one who had done this before, so I had become the designated expert. I explained what would happen with the tickets, if we didn’t expire before 7am: They ask you which show you want, dress or live. Last time, we took dress, because when we asked what number tickets they were up to, there had been fewer requests at that point for dress, and after having frozen our ninnies off for three hours, we wanted our best chance to see the show. So my advice was: ask, and take the lowest numbered tickets.

That took up about 15 minutes. 4 hours and 45 minutes to go.

At about 2:30, three very young adults were walking by and asked us what we were in line for, and we, again, explained ourselves. This following is the gist of the resulting conversation, minus the repetition and overlapping and parts I can’t remember exactly:

The kid in the pink I Heart New York sweatshirt: “You’re kidding. Hugh Laurie’s the host?”
L: “You should wait with us and get tickets, too.”
The level-headed female: “We can’t. We have to find my car.”
L: “Where did you leave it?”
The light-haired kid: “35th Street. Where can we park around here?”

The female was, rightly so, skeptical.

Mr I Heart New York: "Who’s the musical guest?”
Me: "Kanye West."

It was about this point that I Heart New York’s head exploded. He hopped the barricade and got in line behind us.

His friends were not convinced.

"We have to go back to Rhode Island. And what are we going to do with the car? And then what are we going to do in New York City all day until the show? And what if we don't get in?"

IHNY: “We have to do this! C’mon. Show a little spotanuity.”

We all looked at him.

“Spontaneity,” A. corrected him.
“What are you, my mother?”
“School teacher.”

Their story, in a nutshell:

They were showing great spotanuity, indeed, and in fact, the whole evening had been quite spotanuitous. Earlier that evening, this trio had decided, on a whim, to leave the culinary college they were attending in Providence and head to New York for dinner. They were walking around, deciding what to do next, when they happened upon the SNL stand-by tickets line. I Heart New York, whose name is Ruvin, had not only left his sick girlfriend behind to come to the city, but he claimed his mother would pull him out of school if she found out he had left Providence.

Note to Ruvin’s mom: I am making this whole thing up.

Their car was parked in the garment district, so after L. and I explained several times how to find their car and get back to 49th Street, Ruvin stayed with us, while his friend Chris and Chris’s girlfriend (who’s name neither L. nor I can remember now, to our dismay) went to get the car.

If they were proper adults, with jobs and all that, they could have put the car in a garage for the night.

Their spotanuitous action of leaving Providence resulted in Ruvin being woefully underdressed to be walking around the city in the middle of winter. Thus, the I Heart NY sheatshirt, which he no doubt bought in Times Square. He had chosen pink, he explained, because he was going to give it to a female friend of his. He was also wearing open-toed Birkenstocks, and his toes were becoming numb. We convinced him to put his gloves on his feet and stick his hands in his pockets.

Chris and his girlfriend, who I am going to call “Debra” so she has a name, returned, and parked the car in a sort-of legal spot across the street. When they finally got back to the line, the trio began to talk simultaneously. Anyone trying to sleep in line at this point had given up all hope. Somehow it came up that Chris and Ruvin were having a weight loss challenge. They were going to go skydiving in March, and there was going to be some kind of weigh-in. Chris ran to the car and returned with a scale that they had bought at the Duane Reade. To our horror, the two started taking off their clothes so they could be weighed.

We stopped Chris when he started unbuttoning his jeans.

Sorry, I do not have photo evidence of this event. You all will have to make do with this shot of Ruvin’s calf.

Ruvin's calf. If you look closely, you can see the silly gloves on his toes.

Shortly after Ruvin and Chris put their clothes back on, a tiny young woman appeared, who I will name Janice, because she had a very Joplin-esque way about her. She wasn’t wearing a coat and explained to everyone that it was because she was drunk. She spent a few moments with the trio gushing about Hugh Laurie, and then after introductions and back-story telling — she had flown in from somewhere, and I was wondering if it was just to see the show, which is never a good idea since entrance is not guaranteed — she offered up her hotel room to the trio so they could have a place to crash after we got our tickets at 7am.

A little while later a gaggle of giggly girls armed with face stickers (“Do you want to be a fairy or a princess?” Yuck!) took their places behind the culinary trio and Janice. And that was about it for the line for the next hour or so.

Four hours to go, and my toes were getting cold.

Next: Part III: No, Janice, the McDonalds on 50th Street Does Not Serve Tequila.

Notes from SNL’s Stand-by Tickets Line, Part I: Gluttons for Punishment

2008-12-13T11:42:00.029-05:00

The front of the line, where we were not.

The thing about waiting in the standby tickets line for Saturday Night Live is that it’s a serious pain in the ass. This is basically how it works these days:

There are something like 200 seats for each SNL show (i.e., dress rehearsal and live show). There are three kinds of tickets. They are, in order of importance:
1) VIP tickets, which are given to friends and family of the guest host and musician de la nuit, and, I assume, the regular cast.
2) the tickets that people got sent to them via the internet lottery that happens sometime in August (i.e., "real" tickets)
3) stand-by tickets

Say the host that week is Joe Heartthrob, and Joe wants to give 200 of his closest friends and family members tickets to the live show. If everyone shows up, then likely no real ticket holders, and certainly no standy-by ticket holders, will be getting into the live show, because VIP tickets trump everyone. (Note that dress rehearsal tickets and live tickets are different. If you have one, you can't use it for the other, although the same rules apply.)

On the other hand, if Joe has pissed off everybody he knows, and the musical guest has no friends or family, and the friends and family of the regular cast are sick of the show and don't care anymore, then any real ticket holder who shows up will get in, and the number of people who do not show up will be the number of standby ticket holders who get in.

The last (and only) time a friend and I did this, 31 people were let into the dress rehearsal. We were numbers 11 and 12.

Now, this is the deal with getting stand-by tickets.

The usual crowd who do standby start lining up with their chairs and tents and sleeping bags and portable TVs and what-not sometime late Friday afternoon, weather permitting. Yes, they sleep on the sidewalk all night. These are the regulars, many, I'm told, who go to every SNL show they can. A few have been doing this for decades. The more popular the guest, the earlier people start lining up. I read somewhere on the internet that one year, when Steve Martin was the host, people started lining up on Wednesday.

The earlier you line up the better, because they give the tickets out, one to a person, numbered and in the order you are in line, at 7am.

That year when Steve Martin was the host and people started lining up so early? No standby ticket holders got into either show, and, if there were any VIP tickets issued, some of the "real" ticket holders would not have gotten in either. On the other hand, there have been times in the show’s history where the number of stand-by ticket holders let into the show was something hovering around 100. Why? Snowstorms in NYC.

That all being said, this is what my friend and I did last time. We figured we had a couple of things going for us. First, the show we were aiming for was on Halloween weekend, which in New York City is basically like Mardi Gras, so there a lot of parties to go to and people might not be using the tickets that were sent to them, and/or might not be trying the stand-by thing. And then the weather turned really foul the Friday before the show.

We decided that we would go up to Rockefeller Plaza at around 4am, and see what the line was like. If the line was around the block, we'd go get breakfast and forget it. There were only 30 people ahead of us, so we got in line. And we did get in. But picture three hours of cold, wet, sleet and brutal winds. Joe Heartthrob better be worth it.

I had no plans on doing this ever again. The only reasons I even considered trying it two years ago, other than it looked like we might have a shot, was because I had lived in the city for 20+ years and had never seen the show live, and because the Joe Heartthrob du jour was Hugh Laurie, and the musician was Beck.

Now let’s fast forward, and Joe Heartthrob, I mean Mr. Laurie, is hosting again. My first thought was “Wow, that guy’s a glutton for punishment,” because he was a wreck the last time; when he walked out to do his monologue, he looked like he had just been shot out of a cannon. My second thought was, although I was interested in seeing the show, I was not ever going to wait in that line again.

Until a different crazy friend of mine (I do have a few of them) texted me and said, “I’ve never seen SNL. I think we should try and go.”

So I did do this again last night. Talk about being a glutton for punishment. . . .

Next: Part II: “Spotanuity”

Maybe Next Year

2008-12-06T14:43:00.004-05:00

When I saw this last year, and when I found out that some kind person had uploaded this video of the moment to You Tube, I swore I would post it to my blog.

So here it is: Patti Smith singing "O Holy Night," from her Dec 31, 2007, concert at the Bowery Ballroom.

To those of you who are familiar with Ms Smith, but have not heard her sing this, you are in for a treat. As you are all aware, Ms Smith is not a "singer," per se... not like a Luciano Pavoratti, or ever (shudder) a Celine Dion, or any performer blessed with an outstanding singing voice. But imagine being at one of her concerts, that thunderous rock, the poetic wordsmanship, that in-your-face brazen rebellious spirit, crashing down all around you, and then she slows everything down to a whisper and surprises the audience with something so traditional -- in fact, maybe the most traditional of all, if one could compare such a thing -- and so precious. And that New-Years-Eve-Bowery-Ballroom-New-York-City audience became silent, and hardly breathed for four-ish minutes. Because, while Patti is not a singer in the traditional American Idol sense (and thank God for that), no one puts over a lyric like Patti.

Now if the tall guy in front of our videographer would just remove his head!

I am sad to report that I am not going to see her this year, because the tickets sold out faster than I could get any of my silly friends to make a decision about going. Oh, well. There's always Sirius Radio!

UPDATE: I am posting this version from Dec 29th that same year, because, while the video was shot from farther away, it's from the beginning and includes her spoken intro. I also think she sings it better. I saw her sing this on the 30th, and have yet to find a clip from that night.

Notice in this version some idiot starts yammering on to her (I think it's a her) friend. I mean really, you can't shut up for 5 minutes?

Some random thoughts

2008-11-16T17:53:00.004-05:00

I thought it was time to take a break from political discussion, and turn to things that people really care about: commercials, food, music, you know, the important things. So here it goes:

1) Anyone have ANY idea what the heck "The fit is go" means on that Honda commercial? Even if it actually means something, I find it truly irritating.

2) It's National Novel Writing Month. It's no longer national, however, because people as far as Kazakhstan (literally) and Bangla Desh are involved in this writing madness. Although I have a respectable 24, 040 words right now, I am about a day and a half behind my word count. (oh, and BTW, in case you are wondering what the heck I am talking about, here's the link: nanowrimo.org

3) Saw a snarky post on a commercial news blog about the overuse of certain words and expressions, and the overall misuse of the English language. While I myself cringe at certain usage (especially the ubiquitous "It's my bad," and all of its bastard spawns), I have to say: from a linguistic standpoint, a living, breathing language is subject to change. No one says "groovy" that much any more, except maybe facetiously, but everywhere people are saying "Awesome." A few years ago it was "Phat" and (shudder) "fantabulous," and next year it might be "cheeky" or "gruesome." And yes, in 20 years, everyone may indeed be spelling the word "through" as "thru," and "night" as "nite," and it might be considered not only acceptable, but the preferred spelling. Get over it. There's nothing you can do about it. (but to the writer of that particular rant: Duly noted!)

4) Saw the B52s a couple of weeks ago here at the Hammerstein Ballroom. They seriously kicked ass. Wait, that's such an overused expression. they were awesome. No, can't say that either. They were fabtabulous. No, someone will kick me. (Or should kick me.) Okay, let's just say I can't remember being that happy at a non-Bruce concert in recent memory, and leave it at that.

5) Hmm, I did promise to say something about food. Okay. Went to the Thalia restaurant last Friday night (after going to Town Hall to see Craig Ferguson), and I'm sorry, there's no way around using an overused expression here: Holy crap.

There. No politics. Happy, everyone?

Myself. I'm really partial to purple

2008-11-05T09:31:00.017-05:00

Last night, people in New York were literally dancing in the streets.

There are a lot of reasons why people supported president-elect Barack Obama, but after watching all the analysts talking endlessly last night aout the economy, that economy is the factor, economy economy economy, I think they've missed the big picture.

Not that the economy wasn't a factor, and certainly its collapse brought over some undecided voters, and may very well have been the final blow to the McCain campaign. But most people are smart enough to know that Mr Obama does not have an easy answer to the woes of this country, because there's no such thing. The big difference with Obama is the feeling of inclusion.

The reason that everyone was dancing in the streets in New York last night was because it's the first time in a long time that we felt that we belong to this country. So no, I do not expect our new president to make everything right over night, or even in the first four years, or God willing, eight years. But I'm breathing a sigh of relief, like most of my fellow New Yorkers. No we are not traitors because we are not Republicans, or because we don't think we should be in Iraq, or because we don't think deregulating everything is sound economic practice, or good for the environment, for that matter. No we are not traitors because we disagree, and we are not bad Americans because we don't live in a small town. And hello, Wall Street is not a metaphor, it's an actual street, here in New York City. We are part of this country, too.

So our president-elect will have his hands full. Thank God (and excuse me for invoking the "G" word) they are his hands, not the hands of someone representing a party that thinks America is, or in any case should be, all one color: red.

UPDATE: I didn't have the Obama quote quite right when I first posted this. But it's fixed now., and there was greart rejoicing

Election Fever

2008-11-04T10:52:00.007-05:00

I am feeling excited, like I used to get when I was a kid, watching the elections results and being highly aware that something very cool was going on.

Every four years, Americans have the opportunity to have a revolution. An orderly, quiet, walk-in-and-vote-'em-out revolution.

I know I am not alone, feeling that I'd just like to hear people discussing issues instead of someone's hair, or age, or race, or level of patriotism -- seriously, so tired of that one.

My intention never was to have a political blog. When I started this blog, I had no focus at all, just general snarky observations, posted some photos, that was it. Yes, I know I recently posted samples of anti-Democrat comments from trollers, and then in a fit of laziness I posted that jpeg of an anti-Palin button. But it’s because I have been feeling a political rant coming on for weeks, ever since I read someone’s comment that said, “Barack Obama is a Marxist.”

Why have our political discussions devolved into name-calling? More importantly, why is everyone okay with it? It’s like being in a household with parents who are constantly bickering. You want to say to them, “Would you guys just get a divorce already? Don’t stay together for us!”

In 1972, during the Nixon-McGovern race, I was on a school bus with 60 or so fellow middle-schoolers, and for some reason I mentioned that I was for McGovern. This was a stupid thing to admit in any crowd, but I grew up in a town that had no registered Democrats until my parents moved there in 1950, so I was admitting this on a bus full of young Republicans, and was basically asking for trouble, just yelling “fire!” in a crowded theater.

So this kid I had known since grade school, this girl Wendy – never a friend, she was an annoying little shit, a brat and a bully who is probably raising a brood of brats and bullies -- turns around and, with real venom, fires at me, “McGovern is a Communist.”

Now, everybody knows that when you are 13, most of your views about life are still heavily influenced by your parents. You’re not quite at full-rebellion age yet, and there are some things, like politics, you may never rebel against. So clearly Wendy heard that in her house from her Republican parents, who may or may not have been exaggerating to prove a point. In any event, like an idiot, I tried to reason with her:

“If McGovern is a Communist, then Nixon is a Fascist.”

To my surprise, she did not see the correlation I was trying to illustrate. I imagine this was a section of the SATs that would totally stump her, if she indeed ever took the SATs.

“No he’s not!” she yelled at me. Really yelled, like I had insulted her father or kicked her dog.

But this is our two-party system. It’s not politics, it’s sports teams. I’m a Mets fan. Do I stop being a Mets fan when they start playing like the 1962 Mets? Sure, if they keep it up long enough. I’ll stop going to Shea, I’ll stop watching televised games. I might even consider rooting for the Cardinals, or the Red Sox, or the Phillies. I do not, however, become a Yankees fan. Yes, I am like a lot of Americans.

On this election day, it is my sincere hope that one day Americans will learn to stop hating each other for the color of their state.

New York Waterfalls

2008-10-30T10:53:00.003-04:00

Again, my friend Cesar has taken some amazing pics. And yes, I know, I've been neglecting this blog terribly these last couple of weeks. Mea culpa. But these photos more than make up for my absence, no? (to all three of you that read this blog!) Click on the images to see them larger and in their full glory.

Learning From Our Mistakes

2008-10-11T14:32:00.001-04:00

Happy Birthday John

2008-10-09T13:50:00.002-04:00

My favorite Lennon song. Or at least, one of my favorites.

(unfortunate freeze-frame, however...)

I know, I've been lazy

2008-10-03T15:40:00.007-04:00

I had a whole new ranty blog post started last weekend, and then I lost my DSL for three days, and with that, my momentum. On top of that, I've been losing my CBS channel again, 12:38am, on the dot (someone REALLY doesn't want me watching Ferguson.)

But in the meantime, I will post this very funny graphic about the vp debate. NOTE: I had never planned on making this a political blog, but I'm sorry, Sarah Palin, or rather, the media circus around her, is just insulting on all levels. The other night, The Insider, on anticipating the VP debate, listed "fashion sense" as one of the key things everyone would be watching for. Excuse me? Would anyone be saying that if Gov Palin was a man? Would the media be obsessed with her hair or her glasses?Serously ticks me off, even more than her stupidity or "ah, shucks" delivery.

Preaching to the Choir

2008-09-22T11:28:00.007-04:00

UPDATE: This is where you can obtain this button (for a donation):

http://www.buzzflash.com/store/items/1278

Trolls, and Other Political Creatures

2008-09-16T10:14:00.013-04:00

Below are responses to an article about Willaim Ross, a biliionaire discussing the fate of America's banks and general economic health (which, yes, is bad at the moment.) It was not a political article. Did not mention any political party, did not mention the president, did not mention congress, did not mention any political candidate.

These responses totally sickened me this morning. I was told by a friend who is an experienced blooger that these people are probably "trolling," (and let's hope to God these people are "trolling" and not this stupid and hateful!). So they probably just want to get a rise out of people. They're bottom feeders... but OMG. Get a life.

No one that writes crap like this loves America. And, they aren't even smart enough to be embarassed.

I was even tempted to comment here about how stupid it is to blame the Democrats for this financial insanity, especially in response to an article that had NOTHING to do with which political party did what, but then I realized none of this bullshit deserves to be rebutted, even for a second.

Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam, etc.

2008-09-13T20:09:00.008-04:00

Anti-spam experts tell us that one tell-tale sign of a scam (phishing) email is typos. Hopefully we all know by now that any email that tells you that your account needs to be verified, updated, etc etc. is blatant crap, but I just had to share the one I got this morning:

Hmmm... find the typo....

Those Lights

2008-09-12T13:32:00.004-04:00

These are great photos taken by my friend Cesar. If you like them and want to download them, just be cool and keep any use noncommercial.

I'm Just Saying ...

2008-09-04T11:20:00.003-04:00

It's always more interesting when they don't know the microphone is still on.

Affirmations for the Overly Entitled

2008-08-11T14:22:00.005-04:00

Say each of these affirmations ten times upon waking, before sleeping, and before entering any kind of public space.

1. I am not the only person on the planet.
2. I am not Carrie Bradshaw.
3. I have to wait my turn.
4. Strangers do not have a great need to hear my cell phone conversations.
5. When I get drunk and can no longer stand properly, it is interesting and humorous only to me.
6. I am no more important than the guy behind the deli counter. In fact, I'm probably less important.
7. I am not on a reality TV show. Cameras are not following me at all times, and people do not care what I think, or whether or not I'm a tough competitor.
8. Even if I am on a reality TV show, people don't care what I think.
9. My bad manners are ugly, no matter how much I spend on my clothes.
10. I have the right to be as pushy and arrogant as the next guy. And that makes me no better than the next guy.

UPDATE: Number 11 has been deleted due to popular demand.

Television is the New Radio, 2

2008-08-07T23:23:00.007-04:00

Someone sent in the You Tube link to LS3 on Craig Ferguson! (thank you, thank you!)

The sound of 110,000 hands clapping

2008-08-05T12:38:00.009-04:00

A long day, then a long line and a long wait for the bus to New Jersey. There was trouble on the Jersey Turnpike. Probably a tractor-trailor truck jack-knifed across the highway. It’s always a tractor truck.

It was after 8 o’clock when we finally got on a bus. I joked to my friend V, “I hope Bruce waits for us.”

Nothing to worry about, of course, because almost half of Giant’s Stadium was still empty as we took our seats. Bruce did indeed “wait for us.” He started after 9:30. I wondered if that meant he would cut the concert short as a result.

There was a woman below us, hanging over the railing of the stadium’s mezzanine, dancing awkwardly to music that hadn’t started yet. She was drunk, so drunk that a stadium usher eventually had to escort her off somewhere. So much for her 100-plus-dollar ticket.

V and I had arrived as disembodied spirits, exhausted from our respective jobs and other life fatigue, Our bodies were sitting at the last row of the mezzanine, but our spirits were in our apartments gathering laundry, at the office finishing some redundant tasks, riding the bus home wondering how long it would take. The lights went out and the crowd started screaming, and V and I sat there, secretly hoping Bruce WOULD cut it short.

And then the music started.

The fans always do their homework, always know every word, every chorus, for every song, from the oldest to the newest. Bruce conducted everyone who was not already standing to get to their feet. And we obeyed.

It was the musical equivalent of fireworks. How do you describe fireworks? You can't. A person has to be there to witness it first-hand.

Incredibly, Bruce is always incredible.

It took exactly two songs to become re-embodied, brains and body in one place.

Summertime Blues. Okay, I’ll stand for that. Wait, is that “Prove it All Night”? Ack! I can’t sing in this key! Wait, he’s going into the audience! He’s singing to a girl in the first row! She just kissed him! Talk about up close and personal...wow, this guy can’t get any sexier...Did he just do a somersault in the middle of that guitar rant?...Oh, yeah, Born to Run, with the house lights on, and everybody singing.

A short four hours later, the show ended.

Stuck in the parking lot on the way out, we were in line with a woman and her 12-year-old son. They were here from Vegas, and the kid had never seen Springsteen and his mom is a big fan who doesn't get to see him any more.

"They won't invite him to Vegas, He played there once, but they won't invite him back. They didn't like the fact he played so long. They want the people to get back to the casinos."

Bus home, drunk young republicans standing over us. (One of them makes a comment about a song not being patriotic, not sure if he meant bruuuuce’s.) One voice is particularly loud, incredibly crude. ““She wants me, Bro, I’m going to spread her cheeks!” He is apparently referring to someone in the group’s sister, who is no, not on the bus with us. Yikes, dude, have you looked in the mirror lately? Pasty and chubby, sweaty and stupid. I make the comment to V that he’ll be a lot less boisterous when he’s not a virgin anymore. Then there’s an awful smell, and it’s obvious who it came from. When someone comments on it, our loudmouth says things like “I WISH that were me!”. What the heck does THAT mean? I wondered how that nice mother and son from Las Vegas were feeling about this idiot. Of course, the jerk had to stand right next to ME.

But I am bruuuuuucified, mood altered, feeling fine and at one with myself, and that is what I am left with when I wake up late the next morning, not the ugly memories of that Stupid Farting Young Repulbican with entitlement issues.

Television is the New Radio

2008-07-31T01:38:00.017-04:00

Back when 102.7 FM in New York was WNEW, back when Vin Skelsa and Tony Morrera did the overnight and back when WNEW had no play list, leaving DJs to play pretty much whatever they wanted when they wanted (as long as it was some kind of "rock," I guess), it was not uncommon for someone like the aforementioned Vin Skelsa to hear a record, like it, and put it on the air, maybe even just ten minutes later.

Craig Ferguson just pulled a Vin Skelsa.

Heard a group singing out in the corridor earlier in the day (or the equivalent of a corridor -- he wasn't clear on this, really), liked them, and had them on his show tonight.

They were three singers who called themselves LS3. They sang acapella, and were terrific.

This was just so extraordinarily cool, hopefully someone will post it on YouTube so I can link it here.

UFOs On a Coffee Break?

2008-07-20T10:43:00.008-04:00

It's mysterious.

At 12:38am every weeknight, and a little after 1 am on weekends, my CBS channel 2 turns to white static, leaving me only a hint of audio telling me that the station is still there, just to taunt me. Sometimes it takes out other stations as well, but it always starts with CBS. And then by morning, everything is back on.

Months can go by and everything is fine. In fact, it hadn't happened since maybe last February or so. Then, the other night, in the middle of Craig Ferguson's monologue, BAM! Static. I was able to listen to the rest of the monologue, but I'd prefer to have the visuals as well. It is teleVISION, after all.

Is there something odd going on at the Empire State Building every night after midnight that we should know about? A thousand pigeons having a rooftop party? A giant gorilla up there playing around with the broadcast antennas? UFOs landing on the tower so their inhabitants can have a quick rest stop before going home? Sunspots? Conan O'Brien sneaking into the transmitter rooms to disconnect CBS so we can't watch Craig? Cable and satellite companies, conspiring to get more customers, mucking around with the antennas?

Definitely mysterious.

More Flags, More...

2008-07-09T00:02:00.003-04:00

Does anyone else want to slap the holy crap out of that guy that does the TV ads for Six Flags Great Adventure?

Things That Make You Go, "Yikes!"

2008-07-03T14:57:00.004-04:00

A used car dealer in Missouri offered buyers a choice of two sales incentives: $250 worth of gas, or a free semi-automatic handgun. 80% of the buyers chose the handgun. My negative reaction to this story has a lot to do with the fact that I live in New York. Imagine, if you will, if New Yorkers — let's say all New Yorkers — were armed. Think about the frustrated New Yorkers on the subways, the line at the Whole Foods, the traffic on the LIE, the Macy's fireworks, trying to walk down St Marks Place on a Saturday night. And now picture how often a frustrated New Yorker loses his or her cool and has a meltdown. Now imagine that person having a firearm.
Yikes, indeed.

Rosie Comes to Town

2008-06-23T14:29:00.011-04:00

Rosie Flores and "Men" sing Truck Drivers Blues at the Rodeo Bar, 6/19/08. Arthur Neilson on guitar with Rosie. As soon as I remember who everybody else is, I'll let you know. (to see this in high quality, click on the picture to go to the YouTube page and select "watch in high quality.")

An IKEA Grows in Brooklyn

2008-06-20T14:09:00.005-04:00

Played hookie on Wednesday to go to the opening of the new IKEA in Red Hook.

Future Blog Topics

2008-06-12T13:27:00.004-04:00

Why is Logic Never Even Tried?
Duly Noted
Sanity in an Insane World
Reasons to be Cheerful, Part 3
Must Get Satan Out of Big White House
Too Free, Some Might Say
Perhaps I Should Have Read the Directions

I don't have anything to say on these topics -- yet -- but I'm sure I will.

What's wrong with this picture?

2008-06-02T00:02:00.002-04:00

Ah... Spring?

2008-05-26T21:48:00.007-04:00

I was asked out this afternoon.

His pick-up line was, for the record, "Do you like Mexican food?"

And then he said, "You must let me paint your apartment for you. I can make it nice."

Paint my apartment. Is that what they're calling it now?

Another sign of spring: Last week, most shows had their finales, and are gone until September. I am posting at 9:35 pm, and the only station that has had anything on that's scripted is CBS, and right now it's a pretty bad sitcom. I guess what's on the CW is scripted as well, but it's their usual twenty-somethings angst soapy opera stuff, One Tree Felicity Gossipy Hill. I thought, maybe, I might watch the dancers on Fox. So I tuned in, and there was this blonde bimbo doing interpretive dance -- badly, badly, oh lord, so very very badly, klutzy and she didn't complete her lines (can you tell I used to dance? throwing in that $40 comment there? cool, huh?) and there were these bizarre jumps for no reason and then these cheesy "reach for the stars, I'm emoting" kind of moves --and I thought sure the judges were going to trash her, but they loved it. Capital L loved it. Gushed about how much energy she had in her...get this..eyes, and they all agreed "She's got 'it.'" "Yes, you do, you've really got 'it.'" and I had to turn it off.

We all know people dance with their eyes, don't we? Yuck. By the way, apparently the guy just before her did a stepping dance of some sort, which I did not see... but I did see the part where they said no to him, even though they all said HE had "energy" -- He was wearing a mask, though, so they couldn't see if any energy was in his eyes, I guess. Next time he'll know to lose the mask.

Which brings me to wondering: What did we do to deserve Reality TV? That's rhetorical, I know the answer. We watched Cops and Real World too much and encouraged it, that's what we did. Well, not me, I didn't watch those shows, but enough of us did, or at least, enough of the Nielsen Families did and it has ruined television forever. It doesn't even matter if people stop watching these stupid shows...they are cheaper to produce, so as long as some people are still watching them who cares if most of the viewing public has turned off the set and are reading books?

Okay, I admit it, I'm in a mood.

On the other stations, we have the Bachelorette and an awards show for Movie Trailers (!!!!!) and a news magazine about a murder. At least that one involves a dead body.

Ah, Spring

2008-05-24T13:10:00.003-04:00

Another sign of Spring in New York is the arrival of critters. Not the year-round apartment invaders like roaches and mice, or the outside-your-window fire-escape regulars like pigeons or squirrels. This morning, there was a centipede in my tub.

And yes, I killed it.

Here is what Wikipedia says about the house centipede:

"Unlike its shorter-legged but much larger tropical cousins, the house centipede can live its entire life inside a building. Because they eat household pests, house centipedes are considered among the most beneficial creatures that inhabit human dwellings, but because of their alarming appearance, frightening speed, and painful bite, few homeowners are willing to share a home with them."

There was a moment, as I was dousing it with hot water, that I felt bad. Fact is, humans are the only animals that will kill something just because they don't want it crawling around in their bathtubs. I've now decided that the proper thing to do is simply keep the stopper over the drain. Voilá, no more centipedes in the bathtub; they can live on to eat cockroaches and ants and spiders and (shudder) bedbugs the way nature intended.

And a note to Mike: The air kiss was definitely NOT "one of those light and fluffy Latin lover air kisses." Not light and fluffy at all. Wet and sloppy, in fact.

Please Be Patient

2008-05-15T12:44:00.008-04:00

How many times a day does a New Yorker hear that from the MTA: "Please Be Patient"? It always makes me wonder what else, exactly, do they expect us to do? Scream and jump up and down? And what if we do loose our cool and make a scene? Does that disembodied voice on the intercom REALLY care if some of us go ahead and have a tantrum?

That being said, I had One of Those Commutes this morning on the 6 train.

The problem with being late EVERY morning is that when you finally have a legitimate excuse for it, it doesn't matter. You are late because you are Not a Morning Person: your 15-pound cat made herself comfortable on your chest just before your alarm went off and you can't bear to move her; you are having a bad case of adult ADD and you can't seem to focus enough to get yourself out the door; you've waited too long to take a shower and now there is no hot water and you have to wait for the boiler to catch up with the demand; you can't figure out what to wear so you change clothes five times; you can't find your keys/wallet/ID; because you are now running late the construction crew who are renovating the apartment next door has parked a Giant Thing outside of your door and you can't get down the stairs; or all of the above. And then, you have One of Those Commutes.

So I made it down my stairs, my cat fed and purring, my clothes Weather Appropriate, my hair smelling of Fructis Garnier conditioner, keys, wallet and ID present and accounted for, and a man sidles up to me and says, "Excuse me, Do you have any spare change?"

I said "no" and shook him off, but he kept smiling at me and then said, "Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure."

"Okay. Well, have a nice day." And then he leans in. "Have a nice night."

Springtime in New York. (see previous post)

He was grinning at me, and kept walking with me, so I crossed the street. Every time I looked over, there he was, smiling at me.

Okay, yes, I shouldn't have looked over. I stopped doing that.

I looped around out of my way until I saw him veer off in the other direction, and headed to my train. When I got down the stairs, there were a hundred people on the platform. This is never a good sign. Then there was an announcement:

"There is a southbound 6 train at 42nd Street." Six stops away. Why do they bother telling us?

There were policemen everywhere, and it occurred to me that Something must have Happened. Then came another announcement:

"Attention passengers. Due to a police action on Bleecker Street, there are train delays on the 4, 5 and 6 lines. Please be patient."

A group of twenty or so tourists picked that moment to enter the station. They huddled together in the center of the platform, right across from the turnstiles. (insert the snarky anti-tourist comment of your choice here.)

Twenty minutes later, a train arrived. The twenty tourists all filed into the same car of an already crowded train. (insert another snarky anti-tourist comment of your choice here as well.)

When the train finally left the station, it went about 6 feet, and stopped.

"Attention passengers. Due to a police action on Bleecker Street, there are train delays on the 4, 5 and 6 lines. Please be patient."

I suppose it was important for someone to say that at this juncture, because I'm pretty sure the riders in the next car were going to start sacrificing tourists.

Springtime in New York

2008-05-13T10:38:00.006-04:00

Okay, I have been chastised by my loyal fans (both of you) for failing to post anything new recently, so here I am, back again.

I was on a train to Connecticut and instead of taking my usual single don't-you-dare-sit-near-me seat, I thought I'd take a chance and spread out in one of those group of fivers that has a window, with the hope that not too many people would sit next to me.

By 125th Street, another woman sat down across from me, and by Stanford, there were three other people in this cluster of seats.

The first woman to invade my space, at least a decade or two younger than me, put on her iPod and opened a book. It wasn't until two more twenty-something women got on at Stamford and made us shift all the way over to the window that I became curious about the book she was reading. It was a thick paperback, and from the looks of the back cover it seemed it was not a novel: There was a photo of a man in a business suit, and although I never saw the exact title of the book, the back cover shouted "Find the perfect man online!"

Now I'm thinking... am I missing something here? This woman was not model pretty, but she was definitely pretty nonetheless, and not model-thin but who the hell wants to be model thin? So this woman who was maybe 33 at the oldest, is having trouble finding a boyfriend? Yikes! What the heck am I going to do, being dangerously close to completing my fifth decade?

As it often happens, New York City provided me with a tiny glimmer of hope as I was coming home late afternoon on Sunday on the subway. As we were approaching my stop, I stood to get ready to exit, and I felt somebody's eyes on me. I looked elsewhere, figuring that he was either a) looking at my blinged-out Grammy-Awards-50-years tee-shirt, or reading some ad behind my head. But as I was stepping off the train, he caught my eye and air-kissed me.

I haven't been air-kissed by a stranger in I don't know how long. Does that mean I still "got it"? (assuming, of course, I ever had it.) Not sure, but he wasn't a homeless person. He was Hispanic, possibly around my age, dark curly hair, gold chain, yellow and white tee shirt. It was absolutely inappropriate behavior and not actual flirting. But I haven't gotten inappropriate behavior of any kind thrown my way in quite a while.

Ah, Springtime in New York.

Great Moments in Rock and Roll

2008-04-27T09:53:00.003-04:00

My 10-year-old God daughter Catherine, sitting in the back seat of the car, listening to her mother's iPod:

"Mommy, what's a working class hero?"

Florent

2008-04-25T21:33:00.010-04:00

Florent is closing, so we went there last night.

IRS Spam

2008-04-17T10:55:00.004-04:00

I know that we are all getting pretty savvy about ridiculous phishing emails, but just as a public service, I am posting this recent one that apparently a lot of people fall for. I have to hand it to the authors, it's clever.

In case there is any confusion: This is not real. The IRS will never contact you via email, even if you e-file. And you don't have to fill out any forms to get your rebate (or your refund), other than filing your taxes.

Click here if you want to report some IRS spam of your own.

Late 1970

2008-04-06T10:09:00.005-04:00

My sister and I have been working on a project. What if the Beatles had not gotten a divorce in 1970? What if they still loved each other and got couples counseling instead? (just NOT Primal Therapy) What would those albums have sounded like?

This wasn't as easy as it sounds. While 1970 and 71 found our boys churning out music like a busy jukebox, later years found them further and further out of sync. The other problem is, even from the very start, the albums were produced very differently. Finding the right balance and transitions took some work.

There were logistical problems on our end as well. For one, in general. I'm not a big Paul fan, although when I do like something of his, I really love it. So this required my rethinking my feelings about his music and buying a bunch of his songs off iTunes. And speaking of iTunes, all of my George Harrison albums are on vinyl, so when iTunes finally put his (and John's) catalogs up it was very helpful. Now, if they would just put Dark Horse and Extra Texture up, I could do a 1972 list.

Anyway, we decided we should put some thought into what the boys would allow each other to get away with. "Cold Turkey" did not make our list because this was a song Paul had rejected for a Beatles album. So I originally started this play list with Working Class Hero, until my sister pointed out that a Beatles album probably wouldn't start with a song that uses the F word... twice**. Chances are John's lyrics might have been altered for a Beatles album--you know, couples counseling does encourage compromise--but not wanting to second guess the past too much, I changed the song order.

So here are the play lists we came up with for 1970 and 1971, for those of you who 1) care and 2) are familiar with at least some of these songs. This would have seen the boys putting out back to back double albums, but this whole thing requires us to extend our sense of disbelief, anyway.

1970 (Thinking it should be titled "Early 1970"..either that or something weird like Scrambled Eggs, or No We Don't Hate Each Other Vol. 1.)
It's So Hard
My Sweet Lord
Maybe I'm Amazed
Remember
What Is Life
Instant Karma!
Every Night
Ballad Of Sir Frankie Crisp (Let It Roll)
Mother
The Back Seat of My Car
I Found Out
Isn't It A Pity
That Would Be Something*
Working Class Hero**
Early 1970
Run Of The Mill
Isolation
Oo You
*my sister and I both agreed that this song, very pretty but very repetitive, might have benefited with some input from John

**The night John was murdered, WPIX FM, which was the "Lite" music station, played Working Class Hero in it's entirety, i.e, not censored. I always wondered if they just weren't familiar with the song, or hadn't heard it in so long they forgot, or, less likely, decided to take a chance that the FCC wouldn't bust them considering the circumstances. I kind of picture them scrambling to find a John Lennon album, finding "Plastic Ono Band" from their old library of albums (from when they were a real station), dusting it off, and throwing it on the turntable. "Oh, God, did he just say 'F*ck'? Oh GOD, did he just say it AGAIN?"

1971 (Another Dollar, or No We Don't Hate Each Other Vol. 2)
Imagine
Another Day
Apple Scruffs
Jealous Guy
Oh Woman, Oh Why
Let It Down
I Don't Wanna Be A Soldier Mama
It Don't Come Easy
Monkberry Moon Delight
Gimme Some Truth
Art Of Dying
Oh Yoko!
Dear Boy
Awaiting On You All
Too Many People
Crippled Inside
All Things Must Pass

Still working on 1972, 1973, 1974-76 (this is where things get quite a bit out of sync), then 1980-81. Will keep you all (excuse the blog pun) posted.

Random Thoughts Day

2008-03-27T18:44:00.005-04:00

1) A huge chunk of ice broke off of the Antarctica shelf yesterday. Scientifically, how big, exactly, is "huge"? 415 square kilometers. You can't get any more scientific than that: it's in kilometers. In layman's terms, for all of us laymen, that's 7 times the size of Manhattan.

2) A Texas man got a sentence of 25 years today for MICROWAVING A BABY. And no, the baby didn't die. (I know what some of you are thinking, and shame on you.)

3) On the lighter side, I received a check in the mail today for $3,985. It appears to be a real check, although I have no idea who these people are who sent it to me. Apparently, if I cash it, I will have agreed to be a secret shopper. While I know for a fact there really are secret shoppers, in this case part of this money is supposed to be used for a money gram. A $3,000 money gram. The whole thing is really fishy, and the check is going into the shredder. If I had a shredder.

4) When I got out of the train at Astor Place tonight, the kid in the Mud truck was playing John Lennon's "Mind Games." I decided I had to talk to him.

"Is that your CD?" I said.

"No," he says, "That's John Lennon."

I did not laugh out loud. "Yeah, I know, I meant, is that your music choice or was it forced on you?"

""Oh. Yeah. It's on my iPod."

"That's a great album," I said, as if he needed or even wanted my approval.

I walked away from the truck as "One Day at a Time" started. Sometimes your favorite music sounds even better when someone else has chosen to play it.

Instant Botox

2008-03-15T18:18:00.005-04:00

"You're really happy to see me, but you can't express it."

(Mr Angell's explanation of how to look botoxed.)

The Ultimate Spam

2008-03-12T15:59:00.001-04:00

Okay, the ultimate spam:

I had to change my password the other day because I got a spam email from....MYSELF.

Apparently I was trying to sell myself replica watches.

Hawk Man

2008-03-11T13:42:00.006-04:00

A sighting: From across the platform at the Brooklyn Bridge IRT station came the sound of...pigeons? Actually, it sounded like one very large pigeon. I looked over, and saw a man wearing a hat with a long feather protruding out of it. (stop giggling at the word "protruding.") It took me a minute, and then I recognized him: The Hawk Man of Lower Manhattan. Usually, he caws like a hawk. Today he was cooing. Then chirping. Then he growled like a lion, which confused me.

Eventually he starting cawing, and my world made sense again.

More Pictures

2008-03-05T21:06:00.011-05:00

For some reason we were fascinated by these clouds.
No, we were not high.

This was the hotel entrance.

iGive

2008-03-05T10:44:00.003-05:00

I sent this information out as an email, but recently I was reminded (read: chastized) for not posting for more than a week (horrors!), so I thought I should get back into posting mode by adding this information here on my blog. That's what blogs are for, right? Not just to rant randomly or post vacation pictures?

So here, in its entirety, was my email. Those of you who have read it before, just chill. There will be more photos soon and other silliness to entertain you:

Anyone who spends any time shopping online should know about iGive.com. Basically, any time you order something online from one of the participating stores, they give a percentage to the cause of your choice--any cause, and if it's not on their list, you can add it. It can be anything from the March of Dimes to a personal cause (the example in the link is someone's kids' dance school). And all you have to do to send the donation is go to the iGive site first and choose the store from there instead of going to it directly.

The list of stores who participate is really long, and includes the Apple Store (including iTunes), LLBean, 1-800-Flowers, and Banana Republic, to name just a couple. (Amazon is not a participant, unfortunately, but B & N is).

You can have more than one cause. (My charity is the Wild Animal Sanctuary. )

Here is the link for more info and to register:

http://www.igive.com/welcome/

Palm Springs

2008-02-20T20:27:00.019-05:00

V and me at a restaurant named "Azul."
That was Matt's tee-shirt, although I think it belongs to V now.

This is the hotel in Palm Springs. An amazing place.
More photos of this to come, as soon asI get them
developed. (how very old school of me)

It was 75° in Palm Springs, but there was snow in the mountains.

The hats were courtesy of the hotel.

I told Matt he looks like Juan Valdez in this picture.

LA Chronicles III, cont

2008-02-17T16:01:00.008-05:00

See? I really was there.

Best performance: Tina Turner
Best comment: Vince Gill (""I just got an award given to me by a Beatle. Have you had that happen yet, Kanye?")

LA Chronicles III

2008-02-17T15:28:00.010-05:00

V and I before heading to the Grammys. Yes, I am that short. (especially when I'm not wearing shoes!)

LA Chronicles II

2008-02-13T01:19:00.003-05:00

Well, you can't have LA pictures without at least ONE with palm trees. These happen to be in Matt's back yard. (yes I know. "Who is Matt?" V's friend that we are staying with.)

V tries on the suit. The sneakers did not go to the ceremony.

Me, in the dress, seconds after Jamie Leigh, my makeup artist, left. Dress picked out by Daniel B "Bennett", bag picked out by the fabulous Cesar, and the shoes picked out by me, which is only fitting since I have quite the shoe addiction.

LA Chronicles

2008-02-12T20:32:00.004-05:00

Day 1--well, okay, night one. That crazy neon, which, unfortunately, you can't read, is a liquor store in Echo Park, the neighborhood where we are staying.

Day 2 --V's idea of a funny joke: dragging me to Griffith Park and forcing me to commune with nature.

Take It As It Comes

2008-02-06T21:54:00.003-05:00

When I was 14, a friend of mine invited me over to her house to hear a lecture about Transcendental Meditation. Afterwards, she, her mother, and I signed up. It cost her mother $100; it was $40 each for my friend and I. I stuck with it until I got to college, intermittently going back to it when it was convenient, or when I was bored or had too much caffeine.
I always think about TM when I hear Across the Universe. I think two things: That Lennon definitely captured the experience. And...that at our meetings, we always said "Jai (like "jay") Guru Dev." Lennon sings "Ji (like "pie") Guru Deva." And then I don't think about it much until I hear the song again.
Anyway. I happened to glance over a Metro paper this morning and saw a blurb, buried toward the bottom of the page, that the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi had died. They think he was 91. It might not have made it into the paper if they didn't have a hole to fill, and I might not have seen it if I didn't happen to glance at that part of that page. And I thought,"Well, look at that. He outlived two of his four most famous diciples."

Rest Assured...

2008-02-04T20:48:00.001-05:00

...my nervous friends. I did not call my Ex-ex-ex on his aforementioned birthday. That was just temporary insanity. Actually, I have been spending my time and energy dress hunting. which leaves no room for silly thoughts about the Exxx. Okay, I did think about him for about a minute, long enough to think,"No, I don't feel like calling him." And that was that.

As for the dress, I want to move into Betsey Johnson's store on Wooster Street. I could pretend to be a piece of furniture or something. I want everything in the store. I settled on a silver dress with a black sequin "shrug." (Somehow I have lived over four decades without ever having heard that word used for an article of clothing.)

So Friday I leave to go on my first vacation in six years. I kind of hate cameras--no, I totally hate cameras--but I thought it would be cool to post pictures of the event in progress, using pictures from my friend's iPhone. Not sure either one of us are that technologically advanced, but we'll see.

Outside the Chelsea

2008-02-03T09:56:00.002-05:00

That's me on the left.

My Ex-Ex-Ex

2008-02-01T00:26:00.001-05:00

I went to dinner the other night with some friends, namely, the first friend I ever made in New York, another friend who was in from out of town (who happens to be the second friend I ever made in New York), his sister and her wife. Afterwards we all stood on 23rd Street and, with the Chelsea Hotel's neon sign hovering over us in the background, we posed for a picture . I would post this picture, except I do not know how to yet. It was a real camera, by the way (or should I say "BTW"?), not a camera phone. As we were saying our goodbyes, I heard a familiar voice call my name.

I turned around, and there was my ex-ex-ex, guitar, or possibly guitars, on his back, heading to the A train. He sounded genuinely happy to see me. The last time I ran into him was last June,
when I spotted him coming into the subway as I was exiting. He spent ten minutes politely giving me the run-down of the current state of his life, not making eye contact with me. It was the first time I'd seen him since we both decided we were through with each other. (Actually, I don't think he realizes I was as much done with him as he was with me, but I can live with that.) Anyway, the other night's sighting was much shorter than June's, but much friendlier.

His birthday is in a couple of days, and although it would make many of my friends shudder and then tell me what a stupid idea it would be, I might call him to say "Happy B-Day."

I don't know why I would do that. No, my alarmed friends, I have no intention of trying to make him my ex-ex-ex-ex. Just one of those things I guess, ensuring good karma or striving for a normalcy we never had, or sticking it to him that I still kind of look okay, if you look at me in the right light and squint a little.

(Truthfully, my ex-ex-ex and I will never be normal.)

And it begins….

2008-01-27T01:49:00.000-05:00

Not sure about this blogging business, but here I am, topic-less but full of opinions. And I haven’t even posted yet, and already I might have to change my blog title to “Two Cheers.”

That’s right: I got another cheer.

It’s not like I post my opinions all over the internet, either. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve posted a comment. Well, okay, not really; I would have to have seven fingers on that one hand. Anyway, today I got an email from Yahoo! Answers telling me that an answer I posted months ago was chosen “Best answer.” (It was a question about recreational drugs. Draw your own conclusions.)

But no, the title stands. If this keeps up, though, maybe I'll have to add a "cheers" counter to this blog.