Archive for February, 2010

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Ant Music

Monday, February 22nd, 2010

Last night I watched Big Love. Very edgy. A few surprises and a severed limb. Yikes! Luke Askew and Sandy Martin are two of the creepiest and enigmatic characters on TV, playing Hollis and Selma Green.

I really liked it a lot, surprised by not really that Entertainment Weekly thought it was over the top. I rely on Entertainment Weekly for Lost info, not Big Love so I didn’t pay it much attention.

After that I watched How to Make it in America. I watched it last week with Bill, and last night I watched it alone. To tell you the truth, I didn’t like it very much this time. I do enjoy Entourage and this is quite similar to it, but overall, I am tired of watching straight boys running around trying to be cool, trying to get laid.

Really boring. Haven’t we seen enough of this?

I know I have.

Bill came home after a very long rehearsal, lot’s of backstage drama happening. I guess things might have been going too smoothly when they started rehearsing a few weeks ago. Crazy dreams about hanging out with Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, which was probably brought on after watching the Changeling the other night.

I also watched The Ricky Gervais Show last night and I didn’t like it. I just don’t get Ricky Gervais. He’s funny enough in scripted things but on his own, improvising or ad libbing I just don’t get it.

Today I watched Hellboy. I watched part of Hellboy 2 the other night and decided to watch the first part. It was pretty good. A lot of fun, a good comic book movie. I returned the movies I got from the library the other day and I took out Hellboy 2, Judgment at Nuremberg and Titanic.

I was compelled to watch Titanic since I visited the exhibition yesterday. I’m pretty sure my niece Corinne watched it when she got home. I did my part and watched it a little while ago. I’ve see it before and watching it again I found myself heading towards West Side Story territory.

That means that I might have watched it a few times, but I sometimes think that Tony and Maria will escape the ghetto, and now I found myself hoping that Jack and Rose make it alright. We know how both stories end. Both are top notch movies though.

The news on TV right now is about the Hoboken Fake Patrick’s Day parade. It’s generally a mess, a lot of amateur drinkers coming to town, partying, vomiting and pissing all over the place. Now if you get caught with public intoxication it will cost you a $2000 fine and community service.

Corinne is coming to Hoboken for the day, not to visit me, but to hang out with friends. She’s smart and will be taking the train and she knows enough not to be publicly intoxicated.

A big storm has been forecast for the rest of the week. I got a call from Greg Stevens, asking for my assistance with moving things in his office as well as packing up a computer to ship to his home in Arizona.

Of course I said I would help him, I could use some of that extra cheddar. It’s either Wednesday or Thursday, depending on the weather. I’m looking forward to it, and once again I am grateful to Greg Stevens.

Other than that I still have Passing Strange and Old Boy on DVD to watch, as well as the other movies. Bill is at rehearsal again and I have no plans at all really.

And I’m cool with that. And I’m cool like that.

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Posted in What's for Dinner? | 1 Comment »

Twist and Shout

Sunday, February 21st, 2010

So nice to sit down in a comfortable chair, he wrote after coming back from spending a good part of the day with his sister in law and his niece. The three of them had gotten together after a plan was hatched a couple of weeks ago.

The niece had texted him about meeting up on February 21, which is today, to visit the exhibition of Titanic artifacts. His niece loved the movie Titanic and wanted to see the exhibition before it closed.

So today was the day and it was a lot of fun, if looking at the effects of a disaster could be called fun. Actually the fun was in spending the time together. It was crowded a bit. Who knew so many people would still be interested in such a thing almost 100 years later?

We had all met up in Hoboken at a Dunkin Donuts by the Path train. We sat and drank coffee and chatted for about an hour. Some catching up had to be done. Soon enough though, we were on the Path train headed to 33rd Street, where we then walked up to 44th Street, in the old New York Times building.

When I was first asked about going I explained that it might have been too pricey, but the niece insisted on paying and that she wanted to see me so she made it so. As we entered we were given cards with various passengers and crew and instructed to check at the end to see who survived and who didn’t.

I was a third class passenger from Ireland traveling with the missus. I had a pretty good idea how it was going to turn out. My sister in law and my niece were first class passengers, boarding in Southampton, England.

A few tools, and mechanical things from the ill fated ship were on display. As we continued on through the exhibition the items got more personal, clothes, hats, and personal effects were on display as were coins, change purses, personal correspondence. As was a piece of an iceberg that we were encouraged to touch.

It could have been macabre but it really wasn’t, it was quite tasteful. We were also encouraged to touch some brace that was used to hold the ship together. Everything was arranged in air tight, climate controlled boxes except for the iceberg and brace.

There was even a replica of the staircase which features prominently in the movie. My niece and I were photographed on it We got to the end of the exhibition, and my outcome was assured.

White Star Line passenger Mr. John Bourke, accompanied by his wife Catherine, his sister Mary and a group of passengers from County Mayo boarded the Titanic in Queenstown, Ireland, perished at sea when the ship sank.

Dishes and cutlery recovered from the ocean floor were displayed relatively intact in sand. The crate carrying them disintegrated from the pressure of being 2 miles down as well as worn away by salt and the currents.

After that we opted to leave, rather than pay for green screen photos, or shots of my niece and I on the fabled stairway. We were trying to do things on the cheap you see.

Then the three of us were hungry and we walked over to the midtown branch of John’s Pizza. I’ve eaten there a few times with Bill and I pointed out to my sister in law and niece that the restaurant used to be a church. Stained glass ceiling and windows still intact.

We left sated and I reassured them that whatever we ate, we would walk off, as we headed back to the Path train.

It was all well and good and I had a most excellent time, spending the day with Elaine and Corinne.

Corinne

Corinne

Elaine & Corinne

Elaine & Corinne

The meeting of the sunglasses

The meeting of the sunglasses

Corinne & me

Corinne & me

Me & Elaine

Me & Elaine

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Posted in Interesting Things as of Late | 2 Comments »

Dear Mr. Fantasy

Saturday, February 20th, 2010

Listening to Mumford & Sons. They were on Letterman the other night. I really liked the song. Enough so to download a few tracks. Well it’s not all that. Perhaps they pull it off live, but all the songs have sameness to them which isn’t very exciting.

The song they sang on Letterman was Little Lion Man which was excellent. The studio version is decent. Another good song is Dustbowl Dance. But the rest merely leaves me whelmed.

What is actually really good are the tracks I’ve gotten from Hot Chip. Now that is something special. Well worth investigating. And danceable in parts. They’ve even taking to use a live drummer on some songs which could only help.

I watched the rest of the Terry Jones documentary on Barbarians and that was very good. Left me wanting for more, but there were no extras. They should hire Terry Jones to do more things like that. I received my bus pass in the mail yesterday and today I returned it via the mail.

No need for it. I was going to drop it off last night but I was here waiting for the cable guy to arrive. The scheduled visit was until 8:00 but Cablevision found someone in West New York who drove down here.

He was a handsome chap who thought I was smoking a blunt which I wasn’t but wished I was. He swapped the swapped box with an HD box which is fine if we had an HD TV but since we don’t all the channels that are in HD are now in letterbox format and if it’s not in HD then the whole screen is filled.

The cable guy noticed a picture of my mother and me in Amish country, 1976. We’re standing next to a sculpture of a pretzel and the cable guy asked if it was a real pretzel. I explained that it wasn’t. He asked when the picture was taken and I told him 1976. He then mentioned how cool it must have been living in the 1970′s!

Mom-Me

According to Harpy we’ll have more space on the DVR to record. But we haven’t recorded anything yet. Bill came home after rehearsing his latest play. He says I will love it and I guess we’ll have to wait and see about that. I am looking forward to seeing it though.

I have a few movies from the library that are recommended. My brother Frank suggested The Changeling by Clint Eastwood and starring Angelina Jolie and John Malkovich. Old Boy, a Korean film was suggested by Michael Hill, a friend from McSwells days whom I ran into the other day.

Hellboy which I hadn’t seen but caught part of it’s sequel, Hellboy 2 last night and I was entertained. Next Day Air got some decent reviews when it came out last year and I do like Donald Faison and Mos Def, so it’s good that they’re in it.

And finally Passing Strange which Bill and I saw at the Public Theater a few years ago. We loved it and it was on PBS a few weeks ago, so we recorded it. Never got around to seeing it that way since the box went kaput, so here is the DVD. So I have plenty of things to watch if I’m in the mood.

Tomorrow I’m going to see an exhibit of artifacts from the Titanic with my niece Corrine and my sister in law Elaine. Corinne asked me and I simply couldn’t refuse, nor did I want to. It should be fun, something out of the ordinary which is what I am always after.

I did get a haircut for the occasion. A trip to Mr L’s where Tony did his magic. He asked me about how the research for hair cutting was going and nearly dropped his shears when I told him one school wanted $12,000 and the other wanted $16,000.

Not like the $900 he had to pay all those years ago at Atlas Barber School. I would go there if they had financial aid but they don’t.

If I was a veteran or had a disability or in their words: No financial aid is available. We are approved for Veterans, Immigration, and for Vocational and Educational Services of Individuals with Disabilities (VESID). I tell you they (vets, immigrants and the disabled) have it dead easy.

And that’s the thing I want to do, be a barber. Not a stylist. Don’t want to learn make up, manicures, pedicures, rinsing, coloring or any of that stuff. Just a hair cut.

And it’s the other stuff that is putting me off.

2.20.10 etc 002

Gulls!

Gulls!


Nice enough day for some painting I reckon

Nice enough day for some painting I reckon

Me, post haircut
Photo-0087Photo-0088Photo-0089Photo-0090

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Posted in Shed a tear | 2 Comments »

Prime Time

Friday, February 19th, 2010

It’s Friday. I have spent a good part of the day waiting for Cablevision to come and do something about the cable box. Last night it started making clicking sounds then in the middle of Keith Olbermann it pixilated and froze.

A simple reboot, unplug the box, wait a few minutes then plug in again did the trick. No DVRing available. Not such a bad thing I thought. About an hour later, this time the cable box did it itself.

It stopped and started again all on it’s own.

I called Cablevision. No easy maneuvering through the phone prompts, you have to listen to everything. Don’t even thinking about pressing 1 for English before they tell you to. It will get you nowhere.

I spoke to the customer service representative from Cablevision and scheduled an appointment for today between 11:00AM and 2:00PM. At 1:59 I called up to see what was going on. They said they would call the man in the field and get back to me.

About 20 minutes later, it was confirmed the guy was running late.

He had my cell number and would call me when he was in the neighborhood. At 2:45 I get a call saying that he’s outside. I look out the window and there he is talking to another cable guy halfway down the street.

About 10 minutes later I buzz him in, all hard hat and tool belt. I offered him some water but he didn’t want any. He hit a few buttons on the box, lot’s of different screens popping up on the TV screen. He deduces that he’s going to have to swap this box for a new box.

So he goes back downstairs and comes back a couple of minutes later with another box, with the remnants of a ‘void’ sticker on the front. He sets it up, telling me everything that was on the old box is now gone.

No more Andy Warhol documentary, no more Bill on Late Night with Conan O’Brien or with Jimmy Fallon for that matter. Everything is gone. It’s a drag but what can you do.

He leaves after I sign a paper. There’s no charge for this visit. I turn on the TV a few minutes later. I start adding the favorite channels to the cable box and it’s pixilated again.

I call Cablevision again, speak to someone else again, and I am told that the guy will be back. An hour goes by. And another hour goes by.

I call again, speaking to someone else again and I am told a few instructions. Hit this button. Turn to the left. Now unplug it. Now stand on one leg. Now blink really hard. Turn to channel 500. Hit A-B-B-A on the remote control. You are the dancing queen. Turn it off. Turn it on. Show us your tits Coco.

Nothing had any effect. They tell me the guy has until 8:00PM to show up. It’s 7:04PM now. The clock, it is ticking. Harpy went through something similar with Time Warner a couple of weeks ago. I hope I don’t have the same problems.

In any event, here I sit waiting for someone who may or may not show up. He did call me earlier and I did have his number in my phone records. I texted him a few hours ago, asking if he had an ETA on returning to 616 Park Avenue. Of course it went unanswered.

I have little faith that they would show up. But I will be quite happy to be proven wrong. Again. There are still 50 minutes left.

Perhaps there will be a postscript to this entry. Or perhaps there won’t.

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Break Up to Make Up

Thursday, February 18th, 2010

And here we are on a Thursday. Beats being in Bala Cynwyd I suppose. It certainly hasn’t been too busy a day. Rather low key. Found myself watching some of the Olympics.

I know I know. Me? Watching a sporting event? Wasn’t Scrubs on? Gilmore Girls? Lawn Hors d’œuvre? Apparently not. It was women’s hockey. Who knew women played hockey? Not me, that’s for sure.

I watched The Rocker, starring Rainn Wilson as a former drummer for a hair band called Vesuvius, given the sack like Pete Best. Funnily enough, there is a Pete Best cameo. He’s at the bus stop reading Rolling Stone magazine.

Rainn Wilson’s nephew has a band and needs a drummer and so Rainn Wilson’s character steps in. Of course there are a few twists and story lines, but overall it was a funny movie with some famous comedy names involved.

I also watched Terry Jones of Monty Python. He has a 2 disc DVD of The Barbarians, a fun and fascinating documentary about who the barbarians actually were. Remember, history is written by the victors and usually written in a light to make the victors look like the good guys. Rome basically wasn’t all that.

Not so noble after all, and when the coffers were near depletion, they didn’t think twice about invading a land who they had been trading with, and killing as many inhabitants with an eye on their gold. So far he’s gone over the Celts and the Goths.

Both given a bad rap throughout history, since history is written by the victors. And Terry Jones, being such a personable chap is an entertaining teacher.

I wish I had teachers like Terry Jones. Chances are I would have gone further into education instead of bailing out when I had the first real opportunity.

Bill and I had a short online chat today. He’s infatuated by the BBC and told me of a report that he heard from them, that Gordon Lightfoot died. I almost immediately sent the word to Harpy as that is what we do, when a boldface name passes away.

It’s our way of keeping in touch you see.

A search on Google News came up with a link to the Vancouver Sun, but the link went nowhere. I figured I would wait until more news sources came in, expecting a major tribute at the Olympics since Gordon Lightfoot is Canadian and that’s where the Winter Olympics are underway.

But as things turned out, Gordon Lightfoot is still vertical and singing somewhere. If you could read his mind, he’d probably be both pissed off and relieved, eh?

Also watched Lost the other night, which was all about Locke, or rather Fake Locke. Alternate planes of existence seem to be occurring. One Locke is in a wheelchair, came back from Australia and lives with his fiancee. Fake Locke (F.Locke) is the smoke monster and trying to get Sawyer on his side for some nefarious end.

It was actually a very good episode. Much better than the previous week.

No comedy on TV tonight, at least not the Thursday night lineup that I’ve taken to watching. Could be worse I guess.

JOT 1985

JOT 1985 2

I could be in Bala Cynwyd.

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Posted in WTF | 4 Comments »

No New Tale to Tell

Wednesday, February 17th, 2010

Wednesday. For some it’s hump day. However, for a lot of people it’s just Wednesday. It’s been an alright day. Not too cold, not too warm. Of course it could always be better.

Not much to write about I’m afraid. Is there ever much to write about? Is it all just gathering threads and trying to join them up, sew them together and make a nice fabric out of it? Is it the fabric that matters? Or is it the sewing?

These are the matters that spring from my mind and travel to my fingertips.

Listening to an interview with Brian Eno, something from about 20 years ago I think, rebroadcast on a Minnesota radio station on a show called Speaking of Music. It’s about a 2 hour interview, basically reviewing Brian Eno’s work and life up to that point.

Eno has a nice voice to listen to and since it’s an old tape that was digitized and playing on my Frankenstein computer occasionally a glitch pops up and Eno goes ‘Hmm Hmm Hmm Hmm’ for a few extra seconds.

It seems to be recorded live in an auditorium before an audience of Eno-philes, laughing at just about everything Eno has to say.

I’ve taken to listening to podcasts while I eat dinner instead of the news. Usually I watch the Ed Show at 6:00 but since the Olympics are on, I’ve listened to discussions. It’s a nice change of space.

I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Eno when I worked at Skyline Studios. I remember reading an interview with Eno in Trouser Press, and the wrote about how Eno would tear off the filter of his cigarettes and smoke the unfiltered bits, and there it was, an ashtray with torn off filters.

He was working with Laurie Anderson at the time and both were incredibly nice. Both of them signed records that I asked them to sign and occasionally when money is tight, I look at the Eno records and wonder how much money I could get for them.

I’m sure he wouldn’t mind and definitely would understand the situation that I would find myself in. But I haven’t gone so far as to look into eBay and seeing what I could find there. Perhaps one of these days.

I’ve also caught some Oprah lately. Yesterday I watched people getting makeovers, helped by Carson Kressley from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. I never could understand how people get surprised when they open the door and there is Carson Kressley.

My main problem is the fact that the people are filmed from inside their homes, a camera man a few feet behind them. Do these people have camera men in their living rooms all the time? Wouldn’t they think that something was up, I mean, why is there a cameraman breathing down their necks?

It was the same thing when after the Super Bowl, Bill and I watched a TV show about the CEO of a company working down in the ranks, with the people that inhabit the bottom end of the totem pole. This one guy we watched, worked for a week at different parts of his company.

And all the time, he was followed around by a camera crew. Now if someone was a new person at a company, wouldn’t you think something was up when the newbie would be tailed by a camera crew?

Aren’t any eyebrows raised?
No yellow cards?

It’s easy to overlook the camera crews for most, but obviously not for me.

Today on Oprah was the son of Jim Jones, named Jim Jones Jr. He was in Guyana when the People’s Temple were killed or committed mass suicide.

He would have been in Jonestown when it all went down, but was instead in Georgetown playing basketball which in effect saved his life, but made him feel guilty and never played basketball until years later when his son was on a school team.

The other guest was the sister of John Wayne Gacy. She of course had her own tale to tell, about how she didn’t believe that her brother killed 33 men and boys up to a point, but eventually had to admit it to herself.

I’m just grateful that my nearest and dearest aren’t sociopaths.

Hello to Sao Paulo, Mission Viejo, Warwick, Chiang Mai, Eureka, Petaling Jaya and of course Bala Cynwyd.

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Posted in Abstract Absurdist Otherness | No Comments »

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