Tag Archives: Casey Chasm

The Telephone Always Rings

Oh it’s been a big blue sky today. After the past couple of days of gray and rain, it certainly is nice to be out and about in sunlight. I made it a point to go out and walked over by the river, by Pier A and checked out things.

Lot’s of people out and about. The unemployed, the dog walkers, the stroller set, the runners & joggers and the employed out for their lunch break. I made my way up there after stopping by the Multi Service Center on Grand Street in Hoboken to pick up the papers from last week’s civil union thing.

I was told to look over to see if the info was correct and it was except for them having Bill’s birthday as June 26 instead on the 29th. If I didn’t catch that I would have been marrying a fraud and you know that would just be so wrong. What’s the point of having second class marital status if it’s a sham?

Such a depressing place to work, but it’s a job and I suppose it’s what you make of it, so who am I to talk? I ran into 2 Irish gents who were wandering around Hoboken looking for Piccolo’s, which is a cheese steak sandwich shop where they play all Sinatra, all the time.

I hadn’t been there since the 1980’s but I did give them the proper directions which the Hoboken natives sitting around outside the center were unable to do. I wished them well saying ‘Good luck Lads’ even though they were considerably older than me.

I saw Jim Mastro once again, annoyed the hell out of him I’m sure. We discussed a unique guitar that I saw the other day, not that I want to for myself but I had never seen a guitar like that before. It’s a Hanson Guitar, and it looks cool.

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Jim said he plays one, but I have yet to hear it for myself.

Then I wandered up to Pier A and took some snapshots, before walking over to Sinatra Park where I sat and read in Mojo magazine, articles about Judy Collins, Serge Gainsbourg and Roky Erickson and the 13th Floor Elevators.

I took plenty of pictures mainly through the cellphone which get uploaded to Facebook almost immediately, or as long as it takes to go from my phone to the satellite. Came home, read emails, read the New Yorker from weeks ago and spoke on the phone with Juan who was hilarious.

He may be up in this area on Saturday so it might be nice to see him. Also heard from Casey Chasm who wished Bill and myself ‘mazel-tov’ on our marriage. I had to correct him and thank him at the same time, telling him that it was just a civil union, not a marriage. Yet.

Last night, or rather this morning I had a dream that my brother Brian was singing at Lincoln Center. Annemarie flew in for it, a lot of relatives and friends were around. I was living in Lodi and could not get a ride to Lincoln Center.

I walked down to Route 80 and tired to hitchhike to no avail. Tried to get a ride on a coach bus but the driver wasn’t paying attention and smashed into a tree by the VFW Circle on Saddle River Road. I wound up yelling at everyone at the Saddle Brook Howard Johnson’s and in so doing I woke up angry.

Not the best way to start the day, upset at imaginary situations but some coffee and the beautiful day took care of all that.

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Oliver’s Army

Well I just came back from a walk to the Post Office and I find an email telling me I won the Rufus Wainwright: Prima Donna contest. I win 2 autographed posters, a playbill from the opening night in Manchester, England and a Sundance Channel tote bag!

They won’t ship these out until after the holidays so any re-gifting will have to wait until next year. Thems the breaks I suppose. It’s not the Mega Millions.

Someone won the whole $160 million. One person. Not me. But the Sundance channel tote bag is nothing to sneeze at though it might be good to wipe your nose with after the sneeze.

What? Too soon?

Last night I watched the Miracle Worker which I had never seen before. I did read the play ages ago in either Annemarie’s or Brian’s Literature book from Lodi High School. They had to read it, I read it for fun.

I enjoyed it, great performances from Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke. There were some scenes where Annie Sullivan who had terrible vision squints into the distance when Helen Keller goes off in the distance with her mother.

The squinting, accompanied by the wringing of hands makes it look like Annie Sullivan is scheming. It is also ripe for satire and I wonder if SCTV ever did a sketch based on it.

It would seem to be a perfect match. There’s probably so many episodes of SCTV that it has to be in there, along with Ben Him and the story of Natalie Ringneck, the girl who was raised by geese.

Right at the buildup for the climactic finale, Harpy called. ‘What is it with Tyler Perry’ ‘What is it with hat hair?’ ‘What is it with…’ blah blah blah. Oh Harpy was in his ivory tower playing the snob. If he didn’t get it, if he was who it was aimed for, he deemed it inferior as are the people who enjoy such things.

He also had a ton of advice for me and this blog and what I should do about it. He did mention one thing and it struck a chord/ Basically this blog is like one of Harpy’s favorite books, The Andy Warhol Diaries.

And it’s true, that’s just one of the influences on this here blog. Andy was an influence on me and how I look at things, and I did get the Diaries when they first came out, and even have the Spy Magazine unofficial index yucked away inside. I just missed being included in page 689 of the hardcover, arriving after the incident happened and the books being sold out. I don’t write about it again so, I wrote about it here:

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Harpy droned on and whatever momentum I had gained while watching the movie soon petered out. I did watch some of the Paul McCartney: Good Evening New York City, a DVD and CD and book of Macca’s shows at Citifield back over the past summer.

It was a wonderful gift from Annemarie, Rex and Earl. As sweet as the cookies and brownies she sent. I offered to get a copy burned for her but she already got her own. I only watched the first 10 songs and want to watch the rest with Bill sometime soon.

2 pairs of eyes will come in handy trying to find Annemarie & Earl, Julio & Stine and Bill & myself in the stands.

What? It could happen.

Apparently they handed out flip cameras to people in the audience for the recording and you never know, maybe somebody was walking by and caught the six of us doing whatever it was we were doing that night. I honestly don’t remember.

I heard from Casey Chasm, calling with holiday greetings and an update on his life. He seems to be going ahead and joining the army. For the insurance, for he and the missus and the baby. To me it seems drastic, but it’s not my life. I’d rather he didn’t need to enlist, but I support his decision. So good luck to him, Pvt. Chasm.