Posts Tagged ‘Maurice Menares’

Together Now

Friday, June 5th, 2009

First off, Bill’s appearance on the Late Show with Jimmy Fallon was less than 10 seconds, a still photo at the first break of Bill in Saudi garb draping a gold chain around Jimmy Fallon’s neck. No lines, no live action but still quality face time

Jimmy Fallon with Saudi Bill

Jimmy Fallon with Saudi Bill

8:00 and it’s been a lazy, do nothing Friday. Raining all day. A nap was taken and laundry was done. That’s about it. No word from Juan so I don’t know if he’ll be around tonight or tomorrow.

Chances are he’ll text me around 9:30, aiming to stop by around 11:00 which may or may not be too late for me. The nap might have made it possible, if it was actually a restful nap and it wasn’t. So roll your eyes because I’m about to do the iPod shuffle.

Sini Lindile- from The Indestructible Beat of Soweto
I originally got this record from Jet. The album is an above average collection of South African songs, specifically Soweto. Amazing songs. This is the record I was playing with years ago and when I told a certain person I had respected he shot me down telling me that once had to be a professional musician to play this stuff. Like the South African musicians themselves who more than likely weren’t that professional. Anyway the guy was a dyed in the wool hypocritical punk rocker who became what Ann Boyles called a Jazz Queer. Stupid Knappy Wolf.

Rocky Raccoon- The Beatles
From the White Album. One of my most fun memories of this song is from being upstairs, above McSwells in someones apartment after hours, drinking and smoking and gossiping after hours and surprising Maurice Menares with my spot on imitation of Paul McCartney’s monologue at the beginning of the song. It’s a nice, fun song that most everyone loves.

Border Song (Holy Moses)- Aretha Franklin
A very good soulful take from the Queen of Soul covering the Queen of Rock. From the early 1970′s and probably one of the first artists covering a song by Elton John and Bernie Taupin. The first time I heard Elton’s original was around Christmas time 1974 when my neighbor Barbara Williams received Elton John’s Greatest Hits. Nice Arif Mardin arrangement, but not one of my favorite Elton songs, though Aretha’s version is just fine.

On A Plain- Nirvana
The first time I became aware of Nirvana was not when I was working the door when Nirvana were playing McSwells on a Thursday night, but rather years later driving up with William Charas from visiting our friend Connie in the Highlands. It was night time and Smells Like Teen Spirit came on the radio. That was fantastic and miles away from the band that looked like carnival workers playing in Hoboken on a Thursday night.

Night Time- Brian Wilson
From Brian Wilson’s first solo album, the one that was executive produced by his shrink, Dr. Eugene Landy. I liked it a lot as did Suzanne, the red haired beauty who worked at Pier Platters as well as Sonic Youth. This album isn’t looked on that favorably by Brian Wilson hardcore fans, but I like it. I last saw Suzanne when I acted like an idiot and asked her if Beck was really a Scientologist. Suzanne was on Beck’s tour that year. She said yes and I said ‘Oh No!’ in too high a register, effectively making me look like a moron. I liked Suzanne and I’d hate to think her last memory of me is mouthing off on Court Street and First Street in Hoboken, but that’s how it goes I guess.

All Together Now- The Beatles
Sometimes I edit the shuffle when an artist appears twice. But I’m too lazy today. This is from Yellow Submarine, specifically the Songtrack from 1999. It’s a good intro to the Beatles and features all the sings from the movie whereas the original soundtrack from the 1960′s had only 5 or 6 songs on side one, side two going to George Martin’s score for the movie. The Beatles also appear live in the movie introducing the song.

Rebel Waltz

Thursday, December 18th, 2008

Well I am in a much better mood, still angry with the Obama team though, and with him, himself. Today he commented on the Rick Warren pick for the invocation and one particular ting that Obama said stuck I my craw.

He mentioned that we can disagree without being disagreeable. That’s all well and good.

For me to disagree is like this, “I support same sex marriage” someone else, “I do not support same sex marriage”. To me that is how people disagree as an example.

Disagreeable could be seen as “I support same sex marriage” someone else, “I think same sex marriage is just like bestiality, child rape and incest between a brother and a sister”.

This is the reasoning that Barack Obama uses to explain why he picked Rick Warren to say the invocation for his inauguration.

Where is this atmosphere that Obama speaks of that he would like to create? What type of atmosphere could exist between a group of people that love each other and want the SAME RIGHTS THAT HETEROSEXUAL COUPLES GET, and a group that says that we are going to molest their children, we can’t be trusted to teach in schools, we spread disease (thanks Dad) and we are all going to hell.

One group advocates love and equality and another condemns and shames. What type of atmosphere will exist in such a vacuum?

It really is a sickening feeling that someone who actively courted the gay vote and dollars thinks it’s all right for Rick Warren to grace his inauguration. An inauguration that I worked towards, millions of people worked towards and donated money to. And then to hear from some ‘allies’ saying we’re making too much of a big deal out of it.

Obama’s people are claiming to be all inclusive. If that’s so, can we expect to see representatives from the Ku Klux Klan and Aryan Nation, maybe even some Black Israelites, and the Army of God up on the stage with Obama and Warren?

No we know that’s not what’s going to happen, because when you boil it down, it’s perfectly all right to treat LGBT like shit.

C’mon, it’s true. Everyone hates LGBT people, it’s the one thing christians, jews and muslims can all agree on. And atheists are hated too. I am doubly cursed!

The right wank is gloating over this of course, claiming liberals (read gays) are so intolerant of different views. I know it’s not the case, we just resent having our relationships compared to child rapists.

I ran into Casey Chasm on the bus this evening and he suggested that the whole Rick Warren fiasco is a distraction from the fact that the economy is getting worse than was originally imagined.

That may be true and it also maybe much like a Monty Python sketch where a door to door salesman is trying to get a couple interested in a home made TV show.

When the couple’s attention span is on the wane, a mollusk is tossed out described as a filthy, disgusting pansy which gets the couple riled up enough to curse and stomp on said mollusk.

So the economy is in the toilet and people are tired of hearing about it…hey, look! A homosexual! How disgusting is that? Something everyone can rally around and hate with all of their hearts and the justification of their religion to feel like that.

Much like religion was used all those years ago when it was against the law for Barack Obama’s parents to marry.

Obama’s people are saying that it’s a balance since Rev. Dr. Joseph Lowery is going to deliver the benediction at the inauguration.

Dr Lowery has long been a supporter of civil rights for ALL people whereas Rick Warren, aka Falwell in a Hawaiian shirt actively works to take civil rights away from certain people.

That is the face that the Obama administration wants to present. A balanced face like Bell’s palsy. Yeah, I am still pissed off.

The day wasn’t all about being fired up though. I heard from Maurice Menares and that was a good laugh. He’s in Oregon married with a kid. He’s doing well and working for Adidas.

He suggested looking him up if I find myself on the west coast. I mentioned Arcata and a sketchy plan of perhaps going out there for my nephew’s graduation next year. A side trip to Oregon, is it possible? It all remains to be seen.

I had to run an errand to Chinatown this afternoon and I finagled that into a detour to Farfetched where I picked up a present or two for Bill and some cards for the nieces and nephews.

There was also a plan to hook up with Pedro but he backed out due to the incoming snowstorm which is expected to leave a foot of snow in Otisville making his return home that much more difficult.

I was also supposed to go visit the Mastro’s where Ann Boyles is supposed to make an appearance like Mary on a half shell but I haven’t heard anything about that. So it’s all up in the air, but at least I am home and happy.

I would be happier if Bill were here driving me up the wall, but we do have a plan to take part in a demonstration on Saturday night for Marriage Equality. That could very well turn into an anti Rick Warren/No Thanks Obama rally.

It doesn’t look like Obama is going to do a thing about it and Rick Warren has congratulated Obama for taking a stand AGAINST the people that voted him into office. A stand against the LGBT community, women, and science.

After eight fucking years of having the religious right shoved down our throats, Obama’s people decide to open the show with a nutjob with left over, reheated bull fucking shit not that different than James Dobson, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson and the shit sleaze they had to say.

Remember, according to Falwell and Robertson, 9/11 was a reckoning for LGBT people and women having the right to choose. Meet their devil spawn, Rick ‘Purpose Drivel Strife’ Warren.

Hell hath no fury like an LGBT community/women/scientific community scorned.

Writing on the Wall

Wednesday, November 19th, 2008

I just saw Eddie Love on the street. That’s not his real name and I don’t know what his real name is. His DJ name is Eddie Love though. We’ve been in the same universe of Hoboken and actually 20 years ago we were cordial to each other. We never competed with each other as DJ’s. He spun at the Beat n’ Path and I was spinning at McSwells.

Nowadays we pass each other on the street and neither one of us has anything to say to the other. It’s just something interesting. I could have seen his real name since I last saw him the night I was helping to register voters. But I just couldn’t be arsed.

He was friends with Maurice Menares back in the day. Everyone was friends with Maurice. He was such a charmer and still is probably. Last I heard he was managing the Beastie Boys store in Los Angeles. I last saw Maurice when Julio and I went to see Beck at Radio City.

He was doing something for Beck and was great to see him. He’s such a sweetheart. So if he Googles himself, Maurice Menares is a sweetheart.

Right now I’m in a Facebook chat with my niece Hillary. She’s Brian and Karen’s eldest daughter, smart and pretty and she just made the honor roll. Right now I’m trying to convince her that if she ever runs out of things to read, she can always write.

She hates writing though. I can’t ever imagine hating writing. I’ve been doing it all my life. I have journals from past years scattered throughout the apartment. Some embarrassing stuff. Some written while sober, some written while high or drunk.

A lot of friends knew I wrote and felt I was a good writer despite never having read anything that I had written. And so when gifts were given to me they were generally blank books and I have a few of those. I always found blank books intimidating. A keyboard on a typewriter or a computer, I always found them more welcoming.

I once got a good grade in grammar school for an interview that I completely made up. It was with a barber friend of my father’s and it was a last minute, Sunday night homework assignment. I wound up writing about how his customers would talk to him, almost like he was a psychiatrist. Totally bogus yet I aced it.

Another writing task was quite inadvertent. It was Junior year of high school, the dreaded Algebra final. I struggled all year long and I was poised to fail the final. Letters I can handle, numbers I can manage mostly, but putting letters and numbers together just scrambled my brain. If y equals 99 and x equals 1/8 what is the answer?

Things like that would cause a meltdown. And I faced the Algebra final exam and it was all like that. All I felt I could do was to write an essay.

I just wrote about how I never understood this and I probably never will and I swore that I would never apply the lessons Sister Reginald taught in real life. And I also mentioned that summer school would achieve nothing, that my parents would more than likely kill me and that she was a good teacher, that it was just that I was a poor student.

I passed, or rather Sister Reginald let me pass. Social promotion- I benefited!

Pressure Drop

Thursday, July 31st, 2008

Jeezy creezy it’s hot. 90 degrees in the apartment, windows open with a slight breeze. Barometric pressure is falling. I sweat a lot. I change undershirts a few times a day. It’s pretty bad, but what can I do? It’s my body’s cooling system I don’t sweat and it’s ‘hello heat stroke’.

I get some strange looks from people on my way into the office. I guess most of them take the subway whereas I walk across town. I saw West Indian Tony who sweats behind a grill all day, he always gives me a bunch of paper towels to mop up my sweat.

I always keep an extra t shirt in the IT room which is very air conditioned all day and night. In fact I spend a few minutes in there throughout the day. Part of the challenge in walking across town is trying to avoid touching anyone.

There’s a lot of people and occasionally there are people heading towards you and vice versa. That’s when the mirror effect sometimes comes into play. It happened this afternoon, only instead of face to face I was turning a corner as some roly poly guy was walking straight ahead. I was in his path and he was in mine.

I moved, he moved. I hesitated, he hesitated. Fed up in 90 degree heat I decided to move ahead and thats when roly poly decided to do the same. Outwards went his gut and my right forearm was practically engulfed by his belly.

I was wearing the iPod so I didn’t hear his expected curse. Is a curse effective if it goes unheard? I’ve rubbed one or two bellies in my lifetime and this was nowhere as pleasant as that. It was an disconcerting experience and since it happened on a course I usually take, we will probably cross paths again, though it’s doubtful that I would remember what his face looked like, but that belly would not be forgotten anytime soon.

I put in notice that I would be out of the office next Thursday and Friday. I suggested getting a temp to work in my place but good old Greg Stevens replied that there was no one who could do my job, that I was irreplaceable. I responded that since he wrote that I would definitely be back the following Monday.

My brother Frank and his wife Elaine have rented a house on Long Beach Island and I plan on going down on Thursday and coming back on Saturday with them. It should be nice to get out of this metropolitan area for a day at least.

And I may or may not go to the beach with Julio on Sunday. Stine and Alexander have flown to Denmark to see her family and it was actually Stine’s idea that we would be able to go to the beach while they’re away.

I miss Alexander, I haven’t seen my little buddy in a couple of weeks. It’s amazing how I worry about him. Julio is going over to Denmark in a week or two, so if he wants to go to the beach that would be the time to go.

He was a bit wishy washy about this Sunday though, but left it open ended which gives me hope.

I also stopped by Barnes And Noble today and saw a book about Sonic Youth. I picked it up to see if anyone I knew was in there, and while there was no Bill Ryan there were a few entries for Maurice Menares.

here’s a link, courtesy of BettiCola with regards to my entries earlier this week
cut n’paste

http://www.9news.com/news/article.aspx?storyid=96741&provider=top

and here’s something that is just silly.