Monthly Archives: June 2008

Bamboo Banga

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Another hot day. Right now in the apartment the thermometer says 94 degrees. On TV it says 91. I am sweating profusely wearing only boxer shorts. A thrill for some, much needed for comfort. It’s drizzling right now, barely. It’s drying rapidly. Bad news for drivers and the cost of gas.

Scooters are in now. And there’s a prediction that by July 4, a barrel of oil will hit $150.00, translating to $5.00 for a gallon of gas. ‘I got some downers and speed, all the drugs that you need, but I can’t get a gallon of gas’ sang Ray Davies in the 1980’s.

Juan was here for a spell last night. He looked great, showing off his new American Apparel shorts. He lost weight but he didn’t seem to agree. I fed him some pasta and chicken and we watched the last episode of Lost on the DVR. Always good to have him around. Lost was good, saw some things I missed the first time around. Juan seemed to enjoy it too.

Around 9:00 he headed back to Trenton. I watched a documentary on Glenn Gould which was only an hour then watched the last half of Hannah and Her Sisters. I was asleep by 11:30 and sleep soundly under two fans blowing at top speed.

Woke up and went out. It wasn’t that hot at 8:30, only in the 80’s. No run ins at the bagel shop and I was soon back in my apartment wearing my third t shirt of the day and it was only 9:30. I watched a 2 hour documentary on Atlantic Records, or more specifically, all about Ahmet Ertegun. Only a mention or two of Arif Mardin so that was disappointing. Kid Rock was talked about more than Arif.

It was a very fast 2 hours though. Mick Jagger, Jimmy Page, and Robert Plant were just a few of the talking heads besides Aretha, Ben E. King and Solomon Burke. After that I watched Almost Famous again. Still a very good picture, surprised it didn’t do as well as I thought it did according to wikipedia. I think Cameron Crowe as well as many many others really identify with music on an intense level. I know I do.

After Almost Famous, my usual Sunday walk to mail the Netflix dvd’s. It was really oppressive, so much so that I was feeling woozy despite drinking a lot of water and having a couple of bottles on me. I wound up sitting by the river, trying to catch some breezes off the water.

I couldn’t focus to read a book and all I could do was just sit there and stare across the river. That’s never happened before. I remember about 10 years ago it was even hotter and I wound up riding my bicycle to Prospect Park, where it was too hot to even wear a light shirt.

Now today, it was difficult to walk down the street without feeling a bit dizzy and I was in the shade. I’m better now, back home and sitting in the dark. Nice. Tomorrow promises to be more of the same until later in the week, temperature-wise.

Wild Honey

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Man it is HOT outside. The weather forecasters were correct. It’s bloody hot. August hot. It’s not even summer. Lucky people are down the shore, though whats the point if the water is too cold and it probably is. Right now it’s 93 according to the New York Times, or rather the guy that’s climbing up outside the Times building today. Tomorrow they’re saying 100 degrees.

Last night was nothing special. No reunited bands from the seventies doing a free show at the South Street Seaport. Came home, took a nap which meant I missed Meghan and Jim’s daughter play a Battle of the Bands, Lily’s band was called Bye Bye Box. I half heartedly committed to it when I saw Jim Mastro the other day. And once I woke up I was somewhat groggy and passed on seeing Sexpod at McSwells. Alice and Karen from Gutbank’s other band.

I watched a recording of Stephen Sondheim’s Company instead. I do love Sondheim and next weekend on Father’s Day I’m seeing Sunday in the Park with George with my brother Frank, his wife Elaine and their daughters Meghan and Corinne. Meg’s husband Rob, isn’t coming for some reason. Or maybe he will and I’ll have to forfeit my ticket. I’d be willing for a price.

Frank and I were planning on seeing Company on Broadway last year, but then I had my meltdown, Frank had a stroke and Company didn’t win any Tony awards so the show closed a week later. It’s available on DVD, but as much as I enjoyed it, there’s a really good documentary on the recording of the original cast album from the early seventies that is also available on DVD from Netflix at least.

Went to bed after reading some more of David Sheff’s Beautiful Boy about his son’s methamphetamine addiction. Sad and harrowing, doesn’t make for a beach read which is just as well since I’m not at the beach. David Sheff is the guy who interviewed John and Yoko for Playboy magazine back in 1980, which is what I was reading on December 8, 1980 when I heard of John Lennon’s murder.

Still a mind fuck 28 years later. Much like the way people remember where they were when they heard John F. Kennedy (or Robert Kennedy 40 years ago), I remember the night of Lennon’s assassination all these years later. But I wrote about that before.

Definitely a scary book David Sheff has written. I don’t know how I would have handled having a son addicted to crystal meth. It is the scourge of the gay community still, and responsible for the rise in HIV infections in the 20-30 year old range of young gay men. Reading the book I find myself gripped by the thought of beating the shit out of the kid, which is how I would have been dealt with if I was a meth addicted kid to my parents.

That’s the first instinct, which is probably why it’s a good thing I’m not a parent apparently. And also a good thing that I don’t go to gay clubs and discos. The reason for that is I can’t stand the bump bump bump of club music. I had to go to the office today to sell 2 air conditioning units. I didn’t hear anything last night and figured that nothing was going to be done, but this morning I got a call from Hayne, the woman I spoke to about it today.

The original plan was to meet up at the office at 10:00AM. She phoned at 9:15. We arranged for 11:00 instead which was fine by me. I got on the bus which was soon crowded, some old geezer sat next to me. I thought I made it so my iPod earphones were wound up and not in anyone’s way, or my way. Got up to get off at the bus terminal, the geezer was sitting on the cord, effectively destroying my earphones.

Oh how I wanted to garrote him with the cord as he walked down the stairs in front of me.

I had Radio Shack headphones as back up and where they used to suit me just fine, now they’re cumbersome and heavy and annoying. Spoke with Julio about where he bought the original set, he tells me he bought them online. I would have bought them wherever they would have been on sale, but they’re nearly impossible to get them retail wise. Heard from some guy named Robert who told me he worked for Hayne and was on his way to get the AC units.

An hour later he still hadn’t arrived. I did a reverse lookup for his number and it was listed as the drag queen restaurant Lucky Chengs. 30 minutes later there’s an unshaven drag queen outside my office. I gave him a quick ‘how to’ on the units and he seemed to grasp the concept, then I helped get the units down to a taxi. I couldn’t help but feel I scammed Hayne and the drag queen but I hadn’t.

In any event, they have my cell number and my email address and it’s been a few hours so I guess everything is working just fine. Did some laundry somehow with low water pressure and got a haircut. That’s been my day thus far.

Rand has been fairly active, posting super 8 films years ago that were made by Martha Keavney. Here’s another one, ‘The Making of The Love of Two Women’. A lot of people really liked this one when we had shown it at McSwells all those years ago. I hope you do too.

Let me know what you think will ya?