Monthly Archives: June 2008

Be My Girl – Sally

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I saw Allison Lee with her lovely son Hank. Allison I’ve known for years, she’s also born on September 12. Hank has sprouted up. Last I saw he was just crawling. They grow up so fast. It’s true. I know most of you don’t know who Allison Lee is, she’s a sweetheart and that is basically all you need to know. She’s also married or perhaps partnered with Pat Longo, who is also a sweetheart and he’s a friend of my brother Frank. McSwells peripheral people.

Also got a YouTube link from Cheryl Walsh. Cheryl used to live around the block from me in Weehawken with her late husband Don Brody and their 2 kids Perry and Molly. I knew Don Brody when my ex roommate, Jimmy Lee (no relation to Allison) played guitar in Don’s band, Cryin’ Out Loud. They were a Beat N’ Path band, not up to snuff at McSwells as a band but Don was always welcomed. I babysat for the kids once and was declared to be ‘Cooler than Coolio’. High praise indeed.

Perry has been taking piano classes at the Guitar Bar owned by Jim Mastro and Fred Smith. He’s gotten to be quite a handsome lad and has a great voice which you’ll see in the clip at the bottom. I bet the girls are all over him. He’s a big Beatles fan and you know that can’t be bad. Last night I finally watched Lars and the Real Girl. Very low key, but worth a look. Good acting all around.

I don’t believe I’ve seen Ryan Gosling in anything before, but for a former Mouseketeer he’s pretty good. Hard to describe the movie properly, a lonely guy gets an inflatable doll and falls in love with it. With her. But it’s more than that and not what you would expect I think. I showed Bill the clip of Fred Schneider of the B-52’s on the Daily Show which was pretty funny. Fred seemed a bit timid but I guess that may have been part of the act.Work was ok, though waking up was a drag. Busy at work, making me happy. Helped a former employee clean out her office and that was sad. She was let go at the end of April and it’s taken her this long to get her things in order. Bill stopped by the office. I’m trying to sell 5 portable air conditioners on Craigslist. Actually I’ve been trying since April and started at $300 for each unit, now it’s $175 or best offer.

Vivek said I could have one if I wanted but I offered it to Bill for his mother’s apartment in Stuyvesant Town. If you get a window unit they jack up the rent so a portable unit should go unnoticed. I introduced Bill to Greg Stevens and his wife Leslie who runs a Foundation in one of our offices. Greg was super nice and gave Bill a hearty handshake as did Leslie. Vivek was gregarious and mentioned that he’d seen Bill’s picture on my desk.

I showed Bill the unit that I was going to give him and urged him to research it, find out if there are problems that people may have posted online and maybe find a download of a manual since I don’t have one.

And also in the news, related to the end of last night’s posting, Opponents of the historic decision to make same-sex marriage legal in California failed to derail the June 17 start date when their petition to delay was rejected So if you have a same sex partner in California you can get married starting then. Should these douche bags vote against it in November it will be a mess. Between June 17 and election day in November, perhaps if many people get married they will learn that the sky will not be falling and then wake up to learn that there is absolutely nothing to fear at all.

And now, here’s Perry. I was gobsmacked when I first saw it. Still quite good.

There Is No End

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I love New York but I also love being able to get out of New York and back to the relative safety of Hoboken. It always amazes me the difference one river makes. Things in Hoboken are somewhat normal and quiet, whereas across the river it’s go go go all the time, no chance to rest.

There was a time where I would go out after work, drink, see a concert, do whatever and it didn’t matter what time I was finished with whatever it was that I was doing, the Path train runs all night and I didn’t mind waiting for the train at whatever time I happened to be in.

I didn’t like waiting in the bowels of the Port Authority though, after 1:00AM all buses leave through the basement and it’s horrible down there. Time crawls, and there’s no real escape, plus I was usually in an altered state which didn’t help the waiting at all. The scenes I used to frequent are over or changed, clubs have closed and things cost a lot more money now than they did then.

Funny thing is I make more money now, but then again my expenses have grown. No more cheap rent in Weehawken, lower rent than most in Hoboken and I have a job that’s not in the music business and they frown on coming into work hung over or still drunk from the night before. And everything is more expensive now that it was then. Even more expensive than it was last year.

I’m not complaining, that is just the way things are lately. Somethings I’ve noticed lately that I hadn’t noticed before, like the fact that so many young men are going bald and have taken that preemptive strike and shave their heads. Really, a lot of guys in their twenties are going bald. Was it like that in my twenties?

I wasn’t in danger of losing my hair at that age. Bill’s in his forties and that seems to be the ripe age to start to lose one’s hair. Just something I’ve noticed. No longer a stigma, the male pattern baldness, and they mostly shave it all off rather than assuming the role of Lord Comb Over.

One thing that has been driving me crazy is the Blackberry. A lot of people have them, I don’t and I don’t want one. What I do want to do is smack them out of people’s hands as they walk down the street not paying any attention to anything going on around them. They walk and stare at that two inch screen as if their lives depended on it.

Maybe their jobs depend on it, but to ignore everything that is going on around you is just insane in this day and age. Oh if I only had the cojones, which by the way is not a song cut out of the Wizard of Oz.

I have a feeling that another blackout will occur in New York City this summer. Just a feeling. I hope I’m wrong. And if I’m not wrong in the off chance, I hope it’s only a blackout, nothing worse though that is still pretty bad. That was a thought I had in my head last night as I lay in bed listening to Bill saw concrete as he slept.

I voted today, partly for the democratic machine, partly for an independent. We shall see how that turns out. I met the independent when she was handing out fliers at the Mother’s Day 5k run that Meghan and Rob participated in. So my fingers are crossed which makes typing difficult.

The haters have got the anti-same sex measure on the ballot in November in California. And a christian legal firm has sued to bar New York State from recognizing same sex marriages that were performed elsewhere.