Monthly Archives: December 2009

Oliver’s Army

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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:

Here She Comes Now

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.

Wet Job

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Last night was quiet. No Juan showing up. Apparently he was sick. Bill came home and he was sick. He had a nasty cold. Quite miserable. I was glad to help him with his coat and hat and back pack. He settled down and then was off to bed where he didn’t sleep comfortably.

A stuffed up nose and an apnea mask do not make for a good night’s sleep. I didn’t stay awake much later than that and soon settled in for an uncomfortable sleep myself. Many crazy dreams which I wrote about for your annoyance or amusement.

The first dream I wrote about concerned my mother and my brother Brian attending a function that involved President Barack Obama. In the dream there were a few dozen Americans all picked to attend an event in New York City.

Buses were called for and my mother, brother and I were assigned to Michelle Obama’s cousin. We sat with her through the event and found her to be most pleasant and very pretty.

That was one of the later dreams before Bill kissed me goodbye for the day and after I woke up for some water and aspirin since I had a terrible dehydrated headache that wouldn’t go away.

After Bill split I fell asleep where I dreamed I was working at the now closed Virgin Megastore in Times Square. Martin Kelly showed up with some cash for the box as we were about to sell tickets for The Cure which were going on sale for $185.00 a pop.

I checked the voice mail and heard a message of Ann Boyles listening to a voice mail of her husband Pat Paterson. Then I was behind the customer service desk when up comes the late German artist Joseph Bueys. He was surprised that I recognized him.

He was carrying a large stuffed banana and asked me if the book he was buying would be allowed on his flight back to Germany. It was a book about Animal House and he remarked that German television could probably learn a few things from the book.

Then I tossed and turned and found myself in a different dream, a different part of Manhattan.

It seemed I was a back up dancer for Wham, George Michael’s former band. How that happened I don’t know but I do know I was not that good a dancer and spent most of my time offstage chatting with other stage personnel.

I eventually walked off stage and went to the lobby which turned out to be the Knitting Factory which moved to 52nd Street and Third Avenue. Jane Scarpantoni was there singing along to Scritti Politti’s Cupid & Psyche ’85 while sitting next to Rand.

I then woke up and had some more water to rehydrate myself. I didn’t have that busy a day and wandered around Hoboken again, taking my time to walk around various lakes of slush that appeared at various corners.

I saw Todd from McSwells and said hello to him. He said something in return but I couldn’t say what it was he was saying. Maybe I’m banned from McSwells, maybe he wished me some Happy Holidays.

I also saw Ira from Yo La Tengo and chatted with him on the street. I commended him on the song Quiet Hours from the Dark Was The Night compilation. He gave me the lowdown on that, telling me it was originally from Snapper, a guy from New Zealand.

Yo La Tengo just returned from a tour of Asia which went well. I also told him I enjoyed Adventureland and that Yo La Tengo’s music was fitting, especially since the male lead, Jesse Eisenberg looked like Ira Kaplan from back in the day. He giggled and then we parted way, each of us wishing a very happy holiday to the other.

I would like to thank Andy Savva for sending me the mp3 of Fingerprintz ‘Wet Job’ last night. He’s a Prince that Andy, cheers to him!

I played the track several times last night and walked around Hoboken with it on repeat on my iPod. Nothing like a song about espionage and murder sung in a Scottish burr to make a walk enjoyable.