Monthly Archives: February 2013

I Stand Alone

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Another Saturday night and I ain’t got nobody. Well I do got somebody and that would be Bill but of course once again he is off driving to Atlantic City. He came home this morning, slept for a few hours and then after telling me about the general rudeness he gets from certain riders from certain quarters, he was packed up and ready to go. For me it’s been too cold to go out and do anything so I just mainly stayed in, sending out resumes and doing various things. I did go to the supermarket which wasn’t too traumatic like it has been.

It’s February, it’s the day after my brother in law Rex’s birthday as well as my neighbor Christine. On cable there has been a marathon showing of Bill Murray in Groundhog Day so that’s been on. It ends at 8:00 tonight so I guess I would have to find something else on to watch. In between all that there has been the resumes being sent out again and again. I do have a good feeling something good is going to happen so I just have to hang in there. Right now the 2 Tone movie Dance Craze is playing on YouTube.

I saw that at the Eighth Street Cinema back in the day with Jet. I of course was totally enraptured with it. Jet and I both liked it a lot but there was no dancing in the aisles like we had heard and I was too self-conscious to get up and start skanking with Jet. We both agreed that Dave Wakeling from the (English) Beat was very handsome, something I never really thought about with regards to any musician. I have maintained my 2 Tone roots through the years, listening to all that music and culminating in the faux Specials reunion in 2010.

I’m sure I wrote about it before but I remember the day I was in EJ Korvettes I bought the Specials first album, the same day I picked up the first Pretenders LP as well as a Stiff USA compilation of Wreckless Eric. Waiting at the Bergen Mall for the 44 bus to take me back to Lodi I struck a conversation with an elderly woman who inquired about the records I had purchased. She had never heard of any of the bands which came as no surprise. Those 3 records still loom large in my musical history, obviously if I am writing about over 30 years later.

So now Dance Craze is on audio wise and Groundhog Day is on with the volume off. I posted the YouTube Dance Craze linkage on my Facebook page and a few of my MiMB friends have expressed their pleasure with the 2 Tone thing. I can easily trace my later infatuation with reggae in the 1990’s to the 2 Tone days in the late 70’s and early 80’s. I read earlier today that The Selecter will be coming to the US this year and of course I will be there.

I saw an incarnation of The Selecter in the 1990’s but it did not have Pauline Black in their ranks at that time. Now she is back and I will definitely be there this time. Of course I hold out hope that the Specials would tour at the same time, perhaps sharing the bill but that could be too much chalice in the palace on my part if you know what I mean. An aging pseudo rude boy from the wrong side of the pond could dream can’t he?

I doubt if I’ll be wearing the shark skin suit like I did for the Specials reunion in 2010. That was something I had planned on doing since the beginning and having done it once there’s no need to do that again.
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Man At C & A

I Speak Because I Can

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Friday Friday, spent running around town. It was a nice day, if not cold. A trip to the bibliothèque, the supermarket nearby and a visit to the post office. Bill and I watched Lincoln the other night and I asked if he had ever seen My Left Foot. He hadn’t so I requested it from the bibliothèque, as well as Searching for Sugar Man, a documentary about Rodriquez, a singer from Detroit who had a record deal that went nowhere and after dropping out of sight, became a big star in South Africa of all places. I haven’t watched it yet, so that was gleaned from the DVD cover.

My Left Foot was the second movie I saw Daniel Day Lewis in, the first being My Beautiful Launderette, which I saw at Maxwells in the 1980’s when the wonderful Martha Griffin was running the film series. I remember seeing My Left Foot with Julio in Secaucus when it came out. Of course by the end of the film my bladder moved behind my eyes. I also saw my mother in the role played by Brenda Fricker in the role of Christy Brown’s long suffering and self-sacrificing mother. Irish stereotypes perhaps, but it did come out a few years before my mother shook off her mortal coil.

I also remember Catherine Cloud talking about how she couldn’t believe (though she did) that Daniel Day Lewis was the same actor, playing a mid 1980’s London punk in My Beautiful Launderette as well as a Victorian dandy twit named Cecil in A Room with a View. I did not see A Room with a View until a few years later when I was able to appreciate Catherine’s astonishment. And it is one of my favorite movies, definitely in my top twenty or thirty.

I did see Daniel Day Lewis once in Union Square Park in the 1990’s when wandering around with Julio one afternoon. He was alone and both Julio and I recognized him, not that he was disguised or anything. We thought we would tell him that we thought he was a great actor, but decided against it, leaving him alone to eat his lunch. No one else seemed to know who he was and I suppose going up to him and drawing attention probably would not be that good an idea. I do think he is probably the best actor working today.

Tonight I am home alone, Bill is driving once more, I think it is to Atlantic City. That is where he usually winds up, though last week was extra special, being an extra on Lawn Hors d’œuvre and driving a bus as part of the role. Of course I will write about when it is broadcast so you can clear your DVR of Cake Boss and Armenian Idol. I do have movies I can watch, and I am catching up on the New Yorker once again. And I have a few books to read that I got for Christmas as well as a book, ‘Suddenly, a Knock on the Door’ by Etgar Keret which is also on loan from the bibliothèque.
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Heartbreaker