Category Archives: Interesting Things as of Late

isn’t it all?

Telling Lies

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Last night Tricky played a show at Irving Plaza. I told Roda about it, and he set about trying to get on the guest list. Yesterday he called and let me know. Unfortunately I had to be in early this morning so I could not go. I told him around noon. I found out a little before that, that one of our subtenants was having a meeting early enough for the need for me to be in and help out.

Roda understood the need to make some dosh, and I wished him a good evening. Around 10:00 I get some texts from Roda. CD info on Tricky’s latest, and the fact he had just taken a consonant or perhaps a vowel. I’m supportive and slightly envious and wish him a good time and an ecstatic trip.

A half hour later I get a phone call, a blast of overloaded digital white noise from Irving Plaza. It lasted 44 seconds before the line went out. Roda did get backstage and spoke with Tricky and mentioned Central Park from a few years ago. (Written as The Ghost in You last month) They wound up hanging out, Roda even going to the after party at a club nearby. Roda didn’t get home until 3:00AM. Yikes.

I went to bed after watching Cotton Hill’s bland speech. I have to say that Sarah Palin’s screeching was more rousing for those republicans. Most attack dogs do command attention after all. But once again I only listened slightly to McCrazy, paid more attention to an early birthday present from Annemarie and Co., John Lennon Rock ‘n’ Roll.

His covers record, which came out in 1975 and the last record before retirement. Of course it has a history. Lawsuits, Morris Levy and Phil Spector and May Pang, John and Apple/Capitol Records, contracts, car crashes, missing tapes. It’s all in there. It did ok, made the top ten in the US charts. It was said that he had run out of material, hence it being a covers album, but at the time it was a fashion to do fifties and sixties songs, like David Bowie did with Pin Ups.

Speaking of the Dame, I watched a YouTube clip of David on the Dick Cavett Show from 1975. Young Americans, Luther Vandross, David Sanborn. I had that as a cassette. Only liked the title song and Fame. Young Americans opened the tape and Fame ended it.

I guess I played those 2 songs so much that the rest of the tape was reverse, leaving me able to only play those two songs. I didn’t much like Bowie then except for those songs. The ‘cool’ kids liked Bowie and they were all smoking pot at age 12. I wasn’t ‘cool’, not for another 8 years.

I starting liking him when he started to lose some popularity with Low. He was getting too far out there and that’s where I got it. Still wasn’t too fond of Ziggy et al. I saw him on Broadway in The Elephant Man though in 1980 I believe.

Had 1st row seats and of course he was mesmerizing. The people behind us gave him flowers at the end of the show and he thought they were from me and my friends and thanked us so graciously.

A lot of years pass and I find myself working at Right Track Recording on west 48th Street. David is one of our clients. He was super nice and extremely personable. Just one of the guys, sitting across from my desk chatting about whatever it was like we were mates. I did feel a little bit like Karen Lynn Gorney from Saturday Night Fever.

Then I saw him a few weeks later at Madison Square Garden. I had never seen Bowie live and of course he was amazing though he shared the stage with Lou Reed, Robert Smith, Billy Corgan and Dave Grohl among others.

It was a birthday celebration with the guests covering a Bowie song and then duets with the Dame. A wonderful evening but not really a David Bowie show I guess. A special event nonetheless.

The next time I saw him at the studio, I had changed my perception of him. He wasn’t David Bowie anymore. After seeing him live, I saw him as DAVID BOWIE. It was an odd thing that I had to get over, since being star struck is a no no in the recording studio world.

He thought enough of me to autograph an advance cassette of the record he was working on, Earthling, which of course is one of my favorite Bowie records. Actually he gave me his copy of the cassette, then took it back saying that he ought to autograph it for me. Awfully nice. Asking for autographs is also frowned upon by the way.

Still have it, in fact if I turn my head, it’s within eyesight. He finished Earthling soon after that. He did ask my opinion since he heard I was a DJ, who would I recommend from the DJ world to remix a track or two? I drew a blank and told him I would get back to him in a few.

I called Rand and asked him since he was wise in the world of remixes. He threw out a few names, Josh Wink and a few others. I went back to David and told him who might be good and he basically didn’t like most of the names. I gave up.

It wasn’t until maybe a month later, did I realize that I could have probably suggested myself. He wasn’t going to ask me, but perhaps thought I might have the edge, the nerve, the cojones to promote myself.
But no, I didn’t.

D’oh.

Sniffy Dame(video pulled by EMI)

Uncontrollable Urge

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Oh it was a scorcher today. 90 degrees. Me? I wore a long sleeved shirt for some odd reason. Didn’t go out much. On Thursdays I used to walk up to 57th street and treat myself to a Penne, Pesto and Chicken lunch. Well that place went out of business. Closed.

One week they were open, next week they’re closed. Maybe they didn’t know either. Rents on 57th street must be through the roof, perhaps that’s why they went out of business.

Today I tried a different place, same dish and it was so incredibly lackluster. The pasta was over cooked, more like cylindrical paste. It was cheaper than the now closed place, but it was a chore to finish it off.

Last night Bill came home and ate and went to bed soon after that. I had the republican convention on and let me tell you, I dislike Sarah Palin. No solutions, just attack attack attack. The republicans have no platform to forward, just more of the same. She’s a tacky thing that Sarah Palin. Also the put down of community organizers was in bad form.

Wasn’t Jesus a community organizer? And wasn’t Pontius Pilate a governor? Oh well, I guess when you have George Bush’s scriptwriters writing for you, you don’t have much say in what comes out of your mouth, or in Sarah Palin’s case, what goes into the mouth as well.

Even the republican talking heads have been heard commenting on how they think this is a cynical move by McCrazy and the choice of Sarah Palin was nothing but bullshit that could bring them down. One could only hope.

I chatted in a bitchy gay intellectual chat room during the runner up to Miss Alaska’s speech. Yes they were mean and bitchy and also very funny. More adept at ignoring the trolls than I am. I always go after the trolls.

Four years ago I was on fire, fighting a troll from Paramus in a chat room. My friends in the chat room kept telling me to ignore this mutton disguised as lamb, but I couldn’t let the filth go by without attacking. I like to think I learned my lesson and ignore the lesion.

I guess it will be like this until the election. I don’t see how some people could complain about the ‘liberal’ media when Brian Williams and his crowd are all sporting wood for Cotton Hill. Except for Katie Couric who is flashing high beams.

And once again The Daily Show and The Colbert Report have the best reporting on the convention as well as the campaign. Do yourself a favor and go to Comedy Central online and watch their full episodes. Do it! Do it NOW!

Tonight is finally the last night of the undertakers convention, I mean, the republican convention. So much sugar, and so few ants in the sugar bowl. I also have to give Julio and Stine their mail which means I might get to see Alexander. I heard he’s changed.