Interesting Things as of Late | johnozed

After the past two days, going out and actually doing things, Sly & the Family Stone and the Chelsea art galleries, today I didn’t do much of anything. Last night I just watched TV, and edited photos that were posted in the Photos Page. Saturday Night Live had the best of Will Farrell on so that was funny, and that was followed by a repeat of the Jack Black episode of SNL at 11:30. Neil Young was the musical guest which made it interesting. I think it was their holiday show from 2005 then it was time to sleep. I woke up not hearing any jack hammers and I was grateful. Puttered around the apartment, called Julio to see if he and his baby’s mama wanted any bagels. They did and I dropped them off outside their door before sealing myself off in the apartment.

Read the papers, then I watched the rest of Super Bad which I watched partially on Saturday. It was ok, not as hilarious as I had hoped or I was told. It did have it’s funny moments though. Seth Rogan was hot in a uniform that’s for sure. I logged into IMDB for some info on the movie, and read the bulletin board. I was surprised at the reactions to the main protagonists declaring their love for each other while drunk. Nothing homoerotic nor homosexual but wow were these guys freaked out. I found it amusing and annoying at the same time. Ultimately I was disappointed with the movie though.

I also had the Story of Stax Records which was pretty good. Great footage and stories from Memphis. It’s funny, sometimes when I play bass I imagine myself to be Donald ‘Duck’ Dunn from the MG’s. Not that I can play as well as him, but it’s easy to lose yourself in his bass playing and seeing how deeply he is into it. The Stax story turned out badly though Stax Records has been revived yet again. In the extras there was a clip of a rehearsal with Booker T and the MG’s, Issac Hayes, David Porter and Sam from Sam and Dave among others.

That was pretty cool seeing the survivors getting together again. I know Jim Stewart passed away as well as his sister Estelle Axton who started the label in the early sixties, not having any idea what they were doing. Stax got screwed by Atlantic Records, when Stax didn’t read the fine print on their distribution contract and it turned out Atlantic owned all the records Stax was creating and Atlantic was distributing. Typical record business shenanigans, putting it nicely.

I guess I didn’t win tickets to go to London to see Led Zeppelin. I’m sure I would have known by now, considering the show is tomorrow. It’s a tribute to Ahmet Ertegun, founder of Atlantic Records. You can bet no Stax artists would be taking part in the tribute. Jerry Wexler is the only one from the Atlantic hierarchy still alive these days. He’s also Andy Partridge from XTC’s father in law. Somehow it all comes together and gets tied up under a nice red bow.

Hopefully you’ve checked out the photos page…..any comments?

Well so far it has been a pretty good Saturday. Just finished editing a load of pictures that I had taken while roaming the art galleries of Chelsea. I was so tired after seeing Sly and the Family Stone last night, and it wasn’t being wiped out from the hi energy funk of Sly, because there was no energy at all. I guess we were all standing on the verge of getting it on, to quote George Clinton and Funkadelic. I neglected to mention when Sly said into the mike, “I’m an old man and I gotta pee.” Awesome!

I think Pete Townshend said it best about a great rock and roll concert, you forget for a few moments who and where you are, and I know that’s happened to me only a few times. Offhand I can think of a couple, once with REM at McSwells and twice with Me’ Shell Ndegeocello, and of course Paul McCartney, but that was more than likely Beatlemania. Sorry, Ringo but it didn’t happen when I saw you at Bryant Park a few years ago. It didn’t happen last night, no fault of Chaz, who was great company, or rather I was his company and hopefully I lived up to whatever expectations he might have had. Ready to shake some booty, we wound up deprived and left funkless.

Just standing for a few hours wiped me out and definitely had no problem sleeping last night. I was awoken by the sound of jackhammers working two doors down again, I doubt they’ll be working on Sunday, at least I hope. Today I obviously got up, had coffee and didn’t shave again then went out and interacted with the world via commerce. Saw Linda at the supermarket who reminded Annemarie of our grandmother, not that I would remember, she is always a pleasure to deal with. Just wanted to mention that. She says hi and that she’s doing fine. Then I settled down for a nice breakfast, read the papers then I got started on the laundry. I watched a Robert Greenwald documentary about Halliburton called Iraq For Sale. Quite good and terribly infuriating. We’ve been fleeced and we are all wearing the blue dress.

Tomorrow was promising to be be cold and wet so today would be the day to go out and do something. I decided to go to Chelsea and see the Banksy exhibition. He’s an artist (he’d probably deny that) from the UK, who is selling some of his stuff here. As I was getting ready to go I get a phone call from Pedro inviting me up to Otisville to watch the boxing match tonight. I love it when he calls. He usually says ‘Whats up Negress?’ but lately it’s been ‘Ayo bitch’ I say ‘What’s going on fuckhead?’ That’s generally how our conversations start and finish though today I just called him an idiot and hung up. I headed out the door and headed to the bus stop.

There I got a call from Julio who was sitting in a car watching me, but wouldn’t say where he was. Mr. Funny and Unnerving he was. Got me laughing while trying to figure out where he was. I hung up once I got on the bus, neglecting to call Julio an idiot and settled into the seat with the most leg room in the back so my legs would be properly accommodated. Yes I had it like that this afternoon. Walked down to 27th street and got in line to see the Banksy show. It was a small place so they were only letting people in four at a time once four others had left. I saw what I needed to see and took a few pictures, setting me off to go camera crazy and wind up visiting a few other galleries in the area eventually taking 143 pictures.

I was headed back home a little while after that, tired again from all that walking around, yet I was happy I got out and about and saw some new exciting things. I got to do that more often, perhaps one Saturday a month, just head into the city and check out galleries. I used to do that a lot. It’s great to see what other people are doing from around the world, get some ideas, some inspiration. It’s like volunteer work for the soul, though I guess that would depend on the art.

Here are some pics. I’ll be posting others in the Photos Page listed on the right…..

What I woke up to…