Category Archives: Iron my Shirt

Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds

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It’s back to work for most, and another day with less people around for those of us between jobs, or to put it less delicately- unemployed. It’s now raining out quite hard making me glad that whatever I had to do today, I got it done before the downpour.

I did laundry, ran around midtown looking for a photograph of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dancing in ‘Top Hat’. It’s for one of the occupants of the offices at the old job. Owner of the company is a multi millionaire and I was asked by his assistant to find the photograph and get it blown up for his mansion in Palm Beach.

Fred & Ginger

I didn’t mind, but Jerry Ohlingers’ once of west 3rd Street by Bleecker Bob’s, then on 14th Street is now on 35th Street. At this rate they will be across the street from the Apollo in a number of years. But I couldn’t find that exact picture and they suggested Movie Star News on 18th Street which was closed today, presumably for Yom Kippur.

So I will have to try tomorrow. Weather permitting.

I spoke with my sister in law Elaine today. She was off of work due to the Jewish holiday. It was an unexpected and fun chat. She was thinking about seeing Leon Russell yesterday but she was a fan of his back in the day. I emailed her some pics of ol’ Father Christmas and since she didn’t see them, not being at work, I told her about them which really isn’t the same thing as seeing them.

And since a picture is worth a thousand words, and I sent her 4 pictures…well, do the math.

One of the things that came up was my brother Frank. I don’t know if I mentioned it in an earlier post, but one thing I told him in my Beatle remastered euphoria was the fact that there was a slight jealousy regarding the Fabs.

It was also an attempt to boost his ego.

I told him that I was envious that he was aware of the Beatles releasing new records back then, and when I started listening to them, they were history and nothing new was going to come from them as a group, only as individuals which as you may well know, is not quite the same.

It was just something that came into my mind as I was riding the bus into the city. Just odd little transient thoughts that take up temporary quarters in my mind. So things seem to be back to normal, which is so loosely defined in my world.

Not like ‘Next to Normal’ the Broadway musical about a woman who’s having a nervous breakdown. People apparently leave the theater very depressed and not singing a happy tune. Not the show for me to see though it did win a couple of Tony awards I think.

I myself happy that I haven’t won any Tony’s. I don’t have a mantle to put them and wouldn’t know if I should get the mantle first or win the award first. Overall, I am content, not contentious. That was Saturday
and not today.

Day by Day

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It’s Wednesday I suppose. Overcast at that. Not much going on. The Beatles were all over the place today. Except in Tunes, the local record store where all they had were the old discs.

I wasn’t going to buy any since I had everything already, plus the Beatles have enough of my money already. I’ve owned their stuff on vinyl (both LP & 45’s), cassette and CD.

I was most interested in the mono releases but their only available as part of a boxed set. You see up until the White Album, the Beatles were most involved in mixing their records in mono.

Stereo was more popular in the US and after the mono mixing, the Beatles would go home, leaving the stereo mixing to the production staff.

From what I heard it’s supposed to sound amazing but not being much of an audiophile I probably wouldn’t be able to tell the difference, despite the rave reviews from Mojo and Uncut as well as a few other publications.

Don’t get me wrong, if someone came and gave me a copy of Revolver I wouldn’t turn it down. Tunes did have the re-release of the Feelies first two records, Crazy Rhythms and The Good Earth.

I will probably pick up Crazy Rhythms sooner or later. From what I heard, there’s a live show from the 9:30 Club in DC that Andy, the former sound guy at McSwells recorded and mixed.

Last night Bill sang the National Anthem for the third time before the NY Liberty game at Madison Square Garden. This time it was certainly different. More stringent security, passes needed, a wave of the wand.

Our assigned intern, Mike led us through the passageways of the Garden setting us up in the Press Room. Previous years we had a dressing room so Bill could change his clothes and do some vocal exercises beforehand.

Intern Mike had left us so Bill asked if there was a space where he could practice. It turned out Mike wasn’t supposed to leave us in the Press Room and a guy named Rick brought us to where we were supposed to be.

An empty room close to the basketball court.

There was someone’s things in there already, but Bill and I didn’t pay it any attention. He changed his clothes and did his warm ups. We were pretty much comfortable there when I heard a knock on the door.

I opened it and there were a few women. Groupies? I thought, but no, they were supposed to be in there and not us. So we were shuffled along to yet another room, and waited to be called up.

I once again recorded Bill singing on camera. That was done in a low key manner since Cablevision likes to control everything that goes on under their roof. I had an all access pass so I was able to walk around the basketball court.

Bill sang quite well once again and got an nice round of applause. As we headed back to our seats a few people stopped him and told him was a good job he had done. We sat with Bill’s boss and a few co-workers.

The NY Liberty were getting trounced and Bill and I made a hasty exit at half time. Just in time to miss the Jon Benet Ramsay types on the court screeching Somewhere Over the Rainbow.

A nice ride home, ordered some pizza from Grimaldi’s and just chilled out for the rest of the night. That’s it, plain and simple.

Here’s Bill again from last night, singing the National Anthem.