Category Archives: So how’s band camp?

Sunday’s Best

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Argh, Sunday night. After four days off there is a feeling of dread in going back tomorrow. And there’s no need for it, since I enjoy this job. I’m sure it would be different if Bill was here, but he’s not on this cold rainy evening.
I wish he were here, but I must carry on. Didn’t do much today due to the weather. Yesterday would have been the day to do something but I stayed local. No trip to Manhattan, just a walk to the post office.

I did find the scarves I’ve been looking for, and of course I found them after buying a scarf on Thanksgiving morning in the city while waiting for Bill and his mother outside of Grand Central Station.

Last night I watched Tropic Thunder, which was very good, very witty. Turns out I didn’t have Hancock, the Will Smith movie. That’s next in the Netflix queue. Tropic Thunder was basically a movie about a making a movie, which I thought was along the lines of The Stunt Man, a movie from the early 1980’s starring Peter O’Toole, Barbara Hershey and Steve Railsback. Similar concept, different plots, or plotz.

I watched the director’s cut last night, the commentary with Ben Stiller, Jack Black and the great Robert Downey Jr., who is certainly one of the best actors around today, playing a blond haired blue eyed Australian who undergoes a darkening of his pigmentation so he can play a role written for a black man.

It did sag in bits, but then again it was the director’s cut, not the theatrical release which had most of the fat trimmed off. But as Downey’s character says in the movie that he doesn’t step out of character until the DVD commentary, he does his commentary in character, to the amusement of Stiller and Black.

After that I watched bit’s and pieces of Saturday Night Live as well as Escape from the Planet of the Apes which I used to love, now I was surprised that I was able to sit through it then because there was an awful lot of dialogue and really cheap sets.

Then again, I wasn’t able to see it in the theater since I was too young so I had to wait for it to be shown on broadcast TV. I think the only one I saw in a theater was the fourth Ape movie, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes.

They never showed the Apes movies nearby, it seemed they only showed them in Passaic, which was too far and too rowdy for me to go alone let alone ask someone else to go and get their parents to drive us. Paramus was closer and within walking distance and had a few theaters.

This afternoon I finally got around to watching Wall-E which was as charming and cute as I had been told. Harpy likened it to old school cartoons from the 1920’s, not much dialogue- you need to follow the plot by watching the action and figuring out various bleeps and whirrs.

But it’s not all bleeps and whirrs and watching it on DVD affords the luxury of reading subtitles. It’s funny, when I sat don a few minutes ago I was saying to myself I don’t want to write, but here I am twenty minutes later and basically finished with tonight’s entry.

And I just got a call from Rand who is going to be dropping off my computer in a few minutes. Oh how torn I am, using Bill’s Mac and finally getting the right commands down to going back to Ol’ Dusty.

Which is sort of like Bill’s Mac being EVE and Ol’ Dusty being Wall-E.

Yeah- that makes sense.

Danny Says

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Well for me it’s been a busy day somewhat. I stayed up until 12:30 last night just reading the New Yorker. Harpy was right, last week’s issue is really good. Mainly all about the election, both sides and it’s totally engrossing. I was looking forward to sleeping in, but neglected to turn off the alarm on my cellphone.

I have an alarm that goes off at 6:45AM, Monday through Friday to remind me not to forget my phone. I forgot to turn it off so at 6:45 this morning I heard it going off, forcing me to get out of bed to shut it off. Oh the agony…Still I was able to go back to sleep, but it just wasn’t the same. Poor me.

I usually go out for bagels on days off but this morning I stayed in and had my Post Raisin Bran and coffee like I do every working day. Read the Daily News online and set about doing the laundry. Chatted with a few friends from around the world online and watched Lady Be Good on Turner Classic Movies.

It was a 1940’s musical about an on again/off again couple who writes songs. She does the lyrics and he does the music and they write hits and love each other but…. The songs were by George and Ira Gershwin so they were superb of course and the movie starred Eleanor Powell and Robert Young. It was a good way to pass the time while I got ready to run into the city to pick up my suit.

It was cold and sunny in Manhattan. Quite a few people out at 1:30, the ending of lunch time. Bryant Park is almost set up with it’s outdoor enclosed stores and the ice skating rink is free and fully operational.

I’m not one for ice skating despite several attempts in my childhood. There were mainly two places to ice skate, one was in Rochelle Park and the other was in Paramus. Parents would drop off a few kids and drive off leaving the kids out in the cold on the ice.

Sometimes change was given for hot chocolate, sometimes not. I never could get the hang of ice skating and would generally slide around on the ice with my blades perpendicular instead of the way they should be. Murder on the ankles though.

I didn’t like it much and it prevented me from roller skating. Skateboarding was a lot easier I felt, though I mainly skateboarded from point A to point B. No steep hills, no empty swimming pools or half pipes for me.

I did run into the office and the people that saw me were surprised. I just told them I wasn’t really there and chatted for a minute or two and grabbed my suit. Soon I was on the street lighting up a Padron and headed towards Bill’s office. He wasn’t there since he was at his sadistic chiropractor and hadn’t gotten back yet.

Finished the cigar as I walked into the bus terminal where I found a bus waiting for me. Back in the apartment, I threw on some dress shoes and a business shirt and brought the suit to the tailor. He said the only thing that needed to be mended was the trousers.

I also told him that I wanted buttons for my braces. I hate wearing belts and I think once you wear braces you don’t want to wear anything else. Or at least I don’t, so all my suit trousers have buttons for my suspenders. The jacket fit just right.

Now it’s a cold Friday night. I don’t mind. Just hanging out mainly like I always do. Plenty to read, eat and drink and maybe even something to watch on TV.

I also have some DVD’s, Wall-E which was out earlier this summer and got really good reviews and also Too Tough to Die: A Tribute to Johnny Ramone. That should be interesting.

According to the other DVD’s on the Ramones, he was a tough taskmaster with entrenched right wing views, but if it wasn’t for him, the Ramones wouldn’t have lasted as long as they did.

Last minute add: Maurice Menares is alive and well living in Portland and working for Adidas. He can probably be found through http://linkedin.com which is used more and more these days to maintain and exploit business contacts.