Tag Archives: Bill

I Am Trying to Remember

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Man, the past 72 hours have been a gas gas gas. It’s been fun starting with seeing Ian Hunter and being with Meghan and Lily & Ruby, seeing Rand & Lisa and RoDa and Elly & Logan and Autumn. Then even going to work on Monday wasn’t so bad. It’s certainly getting easier to ignore Braindead, only speaking to him when I have to.

Then yesterday I met with Wally, a chap I once worked with at Golden Staffing. Over the weekend I decided to take a break from the stress of trying to find a new job, but as luck would have it, on Monday morning I saw a job listing sent to me with Wally’s name attached. I felt I had to send something out there and he replied rather quickly.

We arranged for a meet up before I met up with Bill yesterday. Since it was official, or so I thought, I wore a suit & tie. Bill was going to be in a suit and tie for his performance and he likes to see me dressed me and I of course was happy to oblige.

Wally expressed surprise since I was in a suit and tie, asking me why I was so dressed up if I was going to a baseball game. I told him about Bill singing the Star Spangled Banner and I explained that I thought this was an interview; after all I did fill out the standard application that most staffing agencies provide.

It was more like hanging out with Wally, him telling me the final days of Golden Staffing was a nightmare and the head cheese (I forgot what pseudonym I gave her) was really a bitchy pain in the tuchis. After a few minutes he introduced me to another woman who worked at Golden Staffing before I did.

It was all rather brief and relaxed and I was out of there in about 20 to 30 minutes. I made my way across town, headed to Penn Station and smoking a cigar. I was feeling pretty mellow when I met up with Bill. Bill was quite chill as well.

We boarded a train to Willets Point, where CitiField (I prefer Shea Stadium) is. It was about a 20 minute ride. It was sunny and breezy as we walked to the stadium. Much to my surprise there was no handicapped access which is the manner in which I travel lately, avoiding stairs and whatnot.

Bill kept alongside me as we made our way to the stadium. It was a bit of a bother to find the correct gate to go through but once we did we were comfortably situated in a nice dressing room, much nicer than where we have to wait before NY Liberty or NY Knicks basketball games.

We were soon on the field for Bill’s sound check which he performed admirably. We met a few officials from the Mets organization then it was back to the room where I left Bill for a few minutes (he stopped talking to save his voice) and I went outside to smoke a cigar.

I was complimented on my suit while I smoked and I thanked them kindly before heading back in. I was back in time to head out to the field again. No one said anything, no big deal if I was there recording Bill’s performance unlike Madison Square garden where it’s stand here, don’t do that.

After less than 2 minutes it was all over. Bill walked off the field to a standing ovation and I duly followed. Quite a few people complimented Bill on his singing, patting on the back as well as handshakes and fist bumps. After we got our things from the dressing room, we went to our seats where Bill’s friends Kirk & Pat were waiting.

Once again en route, many people congratulating Bill and telling him what a great job he did. I merely walked behind Bill and beamed. We met up with good old Mike Cecchini and his cousin after a couple of innings, a few laughs with them as well as a woman asking Bill to stand with her sons for a photograph. We all went back to our seats, Bill running to the upper decks to see some other friends.

We were basically in the same section that we were in when Bill and I, Annemarie & Earl and Julio & Stine when we saw Paul McCartney in 2009. We stayed for 9 innings. It went into extra innings since the Mets and the San Francisco Giants were tied 6-6. Kirk & Pat headed back to the Bronx and Bill and I headed to the subway.

Tried to get in touch with Mike Cecchini since he lives a block and a half away from us, but his phone was turned off. A long local 7 train ride was ahead of us, but we made it through, Bill leading the way to gate 323 in the bus terminal. We waited a short while for the bus and soon we were home after exchanging words with Todd Abramson from Maxwells. Who knew he was a Giants fan? But he too complimented Bill on his singing of the National Anthem.

After all that good feeling from Sunday to right now, work was a breeze and I did really well in sales today, top earner me. No need to write about anything else on that front, so I won’t. I am glad to be home, riding a manic high wave. Hoping I will make it safely to the beach for another surfing go ‘round.

Oddly enough, writing this was a lot easier tonight than I expected. I hope it reads well, or at least as good as what you write, every day when you write whatever it is that you write. Not bad for nearly 1000 words in under an hour, wouldn’t you agree? Only eight more words to reach one thousand. Done!

On to the show!


Bill & Mr. Met!


that's my Boo...


The Soundcheck

1,950 postings so far. Who would have thought? What’s your tally, Sally?

and today’s pics…

I Am Mine

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Monday Monday, Can’t trust that day. And here I am on a Monday and it hasn’t been so undeserving of trust. Yesterday was quite an interesting day, much more so than today.

For one thing, it was a Sunday and it was a day off. I requested it earlier at the beginning of April. I had plans to visit Hyman Gross in the hospital, first visit post-surgery. His bone density was enough that the surgeon felt setting a pin in his leg/foot/ankle would suffice.

I only expected to be there for an hour but it turned into 2 hours. Hyman had an ultrasound on Friday pre-surgery and while he was waiting there was an alarm in the hospital causing most of the staff to abandon Hyman on a gurney in the hallway, leaving him to holler in vain as he heard the scurrying of mice around the wheels of the gurney.

I hung in there with Hyman, and even offered to move the gurney back to his room so I could get moving along myself, but it was advised to have an orderly do it. I figured it was no big deal since 20 years ago I carried dear Harpy from one floor to another when he was in the hospital.

Luckily Harpy weighed less than the 98 pounds he usually weighs and carried him in my arms down a flight of steps. It all went well with Hyman and I was able to head to the Hoboken Art & Music Festival, a little later than I expected but really it was no big deal.

My main goal was to see Ian Hunter and the Rant Band playing featuring Mr. Wonderful Jim Mastro. And with Jim involved that meant it was more than likely that Lily, Ruby & the funniest girl alive, Meghan would be there. And they were. As was Chaz!

I met Ivan Julian who I have seen on stage a few times. Ivan played with Richard Hell & the Voidoids as well as the Outsets. He looked great then and hasn’t aged one bit, looking as sexy as ever these days. Steve Fallon was around as were several other people from the Maxwells days. I kept mainly to myself though, after saying hello to Steve.

I missed the Steve Wynn & Peter Buck thing, the Baseball Project but I didn’t really know they were playing until about an hour or two before I left the apartment. It was great to see Meghan and the girls, Lily off to Bard, Ruby to be a sophomore next semester and Meghan maintaining her reign as funniest girl alive.

Ian Hunter took the stage, opening with All the Way from Memphis, and doing Mott the Hoople and solo hits, Cleveland Rocks, Once Bitten Twice Shy among others like Somewhere from West Side Story, finishing off with a sing along of All the Young Dudes.

It had gotten cooler and after saying my goodbyes to Meghan and Lily & Ruby and the Jack of Hearts I started for home. Ran into Rand & Lisa, and then the three of us ran into RoDa & Elly with Logan and Autumn in tow.

RoDa, born & raised in Hoboken knows everyone and we lost track of him. Rand & Lisa walked me to the corner of my block before they headed to their home. I came upstairs, quite slowly since once again I was standing on concrete for a few hours, though wearing Airwalks helped.

I turned on the TV and noticed there was no audio. Instead I watched a DVD via Netflix. An Australian movie, Animal Kingdom. I heard it was like the Australian version of Goodfellas and this was way more intense than how I remember Goodfellas to be.

It was so good, nicely paced and so intense that at one point I thought about turning off the movie, it had gotten that far under my skin. Jacki Weaver who plays the matriarch was nominated for a best supporting actress Oscar, but went home empty handed. This movie was bound to give her more notice, worldwide if not the States.

Bill came home in the last 20 minutes of the movie and I told him about the cable audio being out so he called the cable company as I watched the extras on the DVD. The woman on the other end of the line instructed Bill who instructed me to unplug the cable box and plug it in again so the box would reboot.

Fair enough. But before that I had turned on the TV to show Bill how it was not working when we saw the Osama Bin Laden had been killed. Big news indeed and here we were without any TV News.

The NY Times website had the info and Bill relayed the news to the woman on the phone who was understandably excited. We eventually got the audio back and watched the news being repeated eventually deciding on the BBC and waiting for President Obama to make the announcement regarding Osama Bin Laden being killed.

Bill went to bed after a little while, I stayed up late watching and not getting anything but the basic information. Tomorrow I have off from work. Bill is taking a half day since he is singing the National Anthem at CitiField before the NY Mets/ San Francisco Giants game tomorrow night. Very exciting and we are understandably nervous.

Bill more so than I am, but still I will probably catch up eventually.

Ian Hunter's Back!


Ian Hunter & Jim Mastro



Baby, It WAS You