Tag Archives: Bill

Everyone Says ‘Hi’

So they tell me it’s Friday. That means tomorrow is Saturday. And the people that work will be roaming around on the streets. Today people who do work, well some of them took off to cheer their favorite baseball team, the Yankees.

Nice to have the fans all corralled somewhere, easily identified and tagged before being let into the wild again.

I really can’t say anything bad about the Yankee fans since Bill is a Yankee fan. The exception to the rule. He didn’t make it to the parade in Lower Manhattan. He has a job and wants to keep it.

Despite the shooting at Fort Hood yesterday in Texas, the big news around here was the parade. Just as well though since I’m trying to ween myself off the cable news lately. Just too much information and most of it bad news. Perhaps the Yankee parade could be seen as a relief, a tonic for the troops as it were. Also an office shooting in Orlando FL this afternoon.

Instead of all that I watched Mad Men. I’ve been watching this season since there is a free on demand service on the cable system here. No Ovation channel but free AMC on demand. The last episode I watched takes place on November 22, 1963.

When that happened, I was only a year and two months old so my recollection is mighty fuzzy. It was interesting to watch how life stopped for a few days for some, and for others it went on, slightly adjusted due to then unforeseen circumstances.

Just had a very nice interruption. Julio’s wife Stine gave me some meatballs and a cabbage, carrot sauce. She was making them and texted me that she was making them as I was eating dinner myself. Jet taught me years ago that you should never turn down free food.

Stine made me an excellent meat sauce the other day, which I’ve had half of with some pasta. I will probably finish that off tomorrow. I’ll have the meatballs for lunch. It was nice to spend a little bit of time with Stine and Alexander.

Kicked a ball back and forth with Alexander and if I might make a prediction, he has the potential to be an excellent soccer player. He rarely let the ball get past him and kicked it directly back to me. He’s amazing.

Maybe other kids are just like that, but Alexander is actually the first kid that I’ve seen with regularity, watching him grow and develop every couple of days. Today he danced and laughed and kicked a ball. According to Stine he does a lot of this to impress me.

Just like his father. But I’m more impressed by Alexander, no matter how many times Julio screams, ‘Look at me! Look at me!’

I also watched RockNRolla, directed by Guy Ritchie. Not as good as Snatch but somewhat enjoyable. I got it from the library and went back to drop it off, I noticed I had a little bit of swagger in my walk. Just a little bit.

I’m just happy to have my food this weekend all set and just needs to be reheated.

I plan on getting Stine some flowers tomorrow as a thank you.

Yankees Good. Phillies are bad = Gay. Yay let's hear let's hear it for sportsmanship! Gotta love those classy Yankees fans!

Yankees Good. Phillies are bad = Gay. Yay let's hear let's hear it for sportsmanship! Gotta love those classy Yankees fans!

Slow Dive

Well in case you didn’t know, the Yankees won last night. The World Series. Bill was thrilled. I was online, wearing headphones. Even if it were the Mets or another team I would likely be at the computer wearing headphones.

Bill watched the game in the bedroom while he was putting away his laundry, I watched the Daily Show and the Colbert Report. I offered him the chance to watch the game on the big TV and I sat and listened to music.

I didn’t do much of anything today, except argue with christianists online. That can get so tedious, mainly because their lack of spell check. Now I’m listening to the Minutemen, one of the best bands I ever saw at McSwells. Posted a few videos on YouTube which should get the curiosity of a few people and perhaps annoy other people.

So for lack of something substantial to write, I’ll write about what I listened to last night. I started off with Be Brave by Section 25. I first heard the song when I was hanging out with a character named Dave Bell.

It stayed with me long after hanging out with Dave Bell and in fact a few years later I asked Mojo Magazine, “what song went ‘Oh Happiness, You always made me laugh/Oh happiness…’” An issue or so later I found my answer, and wound up buying it from iTunes. I love it when Mojo publishes my letters. So far they’ve done it 3 times.

It seemed to be a good fit, to follow Section 25 with Tomorrow Never Knows from the Beatles. It’s quite possible that Tomorrow Never Knows is my favorite Beatles song. It’s a good marker that shows the divide of the 1960’s, being the last song on Revolver. The next songs from the Beatles after that was Strawberry Fields Forever and Penny Lane.

Still I’ll take Tomorrow Never Knows. From there I went to Smells Like Teen Spirit from Nirvana, another band that played McSwells and were nowhere near as good as the Minutemen. My specific memory of that is coming home to Weehawken with William after visiting Connie down the shore in 1991.

It must have been in the waning months of the year. The song blew me away, I hadn’t heard anything quite like it at the time. It’s still quite an amazing song. Too bad it became an albatross for Kurt Cobain, but them’s the breaks.

Black Mirror by Arcade Fire was next up. It was a decent fit after Nirvana. I don’t think I played it since I saw them at Radio City with my brother Frank. Can’t really get into them anymore. That’s how it is for me. Something bad happens while I listen to a song and I can never really enjoy the song, or in this case, the band, anymore.

Don’t get me started about Elton John’s Blue Moves. I haven’t played that since 1976.

Then I went to the live version of Talking Heads The Great Curve. Don’t know why, but it was a lot of fun to bop my head and tap my feet while listening to it with Bill watching the game a few feet behind me. I also think it’s a good thing that Talking Heads will never reunite again.

I sort of broke my avoidance of Prince and played Glam Slam which out of all the songs that I played for myself, was the weakest. I was choosing by album titles and not artist names. But you know, John said ‘enough’ and it was over quickly.

Slow Dive by Siouxsie and the Banshees was a great 1980’s track. I saw the Banshees a few times back in the day, though I can’t say I was a rabid Banshees fan. Budgie was a great drummer though and the late John McGeoch was tops in the guitar department, though he doesn’t play on Slow Dive I think.

Can’t You Hear Me Knocking by the Rolling Stones was cued up next and being a 7 minute song, I stretched my legs, had some juice and had a pee. TMI?

Well that was about it for last night. A not very interesting night but the music was alright I think.