Tag Archives: Brother Frank

Goodbye

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Ah, just got off the phone with Lovely Rita. Hadn’t spoken to her in a while. Always a good chat. She’s another woman who I love to make laugh. Getting off the phone is a bit abrupt. It always is. Just an uncomfortableness.

I guess Rita’s not one for long goodbyes. I know a few other people like that. As soon as the ‘e’ in ‘goodbye’ is said, they are gone. Personally for me, I don’t mind the long goodbye. It’s a warm feeling.

The goodbye/I’m outta here is too cold, leaves me hanging. But that’s some people and not me and if everyone was like me, it would be a better world, yet it would be a boring world, so here’s to them, the short goodbye people.

Goodbye.

It’s a Thursday which for me is a Friday. It’s been a week of oddness. Monday off, Tuesday substituting for Monday, making Wednesday feel like Tuesday and today feels like Friday. As you can guess it’s very confusing.

Goodbye.

I spoke with my brother Frank today. He called me, a bit bummed that I hadn’t spoken to him in a while. He’s been trying to deal with his retirement. And he still has issues with life, specifically growing up.

Apparently my parents wanted him to be a priest. By the time I came along 11 years later, the parents were tired and didn’t really seem to care what it was that I would do.

No red flags with regards to college. No red flags with regards to anything. I don’t blame them. Wouldn’t do any good to blame them anyway. I’m not one to go to a cemetery and yell at a tombstone.

Work was busy somewhat and also quiet. Vivek was in and when I finally had a reason to see him, I find out that he’s on the way to the airport.

Goodbye.

I was able to make a few phone calls with regards to the new position I find myself in. I call it, ‘inroads’. It’s funny, last week on Thursday I was totally stressed, at wit’s end. So much so it affected me physically. Today, not so bad. It must be the new outlook, to just plow through.

Goodbye

Today was humid and drizzly, tomorrow they are expecting thunderstorms and showers. I have 2 new DVDs from Netflix, The Naked Civil Servant, starring John Hurt, who is one of my favorite actors of all time.

John Hurt portrays the late Quentin Crisp, a bon vivant from the UK transplanted to Manhattan. It’s said that Sting wrote An Englishman in New York about Quentin Crisp. Very dry that Crisp was.

The other DVD is Resident Alien, which is also about Quentin Crisp, this time a documentary. Since Sting is in the documentary, I guess I’ll find out the story about An Englishman in New York.

When my brother Frank was on the radio, instead of the web these days, he would occasionally mix in some spoken word recordings of Quentin Crisp on top of what ever music Frank happened to be playing.

Quentin Crisp, from the old world of Oscar Wilde. The was no closet that contain him.

Goodbye

You Know My Name (Look Up the Number)

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Tuesday today. Let’s see, Bill woke me up again this morning at 6:50 which was fine. I was out of bed and doing my thing. Bill is off to his sleep apnea test tonight which leaves me solo. Not such a bad thing, though the bed will be emptier than it should.

Looking forward to President Obama’s press conference tonight. Still a refreshing thing to see and hear a world leader speak so intelligently and with authority. For some reason the right wing nuts have been going off on the fact that Obama reads from a teleprompter. What the fuck is that about?

I know the previous President, you know, the door knob, had difficulty pronouncing nuclear correctly, but all they could do is complain that Obama reads from a teleprompter? What? Did they think Bush was talking off the top of his soft skull?

They also have been complaining that Obama is busy multi-tasking. I know, that’s not right, especially since the door knob before him had difficulty watching TV and eating pretzels.

Yesterday was a busy Facebook day. Last night I was posting with a few other people, specifically Pat Longo. Nice guy, friends with my brother Frank and other WFMU types. Pat doesn’t like the Beatles. Says they’re overrated.

I can see how he might say that though I obviously don’t agree. For me, my love for the Beatles, isn’t just the music. It’s the whole cultural phenomenon that started 45 years ago and continues to this day.

They still sell plenty of records and books, and soon they’ll be on Guitar Hero or perhaps Rock Band. I don’t know, I’m not a gamer. For the seven years that they were active, they were in my eyes, four of the coolest people on the planet. Clothes, hair, & attitude still resonates. I know, I’m biased.

I love playing their songs on guitar and singing along. I’ve read their books, from badly written biographies to trainspotters writing about every recording session to the smallest detail. Moms and dads and kids liked them and still do.

I was devastated when John was murdered, and was very upset when George was attacked by an intruder and I cried when he passed away a year or so later. I shed a tear or two seeing Paul live at Madison Square Garden in 2005, and smiled sweetly when I saw Ringo do a morning set at Bryant Park for Good Morning America.

I think they were and still are amazing. There were moments that I resented them for casting such a large shadow on everything that came afterwards. The resentment was momentary and faded away and still I loved them. They probably resented the shadow that they had created and were forced to live in. Still, they weren’t going hungry.

I think one of the first musical memories I had was of my brother Frank playing Strawberry Fields Forever and when it faded out and in at the end he turned out the light in his bedroom and scared me. Strawberry Fields Forever makes for a better musical memory than Winchester Cathedral which could actually be the first song I actually recognized.

I owe my Beatles fixation to my brother Frank who gave me my first Beatles LP as a consolation for not taking me to see the bicentennial fireworks like he had promised. It was Abbey Road, their last album. Which in a way makes sense for me since I tend to do things backwards.

I started collecting their records, looking for the original Capitol Records rainbow edged albums, or releases on the Apple label, buying import singles with songs I never heard before, like The Ballad of John & Yoko.

Side note: one of the reasons that I took the job at McMann and Tate aka Wolff Olins was because they helped design the Apple Records label back in 1968. And that didn’t go so well for me 38 years later.

I just figured out a few weeks ago that John, Paul, George & Ringo, which I’m sure you know is sometimes how they’re mentioned, is the order that the band was formed. Maybe it was obvious, maybe I’m a dunce.

From July 5 1976 until December 9 1980 I felt I might have a chance of seeing the four of them perform again, or at least release a record. We know how that turned out.

But I still play them, I’m still enthralled, and I’m still a Beatles fan, and you know you should be glad. Yeah yeah yeah!