Tag Archives: Nick & Stef’s Steakhouse

Crazy About Love

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Well it’s Monday again. Hoboken was semi deserted yesterday, my guess is that a lot of people were off visiting their mothers. It was a gloomy and windy day and I didn’t do much of anything.

Last night Bill was home after spending the day with his mother. He was back I time to catch The Pacific which was of course quite intense. One more episode next week, which involves the Marines coming home to the lives they left behind and that will be that.

Bill and I watched Treme after that, which carried over the feeling from The Pacific that something terrible was about to happen. Can’t change gears so easily after such intensity. Treme was good too. Excellent cast and we will watch basically anything that Khandi Alexander is in.

Last night I lent my guitar to Mike Cecchini. Nice guy, I know he’ll take care of it. He kept calling it ‘she’, but I think it’s a ‘he’. Hung out with him for a few minutes on my front steps. I’ll probably go and catch his set at Louise & Jerry’s tonight, to hear him and to also hear my guitar.

I’m always playing the guitar and can’t really tell how it sounds even though people have told me it sounds good. Me. Going out. On a Monday night. What am I nuts? Mike’s paying for the pints since I’m doing him the favor.

I also invited Mike and his girlfriend to the party in July. He might get up and play a song or two. So far for that I have Lily & Tim, two of the Street Corner Mourners and Jon & Deena, two former Cucumbers. It could turn into a hootenanny.

I really miss my guitar. Last night I looked up Dreadlock Holiday by 10cc and wanted to play it, but…

I neglected to write about Smoke. I know I wrote about my disdain, but actually there is a redeeming part to the movie. Specifically the last five minutes or so. Auggie’s story of finding the wallet of some kid who stole from his cigar store.

He decides to go to the address in the wallet on Christmas day and finds an old blind woman living there. It turns out she is the shoplifter’s grandmother. He tells the story and during the credits it’s acted out by Harvey Keitel and Clarice Taylor.

It’s so sweet and with Tom Waits ‘Innocent When You Dream’ playing it’s tear inducing and almost makes you forget the rest of the movie.

This afternoon I watched Down to Earth on cable which was a movie Bill & I saw when we first started going out. It’s basically Chris Rock’s remake of Heaven Can Wait which was a remake of Here Comes Mister Jordan.

It’s a cute movie, not too shabby and has a few giggles in it. It was a good date movie and still easy to watch years later.

A visit to the bibliothèque was in order. I returned Smoke, Black Dynamite which was funny and very short, Rufus Wainwright: Milwaukee At Last! And No Wave, a book about the No Wave scene of Lower Manhattan from 1977-1980 by Thurston Moore and Byron Coley.

No Wave was a good book, though I would have used a larger typeface. The Rufus Wainwright CD was good as well. It also had a DVD of the live concert as well as some extras of some songs from the Montreux Jazz festival and a short bit of Rufus and his band backstage practicing some Italian operas for a wedding I guess they were hired to play. That was beautiful.

I was also able to get from the bibliothèque the boxed set of the Beatles mono albums which is everything up to the White Album, though the singles are also available on the Past Masters double CD, included and also in Mono.

I heard from the restaurant that Bill and I went to on Saturday. They read what I wrote to them in an email and they were very apologetic. They said the tip was generous and the server was quite happy about it. Why she went from hot to cold so fast could not be explained, especially since the server said she was happy about the tip.

Both Bill & I noticed her sudden change though and the gent on the phone told us to give a call when we come back in again and mention his name or the hostess’ name and we will have our meal comped. That was nice of them. I told Bill and he was thrilled.

So that’s about it on this end. Fairly busy. Can’t wait to get my guitar again tonight. Me miss him.

Support your library!

From Smoke:

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Crazy Water

Just got home from spending a few hours with Bill in Manhattan. It doesn’t happen as often as you might think. Bill and I volunteered to be part of a photo shoot for Pride magazine’s article on interracial gay couples and today was the date.

Bill was in the city already rehearsing for his play and I wound up taking the train in around 3:00 this afternoon. I did know what to wear so I followed Bill’s suggestion to don a suit & tie.

Don’t have to tell me twice.

Rode the train into the city, getting off on 23rd Street. Seemed like a long time since I’ve ridden the train on a weekend, when the Jersey City and Hoboken trains are combined making it a bit crowded. Still it wasn’t so bad.

I walked over to Madison Square park and sat and waited for Bill. Chatted for a bit with Annemarie on the phone, part of the weekend phone calls. Bill arrived and we walked over to 88 Lexington Avenue where the photo shoot was.

Got to the 15th floor but no one was responding to the knocking on the door. The door was unlocked and we walked in. The type of Lawn Hors d’œuvre scenario, bodies on the floor and what have you. But it wasn’t like that at all.

Joe Jervis of JoeMyGod greeted us. He arranged the whole thing. He introduced us to Warren and Marius, the director and photographer respectively. It turns out our timing was perfect since some previous couples did not show up or canceled.

Of course our timing was perfect, we were on time, we’re not your average gay people. A few pictures of Bill & I together, followed by separate shots of Bill and finally myself. The whole thing was over in about 20 minutes.

Quite painless. It was a fun time. The issue should be out next month and we hope to have some copies to share to the ones we know and love. We also invited Joe, Warren and Marius to the party in July.

Bill and I were back on the street where we both enjoyed our cigars. Bill had a plan to head over to Arthur’s for dinner, but I had the idea to use a gift card that I got a few years ago for a restaurant group in Manhattan.

The restaurant is part of the Madison Square Garden complex and we walked over there from Lexington Avenue. We were a little early for dinner so we wound up sitting in a concrete plaza across the street.

We killed about 20 minutes before heading in. I had the hostess check my gift card to see if it was still valid. I knew that it was since last time I check I was told they never expire. We sat down, ordered some Guinness, had a salad.

I ordered Filet Mignon and Bill had a T Bone steak. It was a good time. In a restaurant of maybe 100 tables there were only 5 occupied and Bill and I were the youngest patrons, not that it mattered.

We had chocolate mousse cake which was OK. Arthur’s has better chocolate mousse cake, we agreed. The time came for the bill and it was reasonable.

Arthur’s would have been cheaper but this was a special thing. With a 20% tip the gift card was all used up which was fine by me. The waitress came up and I explained that she can put it all on the gift card, her tip included. I thought that was fine, she was fairly attentive.

But whatever cheeriness she had before then totally dissipated when I gave her the gift card. Was I wrong to include her tip in the gift card? I didn’t think so. Did we commit a faux pas?

It was off-putting to say the least and even Bill noticed the change in her demeanor. Needless to say, we never saw her again. The hostess and staff were cheerful enough but that waitress left us with a weird feeling.

Of course we’re not going to let her ruin our otherwise perfectly nice day.

Now we are home. We were invited to a party, or rather our friend Lois was invited to a party and we’re thinking about going, but Bill is napping. If he’s up for it, we can make an appearance, that is when Lois gives us a heads up on the party. We’ll see.

Other than that, we’re content to stay home which is really no surprise to anyone who reads this or the Bala Cynwyd Penny Saver daily.

Just heard from Lois. ‘Heavy Metal. Low Key. Drinking.’ I respond, “Heavy metal too heavy for us. Have fun!”
5.8.10 Bill JOT NYC 003
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Just a couple of gay geezers.

This is Marius’ link
http://mariusbugge.com/index.html
We’re in good company.