Tag Archives: Padron

Shakin’ All Over

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Oh that Kenny G. He’s on TV right now playing his horn on some ice skating program. He’s the butt of a lot of jokes but I talked with him a while ago on the phone while working for Arista Records and found him to be quite a nice guy.

So I have no beef with him. I won’t run out and buy his records or anything like that but I really have nothing bad to say about him. I wish I knew him better so I could recommend Harpy working for him.

I just got home from Manhattan. Nice day to walk around the city. I headed into the office and cleaned some vases with bamboo shoots in them and roots and rocks covered in algae. I try to clean them once a month but I’ve been lax in that department.

I was also able to take care of a few things that occurred during my absence yesterday. It’s true, these people I work with and support can’t do anything for themselves. They are spoiled. I’m not complaining since I’m the one who’s spoiled them and it keeps me busy. The smallest thing I do makes me look good I think and I intend to keep this up until the lease runs out in March 2010.

Last night I watched a little bit of Factory Girl (The Edie Sedgwick story) which had a bit of the song, Shakin’ All Over. I loved the version and went to iTunes to find out who had done it. Of course it’s a classic and covered by dozens of artists. I found a version I really liked by Iggy Pop and downloaded it. But still- who did the classic 1960’s version?

I enjoyed a Padron as I walked back to the Path train. I wasn’t going to take the bus home since it took forever to get into the city on the bus. One lane going in through the Lincoln Tunnel, plus the bus had a slight collision with a truck. Nothing bad happened and we only stopped for a few minutes.

I was reading about Caroline Kennedy in the New Yorker and a woman next to me asked what I thought about the article I had just finished. We would up having a nice chat about the Kennedy’s and politics. I mentioned that it’s sometimes confusing and infuriating that being so close to New York, we get all the information about New York politics, like Caroline Kennedy thinking about becoming a Senator for the Empire State.

Ultimately it wouldn’t concern me one way or another, but I was drawn into it due to the Kennedy myths. My seat mate felt the same way. She’s an Irish Catholic and I’m a Irish Atheist, formerly catholic. It was a nice chat. She was chubby cheeked enough that she could have passed for one of my cousins. And we both still feel bad about John F. Kennedy Jr and his untimely demise.

I talked with my sister on the phone as I puffed on my Padron and walked down Fifth Avenue towards the Path train. She and her husband, Rex are enjoying the Robert Plant and Alison Krauss CD I got Rex for his birthday this past week, Raising Sand.

Annemarie is going to burn it for me since I was pretty much intrigued by the song that I had heard. I, in turn promised to burn a copy of Raphael Saadiq, The Way I See It. I posted the 100 Yard Dash on my Facebook page page and Annemarie liked it.

It promises to be another quiet night tonight. No plans really. Got the new Mojo and Uncut magazines which I will likely peruse while perhaps watching Renee Fleming on the Elvis Costello show, Spectacle. That’s it on this end. Hope all is well with you and yours, as it is with me and mine.

Karn Evil 9

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It’s Sunday and today I spent some time with the Lopez family on the third floor. I did see them this morning when I gave them their bagels but this afternoon I actually met them outside by the river. It was quite a nice day today and quite a few people were out and about.

Julio and Stine were trying to get Alexander to sleep and since I showed up it wasn’t going to happen. We strolled, me discreetly puffing a Padron a few feet away and the strolling put Alexander right out. He’s too heavy to carry so the papoose apparatus is out of the picture.

It’s the McLaren stroller, perhaps named after Malcolm McLaren. As we were heading home, Stine ran into a small bakery and Julio and I stood outside with the stroller and the sleeping baby. Within a few minutes there was a stroller log jam at the corner of 4th and Garden. We maneuvered through that with Stine and a bag of delicious treats for the adults.

We came upstairs and sat around watching Alexander taste various books and stuffed animals. So far his only words are what sounds like ‘Hi’ and ‘Aye’. And ‘aye’ could very well be Danish which Stine speaks to him and Julio is slowly becoming a little bit fluent.

I’m probably giving him more credit than needed but Julio knows a lot more Danish than me, tak. But it’s interesting to watch Alexander try to communicate.

I was getting hungry so I left them with Alexander in Julio’s arms waving me goodbye then wondering where I was going since I was going upstairs rather than downstairs, which is the direction that his father heads off to every morning. Then I made some ravioli for supper.

My friend Pedro finally made me his friend on Facebook which he hates since if he wants to communicate with me all he has to do is pick up the phone. He sent me a request to write a letter to the editors of the NY papers, the Daily News, The NY Post and the NY Times.

It seems that despite the budget cuts and the laying off of teachers, fire fighters and police officers, somehow the Department of Corrections has the money to install 40 to 50 LCD screened TV’s in each of the 10 buildings that house inmates on Rikers Island.

And the criminals will also get cable television, 50 channels. Why can’t they get digital converter boxes and regular television sets like ordinary working folk? On Pedro’s behalf I wrote 3 emails which I sent off to the 3 major New York newspapers.

I’ve written to the Daily News before and they’ve published my letters a few times, and the NY Post published an email once which was the same email I had sent to the Daily News. The NY Times I had never attempted before except for an email that I sent to Bob Herbert a few years ago which I received a form ‘thank you’ reply.

This is the New York Times email:
A good friend of mine is a Corrections Officer at Rikers. He is outraged at the fact that budget cuts will cost the jobs of teachers, fire fighters and police officers while the inmates of the ten buildings on Rikers Island are getting brand new LCD TV’s with cable TV, paid for by the taxpayers. Approximately 40 to 50 television sets are being put up in 10 buildings, television sets that I certainly can’t afford. And with cable, (50 channels) that’s a lot of money. Why not give them digital converter boxes with no cable at all? It seems like madness for people to lose their jobs and livelihoods these days while criminals get to watch cable TV on LCD screens. Could this be happening at all the prisons in the city, perhaps even the state?

I have my doubts for the Times since they don’t have an easy set up for sending emails to the editor, unlike the Post and the News which is much easier for crackpots like myself to be heard. So I’m going to check the papers this week to see if my letter gets published.

sleepy baby

sleepy baby

smiling baby!

smiling baby!

it always ends up in his mouth, this time it's a stuffed monkey arm

it always ends up in his mouth, this time it's a stuffed monkey arm