Tag Archives: Rand

Computer Blues

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Computer problems again. Deleting tons of photos. Clearing space for memory. I thought I deleted a lot of photos in the past but obviously I still have quite a bit. Not to mention a lot of photos were duplicated since I was too lazy to change the settings on my camera to a lower setting for the frame.

So if I have a pic that is 3225 x 2650 you can bet there is a 555 x 416 duplicated. And now a lot of pics are gone. Where do they go once you empty the recycle bin? They have to go somewhere. I know they’re still on the computer.

Last night was a nice time with Rand. I was plenty tired after riding about 40 miles and walked gingerly as I strode up Washington Street towards McSwells. Nobody I knew on the street at 8:00 which is the norm these days. It used to take me a long time since I knew a lot of people back then. Now, not so much.

After a few pints with Rand I wasn’t so achy anymore and gradually became animated somewhat. I put some money in the jukebox ensuring that for the next hour the music playing was selected by me. McSwells is a totally different scene, filled with hipsters nowadays rather than the characters of yesteryear.

Very much akin to what I hear Williamsburg is like, and like Hoboken had done in the 1980’s Williamsburg is gentrifying at a very fast pace. At least that’s what the interviews with TV on the Radio have mentioned. I haven’t been to Williamsburg in about a dozen years or so.

According to Harpy who works in the thick of Williamsburg hipsterdom, the hipsters hate to be called that. Which is all the more reason to call them hipsters, and not in the Graham Parker sense of ‘I’m the token hipster/ and you’re just the novelty set’.

Actually perhaps the hipsters are the novelty set. Watched a few Raphael Saadiq videos on the television of the past couple of hours. Such a personable and handsome guy that Raphael is. But enough about him.

I spoke with my brother Frank today who was a bit too upset about forgetting my birthday. I tried to let him know it was alright but it plays into the bigger picture of what has happened to his memory since the stroke. That would make me panicky.

I did my best to reassure him that it was ok, that I wasn’t Dad who would be greatly insulted if his birthday wasn’t recognized. I also spoke with Frank’s wife Elaine who apologized. There was no need for it.

In fact I always forget both my sister in law’s birthdays and they’re right after each other in December. I usually call Elaine and Karen on the 6th or the 7th and wish them a happy birthday only to find once again, after decades of having them in my life I still cannot get the dates right.

Rand and I parted ways after walking around Hoboken with me smoking a Padron and I was home by 11:45. Watched most of Saturday Night Live and I thought it was pretty funny. It seems they’ve taken to ending skits rather than let them peter out. That definitely makes all the difference. Kings of Leon were oksucked.

Walked around Hoboken this afternoon. Since I rode so much yesterday, staying put was nice. Finished the New Yorker, skipping the movie reviews since I’ve started reading them mostly, until after I’ve seen the movie.

this was posted on Bill’s laptop since my computer is crapping out.
—
You say you’ll change the Constitution, well…you know, we all want to change your Head

Telling Lies

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Last night Tricky played a show at Irving Plaza. I told Roda about it, and he set about trying to get on the guest list. Yesterday he called and let me know. Unfortunately I had to be in early this morning so I could not go. I told him around noon. I found out a little before that, that one of our subtenants was having a meeting early enough for the need for me to be in and help out.

Roda understood the need to make some dosh, and I wished him a good evening. Around 10:00 I get some texts from Roda. CD info on Tricky’s latest, and the fact he had just taken a consonant or perhaps a vowel. I’m supportive and slightly envious and wish him a good time and an ecstatic trip.

A half hour later I get a phone call, a blast of overloaded digital white noise from Irving Plaza. It lasted 44 seconds before the line went out. Roda did get backstage and spoke with Tricky and mentioned Central Park from a few years ago. (Written as The Ghost in You last month) They wound up hanging out, Roda even going to the after party at a club nearby. Roda didn’t get home until 3:00AM. Yikes.

I went to bed after watching Cotton Hill’s bland speech. I have to say that Sarah Palin’s screeching was more rousing for those republicans. Most attack dogs do command attention after all. But once again I only listened slightly to McCrazy, paid more attention to an early birthday present from Annemarie and Co., John Lennon Rock ‘n’ Roll.

His covers record, which came out in 1975 and the last record before retirement. Of course it has a history. Lawsuits, Morris Levy and Phil Spector and May Pang, John and Apple/Capitol Records, contracts, car crashes, missing tapes. It’s all in there. It did ok, made the top ten in the US charts. It was said that he had run out of material, hence it being a covers album, but at the time it was a fashion to do fifties and sixties songs, like David Bowie did with Pin Ups.

Speaking of the Dame, I watched a YouTube clip of David on the Dick Cavett Show from 1975. Young Americans, Luther Vandross, David Sanborn. I had that as a cassette. Only liked the title song and Fame. Young Americans opened the tape and Fame ended it.

I guess I played those 2 songs so much that the rest of the tape was reverse, leaving me able to only play those two songs. I didn’t much like Bowie then except for those songs. The ‘cool’ kids liked Bowie and they were all smoking pot at age 12. I wasn’t ‘cool’, not for another 8 years.

I starting liking him when he started to lose some popularity with Low. He was getting too far out there and that’s where I got it. Still wasn’t too fond of Ziggy et al. I saw him on Broadway in The Elephant Man though in 1980 I believe.

Had 1st row seats and of course he was mesmerizing. The people behind us gave him flowers at the end of the show and he thought they were from me and my friends and thanked us so graciously.

A lot of years pass and I find myself working at Right Track Recording on west 48th Street. David is one of our clients. He was super nice and extremely personable. Just one of the guys, sitting across from my desk chatting about whatever it was like we were mates. I did feel a little bit like Karen Lynn Gorney from Saturday Night Fever.

Then I saw him a few weeks later at Madison Square Garden. I had never seen Bowie live and of course he was amazing though he shared the stage with Lou Reed, Robert Smith, Billy Corgan and Dave Grohl among others.

It was a birthday celebration with the guests covering a Bowie song and then duets with the Dame. A wonderful evening but not really a David Bowie show I guess. A special event nonetheless.

The next time I saw him at the studio, I had changed my perception of him. He wasn’t David Bowie anymore. After seeing him live, I saw him as DAVID BOWIE. It was an odd thing that I had to get over, since being star struck is a no no in the recording studio world.

He thought enough of me to autograph an advance cassette of the record he was working on, Earthling, which of course is one of my favorite Bowie records. Actually he gave me his copy of the cassette, then took it back saying that he ought to autograph it for me. Awfully nice. Asking for autographs is also frowned upon by the way.

Still have it, in fact if I turn my head, it’s within eyesight. He finished Earthling soon after that. He did ask my opinion since he heard I was a DJ, who would I recommend from the DJ world to remix a track or two? I drew a blank and told him I would get back to him in a few.

I called Rand and asked him since he was wise in the world of remixes. He threw out a few names, Josh Wink and a few others. I went back to David and told him who might be good and he basically didn’t like most of the names. I gave up.

It wasn’t until maybe a month later, did I realize that I could have probably suggested myself. He wasn’t going to ask me, but perhaps thought I might have the edge, the nerve, the cojones to promote myself.
But no, I didn’t.

D’oh.

Sniffy Dame(video pulled by EMI)