Tag Archives: Rufus Wainwright

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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Oomingmak

It’s Saturday. And it’s freezing outside. Right now, according to the New York Times it’s 18 degrees. That’s 11 degrees more than it was when I woke up this morning. Still alive, carbon monoxide detectors are doing their job and not beeping. That’s a good thing I think.

Last night was a quiet night, just me and some Bushmills. Perfect for a winter night, some sipping. I watched Elvis Costello’s TV show on the Sundance Channel, Spectacle. Watched 2 episodes. The first featured the Police, Sting, Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland.

The first time I heard the Police was in 1978, riding to school in Scott Miskuff’s car. It was his brother’s 8 track actually and to my ears it sounded like Boston was doing reggae. I don’t know why I thought that, especially since they don’t sound like that at all.

Roxanne was the big hit and they were considered Punk so I eventually bought it. It was ok, their better record was the second album, Regatta de Blanc. I was more into Elvis Costello at the time so when he was putting down the Police, I paid even less attention to them.

Elvis: I just wish Sting would stop singing in his cod Jamaican accent.
Sting: I wish Elvis Costello would stop singing in his cod American accent.
Meow!

Now they are all nice nice. It was ok. Andy Summers in now 79 years old, Stewart Copeland is a gangly goofy father of 7, and Sting has gotten handsomer and his voice carries a resonance it never had 30 years ago. The Watching the Detectives/Walking on the Moon medley was adequate.

After the Police I watched Elvis Costello with Rufus Wainwright. That was ok. Rufus to me, came off like a 30 something gay guy from Manhattan, which is exactly what he is. He did part of Memphis Skyline which is his song about the late Jeff Buckley and a complete version of My Phone’s on Vibrate for You which was great as it always is when Rufus hit’s that high note.

He really is a good singer songwriter. He’s playing the Wellmont Theater in Montclair in a month or so, just him and his piano. His half sister Lucy Wainwright Roche is opening so I guess there will be a duet or two. I’m not going. Not in the budget you see.

Like I said, when I woke up it was 7 degrees outside. Bitterly cold, I walked outside, past Mr. L’s. I was due for a haircut but I didn’t have enough cash on me. I went and got bagels instead and stopped by Alexander Lopez’s apartment and talked with his dad.

It had been about a month since I last saw Alexander so he had completely forgotten about me, making me this exotic thing in a leather coat in the middle of his kitchen. Julio was telling me that Alexander weighs 22 pounds now and wears the clothing of a 12 month old. He’s only 8 months old. It was good to see them. Stine was in the shower and I only saw her briefly, clad in a bathrobe.

After doing laundry I decided to head into the city and visit Farfetched. Lois and Harpy were working and it was busy. Not much left in the store, everything was up for sale, sometimes with an 80% discount.

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Lois & Harpy

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That didn’t stop people from trying to haggle. Things that were on sale for $50.00 were marked down to $10.00 and that was still too much money for some people. Some woman wearing a big ass fur coat was the Marvin Hagler when I was there. And she wasn’t marvelous.

For me it was a bittersweet visit. I got a bib for Alexander and some cards as well as a Wicked Witch of the West key chain that has Margaret Hamilton’s voice cackling, saying ‘How about some fire Scarecrow?’ among other things.

It was too cold to enjoy a Padron and walk up to 33rd street so I made a beeline to the 14th street Path station. I also bought Elton John’s Madman Across the Water for $5.00 in the soon to be shuttered Virgin mega store on Union Square, next to the rapidly closing Circuit City.

Also picked up Bon Iver, whom I saw on Letterman last month and posted their appearance on this blog. While walking around I was playing Bob Frank and John Murry, World Without End. That’s a album of murder ballads, each and every one quite gruesome, but it sounds amazing.

I bought that last night using the iTunes gift card my brother Brian and his family gave me over the holidays last month. I heard one song by Bob Frank and John Murry sometime last year and it was really good and when I picked up the latest issue of Uncut and saw they had another track on the free CD I decided to dive in and buy the album.

Like I said, it’s gruesome, hearing them sing, ‘He cut her throat and gutted her insides’. Basically they took murder stories from the past 100 years and put them to some down home country tinged music. Murder ballads aren’t new at all, a strain of folk music for the past century.

Worth checking out I think, both Bon Iver- For Emma, Forever ago and Bob Frank and John Murry- World Without End.

Also bought a new CO detector and got a haircut from Tony at Mr. L’s. He once again outdid himself, trimming gray hairs from my goatee, trimming my nose and ear hair as well as trimming my eyebrows. He earns his tip every time.

Bill is quite ill right now, laid up in Stuyvesant Town with a fever and sore throat. That sounds like what I had back in October. I hope to go see him tomorrow and on the way I’ll pick up some chicken soup from a Chinese kitchen on the way. A quart or two for Bill and his mother.

It’s supposed to be warmer tomorrow they say. Could make it into the 20 degree range. Almost beach weather.

Add my friend Billie in Washington DC to the unemployment rolls. He invited Bill and myself to stay with him if we wanted to go to the inauguration, but I said thanks but no thanks. It’s going to be too cold and very crowded. I can watch it on TV.