Tag Archives: Skyline Studios

I Shot The Sheriff- Bob Marley & the Wailers

Monday Monday, can’t trust that day. And you know what? You really can’t. Monday’s are nothing but trouble. Unless you have Monday off, then it’s perfectly alright. Today I find myself at the cigar shop. Another urgent text from Shlomo, begging me to come in and sit for a few hours. I don’t mind. He worked all weekend, including hanging out with that football player who shot himself in the leg a few years ago at a New York City nightclub. No gunshots were fired or heard so I guess it went well, and there was no chalk mark’s outlining a body either.

It’s a federal holiday for Martin Luther King’s birthday and today is also the second inauguration of President Barack Hussein Obama. The reich wing GOP did their best to make sure Obama would be a one term president, they stated that as their game plan in 2008 and with that they failed spectacularly. What might be egg covered their faces, but with their greasy hands it could be something wholly other than egg. In fact sometimes it’s paired with an occasional egg and the product of that joining proves to be quite a fetish for that GOP.

I think the first inauguration that I paid attention to was in 1993, with Bill Clinton being sworn in and Maya Angelou saying her inaugural poem. I was working with a woman named Terry Eigenlaub at Skyline Studios, she was the bookkeeper and I was going through the files in the lounge outside of Terry’s office as Maya Angelou’s poetic voice filled the room as Terry yammered on in her office. Maya Angelou’s poem certainly struck a chord and is memorable decades later, more memorable than whatever it was that Terry was complaining about that cold January morning in 1993.

I don’t remember much about the next inauguration in 1997. I might have been working at Right Track Recording and dealing with Eric Andrew Simmons and he was none too pleased with a democratic president being re elected. I do remember Eric Andrew Simmons being thrilled that Newt Gingrich and his ‘contract with America’ was passed some time later, with Eric Andrews Simmons sporting wood to go with his hair plugs and pregnant lactating women porn. I do have to wonder whatever happened to that rat dog he grew tired of and abandoned, Sammy I think it’s name was.

Of course there was no celebrating George Bush’s inauguration. Not at all. Best forgotten, that. In 2009 when Obama was being sworn in, I was working at the BIO-IB gig. It was an exciting time and let the people in the office that I would be out of the office, watching the swearing in on a big screen in Rockefeller Center. I bought a couple of cigars and cheered loudly with everyone else when the final words of the oath of office were said. A woman stood nearby me and commented on the cigar I was smoking.

I was anticipating some stress but she mentioned that she enjoyed the aroma, that it reminded her of her grandfather. Then it was back to being an office manager, rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. One of the companies that was subletting space from BIO-IB, a company that was profiting from bad mortgages, had nothing but bad things to say about the new President. I told them to shut up. One of them later killed someone while drunkenly motorboating by the Statue of Liberty.

It’s been fairly busy today, I guess it’s from a few people having off for Martin Luther King’s holiday. A few people came in after waiting online for the Cake Boss and wanted a couple of sticks for the ride home to wherever it was that they came from. Bill is off today and he is just so super great and I of course am a morning behemoth. I am a lucky guy to have a guy like him to turn a blind eye to my morning crabbiness. Not such a bad day after all I think.
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No New Tale to Tell

Wednesday. For some it’s hump day. However, for a lot of people it’s just Wednesday. It’s been an alright day. Not too cold, not too warm. Of course it could always be better.

Not much to write about I’m afraid. Is there ever much to write about? Is it all just gathering threads and trying to join them up, sew them together and make a nice fabric out of it? Is it the fabric that matters? Or is it the sewing?

These are the matters that spring from my mind and travel to my fingertips.

Listening to an interview with Brian Eno, something from about 20 years ago I think, rebroadcast on a Minnesota radio station on a show called Speaking of Music. It’s about a 2 hour interview, basically reviewing Brian Eno’s work and life up to that point.

Eno has a nice voice to listen to and since it’s an old tape that was digitized and playing on my Frankenstein computer occasionally a glitch pops up and Eno goes ‘Hmm Hmm Hmm Hmm’ for a few extra seconds.

It seems to be recorded live in an auditorium before an audience of Eno-philes, laughing at just about everything Eno has to say.

I’ve taken to listening to podcasts while I eat dinner instead of the news. Usually I watch the Ed Show at 6:00 but since the Olympics are on, I’ve listened to discussions. It’s a nice change of space.

I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Eno when I worked at Skyline Studios. I remember reading an interview with Eno in Trouser Press, and the wrote about how Eno would tear off the filter of his cigarettes and smoke the unfiltered bits, and there it was, an ashtray with torn off filters.

He was working with Laurie Anderson at the time and both were incredibly nice. Both of them signed records that I asked them to sign and occasionally when money is tight, I look at the Eno records and wonder how much money I could get for them.

I’m sure he wouldn’t mind and definitely would understand the situation that I would find myself in. But I haven’t gone so far as to look into eBay and seeing what I could find there. Perhaps one of these days.

I’ve also caught some Oprah lately. Yesterday I watched people getting makeovers, helped by Carson Kressley from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. I never could understand how people get surprised when they open the door and there is Carson Kressley.

My main problem is the fact that the people are filmed from inside their homes, a camera man a few feet behind them. Do these people have camera men in their living rooms all the time? Wouldn’t they think that something was up, I mean, why is there a cameraman breathing down their necks?

It was the same thing when after the Super Bowl, Bill and I watched a TV show about the CEO of a company working down in the ranks, with the people that inhabit the bottom end of the totem pole. This one guy we watched, worked for a week at different parts of his company.

And all the time, he was followed around by a camera crew. Now if someone was a new person at a company, wouldn’t you think something was up when the newbie would be tailed by a camera crew?

Aren’t any eyebrows raised?
No yellow cards?

It’s easy to overlook the camera crews for most, but obviously not for me.

Today on Oprah was the son of Jim Jones, named Jim Jones Jr. He was in Guyana when the People’s Temple were killed or committed mass suicide.

He would have been in Jonestown when it all went down, but was instead in Georgetown playing basketball which in effect saved his life, but made him feel guilty and never played basketball until years later when his son was on a school team.

The other guest was the sister of John Wayne Gacy. She of course had her own tale to tell, about how she didn’t believe that her brother killed 33 men and boys up to a point, but eventually had to admit it to herself.

I’m just grateful that my nearest and dearest aren’t sociopaths.

Hello to Sao Paulo, Mission Viejo, Warwick, Chiang Mai, Eureka, Petaling Jaya and of course Bala Cynwyd.