Tag Archives: The Specials

Big Yellow Taxi

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Last night nothing special once again, though seeing Julio and Stine and Alexander was special indeed. After that it was all pretty boring. I edited the titles of tracks on some cd’s that Annemarie sent me last year. That was a painstaking labor of love, trying to figure out what was what since they all couldn’t be by Benny Goodman.

I watched Carole King who is a nice Jewish lady from Brooklyn. Oy. She’s a love that one. Then it was The Who live in London 1977. The concert where they got two clips for the movie, The Kids Are Alright- Baba O’Reilly and Won’t Get Fooled Again.

The rest of the show was ok. When they started doing Eddie Cochran’s Summertime Blues (which for some reason people think the Who’s version is great, I think it’s leaden and plodding) I threw in a DVD of The Specials called Too Much Too Young. A nice collection of video clips and some live footage but over all the narration was dreadful. Flat boring and monotonous.

It was like the filmmaker/Narrator Brian Zabawski was reading something off wikipedia and didn’t read the words. Properly. Gets an E for Effort though, especially since I never went about making a Specials DVD of my own.

After that some SNL repeat with Tina Fey then off to bed for me. Bill was at his mother’s so I had the big ass bed all for my big ass. Slept really well, woke up went out, got papers and bagels. After breakfast I sat by the computer and was reading the Daily News, the Voice of the People section, also known as the Letters to the Editor.

I usually enjoy it and as I read I noticed a letter from Hoboken, with a name that was awfully familiar. What are the odds, I thought, of someone having the exact same name as me? Then I realized that I had sent a letter to the editor courtesy of MoveOn.org the other day and today they published it. Ha!

Not the first time the Daily News published a letter of mine. I think this was the third time. They never publish my letters regarding cars running red lights though. The New York Post also published a letter a few years ago about the smoking ban in bars, which if I recall was also published in the Daily News. I thought it was pretty funny. Bill was thrilled when I texted him about it.

cut n’ paste
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/letters/index.html

Today was a beautiful day especially after the deluge of yesterday. I got some new bike shorts and gloves the other day and it was a nice enough day to take a spin around Hoboken. Rode up to 16th Street and looked around. Summer vacation is over for most if not all residents of Hoboken since there was no parking anywhere.

Rode down Sinatra Drive on the Hudson River and forgot all about the Italian feast. Today’s the last day. Procession through town, big heavy of the Madonna, fireworks and feast bombs. I missed all that. Apparently they stopped right in front of my building.

I rode past my old apartments in Hoboken. 1st Street and Park avenue, the mosquito infested illegal loft where I lasted about a month after donating a gallon of blood to the mosquitoes, leaving my loft mates high and dry but not in the lurch since I found 2 other people (Doug and Kate) to take my space.

1st and Park. It DID NOT look like this in 1984.

Then I rode by 201 Madison Street which was my first ‘real’ apartment. Lived with Jet for a while. I think I was there for about 2 years, moving out when the rent hit the outrageous rate of $500.00.
201 Madison

Back view- top 2 windows on right. My kitchen

From there I went to 1124 Willow Ave. The basement apartment. Had a few wild parties there and it was also the party center after McSwells closed at night sometimes. I lived there with Jimmy Lee and then eventually Barbara Granite who turned out to be a little off in the head. I lived there from 1986-1989 or so. It was a hovel. Thought I would live there forever, though I think that with most every place I move to.


Never had a door with a lock on it then….nor bars on the windows

But Barbara Granite moved out and I couldn’t find a roommate so I moved in with Kevin Craughn on Madison Street, across from where I originally lived. I don’t remember too much, it was 1990. That was a hovel too, only on the top floor. Kevin and I barely got along but it ended on a good note relatively speaking.
216 Madison Street

Definitely DID NOT look like his then

I moved out of there and into 710 Jefferson which was a nightmare. I had to be interviewed by the landlord in order to be a roommate. Barry’s roommate actually. He was on tour somewhere when I moved in and I had very little furniture, sleeping on a piece of foam.
710 Jefferson Street

the building in the middle

All the while Zed had been with me through most of these apartments, except for the loft. He had the run of the place most times, except when I lived with Kevin. Kevin’s cats intimidated Zed so much that he rarely came out from under my dresser for most of the year. Then when I lived at Barry’s place, Zed peed on his futon which Barry brought up soon after my mother’s funeral. I apologized but I obviously had other more important things in my life at that time.

I didn’t like living in that building. The landlady and her family were on the first two floors of the building and always kept an eye open on who was coming in and out through the door being slightly open on their apartments. After that I moved back to Lodi to live with my father for a few months despite a lot of people warning me not to.
Jane Street, last house on the right

From there it was to Weehawken with William where we had a love/hate relationship for 11 years. Then back to Hoboken where I am at now. Zed didn’t make it to Hoboken, he passed away when I was living in Weehawken. I buried him in the backyard there, which has probably been torn up and paved over.

And I didn’t miss the procession of the Italians and the Madonna. They just passed by.

Three Minute Hero

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Ahh. A few years ago Bill and I saw a friend of mine have a recital. Dan Moore, the friend had rented out a studio space and had a pianist accompany him as he sang maybe a dozen songs with a couple of stories inter sped throughout. It was a good time, and similar to an idea I had, when I had ideas, that Bill and I dress up and cover Frank Sinatra and Count Basie’s album ‘It Might As Well Be Swing!’ I was to be the singer and Bill was to be the pianist.

I revisited that idea on the way home tonight listening to the forgotten Specials album, ‘In The Studio with the Special AKA’. I was listening to the song Break Down The Door and felt I could sing my own interpretation with Bill’s accompaniment. It could be fun, with a couple of shots under my belt perhaps. Break Down The Door was the B-side on the Specials single, Free Nelson Mandela.

I’ll always remember the night before Mandela was going to be released, I was spinning records at McSwells and I played Free Nelson Mandela. Martin Kelly came over to me and said it was the last time I would have to play that song. It’s still a good song, but a little dated. Oh the Specials have such a spot in my heart.

I found out in the latest issue of Mojo Magazine that the ‘We thought you were inferior’ header above my letter was part of a series of quotations from the movie, Planet of the Apes, not directed at me (see the post titled Ego Tripping Out) . So Mojo doesn’t think I’m inferior which is a weight off of my mind. Apparently that’s what they’re doing now, a line of dialog from a movie posted above each letter published, though that ‘inferior’ line didn’t do much for my self-esteem.

At work with the new people I am busy as ever and I don’t mind at all. It would have been great to have Juan in the office, but money is too tight. I’m doing all the work and finding some ways to get to do my own thing. For instance, I was in touch with the Roundabout Theater Company regarding Sunday in the Park with George and their volunteer usher program. I found out you have to go to the box office and inquire directly.

I planned to go to Studio 54 where it’s being performed at lunch time, but there was a file that needed to be delivered a few blocks away from there so I offered to save the company some money and deliver it myself, enabling me to check out the program at the box office. I go and talk to the proper people and found that all the volunteer slots are filled for the next two weeks, then the play closes.

Oh well.

I admit my ardor had cooled somewhat and I’ll have to be content with renting the dvd from Netflix of the original cast from 1984. I’m sure some volunteers will drop out between now and then, but I won’t have any way of knowing and they’ll have no way to contact me. Plus I don’t feel like lugging around black trousers and a white shirt, or wearing such an outfit, day in and day out for two weeks waiting for that call.

What am I? A stand by waiter?