A Bomb in Midtown

And it wasn't a Broadway show!

A real bomb (they are calling it an "explosion device"!) went off this morning at the US Army Recruitment Facility in Times Square. Right by my office and nary a whimper from my readership as to my well being. (Needy much?) Nor a real comment at the workplace about it. It went off early in the morning and was a ho-hum by 9am. When people move to California they are always freaked about earthquakes and I move to the Big Apple and a bomb goes off sugar-borrowing distance from my desk and I read about it on-line and then get on with my day.

I am not proposing a freak out, but I am amazed at how blase I, and clearly everyone else, was by this.

That is all I have for today. Journal entry: I woke, I brushed my teeth, a bomb went off, I made coffee at the office and had a 10am meeting.

You?

Debbie Does Pete

I guess this video was blogged on the Village Voice. It is Debbie Reynolds doing Peter Seeger's "If I Had a Hammer." This one is 11+ on the camp scale. I want to know what was going through each one of those dancers' heads besides thinking about a paycheck. Stick with it for the full dance number.

Debbie singing 60's folk freedom songs in taffeta.

Interpreter of Maladies

I want to write this book titled "It Just Happens." It would be about aging and talk/list all of the "all of a sudden" things in life that JUST HAPPEN. Since no one gives you an advanced warning, I would do that for you. Like RIGHT AFTER you turn forty and the last strains of "Happy Birthday" are wrapped (rapped?), your knee gives out. It just does. Body tweaks that once went back to where they were originally just stay in their new home. And one day you have an age spot on your hand. And you want to go "Wait, I didn't sign up for this. This is for people who once got drafted." It JUST HAPPENS. And gray hair, and blurry eyesight and gravity. I thought there would be a Disneyland-type tourguide to announce such things well ahead of time (so I could...prepare?): "Welcome to Tomorrowland. But you in Seat 7, this is Todayland for you! Today we will adventure through Heel Spur Gulch and ride the Varicose Vein Wonder Flume."

But these tour guides are still on a smoke break with the guy that was supposed to tap me on the shoulder 7 years ago and whisper "No. NOW is the time to buy a house. NOW."

Tonight I had a MAJOR middleage trauma. But I was too middleaged to really reel from it. It's a slow burn. That is the trouble. No fanfare, no welcome wagon, just a knowing gummy smile from some vague memory of someone. Oh. Where was I? Right - I have a load of really cool art films and some broccoli in the fridge, but I decided to go off-roading with a potato-mushroom knish and watch an "easy" film. I chose "The Interpreter" starring Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn. Minutes in I had that thing. That thing that you have heard parents and grandparents say before you, "Wait haven't I seen this before?" At least there was someone else (YOU!) in the room when they said it. I sat alone and kept watching and saying stuff like "I remember that guy getting shot, but I think I turned it off before I ever saw Nicole or Sean. Then you see Nicole and Sean and you say "That's right. And the bus will blow up, but I don't think I saw the rest." You saw the rest. But you don't allow that until you have finished. And seen the rest again. Just put "The Interpreter" on a loop because the memory thing is your new home.

You can play this game with "Haven't I read this before?" as well. And the half-full answer to both can be, "Yeah, but this is the first time with Progressive Lenses!"

Kelly Ryan's

Remember in the old Saturday Night Live where Gilda, I think, dressed like a hoodlum, said "It's not a gang, it's a club." That is the way bagpipe bands are. There is this fraternal, "no matter where you are from in the world if you are in a pipe band you are a brother" mentality mixed with "if we are competing against you you are the enemy and you suck." It is kind of gang-ish, but it is really a club. Not that any pipers would beat you in a dark alley, that is unless they were drunk and you happened to look at them funny. Something where they were really provoked like that. (all of a sudden I write in "they.")

We wear "colors" in the guise of kilts and we try to beat all the other bands we play against. We talk about how their "f's" were flat and they had a bad attack and weren't blowing tone. Very much like a gang. But it is a club. And I like that. I guess I am a joiner, and I like belonging. Which is funny for a guy who loves to be alone. [Maybe I have to examine who I really am?!]

I have been playing with Monaghan Pipe Band for just 3 weeks now. It is a good bunch of local guys and girls all of whom I have never met, but we play pipes and drums so I am a part. We practice in the banquet hall of Kelly Ryan's Pub in the Bronx. I take the #1 red line subway to the end of the line and then a bus up a giant hill. This is one of those places with the back room that has the wooden dance floor, the folding tables and chairs and a bar. Where someone would have their 50th Anniversary Party with the salmon or the chicken or their retirement from Local #242. I can feel a soul there and I know as much as I play the fancy Upper Westside Manhattanite, this Kelly Ryan's Banquet Hall is part of who I really am. I am a working class immigrant guy whose parents did better than their parents and I got to go to college and have a shot at doing well in life. And I play pipes.

Flower Power Cheesy Steak

11115 Steps


Ben atop City Hall in the distance. Used to the be you could not building a building above Ben's hat. No longer.

Ron and I took a road trip to Philadelphia today. For this California kid, being in three States in one day is a real head trip. (Drove through New Jersey.) I love Philly and it was great to get out of town. (And go to another one!). Our friend Kara has a line of gardening accessories she is showing at the Flower Show in Philly, the oldest flower show in the country. Again - who knew? If you are in Philly this week or want to know where to find great gardening accessories in your area check out Angela's Garden.

The first stop upon arriving in town was a Weight Watcher's point-busting trip to get a Philly Cheesesteak. We always go to Pat's so we went to Gino's this time. Two famous competing cheesesteak places across the street from each other in South Philly. I will never go to Gino's again since the cheesesteaks were not as good, and it had loads of right-wing, bullsh%t rhetoric such as "Freedom Fries" (STILL with the Freedom Fries?) and stuff about speaking English, etc. Gentle reader, spend your (shrinking) dollar how you'd like and so will I. And I am glad for Gino's grandparent's that they weren't turned away from this place for speaking only Italian.


Awash in Colour!

The flower show was fine. Lots of flowers. And plants. The theme this year is New Orleans Jazz and that made for lots of, well, colour. And beads. And masks. And musical notes. Tasteful is hard to pull off with this kind of thematic stew. Not my cup of tea, and that is why I go to bagpipe conventions. But it was fun to go and support Kara and they did have some cool things.



I thought this sign was rather provocative and intriguing for a flower show and I was impressed until I noticed...







the full picture. "Ho-hum," I thought. It brought to mind Dorothy Parker when asked to use "horticulture" in a sentence and she said, "You can lead a horticulture, but you cannot make her think."


[Okay, here it is: I am so not coupled and in the market to by stuff for a garden I don't own with my partner in the city or upstate and I take my whole lack of THAT out on flower shows. Happy?]


Philly is really a great town. Part of me would want to live there if I could. The townhouses, the neighborhoods, the restaurants are amazing and the place totally works my John Adams fetish. We went to the Rodin Museum and walked around the neighborhoods. It was in one of these Center City neighborhoods we found this gelateria, Capo Giro, which by my estimation means "Head Trip," but don't ask anybody at Gino's, you might seem unpatriotic rather than curious. The gelato was the best I have had in ages. Better than what I previously blogged as being considered the best in New York City. So go to Philly, buy a gardening hat from Kara and get some wildflower honey gelato from Capo Giro.



Burnt sugar/Pistachio -- Wildflower Honey/Cioccoato Scuro

Later we met up with Kara and her boyfriend Vince and went to dinner at this amazing place. For some reason I do not remember the name of it and it was great too. I loved, loved the white anchovy salad and the lamb shank. After we went back to Kara and Vince's very cool 4+ floor townhouse and had a drink before getting on the road back to the Big Apple. [editor: "Drink before getting on the road?"]




Spike, Kara, Ron, Vince, Pillow


A fantastic day in a fantastic city with great people. Ah Sunday!

One Foot in the Moment

206.6 lbs /14.8 Stone

On the weekends it is important to do errands, spend time with friends, get some culture, exercise and make time for hobbies. My problem is if I don't do all of those things in one day my life is a total failure. At least this is how I act about it.

I woke late and scrambled out of bed. I had planned to write and have coffee before going to Weight Watchers, but there was barely time to have a shower and pray for an evacuation before weighing in. I made it to Weight Watchers and then went grocery shopping remembering to bring my reusable shopping bag made of recycled baby diapers and deodorant tops assembled by Aleutians to raise money to build a school to learn to be more like us. Then it was home for a cooked breakfast of egg whites, tomatoes and polenta and some spinach and loads of coffee. I quickly played something conducted by Bernstein on the i-pod stereo so I could feel calm and at home while I raced to get the place in order without burning the breakfast. Then it was pipe chanter practice in the house to learn the music for the band I joined and after off to the park to play bagpipes for a bit. A photographer wanted to take pictures of me (now who doesn't?) and she e-mailed them to me tonight. What kind of dangerous, crazy, insane town is this? I got back home and downed a clementine (they seem to eat these here more than I recall doing in California) and I raced down Broadway because the subway was shut to get to 55th and 9th in under 20 minutes so I could take the 3:30 Intro Horton dance class at Alvin Ailey. It was killer again and we did chassés AND pushups! Sort of gay bootcamp, I guess. I then had under 50 minutes to get to the Von Lintel Gallery in Chelsea to see the closing day (closing 30 minutes when I got there) of this exhibition of San Francisco photographer John Chiara. On the bus there I met this woman Patricia and her daughter Briana. Patricia worked for Ailey for many years and we had a great chat. Got to 25th Street and walked to 11th Ave. John Chiara works with his own hand built room-sized camera on wheels that is mounted on a flatbed trailer. Some cool images. But it was more fun for me to see the muted houses that remind me of home and have that "I can see where I graduated high school" moment in a New York Gallery all to myself. I left there and caught a model prancing for a photographer in another gallery. I am not sure if the New York art world is cool and hip or mockable. I guess a bit of both.

I caught the wrong end of her twirl. There is also a guy fanning her to give her a "breeze."

Caught up on phone calls on the way to the Village to watch a stoner movie "Smiley Face" with Sean and eat Chinese with the dog on my tummy. Bliss.

All in all a good day was had. I want to read this later when I have time so I can remember to enjoy what I did.

Slings and Arrows

Out every night this week. Can't complain as life is fantastic. But it takes its toll too. And tonight I went home on foot. I find walking home on Friday night from work is a great way to unwind from the week AND return phone calls! It was a cold night tonight (in fact it is snowing now) but I found it refreshing. Had a nice chat with Kenzie the check out girl/person at Whole Foods Columbus Circle where I hunted and gathered my dinner.

I weep with joy sometimes when I get home at night and the (non-military) clock is still in the single digits. I prepared my grilled Brussel's sprouts, steamed spinach with garlic and Brazilian sliced steak to perfection in the micro and sat down to watch Season 2 of "Slings and Arrows." This is an EXCELLENT Canadian (God for give me but you don't see these two words together often excpet in the pipe band world) production. It is about the behind the scenes goings of a Festival Theatre troupe ala the Stratford Festival in Ontario. Just excellent. It nails it all and I wish I wrote or were part of it somehow. And as I sat there with my full, gorgoeous meal, my feet mentally in an epsom salt tub, and a cuppa tea waiting to happen, I was.