Put Up a Parking Lot

Coming home from band practice on Monday night on the Southern State Parkway.   Eddie driving. Me looking at my iphone and tapping on it like an obsessive monkey.  The traffic comes to a halt.  And that is where it stayed.

Usually there is a halt, then inching, then more inching and then you see that someone in a really short skirt is standing by while her boyfriend is changing a tire and that was the whole mishegas.  But this night was different.  There was no movement, like a cadaver.   Finally some alpha car turns its engine off and eventually we all do.  People get out of their cars to "see what they can see" and it looks like the setting of a sci-fi film. 

I step out and look around. I see nothing but more and more cars all dark like we are in the Hollywood Bowl stacked parking.  I call Jeff.  We chat. He is in a comfy bed in a hotel in Chicago. I am standing indefintely on the Soithern State Parkway about to write a ballad about the whole thing.

Eddie is in the car talking to his girlfriend.  When he gets off the phone I decide we need a photo so I can immediately Facebook it as if sending out a Bat Signal to be rescued as this incident has been totally ignored on the traffic report on the radio and we are in something with the dimensions of true carnage. 

 Why we are smiling I do not know. 

Finally the police have everyone REVERSE on the parkway and drive down all the wrong ways and wrong entrances and we get back to dry land. 

But now my 7 train is closed. Eddie drives me around like we are in the film AFTER HOURS and nothing.  The poor guy who has to get up and teach early in the morning finally just drives me all the way home to Manhattan. 

I get to bed at 1:30am.

White Christmas. Swellegant!

Hello Folks.  INCHING back into blog writing.  I do miss it. And I miss YOU!

Tonight I had another "I Love this damn town where I live" moment.  Through my friend David in LA I was invited to Philippe Lamesch's art exhibit at the Luxembourg Consulate on Beekman Place.  Very, veddy posh address.  It is the former mansion of Irving Berlin.

It was absolutely bucketing rain when I left my temp job at the law firm. Since I do not seem to check, I had no idea to even bring an umbrella. And I certainly could not bring the one I bought just the other day for such an occasion as I left it in a friend's car. Where it would be safe and I dry I am guessing.  Nonetheless it settled down a bit and I made it across town to the swanky Beekman Place neighborhood.

Philippe is from Luxembourg but lives in Northern California.  We became Facebook friends before we actually met tonight.  So modern. What a lovely guy and talented.  It was a great event all around. He introduced me to two other of David's friends, Jim and Carlos.  We really hit it off and exchanged info. Carlos is even going to set me up with a work intro! How fantastic it is here!

The Best Night

OMG. I just had the best night. I go to my friend Ed's 40th birthday. And I say friend because he is, but we only met once a few months ago at an Anti-violence fundraiser.  (The pro-violence ones just gouge you at the bar, and the takeaway bags are shite.)  Anyway, he is the cousin of a good friend of mine and it turns out he is an animation writer (Emmy nominated) and we know a lot of people in common including his agent. Today he got off a cruise ship with his partner and his parents and then he has this party at a restaurant tonight which I missed but I came for the after party at their apartment (they are bi-coastal) and there is a huge grand piano in this place and loads of people and it is not huge, but it is just a blast. I knew only Jorge, his partne, and Jeff. Jorge is a terrific host and my seltzer water is never low in the glass.  We all get to talking and one of their friends has this condition where she can't forget anything. She remembers everything!  Like the weather on June 7, 1983.  She is going to be on 60 Minutes next month with 4 other people who have this "condition" (including Marylou Henner) and they are interviewed by Leslie Stahl.  Can't wait. She was so nice and patient and interesting.  Then a woman played this song that this guy sings about IKEA and her husband did voiceover work for Tippi Hedren and then we talked about speed dating and I explained how I met Jeff and about this small world story where his mother's best childhood friend was my mother's best high school friend.  There was this guy named Chance and I told him that my sister always wanted to name her son Chance, but when she grew up and had a son she named him Mitch.  He said Chance has been hard and he goes by his middle name David at restaurants because it is easier. And then I meet this woman who was in Alaska and Poland and is unemployed like me and we talk about spas in Arizona.  The two of us leave the party together and run into this poet Rives in the subway whom she knows and we talk about poetry and that he is big in the poetry world (who knew?! ) and  she was let go from TED and lives in Brooklyn and has no idea what she wants to do next, but she is funny as hell and pretty and I am convinced that she can do just about anything.  The we get to my stop and I leave.  Fin.

Cagney and Lacey Conundrum

Using "Cagney and Lacey" as an example of anything certainly dates one.  (But then why doesn't quoting Shakespeare date one?)

Thou digresseth too much...

Cagney and Lacey was cancelled in 1983 and there was such a huge letter writing campaign by viewers (Yes, Virginia, there was no email/internet) that CBS brought it back for 5 more successful years. 

As I mentioned I had thought to stop this blog as I wanted to go onto another as yet not thought up, more directed, more marketable, about something blog.

I got an outpouring of letters from my 13 readers and this helped convince me to keep going.  I have no idea if I will write every day as before, but I still want to talk about New York and New Media and New Me. 

Thank you for the input all.  And I value whatever else you got! 

Remember, however, I am only one man, and Cagney and Lacey were two.

Thank you, Peter Brown

It is a funny thing "giving up."  It can go many ways. Just when Al Pacino is about to give up the mafia life in Godfather III he is "dragged back in."  When Jimmy Stewart is about to jump off that bridge in "It's a Wonderful Life" and end it all, Clarence the Angel comes along and saves him from himself.

And just as I was about to throw away "Man.Hat.In" entirely after many years of daily posts I got a note from Peter Brown, author and writing instructor, whom I do not know from a farthing who said he liked my piece on The Irish American Historical Society. (Okay he didn't say he "liked it" he thanked me for my description of it, but still, SOMEONE READ MY BLOG and it had an effect. ) I was about to leap off the cyber bridge and Clarence in the form of Peter Brown saved me.   

I do not want to give up blogging. I do not want to give up being an "incfluencer" in my small way.  I want to get better at it and bigger at it. 

So thank you, Peter Brown, for pulling my keyboard from the ledge and finding me in Google search and reacting to something I wrote. 

"I love you old Irish American Historical Society!"

I am going to come back bigger and stronger and more focussed.

But on what? And when?

Dear 13 Readers

Since September 2007 I have written every single day on this blog. Then this past month I just started to flag and feel lost in where to go with it.  I really want to start a blog about something more specific, something more marketable that I could sink my teeth into and be an expert on.  Any ideas?  For some reason I think it will involve digital media and/or New York.

Rockland County Feis

The pipe band I play(ed) in became Eastern United States Pipe Band Champions in Grade 3 yesterday. I wasn't there.  I am only champion adjacent.  But I was really happy to hear it.

Today they competed at the Rockland County Feis and won by a landslide let's say.  They played really well. I was there. But on the sidelines.  I am having medical difficulties - I can't blow.  (Insert all your jokes here and let's move on.)

I could write a whole blog entry on the psychology of playing music and competition and group sports, etc.  There is something in my brain that cannot get on board at this moment. It was so odd being here today and being on the team, but not really.  No one made me feel not included except myself.  They really are a bunch of great people who are truly keen. I admire that.

I think everyone should have to check back in with themselves every 5 years to see they are still wanting to stay in their job, marriage, pipe band, city, blazer with the different-colored lapels, etc.  Sometimes we forget to check back in and sometimes we forget to leave.

I will always love the pipes, but I don't know if I can play with pleasure any more.  That is a though one to get my ahead around. Am I just having a hard 15 years or do I really not want to play anymore?

Oh, here is their winning performance: