How to Get Ahead

In Sri Lanka, anyway...

 


From a Sri Lankan propaganda/PSA film.  Or so we were told by the amazing Station Manager Ken on the unparalleled WFMU.

Big Week, part two (the Food Episodes)

More on last week's happenings:

Tuesday was an epic dinner at a fancy restaurant.  The kind of meal I don't get very often.  And by 'very often,' I mean 'ever.'  Friends took us out as a Big Thank You to Cory for a Big Favor, and it was incredible: course after course of the most amazing food.  Even the dishes made from ingredients I don't usually like were great - cranberry 'snow' with beet puree? Bring it.  And the stuff I do like?  My brain and body almost exploded.  Oysters unlike any I've ever had, poached lobster that made me question my place on earth, an egg cream that made me pine for days that never really existed. (An egg cream can do that?  Apparently it can.)

Wednesday night I had off.  Sort of.  I took advantage of the freedom to do prep for the dinner I made for Valentine's the next night.  I knew I wouldn't be able to get home until later than ideal on Thursday, so I needed to cover some ground ahead of time.

Here's the thing about that: we don't usually do much for V-day.  We acknowledge that it exists, we mention it, we wish each other the happiness of the day, but we don't historically make much of it.  And by 'historically,' I mean 'ever.'  Or, more precisely, 'so far.'  But this year was a little different.  For whatever reason, we decided to have an extra-special-nice dinner in.  So I did a bunch of prep on Wednesday and when I did get home on Thursday, I did my magic in the kitchen.  

And for kicks in the wake of our other-worldly meal on Tuesday, I put on my best 'fancy waiter' as I'd bring out the courses.  You know: weight slightly forward, hands gracefully floating the dish to the table, describing it in a hushed throaty half-whisper.

This is a Perfect Valentine Manhattan, adapted from the classic recipe with Hudson Manhattan Rye, Dolin Dry Vermouth, Carpana Antica Sweet Vermouth, peychaud and orange bitters, and Morello cherries.

Watercress soup, with a whiskey cream. (This was actually an exciting discovery, and is a strong contender to be T-Day worthy...)

Haricots verts (ok, they were green beans - hey, I'm in 'fancy waiter' mode.) in a Kürbiskernöl and lemon glaze.

Roasted fingerling potatoes with tarragon and thyme.

Filet mignon with mushrooms, adapted from a recipe by James Beard.

Vermont ice cream, made with milk from happy cows and rich organic chocolate.

Ok, I punted on dessert and went with Ben & Jerry's.  Still, it was a pretty good meal.  A Happy Valentine's Day.

No visual stimulation for you today - I haven't been feeling the 'take pictures of food' thing lately. I'm sure I will revert.

Stay tuned...

New York November

There's been a lot going on so far this month, and we're just getting going.

Rehearsed for a reading on All Saints' Day (nothing like seeing the 'walks of shame' the morning after a New York Halloween.) The reading happened last Wednesday - a very academic play, but I was happy to do it, and got some really good response, including from the playwright, and one person who may make use of my services as a voice teacher.

The next night I saw Broke-ology, which features a friend of mine, at the Mitzi Newhouse. Then on Friday Cory and I met some friends for dinner at Westville East (wrap your mind around that.) Saturday was an engagement party for a friend in the afternoon, and Armitage Dance at BAM that night - got mixed response from the critics and from our group, but I quite liked it. Was especially apt to hear music by Lukas Ligeti after having seen Morphoses dance to music by his father the week before. (Oh yeah, I probably should have posted about that... we saw Wheeldon's company the week before. Wow, that was a really good show!)

THEN - I taught a voice class on Sunday (I'm teaching voice classes these days - feel free to send people my way) after which Cory and I went to the Giants game in Meadowlands. Oy. For lessons in how to lose a football game, check out the highlight reel from that disaster.

Monday was the Major Cultural Event of the New York Neo-Futurists Benefit performance/party. It's hard to believe that I've barely written about them here, since they've been kind of a big part of my life for a while. The event was good, and they raised some good bucks. Good food and drink; a fun, abbreviated performance; I won one silent-auction item, and donated another.


This photo is totally purloined, and kind of out-of-date, I think, but I need to give these guys the emphasis they deserve!

Went to a brilliant Schubert concert with Terry on Tuesday, and we hit a good new spot in Hell's Kitchen afterwards to talk about some potential projects for both of us. The place is called Stecchino, and I had a very nice cocktail and a good bowl of carrot orange soup and Terry had an anchovy appetizer and a beer. Liked it a lot. It's still really new, so get in on it to be ahead of the curve. Or something.

And tomorrow, we leave for T-day in Boston. Which is, of course, the most - won-der-ful time - of the year...

Talk to you when I get back.

The Gangs of New Paltz

I think I've mentioned here that Cory and I went up to New Paltz a couple weekends ago for a visit with our friends Frank and Amanda and their kids before we headed over to Bard College for the incredible Lucinda Childs Company's performance/film Dance.

People may say (and some do say it) "Oh sure, Mick. Very performance-minded and artistic/edgy - you talk a good game with your Lucinda Childs/Phillip Glass/Sol LeWitt groundbreaking multi-media masterpiece, but you're really heading upstate to hang with your aging college friends and their kids." Well I gotta tell you - these upstate families are not messing around. Check out Callie and Daphne:



"Wait a minute," some of those same naysayers are now exclaiming, "that bartender can't be more than five years old!"

True that. And did you catch that tiger tattoo she's sporting?



And maybe you noticed that not only is a pre-schooler mixing the drinks, she's training her little sister in the fine art of mixology.



Still thinking of them as the Cleavers? Think they can't roll? These guys are hardcore - slapping tattoos on their toddlers and having them run the bar for the big boys.



And don't be fooled by that sweet smile. I'm not saying that she's been specifically trained to deceive by the street gang she calls a family, but this girl is a pre-K killer. I asked her how her summer was going, and she told me how she just passed the test for her green belt in Aikido. I said "Wow! You could probably really kick my butt!" and she gave the cutest little giggle and the next thing I knew I was looking up from the lawn at that smile with a sore shoulder and a headache. I muttered something about the suburbs being tougher than I thought and she put me in a chokehold and said "What suburb? We are an hour and a half from the City and are a self-actualized community with a thriving arts scene and a life of our own."

I stood corrected. Rather, I knelt corrected.

And then there's this one:



Sure, sure - she looks all innocent and pure as the driven snow. And she's too little to do any real damage yet, I guess. But I'd venture to say that her harmlessness (if she really is harmless) will last another 15 minutes or so. And then she'll get ink on her own arm (dragon? cobra? barbed wire?) and take her place at her sister's side protecting their turf.

When I first knew their dad he was working for Greenpeace. Guess those guys learn a thing or two about survival when they chain themselves to oil derricks and giant redwoods. Sheesh!

4th of July, Just South of Asbury Park

In New Hope, Pennsylvania, as it happened.

It was pretty much a good old fashioned Fourth of July: barbecue in the back yard, tubing on the river (the Delaware river, very near where Washington made his fabled crossing during the Revolution), concert in a big field, followed by fireworks.  Small town fireworks, at that: not nearly as spectacular as the big city variety, but just as much fun in their own way, in among the balloons and the smell of bug spray and the folding picnic tables with stars and stripes paper tablecloths, and the annoying family nearby who kept moving the garbage can closer to us.

We entered the scene as Carl was making some jam.  He had a question about the process, so before I'd even been properly introduced, I was on the phone to mom for some guidance.  She steered us in the direction of a paraffin seal (which saved us a bunch of time and trouble) and not too much later we had us a batch of blueberry jam.

We had brought a case of beer and a bottle of spiced rum (drink of choice of our hosts) and continued to give good help in the kitchen, and it's good that we did, because Carl and Kevin outdid themselves with the hospitality.  SO much fun, and at the perfect time, right between Hamlet and the crazy dayjob Voyage to Boca.

They also have a couple of fun cats to liven up the joint.  Yes, yes, I'm allergic to cats, but it was a big place, and I took drugs to help me through it.  And they were some photogenic felines too, so we had that going for us.  Which is nice.

Here's Oliver, who's a little camera-shy:


And here's Rudy, who came right up to say hi:

And the backyard even had some nice hydrangeas. 

Throw in a late brunch at a Mexican place in Lambertville, NJ with Jen and Charles (love those guys!) and a good drive in both directions with my best gal in the passenger seat and it made for a damn fine holiday.

So, alright, this is an awfully conventional blog entry, but what can I say?  It was Independence Day.  How 'bout if I throw in an appeal to exercise your patriotic duty and contact the President to let him know that indefinite detention is unacceptable (and Unconstitutional.)  

And yes, we listened to The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle on the morning of the 4th.

Cory's Birthday

This weekend was Cory's birthday. The beginning of the Month of Cory. Also baseball's opening day, the end of the NCAA hoops tourney, and some lion vs. lamb weather activity.

Cory's birthday is April 4th, which is also memorable as the day that Martin Luther King was assassinated. As my sister noted, "4/4 - that's easy to remember." Of course, she then proceeded to forget it, but it's been a hectic couple of weeks for her.

The birthday celebration started off mellow enough on Friday at Midnight, with some prosecco over mashed blackberries. We didn't get too far into the bottle that night, as we were kind of tired, but we finished it off the next day over a game of Scrabble (it was a rainy day, so going out into the park or even to a cafe didn't really float our boat.)

In the late afternoon we headed to Hoboken, where we had some tea before walking down to Cucharamama, an amazing South American restaurant. I had arranged a sort-of-but-not-really surprising array of Cory's friends to meet us there, and we had some good cocktails featuring rum and pisco, and lots and lots of good food. There were squid and octopus appetizers that rocked the house, as well as a fantastic tamale and a very good spinach empanada; my main dish was a sort of chicken and beef pot pie with, among other yumminess, olives, onions and raisins - very good; the birthday girl had an excellent roast chicken dish; a whole bunch of people went for the Argentinian skirt steak, which was almost too big to handle. There was chocolate flan with a sparkly candle at the end of the meal for the Birthday song and wish-making. Very fun. Props to all the Brooklyn types for crossing two rivers for the event!

After dinner, we took the PATH back into the city and some of the crowd split off for home. But Kristin joined Cory and me at the Flatiron Lounge (which I believe I've written about here before.) Such a good place, and I elbowed us some seats at the bar. Sue B joined us, which seemed apt, as her birthday had been a week before, so we were able to treat her for that a little belatedly.

By the time we left, it was rather late, but not too bad. And a good thing too, as Cory had a spa date the next day, courtesy one of her really good friends. I was a bit envious, but Sunday turned out to be a gorgeous afternoon so that made me happy.

Cory is the Ultimate in Camera Shy, so no photographic evidence of this event. I'll have more in the way of visual stimulation next time.

Celebration City

I've had a lot to post about lately, but have been too busy/distracted to get to it. Massive shoutouts needed for the Martha Clarke Garden of Earthly Delights (running through April - go see it!) and The Cherry Orchard & The Winters Tale which were performed at BAM through The Bridge Project (those have closed - hope you had a chance to see them.)

But for now, let me take another swig of coffee and recap the headlines from this past weekend.

My sister was interviewing with a company in Philadelphia. SO let's start with the first big cause for celebration: she got the job! This wasn't really a surprise (we were pretty sure it was going to go down that way) but it's still REALLY good news. And may develop into even better news if one of her future promotions brings her and her family out east.

They love Lori so much (how could they not?) that they arranged for her to fly into Philly, but out of Newark, just so she could have a chance to come up and visit me. Which brings us to the second big cause for celebration: she came up to the city and stayed the whole weekend! Lori got into town at about 8:30, and we went over to a new wine bar near where I live that I really like for some formaggio e vino. Yum! Then back to my place for another bottle of wine and more catch up.

Next morning, we met Richard and Peter at Good Enough To Eat on the UWS for brunch. Peter mocked us for calling a Saturday meal with a 10:30 start time (which he couldn't be bothered to make) "brunch." Whatever, dude. We had things to do. You better watch out - you're on my sister's list.

After brunch, Cory met us and we walked with Richard across the park to the Met. Went in and checked out the Beyond Babylon exhibit as well as parts of the permanent collection, then grabbed a cup of coffee and went out to meet Rashmi and take a bus downtown past the sights of 5th Avenue until we arrived down near Union Square Park. Then we walked West and did some shopping (my sister is a paper nut, so we went to a couple of those stationers in Flatiron) and met a bunch more people at City Bakery: Sherin, Molly, Rudy, Susan, Daniel. Oy, am I forgetting somebody? We ran the gamut of their offerings, and even had a small confrontation with a guy who wanted to steal one of our tables. Silly nastiness. Then we split off in a variety of directions, with 6 of us headed over to 5 Ninth for dinner. Mmmm... I've written about that place here, and once again, it was SO good. Try the wild mushroom gnocchi. And, of course, the pot de creme with bourbon infusion.

Pause for a moment to look at an image from the Met exhibit, from the Hittite Empire, 14th–13th century B.C.


It's a mug. Those Hittites knew how to party.


Then we went over to the Village Vanguard for the Lou Donaldson Quartet. Lori got a "let's not think about what would happen if there were a fire" kick out of how much of New York happens in what are essentially basements, and this spot was the epitome of that for her. The show was fantastic, of course.

At this point, Susan and Daniel headed home, and Rudy went back to his hotel to nurse a sprained ankle. Lori was wiped out and crashed, and Molly & I walked with Cory for what was yet another cause for celebration this weekend: Kristin's birthday! The meal part of her party had happened at a Brazilian place in Midtown, but they were at the Half King at this point, so we went over there and met them all dressed up in their birthday regalia and reveling in the occasion.

And then we put Molly in a cab, and that was Saturday.

Sunday had some of the wrong kind of drama. We went to brunch at 202, which Lori really loved for its Nicole Farhi design elements. But we had a late start, given that we still had to accomplish the acquisition of souvnenirs for Lori's kids. Dominic met with us for a small slice of time, then we did a couple loops on foot through Meatpacking, the Village and Chelsea. We were under the gun, but we managed to grab the needed "I Heart New York" t-shirts, and the snow globes, and... well, we couldn't manage the 'teeny tiny koala bear' that Anna wanted, but we got her a pretty damned cute stuffed penguin.

Then, a little later than we'd hoped, I drove Lori to EWR for her flight. Which was cancelled. Yup. We didn't find this out until I had almost found myself a parking space in Hoboken, but there was some kind of mechanical error, and the airlines being the fonts of customer service that they are these days, they offered my sister nothing to make up for her time or inconvenience. Well, that's not quite true: they offered to put her up in a motel in Newark, from which she would have been able to pay her own way to JFK the next morning in time for her 7:45 flight (this would be a $100 cab ride, for those of you who don't know the area). Gee thanks USAir!

Instead, she took a train back to Penn Station (it wouldn't have made sense for me to pick her up and drive her to the 'boken so we could then take a bus into the city) where I met her and brought her back down to Chelsea, where... we had a fantastic evening! No friends, no schedule, we just went out for pizza and beer (And what pizza! You can almost believe the hype about Co.) and walked around the neighborhood and went back to Cory's place to play Scrabble and have some beer and Kentucky Chocolate. It was actually kind of perfect.

The next morning, Lori got up really early to take a car to Kennedy and the rest of us went to work. All was well with her trip, and it turned out that Annie was pretty happy about her penguin. I know I haven't put much into this entry in the way of images (kind of funny that two fairly avid photographers didn't want to be bothered with taking pictures this weekend), but hopefully this one taken from Lori's cellphone will help make up for that.

So that was our weekend. I'll sleep when I'm dead.

Oh, and by the way - Happy St. Patrick's Day!

The Great Annual Post-Holiday Funfest Extravaganza

That's the title I gave to my party this year, which happened on Saturday. And, if I may say so myself, it almost lived up to the name.

A few days of prep, and we were ready to go. Mad props to Sherin and especially Cory for all the help - cooking, cleaning, shopping, setting up, decorating and hanging snowflakes. Sometimes, it's hard work having fun. We got a whole bunch of last-minute help from Aaron, Shannon and Jacquie too - getting ice, building bruschetta, setting out crackers & cheese, setting up the bar, all kinds of final-moments-before-the-throng-arrives details. AND - many thanks to Susan for bringing a huge batch of cupcakes in honor of Daniel's Birthday, which had been a couple days prior. Happy Birthday Daniel!

This year's menu, in part:

• Sweet Potato Soup
• Recession Stew with black beans, black-eyed peas, and mystery ingredients
• Bruschetta with goat cheese and olive tapenade
• Cheese platter featuring Tallegio and Danish bleu cheeses
• Chicken and Fennel Stew
• Portabella Mushroom Risotto
• Saffron Shrimp Risotto
• Peanut Blossom Cookies
• Chocolate Chip Date Cake
• Fudge
• Peanut Brittle
• and... Susan's Cupcakes

That's most of it. Vegetarians, Fishitarians and Carnivores were taken care of. Yum!

There was a healthy debate as to whether or not the Peanut Blossoms looked like boobs. Every party should have at least one conversation like this.

The bar was pretty well stocked with booze and mixers, and people brought beer and wine to fill it out. Conviviality flourished, and as usual it was a gathering that brought together loyal longterm friends and some of my newest friends and colleagues. About 30 people turned up in all; only a few were scared off by the nasty weather (which turned out to be milder than the histrionic meteorologists warned us it would be). This year's snowflake theme was Impressions of Obama (what the hell, it's an unprecedented Inauguration we're going to have next week), and I think that there may have been more snowflakes created this year than ever. The Argentinians really got into it!

No pictures yet. I was so psyched to shoot at this party, but when the time came I didn't want to do anything that felt like work. But other people took a bunch, I think, so I should be able to post some shots before long.

Special shoutout to Cory for the Iranian saffron (I think it's from Iran; I know she bought it in Istanbul though), which was featured in some of those dishes. She brought me some of those tiny but potent threads from her trip to Turkey. SOoooooo good! AND - we stayed up late late late to clean up afterwards, so no giganto mess the next day.

Which meant we got to play a legendary, Titanic game of Scrabble. I scored 311, which is usually enough to win, but not this time. No sir. Miss Cory scored an otherworldly 436. 436, people. That means that even if you took away the bonus points for her two bingos, she'd still have beaten me by 15 points. We used every tile but one. I guess you have to be a Scrabble fan to appreciate this, but let me tell you, it was a pretty cool way to polish off a great weekend.

Happy New Year Again

The theme of this entry is "Great Ways to Spend New Year's Eve."

For the last bunch of years, I have spent New Year's in one part of New England or another. It's a great tradition, and I love it, as I love the people I visit in Boston, Williamstown, and wherever else I end up visiting. However, this year I stayed in New York to say goodbye to '008 and hello to the New Year. And while I missed those friends that I don't get to see often enough, I had a FANTASTIC time here. Enough so that I'll share with you the headlines as a recipe, in case you're looking for a New Year that is true New York, but that could be approximated just about anywhere.

• We went to see a matinee of Speed the Plow on Broadway (including Norbert Leo Butz in his last-minute fill-in for the thermometric Jeremy Piven) You can't do this everywhere, but I bet there's some kind of live entertainment available wherever you live.
• Went to Gazala Place for a quick snack afterwards - yum!
• Cory had to go back to work, including a stint in Times Square shepherding dance fans through the throng to City Center. This is definitely a New York Only kind of thing, but consider: while there is certainly something very fun and maybe even glamorous about it, it was effin cold out, and it's more work dealing with the cops and the crowds than you want to be doing on NYE.
• While she was doing that, I went shopping for food, booze and movies, then proceeded to prepare dinner.
• When Cory came in from the cold, I greeted her with a cup of Kentucky Chocolate with peppermint marshmallows. Mmmmmmm...
• Then we had dinner - a simplified version of Steak Diane, roast potatoes and sweet potatoes, fresh green salad, pomegranate sorbet with chocolate chips. Rather tasty, if I may say so myself.
• Along with dinner, we had a drink that I thought I didn't like very much, but it turns out I like it very much. Prosecco, in this instance with pureed blackberries. MMMMmmmmmm...
• After dinner we watched Harold and Maude, which if you haven't seen, you should. There's a reason I give it a shoutout in the "description" part of this blog.
• Then we watched the Ball Drop Show on New Year's Rockin' Eve and on CNN, including the getting-on-but-still-kicking Dick Clark, and Anderson Cooper with the spirited (dare I say randy?) Kathy Griffin.
• Midnight Toast with more Prosecco. Eventually we polished the bottle and finished the night not too late, not too drunk - but fizzy and mellow and very happy indeed.

So it was short on insanity, but long on festivity. Couldn't have been happier!

Hope your New Year's Eve was happy as could be too, and that 2009 turns out to be your best year so far!

Hooray 21st Amendment!

Did you know that it's Repeal Day? Well, it is.

I recommend you make some kind of toast to it with a friend, or even just someone you meet in a bar.

Weekend Away

Last weekend, not this one coming up. Not sure what I'm doing this weekend coming up.

But last weekend, a group of us went to Shannon's family place in the Delaware Water Gap. This group:

Evidently, when I hang with these people out of town, I wear t-shirts from schools I didn't attend (see Fire Island trip from last year). I don't know if I possess any shirts from schools I did attend.

At any rate, it was a fantastic time, full of action and food and drink and fun and good company. Played some games that were new to me, did ok in a poker tournament, made some magic in the kitchen (gazpacho & pizzettas w/Sherin, inventiveness with Tequila, a vegetarian version of Grandma H's fancy baked eggs), had a good balance of indoors and out. Aaron and Shannon have a wonderful family of friends, and it's great to be included in it. Thanks guys!

I really like that photo of us by the waterfall (even though it's sans Sherin & J.P., alas), and have lately been feeling somewhat drawn to getting back into photography. Which would mean getting a digital camera that is not part of my cell phone. Not totally sure I need another activity that will take up time, energy and money, but I used to be kind of good at it, and if one of the trips I'm aiming at this summer comes to pass, well, let's just say the photographic potential will be there...

Record Store Update

Ok, rather than go on a political rant* (and, oh yes, I've got one in me today) I'm going to follow up on the Record Store Day post I made last week.

Saturday turned out to be fairly magnificent, weather-wise; and even though I was heartlessly blown off by my tennis partner du jour, I wasn't going to let that get me down. Took a long and beautiful walk through the 'boken, ending up at Tunes, my favored local music shop. Picked up a couple new releases I was looking for, then strolled to the back to check out the budget offerings. Greeted there by great news! Tunes has vastly expanded their vinyl selection, which used to be almost 100% new, audiophile-centric stuff. Which is fine and dandy, but now they have rows and rows of used stuff on the cheap. WAY better, people, at least for my purposes.

SO - I picked up some jazz, some classical, and some 80s pop. During the browse, I was taken by the band playing on the store speakers, so I picked that up too (The Dodos, a San Francisco folk-meets-art-rock group, very good - the disc is called "Visiter".) And, as if that weren't enough, they were selling these new-but-vintage-looking beer glasses up front: I got 4 pint glasses, complete with ice bucket and a dozen coasters, all graced with the "Old Style" logo (On Wisconsin!) for - wait for it- 10 bucks. Most satisfying.



Eventually, I went into town for a double feature and drinks with Sherin at the MoMA Jazz Score Film Festival. Saw Paris Blues (star-studded - Paul Newman, Sidney Poitier, Joanne Woodward - with great Duke Ellington & Louis Armstrong music, if a little cheesey. Plus, Diahann Carroll = yum) And...
Anatomy of a Murder (more Duke Ellington soundtrack action, written specifially for the movie this time. Very dated in some ways - hello 1950s sexual politics - but much funnier than I'd remembered, with first rate work from James Stewart, Ben Gazzara, Lee Remick and George C. Scott, and a remarkable performance as the judge from Joseph N. Welch, who hardly ever acted at all, having been a real-life lawyer. And not just any lawyer - this was the guy who faced down Joseph McCarthy in the Army/McCarthy hearings, and who nailed the Red Baiter for good with "Have you no sense of decency, sir; at long last, have you left no sense of decency?" Cool!)

Fast forward to yesterday evening: again, a gorgeous New York Spring evening. I had some time between work and meeting J.P and the boys at the Riviera for the Sox game (gotta love the Red Sox bar in New York), so I sat in beautiful and blooming Madison Square Park reading a music mag. You know how 'fulfilling' that trip to the record store on Saturday was? Well, remember: this is one of those appetites that increases with feeding. Looking over the reviews, I found myself intensely craving the new Portishead and Roots discs, and reissues from Otis Redding (stereo and mono mixes! plus live material!!) and Carole King. So, you know, just since I had some extra time, and since I was going to the Village anyway, I strolled down to another record store I know. There I found good news for my wallet, but bad news for civilization:



Yep. Disc-O-Rama has bitten the dust. (Please forgive the crappy camera-phone image.) Now, this was not one of those classic music shops. The clerks were snobby and surly - which is to be expected, surely, but it's usually accompanied by some serious taste and/or knowledge. That wasn't the case here. I mean, the guy who owned the place had some game, but he was hardly ever there, and even when he was he never wanted to talk to anybody. And the people who just plain worked there weren't much help either. Still, it was a place I'd gone to since I moved to the city, from way back before easy downloads were possible, even before easy CD burning was possible. They were always good for $10 CDs, even of new releases, even when the giant box stores were in full vigor.

R.I.P.

And let this be a warning to us all - support those local independent record stores!!

*Earth Day and the Pennsylvania Primary were also a warning to us all, people. Damn, I hope you are paying attention out there. Lots of people aren't.

T-day 007

Ok, I don't think I've really discussed T-day in this blog, except for the odd reference. It's a gathering that happens every year a couple weeks before Thanksgiving (although the specific timing has changed occasionally, that's a pretty reliable date). There is always a ton of music and revelry, and some truly magnificent communal cooking.

Permit me to anticipate some of your comments and questions.

- Wow - that sounds a lot like 'The Big Chill'

No, it's not really very much like that perfectly adequate movie, although there have been known to be some singing and dancing to go along with the cooking and cleaning. Certain key differences include the fact that T-Day involves:

• a lack of overall angst
• a lack of sexual tension and improbable hookups (umm... ok... there have been a few of those, but really, this party has happened every years for many years, that's bound to happen a little bit - how many were there in that movie that covered one weekend?)
• a decided lack of breaking down and crying in the shower. As far as I know
• and most importantly - we aren't getting together once, after years of not seeing each other, because one of us has DIED.

- How long has this been going on? Where does it happen?

It started back at my college, one or two years before I got there, and has happened every single year since. Since its humble origins in Boston (imagine a bunch of not-exactly-sober college students figuring out how to stuff and cook a turkey and prepare what trimmings they could manage in their ill-equipped kitchens), we have become a diaspora, and the location changes pretty much every year, though there have been repeat venues (Boston, Williamstown, Burlington, VT, Philmont, NY). As the years have passed, several of us have developed pretty good game in the kitchen, and our outings have become more ambitious and adventurous.

- What kinds of things do you do?

There is always some variety, but you can count on lots of:

• food
• drink
• music
• games of some sort in general
• pinochle in particular (really!)

It has always taken place in the Northeast - until this year.

T-Day 007 happened in Edisto Island, South Carolina. Jen goes there with her family a lot and turned us on to the idea. Molly found us a house online that pretty much blew us all away. Some of us have pretty nice houses, but this was essentially a new, fancy, huge place right on the beach. Astounding.

I'll have to write more later, but for now - here's a pic of me just south of the border of North and South Carolinas:

Kismet, Fire Island

Exhausting, as my 'vacations' tend to be. And should be. No sinking into the sand for this group.

First time to F.I. for me - i can't remember ever having gone to a beach in New York at all. Other than Coney Island and Jones Beach, but I didn't go in the water in either case.

So, LIRR to van to ferry to Kismet to the house, which was then our home base for the next three-and-a-half days. Sun and rain vied for primacy, but we danced with the choices they gave us. Which included actual dancing, at a bar called 'the out.'

Speaking of 'out'... we did visit a couple 'clothing optional' beaches, which yielded one of the funnier sights of the weekend: a guy who wore a hat, shirt, shoes AND socks, but no shorts of any kind. Yeah, takes somebody pretty specific to rock that look. One for the ages.

Highlights of the trip:

• Warm sun, clean cool water
• Tennis with Rashmi, Susan, Aaron and Sherin
  
• Yahtzee on the beach, Celebrity, Loaded Questions, Phase Ten, Scrabble and Poker, Poker, Poker (this group was pretty game)
• Sherin and Johnny Thunder dancing at The Out
• Good beer, wine, and gin & tonics (plus that bloody mary that showed up in the nick of time...)
  
• Visits from Shannon's folks and Rachel
• Great music at the house
  
• Meal after amazing meal
• Huge waves after the storm - way fun!
• The long walk to Ocean Beach
• No TV the whole damn time

Hope to post some photos soon. Also hope you had a good weekend yourself.

Thursday? It's Thursday?!

Ok, it's been a little crazy, and the days melt together just a bit...

But there has been fun to be had amongst the madness. So, for a little bit of each:

• In the last couple days, i found out that it's incredibly hard to find a swim suit this time of year. Even for a guy, even (especially?) in new york, they run out of all useful sizes by august.
  
  
• Last night was about 2 things: laundry, and hard cider. A friend brought some direct from london and gave me a couple strongbows. Not a 'drinking' night, as such, but i had one with dinner.
  


• Today, i had lunch with my oldest friend, and we spent almost the whole time doing the new york times crossword puzzle (yesterday's and today's). Which was actually kind of wonderful...

And in case you might be interested in such things... i came across this photo from i'm guessing 2nd grade:

Hehehe. Gotta love the ol' 44! Points for the folks who know why that number's important...