Longer Post Soon

I know I haven't posted since Tuesday, and soon I will be replying to my varied and angry commenters, but right now Sparky is walking up and down the hall ways singing "I'll be your naughty girl" and his performance is driving all other thoughts out of my head. Anybody know something that can cause instant laryngitis?

One More Time

Just wanted to post this again for old time's sake.

John Kerry intern scandal - Alexandra Polier's account

Read all about it: A damning portrait of American (and British journalism.) It's fairly pathetic that Mickey Kaus, without acknowledging his own part in spreading rumors, responds to her piece, by saying:

"We shook the tree," a reporter for The Hill tells Polier. "A bunch of names fell out, and yours had the most flesh to it." A bunch of names? Hmmm. Had Polier heard such names? Doe she think the hopes for a good Kerry sex scandal are completely unfounded? She's remarkably reticent about Kerry's behavior with others. ...

No link for him, because I was about to write a post to chiding Phil for his Kaus obsession, when there are far worthier targets.

My First Google Search Terms

It's for "bohemian hall" and "beer garden" On the whole, I can think of worse ways to start

Brief housekeeping note

I like e-mailing some of these entries, but it seems to screw up the
formatting and not allow links to be placed. The previous entry will be
edited with links, and possibly a photo later.

Vague and personal stuff- then Robert Moses

Like Phil over at his blog, I've been reviewing the past this weekend-
although I spent much of psychic energy on finally closing some doors- I
think one friendship may be over for good, and I'm sad about it, but
it's really been over for a while, and I really can handle only so many
crazy people in my life at any given time.

I never did get around to blogging about a week ago Sunday, and now the
moments passed, so let me give the executive summary. I spent Sunday the
23rd walking with the Curiousity Guild from the top of Broadway in
Manhattan to the South Seaport. The ostensible reason was to explore
the life of Robert Moses, and the effect he's had on the city. The
problem is (a) his effect on the city isn't particularly tied to
Broadway- except for his part in building Lincoln Center, which as I
understand it involved him forcing the candy store owner from West Side
Story, you know the one who says to the gangs "You kids today! You make
the world lousy!" out to pontificate elsewhere, along with every other
resident of those slums and (b) the person who was supposed to lead the
tour, who had actually finished "The Power Broker", could not attend, so
we were left with people who'd read about a third of the book (that
includes me), and people who'd watched the recent Rick Burns
documentary. At any rate, no one can sustain that kind of a narrative
for 230 blocks and six hours- so we mostly broke off in groups and chit
chattted. I met a lot of cool and interesting people among the 23 who
started the walk, and the 12 who limped into South Seaport, and I hope
to see them again some time.

News on the painting

The painter of the piece I won at raffle has a name- Dave Geraghty.

Inadvertantly posted on another blog.

I'm having an interesting but somewhat anxious and formless weekend, not like last weekend's bustle of activity. All actual plans have been cancelled or lazied out of or whatever you want. The writing that has gotten done has been in vague notes, and I'm afraid if I actually tried to develop them, they'd break like old leaves. So I'm going to leave you, one of my 5 or 6 readers with a quote from Dave Hickey's Air Guitar, which I'm reading now at the Brick Cafe and will write more about once I'm finished, but right now I just owe a big favor to the people who reccomended it to me:

Jazz presumes that it would nice if the four of us—simpatico dudes that we are—while playing this complicated song together, might somehow be free and autonomous as well. Tragically this never quite works out. At best we can only be free one or two at a time—while the other dudes hold onto the wire. Which is not to say that no one has tried to dispense with wires. Many have and sometimes it works—but it doesn't feel like jazz when it does. The music simply drifts away into the stratosphere of formal dialectalicm beyond our social concerns.
Rock-and-roll on the other hand, presumes that the four of us—as damaged and anti-social as we are—might possibly get it to-fucking-gether and play this simple song. And play it right, okay? Just this once, in tune and on the beat. But we can't. The song's too simple and we're too complicated and too excited. We try like hell, but the guitars distort, the intonation bends, and the beat just moves, imperceptibly, against our formal expectations, whether we want to or not. Just because we're breathing, man. Thus, in the process of trying to play this very simple song together, we create this hurricane of noise, this infinitely complicated, fractal filigee of delicate distinctions.

I don't agree with this, particularly about jazz, the joy of listening to Ornette Coleman's free jazz, which Hickey lumps with synthesized drumming is the joy of how four musicians can feel so tightly linked and in sync about such formless music that they give it form. But it's a great read.

Disturbing Things My Boss Does: One in a Series

When his son(Sparky) was in college, they got into a fight over the phone,
and his son hung up. His father sent a man over to his college in upstate
New York to knock on his son's window in the middle of the night. When
Sparky woke up and saw the man at the window,the man said to him "Your
father says hello." I'd say this was a mafia intimidation tactic, but even
as dark as Tony Soprano's been portrayed this season, he'd never use
something like that to deal with his children, no matter how out of control
they got. I could see him killing them under certain circumstances, but not
exercising such a meaningless show of intimidation. But such things are my
boss's lifeblood.

Maintenance

At some point I'm going to move this whole blog to another location, one
that involves hopefully less typing. Should be the next week or so, and the
old site will automatically redirect, at least for a while.

I have no other truth to tell today other than that I'm avoiding writing
plays, avoiding the gym, avoiding the film "Dogville," which I know I have
to see at some point, but it'll probably be after my next dental exam,
which it feels spiritually close to. And I'm foolishly avoding sun screeen,
which since I've been in outdoor cafes doing something since 2 is foolish.

For any actual Astoria readers, there is an amazing estate sale of books,
books on religion,all religions, sociology, economics, self-help, history,
biography, fiction, and other stuff at 30-09 42nd St. It's a fairly amazing
selection, at least it was yesterday. So get off your computers, and go
there. (Just don't get dragged into an argument as to the merits of cds vs.
records, but you probably knew that.)