Back in the Shiney Apple, spice snots streaming down my merry face.
For Yours Truly is happily seated in the front window (perhaps the nice girls behind counter will tap me on shoulder and say You know, every time you come here you eat a half bottle of our nuclear El Yucateco green hot sauce and scare pedestrians with your snot face, could you be so kind as to relocate to this more distant, less public table.) of Cubano Cafe Habana which has unfortunately painted over their colourful murals and have gone very minimalist.
Jumped off the J/Z on the Bowery and rushed over to Prince @ Elizabeth.

A funny, short tale, a YT highlight.
So there I am, post-asscrack of dawn, fumbling with the self-checker for USAir, having booked online via grand expedia.com for same.
Nothing. No getting of me on docket, no recognition of flight number.
I stand in line. A man calls to me I'll help you with the machine. I'm warbling I tried that already. Grimace, grimace. Man shouts Come down here and I'll help you and if it doesn't work HE (gesturing to man behind counter) will help you.
I shuffle down there. I say Well, maybe it's because it was booked online.
Swipe credit card. Nothing. Grumble.
I pull out my print-out of itinerary.
He takes a quick look.
Well, he says, the trouble is you're on Delta.
Oh.
Problem Solved.
So, for Your Enlightening, Delta is a good Choice B, C, or A for jetting from the Middling City to Shiney Apple.

Over and out.

Elizabeth@Prince Love.

So today is like the Super Bowl.
But it's about movies, not football thugs.
And, really, not wanting to be a giant party pooper, but I'm not into the Oscars.
My pal Karen cringes as she reads this.
And my mind zooms back to some Oscar Night parties I attended that were fun, to a point.
Now, mind you, I am an ultra-proud card-carrying member of Film Forum and watch more movies classique than the average public popcorn muncher (pet peeve numero uno), but this whole commercialized, let's gossip about rich folk thing really doesn't inspire.
I suppose I might like to see who is tripping along the red carpet.
And I will read which movie captured the hearts and souls of the Academy voters.
Only saw two of the movies, The Queen and Departed.
And as Yours Truly wrote the word Departed I queried internally thusly Is it really Departure.
I rest my Oscar-ambivalent case.

Last night met up with Brucey and parked in Allentown and trekked to the Saarinen-made Kleinhans Music Hall to be supportive of our wine and beer-pouring pal, Paul Safy, young crooner on the rise.
He sang with the Middling City Orchestra, three showy tunes, and did an amazing job.
I both beamed like a proud relative and worried that he'd fall on the cord, or fall of the stage. I was, let Us say, a proud wreck.
Saw him afterwards and we exchanged shouted greetings as he signed copies of his cd for those who just discovered his rich barritone.
And when he's all famous and shit YT can state He sang Happy Birthday to YT way back when.

Way back, cinematic Love.

What did Yours Truly photograph on this fine Middling City day.
Well, YT will tell you.
A bot war.
You know, as in (ro)bot, war.
Made by young met at the U, guys who were either resembling lumberjacks in plaid shirts, huge of stature, or resembling little thin branches that lumberjacks would send crashing to the ground.
The branch guys involved in this bot war were the ones, YT noted, who manned the remote controls of the bots.
There was a plexi cage, a roof of chix wire, a small door. All this elevated.
It rather reminded me of the cock rings in the Philippines with its ring of shouting watchers, the door, and the feeling of a minor, imminent doom.
Poked around the crowd and made images from outside the door and then leaning into the bot war ring when there were adjustments being made - until a concerned citizen type said it was time to get the hell out.
These bots were impressive, not quite Mark Pauline in that they did not shoot out fire, but they were heavy, metal, and caused great damage.
Back to cock fights. Talked my way into one cock ring and did not feel that if a cock with 4-inch blade flopped my way that I'd be cut to ribbons.
Made images at end of all rounds that one sweltering day when the cock owners and handlers butchered the cocks who had lost.
Runner-ups are gone, as in roost in sky gone.
Speaking of destruction,
there is a jungle rot thing happening on one of YT's fingers, something I squirted Bactine on for a few days. Well now it's angrier. So now it's being swabbed with something more serious.
The medically-minded sister got rather hysterical upon hearing about the jungle rot, at one point suggesting, dig this, that it could, just Could, be a flesh-eating spider bite.
She got hysterical after I mentioned the swollen lymph node.
After she hystericed I suggested that that only means that my body is working to get rid of the, well, whatever it is.
Promised her that if this ebola thing is worse on sunday I will, promise, no fingers crossed, head to some authority on such matters.
Perhaps the zoo. Maybe botanical gardens.
Hospital.
Santa Ria practioner.
I just do not know.

Flesh-Eating Love.

First off, my nouveau poly-carbon shovel just completely kicks ass and worked wonders on the horrid sno-cone-esque quote-unquote snow that lingers.
Today is that day that some folks in the Middling City roam about with smudges on their foreheads, something that always takes me slightly aback–not aback to any past, or roots, or scholastic endeavour.
I did ask Leah Rico today, who I bumped into, if she'd like me to provide her forehead with a smudge, whilst looking about for some dust or whatnot. She declined.
Last night met up with some of the bookclub girls at DiGiulio's for a wine and cheese fest, avoiding the melee that is the MC's version of Mardi Gras.
I pronounced to no one in particular, but was surrounded in a small subdining room by others heaping salad plates with cheeses, that Yours Truly was in cheese heaven.
Is there a better thing to eat than cheese.
I think not.
I tried to tell the wine rep onhand how much I was rather into loathing New York State wines, and absolutely the one he was holding aloft.
Ever being the good sport, succumbed to his wish that I try it.
My head was overcome with the sweet and chemical scent of concord.
He pointed to the reject bucket and in it went. From glass, not from mouth.
Things picked up after that.
We girls sat in the restaurant's circular booth and ended up inviting the wine rep and his beleaguered wife to join us. He told some jokes. She shook her head. He made disparaging comments about her. She reacted as I'm sure she has for decades, a quiet recession followed by a gulp of vino.
Got a few notes of thanks for my Red Dinner, one celebrant referring to it as a Blood bath due to all the red beverages.
Speaking of celebratory red colours, one thing I so dug about Japan in the spring were the red bibs placed on statuary around temples. Red = celebrate.
Just read in NYT that Vegas's MGM Grand had to do a big re-do of their building's entryway from the giant head of a lion as all the Asians refused to enter the head of an animal. Bad luck. Lion demo'd. All is swell.
Speaking of that desert community, received today a box and in that box a silver, serious-looking attaché case. Question mark.
Inside is a serious poker kit with chips, dice, cards.
This is a post-junket gesture from those nice people at Midway Games, a thanks for just being YT.
YT who grooved on all things Midway Games for a few.

Grooving on Love.

PB-related p.s.
Peter sent me an email with a slammin poster for BrötFest, happening in Nippon next month, it ebellished with a PB likeness by YT.
See here.

Was there a more odd news day than this one.
I think not.
Bald Britney, for starters, got a little pink and red lips tattoo on her wrist.
What a bad tattoo choice, this just proves she really is white trash at heart.
And, as all gals know, there is the revenge/trauma diet as well as the revenge/trauma hair adjustment.
Oh and then the story about how the formerly-plump Anna got embalmed.
And has James Brown been buried yet.
And has his ensemble been changed - again.
Last night met Little Laura out for a quick jaunt and visit and we suddenly became aware that there was a man lurking nearby, hanging onto our words.
We sort of talked to him, a transplanted southerner in shock about the weather.
I mean really.
Who even pays attention to the weather.
Forge onwards, get some nice accessories, pay your heating bill, get over the complaining crap.
Today had a gig at the Middling City Museum of Science and Yours Truly was most thrilled to note that the leadership of the sad joint did not see a need to replace the ridiculous nametags for the stuffed mammals in one of the (YT thinks) endangered halls of actual artful installation.
One bright spot was the MCMS had their stuffed polar bear in a place of prominence.
As well as some stuffed caninus lupi.
Made some images of the endangered halls as YT imagines that the ineptitude over there is spreading like ice crystals on a cold MC window.

Weather or not, Love.

When the Whip Comes Down, Stones song classique about working It on the mean streets, was emanating from that Middling City rock & roll station that embraces not only their steadfast playlist con brio but attendant rock philosophies - machismo, and blue-collarism, for example.
97 Rock, in common parlance, was blaring a bit as Yours Truly was wending about the MC's downtown en route to a Dorothy visit - that quippalicious femme fatale who chops hairs collectively for a living. YT stomped and stomped some more along the Pergo© floor to de-snow and rounded the corner to note that everyone in the floofparlour had disengaged from conversation and was looking up directly - or in mirrors - to see just what in h.e.l.l. was calamitying around the corner. Voi-freakin-là! Moi!

sidebar: (the haircut script)
YT: Hi, Dorothy, it's Nancy.
D: Hi, Nancy.
YT: I woke up today and I hate my hair, can you squeeze me in.
D: Yeah, sure, no problem Nancy, how is 1 p.m.?
YT: Yay! See you then, thanks!

As I listened to Mick's emphatic embrace of the song's phrases I was struck that as a frontman he must like so believe in these repetitive words, as an actor might with a part, to pull off the whole damned presentation. Refrains. Hand gestures. Hip thursts. More refraining.
This all, YT went on to further conclude, is a fine musical thesis to carry into any rock performance or karaoke session. Karaoke might be on agenda soon with some pals who take the big K real seriouslike.
What kills a karaoke presentation worse than just not believing in the lyrics (as Mick must or any other primo frontman/gal), or worser yetter, one's own veracity/profusion/rock&rollness?
Breaking down into a fit of laughter.
That's what.
In a midwestern town YT had a barroom in her grips during a tune. But suddenly the spell was broken, I began to hate the selection and then chortled through the second half of the song, leaving the elevated stage in a somewhat-authentic cloud of disgrace.
I did just regale Kennedy last night with my most triumphant karaoke tale.
I was in Japan, in a private karaoke room with a group.
Table, banquette seating. Killer hi-fi (any ol' joint in Japan has such), killer amenities for such a gathering (read drinks).
YT brought down the high-rise with a sparkling and searing rendition of ABBA's Dancing Queen.
FF to another, later Japan karaoke incident. And I do mean incident.
I had scoped out during the day while making images a few bars.
Later, after some official business, grabbed two artists and made our way to this bar, which I later dubbed Danger Bar as it was festooned with DANGER ZONE plastic tape (in English, assuredly a prized, kitsch touch).
We three sang into the cordless mic for hours and hours, at one point YT getting on top of the bar and strutting along to an early Madonna tune.
Well, when it was time to leave we were saddled with the heftiest of bills.
Not understanding that this particular joint charged per song.
So we scraped together the Y(en) and split.

Moral: know when Art and freedom of expression are just that.

Free, expressed Love.

For Your edification, the annual Valentine-related blogpost about Valentine.
We have all heard that this gushy, red-infused day is named for two martyrs and is celebrated a day before the ancient pagan holiday of Lupercal.
Lupercal was celebrated by shepherds, word has it, who ran naked through streets, whacking the crap out of anyone on the streets with shaggy horns.
Another entry about Lupercal mentions human sacrifice that gave way to the sacrifice of two male goats and a dog and the rubbing of blood on young, selected Luperci's faces.
To this I say a big Yikes and thank goodness that nowadays it is all overwroughtly about cards, chocolate, flowers.
At a post office today talking to a non-postal employee, discussed the day.
He bought his Love some chocolate-covered molasses treats.
For my near and dear I tossed together my annual Red Dinner, a Bacchanalian of sorts with all-red foods, red drinks, guests in crimson.
This all transpired this past Saturday night and the floor still has a few wine-red spots, party tattoos, if You will.
Happiest of Lupercal/Valentine wishes to You.
May you run naked in Your mind through warm streets, pelted by chocolate kisses, Your path strewn with red rose petals.
Today the Middling City is frigid, began the day in a chaotic manner I'd best forget.
Onwards to happy, Lupercal times.

Red Red Wine, and Love.
As Neil, that great harbinger of all things passionate, might intone.

An appropriate, seasonal Middling City tale.
When one grows up in the MC one has accoutrements that are both sporty and wintry.
One might find in one's holdings things such as snowshoes, x-c skiis, hockey sticks (2), hockey balls for warm and cold weather, gaitors, and the like.
Attempting to try out new snowshoes headed down to what is termed the South Towns, a.k.a. Ski Country, to strap them on and give them a whirl but was thwarted by seasonal white-outs along the way - on Routes 219 and 20A specifically.
Left the former for the latter and was looking at one giant wall of snow, not unlike the venerable Wall of Sound so popularized by Phil Spector of gunplay fame.
Turned back, if You will, abandoning the snowshoe plan, returning to the Middling City which was all sun. This all happened on Our national sporty holiday, Super Bowl Sunday. A holiday like most other USofA holidays, focusing on food, gathering, and cheer(ing).
Writing an informative piece for the Shiney Happy Mag about area diners, the best around which, unsurprisingly, have unsurprising menus that creatively re-assemble house ingredients and serve up coffee both tepid and strong.
Have two more on the list but one of these, in the MC's so-called Cobblestone District, has rather odd hours that are sometimes disregarded.
The other on the list of remaining sites is the east side diner of note, Gigi's, serving soul food in a real diner setting peppered with 8x10 glossies of notables who have darkened the doorstep.
Off to points beyond for documentation and oso much more.

Diner documentation Love.

Ahhh, it's that time of year when the word prognostication gets dragged out of the lexicon into the light of day for it is Groundhog Day. At least in the northeastern portion of the USofA.
This is thee day when rodents, viable and stuffed, get to do just that regarding the duration of the season at hand. Prognostication of snaps, fronts, bands, accumulation.
Today at the university, between buildings, Ridge Lee Larry worked his deader-than-doorknob magic.
He, stuffed and adorned, and mounted onto a sliver of a log, is placed on a mound of snow in front of a faux groundhog hole and stares glassily out, in a twenty-yard stare, to tell the assembled if there will be more weeks of winter.
Or not.
There was no shadow (surprise) and so it is more winter.
While waiting for the festivities attached to the mounting of the dead and mounted Larry spoke to a few safety officers who showed up. They had nice, embroidered jackets and were there, they said, to check up on things. They had just run a fire alarm check but thought they'd check to see if the crockpots in a vestibule were not in danger of shortcircuiting. They said. I asked if perhaps they might also be concerned that Ridge Lee Larry was in harm's way - Larry's handler left him rather precariously next to the gas grill where dogs and burgers were roasting away. He is stuffed, old. I'm sure his pelt is quite crisp. I have never touched Larry. There was, in a scrapbook, an image of a student kissing Larry's face.
In conclusion:
Happy Ridge Lee Larry Day, Middling City.

Rodential Love.

Jubilant Immature Moment (a JIM, if You will) #87,433.
If You are like really incensed by generalizations, breeze along.
backstory: Middling City cabs are frightening and if viewed on any MC roadway steer clear for they are, generally speaking, un-maintained cabins of death. Their drivers are, generally speaking once again, people who are unaware, or perhaps on the lam. They are smoking. The cars have missing hubcaps. They are rust buckets, as we say in this grand Rust Belt. The cabbies resemble the little rectangles of photographic images of those who have done something grave in mags of distinction amid a harrowing piece of non-fiction.
In a more edgy sector of the MC I was being waved down by a cabbie. Immediate thought was of carjacking or something until the next thought was Of course, they have no GPS in the vehicle, nor maps, I presume, so he is lost and in need of coordinates. But I really was not into stopping where I was and rolling down passenger window and shouting directions across a thoroughfare so I did the natural thing. I pretended to not notice the large flailing arm rising out of the cab window. I motored along at law-abiding speed and the cabbie was driving alongside my vehicle flailing wildly. I pretended to be not only not noticing but singing along to a phantom loud tune on the radio. He began beeping madly. Still I stared emphatically ahead, singing along to … rien.
I was priding myself on not laughing and continued the ruse through a red light and a left turn.
The cabbie flagged down a poor, defenseless pedestrian.

Met Liz last night for vino. She does not get the whole Perfect Nancy Gun Moll Thing.
I tried to explain. It did not work. You either groove on the adrenaline of shooting targets well – or not.

Jubilant, immature Love.

Shoot for New Era went photographically, swimmingly.
Spike Lee of 40 Acres and a Mule fame directed this commercial featuring about eight or so national league baseball players - most surprisingly huge. One of average height, the rest sky high.
The shoot took place in front of the New Era joint (in honour of Spike and his Joints that select word) on e4. The baseballers were queued up, as were other fans, outside of the store meant to look as if they're waiting for ... caps.
A player arrives, a Twin. Number 33.
He stands in front of a lifesized cut-out of himself. There is a ruckus. A hotdog is thrown, a metal spatula is brandished. But this intrepid player will not go to the end of the line. He barges into the store as, as luck would have it, an actor playing a New Era employee shows up to unlock the stylish cap co.
Number 33 (have not yet given him a Google) enters and the others mutter GGGRRR, MVP, GRRR.
Justin Morneau.
Yayyyyyyyyyyyyy Twins, Yayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy Google.
So there Yours Truly is all brushed up against these players and I'm trying to overhear who in hell they might be. There were Mets, Yankees, uhhh, Devils. Nope, no Devils.
There was a prevalent Detroit brunette.
Spike is, as I had witnessed live and in person before, hesitant to show any type of joie de vivre, the man is all biz. Show biz.
It was only here and there when he'd pat a player on the back or praise one of their takes that he'd smile. Some t.v. newscrews asked him about the commercial but mostly about football. He gushed about going to the You-know-what.
At the lunch break I made some images of him demi-reposed in the front window of the New Era shoppe on some stylish chairs, Blackberrying away.
Notez bien: Mr. Lee is wearing a model of New Era cap that takes a special head and demeanour. I tried on said cap at the New Era grand op in the Middling City. It was so not me and I opted for the greenest of choices, sans earflaps.
I asked one of the New Era execs if they'd like an image with Mr. Lee.
Made some happy snaps of Spike with John of New Era and then of him and another New Era other.
Back to the Middling City shortly.
Happy in my vagabond state.

Spiked Love.

Realized that to date there was no epinw-based images of Yours Truly foisting firearm for Your beseeching eyes.

Spent yesterday in Perfect zone of looking, drifted from Kiki Smith show to a meander through the Whitney. I learned to absolutely love the Whitney several years ago after a strange belief that the venue was too department storelike - 4th floor Lingerie! 3rd floor Comestibles! But the stairwell is so warrenlike and soothing to YT now between the glowing exhibitions. The Kiki show was a swim in her many many objects and trials of different materials, all body/myth/Nature/wondrousness.

Hopped onto a bus a few blocks and debussed for the Met to see the Tiffany Laurelton Hall installation as I saw his magnolia windows in print and had to see these in the flesh/glass/lead/wood casements. And then found myself spending much time looking at metalworks from the Middle Ages, reliquaries mainly, metal arms outstretched with spots for the bone fragments of whomever, and silver birds, and Byzantine wonders. A treat, this whole journey, like a crispy Cortland with perfect white flesh on an equally crisp and perfect October day.

Also of note: opening in TriBeCa with Jason and Dorota up up up a rickety stairwell in a building on Walker that seemed near-demo quality to be met with a room of seated watchers watching a triad of digvids projected. Next room an atomic burst of flourescent tubes lashed together and forming a very large kind of non-functional shelter and the ineffectual volunteer was having a helluva time keeping tipplers and patrons from walking amid the glowing white that seered the eyes in a most KMart way. Much after had dinner with a bunch of Brooklyn creatives at Pink Pony and finangled the rock star circular booth in the back. Then onwards to the Knife Fight gig which was excellent, a complete 180, if You will, from the venue itself. Top floor jungled and smokey hanging. Second level people walking from back to front, club employees handling colored laser pointers randomly pointing them at people as if they were cattle to be controlled, moved, cajoled. Basement, where the music happened, was the most Middling Citylike of the levels, very Continental. Knife Fight was on. Their drummer, Foxy, is moving from the Shiney Apple back to KY. I thought that Geez, this kid will wake up one fine morn down there and rush right back on the next Greyhound to recapture the magic of being a rockstar and noticed and imbued with Shiney Apple purpose.

Speaking of such, time for out again into the Shiney Apple for more more and more.

Crisp fragment of Love.

Taxi'd over to The Gun Store on Tropicana Boulevard, named for the casino that is now showing that Bodies show of cadavers injected with plastiques. Sadly, no time left for that. But The Gun Store. There was scheduled time for that.
Arrived and chose the Saddam Hussein target.
Literal Harold (who'd never shot before) and I split rounds for two automatic weapons, the M16 with holographic scope, and the FBI-sanctioned MP5. Really not to be confused with the ol' MP3.
Got some quick coaching from gun guy Sean, and, after putting on the Ears and eyes, got down to target practice.
Preferred the smooth-firing M16 and obliterated the face of the paper target.
Sean said We need you for our SWAT team.
Not sure if he was on a real or virtual SWAT team.
Speaking of virtual v. real, went to Midway's computer gaming event yesterday and watched as there was a group launching of games and then as the chosen gamers merrily gamed away.
We were all fairly starved and glanced periodically at the Hard Rock's concert venue perimeters to see if the chafing dishes were chafed yet.
Games were played and played and then some nice food arrived.
Ran into the chef AGAIN, this time on the toppermost floor of the hotel, him sitting solo in an adjoining elegant-looking restaurant.
Wandered about in interconnected casinos and such for a while and now, quite now, it's time to smash things back into the bag and jet back east.

Back East Love.

Jetted way early a.m. from Middling City to the JFK, my former hangout of several years where I'd blog/email/wait/read/study.
On the flight from the far Rockaways to Las Vegas, where Yours Truly is presently for a junket to Midway's computer games extravaganza to make scintillating images of such for VH1, I spotted thee Alfred Portale of Gotham fame.
I fairly gushed that on Sunday night, as I'll be wending back towards that other, rightmost timezone of the USofA Friday and then shooting stills from a shoot for a commerical for New Era Cap Co of Derby, NY - for real - fame, that Dorota and I will be plunked down at a table somewhere in his joint at 12e12 in the Shiney Apple.
Yesterday on the flight, when I wasn't soundly snoozing, watched a marathon, apparently, of Top Chef. Think I saw about five seconds of this once but watched their challenges and, despite the fact that I would say my cooking skills are fairly unfair in the sense that they rock, that I do have a lot to learn indeed. When the cooks were faced with the challenge of what to do with mounds of offal (think chef Mario Batali of orange clog fame) I mused that I would not know a god-danged thing to do with chicken feet, cow tongue, maybe something with sweetbreads, but never kidneys. No. Never.
Also to be noted is that YT did not note that the flight was five hours and did not have more than a light breakfast at the JFK so watching all this food prep was torturous. JetBlue tossed some snacks at us a few times. A man two seats down opened up a sub/hoagey/hero and I nearly shouted Geez Up There! A FIRE so I could grab this white bread monstrosity for a bite to assuage the pangs.
Once in Vegas, in this desert, and then once in Mandalay Bay, noted and remembered the grandness of Vegas in the most mallacious way. It's all big and brash and sort of tasteful but sort of way way too.
In one transem of the Mandalay lobby were tiered Andy Warhol cammie paintings, eight in all, up the wall. Across more art. There is really art in Vegas. Not as plentiful as the faux boobs, but there is a lot.
Worked out in the Mandalay gym and it was also elegant.
Seconds ago got a call from Literal Harold (VH1's computer gaming blog star) who is down the hall, asking if I'd collect some hotel soaps for him, apparently he collects hotel soaps. I should probably share with him that I grabbed about 6 bottles of water at the workout centre as I'd paid $20 for the daypass and I'll be dang-blamed if I'll shell out another $3.25 for a small bottle of water.
Should humans have to pay for water. In posh hotels.
In gymnasiums.
Onwards to the desert momentum, this city ringed with gray mountains off on the landscape's horizon.

Desert, not always Dessert, Love.

veni vidi rolli.
Went to Queen City Roller Girls benefit Saturday night to roll and not derby.
In vehicle was also Annie and Jana and up north met up with Cheryl, Liz, Erin and saw The Jens as well as rockabilly and art types.
As well as one Middling City politico whose hippie wedding I shot a number of years ago. They wore sandals. It did not last.
There is a moral there.
So what did last in his closet were some 80s acid-wash jeans that had some streaks of bedazzlement, worn as the night was themed 80s-era prom.
On the wooden floor was a panoply of hideous bridesmaid dresses, corsages.
The QCRG team, numbering at about thirty, is half bruisers and half lithe types who, if they were your grocery checkout girl, you'd feel the need, perhaps, depending upon mood, to help her foist a grocery bag into the cart.
Witnessed were, de rigeur, some stupendous wipeouts (not to be confused of the top ten selection of Yours Truly) with limbs akimbo, people holding onto wall, people holding the wobbly up, some scoping, and lipgloss.
I made sure that, while blading along, lipgloss was firmly applied.
And one of my dearest, Liz, gets my ribbon for roller gumption, lacing up and, in grand Liz style, hitting the activity con brio. I whizzed past her at one point as she was falling and had to go around before I could find her again. I was helping her with some technique issues and she said the greatest quote of all, to be included on the calendar of YT if ever there is to be one, accompanied with image of Liz on skates,
I don't mind falling.
Now those are words to muster up and forge ahead with on a diurnal basis.
Also of special note was the boy in drag who wore a rather unflattering maxi dress that happened to match the odd ochre of the rental skates.
Onwards after the rink headed more north to find a dismal hotel bar so that Jana could review it for some reason, assumedly to assuage those in Niagara County who feel that if ever there is news about their limping burg it is about what transpires (entertainmently speaking) over at the former convention center, The Jackpot Centre.
The bar is not worth discussing (special mention deserved for the bar owner's dyed eyebrows ... no man should dye his eyebrows, and the unchilled white box wine, so Niagara Falls, so OUcH) but the activities of YT and pals are - dancing to a dj who busted out all the party tunes, a stranger (a woman) doing the forbidden dance with YT and I thought it was Jana until she meandered by and then I discovered this elfish drunkish lady behind me all juicey-goosey, and the earnest cover band onhand (A-List, such a grabby name) who not only proffered up one primo homonym typo on their set list (If You Don't No Me By Now), but did a rather overly-syncopatic but welcomed rendition of Neil's Sweet Caroline. To which I did an interpretive solo dance to express my deepest love for Neil, not the A-Team.
You see, the love of Neil is spread far and wide.
To the south, to the north.
In homes, in cars, in cheezey hotel bars the world over.
Wherever It may be, there is Neil Love.

Neil Love, Love.

Went to Cowboy Junkies last night, comps from Blair, their manager.
As per riders, Margot had her fresh flowers next to her mic stand.
And she had less of the snarks than usual.
The new material was fine and about halfway into their gig I felt like I'd had the CJ experience, and was essentially waiting for their Sweet Jane.
From there went over to Liz's, for the tail end of her writerly meeting.
Everyone was in the proverbial bag when I arrived, as writers are wont to be all toasty when gathered, when discussing such arduous things such as serial commas.
Off to see those cute Canadians, Sloan, tonight with Annie and Michele, or Mish, as she prefers to be dubbed.
Sloan, the foursome most famed in the mind of Yours Truly for onstage instrument swaps.
In mere minutes I'll be running over to Trinity Church with another art donation that will hopefully fetch a good price so the joint won't have to shut its art-encouraging doors.
All for now and over and out the door.

Rock on Canadian rockers Love.

The Middling City News today is so slim that I believe an average PennySaver is beefier - section A today is several pages of ads, wire service stories, a few pages of hard, local fact.
If You were motoring in a west to easterly fashion down Hertel Avenue last night you, if You glanced into the convoluted window displays and saw beyond the neon and piñatas and such of that rather awful cheese fiesta known as Gramma Mora's, You may have noted a person wearing a sombrero the size of a golf umbrella, outsizing any respectable Parisian café table by at least 125%.
That was Yours Truly.
Met the Art Mentor last night at the Mexjoint and noted a stack of sombreros and asked barkeep about said stack. He tried to warble out a tune about how you had to imbibe a certain amount of tequila or whatnot to earn the right to wear a sombrero. I would have none of that and wrangled the largest onto my head.
The thing was heavy, a real neck workout.
This was sort of an r&d foray as one of my back-burnered concepts is to market public laptop work sombreros for those who wish to be unnoticed, undisturbed whilst working on their machines. A rollable, flexible sombrero.
Last night's sombrero was not only heavy but inflexible.
It also prevented me from watching the end of the Sabres game properly as looking up at the television over my head to the left was a slippery slope.
But, mark these words.
If I do ever acquire a burro I am definitely getting that Gramma Mora's sombrero.
The Sabres won, I won.
Today, in mere moments, Yours Truly is heading down to the very bunkeresque and uncheering MC Convention Center for a rubber chix lunch, a charity event honouring several for their community contribs, including one of my art pals, Gerald Mead.
Something for Your mulling pleasure.
Doing the (rubber) chicken dance wearing an XL sombrero would be quite a feat, a test of will, neck, derring-do.

Obliterated Love.

Big and great Middling City news - in grand banner style - is that the Bike Path Rapist has been apprehended after over two decades.
I had a gig out at Middling City U this fine morning and was informed by an official there that this very rapist (a wily, sociopath who was a church-attending, lawn mowing, model dad in cahoots with his dark self) registered to run in the annual Linda Yalem Memorial Run - named for his first victim who he also murdered.
I said Incomprehensible.
And just now, with all that horrid news somewhere in the mind, wrote a one-page artist statement full of joy and love and hopefulness about making art and such for a grant. Granted, the thing was due yesterday, on Martin's Day, but there were no po's open and so they should just say What the hell, c'mon in and let us have a look, and then, oh then, they should cry Eu-fuckin-reka, give this woman a grant.
Well, now that I have blogged about this all it will not happen, as that's how these art things work. Say and reveal too much and *ka-poof* there it goes.
Planning a Girlie Roller Outing via eVite which is so very new millennium. This event is a mere handful of dollars and all the dollars go to the Middling City roller derby team.
Everyone has a bat story. Everyone has a ghost story. Everyone has an I got my heart smashed like an atom story. Everyone, seemingly, also has a rollerskating story.
Mine.
I was an athlete. I was very thin. Read between the lines.
All the other girls lined up against the wall would get picked for the boy choice skate. I would be nearly the last but, You know, the boys were usually so bad at skating and had such gross, sweaty hands that it was usually, in retrospect always, better to skate solo and emulate Raquel Welch than be subjected to that nonsense.
And everyone has a song or bevy of songs they attribute to skating.
On all these divergent notes I end, skating away to the post office to get this hopeful packet of documentation and such off to wherever, whomever.

Rolling, Love.

First things first.
Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day's Eve.
There is a movement to make this holiday a national day of service and at an event shot by Yours Truly on Friday night there was big emphasis on literacy and helping non-readers to love words.
Tomorrow was the actual b-day and, renewing knowledge of MLKjr Fun Facts, retrieved the one that notes he began college at the age of fifteen.
Just read the harrowing tale of a former child soldier in Sierra Leone, Ishmael Beah, in the NYT mag.

Sometimes I feel that living in New York City, having a good family and friends, and just being alive is a dream.

There was just, it should be noted, a Middling City skyclatter, thunder like nobody's business. Today it hailed. This is NOT snow, I shouted into the sky. It's time for snow. The snow shovel looks bereft and I do imagine that all the plowing guys are digging their long run of contracted coffee breaks.

It is time to edit like the wind, like the blustering wind in the dark Middling City clouds.
It should be noted that YT will be at a press junket for VH1 soon for a few out in the freaky desert bowl that is Las Vegas. In Spanish that means The Chips.
Scouting out shooting ops, the sort with rented guns, not the other, renowning sort.

Scouting, hailing Love.

Patti Smith and REM, two of the toppermost of this blogger's poppermost.
And do either Patti or the solid GA guys of REM give a damn about their inductions into the Hall of Fame in the Land of Cleves in OH?
There was, post-announcement, some alleged gushy quotes from Michael Stipe who was in London, about this rock honour and that he got a call from rock poet Patti saying big congrats and he got to congrat her back and isn't it just so supernuts being so super-famed and inducted.
Lest You have not been, here is my super-famed and inducted take on the R&R Hall of Fame, which I traipsed to several years ago for the John Lennon show which I did not regret.
You arrive and, as with all Cleveland lakeside attractions, there is efficency, and expense.
Not Middling City expense, but real, bona fide pay for the priviledge expense.
You ditch the car and meander into what could be a mall. A mall of music and high ceilings and windows and wondrous electronics and a cheesey stage in one corner and, if You are really lucky, there will be someone on the stage warbling, earnestly.
There are escalators and you might think of the Pompidou Centre but you can stop right now if You are. You escalate and have not paid any ransom and you might think Hey I am like so in but You are not. You still must pay and, when wandering amongst the attractions, the perma-collection, if You will, You will be overwhelmed by two, concurrent things.
The girth and age of several of Your fellow attendees.
Then it will possibly occur that Hell, this is a rather old genre, after all, I came along in nineteen-whatever and righto these folks were rocking around the clock a long while before that. So there's that.
Then you will see do-dads, trinkets, broken guitars, signed picks, signed jockstraps, signed pizza boxes, just about every thing signed and splintered and oso rock and oso roll.
You will begin to not only feel amazed like You're at one of those travelling curiosity shows maybe gleaned here and there in Life but you will be thinking perhaps a trip out to Seattle's Experience Music joint with the Gehry lines is in order.
So a telling thing is that the Rock & Roll induction gig with this year's all worthy and hexcellent inductees - Ronettes, VH, Run DMC, and aforementioned - happens in the Shiney Apple. Not over there down 90 in Cleveland. Not at the M/Hall of Fame, not in any other COH venue. The Shiney Apple, the city that is more rock than over there and, frankly, anywhere.
Long Live Rock. Long Live the Shining Shiney Apple.

Long Live Love.

afterthought:
Google the COH R&R Hall of Fame and a troubling message flits across the backlit world. Going to that site will harm your computer. Forewarned is forehappy.