The Principessa Ann-Marie and I saw a terrific show by a super talented lady (Deborah Karpel), a former co-worker from the Chrysler Building. Songs my Mother Never Taught me ... or Miracles was a one woman show (with an accompanying pianist) featuring comedy, family, nostalgia and the Mets! Mets! Mets! The Queens number Deborah (wrote) and performed was hilarious and my wife and I loved it. A kind of tribute to her parents that was as heartwarming as it was entertaining. Deborah sang Yiddish/Klezmer songs, Opera (from Le Nozze di Figaro) ... and that Queens Number that had us in stitches.
What’s Klezmer, you ask? Click here to find out, but understand that even the King of Swing was influenced by it ...
The house was packed (literally people sitting in the rafters) and we wish we could’ve hung around but we live in the wilds of New Jersey (many miles from 161 Chrystie Street), where, as it so happens, I used to play my two sons in our SBA championships (my home court in Little Italy when I lived there).
Tickets anyone? The NYPD Blue, ever vigilant (about not pepper spraying or beating women while being videoed on Youtube anymore) have better things to do ... so once I was in the city to pick up Ann Marie, I was early (as usual) and parked a few blocks away and read a book. At 5:00 p.m., when she gets out, I drove to her block and idled in front of her building. This was too great an assault on New York’s finest (by order of their BILLIONAIRE Mayor), [wouldn’t it be nice if the foot soldiers realized they’re screwing those in the same boat as they are?] so ... they blocked the car of a working slob as if I could race away from them (where THE FOCK was I going to go?) ... I was idling, engine running, windows open in case a traffic person told me to move on (what one would expect), but the NYPD doesn’t fool around. Instead of saying, “Hey, buddy (or fatso), you can’t park here. Move on.” Nope, not Bloomberg’s stormtroopers ... they blocked my car (like cameras were rolling) and one of them got out with his little ticket book (and a smile) and asked for my ID. Five minutes later, “Here you go, Sir” (very professional) ... a $115.00 ticket. Way to go Mayor Bloomberg! As a former NY’er who spent lots of coin in MY city, you (and IT) can kiss my coin goodbye, MF’er. My trips to the city will be seriously curtailed.
Jerkoffs.
A few months ago I read a new novel from New Pulp Press called “In Nine Kinds of Pain” ... here’s the link to The Crime of It All and my review of a terrific new author with a press unafraid to showcase new talent in new ways. Graphics, poems, you name it, this slice of Detroit life is a wonderful read, amici. I really, really, really thought this one was GREAT.
In Nine Kinds of Pain.
So, how are all of you doing out there financially? Don’t look now, but Wall Street had its best month since 2002 ... Yep, those “free markets” sure are working for all us average types. All that profit the “job creators” have now that we bailed them out ... well, I guess they’re waiting for the right opportunity to invest in America (as they like to say). Maybe once all the hospitals and schools are closed and a few hundred million of us die off, those annoying government regulations (that are never enforced anyway) will be gone and we can return to a minimum wage of, say, $3.00 an hour? Yep, those unemployment numbers should start dropping any day now ... any day ... prosperity is just around the corner ...
any day now ...
More homers makes for good baseball? Why not play on little league fields? I’m telling you, this is what makes me crazy ... the absolute ruination of the national past time. I really used to enjoy WATCHING baseball games ... I can remember running home from school as a kid to catch the St. Louis Cardinals playing the Detroit Tigers in an afternoon game ... and here my METS go and put an extra twist in the dagger of a game I can barely watch for two innings anymore. Shorten the fences? Again?
What I”m reading ... right now I’m having a blast reading John (Toronto Bills) McFetridge’s Let It Ride on kindle ... He is without a doubt, the Canadian Elmore Leonard ... how this guy isn’t selling like Leonard is beyond me ... great stuff. Full review next week.
Upcoming reads:
Finding a Girl in America: A Novella and Ten Stories, Andre Dubus.
The Suburbs of Heaven, Merle Drown (a reread)
Road Rules, Jim Winter
Bills-Yets ... well, Amici, the BIG MOUTH Yets go to Orchard Park to take on my beloved New York State Buffalo Bills ... and don’t think that NYPD “parking” ticket isn’t an issue come Sunday ... this one may be too close to call.
Yeah, right ... Bill 35, Yets 17.
Ground and pound this, fatso ...
—Knucks
And how 'bout that Contessa!
