MUSIC PRODUCTION THE SONG REMAINS THE SAME
I was telling my friend Phil that I would like to throw a party and perform Stairway to Heaven, each of our friends playing a small part of the song, and never once practicing it as a group. After he called the police and I passed a sobriety test, I had the idea to record a version of the song as an exercise, to show what a piece of cake it is. As an exercise, doing 150 sit-ups would have been easier.
I started with the drums, which was the only part I was adept enough to play straight through. I have always been self-realistic about my own musical talents: mediocre bass player, decent drummer, on guitar I have an unhoned skill here and there. My voice is usually somewhere near on-key, with an almost uselessly limited range and horrible timbre. The one thing I do possess is a well-tuned musical ear, and I would rather have that than any of the other stuff. I can pick out each and every part of any arrangement, and hear thirds and fifths in my head for any melody line. Maybe all musicians can hear those things, I’m not sure.
I recorded the drums on a 4-track cassette deck with less than stellar microphones, and mixed them down to stereo on my 8-track digital recorder. Since the drums come in over halfway through the song, I had to keep a click track on the hi-hat for the whole first part of the song, and try not to make any noise while I read the NY Times. I had to base the click track on the song itself, since it increases in tempo throughout the song.
Then I recorded the acoustic guitar, and my fingers were close to bleeding after about a hundred takes.... As far as picking goes, guitar is the thing I have the LEAST success at.
I have a cheap MIDI keyboard that happened to have almost the exact flute sound at the beginning of the song (bassist John Paul Jones used real recorders, overdubbed). I had to record them one at a time- as a drummer my hands seem to have a supportive relationship, but using a keyboard they refuse to work together, and I end up playing the parts like a boss whose typist is out for the day.
Surprisingly, there is an electric piano in the song. My cheap electric piano, unsurprisingly, does not make a sound that sounds like an electric piano. So I had to play it on guitar, using a guitar synthesizer. I was spared the indignity of using the electric piano to play guitar parts.
I needed three spare tracks to deal with the guitar solo. Due to my prowess on the instrument, I had to play the lead break in a total of 16 different parts. Two of 16 consisted of only one note. Some of the fingering was so intricate that I had to try it several different ways, as I often do whenever fingering is involved. I did the slide guitar part using a small mayonnaise jar. I don’t know anything about playing the slide guitar, but thankfully I know quite a bit about mayonnaise.
Then it came time to sing the part at the end. Oddly enough I was able to hit most of the notes, fairly drunk, in falsetto by dropping a live hermit crab down my pants. On the minus side it hurt like hell, but on the plus side, the crab is no longer a hermit and seems to be quite happy there.
The vocal parts at the beginning and middle I recorded sober, without incident. The lyrics are sometimes unusual. The other day I saw a bustle in my hedgerow, and I got excited: It’s a spring clean for the May Queen! But it was only a raccoon. I was surprised that I knew all the lyrics just by osmosis. Although there is a note here and there off-key, I did not bother to fix them so that people would be able to tell my version from the original. Also I have some advice for all recording studio engineers: feed the cat before you record anything using a microphone. An unfed cat who, admittedly, sounded MARGINALLY better than I did in one small part in the second verse, was eventually edited out in the final mix.
Incidentally, what a pain in the neck is the part where a phalanx of 12-string electric guitars mark the end of the middle of the song, going into the guitar solo. A composition analyst in Wikipedia describes that the section’s “time signature switches between common time and several other time signatures: 3/4, 5/4 and finally 7/8.” In an interview in 1977, however, Jimmy Page says that, “for some unknown reason Bonzo couldn't get the timing right….”
PS: The song accompanies various random shots taken on vacation in Greece, California, Las Vegas and who knows where else. ~R
PPS: For some reason Google blogs cannot upload videos or MP3s, so here it is on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3No9BYluDLE
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Monday, April 4, 2011
GAMBLING
GAMBLING
They say that it’s better to be lucky than good. At least that’s what people say who aren’t very good at anything. My wife and I went to Empire City casino a couple weeks ago, as we do once in awhile if nothing else is going on. The evening goes like this: We enter the casino and have a couple of drinks near the bandshell. When we have drunk ourselves down to 20 bucks we head to the slot machines where my wife feeds the hungry maw. She presses the “play one credit” button five times, and gets three credits back. This goes on for about half an hour until she has one credit left, and when she presses that, she wins 40 credits, and I quickly press the “cash out” button, grab her by the hair and drag her from the area just as she is about to put the credit back in.
There used to be “one-armed bandits” that you had to pull a lever on to run the machine, but now there are too many handicapped people that need to squander our Medicaid money. People with one arm who were left-handed complained that they couldn’t lose money fast enough, and now the machines just have a button. Even if you are an armless, legless torso you can press it with your nose and cash out with your teeth.
Casinos don’t have gambling anymore, they have “gaming,” since they lost the “b” and the “l” in a card game. Empire City doesn’t have roulette or Baccarat, or anything that James Bond would play. If you look around the place, nobody looks a whole lot like James Bond. There are a lot of large people wearing plastic bedroom-slipper-looking footwear that look like they won plenty of money for food, but not for rent. They look very comfortably dressed, as though they may need to do some things that might require heroic range of motion, and therefore very unrestrictive clothing. Some even look like they may be wearing pajamas. I realized that the slot machines were only a penny. This seemed dumb until I saw a guy win 300 credits. A 300% return on your investment? Try that on Wall Street. So I took all the pennies that were underneath the seat cushions in my car, which turned out to be $8,149 dollars, and played them in the penny slots- I won 8 bucks, not bad!
I always make sure that my manners are impeccable when I am at a casino. I don’t want someone in the security room looking at me on a hidden camera slowing down the video going, “Did you see that? He just put his dirty Kleenex on the bar!” People who can’t afford a camcorder go to the casino with their kids and steal something so that they always have memories on tape to look back on when they get out of jail. If you misbehave in any way, the "eye in the sky" will find you, and when it does, the Pit Boss will be in your face in a second. I'm not sure what the Pit Boss does, other than quickly change all your tires and gas you up, unless I am mixing it up with a pit bull.
They don’t have poker or blackjack here at Empire City, not even craps. Who would name a game “craps” I wonder? Sometimes, depending on what I eat, it really is a crapshoot sometimes, but I wouldn’t go so far as to make a game of it or anything. In Atlantic City I used to try to play blackjack, but the game moved so fast, and everyone was waiting for me to add up the cards, pointing to each diamond, and carrying the one, etc. They were “counting the shoe,” and I was removing mine in order to count using my toes.
Empire City is also the old Yonkers Raceway, so we "played the ponies" for a while. They won of course, since they are good at poker, especially stud. During the race, the horses pull those little chariot carts. I'm not sure why they need the humans at all, I guess just to steer. In a dog race it's just the dog, and it's up to him to find the finish line. Horses only ever run around the track- why not a horse marathon? Anyway, you pick a horse with a name that either sounds really dumb, or relates to some uncanny coincidence in your life. When we looked at the card, ALL the horses had names that were really dumb, which seemed to me an uncanny coincidence in my life. So I bet on all of them, and just my luck, the race ended in a 9- way tie, all for third place.
So after my wife won her 20 bucks in the slot machine, I stuck in a $20. I won $405 dollars, which I do NOT plan to pay taxes on so HA! I immediately went over to the redemption window, expecting a religious experience. I did not find one, although I was asked what denominations I liked to receive money in (I said Christian only because I was born on Christmas). In the end I took the money in one $400 dollar bill and a $5.
Incidentally, to change the subject, a remake of the 1945 classic Mildred Pierce debuted last week on HBO. The mini-series was shot largely on location in Peekskill. When my wife and I went there for the Cinco de Mayo celebration, we realized one thing: If your town is chosen as a site for a depression-era movie, you should probably congratulate yourselves, and then schedule an emergency meeting of the town board as soon as possible. We were amazed at how they had transformed the shops into quaint facades with old-timey advertising slogans on them, until we discovered that the production had wrapped three weeks ago.
They say that it’s better to be lucky than good. At least that’s what people say who aren’t very good at anything. My wife and I went to Empire City casino a couple weeks ago, as we do once in awhile if nothing else is going on. The evening goes like this: We enter the casino and have a couple of drinks near the bandshell. When we have drunk ourselves down to 20 bucks we head to the slot machines where my wife feeds the hungry maw. She presses the “play one credit” button five times, and gets three credits back. This goes on for about half an hour until she has one credit left, and when she presses that, she wins 40 credits, and I quickly press the “cash out” button, grab her by the hair and drag her from the area just as she is about to put the credit back in.
There used to be “one-armed bandits” that you had to pull a lever on to run the machine, but now there are too many handicapped people that need to squander our Medicaid money. People with one arm who were left-handed complained that they couldn’t lose money fast enough, and now the machines just have a button. Even if you are an armless, legless torso you can press it with your nose and cash out with your teeth.
Casinos don’t have gambling anymore, they have “gaming,” since they lost the “b” and the “l” in a card game. Empire City doesn’t have roulette or Baccarat, or anything that James Bond would play. If you look around the place, nobody looks a whole lot like James Bond. There are a lot of large people wearing plastic bedroom-slipper-looking footwear that look like they won plenty of money for food, but not for rent. They look very comfortably dressed, as though they may need to do some things that might require heroic range of motion, and therefore very unrestrictive clothing. Some even look like they may be wearing pajamas. I realized that the slot machines were only a penny. This seemed dumb until I saw a guy win 300 credits. A 300% return on your investment? Try that on Wall Street. So I took all the pennies that were underneath the seat cushions in my car, which turned out to be $8,149 dollars, and played them in the penny slots- I won 8 bucks, not bad!
I always make sure that my manners are impeccable when I am at a casino. I don’t want someone in the security room looking at me on a hidden camera slowing down the video going, “Did you see that? He just put his dirty Kleenex on the bar!” People who can’t afford a camcorder go to the casino with their kids and steal something so that they always have memories on tape to look back on when they get out of jail. If you misbehave in any way, the "eye in the sky" will find you, and when it does, the Pit Boss will be in your face in a second. I'm not sure what the Pit Boss does, other than quickly change all your tires and gas you up, unless I am mixing it up with a pit bull.
They don’t have poker or blackjack here at Empire City, not even craps. Who would name a game “craps” I wonder? Sometimes, depending on what I eat, it really is a crapshoot sometimes, but I wouldn’t go so far as to make a game of it or anything. In Atlantic City I used to try to play blackjack, but the game moved so fast, and everyone was waiting for me to add up the cards, pointing to each diamond, and carrying the one, etc. They were “counting the shoe,” and I was removing mine in order to count using my toes.
Empire City is also the old Yonkers Raceway, so we "played the ponies" for a while. They won of course, since they are good at poker, especially stud. During the race, the horses pull those little chariot carts. I'm not sure why they need the humans at all, I guess just to steer. In a dog race it's just the dog, and it's up to him to find the finish line. Horses only ever run around the track- why not a horse marathon? Anyway, you pick a horse with a name that either sounds really dumb, or relates to some uncanny coincidence in your life. When we looked at the card, ALL the horses had names that were really dumb, which seemed to me an uncanny coincidence in my life. So I bet on all of them, and just my luck, the race ended in a 9- way tie, all for third place.
So after my wife won her 20 bucks in the slot machine, I stuck in a $20. I won $405 dollars, which I do NOT plan to pay taxes on so HA! I immediately went over to the redemption window, expecting a religious experience. I did not find one, although I was asked what denominations I liked to receive money in (I said Christian only because I was born on Christmas). In the end I took the money in one $400 dollar bill and a $5.
Incidentally, to change the subject, a remake of the 1945 classic Mildred Pierce debuted last week on HBO. The mini-series was shot largely on location in Peekskill. When my wife and I went there for the Cinco de Mayo celebration, we realized one thing: If your town is chosen as a site for a depression-era movie, you should probably congratulate yourselves, and then schedule an emergency meeting of the town board as soon as possible. We were amazed at how they had transformed the shops into quaint facades with old-timey advertising slogans on them, until we discovered that the production had wrapped three weeks ago.
Friday, March 18, 2011
in memoriam
I wanted to acknowledge the passing of a friend who was taken off life support Tuesday night after suffering a sudden brain aneurysm.
To know Russell was to know the dramatic peaks and valleys that any life could achieve. A mercurial and capricious life lived at times to excess, and at others in spartan simplicity, he laid it all out for anyone to see, unapologetic. His passion and creativity was inspiring, his personality so strong it often left turbulence in its wake.
I once had the whim to write and produce a cable access television show starring all my friends, and Russell was one of the first I thought of. He is somewhere cringing that I should show this now, but his easy and understated talent shows through even here.
Russell wanted nothing more in life than his ultimate brand of freedom. He would sacrifice anything to find it, and in the end, that's just what he did.
To know Russell was to know the dramatic peaks and valleys that any life could achieve. A mercurial and capricious life lived at times to excess, and at others in spartan simplicity, he laid it all out for anyone to see, unapologetic. His passion and creativity was inspiring, his personality so strong it often left turbulence in its wake.
I once had the whim to write and produce a cable access television show starring all my friends, and Russell was one of the first I thought of. He is somewhere cringing that I should show this now, but his easy and understated talent shows through even here.
Russell wanted nothing more in life than his ultimate brand of freedom. He would sacrifice anything to find it, and in the end, that's just what he did.
Friday, March 4, 2011
WORLD EVENTS
WORLD EVENTS
Popular uprisings have never been more popular. It seems as though the will of the people is finally being heard all over the world. Which is why it pays to make out your will, just in case it finally gets heard. In Egypt they filled the square and wouldn't leave until their demands were met. Once their demands were met, they hung around anyway thinking of more demands. It turns out that life in the square is less demanding than going to work.
I pictured thousands of people storming the plaza with their hands in the Bangles' “Walk Like an Egyptian” configuration. Years and years from now, there will be pictures in a cave in Egypt depicting people massing in the square checking their email. In Libya they are trying to oust strongman Maomar Khadafi, but they can't find him easily because sometimes he goes under the name Muammar Gaddafi, or Qaddafi. They keep trying to look him up in the phone book but every year he is under a different letter. His first name is so close to Mallomar that I every time he makes the news my mouth starts to water like Pavlov’s dog. He is a slippery individual, just like Saddam Hussein, who evaded the entire U.S. Army because he looked so much like the guy who "makes the doughnuts" in that ad campaign.
Anyway, the first place I would look for him is the gym- a strongman has to be able to bench press at least 200 pounds or he damn well SHOULD be ousted. Khaddaffi recently delivered a rambling speech where he mentioned things like, "Freedom is a tree watered with blood," and "... those rats that move in the dark." Many of these themes can be seen explored in better detail in a Roger Corman retrospective, only the acting is not as good. Coincidentally, Charlie Sheen said much the same thing in a tweet, and he was ousted, too. He added some odd items about fire-breathing earthworms and some other news flashes that really should be analyzed at length for possible greatness.
Kadafi doesn't seem like the type that ever bothers to check in the mirror before he leaves the house. He usually looks as though he just smoked an ounce of crack, then dropped his comb down the toilet. I don't know much about Hosni Mubarak, except that will all those billions, he never misappropriated one dime on a nose job. But I'm not here to make fun of political leaders' looks. I’m here to make fun of their wives.
Ghaddafi doesn’t seem to be interested in endearing himself to the people, either. In every speech he insists that his people love him and would die for him. The truth is that most have de-friended him on Facebook and many have died FROM him. Incidentally one of my wife’s Facebook friends is President Obama. I don’t know how often they hang out together, but they do stay in touch. I assume he gets a cat video from her once in awhile and it gives him a chuckle.
In the Middle East it's one faction of Islam against another. I always say that I am fundamentally suspicious of all religions, but really I'm just holding out for the best deal. If I'm going to get up early and go to church every Sunday, and act like a civilized person, I have my own set of demands. Not only do I want eternal life after death, but also before death, and possibly during. I don’t need 72 virgins- if you spring a leak in your sink, would you call 72 plumbers who never fixed a leak before? Also, I would like better food during communion. It’s fine if you want to keep the bread and wine to represent the body and blood of Jesus, but let’s make M & Ms represent something, and beer too. The music is already decent, but they could put the words up on a screen like they do at Karaoke, and let re-enactors cheesily present the gist of the song.
There are many lessons here for future generations of dictators. For one thing, don't put a square in the middle of your city. That is the first place people will go to complain about you. Put the palace smack in the middle of a trapezoid, and call it a name so long that it won’t fit on Twitter. Secondly, if you must have a square, make the traffic signage so lousy that you would have to risk your life just standing on a corner, like in Paris or Rome. Third, offer better concessions right off the bat: tacos, Knicks tickets, making "Dictator's Day" a national holiday. Quell the movement before it gains momentum. The U.N. is thinking about installing a no-fly zone there, which would probably go a long way towards calming things down. I had no idea that the technology was available for this, and I would like to install it on our deck if possible, where the mosquitoes are ridiculous right around dusk. I don’t know how bad the raccoons are in Libya, but they might consider a no-raccoon zone there also, and then the place would be pretty close to paradise.
Incidentally, Libya was annexed by Rome in 74BC, which means they knocked down part of the living room to expand the kitchen. Oil even then was a major export, only it was olive oil. During the 5th Century, after the decline of the Roman Empire, the place was Vandalized; the Vandals were an East Germanic tribe that invaded Rome, destroyed artworks, and sprayed graffiti all over the place. After the Arabs took over and ruled for 900 years or so, the Ottomans moved in and rearranged the furniture again. Ghaddafi staged a military coup when he was 27 years old, and removed the newly-officially-named Libya from the Italians, who ruled after World War I.
Popular uprisings have never been more popular. It seems as though the will of the people is finally being heard all over the world. Which is why it pays to make out your will, just in case it finally gets heard. In Egypt they filled the square and wouldn't leave until their demands were met. Once their demands were met, they hung around anyway thinking of more demands. It turns out that life in the square is less demanding than going to work.
I pictured thousands of people storming the plaza with their hands in the Bangles' “Walk Like an Egyptian” configuration. Years and years from now, there will be pictures in a cave in Egypt depicting people massing in the square checking their email. In Libya they are trying to oust strongman Maomar Khadafi, but they can't find him easily because sometimes he goes under the name Muammar Gaddafi, or Qaddafi. They keep trying to look him up in the phone book but every year he is under a different letter. His first name is so close to Mallomar that I every time he makes the news my mouth starts to water like Pavlov’s dog. He is a slippery individual, just like Saddam Hussein, who evaded the entire U.S. Army because he looked so much like the guy who "makes the doughnuts" in that ad campaign.
Anyway, the first place I would look for him is the gym- a strongman has to be able to bench press at least 200 pounds or he damn well SHOULD be ousted. Khaddaffi recently delivered a rambling speech where he mentioned things like, "Freedom is a tree watered with blood," and "... those rats that move in the dark." Many of these themes can be seen explored in better detail in a Roger Corman retrospective, only the acting is not as good. Coincidentally, Charlie Sheen said much the same thing in a tweet, and he was ousted, too. He added some odd items about fire-breathing earthworms and some other news flashes that really should be analyzed at length for possible greatness.
Kadafi doesn't seem like the type that ever bothers to check in the mirror before he leaves the house. He usually looks as though he just smoked an ounce of crack, then dropped his comb down the toilet. I don't know much about Hosni Mubarak, except that will all those billions, he never misappropriated one dime on a nose job. But I'm not here to make fun of political leaders' looks. I’m here to make fun of their wives.
Ghaddafi doesn’t seem to be interested in endearing himself to the people, either. In every speech he insists that his people love him and would die for him. The truth is that most have de-friended him on Facebook and many have died FROM him. Incidentally one of my wife’s Facebook friends is President Obama. I don’t know how often they hang out together, but they do stay in touch. I assume he gets a cat video from her once in awhile and it gives him a chuckle.
In the Middle East it's one faction of Islam against another. I always say that I am fundamentally suspicious of all religions, but really I'm just holding out for the best deal. If I'm going to get up early and go to church every Sunday, and act like a civilized person, I have my own set of demands. Not only do I want eternal life after death, but also before death, and possibly during. I don’t need 72 virgins- if you spring a leak in your sink, would you call 72 plumbers who never fixed a leak before? Also, I would like better food during communion. It’s fine if you want to keep the bread and wine to represent the body and blood of Jesus, but let’s make M & Ms represent something, and beer too. The music is already decent, but they could put the words up on a screen like they do at Karaoke, and let re-enactors cheesily present the gist of the song.
There are many lessons here for future generations of dictators. For one thing, don't put a square in the middle of your city. That is the first place people will go to complain about you. Put the palace smack in the middle of a trapezoid, and call it a name so long that it won’t fit on Twitter. Secondly, if you must have a square, make the traffic signage so lousy that you would have to risk your life just standing on a corner, like in Paris or Rome. Third, offer better concessions right off the bat: tacos, Knicks tickets, making "Dictator's Day" a national holiday. Quell the movement before it gains momentum. The U.N. is thinking about installing a no-fly zone there, which would probably go a long way towards calming things down. I had no idea that the technology was available for this, and I would like to install it on our deck if possible, where the mosquitoes are ridiculous right around dusk. I don’t know how bad the raccoons are in Libya, but they might consider a no-raccoon zone there also, and then the place would be pretty close to paradise.
Incidentally, Libya was annexed by Rome in 74BC, which means they knocked down part of the living room to expand the kitchen. Oil even then was a major export, only it was olive oil. During the 5th Century, after the decline of the Roman Empire, the place was Vandalized; the Vandals were an East Germanic tribe that invaded Rome, destroyed artworks, and sprayed graffiti all over the place. After the Arabs took over and ruled for 900 years or so, the Ottomans moved in and rearranged the furniture again. Ghaddafi staged a military coup when he was 27 years old, and removed the newly-officially-named Libya from the Italians, who ruled after World War I.
Friday, January 28, 2011
LOCAL WEATHER
LOCAL WEATHER
Today, following another major snowfall I went outside with a yardstick and measured: we had a ZILLION INCHES OF SNOW! It is the first time in history that a zillion inches have been recorded. It was another nor’easter. It seems like no matter where I happen to be, the weather sucks. We went to Florida last year, and what did we get? A sou’easter. We are going to Texas this year, where I expect to be hit by a mi’wester, and on the way, a sou’sou’easter.
The snow seems pretty at first. It’s a winter wonderland of pristine white until the dog turns half the yard yellow like an old tee shirt. Here in the Northeast we spend insane amounts of time and money to clear things away that fall on the ground. I just got through raking up the last leaf from autumn, and I turn around and the entire place is covered in snow. I heard that New York City blew half its snow removal budget on that one storm after Christmas.
The worst part of any major storm is the Mayor’s press conference. You’re just sitting down to watch Judge Judy and the dopey local news breaks away to Mayor Bloomberg. First of all, the lowest a microphone stand can go is about 4 feet, which lands the microphone straight at Bloomberg’s forehead. So he nasally twangs statements like, “We have the finest people in the business in charge of keeping New York’s streets clear and safe!,” and, “If you don’t absolutely have to be somewhere, stay home!” He twangs exactly the same nuggets every single time, and for that I have to miss Judge Judy. Apparently the same guys who pick up the garbage are the ones that remove the snow, so you have to put all your snow in plastic bags, and separate the ice in different bags since it is recyclable.
Bloomberg queries, “Are we going to get to everyone all of the time?” Before I can say, “I don’t think there’s a chance in hell of you doing that…,” he chirps, “NO!” “Are we going to make mistakes?” I start to answer, “Well, we ALL make mistakes, and I think-“ when he yells, “YES!” If he knows these answers ahead of time I fail to see why he asks us.
Not to mention that he is still backtracking after getting lambasted about the poor response that first snowstorm, where everyone learned what the word “tertiary” meant (it means any road in Staten Island). Now I use it in Scrabble all the time, and it gives me a fresh chance to skewer Mayor Bloomberg about not plowing our driveway.
We have to hire our own plow guy to come every time it snows because our driveway is so steep. The old plow guy quit because it was annoying to get up our driveway with all that snow there. The new guy plows a perfect half inch of ice from top to bottom, like a luge course. If my car doesn’t make it all the way up, it slides backwards back down to the street, bouncing off the snowbanks like a pinball. So I go out there and salt it even though I am supposed to be cutting down. My wife wants to get one of those electric heaters that sits underneath the pavement, so we can just move the TV out there and hang out.
Even if you got sick of all the snow and leaves falling, where would you move to? A lot of people move to Florida, where snow and leaves don’t fall as often as the property values do. Plus every year you have to board up your windows with plywood while the hurricanes blow through. The Midwest has tornadoes, and way too much corn. You would still need a plow guy to get all that frigging corn out of your driveway. Plus you will pull your hair out trying to find a decent pizza. The West has earthquakes and wildfires, and a much higher proportion of weirdos. Yes, you could move out of the country, if you could only get down your driveway.
At least the weather forecasting is much better than it used to be. Just before this last storm, meteorologists correctly predicted the time that it would begin, approximately how much snow we would get, and that the Steelers would not cover. Oddly enough, they can’t seem to tell you one damn thing about meteors.
Incidentally, There are several theories as to why we are experiencing higher snow totals this year. One is that since the polar ice caps are melting, less cold air is reflected into space, thus affecting the cold air patterns. Experts liken it to leaving the refrigerator open, so that the food inside gets warmer while the rest of the house gets colder. By the way, I notice that you are almost out of beer. Another theory holds that the warmer Arctic has resulted in more snow in Siberia and the surrounding mountain ranges, thus “bending” the jetstream further south. Still, no one has been able to explain to me why Iceland is so green, and Greenland is full of ice, other than that somebody left the fridge open.
Today, following another major snowfall I went outside with a yardstick and measured: we had a ZILLION INCHES OF SNOW! It is the first time in history that a zillion inches have been recorded. It was another nor’easter. It seems like no matter where I happen to be, the weather sucks. We went to Florida last year, and what did we get? A sou’easter. We are going to Texas this year, where I expect to be hit by a mi’wester, and on the way, a sou’sou’easter.
The snow seems pretty at first. It’s a winter wonderland of pristine white until the dog turns half the yard yellow like an old tee shirt. Here in the Northeast we spend insane amounts of time and money to clear things away that fall on the ground. I just got through raking up the last leaf from autumn, and I turn around and the entire place is covered in snow. I heard that New York City blew half its snow removal budget on that one storm after Christmas.
The worst part of any major storm is the Mayor’s press conference. You’re just sitting down to watch Judge Judy and the dopey local news breaks away to Mayor Bloomberg. First of all, the lowest a microphone stand can go is about 4 feet, which lands the microphone straight at Bloomberg’s forehead. So he nasally twangs statements like, “We have the finest people in the business in charge of keeping New York’s streets clear and safe!,” and, “If you don’t absolutely have to be somewhere, stay home!” He twangs exactly the same nuggets every single time, and for that I have to miss Judge Judy. Apparently the same guys who pick up the garbage are the ones that remove the snow, so you have to put all your snow in plastic bags, and separate the ice in different bags since it is recyclable.
Bloomberg queries, “Are we going to get to everyone all of the time?” Before I can say, “I don’t think there’s a chance in hell of you doing that…,” he chirps, “NO!” “Are we going to make mistakes?” I start to answer, “Well, we ALL make mistakes, and I think-“ when he yells, “YES!” If he knows these answers ahead of time I fail to see why he asks us.
Not to mention that he is still backtracking after getting lambasted about the poor response that first snowstorm, where everyone learned what the word “tertiary” meant (it means any road in Staten Island). Now I use it in Scrabble all the time, and it gives me a fresh chance to skewer Mayor Bloomberg about not plowing our driveway.
We have to hire our own plow guy to come every time it snows because our driveway is so steep. The old plow guy quit because it was annoying to get up our driveway with all that snow there. The new guy plows a perfect half inch of ice from top to bottom, like a luge course. If my car doesn’t make it all the way up, it slides backwards back down to the street, bouncing off the snowbanks like a pinball. So I go out there and salt it even though I am supposed to be cutting down. My wife wants to get one of those electric heaters that sits underneath the pavement, so we can just move the TV out there and hang out.
Even if you got sick of all the snow and leaves falling, where would you move to? A lot of people move to Florida, where snow and leaves don’t fall as often as the property values do. Plus every year you have to board up your windows with plywood while the hurricanes blow through. The Midwest has tornadoes, and way too much corn. You would still need a plow guy to get all that frigging corn out of your driveway. Plus you will pull your hair out trying to find a decent pizza. The West has earthquakes and wildfires, and a much higher proportion of weirdos. Yes, you could move out of the country, if you could only get down your driveway.
At least the weather forecasting is much better than it used to be. Just before this last storm, meteorologists correctly predicted the time that it would begin, approximately how much snow we would get, and that the Steelers would not cover. Oddly enough, they can’t seem to tell you one damn thing about meteors.
Incidentally, There are several theories as to why we are experiencing higher snow totals this year. One is that since the polar ice caps are melting, less cold air is reflected into space, thus affecting the cold air patterns. Experts liken it to leaving the refrigerator open, so that the food inside gets warmer while the rest of the house gets colder. By the way, I notice that you are almost out of beer. Another theory holds that the warmer Arctic has resulted in more snow in Siberia and the surrounding mountain ranges, thus “bending” the jetstream further south. Still, no one has been able to explain to me why Iceland is so green, and Greenland is full of ice, other than that somebody left the fridge open.
Sunday, January 2, 2011
HOLIDAY TRADITIONS
HOLIDAY TRADITIONS
This Christmas Season, as is my tradition, I enjoyed by complaining about the bad taste of others.
We went to see the tree at Rockefeller Center, and it was spectacular and everything, but we were surprised at how many dead spots there were in the lighting. It was as if nobody took a look at it from far away. Isn’t there a Dead Spot Manager assigned to this project? Even Da Vinci, as he was creating the Mona Lisa, took five paces back and looked at it from far away, where he needed his glasses to even see it at all. Then he realized that it was making a face like someone who had just committed a murder and put the body into a wood chipper. But that was the look he was going for, so DONE.
My sister was the DSM when we decorated our tree as we were growing up. I was usually assigned to the lights, sisters to the ornaments, and we all chipped in with the tinsel. It was a complicated production and to this day I am very particular about Christmas adornments and displays.
I don’t like garlands for instance. Especially those constructed from edible items. Popcorn garlands: do you microwave? Butter or no butter? For god’s sake don’t put on a movie-if you were to put on the Godfather trilogy for Christmas Eve you’re pretty much guaranteed of a bare tree by the time Sonny Corleone gets nailed at the toll booth. Chili pepper garlands? Too felice navidadish. Cranberry garland? All we have are those cranberries that come in a tin, and when you pour it out it looks like a quivering purple can. I don’t even like Judy Garland.
I like a tree where the lights are evenly spaced, around and around the circumference. Don’t start at the top and drape the lights down in a straight line- the thing looks like a bird cage. If you don’t have enough lights to make a good showing, pick a smaller tree. And don’t put a fake tree on your lawn, how stupid is that- there are more than enough real ones out there. It’s a carbon footprint slap in the face. Fake fir is even worse than fake fur. Swirlies are lame, those little spiral plastic cones of light. Something in between Snoopy’s tree and Charlie Brown’s would be perfect.
Rockefeller center is lined with large deciduous trees that had bright blue lights wrapped around every limb. They were almost more impressive than the big tree.
I’m not much for inflatable stuff on the lawn. It always makes me wish I still owned a BB gun.
We went to a friend’s house and they had reindeer made of lights with heads that bobbed up and down. Judging by how bright they were they must have eaten all the daffodil bulbs on the property. From a certain angle it appeared like they were having sex, which looks more festive than it sounds. I would love to mount a reindeer myself, but only for my den.
Sometimes I see a nativity scene on someone’s lawn and it reminds me of the small one we used to set up on the bookshelves as a kid. We cleared out the entire World Book Encyclopedia shelf to accommodate it, so I could not write a book report for two weeks, which was okay with me. Everything went fine for a few days, but then the poor baby Jesus would find himself in all sorts of ungainly predicaments. If he ever thought the manger was smelly and uncomfortable he should try dangling from the Christmas tree, or hanging out in the butter dish. Poor Jesus had worse luck than Jimmy Olson, or Lassie’s family, except that he didn’t have Superman or Lassie to rescue him. The only way he got out of one mess was for someone to think of an even worse one. My Mom usually took pity on the poor baby and saved the Savior, replacing him gently in his bed. The little Lord Jesus once again lay down his sweet head.
These days hardly anyone is born in a manger. A taxicab sometimes, and probably there are instances of a baby being born while waiting for the officials to review a play where it looks like Eli Manning has once again fumbled the ball. And sitting a baby in a bunch of hay seems irresponsible- any one of those hard stalks could poke his eye out as sure as I’m sitting here. At least put an old tee-shirt in there or something- all those sheep standing around and no one could scare up a sweater?
The three wise men found out about the blessed event awfully fast- Mary must have gotten the birth announcements out in jig time- how much did Jesus weigh? Is it in the Bible somewhere? IT’S A BOY! Joseph and Mary are pleased to announce their new bundle of joy! Birth cards always include the weight, but subsequent birthday announcements never do, especially after age 50. Waist size, shoe size, hat size, none of those helpful statistics on the baby. Sometimes they give the length of the baby, in case it is very light but several feet long, and might look like a snake. When you are a baby you have a length, since you’re lying down, and your height would basically be your width. One of the wise men then lights up a cigar around all that hay and almost burns down the manger. WHO’s the WISE GUY? The one with the gold says, “Now Jesus, this is a DOUBLE bar of gold- for Christmas AND birthday.” The other wise men were a little pissed off because they had agreed to do a “secret Santa,” or a grab bag and this jaboney shows up with gold.
Anyway, we used to do the whole big Christmas tree, and all that but over the years we have scaled down to just some lights in the living room. The lights last one and 364/365 years, whereupon one light in the chain breaks as I am trying to untangle it and half the strand is kaput. So now I pay about 15 dollars more, and get a string that is guaranteed to keep working no matter how many bulbs burn out, and as a result all are dead except for three.
Sometimes I look at a Christmas-lit shrub next to a house and it looks suspiciously like a net of lights has simply been cast over it, like on "The Deadliest Catch."
Incandescent lights are taboo now; everyone uses LED lights. Light-emitting diodes don’t really emit a whole lot of light. They were invented mainly for telling you that your transistor radio was on in case you couldn’t hear it. And thank god diodes didn’t start emitting sounds or smells, or there would be no reason to have children, and then good luck trying to get a diode to mow your lawn.
Incidentally, “The Twelve Days of Christmas” may not have been a carol at all, but instead a fanciful memory game, where each singer would have to remember all the previous versus before he sang his own. The phrase “four calling birds” was probably meant to be “colly birds,” or blackbirds. The “golden rings” would have meant ring-necked pheasants, not jewelry. The twelve days start with December 25th and end with January 6th, the Epiphany. If it WAS meant as a memory game, it is important to note that “twelve drummers drumming” is not a very important thing to remember, since it is never repeated during the song. So there.
This Christmas Season, as is my tradition, I enjoyed by complaining about the bad taste of others.
We went to see the tree at Rockefeller Center, and it was spectacular and everything, but we were surprised at how many dead spots there were in the lighting. It was as if nobody took a look at it from far away. Isn’t there a Dead Spot Manager assigned to this project? Even Da Vinci, as he was creating the Mona Lisa, took five paces back and looked at it from far away, where he needed his glasses to even see it at all. Then he realized that it was making a face like someone who had just committed a murder and put the body into a wood chipper. But that was the look he was going for, so DONE.
My sister was the DSM when we decorated our tree as we were growing up. I was usually assigned to the lights, sisters to the ornaments, and we all chipped in with the tinsel. It was a complicated production and to this day I am very particular about Christmas adornments and displays.
I don’t like garlands for instance. Especially those constructed from edible items. Popcorn garlands: do you microwave? Butter or no butter? For god’s sake don’t put on a movie-if you were to put on the Godfather trilogy for Christmas Eve you’re pretty much guaranteed of a bare tree by the time Sonny Corleone gets nailed at the toll booth. Chili pepper garlands? Too felice navidadish. Cranberry garland? All we have are those cranberries that come in a tin, and when you pour it out it looks like a quivering purple can. I don’t even like Judy Garland.
I like a tree where the lights are evenly spaced, around and around the circumference. Don’t start at the top and drape the lights down in a straight line- the thing looks like a bird cage. If you don’t have enough lights to make a good showing, pick a smaller tree. And don’t put a fake tree on your lawn, how stupid is that- there are more than enough real ones out there. It’s a carbon footprint slap in the face. Fake fir is even worse than fake fur. Swirlies are lame, those little spiral plastic cones of light. Something in between Snoopy’s tree and Charlie Brown’s would be perfect.
Rockefeller center is lined with large deciduous trees that had bright blue lights wrapped around every limb. They were almost more impressive than the big tree.
I’m not much for inflatable stuff on the lawn. It always makes me wish I still owned a BB gun.
We went to a friend’s house and they had reindeer made of lights with heads that bobbed up and down. Judging by how bright they were they must have eaten all the daffodil bulbs on the property. From a certain angle it appeared like they were having sex, which looks more festive than it sounds. I would love to mount a reindeer myself, but only for my den.
Sometimes I see a nativity scene on someone’s lawn and it reminds me of the small one we used to set up on the bookshelves as a kid. We cleared out the entire World Book Encyclopedia shelf to accommodate it, so I could not write a book report for two weeks, which was okay with me. Everything went fine for a few days, but then the poor baby Jesus would find himself in all sorts of ungainly predicaments. If he ever thought the manger was smelly and uncomfortable he should try dangling from the Christmas tree, or hanging out in the butter dish. Poor Jesus had worse luck than Jimmy Olson, or Lassie’s family, except that he didn’t have Superman or Lassie to rescue him. The only way he got out of one mess was for someone to think of an even worse one. My Mom usually took pity on the poor baby and saved the Savior, replacing him gently in his bed. The little Lord Jesus once again lay down his sweet head.
These days hardly anyone is born in a manger. A taxicab sometimes, and probably there are instances of a baby being born while waiting for the officials to review a play where it looks like Eli Manning has once again fumbled the ball. And sitting a baby in a bunch of hay seems irresponsible- any one of those hard stalks could poke his eye out as sure as I’m sitting here. At least put an old tee-shirt in there or something- all those sheep standing around and no one could scare up a sweater?
The three wise men found out about the blessed event awfully fast- Mary must have gotten the birth announcements out in jig time- how much did Jesus weigh? Is it in the Bible somewhere? IT’S A BOY! Joseph and Mary are pleased to announce their new bundle of joy! Birth cards always include the weight, but subsequent birthday announcements never do, especially after age 50. Waist size, shoe size, hat size, none of those helpful statistics on the baby. Sometimes they give the length of the baby, in case it is very light but several feet long, and might look like a snake. When you are a baby you have a length, since you’re lying down, and your height would basically be your width. One of the wise men then lights up a cigar around all that hay and almost burns down the manger. WHO’s the WISE GUY? The one with the gold says, “Now Jesus, this is a DOUBLE bar of gold- for Christmas AND birthday.” The other wise men were a little pissed off because they had agreed to do a “secret Santa,” or a grab bag and this jaboney shows up with gold.
Anyway, we used to do the whole big Christmas tree, and all that but over the years we have scaled down to just some lights in the living room. The lights last one and 364/365 years, whereupon one light in the chain breaks as I am trying to untangle it and half the strand is kaput. So now I pay about 15 dollars more, and get a string that is guaranteed to keep working no matter how many bulbs burn out, and as a result all are dead except for three.
Sometimes I look at a Christmas-lit shrub next to a house and it looks suspiciously like a net of lights has simply been cast over it, like on "The Deadliest Catch."
Incandescent lights are taboo now; everyone uses LED lights. Light-emitting diodes don’t really emit a whole lot of light. They were invented mainly for telling you that your transistor radio was on in case you couldn’t hear it. And thank god diodes didn’t start emitting sounds or smells, or there would be no reason to have children, and then good luck trying to get a diode to mow your lawn.
Incidentally, “The Twelve Days of Christmas” may not have been a carol at all, but instead a fanciful memory game, where each singer would have to remember all the previous versus before he sang his own. The phrase “four calling birds” was probably meant to be “colly birds,” or blackbirds. The “golden rings” would have meant ring-necked pheasants, not jewelry. The twelve days start with December 25th and end with January 6th, the Epiphany. If it WAS meant as a memory game, it is important to note that “twelve drummers drumming” is not a very important thing to remember, since it is never repeated during the song. So there.
Thursday, December 2, 2010
MODERN NIGHTLIFE
MODERN NIGHTLIFE
I went to a club recently, not knowing that it was a salsa dancing Mecca, playing only Latino music. I don’t really like the music that much; the songs all sound alike to me after a while, but hey at least it has a great beat and actual lyrics which I can’t understand since they’re in Spanish. Even though I took TWO YEARS of Latin in middle school, it is utterly worthless for Latin music. Some Spanish I know from song lyrics, mostly Santana and Ritchie Valens. For instance, “Oye Como Va,” I think means like “Oy vey.” Or “La bamba,” which means, “You have big cans.” Or “Amore,” which is when somebody hits you in the eye with a pizza, so I think it means assault in Spanish. I can understand the general gist of things, since Spanish is a romance language and I speak the International Language of Love. My native tongue by the way is red.
People come from far and wide to show off their dance moves. It’s nothing you don’t see Ahmad Bradshaw do on a weekly basis, but the difference is he often scores.
Some of the guys looked admittedly light around the loafer area, like they were filled with two-parts hydrogen and one-part helium. One guy spun around and pranced the length of the dance floor then vaporized into thin air. His partner was like, what the hell?
There were some other guys who actually danced slinkily but manly, and not too gayish. I always preferred Gene Kelly to Fred Astaire, who didn’t dance differently enough from Ginger Rogers for my liking.
My friend Wal is from some country with an “-istan” at the end of it, and he was dancing up a storm. He literally was, because all this fog came out of nowhere and I thought it was going to hail. The song ended and he looked winded, so I asked him if wanted me to get him an oxygen mask, and he said, “No thank you.”
I never for a moment considered that I should learn to dance this way. I picture myself spinning the wrong way with her hand firmly in mine, twisting the girl’s arm completely off. I drop it on the floor in horror, blood spewing all over the place, and somebody by mistake kicks it down the stairs where it gets into the revolving door and ends up outside, where a cat drags it to the curb and it falls down a storm drain. Meanwhile the girl is looking at me like I am a complete loser, and all I have is a disarming smile.
Sometimes couples who have been dancing this way for many years spin and turn as if they are on a track, like an expensive clock that plays music when it chimes. One couple dance so close I assumed one of his buttons was caught in her hair. Another guy took his girlfriend by the hair, whipped her in the air and snapped her like a damp gym towel.
One caballero had his partner turning so long he actually spun her into a cocoon. On the plus side she emerged a beautiful woman, but unfortunately during her metamorphosis she got a parking ticket.
Which reminds me they replaced all the parking meters in New York City with these “muni meters” which of course don’t take any money that goes clink. I don’t mind that but what I do mind is that at night I always have on contact lenses and I can’t read the menus. I don’t know how much money to put in because I can’t read my watch with my contacts in. My watch says either 7:03 or 12:35. But did I reset it for daylight savings time? In which case it’s either 8:05 or 20 of 1. I push a couple buttons and hope for the best.
Back inside the club I check out the sad dudes in the VIP area. I swear to god these people always look bereft, cordoned off behind velvet ropes. Four guys and a bottle of champagne chilling, waiting for someone to waste it on. They look like they wish they had thought to bring a deck of cards or something. Out of force of habit I get in line next to the velvet ropes in order to open a low-interest checking account.
I can see dancing supernovas going nuts on the floor. These are the ones that will burn brightly for a very short period of time. They will hit the wall fast, some quite literally. They will approach the hour of midnight like Cinderella, when their faces will start to fall like a Salvador Dali painting.
I order a cuubbrrrra libbrrrre, rolling my “r’s” in a very whitebread manner. A girl comes up to me and asks me if I’d like to dance. Sure. I put my drink down and warn her that I don’t know what I’m doing, which is a warning I use in just about every endeavor. I start dancing from side-to-side like I usually do, but she is dancing front-to-back and she puts a dent in my thigh with her ass. It is quickly ascertained that we are totally incompatible, like an octopus trying to teach a snake to ride a bicycle. An old guy with pomade in his hair gives me a dirty look and whisks her away like a dust devil. At this point I realize I have over-quandoed, somebody has taken my drink, and I just want to hear some Stones.
Incidentally, “Salsa” is a Cuban style of dancing popularized in the 1920s. It is characterized by three steps within a four-beat measure, the fourth beat observed with a kick or tap. That is the beat that is usually directed at my bad knee. One of the steps is usually a “break step,” which changes direction, often towards the bar. In Salsa the upper body remains stationary while the lower half is running around with who-knows-who, usually up to no good. Salsa differs from Meringue in that Salsa has no eggs in it.
I went to a club recently, not knowing that it was a salsa dancing Mecca, playing only Latino music. I don’t really like the music that much; the songs all sound alike to me after a while, but hey at least it has a great beat and actual lyrics which I can’t understand since they’re in Spanish. Even though I took TWO YEARS of Latin in middle school, it is utterly worthless for Latin music. Some Spanish I know from song lyrics, mostly Santana and Ritchie Valens. For instance, “Oye Como Va,” I think means like “Oy vey.” Or “La bamba,” which means, “You have big cans.” Or “Amore,” which is when somebody hits you in the eye with a pizza, so I think it means assault in Spanish. I can understand the general gist of things, since Spanish is a romance language and I speak the International Language of Love. My native tongue by the way is red.
People come from far and wide to show off their dance moves. It’s nothing you don’t see Ahmad Bradshaw do on a weekly basis, but the difference is he often scores.
Some of the guys looked admittedly light around the loafer area, like they were filled with two-parts hydrogen and one-part helium. One guy spun around and pranced the length of the dance floor then vaporized into thin air. His partner was like, what the hell?
There were some other guys who actually danced slinkily but manly, and not too gayish. I always preferred Gene Kelly to Fred Astaire, who didn’t dance differently enough from Ginger Rogers for my liking.
My friend Wal is from some country with an “-istan” at the end of it, and he was dancing up a storm. He literally was, because all this fog came out of nowhere and I thought it was going to hail. The song ended and he looked winded, so I asked him if wanted me to get him an oxygen mask, and he said, “No thank you.”
I never for a moment considered that I should learn to dance this way. I picture myself spinning the wrong way with her hand firmly in mine, twisting the girl’s arm completely off. I drop it on the floor in horror, blood spewing all over the place, and somebody by mistake kicks it down the stairs where it gets into the revolving door and ends up outside, where a cat drags it to the curb and it falls down a storm drain. Meanwhile the girl is looking at me like I am a complete loser, and all I have is a disarming smile.
Sometimes couples who have been dancing this way for many years spin and turn as if they are on a track, like an expensive clock that plays music when it chimes. One couple dance so close I assumed one of his buttons was caught in her hair. Another guy took his girlfriend by the hair, whipped her in the air and snapped her like a damp gym towel.
One caballero had his partner turning so long he actually spun her into a cocoon. On the plus side she emerged a beautiful woman, but unfortunately during her metamorphosis she got a parking ticket.
Which reminds me they replaced all the parking meters in New York City with these “muni meters” which of course don’t take any money that goes clink. I don’t mind that but what I do mind is that at night I always have on contact lenses and I can’t read the menus. I don’t know how much money to put in because I can’t read my watch with my contacts in. My watch says either 7:03 or 12:35. But did I reset it for daylight savings time? In which case it’s either 8:05 or 20 of 1. I push a couple buttons and hope for the best.
Back inside the club I check out the sad dudes in the VIP area. I swear to god these people always look bereft, cordoned off behind velvet ropes. Four guys and a bottle of champagne chilling, waiting for someone to waste it on. They look like they wish they had thought to bring a deck of cards or something. Out of force of habit I get in line next to the velvet ropes in order to open a low-interest checking account.
I can see dancing supernovas going nuts on the floor. These are the ones that will burn brightly for a very short period of time. They will hit the wall fast, some quite literally. They will approach the hour of midnight like Cinderella, when their faces will start to fall like a Salvador Dali painting.
I order a cuubbrrrra libbrrrre, rolling my “r’s” in a very whitebread manner. A girl comes up to me and asks me if I’d like to dance. Sure. I put my drink down and warn her that I don’t know what I’m doing, which is a warning I use in just about every endeavor. I start dancing from side-to-side like I usually do, but she is dancing front-to-back and she puts a dent in my thigh with her ass. It is quickly ascertained that we are totally incompatible, like an octopus trying to teach a snake to ride a bicycle. An old guy with pomade in his hair gives me a dirty look and whisks her away like a dust devil. At this point I realize I have over-quandoed, somebody has taken my drink, and I just want to hear some Stones.
Incidentally, “Salsa” is a Cuban style of dancing popularized in the 1920s. It is characterized by three steps within a four-beat measure, the fourth beat observed with a kick or tap. That is the beat that is usually directed at my bad knee. One of the steps is usually a “break step,” which changes direction, often towards the bar. In Salsa the upper body remains stationary while the lower half is running around with who-knows-who, usually up to no good. Salsa differs from Meringue in that Salsa has no eggs in it.
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