Freestyle Friday

Not sure if it qualified as a concert, but the older woman with the huge green sunglasses and red beret playing some kind of giant keyboard kazoo yesterday morning on the N train at Ditmars Blvd. did a passable but thankfully brief rendition of Never On Sunday. That took some guts...

...and I enjoyed that little show a great deal more than today's subway car entertainment, which consisted of a slovenly dressed Asian guy wearing huge headphones and singing aloud to the song playing on his portable music player: I Wish I Knew What I Know Now ... When I Was Younger... over and over again. Now I can't get the fucking song out of my head (what group is that?). All because the battery in my iRiver MP3 player died out about half a song into my ride, forcing me to listen to the painfully loud PA system amplifying the annoying voice of the train conductor announcing every station stop...

I don't wanna jinx things, I don't wanna get my hopes up or count my proverbial chicks before they hatch, so I want to avoid anything too political on this blog probably until after Election Day. At which point I will gloat and boast and just in general find as many right-wingers to harass as possible. Not that the Democrats are necessarily the answer to the world's problems, but only the most cloistered of Republican shills would approve of the direction the country is going in. The New York Times' dreadful David Brooks, however, used a column last week to pontificate on what a tragedy it would be to America's anti-poverty push if that great statesman, Rick Santorum, were to be defeated in the Pennsylvania Senate race. That took more balls and a whole 'nother level of cluelessness than playing a kazoo to bewildered commuters on a New York City train... Although Brooks did see both the House & Senate going Dem a few weeks ago on the News Hour...

Yes, that was legendary alt-country band (and fellow Dallas Cowboys fans) the Old 97s playing on that new Chili's TV ad for baby back ribs, one of a number of commercials using their music these days. I guess if the music of the Clash can be used to sell Jaguars, and the Buzzcocks' What Do I Get can be used to sell Volkswagens, then what's a few more spare ribs between friends...

Article in the Sunday Times Arts & Leisure section a few weeks ago on Piero Scaruffi's Website, www.scaruffi.com, claiming that he gets like 600,000 hits monthly, and I have no doubt as to its veracity. But I was very underwhelmed by the site. Boring! No visuals, just what amounts to endless lists and reviews of pop culture, mostly rock music. The writing is okay, but I was not all that impressed -- and I'm trying to be objective here...

I used to read the blog Waiter Rant regularly, and still do occasionally. Waiter's got a book deal as a direct result of his blog entries. Now, he is a decent writer, but he gets like thousands of hits for every one of this posts on the trials/tribulations of running an upscale Manhattan bistro, as well as comments galore. Occasionally funny, often insightful, always likable, he is popular beyond all commensurate degrees of what is good and right ... kind of like how my own WardensWorld blog is not yet followed worldwide or nationwide despite its obvious attraction and usefulness...

Sports media critic Phil Mushnick of The New York Post wrote in his column that ESPN's Cowboys-Giants Monday Night Football broadcast last week (10/23) -- which I also perceptively took time to excoriate -- might have been the worst sports broadcast of all time. I would have trouble disagreeing with him on that one, but the season is still young and there are remain about 8 more MNF games. The bar has been set...

Left-handed people just always seem more interesting to me somehow, especially when they're writing...

More Tony Romo praise this week. It doesn't take a genius to see how the kid has revitalized Bill Parcells and the rest of the organization. Expect Big Bill to come back at least one more year following this season. Cowboy haters beware: He's gonna ride Romo all the way back to the top of the football world...

I think that whole fist-bump greeting thing is history. Its officially "jumped the shark" after I saw Howie Mandel knuckle-bump a female contestant on his Deal or No Deal show. Hopefully it will soon go the way of middle-age white guys trying to look hip by shaving their heads so they don't look bald. Not a good look for anyone not named Michael Jordan...

I think it's overlooked how much work it takes to stalk someone. First of all, you need to have not only ambition but an advanced level of organization to be an effective stalker. At the least you should have one of those BlackBerry's and an old-fashioned Week At A Glance notebook to keep track of the person's comings & goings, schedule, habits, personal haunts... In essence, you have to be the stalkee, and that's a degree of discipline I am not ready to commit to right now...

Found a brand new, unopened tin of mints last week on the train after some young girl got up from her seat. They were called Atonemints, with the slogan For Each Of Your Sins underneath the name, priced at $3.95, and the back of the tin had an ad for The Unemployed Philosophers Guild, with the link to this cool Website. Still haven't opened the tin to taste the mints, but somehow couldn't shake the feeling that it was no accident the tin found its way into my hands...

Good to hear Delphine Blue's dulcet tones on WBAI the other night, spinning tunes and commenting with that purring, sexy voice of hers. Over the years she turned me on to more good new music than perhaps any other single person. I used to listen to her religiously when she had her Shocking Blue Thursday/Friday morning show on BAI and I had a radio at the office, and then later briefly on WFUV, where she played bands like Soul Coughing, the Cure, King Missile, Bush Tetras, Fela, Sonic Youth... She once hosted a free Luna concert I went to down at the Seaport about four years ago...

Ah, representative democracy in action! Doesn't it warm your patriotic hearts to know that the drug companies are basically funding campaigns for Republican lawmakers, pouring obscene amounts of money into the coffers of key pro-business (and anti-consumer) legislators like Rick Santorum? These corporations obviously know a good thing when they see one. Republicans don't come cheap, but there's always a price that is right...

George Will is officially off the reservation, taking Dick Cheney to task for his repeated lies concerning the war. Like most thinking people, the well-respected conservative pundit recognizes the morass in Iraq as a dangerous hellhole for American troops, and one that can no longer be sugar-coated with partisan platitudes and right-wing rhetoric...

Made a good decision to tape the Bill O'Reilly spot on the David Letterman show last Friday. Taped it and watched it a few times since. Nothing beats the startled look on O'Reilly's mug when he realizes Letterman is not gonna play nice, again. Bill thought he was gonna get an opportunity to plug his hideous new book, Culture Warrior. Instead Dave stayed on the attack and at the very end of the segment held up the book for 5 seconds, making a joke about the cover. Gotta love me some Letterman lately...

Unbelievably cheesy line from one of Bush's campaign speeches the other day: "Good to be in a place where the Cowboy hats outnumber the ties." Who writes this drek? Yeah, Bush the faux cattle rustler: all hat and no cattle. Was he not born in suburban Connecticut? Thought so...

...Bush also shamelessly slandered the patriotism of the Democratic party and by association all who plan to vote against him this Tuesday by saying the Democratic approach assures "the terrorists win and America loses." Typical class from the Great Divider...

That being said, let's muzzle John Kerry till at least, oh, Wednesday night should do it...

Long awaited Astoria reunion upon us, this Saturday afternoon we meet at the old park on 37th Street for a dose of good old fashioned nostalgia, followed by festivities at Riccardo's nightclub, where my parents went religiously back in the day. Will be good to hang with Gatt, Admiral, Urb, Kate, Bill Schwubb, Big Mike and the rest of the crew again. Back in our old days, we would have been kicked out of the place about an hour into the party...