Arrested Development: Bluth's Original Frozen Banana Stand (and Luke Bryan)

I spy an oversize banana,

which could only be:

Some marketing folks from Netflix!

They were giving out stuff earlier,

but by the end of the day there was a line to take a photo

with some strangers.

And on my way home,

outside of Letterman, I saw

Luke Bryan!

(I've never heard of him,

but people seemed enamored.)

Meanwhile my cousin Samantha got her picture taken

with Danny Masterson (Hyde from That 70s Show)

because he was hanging out at her office since he has a friend there.

Manic Depression Is Touching My Soul

Sing it, Jimmy.

Sing it.

Nick Cave Horses in Grand Central

I went with some friends to try to see the

Nick Cave horses that were at Grand Central last week.

Unfortunately, so did every other person.

So we didn't get in,

but it was kind of nice out,

so at least we got some air.

This is what we missed:

You know Nick Cave.

He did this song:

NYC Armory Show 2013: Part 4: Some Cool Art from Jon's Phone

Tilda Swinton is sleeping under this.

Just kidding!

It was Jon himself.

Just kidding!

This was art nonetheless.

I think it's called Sleepeh.

An artist was signing/giving away Andy Warhol Brillo boxes or something.

I didn't get one or see where they were getting them from,

but it looked neat.

These acrylic legs are Matthew Barney-esque, no?

Word art is in these days.

This is awesome art.

It's represents the worst times of the winter holidays.

I bet there are already cards and T-shirts on etsy with this print.

They're synchronized enough to make a tree

out of their poop,

as if the poop tree is walking jauntily toward them too.

The men are in a yoga position.

They have such terrible diarrhea 

that it shoots through their underwear!

They're average weight men

that are identical except for their facial hair

and their underwear. 

Art made up of hundreds of unsmoked cigarettes.

The machine was automated to push holes through the tape.

It was interesting and random.

A woman suggested it was Braille.

A cool photo taken of a building not in this area.

We need cool colorful buildings architects on the eastern seaboard.

Enough of this steel, red or orange or beige brick, and glass garbage.

Color our concrete jungles for us sexy beasts!

You entered this galley's booth with a flashlight

to look at the art.

I don't know why.

The gallery was from Istanbul.

There's something so appealing about the circle it creates.

The rose gold gleaming and all.

Copy of the score by John Cage:

Jon says it's probably the most famous piece of 

experimental music.

The music is the ambient noise of the silence of the musician

not performing.

(This just underscores my anxiety at a live performance.)

Jon thinks I closed the video,

but it's still playing.

Scary stone babies.

Ma-ma?

Reach Out and Touch . . .

So I didn't touch their equipment,

but I saw Depeche Mode's equipment

outside the stage entrance

of David Letterman

from across the street.

Not a very catchy tune is it?

But not the worst.

Oh! The Pata Pata Song

So in case you didn't have time to click and learn more about the woman

who popularized African music on the Google banner today,

Miriam Makeba,

here she is singing her famously awesome song.

Sat wuguga sat ju benga sat si pata pat!

Ducktales and Hall and Oates

After reading this wonderful article

about the acclaimed TV show

Ducktales,

we realized that the theme song was much like

the Hall and Oates song: You Make My Dreams Come True.

Thankfully other people on the Internet did too

and saved us the work of mashing it up to prove a point.

Mangosteen In My Dreams, Mangosteen In My Dreams

I wrote/sang this song for Dairy Queen when I lived in Reston, Virginia:

Dairy Queen

in my dreams!

Dairy Queen

in my dreams. . . .

The closest Dairy Queen to our apartment was a small trek.

But even with three or four other fro-yo/gelato/Ben & Jerry's type options,

Dairy Queen was my muse,

and I needed a sundae.

Like NEEDED one.

Mangosteens aren't in that category,

but it works well in this song.

And they are a kind of dreamy fruit.

A hard nut-like shell,

but inside are soft, sweet segments

ready to explode in your mouth.

KABOOM!

Should Old Acquaintance Be Forgot, and Old Lang Syne? That Is the Question.

2-0-1-3 is ready to be dropped on by a huge lit ball.

The gates are ready to pen people in.

December 31, 2012 9 a.m.

Times Square

Christmas Lights

Rock Center Tree

St. Patrick's Choral Concert

Fifth Avenue Lights

Colony. Onward.

There are quite a few places I've always passed by

and never went into in midtown like

the peep shows and XXX video stores,

the men's hat shop where the New York Times building now sits,

and Colony.

Mostly I didn't go to those places because

I didn't think I'd feel comfortable,

so I maybe stared as I passed by

and that's all.

Oftentimes in the last few years,

I passed by Colony.

They sold music scores and bought CD collections. 

(I think it was something like it had to be at least 300 CD or more

that you had to sell to them

or something like that.

Now that's a collection.)

I love the idea of records,

but we have so many books to transport already

whenever we move.

(I've lived eight places in the last eleven years:

4 dorm rooms,

4 apartments.)

We nearly always end up with more boxes of books than any

of our other belongings.

Collecting another set of things

that can easily be transported,

saved, used, and organized,

like records,

seems ridiculous.

Maira Kalman's piece from the New Yorker a few weeks ago

below drives home the point:

"So where are we? . . . No more paper?"

Like Fats on her wall,

we have Murakami, Wallace, Rowling, Pynchon, and Batali and others,

plus tons of children's books, lining our shelves 

to build walls in our small apartment.

A house room of paper.

"No time to mourn the past.

Onward . . ."

Qu'est-Ce Que C'est

A bad day for me.

A good day to listen to Talking Heads.

Try, You Like: New Music (to Me)

I found this on the "Tuneyards" Pandora station.

The Metropolis edits are cool too.

I love the scene that's cut back and you see the city.

Wee and I were listening to this when 

we were returning from Target

the other night.

It's on one of the local stations.

It was big band orchestra hour or something awesome.

Friday the 13th: Watching the New York Philharmonic at Central Park's Great Lawn

View from the very south of the Great Lawn

Jon and I walked up 

from 53rd Street to 84th Street

to get sushi

before heading to the concert.

It was as hot as a balls.

Jon and his cell phone

We ate our sushi

while listening to the NY Philharmonic.

We sat while it drizzled.

The humidity broke slightly.

Around 9 p.m. there was an intermission.

Masses left.

At about 84th Street

when we entered the Great Lawn we're about

parallel to the bandstand.

I wanted to get a good seat for the fireworks,

lots of open sky,

so we walked down to the edge of the Great Lawn,

at about 75th Street.

I have no idea who goes

to a classical concert to look at the musicians,

but we heard well enough from the back.

My motive for going

And luckily, that was THE BEST spot

to see the fireworks.

Fireworks are hard to take photos of
with a cell phone

The fireworks started at ten and lasted for thirteen minutes.

They were huge and pretty.

One had a star inside a circle.

Fancy!

There's another concert on Monday.

Hopefully, it won't be rained out!

Ice Ice Baby (or When All the Ice in the Freezer Melts in the Ice Container)

Ice ice baby
Ice ice baby
All right stop
Collaborate and listen
Ice is back with my brand new invention
Something grabs a hold of me tightly
Then I flow that a harpoon daily and nightly
Will it ever stop?
Yo, I don't know
Turn off the lights and I'll glow
To the extreme I rock a mic like a vandal
Light up a stage and wax a chump like a candle

  

Dance
Bum rush the speaker that booms
I'm killin' your brain like a poisonous mushroom
Deadly, when I play a dope melody
Anything less that the best is a felony
Love it or leave it
You better gain way
You better hit bull's eye 
The kid don't play
If there was a problem 
Yo, I'll solve it
Check out the hook while my DJ revolves it

Ice ice baby Vanilla 
Ice ice baby Vanilla
Ice ice baby Vanilla
Ice ice baby Vanilla

Yo man, let's get out of here
Word to your mother

Ice ice baby
Too cold
Ice ice baby 
Too cold too cold 
Ice ice baby 
Too cold
Ice ice baby 
Too cold too cold

Totto Ramen

A few Thursdays ago, 

it was warm and sunny, 

and it was 5:15 p.m., 

and I was starving.

So I went by myself to Totto Ramen.

I pass by this restaurant almost every day, 

twice a day, 

to commute to work, 

and there's always a line. 

ALWAYS, unless it's closed.

In the rain, snow, at midnight, there's a line.

But at 5:25, I just walked in and was seated immediately 

at the counter and given a tall glass of water.

Their menu isn't huge, 

and if you're not there for ramen, 

you should really reevaluate your priorities

since you probably waited on a line to get in.

So I went for their signature ramen, 

and since the original Totto (and the former Torys) 

is known for its chicken, 

I got ordered my ramen with chicken.

And I got it pretty fast. 

The broth was very chickeny delicious. 

It's like the best chicken noodle soup broth ever, 

concentrated, but light on the sodium

that usually gives chicken soup its flavor.

But then I felt the fat on my tongue 

and around my mouth, 

and I was confused about where that aftermath of fat came from, 

because the lightness of the broth 

makes it so that you can just eat it forever.

The straight noodles were perfectly chewy and tasty.

The greens were not very cut up, 

so they were a little stringy. 

I choked on one a little as gracefully as I could 

before being able to swallow it.

The chicken though. 

Oh, when I saw the pork, I regretted ordering my chicken. 

It was pretty dry despite swimming in a really great, chickeny broth! 

What's up with that?

Is it worth the hour plus waiting times that I've seen? 

Not really.

There are many good ramen joints in NYC,

though I wouldn't count Momofuku Noodle Bar as one of them

because the last time I went

the noodles tasted like cardboard,

and I still love the one at Mitsuwa best of all.

Totto Ramen did have some excellent tunes playing though.

Is it worth going there without the hassle of the line? 

Definitely.

Note: Bring a take-out bucket to enjoy the broth later in the evening 

if you don't get a chance to really savor it all there 

because you're full or too warm 

from sitting in front of the huge vats of boiling noodles and broths.

I have no idea if they'll protest this,

but c'mon, you'd be clearing a seat a lot faster

if you weren't mulling over how to fit a cup more of liquid

into your overfilled sweaty gut.

Sunny Photos for a Torrential Monday Morning

This Monday morning was the kind of stormy morning 

that makes you just want to sleep in, read, drink warm things,

and think back to sunnier mornings that have passed.

Even with rain boots and a raincoat,

I was thoroughly soaked.

I think I need to add an umbrella back to my rain arsenal.

Play my rain anthem, Stanley.

Undead Music Festival: Tonic Reunion at Le Poisson Rouge

Sex Mob

Last Wednesday and into the wee morning hours of Thursday,

Jon and I went to see the Undead Music Festival's Tonic Reunion Concert

at Le Poisson Rouge.

It was like we were in college or young or something crazy.

Here's a sample of Sex Mob,

which is the only band that I really wanted to see.

Apparently, I've seen them before at 

the Miles Davis Tribute Festival in 2001.

I don't remember them 

since there were a million musicians at that festival,

but they were awesome on Thursday night.

Obviously, my cell phone's recording can't do it justice,

so you should check out their songs on Grooveshark or YouTube.

Elysian Fields

Here's the schedule:

LE POISSON ROUGE / TONIC REUNION SHOWCASE:6 p.m. - Doors 6:45 - Heather Greene & Ursa Minor (Heather Greene, Mino, Michelle Casillas, Rob Jost, Robert DiPietro, & Tony Scherr)7:45 - Jamie Saft's New Zion Trio 8:15 - The Refuseniks with John Hollenbeck, Ted Reichman & Reuben Radding9:00 - Dougie Bowne's Peninsula with Chris Speed, Jamie Saft, Michael Leonhart & Hilliard Greene9:30 - Short Tonic Documentary9:40 - Billy Martin Improv with Erik Friedlander, Marcus Rojas & Calvin Weston10:20 - Yuka C. Honda's EUCADEMIX with Miho Hatori, Eden Rice, Jared Samuel & Michael Leonhart11:00 - White Out w/ Bill Nace11:30 - Elysian Fields 12:00 - Steven Bernstein's Sex Mob12:30 - Ben Perowsky's Moodswing Orchestra with Michael Blake, TK Wonder1:00 - G. Calvin Weston, Jamaaladeen Tacuma and Vernon Reid

The 9:00 group started at 9:30, 

and everything else just started later thereafter.

Dougie Bowne's Peninsula, etc. was good,

but I couldn't really dig it as much as Jon did.

The Tonic Documentary broke in the middle of showing it,

but basically, the guy who owned Tonic is putting together a documentary

about Tonic and how it was a great haven for musicians

to try new things without having to go to the bowels of Brooklyn/other suburbs.

Why did Tonic close down?

Yuppie neighbors and rent, of course.

Billy Martin Improv was awesome.

I have a huge crush on Martin, Medeski & Wood,

but for whatever reason Jon doesn't want to ever take me to their concerts.

Yuka C. Honda is part of Cibo Matto,

who is the only band I recognized that was on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

I heart Cibo Matto and Buffy.

They did a beautiful version of "Le Vie En Rose".

White Out had a really short set.

I think the woman in this band was dancing strangely to the Dougie Bowne band.

I think a lot of the older people in the room were high.

And used to be hippies.

Elysian Fields came on around midnight.

The singer joked that at Tonic,

they'd be slated to go on so late

that they hardly had anyone to play for anymore.

Their set was good and short,

but kind of soothing.

Sex Mob came on around one a.m.

They brought the energy back.

It was unusual how the whole room suddenly became so awake and alive.

None of the previous bands managed to do that.

Overall, as a venue Le Poisson Rogue wasn't too crowded 

for this festival of awesome jazz.

We managed to find a place to sit and eat and drink for hours 

without having to sit on floor by the stage or against a wall.

The room was small enough,

so the acoustics were good,

but since we sat somewhat toward the back of the room,

there were A LOT of people talking.

And you can hear them all talking over the music,

which was kind of annoying.

Though we were curious about the later bands,

we were resolved to show up at work the next day

with some wits about us,

so we went home and slept

to go to work the next day.

Responsibilities.

They're so not jazzy.

The Time Jon and I Saw Feist at Radio City and It Wasn't That Great

On Saturday, May 5, Jon and I saw Feist at Radio City. We had gotten our tickets early, and Jon made sure we were just a few rows from the stage. As a joke though, we looked on stubhub to see what tickets were going for, and to our chagrin, they were MUCH cheaper. We felt a bit gypped. The concert was supposedly sold out! What's interesting is that when she was at BAM, tickets a few days before the concert were going for like $200 a piece, so this was just mystifying. Maybe a majority of the audience felt they were better off going to a Cinco de Mayo party instead of a Feist concert to get laid/find a husband?

The seats around us were pretty empty for awhile. The whole place was pretty much empty for Timber Timbre. (And though we saw some of their videos and were a little bit familiar with their songs, it wasn't a very interesting set.) 

In the beginning of the show, the ushers were being pretty strict about the seating. And Feist seemed really upset about the pit and orchestra seats being empty, singing about it in like three songs. So to make us feel even shittier about buying the expensive tickets, she invited everyone to move up closer. And the ushers/security went a little nuts getting everyone out of the aisles. It wasn't much fun staring at people's asses and having them kick me as they scrambled for better seats for like half a song every time this happened.

And once everyone settled down the first time, we had this fifteen-year-old girl (maybe a long-haired boy?) to deal with. She was pumping her fists at the Feist songs and standing up while the whole orchestra was sitting down. (It's a freaking Feist concert, not a fist-pumping kind of concert!) I was so baffled.

The woman in front of us talked to the usher (who looked like a really old version of Magnitude) about it, and the usher asked the girl to sit down. I'm not sure the woman did this entirely because she and her boyfriend were also annoyed, or because she was pissed off that Jon and I were complaining kind of loudly about it during the applause or whatever. (The woman came back, and said, "You're welcome." Um, thanks--but please hold the attitude. Jeez.)

But then Feist went out into the audience and grabbed a bunch of people onto the stage with her, and people were up and out of their seats so they could see what's happening. 

You guys, it's not because the music was so good that they had to get up and out of their seats--it's because people wanted to see the performer that they were paying for. These stunts kind of pissed me off. Especially when the people who were dancing on the stage with her were just filming her sing with their iPhones. What?!

Maybe I'm a little jealous of that, but still, when the dancing was done, they just stood on the stage, blocking my view of Feist. So, more unnecessary asses to view, and no Feist.

In addition to all the asses, other distractions include a water bottle that I bought. The concession stand guy said it was their policy not to give a cap. But that is crap. I've gotten bottle caps from Radio City water bottle purchases before. I mean, really, am I supposed to put my bottle on the floor and hope no one kicks it over? 

Also, she had an enormous band and three really weird backup singers. The backup singers were just too weird. The camera that streamed video to the background kept panning to them and the crotch of the drummer, who looked a lot like this guy on Party Down. (Speaking of doppelgangers, her guitar guy looked like George Saunders.)

I was way too distracted by everything else that was going on to pay attention to the music, but all in all, I think her concert at MacCarren Park Pool was better. It had the democracy of a general admission venue and the informality that Feist seemed to crave.

Toward the end of the show Feist pointed out the exit signs, which are the only things that she can actually see from the stage, and suggested that after awhile you end up wondering which one you'd take given all those options. Or maybe she said something different. I think everyone was just waiting to rush the stage again if she invited them to.

In any case, while I can see that some people had a great evening, I think that Jon and I had a better time getting shakes and burgers after. Feist's voice is beautiful live, but when you can barely see her, you might as well stay home and do the dishes while listening to her songs.

The Time I Saw Barry Manilow at Radio City with My Parents

On May 2, 2012, I saw Barry Manilow's Radio City concert!

He did all his hits:

It's a Miracle

Look Like We Made It

Can't Smile Without You

American Bandstand

Brooklyn Blues

Mandy

Copa Cabana

I Write the Songs

His fans were amazing.

Fanilows.

You could hear them singing along--

like little echos after Barry moved on to the next verse.

Though he's old and has had hip surgery

(which is why he missed the February concert,

and why my dad and I attended

instead of my aunts),

he's spritely and a really good entertainer.

My mom said that it wasn't his best show.

I thought it was fantastic.

Great segues, adorable personality, 

and he had some great stories and dance moves.

I was really compelled 

to buy a T-shirt after the concert.

But there was a mob of people 

at least six deep at the two counters.

It was fun going to the concert with my parents though.

My mom said that he played all her favorites.

She felt the show was specifically tailored for her

in some miraculous way.

And she got a kick that the really old man with a cane

sitting next to her was thumping along to the beats

by the end of the show.

My dad sang along to "Can't Smile Without You."

Barry performed "Mandy" with a clip of himself on a TV show.

Like a duet.

It was powerful stuff.