Mid-winter Recess in New York City Public Schools, so I am off most of the week with the keikis. That will either mean a plethora of piñatas posts, or a scant amount. Yesterday we took a road trip to The Rink roller-skating facility in Montvale, New Jersey.


There's a cool slideshow here.

The word as this place, which has been around for years and years, will be closing its doors soon to make way for a partment buildings. Ah, progress!

Porcelain and Pewter

PORCELAIN AND PEWTER for Shayna

Your pink mushroom hat
bobs across the schoolyard
on this frigid February morning.
A week shy of turning eight,
you shuffle in pink pants, purple jacket,
pinstriped Yankee backpack,
swinging arms, powering
through the bitterness.
As you move with purpose,
puffs of breath trail in your wake.

I wonder how it could be possible
that you are almost eight,
with your bright darting eyes,
and my personality, or part of it,
mirroring a younger me.
I think
of my picture on the wall, at five,
in my father’s arms,
with that same goofy grin frozen in time,
the trademark smile transplanted
on so many photographs of you-
a reflection transported to the present.
Yet here you are now,
prancing toward eight, as I plod toward forty.

The winter wind stings
and pulls pale pillows
out of your lungs.
I watch and feel my heart
pulsing within me, beneath the layers.
As you get further away,
I focus less on your person
and ponder the impact
of your movement:

the pale pyrotechnics,
the quivering clusters of steam
propelling from you
like porpoises
splashing up out of the sea.

Phriday Phive

Stuck home today, chillin' with an illin' kiddo, so I am shuffling the BilliTunes library for today's random quintet of interesting (I hope) tracks.

You're always welcome to drop a comment with your five, I'm always interested in other people's pods.

Let the games begin:


1) "Soma" from The Strokes debut album Is This It. If that cover art seems unfamiliar to you, it's because this is America, and we can't have our kids seeing such filth when we take them to Wal-Mart to buy ammo for our weapons. So, most of us Americans got this album art instead:


Aren't we lucky? Here's them performing it live:



2)



That's "Black Gold" by Soul Asylum. Great song.

Listen: "Black Gold" (mp3) by Soul Asylum, courtesy of Lil Mike's Last Known Thoughts & Random Revelations. There are more Soul Asylum songs at that link. Nice post on the band from August 2006.

3)



"The World Has Turned and Left Me Here" by Weezer, off their "blue" album.

The blog Neile's Life did a segment in September of "the 125 Albums that should be in your collection". This was #17, and the song can be heard here: "The World Has Turned and Left Me Here" (mp3), courtesy of Neilie's Life.



4) Ah, a classic:



"Blue Suede Shoes" by Carl Perkins.

Here's an old look:



And numero 5 to get you through the weekend:



"Moon Baby," the lead track from Godsmack's quadruple-platimum debut eponymous album.

Here's them performing the song at Woodstock '99. Viewer beware: he says some bad words.

A Drop of BookPeeping from Thursday

Well, I'm late in reporting all the snow and ice. All? Hardly, a few inches, but it was the first significant snow of the season. No cool pictures. No cool video. I failed you. Sorry.

A small bit of bookpeeping from yesterday's commute, this trio on the R train between Pacific Street and 95th.

The first one jumped out at me:


Look at Me by Jennifer Egan. Why did it jump out at me? Because Jennifer Egan is one of the contributors to the book I am currently reading, The Show I'll Never Forget: 50 Writers Relive Their Most Memorable Concertgoing Experience. Egan wrote about seeing Patti Smith in San Francisco in the 1970's.

Sign of the Cross by Chris Kuzneski. I love the blurb: "Like The DaVinci Code on steroids". Nice. But not as nice as this:


No Rest for the Wicked by Kresley Cole. Read an excerpt here. It will be worth it, really.

Post-Valentine's Poem

Listening last night to a love-themed podcast from The Poetry Foundation (in honor of Valentine's Day) entitled "Romantic or Plain Erotic" (available here in mp3) and I heard this poem, by Tony Hoagland. Recent readers of BillyBlog will understand why it resonated so much:

Windchime

by Tony Hoagland

She goes out to hang the windchime

in her nightie and her work boots.

It’s six-thirty in the morning

and she’s standing on the plastic ice chest

tiptoe to reach the crossbeam of the porch,

windchime in her left hand,

hammer in her right, the nail

gripped tight between her teeth

but nothing happens next because

she’s trying to figure out

how to switch #1 with #3.

She must have been standing in the kitchen,

coffee in her hand, asleep,

when she heard it—the wind blowing

through the sound the windchime

wasn’t making

because it wasn’t there.

No one, including me, especially anymore believes

till death do us part,

but I can see what I would miss in leaving—

the way her ankles go into the work boots

as she stands upon the ice chest;

the problem scrunched into her forehead;

the little kissable mouth

with the nail in it.

“Windchime” copyright �© 2003 by Tony Hoagland. Reprinted from What Narcissism Means to Me with the permission of Graywolf Press, Saint Paul, Minnesota. All rights reserved. www.graywolfpress.org

Source: What Narcissism Means to Me (Graywolf Press, 2003).

I couldn't help myself. That set of lines:

the wind blowing

through the sound the windchime

wasn’t making

because it wasn’t there

still haunts me. I have not forgotten.

The Lips Never Kissed

In the spirit of Valentine's Day, I thought I'd throw out a poem of love, a poem of lust. I wrote this May 12, 1998, and came across it while looking for a poem suitable for the day. Something's telling me now is the time to share it. So here it is.

THE LIPS NEVER KISSED

I opened my eyes

and watched the stars

fading from the sky.

Birds sang quietly

and someone snored nearby.

I didn’t move

but I could see all around me,

the teenage bodies

resting in the grass.

No one wanted to sleep in the cabins

on such a beautiful night

and from where we were,

we could hear the waves

gently rushing up the beach.

It was Mindy’s idea,

and she was so popular,

had she suggested we sleep in the trees,

we would have started climbing

before she even finished speaking.

Somehow, by chance,

I was beside her, in the grass.

She was on her back,

one tanned arm thrown behind her

as she inhaled slow, even, whispers of air.

Her lips were slightly apart, and

even in the early morning light,

I could see the glow

from her teeth, hidden like pearls

in an oyster’s smile.

The dark curls from her hair

fell around her, giving the

impression that she had rested

her head in a luxurious nest

of soft seaweed.

Her lashes fluttered, the soft lids

covering her honeyed amber eyes.

I was a spy. I stared for five

full minutes before I moved closer,

holding my breath. Closer, and a dog

barked in the distance, someone nearby stirred.

I wanted so much to kiss her,

our lips were so close, I could feel

her breath, like warm tears on my cheek.

But I stopped.

I was too afraid. Mindy was

two years older and I was still so insecure.

I moved back and discovered the body

next to her watching me. His eyes

regarded me, unblinking. We stared

at each other and I could read his thoughts,

You poor, little fool, you’ll never

have that a chance again.

And he was right.

As if on cue, Mindy stirred

and yawned, showing me

a thick, voluptuous tongue,

and then she stretched

with a look of such pleasure,

I could only imagine

it was the expression

of a woman making love.

When her eyes discovered me,

in a gravely voice, still weighted

with sleep, she mumbled, “Good morning.”

Of course, I agreed,

but the spell had been broken:

the sun rose and the bodies moved

and everything returned to normal speed.

Life vibrated and zipped onward

and I have no doubt

that the memory of me

in Mindy’s mind

is filed away under

“NEVER TO BE REMEMBERED”.

Whereas her hair and her eyes,

that one tanned arm and her lips,

those lips never kissed,

still appear before me

when I think of chances not taken

or opportunities missed

or even, if I am awake,

and I see the dark sky turn gray

with the promises of dawn.

©2007 William Dickenson Cohen

Lucinda Williams, West

It's new music Tuesday, as they say, and I have already listened to most of the new Lucinda Williams album West. (Click title to buy from amazon).

Sparing you any lengthy review, let me just say that this is a very good album. I can already tell, much better than World Without Tears, not as great (if that were even possible) as Car Wheels on a Gravel Road.

Blender gives the record three stars, Rolling Stone gives is four, calling the album opener "one of her greatest songs ever". That's high praise, indeed. There are some low points on the record, but I have yet to identify them on my own.

The Blender review here.

The Rolling Stone review here.

A glowing review on Allmusic.com here.

Aquarium Drunkard blogged about West yesterday and posted what is probably my favorite song on the album, "Unsuffer Me" (mp3).

Another track, "Words" (mp3) appeared last month on Who Killed the Mixtape?

BillyBlog strongly recommends.

Monday Morning Bummer or, a Viacomedy of Errors

Popularity has it's price, I guess. I have joined the league of bloggers and other YouTube enthusiasts who have received the dreaded e-mail:

Dear Member:

This is to notify you that we have removed or disabled access to the following material as a result of a third-party notification by Viacom claiming that this material is infringing:

Naked Brothers Band "If There Was a Place to Hide" (FULL): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wh25ZoFcSVI

Please Note: Repeat incidents of copyright infringement will result in the deletion of your account and all videos uploaded to that account. In order to avoid future strikes against your account, please delete any videos to which you do not own the rights, and refrain from uploading additional videos that infringe on the copyrights of others. For more information about YouTube's copyright policy, please read the Copyright Tips guide.

Ironically, they pulled the plug on the long video but left the short one.

Naked Brothers Band, ""If There Was a Place to Hide"

A couple of weeks ago, on January 27, I added a forty-second clip of a montage from a movie on Nickelodeon that had five seconds of fame for a couple of people I care deeply about (read the original post here). Well, since then, the bit on YouTube has had 17,366 views, was "favorited" 76 times, received more than 30 comments, and has been rated by 37 viewers. One young fan asked if I could post the whole song. And since, I am appreciative of the huge spike in traffic on BillyBlog as a result of the Naked Brothers Band clip, here's young Nat Wolff performing the whole song from the movie:

Pearl Jam Aussie Beach Towel - Sweeet!

So I periodically check the Pearl Jam fan site because they occasionally throw up tour posters that are collector's items, and many consider serious works of art. Earlier this week, this appeared, a variation of the Poster for this past Summer's show in L.A.

Only this was listed as an "Aussie Tour Beach Towel". I snagged one. The following day, an e-mail went out to all fanclub members that there were new items in the band store, and this item was gone within 24 hours.

I received mine Friday. I could have bought two and thrown one up on eBay, like this guy might have done here, but I didn't want to risk fanclub revocation. Unlikely, buy why risk it? Anyway, these are now listed on eBay for $90 and $100 on two separate auctions. Let's see how they do. I'm keeping mine.

Friday Frankenstein Post

This is a monster post. Not big. More small, but assembled and sewn together. I guess. I have no Friday Five, but I do have a Commute Home Playlist, with some weird co-inky-dinks, and I've thrown in some BookPeeping from the MTA. It'll all come together, I believe.

My commute started out with a joke as I got on the elevator. "Three attorneys and an HR guy walk into an elevator..." Send me a punchline.

As I exited Seven Penn Plaza, I tapped my shuffle button and got one of the more apropos starting out songs:

"Take the Long Way Home" by Supertramp.


"Spoonman" by Soundgarden


At this point I was on the subway platform at 34th Street, under Greeley Square, where I decided to do some BookPeeping. I started with this:


The Mosquito Coast by Paul Theroux.

I was trying to sneak a peak at another book when a fancy-schmancy new N train rolled in. It was packed. From there to 59th Street in Brooklyn, I saw no other books, just newspapers. Sorry. But this played on the BilliPod:

"Chapter A" by Christian Bok, from Eunoia, on June 2, 2002. Listen: "Chapter A (mp3)". Bok is a language poet, and his series called Eunoia is available to listen to/download free on an amazing avant-garde poetry site called UBUWEB. "Chapter A" is the first section of a poetry sequence which consist solely of words that have the vowel "A". Subsequent chapters feature other vowel sounds. I know, I know, most folks aren't that into poetry, but you ought to check this out, it's pretty cool. "Chapter A" runs about 18 minutes, but if you visit the UBU page here, you could listen to other chapters.

On a side note, here's a short piece, ten minutes or so, from the Poetry Foundation's weekly podcast, during which they discuss the UBUWEB site. Go explore. I mentioned this in my post last January here. The site has audio from Guillaume Apollinaire, Allen Ginsberg, Max Ernst and Frank Zappa, among others. Incredible.

"You Can't Lose What You Ain't Never Had" by Muddy Waters

"Take it Easy Trailer Park" by Kinky Friedman

on the 59th Street Platform, I caught this book:


The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It by Michael E. Gerber

Just as "Shadow on the Sun" by Audioslave hit the earbuds.

On the R train to 95th Street, the Audioslave ended and then this kicked in:

The theme from "Sanford and Son". No kidding.

So I pulled out my own book from the library, an awesome book called


The Show I'll Never Forget: 50 Writers Relive Their Most Memorable Concertgoing Experience
edited by Sean Manning.

I picked up where I left off, chapter 6, Rebecca Brown's recounting of The Beatles show at Plaza del Toros in Madrid, on July 2, 1965 and this came on, seriously,

"Farewell to Miami" by the Fab Four themselves, which is WQAM radio clip of an interview the boys did as they got ready to leave Miami on February 21, 1964. This track was from a bootleg I got from one of my fave music blogs, jefitoblog. The post is here, although the links are inactive.

When that coincidence was done blowing my mind, I wrapped up the playlist with

"Thirteen" by Big Star

"No Matter What" by Def Leppard, a cover of the song by Badfinger.
Listen to the Badfinger original here (mp3), courtesy of I am Fuel, You are Friends.

"Broke Down Engine" by Bob Dylan, which you can listen to here.

and

"Kiss Off" by the Violent Femmes. Listen: "Kiss Off" (Live 1984)" mp3, courtesy of Jefitoblog.

Random Wondering: Where Are They Now?

That's Pinky Tuscadero, a minor character from Happy Days. She was played by Roz Kelly. Here's Roz's wikipedia entry:

Roz Kelly (born July 29, 1943 in Mount Vernon, New York) is best known for playing Arthur "Fonzie" Fonzarelli's (Henry Winkler) girlfriend Pinky Tuscadero on the hit television series Happy Days, which ran from 1974 to 1984 on ABC.

Pinky was the older sister of Leather Tuscadero (American born singer Suzi Quatro) who also dated "Fonzie" in a later episode. Pinky was slated to be Fonzie's long-term girlfriend after her intitial appearances in episodes #64-66 and, in fact, commercials for the next season even began promoting Kelly's new character. Unfortunately, when discord occurred between her and the cast and producers, her character was dropped; She was only mentioned briefly in two later episodes: where her sister Leather came into town to start a fresh life from reform school; and, when Fonzie was out of town at a demolition derby with Pinky.

Beyond Happy Days, Kelly played guest roles on Fantasy Island (1982); Charlie's Angels (1979); The Dukes of Hazzard (1979); The Love Boat (1978); Baretta (1978); Kojak (1978), The Paul Lynde Halloween Special (1976), and Starsky and Hutch (1975). Her role in the last of these, was created when star Paul Michael Glaser (Starsky) planned to quit at the start of the third season, with Kelly's character, Officer Linda Baylor, intended to fill his place. However, Glaser was persuaded to stay, and Kelly's character ultimately only appeared in one episode, "Fatal Charm". Her characters on these other shows never reached the level of cult fame that "Pinky" gave her. During this period, Kelly also appeared as a celebrity panelist on such game shows as Match Game and Hollywood Squares.

Kelly also played roles in low budget movies throughout the late 1970s/early 1980s including: The Owl and the Pussycat; Greetings; You've Got to Walk It Like You Talk It; You'll Lose That Beat; Okay Bill; The Female Response; American Pop; New Year's Evil; and Full Moon High.

These movies were indicative of her career that was based on lot of potential, but limited exposure due to lack of distribution. Most of these small parts emphasized her body and highly sexual demeanor. In many ways she represented the female version of Scott Baio, who played the character "Chachi" on Happy Days, whose career too was also filled with potential that was never quite achieved.

Today, Kelly spends her time in up-state New York with her family and friends. Her hobbies include sewing and writing poetry. Although, not officially retired from acting, she has not worked in the film genre in over a decade. To this day, fans of Happy Days recognize her as "Pinky" and she remains amazed at her cult following and the amount of people who actually know her as Roz Kelly, considering the rather small screen career she has had. She has often said sarcastically that those people scare her!

On November 29, 1999, she was arrested for firing a 12-gauge shotgun into the living room window of a neighbor's house after a car alarm woke her up; she also shot the neighbor's car and another car nearby. The neighbor was not home at the time. She pleaded no contest to the charge of firing into the house and was sentenced to three years' felony probation on October 20, 2000. Roz Kelly was also ordered to receive psychiatric counseling and pay restitution as ordered by the probation department.

She is known as Roxie to her family and friends.

If you enjoyed this post, please let me know, so I can provide further service in the future.

A Good Week for the Headline Composers

The Daily News easily bests the Post in the battle of the tabloid covers. The Post's headline is a dopey "ANNA NICOLE MYSTERY: WAS IT MURDER?" Come on, guys, can't you be a little more tasteless and/or creative?

BillyBlog loves a good pun, so a tip of the hat for this gem:

FreeFest 2007

An announcement was made Tuesday that Ozzfest 2007 will be free. Read on:

OZZFEST 2007...FOR FREE

GROUNDBREAKING ANNOUNCEMENT
PULLS PLUG ON TICKET PRICES

"This will change everybody’s impression of the way touring in the summer in America should be."--Sharon Osbourne

Imagine a day of wall-to-wall hard rock.

Imagine the world's greatest headliner sharing a bill with cutting edge new artists.

Imagine if this brass-knuckled beast was hellbent on coming to your town.

Imagine this earth-pounding event...FOR FREE.

2007 will forever mark the year OZZFEST spiked the concert industry's punch and gave every head-banging American kid a reason to strap on an air guitar with the historic announcement that tickets to the summer’s premiere touring concert festival won't cost fans a dime.

Testing one, two, three...

That's right, OZZY and SHARON OSBOURNE and tour producer LIVE NATION broke the news today at the Concert Industry Consortium in Los Angeles that their 12th annual hard rock spectacular--a 25-date extravaganza launching July 7 in Los Angeles--is pulling the plug on ticket prices and giving the power back to the fans calling this summer’s OZZFEST "FreeFest." The other OZZFEST cities as of now are San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Denver, Albuquerque, Phoenix, Dallas, San Antonio, Kansas City, St Louis, Chicago, Indianapolis, Columbus, Pittsburgh, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Hartford, Charlotte, Atlanta, West Palm Beach, Nashville. Note: a final confirmed list of cities and dates is forthcoming.

"For the last few years," says SHARON, "ticket prices have steadily climbed as artists demand more and more money for summer tours. We certainly want everybody to make money, however we also want the kids to be able to afford to come out and have an incredible experience. If we continued with the traditional touring festival model, we would have no choice but to raise ticket prices again this year."

Read the whole press release here.

Note that the dates listed are from 2006, not the current line-up and schedule.

More info will be forthcoming.

The Write Stuff

Ok, the NASA Love Triangle Scandal has provided fodder for "The Big Two" morning dailies to give us a double whammy of funny headline , um , lunacy. Every once in a while, it's fun to post these covers:




Just something poetic about the line "Astro-nut faces slay-bid rap".

Knicks Win!

Knicks win 102-90!

Nice game, especially since it started like this:




Bonus clip:

But...

What do you expect from women (or anyone, for that matter) drinking beer
with a straw?

Knockers

The crowd at the Clippers basket has the obligatory thundersticks used to distract the Clippers players as they attempt free throws. The two women sitting in front of us, Row L, Section 20, just asked loudly, "Why didn'twe get any knockers?!?".

Third quarter

Knicks up 70-64 after 3 quarters.

Knicks lead!

Knicks take the lead for the first time 57-55 with 6:07 left in the third!