Monday, June 30, 2008

Modern Love

I've seen a lot of goofy things on the internet but the story I read today makes me shake my head in wonder at how wacked some people are.This single mother of two in Fla. is selling her house with the hope that a male will buy the house and marry her.She describes herself as a princess lost in America.I'd call her a nut job.She's 42 her oldest daughter is 21 and the other is 14.She's been a dancer but is now selling real estate.This is the part I love.She shows the reporter a picture on her laptop of Claudio,a handsome Italian who answered her ad and they hope to meet in Miami soon.The thing is Claudio's occupation is described as a Wine and Cheese Taster.Excuse me,just what is a wine and cheese taster and how do I get the job.Now if I were this woman Claudio would be triggering red flags all over the place.I'd tell Claudio chow in no uncertain terms.She giggles and says how she'd love to marry a European man and have him take her to europe to live.Another responder of the close to 500 was Ottie of Surrey who bubbled on about a perfect life with an American Princess.Ottie? Oy

Saturday, June 28, 2008

Back from Zombie land

The past three and a half weeks except for a few days here and there like the Celts perking me up and the few trips to the store I have been pretty much sleeping and reading and mostly sleeping pretty much during the day with the nastiest attack on my body yet.My whole body for the second time in four months basically turned red and started itching like crazy and then peeling skin like crazy.Especially painful on the feet and hands and swelling in arms and legs.It's a nasty form of psorias(sp) that attacks my whole body.The medication I'm on works but basically shuts down the immune system to do it leaving me wiped out.Today is the first day I had any kind of energy so hopefully I'll find things to post about again.On the 15th of July I start my twice a month injections under the skin of Humira(sp) a biologic for my disease.I've never injected myself before so I'm a bit nervous about it but if it works with a lot less side effects than the Cyclo Sporine(sp) I'm on now it will be worth it.Oddly enough when I'm feeling low most of my reading has been pulp mysteries instead of my usual highbrow reading.I've read several Robert Crais who has a PI named Elvis Cole prowling the streets of Los Angeles.I'm a sucker for Florida pulp and living in L.A. this is the first guy I've read using it as a city since reading all the classic Raymond Chandler.Crais isn't in that league,heck no one is but some of his descriptions of LA-LA land are pretty good.

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Drifting

It has been 95 or above here four straight days and on top of that I have a low grade infection that started in my inner ear and has spread to my whole head making the whole day groggy.I've been on a drug that basically shuts down the immune system to battle a severe psoriasis flare up I had so the infection had nothing to fight it.On monday I go get some antibiotics.I have a portable AC I use in the bedroom but don't run at night so sleep has been mostly during the day.Last night about 10:45 I was online when I heard yelling and looked out the window to see hundreds of bikes pass with what looked like middle schoolers and some adults heading down Beverly Glen.I have no idea where they were going but they passed my window for several minutes and being in another dimension it was surreal.Then about 1 a.m. I crawled on top of my bed book in hand and read for a good hour before drifting off for a few hours with the lights on and the heat and dreamt I was at a party.There were some good looking women there but the thing was everyone was an ice cube and not a human.I was thinking this one would cool me off when I heard what sounded like gunshots coming from a distance and getting closer.I came awake at that and realised it was the paperguy throwing the Sunday L.A. Times into driveways.A few minutes later I heard the thump on my neighbors steps and then the thump of my Sunday N.Y. Times which sounds different to me even though the same delivery guy is throwing them.Later on Sunday I was watching the local news with a story about some idiot who left her dog in the car out in the valley where it's like 105 and the fireman they were talikng to was named Steve Fryer.Given the weather and his profession I caught the irony even in the dream like state I have drifted through the past five days.Just a few hours ago I happened to find and old RX bottle in my medicine cabinet that had five codeine(sp)tabs in it and I thought woo hoo!So I'm about to take one pick up the Henry James book I am reading and drift off to a nice solid sleep for the first time in six nights.

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Tim Dickey of the Provincetown Jug Band

Blessing of the Fleet

Coming up June 26th-29th is the Provincetown Portugese Festival.It isn't the rowdy event it was back in my day and that may be a good thing but it's still a lot of fun and ends up with the Blessing of the Fleet on Sunday.On Fri night the 27th you can catch the "Old Jugs"(Provincetown Jug Band) at the Surf Club from 10 to 1:00 and on Sunday from 4 to 7 is Ed Sheridan at the Surf Club a Jug Band Member.I'm really tempted to fly in and show up so I can shout"You Guys Suck!", or"Play Something you Know!" like we used to do for fun after a Jug Band song.Several frat brothers and myself did just that one fall night at The Barley Neck Inn not realising the crowd there was a whole lot different than the Surf Club crowd in those days.We were asked to leave after the first set.As we were walking out Geno said to the crowd "If they do this(middle finger raised)they're just showing you their IQ".When we showed up back at the Surf Club from Orleans after getting tossed Richard the Bartender laughed and said"You guys are still standing?" then "I'm not serving you" which led to a few more PTown Bars that night and eventually a room at the old Holiday Inn with another early morning eviction. Lets's see if this links http://www.Provincetownportugesefestival.com/

Saturday, June 14, 2008

Dutra's Market

Last night while reading the Celtics stories on the Globe there was a heading for summer places or something like that and the heading was for Truro,MA. There were like 8 pics and one I clicked on was the center of Downtown North Truro.That intersection for me is the center of the universe.Head up "Puke Hill" on 6a and you come to Babes Restaurant and beyond that is Provincetown.Head the other way and you are bound for Truro and Wellfleet.Go left down Pond Rd. and you come to Cold Storage beach and it's small hilltop parking lot where we watched a lot of sunsets.Go right from the center of North Truro and you are on your way to Highland Light and a great town ocean beach plus our home in 78 The North Truro Camping Area.Off right center of the pic is Dutra's Market.Dutras was and is the place where it all happened.Meeting up out front with friends.picking up my N.Y. Times each day and the fact Dutras had a pagkage store also.In 1978 it was where we bought cases and cases of Pickwick Ale.Pickwick Ale came in big old hard cardboard cases each bottle 16oz. and real returnable bottles.Some had so many roller marks on the bottles they were like sandpaper.It also cost around 8 bucks a case which made it our beer of choice outside Bally Triple XXX Ale at the Surfclub.78 we had a tent trailer for Jimmy and Marty a 8 man tent for Tom and I and a living area in between with many lawn chairs from the Truro Dump.We also had a smaller tent we called the nab tent for dates and we were pretty much scattered over three sites at NTCA but at the edge of overflow and two thirds of our compound was actually into Seashore Land.Anyhoo halfway through that summer there was a strike at a Rhode Island Brewery and you could not find a Pickwick at Dutras.We had plenty of empty bottle cases on site used as end tables,to place shirts and pants on and as the famous shaving stand with the bottle of Jack Daniels used as aftershave holding up the shaving mirror.So we hadn't seen a Pickwick in like 18 days and one day after work we took a cruise into Provincetown from Babes with Pierre one of our Babes owners and he says to stop at this little store way up in the almost all house early part of Commercial Street way before the wharf and he comes out with whatever he needed and pulls a bottle of Pickwick from under his shirt.We all jump out of the car and inside the lady has 8 cases of 16oz Pickwick Ale.We bought them all and had our stash for a week or so and right after that the strike ended.I still have an empty Pickwick bottle somewhere in the apt which is a holy relic much like the Babes Beaver plate which I'll talk about later.

Friday, June 13, 2008

Drained

I'm still trying to recover my voice from last night.This finals has been draining.I can't think of things to post about because I'm chomping at the bit waiting for the next game on Sunday.My neighbors Laker Fans all are used to me yelling and screaming and whooping and hollering for the Red Sox but this is a first for them.I think the guy in the condo behind us was the one giving me a dirty look out front today and I might have to get security if the Celts win this thing.But Blessing of the Fleet is coming in Provincetown so my thoughts are there also.But all day I've been walking around breaking out in giggles that they actually won.Heck in 84 when the Celts played the Lakers my brother and I had 4 season tickets to the Lakers and I went to two finals games.I can't even afford to park at Staples Center now.

Sunday, June 8, 2008

Protection

So I'm waiting to cross a street at a light today on Westwood Blvd. when this lady pulls up in a Caddy, Blue Hair piled and teased high wearing shades and looking elegant.But then my gaze drifts onto her passenger seated right next to where I'm standing.I'm thinking no wonder the lady is driving her husband looks reall ill.The guys skin was really pasty,he's wearing a bad black hair piece and his mustache doesn't look much better and the captains yachting hat with the ascot or whatever around his neck I'm thinking instead maybe it's her gay old friend when I realise the guy isn't a guy but one of those lifesize dolls.Not the blowup kind but the life size solid doll.I start laughing which causes the older lady standing next to me to step away some feet but I don't think she understood what I was telling her about the doll while I'm giggling trying to explain it.I've seen these things advertised for this use before but have never seen one dressed like an aging lothario.The ads always show them looking like some tough biker guy grandma is tooling around with for protection.

New Music

Today I received an envelope from my brother in San Diego through the law firm he works at and while I was imagining it was two tickets for the Celtics-Lakers at Staples Center tues night it turned out to be a CD by a band called The Explorers Club.Looking at it right away they looked like a Brian Wilson worship band we are fond of finding.They are sort of and not to be confused with a prog rock band from the late 90's of the same name.These guys are from South Carolina and while there is a Strong Beach Boys vibe you also here the Beatles,Byrds,Turtles and other classic pop.I really like it though the sound is different than The Wondermints a real Brian Wilson hardcore worship group who have been his backup band on some tours.When I moved out here an early friend I made turned out to be Creative director for EMI America and later in N.Y. the same job for RCA so I got used to being backstage alot.Seeing guys like Bowie,Peter Wolf,Robert Palmer,Ziggy Marley.Red Hot Chili Peppers etc.I even became friends with some guys in some of the lesser bands especially the Wailers Bass player who we introduced to sushi and he introduced us to really really good herb.That and my appearance with my buddy Jimmy Manning on stage with the P-Town Jug Band memorial day 1981 singing the last encore of "When the Saints Come Marching In" gave me a rather jaded indifferent view of hanging out with these guys.So imagine my surprise when about seven years ago my buddy was out from N.Y. working with an artist when Henry and I went to this Italian place near me.As we sit down in the booth I'm talking to Henry when I realise in the next booth I'm looking right at Brian Wilson.All my jaded views of rock stars went out the window.I'm acting like Lucy in the Bill Holden Brown Derby episode pointing over Henrys shoulder whispering to him .Since I always see folks who I think are stars he laughs and gets up to use the boys room so he can see.At this point I'm like come on Hank turn around and tell him you did the artwork and photoshoots for his daughters in that awful Wilson-Phillips band.Henry won't do it and I don't want to bother Brian Wilson as he is talking to his wife about some music exec at his label who is on Brians sheet list so to say.So I have my idol right next to me an don't even get an autograph though he did give me a dirty look when they left.

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Posterior Fun

I just saw this headline through the Boston Globe"Dutch man injures posterior in mooning accident"Seems he and some friends thought it would be fun to moon a few folks and he fell backwards through a window.It brought to mind a favorite headline from the old Weekly World News"I Mooned a Werewolf and it nearly cost me my life"That one came with illustrations and involved a Syracuse University student.In real life the oddest one I have seen was driving a dirt road in the hills above Naples N.Y. one late fall day during deer hunting season and a Chevy Blazer coming at us had a naked guy tied on the hood like they did with a deer, moon out whooping and waving a beer can as he looked in on his buddies in the front of the truck.Personal fun included a night early in the summer of 1979 when a few roomies and I played football on 6a in North Truro wearing sport coats and nothing else.We got down and hiked the ball whenever we saw a car approaching us from "behind" so to say and then scamper off the road when we felt the headlights getting close.I am sure some tourists from back then still tell stories about the strange sight they came upon headed for Provincetown where even stranger sights awaited them.