Thank You Sir may I have Another

So I just sort of watched the Fox show Bones while reading some papers online and it dealt with college and a fraternity tonight.I though Iheard a name I knew a liitle off then a second and I started laughing at the corny homage.So I looked up the episode and sure enough one frat brother was named Greg Harmalard and the Dean was named Dean Vernon Warner.Oh and the dead frat brother who was named Beaver was killed in an Otter mascot suit and he did it with the Deans wife.

The Blinking Heart of North Truro

In another blog last night I read about some great links to Calif WPA projects and mentioned my favorite WPA guide was "Cape Cod Pilot" of which I bought a reprint edition at Dutras Market in North Truro years ago.Dutras was at the heart of North Truro a blinking light on 6a that was a big old house basically as a grocery on the left side and a package store on the right.On the left I had my NYTimes every day and a New Yorker every week and on the right side is where we bought cases and cases of 16oz Pickwick Ale in the returnable bottles for around 8.00 a case in the late 70's and early 80's.The cases themselves served as end tables etc in our living quarters each summer.Up the street from Dutras was Punchys Garage where in 77 I bought my gas for the Vega Wagon and on one morning coming out of the room between the restrooms at North Truro Camping Area I was still living at with my brother even though I had quit and was working at Babes I found that my car wasn't there.I had no idea where it was and walking past Punchy's at around 6:50 am I saw two cars from the Truro Police looking at me and I looking at them and thinking lord are they grinning at me because they know where my car is and how I did whatever I did last light.But after walking up Puke Hill on 6a to Babes I found out that my car was indeed at a house on Pond Road a little worse for the wear and the really cute blond girl from Corn Hill pretty much convinced I wasn't boyfriend material.

Headline of the Year

I saw this gem in the Rochester Democrat&Chronicle today. "Man stopped en route to Grateful Dead Concert faces drug charges"

My Mentor

I was thinking tonight about my old friend Geno Haggerty and I see I missed what I think is the 7th anniv of his passing on March 28th,2002.Geno's health problems came from when he fell off the stage at a Truro Dump Dance and he injured both legs badly.The town of Truro never offered any help and in fact denied any fault at all but circulation problems in Geno's legs after that led to his death.After I left the Cape summers and the several memorable Jug Band shows at our frat house in Brookline including two after I had moved to L.A. I would send Geno postcards from all over saying the Jug Band should play here.My favorite and his was the Indian Room at the Awahnee Hotel in Yosemite which I told him would be perfect for a Jug Band show.In my years after I moved to L.A. Geno would send me pictures he had taken on the Cape and he really had some talent.My favorite Geno thing though was a year or so after I moved to L.A. and was in Key West at Captain Tonys bar one morning around 10 after a long night out when the phone rang and the girl tending bar yelled out "hey dad it's some guy named Geno from Provincetown for you"I asked her if it was Geno from the Jug Band and she said I think so they might play here in Feb.It turned out the bartender girl was Capt. Tonys daughter and while Tony was talking I asked her if she could put me on at the end.She did and I said hello to Geno and told him who it was and he paused a minute then I heard Tim Dickey laughing in the background while Geno was asking me what the hell I was doing in Key West instead of Los Angeles and Capt Tony is yelling behind me"I just bailed him out of jail Geno!".We had a good laugh about it next time we met in Provincetown.He was a good man and truly was the heart and soul of the Provincetown Jug Band.

The Best Darn Holiday

A Happy Patriots Day to one and all.I don't know why more states don't celebrate it.In fact only Mass.,Maine and I think Wisconsin celebrate it.All I know was it is the day of the Boston Marathon and an early Red Sox game which lets out around the time the trace finishes in the same general area leading to a lot of partaking in the liberty to celebrate the repeal of prohibition but then again pretty much everyone in Mass knew the American History behind the holiday.

Madame

I received word on Saturday that the old owner of my beloved restaurant Babes had passed away at her house in Germany on the 14th.The summer I first worked at Babes in 1977 her daughter Claudia took over as Madames husband Rene had passed away the previous winter.Rene by the way is mentioned in the Tom Kane book I put up the pic of Cape Cod Chronicles for his wonderful cakes and pastries.Anyhoo Madame still visited each summer and was an imposing woman.We had many talks on History of which she shared a passion and she gave me several books on French and German History though two were in fact in French and German and I heard stories she was in the French Resistance as a young woman though I never asked her about it.She always called the kitchen crew her boys and she doted on us.Several of the Babes crew wound up camping out in her Paris apt one fall on a trip I did not go on.Claudia and daughter happened to be in Germany for Easter from Montreal and so were at her side.On another note the temp is about to jump from around 8o degrees today to 93,94 and 90 the next three days before dropping back to a high of 68 on thurs.I am glad I was lazy last weekend and didn't replant all the patio pots and wall space.

"TEA"Parties

I watched with some amusement and some sadness today at these events.Amusement that this is happening this year.Where were all these concerned citizens the past several years as the deficit ran into the billions and billions most of it off the books so to say for the"liberation of Iraq" no questions asked even as some in Congress asked.Now all of a sudden the right wing radio voices are up in arms and concerned for the future of the country and their mindless minions are also.The signs and words denouncing the President and Dems would be amusing if it wasn't so sad.The same Repub righties who gave billions away to Bush are now concerned Patriots and dropping the key words to get folks scared.Pelosi,Socialism,Barak Osama are just a few.That they would stoop so low is not a surprise to me after all the failed Right wing policies of the past eight years put us in the mess we are in today but to think it isn't going to cost us a dime to get us of the this huge mess is either naive or stupid or a bit of both.I also love the fact that todays protests were being pushed as some grass roots thing started by a few concerned citizens on the internet that was picked up by right wing radio and carried forward though in fact the group behind it all is a lobbying firm with Dick Armey calling the shots.The same Dick Armey who never met a Pork project he didn't love for his Texas district is now the Patron Saint of fiscal prudence.The same Dick Armey who pushed through deregulation of the banking industry in his prime.

This and That

It seems I always come across something on my bus trips to and from Trader Joe's and today was no different.I was waiting for the Bus afterwards and a Bentley Coupe pulls up to the light with personal plates that read 2.0 GPA.Also today Knuckle Sandwich returned from his week long visit to his grandparents in Ariz.Only 8 but this is the second time he's gone there and back solo on the plane.While he was gone he received a letter from the President in reply to one he sent him.It's on a nice little card and I told him he should frame it but he sort of ripped the envelope up it came in.Sweet Pea seemed not so impressed but then maybe it was because she was plotting her easter egg hunting on Sunday at her cousins while rocking out to Rock Lobster on her DVD player and telling me her strategy at the same time.

Entrance to the late Trader Vic's Beverly Hills Hilton

Kon Tiki Montreal,Street Entrance

Kon Tiki Montreal,Interior

Martin Denny

I've been listening to this 2 CD set called The Exotic Sounds of Martin Denny the past week off and on after not putting it on for a few years.A WOMR public radio from Cape Cod DJ named Squid Jigger who has a bi-weekly sunday night gig called Squid Jiggers Ball got me going on it again.The funny thing about the CD which has been out for a number of years was originally suggested by a friend of mine when he was at Capitol and they laughed at him.After he moved on to EMI and then EMI moved to New York A Capitol sub label at the time it came out.Anyhoo it's a sound you'll either love or hate.Martin Denny was the master of Tiki Music that came about after WW2 and it's hard to describe.It has a lot of background sounds especially strange yelps,moans and animal noises.A bit of surf guitar before there really was surf guitar and a lot of other instruments.My favorite is a number called The Enchanted Sea though there are a lot of gems on the CD'S.I recall several of the albums residing at my Aunt and Uncles house the ones that had no children and I got to sleep over on weekends on occasion falling off to sleep after ten! while they played cards with friends in the nearby kitchen something that was exotic enough compared to my parents house.In LA I do beleive there is still a Trader Vics in Beverly Hills though I haven't been in years.When I lived in Brookline during college years there was a small Chinese place the other side of Beacon past Coolidge Corner that we called Old Man's that was a mini version just because they served drinks like The Scorpion,Fog Cutter,Blue Hawaii etc.Out of all the Tiki bars I saw though the oddest and thus my favorite was the Kon-Tiki room at the Sheraton Mount Royal in Montreal.My brothers and I for several years would meet at my brothers college digs in Winooski,Vermont when he was at Saint Mikes and drive up to Montreal for a Habs game at the old Montreal Forum.We always stayed at the Sheraton and spent the first night in the Kon-Tiki room.I went twice with Frat brothers from Boston twice also in late fall and winter and there was just something about drinking in a tiki bar in Montreal during the cold months.It's been gone for years but there are still web sites praising it.

Tradition

I noticed today looking at my grocery store flyer the Paas easter egg dye kits.Now I recall those same Paas easter egg dye kits when we were growing up and sure enough according to one site the Paas kits have been around 125 years.Also I was at Trader Joe's the other day and bought a liter bottle of Tejava Iced Tea for the first time.Now I'm an Iced Tea junkie in the warm weather months and was really impressed with the Tejava.I make my own do the sun tea thing and like Trader Joes gallon jugs of their own black tea.In Calif at least it's sometimes hard to just find unsweetened black tea.But one can find loads of sweet teas and those freakin peach and whatnot flavored things.There is nothing more annoying than Chip or Wendy telling you all they serve is peach/mango or some freaking berry thing as the only iced tea.It's like asking for a Martini and the person says Gin or Vodka.Excuse me but Gin is a Martini and anything with Vodka is some weak ass imitation and properly not a Martini.End of Rant.

My Pamet Cover

Vermont

The past few nights I've been reading mostly "Green Mountain Farm" by Elliot Merrick which is about he and his wife buying a Northeast Kingdom farm for 1,000 dollars during the depression.It's been first rate so far and reminds me a bit of a book I really loved when it came out in the late 80's,"My Pamet" by Tom Kane.That book was a compilation of Kanes weekly posts in the Provincetown Advocate and Cape Codder as Town Father from the 50's to the mid 80's.His stories though go back to his boyhood on the cape and since I haven't read the book since it came out I think I'll do a reread next.It's still available in the original hardcover though there might be a paperback version.Speaking of Vermont they are in the frozen four starting on thurs in DC and I'm rooting for them over the hated BU in the second semi final of the day.My fiction reading at present is the last reread of Fitzgerald"The Beautiful and the Damned" which after thirty plus years I recall nothing about so it's like reading it for the first time.Of course when I read it senior year in high school it was around the time we were doing acid or mescaline every few nights so that may have something to do with the memory banks.I'm finding it a lot more cynical than most F. Scott this time around.Since I've re read Gatsby and Tender is the Night several times over the years I can't compare it to rereading all this other Fitzgerald I've read this year for the first time since 73-74.

Visa in many colors

I've seen this Visa ad on TV of late that uses the Moody Blues song"Tuesday Afternoon" as the background showing an aquariam somewhere with the father taking his daughter there.Now it's all warm anf fuzzy but if I'm not mistaken and I may be but I thought that song was about an acid trip.I have that CD lying about but it won't say.But just listening to the song in the ad makes me want to drop a hit of windowpane if I still did that sort of thing.In fact I think the last time I did that sort of thing was way back in the 80's at our Lake Tahoe hideout and woke up to my old LA roomate Charlie doing a naked dance with some large bird feathers at dawn on the front porch.The house is around 6500 ft above sealevel so we were out on a fairway of the golfcourse in the wee hours and the stars were so low in the sky we thought we could actually touch them.At that point we were both fully clothed.Sometime after that my tales of this being an old Indian site had some impact on Charlie.

Job Interview

My post last night got me thinking about the spring of 1981 when I actually thought of not working at Babes Restaurant for the summer because the Provincetown Advocate the local weekly had an ad that spring for and ad sale rep.I took the bus out to P-town one March saturday morning from Boston and as I stepped off across from the Surf Club I went into the town bathrooms right next to the bus stop.A guy that was on the bus came in and standing next to me asked in a low voice"Is there a Cemetery in town?". I reply that indeed there is one on top of the hill up behind the Provincetown Monument the big stone thing you can't miss.He replies sneering at me"Good cause I came to bury someone" and then cackled like a deranged killer.Now I'm thinking OKAY and then I thought it's great to be back in Provincetown.I went to some place near the Post Office Cafe for lunch and had a great cream of broccoli soup then went and interviewed with Duane Steele the Advocate publisher at the time and had a nice chat but didn't get the job.After I was back at Babes that summer Claudia the owner told me their attorney was the Advocates attorney etc. and she could have put in a good word but I was happy to be back in the kitchen at Babes with my buddies and whatever waitress or waitresses I fell for that summer.The best damm job I ever had or will have unless there is actually a job that pays you just to hang out in Key West all winter.Another bus trip to P-Town in the offseason there was a guy on the back of the bus who kept laughing like a loon then coughing like he was hacking up a lung followed by mumbling and then loudly"Shit Stains,You're all a Bunch of Shit Stains".This went on every five minutes or so from Hyannis till around Orleans when the bus driver told him to shut the hell up or he was throwing him off the bus.I miss those off season trips but I doubt they are as colorful anymore.

Binghamton

By the way I'd like to offer congrats to the NRA for the murders of more innocent Americans on Friday.They must be proud.

Say it isn't so

I just read a link on the Cape Cod Times newsite that the Boston Globe is on the brink.I can't beleive that the Globe of all Papers is in trouble but it seems the parent company NYTimes has ordered drastic cuts and union concessions or the Globe goes down.Whats even harder to swallow is the Cape Cod Times link came from the Boston Herald a worthless rag if there ever was one.When literate cities like Boston and San Francisco's main newspapers are on the brink it really shows how bad things are in the print buisness.I can't picture Boston with the Herald as the only remaining newspaper.Edit,I just read the article on the Boston Globe site and indeed the threat is real though the Globes article is much more in depth.

NEZ 255 St. Paul Street

The previous pic is that of my home off and on for four years while I was at Northeastern Univ. my 5th stop in my college years counting two year schools and thanks to Dave C. for finding the pic.We were evicted by Brookline in 1988 seven years after I departed for the west coast.The house was white in my day but oddly enough a pic of it I have seen from 1966 it was yellow with green trim and shutters long gone when I lived there.It wasn't a fraternity in a sense one thinks of a bunch of jocks hanging out but it was a lot more like the Delt house in Animal House which oddly enough after we moved to Jamacia Plain for some years were kicked out by Northeastern because we were a local frat.So a few years ago we were reborn as the NEZ chapter of Alpha Delta Phi(the Delts) though the Dartmouth chapter based on Animal house was kicked out the Natl around the start of the 70's.Anyhoo I really had a wonderful time living there.College is a lot more than just going to class which I sometimes did but I read a shitload of books that had nothing to do with the classes I was taking.Summers I was off to North Truro for work except 1980 when my co-op job with the New England Press Association meant I had to stay in Boston with bus or car trips to the Cape just about every thurs night till Sunday night.The frat was pretty empty in the summer so I had the best bedroom in the house to myself located on the second floor at the rear with a fireplace.I started out reading Malcolm Lowry's "Under the Volcano" then his "Ultramarine" either drinking Gin and Tonics or Pickwick Ale or Ballantine Ale in 16oz bar bottles and chain smoking Camel straights.Then I read the Yukio Mishima Sea of Fertility Tetralogy the first of I think was "Spring Snow" which at the time had a cool cover I put put a small piece of glass on top of and snorted lines off of.It was a great summer even though I wasn't in North Truro with my gang every day.Next up the P-Town Jug Band shows at NEZ.

NEZ House Brookline