Three words sums up today’s post: Chillmaster Dance Party Three! (And a shoutout and thanks to our friend EV Grieve who got the ball rolling with this post.)
The Chillmaster Dance Party Pre-drinks happen here at Mars Bar, which is still open. Unbelievable! And there's Ray out front.
And there's Hank in his chair, it's going to be a sad day when this is gone from this corner. Let's go inside.
And here's the whole crew, from left: Kate, Goggla, Yours Fooly, Shawn and Lindsay. We're ready to let the chilling begin!
Here's the infamous Chillmaster window and soul music is wafting from it.
The Chillmaster chair is empty...what the fuck?
All of a sudden we hear a, "Hey!" and it's the Chillmaster standing behind us!
Once inside it's the traditional pouring of the Hennessy...
And the music blasts...
The table is well stocked for the party.
Lindsay and the Chillmaster share a laugh...
And the dancing begins!
Kate, Chillmaster and Lindsay take a break for a photo.
The Chillmaster and I clowning around.
And here's the Chillmaster's daughter, Anastazia. It was her 18th birthday so we all sang "Happy Birthday" to her.
Father and daughter, nice!
And here's Victoria, who's a little late due to work.
Victoria and the Chillmaster trade hellos...
And hugs, it's all about the love in the Chillmaster den!
It's always fun to watch the people go by the Chillmaster's window.
Shawn is chilling the fuck out in the Chiller chair.
And Gumby takes his turn.
Easy Ed shows up on the scene and the party is complete!
Ed and the Chillmaster grooving to the tunes.
And the last arrival is Chanel...
Who gets into the swing of things immediately.
Dance, dance, dance!
The Chillmaster grooves with Gumby!
And one last shot for the road. Thanks to the Chillmaster and everybody for showing up and making the Chillmaster Dance Party III a total blast as always! Goodnight everybody and see you tomorrow after dark.
Live, from New York, it’s Cheeseburger Saturday Night! Your host this week is Tipsy Parson and featuring the ready for prime beef player, Marty Wombacher. Ladies and gentlemen, Tipsy Parson!
As the sun sets on the city, it's off we go in search of a cheeseburger.
And here we are, the reason it looks like it's daylight out here is that like an idiot I forgot to take an outside shot of the place, so I had to take this one off the internet. Just imagine it's a little darker out here and all will be well.
The bar is full but there's one seat open at the end with our name on it, so let's go snag it!
And no sooner am I seated than Jerry the friendly bartender serves me up an ice cold beer.
And Gumby's all settled in at the foot of my stool.
JR was seated next to me and was waiting for some friends to arrive. We had a nice chat about New York City at the bar.
It looks like there's bookshelves in the front of the bar...
But in reality, it's bookshelf wallpaper. But it really looks like the real thing.
There's tables opposite the bar for dining.
And there's a full dining room in the back.
Here's the cozy, candlelit window table up in the front of the bar.
Meanwhile back at the bar, Jerry tends to business and he took my dinner order.
And speaking of dinner, here it is! Yes, I know this doesn't look like a cheeseburger, it turns out they only serve cheeseburgers at lunch time, but that's okay. I had a late lunch and wasn't that hungry anyway, so I got a couple of appetizers. On the left is hush puppies with pimento cheese and on the left is fried pickles with a buttermilk ranch dipping sauce.
JR took a shot of me at the bar enjoying the appetizers.
And shortly after, JR's friends showed up. From left: Diana, JR and Al.
One of my favorite things at the bar was this vintage Remington typewriter.
Hey, how'd that get there?
Okay, one glance out the window and it's out into the night. Goodnight everybody and see you tomorrow after dark.
Goggla discovered him at the Mars Bar, somewhat disguised in blue hat and glasses, below. He looks pretty menacing in this disguise.
Karen from Grade "A" Fancy spotted him at one of the many dumpsters he calls home.
And last but not least, MAD commenter and the giver of our daily quote, ragin rr, sent in this link showing that not only does Cardboard Box Man come in many shapes and forms, he's also available in a variety of sexual orientations. He's queer, he's here and he's cardboard. And very frightening. Aaahhhhh!
I got an email from a friend yesterday that brought back a floodgate of memories. I’m’ going to write about that tonight. But first, a few pictures from a place I look at every night on my way home and love to hate.
They call this place the "Beer Parc." I hate the fact that they spell park, "parc" and it's located behind some fancy schmancy hotel on 6th and 30th, the block where I work. It's populated exclusively by yuppies/after work assholes and people I would really like to blow up. And blow them up good!
You have to buy tickets to purchase the beer and snacks here. It's like an upscale version of a Midwestern fair.
Most people here are dressed in their work clothes and I can't imagine any subversive or interesting dialogue is happening here.
And of course at some tables no dialogue is happening at all, just texting to other people. This place makes me want throw up in my left boot and stain my socks. But that's just me. Okay, onto my story.
-----------------
Rob Grill June 12, 1967—My family and I were driving to a shopping center in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. We were on a family vacation and my dad was driving us there. My brothers, Tom and Jim and my sister Terry were in the back seat and I was up in front sitting in between my mom and my dad. I was hunched over in the seat twiddling the radio dial trying to find a rock ‘n’ roll station when in between the hiss, pops and static I heard someone sing out soulfully: “One two thee four...shalalalalalala, live for today...”
I turned the volume up and my dad turned it down. I immediately swirled around and said to my brother Jim, “Who is this?”
“I don’t know,” he replied, “but it’s good.”
I spun back around and turned the volume up and my dad turned it back down. I listened to the song intently and afterwards the disc jockey said in that nasally ‘60’s disc jockey voice, “That was the Grass Roots with their first top ten single, ‘Let’s Live For Today.’”
We got to the shopping center, a strip mall filled with clothing stores, variety stores and to the delight of myself and my brother Jim, a record store.
“We’ll be in the record store,” we sang out and ran over and into yet another vinyl wonderland of my youth.
We bolted in the door and walked straight over to the 45 racks and I flipped through the “G” section and found a tab that said, “The Grass Roots” in hand lettering. I flipped it over and there it was, “Let’s Live For Today,” complete with a picture sleeve. I remember studying the sleeve and saying to my brother, “They look cool, like a combination of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.” He agreed with me and I carried it with me as we flipped through records and admired and inspected various albums and singles throughout the store until the rest of our family arrived and our folks said we were going back to the hotel. I walked over to my mom, The Grass Roots single in hand and asked, “Can I get this?”
She made a face and said, “Why buy a record on vacation? There’s no record player here to play it on. You can get it when we get back home.”
“But the one at home might not have a picture sleeve,” I whined, holding up the record for emphasis. “Pleeeeeeease?”
After several years of childhood work, I had expertly honed the pitch-perfect, “Pleeeeeeease?” whine into a cringe-inducing tool to weaken my mother’s resistance when I would ask for something special. And once again it worked like a charm. She slumped a little, pulled two dollars out of her purse and gave it to me. I ran up to the counter and bought, “Let’s Live For Today,” by The Grass Roots.
That wasn’t the only record we got on that vacation. The day before on June 11th, it was my brother’s 11th birthday and one of his presents was a copy of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” We couldn’t wait to get home and listen to it.
A week later we were home and the first thing Jim and I did after unpacking was run to the fake wooden stereo console with our vacation records.
“Let’s listen to The Grass Roots first, it’s just one song and then we can listen to the whole Beatles album,” I said to Jim as we stood before the almighty stereo console.
“Okay, give me the single,” he spat out anxiously. Then he put the record on, turned the speed on to 45 rpm and we listened to “Let’s Live For Today.” Then he put on Sgt. Pepper’s and it blew our everloving minds! That was a memorable day listening to some great music.
I’ve always associated the two records and listening to one always makes me think of the other.
----------------- Sometime in August, 1987—I was living in Peoria at the time and working at a printing company. My girlfriend’s name at the time was Lynda and she worked for a company that produced festivals and fairs for small towns. I can’t remember her exact job title, but she more or less coordinated a lot of the small details and made sure everything ran smooth.
One festival they produced was in a small town in Illinois called Decatur. The event was called Decatur Days and I think it ran from Thursday to Sunday. It was your standard small town festival complete with greasy food, cotton candy, some half-assed rides and night time entertainment. Usually this entertainment consisted of bad comedians and bands you’ve either never heard of or one-hit wonders who play the small town fair circuit in the summer to milk money out of a hit that was popular eons ago and the band is currently filed in the “where are they now files,” to quote Spinal Tap.
We were hanging out at my apartment a week before the Decatur Days and I asked Lynda what band was playing the festival. “The Grass Roots,” she answered, “Remember them? I had the single, ‘Bella Linda’ and used to say they spelled ‘Linda’ wrong.”
I dropped the magazine I was reading and shot up on the couch where I was laying down and looked at Lynda.
“The Grass Roots?” I said incredulously. “I thought they broke up years ago, are you sure this is the real Grass Roots?”
“Let’s look at the booklet,” she said while fishing around in her purse and walking over and sitting next to me on the couch.
She pulled it out and flipped to the page about Saturday’s entertainment and there was a photo of the Grass Roots. I grabbed it and looked closely at it.
I didn’t recognize three of the people in the band, but I pointed to the guy in the front of the picture and said, “That’s Rob Grill, he played bass and sang most of the songs. It must be one of those things where he put a band together and they go out as The Grass Roots and play all the hits. Even though it’s just him and three pick up guys, I can’t imagine them playing Decatur Days. The Grass Roots were huge in their day.”
“I guess it beats working for a living,” Lynda said while getting up and heading for the kitchen.
“I wonder if they’re opening up for the Puppet Show,” I said, referencing Spinal Tap.
“What?” Lynda said, turning around. She had never seen Spinal Tap.
“Never mind,” I said while laughing, “would you get me a beer?”
I drove to Decatur that Saturday and met Lynda in downtown Decatur where the festival was being held. I helped out all day doing odds and ends jobs and that night we were going to see the Grass Roots. Even though there was just one original in the band, I was still excited to see a slice of my youth live. I would’ve killed to have seen them back in the day. And at least the one original was Rob Grill, the guy who sang all the hits, so I was looking forward to it.
Around four in the afternoon Lynda and I were in a tent at the site of the festival that they used as an office for the company she worked for. There was a lot of folding tables and chairs and I was helping Lynda sort some stuff on top of one of them. I can’t remember what, I just remember sorting things on a table. At one point I looked up and saw a guy with an envelope in one hand and a bag of popcorn in the other. He had shaggy brown hair, was wearing sunglasses and he was wearing a black t-shirt and had white shorts on.
“See that guy over there,” I said excitedly while grabbing Lynda’s arm, “that’s Rob Grill of The Grass Roots! I’m going to go meet him!”
“Don’t make fun of him,” Lynda said, while looking worried.
“Why would I make fun of him?” I shot back.
She narrowed her eyes and shot me a look that literally said, “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“I’ll be on my best behavior,” I said while laughing and getting up.
As I walked over he put the envelope in the back pocket of his shorts and was eating his popcorn and just kind of staring blankly at the front of the tent. A glum kind of look was painted on his face.
I approached him and said, “Excuse me, you’re Rob Grill, right?”
He jumped a little because he didn’t see me coming, took off his sunglasses and squinted at me and said, “Yeah, what can I do for you?”
He was looking at me with an expression of confusion.
“Oh, I’m just a big fan and I wanted to say hi,” I said, all of a sudden feeling weird because he appeared to be uncomfortable with me coming up to him.
Once I told him that, he smiled widely, kind of cocked his head and stuck out his hand and said, “Oh, thanks, what’s your name?”
I shook his hand and said, “My name’s Marty,” and then I proceeded to tell him the whole story about hearing “Let’s Live For Today” in Florida and then coming home and listening to it before listening to Sgt. Pepper. He had a huge smile on his face the whole time I told him the tale. I was thrilled he appeared to enjoy hearing my story.
He told me he loved the story and asked if I lived in Decatur.
“No, I live in Peoria,” I told him, “my girlfriend works for the company putting on the festival. I drove here just to see you guys.”
“Really? You came here just to see us?” he asked. He really looked amazed that I drove from Peoria just to see the band play live.
“Yeah,” I told him. “I was only nine years old when I bought “Let’s Live For Today,” and I would’ve killed to have seen you live back then. I remember watching you on American Bandstand. I really can’t believe I’m standing here shooting the shit with you!”
He laughed and then looked both ways and then said in a low voice, “Look, don’t get me wrong, I’m happy that I’m still getting gigs, but this summer oldies circuit can get a little old sometimes. I was in a pretty shitty mood today and you really made my day and I’m not just saying that. Most people only know our songs from oldies radio stations and they have no idea of the history of the band whatsoever. It’s nice to meet someone who listened to our music back in the day. Thanks for taking the trouble for coming to the show today,” he said and then he stuck his hand out again.
We shook hands again and I said, “Man, I can’t wait to tell my brother I met you.”
“Tell him I said hi, okay?” He said as he started to walk away.
“I definitely will,” I said to him as he walked out the tent. That night Lynda and I were seated in the outdoor wooden bleachers that overlooked the stage. The Grass Roots came on around 9 PM and blazed through all their hits: Midnight Confessions, I'd Wait A Million Years, Two Divided By Love, Sooner Or Later and on and on. Rob Grill looked pretty bored onstage and who could blame him? There was maybe 50 to 75 people there and he’d probably sung the songs thousands of times. I was waiting for “Let’s Live For Today,” I was excited to see him sing it live even if he was bored out of his gourd. After they played, “Where Were You When I Needed You,” Rob Grill just said, “Thanks, you’ve been a great audience, Goodnight, Decatur. Then they walked offstage. I couldn’t fucking believe it. They didn’t play, “Let’s Live For Today.”
I turned to Lynda and said, “I don’t fucking believe it, they didn’t play “Let’s Live For Today.” I came here just to hear that song live. And they didn’t fucking play it. It’s the only reason I came to this stupid, shitty little fucking festival!”
Lynda grabbed my shoulders and said sternly, “They’re going to come back for an encore. Please don’t go nuts.” “I’m going to go nuts...I’m going to go nuts...I’m going to go nuts,” I said repeatedly like the Rain Man on methamphetamine.
Lynda just put her hand on her forehead and closed her eyes and looked pained. She knew if they didn’t play that song I’d be talking about it all night long and probably into the week.
I think on about my seventh, “I’m going to go nuts,” when they came back onstage, just as Lynda predicted. I remember Rob Grill holding his bass up in the air while walking back onstage, the way Paul McCartney did at Shea Stadium.
I turned to Lynda pointed my index finger at her nose and said, “They better play that fucking song!”
She looked at me like I was completely crazy and she looked so nervous that I just started laughing and then she did too. Right then Rob Grill said into the microphone, “Okay, we’re going to do the one that started it all and then he ripped into, ‘One two thee four...shalalalalalala...”’
And unlike the previous numbers he was smiling and dancing around and he was really getting into it. I’ve always liked to think that maybe he was thinking of my story when he was singing it. I’ll never know, but it’s what I like to think. ----------------- July 14, 2011—I was at work yesterday and checked my email. This came from my friend Mike Trent. Mike and I worked together in Peoria, Illinois and we’ve remained good friends. He lives in Tennessee now and I’m in New York, so we don’t see each other much, but we keep in touch via phone and email. We’ve always called each other Daddio (much like “Boris” and I do) and he had sent this email to me.
••• From: mvt@hart.net [Add to Address Book] To: marty wombacher <fishwrap@earthlink.net> Subject: The Grass Roots Date: Jul 14, 2011 3:27 PM
Hey Daddie,
I just read that Rob Grill the lead singer for The Grass Roots died. They were one my favorite bands. Hope all is well. Take care.
DaddyO •••
I hadn’t heard the news and called Mike up in Tennessee. I told him my story about meeting Rob Grill and he said when he read he had died he thought of me and we realized that maybe I had told him that story years ago. Then we shot the shit for a while and I went back to work.
When I got home, I found a YouTube video of them singing, “Let’s Live For Today,” hit play and closed my eyes and drifted back to 1967, when times were so different than today and the only things that mattered were record stores and picture-sleeved 45s. I really miss those days.
All night long I’ve been craving a fresh pretzel and a beer. I decided that tonight’s destination would have to feature both. So naturally I thought of a German restaurant and/or bar and briefly considered returning to Zum Schneider in the East Village. But then I realized it’s Thursday night and it’ll probably be a zoo in there and I hate crowded bars. And then I thought of another stop from last year's bar crawl, a German place called, Lederhosen. I really liked it there and it was a little more laid back, the night I went, so hopefully it won’t be packed. Only one way to find out!
And through the magic of the internet, we're magically transported to Grove Street in the West Village. It's a perfect summer night out. Summer in the city!
And here we are, they're working on the block, so a metal awning is obscuring the sign a bit, but this is the place.
There's a familiar face behind the bar...
It's Uli, the pretty bartender who was on duty when I came in here for the 365 bars night. She remembered me and it was fun to catch up with her on what we've both been up to.
A birds-eye-view from my perch at the bar.
A long shot of the dark wooden bar.
Some of the beers on tap and the Lederhosen logo logged in wood.
Bottled beers and German mugs decorate the back of the bar.
Here's Selma with a beautiful smile behind the bar.
Gisbert was seated next to me at the bar and he was in town from Fort Worth, Texas. He's a true German though and was born and bred in Karlsruhe, Germany. I asked him how he rated Lederhosen as a German restaurant and bar and he said it's the best he's been to. Cheers to that!
He got the apple strudel for dessert, which looks great and makes me think of Sgt. Schultz.
My mouth was watering watch Gisbert eat the strudel and in the nick of time Uli shows up with my pretzel.
Here it is in all its salted glory. It's freshly baked with homemade mustard. Köstlich!
There's a cozy front room up here at the front of Lederhosen.
Let's go check out the back room of the bar. The wall opposite of the bar is adorned with lots of pictures and fun memorabilia.
The back room really feels like you're in a German beer hall with its wooden tables and chairs and the colorful mountains on the walls. It's closing time, so it's emptied out.
Fans spin overhead from the wooden arched ceilings.
Framed vintage beer ads decorate the walls back here.
Closing time and a parting shot with the lovely and friendly Uli.
I appreciate the "watch your step" warning on the wall, but I'm fine, I don't trip anymore. I stopped doing acid in the '80's. (Rimshot) Goodnight everybody and see you tomorrow after dark.
Lederhosen 39 Grove St (Between Bedford and Bleecker St.) (212) 206-7691
I couldn’t think of anything to do tonight and didn’t feel like wandering or doing a Fortress of Solitude post, so I Googled, “late night things to do on the upper west side nyc” And this is what popped up: So I clicked on the link and I got this: It turns out that Super Tacos is a late night food truck. They’re open till two in the morning on weeknights and three in the AM on weekend nights. Plus they have two dollar tacos that are supposed to be really good. So that’s tonight’s destination, Thanks, Google!
We'll be traveling uptown via a subway car from Penn Station.
It's been a while since I've checked out the greeting cards here. Regular readers of MAD will recall this place has sold some filthy and vile greeting cards in the past. Let's see if they've cleaned up their act.
(Only funny if you work with me alert!) Aaaahhh! Carlstadt, New Jersey...three of the most vile and obscene words known to mankind! I need to talk to management here about these offensive cards!
And as soon as I get to the tracks a train is pulling up, i always love that!
And it was the express train, so five minutes later we've traveled from 34th Street to 96th Street. Now let's find that Taco Truck, I skipped dinner and I'm starvin' like Marvin over here.
Okay, here we are at 96th and Broadway. From what I've read the truck is close to the Southwest corner, but I'm directionally challenged, so let's just start looking for it.
I don't see it here.
It's not around this one either, that's two down and two to go.
Hey, look, a Two Boots Pizza, I had no idea they had one up here. They have great pizza here. If we don't find the taco truck we can always get a consolation slice here.
What's with the "Walk Up Service" sign? Isn't that a given at McDonald's? And does this mean that if you're a cripple you have to eat at Burger King? Rollin', rollin', rollin'...Rawhide!
Hey, that looks like a truck over there. Could it be? Let's go find out.
Yeah, this is the place and there's a lively taco eating crowd here.
There's lots of choices on the menu and most of them are under six bucks. I think I'll try the standard beef taco.
The guys working on the truck are nice and friendly.
And here they are working on my order.
And within minutes, here's my taco. It looks delicious and it is. And it was only two bucks. Okay, let's go say hi to a few of the other fellow taco eaters here on the block.
Here's John, Jose and Tom who were enjoying some tacos on their lunch break. John said they were working till six in the morning. Ouch!
Here's a quartet of pretty women enjoying themselves, let's go say hi.
They were very nice and said to identify them as "Jess X Four." Watch your back foursquare! Sounds like a new social media site in the works!
And here's the generator up front that powers the whole operation. Hey, wait a second...let's zoom in on something here...
Okay, my parents flew back and I”m back to work, which means I’m back to my normal schedule. And that also means that since it’s Tuesday, it’s Swizzle Stick Night, where I go out in search of the elusive swizzle stick. Originally I was searching for a glass one, but I’ve come to realize those my be extinct, so I’m happy with a plastic one as well. Last week the bartender didn’t even know what a swizzle stick is!
Tonight I’m going to a bar that was one of the last great taverns in Times Square and one of the highlights of the bar crawl last year—Rum House. The original owner’s lease ran out last year and the owners of the Hotel Edison wouldn’t renew it. Instead, they leased it out to a group of people whom everyone thought was going to turn it into some shiny, bright sickening place to match the rest of Times Square. Well, supposedly they did clean it up a bit, but I’ve heard it’s still dark and they’ve maintained the personality of the original pretty well. I kind of doubt it’s true, but let’s go see if that’s true and if there’s a swizzle stick in our future.
And we're off, out into the hot, sticky July night in New York City.
I really hate this part of Times Square that's so light it looks like daytime here. I took this shot without a flash!
And of course you've got your large groups of assholes just standing and chatting and blocking the entire sidewalk. Aaaahhh!
And here's the dreaded T.G.I. Fridays where they claim, "IN HERE IT'S ALWAYS FRIDAY." You know what? As much as I hate to walk in there, let's step inside and see if we're magically transferred to Friday.
Nope, it's still Tuesday and this place sucks monkey lungs on toast. Let's get out of here, I need a drink!
And here we are at Rum House. Wow, they took down the big brown Rum House sign and replaced it with this generic thing. Not a good sign, pun somewhat intended.
And here's the bar, the crowd is a little more Yuppified than before.
There's a table up front, filled with this group of loud tourists.
I ordered my double gin and tonic and it didn't come with a swizzle stick, just a black straw. He then proceeded to tell me that the Edison Hotel didn't renew the lease for the previous owners because it was dirty and they didn't like the clientele they attracted. Well since I was one of the clientele it attracted...
I got one more for the road and then got the fuck out of this place.
Goodbye Rum House, I hope Karma bites your face off.
Rum House There’s been a lot of reviews about how the new owners of the Rum House have kept the old school vibe alive in there. But I was there at the end when people who had worked there for years told me first-hand that they were yanked out of a job because the Hotel Edison wanted a different crowd in there. Last year when these greedy scumbag money-lickers refused to let the original owner renew his lease and then let some people who owned some fancy shmancy bar somewhere in the financial district reopen it, with pretty much the same look, some people celebrated it. But the drink prices rose and although I hadn’t been there, I assumed that the clientele and atmosphere would be somewhat different. I kind of dreaded walking back in there, but like Neil Young once sang, “Tonight’s the Nitght.”
So I went there and while it looked somewhat the same, it was a little brighter and a little more well polished. And all of the old staff was gone. The new ones were friendly though, and I played dumb and put on my Peter Tork face and asked one of the bartenders if they had changed management.
He told me that indeed they had and that the previous owners didn’t get their lease renewed because the Hotel Edison thought they kept the bar dirty and they didn’t like the customers they attracted. When I went there last year under previous management I was served up drinks by Fransisco, a true old school New York bartender and there were pretzels on the bar in blue plastic bowls. I didn’t see any any dirt. The clientele was a mix of working class people from around the block and no-nonsenense tourists, all people who knew how to throw back a drink or four and not get stupid. Tonight there was yuppie couples and loud tourists. And while the bar was dark, it was a shade lighter and a little brighter and sparklier than before. And people were texting and talking way too loud in the joint for my taste.
I miss the old staff and I’m not going back and I’m pissed they threw the original crew out of the joint. Oh, and fuck you Hotel Edison, you, slimy cold-ass bastardsl. Eat shit with your fourteen dollar drinks. You don’t even have swizzle sticks and you put good people out of work. And I miss the old blue plastic bowls with pretzels in them. Further reading: New York Magazine, Grub Street, Eater NY and Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York.
This is the last night my folks are in town, so I’m going to go meet them and my sisiter and her family for dinner. I thought afterwards I’d just take some random shots while wandering around in midtown. We’ll see if we can find some interesting place in a part of town that’s not too interesting.
Okay, dinner's over so we begin the evening with an obligatory elevator mirror shot with Gumby at my side.
And now we begin our random night out in midtown, let's see what we can find out here.
Here's a Duane Reade with a "Doctor On Premises." What they don't tell you is, it's Dr. Pepper, so if you've got a brain aneurism, you should keep going straight to the hospital.
Turn me on dead men, The Beatles are back! But they must close by Sept. 4th to get John and George back into their coffins.
Wow, they fixed everything already. I guess when you're David Letterman your landlord moves quickly.
Colony Records! I forgot this place existed, and I'm amazed it's still here.
Look at all the different albums in the window.
Ha! Guitar air freshners. Okay, let's go inside and check this place out.
There's a whole case with Beatles stuff in it.
Here's Brian Epstein's book, "A Cellarful of Noise." I remember the National Lampoon satirizing The Beatles in one of their issues and they renamed the book, "A Cellarful of Boys."
Beatle hairdos!
I had this picture sleeve 45 as a kid. I think I traded it for a joint to someone when i was in high school. It now sells for three hundred bucks. Oops!
Here's a reprint of a vintage Beatles poster in the store.
And there's actual albums to flip through in here, what a treat! Let's take a look at some of them.
I always loved the Mothers of Invention album cover! RZZZZZ!
Pisces, Aquarius,Capricorn, & Jones, Ltd. My favorite Monkees album.
Here' a copy of the original 3-D cover of "Their Satanic Majesties Request" by the Rolling Stones.
And the album that three out of four proctologists preferred back in 1967, "Bugaloo '67" by Johnny Colon and His Orchestra.
All in the family, Michael and Janet Jackson, together again!
And of course we all know that Abba spelled backwards is Abba.
One last in-store photo of James Dean and Lucy. I knew that this store has been on this block for over 60 years, but I didn't realize the history of this place till I got back home. I have to go back and document it further and talk to some employees, so stay tuned for that.
And this gentleman in the newsstand outside was nice enough to wave goodnight to everyone. See you tomorrow after dark.
My family has moved from Brooklyn to Manhattan and tonight we’re all going out for dinner. I’ll put up a few photos and then I’m going to write a short story about my first couple of weeks in New York City.
Okay, I'm meeting my family in midtown for dinner, so once again we're starting out in daylight on this edition of MAD.
I love this store that sells the two staples of life: Cigarettes and candy.
iHate all three of those things.
Ha! This is perfect for my upcoming short story, you'll see if you read it.
Okay, we're almost to my parents hotel, there's always a line at this Halal food cart, even late at night.
This one's for you, Uncle Waltie! My mom and dad with drinks. Sip ahoy!
See, I told you there's always a line here!
And it's off into the night to go home and write my short story. And look, there it is, right below this sentence!
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Car Alarms Over Broadway
As I wrote a few days ago, my 18th anniversary of moving to New York City happened last week on July 7th and I’ve been thinking a lot about my first couple of weeks here. I’ve always been a nervous person and I remember my nerve endings feeling especially jingle-jangled those first two weeks out here. I had moved to New York City where I had no friends, no family and no job. And soon, I would discover, I was going to have almost no sleep the first couple of weeks I lived here.
My first day in New York, I signed my lease for my apartment and then I went to a used furniture store and bought a cheap futon and a black wooden desk. They were going to be delivered the next day. I then went to a hardware store and bought an air mattress. I went home, blew it up and then went out to explore my new neighborhood. I didn’t want to sit in my apartment, it was totally empty and there was nothing to do in there but sit and think and obsess if I had made a huge mistake in moving to New York City. My mind races sometimes and all I was thinking about was what was going to happen to me and it was all a little scary. So to quiet those thoughts, I headed out and went to the P&G Tavern a couple blocks away.
I ordered a beer, told the bartender I had just moved here and a few of the regulars at the bar welcomed me and soon we were buying each other drinks and joking around. Much later as I was feeling no pain I felt like maybe I belonged in my little chunk of New York City. I stumbled home and laid down on the air mattress and passed right the fuck out. About fifteen minutes later a loud honking sound woke me up.
HONK HONK HONK...
I opened my eyes and said to myself, “What the fuck?”
Then I heard a series of ear screeching beeps.
BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP...
Then I heard something that sounded like a siren and then more honks. Then I realized they were car alarms going off. My apartment faced Broadway and I had a large window that looked down on the busy street. It was a great view, but not so good for soundproofing from those fucking sensitive car alarms that would go off if somebody so much as sneezed near the car. All through the night I would fall asleep for about ten minutes and then...HONK HONK HONK...another one would go off. And then another one. And before I knew it the fucking sun came up and I was thinking about my move to New York, was wracked by my nervousness about my future and got the fuck up. I went down to the corner deli and got a couple of diet Cokes to help me get through the morning. The caffeine helped to get me going, but didn’t do much for my wired and frayed nerve endings. I was jumpier than Art Linkletter’s daughter after eleven hits of acid.
Around ten o’clock in the morning my futon and desk were delivered. I set up my computer on my desk and went to work putting writing portfolios and cover letters together and then went and dropped them off around town. I started looking for freelance work with the weekly papers in Manhattan. There was a lot of them (this was pre-internet days) and while I knew the pay wouldn’t be much, it would be easier to get published in them and then I would have a few New York pieces with my byline to take to magazines and the daily papers along with my clippings from Peoria.
That night I was tired and fell asleep on my new futon around 11 o’clock at night. Sometime around midnight the car alarm symphony started once again. Honks and beeps and alarms, oh my! This happened every stinking night. I tried earplugs, sleeping with the pillow over my head, but nothing would silence the nightly chorus of car alarms. I wondered if I would ever get a full night’s sleep again.
After about a week of fitful and sleepless nights, I got a call from an editor at a fairly new New York weekly paper called aptly enough, NY Weekly. She told me she was impressed with my portfolio and wanted me to write features for them. I was thrilled! In less than a week in the big city I already had a writing lead. Then she asked a favor of me. It seems that a writer had bailed on going to a screening of a movie for that afternoon and she needed somebody to go and write a review of the movie. She asked if I had ever written movie reviews. I told her I had written a lot of them in my writing career. In reality, I had never written a movie review in my life, but I wasn’t going to blow this opportunity.
She told me my name would be put on a list at the theater and I could just go there and there’d be tickets waiting for me. I ended up going, then selling my tickets to a couple I met there and wrote a review that was totally made up. I even gave high praise for the “best boy” listed in the credits. I thought this was hilarious, partly due to the fact that if it got published, my first New York piece of journalism would be totally bogus. I was sure that if it got printed, they’d edit out the “best boy” credit, but I told myself that if I could pull this off, all would work out for me in New York. I then told myself that if it didn’t and I got busted, I had made a mistake and probably wouldn’t last long in the Big Apple. It was kind of a game I set up to see what my future would bring. Don’t ask me why I did this, probably because I had had about seven hours of sleep combined in the last eight days.
I went home and wrote the review (you can read the whole story and review here) and I went and turned it in. Two days later I picked the paper up out of a box on the street and laughed out loud when I read my “review.” They published it word for word and even left the “best boy” credit in. I’m sure people thought I was completely mad, standing on the corner of Broadway and 75th Street laughing my ass off while reading the review and in a way I was. I hadn’t slept much in the last two weeks and had been nervous out of my mind about making the move to New York City. But seeing my byline in a New York newspaper made me immediately think that things would work out one way or the other.
That night I went to the P&G and showed my first published New York piece to some of the regulars and told them the story of how I sold my tickets and just made the review up and everybody was howling about it. That night I went home and laid down on my futon and I felt relaxed for the first time since I moved to the city. I fell asleep and instead of the car alarms waking me up, they lulled me to sleep and they never bothered me again.
About six months later I went back to Peoria, Illinois to spend Christmas with my family and see my old friends. By then I had written stories for a slew of the weekly newspapers in Manhattan and had even graduated to the daily papers. I had penned one feature for the NY Daily News and three feature stories for New York Newsday. One of the features for Newsday was their lead feature for the day and it was a four page article on a shoestring, ragtag All-Star Wrestling weekly event in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. I felt pretty good about what I had accomplished in a half a year in the big city, and was anxious to show everyone back in Peoria my New York City clippings.
The very first night back in Peoria was spent how I end up spending a lot of nights there. I sat and watched TV and drank beer while my parents fell in and out of sleep until 10:00 pm and then they went to bed. Then I drank the rest of the beer in the refrigerator and went to go to sleep in the front bedroom of their house. I remember it was about one in the morning and I had drank a lot of beer, but I just laid there and couldn’t get to sleep. I tossed and turned and finally figured it out: It was too fucking quiet. I actually missed the chorus of midnight car alarms going off through the night. It brought a smile to my face and I knew right then and there I made the right choice in moving to New York City. Someone once told me that true New Yorkers were born true New Yorkers and that it just takes some people longer to get there than others. It took me 35 years, but I’m grateful I finally made it out here.
Three words sums up today’s post: Chillmaster Dance Party Three! (And a shoutout and thanks to our friend EV Grieve who got the ball rolling with this post.)
The Chillmaster Dance Party Pre-drinks happen here at Mars Bar, which is still open. Unbelievable! And there's Ray out front.
And there's Hank in his chair, it's going to be a sad day when this is gone from this corner. Let's go inside.
There's Shawn and Lindsay at the bar.
And here's the whole crew, from left: Kate, Goggla, Yours Fooly, Shawn and Lindsay. We're ready to let the chilling begin!
Here's the infamous Chillmaster window and soul music is wafting from it.
The Chillmaster chair is empty...what the fuck?
All of a sudden we hear a, "Hey!" and it's the Chillmaster standing behind us!
Once inside it's the traditional pouring of the Hennessy...
And the music blasts...
The table is well stocked for the party.
Lindsay and the Chillmaster share a laugh...
And the dancing begins!
Kate, Chillmaster and Lindsay take a break for a photo.
The Chillmaster and I clowning around.
And here's the Chillmaster's daughter, Anastazia. It was her 18th birthday so we all sang "Happy Birthday" to her.
Father and daughter, nice!
And here's Victoria, who's a little late due to work.
Victoria and the Chillmaster trade hellos...
And hugs, it's all about the love in the Chillmaster den!
It's always fun to watch the people go by the Chillmaster's window.
Shawn is chilling the fuck out in the Chiller chair.
And Gumby takes his turn.
Easy Ed shows up on the scene and the party is complete!
Ed and the Chillmaster grooving to the tunes.
And the last arrival is Chanel...
Who gets into the swing of things immediately.
Dance, dance, dance!
The Chillmaster grooves with Gumby!
And one last shot for the road. Thanks to the Chillmaster and everybody for showing up and making the Chillmaster Dance Party III a total blast as always! Goodnight everybody and see you tomorrow after dark.
Four Other Masters
Masters Golf Tournament
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