After yesterday’s Beatle post, I realized I haven’t seen the movie, “A Hard Day’s Night” in quite a while. I went to Netflix and it’s one of their movies that you can stream instantly. I’m pretty sure everybody’s seen the movie, so I’m just going to post the trailer and then pick ten iconic shots from the movie for tonight’s midnight movie. Okay, lights...camera...Ringo!
Gene and Smoopy are back in town and so far since last night they've hit 2745 bars and have had a combined total of 978 drinks between the two of them. They'll be joining me for Cheeseburger Saturday Night tonight, but in the meantime, here's a photo Gene took of a scary encounter the two of them had last night. Aaaaahhhh!
I thought I’d just walk home and write a short story tonight. I’ll take a few photos on the way home and then write a story about a favorite memory of mine.
And it's off we go towards the McDonalized light on 6th Avenue.
I'm just going to ignore that gum stain and walk by it quickly.
I hate it when people congregate like this in front of a restaurant hogging half of the sidewalk chattering away. You want to hang out and talk? Then go back into the fucking Olive Garden where you came from and talk while eating your stupid fucking endless salads and then choke on the endless breadsticks and die a slow agonizing death, please and thank you.
Shit!
Oh fuck, check out this mutant strain of the Cardboard Box Man. It just has a mouth and no eyes...yikes!
Okay, home sweet home and safe at last! Time to go to my writing area and get this story down.
Aaaaahhhh!
A Beatles Memory I feel kind of lucky to have grown up when I did. I was a child in the ‘60’s, a teenager in the ‘70’s and a young adult in the ‘80’s. I witnessed a lot of things in those three decades. I can remember the day when President Kennedy was shot, because I was pissed off the next day that there weren’t any Saturday morning cartoons on, just news reports. Five years later I remember watching the reports on TV when his brother Robert was assassinated by Sirhan Sirhan (a man so nice they named him twice!) and being shocked and saddened. He was the first politician I was ever passionate about. And I have to confess, it wasn’t really so much his politics as the fact that he had long hair for a politician at the time and I thought he was really funny and cool. I was ten-years-old when he was gunned down and I remember asking my mom why people were shooting at the Kennedy’s. She just shook her head sadly and said, “I don’t know.” I remember the first moon landing and then seeing the same images being used twelve years later when MTV launched. I stayed up all night long with my brother watching the videos on the pioneer TV station. We couldn’t believe it, music videos all night long! Such a concept!
Random memories off the top of my head include: Richard Speck murdering those nurses in Chicago, Easy Rider, Martin Luther King getting assassinated, the Manson family scaring the shit out of the Hollywood community in 1969, Woodstock, Altamont, hippies, Watergate, Nixon quitting, disco, punk rock and kids dying in a stampede at a Who concert in Cincinnati. Lots of memories and I’m always playing them back like films in my mind. One of my favorite memories is the Monday after the Beatles were on Ed Sullivan.
On February 9th, 1964 The Beatles appeared and sang five songs on the Ed Sullivan show. I was five-years-old and our family was living in Louisville, Kentucky at the time. I remember the week before hearing ads on the radio saying, “The Beatles are coming!” I was riding shotgun to the Winn Dixie grocery store with my mom and I asked her if they were talking about bugs. She laughed and explained to me that The Beatles were an English singing group and they were going to be on Ed Sullivan that week. I didn’t think much about it and was more interested in getting a candy bar when we got to the checkout line.
That Sunday was pretty much like every other Sunday of my youth. We went to church in the morning, came home and had breakfast then whiled the day away playing and engaging in things that pass the time when you’re five-years-old. My mom always cooked a big Sunday dinner and we probably had something like pot roast and mashed potatoes and gravy. Then after dinner the whole family gathered in the front family room and did what most families did in the ‘60’s. We turned on the TV and watched the Ed Sullivan Show. And here’s what we saw that night:
I watched in amazement at all the screaming girls and wondered aloud why they were screaming and carrying on in the theater.
“Because they like them, stupid,” my brother Jim said and then smacked me on the head.
We watched the whole show and although a couple of years later I would become a full-fledged Beatles freak, they didn’t have much impact on me that evening, but I did like the music. The next day my dad dropped my brothers Tom and Jim and my sister Terry at their grade school, Holy Trinity. He then drove me to my kindergarten, Sacred Heart on the other side of town. Almost every day he’d let me steer the car for a little while if there wasn’t much traffic and I always loved doing that. We arrived at Sacred Heart and he watched me climb the cement stairs leading up to the school’s entrance. As I opened the front door, I waved goodbye as I always did, he drove off to work and I walked into the classroom.
Some kids were already there and others were showing up. I hung up my coat in the hallway wooden coat rack and went inside the room. We didn’t have separate desks, there were tables where you sat at an assigned seat with other kids. I sat at a table with two kids named Matt and Mark. I liked Matt, but I remember disliking Mark because he was kind of mean and didn’t share anything. He had a habit of drooling too and that was gross. Our teacher was a nun whose name was Sister Gabriela. I can’t really remember what she looked like, I only remember her full-blown penguin nun outfit. She was nice though and opposed to other nuns I experienced in my years of Catholic education was an nice and gentle woman.
We started the day out like every other day, we said a prayer and then Sister asked a question of the class.
“How many of you children watched the Ed Sullivan show last night?” She asked with a smile. Every hand went up in the air and then came down.
“And how many of you saw the English group, The Beatles on the show last night?” She asked as the smile disappeared.
A couple kids giggled and once again every hand was thrust upwards towards the gray corrugated ceiling.
“I want all you children to know one thing,” she said in serious tones as the hands went down, “it’s a sin for a boy to wear his hair that way.”
Mark immediately shot his arm up the air and Sister called on him.
“I’ll never wear my hair like that Sister!” He barked out in a sickening, ass-kissing moment.
Sister smiled and said that was good.
God how I hated that drooling, selfish, ass-kissing little prick! As a little kid, I was pretty good and didn’t often question things my parents, teachers or authority figures told me. I wasn’t going to say anything in class that morning, but I wondered why wearing your hair a certain way was a sin. I didn’t get it and it bugged me all day long and into the evening. This incident may have triggered a life-long habit of obsessing over weird little things and not being able to let them go. (See: Box Man, Cardboard and Dog, Papaya.)
That night after dinner I was reading a Dr. Seuss book in the room I shared with my brother Jim. He came in and I put the book down and sat up on my bed.
“Sister Gabriela said it’s a sin for a boy to comb his hair like the Beatles do,” I told him.
He just looked at me and thought about that for a minute. Then he walked over to me, grabbed my arm and said, “Come on.”
I got up and followed him into the bathroom. He locked the door behind us, opened a drawer and took out a comb and ran it under water. He then proceeded to comb his hair down into Beatle bangs. Both of us laughed and then he handed me the comb and I did the same thing. We continued to laugh at the way we looked and then my brother defiantly said, “Nuns don’t know everything.” I looked at him and nodded in agreement.
Ten years later we were teenagers in the wild ‘70’s doing drugs, breaking rules, laws and questioning authority every fucking minute of every fucking day. And it all started with one downward swoop of a comb way back on a winter’s night in 1964.
Today while Googling around I found a place that might be a second Fortress of Solitude. It’s a Jewish deli called, “Sarge’s” and it’s on 37th and Third Avenue which is just about ten blocks from where I work. And it’s open 24 hours, 365 days a year. Perfect for a place to go after a late night at work. From what I’ve read it’s an old school joint and they serve beer there. They probably don’t serve 32 ounce beers, but maybe Al will like this place better. But don’t worry, I’d never totally abandon the Papaya Dog, but let’s go check out this possible alternative Fortress of Solitude.
And we're off, it's a nice summer night out tonight.
Here's a person playing a pink piano in Greeley Square, part of the Pop Up Pianos Project.
I'm just going to ignore this scary sidewalk gum stain and keep moving along.
And here we are, Sarge's Delicatessen. It looks promising!
"Open 24 Hours" always the sign of an old school diner.
Here's Keith who was manning the front register tonight.
A refrigerated case up front houses vegetables and house-cured meats.
Pickles!
Wow, nice display of cakes.
Okay, time to find a seat, there's booths up front...
But I think I'd prefer a table in the back.
I grab a menu on my way back...
And I think I'll sit here at this cozy little table.
Gumby's all settled in at the table.
And I look up and see the mark of old-school excellence, a tin ceiling!
Colorful chandeliers hang from the ceiling and illuminate the diner.
And this is our lovely and friendly waitress, Kostastina.
An ice-cold bottle of Budweiser is immediately served up, beautiful!
I ordered the matzo ball soup and it was delicious.
My patented ebony and ivory shot.
And since this is going to be my alternative Fortress of Solitude, I had to try the hot dog. It was great and the mustard is spicy.
After I ate, I thought I'd check out some of the signed celebrity pictures on the wall.
Who love's Sarge's, baby? Telly Savalas, that's who!
A vintage shot of Larry Storch from back in the "F-Troop" days.
Here's a fuzzy shot of Professor Irwin Corey, one of my childhood heroes. Kostastina told me he lives in the neighborhood and comes in every day around 2pm and always has a joke or two. She told me another regular is Danny DeVito.
Okay if it’s Tuesday, this must be Belgium swizzle stick night. The night where I go out in search of the ever elusive swizzle stick from a bar. Well, tonight I’m searching for more than a swizzle stick, I’m searching for Uncle Waltie. Uncle Waltie comments here and at two of my favorite blogs, Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York and EV Grieve. I think I met Uncle Waltie last year on my bar crawl. It was at the International Bar in the East Village and a fellow who’s picture I took said he was known as “Unkle Waltie.” And told me to spell the “Uncle” with a “K.” After that I started noticing comments from an Uncle Waltie at EV Grieve and Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York. And lately Uncle Waltie has been leaving comments here. Could this be the same Uncle Waltie I met almost a year ago? The only way to find out is to go the International bar and find out!
It's a nice night out and I've got the night off from work, so we'll walk there.
It's not really that different, it's just backwards, like so much stuff lately.
Records behind bars!
I've always wondered if EV Cheese is any relation to EV Grieve? Maybe Uncle Waltie knows.
And here we are (and yeah, I know this is the same photo from 365 bars, like an idiot I forgot to take a photo of the front of the bar, oh well, it still looks the same anyway.)
It's nice and dark in here, just the way I remember it from last year.
I take a seat in the back of the bar, so far no signs of Uncle Waltie.
But Molly's here and while they don't have swizzle sticks here, she dressed my drink up really nice!
See?
And she even topped it off with this knife. She wisely removed it as I started drinking.
Deja view, here's Elaina and Roger who I met here last year.
Jason was behind the bar in a classic Coke t-shirt.
Molly poses with a friend at the bar.
Nadir and Fozzie at the bar, they both work at Hi-Fi, which I keep meaning to stop at, maybe I'll go there next week.
Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk!
Joseph and Kate were seated next to me and we swapped tales about living in New York City.
I love the vintage cash register in here.
Even the beers are dressed up in here tonight, I think I started a trend.
Here's Liz posing with Molly.
And here's Molly with Sonia, this is the friendliest place in town!
You gotta love a jukebox that has vintage Rolling Stones next to Tom T. Hall.
Tyler has no idea where Uncle Waltie is. Oh well, maybe next time.
Before I leave I pose for a shot with Molly.
Empty drinks and umbrellas means it's time to head home.
Aaaaahhhh!
International Bar The International Bar is a dark and friendly New York bar with inexpensive drinks and a great jukebox. It’s the type of place that you can walk into alone and immediately feel like a regular in here, even if it’s your first time at the bar. There’s a lot of shitty things happening in the East Village and in New York City, happily, this is not one of those things. The International Bar is open early and stays open late, so stop by and have a drink and say hi. You’ll be happy if you do.
Okay, I’m still hungover from yesterday at Mars Bar kind of tired tonight and don’t really feel like doing anything for tonight’s post. I think those of you that have been following MAD for the last few months know where this is going, so it’s off we go.
And here we are at Penn Station, a familiar stopping point here on MAD.
Everyone's standing still on the escalator which is nice.
I have to check the Duane Reade to see if things have improved in their greeting card section.
Okay, this shit is getting too personal in here! I'm going to talk to a manager the next time!
Okay, not far to go now...
And here we are...ahhh, I feel better already!
My friend serves up the dog...
And I retreat to my table in my Fortress of Solitude.
I let Gumby have a tableside seat tonight and that pleased him.
Dog gone, so now it's time to enjoy the beer...
And do a little drawing to relax.
A collective shot of tonight's artwork.
An obligatory Papaya Dog mirror shot and I'm done. Goodnight everybody and see you tomorrow, after dark.
I'm taking the day off from work to catch up on some things and the first thing I caught up on was my sleep. The post today will be up between 2pm and 4pm with apologies to Al, so I think you know what's coming! My internet connection is being really wonky today, so hopefully the post will go up. I couldn't connect to YouTube to post a video, so please check back in a couple of hours and hopefully things will be better.
It’s Sunday and there’s an art show at the Mars Bar...need I say more?
This is the piece of art I made for the show. I used the Mothers of Invention album artwork for "We're Only In It For The Money" and turned it into "We're Only In It For The Mars Bar." I used photos from Easter Sunday at the Mars Bar to add to the Mother's original collage which was their parody of the Sgt. Pepper album artwork.
I really dread seeing this corner when the Mars Bar is gone. Oh well, let's celebrate the fact that it's still here.
Here's Terry posing in front of the latest and possibly last mural he had just drawn on the outside of Mars Bar.
Terry and Ray check out my Mars Bar art. I made a lot of copies and gave them each one.
I think it's time to go in, why not?
It's safe to drink and that is good to know!
Some of the art from today's show hangs on the wall behind the bar.
Bartender Jessica is behind the bar.
Here's Ed and Goggla. Goggla brought me some swizzle stcks to add to the MAD collection which was really nice!
You can't really tell from the photo, the swizzle part lights up and turns different colors! Very cool! Thanks, Goggla!
Bob and Lindsay were sitting up front by the window.
This is Dave who's shooting a documentary on the last days of the Mars Bar.
See, he's got the camera to prove it! He filmed me telling the story of how I bought pizza on Easter Sunday when I did my bar crawl last year.
This is Gary, who's a longtime regular of Mars Bar.
And here's Melanie, a fellow NYC blogger who I met for the first time at the art show!
Dueling photos!
A fuzzy shot of Eric. One of these days I gotta learn how to use this camera!
Goggla in action taking a photo of the art on the wall.
Hamlet points to the art he brought for the show.
My collage was placed below Hamlet's on the wall. I'm proud to have it included in what might be the last art show at the Mars Bar.
I had heard a rumor that Lindsay had lost her left elbow, but here she proves that it was just an untrue rumor after all. Thank God!
There's Goldfish at the bar and they are Flavor Blasted! Soon I will be just plain blasted. That always happens at the Mars Bar.
Lisa showed up a few hours into the festivities.
Kate checks out something on this guy's phone. The nails match his shirt, nice!
Goodbye Mars Bar.
Darkness falls on Mars Bar and I've had quite a lot of drinks.
Time to exit, stage left!
Holy shitballs, it's dark out here! Great to see everyone and see you all tomorrow after dark.
Live, from New York, it’s Cheeseburger Saturday Night! Starring brgr and featuring the ready for Prime Beef Player, Marty Wombacher. Ladies and gentlemen, please give a hand to brgr!
Okay, I had to go back to work because I left my phone there after last night's monster shift. There's a cheeseburger joint nearby where I work called brgr, and I've always been curious about it, but have avoided it because I thought they didn't serve beer. But I checked out their menu and it turns out they do indeed have bottled beer. So that's tonight's cheeseburger destination.
Sheesh, this wig store window always gives me the creeps. I've probably passed by it hundreds of times and it still sends a chill down my spine.
And here we are at brgr. I like their logo and sign.
The restaurant is long and narrow with wooden and brick walls. It's got a nice, casual feel to it.
You place your order here.
I thought I'd start out with a beer and the lovely Nicole happily serves up a Stella.
There's tables up front...
But I chose to sit at the counter in the back.
This is where all the action is.
I checked out the menu and decided on the "Down On The Farm Brgr" which is a cheddar cheese burger with bacon, horseradish sauce, onion, lettuce, tomato and pickles. Sounds good!
The view from my perch at the counter.
There's tables opposite the counter to sit at in the back as well.
A Heinz ebony and ivory shot.
And here's Dwight with tonight's cheeseburger meal!
The cheeseburger was fantastic and I got a side of the onion hay, which was also delicious. A great meal.
And for dessert Nicole serves up a shake shot, which is 5 ounces of one of their famous and award winning milkshakes.
I got the black and white shake.
And yes, it lives up to its title that New York magazine gave it back in 2007.
Evan was seated next to me and told me he's been coming here for the burgers for the last four years. Evan's a comedic actor who participates in shows at both the Magnet Theater and Upright Citizen's Brigade.
Obligatory bathroom mirror shot with an upside down Gumby and this night is over. Goodnight everybody and see you tomorrow after dark.
My Meal As stated above, my cheeseburger was delicious and the vibe in here is casual and very friendly. Dwight told me once you come in here you are treated as family and it certainly felt that way. The menu here is simple with over ten types of burgers, a hot dog for non-burger eaters and sides including: onion hay, Russert potato fries and sweet potato fries. They also have beer and wine and you have to try the award-winning milkshake.
After yesterday’s Beatle post, I realized I haven’t seen the movie, “A Hard Day’s Night” in quite a while. I went to Netflix and it’s one of their movies that you can stream instantly. I’m pretty sure everybody’s seen the movie, so I’m just going to post the trailer and then pick ten iconic shots from the movie for tonight’s midnight movie. Okay, lights...camera...Ringo!
Further reading: IMDb, Movie Locations, NY Times and HDN Trivia (I only missed two. Ha!)
Four Movies That Ringo Has Starred In.
Candy
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