This is why I don't like the morning. My eyes look like something from a novelty store window. I'm up this early because I'm traveling to Peoria today to spend Christmas with my family. The blog's format is going to take on a different shape while I'm on vacation. Instead of one long post at noon, there's going to be random posts going up whenever, so check back if you can. I have to go get ready, the car service will be here in a bit. I'll post something from the airport in an hour or so.I hope you're feeling as horrible as I am because misery loves company. At least that's what Kathy Bates told me.
Okay, it’s Tuesday night, the night I go out in hot pursuit of a swizzle stick. I haven’t had much luck lately, but I thought of a place that just might have swizzles, The Hard Rock Café in Times Square. It would be a decent little souvenir for a tourist and I’m sure the drinks are overpriced there, so they certainly can afford it. Plus, I don’t think I’ve been in a Hard Rock Café in over a decade, it might be interesting to go and check it out.
Kind of a drizzly, lonely night out here.
Well, things are brighter here in Times Square, let's go check it out.
Welcome to the Hard Rock Cafe.
They have TV sets up here, showing live feeds from other Hard Rock Cafes around the world. What's funny is that there's not much difference in any of the feeds, they all look the same.
Okay, let's go check out the bar.
Wow, it's really noisy in here and it's packed.
No seats here just people yakking on cell phones and staring aimlessly at a big tourist trap.
Goddamn, this part is all filled up too. And there's a bad Genesis song booming over the speakers. I'm beginning to think this was a bit of a mistake.
I finally found an empty seat at the end of the bar.
The bartenders were busy and it wasn't easy to get a drink, but when I did...
No swizzle stick, just a giant black straw. This night isn't going too well.
There's tons of multi-colored lights hanging over the bar and it's kind of giving me a headache.
Alanis Morissette is now blaring over the speakers and on the video screens over the bar. This is really a horrible place.
Save the planet and stop making Hard Rock Cafes.
And suddenly...Bill Wyman's jacket. Well, that certainly makes the trip worthwhile! Goodnight everybody and see you tomorrow after dark.
Hard Rock Café 1501 Broadway (Near 43rd St.) 212-489-6565
--------------------------------- Bonus Linkage From Jason Andersen! MAD reader and commenter Jason Andersen is an artist who just put up a new website. Jason does amazing artwork, go check out his paintings, sculptures and drawings here: Jason Andersen Artwork.
I haven’t written a short story for a while and tonight I’m in the mood to do so, so that’s what I’m going to do. And there’s nothing you can do about it...so there!(All photos in this post are by David Dalton.)
Last week it was announced that the Beach Boys were going to reunite for a 50th Anniversary tour. I’m a big Beach Boys fan, but I have mixed emotions about it. Both Dennis and Carl Wilson are dead, and to me, they were the heart and soul of the band, much in the way that Keith Moon embodied the true spirit of The Who. One cool thing coming out of this, is that original guitarist, David Marks is going to be part of the band for the tour and I think for the new recording they’re working on. He played guitar and sang on the first four Beach Boys albums and played about 100 shows with them. He quit after he and his parents had several arguments about money with Murry Wilson, Brian, Carl and Dennis’ father who was their manager at the time and an uncontrolled lunatic. I’ve always thought of David Marks as the “Pete Best” of the Beach Boys and it’s nice to see him get a decent payday out of the deal. Maybe they should call the tour: “The David Marks Can Finally Pay Rent Again, Tour!”
This was also the year that they finally released the legendary SMiLE album and sessions. I was happy about this as I’ve been dying to hear the original tapes, put out in a well produced and engineered manner.
Anyway, all this news made me think about the very last issue of fishwrap, which was a magazine version of the aforementioned Beach Boys legendary SMiLE album. I started writing and publishing my magazine fishwrap in 1994. I’ve written about the magazine before, but it was basically devoted to satirizing and making fun of the world of mainstream magazines. It started out as a 14 page black and white fanzine and eventually grew to a 48 page, glossy magazine with distribution out of San Francisco from BigTop Publishing. The magazine had gotten nice write-ups in the NY Daily News, Spin Magazine, Sassy magazine, NY Post, Men’s Journal, USA Today and my hometown paper, the Peoria Journal Star among others and it had built up a loyal cult following.
Every issue sold between three to five thousand copies and that wasn’t too shabby considering I did the bulk of the writing and my friend Clare did the layouts and we were both working fulltme jobs. I was always hoping that someone would back the idea, put some money behind it and we could take fishwrap to the next level and maybe break even or even—gasp—make money doing it. I had gotten a few meetings, but none of them panned out and by 2001, I was really burned out and was thinking about putting fishwrap to bed for good.
Then September 11th happened and after that, I was totally bummed out and I decided it was time to move on. At first I wasn’t going to do a final issue, but one night in October I was home listening to a bootleg version of SMiLE, by the Beach Boys. One of my favorite albums of all times is Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys. It’s right up there with Revolver by the Beatles and other classic albums from the sixties. It kind of tanked here in the states, because Capital records didn’t get behind it, but it was huge in England and Paul McCartney has said it was an inspiration for Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The follow up to Pet Sounds was a project that Brian Wilson called, “a teenage symphony to God.” The working title was, “Dumb Angel” but eventually it was going to be called “SMiLE.” It was really an ambitious project and the songs and sounds were as far away from what the original Beach Boys surf and car songs could be. It was an album that was highly anticipated, but never came out.
Brian Wilson and lyricist Van Dyke Parks were doing a lot of drugs and there was some resistance to the new songs, particularly by Mike Love, who berated Van Dyke Parks so badly, he walked away from the project. Finally, Brian Wilson pretty much had a breakdown and shelved the tapes and retreated to his bedroom. SMiLE never came out till this year, but there’s been plenty of bootlegs of it released and I had one and it's what I was listening to on that fateful night.
About halfway through the album, the lightbulb went off over my head while listening to it and wishing they would’ve released it: “Why not do a magazine version of SMiLE?” SMiLE would finally be released but in magazine form instead of a musical entity. I thought it would be a fun way to end fishwrap and decided to do it.
Instead of myself doing all the writing, I decided to pair up writers and artists and have them take a song from SMiLE and write a story or essay about it and the artist could do a piece of art inspired by the song. Then I’d pair them up in a layout. I decided not to write much myself, but rather act as the “producer” of the magazine and put it all together. Two people that were key in putting this together were Domenic Priore and Gary “Pig” Gold. Domenic is a well-known Beach Boys historian and Gary “Pig” Gold is a writer who also played in Endless Summer, Canada's only authorized Beach Boys tribute band. Both of them, especially Domenic had contacts that would prove to be key to this project and led to a happy surprise at the end of it.
Domenic had a slew of emails including two people I was sure I’d never hear back from. The first was Van Dyke Parks, a legendary musician in his own right and he’s the man who penned lyrics for a good portion of the SMiLE songs. The other was David Leaf, a longtime associate and friend of Brian Wilson as well as one of his managers. Well, I sent off emails to both and was shocked to hear back from both of them within 24 hours!
I had asked David if he thought Brian Wilson would be at all interested in contributing anything to this project and I also asked him if it was okay to do it. He sent me back a nice email, wrote that Brian was busy, but it sounded like an interesting project and wanted to know if I would send him a copy when it was done to show to Brian Wilson. Holy shitballs, Brian Wilson was going to look at it, talk about putting the pressure on! Shortly after that an email from Van Dyke Parks rolled in. He said he was too busy to contribute anything, but thought it was a great idea and wished me luck. Never in my life did I ever expect to get an email from Van Dyke Parks, really crazy! Another person I immediately contacted was my friend David Dalton. David used to write for Rolling Stone and has written many books including: Faithfull, the Autobiography of Marianne Faithfull, (co-written with Faithfull), El Sid, Mr. Mojo Risin’ and To Hell and Back, Meat Loaf's autobiography (co-written with Meatloaf). I knew that David was friends with Dennis Wilson and I called him and he signed on and wrote a great story about the first time he met Brian Wilson. And as an afterthought he asked if I’d like some photos he took of Brian and the Beach Boys back in the day. And then he told me that some of them had never been published! I had hit the jackpot. (The photos are the same ones used for art in this post.)
And speaking of hitting the jackpot, another contact Domenic had was Frank Holmes, the artist who designed the SMiLE cover. I sent Frank an email and he agreed to do an illustration to accompany Gary “Pig” Gold’s story on the song, “Wonderful.” That was really the cherry on top of the sundae. Everybody did a great job and I was thrilled with the issue when it came out. I nervously mailed six copies to David Leaf and anxiously awaited word from him. Part of me thought that maybe he wouldn’t even bother to show Brian, because I know there was always mixed feelings about the album that never came out. Immediately it started getting attention on the internet and it started selling like crazy. I was getting emails from people in other countries asking for copies and in the end, Tower Records sold out of three separate orders. It kind of took on a life of its own. One thing that happened was someone put up a website about the magazine without my knowledge, this really cracked me up, a bootleg website devoted to a magazine that was inspired by a bootleg CD. That’s really going full circle!
About two weeks after I had mailed David Leaf’s copies out to California, I got a package in the mail and the return address was from David Leaf. I was curious as to what he was sending me and ripped the package open and I was staring at the back cover of the SMiLE issue of fishwrap. Immediately my paranoia kicked in full blast and I thought of the worst. “Fuck, this must be his way of saying he hated it,” I thought to myself and breaking out in a sweat. I flipped the magazine over and there was some writing up top in a black magic marker. After looking at it closer, I realized it said, “Brian Wilson.” I couldn’t believe it and fired off an email and asked him if that was really Brian’s autograph and he wrote back and said it was. He told me Brian liked it and thought the idea and the magazine was really cool. I couldn’t have been happier. The issue ended up being the best selling issue of all the fishwrap’s. It was wonderful to go out on top. And with a SMiLE.
Special thanks to all who participated in the issue: Domenic Priore, Gary Pig Gold, Jim “Swami” Wombacher, Frank Holmes, David Dalton, Mark Johnson, Frank Scott, Jonas Land, Anissa Mack, Jaime Chirinos and Rich Ruggerio.
Yesterday I posted a link to the Hand-Made Holiday Gift and Craft fair that MAD commenter and CBBM documentarian, Spike and his wife, Sacha host and tonight I thought I’d go check it out. And you’re invited too!
Brrrr...it's cold out here tonight!
Luckily, it's a short walk and here we are at d.b.a.
And here's a sign for the 7th Annual Hand-Made Crafts Fair, let's go check it out.
It's nice and dark inside and the bar is marble at the end and wooden in the middle, nice.
And the lovely and friendly bartender, Brie is quick with a beer and a nice smile.
They serve a huge variety of beer and have a large liquor list as well, some of the varieties are listed on the boards hanging over the bar.
Candle lit wooden tables line the wall opposite the bar.
And it looks like the craft fair is back here.
Wow, it's very festive and cozy back here!
And here's the hosts of the fair, Sacha and Spike!
Sacha is the founder and director of Stiggly Holistics, an East Village, New York City based holistic wellness center.
She had an impressive display of items for sale ranging from various balms to tea cups, pottery, granola and tea.
Let's take a look around and meet some of the other vendors in the fair.
Here's Deborah who had a nice selection of blown glass items on display.
Cid was selling hand=made jewelry and told me about an access cable show called, "Mark After Dark." I have to meet this guy! She also had two little wooden hands on her table that frightened me a little bit!
Karen was working at her table that boasted a very nice array of hand-made items.
This is a great event and I'll be back next year for sure.
Thanks to Spike and Sacha for the invitation and for hanging out with me, I had fun, but now I have to go and face the cold.
Yikes, it's even worse now. I haven't had a fire in the fireplace so far, but I think I'm going to fire it up tonight! Let's get moving!
Here we are...aaaaahhh...wait a second...a Cardboard Box Man in a fireplace? Probably not the best place to try and scare me.
Burn, baby, burn! Could this be the end of the Cardboard Box Man's reign of terror? Probably not, but one can hope! Goodnight everybody and see you tomorrow after dark.
We now interrupt Cheeseburger Saturday Night to bring you the following holiday presentation! Okay, we’ve got a little Christmas party brewing at the Chillmaster’s and then we’re heading to The Roseland Ballroom where Shawn told us about an event called, The Rhythm Revue Dance Party. So, let’s get going...why the fuck not?
There he is, in the infamous window, The Chillmaster!
The Chillmaster and I are inside, drinking beer and waiting for the other guests to arrive.
And here's Victoria being greeted by the Chillmaster.
Close up of Victoria!
Chillin' like villains!
The Chillmaster table is all set up.
And here's Shawn...
And Lindsay, okay, I think the crew for tonight is all here.
Let the party begin!
There's Gumby on top of the Hennessy.
And Shawn busts a move!
Victoria dons the famous Chillmaster fur hat.
And a few minutes later the Chillmaster places it on Lindsay's noggin.
It's the warmest hat in the world!
And just like that, we're in a cab headed for midtown. Shawn suggested we check out a soul revue that's hosted in The Roseland Ballroom.
And here we are deep in the heart of midtown, steps away from the Roseland Ballroom.
Inside there's a nice bar area.
The Chillmaster shares a laugh with the bartender.
Okay, we have our drinks, time to check this place out.
There's a huge dance floor here. The music is classic soul with a little 70's disco thrown in. What I like is it's not played at a crazy loud level, you can enjoy the music and still talk to people. Great choice by Shawn!
There's a big video screen showing classic Soul Train clips and assorted soul videos.
Dance Party!
Here's a festive couple out on the dance floor.
There's plenty of tables on the perimeter...
But I prefer to check out the action on the dance floor.
Chillmaster, Lindsay and Shawn are sharing a laugh and a dance.
Chilling and watching the action.
And to prove that some white guys just can't dance, here I am with Lindsay on the dance floor as Chillmaster snaps the photo.
And the last drink for me of the evening, i was operating on about three hours of sleep and was the first to leave. Shawn, Lindsay and The Chillmaster stayed and partied on. A great night and thanks to everyone for hanging out! Goodnight everybody and see you tomorrow after dark!
Okay, tonight was nuts at work and I didn’t get out until after two in the morning. I just took a cab home and I think I’ll have a few thousand beers and sleep in tomorrow. So I’m putting the post up right away, before I pass out in a drunken stupor go to sleep. For tonight’s post I thought I’d post some video clips of one of my favorite holiday movies, “Planes, Trains and Automobiles.” I think it’s one of the funniest movies ever and a highlight of both Steve Martin’s and John Candy’s acting careers. The only thing I don’t like is the happy, sappy Hollywood ending. I’ve always thought a better ending would’ve been after Del tell’s Neal that his wife has died years ago, Neal gets so upset that he flips out and goes home and brutally and violently murders his wife and children, throws the Thanksgiving Day turkey out the front picture window and then he sets his own house on fire.
As he watches his house burn down, Neal laughs maniacally and says, “Happy Thanksgiving...assholes!”
The last scene would be Neal going back to the train station and Del is still sitting there with his trunk. Del looks shocked to see him returning.
“Del, I brought the turkey to you, this year,” Neal tells him while pulling a giant bottle of Wild Turkey out of a shopping bag. They both laugh and the bottle is opened.
“I’ve never been a big fan of Thanksgiving,” Del says while taking a long pull off of the bottle.
“Me, either,” Neal counters while grabbing the bottle and taking a hefty swig.
“What say, after we finish this, we go hit some bars on Rush Street and pick up some lonely Thanksgiving Day skanks,” Del says with a smile coloring his face.
“I think this is going to be one hell of a holiday season!” Neal laughingly replies back.
As they’re leaving the train station, they both say in unison, “Those aren’t pillows!” They laugh and the credits roll. Closing song over credits is, “Hit The Road, Jack,” by Ray Charles.
Could’ve been an Oscar contender with that ending, but what are you going to do? Here’s some clips from YouTube. See you tomorrow after dark.
--------------------------------- Bonus Linkage To The Craft Fair This Sunday At d.b.a! If you live in or around New York, you should check out the Holiday Hand-Made Gifts and Crafts Fair that CBBM documentarian, Spike and his wife put together at d.b.a. every year. EV Grieve has the details, check it out here: 7th annual d.b.a. holiday fair (part 2)
Bonus Card Board Box Man Shot! And speaking of CBBM’s, look what was staring at me just a block away from where I live. The mutations are growing more varied every day and sightings are becoming alarmingly frequent. Enjoy your freedom while you can, as we will all soon be enslaved by them. Aaaaahhh!
Okay tonight repeats a night in history on the 365 Bar Crawl! On May 8th, I went to the 118th bar of the 365 journey. The bar was the Lakeside Lounge in the East Village and my friend Chris Erikson was playing there with his band, Chris Erikson & The Wayward Puritans. Chris was one of the first editors I worked with when I moved here way back in 1993. He was working at the Manhattan Spirit weekly paper and I was writing choice assignments for between $35 and $50 bucks a pop! Who says there’s no money in freelance writing? Anyway you can read the whole story over at that post here: Saturday, May 8, 2010.
Time has moved on and Chris is now employed at the New York Post and I’m working my night shit shift job. But I’ve taken tonight off, because back by popular demand, Chris Erikson and The Wayward Puritans are playing live tonight at Lakeside Lounge! This is going to be like stepping back in time. Sherman set the Wayback Machine and awaaay we go!
As I posted yesterday, The Waverly Diner has reopened! I stopped in for a snack last night, but I had to have my favorite for dinner before the show...
The Waverly Melt on toasted rye bread and extra well done fries.
Delicious! Okay, on to the show!
Here we are, The Lakeside Lounge.
Tonight: Chris Erikson and The Wayward Puritans!
This is a great dark, New York bar.
Leslie the friendly and pretty bartender serves up a bottle of Budweiser.
A shot of the bar from the opposite end.
Here's the band stage in the back room.
And here's Chris and the band setting up their gear.
The dueling guitars of Chris Erikson.
The set lists and key changes are out.
Ladies and gentlemen, please give it up for: Chris Erikson and The Wayward Puritans! From left: Chris Erikson—guitar, lead vocals, Jason Mercer—bass, backing vocals, Diego Voglino—drums and Jay Sherman Godfrey—guitar, backing vocals.
The songs are all Chris Erikson originals, great songs.
They have a CD coming out soon, stay tuned for details about that as it happens.
The only song that's not an original is a song by Chuck Berry's original piano player, Johnnie Johnson called, "Johnnie B. Bad." This is cool because both Chris and I have interviewed Johnnie Johnson.
I'm not the only one taking pictures in the crowd.
Here they are playing the encore song of the night.
Shows over, time for a drink! A great show and I'm looking forward to the CD! Goodnight everybody and see you tomorrow after dark.
As Al noticed in the comments section yesterday, Jeremiah Moss announced the reopening of The Waverly Diner! I’ve been waiting for this since last summer, so you know where we’re off to tonight. I hope they kept the black and white 8x10’s! And I pray the orange juicer is there for Biff, let’s go see.
I thought we'd walk there, it's a straight shot down Sixth Avenue. Just ignore the angry Cardboard Box Man to the left. He appears to be restrained...and pissed. Aaaahhh!
Hey, check out this photo in the frame store window.
It's a photo of The Waverly Diner!
Okay, we're almost there, in fact I think I see the neon in the distance.
Goddamn...it looks just the same. This is a great moment, nice to see the corner back to the way it was.
Inside the changes are minimal. There's the double and single booths to the left.
The right area is a little different, there's now booths and tables where the kitchen counter once was.
There's still a couple booths up in the front window.
The counter is now all the way in the back, which I believe seems to be a little longer. I think they gained some space in here.
Here's a view of the marble-topped counter from the back end of the diner. Looks nice!
Freddie serves up a beer with Jonna at his side. Still nice and friendly in here.
And here's Bobby, great to see the old crew back in here again!
The only disappointent for me was the 8 x 10 glossy black and white autographed photos aren't back. But Freddie said they may be putting them back up in the future. I'll bug them until they do.
The menu is exactly the same.
And here's Freddie with my order.
I just got an order of the chicken wings. It was too late for a full-fledged meal. I have the night off tonight though to see a friend of mine's band, so I'll return for the Waverly Melt, stay tuned for that tomorrow! Oh... and Biff...
And good news for Biff the orange juicer made the transition! Goodnight everybody and see you tomorrow after dark.
The Waverly Diner I have to admit, as I walked up to the Waverly Diner and saw the neon signs spraying color out onto a winter’s night on Sixth Avenue in Manhattan, I got a little choked up at the sight. It was really a happy feeling.
I don’t remember my first meal in The Waverly Diner, but I know it was sometime in the summer of 1993 when I first moved here and I was living on the Upper West Side. I’ve always liked to walk up and down Bleecker Street and that area in Greenwich Village and would always stop at The Waverly Diner when I made a trek downtown, which was often. Sometimes I’d sit in one of the burgundy vinyl single booths, other times I’d camp out at the counter. I’d usually get the Waverly Melt and fries, but I think through the years I’ve sampled nearly everything on that menu a couple times at least. I got to know the crew working in there and would have fun kidding around with them.
“You’re charging me for the soup? They give this stuff away for free in the missions!” Was one of my standing routines that I wore into the ground, but it always got a laugh.
You’d see other familiar diners in there and nod and smile and they’d do the same back at you. You never get to know these people, but they kind of feel like family in a strange, dinerly kind of way. It makes you feel like part of a community. And when places like this close and a Starbucks barges in, communities start to crumble and people become less familiar. Not as many smiles and nods become nonexistent.
When I saw the boards on the windows last summer, and the neon signs unlit, I thought it was the end of the Waverly Diner. I dreaded the thought of a 7-11 or a Chipotle or...well, you know the list by now, moving in and wrecking my fond memories of the place. Or even worse, someone would buy it and Fedoradize it, keep the name and completely turn it into a yuppiefied version of what it once was while serving pig’s heads and artisanal hot chocolate to a hapless band of fools who buy into a pathetic shit show like that.
You know what it felt like sitting at the counter drinking beer, talking to the crew and eating chicken wings in there? It felt like I was kicking Mayor Bloomberg in the balls. And boy if that isn’t a good feeling! Stop in the Waverly Diner and experience it yourself, you’ll be glad you did. Waverly Diner 385 Sixth Ave. (at Waverly Pl.) 212-675-3181
This is why I don't like the morning. My eyes look like something from a novelty store window. I'm up this early because I'm traveling to Peoria today to spend Christmas with my family. The blog's format is going to take on a different shape while I'm on vacation. Instead of one long post at noon, there's going to be random posts going up whenever, so check back if you can. I have to go get ready, the car service will be here in a bit. I'll post something from the airport in an hour or so. I hope you're feeling as horrible as I am because misery loves company. At least that's what Kathy Bates told me.
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