I was down in New York City last Sunday to attend the Hillary Hahn recital at Town Hall--and I love Town Hall. What a comfortable and intimate place to hear anything from a rabblerousing speech to a full symphony orchestra--though I complained that either Town Hall's acoustics were faulty or Hilary didn't play with enough verve for me. For blaming Town Hall acoustics I got a dressing down from thedailygrowlerhousepianist's wife, a truly beautiful and interesting woman I got to know for the first time at the concert, who works for Town Hall, as she defended the hall as having the finest acoustics of all the NYC concert joints. OK, so it was Hilary Hahn's lack of verve then I openly concluded, which garnered me a dressing down from thedailygrowlerhousepianist. He thought Hilary played marvelously (plus Hilary, 29 years old, is a very attractive young lady--healthy, am I allowed to put it that way?)--he added to that that he thought she was a brilliant performer--he said she played Ives's 2nd Violin & Piano Sonata the best he'd ever heard it played! I shut my mouth. Classical music ain't my main speed, though I'm not dumb to it; I did take piano lessons as a scatterbrained youth.
After this occasion, I dropped in on the The Daily Growler penthouse offices, in the basement under Filene's Basement Store, the one up near Chambers Street. There I met a very strange gentleman, Austin Highchew, a guy I had been reading lately in The Growler. This guy just suddenly appeared one post, introducing himself and intimating that he "may be" taking thegrowlingwolf's place in this continuing-present "news-spews-views"paper (post)--then he wrote in the next post what I thought was a well-written piece on the origins of thegrowlingwolf character in terms of fictional reality.
I happen to know thegrowlingwolf's a real person. I've spent days with the dude. At least he's the guy Franny & Zoe, the two-headed girl reporter, introduced me to as thegrowlingwolf the first time I met him. I clearly remember this was the guy I dined with that first evening after I met him. He trotted me down to his fav Irish pub where we committed unforgivable sins dining on specially prepared squabs and drinking huge precarious slugs from a bottle of Jameson's Gold and washing those down with Guinness Stout poured so particularly carefully for us by the owner himself of this Irish establishment in which the Wolf Man is a privileged customer--I was amazed at how the staff kissed Wolfie's ass (he prefers being called Mr. Wolfe by men--"Wolfie" by women)--one waitress in particular seemed to think he hung the moon he howls at. She was all over him seeking his advice about a ring she'd just bought. The wolf-human seemed to know all about that damn ring, talking about the setting and the cut of the stone, in this case an orange sapphire. "Is it a real sapphire, Wolfie?" the waitress asked him trustfully. He held it up several ways and then, son of a bitch, he pulled a jeweler's ten-power loupe out of his pocket and studied the stone. "Oh yeah, this is nice--I see a couple of flaws but they're off in a corner there and besides they can't be seen by a human eye. I might ask the guy for a few hundred back though just to show him you know what you're talking about...com'yere and I'll show you, sweetheart." She looked through the loupe and came up heartbroken. After she left the table, I said something about him hurting her feelings. He laughed--a horse laugh. "Man, this is my business. I can't lie to the girl. I'm an honest appraiser. I hung around 47th Street [the New York City diamond district] for years--my best friend on the street was Andy the Angelic Jew and his Russian girlfriend Rilka--I mean what that son of a bitch didn't know about the gem and diamond world wasn't known. He'd been born and raised in Amsterdam. His dad had been one of the world's biggest diamond dealers before he was found shot to death out back of the Amsterdam airport one night. Andy blamed it on Israelis--he hated Israelis--Andy's family were Swiss Jews--descendant of the Rothschilds! He hated Russians, too, and this is when the Russians started coming to this country by the droves, settling out around Sheepshead Bay--black market diamonds are all over Russia, according to Andy." The Wolf Man talked on for 15 more minutes about his hanging on 47th Street, and all the tricks of the trade he learned there. "I can test gold, too, buddy."
Just yesterday, I read that tailend of the Growler where they said the Wolf Man is going to run a Website on American Music--intimating that he may be leaving the Growler, which brings me back to this Austin Highchew character. He's dapper. Dressed to the nines as we used to brag. Armani? Bruno Madernos (a la the Juice!)? Custom-made shirt. A very sporty pork-pie hat (a la Prez). He was easily approached, shook hands like a real man, but didn't say much. If you ask him a question, he was blunt and that was it. "Where you from, Austin?" "I don't remember." OK. OK. How do you handle a dude like that? "You want a coffee, Austin?" "Coffee's so plebeian, isn't it?" OK. OK. I brought him a black coffee and he slugged it down. "Want some bourbon in the next cup?" "That's what was wrong with that cup of coffee. God."
Strange man. But then some people think I am, too, so you never know, do one?
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Jots & Tittles
--from Philip Wylie: "The most significant dissenters from Faith are the learned men. Scientists, that is, and scholars, statesmen, doctors of medicine, authors, artists, lawyers and judges, schooled experts in finance and industry; these are so rare among religious congregations that a church possessing even one chemist will boast of his membership as a warrant of Joseph Smith or Jesus, and I cannot think of an anthropologist who seriously acknowledges Virgin, Trinity or Cross." An Essay on Morals. I am sad to say that on New York City television both Benny "the Huckster" Hinn and thedailygrowlerofficialspiritualleaderandhousepastor Melissa Scott have lost their slots. They're off the New York City airwaves. I assume they were behind in their bills. The bullshit artist supreme Kenneth Copeland and the superbullshit artist doublesupreme Pat "As Phony as a Three-Dollar Bill, Which He'll Accept as an Offering" Robertson are still blabbing their fabulous crap over We the People's airwaves. I know Melissa Scott's off the air is a great loss to Growler cynics!
--On April 28th at a press conference, President Obama said that illegal immigrant workers do affect the wages of US workers. So, dammit, do something about it--like how about nuking Mexico!
--Charles Kernaghan, a great American, said G.W. Bush's attitude toward common labor was "Fuck it." Bush said we are now a technology/computer science country--as a result we are billions of dollars in debt to the Chinese in the hi-tech market. Kernaghan goes on to say that a corporation's products are tightly controlled by patent laws, copyright laws, etc., while workers who make the products aren't protected at all. Corporations say worker rights are an impediment to free trade! We all tend to forget that our 19th-Century Supreme Court declared corporations "citizens" same as you and I when it comes to Constitutional rights and privileges. They did this back in the up-and-going days of the Industrial Revolution when guys like John D. Rockefeller through Standard Oil was monopolizing the country's wealth!
--Did you know that Bangladesh children & young adults tear down outused tankers that are brought to Bangladesh for demolition? These young people climb into the pitch dark holds of these huge ships and there in that darkness on bamboo ladders, one hand holding a torch while with the other hand these young people tear away the asbestos from the hulls. By the way, if they fall off the ladders they are left to their fate in the deepest darkness below. These poor boobs are paid 15-cents an hour for this horrible work. Then they torch-cut out big hunks of steel plate, which these kids haul on their backs to the metal stamping machines. These kids have to work because of the utter poverty they live in. Due to their doing this work for 15-cents an hour when they are 12 to 18 means their life expectancy is, if they're lucky, around 25-to-30 years. Hurray for Capitalism!
--George Clinton said "Free your mind and your ass will follow."
--A thought: The Power Elite use "secrecy" to cover up their fuck ups.
--New companies advertising on TV:
1) Premier Bathrooms for Cripples (I kid you not)--"Premier transformed my life," a satisfied customer testifies on the ad.
2) Strange car names: the Chevy Cobalt (sounds like a cancer treatment); how about Honda's The Insight?
3) Ever heard of the Alli Bank before? Me neither, but they are advertising all over teevee.
4) How about My Medical Shoppe? Ever heard of them? Their ad has an actress-customer saying, "I depend on My Medical Shoppe pharmacist." She doesn't say for what she depends on him for--I hope not diagnostic advice! And how about the olde-fashioned way of spelling shoppe?
5) From a car commercial--can't remember the car--"Socrates said, 'You gotta know what you don't know.'" I don't know if Socrates talked like that, but that's what the car ad says.
6) In Colonial-Penn Life Insurance's commercial where they use Alex Trebeck as their spokesman they run a crawl under him while he's prattling on about how you better have some life insurance when you die or who the hell's going to bury you? that says "Mr. Trebeck is a Compensated Endorser" and you better believe if they didn't pay Mr. Trebeck, he'd be long gone from that commercial. This is the commercial that Ed McMahon used to do until he got so old and feeble and Alzheimer'sish they canned him.
7) And how about the NEW Chevrolet commercial for Chevyoffers.com. An online Chevy dealership that says it hands out "government-backed" auto loans. Obama! Why'd you give our auto industry right back into the hands of those who wrecked it in the first place? Backward thinking, as the Wolf Man calls it.
--Oh No, Say It Ain't So, Naomi! An article in the Growler style by Naomi Prinz in the latest Mother Jones.
Wed June 17, 2009 7:07 PM PST
On Wednesday, after weeks of the requisite press leaks and prefabricated spin, the Obama administration released details of its new "rules of the road" financial regulations, which had been billed as the most sweeping overhaul of the financial system since the Great Depression.
Obama, alas, is no FDR. Roosevelt's New Deal reforms included the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, which split complex financial institutions into commercial banks (for consumers) and investment banks (for speculators). This enabled government to safeguard the boring, conventional activities of consumer banking without insuring the dice-rolls of high-risk investors. His reforms also opened the banking sector to independent audits to ensure financial soundness—as opposed to just taking the banks' word for it, as Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's recent stress tests effectively did—and established the Home Owners' Loan Corporation, which helped people at risk of foreclosure cover their mortgages.
Read the rest at www.motherjones.com/Naomi Prinz is an Economist who used to work for Goldman-Sachs (crooks) and Bear-Stearns (crooks)--now she's spilling the beans on her former employers!
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Well, I'm back in my comfy cottage on the shores of Lake Flaccid again. Playing my new Paul Stanley Silvertone electric guitar I bought on eBay for $150.00. NO, I'm not a musician, though I already can play this guitar as well as any rock guitar players I see on the local teevee. Maybe I'll try out for American Idol the next time they hold auditions here in Lake Flaccid. Oh, look, another dinner invitation in my mail from Cecil the Dog-faced Boy III. Hot damn. Pheasant under Glass fresh in from the plains of Nebraska, according to Cecil. Jeez, I can't remember when I had pheasant under glass last! Can you?
barabbasmunn-daynethedailygrowlerjots&tittlesman
for The Daily Growler
A The Daily Growler Sports Extra from marvelousmarvbackbiter
I was just talking to a New York City Joe at the CitiBank ATM machine on 34th and Fifth. He was wearing a Yankees Jeter shirt and an NYY cap so I just asked him calmly how he felt about the Yankees this year. "I ain't watchin' 'em, that's how I feel about 'em. Fuck 'em!" "What's wrong with them?" "It's the way they treated the fans. I ain't payin' no fuckin' 35 fuckin' dollars to sit in the bleachers at the new phony stadium. A billion dollars that stadium cost? What's worth a billion dollars in there, the fuckin' sushi restaurant? What would the Babe think of them serving sushi at Yankee Stadium? Pussies!" "How about A-Rod batting .245. No hits in his last 50 at bats?" "A-Fraud Joe Torre called that phony bastard. Jeter, now there's a real ballplayer. I'm still a Jeter fan. Check out the shirt. I watched the fuckin' Washington Gnats beat the shit out of the Yankees the other night on Channel 9. Jesus, even the fuckin' Mets can beat the fuckin' Gnats!" "You miss Joe Torre?" "Don't even go there, motherfucker. Don't even go there. What a stupid fuckin' god-damn silly move that asshole Steinbrenner...that bastard. Don't even go there." He shut up on that one. I had just read where Joe Torre was now the 5th winningest manager of all time. I'm happy for Joe but god-dammit, I'm not happy he's having such success with the fuckin' Dodgers, as my Yankee pal on the street would have called them--9 games ahead of the Giants in their division. A pretty substantial lead for this time of year--and Manny Ramirez is coming back soon after serving his without pay punishment for using female hormones--Jesus, how stupid--and with Manny back--it's a guarantee that for the second straight year, Joe's taking the Dodgers to the playoffs. All the while Joe Gerardi even with the highest paid bunch of heavy hitters in baseball is struggling to hold on to second place in the American League East, 3 games in back of the Red Sox, but only one game ahead of hot-and-cold Toronto who are currently on a hot streak. The Red Sox have beaten the Yankees 12 out of 12 this year--their last year under Joe Torre the Yankees dominated the Red Sox and near the end of the season they shot into first place by beating the Red Sox five in a row. They then could have easily won the league pennant except suddenly A-Rod and the rest of the millionaires quit hitting. Then the pitching staff fell apart--it was about this time the Steinbrenners were forcing single-A minor league pitchers on Joe's burdened ass--one of which was whiz kid Jabo Chamberlain who in single A ball was throwing 100 mph fast balls like it was a second nature to him--and he was great as long as Joe used him to pitch the eighth inning to lead into Mariano Rivera coming in to close the game down. The Yankees, in spite, of after winning 5 straight over the BoSox, went on to lose 7 in a row to the likes of the Baltimore Orioles and the Tampa Bay Rays. Still Joe got the Wild Card and went into the playoffs against the Cleveland Indians. Joe and the Yanks were taking care of Cleveland until that 7th game--and Jabo Chamberlain panicked when a bunch of gnats attack him--and Joe Torre did fuck up--he didn't force the umpires to call the game until the gnats were dispersed--and left Jabo in the game--and Jabo went to pieces and the Yanks got knocked out of the playoffs by the Indians. It was just as the Yankees were going into this series that Steinbrenner shot his asshole mouth off and said if Joe didn't win this playoff series his job was in jeopardy. The FOOL. So, we Yankee fans lost our beloved Joe Torre to the low-life looked-down-upon Los Angeles Dodgers, the New York City-hated Dodgers, where Joe said, it might take awhile to get this young team into shape, which he did his first season there, taking the unexpected to win shit Dodgers into the playoffs where he lost to the eventual World Champs, the Philadelphia Phillies. [The Dodgers currently, with a .657 winning percentage, are the best team in the Majors!]
The Mets? The Mets are losers again this year same as last year same as the year before last year when the Mets fired Willie Randolph--a much better manager than Jerry Manuel; yet, hey, Jerry Manuel could speak Spanish and since the Mets were an all-Spanish ball team--yo, man, dig the need to fire Willie unfairly and give the team to Jerry "Yo Hablo Espanol" Manuel. The Mets can't get themselves together. One game they play great; the next game they play like bush leaguers. However, K-Rod is one hell of a great closer. He's the next Mo Rivera, I think. However, the Mets don't seem to be going anywhere different than they went last year. Gary Sheffield, however, is one hell of a surprise! And the Yankees gave up on Sheffield.
It's a sad baseball season for New Yorkers. Still, there are people going to the games in spite of the prices and the Mets's stadium named after the criminal CitiGroup! Oh well. Maybe one day the Yankees will get rid of the Steinbrenners.... I'm not holding my breath.
marvelousmarvbackbiter
for The Daily Growler Sports Extra
1 comment:
I'm getting on a plane in a couple of hours. Maybe we'll pass each other on a crowded Manhattan street, look each other in the eye, but never know we saw one another. How romantic!
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