cold weather is upon us, the quilts are piled on my bed....

and the brisk, blue skies and sunny days of an early slanting sun (when we're lucky) fuel my vigor and rejuvinated sense of selfe....

with this phenomenal autumn weather, comes incalculable sales, savings, soirees and sorties for those lucky enough to be in those loops...that used to be me, a life time and a half ago....i was part of the connected and perhaps even the jet set...now i find myself somewhat, and more often than not, disconnected and when lucky enough to travel (*not by bus, and thanks nj transit, mind you), i may be part of the jet blue set now....economics being what they are, that suits me just about fine.

today i found a new favorite store on the upper east side. nestled between ron's old place on east 77th where i started the days wanderings and close to the bombay company store that is on 86th street, just 20+ blocks (all uphill of course) to my place....not so bad 'cept those damned hills...why couldn't they level the entire city before building here? it's as if they figured i'd be at the top of those hills one day and would benefit from the much needed exercise of walking up them....that said, WANKELS is now my favorite place to shop...it's a hardware store....i know, enough with the grief already, we owned that damned store for 35 years and i avoided it like the plague, since we closed down, gave it all away and sold off to the TRACTOR STORE, i've found myself needing, a monkey, wrench, a ratchet set, a hammer, hundreds of nails, screws, picture hangers, etc., and just about anything else you can find at home depot but no longer at my personal home depot....WANKELS RULES!!!! i've been putting off painting the nest, fearing it would make it too much of a home to move from, but i've decided to suck it up and deal with it. i'm here. i'm staying here, and to the chagrin of the management, i think i intend to die here (no worries, not a plannned thing and no time soon, for certain!)

so why WANKELS?

of course you'll ask.

say it it outloud. and again....and again....

i love the way it sounds....

and of course, Dutch Boy, normally $42 a gallon is on sale, custom tinted, for $21 a gallon. now i'll be doing the living room in either bulldog brown with bullfrog blue (i know, two different dutchboy color categories, but they're the colors i'm using...guess it's going to be bull-dog-frog since alphabetically rules my roost.....) there's a few other colors on the palette but i need a discerning eye and some input from elsewhere, so perhaps ken will be kind enough to give me some feedback tonight as he's invited to come over for dinner, and since i'm jonesing for companionship at the moment and nervous as all hell about my gastro interology appointment tomorrow, tonight, i'd much rather be un-alone for a change....especially after the dreary weakend left me weary and feeling whorphaned by every single friend, acquaintance and family member i could reach out to....

speaking of WHORPANs, why is it, friends will make plans, a matter of minutes or perhaps several hours out of the actual intended time and then consequently just disappear from the face of the planet? i don't find it acceptable. i don't excuse it. apologies don't fix it and my fragile self can't stand it since i'm the last to do similarly if at all possible, and atleast i would call....there are 3 friends that have yet to let me know they're still alive from blowing me off this weekend and let's just say, they're slipping with certainty off the totem of friendship....i mean, i let it go overnight and then called to be sure they're alive, but they haven't acknowledged that i'm alive yet alone that i'll be wishing they're dead by the time they get around to clocking in with me again. shit, put yourself there, get showered, get dressed, actually sit and wait like some freakin' prom queen for a date that will never happen, and go to bed sad and alone, later than you wanted and feeling like something bad happened...and i know i didn't do it, but damn, i hope someone's got an excuse or a missing limb or at least a hospital discharge slip....if i find out another of my friends is fucking with drugs and dicking me around again, i'm going to kick some serious ass....i will no longer stand for it.

maybe that's why i feel so rejuvenated today....i opened up a can of ASS-WHOOP and i'm trying to figure out who to serve up first while it's still steaming and i'm still hot under the collar about it.

thank goodness for WANKELS!

a shout out to one of my peeps -- hey kenny!

no let's see your blog, come on, i'm waiting.... ;+D

and for the rest of you, it's been a crazy busy day here in new york city...it was so much warmer than it has been - we hit mid-80's today...great day to run around like a chicken with it's head cut off, if i do say so myself!!! (stan & pat, did you have snow yet out there? mona, did you and clark start having small contained - no not the forest variety - fires out in wheaterville yet? mom and jim, go on and brag, brag, brag....i know, you're sitting poolside at your villa - thanks for the phone call mom, made me mis-post several photos on ebay once again...now i know how and why i make some of my costliest errors!)

let's see, i did laundry, went to the grocery store, came home and cleaned, and cleaned and cleaned a little more (oh, i forgot, the plumber was here to fix my backed up bath and shower situation...thanks whoever used to live upstairs for filling my tub with your backwash and dirty water...glad it had a chance to sit in the pipes for a few months before i was lucky enough to wake and try to shower...how embarrassing to have had an overnight guest who possibly encountered it first...it will probably cut down on future guests given my ratio of invites to stay over versus ratio not invited over at all)...then kenny came up from work, conveniently down near my friend ron's old place (you'll recall all my travailles back and forth fixing it once he moved out so he wouldn't lose his deposit - mission accomplished, ron got 99.9% of his money back thanks to my labor intensive and sucker-like ministrations to his former abode,) and i made us lunch while we had a nice visit for a few hours before he had to get back downtown to work. somehow, sharing a tuna sandwich with him today made my doctor ordered intake of tuna this week that much more bearable, if not downright enjoyable. who knew?

and then, i cleaned some more....glad that feeling passed...i normally do try to lie down until the urge to clean leaves me...today, i just couldn't thwart it....

oh, i got some gorgeous salmon pink roses, two dozen to be precise, from my neighborhood fish-monger/florist...sad to see my friend from when i purchased the great lilies is no longer there, and they've raised their pricing...i still am concerned he may have been relieved of his job since he gave me such a good deal and it was obviously in error...while i did try to correct the error so he wouldn't get in trouble, he wouldn't allow me to do so....sorry pablo...or pedro...or was it juan, i forget, but it was hispanic and more mexican than boriquian.... now i have roses, roses, roses, everywhere. i'm sorry, but anyone that ever says they don't like flowers is lying....how you can have them in your home and just not feel better...i don't care what ills you, flowers just make any day so much more bearable...even when you feel the need to clean....

so, here's something i got on my email machine today, it made me look twice, laugh once, and then log into my blog three times to finally post it for all of your enjoyment.... in case you can't see the title of this photo, it is simply "crack-o'lantern". (p.s. whoever carved it is a far sicker puppy than that dog that sent it to me....)

;+D
wadeo

painted with words....vincent van gogh's letters to emile bernard....

i have had a single favorite building in new york city for my entire tenure here....that building would be the oh so graceful, elegant and sublime pierpont morgan library on madison avenue and 37th street....built by john pierpont morgan as his personal library, adjoining his mansion nextdoor (beyond sublime!), this classical and simple building used to be fronted by a large iron gate that opened into a cour-carre (carriage courtyard) of coblestones....the entire courtyard before the entrance had always been impeccably maintained with gorgeous topiaries awash with twinkling white fairy lights....i walked by this building every day for nearly 6 1/2 years when i worked at booz allen & hamilton (40th and park - you all will recognize that office building since it's always used in building shots for seinfeld and friends - the building, the kalicow building is shaped like a rotary propeller, so it's an odd and distinctive shape, actually quite impressive in it's own lackluster right)....in all the days of walking past it, and all the late nights in a towncar on my way home from too many hours of consulting work, i never once had the inclination to investigate and venture into the building....

fast forward almost 7 years...and voila! the impetus i needed to finally examine the interior of what used to be the best block in the city in my humble opinion....of course, in the 7 years since i left b.a.h., they've added a visitors entrance in front of the main library building...gone are the gates....the topiaries were left to wither and die on the vine and the coblestones, well, who really knows where old foundry stones go to die....the new front on madison avenue might as well be the pyramid at the louvre for how inconsistent it is with the design elements it was supposed to embrace and compliment...now you can't see the lovely details of the main building, or even romantacize the days when the pierponts and the morgans would arrive by horse and carriage to sit in their own private library with it's vast collection of world literature and rare artworks...

but now....oh now....it's ok that they defiled the monument of the past....at least until january 6th, 2008....that's because they've redeemed themselves somewhat by bringing in a very special and very rare glimpse into the life and mind of my man, vincent van gogh....

and what a way to redeem themselves indeed! not since the metropolitan museum of art featured the complete works of vincent van gogh from his time in arles (1887 - 1888 when he died), way back in 1987, has there been such a rare, unique and comprehensive glimpse into the life, the art and the man who a hundred years after his death was to become the title holder for the single highest auction sale of a single piece of artwork (sunflowers, 1985, 5.5 million - catalog estimate was approximately 750,000). it was my great good fortune to have been at that exhibit as well, thank you to mlle. moore my high school french teacher! the show was sold out for a year in advance of opening and she had the foresight to purchase 40 tickets with her own money and offer them to the seniors in her 4th year french class ( of which there were 29 students, her single largest ever 4th year french class...she'd had two french classes of 30 for freshman, sophomore and junior years, which speaks volumes about how fun and intensive her classes were, but she was selective and not all 60 students were invited to take 4th year french...thank goodness i made it past the cut or i'd have never gone on to my french degree!) at that exhibit, several of the the paintings seen at the morgan library were present as well, but the scope was different, that was just paintings...it was art at it's zenith...it was also a day that could have landed me in jail and one that has kept me from frequenting the met on a regular basis....every work he did that was in a private collection was brought to the met, there were over 100 paintings in all....there was one that hung in the white house, another that was owned by elizabeth taylor (rain on my window in arles - a silent and lonely cacaphony of lavenders and blues and greens, simple streaks down the canvas which was quite small and very approachable...thus my problem....i couldn't help myself, it called out to me in it's stoic patheticism...so i reached up and touched the oil paint....and the guards roared, and security fanned in and the alarm went off...and i was escorted out of the gallery....thank goodness mlle. moore caught the flux of people and saw my tall self being escorted away post haste....she intervened...and alas, i finished the day but have never been back since...by the way, you really shouldn't touch a van gogh painting if the opportunity arises, no matter how delactable or debased it may seem...he applied his paint in such bold and thick strokes that the underlying oil and pigments are still gooey and wet under the surface luster...i didn't know this...i took a fast and hard lesson in art and good behavior 101 that day....not only could my finger print change the course of the art by releasing a torrent of fresh ooze, but i could have left fingerprints and la liz would not have been so thrilled i am told.

the thing about the current exhibit is that it featured 20 handwritten letters to a young artist by the name of emile bernard who was befriended by van gogh in paris where he had previously lived (in montmarte - near the famed moulin rouge, the basilica of sacre couer - the highest vantage point in paris, at the top of nearly 1100 marble steps, and the garret apartments of those would become some of the most famous and commonly known names in the art world of the french pursuasion....degas, monet, manet, millet, gaughan, latrec, seurat, etc.) emile, merely 19 years old at the time of his first meeting with van gogh, was one of the few friends to stand by him as his health declined and his world collided with madness and shifting perspectives of reality and fantasy....the entire time of their acquaintance, bernard would send finished paintings and sketches on to van gogh, now living in arles in the south of france, where it was believed the warm weather and clean air would help to alleviate his deteriorating mental and physical well being. in return, van gogh wrote long missives, responding to his friend's request for feedback...helping to shape the young artist from an immature and unpolished poet of paints to a demure and elegant professor of pigmentation....all the while, van gogh was sending these sketches and finished paintings back to paris, to his brother theo, who was requested to fence them as he might be able to the top art dealers and galleries of the day, so that bernard might be sent some francs to afford new pigments and an occasional live model instead of having to frequent the bars and bordellos of paris to sketch live action at the basest and most debauched level. keep in mind, van gogh himself at this time was living on merely 5 francs per day in arle, including room, board, meals and art supplies....5 francs today, if they still existed, would be approximately a single euro, which in today's news is about $1.45. back then it was less than 50 cents....that's not much to live on....van gogh himself was in such desperate financial straights that even his weekly pension from theo didn't afford him the luxury of live models....instead, he would paint the wife of the barkeep at his local bar and offer the painting in exchange for his bartab....he would paint street scenes with no life present and landscapes with biblical undertones (the olive trees in arles - all about the crucifixion of Christ, bit in a manner never before seen - no Christ figure...it was merely the fabled wood of the cross in the form of gnarled and twisted olive trees, looking for all the world like pained and arthrictic old people dancing in an unseen zephyr that only the mistrals of southern france could create), so too, he painted the militia seen in and around the town...they were drunken and unwitting models for his lonely and immediate needs...

theo managed to sell some of the artwork of emile bernard and later, this resulted in several successful showings in the salons of paris....unfortunately, theo, unbeknownst to vincent, was unable to sell a single painting of his own brother....who had unwittingly become a pyrriah in the art world. these soulful and honest letters tell of vincent's struggle, to become well, to exist on diminished funds and to finally free himself of his mental degredation so he might rejoin his other artist friends in places such as marseilles where he knew there was a thriving artist colony right along the mediterranean...while he never did get to marseille, he was able to capture the vivid colors and scenery of that area by simply using his imagination and the descriptions provided to him by bernard. he painted a beautiful and oh so simple sea scape of a small sail boat bobbing at anchor in the harbor of marseille and sent it along to bernard. bernard himself could only avow that it was not only fine form, but accurate within an iota of the colors used to depict the vivid sunset over the sea as he had posted it to vincent.
as van gogh saw his finances diminish to the point of indebtedness, he began to reuse his canvases...not just once, but seven, eight, nine, ten and more times....at this juncture of his life, while his grasp on reality spiraled out of his grasp, he was producing paintings at a rate of 20 or 30 a week. he would never have been able to afford the canvas required, nor had the time to frame and stretch canvases, to accomodate such tempestuous application of brush to board. his artwork, hundreds of canvases, and boards and sketches, survive today...and under hundreds of masterpieces and whimsical studies and elegant mistakes are unknown and untold masterpieces that may never be discovered by the human eye. when a van gogh painting is brought to an auction house such as sotheby's or christies', they always xray the painting, it's part of the verification process to authenticate the painting...in the last 25 years, there have been about 15 of his major paintings, multiple versions of sunflowers, and several of his irises, as well as crows over a wheatfield, that have been put up for auction to the public sector...every single one of these paintings has revealed itself to be atleast a secondary tenant to the canvas, covering what only the trained art historian and xray technician can decipher as his lost works....

van gogh painted something like 70 self portraits.....the most famous being the self portrait with bandaged head (after slicing off his ear and sending it with a note of endearment to another person in arles, hello, a little stalker-esque....vincent...an ear....what were you thinking?) this is the time and place where the ear was removed...but the self portrait they had on display was instead a beautiful full vincent van gogh in shades of green that only hinted at his inner pain and misery...

he painted his favorite young lady friend...perhaps his muse....she is known only as "la mousme" which is a declension of what is assumed to "the muse" but it could have been an actual name...her name and records of her existence in the time of vincent's letters are all but lost....

i always thought his paintings reflected his actual mental decline....i have seen his earlier works, they are gentle, soft, flowing and almost ebullent with their liquidity of phrase and the soft capture of his subjects....they were the perfect imitation of the impressionism of the time...which was precisely what he was hoping to avoid and escape from ....he wanted to study the light and the form and the effect of time of day on both to see how shape and form could follow function and where the two diverged only to rejoin one another in a differential spatiality....he was so beautifully and classically trained that it is almost impossible to see it in his most famous paintings...that is, until you read his letters and see the sketches and studies on paper that he created and recreated and redefined and refined and later realized with such exacting precision that his uncanny artistic vision and integrity are all but visible as haughty and tempestuous brushstrokes of seemingly callous color. but that would be an injustice if i continued to propagate that belief....indeed....he painted precisely what he wanted and idealized it in exactly the shades and shadows that he thought would break down walls and over turn barriers of art....read his letters, luckily i was able to squint and squat and read silently to myself in french, grasping his exact words as they corresponded to his very visions, immortalized on paper in quick sketches outlining his color choices, the pigment color positions on his pallet and the very often fleeting changes of light and dark proffered by his southern sunlight....

to see his painting of the bridge at langoise (1888) and then to see the corresponding letter with his preliminary sketch of the scene is astounding....he sketched as he painted, every wide and seemingly arbitrary brushstroke to be placed on canvas was carefully placed and scaled in his pen and ink sketchs around the borders of the letters....his painting was as deliberate as his writing....succinct and with much thought behind every word....every stroke a story....every painting a lifetime that he would never truly be a part of. the sketch showed the bridge at noon the day of the letter, but when he went back to create the canvas, there were blackbirds along the pathway near the bridge, they were added as gently and as subtly as they would have been removed if the sketch and the canvas had been created in reverse order. every single color delineated in advance, with measured brush strokes, each genius and begging for life, each one very much a part of vincent van gogh.

many people dismiss the art of van gogh as childlike and perhaps thick in terms of his painting style....i personally have always loved his landscapes and flowers...having seen the house at arles in 1985 on my first trip to france, and the self same olive grove where he painted the crucifixion concept, and the very wheatfield that he painted with crows in flight...with blotches of red in the lower corner...they say that the red would be poppies because they grow in abundance in the south of france, but those of us who know vincent's story and have lived his life surreptisciously through his artwork and the recorded evidence of his times, we know better....the red was placed with great intent by van gogh as it was one of his last paintings to be completed before his death in 1888....in fact, it foretold the story of his tragic demise as artist, as man, as friend, since three days after the painting was finished, he walked in the same wheatfield, in the lower corner of his own canvas, and took his life with a bullet in the head....perhaps they are poppies in a wheatfield overshadowed by the black forms of crows, harbingers of life, death and a memorial perhaps...but more likely, the brilliant amber of the wheatfield surrounded van gogh just as life and normalcy did, but the dark cloud of the birds separates him from normalcy and just maybe, his loneliness and unfulfilled existence needed to be marked with proof that he had actually existed.

vincent van gogh, you were an amazing man....thank you for allowing us to know you, even if briefly, through your short life, your extensive contributions to art, and now, the intimate letters of a man who put the well-being and success of another ahead of his own. i can't help but wonder if you'd have been famous in your own lifetime had there only been wellbutrin or paxil to let you know that it's ok to be sad, and alone is only a place you go to in your mind....

nothing is better than fresh sushi when you are in new york city....

and since i found this game on line, i thought you'd like to learn how to make your own and enjoy it with me tonight....

here it is, late thursday night, another week gone already....

it's now the second half of october, where does all the time go?

mom and jim are in florida for a family reunion with all of his brothers and sisters. i see from my missed call log on the mobile phone that mom called me last night again. i was sleeping, so i missed the call. we're having an aweful spell of heat and humidity in new york city these past few days...it came as a shock to me, as i left the apartment wearing a sweater, jeans, socks, shirt and real shoes for a change trying to get down to midtown for a meeting with my attorney....it had been in the mid to high 50's for the last week and half, which means, with my bedroom windows open and my kitchen window open, the breeze through the apartment has left the place chilly and very much comfortable for sleeping and bundling up in real clothes again.... that said, i found out the other day that while my apartment has great airflow and maintains a goodly chill, it's not the best predictor of how to dress for outside weather....

it's supposed to be torrential rain here tomorrow. i can hardly wait, that's always my favorite weather to sleep in or do anything else in.

i've been trying to visit my brother p.j. all week, but have yet to make it out of the city....i did manage to speak with him twice on the phone the other day and of course, this is the week he's home and available to hang out with me...go figure that i couldn't get beyond the doctor's office, the lawyer's office and bed bath & beyond to get into port authority so far....i'm supposed to go to new hope in pennsylvania for the weekend. my dear friend brad and i were going to a halloween costume party and pig roast on saturday night. so far, i've managed to not be ready to do anything halloween related, yet alone get my spare hair washed and set or any costumes/beads/bangles/etc. fumigated enough to wear on the weekend. now i don't even have time to bead and feather a pair of wings to wear over my underwear (always a hit with the new hope church ladies).....

i figured out what i'm going to do for a quilt for mom's sister, my aunt patsy...i've decided to create a quilt of "my green garden" for her. i know that green has always been her favorite color, and is mine as well, so i thought squares and patches of verdant, lush, mossy greens and creamy whites would be pleasant, soothing and easy to match with other jewel toned greens for a real impact on a simple quilt design...now to start cutting and stitching...i'm not so much looking forward to this part of the project...picking the colors and deciding what to call it was one thing...easy-peasy since aunt patsy always had a great garden, a green thumb and a thing for all those items in green...but the stitch-witch has left the building when it comes to my personal desire to hand sew and quilt anything ever again...after 3 major quilts, the making another one was really the last thing i wanted to do, but i MUST do it for aunt patsy...she needs it and she deserves it.....

more later.
xo
wadeo

i made some homemade gingerbread men this morning...i set out tea and cookies for you to enjoy as you catch up on reading my blog.....

i hope that milk and honey is ok for your tea, that's how i'm having mine.....

don't worry, i didn't go out and buy those gorgeous lilies just for our visit on here today...they're left over from mom's visit last monday, tuesday and wednesday....wow, they were absolutely the freshest, most gorgeous, un-stank lilies i've ever bought! i was a little worried when i bought them since i only bought four stems of them and not a single bud was opened yet...by the time mom and i returned to my apartment from the port authority bus terminal and a few bead shops in the garment district several had started to burst open.


you should have seen mom's eyes pop out of her head when she saw the first bead shop one - picture cartoon creature with eyes popping out in surprise, add the boing-oing-oing noise and you almost have the right picture of that moment....there are about 14 beadshops around a single city block (seventh avenue, 37th street, 8th avenue and 36th street). by the time we left the bead shops, after being thrown out with bags and bags and bags of beads (and might i add tons and tons of luggage), it was raining, and i of course, once again, could barely stand up, yet alone walk.











it was suddenly pouring buckets on us and it was hot for a combined effect of misery on my part - sorry mom! - we managed to walk around the block - AGAIN - towards the east side subway (the green one - you know, the 4/5/6 line) at grand central station. we only made it as far as bryant park which is the beautifully maintained jewel of midtown's busiest commuter crossroads...directly behind the new york public library, the famous one with the lions, it has a terraced garden that comes down from the back entrance to the library for 4 small flights of ornately carved marble steps and lands in a great lawn, the size of an entire huge city block. the great lawn is surrounded with an italiante garden fence, a leaning fence if you will (you can sit on, or lean on it for hours taking in the beautiful people and the busy streets around the park). the far end has a great fountain that has been repaired and is once again spraying anyone that dares too close. they've put in a restaurant and a bar on the terraces all with huge tables and giant umbrellas. it's great. it's also a wi-fi hot spot sponsored by AMEX so you can sit there with a laptop and be connected, the best part is it's free....they've also got a garden "reading room" which was new to me...it's sponsored by the HSBC banking company. you can give them a piece of i.d., choose a book, newspaper, or magazine and take it anywhere you like to read it (i'd say in the park since you want your i.d. back and why would you want to leave?)

across the park, on the south side which is 41st street, they have installed an antique, hand carved, wooden carousel which if i recall correctly was originally built for children in the city of Paris. it has been totally restored, right down to the calliope pipes that jut from the center of the vaulted roof over the carousel....








by the time we got this far into our visit, it was about 7:30pm monday night. you can see it was dark out. mom isn't a huge fan of the city at night. i can understand her fears, since she's not used to constantly being swarmed by droning children rushing too and from school or soccer or whatever...and when you're rushed by the clackers, (the beautiful women, career girls if you will, all wearing huge stilleto heeled shoes, and tightly fitted business suits) it can feel a bit like an attack of the amazon women....especially as you try to navigate the cityscape with a rollaboard suitcase as they pelt you with umbrellas and laptops in oversized fashionable tote bags, or worse, their own luggage on wheels...sometimes, the crush of tourists and businessmen in is tantamount to swimming upstream against a very strong rushing current, and it feels like you're going to hit rapids any minute...frequently, you do, as most people don't pay attention to who they run over with their luggage....i try to be more conscientious than that myself...but that's me....sometimes, when there's construction on the street, particularly near port authority, along 42nd street, the sidewalk is narrowed due to scaffolds and safety fences...often, they've got concrete jersey barriers up blocking a lane of the street from traffic and redesignated as "sidewalk" while the sidewalk is completely lost behind a wall of boards while they erect yet another concrete and glass monolith as a tribute to man's ego and his need to reach ever higher heavenward, all while maintaining firm footing in the bedrock....these sidewalks are the worst to navigate. in fact, they have given me panic attacks, and that means i am forced to climb the barrier and walk in the on coming traffic lane which is really a menace and a dangerous endeavor....

for those trapped between the scaffolding, the boarded wall and the jersey barrier, it is down to single file foot traffic in each direction. if you're the unfortunate one dragging luggage, it becomes the slapstick re-interpretation of the classic western battle, good versus evil, as you go along your direction with your competitor coming right at you...bags down and guns blazing...it's a shootout to the death....you steady your resolve, take aim and propel 10 paces forward and suddenly, face to face, breath smoking from the humidity and lungs chugging from the effort, heart pounding with uncertainty and hands gripping luggage for dear life, you find only one of you can make it thru alive and with luggage in tact...the loser of this shootout is the one who steps over to let the victor pass...unfortuntately, the loser now has found his or her luggaage flipped over sideways/upside down/on it's back or worse, face first in the grime puddles that riddle such western outposts (west side of manhattan atleast). the victor rushes onward to either port authority and climbs with pride into his bus and gets home clean and on time for dinner, or rushes back to grand central where she can mount her train towards the place where all victors go (no, not heaven, but west chester county, which i'm told is sort of like achieving nirvana.)

we had no such drama, or luck, if you will...with a strong knack for avoiding showdowns at the cross-town-corral, we followed the narrow, winding paths left by the early rising workers of the garment districts' concrete and glass tee-pees towards the interior of grand central station, here, once again, i was forced to complain, an admission really, that i was having such severe pain in my legs and feet that i couldn't stand any longer, yet alone keep walking....we were so close to getting home by now and yet 100 paces to the train were out of my range of motion and we had to sit in the midst of all the hubbab. mom enjoyed sitting and staring up into the bright blue cerulean sky of the vaulted ceilings in the station...there, she tried to identify each of the constellations that were clearly outlined and sparkling in the early evening darkness. i found less consolation in the 10 story high "heavens" since i had the great good fortune to have worked on the renovations that rediscovered and recreated the original ceiling fresco....i sat there trying to stretch out my cramped and screaming feet...the only thought that even remotely passed through my mind was when i asked mom if she remembered that i had worked on this project when i worked with LaSalle Partners (the 3rd largest corporate real estate company in the u.s.a., the merged with jones lang woonton, a london firm, the largest in europe, about 7 or 8 years ago now, and combined they are the largest owner/manager/retailer and renter of property in the world, under the name of Jones Lang LaSalle). hard to believe i worked with them 12 and 13 years ago already! i loved that job. not only did i work on the renovations at grand central station, but i also was on the core team for the top secret disney project (project simba - no longer a secret,) to find a pre-existing historical theater to be bought by the walt disney company, totally renovated to within an inch of it's life while maintaining the historical accuracy of the interior and the public areas...all for their up coming project of The Lion King. the project was amazing to work on - we wound up on 42nd street, buying the crumbling and decaying theater once owned by florence ziegfield - the home of the infamous follies and the lesser known "hanging rooftop gardens," (unless your a theater devotee and perhaps you've seen the movie "ziegfield girl" starring judy garland and a slew of other famous names). the rooftop itself was collapsing and the rooftop of the building had been covered in net to stop animals and birds from coming into it. there was 40 years of water damage to the inside, (it had been converted to a movie theater in the 50's and by the sixties the entire place was vacated and repossessed by the city of new york for tax liens and such), yet disney, true to their pledge, kept the reconstruction absolutely 100% accurate to ziegfield's orginal design and construction a hundred years before. because of the roof's collapse into the theater, they were able to create fly space above the stage (which had been boarded over and we weren't able to access before purchasing - we could only imagine it from design files submitted to the city by ziegfield a hundred years earlier....boy were we in for surprise after surprise after surprise!) due to the machinations of the anticipated musical piece to be performed in this space, disney and co. insisted that they needed a much larger space than any modern theater could offer, yet alone one built to put on a show that had it's technology limited to a man pulling a rope that had pullies attached....even the lightening in the theater was a challenge since when it was built, electricity was not the norm for the theaters of the city and it had gas-lamp fittings visible along the balcony as well as under the stage along what had once been an orchestral seating area. disney prevailed....after the sale of the building we immediately started on demolition which took six months. so careful not to remove a single seat of the balcony without making sure to find the largest and best piece of fabric remaining of the original upholstery, we were able to have it cleaned (and cleaned again, then again, and again) until we had a general idea of the true original colors and fabric design...then we had thousands of yards of matching fabric hand woven over seas to reupholster the 1,800 seats that would line the balcony, the par-terre boxes that lined the walls and the seats that would be hand carved to replace the ones installed 60 years earlier to make it a movie house...the costs were staggering!

the woodwork in the entire building was ornately carved in an early rendition of art decco. ziegfield was ahead of his time on this decor! when we were finally able to remove the boards covering the proscenium arch across the stage, this had become the projection screen, we found an amazing remaining red velvet curtain....in tatters of course, but you could see the quality of the hand stitching and the expense that was put into the silk fringe lining the bottom edge and the sides that would have drawn back diagonally towards the ceiling to reveal the ziegfield girls as they descended from their fantastic underground lair via a detailed cast iron staircase that descended 3 stories under the city sidewalks, and that catwalked 3 stories above street level for the ladies to get onto the stage or up to the rooftop theater for the fabled hanging garden where every night tuesday through saturday, the after theater rush of famous people and theater stars would come post dinner, (wrapped in ermine and pearls, chinchilla and diamonds, fox and emeralds, mink and rubies or any conflux of the finest silks, wools feathers, bows and patent leather,) here 1,000 of ziegfield's closest friends (atleast for the evening) would see a "private" 1AM performance of his most famous and highest paid girls...among them the fabled Fanny Brice (of jingle bells fame...or funny girl...depending on how gay you truly are ;+D ). the 1AM show would also feature an orchestra as well as several guest performances, never pre-determined or announced, instead, they were culled from the celebraties in attendance that evening, and always, the orchestra was so talented and well rehearsed, that they would know the exact music, the right key and be able to accompany someone they'd never played for, but who's song was the big one of the hit parade....i wish i could have been there....even as i stood there and dreamed it into vibrant colors and noisy, smoky applause in my head, i was overwhelmed by a sense that i had missed the place in life i was meant to be....

we had to drill into the proscenium arch to get core samples of paints used in the building by ziegfield. this was a complicated task. the arch is exactly that, an arch...but it was 2 1/2 stories tall. the floor of the stage was partially collapsed into the underlying dressing rooms - these were the dressing rooms of the stars, nearest the stage. we had to erect scaffold the width of the entire interior of the theater so no one would be in danger of falling thru a weak spot in the floor. once the scaffold was in place, much like giving a boneless chicken some bone structure, we were able to climb like the theater monkeys we were becoming, up to the top and secure mesh wire from one end of the theater to the other as well as from side to side. this was time consuming, difficult and very, very expensive, but without it, we were in equal danger from the collapsing roof as the collapsing floor. now we were safe with tons and tons of weight distributed through the entire building, we weren't going anywhere near the basement until we wanted to descend there, and there was no chance of the remaining hanging gardens becoming the famous falling garden that crushed a crew of hundreds....we were happy....but soon, we were to become ecstatic!

six of us climbed to the very peak of the arch, up hundreds of rings of scaffold, to stand on a floating island of wooden planks....it was terrifying since i'm afraid of heights and climbing scaffolding is not high on my list of favorite things to do...heck...monkey bars are scary to me....i still have a hard time believing i ever faced my fears with so much reckless abandon and came thru it not only unscathed, but with some of the most valuable memories a person could ever be lucky enough to own, yet alone to share....this is one of them...and it's priceless....we are all standing in the center of the scaffold on a step ladder to reach the woodwork we're about to drill. the head of my office, who happened to be my boss, since he was the director of TRG (tenant representation group), that was peter, a senior partner that i loved working with (ruth ellman), an associate (frank small), another one (phil liebow), myself and another young consultant. there were several disney folks in the building overseeing and working with the contracting and architectural teams...we had our core sample materials, a drill, packaging and lables as well as a gridded architectural rendering of the arch, set to scale so we could precisely mark where we had drawn each of the 50 or so samples from. you have to remember, the building was now over 100 years old, and in 100 years, there was water damage, there was fire and smoke damage (a normal thing when gas lamps are involved, fires happened on stage all the time since the foot lights alone would have frequently caught curtains, scenery, fly-ropes as well as sandbags used for fly weights (a tie off for the ropes) would catch quickly when even millimeters too close...and this doesn't include the fires started by costumes that were often bursting into flames due to trains and capes of feathers singeing and igniting as someone would rush offstage to change (and be extinguished!) - that's why the stage hand workers still have such a strong union - they used to be very necessary and had a very dangerous role!

that said, peter and ruth each began to drill on opposite sides of the arch. phil and frank were packaging the samples and sending them down the scaffold while i, and my colleague both marked the samples and the graphs with precise coordinates as well as going back to the drilling spot to leave a marker that matched the marker on our charts. this process took us 2 or 3 days. it was back breaking and tedious...then, the most amazing thing happened.....

to the lower left hand corner of the archway, the drill stopped getting anything in the core. it came out with 1/2 inch of dirty, rotten, wood...the exact, but random location of that core drilling was hollow. we didn't know what to make of it. we didn't get what we needed so peter move a few inches to the left and drilled again. the noise was weird coming from his drill....everyone stopped what they were doing because of the noise...it sounded like the drill was twisting into metal, but there should have been no metal there, it was carved wood. again the core came out with 1/2 inch of dirty, rotted wood....we were there for the same reason, but we were asked to mark this spot on our grid so we could go back to it later with a flash light and see if we had hit a beam or structural piece of the room somehow, but it seemed unlikely since we could see the roof where we were at that moment was still balanced above us and looked fairly secure. moving 4 more inches to the left, peter drilled again, expecting the sound of metal or a clean buzzing sound as we got another core. these cores were anywhere from 2 inches to 6 inches deep generally, 1/2 or 1 inch of wood used to cover the arch, and several inches deep of layer after layer of paint, and an occasional bit of the actual carved wood of the arch...it's amazing how many layers of paint there were...and every single one could be clearly seen in side view...so many varying shades of white. then white again. then layer of gray which meant it was fire and smoke damage, a another layer of white, some yellow, more gray and then black which was a fire in the arch itself...someone had pulled the chandeliers too near the arch at somepoint and the radiating heat had resulted in a large area of damage that had been painted over several times to cover it....fascinating.....

finally done with all the required core samples we shipped them out and could move on to doing the same thing in every other area of the theater, the bathrooms, the lobby, the balcony, the side walls and the back hallways....all in hopes of finding the exact begining of the woodwork and the very first color to ever be applied in the theater. when the core samples were chemically separated in a lab and scientifically analyzed for lead content as well as other chemical make up (basically, trying to recreate the recipe used by those hired by mr. ziefield), they were recreated in the lab to see if the resulting color was anywhere near the actual oolor visibly separated from the core....an amazing thing to see and fascinating to experience, but it was like magic when you witnessed how it all comes together....each core sample was plotted, right? so as each color was recreated, there were two copies of the plots given to the labs. the dirty, orginal sample pulled from the core was attached as a sample to the plot chart, which gave a variety of hues, all within the same color scheme...varying due to smoke damage from fire or from patrons smoking in the theater.... then the recreated colors, made from scratch by chemical analysis and recomposed by the labs were applied to a chart in the same way...we found the base color was the right color and would be maintained by disney, albeit, without the lead content...here's where it gets most interesting and memorable though....

we now have analyzed and determined which of the samples was truest to ziegfield's vision for his follies house. we took paint samples in that color up the scaffold ourselves and painted a large square of color over each core sample marker so we could see which color would truly help light up the space. we remembered to take our flashlights back with us somehow....it was probably almost 6 months since we'd put up the scaffolding inside. the theater, very slowly, and still unknown to the passersby outside on 42nd street, was coming together and looking like it could possibly raise from the dead to offer new life to the theatrical masses...it still needed major surgery, not just a face lift but major reconstruction, but the walls and seats were swathed in streaks of color, paint samples, new fabric samples, pieces of wood brought in and fitted to missing molding and waiting to be blended into the walls...we had uncovered murals on the walls, they were being carefully documents and plotted to be recreated...but this one day we found buried treasure!

when the ziegfield theater became the new amsterdam after mr. ziegfield died, it was no longer a show palace and home of burlesque reviews, but instead it was the equivelent of today's broadway theaters. it had been wired for electricty, retro-fitted for the newest in stage lighting and revamped to remove excessive fixtures once required because gas lamps were not as strong as other lightening for the theater. at the same time, the stage area and the arch had been modified, which we were unable to see from the architectural renderings borrowed from the city files. as we stood on top of the now second nature scaffolding and step ladders, we took turns peering into three extra holes drilled for core samples, but yielding nothing but mystery, that is until now....remember, we had heard metal being ground into. it wasn't structural, we were certain, there was not a single support beam to the roof or on the roof that would correspond with our current position in the building. the first hold showed darkness, but deep darkness, close to two feet in depth. the second hole showed the same thing - but this is where we'd heard something odd...we could see nothing but darkness...the third hole showed the same....we were confused. maybe the metal was somehow attached to the arch and we'd scraped it drilling thru? was it attached to the boards that had covered the arch and the stage opening? someone got a piece of rebar that was up on the scaffold. we took this 6 foot long piece of steel meant for reinforcement and pushed it thru the first hole to see how deep this odd opening was. easily 1/3 of the rod was swallowed up the same with the second and the third. this was a uniform opening. peter got a small lead weight from his bag, along with some twine, he pushed it thru the opening and let it go. softly we heard an echoing thud from all three holes. the space behind the wall was hollow and it was deep in bepth as well as height. we had no idea how wide it was other than what we knew, we drilled every 4 inches so it was atleast 8 inches wide probably more than 12 inches wide since looking in with the lights, we'd not seen a wall or structural piece near the hole, the rebar couldn't be angled properly to find where the next solid side wall was on either side....we got the sawsall and ran a 100' extension cord up the scaffold and under the arch. the disney folks were not happy and the contractor was about to have a fit. we needed to see what this was before someone else found out the hard way and got injured...this is our job, we're in charge, it's what we do....the dirty work and the delegation...disney execs were busy climbing the scaffold so they could stop us. peter didn't listen, he was not about to take direction from the cartoon climbers. instead, he put the jigsaw type blade in the first hole and joined it to the second and then the third. then he gently allowed it to follow a fairly straight line down from the third to approximately where the weight had thudded in our non-scientific test. he repeated the same process at the first hole and the carefully and slowly worked across the bottom in a jaggedly straight line. the large chunk of rotting wood was starting to tip out of the hole he'd created and with blue sky shining thru the falling ceilings and all kinds of spotlights and flood lights aimed off the scaffolding down to the workers beneath as well as those of use above, we all gasped as ruth ellman screamed the single most blood curdling scream i've ever heard in this lifetime - behind the wall was a woman's head.

the saw stopped, the hole gaped open as a few guys lifted away the rotted wood and we all crushed in to the viewing area to see why ruth had almost gotten hysterical - we knew her well enough to know she was a tough cookie and not prone to hystrionics. i'll be damned. a head. covered in soot, in rot, in chips of paint and sawdust, but obviously a very beautiful woman when she'd been alive...a ziegfield girl, perhaps a ziegfield lover, immortalized forever in bronze and left to her own lonely devices these last hundred years, sealed into the walls of a theater that should never have spoken again, yet alone given up such sad secrets!

the disney executives, rushing to the sight of the scream, screaming and ranting themselves, were about to fire anyone they could (as if...good luck disney guys, you're powerful, but the theater was owned by lasalle for the privacy and secrecy of your project....no way were you pulling anything on us...you'd have been singing circle of life on the circle line if you hadn't backed off and shut up! contractors were called up to help remove the head from the ravine. as they tried to lift her out they realized she wasn't fully intact....she had been more than a head...and she was lying in a pool of some of her own parts....

this beautiful creature had been a fixture in the theater somewhere, but where...her various loose parts were a puzzle to be recreated on the floor with too many helping hands...then it dawned on us. she had been a gas lamp fixture. the beautiful face would have covered the gas pipe fittings and the loose pieces were branches each containing a gas fueled flame that would have been covered with a brightly colored hand blown glass globe....these were not found in the carnage....but where did she belong? this mystery would plague us for several more weeks....that is until the day the demolition of the reconstructed arch began....

the idea was to remove the overlaying rotted wood that been the movie screen. then we would visually and physically inspect the underlying original arch. professionals were to be called in to assess it's structural integrity and to find how much would need rebuilding/replacing/rethinking. three boards into the removal (remember, this is 2 1/2 stories above ground and boards were floor to ceiling as well as wall to wall - that's a lot of boards to pull out especially when you have to fear falling forward and thru to the floor on the opposite side, since we'd yet to explore that side or set up scaffolding . the only thing in place on the other side was the netting on the external rooftop to prevent the animals and other debris being added to the interior disaster area already in place.

three boards into this labor of love, we had our first clue to where the beautiful head went...there was an arched recess in the archway itself...in this recess however, we found a body....a bronze body....life size, a woman's body in a diaphanous gown. no arms or hands though. we found them later. as the boards continue to be jettisoned into a dumpster below the scaffold, more recesses were uncovered, it wasn't a fluke. the stage had been lit completely from above as well as below, with open flames. that explained why we had found so much fire damage in the paint cores along the top of the arch, so close to where the ceiling should have been. they must have used these lights for the theater before the performance began so the audience could read the playbill and people watch in the boxes....when the show was set to start, a gas line must have been turned off from some central area, dimming the entire theater and allowing the gas lines that lit the stage to be brought up. if you know how gas lines work, you can't run lights on one line in one part of a building at the same time as those on the same line in a different part of the building. if you do, the lights will drop drastically in one area as the gas is diverted to the second area and neither will have very good lighting as both are residually splitting the available gas which causes the lights to flare and drop, or worse, occasionally extinguish, and then create a fire as the gas pours out of the dead light then suddenly explodes above another lighted flame, catching anything light and flammable nearby to burn (an a-ha moment for me - it explained all the smoke and fire damages we'd encountered and couldn't put a solid reasoning to).

over the course of several weeks, we recovered the bodies of four such woman. each, decapitated and with arms and hands missing. often times, when we found another of the female heads, we would find branches for gas lamps but no glass work to accompany them. then one day, we found the mother load. the arch was nearly fully exposed and we were working near the bottom of the scaffolding. on either side of the arch, there were recessed areas for the gaslamps yet again, if i recall, we found 12 or 18 of them between stage left and stage right, each 2 feet deep, 2 feet tall and just under 2 feet wide. near the base of the arch was suddenly discovered another random treasure trove of body parts, it was a mass grave, a jumble of tumbled arms and severed hands. fingers missing, forarms cracked in half or smashed flat. they had been lovingly maintained for years of the theater being a jewel in new york's crown and one day, these lovely doyenne's of a by gone era had become obsolete and out of style...their art deco clothing and antiquated hair styles and poses, once mitigated by the follies themselves, had become relics of what had been and not at all the forward thinking ladies who were now asserting themselves and changing the rules of history in america.

in total we found 4 full statuesque bronze woman, and when we laid the parts out prior to sending them off to a foundry (a spa if you will, for the bronze woman in each of us!) we discovered that indeed, there would have never been more than 4 of these woman...the branches that held their glass globes of fire were each representative of a season in nature...so that was it, buried treasures from nature as envisioned by flo ziegfield. but what of the two extra heads found? well, i'll tell you...once the arch had been optimally uncovered and the theater beautifully and historically recreated to within an inch of most of our lives, these heads were the lightening fixtures that once had lined the upper balconies of the theater, surrounded by painted and carved, gold gilt and leaf, these heads had shown down on the wealthy people with all the radiance of the noon-time sun.

as for the 4 women, they were located in the main entry, as soon as you had handed your ticket in and crossed the foyer threshold into the main lobby area, you were walking into a semicircular carpeted cocktail bar that then descended gently into a plush theater and the best seats in the house. these for beauties had held dominion over those who entered and those who left, bidding each patron a good evening a glorious welcome to the most spectacular even to grace the stage. the bronze foundry was employed to recreate the missing fingers, correct the broken arms and smashed arms...since there were 4 nearly complete pieces it was much easier to recreate them since we had pieces to be copied from. the bronze ladies alone were nearly $5 million to excavate, repair, rewire with electric lighting and the capping glory - they were each fitted with custom made tiffany and company stained glass globes....we were never able to document if that was correct or not, but it certainly fit the grandeur and the feel of the theater. in the end, we had a second set of these ladies cast for the theater - bronze understudies if you will...they would have also lit the 3rd floor rooftop area where the patrons enjoyed the hanging gardens...unfortunately, disney and co spent several hundred million dollars to fix, refinish and repair the theater, that is prior to the expense of actually installing a show there and making it ready to run as a theater again, so they put recreating the rooftop garden theater on hold. that was 13 years ago. the rooftop is till off limits. the lion king is no longer the king of his once proud domain in the new amsterdam theater (i believe he's living over at the broadway now that beauty and the beast finally closed, phew!) one day, i hope they do finish the rooftop and open it to the public again, but for now, all i know, secret project "super-cali-frag-il-ist-ic-ex-pe-al-i-dotious may all ready be underway with them (can you tell from that clue that mary poppins is currently the disney tenant at said theater?).

i hope you enjoyed my most exciting and priceless memory from a job i loved. it's now taken two hours to type it up and i'm sorry that i can't share the pictures of it, but when i left my job, they were property of the firm....if you have the chance, go see a show at the theater, and witness first hand a piece of my personal history. yes the tickets are too expensive now, but the opportunity to walk on ground once tread by untold celebrities and to sit in the very seats of the infamous ziegfield, you will almost certainly hear strains of rehearsal piano if you sit with eyes closed and listen intently for a minute....and it's true, you might even have the exhilerating scare of seeing your own ghostly follies girl...they're in their, and not every beautiful girl is in bronze.

today was the quintessential mid-october day in new york....

the rain ended late last night, the sun burned brilliantly in a gorgeous cerulean blue sky only interrupted by the thick clouds that were blowing across the city and out to sea a hundred miles from here....

had a great visit with mom here for a few days....

and of course, as soon as i got her to port authority, it was time to quickly push her into the bus and toss up her luggage so she could get home earlier in this wet weather....then i went to mail her letters in the post office on the main level at port authority, only to find that not only had mom not handed off her postal needs to me, but i left my umbrella in her suitcase by accident....i had to then walk 19 blocks to the hospital for a scheduled doctor's visit, in the rain and mist....of course, about 10 blocks into it, the sun and heat came out to blast me with humidity...and me, dressed in heavy denim and long sleeves that wouldn't role up....i was really miserable....

so i got to the doctor's, the nurse did the vitals, told me i was a lard ass. the doctor saw me. gave me a tb (ppd) test since it's been a while and i always love to take a random test that i'm fairly sure i can pass....they took 9 vials of blood....it was very slimming....and then i got my flu shot and basically skipped all the way home from the hospital since i was in an excellent mood from mom's visit and seeing medical specialists who really treat me like a human being and listen to what i say and ask my thoughts on what they say....most excellent!

that changed in a little while though...shortly after i got home, i started having palpitations and got shaky and now i'm feverish....the flu shot....drat....the problem i have with eating eggs - i don't eat eggs...they asked if i was allergic to eggs and of course i said no, but oops, maybe i am after all....so much for not getting the flu...i think i'm having it now....which really stinks since they are fumigating my apartment this morning and i can't be here all day...where am i going to go and pass out until 5pm? the library or the museum? it's raining out, so i can't passout in the park like i would have....this isn't going to be a fun day. at all. atleast with any luck, the pest problem will be nipped and tucked away....better be after all the money it's been costing....and the medical issues....i had to get a note from my doctor so the landlord would pay the $900 fumigation fee....i am going to report them to the nyc department of health...they're instigating a very serious health risk to not only me, but anyone else in the building....like i said to the landlord after he pissed me off one time too many with his rhetoric and runaround: hey, i don't have a garden, so i don't need your load of crap today. when he questioned that, i responded with another classic, you know, my cow is dead, so i don't need your bull.

and that's my life today...in a nutshell (for bob) and a nuthouse (for reality).....more later, including mom's pics from the visit....maybe even some haircare chat about her new color and the double process and highlights we gave her....stay tuned.....

destination television....it's primetime and the destination is my couch.....

so many shows!!! thank the powers that be (read that time warner manhattan cable!) for the magic of tivo and my new dvr....yes, i had digital cable and dvr before, but the cable never worked because one of the neighbors managed to hijack my rooftop connection and disconnect me....i did prove it to the cable company when i climbed to the roof with them though....i didn't pay for the 6 months they'd billed me since i had cable for a sum total of maybe 9 days....

bygones! now that's in the past and my cable is perfect...and so is the new viewing season...finally reason to sit home and grow progressively larger in the butt area....tradeoffs....but that's another blog and not my own.

i am getting up to speed on old and new series alike....some i've never managed to see in the past and some are just too worthwhile not to remind you to catch them if you can....so, here's goes....

• Dancing with the Stars - granted it's been on for 4 prior seasons, but it's all new again....same professional dancers, but they're worth drooling over, male and female, regardless of the public inability to make an informed voting decision....hello? you got rid of the sports illustrated cover model (granted, she can't dance), and the hot young male model....sure, he danced like a stripper they said, but he gave everyone hope that maybe one day he would....or maybe at least suffer a wardrobe malfunction like the one that happened the first season to kelly monaco (the winner, a soap actress) - her dress exploded during the final routine and her top flew off....she managed to finsh the dance with one arm over the boobage and the other in proper latin finger formation (jazz hands, YEAH!) see, you can't not watch tv like this....it's a trainwreck waiting to happen... and everyone loves a good trainwreck....that said, wayne newton is still there....so there's bound to be a collision or a derailment in the near future...my vote goes to jenny garth from 90210....she's still beautiful, she's shy, approachable and oh so normal while having a bit of sizzle. of course there's some hot fast competition coming up fast behind in my book like the race car driver and the cheeto cheese puff girl.....watch it! monday at 8pm eastern on ABC - check your local listings or catch full episodes on ABC.com

• Ugly Betty -- easily the best show to hit television since the year 2000 when reality shows began dominating the airwaves. finally something witty, clever, tart, bitchy, sarcastic, dark, evil, fun and fashionable not to mention fashion challenged! living in nyc, i love the pure mock-umentary feel of it....it's the devil wears prada brought to the jcpenny crowd! i'm going to save up and buy season 1 on dvd when it's out...i only saw the last episode of the first season and it made me laugh so hard i cried, that was before gunshots rang out and i really bawled my eyes out...enough said. TUNE in! ABC Thursdays 8pm eastern

• Cane -- an epic of biblical proportions that both misses the mark and was slower than a plague of locusts. An all star cast from Rita Moreno and Jimmy Smits to some hot young soap folks and the only other hispanic actor ever to work Hector Elizondo....what a waste. Cane centers around the sugar cane farms of southern florida and a family with a rum based empire...i should have known by that alone....i hate rum....and rum and coke is a waste of coke...which i also dislike....overall, i feel the best way avoid this would be a quick slash and burn....either cut the show from the schedule or burn the fields and stop the family from having any more of their slow and unmoving traumas. No idea of the date or time or network - i deleted it from dvr after 1 episode.

• big bang theory -- funny, funny, funny....not sexy....per se....but smart....a level of smart that a lot of people won't stay tuned for....i don't know if they'll get an audience that they might if it were more low-brow....but if you watch more than an espisode, the characters of sheldon and leonard are well written, geniuses with petty quirks and primal urges....one of the funniest lines the first episode was one of the guys ruminating on the hot new female neighbor (penny,)..."our babies will be smart and beautiful". to which his counterpart responded "not to mention, imaginary". now come on....how can you not want to root for these poor clueless bastards?! they have a trio of uber-geek friends that will make you laugh just at the meet-cute of the episode....watch for doctor spock, the stereo-typical indian genius and another random geek....if you don't laugh out loud, i'll have to laugh even louder alone! Monday nights, check local listings.

• ghost whisperer -- great show, even though i can't stand j-love hewett. why do they allow her to keep dressing herself? sure, she's got major boobage, but come on, she dresses like she's always on her way to a luau or somewhere else you'd where a butt-ugly mumu to...and yes, she dresses like that when not on tv too. she has a hot hubby. she sees dead people. she freaks people out and often will leave you emotionally drained by the end of an episode if you're at all human....the foibles of the dead are as trying as those of the undead....and in some cases, they're far worse....Fridays 8pm CBS

• dog whisperer -- this guy's an idiot. he's named after a gourmet dog food (cesars) and not a dead dog or ghost to speak of. everything you can learn from this dud, not dude, dud, you can learn by putting your dog on a leash and taking it for a walk....now if your dog sees dead people, melinda, the ghost whisperer has previously dealt with that on her show, so watch her for a fix of someone whispering.....skip it.

• dirty sexy money -- subtle, smart, funny, didn't suck me right in, but it got me....not quite SOAP from the 70's, and not the Dynasty of the 80's but definitely heading towards the Melrose Place of the 90's kind of fun and debauchery...without all the hotties sleeping together since here, they're all siblings....this is the first time i've run into a real live tranny pretending to act....oh Candis Cayne...i knew you when....you know...before you're little snippety do-dah-day....heck, i think i helped pay for your female nose...wasn't that a party at the palladium in the early 90's before they tore down the discos? i'll ask fletcher, i'm sure i was there with him....but come on candy....when you were drag queen, you couldn't act, sing, or dance, but you were funny....now that you've become the bionic super bitch, you're not even funny....stop taking yourself so damn seriously, you've got more plastic parts than my ikea entertainment center and way less longevity....Wednesdays ABC 10PM

• the Bionic Woman -- not Candis, but still creepy and totally rebuilt....and actually, equally hard to know if it's live or mammarex....i expected this show to go in one of two directions, hoping it would go towards the original version, you know a camp classic with unbearable dialog and fun battles....nope....went creepy and sci-fi....with indiscernible dialog and violent fight scenes. i canceled this from my dvr immediately after 1 episode. i'm sure it will last though....sci-fi fans are a freaky bunch who are certain to embrace this next embodiment of non-entertainment just because they're hoping one day to find that bionics and such will allow for personality transplants, or atleast implants. Skip it on NBC.

• Private Practice -- enough with the freakin' medical bullshit....if i see one more suture, or another head wound or another naked doctor....have you been in a hospital anytime recently? well, i have, and believe you me, there is no doctor, steamy, dreamy, hottie, tottie, stuffy, muffy, buffy, or even cutie that i've encountered and nyc has the best of all possible residents...you know they picked the hottest ones available, since that's what HR folks do...off the record....the false representation of hot doctors is misleading and will only serve to increase waiting times in e.r. waiting rooms in the long run....besides, if it's private, keep it off the tv. and if you still need practice, stay home and call us when you've got it down to a science. by then, maybe you're going realize there's more on tv than reality programs and medical dramas....
  

by the way, did i mention i live in big sky city.....

when i was in wyoming, i was amazed by the constant exposure to sun, sky, and of course the dirt....turns out, when i got home, i started paying more attention (i can afford to pay that!) to my surroundings and turns out that not only do i have a lot of sky, and too much sun, but whoa baby! the dirt is unbelievable!

i had to post this for mona so she would know that i was getting my daily recommended allowance of big sky.

oh, and mom, just because i enjoy knowing there's a big sky here as well as there....i'm not moving out of nyc....atleast not for now....but i've learned, never say never....i think the devil must have invented the word never...it's deceptive, definitive and finite. it is known to cause untold trouble for those who unwittingly employ it and later have to find a way to back up their claims of "never".

the famous "il mercato" created by fiorello laguardia under the elevated train tracks along park avenue.....

the trains, amtrak and metro north, still run on this elevated train trestle....right near my house almost....you can hear their whistles in the dark and it is haunting....hell, the first time was like 3am and it was really scary...woke me up and i didn't know if i'd really heard it or not.....

underneath, an entire city block, salvaged 50 years ago by fiorello laguardia (then mayor of nyc, later the subject of the fabled musical, "fiorello") and made into a neighborhood green-market....now it's an indoor market with an entire city block of empty space outside that's fenced in and has great potential...i think it's the holiday market for christmas shopping, trees, etc....it's very close to the harlem terminal of this train at 125th....which is a very large terminal and ticket office...i guess a lot of folks come into the city by train and exit here so they can get to the airports more easily by bus....either way, it's a great place to shop (butcher, fish monger, flower market, veggies....plants....etc) and an even better place to walk by when you just want to peruse.....

bill clinton has cast a dark shadow over a lot of lives......

the federal office building on 125th street is directly in front of this entire row of gorgeous and nicely maintained brownstones...they run the entire city block on 126th street with the federal building taking up about 2/3 of the lot across from them....i had to take this photo, actually, i had to go home for my camera and come back another day to capture this because i found it so ironic.....bill clinton has his office on the top floor of the federal building and i think he's a jackass....a liar and an adulterer...not to mention the cause of the current cataclysmic events that decimate our lives and kill innocent children because they want to make more of themselves than their families (in this neighborhood esepecially!) have been able to provide....clinton being here is a "boon" to the 'hood....in reality, it's next to mcdonalds and kfc, so he's white trash, i mean right at home here....but his presence casts and appalling shadow over all the lives he comes in contact with....notice how the middle of the block suddenly is dark....that's all him....the building are all the same shade of brownstone....i hate war...and i hate politics....but i really hate that the blame for what happens today is placed squarely on the shoulders of those who inherited it from the ones who wreaked havoc under the surface and left a legacy of war and pain for the next generation. thanks bill....and that hillary.....what a politician. i'm glad they spent their leftover money to buy new york state residency so she can be president....at least i know i'll never run into them here....that's one name dropping run in i can live without.

the upper end of fifth avenue, looking from harlem to the empire state building....

yep, dead center, that short, squat spired building is actually the grand daddy of the world's tallest buildings!

see if you can count how many stories are visible...if i'm not mistaken, it's 110 stories to the top of the building when you are there....i know if you stand on the sidewalk under it and look straight up, a) you will fall down, dizzy, to the ground and b) you will see the building actually swaying in the breeze...yes, that is true.....and yes.... it will keep me from working in that building again if i could help it.

this is from the base of mount morris, the highest point on fifth avenue....there's a tree or is that building blocking half of the building i know, but still, you can only see 1/2 of the building at best....that's 70 blocks from where this was snapped....completely walkable....and a few blocks down from here (on the right), is the northern edge of my lawn (central park). thank goodness i don't have to mow it!

a rose by any other name smells just as sweet.....

but in this secret garden in harlem, the fence kept me from smelling just how sweet it was....this rose garden was wall to wall PERFECT buds. every bush a different color and impeccably maintained.

it is the rose garden that is owned by the parish of the oldest established church in harlem - the elmendorf (methodist or unitarian or lutherern?) church....the same building, with some alterations and additions (which obviously were done more recently when money and taste were hard to come by) has been open and fully functional since 1668. that's pretty amazing. that's 300 years older than me....i think i'll go stand next to that church more often....it makes me look young....and slim!

this is the view to the east from the top of mount morris - that's the tri-borough bridge....

i love this view...you can't see how pretty the bridge really is in this shot, but you can see how big it is and how close it it....

the base of this bridge is on 125th street, the dividing line on my side of harlem between america/nyc and the bronx.
as i found out last weekend, quite by accident, if you don't exit the m60 bus on 125th street at second avenue, then it immediately goes across this bridge....to wards island/randall's island/queens....you want to see someone cry on a public bus? you should have been there...i'd been having a bad couple of weeks and finally had a good day. dragged myself to the grocery store and couldn't drag myself home so decided to take the bus....it's only a few blocks from my place and thought i could get off on first avenue...i was distracted by a witty and highly entertaining text message from my friend tom, and voila! i was well on my way to laguardia airport....

on the plus side, i have to admit, i stayed on the bus for the entire ride (i was loathe to exit, cross the 8 or 10 lanes of crazy traffic in every direction to find a bus stop to get back)...i knew if i wen to the end of the line, it would repeat the loop or atleast leave me at a terminal with easy access to a ride back...turns out, from my apartment, i can walk the 6 blocks to 125th street and pay $2, hop on the m60 and get to the airport. what a deal. it's a $45 value or more, in rush hour....now if only i were flying somewhere and needed to go to the airport on purpose.

the surprise ampitheater at the top of mount morris....

the day i discovered this spot, they were having the annual Harlem competitive dance-off (ballet, jazz, flamenco, tap and hip-hop) up here....i have no idea how they had the stage brought up all those steps since there is no road...then again, how did they quarry all the stone up to here? this is probably about 4 acres in size to give you a proper perspective...it's a giant circle, all large bedrock stones, cut and laid in patters. off to one side - your left, is the top of the mountain, currently fenced off, and my photo was bad, sorry. this was (in the 1700's) used as a lookout and was a fortification since it looked down all the way to wall street (now there are a few trees that are too tall to see, but from the bell tower, you sure can see the world!) you can see the bronx and yankee stadium from up here too. granted, it's only about 100 blocks away, but still....the bronx is like a different country....and you thought i needed my passport when i moved to harlem! turns out i do, but they don't stamp it....they just want to make sure you've got your shots.....

the steps from the park to the top of the mount....

sorry, there is no way that i can figure out to capture this stroll and accurately give you a good depth perception...suffice to say, i made mom go back with me the last time she visited and we climbed it together, granted, i couldn't walk last time she was here, since i had been sick and constantly in the hospital for a few weeks prior, but my lame condition not withstanding (or standing sometimes!), even mom admitted it was a lot of work climbing it and we both felt we needed a nap by the time we reached the bottom again about an hour later....