Activity

So my life has come down to essentially this: Since I returned from all my travels last June I've devoted my time to 1. rent my apartment and 2. learn the dueling piano canon. It took me all of 6 months but by Jan my apartment was finally rented. If any of you have seen or know my apartment, you know that it's a bit of an extravagant space and since I was renting it furnished replete with all the fussy decorations, etc I was extremely picky about whom I chose as my tenant. Another reason it took so long was because I chose to test the market, to see how much I could get for it. I originally overpriced the rent and then slowly brought the price down to reality. A good lesson. Finally, the main bedding area is up in a sleeping loft that is accessed by a ladder, which limits the upper age range of interested tenants. Anyway, as far as I can tell, the right person IS in there, and he seems to be treating the space with dignity, as I had hoped, and hasn't fallen out of the sleeping loft head first. So with the positive cash flow that generated, I rented a more humble space and have been living with piano and with my best friend, spending much of my time working on music. Well now I feel as though I'm spinning my wheels. I haven't actually worked a steady gig since December, and I'm feeling slothful [is that a word??]. So in spite of my practice, I felt that it was time to put some feelers out for employment. The interest was immediate. While I have received no offers yet, several possibilities have been presented to me, including Europe, the Caribbean, Southern California, and the most solid possibility so far,....wait for it....wait for it.... waaaaaiiiit...... Detroit!!! About 20 minutes after I got that phone call I saw a piece on CNN about how the Detroit mayor is being criminally prosecuted for perjury and, apparently as a result of this (alleged) perjury, has cost the tax payers of this "already cash-strapped city" like 9 million dollars, or some such nonsense. So I switched channels to CNBC, to learn only 5 minutes later that GM is closing yet another auto plant in Detroit which will cause more layoffs, penury and general misery in the Detroit area. Oh happy day! I'm packing my bags right now!

Oh, PS...am I the only one that consistently misspells "Caribbean"?

Six hours!

Last night after the roommate left for the evening I decided to organize my photos on the computer. (Just this past weekend I spent way too much time organizing the naughty pictures, only to remove them completely from the computer. I think i enjoy the idea of acquiring them much more than would be proportional for the amount of times I actually...um..."use them.")

So there I am last night, for six hours, going through all the pictures from my life for the past few years, everything from the beaches of Boracay, the parks of Siagon, the rice paddys of Luzon, the Ferris Wheel at Coney Island, Friends, Family, to dead mother's defective tomb stone, dueling piano bars, Zen retreats, and past and current lovers (um...only one current one). It is an interesting way to spend a night. It's good "alone time," at times sad, at times happy. It makes you keenly aware of the impermanence of life. That's a good thing.

After I finished, I began reading an autobiographical book about a Dutch guy who decides to travel to Japan and knock on the door of some random Zen Buddhist monastery and asked to be admitted to live, and to study and practice Zen for 3 years alongside the monks. He says in the beginning that he was searching for "...indifference of a higher order." I think that's a great descriptor of Zen. I'm 1/3 of the way through the book now and it's a really fascinating tale so far. It's not designed to be a religious text or even a call to conversion. It's just a story; an account. I like that. It's called The Empty Mirror by Van de Wetering.


So here's your moment of Zen. This is a picture I took on the Philippine island of Boracay last May. It is an advertisement in the window of a doctor's office. The text states:

Circumcision Package.
Including:
- Medication,
- Supplies.
-P1,000/head.
-P900/head for group of 2-5
-P800/head for group of more than 6

At the time, the conversion was about 40 Philippine Pesos (p40) to the Dollar. So if you want to purchase one circumcision, the cost is about $25 USD. If you have a group of six to circumcise, well then you save 20%! It's only $120 for the entire group (of heads, apparently).

Cool friends

So it's 6:30pm Easter and I just returned from a friend's Easter party. He's always doing something, and he'd definately one of the ultra cool set here in NYC. So I rearranged my schedule to go to his "Easter Brunch." He lives in one of the sweetest spaces I've seen here in Manhattan, with cathedral ceilings and lots of open space in a 5 story townhouse in the east 60's. I normally don't like to drink while it's still daylight, but I made an exception and began drinking Bellini's, which are a mixture of champagne and peach, at 2pm. Some people I knew and some I didn't. He has some pretty fancy friends, and there was more than one tucked chin and lifted brow in the set. As it was Easter, he had Easter eggs "hidden" in plain sight, wrapped in cool easter paisley fabrics which we were supposed to "find" and open. Inside the wrappings were easter eggs and some of them had notes, such as "kiss the chef", or "lunch with the host" or "stay and help clean after the party", while others had money in the wrappers alongside the eggs. What a cool idea for an adult easter party. And New York holiday parties are pretty cool in general because you never know who will meet. Many New Yorkers are far from their families, so in such settings it's almost as though you have an adopted family for the few hours you are together. I spent a while chatting with a woman who runs a hedge fund and is an expert in Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs), which I have a passing interest in. I got to catch up with some friends and the host and I got into a showdown where we tried to out do each other with (of all things) Sophie Tucker jokes. Then I found $100 bill in my Easter egg wrapping!!!....and then we all got to hunt for a second one. Another $20!!! Yay! It was the first party I have been where I wasn't entertaining, and yet still got paid! Now I'm back home, shaking off the Bellini's and thinking about writing a thank you note to my host and heading downstairs to the gym.

Sophie Tucker: I was in bed with my boyfriend Ernie and he said to me, "Soph" (he always calls me Soph), he said to me "Soph, you have no tits and a tight box." I said to him, "Ernie, Get Off My Back!"

Tortoise love and TV theme songs

OK, this is just strange. I was lying awake, not able to sleep at 3 in the morning, so I turned on National Geographic where there were having a special on the Galapagos Islands. Cool, right? Well they showed two tortoises mating. And apparently the females are smaller than the males. So here is this huge tortoise mounting a little turtle half it's size and going at it like a Craigslist personal ad gone very very wrong. And amid all the knocking of shells, they were grunting too!! Loudly! Like pigs, I guess. It was a clumsy, noisy, awkward affair that was more than a little bit disturbing.

I finally went to sleep and dreamt that I was playing a dueling piano gig out in some Midwestern state, and there's hundreds of people waiting for me to play, but I didn't have my music so there I sat there as useless as teats on a bull. So the other pianist asked if I knew TV theme songs--which I have always resisted learning--12 years playing piano bar and no Gilligan's Island! So I had to tell him no, and continue being useless. It was kind of like when I was in 7th grade and would dream that I was on the school bus, and suddenly realized that I must have forgotten to put on any clothes before I left home, but no one had noticed quite yet, and I was frantically wondering what the hell I would do when we arrived at school and I would have to stand up and get off the bus. So today (after I woke up from my pianistic nightmare) I promptly did my research and discovered that apparently there is a very specific TV theme medley that the duelers play. It goes: Brady Bunch, Gilligan's Island, All in the Family, The Jeffersons and Cheers...in that order. (I didn't get that memo). So the next time you see me perform, you can hear me imitate Edith Bunker in all her melodious glory singing "Those were the daaaaaaa-a-aaa-ays!!"

The newest incarnation of the Townhouse Restaurant

Having worked in the restaurant/bar business for about 12 years now, it always fascinates me as to what makes a restaurant or bar "work" and what doesn't. Oh, I understand the basics: service, pours, pricing, quality of food, ambiance, location, management...but we've all seen places that seem to do everything right and they can't seem to get off the ground, and then there are places that seem to make every mistake in the book, and they do great. Well, the owners of a place called the Townhouse Restaurant closed their restaurant a couple years ago, presumably because they weren't making any money. Then they partnered with someone who came in and made it a nice casual Italian restaurant. They spent much time and money completely redoing the place into what was a very comfortable, fairly priced bistro with decent food. It completely flopped. In fact it did a heck of a lot LESS business than the Townhouse Restaurant that they closed in order to open the new place. So finally after many long and completely uneventful months, I guess they took their losses and got out.

In came Donatella Arpaia and chef Michael Psilakis, who completely redid the space (again) with an absolutely outstanding design, created a casual Italian menu and it has only been open only a couple of weeks under the name Mia Dona and it seem to be an immediate and smashing success. I've been their twice now and these people know how to do it right. The menu is unique and clearly designed by a master chef, the interior design is truly inspired, and the service is superb. The food quality has been wildly mixed. The Polpettone florentine meatloaf, made to order with a poached egg expertly cooked inside the loaf was a masterpiece, and so was the Spinach, béchamel & pecorino side dish. Creamy and interesting, it could have been a very satisfying meal in and of itself. The grilled octopus starter was very meaty and tender (yay!) but way too salty (boo!). The exact same can be said for the Roasted Pork Chop (meaty, tender and too salty). The pickled vinegar french fries were tasty but too bold and vinegary which overpowered whatever it was paired with, except perhaps the octopus and the pork chop. The Braised Beef Ribs with smoked mozzarella polenta, cipollini and tomato was very tasty. In spite of the issues I have with some of the flavors, the place is too interesting not to go back. It's a great study in how to do a successful restaurant in NYC.