The Magic Kingdom

OK, the tax prep work is pretty much done. Just got to gather everything together and put it in the envelope for the accountant. This year I kept really good records, so it took me a several hours going through all my expenses to get everything itemize, but I did, and it's done. The last two years I was very late in filing and I paid penalties, etc, and I refuse to do that again.

I still haven't gotten the video from my show in VA, but it is looking more and more hopeful. My dueling partner is in VA this weekend and he is supposed to hook up with the video guy and retrieve the files. I'm hoping that all will go smooth. I had actually thought that I would be able to use data recovery software to undelete the files he deleted originally, but after many many hours, it was ultimately fruitless, so if my partner can't get these files, then I won't have video.

I'm going to backtrack here. After my show in VA Saturday night, I got an early start and to Orlando with my friend in the car with me. I didn't know I had it in me to drive that long, but it was surprisingly easy. I only stopped twice for 20 min and once for 5 min and made the entire drive in almost exactly 12 hours. We spent the next three days in Disney. I was there twice as a kid, but it's been a long time ago. Many times I had moments of deja vu; once standing in the line for Space Mountain, I remembered standing in that same hallway, and it was a really spooky feeling. It was fun to show my friend around the Magic Kingdom, as I remembered the good rides and made sure we went on all of them, including: Space Mountain, Peter Pan's Flying Adventure, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Haunted Mansion, The Jungle Cruise. It was definitely different seeing them as an adult.

My favorite part of the entire trip was the fireworks over Cinderella's Castle at 9:30pm. It was (God, I'm going to say it...) magical! It was quintessential Disney. And Tinkerbell came flying out from one of the turrets, perfectly lit. (that's so gay, i know!) It reminded me of the show I watched as a kid, Wonderful World of Disney that was on every Sunday night at 7pm. At the very end it would show fireworks above the castle and Tinkerbell would fly out. It was the same thing.

As we were waiting in line for the Snow White ride, a little 9 year old girl sees all the people exiting the ride and says, "Mommie, everyone looks so happy. Why is it called Snow White's Scary Adventure?"

The name of the Wedway People Mover got changed to the Disney Transit Authority. Boo!

In Disney World I felt out of place without a stroller, wheelchair, electric cart or other wheeled ambulatory assistance device.

And speaking of baby carriages, I have authored Eddie's 2009 Recession Axiom #37 which states: "The amount of money you have lost in the stock market this past year is directly proportional to the number of cup holders built into the handle of your child's baby stroller." Think about it.

We spent one day in the Magic Kingdom (Magical!), one day in Epcot (wish we had two) and one day in the Animal Kingdom (fun), and then began driving back the last night when we finally stopped for the night in South Carolina. The next day we were on the road for 11 hours including an hour dinner break during rush hour in D.C. Finally back to Philly were I returned the car and we trained back up to NYC the next morning.

Virginia Dueling Pianos

A blog is like a pet. You must feed it regularly or it dies. If you stop writing for a long time, regular readers forget to tune in. So, my apologies to my regulars (about 5-8 readers per day, my counter program tells me). I have been traveling for work and then a quick vacation down to Florida before driving back up to NY. Some highlights:

I arrived at my gig in VA to find to my great surprise that my Aunt had drove down all the way from Philly to see my show. My cousin, (my aunt's daughter), was also there with her new beau. Also going on that night, I had hired a videographer to tape the show. I had my hands full, but it was a good night and I did a good show, working with a partner I had never met before. I was a bit intimidated by my partner as he had been a studio musician for many years, and has been dueling since the late 80's. But, even though he was more musically accurate (by far) than me, I have come to realize over the past 6 months that my energy, my voice and my likability on stage is just as good, and many times, better than duelers with much more experience than my paltry one year in this gig. It also makes me a great partner. I say all of this with great modesty, as I am fully aware of how much I have to learn from these veterans and how much I have to practice to compensate for my lack of experience.

I was happy to get the show video'd as it was a good one, but the camera man had a bit of a hissy fit the following day and deleted our files from the removable hard drives that we had provided him after he had spent all morning loading these hidef files onto them. Big, long drama that, as of yet does not have a good ending. I'm still trying to retrieve those files, so we'll see how that goes.

My friend and I headed out on the road the morning after my gigs were over, and I drove for 12 consecutive hours until we reached Orlando at 10pm and after a well deserved steak dinner that I had been craving for about 200 miles, we checked in to our hotel and crashed.

More later. Time to do taxes!

Disparity

Cost of renting an intermediate sized car for 7 days from Enterprise with all taxes and fees and other such rapery:

New York City (Manhattan): $611.70
New York City (Astoria, Queens): $357.40
Jersey City, NJ: $258.62
Bucks County, PA: $194.98

These prices were gotten directly from Enterprise's website today.

Reverend Ike, 2:45 every Sunday

I walk by this grand old theater in my neighborhood called The United Palace Theater", several days each week, and on the marquee it says, "Reverend Ike, Sundays at 2:45." I've always wanted to check it out, and finally today, at around 3:20 I found myself walking by and saw no reason not to enter. It was a really beautiful old theater that is still being used for concerts and the like, but since 1969, it has been owned by Rev. Ike's ministry, Christ United Church and every Sunday, the Rev. Ike holds service here.

My first thought was that there were so few people in the audience, and so many people up on stage. I actually counted 60 audience members and 17 people on stage. As I entered, a singer was belting out old gospel music, and everyone on stage and off were standing, clapping and singing along, the choir swaying back and forth. She was accompanied by an organ on stage and a drum set. After she was done, a woman came on the stage (from stage right) and introduces today's preacher, who was not the Rev. Ike after all. Apparently the Rev Ike was taking the day off for some reason. Perhaps that was the reason that the place was empty.

The preacher spoke about the Lord putting trials and tribulations into your life for a reason. He quoted Exodus a lot. Almost every single sentence he would interject the word "Hallelujah" or "Amen" or "Praise God" either in the middle or at the end of the sentence, so often that it was almost like a tic, or better, like some ecclesiastical version of Turret's. The choir was on stage, and they were all saying things like, "Alright" or "Uh-huh!" or "That's right" or "You tell 'em, Reverend" or my personal favorite, "Mmm, mmm, mmm!" Since the choir was miked you could hear all of these interjections clearly. It gave me a new understanding of preaching to the choir. Most of the people in the audience were not really participating with the enthusiasm of the choir, and so he would ask the audience for an amen or an hallelujah every so often. If he was talking about attitude, he tell us, "Everyone say, 'Attitude,'" and all the sheep would dutifully respond, "Attitude!" Basically, the entire service was one big cliche, but it was quite a performance, and I enjoyed it for what it was.

I stayed for about 35 minutes or so. I took this picture with my cell phone and one of the ushers came to my seat and told me that no pictures were allowed to be taken of the service. Of course by that point it was already a done deal. But for a minute, I thought she was going to ask me for my iPhone, so she could confiscate the picture. If that happened, I would have told her that I had already emailed the picture after I took it and erasing it wouldn't serve God's purpose.

Anyway...I definitely want to come back when the Rev. Ike is performing. I'm sure that will be even better theater than I saw today. I went to his website (revike.org) and this is what he says about himself:

"Rev. Ike has been one of the most misunderstood geniuses of the 20th Century. In the past, his message was often misrepresented by the media who sometimes ridiculed his flamboyant style and daring, unconventional teachings.

Today, Rev. Ike's true genius is undisputed, his teachings are accepted as universal truths, and he is acknowledged as a Master teacher, a mentor, and an inspiration by many famous motivational teachers and authors."

How can I not go back and see this??

My cousin and the iron maiden

Last night I went out for dinner and drinks with my younger cousin "J". She has two sisters as well, and it seems that all three of them have grown up while I wasn't looking, and turned into real people. So, since J is now going to graduate school in the city, we decided to hang out for a night of drinks and dinner. We met at Heartland Brewery in Union Square and had a couple of pints of their micro brews. We both agreed that their light beer, "Indian River Light" was the tastiest light beer either of us had ever had. It felt really good to be together, and our conversation was interesting and fun, even if I did feel like I talked too much. After 3 pints and a bit of a buzz we moved next door to Republic for dumplings and noodles, and more beer and cocktails, of course. Towards the end of the meal, my roommate texts me and tells me to meet him at Hooter's on 56th St. This made no sense to me, as I know he hates those kind of places, but apparently he had been dragged out by a young straight-boy college friend with whom he has a crush on...so you know how that goes.

J and I leave the restaurant and we both head uptown to Hooters. As we go underground, we have to go through a "high exit turnstile" in order to get into the subway (see picture above). As it encases your entire body, it is also known as an Iron Maiden. So I swipe my Metrocard, and enter, with my cousin right behind me. But when she swipes, before she actually enters into the contraption, she takes her left hand and unwittingly rotates the turnstile so that she has a bit more room to squeeze into the iron maiden, but in doing so, rotates her paid entrance away and looses her "swipe." It's an amateur mistake and New Yorkers see this happen about once a day. Because she had an unlimited Metrocard, she would either have to wait 19 minutes until her card allowed her another swipe, or she would need to buy another cash Metrocard, which is what she finally did. She then swipes the new cash Metrocard and I see her hand moving to do the exact same mistake of rotating the turnstile before she is actually in it! From the other side of the cage, I stop her before she does it but then she swipes again without actually entering, and the machine tells her that the card is not valid. I try to tell her to just go through, because she already swiped it once and has yet to use that valid swipe. She is still stuck on the fact that it is telling her it's not valid so she goes to another turnstile with the (now already used card) and of course it won't allow her entrance, and some stranger enters the first turnstile, thus invalidating her valid entrance!

Meanwhile I am looking around the inside of the station to see if I can locate a station operator who might be willing to help. All I see are a couple of cops, and I know they won't do shit, so I turn my attention back to my cousin, and by now I'm completely exasperated in a way that only a true New Yorker can be when dealing with such an amateur. But she has a solution of her own. With no warning, as a complete stranger swipes and enters the turnstile nearest her, she rushes in behind him, so that the two of them are squeezing through the little space meant for only one. No doubt the strange man though he was getting robbed, as her little body slams up against his back, but the funniest part was that the purse that she was carrying got jammed in the turnstile, which stopped the turnstile from rotating through, trapping the two of them, back to belly, inside the iron maiden as my cousin desperately tries to pull her purse through. She finally manages free her purse, and in doing so, free the two of them. As the Maiden regurgitates the two of them into the station, the guy spins around and shouts at my cousin, "You could have at least ASKED first!" Meanwhile my cousin thinks she is so damn clever that she is laughing, but what she doesn't know is that there are two cops somewhere nearby, and I'm not sure precisely where they are now, or whether they saw her pull that trick. So I grab her by the wrist and say, we need to go, NOW!

We manage to make it unmolested to the platform, where we caught the Q train up to Hooters on 56th. We meet with my roommate and his friends, and all of us had a good laugh at the retelling of how J raped this poor man out of a Metrocard swipe. During this story, my cousin let it slip that she just got a summons earlier that week for entering a subway station (through an emergency exit door) without paying! This girl is a wild woman! We closed down Hooters and convinced J to come home and sleep on my couch, rather than try and navigate the subway system again.

Argentinian Bank Ad

While we are on the subject of advertising, this one is mind boggling in its courage and its humanity. It is for an Argentinian bank. When will we see an ad like this in the US? 20 years? 50 years?

Sponsored without commerical interruption

Before you look at this video below, understand it's a Super Bowl ad for the website Hulu which streams video to your computer, much like Youtube. You can watch TV shows or movies on Hulu and it's free and completely legal, except that you have to suffer advertising, much like television. The Hulu ad was aired tonight by NBC on Super Bowl and I wanted to check out this website, so I went to hulu.com.

I was happy to find that they have already catalogued all of the advertisements for Super Bowl XVIII, and you can view them and vote on them. As I began to watch the first ad, I had to first watch a short spot saying that this video is brought to you without commercial interruption by Halls Cough drops. And then, the video began playing. The video was, of course, a commercial interruption, right?

To ad further advertising bang for their buck, the Hulu advertisement (that originally ran on NBC tonight) was sponsored by TDF Florists. So to be clear, I watched a Hulu commercial on the Hulu website that was sponsored without commercial interruption by a commercial for TDF.

How fucked up is that?