Monday, March 30, 2009
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Fun with ears, and hope.
Yesterday I flew out to this Dueling gig I do from time to time. I arrived at the airport at 1:30 after a short flight from La Guardia, and the club owner come out to pick me up and drop me off at my hotel. It's a very nice business hotel and I always enjoy staying here. I didn't have to work until 8, so I basically hung out in the room, on the phone, surfing the Internet and spending 2 hours in the bathroom, taking care of those pesky once-a-month ablutions such as plucking hair out of unseemly places on your ear (not to be confused with the "seemly" places for hair on your ear). Actually that's not completely accurate. This might have been a once a month occurrence 5 years ago. Now it's more or less a twice-a-week follicular affair. I wonder what the biological imperative is for ear hair. Is there an ear-hair gene that stays dormant for 30 years, just waiting for some special hormonal signal that says, "Grow, baby, grow!"? Perhaps as we get older, and our circulation becomes worse, our body protects it's um ears with coarse black hair.
While in the middle of my aural pluckage, the entertainment director from the club I did last weekend in New England called with 5 more dates and gave me a very nice referral to another club. I also got an interesting text from yet another ED that makes me believe that there will be even more work in the very near future. I'll know more in the next couple of days.
Meanwhile, there may be some good news for my prison pen pal. After I mailed him recounting the problems I had getting my name on his visitor list, he put a request in for clarification, because he knew that he had not modified it, and therefore should be able to ad my name immediately. The clarification came back saying that yes, in fact it was a clerical error. So when I received this information from him, I called the prison back and was told that he needs to resubmit my name for his visitor's list. I told them that he probably didn't realize this and asked if he could be notified of this requirement quickly, as I will be flying down the following week. I was connected to the chaplain's office, and the chaplain promised me he would take care of it. That was Monday. Well before I left for my current gig on Friday, I called again and I still am not on the visitor list. And the records people have no request from the inmate. So I asked to be connected to the chaplain's office again, where I was told that the chaplain I had spoken to on Monday was out sick all week. So I asked the other chaplain to take care of this, and she promised me she would. I will call again on Monday. What a rigmarole!
While in the middle of my aural pluckage, the entertainment director from the club I did last weekend in New England called with 5 more dates and gave me a very nice referral to another club. I also got an interesting text from yet another ED that makes me believe that there will be even more work in the very near future. I'll know more in the next couple of days.
Meanwhile, there may be some good news for my prison pen pal. After I mailed him recounting the problems I had getting my name on his visitor list, he put a request in for clarification, because he knew that he had not modified it, and therefore should be able to ad my name immediately. The clarification came back saying that yes, in fact it was a clerical error. So when I received this information from him, I called the prison back and was told that he needs to resubmit my name for his visitor's list. I told them that he probably didn't realize this and asked if he could be notified of this requirement quickly, as I will be flying down the following week. I was connected to the chaplain's office, and the chaplain promised me he would take care of it. That was Monday. Well before I left for my current gig on Friday, I called again and I still am not on the visitor list. And the records people have no request from the inmate. So I asked to be connected to the chaplain's office again, where I was told that the chaplain I had spoken to on Monday was out sick all week. So I asked the other chaplain to take care of this, and she promised me she would. I will call again on Monday. What a rigmarole!
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Apartment troubles
I have an apartment that I rent out. I've had the same tenant for over a year, and he is paying about the same amount that my tenants have paid over the past 2.5 years. But he may be leaving soon, and I've quickly discovered that in today's economy, I will have to take about a 25% cut in rent. Ad on top of that, that my co-op just instituted a 7% charge for any rentals. Also, my monthly maintenance charges have increased 3%, and last year we had to pay over $2,000 in special assessments to cover the then ridiculously high fuel and utility costs to run the building.
Complicating the problem is that the next-door neighbors have made an very official noise complaint against my very UN-official tenant. So I tried to soothe that over today, and it wasn't easy. My neighbor is a curmudgeonly 60-something doctor, who spent 10 minutes trying to convince me that he wasn't some curmudgeonly 60-something. He tells me that my "friends" (the unofficial tenant) are too noisy when he's trying to sleep at night. I am very sensitive to my neighbors noise concerns, I really am. Partly because I'm a considerate bloke, but also partly because if he makes a stink about it, then I get on the radar of the building management and then questions come up about who exactly is living in the apartment. So I had a long heart-to-heart with my tenant who tells me a very different story. He makes it seem as though the neighbor is being intolerant of any noise at all, even simple conversation, late at night. I tend to believe my tenant, and I think the neighbor is making a big issue of very little, and yet this has the potential to cause me big problems. In fact, he may already have. And so, I may have to make my next tenant "official" which means paying about $900 in applications fees and move-in deposits in addition to the 7%. At some point, (and I'm quickly reaching that point) as I reduce the rent I charge and my expenses to rent increase, it will make no sense to have a tenant, and I will have to move back in myself.
Complicating the problem is that the next-door neighbors have made an very official noise complaint against my very UN-official tenant. So I tried to soothe that over today, and it wasn't easy. My neighbor is a curmudgeonly 60-something doctor, who spent 10 minutes trying to convince me that he wasn't some curmudgeonly 60-something. He tells me that my "friends" (the unofficial tenant) are too noisy when he's trying to sleep at night. I am very sensitive to my neighbors noise concerns, I really am. Partly because I'm a considerate bloke, but also partly because if he makes a stink about it, then I get on the radar of the building management and then questions come up about who exactly is living in the apartment. So I had a long heart-to-heart with my tenant who tells me a very different story. He makes it seem as though the neighbor is being intolerant of any noise at all, even simple conversation, late at night. I tend to believe my tenant, and I think the neighbor is making a big issue of very little, and yet this has the potential to cause me big problems. In fact, he may already have. And so, I may have to make my next tenant "official" which means paying about $900 in applications fees and move-in deposits in addition to the 7%. At some point, (and I'm quickly reaching that point) as I reduce the rent I charge and my expenses to rent increase, it will make no sense to have a tenant, and I will have to move back in myself.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
New England
This past weekend, I played at a dueling club in New England. I had played there one night in December, and was finally invited back in March. The entertainment director arranged to put me onstage first as he wanted my first and last sets to be easy and then only the one set in the middle would be critical. I wasn't happy to hear that. After the night was over, he confessed to me that he had been a bit nervous about having me onstage because he really didn't remember exactly how my performance had been in December. That's really frustrating as I work so damn hard to do what I do well, and yet it's seems to take forever to foment my reputation. And I remember that I had completely rearranged my schedule and taken a pay cut to work that first night in December so that he WOULD know exactly what I was capable of and book me for more work. He did go on to say that as soon as he heard me do my first song he knew that he had nothing to worry about with me. He then promised to book me for more work, and did give me a single date in April. Oy...this process is so excruciatingly slow!
On my return to New York I arranged to stop at Yale University for a campus tour. Of course Yale is the very definition of privilege, recognized by many as one of the top 3 colleges in the US. I just had to see. The main library was designed by an architect who believed that every great architect should build one cathedral in their career. As Yale had no desire to build a cathedral, he convinced them to let him design the library as a cathedral to
knowledge. It was as grand a cathedral as you would expect from a place like Yale. In the naves were card catalogues and computers, and up front where the alter would be, was the front desk. It would be a great place to study.
The girl that gave the tour was a chatty freshman who had apparently met the Prime Minister of China at one of their monthly fireside chats they hold for the various colleges in Yale. The entire experience made me think of Harry Potter's Hogwarts, except that this was real life. Sort of.
On my return to New York I arranged to stop at Yale University for a campus tour. Of course Yale is the very definition of privilege, recognized by many as one of the top 3 colleges in the US. I just had to see. The main library was designed by an architect who believed that every great architect should build one cathedral in their career. As Yale had no desire to build a cathedral, he convinced them to let him design the library as a cathedral to
knowledge. It was as grand a cathedral as you would expect from a place like Yale. In the naves were card catalogues and computers, and up front where the alter would be, was the front desk. It would be a great place to study.The girl that gave the tour was a chatty freshman who had apparently met the Prime Minister of China at one of their monthly fireside chats they hold for the various colleges in Yale. The entire experience made me think of Harry Potter's Hogwarts, except that this was real life. Sort of.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Calling all bums
This guy on a wheelchair is out on the sidewalk begging for loose change outside an all night restaurant on 6th Ave in the village. Not 10 seconds before this picture was taken, he was talking animatedly on his cellphone, telling someone that he would be home in an hour. I positioned myself to the left of the picture (brown jacket) and instructed my roommate to take this picture discreetly as though he was taking a picture of me. But I guess it wasn't too discrete and the bum had time to get rid of the phone.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
My Penpal
About a year ago I found an acquaintance of mine that I had lost touch with. I Googled him and found that since I had last seen him over 3 years ago, he had done something really bad and wound up sentenced to 99 years of hard time in a maximum security penitentiary. When I finally contacted him, we began to pen pal back and forth quite regularly. I can only imagine what it would be like to have to spend the rest of your days in jail, and I know my letters give him great comfort. Since he is incarcerated in Texas, I decided to combine a visit with my brother's family with a visit to him. I phoned the prison a couple months ago to inquire about procedure. I was told that he needed to put me on his approved visitors list. So I wrote him and suggested there was a possibility that I might be in Texas and if he wanted, he should add me to his list. He quickly wrote back saying he would do so immediately. Additionally, he told me he would put me on another list, so that I could inquire about things like transfers, medical conditions, or death. Apparently only his brother is on this list. That was a bit more than I asked for, but it doesn't commit me to anything.
So, I booked my plane ticket to Texas for April. I called back to the prison, to schedule a visit. Since I was flying in, I had been told that we would be allowed a 4 hour visit through a Plexiglas window. Upon calling back today, I was told that his visitor list had not been changed and I was still not on it. I told the woman that I was almost sure that he had put in the request. I heard some tapping of computer keys and she then told me that prisoners are only allowed to modify their visitor list once every 6 months. Apparently he had changed his in January and so I would be unable to be added until July. I explained to her that I had called a month ago and was never told this, and that I had already paid for my flight. She said the only person that could override the rule was the warden and so I asked to be transferred to his office. I explained everything to the warden's secretary who put me on hold, and came back 2 minutes later and wanted to know if I was a relative. I told her I was not. She put me back on hold and 1 minute later told me that nothing could be done.
Now, besides my brothers family, I have a several friends in Texas and was planning to visit them all, so, this won't be a wasted trip for me by any means. But that phone call sure gave me a glimpse into his world. I'm guessing he rarely, if ever, gets visitors. And now he has that chance and someone is willing to get on a plane to see him, but the rules and regulations that he must abide by prevent this from happening.
So, I booked my plane ticket to Texas for April. I called back to the prison, to schedule a visit. Since I was flying in, I had been told that we would be allowed a 4 hour visit through a Plexiglas window. Upon calling back today, I was told that his visitor list had not been changed and I was still not on it. I told the woman that I was almost sure that he had put in the request. I heard some tapping of computer keys and she then told me that prisoners are only allowed to modify their visitor list once every 6 months. Apparently he had changed his in January and so I would be unable to be added until July. I explained to her that I had called a month ago and was never told this, and that I had already paid for my flight. She said the only person that could override the rule was the warden and so I asked to be transferred to his office. I explained everything to the warden's secretary who put me on hold, and came back 2 minutes later and wanted to know if I was a relative. I told her I was not. She put me back on hold and 1 minute later told me that nothing could be done.
Now, besides my brothers family, I have a several friends in Texas and was planning to visit them all, so, this won't be a wasted trip for me by any means. But that phone call sure gave me a glimpse into his world. I'm guessing he rarely, if ever, gets visitors. And now he has that chance and someone is willing to get on a plane to see him, but the rules and regulations that he must abide by prevent this from happening.
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