one thing today

  Slow goes the days of late ... this mid summer molasses time. I was going to  write about how great it is to walk thru thru the Village in the morning - and why - but its too detailed to do today. Instead, I share a message on a lamp post by I spotted.                                                       You have not met                                                          all the people                                                 who will love                     ...

... was a brilliant painter during the Harlem Renaissance. I went to see his show at the Drawing Center. He was black, gay, poor and an alcoholic with mental health issues. Yet, he painted gorgeous portraits, cityscapes and abstract paintings before the Abstract Impressionist movement.    He was a great friend of Baldwin, Miller, O’Keefe, Stieglitz and other important artists of his time. I admire his dogged persistence and saddened by the homophobia and racism he encountered during his life.  

There are a lot of peeps on Youtube listening/reacting to Joni - hearing her for the first time. They're not accustomed to brilliant, literate storytelling set to music. Hejira, Edith and the Kingpin, Harrys House, Don’t Interrupt the Sorrow … lots of her beautiful, ultra dense ones.   And I love when I perceive what she’s up to - for the first time - more than a half century on.   M any of her songs trail off slowly. They take their time to end and I think what she’s doing is giving us time to think about what she just shared before we go into the kitchen to make toast. What a gal. My gal. More to follow. Always.

The winner of the first "Name the Pony" contest on The Roy Rogers Show was  Cheryl Anne Rhodes.  H er winning entry - Buttermilk. Ponytail, my entry, is better than Buttermilk.  And I just found out that the winner, along with 24 other kids, won ponies. So I feel better now. My mom would have never allowed me to have a pony. Goldfish - yes. Ponies - no chance in hell.  

   ... are believed to possess a primordial attraction to open  spaces.  This deep appreciation for open spaces and lush vegetation is believed to be rooted in our biological history and the adaptive advantages that such environments offer.  Two of those advantages are - we can readily see potential food sources and be warned of predators.

It's  Hard to Believe Monday .   Saturday night I roam around inside one of my closets and come across this pic of my childhood hero Roy Rogers. I  haven't seen it in years. I thought the OG Mr Rogers was the most handsome, kind and brave man on television and he was very lucky to be married to Dale - the most beautiful woman in the world. They both road horses and harmonized their boots off - just like my parental units. I entered their Name That Pony  contest - submitting Ponytail . I didn’t win. I hang the photo on my gallery wall. About 24 hours later, I am watching Granchester on Masterpiece Mystery. It’s about a detective and his family who live in an English hamlet in the 1950s where an inordinate number of murders occur. He has a very tight friendship with the Indian parson with the MGM looks. In one scene said parson sits at his desk - pondering whether to open a letter from his miscreant mother. He opens his desk draw and the letter is sitting on top of t...

  ... I look out my windows at night at think I’m living in Supermans   Metropolis or Batmans Gotham city. 

 

. .. in the river park - I noticed my friend Sharks observation that everyone's young in your neighborhood except you - is more right than wrong. I thought the percentage was more like 65/35 but viewing what I viewed with this question in mind -  it's more like 88/12 ... or  even maybe. 92/8 .  all these nubile bodies racing round along the Hudson. and even better - last night ... a dance party on the pier ... called  Dance is Love. It was like that semi-cheesey final scene in Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice - where the party jumps into the pool as What the World Needs Now plays   on the soundtrack.  about two hundred I'd say fab faces and fashion and combos and moves ...  one guy especially. If a guy effortlessly rocks a pork pie hat - hold on. white t under a light brown felty vest with a wine red satin back and jeans and he swayed and jumped and dove onto the boards and mimed pulling himself off by the back of his collar and he knew the crowd wanted...

  Its been a great, different summer for me so far. A first summer in my new place. Another golden month at the beach … I dealt with crazy big money stuff ... hardly watch news, don't have a tv, don't miss it  and now in July - move for an hour in the mornin  in the river park, no sugar, eating better, deep tan, a sex hit, painting, more people. Overall - fuller I guess you could say. Even had a shot of  romances'  humor and  foibles .  In case you were wondering - its French and used in fencing to describe the weaker part of a sword blade, specifically the section between the middle and the point.   

... this day here now leaving has been good same old same old early dog day too much. Sun and river and motion. Finally had an Appolo bagel and I see why their lines are so crazy long. I did some painting and had a dream about Linda Spalinno - a high school girlfriend who I wanted to like but really didn’t want to kiss all that much but did anyway.   I walk by the park on the way to the river. Workers are planting plants. A guy in a chair says to me …  Him - you know what they’re planting.  Me - no I don’t.  Him - plants.  the kind you smoke. You know.   Me- I think you’re putting me on .  Him - I’ll put you on or down or up or anyway you want .  I smiled, and flashed him and peace sign and walked on. It’s brutally hot, almost impossible to be on the street and not feel assaulted, wanting to run for cover to water and coolness. Lovin’ Spoonful days. I love the Mamas and Papas. Trying to decide what their best song is. Maybe No Salt on her Tail....

  New York Post late edition front page headline Topless old runner spotted alive and well                           on Hudson River Pier I can’t recall what year it was when I last went shirtless in public. Just that I took off my t in the riverfront park one day and felt the sun on my flesh.   It made me feel young. I do however remember the time before that. It’s been a minute.   Fire Island Pines '76 - dancing on a crowded dance floor with my main slurp at the time. I didn’t want to stick out like I did when I was the only kid wearing white shorts on my Holy Communion Day twenty years prior. Every  dancer had sweat rolling down his bronzed bared  chests. I took off my t and joined them in the blissful end of summer abandon that smelled up the space like no tomorrow - like it was three am in a downtown 70s disco inferno. While fishing is permitted in the Hudson River,  eatin...

This is the first installment of HARD TO BELIEVE MONDAY. I read about Ringo in the Times today. He’s about to turn 85 and he is still cooI. I  send  a comment to the paper   … Hardly anybody is cool now. Ringo has always been cool.   They printed it.   There’s this guy on Youtube and all over the place, places you don’t even know about, places you’re never heard of or been to. But on The U - he’s got 152K subscribers, roughly two and half times the population of my hometown.   He’s not famous for his kindness, bravery, pop culture knowledge, not even his treachery or some kind of uncanny faculty or fetish. He is known for and famous for his hairiness. He is known for his pec, armpit, back, chest, head, arms, shoulder and hand hair. They go ga ga at the go go for him. And at the barber shop, too.  He hawks his free memberships that gives us full and ample access to his live streams on which he runs on about his free memberships, his next fire live eve...

  One of those summer days when a whole lot of people walking round look good enough to eat. Moms, dads, kids, boys with wide geometric shoulders and beautiful honed race car waists, babies auditioning for Dancing with the Stars, How I Met My Mother.    I ran another hour in the early light, walked round and read some, went to the farmers market and talked to the guy who paints those girls I like so much. He wanted 350 for each of his pigtailed beauties.  There's so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing it all at once and it's too much. My heart fills up like a balloon that's about to burst -- and then I remember to relax and stop trying to hold on to it, and then it flows through me like rain, and I can't feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life."                                         ...

  These two are fab. Saw them at the farmers market yesterday. May go back today maybe price them but I kinda have a feeling that it would be   like buying a black lawn jockey. Not sure.  What think? I like this new early morning me. The time is different, the look and sound and something else is different, too. Its seven something and I am on the roof with lots of plants and some buzzing flies and its cool and quiet and timid cloudzee and I just read about John L from out at the beach twenty five years ago - a coke boy Mr Fixit who tended to “any day now”   his way thru his always summer days years. But he   had that sexy Irish twinkle and playfulness that made people forgive him ... no big whoop. His obit orbit claims he was loved by many - big family, more kids that I knew about … o he was a devil boy who almost got me good one rainy night.   And the other day in the Dayton mag … John Powers, smart - liked when he wore his studious glasses. He had  ...

  O what to say see hear 'an touch on this day three years hence O what to remember, overlook, anticipate, regret O what to appreciate, disdain, refrain O what to navigate, congregate, celebrate Still Again   O to be not anyone gone Not this time or place or space Here here here Three years hence   One Two Three   Yipee Yipee Yipee my first blog entry 7/3/22 A big roly poly grandpa yanks his very young grandson down a path in Washington Square Park. The kid is like a small, bright scarf waving in the breeze just behind him. As he continues to be pulled along,the kid keeps trying to lick the dripping cone. It never reaches his mouth and he never stops smiling and never tells his abuelo to slow the f down.     

I was very fascinated by my friend Paul’s grand daughter Violet. She is twelve and will be a completely different person a year from now. She still has that child mind and agile, restless body - running round with her younger brother like an energy full pretty robin - ready for anything that comes her way. I hope she keeps more of all that than I suspect she will. The Village is so beautiful at eight in the morning - all the Mexican workers looking not yet tired and young parents walking their kids somewhere. I have such a new feeling about things. My circadian rhythm is different and I love being out early before it gets hot. I notice the coursing of life in the veins to paraphrase Mr. Paul Like a Bridge Over Troubled Waters Simon of Queens. I think   it’s gonna be a good day even though I have to get blood drawn.

 

  After returning from a month at the beach during our recent heatwave, I exit the subway at my stop. I tell myself   I can manage my duffle on wheels and two shopping bags. I’ve done it for decades.   Climbing the stairs,   I drop the duffel on the landing and lug the two   bags up to the street. I am about to go back for the rest of my gear when a guy hollers   “this yours?” I say yes. He picks up my duffle and says “I got you. But hey, you even older than me. You shouldn’t be doing like this. Especially in this weather.” He plops my bag down next to me and I thank him as he walks across Seventh Avenue slowly shaking his head in disbelief.