Mermaid Parade

We dragged our arses out to the Mermaid Parade at Coney Island this weekend and had a ball of a time. To all of you who have never heard of the Mermaid Parade, it is kind of like Mardi Gras only in Brooklyn and a helluva lot gayer. This years parade took place the night before the official Gay Pride Parade in Manhattan so you might notice from these pictures Alma and I took that pink is the predominant colour.

We have no idea who these people are but they made our day all that bit more enjoyable so thanks to them all.

Mother Hen

I started work at The Switch on Monday and although I felt like a complete dumbass on my first day, I survived my first week without any major screw-ups and I’m happy for that.

I got a little bonus on my first day when I walked in to find that the guy who was training me was somebody I had met before at an Xmas party a couple of years ago - it’s always nice to be able to skip the formal introductions and get straight to the “How the hell did you get home? Man, I was all fucked up that night” conversation. The TV technical world is a remarkably small one.

So anyway, first day nerves aside it was an educational week - my only worry for the new job is my new manager who is this sweet but intensely annoying Mother Hen character. His trip is going to get old real fast, here’s some examples:

“We always try to write our rolodex cards in pencil so we can re-use them”

“If you use too much white-out the paper will get wet”

“This is called the internet. You have heard of it?”

Yes, I have heard of it. In fact, I use it for everything from ordering cat food to buying plane tickets and downloading pornography.

The basic problem is that he is pretty old (I’d guess around 70, he told me August will mark his 50th year in the business) and he spent most of his life in Panama working on ticker-tape machines and shortwave radio transmitters. This is all very well (and believe me, He has some interesting stories) but it doesn’t cover up the fact that he is vastly out of touch. Oh, and he also has the worst halitosis I’ve ever encountered. He talks quietly so sometimes you have to lean towards him to hear, DO NOT MAKE THAT MISTAKE! It’s like being punched by Mike Tyson!

“Did you have jobbies for lunch again?”


Today, Alma and I are off to look at apartments to buy. This is a heart-breaking experience in NYC as everything is so damn expensive that you are really left wondering if there is any point. We are looking in the $250K - $350K and all we have seen so far are one-bedroom apartments. 2-bedrooms are in the $500K range and houses now head towards a million! It’s a fucking nightmare.

We have already given up on the idea of ever living in Manhattan since you’ll pay a million for a 500 sq ft Studio. Brooklyn is going the same way unfortunately so today we are heading Uptown towards The Cloisters and Columbia University. It’s a part of town I am completely unfamiliar with but it does seem to hold a few apartments in our price range. We’ll see………………

Arlo and Nelson

Last night I went to see Arlo Guthrie play at Nelson A. Rockefeller Park in Lower Manhattan. That's the same Arlo Guthrie, who as a wide-eyed stoned kid sang "Coming into Los Angeles... Don't search my bags if you please Mr Customs Man..." in the Woodstock movie, the same Arlo Guthrie who sang "You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant", even though it was never a song about Alice or even a restaurant, it was about oppressive cops and dodging the draft. Anyway Arlo is still a fun performer and has doggedly stuck to his peacenik principals over the years, however I could not get over the location of the concert.

Nelson A. Rockefeller was a former governor of New York State who designed some of the harshest anti-drug laws in the country. Basically, if it was upto Nelson, Arlo would have spent the last 25 years breaking rocks at Attica Prison. You can read more about the Rockefeller drug laws here. Incidentally he was also responsible for the massacre at Attica prison in which 42 people died in 1973 so maybe Arlo wouldn't still be breaking rocks....

Anyway, my favorite reason to name a park after old Nelson is that he made it to be Vice-President of the United States and also that he died of a heart-attack while shagging someone who wasn't his wife.

There's hope for Dick Cheney yet. I hope it's a guy he's fuckin.............

Nelson A. Rockefeller salutes Arlo Guthrie

Squeaky-Bum Time

You know you are in trouble when your girlfriend looks like 2005-circa Mickey Rourke and her hair looks like a small thermal-nuclear device has been set off in it. You are also in trouble if it's 90 degrees outside and you are wearing red sweat pants and a silver-colored puffy jacket designed for skiing on the moon. I'm having a nightmare commute so I'm watching this couple on the bus on the way to Staten Island wondering where they bought the white-trash-first-class ticket. They were amazing; if I wanted to draw white-trash they would look exactly like this couple, right down to the 9-11 commemorative t-shirt she was wearing over her spandex pants.


Mickey Rourke Circa 2005

There was a water-main break on Staten Island this week leading to major power outages and fucked up traffic lights across a borough that already has the most fucked up traffic system in the city. My bus crawled along, it's 90 degrees, I'm hungover, the bus is packed with people, the air-conditioning doesn't work - if there was ever a day to go ex-postal, yesterday was it! We get to the projects (that is "Housing Scheme" to all you non-Yanks) at West Brighton and there is a tall skinny Rastafarian guy directing traffic, it's the first thing that makes me smile all day. I gotta say one thing for this guy, He was doing a better job than any of the lazy-arsed NYPD cops I saw standing around.

I've got 2 days left in my job in SI and yesterday I spent 5 hours commuting on buses for a journey that you can do in a car in 20 minutes. Today my commute has been 3 hours so far and I've still to get home tonight. It seems that Satan Island (deliberate mis-spell) will not relenquinsh it's grip on me easily.

So anyway, the reason I'm harping on about white-trash is that I read that the UK version has finally made it into the dictionary. Yes folks, "Chavs" is now an official word along with "Squeaky-bum time" and "bouncebackability". Does anyone else hear Shakespeare starting to slowly rotate in his grave?

Staying on topic - that is "inbreeds", here's what happens when you've done nothing but shag other family members for generations, this story is not a joke, in fact I think it is quite sad but it's another example of what happens when religion rules your life.

Movin' On Pt 2

So I finally get to sit down and write in peace after another 2 weeks of running around like a madman trying to solve a rubik cube with one hand while picking his nose with the other.

Now It’s 10am and I’ve got me cup of tea and Miles Davis is parping softly from my speakers (“parping” is such an unattractive word but He’s a trumpet player so “parping” is what he does. All I can say is no-one parps like Miles). It’s 70 degrees and sunny, the window is open and the smell of New York harbor is blowing in a mix of diesel fuel and mafia corpses. I love NYC in the summer!

It’s been a constructive 2 weeks; I interviewed at a University with a look to starting a course in Liberal Arts in January next year (after I laid off on December 1st), then much to my surprise, I also interviewed for another TV job and got it! I finish with my current job next week after 5 years and start the new one on June 13th. Funny how these things work out sometimes.

University is still going to be my No.1 priority however, I need to retrain to do something else before the juice runs out from my eyesight. I am in talks with New York State on getting them to pay for it, or at least some of it. Thankfully the new job is the kind of job where it will be quiet enough to get studying done while I’m working (hopefully).