A Wild Whirlwind of Wonder!

The last couple of weeks have been pretty hectic. My brother-in-law came into town to see us from halfway across the globe in South Korea. This past week we went up to New York City and saw the almost 91-year old Les Paul play at the Iridium Jazz Club which was awesome...despite the fact that we had to stand out in the cold for almost half an hour before being allowed in...it was colder than a witch's tit (boobies on witches are wicked cold!) and the amount of cigarette smoke was gross--it also makes me mad since my wife is pregnant and all...but we finally got into the venue and sat down...we were handed menus and told that there was a $15 minimum per person which is bullshit when you consider we spent almost $40 per ticket!...so a couple of glasses of wine later and some cake and Pellegrino for the wife and we were good...the show was fun as Les entertained with some stories of performing in front of FDR and to Ike (President Eisenhower to those of us who never were on a first-name basis) to Richard Nixon whom Mr. Paul said he liked as a friend but never would have voted for him...his backing band has an amazing bassist whose voice and skills were unparalleled...I only wish there was more vocals...Les also invited a tap dancer on stage to perform some percussion along with some of the songs and also some dude that an audience member said "was the best jazz guitar player I've ever heard" so Les called his bluff out and had him jam to two songs...the guy was really good but not a very good singer (that could have been attributed to nerves)...then some jokester from the Howard Stern show got up on stage and told a couple of jokes and did a sort of tribute to Les Paul...quite fun indeed!

we walked around the next day and went to the Sidewalk Cafe which many consider to be the birthplace of the anti-folk movement...the bartender wasn't very friendly at all and was kind of rude actually...she was also either pregnant or liked to carry a spare tire around with her while wearing a sleeveless tank top (YUCK!)...we ate at John's Pizzeria which has been featured on Food Network's special on pizza...but we didn't go to the glitzy Times Square one but the original shop near Bleeker Street in the Village...also we ate some Polish food and went to a Korean restaurant as well...checked out some record stores and of course we had to stop at Strand Used Bookstore with its millions of used books...Tuesday evening we drank some cocktails in the hotel's "bar" I put it in quotes because I don't consider happy hour drinks that cost $8 (but you get your second free!) to make you a bar!...then we met the wife's cousin who is studying copyright law at Columbia and went out to a couple pubs...got some Korean buffet and ate it in the hotel room super late like drunken sailors on leave!...on Wed's we woke up early and made the long trek back home...we drove so it was a bit cramped with five people in one car but no big deal...managed to miss almost all traffic except for when we got closer to virginia with some bad traffic on 95 and the beltway as always...

thursday was a pretty chill day as the wife had to work and I got up early to write some reviews for Smother...wrote some 100 or so reviews and then started to post them finishing all that up on Friday...our friends from out of town came in on Friday morning and we all hung out last night after a great dinner was made (Baked Ziti! Garlic Bread!) and eaten by all...got to meet my friend's fiance who was quite nice and very tall...he's a videogame animator who is currently working on the new Jet Li game so we obviously had some things in common...now what you ask?

I'm hoping there's some boxing on television tonight...packaged up to throw out about 400 CDs and more are coming on that tip...it'll be interesting to see how many CDs out of nearly 6,000 I have left and remaining after I clean out my collection of crap I'll never listen to...predictions?

also if check out what I've been listening to lately...fun!