Nazario Scenario

Live!

The Ding Dong Lounge is located at 106th Street and Columbus Avenue on New York's fashionable Upper West Side. There's a youth hostel just down the street, as a gentleman reminded me the last time I was there, shortly before he asked me to tell him how to get there, because he had already forgotten.

There's also a DJ there most nights. This Sunday the 6th, that DJ will be me. If you feel like ending your long weekend in a dark yet charming bar listening to primarily rock music with a few quirky pop numbers thrown in (I promise no Janis Ian), well then, you know where to go.

I may be repeating this info elsewhere on the internet before Sunday rolls around, in case you forget.

Oh! I should also mention that Nazario Scenario is tonight from 7 to 8. Not live, but for some people the internet is better than live.

I Am Pretty Sure I Didn't Break My Foot

Last night, because I was holding pizza in one hand, I stumbled and fell into the street as I was getting off the bus. I twisted my ankle, and the area just below my pinky toe swelled up and became painful to walk on. For most of the rest of the night and this morning, I was convinced I had fractured my metatarsal! Imagine, please, trying to walk a dog walker's route with such an injury. Oh it's a heartbreak.

But now I'm pretty sure it's just a contusion or whatever. It hurts, but it doesn't really hurt. I am icing it. Yes.

Listening to: Present Company by Janis Ian. Okay, mock me for my love of this kind of music! I invite your mockery! But like, seriously, this woman can write her some songs, and sing them too.

ETA: I grant you that a couple of songs on side 2 are way too overwrought.

1975

Planet Sushi: Never Again!

Planet Sushi on 78th Street is billed as "the best affordable sushi" in the city.

But this is simply not true.

Tonight, I think I am going to go to this place and then this place. Come join me, believers.

7-Up Ads: An Apologia

All the hot weather and thunderstorms we've been having reminded me of a soft drink ad from when I was a kid, which begins with two people sitting on a fire escape in the extreme heat and a voice on the radio saying, "It's a hundred and one in the shade, folks -- we've got ourselves a heatwave." Soon, there is a rainstorm and they are refreshed; this of course is meant to mirror the experience of enjoying that soft drink being advertised. The ad was on both radio and TV, and I must have seen/heard it a hundred times that summer. It was maybe 1987. Not sure.

But I can't remember every detail of the ad. Most embarrassingly, I can't remember what beverage it was for -- the commercial seems to exemplify the famous pitfall of advertising where if an ad is particularly memorable, people remember the ad but not the product. I was convinced it was Cherry 7-Up, because I had this image of the raindrops being pink, and I knew there was an extended ad campaign about Cherry 7-Up that, long before the release of Pleasantville, used black-and-white film with just a few touches of pink (see the post below and ad featuring young Matt LeBlanc). But now I'm thinking maybe it was Nestea, because I can sort of see the very catchy "Take the Nestea Plunge" jingle being involved. If that's the case, I hope the raindrops weren't brown.

YouTube searches for this ad in both the Cherry 7-Up and Nestea categories have been fruitless. However, I was happy to find a few great vintage 7-Up ads, which I liked enough to put up here as a series. So, that's why I'm doing that.

1989?

Ne-Mo's Red Velvet Cake

It's gross. Stick with the banana and carrot varieties.

Yesterday I noticed what I thought was a dead little baby mouse on the pavement in the park. (It had fur and everything, it was just very small.) On closer inspection I saw that the little mouse's back legs were moving a bit, but its top half was all still like it was paralyzed. Clearly, it was dying. There was no chance I could take it home and nurse it adorably and keep it as my beloved pet, at all. I thought about killing it humanely, but I didn't know how and didn't want to. When I picked it up and held it in my hand, it died.

This was one of the saddest and most disturbing things I've seen in a long time. Thinking of it now is making me cry a little. For some reason, since it happened I've been thinking of large-scale tragedies, traumatic things like 9/11 that I try not to dwell on ever. Argh! I'm cracking up!

I don't know quite why I thought I should share that. But anyway, skip the Ne-Mo's red velvet cake. Be glad you have me as a litmus test for these things.

Tax Rebate

Remember how people were supposed to get a $600 tax rebate this year?

So have you received yours yet, or...?

Shmegeggy

"Shmegeggy" means "thingamajig." I have only ever heard one person use the word "shmegeggy," but he used it a lot. This was back when I worked in an office -- his desk was near mine, and I heard "shmegeggy" about ten times a day. "There's a little shmegeggy you have to press to switch it on." "Oh, get me something without onions or mushrooms or any of those other shmegeggies."

SHMEGEGGY!

I'm not sure why I'm thinking of that just now, but it certainly bears mentioning.

You know that little shmegeggy you put inside a 7-inch single? When I received my new record player it was missing that part. This was a problem for me. So I crafted one myself, out of the cap of a Solgar vitamin bottle. I realize this should make me a hero in the eyes of phonograph listeners everywhere, but it will not, because I made the hole in the middle just a tiny bit off center and now, though I can play my 45s, they sound terrible. I've been listening to them just to check lyrics and generally remind myself that they exist.

I'll fix this problem soon. But not before my show tonight at 7. (WHFR has a real shmegeggy, mercifully.)

When This Old World Starts-a Getting Me Down

Hey, I'm on my roof right now! I should work up here more often. Also, I should have a party up here sometime this summer, possibly of the fundraising variety.

So I've been thinking about picking up a couple of shifts a week as a bartender. Note: I don't have experience making fancy drinks with martini shakers, but I imagine that's something I could pick up pretty easily. I did use to bartend at the old URBANA reading series at the Gene Frankel Theatre, and I thought that was fun. Also, I am charismatic and have a sympathetic ear. I know from popular culture (and popular culture has yet to steer me wrong) that these are the bartender qualities one prizes above all others. Most likely this is a flight of fancy that won't take shape, but it's an important enough thought to record here. Let me know if you hear of anything opening up.

Okay, back to the awesomeness of the roof. The sky: cloudless! Sparrows: twittering! Potted tomato plants: burgeoning! Mug of coffee: knocked over and spilled!