At Home he's a Tourist

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I can't believe it's already spring break. Harmon and I went downtown to visit the Brooklyn Bridge to complete his optional weekend exploration assignment. It was Monday so it was difficult to get him to go because he's really literal. Breakfast was from the coffee cart. Since we were on 125th Street we could buy breakfast and then shop for dvd's, we bought Hanna, Hop, and Rio. I saw the trailer for Hanna and that the Chemical Brothers did the soundtrack so I'm going to see it in the theater so this will be a good preview. The weather was great so we walked to the east side to get the 6. So we take the train to the stop and make it onto the bridge. The bridge was really crowded. It was a classic NYC mix of people. Being that it is one of the seven wonders of N.Y.C. There were tons of tourists ( it was spring break after all) and there were tons of New Yorkers peddling and hoofing it over the bridge on bike and foot. The New Yorkers are great. Some of them were getting upset at the tourists for blocking the way. I mean it is New York and there are places to go and things to do in a N.Y. minute. I can really see the day when the Brooklyn Bridge and Manhattan Bridge each go one way with one side of the traffic lanes devoted to cyclists and pedestrians. That will be awesome. The tourists were so amazed by the bridge and the river/skyline/shoreline that they did not really even notice the upset New Yorkers, but who could blame them, it's really breathtaking up there. Tourists are really the life blood of New York, whenever a tourist apologizes to me for doing something touristy I tell them that, although I think that is only a half truth. So we were reading the plaques to answer the questions on the weekened exploration and a tourist pointed out a misspelling on the plaque, I asked what it was to be polite but I really didn't care, but it made him incredibly happy so I was doing my civic duty. So we found all the answers to the questions on the weekend exploration and now Harmon had to make a rubbing of one of the bronze reliefs detailing the history of the bridge. Of course I brought tons of paper, which was good, because Harmon wanted to make a rubbing of each relief so whatever, we weren't in a hurry and it was a beautiful day. So Harmon is making these rubbings and a street artist put out some drawings of NYC on the ground. Tourists bought them all quickly, they were cheap, $10, they were prints though, not drawings, and they were not even of the bridge, which I can understand because it is not easy to draw a bridge. So the street artist sold the drawings, packed up and split. It must be illegal to sell art on the bridge because if the street artist had stayed longer than 5 minutes he could have sold hundreds of drawings. So I asked Harmon if we should try and sell some of his drawings, I was like why not if I'm gonna have to stand here doing nothing while he finishes his rubbings, I might as well sell some of them, I mean if we sold 2 drawings it would pay for the dvd's, breakfast, and lunch. Harmon said no without a second thought, he was handing in a complete set of rubbings chronicling each phase of construction of the Brooklyn Bridge. And that's that. So Harmon finished and we walked over to City Hall, I think there was going to be a ceremony or demonstration or something because most of the park was blocked off.

Elastic No-No Band
Leftovers and Live Songs
It's ironic that the Elastic No-No Band would title their CD Leftovers and Live Songs, for any other genre of music these CD's are usually interesting but a real disappointment music wise. However for antifolk the bottom of the barrel and the cutting room floor are coated and scattered with some really good sticky cuts. Leftovers and Live Songs is no exception. The tracks are unlisted but range from 60's pop to country and of course some acerbic lofi antifolk. The No-No's play a variety of styles but avoid mash up dischord by keeping their lyrics consistent with the musical style they use for each song. With Leftovers this good it's a no brainer to order the No-No's main course and dig in.

Charity begins at home and that's no lie as everyone needs a little charity sometime. If you live in a house you don't have to think about charity much, everyone knows that if you live in a house you are rich, I mean otherwise how could you possibly think you could afford to, I mean mortgage payments don't grow on trees. A cold hard fact about apartment dweller charity is that it is not so much giving things to charity out of generosity, but giving things to charity out of necessity otherwise you soon find there is only furniture to stub your toes on, newspapers to slip on, and descending objects to dodge every time you take something off a shelf or take something out of the closet. If you live in a house you don't have to worry about these things, you can store your stuff in all the extra rooms: the basement, the guest room, the attic, the many closets, the garage, the den, and if worse comes to worse you can start piling things up in the driveway, front yard, and backyard. The front yard/backyard is an unpopular and under appreciated place to leave your stuff, do you really need a 12 foot square patch of water wasting non oxygen making lawn? Plus the shabby-chic rural style is kind of cool because it mixes it up a bit to give the houses a different style instead of just lawn after lawn after lawn after yawn after zzz.... Houses are like palaces so I can see how people love to live in them. You can actually host thanksgiving, have a pool, a pool table, a ping pong table, a bike, a car, and room enough to store enough hobby stuff and sports equipment to meet every recreational whim that could possibly come across your mind. Alas a palace always becomes a prison as lack of discipline and decision making turns your brain into a lethargic unchallenged bore.