New York State of Mind

September 9, 2009





New York State of Mind

Tony Blair

Having dropped my nephew Chris off in Connecticut, I turned right around and headed back to Indianapolis. I would have preferred to fly back to Key West from the East Coast, but somehow returning a rental car in a different city makes the daily price of the rental increase from about $30 a day to over $200 a day, so driving back to Indiana saved me upwards of $1000. Thankfully, the folks at my job at RPM Nautical were very understanding and I was able to take a couple of additional days off of work.





Finding myself driving within a few miles of Manhattan proved to be too great a temptation and I found myself calculating having to drive a few extra hours into the night in exchange for spending the better part of a day in the city a tradeoff that I was more than willing to make.





So I drove through the Lincoln tunnel from Hoboken and parked on 42nd street near Madison Square Garden and headed over to Times Square. It was a mad scene as always, though I noticed that they have closed off a section of Broadway and created a much larger pedestrian mall complete with tables and a bunch of extra room for the masses of people who are there.



I can’t explain exactly why, but I love Times Square, it reminds me of Duval Street on steroids. The energy and exhuberance of the people there and the just strange goings on that happen there make for a wild energy. I wish that I would have had the time to catch a show on Broadway, there are a plethora playing that I would have liked to see. I think that Kathy & I need to plan a return visit soon.





Most of my favorite delis are located in Manhattan. My favorite is the 2nd Avenue Deli, but right up there, are the Carnagie Deli, Katz Deli and the Stage Deli. Since I was already in the vicinity I headed to the Stage Deli and enjoyed a fabulous Tiger Woods Reuben.

Biff

Tony Blair





While walking around, I came across a small gathering of paparazzi across the street from the stage door for the David Letterman show, where they were preparing to film a couple of episodes. I decided to wait around and see who was coming and was rewarded with the appearance of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who came over to sign autographs for small crowd.

Tony Blair

Tony Blair was soon followed by actress Julianna Margulies best known for her work on the show ER who was appearing to promote her new show “The Good Wife”. Next up was acting legend Michael Douglas, who also came over to sign autographs and greet the fans. Last up was the musical guest rapper Kid Codi, who was really nice and spent a lot of time with the crowd as well.

Michael Douglas



Kid Cudi

It was pretty interesting to see all the hubbub and it got even better when I later came across the filming of a scene for the sequel to “Sex and the City” at 58th & 5th (near the old Plaza Hotel). I was able to see the last bit of filming then have Sarah Jessica Parker role down her window and wave at me as she left the set in a black Escalade. For only spending a few hours in the city, it sure seemed like I saw a lot, but as much as I would have loved to stay, I had to get back on the road.

Sarah Jessica Parker

Sex and the City 2 – On Set

Stage Deli

Road Trip

September 8, 2009

SoNo

Children's Museum


Road Trip



Labor Day was originally scheduled to be our final day in Indianapolis and the day we headed back to Key West. It sort of half worked out that way as we checked out of our beautiful digs at the University Place hotel and Kathy got on a plane headed south, I on the other hand volunteered to help out my sister Michele, who is dealing with a sick husband, by transporting one of my nephews to the East coast so that he could return to school in Connecticut.

University Place Hotel



Before Kathy left, we did manage to find time to visit the very busy and amazingly cool Children’s Museum of Indianapolis, which is one of the best and largest museum of that type in the world. It was crazy crowded on a rainy Sunday of Labor Day weekend, but we enjoyed ourselves nonetheless and even braved the rain so that Kathy could be photographed with the large dinosaurs that loom over Illinois Street from the side of the building.

Kathy



We spent a ton of time in their excellent gift shop, which Kathy utilized with great success in buying items that she can use with her preschool class at the Key West Preschool Coop, which coincidently has a fancy new website featuring a lot of photos that Kathy & I have taken of the school. There is a link over in my links section to the right.





It was a rainy and somewhat dreary final day in Indianapolis, topped off with a late dinner at Binkley’s restaurant with my sister Michele. It was sort of sad to see Kathy go, but she had to get back to work and I had a 13 hour (each way) drive ahead of me with my nephew Christopher who needed to be delivered to Connecticut so that he could return to Kent School to finish out his high school career.

Chris



I don’t get to spend nearly enough time with my four nephews as it is and it is even more rare to spend any significant one on one time with any of them, so the trip not only helped out Michele, who was unavailable to drive, but it also gave me the chance to spend an extended amount of time with Chris.

Maritime Aquarium



Luckily, we got along really well, at least from my perspective. Chris is a pretty interesting person and I really enjoyed traveling with him. Thankfully he also has wicked good taste in music, which made the drive there go by in a hurry. After safely delivering him, I found myself with a bit of extra time on the return so I decided to make a few stops and enjoy being on the road.









My first stop was in South Norwalk, CT- known as Sono to the hip. There I visited the small, but interesting Maritime Aquarium. The aquarium featured an excellent display on the sea life of Long Island Sound, as well as the requisite coral reef, shark tanks and seal displays.

My friend Amanda with her four boys


Key West Preschool Coop

Emotions in Motion (RibFest Part II)

September 7, 2009



Jody, Amanda, Kevin, Tim, Kristi, Michael & Kathy

Emotions in Motion (RibFest Part II)

Billy Squier Live



We returned to RibFest for the main attraction on Saturday night, in a way it was more like a return to the roots of my love of music and taking a mysterious ride back some 28 years to the very first time I saw Billy Squier perform live. I was already a music fan, but in 1981, I attended my very first Rock Festival. It was held at the Citrus Bowl in Orlando and featured the likes of REO Speedwagon, Bryan Adams, The Rossington-Collins Band and a guy named Billy Squier. I was hooked and through the 80s, I must have seen Billy Squier live close to 20 times. Including some of the best concerts I have ever seen like when he opened for Queen.





Anyway, he has toured very infrequently of late, mostly appearing as part of Ringo Starr’s traveling band for the past few years. So when it was announced that he was doing a headlining tour for the first time in years and that one of the stops was in Indianapolis, I vowed to gather as many of my best friends from the 80s and get out to Ribfest to recapture a little of the magic I felt when I first saw him perform.



I was amazed at how many of my friends felt the same way. Billy Squier was a big part of the soundtrack to our collective youth and I had plenty of interest in joining us at the show. He didn’t seem to be a draw for just us either as RibFest was absolutely packed for the evening 80s doubleheader that featured Loverboy and Billy Squier.

Tim, Michael, Ed & David

Sage & Russ

Loverboy played first, but we mostly hung back, ate ribs, hung with friends and listened as they cranked out 80s hit after 80s hit. It was so great to hang with so many really lifelong friends. I hadn’t seen my friend Ed Gordon in years, he has spent much of the past few years in Iraq and it was great to see him.

Melissa, Ed, Kathy & David

Kevin

Many of my favorite people on earth joined Kathy & I and it was just awesome to be able to hang out with them all again. Many of them had accompanied me on one or more previous Billy Squier shows back in the day and we seem to have all remained fans, though his music may have fallen out of favor for a time, for this night at least- he was back on top. I’m not sure what Kathy made out of all of our crazy attitudes about this singer, but she played along gamely and had a good time as well.

Michael & Russ



Jody, Amanda & Kristi

When Billy came onstage to the strains of “Lonely is the Night”, it was time to make our way through the massive crowd to our third row seats to enjoy a great evening. At 59, Squier may not be able to leap about as he once did, but he can still play guitar and his voice was strong as well as he played a great set, that, unlike Loverboy’s hit parade, covered the breadth and depth of his catalog.





Amanda, Tim, Kevin, Kristi, Kathy, Jody & Todd

I’ve always felt that he was a vastly underrated performer who was actually hurt rather than helped by the onset of MTV. The silly videos of songs like “Rock Me Tonight” still make me cringe, but the music itself was always awesome. Thanks to all my friends who came out, Kathy & I really, really had a great time. Hope we get a chance to do it again soon.

Russ, Shannon, Sage & Ted