Marty After Dark - Almost Live...From New York

Entries in Thanksgiving (1)

Thursday

Nov242011

November 25, 2011

Okay, today's Thanksgiving and what I'm thankful for is I have nowhere to go. I always feel burned out around this time of year and since I go out so much due to my blog it's nice to take a day and do absolutely nothing. What I plan on doing today is drinking lots of beer, listening and watching videos on YouTube and I thought I'd blog through the whole day. That way we can all spend Thanksgiving together. I can put these posts up and not publish them till tomorrow, so, live, from New York, here's my Thanksgiving! Gobble, gobble, gobble!

This is me trying to open my eyes at the crack of noon. I'm not a morning person and since it's not morning, I guess I'm not an afternoon person either. Okay, I'm going to shower and shave and go out and get my supplies, I'll be back later.

Okay, it's 4:04 PM and I've got all my supplies and don't need to leave the apartment for the rest of the afternoon/evening! I've cracked my first beer, let Thanksgiving begin! Cheers to you all!

I've been listening to Amy Winehouse a lot lately. She has a new CD of songs she recorded before she died coming out in about a week. Usually celebrity deaths don't affect me that much. If you're a fan, you feel bad, but at least in my case I pretty much move on about five minutes later. I found out about her dying in a weird way, I was on Twitter and noticed that Amy Winehouse was at the top of the trending list, meaning tons of people were tweeting about her. I remember immediately thinking, "Fuck, I hope she's not dead," then I went and googled Amy Winehouse and it came up that she had just been discovered dead. It really made me feel sad. I loved her singing and felt she was a person who just couldn't handle fame. I think most people secretly or openly long to be famous, but when you get fame, I don't think it's an easy thing to handle.

I only know this on a super-small level, but in 1986 a friend and I created a satire of Trivial Pursuit called Trivial Trivia and it really blew up. I've written about it before, but in a nutshell, we were on a local radio show, that led to being in the local newspaper, then we were on the local news, then a neighboring town wrote about it and then it was picked up by the U.P.I. wire service and it started the strangest few months of my life. We were written up in newspapers across the country and were interviewed on tons of radio stations. We ended up being flown to New York and were interviewed by Jane Pauley on the Today Show. Pretty much everybody in Peoria watched it and all of a sudden everywhere I went people would stare and point at me and ask me if I was one of the "Trivia guys." I had complete strangers come up to me and ask for an autograph. I'm an outgoing person, but it was embarassing even to me. I stopped going out anywhere and for awhile the only place I felt comfortable was at my best friend and spiritual guru's house, Tim and his wife Tina and all their kids. Eventually it went away, but even that's weird, because in a strange way I kind of missed it. That's embarassing to admit, but it's true.

Amy Winehouse seemed like such a troubled person with lots of demons. That coupled with fame, money and people who won't say no to you is a deadly combination and in the end she got burned. I was really rooting for her to straighten up somewhat and come back with a great CD, but sadly it appears that's going to happen after she's long gone.

I thought for sure she overdosed on drugs, but it turns out she drank herself to death. Which reminds me, I need another beer!

To Amy WInehouse!

Okay, it's time for the firest course of today's Thanksgiving meal. I'm going the non-tradtional route and not having any turkey. For starters, I'm having Genoa salami, Chicken in a Biskit crackers and Sleazy Cheese.

if there's a better snack item to eat with beer, please let me know, because I know there's not and if you say there is, then you're just a complete liar. Okay, more music!

My favorite band as a kid was The Beatles, but running a close second was Herman's Hermits. The first album I ever bought was in 1966 and it was, "Best of Herman's Hermits." I saved money forever to get that album and I'll never forget tearing the cellophane off of it and breathing in the new album smell. It's always been one of my favorite memories. And here they are and you can call him Herman if you like, you cheeky bugger you!

John Mellencamp is a musician I've always respected. I don't like all of his music, but he's a guy who came from a chickenshit town in the Midwest, got renamed by a record company and pretty much was a cliche in the beginning of his career. He didn't even know they changed his name from John Mellencamp to "Johnny Cougar" until he saw it on his first album. Can you imagine the horror of finding out the record company changed your name to "Johnny Cougar?" He rolled with the punches though and eventually was able to reclaim his name and that's pretty cool. This is a great song and Rickie Lee Jones sings on it too, so how can it not be good?

You can't have a Thanksgiving day video party without including my friends, The Handcuffs. They played here in New York a couple years ago and after the show we were walking along on Houston Street and came upon a fortune cookie factory. No shit, a fortune cookie factory, as that cow Cindy Adams would say: "Only in New York kids, only in New York. Mooo!"

Anyway, we were watching this assembly line of Asian men assembling fortune cookies and Chloe (the lead singer who's married to Brad, the lead drummer) said she'd really like to try one. So I said, no problem, I'll get you one. I marched in and asked if I could buy a fortune cookie from an Asian man on the assembly line who asked me to leave. I told him I had to buy a fortune cookie and this led to him running upstairs, bringing down an Asian man in a dark pinstriped suit and a silk tie who told me I would have to buy a whole case of them and pointed to a box the size of a small storage unit.

"No problem, we'll take the case," I told him in tones of supreme confidence.

"Fifteen dollars," he barked at me.

"A bargain at twice the price," I countered.

"Okay, twenty dollars," he barked back, raising the ante.

I pulled a twenty dollar bill out of my jeans and he surrendered the fortune cookies. I went outside and we all collapsed in laughter over the fact that we now had a case of fortune cookies. Also present at this chance encounter were Emily who plays bass and Ellis who strums a gtibox and jangles a keyboard with The Handcuffs. Alison wasn't present yet because she hadn't joined the band at this point in time. Eventually we ended up handing out the fortune cookies to bewildered passerbys. Oh, and earlier in the evening I proposed marriage to our waitress at a Mexican restaurant, after having drunk 29 margaritas. She accepted so I guess I'm still oficially engaged.

It was one of my favorite nights in New York City. The Handcuffs have a new CD out and you can buy it here: "Waiting For The Robot."

And now for the second course, Totino's Pepperoni Pizza Rolls. Heavily peppered and topped with a dollop of Sleazy Cheese. And speaking of eating...

Eat That Rat!

Okay, time for the third and last course of the evening. By now I've drank enough beer to sink a battleship and here's some mini cheeseburgers from the company that makes, Hot Pockets. I've always loved the name, "Hot Pockets." It makes me think of walking around with pieces of warmed grilled cheese in your blue jeans and that's a heartwarming moment for sure. Here they are all peppered up and ready to eat.

Okay, these were a bit of a disappointment. They taste like a tan albino throwing up beef stew that was marinated in Cheez Whiz. I know that's a bit much to wrap your brain around, but trust me, these weren't too good. So let's end on a musical highlight...