OK...I've Done It

I've been threatening for awhile....but I have officially MOVED....

Cooper's New Blog Home

It's still a work in progress but it will glisten and shine soon

The Manhattan Project

As NurseRatched is taunting us with pictures of the balmy waters of the west coast, RLLesbian is showing the splendor of the South American forests and Ms. Lime is taking us through the PA countryside posting shots of ice covered branches and snow covered...um...well, snow covered Limes, I thought giving the urban jungle equal time was only fair and just. So....
Let's take a stroll around Manhattan (on a really friggin cold February evening)

First stop Bryant Park. Everyone talks about Central Park but Bryant is actually my favorite. The park is under reconstruction so most of it looks pretty crappy right now...here's a spot that doesn't look too bad. Just imagine the summer with leaves on the trees, a wide grassy area to the right and lots of chairs and benches filled with folk reading, playing chess, getting a tan....
Here's one reason it's so well populated in good weather...










The whole park is a big wi-fi spot. If you had to work in the city, how kewl would that be?

Of course New Yorkers just love their wildlife...

Hey! Anyone see a big monkey up there????
Ahhhh...there's nothing like rush hour on 7th Avenue....


I'll let you draw your own conclusions on this one...


This just struck me odd...the first floor is a Sephora store and the second floor is a PriceWaterhouseCoopers office. So you can go upstairs, find out your investments tanked and go into shock like a zombie, then you go downstairs and have Sephora make you up to look like you just came off the set of Dawn of The Dead...


I know most everyone at one time or another has watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade with all the balloons and marching bands and Santa. Well, here's what it looks like the other 364 days of the year. Thrilling, huh?


And finally, given a previous post of mine, I had to stop in Grand Central Station to see if there were any frozen people left. Sadly, they all looked to be moving..


Oh --- Jake? Meet Sydney...

HNT - PopPop

I miss PopPop. He and I were connected on so many different levels. My Father is turning over in is grave over this, I'm sure, because the two of them were at opposite ends of the spectrum - but I guess that's how it is with fathers and sons.
I have received so many things from PopPop - my love of classical music, photography and especially gadgets. He loved to tinker with audio gear. He had a back room in their apartment filled with stereo equipment in some state of of dis-assembly. I keep thinking he would have a field day in this age of computers, iPods and cell phones. I think of him a lot.
He and Nana had a summer house on Long Island of which I have so many memories. It was a small ranch house with a couple huge oak trees out front which kept the front porch shaded, a front porch encased in jalousie glass windows. A great place for naps - they had the softest sofa bed on the porch with dozens of different sized pillows. PopPop was often seen taking "40 winks" as he called it. I wish I had had the wherewithal to keep the house in the family when Nana had to sell it. I think she sold it for something like $89,000 in the early eighties. It now goes for seven to eight hundred thousand. But beyond that, it was a very warm place to be, three houses away from the Long Island Sound where we'd go swimming and fishing. The lane in front of the house was sand (it's since been paved). All these images keep flashing back to me.
I remember PopPop taking me to Sam Goode to buy records. We drove 40 mph down the Garden State Parkway and I thought we were going to die. But I do remember getting "Fragile" by Yes on LP and the first America release on 8-track (boy that dates it doesn't it?)
And then, of course, there was always Christmas when Nana and PopPop would come to our house. The tradition was everyone took a turn opening a present while the rest of us watched. PopPop, being the Depression-era child he was, saved everything. And I mean EVERYTHING. So he would pull each piece of tape carefully off his present to make sure the paper would not tear, then remove the wrapping and fold it neatly away for a later use.
The best story, though, is when they moved from East Orange to Westfield. They lived in this old brownstone apartment building built in the 40's I think - even the lobby and the staircases had the velvet flocked walls and solid mahogany handrails. The apartments all had twelve foot ceilings and ornate carved moldings in every room. It's probably a crack house now as East Orange went to hell after the civil unrest in the 60's. Anyway, each tenant had a gated storage area in the basement. When I helped them move I went into the storage area and was met with hundreds of boxes and jars full of...stuff. The best one was a small box labeled "String Too Short To Use" and inside were hundreds of tiny pieces of string. Hey, you never knew what that could be used for.
I miss him. He was always a gentle man to me and my sister. Always had a smile. Always was interested in what we were doing. No, he wasn't a saint. He had his prejudices and foibles just like the rest of us. But I do miss him.

Addiction and Hope

Between the ranting and raving, the political character assassinations and the out and out wise-assery exhibited on this page, there is a cause to which I am totally dedicated; not only do I believe in it, it has touched my life personally in a hundred different ways and I am forever grateful.
I sit on the national alumni board for Caron Treatment Centers whose primary location is in Wernersville PA. One out of the thousand outstanding things that happen daily at Caron is watching kids get their lives back; teens that had lost all hope to alcohol and drugs reclaim their lives and return to a sober healthy existence. Below is a link to a news story video from a Maryland TV station that exemplifies the reasons I an dedicated to Caron...the link takes you to the news page then you have to click the video link from there...

Sober Teen

Truth & The A-Holes That Code Malware

I created a post earlier today but couldn't get anything to Blogger. See, last night I got infected, well I didn't get infected my PC did, with a particularly nasty piece of malware. The kind McAfee and Spyware Doctor can't fix. The kind that puts constantly running executable files on my hard drive that can't be deleted, even in safe mode, because there is some deep registry setting that re-creates the executable every time the machine boots up. The type of malware that pops a message up every thirty seconds trying to trick the user in to buying some shitty product.
Thankfully there are enough, honest, smart coders out there that someone came up with a short program to fix this particular situation. Unfortunately, the fix has cleaned out everything except some unknown something somewhere that makes Google think I'm sending it a virus when I'm going through a third-party firewall. In english, that means I can't use Blogger at the Library but it works fine at home. I've been seriously toying with dumping blogger and going to wordpress anyway, just to get completely out from the Google thumb. If I ever meet the fuckers that code shit like this malware, I'll rip their dammed faces off. Think you're cute and funny? You're not. You're slimy worthless fucked up monkey ball sucking, horse smegma chewing elephant shit assholes who should have white hot steel rods shoved up your ass while hydrochloric acid drips on your eyes. Bastards.

Ahh...now I feel better. Anyway..this was the post I had originally started...

For those of you for whom Jeffrey Gitomer is not a household name, he is the Sales Guru of the 21st century. What Tom Peters was to management Gitomer is to Sales. He's taken his extraordinary gift of salesmanship and turned it into a nationwide (multi??) million dollar home grown business. I attended one of his seminars a couple years ago and if nothing else he is inspiring and motivational. And funny. I subscribe to his weekly newsletter just for the kick in the ass I get from it.
His article in this week's newsletter is on the money. Just wanted to share.

The Truth

Show Us Your Stuff

OK you closet karaoke singers...here's your chance to show us all what you got...
The link below is a wild site where you can record yourself singing to a well known song. I saw this on Forever 40's great blog page....

SingSnap.com

WTF???????????????????

Yes!! You too can get rid or wrinkles and grow your hair back...all with the same miraculous product!!!

Just shoot me now....

The Wrinkle Iron

And while were at it, I found this on Odd Fact's blog..all you jewelry lovers line up!!

Live Cockroach Jewelry

Those Were The Days

Back in the Fritz Freling/Bob Clampett days when Daffy was funny and crazy. Back before Chuck Jones ruined him forever, giving him that arrogant greedy personality. You know, everyone hails Chuck Jones as being the savior of Warner Bros cartoons and I think he was the worst of the bunch. He couldn't hold a candle to Tex Avery, or Freeling, or Clampett. I actually met Bob Clampett after he retired. I was at an entertainment convention in the 70's and he had a booth set up, drawing pictures of Beany and Cecil - yeah he did those too. Strange dude. But then all the great cartoonists were...anyway, the old Daffy is my hero..so enjoy...

It's 2 AM And There's No One In The Place...

I don't remember who sang that song...or even what song it is for that matter. Sleep has become a rare commodity over the past few months. I feel like Lawrence Block's serial character who doesn't need to sleep. Tanner, that's his name. I used to really love sleep. I mean there was nothing better than cocooning myself in the covers and letting it all go. Now it's become an uncomfortable place where my mind races, my legs twitch and getting more than 2 or 3 hours at a stretch is unusual. My friends say I should take something. On top of all the other junk I take...Heath Ledger here I come. I can do without that, thank you very much. I seem to get the best sleep between 4 AM and Noon. Going back to work, which has to happen shortly, will put a large crimp in that schedule. And even though as a teenager and a twenty-something I always looked forward to sleeping until noon on weekends and vacations, doing it all the time now makes me feel like I've lost half the day. Ah, the perils of getting older.
I did climb in bed around 1 AM then spent an hour listening to my mind wander. It goes everywhere and anywhere with no specific reason and no one specific thought. Just retraces past events, and movies and songs. Speaking of which...
From the OK I'm Really Embarrassed to Admit This category. About two weeks ago I was lying in bed waiting for the sandman when my mind started reviewing every scene from the movie....Porky's. I know, I know. For the next couple nights I went through it a number of times. It had been quite some time since I'd actually seen it. Well late last week I trundled into the local CD/DVD swap shop thinking maybe they had a used copy of the film I could get. Son of a bitch if they didn't have Porky's I and II on a single DVD for 7.99. Who can resist a bargain like that for such a classic??? Yes, I hear you all snickering...and rightly so...Needless to say I immediately watched them both. Don't ask me why. It was fun to see them again and there are parts that still tickle my funny bone. It's odd to think the writer/director of these is Bob Clark, who also directed A Christmas Story, and an strange little romantic dramady called From The Hip with Judd Nelson. From The Hip also had Dan Monahan who played PeeWee in Porky's. I knew you were aching to know that.
It's now 2:30...maybe I'll give it one more try...ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzz

Isn't This How The Song Goes???

Happy Valentine's Day...

So So True...

While walking down the street one day a US
senator is tragically hit by a truck and dies.
His soul arrives in heaven and is met by St. Peter at the Golden Gate.
"Welcome to heaven," says St. Peter. "Before you settle in, it seems there is a problem. We seldom see a high official around these parts, you see, so we're not sure what to do with you." "No problem, just let me in," says the man. "Well, I'd like to, but I have orders from higher up. What we'll do is have you spend one day in hell and one in heaven. Then you can choose where to spend eternity." "Really, I've made up my mind. I want to be in heaven," says the senator. "I'm sorry, but we have our rules."

And with that, St. Peter escorts him to the elevator and he goes down, down, down to hell. The doors open and he finds himself in the middle of a green golf course. In the distance is a clubhouse and standing in front of it are all his friends and other politicians who had worked with him.
Everyone is very happy and in evening dress. They run to greet him, shake his hand, and reminisce about the good times they had while getting rich at the expense of the people. They play a friendly game of golf and then dine on lobster, caviar and champagne.
Also present is the devil, who really is a very friendly guy who has a good time dancing and telling jokes. They are having such a good time that before he realizes it, it is time to go.
Everyone gives him a hearty farewell and waves while the elevator raises...
The elevator goes up, up, up and the door reopens on heaven where St. Peter is waiting for him.
"Now it's time to visit heaven."
So, 24 hours pass with the senator joining a group of contented souls moving from cloud to cloud, playing the harp and singing. They have a good time and, before he realizes it, the 24 hours have gone by and St. Peter returns.
"Well then, you've spent a day in hell and another in heaven. Now choose your eternity."
The senator reflects for a minute, then he answers: "Well, I would never have said it before, I mean heaven has been delightful, but I think I would be better off in hell."
So St. Peter escorts him to the elevator and he goes down, down, down to hell.
Now the doors of the elevator open and he's in the middle of a barren land covered with waste and garbage.
He sees all his friends, dressed in rags, picking up the trash and putting it in black bags as more trash falls from above.
The devil comes over to him and puts his arm around his shoulder. "I don't understand," stammers the senator. "Yesterday I was here and there was a golf course and clubhouse, and we ate lobster and caviar, drank champagne, and danced and had a great time. Now there's just a wasteland full of garbage and my friends look miserable. What happened?"
The devil looks at him, smiles and says, "Yesterday we were campaigning...... Today you voted."

Hmmmmm....

Not that this hasn't crossed my mind from time to time. I tend to visualize things as I write anyway. And more often than not when I hear a certain song I can imagine that I'm the director of the images that I feel would fit perfectly. I've always been a film buff. I made two cheesy 8mm films (not THAT kind of 8mm film you pervs), one in high school and one in college. The high school one was really...well crappy. It was the early 70's and was supposed to be very violent and existential and trippy and I spent an eternity editing the damn thing and it made no sense whatsoever. The college film was a little better. Now that I think about it they were sort of similar dealing with dreams entering reality. They were both silent films (these were the pre-video days mind you) so I had to score a music track over both of them as well. It was damn near impossible to make the tape machine sync with the film and, of course, I had to have certain sections hit at exact moments together. What a doofus. It only happened once...fortunately it was when we presented it to the Professor in charge of this project. I think I have the high school film lying around somewhere. The college film is long gone. I, unfortunately, ended up dating the woman that I was partnered with on the project. The relationship ended badly while she was in possession of the only copy of the film. She probably burned it in the center of a pentagram while asking Satan to curse me for life. I wouldn't blame her..

You Should Be a Film Writer

You don't just create compelling stories, you see them as clearly as a movie in your mind. You have a knack for details and dialogue. You can really make a character come to life. Chances are, you enjoy creating all types of stories. The joy is in the storytelling. And nothing would please you more than millions of people seeing your story on the big screen!

What Type of Writer Should You Be?

Blaaaarrrgggg

How Could I Resist This Meme

From Kat's Random Thoughts via Mr. Fab
10 Signs That A Book Has Been Written By Me
10. Orson Welles rises from the dead to buy the movie rights
9. Catholic girls stop shaving
8. The English Department at my Alma Mater is dismantled and never spoken of again
7. In chapter 4, Ellen Page strangles Bill O'Rielly
6. Barnes & Noble offers free internet access to anyone willing to type 10,000 words of rebuttal
5. Meredith Salenger shows up at my house and offers to do anything to play the lead in the movie (OK, that's not so much a sign as it is a pipe dream)
4. Oprah chokes to death on her own sputum
3. My friend Larry lets the air out of all my tires for getting published before he does
2. Paul Rubens is caught masturbating during a showing of The Sound of Music at a church group movie night
1. Winter parkas are distributed in hell.

Top 5 on Friday - on Saturday (deal with it)

From Mistress of the Dark...
In honor of Valentine's Day.....
5 Songs That Say 'I Love You'...

1) Maybe I'm Amazed - Paul McCartney
2) Just The Way You Are - Billy Joel
3) Beginnings - Chicago
4) Still Got The Blues For You - Gary Moore
5) Danny's Song - Kenny Loggins

They're all pretty self explanatory...

55 FFF - Part 3 & a Question

The meal is exquisite. Cold shredded lobster salad on fresh greens with crisp champagne. The man watches a raven-haired woman take a forkful of lobster meat, her tongue and lips slowly pulling the white fish into her mouth. Her eyes dart towards her fixated audience of one. He raises a champagne glass to toast her.

My buddy KFarmer asked me a good question that I thought would be fun to share...
Do you remember the first record (album, tape or CD depending on your age) you ever bought? What was it and do you still have it?
I had a ton of 45s but the first real album purchase I made was the first Crosby, Stills & Nash and Led Zeppelin II. How's that for consistency??? I recently threw out both of them because I'm trying to lighten my album load, they were worn out and I have them both on CD now.

Better Late Than Never HNT

I'm typing around the cat who insists on sitting in my lap...actually he insists on being scratched..the hell with my lap.
Anyway...this HNT is late because the shelf unit I am in front of took me most of the afternoon to find...FOUR, yes, FOUR different Staples had to be visited. The fact that there are four of them within a reasonable driving distance to each other sez something as well I guess. Anyway, I was fed up with having all the albums on the floor and having to walk around them. I know this doesn't look like much but there are two more piles behind me and two full shelves below me. I can actually walk around the room again...

Asinine

I found this at Voice of Freedom's blog. Let's regulate everything. First let's define 'obese'. Will every restaurant have to have a weigh-in before you can be served? Oh that will surely boost business....

JACKSON, Miss. - A state lawmaker wants to ban restaurants from serving food to obese customers — but please, don’t be offended. He says he never even expected his plan to become law.

I was trying to shed a little light on the number one problem in Mississippi,” said Republican Rep. John Read of Gautier, who acknowledges that at 5-foot-11 and 230 pounds, he’d probably have a tough time under his own bill.

…Al Stamps, who owns a restaurant in Jackson, said it is “absurd” for the state to consider telling him which customers he can’t serve. He and his wife, Kim, do a bustling lunch business at Cool Al’s, which serves big burgers - beef or veggie - and specialty foods like “Sassy Momma Sweet Potato Fries.”

“There is a better way to deal with health issues than to impose those kind of regulations,” Al Stamps said. “I’m sorry - you can’t do it by treating adults like children and telling them what they can and cannot eat.”

Just Borrowing A Few Things

I lifted these from Pointless Drivels wonderful blog. For even more of these please go visit him.

Just Super

Everything's been Super lately. We've gone beyond the Super Bowl, which naturally takes place on Super Sunday. We're coming to the end of Super Tuesday and the latest batch of political nit-wittery. I'm looking forward to a non-Super day, twenty-four hours where nothing super happens; no sporting events, no marketing schemes, no candidate jousting. Even a day where no Superman (or woman) is required. Just an average day of life with time to breathe, a chance to look at the sky, maybe even take two hours to enjoy a meal - without going to the Super-market naturally.
"Super" in the adjective sense of which I speak, was a very hip descriptor in the 70's whose usage has thankfully declined, relegated mostly to the uses mentioned above.
Given further thought, it occurs to me that the current uses are not dis-similar. At the highest level, game planning is done by coaches/spin doctors who develop a winning strategy, finally sending the players/candidates onto the field of battle to exercise said maneuvers and gimmicks. The players themselves have little thinking to do, they've been well practiced/rehearsed in preparation for taking it to the opponent.
Yes, it's a peaceful average day I look forward to, perhaps treating myself, in oppositon to all the health gurus advice, to a value meal at Wendy's.
Super-sized, of course.

Signed,

Superconductor