Hey! Droopy ass! Cheer up!

I’ve been feeling [with apologies to Anthony Burgess] all boo-hoo-hooey recently because I came razor-thin close, but didn’t get, a pretty good position in a big, fat, successful investment bank. I even took it out on the poor, old, feeble Pope in my last post.

I’m about to leave for The Great Buckeye State for the long Thanksgiving holiday and I didn't want to drag everybody down into my swamp so I took drastic evasive measures to improve my mood. [Note to overseas readers: Thanksgiving = the worst thing that ever happened to Native Americans.]

I like to visit Carnegie Hall two or three times a year. That place is one of the reasons to tolerate the filth, crowds and other sundry horrors that are inherent in New York City living. I sought healing at a piano recital. Evenings like that are a real joy to me in small doses. I always go alone because I don’t know anybody who would tolerate that crap, but I don’t mind one bit. It’s actually cathartic to sit in that cathedral by myself.


I’ll tell you one thing; the audiences at Carnegie Hall sure know how to behave themselves. You don’t hear a chair squeak, a candy wrapper crinkle or, best of all, a cell phone chime during the entire performance. Not like those pigs on Broadway.

A really odd thing happened. The lights dimmed, someone walked out onto stage and announced, “There is a change in the program. The [mumble-mumble] by Bach will not be performed. Instead, the [mumble-mumble] by Handel will be performed. What do you suppose that was all about? He wasn’t channeling Bach that night? I would have liked to hear the conversation in the dressing room. (Head in hands) "I simply kahnt perform that piece tonight." Artists are so temperamental. The Bach piece is what drew me to the evening in the first place but I, uncharacteristically, got over it right away.

If you close your eyes, and if you can fight off to powerful urge to fall asleep, the music really can transport you somewhere else. Somewhere not inside my head, which is just where I wanted to be. At the end of what was a really moving evening, I stood to leave. The elderly woman sitting next to me was starring off into the air. She suddenly snapped to and said, “Oh! Please forgive me! I was lost in the ecstasy!” They really do talk like that out here, folks.

The Rose Museum is a small room inside Carnegie Hall that contains memorabilia relating to the Hall’s history. There are lots of programs and tickets and news clippings. There’s the golden trowel that Andrew Carnegie used to lay the ceremonial cornerstone in 1890. Did you know that they almost demolished Carnegie Hall in 1962 to make room for a hideous red skyscraper? Probably the same jack-offs who tore down the original Penn Station to build Madison Square Garden

Here’s a program signed by The Beatles on February 12, 1964, just three days after their historic appearance on the Ed Sullivan show. They played two :30 minute concerts that night. Don’t strain yourself, boys.



Take a look at what they did to poor Paul McCartney’s name! Ha!