Jones Beach

Went out here Memorial Day - nice Day to see the Atlantic. Hung out a little bit in Long Island afterward.

That night I brought the MiniDV to work and shot what turned out to be a pretty nice sunset. Shot it from the end of Pier 61 - the Bateaux Pier - and learned some things in the process.

I was just looking at it today, having imported it to the Mac and there are things I noticed on the 20" screen that I did not notice while shooting.

I'm basically getting material to create an original project combining music with images/video to hopefully creat a third thing. Ultimately it may be something that I'm able to perform live as well as canned stuff. Ah but this leads into another post. I'm playing the Bateaux tonight - gotta go.

Yankees 6, Royals 5

Kind of a strange game:

Yanks score all 6 in the first two innings. Royal bullpen sends down something like the next 16 in a row.

Royals chip away, adding one run per inning from the 4th until it is a good game late. Yanks had to bring in Mariano to close it.

Fun to be out there.

Royals vs Yankees

Set to take off for the stadium for my annual pilgrimage to see my home-town Royals take on my live-town Yankees. I will always root for MY home team (KC), no matter where I live.

I just hope the Royals don't embarass George Steinbrenner's crew too much. Don't let the league-worst 11 wins in 47 tries fool you - they are set to POUNCE!

This is the third game of the series and during yesterday's game one of the announcers was, I would say, lamenting the passing of what used to be a very heated and fun rivalry back in the 70's/80's (back when I was IN KC and when they weren't statistically eliminated every year by early June - when they were guud).

But of course, that has been supplanted by the Red Sox/Yanks hatefest.

Some baseball seasons come and go and I hardly notice. But I've been into it the lastcouple of years. I've decided to be into it.

The secret of enjoyment I've learned is to not be in too much of a hurry. The game will not proceed with any amount of haste. If you are not prepared for that, the game seems interminable.

And someone once pointed out to me that it is one of the only games where the defense has the ball.


The one on one pitching duel, bad teams beating good teams with pitching - or fluke hitting - or costly errors, these are all well known to someone describing themselves as a fan.

There is something very zen about it too. Long stretches of what seems like not-too-much going on, followed by focused, crisp activity, only to give way again to watching the grass grow.

And it just humms along - the game. All summer long there is the certainty that that ritual is going on somewhere. No rush. No hurry. Let it happen. Watch it happen. Eat a hot dog. Drink a beer. Prod your legs which are falling asleep under the lotus position.

I mean you can't get too high falutin'. It is afterall a bunch of sweaty jocks trying to one-up each other. But I suppose the layers are there to see or not, depending on your predisposition.

I shot this 5/23 from the Bateaux.

Conspicuously absent (still to me): two World Trade Towers.

Working

Played the Bateaux again tonight. I played Mon-Wed this week, tonight (Fri) and tomorrow. 5 total. I did 4 last week and 2 plus Maryland the week before that, so it is a gradual thing.

This pic was taken my first night back - May 8th.

Cheryl Bailey played guitar Tuesday, Pete McCann played Wednesday. Both sounding great.

The first few nights were definitely just something I was trying to get through. Pain, stiffness in the L arm/shoulder, weakness in the hands and soft, fleshy fingers were my materials to work with - a bass player's dream!

But by this week it was starting to feel more natural again. Just build it up, gig by gig. Strength is returning and it really does feel great to be out playing again. Not a moment too soon.

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It's raining in NYC tonight.

And the city is quiet. Many left town for the holiday.

Washington D.C.

Just rolled back into NY. It's 5:15am and the birds are singing!

I had a change of plans after I blogged from Salisbury this morning. Looking at a map, I felt something tug at me when I looked at Washington DC. So tantalizingly close. So many cool things to see.

So I jumped on Rt. 50 West in Salisbury and just took it, all the way up to the Bay Bridge, across to Annapolis and on to downtown D.C.

I lucked in to a meter right at 17th NW and E St - the entrance to the south side of the White House.

I had a great time and shot alot of video and a few stills - I spent my time at the W.H. (both north and south sides), the Washington Monument and the Jefferson Memorial. Super cool.

I didn't have time for the Capitol or the Lincoln.

So after pulling into town around 4:00 and thinking I'd leave to come home once the sun went down, I found myself walking around trying to fit more in.

I went to the north side of the W.H. and checked out Andrew Jackson's park and shot some nice night stills of the scene (I have to get these up online - I want to share them).

And then I finally got back to the van and decided to drive over to the Capitol and try and find the Supreme Court bldg - the map told me it is just to the west of the dome. I found it but it would be a better experience on foot.

And then it took me way too long to get out of DC.

But the drive up 95 is pretty quick - around 3.5 hours.

Salisbury '06

Just about to shove off from room 528 of the Hampton Inn in Salisbury, MD.

The gig last night went well - one LONG set and then we were pretty much finished, save the waiting around listening to dutiful hospital employees names being read.

I can report that the L shoulder/arm area is still stiff and the bone/plate do have a daily menu of different kinds of pain, but I am getting stronger by the week and even feel a daily improvement. And while I am still moving slow, it is not AS slow. I'm using the left arm now and can even carry light things with it. Mobility has improved vastly, thanks to my PTist Cheryl Ann.

Last night's gig on bass was my third overall, second this week, and I will play the Bateaux on Sat. I'll do 4 next week. There are cruises literally everynight so I'll ease into it.

I would say that I am somewhere around 65-70% of the "new normal". It has been just over 4 months, 3 since the surgery.


I mention the room number above because I have been shooting some video on this trip and I shot some stuff from the window of the hotel last night and got some pretty cool, slowly developing scenes of moon/clouds/radio towers/lonely traffic, etc. We'll see what it looks like on a bigger screen.

It is a slamming gorgeous day out there and I'm looking forward to driving up the coast of Delaware from Ocean City, MD and then taking the beast on the ferry across to Cape May, NJ and then over to the NJ Pike and home to NY.

We did this gig last year and I did the drive up the coast, but did not have time to take the ferry - I had to be back on the boat that night. Tonight I'm off and will check it out.

Well, MY checkout is 11:00, better go. The day is going - mi voy a casa.

Maryland

Just about to hit the road and go down to Salisbury, MD to do a gig with the Bateaux band. We did this last year. Nice chance to get out of town. I'll come back tomorrow.

PT:

Yesterday added 25 lbs of weight to resistance exercices (ala boat row), as well as the rubber bands from Monday.

An eventful week last week when my Mom came to town, ostensibly to see me graduate from the shakuhachi Dojo. That didn't happen, but I did play Kyorei, impromtu, at the Cherry Blossom fest at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Steve Buchbinder did get his teaching certificate.

Bateaux Return

Did my first gig of the year back on the Bateaux last night. Really nice to see the familiar faces - Kyle, Joey and Tony were playing.

I got thru the gig OK. Not without some pain and stiffness, but with the help of Phys Therapy (since APR 3), I've gotten quit a bit of mobility of the left arm back.