My first attempt at shooting a music video

James has recently taken up the guitar again.  He's also writing his own songs.  He's become a regular at a few open mic nights in Brooklyn.  As a friend and music lover, I've tried to go to all of his shows.  James played at the Brooklyn Guitar School's showcase on Friday evening and I brought along my point-and-shoot camera and recorded his set.  I also had to hold his guitar at one point, which I believe makes me a roadie.

He opened with The Gaslight Anthem's "Great Expectations."



Next up was his original song, "Children's Crusade." That's me providing the commentary/heckling.



He closed his set with The Killers' "When You Were Young." There's a glitch near the end when my camera stopped recording and I had to restart.  Thanks to the wonders of iWeb I stitched it together.  Now I know that 7 1/2 minutes is my camera's limit for continuous video.

Saturday afternoon at the rock show

If you ride the NYC subway, you've probably seen the ads for the "Who Shot Rock & Roll" exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum.  It's a collection of photographs of rock musicians from 1955 to the present day.  I live about 15 minutes from the Brooklyn Museum, and the show has been running since October, but it took me until this afternoon to go see it.

I got to the museum around 3 PM to find a huge line snaking through the lobby.  The line moved quickly and I was on my way up to the fifth floor and the exhibit by 3:20.  That's where I ran into the second line for the show itself.  So it's a popular destination right now.  Also, it closes next weekend, so I'm sure the urgency brought out a larger crowd.

The exhibit is arranged by topic: performers before they were famous, private moments, concert photographs, album covers, and videos, to name a few.  Some of my favorite photos were of Jimmy Page with the Yardbirds in 1966, with short hair and a waist-length double-breasted jacket.  Compare that photo to the one around the corner of Page in 1975 on stage with Led Zeppelin, with long flowing hair and his shirt open to the waist.  There's a great photo of Johnny Cash at San Quentin prison, responding to the photographer's request to "take one for the warden!"  I really enjoyed the pictures of the Beatles and Rolling Stones before they were famous, lounging at pubs and backstage.  You can see Jimi Hendrix playing with Wilson Pickett in 1966, then with his own band a year later.  I won't spoil the contrast here but it's striking, almost jarring.  In between the two halls of the exhibit, there's a 15-minute slide show of other rock musicians from the 1960s and 1970s.  There's a photo index on the wall, but if you're of a certain generation it might be more fun to play "name that person."  I can tell you that David Crosby was never a good-looking man. 

There's also a Grace Jones video playing in one of the rooms.  Seeing Grace Jones always reminds me of her turn as a Bond girl in A View To A Kill in 1985.  I have the image of her in bed with an aging Roger Moore burned into my brain.  That movie should have come with a warning.  No twelve-year-old boy needs to see that.

The show runs through next weekend and is absolutely worth the shlep out to Brooklyn.  I didn't have to shlep, but those of you who live in Manhattan should make the trip.  Be prepared for crowds, and for tourists who don't know who Patti Smith or the Sex Pistols are.

Adventures in cooking (a continuing series)

During the NFL playoffs, I like to link my cooking to whoever's playing that day.  Since the first game was Arizona at New Orleans, I went with chicken machaca and Mexican red rice from The Border Cookbook. 

I went shopping earlier in the day and thought I had all of the ingredients, but the rice recipe called for a mild New Mexican chile powder that I forgot to buy.  It called for a tablespoon of the chile powder so I substituted about 3/4 of a tablespoon of cayenne pepper instead.  While the resulting rice was edible, I think it was a little spicier than the editors intended.  And it made for an eye-watering meal when paired with the chicken dish.

There are some nights I'm glad I only have to cook for myself.

The website project is live

I've been working on a new website project for the past several months.  It's a site about my grandfather, Philip Bramwell Catelinet, and his music and career.  It's a work in progress.  My grandfather's music, papers, letters, and other works are scattered between my father in Maryland and my aunt in Georgia.  I spent part of my holiday vacation in Bowie going through photographs, cataloging old recordings, and reading some of his articles.  Some of the fruits of those labors are available on the site now, and others will be as they become available to me in electronic form.

Please take a look at the site and let me know what you think.  If you have information you would like to add to the site or corrections to anything that's up there now, please let me know.

Take a hike, 2009

It has been my custom to write a "wrap up" post at the end of the year, usually while I'm bored at work on New Year's Eve. I was actually a little busy today, so this post is going up late.

2009 started out well enough and had its high points. The Steelers won the Super Bowl and the Penguins won the Stanley Cup, which would be enough to make any year stand out. I also went on a couple of great vacations, in New Orleans and on Block Island. I played some of my favorite works with NYRO and heard the New York Philharmonic play some as well, perhaps too often. I helped organize and run another successful NYRO benefit gala and I've learned some lessons that will make 2010's gala even better. But then there were the sour moments that are foremost in my mind as the year comes to a close. I'm not as happy as I was when the year started. That's something I need to work on in 2010.

Ten years ago I was married and stuck in a crappy job in a new city that I hated. Now I'm divorced and in a much better job in that same city that I have grown to love in ways I never expected. I have regrets about some things from the past decade but I wouldn't change many of them. I've loved and lost. I've had highs that were unforgettable and lows that I never want to know again. I traveled Europe and Asia in this past decade. I've become that cantankerous old guy at my job (not so old yet) who knows where all the bodies are buried. I've made some incredible friends. I picked up the viola again after too long a break, and I swear to God I'm not putting it down again until my fingers stop working.

That's it for me. I'm off to drink bourbon and forget about the past for a while. See you on the flip side.

I spent my Christmas weekend in Bowie, MD, this year, visiting my father and stepmother instead of my usual Johnstown holiday vacation. After four years of Johnstown at the holidays, I was ready for a change.

I got caught in the mess at Penn Station on my way out last Wednesday. My scheduled train had a mechanical problem which eventually forced Amtrak to cancel the train. They'd already told the big-city passengers to move to the Acela on the next track, so they sent the rest of us headed for small towns (like New Carrollton, MD, the closest stop to my dad's house) back to the concourse to catch the next train. We boarded another train scheduled to leave at 9:41 AM, but it was sitting on the tracks with no power. None of the tracks had power. We sat on this train for about 45 minutes before the conductor told us all to get off the train and take the PATH commuter trains to Newark, where we could get on southbound trains. So we all trudged over to 6th Avenue and crammed ourselves onto a PATH train. At Newark no one from Amtrak had any idea what was going on. Some of us discussed the idea of renting a car. Shortly after noon we heard that power had returned at Penn Station and that trains were moving again. Around 12:45 my train pulled into Newark and many of us crowded onto it. Somehow I got a seat. After five hours, I was on my way. I got to DC just in time to meet some friends for dinner at Clyde's near the Verizon Center.

The rest of the trip was far less exciting. I spent several hours going over music, recordings, and photos of my grandfather and family for a website project that is scheduled to launch early next year (or whenever I get around to launching it). My mother drove down the day after Christmas for a visit. I got to watch the Steelers edge the Ravens and keep their slim playoff hopes alive. And most importantly, I was able to spend some time with my father, who I never seem to see often enough.

I returned to New York on Monday afternoon, somewhat revitalized. Vacations help but returning home always seems to bring out the same old stressors. Still, it's good to be back and I'm looking forward to a better 2010. This year didn't turn out quite how I'd planned. Next year will definitely be an improvement.

Duke Nukem Never

Wired has the inside story on how 3DRealms' long-promised Duke Nukem Forever never came out. I knew some of the details on the game's many delays, like the various engine changes. But I didn't know about creator George Broussard's obsession with including the latest and greatest visual effects in his masterpiece. The story is a study in when the artist lets the public see his creations.

I played Duke Nukem 3D back in 1996 when I was still in college. While I loved the game, newer games with better graphics quickly took Duke's place on my computer. Like everyone else who loved the game and the character, I followed DNF's developments in the late 1990s and eagerly awaited a playable demo or even video footage. But by the early 2000s the game had become a punchline. Now I doubt we'll ever see anything playable from the 12 years 3DRealms and Broussard spent developing this game. It's a shame.

This is the birthday that was

How I planned to spend my 36th birthday:

After the NYRO concert on Saturday night, have a quick drink at the bar, then run home to get about five hours sleep. Wake up at 5 AM, go to the airport, fly to Pittsburgh, go to the Steelers-Packers game. Eat at Primanti Brothers, drive back to the airport, sleep at the hotel, and fly back to New York on Monday morning.

What really happened:

Saturday's blizzard didn't seem so bad in the afternoon. Holly and I continued to plan our trip all day, working out minor details over IM. I got ready for the concert and was on my way out the door when Jess told me that she'd heard that someone's flight out of JFK on Sunday had already been canceled. I checked JetBlue's website and our flight out had been canceled too. It wasn't even 6 PM on Saturday and the trip was off. I resolved to go and play a great concert and worry about the game later.

The concert was fantastic. Getting the chance to play Saint-Saens' "Organ" Symphony was a thrill I had waited twenty years to experience. When the organ thundered that massive C major chord to start the finale, I had a huge smile on my face. The floor of St. Mary's shook with the force of the organ and the power of the brass behind me. Between them, I could have played "Yankee Doodle" and no one would have heard me. After the concert, we had a few drinks with my friends from the orchestra and discussed our plan for Sunday. While I was disappointed that we weren't going to make it to Pittsburgh for the game, I was happy to be able to sleep in on Sunday and relax on my birthday. And that's basically what happened. It was a leisurely morning, with birthday cake and omelets for breakfast. I went for a walk in the afternoon and saw families frolicking and sledding in the snow in Prospect Park. Then I went to James and Jess's apartment to watch the Steelers-Packers game and have dinner.

The game was not on in New York, so I listened to the first half online and then found a few underground sites where I could watch the FOX feed from overseas. And I was able to see the last few minutes of the game on their TV, when Mike Wallace caught a touchdown pass from Ben Roethlisberger with no time left on the clock. The booth review kept me from my customary touchdown dance, but I whooped and waved my Terrible Towel when the extra point won the game. I was happy the Steelers won, but I felt bad for the Packers and for Holly. However, I have every confidence we'll be watching the Pack in the playoffs in January, while the Steelers are at home wondering how their season got away from them.

So I never made it to Pittsburgh, and I have an expensive but worthless piece of unused card stock as a permanent reminder of a game I never attended. But I had a fantastic day here in New York anyway. It was a great way to start my 37th year on this planet.

The Muppets: Ringing of the Bells

I especially like the Chef's sweater. It looks like something a guy from Sweden would wear.

Some random musings about the Steelers

My reaction to the Steelers' fifth straight loss last night (to the Cleveland fucking Browns) was to finish off a bottle of rum and send texts and e-mails that I would later regret. Sleep did not make me feel much better.

I'm not here to swear off my team or call for anyone's head. The Steelers won the Super Bowl last year and have two championships in the past five years. I've been blessed as a fan. But five-game losing streaks are not something I'm used to seeing from my team. Especially when those losses are to the Chiefs, Raiders, and Browns, all among the worst teams in the league. Now we can include Pittsburgh in that group. Those six wins on the schedule look like flukes now.

I have a plane ticket and a game ticket for next week's game vs. the Packers. I'm going to get up before dawn next Sunday morning (also my birthday) and fly to Pittsburgh to see my team. Two weeks ago it looked like a playoff contender showdown. Now the Steelers are just playing for respect. I'm going to the game with Holly, a Packers fan (though I won't hold that against her). It's the first time I've dated a serious football fan and then had my team play her team. That scenario alone will make the afternoon more interesting. If we don't kill each other during the game we'll have a great time.

It's going to be hard to watch the playoffs without the Steelers. The good thing is that my blood pressure will go down and I won't order my best friend to leave my apartment because he's rooting for the other team. And then there's the long off-season of regret and ruminations. The Steelers won't be down for long. I have faith.

And I have the Penguins.

Why are you on the phone in the elevator?

There are some people who work in my building (not on my floor) who get on the elevator in the middle of a cell phone call. Inevitably, these people end up shouting "Hello? Hello? Can you hear me?" into the phone before looking at it curiously. I'm talking about full-grown adults who have lived in the cell phone age long enough to know when and where cellular network coverage is available. The elevator is not a place where one can expect to get full bars or even one bar. It's in the middle of the building, surrounded by steel and concrete. Elevators are where cell phone signals go to die. Yet these people check their phones like dropped calls are a mysterious phenomenon never before experienced by human beings.

These are also the same people who answer the phone on the subway while the train is above ground, then shout "hello? Hello?" again when the train goes underground. Your phone is not made of magic, sir. It does not work in the bowels of the city (and we like it that way, lest we all be subjected to your inane conversation for our entire journey). Why don't you put that thing away before you hurt yourself? I'll give you a dollar and you can get yourself a candy phone to play with. Enjoy!

My big date for charity

Last night was the big “date” at the New York Philharmonic that came out of last month's NYRO benefit gala. The winner of the date was Jorge, a member of NYRO's trumpet section. Our evening began with dinner at The City Grill on the Upper West Side. Jorge and I shared some sparkling conversation and at times he took my advertised role as “bon vivant,” with better stories than mine.

The Philharmonic's program consisted of Arthur Honegger's Symphony No. 2 for strings with solo trumpet ad libitum (performed by the Philharmonic's principal trumpet, Philip Smith) and Beethoven's Symphony No. 3, “Eroica,” with Riccardo Muti at the podium. The Honegger symphony was well-played but not really my kind of classical music, though we both enjoyed Mr. Smith's solo near the end of the work. After intermission Muti led the Philharmonic in a spirited reading of the “Eroica.” The audience had barely stopped applauding his return to the stage when the orchestra struck the two opening E-flat chords that begin the symphony. I've seen Muti conduct the Philharmonic before, but I hadn't noticed how he would stop conducting entirely for several measures and let the orchestra play on before his right hand lifted the baton again. At least that's how it appeared to me sitting several hundred feet away in the second tier. For all I know, Muti's face told the orchestra everything they needed to know during those measures. Muti also appeared slightly annoyed by all the coughing and rustling from the audience between movements, twice lifting his baton to start the movement and then lowering it, before raising it a second time and beginning. As much as I love the string section, there were a few spots where they covered up the winds. I wanted to shout at them to get out of the way. The highlight for me was the excellent work of the Philharmonic's French horn section. The horn calls in the third and fourth movements, especially the coda, were lively and rousing. During the curtain calls, Muti recognized the orchestra's solo performers as usual, but when he came back out and asked the orchestra to stand, they refused and applauded him for at least thirty seconds before finally standing. The Philharmonic's ovation reminded me of this concert review in the Washington Post by Anne Midgette, which pointed out that Muti was a candidate for the orchestra's music directorship several years ago (a job that went to Alan Gilbert). It's clear that the orchestra likes working with Muti, and as Midgette pointed out, this concert was an example of what might have been had Muti taken the Philharmonic's position.

After the concert Jorge and I went to the green room, hoping to meet Philip Smith. Mr. Smith is something of an old family friend, as his father and my grandfather were colleagues many years ago and Mr. Smith worked with my grandfather at a band camp a long time ago. After a few minutes' wait, Mr. Smith came out to say hello. I was excited to meet someone from the orchestra whose work I've enjoyed for so many years. But Jorge was thrilled. It was like he met one of his idols. I took a photo of Jorge and Mr. Smith, and Jorge said several times that his wife (also a trumpeter) would be jealous. We also got to meet the Philharmonic's associate principal trumpet, Matthew Muckey. Jorge and I ended the evening with a couple of beers at a local watering hole before going our separate ways. It was as good a date as I've ever put together.

What I'm thankful for today

My family and my friends, who support me through good times and bad, and through good decisions and heartbreaking works of staggering boneheadedness.

My cats, who don't care when I come home as long as I do, and that I feed them as soon as I walk through the door.

My job, because I'd rather have a job I'm not 100% happy about than no job at all.

My iPhone: it's the first thing I check in the morning and the last thing I check at night.

New York: after ten years, it's still the toughest town I've ever known but I can't imagine living anywhere else.

Music, especially NYRO and the NY Philharmonic. The former provides me with a place to play with a great group of talented friends, and the latter gives me some of the best performances I've ever heard and motivates me to work harder for NYRO.

The food I'm about to make (and receive). It's not Thanksgiving without turkey, potatoes, and pie. (I'm making potatoes.)

A four-day weekend.

Football.

The virtual mayhem that is Modern Warfare 2. I may not leave my apartment all weekend.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Two posts in one: Bob Dylan and The Road

I don't get to many concerts beyond the New York Philharmonic. I don't keep up with the musicians and bands I like, so often I find out one of my favorite groups has already passed through New York and I missed them. A few weeks ago my friend Creighton asked a group of us if we were interested in seeing Bob Dylan. I'd seen Dylan twice in the 1990s but not since then. Everyone else wanted to go and I thought it would be fun to see him again with my friends. On Tuesday night we went to the United Palace Theatre at Broadway and 175^th Street for Dylan and his band, with Dion (of “The Wanderer” fame) as the opening act. We all skipped Dion's set, except for the last song. Creighton and I chatted in the theater lobby while James and Jessica had dinner nearby. We found our seats just as Dion wrapped up with “The Wanderer.” About half an hour later Dylan and his band came out. He played a few old songs like “It's All Over Now, Baby Blue,” “A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall,” and “Highway 61 Revisited” but with new arrangements. He drew heavily from his albums from this decade, which I don't know at all, but I enjoyed the new songs nonetheless. His voice is gravelly but his stage presence and musicianship on the keyboard, guitar, and harmonica are still formidable. His rendition of “Ballad of a Thin Man” was riveting. Guitarist Charlie Sexton was another highlight of the show, moving effortlessly between rock, blues, and folk arrangements and wailing on all of them. Dylan didn't say a word to the audience until the encore when he introduced the band. He closed his set with “Like A Rolling Stone,” “Jolene,” and “All Along The Watchtower,” which was as energetic as any of the more recent rock versions I know. (The full setlist is here.)

On Wednesday evening my friend Sam invited me to a preview screening of The Road, the new movie based on the book by Cormac McCarthy. Sam is a friend from Deadspin and a location scout for movie productions and he writes A Scouting Life, one of the most fascinating blogs I've ever read. (Start from the beginning if you haven't read it before; the entry on the Native American bar is spellbinding.) The film itself is every bit as powerful and moving as the book on which it's based. The filmmakers captured the novel's bleak environment without CGI or special effects. And the actors' performances were pitch-perfect. Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee seemed like they'd leapt from the pages of the book. Their relationship was so intimate and heartfelt that the room got a little dusty at the end of the film.

After the movie, Mortensen and director John Hillcoat participated in a Q&A session moderated by a writer from Variety. They talked about the entire process, from reading the script and meeting McCarthy to scouting locations to shooting. Mortensen spoke of his relationship with his son and how his experience of being a father helped with his performance. Both he and Hillcoat joked about how the cinematographer would shout and rage when the sun came out, spoiling a cloudy scene. Near the end of the session, Mortensen had a trivia challenge for us, asking us progressively more difficult questions about the movie. The prizes included copies of McCarthy's books, CDs and DVDs, and cookies from a local bakery. One happy cookie winner asked Mortensen to take a bite of the cookie before giving it away, so he and Hillcoat obliged. I should have answered a question about a piece of music in the movie, especially since I'd seen the title in the credits, but I wasn't 100% certain of the answer. And everyone knows I hate to be wrong in a trivia contest. Besides, I didn't want a Noam Chomsky DVD as a prize.

This time, I took notes for this review

I took myself out on another date this past Saturday evening to the New York Philharmonic. What can I say? I know what I like. I had a gift certificate that I had to use before the end of the year. And as I found myself with another under-programmed weekend, I decided at the last possible moment to try and use the gift certificate for Saturday's concert of works by Haydn, Martinu, and Sibelius. I arrived at the box office about a half-hour before they closed for the afternoon and got a box seat in the second tier. I don't love sitting in the boxes, since you can't see part of the stage. But last-minute ticket buyers can't be picky and I was just happy to have a seat in the hall and a plan for the evening. I killed the next three hours by checking out the new Apple store on 67^th and Broadway (the upper floor is impressive, but there's too much wasted space and the lower floor is cramped), Barnes & Noble, and Best Buy, then had a delicious sushi dinner and caught a little college football before heading back to Avery Fisher Hall.

I got to my seat a few minutes before the concert started. I was close to the stage and had an excellent view of the guest conductor, Xian Zhang, who I'd seen a few years earlier in her role as associate conductor of the Philharmonic. The first work on the program was Haydn's Symphony No. 95, which I didn't know all that well. The Philharmonic's rendition was good but perhaps a bit too energetic. I may be woefully uninformed but this doesn't seem to be an orchestra designed to play Haydn and Mozart. Either that, or Zhang's conducting was a little too enthusiastic and vigorous for a lighter composer like Haydn. Her gestures were precise but overly expressive and the orchestra reacted by playing louder and with more power than the work required. There were a few sections where the strings overpowered the winds and brass when a more delicate touch would have balanced the volume. Zhang reminded me of Gustavo Dudamel. She didn't share his exultation in every phrase of the music, but she did demonstrate expressive gestures similar to Dudamel's. During the Haydn symphony, I thought about writing down my impressions for this review so I wouldn't have to strain to remember the details later. I found that the back of the “upcoming concerts” insert in the program makes for a suitable notepad for the amateur concert reviewer. However, next time I think I'll bring a real notebook.

Zhang's style was much better suited to Martinu's Piano Concerto No. 4, subtitled Incantation. I'm not that familiar with Martinu's overall catalog but I've enjoyed everything of his that I've heard so far. His music is a mix of Czech themes with atonality and tonality blended in an unusual but pleasing way. I don't remember many details of the piano concerto, though there were times where the brass overwhelmed the strings. Maybe it was where I was sitting, or the normal issues conductors have with Avery Fisher's acoustics. Watching soloist Garrick Ohlsson and Zhang at the podium, I thought that Ohlsson appeared reserved compared to Zhang's overt expression. At the end of the work I noticed that Ohlsson looked extremely tall. Maybe he is, or maybe Zhang is just that short. But he's a really big man. You know what they say about big pianists: they have big hands.

After the intermission came the work I was most interested in hearing: Sibelius's Symphony No. 1. I've become more familiar with Sibelius' symphonies over the past few years and his 1^st has become one of my favorites. From the first measures, after Mark Nuccio's excellent clarinet solo, I had the idea that Sibelius is the type of composer whose works the Philharmonic has been built to perform. It was clear that this symphony was the piece on the program with which they were most familiar. (They last played in in 2008, while they hadn't played the other works in many years.) Zhang also seemed most at home with this piece. Here, her expressiveness and energy found a welcome home. It's possible that I was overcome by my own familiarity with the work, but I had chills throughout the final movement. It was just like when I heard the Philharmonic perform Sibelius's 2^nd Symphony last June. I knew what was coming, and I reacted as I expected: I was nearly on the edge of my seat waiting to hear how the orchestra played the work. Sibelius's music has such expansive themes combined with brass explosions and delicate wind chorales that I found it difficult to listen with a detached, critical ear. I don't know how professional reviewers do it. I thoroughly enjoyed the Sibelius and I'd consider paying to hear it again. It was that good.

I'm glad I decided to take myself out tonight. Aside from having the Saturday night free for the concert, it was a performance that I would have regretted missing had I passed on it for another concert later in the season. My only regret for the afternoon and evening was that I couldn't find a seat at a Starbucks. I had brought my laptop with the hope of getting some work done on some personal projects, but I couldn't find any open seats at any Starbucks in the Lincoln Square area. So I carried a heavy backpack all over the neighborhood for nothing. I may count that as exercise for the weekend.

Back at the (imaginary) podium

NYRO held its annual benefit gala a few weeks ago. This was the 2nd year for the event and I've been involved in the planning both times. In addition, this year I was also a featured attraction. I was going to donate a pair of New York Philharmonic tickets to the raffle when one of my friends suggested that I include myself in the deal. The idea turned into "win a date with Phil" and I became an auction item. After some heated bidding, one of the trumpeters won. His wife, also a trumpeter, was cool with the idea of her husband and I spending an evening on the town.

We also held a silent auction for other items, both goods and services. Near the end of the night as the silent auction wrapped up, I noticed that no one had bid on our music director's donation of a conducting lesson. Maybe it was the alcohol or the cash burning a hole in my pocket, but I couldn't let that item go without someone bidding on it. I was prepared to fight for it, but no one else made a bid so I won.

I have some experience as a conductor. My parents showed me the basic beat patterns when I was a kid. I spent many hours in my room in front of my stereo conducting an imaginary orchestra from the score and a recording. In college I led the orchestra in a humorous rendition of Rossini's Overture to "The Barber of Seville" with a plastic chicken as a baton, and later became something of a de facto assistant conductor. In my last concert before graduation, I conducted the orchestra in Sibelius' "Finlandia." And I was a music director for two rock musicals where a conductor wasn't really necessary. But that has been the extent of my conducting career. I haven't thought much about conducting since college. The realities of life crept into the space that dream used to occupy. I'm excited about this lesson because it will let me live in that dream's space for just a short time. And it's going to be a challenge: I've been asked to prepare a couple of pieces. This thing is for real. If I actually get to conduct the orchestra, I'm going to be more nervous than I've been in years.

The trouble with Twitter

If you read through the archives of this august publication, you will find an assortment of posts both short and long on a wide variety of topics. Most of them are of the navel-gazing sort, reflecting on events in my life or offering my observations on current events. I've written about politics, sports, the Philharmonic, the subway, and the Upper East Side, just to name a few. Sometimes they are quick thoughts or jokes I couldn't develop into longer pieces.

Over the past year I've allowed myself to be sucked into using Twitter (and by extension, Facebook) for many of my short, one-off jokes or thoughts. So the "more frequent Twitter ruminations" gadget updates all the time, while the "occasional musings" main heading lies fallow. While I have heard no complaints, I don't want this blog to dry up and blow away, superseded by more immediate social networking systems. I would like to continue to offer my readers a longer form of discourse that requires more time than a refresh of the news feed. Also, I want to post more than 100 entries for this year. So there will be more posts here in the closing months of 2009, just as soon as I think of them.

This post was in part an excuse for the headline.

One man shops alone

I hate shopping for clothes for work. It's boring: there are only so many variations on what I can wear to work. I only shop for myself a few times a year and even then it's only in the most dire need. I'm tired of wearing the same shirts from week to week, and the less said about the state of my pants collection, the better. Apparently I've been wearing the same pairs of pants for work so long that they've shrunk and are rapidly turning into plus-fours. While that look may work for professional golfers, I don't want to dress that way for the office. So I've been shopping this week.

My first stop was Century 21, conveniently located next to my office. It carries name brands at discount prices, so the store attracts a massive crowd of bargain-seekers, especially tourists, every day. I avoided the store for years, only going there for socks and underwear and an emergency belt one morning in August 2001. But when it came to things I wear on the outside it wasn't until after my divorce that I started shopping there regularly. My ex-wife had been the shopping expert in my life and I relied on her to help me buy clothes for work. A few months after the divorce I needed new shirts in a hurry and didn't know where else to go, so I checked out what Century 21 had to offer. What I found was a large selection of dress shirts in a wide variety of styles and colors, all marked down from retail price. I haven't shopped anywhere else for shirts since then. I don't like fighting with the crowd but the prices are well worth a few bruises.

Shopping for pants has become slightly more difficult. When I lost about 25 lbs in 2003 and 2004, I dropped about two inches from my waist. Apparently men with my waistline don't exist for clothing manufacturers. At Macy's this evening (Century 21 doesn't sell the pants I wear), the gentleman with a 34, 36, or any waist well into the 40s would have had no problem finding pants in his size. Pants for the slightly slimmer man were rare. I have long ruled out pleated pants or "relaxed fit" so that further limited my available selections. When I did find a pair in my size, they were in a slightly different style than my old pants, so I was off to the fitting room.

If I don't like shopping for clothes, I have a real hatred of fitting rooms. They're small, sometimes dank rooms hidden in the back of the store. There's often a pile of discarded clothes on the floor. The door may or may not have a lock preventing someone from barging in on me while I'm half-dressed. And I have to take my shoes off, so that the only things protecting me from the horrors of the store floor are my socks. I can put up with all of that.

The thing that annoys me the most about the fitting room isn't the room itself. It's that moment when I walk out of the fitting room so the person I'm shopping with can see how I look. When I was growing up, my mother always had me try on clothes in the store. And whenever I opened that door and walked out in my socks and a pair of pants with the tags still on them, my mother would not be waiting outside the door. She would have wandered off looking for something else for me to try on, leaving me there, vulnerable, while other parents and children stared at me. "Look at that little boy without shoes! He's so sad!" they would say. (They might have said it after they walked away, but I knew they said it.) When I was older and married and my ex-wife and I went shopping, she did the same thing. Somehow it's worse when you're a grown man and your wife has left you standing there in your socks and a pair of pants you don't own. My father told me he and my stepmother solved this problem by buying different sizes and styles of clothes and trying them on at home. I would do that as well if going to Macy's twice in a week wasn't such a pain in the ass.

Since I was shopping alone this evening, I did not have that emasculating moment outside the fitting room. I had to judge the pants myself. I know I have no fashion sense, but I think I made the right choices. With a bit of luck and the right water temperature selection in the laundry room, I should be appropriately dressed for another year. Besides, I dress for an office where I'm practically invisible outside of my department. As long as I don't have blood stains on my clothes, no one notices what I wear.

Cutest dog ever? Cutest dog ever.

I'm a cat guy, but I can appreciate an adorable dog who makes his bed before going to sleep. He does a better job than I do.

H/T to @kristenbrennan, via @OFTOT.

Don't get sick in Wilmington, DE

I went to Maryland for the weekend for a long-delayed visit with my family down there. It was a relaxing couple of days, with nothing more stressful than waiting to eat a late dinner Saturday night because my brother was in the process of buying a car. My father grilled steaks by the beam of a police-nightstick-sized flashlight I was holding. I had my choice of the Redskins-Panthers or Bengals-Ravens on the TV but not my beloved Steelers, who were in Detroit playing the Lions. We followed the Steelers game online and kept an eye on the Redskins' blowing a 15-point lead and losing the game.

I got to New Carrollton for my return train just a few minutes before it arrived at 4:37 PM (it was early for once) and had my pick of seats. I thought the train's early arrival and relative emptiness augured well for a speedy trip back to New York. My train's scheduled arrival was 7:46 PM and I thought about getting back to my apartment by 8:30, ordering dinner, and watching TV for a solid five hours. Those of you who followed my Twitter feed last evening have some idea how events transpired.

We were about 10 minutes past Baltimore when the train slowed to a crawl and then a stop. The conductor announced that we had stopped because of police activity up ahead. I'm used to the generic "police activity" announcement on the NYC subway, but this was the first time I'd heard it on Amtrak. We sat for at least a half hour, maybe longer, with an occasional update from the conductor that he didn't know how much longer we'd be there. Having no idea where we were, I assumed the problem had something to do with another train in the station in Wilmington, DE, presumably a few minutes away. As the delay wore on, some passengers suggested that someone had been hit by a train. When the train did move again, we eventually eased past a few police cars and Amtrak trucks off to the right side of the train and past a stopped Acela train on our left headed in the opposite direction. Once we cleared the police cars, we picked up speed. I considered sending an apologetic tweet to the good people of Wilmington for thinking that their fair city was the problem.

Just outside of Wilmington, a man came into our car and asked "is there a doctor on board?" Before he could explain further or even finish his question, the train conductor and his assistants rushed down the aisle toward him. A minute later, the conductor announced that we had a medical emergency in the quiet car. I hoped whoever was ill or injured was OK, and I thought we'd be delayed just a few minutes in Wilmington while the emergency services got the passenger off the train. Wouldn't it be funny, I thought, if he or she refused to get off the train because they didn't want to be treated in Wilmington? That's funny! Ha ha!

We pulled into the station and the conductor announced that we were waiting for the EMTs to arrive. And we waited, and waited, and waited some more. After about 15 minutes, the conductor announced we were still waiting for the EMTs. I strongly recommend against having a medical emergency in Wilmington, because the city's only ambulance might not reach you for quite a while. The EMTs appeared about five minutes later, approximately 20 minutes after we arrived at the station, and walked (WALKED!) up the platform to the quiet car. If you're sick in Wilmington and need emergency help, you should probably start walking toward the nearest hospital and meet the EMTs halfway. No wonder Joe Biden couldn't wait to get out of that town.

To their credit, EMS got the passenger off the train a few minutes later and we were cleared to leave. It was about 7:45 PM when we pulled out of Wilmington. The conductor said we were now about two hours delayed and apologized profusely for any inconvenience. I snacked on an apple and reconsidered my evening plans. Ordering food was out, but I might still make it to the pizza joint near my apartment before they closed. I hoped the DVR remembered to record "Mad Men."

To Amtrak's credit, we picked up some time on the way and arrived at Penn Station at 9:15 PM, only 90 minutes late. I passed up all the restaurants at the train station, gambling that I'd make it back to Brooklyn in time to grab dinner before rushing home to two lonely cats. With this past weekend's wacky subway outages, I got off the subway a few minutes after 10 and the pizza place was closing up. I had to make do with a tuna sandwich while watching Don Draper deeply disappoint Connie Hilton.

Strangely for me, I wasn't all that angry about the length of trip home. Both events were out of Amtrak's control. It wasn't as if our train's engine broke down and Amtrak had to send another engine to pick us up. We never lost power or A/C, so we were all comfortable. The bathrooms worked the whole time, and based on the availability of alcohol to the ladies across the aisle from my seat, we had plenty of provisions in the cafe car. I have few options when it comes to traveling to visit friends in DC, and I like the train far more than the bus or renting a car. I will use Amtrak for that trip again soon and often. But I think I can cross "see Wilmington, DE" off my life's to-do list. A 45-minute unplanned stop in the train station counts as a tourist visit.