Home for the Holidays

For Thanksgiving, I visited the folks in Western PA, the land of roadkill, shotgun shells, skunk smell and the Steelers. I swear the first song i heard driving across the PA border was "The Pennsylvania Polka". And it was already snowing. The snow's definitely better when you don't have to drive in it. My roadtrip companion loved it tho.


Guess I'm a total city boy now, because one of things I love most about going home is their frontier spirit, so I try to revert a little...


But maybe that has something to do with having neither cell phone signals or wireless access. The highlight of each day was walking the dogs to the woods with my mom or dad...


...Then warming up, all cozy like, with home cooking and bourbon!


And then getting crazy with my niece and nephew. Emma's a consummate performer, whether at dance class...


...or goofing around at home.


And eventho Bailey's a hockey player, he celebrated his 10th birthday with a high-jump salute, inching a little farther up the wall each year.

Heavenly Hoops

My friend Barbara was in a performance piece today. More on that in a minute. It took place in Chinatown. I lived in Bangkok's Chinatown so any trip to any Chinatown "warms my cockles" as a friend says...


Now, back to Barbara...she's a hooper.


And for the performance she and a dozen other hoopers dotted the rooftops in Lower Manhattan. Spectators, myself included, climbed to the roof of the artist's building to watch, and many folks got really excited running around 360 degrees to spot all the participants.




As usual, I had just as much fun watching the watchers....

All Souls...

I braved the wilds of the west village last night for Halloween.


Believe it or not it's the closest I've ever come to attending the parade. The crowds overwhelm me. But plenty of revelers were on view on the way to SOBs. No costumes really jumped out -- lots of witches, prisoners, sailors -- but most were just slutty: slutty Britney, slutty french maid, slutty cop (and that was just the guys!). Things got a little better inside the club, especially with Nneka by my side.


This band was announced to be "direct from Transylvania" so maybe they weren't really in costume at all.


They were in fact a Balkan duo, eventho this guy is dressed like a character from Yellow Submarine. If you think the squeeze box looks big, you should see his belly.


But the main event of the evening was my friend Amayo who along with his band delivered an afro-funked up version of Thriller...


...and it had the crowd and apparently many of their long-gone pets, on their feet, doing the zombie stomp.


It's All Souls Day, so don't forget to honor your ancestors!