Happy Friday Update

Here are some of the things I wanted to blog about recently but didn't get the chance.

The Old Timers Day at Yankee stadium a couple of weeks ago was great. There were so many of my old Yankee heroes there it was very exciting. The Old Timers game itself was fun to watch. Some of the young Old timers still had skills while the more senior ex-player only had heart. My man, Keith Olberman was there and "called" the game on the Stadium sound system. Sarah and I were shocked to hear him introduced and instinctively jumped up to cheer. (By that time I had jumped a cheered dozens of time at the Old Timers introductions). Well I'm not sure if we were the only ones to cheer but we were the only ones I saw. I did hear somewhat of a negative reaction from the stands. Honestly, it was much less than I thought but it was a brief moan-like boo. I told myself that it was the sound of dinosaurs dieing off.

I try to keep up to date with the Ron and Fez show aired on XM. They are originally from Florida so that's where I became familiar with them. They are based here in NYC now and every so often have events to go to. I went to a wedding a few weeks back at the Hard Rock and got to see a fantastic taping of two shows last week at the comedy club COMIX . In the first taping, Ron Bennington, from the XM show, interviewed Carlos Mencia. It was great. I had seen parts of his show but really not that much. It was a straight up interview - no routine - but it was a very good conversation. The next guy to be interviewed was named Patrice O'Neil. I had no idea who he was until I saw him walk on stage. (It was a small room - only 30 people there and I was in the front row). It was “Sea Monster” from one of my favorite shows, The Office! Cool! I like this guy! (I have since learned that he has a long and impressive resume.) He is a very interesting guy too, even more down to earth than the slightly boastful Mencia. I went to the mic to ask him a question and we joked around everyone was cracking up. What a rush! I was at the mic talking and people were laughing. I recognize that feeling! It really gave me the bug to get back into radio and comedy. That one event really broke down a wall of intimidation about trying to do entertainment here. I felt completely at ease.

It can be pretty great sitting on the beach (my favorite is Daytona Beach) on a hot day, ocean breeze in your face as you begin to dose off because of the tide’s soothing cadence. Other than that, summer sucks! Man I hate the heat. Why can we be having Global Cooling? I am a sweater. If it’s hot I start sweating and when I start I don’t stop. People used to be amazed in Florida at the amount of water that would flow off me (especially my head). When I had really short hair you could almost see the beads of sweat “jump” off me. That may sound kind of gross but it wasn’t really. I was drip dry when I got into the AC and fortunately I don’t stink. But the hot weather stinks when you are all dressed up and need to look …. well, dry. Here in the city summer seems even worse. I look like a drowned rat wherever I go. Thank goodness it starts to cool off here in September and doesn't really get unpleasant until June.

I’m glad I missed that steam explosion the other day. I don’t go over there very often but I have been to Grand Central many times. I know exactly where it happened. Bloomberg did a great job keeping people up to date. There was a very odd moment during his press conference Wednesday night though. He started talking and after just about 1 minute a siren or car alarm went off. It was loud, but New Yorkers don’t really hear that sort of stuff. I mean there are always sirens and alarms going off so after a while, something like that wouldn’t even wake you up at night. You just talk over it Mr. Mayor! But Bloomberg stopped the press conference cold and waited for an excruciating 10 minutes for the sound to stop, leaving the press and his aides standing in the wilting heat. At first I thought that it was very strange and that Bloomberg was looking absurd standing there waiting for the alarm to stop. But then I thought more about why this seemingly brilliant man would be acting so unusually and I think I figured it out. I’m guessing that he realized that his comments would be edited down and disseminated around the country and the world for news outlets to use. Bloomberg did NOT want those news clips to have a screaming siren in the background because it would make the situation appear (on TV and radio) more chaotic than it really was and that would make the city look bad. Smart.

Happy Friday and a very good weekend to all of you.