I was delighted to find a link to a new "ballad" arrangement of John Mayer's "Last Train Home. It takes the bouncy 80's style pop song and mellows out to perfection. This song is equal in epic grandeur with "Gravity" and "Come Back to Bed," but still with a synth-lightness that reminds me of Mayer's earlier work in Room For Squares.
Check out the live video of the new arrangement of "Last Train Home" here.
https://youtu.be/yT8SYItNvKg
The below piece is something I wrote a decade ago, when I worked in downtown NYC, just blocks away from the slowly rebuilt World Trade Center. We will never forget the day of 09/11/01...
Barclay Street is Broken
I was sitting in freshman biology when my high school principal
announced the attack on the World Trade Center. It was an uneasy day living 30
miles from New York City, where frantic kids tried to reach their parents. My
dad took hours to get home from Manhattan, but all was fine in my world.
September 11th became present in the community, with memorials built
to honor people that were lost that day. I never really felt the effect until
2010, when I began working around the corner from the World Trade Center site.
The blocks surrounding the World Trade center site, mostly
filled with financial companies, government agencies, and small businesses,
appear fine today. Lower Manhattan has made continuous improvements in safety
in the past few years and I’m comforted to see the heavy police presence on
nearby street corners and surrounding subway stations. But underneath the
surface of downtown New York, I see a lurking fear in the eyes of my sidewalk
sharers. It’s a common bond we are all united by. As a 9 to 5 resident of the
area, I have a weary vigilance. I could never be completely comfortable being a
few hundred feet from what is essentially a mass grave. It’s the announcement
on the downtown E-train that gets me every time, last stop, World Trade
Center.” The finality of that announcement stays with me because on September
11th, that was the last stop for some people.
I’ve spent the last 18 months watching the construction of
the new World Trade Center, along with hundreds of tourists. The tourists shock
me. They come off the subway or the downtown sightseeing buses and flock toward
Church Street, eager to snap a few pictures of the Ground Zero for their
friends or the bent metal cross outside St. Peter’s Church, across from the WTC.
The eagerness of the tourists reflects the country’s view of these events. They
flock to this site, forever tied into history, with smiles on their faces, and
it seems like another stop on the NY sightseeing tour. It minimizes the fear
and unease that New York feels, but I’m not sure that is a good thing.
In some ways, the effects of September 11th have
helped offer more flashy buzz for New York, Batman-style, like the week after
Osama Bin Laden died. For 4-5 days, I found it impossible to get to the doors
of my office because of news crews and tourists packing the surrounding
streets. People ran through the streets with American flags on their backs in
an attempt to show US pride, but also to attract the attention of news
producers. And attract the attention they did, feeding to a media circus that
New Yorkers do not want or need as we continue to heal and feel at home again.
I have to give my book club friends full credit for this pick. We have gotten to know each other's individual interests so well that I was handed this book to read. I've long been a fan of Candace Bushnell's other books such as "Sex and the City" an "One Fifth Avenue," but this novella has 4 individual stories of 4 powerful blondes in NYC. I hope this book's salacious tales of Hamptons hobnobbing and mentally ill princesses lives up to the hype of the upcoming SATC reboot.
NYC/Hudson Valley Region
You know those Brits- always perviously involved in the previous...
3. Local Congresswoman's Email Title-
Public Health vs. Pubic health and the difference in meaning
4. Home Renovation Article
BUYing FIXTURES?
I cannot remember the last time I've been reading lines from a book out loud to my boyfriend. He really started to enjoy some of the stories and passages, many of which I had heard outlined in Casey Wilson's podcast, Bitch Sesh: A Real Housewives Breakdown Show. Wilson discusses parenting, Real Housewives, getting fired from SNL, and shares many cringe-worthy stories about her beloved father, Paul. 
The most straining part of this story was to see two people that seemed like they used to be so in love, now so broken. When reading about their heartfelt calls and visits at the Danbury correctional center, when compared to the reality of their draining separation, I felt like I was missing a piece of the puzzle. Granted, both have served prison sentences, lost parents, and Joe was deported back to Italy by ICE since he was technically an illegal immigrant as a child and never got a green card. I really have to thank Co-author K.C, Baker for whatever she did for this book, which I suspect is turning it from half sentences and incorrectly used phrases, and making it easy for a human to understand. Watching her speak to her friends and family on TV can be a stressful experience if you like to hear people speaking the Queen's English, but I digress..., I now can see some shred of humanity to this woman that I hadn't seen before. She cares deeply for her friends, her kids, and her family. She also believes in the importance faith, fitness, and being a polite housemate. I think her time away taught her some humility and patience, which she was in short supply of up until that point. After all, she did almost black out in rage and flip over a table in the middle of a restaurant... As Countess Lu says, "Money can't buy you class."
I give it a 4 out of 5! Minus a point for Juicy Joe, just as person.
I began following/stalking @Ginger_Zee on Twitter early in the pandemic because she seemed like a relatable person on-air. I quickly learned that people direct message and @ her daily, dumping on her fashion and hair choices (as Stephanie Tanner says, "How Rude!") She takes this abuse with grace and poise, reaching out to the fans and defending herself and her fashion choices. She wants to make every hater into a follower, and she does this well.
In early Winter 2020, I discovered the Narcolepsy 360 podcast, where a recent guest was, you guessed it, Ginger Zee. I learned she has suffered from the disease since her teen years, and had battled it while working through on-site storm coverage and 10+ weekend shifts earlier in her career. I immediately ordered myself this book, which catches us up to the present.
Through reading this story, I learned about a courageous woman whose love of storms in her childhood propelled her to study meteorology in college. I had no idea schools offered degrees in meteorology. The chapter about her work covering Hurricane Katina is heartbreaking, and shows her heart and courage. I give it 5 out of 5!
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| Kelly's husband Mark jumps in as co-host and guest (4/20/20). |
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| At home haircut lessons with the Live Team (04/30/20) |
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| Zoom prom with DJ Pauly D (05/29/20). |
We catch a rare glimpse of the Ripa-Consuelos home in June before they move to former producer Albert's guest house in the Hamptons for the summer. We learn this is because their wi-fi connection is not very strong and is making the zoom feed skip. Photo 1: (07/09/20).
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Both Andys celebrated the holiday season and talked endlessly about their new dad lives. For Bravo exec Cohen, it was the struggle to find the correct car seat for his upcoming trip (with his son) to host the the Atlanta housewives reunion. News reporter Cooper spoke about his son's top clappy the bear and the toy's demeaning chant to "clap your little hands." Both Andys went on to host their own NYE program a block apart from Seacrest, and their program was far more entertaining.  |
| Andy gets deep into a viewer's holiday traditions. |
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| (Holiday sweater party with Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn (12.18.20) |
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| EP Art Moore spins the holiday trivia wheel. (12.2020) |
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| Ryan laments about hosting NYE in a mostly empty Times Square (12.30.20). |
One major thing happened at the 2021 Grammy Awards. I know what you're thinking. No, it's not just the first time Trevor Noah dressed in more than a hoodie and left his house in months. No, it's not the random appearance by a very tired-looking and grammy-less Beyonce and Jay-Z.
I'll tell you what happened: Music was actually celebrated on music's biggest night!
Yes, most music award shows these days are glorified over-the-top performances that look like they belong at halftime of the big game. With a small, intimate audience outside the STAPLES center in a still locked-down Los Angeles, artists could have been left scrambling. Some of them haven't performed in the last year and now they're relegated to a closed indoor set without the limited show audience to cheer them on. What's a musician to do?
They had to perform for (brace yourself) each other. Performances and interview videos of the most nominated artists of the year went in a round-robin style, 2 to 3 in a row. Artists sat near their performance spaces after, often with drinks in their hands, making eye contact with their fellow nominees, making me believe that is is just an honor to be nominated. Gone are the days of Taylor sitting front row and dancing with her model BFF's like they're at the club. Gone are the days of people wiping tears from their eyes while they pretend to be moved by an Adele song. And I'd like to think that with this new feeling of inclusion, there will be less camera catching Chrissy Tiegan falling asleep during the Oscars. Here was a night of actual human connection, and about 4-5 televised awards. We may still be in the middle of the pandemic, but this was more of a real celebration than any other awards show I've seen.
