Everyone has an opinion as to what is wrong with the world (my world, this country). How about the ignorant religious right and unintelligent celebrity based mass media. I recently had a close encounter with both simultaneously.

On Easter Sunday in Pennsylvania to make my parents happy the wife and I consented to a morning service at my parents' church. My parents attend a church that by any analysis is evangelical. Evangelical, Protestant, Born Again....Middle America, religious right, you know the type. Or maybe you don't... Unlike other protestant demoninations (Presbyterian, Lutheran, Episcopalian, etc.) this "testimonial" church service serves up very little intellectual content. I was actually looking forward to a little religion it being Easter and all. Maybe some padre's smart take on The Passion of the Christ cautioning his parishioners to "see the movie, be touched by it but realize it's really just a movie." This church after all has a membership of nearly 10,000 and holds 3 services of 2500 each every Sunday. There's got to be some substance here.

What we got was a recovering alcoholic pastor weaving his tale of "salvation" in and out with hypnotically suggestive calls for the crowd to "come to Christ". Over and over he would invite the crowd to "come to Christ" and the crowd would respond with palms raised to the sky moaning "amen" and "praise Jesus". And then POOF it's over. I was pissed...nothing but two hours of hypnotic suggestion. Is that why this place is so packed with stupid white people? They're all hypnotized.

OK, I'm coming to the punch line. So, we're on our way out of the church and my mom calls us over to say hello to the old baseball coach and his new wife from Cincinnati. "You guys know that Tim and Jessica right," my mom says. "Uh, no, sorry don't recall. What year did they graduate?" "Not from school, from TV, you know Tim and that funny cute blonde." The coach's wife pipes in "not Tim, it's Nick". My mom's clueless, "Oh right Nick! Well this is his mom. She and Mr. Baseball coach met at work and now they're married! Isn't this great! This is our son and our daughter-in-law. They live in New York City." Mr. Baseball comes alive, "That's great! We'll be in New York a lot this summer since the kids are doing one'a them there shows up there." I see my mom's face light up, "How fun! You guys could get together with Tim and Jessica! How fun!" Yeah maybe...we could get together for a ride in the Hummer, a boob job, some steroids, maybe a few botox and teeth whitening sessions, a few praise the Lord(s) and a few sessions of speaking in tongues. Sounds fabulous.

Today I'm enjoying my bi-weekly ritual of solo chinese lunch and a New York Post. There it is, Page 6, sightings: Tim and Jessica with Tim's mother and her beau at Macy's. And to think I was only 5 blocks away and no invite. That's ok anyway, I prefer to keep my religious friends and my celebrity friends separate.

Recent obscure (maybe not so obscure) celebrity sightings:

Danny Aiello...doing something in my office building. Looking mafia slick in the elevator in Armani with shades on.

Jenny McCarthy...standing outside McDonald's at 6th/28th shoving a cheeseburger in there. Slightly weathered but still pretty hot. She better take it easy on the value meals though.

Sam Waterston from Law and Order climbing into a van on 7th/23rd. He's famous for Law and Order but I still think his best work was The Killing Fields.

Some meathead from the Real World walking across 33rd street at 10am looking Neanderthal like someone kicked his ass and he slept in Penn Station. Loser. Or maybe I'm just jealous.

I like to think that I'm pretty well up on most things musical. I've taken (both by force and free will) lessons on nearly a half dozen instruments, have a better than novice skill level on half or more of them, understand the basic concepts of tube and transistor electronics, and have embraced the electronic music revolution with open arms.

Beyond that, I'm a fan. I like classical, folk, rock, blues, jazz, rap, and even country. I know an oboe, bassoon, piccolo, timpani, lute, harpsichord or banjo when I see one. However, I obviously have an overly inflated opinion of my musicosity because until today I've never heard, heard of or seen one of these...



The hurdy gurdy...who knew? Not me...

President Bush has spoken and ...

Back from a gluttonous (slothful too) holiday weekend spent within a short distance of Three Mile Island.



Michael sent me a link to this amazing Chernobyl photo essay.

I'm not implying anything other than a subject relation to Chernobyl but I remember March 1979. Not like it was yesterday but still pretty well. My parents always chose the "close the blinds and hope for the best" option but upon news of a radiation leak at TMI all of our friends and neighbors shoved off on impromptu vacations to Florida and Nashville. I was pretty pissed that I wasn't getting the Mickey Mouse treatment but a few days free of school, my little hodunk town on the national news...not so bad. But holy shit it could have been.

Happy April Fool's Day! In lieu of some clowning April Fool's business I thought I'd offer a snapshot of NYC April 1, 2004.



There are daffodils just about everywhere you look. The city of Rotterdam donated several million daffodils to New York in the spring of 2002 as a sign of hope following September 11, 2001. This year and for many years to come we all over New York (not just Manhattan but all 5 boroughs) will enjoy this gift. It's really quite amazing. There are daffodils everywhere.

Cheers to my lovely wife for this great photo.