Sunday Music ; Skip A Rope, Henson Cargill

Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King were still alive in early 1968 when Henson Cargill's " Skip A Rope " became a No. 1 Country hit, which it remained for a number of weeks.

It was his only hit song, but it was important. It stays in the mind.

Mary Travers and Friends : I Shall Be Released

Jim Carroll Joins the People Who Died

I got around to reading yesterday's NY Times only today. A story kicked me in the head near the end of the main section. Jim Carroll, poet, writer and musician had died of a heart attack at 60.

I didn't know he was 60. I don't know how in the hell he got to be 60 with the life that he lived.

Jim Carroll was an Irish-American kid who grew up in Manhattan. He was a tremendous basketball player at Trinity High School. He kept a diary during high school. When he began the diary, he was full of hope. By the end of the diary, he was a heroin addict, " hustling " in the old, horrible Times Square of the Sixties.

He was befriended by Patti Smith, who called him the " best poet of his generation ". She brought him onstage to read poetry while the band played background. He later wrote lyrics for Blue Oyster Cult and Boz Scaggs. Keith Richards helped him get his own deal with Atlantic Records. His most famous song " People Who Died " came from his album Catholic Boy.

Punk wasn't my thing at all, but this guy had something, and I salute you Jim Carroll, a troubled, brilliant soul hopefully now at peace.

For extra credit, his song Catholic Boy


People Who Died
Jim Carroll

Teddy sniffing glue, he was 12 years old
Fell from the roof on East Two-nine
Cathy was 11 when she pulled the plug
On 26 reds and a bottle of wine
Bobby got leukemia, 14 years old
He looked like 65 when he died
He was a friend of mine

Those are people who died, died
They were all my friends, and they died

G-berg and Georgie let their gimmicks go rotten
So they died of hepatitis in upper Manhattan
Sly in Vietnam took a bullet in the head
Bobby OD'd on Drano on the night that he was wed
They were two more friends of mine
Two more friends that died

Those are people who died, died
They were all my friends, and they died

Mary took a dry dive from a hotel room
Bobby hung himself from a cell in the tombs
Judy jumped in front of a subway train
Eddie got slit in the jugular vein
And Eddie, I miss you more than all the others
And I salute you brother

Those are people who died, died
They were all my friends, and they died

Herbie pushed Tony from the Boys' Club roof
Tony thought that his rage was just some goof
But Herbie sure gave Tony some bitchen proof
"Hey," Herbie said, "Tony, can you fly?"
But Tony couldn't fly, Tony died

Those are people who died, died
They were all my friends, and they died

Brian got busted on a narco rap
He beat the rap by rattin' on some bikers
He said, "Hey, I know it's dangerous, but it sure beats Riker's"
But the next day he got offed by the very same bikers

Those are people who died, died
They were all my friends, and they died

Teddy sniffing glue, he was 12 years old
Fell from the roof on East Two-nine
Cathy was 11 when she pulled the plug
On 26 reds and a bottle of wine
Bobby got leukemia, 14 years old
He looked like 65 when he died
He was a friend of mine

Those are people who died, died
They were all my friends, and they died

G-berg and Georgie let their gimmicks go rotten
So they died of hepatitis in upper Manhattan
Sly in Vietnam took a bullet in the head
Bobby OD'd on Drano on the night that he was wed
They were two more friends of mine
Two more friends that died

Those are people who died, died
They were all my friends, and they died

Mary took a dry dive from a hotel room
Bobby hung himself from a cell in the tombs
Judy jumped in front of a subway train
Eddie got slit in the jugular vein
And Eddie, I miss you more than all the others
And I salute you brother

Those are people who died, died
They were all my friends, and they died

September 11, 2009 - Photos

The Towers of Light were up, but you could barely see them through the clouds. I walked down to the entrance of the Battery Tunnel and captured them.



















The FDNY Memorial down at Engine Company Ten is just south of the WTC site. It was hard to photograph Friday night, as it was raining, and there were many visitors, including a group of middle aged and trainee firemen from the Anaheim California Fire Department, and various US military.

There was an FDNY Honor Guard. Here, the senior officer is about to dismiss them.

One small block south, O'Hara's pub did a roaring trade.

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Bay Ridge Avenue Key Food to Open Sometime in Indefinite Future

Spoke to a construction guy down at the Bay Ridge Key Food site. He says that it will be open " in two months ". This project makes the WTC rebuilding look like a model of efficiency. I'm looking forward to doing my Christmas food shopping there. Christmas 2010.

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6805 Third Avenue

Construction crews have been hard at work over the past couple of weeks gutting the place. A construction foreman said that the building might reopen " in eight months "

This would be much better than any of us expected.

Spoke to a neighbor who says that the owner, Bill, is a well respected guy who tried to keep the building in good shape.

Perhaps this building will reopen before the Key Food opens?

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Garage Wanted

One of our readers is returning from Italy at the end of September, and is looking for a private garage in the Bay Ridge / Dyker Heights / Fort Hamilton area. If you know of one, let me know and I will relay it to him. His car is 193 inches long, 71 inches wide, and is 58 inches high.

September 11, 2009

Eight years on, to the hour.

I passed by the World Trade Center site this morning. The Fire Department Pipe Band played a lament on the corner of Cedar and Church Streets. They gather here as they have gathered for each of the anniversaries, as they will gather for the next hundred years.

Many of us who worked in the World Trade Center remember in our own way. Many don't come in to work on 9/11 and will never do so. Some gather in places such as Jeremy's Ale House in lower Manhattan where they paused eight years ago before they walked some miles across the Brooklyn Bridge.

I vary the routine each year. In 2002, I spent 9/11 morning in London, and flew home on a near-empty American Airlines flight to JFK that night. In other years, I have stayed away from work and gathered with others in lower Manhattan.

Today, I come in to work, and will pass by the WTC site in the morning, in mid-day and on the way home. I see what is, and remember what was.

I worked on the 103rd Floor of the World Trade Center, and was there late September 10, 2001. I remember it, and the many fine people I knew there, so very well.