Empire Vista Social Club -- July 2013

We had another great installment of Empire Vista Social Club last night at Otto's Shrunken Head. (Village Voice's Best Tiki Bar of 2011!) Good set of musicians, enthusiastic crowd... good times all around.

The night was also important for another reason--I tried out some new stand-up material I've been working on. I've been re-reading parts of the Bible lately, and let me tell you, that book is absolutely ripe with material. To paraphrase Homer Simpson, it's the comedian's bible!

So the other purpose of this post is to preview some of the new material.

"So is anyone here familiar with Abrahamic Covenant?

This is the one where God tells Abraham he'll bless his family and all his descendants and smite his enemies, give him all the land in the middle east, etc... and all Abraham has to do to hold up his end of the bargain is agree to circumcise every male child from now on. This is all well and good, of course... but something that gets glossed over sometimes is that Abraham was 100 freakin years old when he made this covenant! Imagine if your great granddad came in from the garden and told you, 'good news, I just talking to God, and he promised us great blessings! And all we have to do is cut off the tips of our dicks!' You'd throw him in a home immediately."



"And then there's the Noahic Covenant, which is the one God and Noah made. This is the one where, after destroying most of the living world like so many bags of kittens, God has some second thoughts and tells Noah that he won't ever, ever do it again--that he promises never to kill every living creature in the world again... only later, we find out that what he *really meant was, he'd never do it again with a flood. Death by fiery comets? Totally still in play. Giant space monkeys? Sure, why not? It's not a flood! So basically God made this deal, but he has his fingers crossed behind his back the whole time.

And another thing--this was after God 'rewarded' Noah by making him spend 5 months in a floating box with one window and all the animals in the whole world. Seriously, it sounds like the ones who drowned were the lucky ones."

(This is the part  where I take my bow and let the rapturous applause wash over me like a warm rain.)

Last but not least; Crier Brothers playlist time!

• Best of Friends, Palma Violets
• Frontier Psychiatrist, Avalanches
• San Francisco, Foxygen
• Song for Zula, Phosphorescent
• Queen of Hearts, F**ked Up

The Departed

'Heaven Holds the Faithful Departed'  is what Costigan read on his mom's grave blanket in one of the opening scenes from Scorsese's Masterpiece.   I just watched it again and I am not feeling so great.  I lost a friend last week to a strange neurological disease.     Now, it is Midnight on Monday (Tuesday now) and I don't want to be Baron Von Munchausen (A joke Jules would appreciate.)   I just wanted to write about the impact that peoples lives can have on each other if you take the risks to get to know them.  I mean everything from (to quote Ric Ocasek) 'It doesn't matter where you've been as long as it was deep' to creating something, to starting something, to ending something.   I guess what I mean is that I have been really lucky to meet people who have let me reach out to them and become part of their lives.   Its not always easy and its not always fun to know people but it is always worth it.

Some cool things about The Departed that I love to think about.   First, a few years ago a group of friends of mine befriended Toshi (the Chinese Spy who was negotiating with Jack Nicholson for the Computer Chips)  We met him for lunch at Peter Luger's and then went back to his office in Williamsburgh.   [toshifilm.com] His office was like some strange James Bond set.   There was a gorgeous secretary a white bearskin rug and a buzz about the place with photographers getting ready for his next event.   He was a really cool guy.   Secondly, My friends Tommy Lombardozzi and Joseph Milazzo recently started playing shows at the Irish Haven on 4th Ave. in Brooklyn.   This bar makes everyone that goes there feel like they are coming home.   Its a great place with cool people.   Anyways, the Haven was Nicholson's hang out bar in the movie and was were they shot the "cranberry juice it's a natural diuretic" scenes.   MINT!  

Finally, The Dropkick Murphys 'I'm shipping up to Boston' is all over the soundtrack.   They are a force and an amazing band to see live.  I used to see the Bosstones a lot and I have heard some recordings with Dicky singing with the Murphy's that rock.

The last song they played for Jules on Friday, was Willie Nelson singing "Angels flying too close to the ground."  'If you had not fallen, I wouldn't have found you.   Angels flying to close to the ground.'   People will come in and out of your life in so many ways.   We're all in this for a short ride.  I love making it count.

Ah Fuck it, in closing to quote my good mate Andrew:

Here's to us!

More Like us!

Damn few!

and they're all dead!

Slainte' Jimmy