BEACH BUMMIN IN THE BIG APPLE

The family and I spent the past week on Long Island visiting my two sisters, an $800 day in NYC doing touristy things (Broadway’s Spiderman, Madam Tussuad's Wax Museum, Empire State Building), visiting some museums that allowed me to learn much about the local history I took for granted, eating pizza/Carvel ice cream, spending maximum time on the beach, met with my crazy Aunt in Brooklyn and putting one of my best friends I’ve known since high school to rest in a harbor opposite where the houseboat he lived in once sat.

I partied on the beach one night, listening to a couple of bootleg recordings, sleeping on the sand and waking early to catch the sunrise over the water.

I danced alone another night to music on the deck of the ranger station of the Fire Island National Seashore during a rain storm with the ocean pounding a short distance away. While leaving I heard multiple screams of what sounded like a child or young girl in the dunes. It was at first unnerving. I replied in kind and eventually determined it was a fox, the two eyes shining brightly in my flashlight.

The waves were fabulous, although a passing storm kicked them up and made them bigger, with stronger currents and therefore more dangerous the last two days of the vacation.

Our short visits to St. Georges Manor (home of the Smith family taken over by the British and turned into a fort during the Rev. War) and the William Floyd Estate (a signer of the Declaration of Independence and home occupied by the British as well) did not thrill the kids, but we learned a lot about who the William Floyd Parkway was named after, a road that leads to Smith Point Park/beach on Fire Island where we spent the majority of our days.

I even got to meet some famous "people", sticking my hand in Madonna's crotch.

A friends cremains were scattered at the site of the houseboat he inhabited with his dad back in the early to mid 1970's.  I walked out into the reeds and tidal channel opposite the location where I remembered the houseboat being, scattered his cremains handful by handful until the bag was empty. I definitely inhaled some of his dust. The dark brown muck in the tidal channel was at least a foot deep. I'm guessing I stepped in his shit that he'd toss out from the deck of the boat when they lived there.

Lots of video taken that will now need to be edited, determining what I'll be doing weekday evenings this next month, or whenever I get around to it.

We accomplished a lot. It was a wonderful time, although not as relaxing as I wanted considering “social” events required keeping to schedules.
 

Chrissie Hynde sounds devine in this excellent soundboard recording of their July 3, 1984 show at the Universal Amphitheatre, Los Angeles. The band played 4 nights at the Universal Amphitheatre,  this was broadcast as a Superstars In Concert series by Westwood One. Chrissie adds a little bit of the Locomotion at the end of Up The Neck, classic moment.

The Doors, Live In Stockholm at the Konserthuset on September 20, 1968. Excellent recording!

Download it here:
http://www.filefactory.com/file/ccb11cc/n/DoorsStockholm1968.zip

Van Halen playing at the Staples Center, as found on this site here:
http://whatatemper.blogspot.com/2012/06/van-halen-conquers-los-angeles.html

It was just as I remembered and as good the second time around.