City Stories: Stoops to Nuts ~ Is 10 Times Better!

Rocket Girl Alison

Its official, Alison says City Stories: Stoops to Nuts show is 10 times better than all the other choices for things to do tonight @ 6pm.

Alison makes tough calls and if you are smart you’ll follow her lead. When she was 3 years old I was going to buy her a new bed. Alison said, “Dad put the $400 on the Giants and take the six and a half points.  I’ll sleep in the drawer.” Boy, was Alison right, Giants covered and won the Super Bowl 20-19. Little tips and sacrifices like that led to savings that put Alison through college.

Ali saying good night

This is a special Valentine’s Day show for me.  Alison and Guillaume formed a civil union in France this week. For all legal intents and purposes they got hitched. I love them both. That Alison is happy means the world to me.

Come to the City Stories: Stoops to Nuts storytelling show tonight @ Cornelia Street Café @ 6 pm.

I promise a great show with these artists: Steve Northeast, Jana Peri,Thomas Pryor, Daniela Schiller,Katherine Wessling & Nick Zaharakos.

Admission is $7 and that includes one free drink.

Guillaume & Alison

Picture Book ~ Alison on the Radio

When Alison was small, she liked to sing along in the car, especially with the Kinks and The Moody Blues. Occasionally, she didn't like to sing along. I earned a strange look when I performed the final verse of Days Of Future Passed called Late Lament that went like this:

Breathe deep the gathering gloom,

Watch lights fade from every room
Bedsitter people look back and lament,

Another day's useless energy spent
Impassioned lovers wrestle as one,
Lonely man cries for love and has none
New mother picks up and suckles her son,

Senior citizens wish they were young
Cold hearted orb that rules the night,
Removes the colours from our sight
Red is grey and yellow, white,
But we decide which is right
And which is an illusion?

If we were driving somewhere and Alison heard the words, "Breathe deep..." in the backseat of the car, in the rear view mirror I saw her eyebrows fly up and her mouth screw to the side. She was not pleased. On the other hand, she enjoyed singing along with Ray Davies on Shepherds of the Nation from Preservation Act 2. That song goes like this:

Down with sex and sin, Down with pot, heroin.

Down with pornography, Down with lust.
Down with vice lechery and debauchery.We are the new centurians. Shepherds of the nations. Well keep on our guard, For sin and degradation.
We are the national guard, Against filth and depravity,
Perversion and vulgarity, Homosexuality.

Keep it clean.

Not the best five year old sing a long number, but Alison turned out bright, so I never needed to explain the context of the song’s lyrics in the concept album. We played lots of Kinks songs on the radio show. Alison was a great guest, it was a terrific night. We gave Ray Davies and the Kinks their rightful dues. Here is the link to the show if you’d like to hear it; all the photos from the show are up on Facebook. Thank you, to all our friends who came down to Giovanna's to listen to us gab, and everyone listening at home. Thank you, Divino, for a dynamite party.

Yorkville: Stoops to Nuts 8/31/2010 with host Tommy Pryor & guest: Alison Pryor

Picture book!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjDu3E5zDks

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Alison & Tommy Love The Kinks ~ Yorkville Radio Tonight

Alison Pryor is my guest tonight on "Yorkville: Stoops to Nuts," radio show @ 9pm @ Centanni link below. It's a Kinks show.

http://www.centannibroadcasting.com/

Alison and I are not historians, we're not the musical snobs in Nick Hornby books (OK, sometimes), we simply love the Kinks. We don’t know everything about them, but we do want to tell you why their music is important to us and why its a continual source of joy. We all have damaged heroes, Ray Davies is one of ours. We don't know him personally, and never will, but it’s easy to separate the beauty of his music and his lyrics and let them stand sensationally on their own. I spent a thousand hours sitting on a stoop listening to this nut and I love him. Ray Davies music was an essential fabric in the weave of the neighborhood. He happily haunts many places for Alison & me.

Alison comes to the show with DJ experience. Pictured here, two of her gigs: First, Bay Ridge, 1990, she spun tunes on the turntable and leaned towards Motown, Southside Johnny, Kinks, New Wave and the Boss. In college, she hosted a Saturday night show and played records with her friend, Ollie. During their show, I danced alone in my room to all songs, and kept this to myself. Some of the best times of my life.

Come by tonight, listen to our show at Giovanna's restaurant. We're having a little party before Ali returns to France. All friends are welcome.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4DJ9YUYshE

Viola's For Your Unmentionable Needs

Viola's, Yorkville's premier Lingerie Shop, has supplied bras, girdles, rear lifters, and other support products to the women in my family for 60 years! How do you think the ladies look so good in the old pictures?

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Viola helped the girls keep it in, when they didn't want it out.

I remember being in the Lamston's candy aisle with Mom. She manhandled a giant bag of M&M's and said to no one in particular, "Jeez! This bra's killing me!" I waved bye to the candy as she pushed Rory and me in the stroller a few stores down to Viola's for a purchase.

They are celebrating their 60th anniversary on First Avenue near 77th Street.

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If you have unmentionable needs and hope to ever get that girlish figure back, you best get yourself to Viola's, toots suite! Their lingerie and hosiery sleep in fine boxes folded like Mom folded your things in the small suitcase when you were young and she was sending you away with a big smile on her face. Don't you miss that smile? Well, if you go to Viola's and the ladder's in place, and the lady goes up the ladder, and pulls down a few boxes and opens them carefully for you, the memories will flood back. Yes, they will.

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Viola's! 60 proud years protecting, hiding and enhancing Yorkville figures.

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Tomorrow, Eric Vetter & I are playing tunes and talking: Bill Withers, Al Green & The Classics IV ~ on the "Yorkville Stoops to Nuts" radio show.

My Yorkville radio guests for the next four weeks:

Eric Vetter (Washington Heights ~ Vocalist & Comedy Man)
Frank Flaherty (NY Times Senior Editor & author, "The Elements of Story")
Alison Pryor (coming in from France just to be on the show)
Adam Wade (formerly from New Hampshire, now proudly from Hoboken, Champion storyteller, all weight divisions).

Trust

"Stop moving your nose."

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Alison reminded me of Elizabeth Montgomery playing Samantha on Bewitched. When I rubbed sun tan lotion on her nose, Alison's head would keep still, but her nose would take off like a whirly bird. I'd stretch the ritual out so I could watch her make a thousand faces.

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One of our favorite games was "Trust." She'd run the length of the couch and dive off like Wile E. Coyote. I'd be on the floor and the deal was I'd catch her as close to the ground as possible without her crashing. She'd take off like a madman and go up four, five feet in the air, trying to go past my arms, daring me to drop her. Lots of close calls, but no emergency room visits. Nothing compares to the powerful faith Alison had in me during that game.

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Today, Alison worked Elixir Juice Bar, a smoothie store on Hudson Street. I biked there to visit her. The place got busy. For 45 minutes, I read & watched Alison handle the best and worst of New York. She ran the place working alone. No sweat, no scenes, just satisfied customers.

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Tuesday on the Hudson

Last Tuesday, the terrible weather didn't stop love from appearing on the Hudson. Biking north, Alison and I spied folks enjoying the river in the rain. There was a retired couple playing dominoes under two umbrellas, the lady was winning and after I asked permission to photograph them, and they said yes, she shyly slipped her head under her black umbrella.

We saw a solitary lady not alone with her companion, her dog. Never saw her face but all the energy from behind said she was fine.

While love sprouted in the drizzling rain, south of the scene the sky was clearing over the lower bay.
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Sleeping In the Dresser

Alison enjoyed sleeping in her dresser, just like the kid in the Moon Mullins comic. Here, Alison withdraws her thumb from her mouth bidding the camera good night with her New York Giants tam on the floor.

I'm scared of ghosts, Alison the Ghost with the TV remote was frightening.