a pistol shot

 at 5 O'clock,

the bells of heaven ring.

tell me what you done it for

no,,i won't...tell you a thing ( Hunter/Garcia)

follow the bouncing ball ladies and gentlemen....everyone wins a prize at this carnival.

so....in order to distract from the fact that "vast majority" of attacks on Asian Americans are committed by our very own oppressed African American cousins, the Mayor and Chuck Schumer paraded out as many black woman as they could to denounce Asian attacks in Chinatown......that's called hiding in plain sight.....if only they hadn't blocked Trump from social media they could tie all these attack's back to one of his recent tweets.

and.....obviously bracing for the inevitable spike in Covid cases as a result of the thousands of illegals streaming across the border and being housed in every hotel, gymnasium and cage they can find...the govt went on the emotional offensive and old Joe begged states to reconsider the Mask mandate....never mind that 48 hours prior he patted himself on the back for administering Trumps vaccine at a record pace.....and CDC director Rochelle Walensky went so far as to talk about "IMPENDING DOOM"......they are so ready to explain the migrant spike that they are showing their cards too early.

and Kamala ? that didn't take long.......as the NY Post noted.....6 days after old Joe put her in charge of the Border....she said NO THANKS........i'm only working on Root causes of immigration....not border security......stupid white man thought he was the president.

and congestion pricing is coming soon to NYC.....this will be the final nail in the coffin and ensure that the white males from the other 4 Boroughs stay at home and leave the city to the Shines to Beat the asains and frighten the occasional tourist.

"Take up your china doll
it's only fractured -
and just a little nervous
from the fall"

what kind of house is this ?

 Where I have come to roam?”

“It’s not a house,” said Judas Priest
“It’s not a house . . . it’s a home”
(Bob Dylan)

you know when i rambled around europe with the US Navy in the late 80's i always walked the streets of these ancients cities and tried to transport my brain back in time to the days of wine and roses.....in Jerusalem i thought of Jesus and Pilot and the Crucifixion and looked at ancient buildings and wondered who had built them and who may have lived in them......in Palermo i thought of General Patton.....and the allies that passed through..in Nairobi i thought of Hemmingway and wondered if i was drinking in a hotel bat that he may have frequented......France, Turkey, Spain , Greece.....same story......buildings that seemed to be hundreds or even thousands of years old and i felt it was my duty to ponder the existence of people i had never met....i read every placque on every monument i passed.....it mattered once.....someone cared enough to erect it or build it.....i could at least stop and think about it.

Bayridge has been turning over new leaves since....well probably since it's existence.....Brooklyn itself seems to be a pass through stop on the evolution road.....stop, drop and roll..........when my parents sold the only home i had ever known in 1989 i avoided walking down that block for the next 5 years or so......as if i was a tresspasser.......now when time permits on sweater nite weekend i allow myself one quick stroll down memory lane past 554.....but it's all too weird.....i do it to spark a memory of a neighbor or an event that may be buried in subconscious.

the 200 series on 73rd street between Ridge Blvd and 3rd Avenue is one of those blocks that is bursting at the seems with memories, families and wild Characters of the Night.......too many to list or recall....but for the short time i lived on 73rd between colonial and narrows , that block was my part of navigation system home , whether i was coming from the subway or the bars , i would walk down that block..and memories would come flowing back.....i'd peer at the windows of homes i used to frequent and smile.....even as the neighborhood changed and people moved away  there was always a familiar face at the house numbered 221........sadly this week that house has changed hands.....for the first time since approx 1963 there is No Longer a Woods in residence...and that is sad....i wonder in the future on some quiet sunday morning....when the new owners are drinking coffee in the dining room and reading the paper.....will they hear the familiar THUD of someone dribbling a basketball in the bedroom above....

"time rolls on, and the band played on.....somebody's favorite tune" ( Jorma)

 

struggle for a dollar...scuffle for a dime

 Step out from the past and try to hold the line

So how come history takes such a long, long time

When you're waiting for a miracle   ( Bruce Cockburn)

sorry for the delay but we had some family emergencies this week......alas all is well....where was i ?

ah yes.....Friday February 22nd 1980.

first off I went skiing upstate at a Dude Ranch with the Mc Evoys.....me, Whitey, Freddie Roc and Dermot....we skiid and drank in the hotel for 3 days....complete insanity....terrorized the slopes by day ...and took a taxi into town, bought beer at the age of 14 and went back to the hotel to terrorize some more....on Friday we took a Bus from the Catskills to the Port Authority and we arrived at the crossroads of the universe around 6:00 - 6:30 pm.......keep in mind this was 1980.....no cell phones, no internet and the USA-Russia game was not being televised......as we arrived in the Port the place was buzzing....out on 8th avenue people were standing around and chatting about the GAME.......someone told us that the Americans were beating the Russians late in the 3rd period.......unreal....we couldn't believe it......we crossed 8th avenue and walked into a Bar.....my memory isn't perfect....it was either A Blarney Stone /Blarney Rock or Mcahons.....one of those chain Irish Bars.....real bucket of blood....but on this Friday afternoon it was jumping.....we were still a few weeks away from our 15th Birthdays but the drinking age was only 18 .....and we looked older.....so we combined all of our singles into a pile and ordered 5 mugs of Bud.......the game was not on TV or Radio.......but the stereo behind the Bar was tuned to 1010 WINS and every 15 minutes was a sports update.......John Montone or someone similar was outside the arena at Lake Placid and filing updates that were being passed out to him.......the bar went silent when he announced " There are less than 3 minutes to go and the Americans are clinging to a 1 goal lead , but the Russians are swarming the Americans trying to tie the game".....the Bar Roared.....everyone high fiving and raising their beers triumphantly........then the bar got silent again......we stood staring at the ceiling or floors  listening to the radio and some crazy report about potential subway strike or an expansion project at the Javits center..we were all excited , but we would not have been shocked if the next report said the Russians scored twice in the closing minute...they were that good.......and then.....we interrupt this report to go live to Lake Placid where 1010 WINS John Montone is standing by.

"Well it's all over at the Olympic Center in Lake Placid......the underdog Americans have shocked the world and defeated the Soviet Union"...........BEDLAM.......pure fucking BEDLAM......everyone was jumping up and down and taking to the streets with their Beer Mugs.....Cars on 8th ave honked their horns......eruptions and Roars went up from the Port Authority as word Spread.....42nd street was electric........chants of USA, USA, USA broke out all over the city............looking back on that moment i laugh at the oddity of it......of all the places in the world for a group of 14 year olds to be.....but that was NY in the 70's/80's........we walked to Broadway and caught the RR train back to Bayridge....i walked home and sat down just in time for ABC to televise the game on tape delay......a moment that changed my life forever......sadly we will never know a moment like that again.....nobody cared that it was Jimmy Carter in the White House, everyone was truly United to Beat Russia....and we did.......it was the first Real Sign that the United States of America was roaring back to Life........5 years later i would be enlisting in the Navy and hoping to go to war with those Russian Bastards on the High Seas....America owes a debt of gratitude to Herb Brooks and all those wonderful lads....

if only you believed in miracles...

 so would I (Marty Balin)

In the aftermath of the Mark Pavelich passing i turned to You Tube. I re-watched a 1 hour documentary about that 1980 team and memories galore came flooding back. 

in the summer/fall of 1979 i closely followed the US Olympic hockey team as best i could.....which if you too were old enough to remember 1979 meant i would check the NY Post for the overnight scores and hope they had a blip about international or exhibition scores. only about 10 Ranger road games a year were carried on channel 9....no home games of course unless you went to Manhattan for cable......there was no E.S.P.N...heck the 1975 Stanley cup finals appeared on PBS..the flyers-sabres classic series was briefly interrupted by Monty Python commercials and some liberal flames begging for donations..........no articles about the team to speak of......nobody covered college hockey so i had never heard of any of the players or even knew who the coach was.......but every week or so a score would appear in the paper....just the final score....and i being a naïve 14 year old started to believe that we had a pretty good hockey team......i remember telling my oldest brother Jay that we were going to win a medal at Lake Placid....he laughed........a few months before the actual Olympics they held a pre-olympic tournament at Lake Placid.....according to the papers.....still no real coverage......and we beat the Russians....Holy Cow....I was Right.......i couldn't wait to tell my brother.......but he scoffed and laughed some more.......he told me that the Russians were so good that they had a B Team and a C team......he told me that Tretiak and the others would never play in a silly pre-olympic tournament....he reminded me that when the Russians mopped up the NHL the prior year that they sent a second team in addition to the National Team......(Moscow Dynamo if i recall).........deep down i knew he was right , but i held out hope.......one night during a Ranger road game in November they ran an ad for tickets to see the USA mens team play the Russians in mid December at the Garden......i begged my father to get tickets from work..........i think...and i could be wrong.....but i think he could have gotten them but nobody was wiling go to the game with me on a weeknight in December....and there was never a possibility that i was getting the Pfizer Red Seats to go to the game with Steve Mac......even at 14 i was knee deep in trouble 80% of the time ...and Mac was Mac.........the game wasn't televised and i couldn't find a radio feed.......i distinctly remember calling sports phone for an update and hearing Pat Hallas state that the russians were putting on a clinic at MSG.......i think it was 3-0 before people settled into their seats.....and 10-3 final........in the documentary i watched over the weekend Al Michaels referenced that game and said it wasn't as close as the 10-3 score indicated.........well.......i grudgingly accepted the fact that my brother was right.

tomorrow i will share the fascinating tale of where in the world i was on February 22nd 1980....it's a doozy.....and one of the top moments in my life where I  thank God that the stars alligned just the way they did.

In the bleak midwinter

 In the bleak mid-winter

Frosty wind made moan;
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter
Long ago.

I first heard the name Mark Pavelich like the rest of our Country in February 1980. He was the 5ft 7 spark plug for the United States 🇺🇸 hockey team at Lake Placid. On February 22nd on a Friday afternoon, WE beat the Russians......Still the Greatest Hockey game....not just my lifetime but the Nations....

I later was lucky enough to be in the blue seats in February of 1983 when Mark Pavelich became the first (and still only)American Born player to score 5 goals in a game....... with a flair for the dramatic it also happened to be CAP night.... and everyone at the game received a Red baseball cap compliments of Winston cigarettes.......10 or 15 thousand it seemed were tossed on the ice with the hat trick...... and some more with #4 ..... and still more with the 5th goal.

His tenure with the Rangers ended abruptly when he quit the team in the prime of his career because he was feuding with then coach Ted Sator.

He often refused to attend the Olympic team reunions and a few years ago was arrested for beating his neighbor with a tire iron.....it was later disclosed that he was suffering from mental illness and living like a hermit in the woods.

Mark Pavelich haves me two of my greatest thrills as a hockey fan.... and I always loved him for that.

Yesterday, in the bleak mid winter; he died.

Rest In Peace Mark

Look out any window

 any morning, any evening, any day

Maybe the sun is shining
birds are winging or
rain is falling from a heavy sky -
What do you want me to do,
to do for you to see you through?

it's all a dream we dreamed....one afternoon.....long ago. ( Hunter/Lesh)

today we leave the real world alone.

no politics or political scandals for me.

No Fox business & Maria Bartiromo

No Sports talk or Twitter

No Instagram , Yahoo or ESPN

i might not even Blog today....oh....wait.....never mind.

nope.....today i spend the morning on the treadmill......take my Boy Matteau Matteau for a short walk ( its cold).......read a little Kerouac ...listen to some good Ol Grateful Dead, and then repair to the bar Room in Redbank for Tall Glasses of Beer....i'll stare blankly at the TV showing Grapefruit League baseball from the sun drenched fields of Florida and i will enjoy a delicious steak with Val and celebrate my  56th successful trip around the Sun.

Slainte ~

t's just a box of rain

I don't know who put it there

Believe it if you need it

or leave it if you dare

But it's just a box of rain

or a ribbon for your hair

Such a long long time to be gone

and a short time to be there