Crazy Janey and her mission man were back in the alley tradin’ hands
‘long came Wild Billy with his friend G-man all duded up for Saturday night
Well Billy slammed on his coaster brakes and said anybody wanna go on up to Greasy Lake
It’s about a mile down on the dark side of route eighty-eight I got a bottle of rose so let’s try it
We’ll pick up Hazy Davy and Killer Joe and I’ll take you all out to where the gypsy angels go
They’re built like light and they dance like spirits in the night …

Bruce Springsteen . Spirits In The Night

New Jersey September 1974. I had just started my first semester as a photography major at Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in wonderful New York, New York … just like I pictured it … skyscrapers and everything. I was living in an apartment with my sister Diane in Rahway, NJ and commuting every day to the fashion district of NYC. Walk a few blocks. Hop a train at the Rahway station … four stops later … Linden, Elizabeth, Newark … arriving at New York Penn Station. It was an amazing time of learning and spreading my newly found seventeen-year-old wings to fly.

If you lived in or around New York City you knew of the legendary Bottom Line. Located at at 15 West Fourth Street between Broadway and Washington Square Park, the venerable music venue, owned by Allan Pepper and Stanley Snadowsky, opened its doors February 12, 1974. One of the premier music clubs in Manhattan, was the birthplace of many music acts. Shows by Bruce Springsteen, Van Morrison, The New York Dolls, Lou Reed, Patti Smith, The Ramones, Hall & Oates, Miles Davis, Bill Evans, Charles Mingus, Toots and the Maytals … and of course The A’s.

The Bottom Line also “introduced” many acts via showcases. You just got a record contract? You were courting the major labels? You probably played a showcase at the Bottom Line. Many a career was launched from this stage. The Bottom Line seated 400 people and had a no smoking policy long before that restriction became New York City law. It was one of the most intimate places to see music in NYC. No matter where you sat, or stood, you had a great view of the stage and the band.

Following are photos of Richard, Rocco, Terry, Rick, and Mikey from the stage of the Bottom Line June 9, 1981. Enjoy!

It was an unremarkable Monday. Got up. Had my protein shake went to the gym. Did upper body & my physical therapy exercises for my “wounded knee”. Watched cute muscle boyz at the gym. Woof! Hey …. I might be aging … but I’m not blind! Went home cooked up another protein shake & eggs for breakfast. Then headed off to meet a client at Peet’s Coffee in Fremont.

Pretty typical Monday so far. Met with Dave & Greg formally of Passage Maker Yachts here in Seattle. Sadly Greg had to close shop because during the height of our “economic downturn” (read Republican cluster-fuck) he could no longer get loans from the bank he had been using for years. So he closed his door. But I digress. I picked up Dave’s MacBook. Got a cup-a-joe … some

A hummingbird flits at the feeder. Unaware that the rains of fall have come. The coolness of day changes green to orange red. Falling to earth like a shredded patchwork quilt. The flowers are few and nectar is rare, but those flying dynamos carry on. Such persistence. Such dedication to a singular effort.

The cats nuzzled together. Keeping warm through their union. The hummingbird persists. The cats unaware and uncaring of their industrious friend’s progress. They’ve had their fill. First eating. Then cleaning. Then sleep.

And here I sit. Friday mid-afternoon. The couch. My nest. Sleepless. How I wish I could be as industrious and relentless as that hummingbird. Or as unaware as said cats. But here I sit braced from pain. The pain of a wounded knee. It’s no allusion. No intimation. Just fact dressed in a black supportive shroud.

I was walking through the park one day. Well okay. Not so much a park, as my living room. And it was

Not a lot to report in week 10. I’m still at 260 lbs and holding. Though I had to go from my (dare I say it) size 42 jeans to my size 40 jeans which I had stored away for this occasion. Two inches is just the start … I hope. My 42 jeans were getting way too loose. So I climbed up into the attic and brought the 40’s down. In there was a pair or 36″ jeans … oh someday soon(?). Actually that might be a ways off. It took me a while to put the weight on. It will take a while to get rid of it too.

Still on the Men’s Health TNT plan. Never thought I’d eat steak, pork, or chopped meat ever again. But here I am, a week and a half into this thing, and I’ve found my inner carnivore. I forgot how much I LIKED steak! Yum! I’ve been cooking pretty much every night. Unless I’ve cooked enough pork chops or chicken for two nights. Protein. Protein. Protein. And so it goes.

The main reason for this writing was to post my gym workout sheet for people to

I’ve been doing this now for 9 weeks. I had lost only 15 lbs in the first 7 weeks and hit a plateau already. Okay did I just say ONLY 15 lbs! Oye! Let’s be real. That is pretty good! Having gone through this loss and plateau situation before I kind of knew what had to be done. A change up in my workouts or maybe get a trainer again.

At the end of one of my workouts last week I talked to one of the trainers at LA Fitness. What I found out, I didn’t like. The cost was rather prohibitive & I had to sign up for “X” amount of months and chose “Y” number of sessions per month. Plus I had to pay a $149.00 fee up front. Um … I don’t think so. So I did ask for my one free session.

On that following Monday Meadow worked me out. He was nice enough to put together a group of exercises for the entire week, even though he was only training me for one day. It was a good 30 minute workout of “super sets.” By the time I was done … I WAS DONE! So job well done Mr Meadow!

I can’t believe that it’s been six weeks since I started working out again. In that six weeks I’ve dropped fifteen pounds. Yes FIFTEEN POUNDS! I have been workin’ my butt of figuratively and literally. And it feels good!

If I were a goal oriented kind of guy … I’d like to be 198 by my 53rd birthday. That might be unrealistic … but hey I sure can try! BTW … for those of you interested and wanting to lavish gifts upon me the date you need to mark in your calendar is January 20, 2010.

All this past summer I was feeling very self-conscious and very ashamed of how “large” I was. None of my previous bathing suits fit me & Chris went out and bought me a single pair of trunks XXL. Fuck! Whether it was the chemotherapy drug (Methotrexate) and the steroid Prednisone I was on last year, fucking up my metabolism & me just feeling like crap for so long … who knows! The end result was being 180 lbs … and not liking it one bit.

Manx cats by nature are a playful lot. Rocky and Rose are no exception. This brother and sister tag team spend some part of every day, chasing each other all over the house. Then when it’s time to “play who’s dominant now” … it’s a trade. Sometimes Rocky … the big orange boy cat. Or Most times his little sister Rose. I never saw a cat that small be the alpha cat in a household. And poor Angel, the oldest cat out of them all … is certainly at the bottom of the pecking order. It’s really sad when both Rocky and Rose gang up on the old girl.

But don’t fret yet. Angel can get her licks in too, and also be the instigator of calamity and much mayhem. She and the Rock boy are best buds. They are forever playing with each other. Especially in the mornings. But Angel tends to steer clear of alpha Rose. Except when it comes time to nap. Then you might find both girls cuddled up in a ball

I joined LA Fitness two weeks ago, after having gone through a free week previously giving myself and the gym a test run. I can’t believe it’s been three weeks already. Wow! And it’s already starting to pay off. I wish I could say I already looked like my picture to the left, circa early 2002 … but I have lost 8 lbs already.

Way back in August of 2001 I started back to the gym “the first time.” Well at least the first time in Seattle. My weight then was around 242 lbs. It was the heaviest I had been at the time. My goal then was to be under 200 lbs by my 45th birthday, January 20, 2002. With the help of a great trainer, whom I worked with for a few months, I reached my goal weight. I was 198 lbs by my birthday.

This time around I have a similar goal … but who knows if it’s possible to lose almost 80 lbs in that same amount of time & do it safely. Right now I can’t afford a trainer. So I’ll give it another month using all the knowledge and routines

Sometimes I wonder where the time goes. Most times I’m so caught up in the mind-numbing sameness of the every day, that I often don’t realize time has passed. Or maybe I just don’t want to consciously recognize I’ve gotten another day older … and as the song goes … deeper in debt.

And to look at the line before, and the one in the song too … I’m also afraid I’m reaching the 16-ton mark. Okay maybe that’s a “little” exaggerated, but I’m the heaviest I’ve ever been. And that is certainly a frightening thought to an aging man. Well at least this aging man. I can’t speak for us all.

My vanity will not allow me to reveal my current weight. Well okay … I currently weigh 20 stones. You do the math! It’s with this in mind I figured it was time. Time to get back to the gym. My doctor has been urging me to. He also offered up this little nugget too. “Joe … you should get back to the gym. Especially now that you are being

I have been an Apple user/evangelist (current translation: fanboy) since I bought my first Mac Plus sometime in 1986. I purchased that little beige wonder to use in my recording studio in Asbury Park, NJ. I always thought Apple was bulletproof. They could do no wrong, and always cared about the experience of the Mac user.

Do I still feel that way? I’d be a blind zealot if I said yes. There have always been questionable calls on Apple’s part throughout the years. But at some point Apple stepped up to the plate, took responsibility and made things right. No matter what the cost. Financial or otherwise. It seems this concept gets harder and harder for Apple. For whatever reason.

It started June 25th with my post “Apple Developer {dis} Connection or … How My Apple ID Was Hijacked“. I explained how my Apple ID was hijacked by someone,

Warning: This post in not about programing. It’s about an Apple ID security breach.

Updated: 07.02.09
Updated: 06.28.2009
Updated: 06.26.2009

I have always had a fascination with the idea of developing for the Mac. I guess those seeds were planted “… way back in the days of old” when I was creating custom stacks in Apple’s HyperCard, or creating custom databases in Filemaker. Developing for the Mac, or now for the iPhone, is one of those dreams many Apple Fan Boys and Girls have had. To build that one illusive application that everyone wants. Needs. Must have! Cha ching! Hey … I didn’t say my motives were altruistic.

It was with these thoughts in mind that I went out the other day and bought “Programming in Objective-C 2.0” by Stephen G Kochan and Erica Sadun’s “The iPhone Developer’s Cookbook“. Yesterday I started reading Programming in Objective-C 2.0. To get started I needed to log into my Apple Developer Connection account and download the latest version of the Apple developer tools which includes Xcode, Apple’s programing environment.

While I was there I also registered for the iPhone Dev Center. To do so I had to register with my current Apple ID. I then needed to fill out an iPhone developer questionnaire. With that done I could then download the latest version of the 2.08GB Apple iPhone SDK.

Sometimes things don’t always go as planned …