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About Jeff Glovsky
on ...

LinkedIn (DE)

Dividing his time between München and New York City, Jeff Glovsky is a dedicated business owner / entrepreneur with an ear for writing and an eye for photography; and a multimedia / presentation support specialist with a background in live music and years of hands-on experience in touring, club, festival, hotel, university and Tier 1 financial settings.

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XING

Jeff Glovsky offers corporate event services, AV / production support and renewable (solar) energy consultation to an established private client database. He is a photographer / "raw" image content provider and a published writer of exaggerated non-fiction ("faction") short stories and prose poetry.

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Viadeo

Jeff Glovsky is a corporate event services and executive travel consultant, as well as a boating enthusiast and yacht and private jet charter partner. He has been a jazz and world music booking agent, and currently works with the non-profit Global Music Project® as a regional events director.

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Music2Deal

As a live 'Tonmensch' (sound engineer), Jeff Glovsky has mixed sound at the Blue Note, Jazz Standard and Birdland jazz clubs in New York City, and for Sue Mingus and the Mingus Big Band / Mingus Orchestra.

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AVglov (Jeff Glovsky)

[ ... is an Audio-Visual technician / operator with a corporate event services skill set and background in live music and sound mixing.  He is a regional events director with Global Music Project®, and a freelance photographer and raw image / content provider.  His portfolio of idiosyncratic Photo(s) by Jglo can be seen on Behance, and across the ongoing "Lo-Fi Project" on Tumblr and WordPress. ]

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LinkedIn (U.S.)

Dividing his time between New York City and Munich, Germany, J(eff) Glovsky is a corporate event services and executive travel consultant, as well as a boating enthusiast and yacht and private jet charter partner.

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(Who Will) Go There

49,999 views on Google+

50K ... Will it be YOU?

Calloo! Callay!

I did it!  I did it, Mother!  I really did it!

Whoooooooooooo ...

"Leave It", ©Jeff Glovsky

Postcard(s) at Night

"To mourn a mischief that is past and gone

is the next way to draw new mischief on" - Mr. Shakespeare

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Recently, for the first time in nearly five years ... Why, since literally being run out of town back in '10 ... I spent an enjoyable extended stay in Miami.

Miami ... Where a young(ish) man's dreams turned to ash, along with the molt of his reputation.

Miami!  Death of name and pride ... The violent starvation of anything lovely, the horror of shame-given life, told to hide ...

Made to feel horrendous.  A loser inside.

Watch the wife feed the loser ... half-believing the lies ...

Having nowhere to turn, or herself run and hide, she can only reluctantly flail and pile on; not wanting to feel her love for The Loser, she can only hold tight to her furies, resentments and 20-year grudges, and dredging these up to protect herself when she feels the way she's supposed to feel:  in love and supportive, not wanting to harm ...

Not wanting to wound him and kill anymore than he's already crippled and dying inside ... her defense is to do exactly that:  wound and kill, any love she feels might be alive still.

Protecting herself, because Loser's disabled ...

“Gone Skyline (Night)”, ©Jeff Glovsky

The Meaning of Jimmy

I wonder what happened to Jimmy, sometimes.

My first professional gig in New York, my first actual job there, was as a light and sound engineer at a cabaret theater called The Ballroom.

Jimmy, ostensibly, was the floor manager of the bar and restaurant part ... no doubt having taken the job proudly; won the position from numerous other qualified applicants and fulfilled his duties with zest and purpose ... once.

By the time I knew Jimmy, he'd become installed:  a figurehead, fixture at the end of the bar, where he'd plant each day and into the night, quaffing cup after cup of port and vino ... Occasionally yelling out, "86!" - whether the kitchen was actually out of a menu item or not.

It didn't matter to Jimmy, who scarcely realized where he was by the middle of each nightly shift ... let alone who he had bartending or waiting tables for him (who he was "managing", in other words) ... who might have been playing in the cabaret ... or whether blurting out "86!" in a crowded restaurant, for no good reason, was a good idea.

In work, as in life, there are comforts, nostalgia, stagnation, complacency, habits (for we are creatures of all!) ... which creep in and combine with routine, daily boredoms, lethargy, apathy, to freeze one in place ... annihilating zest and purpose, rendering one meaningless.

I wonder what happened to Jimmy, sometimes ... and sense, in the end, we are all of us, Jimmy.

Grey(t) Love, Escape

“Grey(t) Skyline”

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Whenever I'm back in New York for extended periods, which is becoming less frequent as I ripen like Käse, I'm reminded simultaneously of what still iron-grips me, keeps bringing me back here ... yet why I began to escape in the first place.

I've long said, in New York (in Manhattan, that is), there is no middle ground:  You're either perfectly young for it, or perfectly old.  You enjoy the clubs, lounges, (now corporatized) live music / night life scenes ... the all-nighters, 4am diner hangs ... or you're comfortably numbed.  You've learned where to go, what to see, who to do for your comforts, and you can afford these.

In the midlife, there is only flight ... from noise and Groundhog Day-like hassles, constant inconveniences, too many people (incessant noise!) and tourist price-gouging.  Add to this, a milennial sheen ... This privatized, Disneyfied, playground vibe ... This "service"-oriented age of "transparency", where everything's glass and in fact, nothing's private and even the taxi drivers pretend now to "like" you (transparent, indeed!) ...

Entering a pizza place last week, I'm greeted by a greasy apron caught up in this fantasy, all beaming as he asks me, "How are you, good gentleman?"

"Uh, yeah ... Gimme a slice," I grunt.  "Not hot.  Just like it is."

"It's cold!" shouts he with glee, imploring.

"Don't care.  That one.  With the cheese.  Not.  Burnt.  No, not that one!  Looks like ASS ... "

This happened last week.  Looking back, I think for a minute, I have no idea why I'm acting that way ... but then it occurs to me, Wait.  Yes I do.

I'm middle-aged now.  Gearing up for a thirtieth high school reunion (!) ... and New York -- in reality, a shoulda been transitional situation, where it's never been easy to live, just survive -- now feels to me like a burial ground.  My mood and spirit, hopes and humor, all but submerged, subsumed when I'm here ...

“Subsuming”, ©Jeff Glovsky

I have flown ... but can't yet keep too long away.

Until I can, long for the New York I was young in ... the mind your own business, out of my face place ... Grown up, Garbo-esque, I request at least that.  For now ... while I still can't fly too long away.

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Fearless Failure

Whenever a gig folds, I expand ...

I wrote that twenty-some years ago, in a fit of exhaltation, having been sent home from a nice-paying job because -- as it was put to me -- my bright, loud '90s tie was too wide.  I think there may have been stars all over it.  I remember a guy I worked with bursting out into "Star Man" -- this tremulous, pitch-perfect Bowie noise -- whenever he saw me throughout that day.  We laughed about it ... Me calling him "Ziggy" ... Me laughing not with, but at myself ... and then my gig folded.

I got sent home.

Looking back, it's doubtful my neckwear was the (only) problem.  Perhaps I was bored.  A bit understimulated ... I was working in a hotel environment, where customer service and propriety were the norms.  Probably singing "Ballroom has broken", loudly -- this excellent, tremulous Bowie noise! -- to the tune of "Morning Has Broken", or barking gibberish in German, didn't help back then with the overall perception of me as a qualified, team-oriented AV professional (nor one with a full set of crayons in the box, for that matter!).

... I got sent home.

That paled, though, in comparison to being called up by an employer on New Year's Eve once, after work, and being bluntly informed that that day had been my last ... The subsequent year getting off to a flying stop, as I lay on the floor of New York's Port Authority bus station, waiting for daylight on January 1st, and my wife to return from upstate with our house keys.

There are several -- nay, hundreds -- of other examples, of me and misfortune caressing each other ... Each time, with each failure, and each lesson learned, there's potential, resolve not to get it wrong next time!

There are realizations, and steely damn insights, and fury ... Self-loathings with each new awareness...

But work-wise, I've learned it comes down to this:  If the job doesn't fit you, you really should quit.

If the job don't fit, you gotta quit.

If you're in a rut and it doesn't feel right ... bored to wit's end, and you're understimulated ... Singing songs to pass the time, or acting foolish through discomfort -- You don't feel you belong, so you're creating discomfiture -- it's time to assess.  Call timeout, and if necessary, take yourself out of the game.

Don't wait to be benched.  Or, for your gig to be folded ...

Take a deep breath.  Expand.

Be exhalted ...

Constant Wishes

No matter which Hol(y)days you celebrate

(or Sainted traditions you may have Nicked)

to share, maybe laugh and make it through

 the frenzies of this Season

(and regardless of the color,

shape, size, meaning of your symbols),

may this Day (and Night) and Year(s) Ahead

be MERRY, bright and prosperous

... and Peaceful. Always that.

Remember(ing) Laughter

When my dad turned 50 years old, he did a little 'river dance' on his birthday cake.  Sadly frustrated with life and years behind him to that point, and whatever present hassles he felt his family, (empty) wallet and failing business had been giving him, in a single swooping motion, he swatted his 50th birthday cake off the kitchen counter, and leapt upon it like Nureyev.

Stamping like a person one-tenth his age in the frosting, and crushing "5" and "0" candles beneath his still shoe-clad feet, he ceased misbehaving only when my mom burst, literally, Lucille Ball-like into tears.

I was not privvy to the "Event of the Half Century", as my brother and I came to call that day; I did not witness it myself ... My brother, in these sort of excited, hushed tones, related what was going on, as I entertained guests in the upstairs bedroom we shared:  a sanctuary (whenever I'd lock Jared out of it) that I used to kick back and call, "The Swamp".

Finest Kind

My friend Mike and I had been arguing that day over which of us was going to be Hawkeye Pierce ... and more importantly, which one of us was going to go downstairs and eat birthday cake wearing the dirty bathrobe my brother and I had laying around the floor of our bedroom?

I was adamant:  I was going to be wearing that bathrobe, because Hawkeye would have ... and anyway, it was on my bedroom floor, in my house, not Mike's!

"You're Trapper John!  You're TRAPPER!" I screamed into Mike's sweaty armpit ... as he tightened his headlock and gave me a noogie.

Just then, my brother (Major Winchester) burst in.  "Dad smashed his birthday cake on the floor!"

I didn't hear what he said at first -- flailing, in a headlock, as I was -- but eventually, as the words sank in -- and as my best friend Mike released his grip -- I realized that neither of us would be needing the bathrobe ...

There wasn't any birthday cake to be eaten!

"Jared, are you joking?" I asked my brother.

He responded by throwing me into a headlock ... I told him I believed him!  I just wanted to make sure!

He gave me a noogie.  Then we ran downstairs.

Sure enough, my mom was wailing like Lucy ... a birthday cake was on the floor ... and there was my dad, with some paper towels, wiping frosting and candle wax off his shoes.

Fast forward several decades.  As I near the 'Big Five-Oh' myself -- incidentally, no longer so smug in my lineal place as the older brother -- I compare my (mid)life now, to my dad's back then:  daily stresses?  Check.  Money messes?  Check.  Failed business(es)?  Check(check).  Wailing wife and stunned children?  At times, check and check.

But an overriding impulse to laugh through it all?

That most vital touchstone ... Happily, check ✓.

Made Brown Again

Congratulations on getting 5 total likes on Jeff Glovsky INK

Five Likes only??

Yikes!

... more Random Poetix

by Jeff Glovsky 

Riddle Me This

Recent input (from me) on a social network:

What fascinates me about social media is the psychological aspect.
 
What is/are the reason(s) behind the loneliness ... the histrionics ... the sad, almost desperate need for attention? The delusional hope -- or worse, the belief -- that every thought or "tweet" we make is somehow necessary/interesting?
 
That we have, and are supposed to have, "fans" - literal strangers, for whom we preen and pout and smile in "selfies" ... so that we might be "liked".
 
When did we become so sick?  What void does social media fill?
 
Were lives of people always so empty ... lacking as well in the not so distant past, the milennial capacity we now have to "share"?
 
Or do we exist today in a permanent, new "normal" state of mental illness?

Try Logging Off This Holiday Season ... It'll Be OKAY!

 Really.

Why Is It So Big??

Story of my life!  I get asked all the time ...

Why is your blog so ridiculous??

I smile, wink a little ... proudly, yet truthfully, say "I don't know."  Ask if I should change my dongle.

"Your dongle's fine ... ".

I smile again.

"Dude!  What the fuck?  Stop simpering at me!"

"You tell me why it's so big!  That's why I called you here, to look ... Here, let me open things up for you ... "

"Holy shit," she says, as it smacks her eyeballs ... "That is big!  Is that as small as things get?"

"Yes," I say, sheepishly.

"It's like my parents' telephone ... "

"I know!" I say proudly.  "I was looking at it the other night, and thinking the same thing!"

"My mom's small fingers get lost all over it.  My dad can flail away though, and never misses!"

"I hear ya'!"

"Can I ... ?"

"Absolutely.  See, I've got no control over how big it looks ... "

"You should resize this manually."

"I have, believe me.  I do!  All the time.  But then it just springs back to this size again."

"Even if you snip it?"

"Snip it, crop it ... It's like a worm.  It just keeps growing back!  Nothing I do ever makes it smaller."

"I'll make it fit the way you want it."

"Thank you, Gina."

"That's why I'm here ... "

And how was your weekend?
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more annoyances / episodes

Read, Liked District

November Nods (October Acknowledgements) out to ...

@Spiegro, for recommending "In Carmen Aragon Again".

... I'll find her.

@tkwyoung, for amping up the visibility of "From Medium to Middling" and helping me get my point across (and thanks to the 10 (so far) who seem to agree, by recommending the piece):  simply put, that Medium (not the TV show), a once vibrant and valuable visibility platform -- a writer's wet dream, if you will, affording easy exposure to readers of quality -- is not what it once was.

Still, I enjoy the simplicity of posting to Medium.  Although work of mine may very well, literally, languish unread there ... it only takes one astute Collection editor to snatch up the orphan ...

So thanks to @JustThinkingNow for taking in "Still Relevance" - a (relevant) Monica Lewinsky piece, originally posted here on blogspot.

Finally, thanks to Guilhem Ribart, Daniel P.K. Ng and AlmostFreeNYC for noticing, a lot, last month.

*Plus a special shout this time around, out to long-time Photos by Jglo appreciator, Sawa Minori! ty :)

- September Shouts

- December's Children

October Song

"To most men the past is never yesterday, or five minutes ago, but distant, misty epochs some of which are glorious and others abominable." - Henry Miller

"Excuse me!" he whirled, on the airplane in flight, to the fat woman sitting behind him and armed to the teeth with a duty-free magazine.

The woman had rolled up that weapon and clocked him over the head with it ... because he'd had the temerity, in flight, to recline his seat into her overweight lap.

"Excuse me!" he whirled ... and the woman played dumb, trying proudly to play like she hadn't just done that.

I wonder where those two are right now?

I think of the 'ones who got away' sometimes ... those fleeting passengers through my life, who wouldn't have reason to think of me, but nonetheless made their impressions felt and registered on my akasha.

I think of the 'ones who got away' ... From the roadside café in Pennsylvania, that angry, long-legged bird with ripe plumage ... I spied her storming, arms crossed, smoking, stomping down the roadside, carless ...

Left my café booth to ride her.

Many years later, this hotel AV gig ... The "V" guy (I was doing "A") raced sloppily through his post-show chores, because, as he put it, "the wife" promised him "a little fun" if he managed to get home early that day.

I cried at the innocent beauty of life ... then went home to my own wife and "fun" of our own, as we fought about money and tore down our scene.

Growing up, on a ship, northern Michigan waters ... My little baseball cap blew off.  A fair-haired, red-nosed Minnesotan joined me hanging over the railing, waving my baseball cap bye-bye.  Her name was Dawn, that's all I know ...

I wonder where Dawn rises now?

Little League, early effort at teamwork ... I whacked that baseball almost out of the park.  Watched it sail, like Icarus, into the sun.  Then I chased it ... past first base and into the outfield.

No one told me where to run!  No one told me what to do when I hit it ... I had a coach (and had a dad ... but Dad cared as little about sports back then as I do now, if that's possible (and if not less) ... My dad can't be faulted.

... I guess.).

I asked the coach which way to run ... What to do, if I ever hit a baseball.  Not believing, dismissing my foolish question -- because in Coach's athletically fit, trim mind, it couldn't be anything but foolishness -- he answered my dumb, yet sincere, ask with sarcasm.

"See that scoreboard?" he chewed and spit, and smiled sort of shittily.  "Ya run out there, climb up that fence and touch it!  Then run back to the dugout when you hit the ball."

He said that.  I did it.

... My dad watched, his heart sinking faster with each step my cleated feet took, charging and high-stepping out toward that scoreboard ... racing the ball I just whacked toward the sky.

I wonder whatever became of that coach guy?

With every year that passes by, the incidents, visages, in my mind's eye grow clearer, taking on lives of their own as my own life counts down toward an inevitable 9th inning ... beginning now, slowly, to stretch toward the 7th ...

I look back, slow motion sometimes, sometimes smiling, and think of the ones who got away.

"The Memory", ©Jeff Glovsky

Renard Might Say ...

Happy Birthday, John.

When I'm ... 74

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One Of My Favourite Songs From John Lennon | The Chronicles Of Renard

(a sort of reblog)

Out of Whack

The guy who's following me online, reached out via email last week and asked me (no doubt derisively) how in the world I can have 1600+ tweets but only 31 followers on Twitter?

He actually inserted three (3) question marks at the end, and capitalized the word 'how' ... Apparently needing to know, indeed, HOW I could possibly have more than 1600 tweets??? - but only a proportionately tiny handful of people giving a shit.

I told him -- my online "fan" -- that I wasn't doing this to be "liked"; that I had an agenda, and at the end of the day, I am and have been achieving my goals.  True, it seems I have more social networks online than actual "followers" ... and some of these networks are entirely useless.

Don't care.

Google my name now, the name, Jeff Glovsky.  What you "stumbleupon" today is 1000% times cleaner, more accurate a reflection, more truthful and balanced, than even six months ago.  Yes, I still suck in some quarters ... and in the fevered imaginings of the guy who bumped into me in New York a few weeks ago and hissed in my face, "you fucking scumbag" (This actually happened) ... in front of not only my family, but the Starbucks barrista I was trying to make eyes with!

Or a guy in Miami ... who never previously met me, but felt compelled when he did, after sussing me out from a photo somewhere, to make challenging, instigatory remarks to my face ... alternately and insultingly laughing in it with his girlfriend, as I picked up my dry cleaning one day with my wife.

Fortunately, such disgusting, and vaguely unhinged, public incidents are few and far between.  In the former example, I hope and pray this guy remains unarmed ... Is it any wonder my "tweets" are geschützt?!

But 1600+ tweets ... Indeed, HOW and why?

Because I have photography and writing streaming on Twitter:  I have "allowed" the "app" to post on my behalf ... so whenever I do something on WordPress or Tumblr, it's automatically "shared" with that guy who's following me.

But why so few followers?

Because, why so MANY?  What is the point of having '500+', or random "likes", or like, @GayBatman trying to like me??  Or Hot Lonely Girls, beating down my door?  Man, I've got my own stories.

And is this even real???:

purveyor of (smash)words

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The 'real' Jeff Glovsky

Happy Birthday to Me

Jeff Glovsky (WordSpeak) turns ONE

(Another Year in Review ...)

Companion Piece (Characters)

Walking around the streets of my old town .. the Upper West Side, where I lived and breathed.

Where Amy's boyfriend broke the bar sign ... Joe G. (and Jeff G. - Jg²!!) shared a "bromance" before there ever was such a thing ... Skinny Jen and her Nicolas Cage-looking fella consoled each other through various episodes ...

Where Rick and Judith became "JewRick" ... where the multi-talented Angry Black Man targeted his future wife (proving there's trueness to "love at first sight") ... Where "Humphrey Bumphrey", "Gus", "Sergeant (Pepper)" and "Ass Feast" (don't ask!) trod the boards ... "Zoo Loser" and her sister, "Scab" (...seriously);

where Wolf and Ernest prowled the streets, the latter with his harelip up, a picture frame around his neck ('cause he was "FRAMED!", see?); or imploring passersby who'd listen, "What's the greatest nation on earth?"

Why, that would be the "Dough-nation!

"Donate to the United Negro Pizza Fund?" Ernest would ask, and I always would.  For one thing, Ernest was pleasant ... He was personable.  Not full of these fake Munchausen-esque self-pity syndromes, sitting planted on the sidewalk in people's way.

No, Ernest didn't have a new scrawled sign with a different sob story, in a different neighborhood, each night or week.  He didn't dress up for Halloween and make angry demands ... nor did he own a cell phone or iPad and sit there entitledly, chatting or tapping away on the sidewalks while fully expecting someone, at least, to rain into his paper cup ...

Ernest spoke for his place and time, in a way, and his generation:  he was engaged, first off ... He would make eye contact ... made an effort ... He was annoying, a little, but not unpleasant or nasty.

My pal Wolf, on the other hand ...

Though Wolf was also engaged:  in keeping alive, afloat, on the move (always prowling) ... He was never just sitting there, obnoxiously waiting.  Wolf, and I'm pretty sure, friendly Ernest, would have accepted employment had it been offered.  Neither seemed entitled or above it all (despite appearing on, and of, the streets) ... and neither one of them was overtly faking.

I think of old friends on the Upper West Side, and acquaintances and names I knew ... More clearly envisioning 20+ years ago, than my life here this century, which ended last decade ...

I've moved on.  Though I still think of Amy, Joe G., Skinny Jen ... auld FU in general ... Wolf, Ass Feast (!), the Angry Black Man and Ernest ... and I think still of Zorro, who loved to dream ...

Each night, caught her traipsing her mangy hound here ... the two of them dressed to the nines, fit to kill!

Then, "Zorro" was sixty, if she was a day ... apparently living to find a friend.  I followed her down for ten blocks the first time, the wide and noisy street between us:  me, on the east of Columbus, that is, and she and her mutt traipsing down on the west side ...

And Zorro flicked hair from a flattish sombrero, this dyed blonde, unruly and posthumous mane.  Her little pooch cried out as well ... the two of them begging, imploring attention ...

It was me, though, who tanked on that need as they vibed there!  That mutt, but outrageous, and yapping like mad.

"Sssshh," Zorro pampered and squatted down then ... to cuddle and fondle and soothe her dog friend ... and down there like that, her short skirt rode up high, and her narrow and varicose thighs kissed the midnight.

... As much as it hurts me to realize, admit it, I've outgrown New York.  Or it's left me behind ... or I've simply and finally, indeed, moved on.

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The "Zorro" bit, adapted from Central Park (a work in progress) ... Thanks for reading!

Bad Lines and Inspiration

"Some might argue that it’s hubristic to write in the first-person.

"I (me, myself and … ) disagree.

"What I would argue is that the first-person, as a narrative form, should be retired. This would limit, if not eliminate, all the posers, pretenders and Starbucks dreamers who 'share' themselves like drunken cheerleaders. It would also pretty much lay waste to the 'blogosphere' … this, arguably, not a terrible thing.

"Several decades ago -- before our Facebook, cut and paste, 'open-source' world --  there were older siblings … also scribbling, pos(t)ing dreamily, into Barnes & Noble 'journals' the size of granny panties … or contributing to Fray."

It's All About Me(dium)

in

Inspire the World

Tell Me ...

Comments

are Open

... Be Gentle