My Greatest Hits

"There are no problems, only solutions." - John Lennon

There are THREE (3) complaints about me on Ripoff Report.

One of them was an attempt this year (in 2013) to 'cash in' on a business failure of 2010 and the resulting public castigation / successful ruination of my personal name and reputation ... Those were the other two on Ripoff Report.

Then there was this guy who put me and my failed business on vrwd, suggesting I was running a "Ponzi scheme"; and who also (same guy) placed my photo on Ripoff Report, with a snarky little caption saying, "This should say 'WANTED'" ... Dude.  What??

All bets became off when you made those moves, and some others hysterically followed suit:  being prompted to claim I had "disappeared", that I had changed my name and was "operating as" ... that I'd established some elaborate "fraud" network - "Jeff Glovsky is a THIEF and a SKEMER [sic]", scremed emails ... Jeff Glovsky kills babies ... Jeff Glovsky invaded Poland ...

"DO NOT DO BUSINESS WITH THAT MAN!!!!!!!"

... Sorry, am I "whining" again?  Probably.  Flailing and pissed off (again)?  Absolutely.  Does this post sound "paranoid"?  Am I "in denial"?  Maybe and Nope - though I'm denying the "right" that you felt you had to attack and destroy me personally, publicly ... and permanently.

I bring these black eyes up and point them out now -- these permanent online scarlet letters -- because a) they're out there, and the ones that are still out are not going away.  And b) there are only ("only" - I know, it's a joke!) THREE (3) complaints about me on Ripoff Report, as described above.

This url description:  "jeff glovsky directory of 1498 Complaints & Reviews: Jeff Glovsky ... "

is not accurate.  They did spell my name correctly ... However, "1498" complaints??  Not quite.  A click on the accompanying link will show that there are THREE (3) complaints about me on Ripoff Report.

Now let's say you don't feel the need to click through ... or don't have the time ... and you're searching for "Jeff Glovsky" by name (my personal name ... my reputation) ... Look!  You've 'stumbled upon' Jeff Glovsky on Ripoff Report ... and the description says he's got 1500 complaints about him!!

He must be a "FUCKING CRIMINAL!!!!!"   Says I should "BEWARE JEFF GLOVSKY!" ... Hey, let me weigh in here, though I don't know Jeff.  I'll just contribute a little bit, and call him names too, and try to cause problems ... It says here, Jeff Glovsky's a "scam artist".  I'll bet he's thinking about 'scaming' me!!!!!

Of course, people don't bother to click, and read things in full and contextualize.  One-sided "yelps", emotional "reviews" and malicious, extortionate "ripoff" reports are the order of the internet day.

I became informed too late about what I can do (could have done) to protect myself and fight back legally against personal libel and defamation.  Now I am beyond informed.

And whatever I can do from my small, sad platform here ... my blogosphere soapbox ... I will do, tirelessly, to encourage others to THINK - before they "yelp"and bitch and blame, and name-call, and SCREAMINGLY pound on the keys, then press "Enter".

In the hopefully Happy New Year(s) to come, I urge you to think:  before bullying and becoming irrational.

THINK.  Before destroying potential.

THINK.  Before publicly branding, defaming.

Think.

Before anyone else gets hurt.

Winter Mood(s) II

“Tundric Technicolor”, ©Jeff Glovsky

“Winter Landscape”, ©Jeff Glovsky

“Lunar (New Year)”, ©Jeff Glovsky

“Heat Loss”, ©Jeff Glovsky

“Afterglow”, ©Jeff Glovsky

Winter Mood

Mixed emotions at the holidays ... I get cheesy when I get to Wisconsin;

to the ever-grey, ice blue winter town I grew up in ... If I had thought, nearly thirty years ago, that this would be my 'homecoming':  riding in on an overnight bus, in a blizzard ...

"Dancing Pines", ©Jeff Glovsky

I might not have bothered to leave in the first place.

Happy, always, to spend time with loved ones and families, and rekindle friendships, renew plans and dreams ... Generally less happy at being halted:  my plans and dreams, and life overall, kept on ice until the middle or end of January.

It's at least until then that the world has its annual slow-down, if not shut-down, imposed upon it.

Pope Francis is everybody's friend this year ... He'd be my friend if he could scale back the celebrated winter holiday period to a distinct and manageable 10 or 12 days (like the song):  from roughly December 22 until January 3, there's Christmas Eve/Day, New Year's Eve/Day, face-stuffing holiday parties, Kwanzaa ... That's more than enough time to be spending with families, rekindling friendships, binge-eating and drinking, and driving snowmobiles!

Do we really need most of the month of January to begin to straggle back to work?  And all of December, to put work off until 'next year' or 'after the holidays'?

Bah, Humbug!

Between developing businesses, hassling with creditors, battling and trying to surmount past failures and prioritizing which promises to keep to loved ones and families -- not to mention those made aware, and part, of my biggest past failure -- my days are literally 25/8, and my year needs to have at least 400 days.

Frustratingly, it doesn't even approach 3-6-5.

Nonetheless, I'm nonplussed.  Keep creating and working, doing, being and living through the imposed slow-downs, if not shut-downs ... That's all I can do to keep sane, keep alive.

When families become not enough, friends flee to enemies and goals and promises remain unmet, I keep trying, to meet them ...

and keep alive.

"Pooped", ©Jeff Glovsky

12/24 MERRY CHRISTMAS 12/25

& Happy Holidays

2 0 1 3

Where It's @

Crying Wolf ...

medium.com/@JeffGlovsky

I Belong?

Hey, thank you, Nina, for the reblog.

So I've just joined Goodreads, which on the surface would seem to be an excellent fit for me and my online networking needs.  While admittedly not an "avid" reader, I read a little ... I love words and literature, and relate psychologically to numerous authors, if not (necessarily) to some classic characters.  I'm well-rounded enough to appreciate "dead white authors" and "negro music", and can easily find on Goodreads all the titles I've read (many of which I still own, proudly, dog-eared, physical copies) and the hundreds of other like-minded souls who have come before me in reading and "sharing".

But then the question becomes, "Now what?"  Now that I've arrived and stepped into the party, I'm not really sure what to do with myself.

Just like in real life ... I become a wallflower.  Too shy, or indifferent, to try to "engage".  In the same way that musically, I'm not a "creator", so technically, don't belong on SoundCloud ... to me, Good Reading -- not to mention, good listening -- is something to be appreciated silently, privately.

No offense, but I don't care to "share" with you, the books I've read ... or when I've read them, as Goodreads disturbingly prompts me to do.  The 'pride of ownership' which comes from slogging through Ulysses, or the vague whiff of pretension earned from being able to discuss intelligently Céline, or Milan Kundera, or Amiri Baraka's acclaimed Blues People, dissipates in the communal trough ... becoming meaningless, to everybody.

Simply put, what makes me special?

It's my tired old saw about individualism, and how Personhood seems to be going going, gone the way of Privacy in our "sharing culture".  If everybody's doing something, what's the point, why bother?

I have no idea how to "use" Goodreads ... No idea which one's the Mayor, right?  Who's the hostess, or who to be mingling with ... but it seems to be a noisy party.

I suppose the night is young.

December's Children

A big and special Danke to some dedicated 'likers':

M. Funk FineArt // Photography

seedbud (Leaf and Twig)

Ming Wang Photography

Leanne Cole Photography

Thank you for checking out and checking into, regularly liking ...

Dead Letter Days (JL, JFK)

Recently the world (or the U.S., anyway) "celebrated" the 50th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

"I am a jelly donut!" I toasted at one point during the November 22nd weekend ... not only refusing to "celebrate" death -- as we all tend to do, versus wallowing in it -- but also trying to be vaguely amusing while alluding to the wince-making "jelly doughnut misconception" which prevails, half a century later, in pieces of Germany.

Back in New York, there is today the annual celebration of a local, as much as a global, icon.  December 8th, 2013 "celebrates" the 33rd anniversary of the death of John Lennon.

While I missed having a memorable "Where were you when....?" JFK moment, I was alive, and do know where I was and what I was doing, when 'I heard the news that day (oh boy)' regarding JL.

I was watching a little football on Monday night ... which in 1980, was a treat.  Game days then were reserved for the weekend.  Football on Monday (plus at night!) meant I was going to be staying up 'late' -- usually well beyond my (unenforced) pre-teen "bedtime" of 10:30 -- and laughing with my parents at Howard Cosell.  This particular Monday night was no different.

Until, watching the Dolphins take on (and ultimately take) the Patriots, the blustering buffoon that comprised the persona -- the "Howard Cosell" (in quotes) brand, if you will -- became suddenly real.  Twice announcing that Lennon had been shot and killed, referring to it on-air as the "unspeakable tragedy" that it was ... and perhaps most sincere and heartfelt of all, reminding millions of us tuning in that night that in the Big Picture, what we were watching, what he was announcing, was "just a football game" ... Howard Cosell put the Big Picture back in perspective.

To be honest, my actual memory of Cosell's announcement is fuzzy.  I think I was in the bathroom ... or in the refrigerator ... or maybe I'd gone to bed already.  But the 'John Lennon dead' part ... 'John Lennon shot and killed' ... is the part that registered.  I remember then actually asking my parents, "Was John Lennon in the Beatles?" ... sort of confirming things for myself ... processing the weird and terrible news, delivered out of context that Monday night on a football broadcast, by a cartoonish sports icon who was clearly moved, clearly stunned ... a bereft and grieving fan himself.

There followed fifteen years or so of John Lennon being not only my 'favorite Beatle', but also sad, often inappropriate efforts on my part to infuse his spirit and a few of his reportedly defining qualities -- the cynicism, the sense of humor, a dry, often devastating wit and sharp tongue -- into my own thing ... whatever that was or I believed it to be.  I didn't outgrow my "John Lennon Phase" until I met and bedded Yoko Ono in the '90s.

Just kidding.

I still haven't outgrown John Lennon ... and of course, me and Yoko ... Well, that should go without saying (though just in case, I was JOKING:  I have never "bedded" Yoko Ono!!).

ANYWAY, Sachs Media Group recently offered what it thought would be a few music icons had they lived to see, and be seen, today:  Kurt Cobain, for example (of course he'd still be wearing flannel ... with his hair unwashed since '91!), and Beach Boy Dennis Wilson (who of course, would be wearing a Hawaiian beach shirt ... Really?).

While some of the 'aged rock star' images are laughable (especially Cass Elliot of the Mamas and the Papas ... What the FUCK??? :), the projection of John Lennon, had he lived to become 73 years old, I think could not be more perfect:

It's exactly how I would 'imagine' the guy now.  Good work on that one, SMG!

And RIP JL / JFK.

Hysteric Indulgence

"I am not a saint, unless you think of a saint as a sinner who keeps on trying." - Nelson Mandela (1918-2013)

I'm ill-fitting, and self-absorbed.  Upon hearing of Nelson Mandela's death, I posted a picture of myself, and a link to my page on Writers-Network.

Here is what I was thinking:  I was trying to illustrate his quote about saints and sinners and perseverance, by putting up a "selfie" that might have sort of worked as a visual, sort of, 'Should I or Shouldn't I?' ... 'Done that (too late!), now what's the next move?'.

And then I linked that photo to my page on Writers-Network, because the apropos quote, attributed to Nelson Mandela, has always been a part of my profile there.

The move backfired, though, when that one guy who's following me intimated that I seemed like an asshole for doing this.

Beyond which, my sincere and timely post on Tumblr -- a humble homage to one of history's great leaders, and a light and inspiration to millions -- could have achieved 'maximum viscosity' (i.e., re-blogging) if I'd only decided to bag the link ... or better yet, do away with my own photo completely.

I did end up choosing to lose the linkage.  But my photo's still there ... first of all, because I think it does, in a way, sort of lend itself to the above quote, and this was my intention.  Secondly, because it's my damn Tumblr (just like Lil Wayne's cup) and I'll post what I want there!

Generally, I prefer to let my WordSpeak (and my Photos by Jglo) without boring, pretentious exposition.  'I wrote this piece when I was not in a good place' ... 'This next song...'.

"Shut up and sing!" I used to scream, when I'd drop into an open mic. to read my words, or be trapped in a sound booth mixing a gig, and some insecure windbag would get up before me.  'And then my dog suggested, "Eat the bone!"...my dog is my muse.  Why, I'm just a vessel.  But I can't do an English accent...'

"SHUT THE FUCK UP!" I used to scream ... as the audience assembled would invariably chuckle in indulgent, embarrassed anticipation at what the insecure windbag might utter next ...

Now the internet screen has become the stage ... but other than this, there is little that's changed.  I still become hysterical when I visit most blogs and read all of the reasons and rhymes for each posting; the gestation behind each creation, the excuses for what, why and how each exists.

I BECOME HYSTERICAL with explanations which have themselves no need for existing, and only serve to pad the word count (or cleverly populate search results).  Rather than letting the words, or the various images, speak -- and rather than allowing me to absorb them subjectively -- there are zillions of  "creators" all telling me what, why and how I should feel, follow, "favorite" or "like".

Of course, zillions respond to this becoming-less-and-less-subtle steerage, and the "blogosphere" gets born and is an ever indulgent, happy place ... I become hysterical!!

Though all things considered, I am happy to be weighing in.  I will steadfastly be keeping your two cents to yourself ... but I know you'll continue to 'stumbleupon' sundry Random Poetix and other works, and Wor(d)s in Progress, by Jeff Glovsky, and take what you may from them ... without any boring, pretentious exposition.

I just wanted to take this moment here, to elucidate my self-absorption.

Thank you very much.  Thanks for reading.

Good night!!!

"All of Me", ©Jeff Glovsky

New Time of Year

"Winteresque", ©Jeff Glovsky

Thanks Giving, Awareness

My dad's good friend passed away this week.  After hearing about / witnessing nearly forty years of camaraderie, Schadenfreude, rivalry, jibing, belittlements, favors performed (sometimes grudgingly, other times without even asking) ... weekly breakfast and lunch rituals (my mom's frustrations at the "bromance") ... general support, bonhomie and the occasional assist with each others' families ... and at the end of the day, companionship and a comfort factor ...

My dad's friend of nearly forty years is no more.

Gordon died of a brain tumor, which overtly manifested its ugly head for the first time on November 1st, just over three weeks ago.  Apparently, he'd complained of headaches every now and then, more and more frequently ... but these were generally (too easily, conveniently) dismissed as what happens to you when you become old(er).  My own squinty vision, my dad's pained feet, my mom's knobbly knees and Gordon's headaches, all written off to inevitability.

Until this past November 1st, when my dad's friend collapsed - an aneurysm being to blame on the surface, while lurking and festering, metastasizing, below was the inoperable brain cancer which ravaged and killed him.

In just over three weeks!  You have to discover it ... Invite cure and treatment.  When "it" finds you, showing up at your doorstep, the game's usually over.

I thought of Gordon the other day, before I learned of his death (though I knew he was unwell).  Just randomly began thinking about how fast things happen ... about my own memories and knowing of him, mainly through his son, who's my age and with whom I went to school (Geoff, if I remember, was left-handed ... just like the spelling of his first name!) ... How at least he'd been released to home care and family for what would be his final days, and of course, the impact on his family.

How my dad, in his own words, doesn't "do sad" but would need to attend his best friend's funeral, before the weight of reality, new sense of mortality and feelings of loneliness set in like a northern Wisconsin winter ...

And if I were googly-eyed, I might try to suggest that it was that very moment, when I randomly and powerfully began thinking of Gordon, that his soul left his body ... and another little piece of my own life left me. 

 “Give (Thanks)”, ©Jeff Glovsky

 * * *

GLIOGENE International Brain Tumor Study

The Numbers Scheme

This was not the original plan ...

The plan was to match up my number of posts here -- or 'annual output' -- with the number of each corresponding month.  For example, June, when I started, should've seen six posts ... August, eight, right (because that's the eighth month)?

October, there should have been 10 posts, etc.

So here we are now, at the end of November, and I've only had seven things to say!

Seven seems to be the mean:  the overall average of monthly posts that time (or inspiration) allows me ...

I was wandering around a carnival once, or maybe it was some street fair or boardwalk / hippie part of town (like Santa Monica Pier or Pike's Place) some place ... and these Jesus freaks were pummeling people with pamphlets promising redemption.

One pimply prophet, someone's young runaway, ran up all saying, "Sir!  Sir!  Can I just talk to you for a minute?"

It was the first time I remember ever being called "sir" - so it must have been about twenty years ago ... right at that tipping point between Youth and Now.

"Not now!"  I remember clearly snapping.  I was snapping photos, and wanted then, like now, to be left alone doing it (buildings and night skies and moods much more vital than people to me, even then, like now).  "You're like the seventh person to come up to me here.  What part of town is this?"

The pimply young prophet did not miss a beat!  "Seven ... You mentioned seven," he says to me, eerily.  "What's that about?"

"Well," I begin, mustering enough patience to be able to feign.  "Seven is a natural number following six and preceding eight.  It's the first integer reciprocal with infinitely repeating sexagesimal representation ... and in quaternary, seven is the smallest prime with a composite sum of digits.

"It's also a purty little glyph...".  I reach down and unzip my fly, and that does the trick!

The pimply prophet's off and running, not looking back.

I was telling this story to Kléber the other day, this guy who lives in the apartment below mine.  I was jockeying for a parking place (i.e., crossing several lanes of traffic while down-shifting, finishing a pretzel (wiping mustard off my tie) and sending a text message) when I ran into Kléber -- literally -- stepping off the curb in front of our building.

As I was helping him to his feet, we started talking about numerology.  Kléber was all pissed, because his wife had just accused him of removing some photographs from a family album, and he wasn't looking where he was going (that's why he ran under my Volkswagen) ... We started talking about numbers, and I told him about my run-in with the meaning of the number seven.

Then it occurred to me, while we were chatting, that each month since July -- July of course, being the seventh month -- I've posted more or less seven items ... except September, the ninth month - when I correspondingly posted nine.

... I have no idea how any of this all ties together (seeing as you asked) ... but it wasn't the original plan.

Curious Accounting

likes

on Jeff Glovsky: The Second Set

Hey, why not one thousand three hundred thirty-seven as a milestone?  A nice and oddly rounded number ..

A few people like my stuff a little.

Yaa-aaarrr, Dude

(Thank You!)

I Rate (Inspiration)

"In a controversy the instant we feel anger, we have already ceased striving for the truth and have begun striving for ourselves." - Buddha

"Disturbing," she says to me, assessing my writing.  "Obviously, you're very angry." 

Am I?  I wouldn't say very angry.  "Very" being the overused word of a pre-teen, or twit waking up to an AOL homepage:  'This star's dress was very awkward' ... 'What happened next was very cute!' ...

Verily, I pray, forsooth, spare me your limp and impotent adverbs!

"The new German one is weird," she says smartly ... failing (not deigning) to elaborate.  "What do you hope to achieve with this?"

"With what?"

"Your writing.  Little stories."

"My 'little stories' comprise the pieces, and piecing together, of a life."

"I see."

"However bent, misspent, or insignificant ... small.  I write with a big mouth!"

"You talk like you write," she says, again smartly.

"Vice versa.  But thank you."

I swallow a toothpick -- the gnawed, wet remains of one -- by mistake.  "Holy shit ..."

"Want some water?"  She hands me a glass of wine. 

I started this blog (to answer the question) with one goal in mind:  to stop, at the very least, counter, the Ripoff Reports and other libelous public defecations on my name ... which have been my scarlet letter, my Jogi Löw moment, my 15 minutes of internet infamy, since 2010.

In the disgusting, un-private glass sphere that our globe, and each of our lives, have become, I refuse to relinquish control of my name ... my life, my potential for livelihood ... because one individual -- in his own mind, running around with cape and red underpants, thinking he was doing something Super and righteous ... and others then, blindly, hysterically piling on, compounding the damages inflicted and delaying, if not preventing, (re)solutions -- campaigned to defame, "name and shame" and destroy me.

No.

That won't happen.  Nothing like it.

Again.

"I'm very angry.  You're right," I say.

Get over it, Jeffrey ... my mom used to say, when I'd petulantly refuse to do something or other if things didn't go, from the get-go, my way; then my first 'real' job in New York, as a light and sound engineer at a theater/cabaret called The Ballroom ...

Eventually, I quit The Ballroom, and I was at this party when The Doors came on:  "Five to One", and the line, "Your ballroom days are over, baby" ...

Having just left a job at a place called The Ballroom, I bellowed and blustered along with that line, in my best and loudest, drunk Jim Morrison.

"No one cares, Jeff," my then-girlfriend told me.

I went home from the party that night alone.

My point being, I know.  I get it:  No one does care.  And I've already made my belabored points, in writing and publicly flailing away.

But I care.

My goal will be achieved.

My voice in a cape, and my pen in red underpants ... Saving my name and reputation.

Jahr, Dude!

Bild The Year

"Black and White", ©Jeff Glovsky

2014 Custom Calendars / individuellen Kalendern

Freundlichkeit (Human) Kindness

"(L)ife in itself is a chain of rainy days ... I think I'll go for a walk with my umbrella" - Sun-Young Park

'Kickin' it old school', as the kids say ... pen and an actual notebook, loaded with paper, not apps and icons, in hand ...

There's something to be said for people-watching -- Leute beobachten (or Schadenfreude, as the case may be) -- or spying, as the good people of the Gärtnerplatz in Munich keep saying.

A sort of equivalent to New York's Union Square, der Gärtnerplatz -- minus the nodding junkies, the smelly nutters, the ridiculous "protests" ... the homeless with pent-up, directionless anger ... directed toward themselves, at bottom; but then, at white people, black people, chess winners and losers ... People with hair, and wearing glasses.  Or not.

At the world and everyone, every thing in it.

... unlike Union Square, in fact.

Der Gärtnerplatz is not unpleasant.

November wird hundsmiserabel, I think rudimentally to myself - like I'd think to myself forty years ago, when English was a new language.  Then twenty years ago, when I first visited Munich, I instantly felt that I'd spend some time here.  Relatively quiet and small, i.e., liveable, compared to the ugly, pretentious slut, Berlin and that clenched New York pretender, Frankfurt.

"Franky-Boy!  Mr. Albert Sinatra!" the DJ'd announce giddily ... and the bar would erupt in a marble-mouthed chorus - like a room full of stroke victims, shouting heavily accented, tone-deaf English:  Ist!  Op!  Zum!  Du!  New-York, New-YORK!!! ... 

"Franky-Boy!  Albert Sinatra!" the DJ'd cry, and the Weissbiers would hoist to the sky and I'd sigh, and just know I at least had to try and get back here!

"Polizei!  Hilfe!  Polizei!"  A night cry ...

I slip out the door of my terrible pension, across from the station, and go down to see.

There's a guy on the ground, with a boot in his back:  "Release me!" the guy's yelling up, in English, to a man in green, one of Bavaria's Finest.  "Bullenschweine!" (the guy's switched to German) ... "Sofort!" he shouts to the boot in his back (and the cop's deaf ears).  "Release me!" he Englishes again, "Immediately!"

The Bavarian cop presses down in a Schuhplattler.

"Free sex!  She was giving him free sex!" the guy yelps.

And nobody is really quite sure what that means.

The next night, I spy the guy, Larry, rolling (for he'd had a chair, and been unceremoniously dumped from it the night before by the 'man in green', one of Bavaria's Finest) through the Gärtnerplatz.

I ask him what happened:  what he'd done, and why he was being arrested?

"Wasn't me," he avows.

"Yes it was," I avow back.

He asks me to wheel his chair "just up the street".

Well, I'm not sure what to do, really.  'Kindness breaks no bones', as they say here ... but I don't have time to be wheeling Larry!  The German autumn night is young, and I'm supposed to be meeting meine Frau ... Meine Frau ist stinksauer auf me mow ... er, now ... and I was going to bring her some Blumen flowers.

Eenie meenie meine Frau ...

Can't be wheeling Larry now!  But he's an American, like me, in Paris ... Larry, Gene Kelly and I ... start pushing, his weird German wheelchair across the Gärtnerplatz.

"That's it," he grunts, "just up here."  We get to the steps of the Staatstheater, and I start thinking Larry might have a date too.  Gonna meet up his love for a night at the opera ... but no.  Larry asks me to hang a right.

Then another ... We go around again ... Twenty minutes or so later, we're back at the steps of the Staatstheater!

So, "This is where we part, my friend ... "

"Oh, I'm your friend now," the strange(r) Larry snaps.

I leave him, sitting in his chair as it begins to rain, again, in autumn Munich ... ein Sauwetter!

Not getting better!

November wird hundsmiserabel ...

"The Shadow", ©Jeff Glovsky

September...Auf Deutsch

November (Renewal)

"November", ©Jeff Glovsky

Vicious Bandwagon

"It always bothers me to see people writing ‘RIP’ when a person dies. It just feels so insincere and like a cop-out. To me, ‘RIP’ is the microwave dinner of posthumous honors."

 

Photo(s) by Jglo

We lost a biggie last week, with the passing of quintessential New Yorker, not quite glam rocker, punk rock godfather and irascible, not lovable poet "curmudgeon", Lou Reed.

Musically, Lou and most of his incarnations were secondary to my listening interests:  influential, sure.  Groundbreaking, no doubt.  Could he play guitar?  Listen to his attack, with Mick Ronson, on "Vicious" - but to my ear, something was always missing.  He couldn't sing to save his life, first off!  That droning, aggressive monotone in which he spoke his songs was clearly effective in serving the material -- imagine "Sweet Jane" or "Walk on The Wild Side" delivered any other way -- but in the end, it was alienating.

And that's exactly what the man, and the material, wanted:  you didn't connect with, or "get", Lou Reed ... You didn't "relate" to Metal Machine Music ... and even if you did, or claimed to, you weren't wanted.

As a listener, Lou Reed could take me or leave me.  And I was generally indifferent to Lou Reed.

Though musically (creatively, artistically), I may have found his 'don't give a fuck' shtick vaguely compelling in an arm's length, respectful way ... personally, in terms of the guy's overall comportment - Lou Reed, by most accounts, was a twat.  And I'm sorry (no I'm not), but he doesn't deserve the canonization he's been receiving from members of the press and others who suffered his "curmudgeonly" abuse, and it's somehow excused now -- no longer painful or professionally embarrassing -- because he's dead.

Typically hypocritical, and desperate to be loved-sounding.  "I was there ... a part of things.  I get Lou Reed!  And now he's no more, but his music lives on and I feel that too:  Look, I'm downloading "Perfect Day".  Isn't that neat?".

It's like the selfish parent refusing to let go, and dressing the baby in punk and rock t-shirts; or the onrush of simpletons suddenly buying Steinbeck ... misled by the vaguely slinky title into thinking there's something Fifty Shades-kinky about East of Eden (before diffidently stalling on page fifteen, when it's realized there's no page of biblical passion!).

It's like a CE (Christmas / Easter) Christian ... High Holiday Jew, or an idiot who lines up to wait to eat out:  just a bandwagon jumper ("I don't even like hamburgers!"); or a 'friend', 'fan' or 'follower' without knowing why.

But you know people get all emotional / and sometimes man, they just don't act rational / You know, they think they're just on TV - Street Hassle (1978)

Simply put, enough with the Lou Reed eulogies.

Apparently, Lou Reed could be an asshole.  I never met the man, but I did deliver musical gear to his wife once (at the time, I think, his girlfriend) ... and she was an asshole!

No, that's not true.  At all.  Let me state unequivocally, that I'm joking:  Laurie Anderson, in the seven-second glimpse that I caught of her while I was humping an amplifier into place, was certainly civil ... and likely, she knew and loved the "real" Lou Reed, not the "Lou Reed" of (velvet) underground music ... the (john) caged "artist", the New York doll from "out on the Island" ... the asshole that comprised "Lou Reed" - which the real Lou Reed would deign to show us ... real people rarely the way they're perceived ...

There he goes now ... May that spirit of punk be left in peace, to rock on undiluted.

"Walk on The Wild Side", ©Jeff Glovsky

Fall Colors

 

"In Season", ©Jeff Glovsky

Happy Feedback

In the slice knife that is A.M., I cut through to get my things done ...

Mornings out and up with tea ...

In New York ... before loud hordes shatter each day, and in Munich, before tourists pour onto the canvas ...

I pour my breakfast loads in ...

 Mornings

My Old Lady

As we head into the holiday season, warmth and good cheer shrink and shrivel like leaves in me.  Misanthropy takes root and hold ...

I was taking a bus the other night, an overnight trip of about five hours.  As I'm climbing aboard, struggling with "carry-ons" that should have been checked and stowed underneath, a young couple is trying to sit together.

I dive for the only remaining bank of two empty seats and throw myself and my sad baggage into it ... then start flexing and hoisting, and shoving and spinning, and trying in vain to get at least one of my bags to fit into an overhead luggage bin.

It's not happening, and after several long, frustrated moments of grunting and carrying on in the bus aisle like Curly from the Three Stooges, I give up and resignedly take my bag -- which had become wedged in the luggage bin, half in and half out, so I couldn't pull it out without the help of an old lady whose foot I'd stepped on -- off the bus to check it below (which, again, I know, I should have done in the first place!).

I get back on-board, and the young couple trying to sit together, is now sitting together in my bank of seats!  Not only, but they've slid my duffel bag off the window seat I'd planned to use and sleep in during the overnight trip, and put it on the floor ... and then, ever so subtly, with their four feet, slid it out into the aisle for me!

"Man, would you mind -- it's just me and my girlfriend, this is a five hour trip.  Do you mind if we sit together?  There's an empty seat ... "  He gestures toward the old lady - alternately scowling and beaming at me, and quietly singing hymns to herself.

"No," I say.  Just like that, just the one syllable.  "No."

Well, that one syllable was enough to drive the packed bus into emotion!  A chorus of "Why?" and "C'mon man!" and "...wrong with you?" split the night bus, and I ended up sleeping beside the old lady.

“Ahole”, ©Jeff Glovsky