A day of fun in New York City

Recently, I took a whole afternoon for myself in Central Park. Actually, I met up with a bunch of co-workers from the radio station for a fun filled day of softball. Our company's team was split in two...the "ringer" team and the "fun" team. The ringers were the ones out for blood. The fun bunch were the ones who sucked, but wanted to play just for the heck of it and the free food and drinks that was to come later in the day. I arrived in Central Park early that afternoon and had no clue where to go. I found a mobile vendor stand with a guy selling "city water hot dogs". With no tour guides in sight, I asked the vendor where the softball fields were, to which he pointed me in the right direction. Once I got there, all I could see in the middle of the grass was trees and tall buildings behind those trees. This was one of those breathtaking views that I had not experienced in New York City, despite the fact that I had lived in the area for over 7 years. I was so mesmerized that all I could do was look up and around to see such a magnificent sight.

I saw a bunch of my co-workers who wore red shirts, indicating that they were the "ringer" team, practicing their swings of the bat and tossing the softball around. I asked one of them where the other team was because simply put, I suck at softball. He pointed me to another field and I met up with them. As I had imagined, the "fun" team had the blue shirts and were pretty much laid back and feeling casual, happy that they were there instead of the office, slaving away at the computer or recording a commercial or two in the studio. It was pretty obvious that the team was out to have a good time and I knew I would too as my enthusiasm for some fun out in the park was at an all time high. With that enthusiasm running through my heart and veins playing out in the field, I ignored the fact on how out of shape I was. I would later find out as my muscles started tightening up and the pain setting in.

I'll spare the gory details on how bad both teams did in the softball tournament and believe me, it was downright ugly. But all in all, we all had a terrific time out there in Central Park, which was topped off with free drinks and food at Tavern On The Green with all the radio stations in our company from New York, NJ and CT. Everyone, including myself was smiling and enjoying the camaraderie with each other, telling stories and jokes, and meeting other people in the company that I have not met before. This was my first time at this annual event and believe me, I'll be there next year!

Live Aid - 20 Years Ago Today

Many people have great memories of that historic day on July 13, 1985 to help aid the famine relief in Ethiopia. For those of us that enjoyed the music of that era, it was a pivotal time in our lives. Many artists performed free of charge and the television networks that aired it focused on the music and the cause at hand. You might have had a favorite artist that you waited to perform, but for me and on that day I was proud to be a Daryl Hall & John Oates fan, due to their stellar performance, along with David Ruffin & Eddie Kendricks of The Temptations.

To top that off, they returned to back up Mick Jagger and Tina Turner. Awesome job guys! Plus kudos goes to the 1985 Hall & Oates band...Tom "T-Bone" Wolk, Charlie DeChant, G.E. Smith and Mickey Curry.

Here was the setlist:

Out Of Touch
Maneater

Eddie Kendricks joins them and performs...

Get Ready

David Ruffin joins them and they perform the following...

Ain't Too Proud To Beg
The Way You Do The Things You Do
My Girl

Short break and Mick Jagger is up. Backing band looks familiar...hey it's Daryl Hall, John Oates and the rest of their band!

Lonely At The Top
Just Another Night
Miss You

Mick briefly speaks to the crowd before asking "Where's Tina?"...Tina Turner appears on stage and they perform...

State Of Shock/It's Only Rock & Roll


Ah, wonderful memories of a fantastic day of music. Daryl Hall & John Oates were truly the cream of the crop that evening!

An e-mail from someone I don't even know...

I'm sure many of you can relate to this...

Recently, I received a distressing e-mail from "Mrs. Mariam Abacha". She wrote to me from Nigeria asking for my help. Without getting into the heavy details, she presented her plight and at the same time asked for some personal information from me, for which I would be greatly compensated financially.

Sounds like a great business proposition, eh?

Well, these e-mails from different people started weaseling their way into my inbox and soon, I had to start putting the block on each and every one of them. Except for "Mrs. Mariam Abacha".

You see, I had enough of these assholes trying to con me and I decided to take action. I fought back with my "gluttony". I was inspired by a segment on ABC's 20/20 where a reporter sent one of those Nigerians on a wild goose chase looking for some hapless victim to con money out of, only to find that the con artist(s) were had.

Using my "street smarts", I researched the topic and did a search on "scam baiters". I came across a terrific website called Scam-o-rama and you can find them at http://www.scamorama.com. After reading up on it, I decided to respond to "Mrs. Mariam Abacha". Don't worry, I have absolutely NO intentions of giving "her" any personal information nor any financial support whatsoever. I'm really out to "screw with her", with the Nigerian thinking that I'm another sucker to get money off of. At the same time, I'm using a false name under a different e-mail address, sending the messages at an internet cafe so that I couldn't be traced by those crooks. You see, in order to foil crooks, you have to think like one. Some of the false names I've used so far include "Jacques Strappe"...the French owner of a business called "I.P. Frehley Enterprises", "Oliver Klozoff"...a Russian consulate and other names that are too vulgar to even publish here (e-mail me privately if you want some of those vulgar names...you'll laugh your ass off). Funny thing is, these scammers are stupid enough to believe that these names are real people, so I decided to push the game further!

Right now, I'm in the beginning stages of making contact with the doomed heroine "Mrs. Mariam Abacha". My hope is that ultimately I'm going to drive the real person behind the scam e-mail messages so crazy that they're going to blow their heads off with a shotgun. Stay tuned!