On Saturday, the temperature was in the 70s and spring made its long awaited return to New York City. What better way to usher in the change of seasons than strolling around the city listening to Ace Frehley’s version of New York Groove? With that in mind, I spent my Saturday (along with what seemed like every other New Yorker) roaming through NYC’s parks, from Union Square to Washington Square then up the Highline to Herald Square and finally ending up in Bryant Park to finish my odyssey, all the while listening to KISS’s greatest hits.
For those of you who may read this within weeks of me posting this, you may be thinking “Oh, KISS went into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame that weekend so he had KISS on the mind.” Not quite.
The fact that KISS went into the Hall of Fame this weekend in Brooklyn or that they didn’t perform is of little concern to me. Congrats to Paul, Gene, Peter, and Ace but I’d be more interested in watching video of The KISS Demon, of WCW fame, squaring off vs. Vampiro at this point. Check that. Perhaps infamy is a more fitting description of the Demon there. But that’s a different story.
Back to the point. I regard myself as a bit of a music connoisseur and with that being said there is no better song about NYC than Frehley’s version of New York Groove. You can have Sinatra. You can have Jay-Z and Alicia Keys. I’m taking Frehley. Listening to New York Groove set the mode for an excellent afternoon in the city. Hearing I Stole Your Love and Shout It Out Loud didn't hurt either.
Actually, one more side tangent here. While I was familiar with KISS (Who isn’t really?), I wasn’t truly exposed to their work or had any real desire to listen until I read Chuck Klosterman’s Fargo Rock City. In the book, Chuck explains that in 1978 KISS decided to release 4 solo albums (one for each member of the band) with the mindset that “If we sell 5 million records when we release one album, we’ll sell 20 million records if we release four at the same time!!!” Absolutely brilliant. We’ll Frehley’s version of New York Groove comes off of his album from this group which was also the most successful of the four.
The story of KISS’s 1978 experiment and their album sales expectations always makes me think about Eddie Murphy. Yep, the king of comedy during the 1980’s had the same thought process. At some point Eddie pondered, “If they pay me $10 million to play one character in a movie they’ll probably pay me $50 million if I play five plus characters.” Well, Disney paid and the world got the Klumps. Good for Eddie though. It’s somewhat frightening for me to think that Bowfinger was last non-Shrek movie of Eddie’s that I’ve seen and that was 15 years ago at this point. Unreal. Thankfully imdb just informed me that Beverly Hills Cop 4 is in the works. Now only if we could get a HBO stand up special to go along with that. I know, I'm being greedy and rambling at the same time.
OK, finally back to why I’m writing this. I've been meaning to put together a web page to function as a journal/blog and also to have one central location to keep anything I write for other sites. Walking around Saturday was the kick I needed to set this in motion. It's time to take some action.
The goal as of now is to post on here daily, whether as a diary of what’s going on in my life or just random musings and thoughts as a way of getting back into the habit of writing daily again. I’m sure there will be plenty on here pertaining to baseball, pro wrestling, Star Wars, comic books, living in NYC, and all the other things I take joy out of in life. Those who read these posts will hopefully gain a bit of insight while also being amused. Well, if anyone reads this.
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