“AFTER-MATH”

            After we had eaten all the chocolate and the bridges had been re-opened for the first time that week, June and I made it back to our apartment. Just over the Manhattan Bridge and this neighborhood showing tell-tale signs of the nonstop gentrifying beast, was our Clinton Hill. A view of the Twin Towers out of the kitchen window, now a view of circling fighter planes and fire. My first joke, and yes it was days later, to the next door neighbor college kids on the fire escape, was about BBQ. Some joke. We wandered down the narrow hall apartment. The same apartment that June was terrified to leave for two weeks after moving into this neighborhood once again seemed like not much of a sanctuary. Too close. When I Ebayed a mini-DV camera the first thing I shot was the wondrous view of the Towers out the kitchen window. Zoom in. Zoom out. When I was working at the Trade Center, the Towers chuckled among themselves as I peered out at them. Now, who got the last laugh? Nobody, nobody at all. We were staring out that window, where the world was still burning brightly to listen to the answering machine. Friends, relatives all left messages of “Brian, June …are you okay?”.  Who knew? Then the first really panicked voice. Distraught. Demanding. “Brian, are you okay? Brian, call me the second you get this! Brian, call! Brian, are? Brian Brian Brian!”. This was from Colleen; maybe my first love if an eighteen year old can know love. This wasn't one of those random calls from out of the past and the blue. Colleen was still my friend. Colleen was still June’s friend. They went to High School together. The first time I met June, I was leaving the Ritz with Colleen to get in a fuck when we knew that her roommate was out; she was still in the Ritz too. I can tell from Colleen’s voice and from her often less than full on grip of keeping current, that she believed I was still working at the WTC. I still had my key, but we had closed up shop two months prior. June hears the message and something about it stops her cold. Colder than her already reduced body temperature. Maybe if she had been out on the streets today instead of hidden in the relative safety (because now everything was relative to what was on September 10^th and before and what was now) of her classroom, babysitting until all her students’ parents or guardians could be contacted. Maybe if she had seen a little bit more, things might have been a little different. Maybe if she hadn't arrived at Helen and Steven’s after the situation was under control – UNDER CONTROL? –  maybe the next few day’s design would have been drafted differently. But she arrived for the chocolaty aftermath. How else could she have replied to the panic stricken voice of anguish and love and concern? How else could she have replied to yet another voice screaming among the millions needing to not have this hit home so close? If no one you know was in that massive pit of steel and bodies and fire, then it could still be a TV show, a summer blockbuster.

            June said “you and Colleen make a good couple”. And then she went to bed.

September 11^th, a day that will go down in infamy, September 12^th was maybe even worse. The 11^th was exciting, right? There was no time to stop and think. There was the terror and the fire of biblical proportions. If the world was going to end, this is how they told us it was gonna go down and damned if they weren't right. But on September 12^th, we were still here. On September 12^th, we thought there were tens of thousands of bodies cooking down there. On September 12^th, all the cliches came home to roost. We were waiting for the other shoe to drop. Was this the calm after the storm or the just the eye? CNN didn't help. Watching any television for thirty-six hours straight can never be good but we all did it. Eyes peeled like blood oranges, transfixed on that screen. The same footage over and over, then the things that our naked eyes hadn't seen. I could have lived the rest of my life without having to see people holding hands, jumping to their deaths from the Towers. But maybe that’s just me. And maybe I over-reacted, at least in June’s mind. We all have to deal differently. I kept watching CNN; she popped “The Matrix” into the DVD-player for the fortieth time, cranked the sub-woofer to the maximum vibrating, annoy the neighbors setting and disappeared into a world that wasn't real. But was this one, the one of terror and fire and people jumping hand in hand to their certain death, the real world? Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I should have crawled beside her into the big, black chair that had made the migration back and forth and back again to Brooklyn. Maybe I should have sat at her feet, with her hand in my hair. Maybe I should have silently taken that same hand and led her to the bedroom and made love instead of consuming CNN-sized bits of death and destruction. That is what I would do now. It probably wouldn't have mattered in the long run. But it would have been better and everyone who died would still be baking out my kitchen window.

            Thursday was a school day and business as usual. Business as usual my ass. I got into work myself, got one panicked phone call telling me that they were shutting the subways back down. Planes weren't flying. What the fuck was I doing at work trying to sell plane tickets to the people who sell plane tickets to people? I had no business being there. I needed to be home, in front of the TV, in front of CNN, where I belonged. So that is where I sat as the bomb threats piled high as if someone opened the door to the arsenal and the looting had begun. I wanted June to come home. I wanted her beside me. I wanted comfort and security where these commodities were even more rationed than the water at the Lower East Side supermarket. She stayed at work. She stayed in the city. She and the other teachers went out for drinks as teachers do after school more than you would really want to know. More likely to be red wine spilled on Johnny’s homework than anything else. I watched CNN. I rang her cell phone. Maybe I slept a little, probably very little. The world was full of fear and fire and June was out in the middle of it. She finally came home at four o’clock in the morning. She didn't want to talk about it. She needed to get a few hours sleep and go back to work. If she could grasp a wisp of how angry I was, how scared for her I had been, it wasn't showing in her dark, brown eyes. I made myself as clear as I could be. This was not acceptable behavior and I don’t mean that in any ‘my wife must be home to put dinner on the table’ kind of way.

            The next day, she came in at ten o’clock the following morning.

            And that, was that. Deny it as she might at the time, this was the ‘fuck you’ that someone had to say to end this thing. At least in my mind, that was what it was. You cannot love somebody and put them in hell. And you cannot love someone who could do that to you. There had been love left at that point. It doesn't all ever go away, but every usable, serviceable iota of it, left me then and there. I would say it was over but the shouting, but there was none. I told her she needed to find someplace else to live. I told her she wasn't welcome in this apartment any longer. The biggest tears came when I flash-forwarded to a years’ later imagined phone call, when one of us would need to inform the other that Poe, our cat of as many years and lives, was dead. But the rest of it had just been thrown on the fire burning out the kitchen window and took to the flame like kindling. It burned there like something hollow. It didn't burn brightly and it didn't burn long. It just went up and then it was gone.

Remembrance:

MATH”

Shit was bad before September 11^th. It is not my intention to go down as one of the post tragedy statistics but I have to be honest it was and I am probably am. You may or may not be as well. You know. I don’t know if it was the same for any of you not in New York City on that day, but I was, big hunks of me still are and the key to my office from 5 WTC is still on my key chain. But now it hangs on the wall beside Mr. Hanky the Christmas Poo here in Hollywood, CA 3000 miles technically from Brooklyn but somehow much closer and way further all at the same time.

            Relationship; relationships of a male/female nature is what is at the heart of it and on September 11^th, 2001 that was something I had little experience with and at the same time too much. Too much with one person, not enough in general. 33 years old, practically half of that spent with the same person. But that too is not the heart of the matter. Nor is it in my heart very much at all any more. My heart was set free when those two big buildings came crashing down. They had help. I had help. We all get help whether we ask for it seek it out or not … it comes looking for us, and it usually finds us no matter where we may be. It found Elvis on the shitter. If it could find the King while crapping, really --- what chance do any of the rest of us have? I could stop right there and have my universal truth. Couldn’t I?

            Shit was bad before September 11^th. The love that had been there had dissipated on the back and forth between Brooklyn and Los Angeles and back to Brooklyn again. I compared it to a sine curve when people asked. Ups, downs but not stretched out like some hoary thing and all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t squeeze it tightly again. It was time to go … it was someone’s time to go and I always thought it would be me but never exactly as it played out, it never is, but then again, no one expects the Spanish Inquisition. God damn I wish that was my line, but I have my own. The love of The Fall, the love of repetition but this time to learn something from that. Repetition can be bad. Of course, it takes many forms as I was to find out.

            I remember walking down Clinton Avenue towards the subway probably feeling disgusted with myself, dressed for them and knowing that the 19 year old me wouldn’t recognize the 33 year old me. And if he did, good god, he would have kicked me, if not in the face but at least in the shins with his Doc Martens. But I didn’t see him coming that morning and if I had I would have crossed to the other side of the broad, majestic block lined with Mr. Pratt’s mansion and all the mansions he built for his kids. I didn’t get a mansion for my graduation. Didn’t get a car either but then again, what the hell would I have done with it anyway, used it as a planter? I don’t know how to drive, but that doesn’t fit here, I was not concerned with that then as I am now. I was never, ever leaving Brooklyn again or if I did, for the finer golden paved streets of Manhattan Island.

            I got off the R train at 59^th Street at Central Park, there was an announcement of some stoppage of subway service but I paid that no mind. I was where I was supposed to be and damn everyone else. You would have thought the same thing. There’s the Plaza Hotel where I had spent a romantic/non-romantic night less than a month prior for our 2^nd  wedding anniversary. Dinner at Tavern on the Green too. I may have been thinking that. I crossed 5^th Avenue and gazed downtown, downtown where my heart was, downtown where I didn’t wear a suit and a tie that I couldn’t tie, and shave everyday. I saw some smoke downtown but that was nothing special. Something’s always burning somewhere. This is New York Fucking City as the t-shirts say. All that fucking going on, shit’s bound to burn, right? I crossed over to our building Trump Plaza, formerly the GM building, and the home of FAO Schwartz and CBS news on the ground floor. The crowd of people gathered out in front of CBS’ huge monitors did not alert me to anything. I swear I thought it was for Michael Jordan’s press conference on his return to the NBA. Who really would have thought it was anything else. C’mon? Really now?

            Uneventful express, elevator ride to the 47^th floor and the palatial offices of Icahn Industries. A stop for a quick piss before trudging to the cubicle. The bathrooms with the framed cancelled checks to Icahn for millions and millions of dollars in the foyer. No one could convince me otherwise then that these checks were not strategically placed there when our cocks were on our minds. Never, ever let us worker bees forget who has the biggest cock of all. Maybe a billion dollars worth of cancelled checks framed on the wall outside the men’s room … what do you think?

            But where the hell was everyone? Had there been a coup? Hope it was a bloody one, but the Persian carpets were spotless. Then in the boardroom, I find a few gathered souls. Some of Carl’s lawyers who were prone to expletive laden tirades followed by whimpering ‘but Carls’ but they were quiet. We had a straight shot down 5^th Avenue coupled with being 47 stories in the air. Lower Manhattan was burning. This is usually where I begin the tale. When people inquire why such a died in the wool NY’er is in sun-shiny Los Angeles, I now often say that “one morning I looked out the window and these two big buildings came crashing down. Perhaps you heard of it?” When irony died, it grabbed sarcasm tightly by the arm and pulled into onto the funeral pyre. Neither kicked. Neither screamed. But in all actuality, and you know this part, that is what happened. We had the huge boardroom TV tuned to the news so we had a double view. This was before the 2^nd plane. We thought … we thought …. We thought and thought and thought. But we didn’t think this was intentional. Even in a city where people kill over apartments, parking spots, sneakers … how could this be intentional? It couldn’t. It couldn’t. I still cannot believe it writing this now, thousands of miles, lives and stories to fill all the books of all the times … how could this be real? I was torn between watching on the TV and from out the window. Which was real? Neither could actually be real.

            And then the second plane hit.

There’s a blur, I could delve into it. But I don’t want to and you can’t make me. The next thing I recall was one of the lawyers saying look there’s so much smoke you can’t even see the first tower, and nose pressed to glass, safely dangling 47 stories in the sky and 60 some-odd blocks north which seems like so much and so little at the Pame time. Someone said “it’s gone”. It may have been me. I hope it was so then I could be like Mr. Vonnegut in Dresden in “Slaughterhouse Five”. I may have said “it’s gone”. And then I was. I grabbed my shit and took a non non-eventful express elevator ride back down to terra firma but the ground was no longer firm. Nothing was firm. I have never been to the town of bedlam, or the asylum, but I imagine it must have looked a lot like 5^th Avenue on that morning. Everyone running around. Cell phones pressed to ears attempting calls. Lines of people at payphones. Cars pulled over to the sides of the streets at haphazard angles, 1010 news not giving us the whole world in 22 minutes. How could they? The whole world was here now, and it was on fire and you could see it when you looked down 5^th Avenue.  A cell phone pressed to each ear, 2000 attempted calls to my parents safely retired in Upstate NY. 2000 attempted calls to my wife, June, teaching high school down on 15^th street. Does your cell phone work? No, sorry. Yours? No, can I borrow, can I use, can I? Wandered into the drug store but nothing could remedy. Back on 5^th Avenue my thoughts pulling me towards my wife and wanting to make sure she was inside and all right. That cell working? Can I borrow? Hey please. I need to make a call. We all need to make a call. We all need to make a call.

            Then the second tower came down in a pillar of smoke.

At some point as I got further downtown, pilgrims were coming in the opposite direction. And I thought I had it bad. They were ghosts. They had triage bracelets around their wrists. Their faces were dead. They were Butoh dancers. They were Pompeii. They were Hiroshima. They were tornadoes and hurricanes and fire and brimstone. They were coming towards me, I was moving past them, though them. They were covered in dust. They were dust. Hey, can I borrow your cell? Hey, does it work? Has anyone seen…… you didn’t want to stick around for who. Somewhere between up there and down here, I got 2 calls though. Mom, Dad, I am okay. Although what the hell was the new definition of okay? It was alive and that’s about it. June was stuck in school with the students. I got downtown and damned if I was going to die, it wasn’t going to be in an ugly, cheap suit. Urban Outfitters! God bless Urban Outfitters. For some reason, the kids at the Urban Outfitters kept the shop open. I guess they couldn’t figure out what the hell else to do. Who could? People were actually shopping. I didn’t think I was getting home that night. I don’t want to be buried in a suit. I bought a pair of blue jeans and a blue baseball jersey with 55 on it. This is still my 9/11 outfit. Sometimes it just winds up that way. My bar was closed. My friend Pam wasn’t answering her buzzer. I wandered a little west to Helen and Steven’s place. They let me in. I am sure they slept though everything. They are blessed; they could sleep through anything if it happened during daylight hours. Helen’s Korean Mom was in the city. She was coming in for a landing here too. I remember being told this is North Korea before the war. An uncle with all his money in the bathtub is how they got out. A truck, I remember a truck. Helen and I hit the streets. $300 maximum from the ATM. As much water as the supermarket will allow, 10 pounds of sticky Korean rice. Chocolate. I know there was chocolate. Should we go give blood? They say we should. The line is insane. Helen’s mom needs us back at the apartment. Never liked giving blood anyway.

This week I am just going to enjoy watching the Yankees trying to make the stretch run something interesting. Soriano has been a joy to watch. Cano, now with some protection in the line-up, is once again looking like the best secondbaseman ever. The Captain - Derek Jeter - returns to the lineup tonight in Toronto where the Bombers play their 2013 patsies, the Blue Jays.

It's going to be 100 here in Minneapolis. A/C is pumping.

That's all I got. Go out and play.

B.

  A full two weeks later, and A-void is still dominating the pages of the newspaper and overloading the tweet-feed. If George M. Steinbrenner was still alive and in charge of the New York Yankees I do believe that, much in the words of CVB/Cracker front-man David Lowery, would have sent his "sorry ass back to Florida" and would have eaten the $100M "owed*" to the embattled ballplayer. (* I am more than a little galled to do the math, but I could live comfortably for FIVE years (I live cheaply) on what he "earns" in a day.

But, avoid did earn his money last night. From statements coming in before and during the series with the bosox up in fenway, there were assumptions that someone would throw at arod. The best bet was on Lackey, but maybe that was way too obvious. So it fell to Ryan Dempster -- who has never actually figured out a way to beat the Yankees -- to throw at arod. Threw the first pitch behind his knees, "missed" with two inside fastballs before plunking arod in the elbow on a 3-0 pitch.

Apparently, home-plate umpire Brian O'Nora (did I spell that right?) was the ONLY one in the ballpark who didn't think that dempster threw at arod intentionally. Girardi went apoplectic and got tossed from the game. The Yankee manager got to watch on TV as arod had the best revenge possible: a monster home-run (430 feet +) to dead-center. He got to stand and watch it. He got to jog around the bases, pumping his fist and firing curse-words at whomever he chose, for in that moment - and only in that moment - he was doing what he is being (over)paid to do: help drive the Yankee offense which has turned off the anemia of late. Arod mocked Big Papi's home-plate salute to the fans and to heaven.

Honestly though, I wish we had more moments like that and less of the insane lawyering up, the potshots between the player and the team brass. This whole season has been turned into a debacle by the likes of arod and braun ... at least Tejada's suspension fell by the wayside news-wise, but I am sick of all the stuff that doesn't happen on the field.

Oh, well- Twins host the Mets in a make-up game today: play ball! Neither of those ballclubs have anyone juicing I have to think, or they'r be playing better, right? Right?

Here's my new ROSE website: go check it out...

Thanks,
B.

“When I was a little boy, I wanted to be a baseball player and join a circus. With the Yankees I’ve accomplished both.”—Third baseman Graig Nettles, on playing for two-time World Series champion New York Yankees in the late 1970s, quoted in Kenneth McMillan,Tales From the Yankee Dugout: A Collection of the Greatest Yankee Stories Ever Told (2001)

One of the more famously funny Yankee quips of my life-time and Nettles was hilarious and spot on... but now there's the circus that has mushroomed up around The Fall of the Player Once Respectfully Referred to as A-Rod and while it's served as distraction from the horrible (although could be worse) season the 2013 New York Yankees are suffering through with their faithful fans, myself very much included. 

But even losing series to sad-sack teams like the Padres is more entertaining than le Cirque d'A'Fraud that has become the back -- and front -- page story in the New York Daily News since... gosh, back when Billy Martin was punching marshmallow salesmen and threatening the same with his right-fielder, Reginald Martinez Jackson. 

So, while the other dirty dozen or so ballplayers are taking their lumps - and their suspensions - as of this morning A-Rod is the sole hold-out and the word is that he will be playing the hot corner for the Yankees tonight in Chicago versus the White Sox. The White Sox know all about lifetime bans (google/see: 1919 Chicago "Black Sox" scandal if you don't know of what I speak) and while Selig threatened A-Roid w/a lifetime ban as 'good for the game' although that does set the "ball-player" up for sympathy from people who buy his lies and don't want to see him separated from the $100M or so due to him from the Yanks.

It's been such a game of chicken -- although I really do get the distinct impression that MLB and Selig have the goods on A-Rod -- and now if Rodriguez does get to appeal his apparent 210-game suspension (the rest of 2013 and ALL of the 2014 season) who knows what shakes out? As a fan of the game and of the Yankees (both things that A-Rod claims as well, mind you) I would love to just see him gone and gone for good. At least Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens (who kinda/sorta came out in defense of his former teammate) are no longer the most hated guys in recent MLB history.

One of the claims that MLB has against A-Rod (a great Yankee teammate apparently if ever there was one) is that he got other players using PEDs and when you look at the list of current, or former Yankee teammates on the list, well, you get their point:

Initially confirmed by FoxSports.com, the players to have agreed to the suspensions without the right to appeal are:

[+] Enlarge

Tom Pennington/Getty ImagesRangers All-Star outfielder Nelson Cruz is among 12 players who have reportedly agreed to 50-game suspensions for their roles in the Biogenesis case.

• Nelson Cruz, Rangers outfielder

• Everth Cabrera, Padres shortstop

• Jhonny Peralta, Tigers shortstop

• Antonio Bastardo, Phillies reliever

• Jordany Valdespin, Mets outfielder

• Francisco Cervelli, Yankees catcher

• Jesus Montero, Mariners catcher

• Cesar Puello, Mets outfield prospect

•  Sergio Escalona, Houston Astrospitching prospect

• Fernando Martinez, Yankees outfield prospect

• Fautino De Los Santos, free-agent pitcher

• Jordan Norberto, free-agent pitcher

Thanks for reading, now let's just PLAY BALL!
B.

Batting second AND playing shortstop, number two, Derek Jeter -- finally! No, the canned recording of the late, great Bob Shephard introducing the Captain wasn't edited but I think most Yankee fans heard the "finally" regardless. But, be it just a sentimental push on the day the Yankees paid homage to the retirement of #55, Hideki Matsui (although Michael Kay even got Coney calling Ichiro by the other Japanese/Yankee star's name) Jeter did more than that -- "like a movie" according to his amazed manager -- hitting the first Yankee homerun since the All-Star break and the first by a right-handed hitter since Billy Martin was still managing. Okay, great big exaggeration there: it only feels like years.

(That's probably more italics in a single paragraph ever on this blog.)

But the propelling lift by Jeet was aided by his old teammie, Alfonso Soriano (I've got to dig out that old signed baseball) who finally made his presence felt in the clean-up spot yesterday and aided the Yanks from getting swept by the now front-running Rays. I'd rather chase them than the Bosox, although we're chasing them too.

Of course, now that there's promise that the bats are starting to heat up and Granderson may be back soon supplying some pop in the middle of the line-up, the pitching has started going South. CC Sabathia and Andy Pettitte are pitching more like bottom of the barrel, Phil Hughes. Hughes, who may have pitched himself into remaining in the Bronx with yet another outing marred by the long-ball, is as inconsistent as all get out. Kuroda has become the de facto Ace and Ivan Nova is throwing like a guy who is intent on sticking around the rotation.

Yanks start a three-game series in Los Angeles versus the Dodgers who have finally started putting it all together and have effectively saved Don Mattingly's job.

Okay- as it's impossible to write about the Yankees these days without mentioning our personal Bronx Zoo 2.0- Alex Rodriguez. With all the talk and counter-moves and bullshit that's been coming out of this scenario (latest word is that his suspension may come this week and may be for the remainder of this season and all of 2014) if the Yankee brass wasn't sincere about wanting A-Rod to play for the team this season, they would have looked to replace the broken down Kevin Youkilis with better stop-gaps than the likes of Brent Lillibridge and the six or seven other guys who have manned the hot-corner for the Yanks in 2013.

Here's my Facebook rant about A-Rod from a few days' back:

Brian Mazo

July 24

was gonna say "it could be worse, you could be a-rod" but thought about it for a moment: that lying piece of shit still has a mostly working body despite all his own efforts to lay waste to it for his own personal glory - he should have spent the money on a therapist for his insecurities rather than poisoning himself probably for the better part of a decade. and even if he gets a lifetime ban from the game he professes to love,. he still has millions upon millions of dollars in the bank and will get a reality show, maybe he can donate a cubic fuck-ton of money to a worthy cause because otherwise he winds up just a complete waste of space and talent remembered for being a cheater and a liar...

Sorry the absence of new words on this site for a few weeks. No good excuse so I won't even try.

Without asking for my permission, MLB just went ahead and added a fourth day to the All-Star Break this year and I suppose with how the Yanks have been playing that was a nice relief. They lost a series to the Twins in the Bronx which is like the Globetrotters losing two in a row to the Nationals; just not supposed to happen that way.

But seeing how four days without baseball was just way too much I watched the ASG for the first time in quite a number of years; I don't think I have watched the exhibition game ever since it started counting. But the amazing moment of Mariano Rivera running onto the field all by himself was worth my time.

Jeter back on the DL after 1 game played re-joining Tex (done for the year), Granderson (back next month or so they say), Cervelli (who knows?) and A-Rod (who cares?!) -- actually the scary thing is that A-Rod may actually be needed. Seven different guys have started at the hot corner so far and even outfielder Vernon Wells has seen some action there. I have this inkling that MLB is so utterly pissed off at A-Roid that they're waiting for him to be activated (was supposed to be Monday barring an injury -- and there very well may be an injury) and then and there immediately suspend him. I bet if Selig could have him taken off the field in Arlington in handcuffs and taken to a Texas jail -- he would do so in a NY minute.


Had a nice benefit of the Rose t-shirt promotional: a dear friend's daughter was wearing the pink tank-top I gave her for her HS graduation and she came across a couple girls who had read the book and passed word back to me that they really liked it...

I also donated some money to a writer's site that was raising funds for St. Jude's Childen's Hospital- the reward for doing so getting some promotional tweets for Rose -- and I think that may have already paid for itself in royalties for books sold online. Who says no good deed goes unpunished?

Holding off the next leg of the book tour (sorry, San Francisco; see ya as soon as I can) and working towards a few ongoing local things here in the Twin Cities. I'll do a better job of keeping you posted.

Thanks
B

As it turns to the dogdays of Summer, things are heating up for the Yankees. Shame it's not on the field of play, but being waged on Twitter. In case you missed it, following a tweet saying his doctor cleared him to play baseball, A-Twit caught the wrath of Yankee GM, Brian Cashman, who told him through on the record comments, to "shut the fuck up."

Of course what he really wants to say is, "shut the fuck up, and go away and never come back," but that would be improper for the face of a professional baseball team. Yeah. Right. The Bombers miss George Steinbrenner more and more each day.

But at least the anemically equipped Yankee offense comes to Minneapolis next week for four games which usually spells three wins for the visiting team from New York. I should get to see two of them live and in person, Hope to miss the loss.

****************

Wednesday night at Kingman Studios in The Nordeast, I finally got to read some of the stories (okay-- the same three stories, but if you hadn't heard them yet, then they're new to you) from my book, "A Rose by any Other Name," to my friends here in Minneapolis. I was joined on the stage by Jamez Smith, who read poems from a collection he had written quite some time ago, lost the manuscript in a house-fire and then, very recently, was re-united with a copy of the original material.

And while I don't ever expect to be re-united with the novel that was lost when my laptop got stolen in Brooklyn a few years back, I almost got to screen the video that was cut from master tapes that the original editor had lost for years. So, yes, I added a "lost & found" theme to the previously-stated one of "relationships," but Jamez rolled with it.

The room was filled and it was a good way to spend the early part of a Wednesday night in the Twin Cities. 

And as of last night, Jamez and I have lined up a follow-up night for two weeks from today at the Blue Nile. The scheme is to create more of the "Modern Campfire" vibe and bring in some live music interspersed between my stories and Jamez's poem. So you read this first: consider it an early press release.

Enjoy the weekend; read a book. Read this book. (It's mine if you were wondering)

Thanks

B.

Well, I'm feeling okay over the fact that I have the book tour to distract me from what's been going on in the Bronx and wherever else, the New York Yankees drag their anemic offense this month. But, we'll get back to that after this paid endorsement from "A Rose by any Other Name."

After starting in Wisconsin, and following an appearance in St. Paul and the tour legs in Los Angeles and New York City, I am finally presenting Rose as the "home team." Wednesday, June 26th will be my Minneapolis debut. I am lining up some supporting artists for the event to be held in an art studio in the Nordeast section of Minneapolis.

Details for the event can be found right here and there will be some more upcoming news on other Twin Cities events in July before I drag this pony out to the Bay Area for some appearances in early August. Or, at least, that's the scheme.

There's a benefit this evening here in the 612 for a dear friend who aided me with the Rose IndieGoGo campaign who is fighting *(@&(#&ing cancer. So in honor of that I will throwing 50% of the $14 purchase price of Rose into the kitty for Reverend Zed. Paypal me at 26tales@gmail.com for ordering and shipping info. Thanks!

So, the Yankees...

All that went right through April and parts of May have gone the way of the beta-player since then. The plan to have the castoffs hold down the fort til the regulars came back from the disabled list actually worked for a while especially when Vernon Wells, Travis Hafner and Lyle Overbay were playing/hitting like it was Turn Back the Clock Night, err, Month. But Wells lovely start has grown colder than __________ (as it's finally Summer I am loathe to even think of something actually that cold) and no one has really picked up the slack offensively.

And then there's the guys returning from the DL. Curtis Granderson came back, got hit again and went right back to the DL for an extended time. Mark Texeira came back, hit some big dingers and then the wrist flared up again and he, too, is back on the DL -- perhaps requiring surgery.

Surgery, you say? Youkilis,we hardly knew ya' -- maybe that big mouth was right about you -- but also: came back, re-injured his balky back and looks like his recovery may take him to the end of the year and to end of his career in pinstripes. Yes, yes. We know A-Rod is taking swings, but I'd almost field a blank spot at the hot corner than see ol' #13 dragging his sorry ass out there at first pitch.

Jeter and Cervelli and even Nunez could be back soon which will help, but the team from the Bronx needs some bombers and unless Granderson and Tex can come back and provide that? Well, there's always the book tour...

I am looking forward to finally getting to see Michael Pineda pitch for the Yankees. Shoulder surgery recovery notwithstanding, there's now the mentions of his proclivity toward giving up fly balls which, much like we now know with Phil Hughes, doesn't necessarily play well in Yankee Stadium. Still- I want to see him throw.

Go read a book. This one here.

Thanks,
Brian

Well, there's nothing like making your New York City debut in the midst of the first tropical storm of the year (Andrea, if you're wondering) but that's what Friday, June 7th was for me and "A Rose by any Other Name." Curated by Neke Carson and Michael Wiener and hosted by the lovely staff at the Dixon Place, Darren Gaines and I brought "To Begin Again: A Modern Campfire" to life despite the torrential downpour.

The program opened with the world premiere screening of our long-in-the-works (after the original editor lost the master tapes for a couple years) music video for the song "To Begin Again" and then Darren read the first set of excerpts from his book, "Billboards."

Tag-teaming our performances, I interspersed three of the tales from Rose -- Last Paige, Mustang Sally and The Cross of Lorraine -- with a song from Darren as well as some more book-excerpts. Having debuted the format in Los Angeles the previous month, it's something I will try to replicate in each city I visit with Rose. It's been fantastic sharing the stage with friend/performers so San Francisco friends, drop me a line if you wanted to join me on the next leg.

Sunday, June 10th was the second and last NY appearance and for this one, I attempted to do what I had done in Los Angeles at the Bronson Bar -- a more casual reading spread out over the course of the late afternoon. But, making my Brooklyn debut at the Commonwealth Bar, I added a new wrinkle: food by my brother, Andy, who was aided and abetted by my nephew, Chase.

Despite combating noisy, 20-something, Sunday-afternoon drinkers and motorcycles in Brooklyn, this event was well received as well. Andy sold out - and then some - on his crazy cheesy concoctions. I read Last Paige and The Cross of Lorraine again, but added Zora, the Last Girl and Gabby & the New Boy to the set.

Others seemed more concerned with the talking (and there were some "talkings to") than many of the guests, but I figured I was the interloper. People who were already enjoining their drinks and the return of the sunshine in the backyard of the bar didn't know they were attending a book reading. I just spoke louder; see the neck veins popping?

And it felt really good to read to a more "hostile" crowd and to sell some books to random people as opposed to just preaching to the converted. As with the Dixon Place on Friday, return invites for all involved were quickly forthcoming so who knows? Maybe there will be a second NYC appearance at some point.

If you want to purchase a copy of "Rose" and I am not scheduled to come to your town it's available via Amazon (just sold my 1st copy to Japan!) and Kindle, but it's best for the author if you purchase it here.

I also have some promotional Rose t-shirts and tank-tops available. Want to sport the pink and support Rose? Drop me a line and we can make that happen. Here's the very lovely and talented Liliana from the Dixon Place modeling the tank-top.

Thanks for the support: NYC!

Here's an unsolicited review from the Dixon Place show and a recent review on Amazon:

It was a blast. Brian's servings of delicious black humor by comparison makes others look like so many shades of gray. Format was great, too, almost a variety hour, with music and poetry readings. - Daniel O'Brien

5.0 out of 5 stars umm yes June 5, 2013

By Emily S

Format:Kindle Edition

This book is getting me all hot and bothered and wishing I was getting laid. Nice job author!
Really great writing on specific moments and life events we can all relate to.

Thanks everyone!

Brian

The above still photo is a frame for the music video I shot & directed for the song "To Begin Again" by Darren Gaines & The Key Party. The world premiere of this video - 6 years in the making (long story) - will be this coming Friday night in New York City as part of the next leg of my book tour for "A Rose by any Other Name."

Here are the details for the night:

Dixon Place Presents

To Begin Again: A Modern Campfire  -- 7:30PM sharp

A music video collaboration between Brian Mazo and Darren Gaines - “To Begin Again” - will introduce Gaines reading vignettes from his forthcoming novel, “Billboards.” Gaines, born in San Francisco but working in New York for the moment, will also perform a song from his book. 

Mazo, born in New York, wrote “A Rose by Any Other Name” in Los Angeles and published it from Minneapolis, where none of it takes place. The twenty-six short stories that comprise the collection take place at that crossroads where lovers meet, bisect, dissect each other. Mazo, fresh from appearances in the Mid-West and LA, will read three of his tales in his native accent.

Roses and red wine: New York is all right if you like trombone…

BIOs
Darren Gaines: “Gaines is a poet in the same sense that Exene or Lou Reed is a poet.” – PopMatters

Gaines records have been favorably compared to the “gutter street” styles of Tom Waits, Jim Carroll and Nick Cave. (LA Weekly, Village Voice, SF Chronicle). His DIY albums have graced year-end lists from Boston’s WFNX to Spain’s Ruta 66. He’s charted on CMJ, made a record with the producer who recorded The Clash’s Combat Rock, enjoyed an artist-in-residence at The Gershwin Hotel, broke a guitar at the legendary Mint in Los Angeles and even performed in a cathedral on a mountaintop in Jamaica.

Brian Mazo: Brian Mazo graduated from NYU Film School, had a few movies produced from his screenplays and has written for a number of newspapers and magazines. Mazo claims to be the only screenwriter in captivity who has written movies starring women who have won both the Best Actress Academy Award (Oscar) and the porn equivalent (AVN) “A Rose by any Other Name” is his first book.

“If there is one thing Brian Mazo knows about it is women...and words, and together, this is what you get!” – Pamela Holm, author of “The Toaster Broke So We’re Getting Married”.

We are proud to be the debut installment of the monthly series, Gershwin Live at Dixon Place, hosted and curated by Michael Wiener and Neke Carson.

The Dixon Place Lounge is open before, during, and after the show. Proceeds directly support Dixon Place’s artists and mission.

I will be making a second appearance on Sunday, June 9th at the Commonwealth Bar in Brooklyn, NY from 3-6pm approximately. My brother will be making food for the event and his kick-ass homemade jerk marinade will be available for purchase.

Much like the appearance last month at the Bronson Bar in Hollywood, CA, I will be reading 3-4 of the tales from my short-story collection, but will break up the reading- the plan is to read a story close to the top of each hour. If quite a number of the same people who attended the Dixon reading are present in Brooklyn, I will read a few different tales from the ones that I have been performing on the tour.

The bar is located at

497 5th Ave  Brooklyn, NY 11215 Cheers & thanks and looking forward to seeing you New York & Brooklyn! Brian

So, it's the Friday before Memorial Day which traditionally marks end of the first quarter of the MLB season and surprise! surprise! The New York Yankees are in 1st place. And while there is a whole load of baseball yet to be played, this great start despite all the injuries and the prognostications, the Bronx Bombers and their fans have to be pleased with how things have started.

If there was a Manager of the Year Award for the 1st quarter, Joe Girardi gets it hands down. What kind of a job has he done? Nothing short of amazing, actually. Much credit has to go to GM Brian Cashman for finding the castoffs and re-treads that Girardi has maneuvered through the first 40+ games as well, though.

What does the team look like? On the left side of the infield, we have the 4th string guy playing third-base and the the 3rd string guy at shortstop following the injuries disabling Derek Jeter, A-Rod, Kevin Youkilis and Nunez. Overbay, filling in for the injured Tex, has probably delivered more offense than could have been expected from the traditionally slow starting Texeira. Behind the plate, currently it is rookie Austin Romine, the 3rd string guy at that crucial spot with Francisco Cervelli on the DL with a broken hand.

The aforementioned Overbay has been bolstered by Vernon Wells and Travis Hafner who are all playing like it was 5 seasons ago. Will they be able to sustain the early season production? Maybe yes, maybe no, but now the regulars are starting to come back. Granderson came back this week and is getting his stroke down. Tex and Youk should come back in the coming weeks as well as Joba to go back to the 7th inning spot.

The bullpen, even minus Chamberlain, has been outstanding; Mo has never been better: he is perfect closing through the first 40+ games. The starting rotation - which is missing 40% of its regulars (Andy Pettitte & Ivan Nova) has been stellar, lead this year by Kuroda. The fill-ins be they Phelps, Nuno or Warren have delivered starts that have kept the Yanks in the games where they were needed.

The Yanks are winning the close games, they're winning series, they're avoiding losing streaks all despite the steady rotation (currently 39 different players on the major league roster in 2013) of guys coming and going. This team has been more fun to watch than of many seasons past. Some of what I predicted in my pre-season blog on this team's chances have come out to bear. Sure looks like some of the "washed up" guys and the "baby Bombers" are playing very well as a team. Outside of Robinson Cano, most of the star players have been non-existent and yet, they're playing at a .609 clip which is second best in the AL only to Texas and 3rd overall in baseball when you add the Cards into the mix.

Again- a lot of baseball yet to play, but if the goal of the early season was the tread water and not get buried in the tough AL East, then the 2013 New York Yankees are already way ahead of that curve.

Play ball!

Cheers
B.

• Dixon Place Presents To Begin Again: A Modern Campfire A music video collaboration between Brian Mazo and Darren Gaines - “To Begin Again” - will introduce Gaines reading vignettes from his forthcoming novel, “Billboards.” Gaines, born in San Francisco but working in New York for the moment, will also perform a song from his book. Mazo, born in New York, wrote “A Rose by Any Other Name” in Los Angeles and published it from Minneapolis, where none of it takes place. The twenty-six short stories that comprise the collection take place at that crossroads where lovers meet, bisect, dissect each other. Mazo, fresh from appearances in the Mid-West and LA, will read three of his tales in his native accent. Roses and red wine: New York is all right if you like trombone… BIOs Darren Gaines: “Gaines is a poet in the same sense that Exene or Lou Reed is a poet.” – PopMatters Gaines records have been favorably compared to the “gutter street” styles of Tom Waits, Jim Carroll and Nick Cave. (LA Weekly, Village Voice, SF Chronicle). His DIY albums have graced year-end lists from Boston’s WFNX to Spain’s Ruta 66. He’s charted on CMJ, made a record with the producer who recorded The Clash’s Combat Rock, enjoyed an artist-in-residence at The Gershwin Hotel, broke a guitar at the legendary Mint in Los Angeles and even performed in a cathedral on a mountaintop in Jamaica. Brian Mazo: Brian Mazo graduated from NYU Film School, had a few movies produced from his screenplays and has written for a number of newspapers and magazines. Mazo claims to be the only screenwriter in captivity who has written movies starring women who have won both the Best Actress Academy Award (Oscar) and the porn equivalent (AVN) “A Rose by any Other Name” is his first book. “If there is one thing Brian Mazo knows about it is women...and words, and together, this is what you get!” – Pamela Holm, author of “The Toaster Broke So We’re Getting Married”. We are proud to be the debut installment of the monthly series, Gershwin Live at Dixon Place, hosted and curated by Michael Wiener and Neke Carson. The Dixon Place Lounge is open before, during, and after the show. Proceeds directly support Dixon Place’s artists and mission.

Dixon Place

161A Chrystie Street, New York, New York 10002

View Map · Get Directions

So, I am back in the Twin Cities following the first leg of the "Rock 'n Rose Spring Tour" in Los Angeles. It started snowing as my plane was on the tarmac, which seemed more than fitting. The fact that it was 90 and that the sky was filled with wild fire smoke when I touched down in SoCal was not lost on me: out of the freezer and into the frying pan.

The above photograph (c) Marc Evans was taken on Friday night, May 3rd in Paynie's downtown "Red Loft" and I already have a painter buddy wanting to immortalize that night on canvas. It was the only event I had planned on the LA-leg that wasn't my event per se, I was asked to read at a Wine and Grilled Cheese party.

But when it did become my time to take the mic, the wine had poured, the cheese had clogged and despite my friend's insistence that I don't read, I did anyway. Hard crowd- a bunch of quasi-intoxicated people who didn't quite know they were attending a book reading. Despite that, I did get them to listen to "The Cross of Lorraine" and discovered I could handle a "hostile crowd" but from a promotional or sales tack, this event didn't get it done for me. Was drinking J&B scotch and the event gets a C-.

Saturday, May the 4th be with you was the first event that was of my creation: something of a salon up in Malibu. Great house, amazing location on the PCH -- but far away from most people, alas. This show was something of a practice run for the event in NYC in June (details to follow) and I think the format worked really well.

I had another writer, Coburn Hawk, read from his novel, "Middle Man," and had the lovely & talented Deanna Neil sing a small handful of her plucky songs accompanied by euk' in between the words that Coburn and I delivered. He read two chapters, I read 3 tales from Rose (Last Paige, Cross of Lorraine and Mustang Sally) during an approximately hour long set.

My hosts, the wonderful and generous Chris & Annemarie Penny, opened their amazing home for me and Rose. The room was filled (although I had but a small group of friends in attendance) and the audience stayed with us throughout, including a follow-up Q&A when the readings and songs were done. Signed some books, put some bodies in some tank-tops. I would give the event a B and I was drinking Glenlivet.

The final event that went down (the Rock a Rose Tattoo event on Sunday early afternoon was just me and Tracy Ray, friend/tattoo artist so I got the beginnings of a new tattoo outlined so I wouldn't call the day an entire bust) was a reading Sunday, May 5th at the Bronson Bar in Hollywood.

I had a really nice crowd -- over 20 people in a small bar on a Sunday late afternoon -- a melange of friends from NYU, from the film biz, from Burning Man and read 4 tales adding "Nina, a Pinto and the Santa Ana Winds" to the same 3 I had read the night before.

As I read, friend/bar manager Dave Knapp, poured shots of Jim Beam on me (not literally), I played Lucero on the bar's speakers and parted with quite a number of signed copies of Rose as well as some more pink tank-tops. While I was a little exhausted by the schedule and schlepping all around LA for the last few days, this was a great event: I think the book and me lend themselves to a bar-setting and will plan on replicating such an event in the other cities I hit on the tour.

I would give this event an A and I was drinking Oban. I realized yesterday that the quality of the event for me was directly proportionate to the quality of scotch I was drinking and will keep an eye on that as I get to other cities.

Speaking of other cities -- and NYC you're up next: June 7-9th -- if I am not coming to your city, or if you just can't wait, the pink Rose promo tanks and T's are available via mail order. The tanks are available S/M/L and the T-shirts in M/L any size for $16 including shipping. If you want a signed copy of the book along with the shirt, make it $30 and paypal me at: 26tales@gmail.com

Thanks for reading. Hope I get to read you some tales in the future as more legs of the tour roll out.

Brian

I am going to let someone else write my blog today. This is the press release that went out to a number of publications in Los Angeles last night in preparation for the first leg of the book tour for "A Rose by any Other Name: An Alphabet of Tales About a Man and a Woman."

For Immediate Release

26tales@gmail.com 

The Rock a Rose Tour:

Live Tattooing and Twenty-Six (Alphabetical!)Tales Of Love

That’s right. Buy a book, get a tattoo! Or the other way around, however you wanna look at it.

In a book tour like no other, screenwriter and author Brian Mazo brings his collection of short stories, “A Rose By Any Other Name: An Alphabet of Tales about a Man and a Woman” to LA for a duo of readings and signings accompanied by the stellar inkwork of East Hollywood custom-tattoo artist Tracy Ray!

Then, after the tattoo sessions: Returning to the scene of the crime - or at least the bars & coffee shops in which "A Rose by any Other Name" was written - Brian Mazo's last scheduled stop in Los Angeles will be a reading/signing at The Bar (neé Bronson Bar). Tales will be spun, there will be some music to drown 'em out and perhaps a drink special or two from Bronson barkeep Dave Knapp.

“A Rose By Any Other Name” is twenty-six snap-shot short stories, each about a moment between two people at a crossroads. From New York to Los Angeles, from an old folks’ home to a backseat in a torrential downpour, from Black Rock City, Burning Man back to Brooklyn again, the tales give us a voyeur’s view to sweet first kisses all the way to the bitter endings.

Just The Facts, Ma’am:

Event 1: Tracy Ray Tattoo Studio

·         Sunday May 5, 2013, Noon-3pm

·         Mazo will sign and read from “A Rose By Any Other Name” while guests get their choice of two rose designs inked, a process that will take approximately ½ hour.

·         $40 gets you access to Tracy’s private studio, the reading and the signing, PLUS a tattoo and a signed copy of the book.

·         Location is secret. To schedule your tattoo & reading, email 26tales@gmail.com. Those with a Facebook account can schedule their timeslot via the Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/113556932176754/

Event 2: Book ‘n’ a ‘Beam: Bronson Bar

·         Sunday May 5, 2013, 3pm-6pm

·         Mazo's last scheduled stop in LA will be a reading/signing at The Bar.

·         5851 Sunset Blvd., Hollywood, CA 90028; 323-468-9154.

·         Free event. Music & drink specials.

About the Author:

Brian Mazo has impersonated David Blaine at the Magic Castle in Hollywood for the LA Weekly, irked the Scientologists for a story in the LA Alternative and faked the death of a fictitious friend in the WTC bombings to get out of his fantasy baseball league.

His wild life has crisscrossed the country repeatedly and he claims to be the only screenwriter in captivity to write movies starring women who have won both the Best Actress Academy Award (Faye Dunaway) and the porn equivalent (Taylor Hayes).

MORE…

Page 2

Mazo now writes books as an excuse to get tattoos. “A Rose by any Other Name,” a collection of twenty-five short stories and a “Dear Jane” letter for which he had no other good use, was published in 2012. After a wildly successful indiegogo.com campaign, he’s currently on the road (LA, SF, and NYC) promoting it – and getting more tattoos – while working on a novel entitled, “Live Fast! (Die out of Town).” Mazo is currently ducking the Scientologists by residing in Minneapolis, MN with Thurman, his Russian Blue cat.

About the Book:

“A Rose By Any Other Name: An Alphabet of Tales about a Man and a Woman” is a collection of twenty-six snap-shot short stories, each about a moment between two people at a crossroads. From New York to Los Angeles, from Black Rock City, Burning Man and back to Brooklyn, the tales give us a voyeur’s view to sweet first kisses all the way to the bitter final ones: 

A man in the midst of an ugly break-up rips out the last page of each of his lover’s book collection and then wishes he could change their ending (“Last Paige”). 

A flower-bearing man, who hates taking taxis, has the duration of a ride to win over his cabdriver and her alluring smile (“Hail Mary”). 

A piece of jewelry solves a mystery and leads to a twisted tryst (“The Cross of Lorraine”). 

An unexpected, second chance at love and happiness amongst Senior Citizens in Florida is sparked by a hurricane and the ability to drive at night (“Mustang Sally”). 

Also included: a tale of breakups and breakdowns (“Nina, the Pinto & the Santa Ana Winds”), fortunate mistaken identity (“A Rose by Any Name”), one man’s obsession with his bartender (“Fiona, the Irish Girl”), sex during a torrential downpour (“Hannah & the Hitchhiker), jealousy (“Charlotte’s Web)”, deceit, (“Victoria’s Secret”) and one woman’s first foray into nude modeling (“Ursula, Undressed”).

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