July 16, 2003 - 6:44 a.m.

Tonight Bruce Springsteen begins his "historic" ten-night stand at the Meadowlands in New Jersey. The Boss has even reconstructed the Atlantic City boardwalk in the parking lot, complete with imported sand, carnival rides and presumably shills, geeks, and rubes...definitely the latter. Wotta guy...when he does something he doesn't fool around, eh? It was probably a wise decision for him to give back a little something to the state to which he owes so much: the Meadowlands is, as they say, a unique sort of venue...a football stadium in a swamp with, at last estimate, at least 15 bodies buried in the cement foundations. Just think...as you sit there in the nosebleed section listening to Bruce grinding through "Born to Run" like the seasoned pro he is, you and yours and your thermos full of lukewarm Alize (TM) could be hovering over Jimmy Hoffa's mortal coil, or what's left of it. Talk about "meta" irony! I've always been a bit uneasy about New Jersey's department of tourism motto, "New Jersey & You", if the truth be told. Sounds kind of ominous, especially if you pronounce it like a native: "Noo Choizey 'nd Yez". Don't get me wrong, it's a fine state -- Donald Fagen was born in Passaic, after all -- but I'm glad it's not on Long Island.

To be honest (as if I'm ever anything else!), I don't get out much at night anymore. Lennon/Tabacco/Zappa has been scattered to the four winds, and my trusty Ibanez is stuck in the back of the upstairs closet, behind the cat box. Directly following the Zappanale festival in the former East Germany last July, the band members went their separate ways, back to civilization and one-nighters in elite Lower East Side venues. There weren't any tear-stained farewells or unseemly public blubbering...we were too busy explaining ourselves to customs officials, especially Jay Rozen, our tuba player, who insisted on carrying his horn in a homemade case constructed from a large cardboard box reinforced with duct tape. I have hopes, of course, of getting back to working on music, but there are some contingencies...so for the time being I'm usually in bed by 10 p.m. The older one gets, the more "beauty sleep" one needs. In my case, I'm going for the Guinness Book of World Records: Longest Unbroken Period of REM Sleep. Can't hoit.

However, on Friday, July 25, my friend and sometime collaborator Ed Palermo and his big band will be appearing at the Bottom Line in New York, and I will definitely be up past my bedtime...John Tabacco, my musical co-conspirator, will be providing lead vocals, and it will be a reunion, of sorts...some of Ed's band members (bassist Paul Adamy and drummer Ray Marchica, as well as the legendary Joe Meo subbing on bari sax) also appeared with Lennon/Tabacco/Zappa. Ed is, in my arrogant opinion, the finest big band arranger working in the neighborhood of West Orange, New Jersey, and his arrangements of Frank Zappa's music, which he'll be performing on the 25th, are phenomenal. Ed claims this will be his last show at the Bottom Line. We'll see about that. I will provide a post-show wrap-up, at any rate. If you happen to be anywhere near NYC, I strongly suggest you make it to this show.

(N.B.: By the way, in the next couple of weeks, if all goes well, I should have a link from this page to a lot of photos and images...so if you'd rather look at pictures than read a bunch of boring words, keep watching this space.)

--Nigey

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