Monday, Feb 13
Breakfast: Au Bon Pain, $5.48
Dinner: Firebirds, $42.79

Tuesday, Feb 14
Lunch: Jason’s Deli, $11.73
Dinner: Buffalo Wild Wings, $21.60

Wednesday, Feb 15
Lunch: Baker’s Crust, $17.92
Dinner: Peter Chang, $25.20

Thursday, Feb 16
Lunch: California Pizza Kitchen, $19.16
Dinner: Bar Louie, $20.21

Friday, Feb 17
Lunch: Baker’s Crust, $20.92
Dinner: Red Robin, $10.79

Saturday, Feb 18
Lunch: Plaza Azteca, $18.64
Dinner: Bar Louie, $15.75

Sunday, Feb 19
Dinner: Maggiano’s, $30.92

Monday, Feb 20
Lunch: Chick-fil-A, $11.28
Dinner: Buz and Ned’s, $33.46

Tuesday, Feb 21
Lunch: Nordstrom Cafe, $14.60
Dinner: The Cheesecake Factory, $42.84

Wednesday, Feb 22
Lunch: Baker’s Crust, $14.26
Dinner: Lehja, $39.90

Thursday, Feb 23
Lunch: Jason’s Deli, $10.48
Dinner: Firebirds, $53.81

Friday, Feb 24
Lunch: Chick-fil-A, $10.61

About a year ago, I stumbled onto Nile Rodgers’ Twitter account. Yes, that Nile Rodgers. I can’t remember how it happened. I remember him talking about how he was recently struck with cancer. He was in treatment, after surgery, and spoke about his doctor-prescribed daily walking therapy. The part that interested me is the way he narrated his daily walks. They were spotted with “we did this here” and “that was recorded there”. Of course, these references were always about some of my favorite soundtrack-to-your-life artists.

Of course I knew of Chic, Nile’s band along with Bernard Edwards and Tony Thompson and the ladies. I remembered roller skating to them on Friday nights and dancing to them in my room as a young teenager. I knew of Nile’s far-reaching producing efforts (Madonna, Duran Duran, Diana Ross, David Bowie, Sister Sledge) and of course Bernard and Tony’s crucial contributions in Power Station but it wasn’t until reading his daily blog, and seeing wonderful vintage photos, that I realized how extensive Nile’s musical reach was into the fabric of the soundtrack of my life.

Last year when I was going to spend a long weekend in New York I thought “How wonderful would it be to run into Mr. Rodgers on one of his daily walks?” We had batted a tweet back and forth, about what I can’t remember, but he did start following me and I always appreciated that. The accidental meet up never occurred, unfortunately. Probably because I was way downtown in Chelsea and not waking up until the afternoon and I think Nile is up on the Upper East Side somewhere. And judging by the pictures he took of him bundled up from the cold on his daily walk, it seemed he started pretty early in the morning. No worries.

Tonight, I saw Nile post a tweet to Miss Jody Watley (swoon) about loving to play on her new album. I noticed he accidentally made a typo (@ jodywatley instead of @jodywatley) and I realized she wouldn’t get the message. I retweeted his tweet, correcting it so it would show up in her feed. This is what he sent back to me:

What a helluva guy. Maybe one of these days I’ll be in New York and accidentally run into Mr. Nile Rodgers and I would love to shake his hand. Shake his hand and say “Thank you, sir”, thank for all the wonderful music you have given to me.

You can read Nile’s Planet C blog here and his homepage here. You can also purchase his autobiography, Le Freak, (which I haven’t started reading yet) here.

Be well.

Today may be a Saturday to the rest of the world but it’s no weekend for me. For the last 20 months, Saturday’s have been Day Two of the Doubleshifts.

On the train home people are definitely out for their Saturday Nights. Loud, subtly obnoxious, mildly drunk already and it’s only 11:00. I’m exhausted after working for twelve hours and I’ve got a full day of work ahead of me.

Walking home, Everything But The Girl’s 25th December comes on and that, on top of watching everyone going out to have their fun, immediately depresses me.

Getting home, the upstairs neighbors have their tv up sonfucking loud that I can basically watch with the sound down. They’re so fucking rude. I was hoping when one of them moved out (which happened a week ago) that the new neighbor would change things up a bit but it appears he’s taking his cue from the existing roommate.

It’s actually a Tuesday. But I have the next two days off so it’s my Friday. Hello Weekend!

So what do I plan to do with my weekend? Nothing exciting. I’m hopefully going to finally get unpacked from my move-in four months ago. There are still some boxes lying around that I haven’t even opened yet, and some furniture needs to have some placement decisions made. Plus coffee and laundry, of course.

The Andy Warhol Diaries are available in epub for free at this link. Better hurry and grab it, this link may be taken down. I remember barreling through this massive book (850 pp) back in the early nineties. It was awesome. I remember keeping an index of whenever any member of DD was mentioned. Sample:

Saturday, October 10, 1981
I wanted to see Duran Duran at the Savoy because their videotape was so good, it’s called “Girls on Film.” When I got there the first band was still on. Duran Duran are good-looking kids like Maxwell Caulfield. And then afterwards they wanted to meet me so we went backstage and I told them how great they were. They all wore lots of makeup but they had their girlfriends with them from England, pretty girls, so I guess they’re all straight, but it was hard to believe. We went to Studio 54 in their white limo and Steve Rubell was really nice to them. He took them to the booth and gave them drinks. Ran into old friends, met a bunch of new kids and got home at 5:00 (cab $5).

I’m off at 4:00 today and I walked over to Chevy’s for some of their $3.25 margaritas. LadyFabolous231 is going to join me when she gets off at 5:00.

Having such a crazy (read: abnormal) work schedule this is a little semblance of normalcy. In that manner, I mean getting off at a normal time and doing things that normal people might be doing.

She just texted me: “20 more minutes. Drink slow.” She don’t know me.

LF231 is off for the next seven days, I think. She’ll prob go see her people in NJ. (She a Jersey Girl.)

What else?

Oh, Pippin came into the store today and finally got the iPad he has been wanting. I hope he enjoys it. If I had an iPhone 4 I would FaceTime him and find out but, alas, I do not. It’s on the list though.

What else? Can I keep typing for the next fourteen minutes?

I’ve come to Chevy’s for lunch sometimes when I have an hour lunch break. The food’s not bad and it’s nice to get out of the mall and away from all the people that visit the mall. But this is the first time for an actual “after work drink” situ. It’s not bad for the price and a corporate chain restaurant. They have music playing like KQQK played: tejano mixed with Hispanic techno. Love it.

There was once a man who surprised me. We had met before, although these meetings were apparently non-hard-drive-writing to my memory. So, at one evening during the Greek Festival Hal comes up and says “I know you, you’re <insert first and last name>.” Impressive.

Things progressed after this but not for too much longer. This was around the time my situation was leaving Houston, and Hal had a big dream of moving to Chicago. This is not the first Chicago-related opportunity that I’ve denied/ignored. Sad.

What brings this to my memory is, off all things, a Madonna album. Bedtime Stories. This was out at the time Hal and I were spending weekends together in Houston. I guess i should reveal here that Hal was a consultant and was at a client (I don’t remember where, but out of state) during the week and we would have weekends together.

Once we had lunch on a Friday (@ Barnaby’s) and then we went to his alma mater (Rice) to pick up a class ring and I way from work until about 3:30 and I didn’t even care.

Our best date, in my opinion, was this: it’s a Friday night and I know he’s in town and I’m thinking of things we can socially do and he says “What if we just stay at your place and play MYST and order a pizza?” Heaven.

Oh! When I was visiting Jonathan & Mary a few years ago I set up a meeting with Hal and, yet again, totally misrepresented myself trying to be what I thought I was instead of simply relaxing and being me.

Someday I’ll learn.