I Promised…

...myself that the first day this year the temperature hit 60 degrees in New York, I'd go fishing. It finally happened this week.

I kept the promise. (Belated trout porn alert.)

I caught (and released) this trio of wonderful brown trout in the same hole. En route, I played peek-a-boo with a new friend.

 Man I'm glad it's spring.

Like a Spider to a Fly

Had a great rock 'n' roll reunion on Saturday with my friends in the band The Goods. We jammed at Smash Studios all afternoon, and then went and saw a Black Crowes concert at night.

For about six years, from 2001 to 2007, The Goods gigged hard all around Manhattan. Now some of the guys in the band are married with kids. Some live in other states. Every time we get together now, which is about once a year, we marvel at how much time has passed. In the beginning we called ourselves a "bar rock band." Now it's been suggested that we are a -- gulp -- "dad rock band."

When we warmed up on Saturday, Rusty, the rhythm guitarist, played the chord progression for the old Rolling Stones song, "The Spider and the Fly."

"What was that last lyric?" Ryan, the drummer, asked.

I gave a professorial explanation. When the Stones first recorded their story of an on-the-road liaison between a young man and a slightly older woman in the mid-1960s, songwriters Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were in their early 20s. The last lyric went, "She was common, flirty, she looked about 30."

When the Stones re-recorded the song in 1995 for their live album Stripped, Mick -- then 52 -- sang, "She was shifty, nifty, she looked about 50." (Mick's subtle allusion to the band's advanced age was the subject of a New Yorker "Talk of the Town" piece in December 1995.)

We realized that it's been 18 years since Stones remade "The Spider and the Fly."

"What would they sing if they played that song on this tour?" Ryan asked, laughing.

On cue, Rusty sang:

"She was hazy, shady..."

***

(The Goods, glory days...)

Somewhere up in Heaven…

...I trust this scene is being repeated.

From the UK's Sun:

PRINCESS Diana dressed as a man and was smuggled into a gay bar by Queen star Freddie Mercury and comic Kenny Everett, it emerged yesterday.

Fun-loving Di was decked out in camp gear like the Village People for the prank.

TV’s busty Cleo Rocos, who went with the People’s Princess, said Di looked like a male model and added: “She loved it.”

Indeed, disguised Di was delighted when she was served in the bar without being recognised.

She bought a wine and a beer while wearing a camouflage army jacket, black leather cap and aviator sunglasses.

Pal Rocos — who starred in the Kenny Everett Television Show — said: “When we walked in, we felt she would be discovered at any minute.

“But people just seemed to blank her. She sort of disappeared. She loved it.”

Di, keen to escape her stuffy royal life, was a fan of gay funnyman Everett and had earlier met him and Rocos for lunch in London’s posh Kensington.

They swigged peach and champagne cocktails and swapped gossip before going to Kenny’s penthouse.

He had been due to meet that evening with Queen singer and neighbour Freddie Mercury — but instead he rang him to call him over immediately.

The foursome spent the afternoon downing more champagne in front of TV reruns of US comedy The Golden Girls with the sound turned down.

They improvised the characters’ voices — “but with a much naughtier storyline.”

Giggling Di asked about their plans for the evening.

They said they were going to the Royal Vauxhall Tavern in South London.

Rocos, now 50, recalled: “Kenny said, ‘It’s not for you. It’s full of hairy gay men. Sometimes there are fights outside.’

“We pleaded, ‘What would be the headline if you were caught in a gay bar brawl?’

“But Diana was in full mischief mode. Freddie said, ‘Go on, let the girl have some fun’.”

Di put on what Everett had planned to wear and the four caught a cab.

Rocos says in her new book The Power of Positive Drinking: “She did look like a beautiful young man. She was always a very fit girl, so they might have thought, ‘There’s a nice young man with pert buttocks’.”

They got “through the leather throngs and thongs” to the bar before leaving 20 minutes later.

Next day Di had the clothes returned with a note ending: “We must do it again!”

A Shadowy Figure

With Mike Storey's "Slings and Arrows" project, Sunday, March 24, 2013 at Spike Hill in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. 

Pilot

Y'all remember my friend Ted Mccloskey, that uber-talented guitar dude from State College, PA? A song he wrote and performs called "Just Wanna' Disappear" was just licensed to be the themesong for the new ad campaign for the 2013 Honda Pilot. Check it out.

I'm guessing Brother Ted got a check from Honda big enough to buy himself a Cadillac! Bravo!