“I’ve never looked forward to a birthday like I’m looking forward to my new daughter’s birthday, because two days after that is when I can apply for reinstatement.” — Pete Rose

For the past five years, Ernie DiGiacomo has been able to count on parents to guarantee the $1,500 to $2,500 rents he charges for the 15 apartments he owns in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. When he called renters who had missed payments, he often heard, “My parents will send you a check.”

But in the past six months, the parents are pulling back financial help, he said, and as a result, he has watched more renters move out.

“Most of them are moving back with parents,” Mr. DiGiacomo said.

Luis Illades, an owner of the Urban Rustic Market and Cafe on North 12th Street, said he had seen a steady number of applicants, in their late 20s, who had never held paid jobs: They were interns at a modeling agency, for example, or worked at a college radio station. In some cases, applicants have stormed out of the market after hearing the job requirements.

“They say, ‘You want me to work eight hours?’ ” Mr. Illades said. “There is a bubble bursting.”

Famed for its concentration of heavily subsidized 20-something residents — also nicknamed trust-funders or trustafarians — Williamsburg is showing signs of trouble. Parents whose money helped fuel one of the city’s most radical gentrifications in recent years have stopped buying their children new luxury condos, subsidizing rents and providing cash to spend at Bedford Avenue’s boutiques and coffee houses.

For 18 months after graduating from Colby College, Jack Drury, 24, lived the way many Williamsburg residents do: He followed his passions, working in satellite radio and playing guitar. He earned money as a bicycle messenger and, on occasion, turned to his parents for money.

But as the recession deepened last fall, his parents had to cut the staff at their event planning company to 30 workers from 50. Asked for his help, Mr. Drury cast aside his other pursuits and started work as a project manager for his parents. But he still plays the guitar in two bands, Haunted Castle and Rats in the Walls.

“My future is in the family business,” he said. “Music is just for fun.”

One summer, a suicide. Another autumn, a traveler’s guide. He hits snooze twice and then he dies.

He feels lucky to have you here. In his kitchen, in your chair. Sometimes he forgets that you’re even there.

It’s just a dream he keeps having. And it doesn’t seem to mean anything.

The pursuit of quality presentation of our music, with more and more people wanting to hear it, has led us into larger and larger halls with an ever increasing array of equipment. St. Dilbert calls this process ‘Urobouros’…

The physics of sound projection dictate that any given increase in the size of a hall requires an exponential rate of increase in equipment capability to reach everyone in the hall with quality-at-volume.

By the nature of the beast, the energies of over a hundred directly enter our endeavour. Urobouros turns his circles. St. Dilbert is a bombast. Let’s surface the moon with an electrostatic spherical tidal spatial counter-entropic sound system. Energy spoken here.

On earth, our overhead expense is $100,000 a month. In 1972 we grossed $1,424,543. Here’s who ate the pie: 70% of this income came from gigs, and 30% from record royalties. Gigs offer the only means to earn more money when it is needed to maintain our operation in all its particulars. We cannot sell more records at will, but we can go on the road, within the limits of energy: so that we must play larger halls, with more equipment, and a bigger organization, requiring more gigs…..

St. Dilbert calls this fellow ‘Urobouros’, and he’s a good trip, but he has a mind of his own:We like a variety of concert situations. Ambiance comes in different sizes. We like a small hall, and so do you, and an outdoor gig in the sun, and a large hall when it can be made to sound good; few halls over 6000 capacity aren’t sports arenas with novel acoustic and environmental puzzles.

Or, more succinctly put…

The Wall of Sound acted as its own monitor system, and it was therefore assembled behind the band so the members could hear exactly what their audience was hearing. Because of this, Stanley and Alembic designed a special microphone system to prevent feedback. This placed matched pairs of condenser microphones spaced 60 mm apart and run out of phase. The vocalist sang into the top microphone, and the lower mic picked up whatever other sound was present in the stage environment. The signals were added together, the sound that was common to both mics (the sound from the Wall) was cancelled, and only the vocals were amplified.

Mark Fidrych

Fidrych lived with his wife Ann, whom he married in 1986, on a 107-acre (0.43 km2) farm in Northborough. They have a daughter, Jessica. Aside from fixing up his farmhouse, he worked as a contractor hauling gravel and asphalt in a ten-wheeler. Weekends he helped out at his mother-in-law’s business, Chet’s Diner in Northborough.

I’m looking to [redacted] to [redacted] to be [redacted] and I wonder if anyone out there knows of a [redacted] in [redacted]. I’m currently [redacted] at [redacted], but I wouldn’t mind [redacted] the [redacted]. Thank you in advance for [redacted]!

“Age is a question of mind over matter,” he said. “If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.”

“If Satch were white, of course he would have been in the majors 25 years earlier and the question would not have been before the house.” – Bill Veeck, Cleveland Indians Owner.

ESPN:
On Sept. 25, 1965, he became the oldest to pitch in the major leagues. Ever the showman, the 59-year-old Paige sat in a rocking chair in the bullpen while a nurse rubbed liniment on his arm. Then he threw scoreless three innings for the Kansas City Athletics against the Boston Red Sox, allowing only one hit, a double by Carl Yastrzemski.
http://espn.go.com/sportscentury/features/00016396.html

Note: This is not Jeff. Or me.

I have a recurring premonition of being stabbed to death in Worcester. I avoid it like the plague. The city needs a mass exorcism. Or like, some serious economic development or something. Something of Marshall Plan proportions.