The Rampler Explains 209

Frank Wood Part 3

Banking with John A. Keel

One day, John Keel brought me with him to this bank. He told me he still banked here because it was the last one he knew of still kept in it's original state. If you can imagine how tall those windows are, well the ceilings inside are even higher. It's the most ridiculous waste of space anywhere left in Manhattan. He taught me about how when banks like this one were built, the people running things wanted us proles to feel secure about our financial institutions, to think of them as solid and eternal. That's why banks were built out of massive blocks of stone and had interiors like St. Patrick's freaking cathedral.These days banks are storefronts which open and close randomly all the time. He said THAT was ALSO a message being sent to us proles by those who make decisions, a change in how they wanted us to view financial institutions.

So we waited in a REALLY long line for a REALLY long time so that Keel could do his banking with a human instead of a machine.

He also never got an email address AFAIK. I kept asking him to, I told him it would make things so much easier. I should have realized that in his mind, making things easier was not a priority.

The Moon is a Disco Ball THEME SONG!

Sing along with the THEME SONG for the 209 Show's new house band!

New 209 Show House Band!

Starting this Monday!
If you can't wait, watch them now on YouTube:
http://youtube.com/themoonisadiscoball

Peter Bernard's New York

I've begun a new educational series on YouTube called "Peter Bernard's New York." In it, I talk to interesting personalities from around town, and IN THEORY AT LEAST, I'd also do some "solo" episodes where I talk about stories from my own life. None of my stories so far seem as interesting to me as my guests', though, so we'll see about the solo episodes. I don't expect these to get many views in the beginning as I'm sort of coming out of left field with this, but as they begin to pile up, I'll create an index or search engine on my site so that people would be able to browse alphabetically by guest or subject, or search directly for the episodes they want to see. I'm trying to keep them under 5 minutes-ish, and I hope to get to everybody and everything eventually. If you have a good idea about some cool person or establishment or group of people in the City who are doing something which should be made note of, please forward any pertinent info to peter at peterbernard.com. Thanks!

Above is the premiere episode, featuring Jason Trachtenburg at the 4th Street Food Co-Op. An anti-health food wag described this one on Facebook as "Honey, I Shrunk The Supermarket!"


Above: the first of a series of episodes starring FRANK WOOD, legendary NYC rock show promoter. In this episode, Frank explains how he got even with punk rock star Johnny Thunders!


Above is our second trip to the 4th Street Food Co-Op, this time to talk to the lovely Claire and Dreamriver Press book publisher Theodore Poulis.

Coming Friday: Professor Tom performs Shakespeare AND opera-- all with his clothes on!

Monday: FRANK WOOD PART TWO!

After that: Angel Yau! The Rampler a/k/a Frank Edward Nora a/k/a "Ed 209!"
Mr. Creepo! Dino from Laughing Sky! Plus SURPRISE SPECIAL GUESTS!

Haha I'm not hyping this one as much as most of my things, I think it will eventually find it's audience once enough episodes have built up, and I think all the episodes will get decent views EVENTUALLY if not in the short term.

Ghosts

Ghost house

Ghosts

Ghost house

Ghosts

Ghost in the window

Unreal, unattainable

I met Joe Franklin!

Frank Wood's friend Professor Tom told me to come to Joe Franklin's office today at 5.
I had never met Mr. Franklin before, but I've watched him since I was a kid.
The Professor was taping his show there and filmed me interviewing Joe for a while, that was fun--
to interview the great interviewer!
But I asked him questions I bet he's answered 4 million times.
He told me he'd always wanted to interview Greta Garbo but she always said no.
I told him that probably my favorite episodes were Bing Crosby and J Geils Band, haha.
I also liked the Nick Zedd one but I don't know if he'd remember that one.
He did remember Tim Beckley, though, when I brought him up in conversation.
Joe says Tim is a very very smart man, a great man.
Then a gentleman in a suit who has a radio show on WPAT came in and Joe asked him if I weren't a great man. So the guy from WPAT agreed, yes. Then we introduced ourselves to each other, haha.
Joe is still fast with the quips and the one-liners.
At one point he appeared to have fallen asleep but when he heard us talking about him being asleep, he favored us with a story about him and Al Jolson!
You don't get to hear too many Al Jolson jokes any more.
He seemed very familiar with modern entertainment, and he told me that Amy Poehler makes $100,000 a week! He insisted this is true, and I would never dare to doubt the great Joe Franklin.

D4 Life

PB NYC

This guy above is named Professor Tom Regan. He is the host of a local TV show called "Be Yourself as Well as Art." Who Art is, I don't know, but he must be a swell guy. Tom is one of the guests on my new little internet TV series set to premiere next week entitled, "Peter Bernard's New York." Haha such an egotistical title. Check out a picture below from Professor Tom's show-- that's the one and only Frank Wood with the REAL Joe Franklin!!! The Professor says he's taking me to meet Mr. Franklin on Monday. If that happens, it would be a real highlight of my life, I've been a Joe Franklin fan since I was a little kid. I used to watch his channel 9 show because it was the only way back then that I knew to see old silent movie comedies. As I grew, I kept watching because he'd always have such a weird and awesome assortment of guests, from the top to the bottom of show business, all sitting on the same panel. He was and is a major influence on me and on all of us. A true living legend of show business-- Joe Franklin.

PB 209 NYC

The Things You See Whilst Walking Through Nueva York

No I'm not gay, but that's a REALLY funny way to make fun of the Mets' new advertising campaign haha.


Ladies and gentlemen, Harvey the Trickster God, creator of the Universe, and life of the party.


I visited Jason Trachtenburg at the Food Co-Op, he taught me all about edible things I had never heard of. I bought these red fiji somethings, they're supposed to be "super food." And I got curry cashews-- it tasted like Indian food but you can eat it while you're walking around. And umm... bananas, but I had heard of bananas before today (I forget from where). Jason works there 2-4 on Saturdays, if you want to go hang with a celebrity and annoy him while he's working. Jason also plays tomorrow night in Bushwick-- go see his new band, they have a million members!


Speaking of Trachtenburgia, look -- the evil Lord Bloombucks! And it's not even Halloween.


Lou from The Apple Brothers!


Dino from The Laughing Sky!


BUNKY!!!!!!! (no website link for Bunkaloo)


TWO OH NINER!


Hey, 1-11 isn't All Saints Day, 11-1 is All Saints Day. Hmmmm... must contain a meaning of cosmic importance...

Your recipe for success

I had to go to both Brooklyn today and 59th Street just to get them to run a rerun of Angel's birthday episode this coming Monday night. So annoying, so much wasted time, which is why I need to get away from public access.
But then again is it wasted when I discover that Checker Phil is on the cover of the new MNN Program Guide (above)? I called him right away to say congrats but he was embarrassed that it was an old picture of him when he was less healthy but much larger.

This is what he looks like these days, 127 pounds lighter.
Phil enthusiastically invited me to come see Jason's new band on his show,
and I was intrigued because it would be a way to get to see the new band without having to deal with the public and certain emotionally draining people (they all know who I mean).
See that woman? I have no idea who she is, but one of the cameramen left his camera alone to hit on her for a good long time, so I kept repositioning the camera to give the editor (they edit the shows live there as though it were 1952) a third angle to choose from. At one point, Iwent over to the guy and asked, "Shouldn't someone be manning that camera?" He looked at me, looked at the camera, shrugged his shoulders, and said, "Meh." During one of Jason's songs, Phil himself had to man the camera. Oh, Jason's band didn't show, he was lip syncing to his latest record instead.

I liked the song that was like Harry Nillssen best. Jason also did the weirdest thing I've ever seen him do-- he played Michael Jackson's "Billy Jean" and sang along but with his own lyrics about Billy Jean King, and while doing this, played tennis. It reminded me of the old Joe Franklin Show, but in a good way.
Checker Phil challenged Jason to a pushup contest and whipped Jason's ass.
Then Checker Phil demanded to beat Jason a second time, and did so thoroughly.
Both of them went on and on about health food and so forth, and my mind drifted to the scene in "Rock'n'Roll High School" when the manager makes Joey eat "wheat germ and riboflavin."

But then I woke up because Jason told a Jewish joke but prefaced it with, "Peter Bernard will like this one!" I was like whatwhatWHAT? So now Checker Phil's audience will think that Jason and I are Nazis, which is especially weird for Jason, since he's Jewish.

But Jason is one of the most underrated songwriters in the world today, so I don't care.
Afterward, he told me he doesn't listen to music.
He said that nobody writes a book while reading a book!

Unrelated:

I laughed when I saw this truck today, although I can't say why.

Rainy Day Fun

"When two great Saints meet, it is a humbling experience. The long battles to prove he was a Saint." ~~ Paul McCartney

Walking around alone