out on the town

 It's been quite the whirlwind of entertainments this past month, and something had to give before my health did. So, alas, I have to quit drinking beer for a while. Off and on since Thanksgiving and then off since shortly after New Years, I have so far lost more than 10 pounds and weigh the least I have in probably two decades—or since I quit smoking anyway. It makes me look older, but ah well. I AM older!.

 My resolve has lately been tested by a series of social events at bars. There was the lunch with Ed and Ralph yesterday at Maison Pickle, which not only involved a martini and several glasses of wine for Ed, but also a carb-heavy menu. I drank maybe two quarts of bubbly water and staggered out of lunch at four-thirty-ish.

Donna videos, always the photographer, with Ulana and Johnny, who looks like god these days.

 The night before I went to a pickup gig Tommy V does once a month at a bar in Hoboken, NJ. I asked Donna if she wanted to come with me and also her husband of record, Johnny, and his partner in all senses of the word, Ulana. Donna calls the pic above "Johnny and his Two Mujeres." Tommy V was in rare form, his playlist has broadened since the last time I heard him, and his players are simply awesome.

Tommy V and the core group at the Turtle Sessions in Hoboken.