TODAY the Chronicle Chamber site in Australia posted my Q&A, the follow-up I wrote after not showing for the February 8 recording of the podcast with my partners Mike Manley and Jeff Weigel. The Q&A is for Phantom diehards. Not sure how much interest it might hold for a general audience.
I was sorry to have missed the event. Jermayn, Steve and Dan had promoted it on their site.
Another lovely 40F yesterday. I rode the iron piggy to Miriam Hospital for weekly blood labs. My blood labs, that is. Here’s 20 seconds of the piggy idling in a primo on-street parking space. I love love love love love everything about this well-traveled old hog.
Today was an IV day at Miriam, so I’ll just post a few pics and get back to sleep. When I get home on IV days I sleep and eat. The steroids really light a fire under the appetite. Sleep, wake up, eat, do a little more sleeping, follow up with some eating… Good thing that lasts just a few days.
People have been sending me aphorisms, mottoes, whatever you want to call them. Can’t remember who sent these two but I wholeheartedly identify. Refresh my memory if it was you.
On Saturday I rode the 650 piglet down to North Kingstown, to my buddy John’s shop. We put new bearings in the table saw spindle I had dropped off there in the fall. Finally getting around to it.
This thing here. My table saw and joiner have had a hard life. They live on the shed deck out back.
With the new bearings installed, I left the unit at John’s. It’s heavy; too heavy to haul around on the piglet’s top box. You can see how much higher she sits than the rack on the iron piggy.
A word about books and I’m out of here. This week it’s highbrow plus lowbrow, hope to average out around middlebrow. I’m halfway through a biography of Erasmus, the Augustinian monk and Renaissance humanist who did battle with Martin Luther in the Reformation. Got a little reading done this morning before they pretty much knocked me out in the chair.
And then there’s this hilarious thing, entirely too funny, can’t get anything else done when I reach for it. An old 64th Street pal sent it. We came up in the sixties among the lost boys of West Philly. Italian Without Words, a photo guidebook to Italian-American provocations, otherwise known as everyday communication with everybody you meet. Complete with appropriate hand gestures.
For the record, vafancuolo does not mean Up yours. Up yours is a sanitized PG facsimile of what it means. When I was 9 or 10 years old I asked my Uncle Mike what it meant. He said, Don’t go around saying vafancuolo, kid, that’s what it means.
You can read the Chronicle Chamber Q&A here, if you’re so inclined. My part of it was the text. The Chronicle Chamber selected graphics, added them here and there so it wouldn’t be just a big dull gray block.
Now I’ll get a little shut-eye. Before it’s time to get up and eat and turn in for the night. Which is to say, until 2 in the morning. When I’ll wake up because it’s time to eat.
Tony DePaul, March 5, 2025, Cranston, Rhode Island, USA
