I tagged along like a groupie with Brad Parks and the members of Uptown Express to hear them perform at Tim McLoone’s Supper Club in Asbury Park, NJ last night.

We left Penn Station about 10:30 Thursday morning and I crawled into bed at 2 Friday morning.  It was a long day, but I had a blast.

Their show was fantastic and the crowd loved ’em. They’ve got a great sound. And you can buy it on CD.

Also got to see the beach boardwalk of the historic resort town. Apparently the place was a tourist hot spot in the 1890’s and 1920’s, then fell into slumville, and the gays (remember them? —  ‘the gays’) gentrified the place.  But as so often happens after the gays fix it, the straights move in and the gays find another slum to rehab.

I think the gays are tackling the Gulf Coast next.

Abury Park is very touristy now. The Paramount theater and Convention Center building is beautiful, and they’ve rehabbed it to include little bodegas of clothes I’d never wear.  There was a shop to blow your own glass bottle and next door a place to throw your own pot (make a clay pot, not hurl one or smoke some).  The boardwalk is in great condition, though the five dollar charge to walk onto the sandy beach kept me from the water. Instead we hung out at the hotel pool and watched the pretty boys nonchalantly flex their muscles.  Someday I’d like to go back when they finish rebuilding the historic Casino building.

The free orchestral concert on the boardwalk at sunset was really great and a cool surprise.  There was also a movie on the beach, which I missed, and roller derby in the convention center this weekend, but I needed to return to the Penthouse to work on the next movie.

Now I’ve had my Jersey Shore experience.

News from the Farmhouse:  Charlie called this morning. It’s muggier than Houston. He’s staying indoors till it blows over, sometime around late October.

Mark is in Chicago visiting relatives.  I’ve got the Penthouse to myself this weekend. I’m thinking of painting the bathroom.

Ochre.  What do you think?