A new day yesterday.

But it`s an old day now!

From Jethro Tull`s third album titled
"Stand Up" recently covered by Joe Bonamassa
on his 2001 released cd with the same tittle.

Back to NYUCD after six months.
New problems with my teeth that have to be fixed.

Walking back home from 24th st. and 2nd ave. i passed by the
Rodeo Bar, and checked out the Live schedule.

I had five students yesterday,each one with a different schedule.
We went over songs,scales and modes from the Beatles,
to Pink Floyd,
to Stevie Ray Vaughan
to Yngwie Malmsteen.

Later i walked over to 54th st.bet/7th and 8th to a club called
Iguana,after being invited
to check out guitarist Gil Paris.

Came back around midnight and spent the next two hours playing
my Brian Moore,trying to finish one song
that i work one this last week.

The music is there but the lyrics are not.

Black Friday!

Macy`s,
Thanksgiving parade,
I could see from my window,while the cold rain and hight winds
kept many tourists away from the sidewalks, there were still plenty
of people out there watching it live.

People from all over the world gather right here
at the Square of All Times
as early as 5:30 am for the parade.

This was my first attempt to watch it live and i did see Snoopy
coming down Broadway, before heading back home.

I couldn`t stand the rain and the cold and i am not a big fun of parades anyways.

It was raining all day but we were lucky to catch a taxi on our way
to our friends Gail and Doug`s annual Thanksgiving party at Helen`s and back.

And then Black Friday is here.

The Consumer`s Frenzy has no limits.

Most Big Stores opened their doors to the long standing queue forming
waiting public as early as 5:00 am
and people stormed right in only to find that
the hugely discount advertised items were already sold!

Macys opened their doors at 5:30
with thousands rushing in for to get a piece of the discount frenzy.

Target was the last one
to open it`s doors to the public at 6:00 am .

I walked 6th ave. passed the Radio City
on my way to Donnell library
at 54th str. right oposite to the Museum of Modern Art
which was crowded with tourists and found piece of mind inside the building
choosing some good movies and cds for the evening.

Joe Cocker`s latest release "Heart & Soul"
is a good one, and his voice is still in top form,
and the French Movie Bon Voyage
was the perfect choice for late night screening.

Thanksgiving!

My neighboorhood Times Square is going crazy!
Every holiday season it gets worst than the one before.

So many tourists are here for Thanksgiving

The Naked Cowboy is an everyday atraction.
He doesn`t mind the cold,as long as it doesn`t rain.

I was going over to Westerly last night for my groceries
when distracted by the lights and the people gathering i saw
David Blaine doing his thing suspended up in the air.

This morning on my way to Amy`s Bread he was still up there.
He and his sponsoring company Target
have taken over a parking lot on 46th str. Bet/7th and 8th ave,
untill Friday Morning when he is supposed to come down to Earth.

For the first time ever the Toilet Paper company Charmin
has installed luxury Toilets right next door to Virgin,
with the logo "If you have to go ,go in style".

That`s a releif!

Let`s Rock The Yard!

That was said and Done.

I had a blast last night at Scotland Yard Bar.
Wow Man!

That was a good gig!

In addition of seeing so many familiar faces and so Many New Ones
a crowd of Scandinavians
walked in right before we started playing.

They were totally blown away.

After we finished our first set they came up to me
eager to find more about Soukis
and if we had any plans playing in Stockholm
which gave me a rare oportunity to practice my Swedish.

Between talking to people and selling cds, Tom and Matt from
Guitar Man handed me a brand new
Campbell to test drive it in a Live Condition.

I did the rest of the show with This Guitar as i could squeeze out
every nuance of my playing with this amazing, beautifully sounding Guitar.

The good vibrations run through me and i played like it was no tomorrow.

People were right there in front of me checking out my fingers and my playing
dancing and being really into the music and the moment.

I had so much fun and the crowd would`n let as go a minute before 11:00
when we had to leave the stage for the singer-songwriter project.

While busy packing everything Mike Torres took the stage
armed with a Martin acoustic
and started playing and singing some of his songs, which we really enjoyed
and we stayed there untill after midnight when he finished his well done set.

It was a very beautiful night too with amazing views of the lower
Manhattanskyline,
a site i enjoy everytime i am in Hoboken

Candace Scharsu.

On my late May flight to Athens
with KLM,
via Amsterdam,
i was seated on the window seat ,with a woman travelling to London
on the middle seat and another woman traveling to Sudan
on the aisle seat.

Between movies,dinner and breakfast the woman traveling to Sudan
who`s name was Candace Scharsu
told us that she was a photographer going there for to cupture
scenes of a life torn by war,cruelty,poverty and diseases.

She was not the average traveller and me and the middle seated
British woman were inrerested in her stories and intrigued by the fact
that what she was going there to do was very dangerous.

She was telling us that she had to be disguised
in order to get close to those poeple,risking her life
capturing images to bring back to the West and make us aware
of a life so brutal,that`s hard for us to comprehend.

We exchanged business cards and never heard anything from her
untill two weeks ago when i`ve got her invitation
to the opening reception of her upcoming show,
at Sidney Mishkin Gallery
in Baruch College,titled:
Flash Points:A focus on Global Trauma.

Her pictures along with the explanatory story written for each one,
leaves a bad taste in your mouth, despite the cold white wine
that was served, and it raises one big question of
How Much Cruelty and suffering can one human being inflict
to another and how twisted,seriously damaged crazed minds can
comit such atrocities.

She told me that Uganda
was one of the worst places to be right now in this
suffering and torn apart Continent
where torture never stops.

Wind of change.

Change in the weather,change in the sea,
come back baby,you`ll find a change in me,
Everybody oughta change some time.

From Eric Clapton`s album "Money & Cigarettes"

The Democrats took back the
House and the
Senate.

Big change for America.
Big Win for the Democrats.
Big loss for the Republicans.

A change is in the air.
For the better that is!

Friday night mr.Joe Bonamassa
played at BBKing`s and i was told that it was an excellent show.

Saturday night Mountain played
at BBKing`s and i went there late just to get a glimpse of Leslie West.

Sunday night we had a new friend over for dinner.
She is a very interesting writer and a good drummer too.

Our Vegetarian dinner would have been incomplete
without a bottle of a good Pinot Grigio.

Change in the weather too.

We have been so lucky with such a good weather,
beautiful sunny days, clear blue skies but that`s changing now too.

For the worst!

Guitar Man.

Guitar Man has become my favorite Guitar Store.
I like the people there,the friendly atmosphere,their knowledge,
their service and their will to help you find what you are looking for.

On Saturday i was invited there for an event feautaring
Danny Kortchmar presenting the
new addition to their guitar collection the Campbell American Guitars.

When i arrived mr.Kortchmar was out for a while and i started testing
the different models that was there,plugged in a Randall
combo and a Randall Head 100 and i was in seven heaven.

I was so much into the different sounds coming out of the speakers
i didn`t notice the crowd gathering in and out of the store.

Suddenly i realized i had an audience eager to find out more about
the guitars and the player.

Last night i went to Hoboken
to Scotland Yard Bar where
the Monday night Jam was taking place.

I had a good time as always meeting all my friends and i got to jam
with Mike Torres
and Tom Papadatos
and that was an excellent line up.

Me and my band Soukis are going to be there
in two weeks, on Sunday November 19th so it was the perfect oportunity
to let people know about the show , and hopefully i will get to see some
familliar faces there when i play.

Dampit.

It`s been one week already since my return to Manhattan
after spenting one week in San Francisco.

The weather has been good ,warm and sunny with few exceptions,
when we had to have the heat on,and it has been relatively humid
outside and indoors which is good for my guitars and myself.

The other day I took the F train to 2nd Ave. in the East Village
to visit my friends at Guitar Man
and repair the battery compartment on my Blade.

Aaron did an excellent job as always while we were talking about his Honeymoon in Greece.

I had no idea that he got married in Santorini
and spent his honeymoon in Ios
Mykonos and Athens.

He told me that he loves Greece and that he would like to spent more time there
which was nice to hear.

I bought a Dampit
for my Guild acoustic
and i had the chance to try a Campbell guitar
that i really liked.