Voyager

Photo by Chip Tilden

Phil McCarthy - Voyager

My first album is finally out! Voyager is now available in all digital formats, follow the link above, hopefully with CDs to follow soon! Of course I've been planning this a long time, but with more home alone time during Covid, I was able to negotiate my way through Pro Tools enough to get this one out to y'all. All of the songs are my own. Some of them have been rattling around my head for years, some were recently written, as recently as a few weeks ago. But they each have a story, so here are the stories.

First, a few notes about the album itself. The title is a homage to my favorite album of all time - Long Distance Voyager by The Moody Blues, which obviously also gives this blog its title. It also references my own long-distance running (ultrarunning) adventures, and the places around the world they have led me to. The photograph is by my good friend, Chip Tilden, who took it a few years ago, but I figured I still look enough like this to justify using a pic a few years old.

1. Mexican Mary. Many years ago, I was back in Nebraska for Christmas, and I attended Midnight Mass. This was always a big thing, lots of ceremony, incense, the Knights of Columbus in full dress uniform, complete with swords, dramatic lighting, and a packed church. The choir sang for an hour before Mass to give the people beautiful music to listen to, and to encourage people to arrive early. During part of this hour, a group of Mexican musicians got up with guitar and sang a few Christmas songs in Spanish. It was very nice, especially for the growing Mexican immigrant community in town. A day or two later, I was talking with someone who I have a great deal of love and respect for, who complained about the Mexican singers. "If they want to sing, they can sing with the 'regular' choir." Me, "It's nice that they show their own heritage and culture." "They sounded terrible. And they weren't dressed well, they were wearing jeans." Me, "Maybe those were the nicest clothes they have." "And why do they always have to put up pictures of Mexican Mary?" [referring to the sacred image of Our Lady of Guadalupe]. How do you respond to that? I respond by writing this song, in my mind all this time, but only recently fully written out. So the song isn't about a prostitute or a drug dealer, it's about the Virgin Mary.

2. Gimme Just a Little Bit of Time. I recently came up with the chorus of this song in a dream, but in my dream it was sung by Culture Club. When I woke up, I remembered the song, shockingly, and I looked to see if it really was a Culture Club song, and it wasn't. So I wrote it out in totally 80s style.

3. Come Rest with Me. Originally written as a duet as part of an unfinished (actually barely started) stage musical, along with "Krakatoa" and "Smile Again," but reimagined as a solo, due to me just having to do everything myself. It reminds us that despite whatever troubles there are going on, sometimes we just need to stop and rest and appreciate each other.

4. Charlene. There was a real "Charlene" (I changed the name to one that fit the music better) years ago, and I wrote this song about her. The song is a little obsessive, a bit exaggerated from real life. We actually did go out for a while, and it didn't work out, with quite a lack of drama.

5. Krakatoa. This was inspired by a documentary on Krakatoa I saw years ago. I decided to add a mythological, anthropomorphic aspect, as if the volcano were alive and had finally achieved independence. Metaphorically, it could be about just about anything - how one person's tragedy is another person's revolution, or it could be about a volcano. I wrote it as being simply about life-changing cataclysm, how the things you expect to always be there and unchanging, the very earth beneath your feet, betray you.

6. Summer Passed Quickly. This could also be about just about anything you want. For me, it's simply about the passing of time, getting older.

7. Nebraska Sky. This was written as I ran across the USA in 2018, as I was passing through Wyoming, getting closer to my home state of Nebraska. After crossing the Continental Divide and seeing the landscape slowly turn from high desert plateau to plains and grasslands, and the sky turn from a dry uninterrupted blue to one with a few wispy clouds, I thought, it's starting to look like a Nebraska sky. I wrote the chorus on the road, and I knew it was cheesy and sentimental, but it was genuine, and it brought tears to my eyes when I sang it out loud. I wrote the verses recently to be a little more like a melancholy road song. I do love a good melancholy road song.

8. The Ghosts of Tennessee. This is the newest addition, only a few weeks old. The ghosts are those who live in the past and refuse to move forward, not only those who perpetuate racism in this country, but also those who deny its pervasiveness. It's not just about one man or one state, it's an ideology that eats at humanity, and it's everywhere.

9. Smile Again. This is a reminder that despite whatever troubles befall us, and despite events not turning out as we would hope, we will smile again, and shine again, and laugh again.

10. En El Camino Negro. Free coaching advice - this song will help you run up any hill. I wrote it on the blacktop-covered roads over the hills of northeast Nebraska (yes, there are hills in Nebraska) as a way to remind myself of my hill-running strategy of 32 steps running, 16 steps walking. And it helped me entertain myself as well. It's built on the two pitches I heard from my own exhalations, and I came up with a very simple melody, and eventually more complex countermelodies for the background. The verses are about things that I saw or felt or thought while running across the country. It was meant to be somewhat nonsensical, and I wrote it in my terrible broken Spanish to emphasize the nonsensical and whimsical attitude.

Bridge of the Week #90-91, Starlight Park Bridges

Northern Bridge

Central bridge

 

I'm such a bridge nerd, it's always exciting to see a new bridge where there wasn't one before. And now in Starlight Park, in the West Farms area of the Bronx, there are three! Two of them are open, the third not yet, so this post is for the northern bridge (#90) and central bridge (#91).

These bridges are especially nice because Starlight Park is part of a string of parks along the Bronx River intending to clean up the river and to revitalize recreation on and around the river, from Sound View Park up to Westchester County. Starlight Park currently runs from E. 177th St. and Devoe Ave., on the eastern side of the river, to Edgewater Rd. at E. 172 St., on the west side of the river, and on the east side of Sheridan Blvd. (Expressway).

I don't have conclusive stats for the bridges, but they are both pedestrian/bike only, both steel arch bridges, with the arches painted a nice blue. The northern bridge is about 100 feet long, and the central bridge about 150-160 feet. The two bridges seem to have been part of a park reconstruction project completed in 2013, which includes some nice park facilites, ballfields, playgrounds, and a canoe/kayak launch, as well as the recreation path through the park that utilizes the bridges. I had been there years before, when the only access was from a ramp at 174 St., and it could barely be called a park, as I remember it. It was quite grungy indeed. Now it is very nice!

The author on the central bridge

I have discovered that the park also has an interesting history. It once contained the estate of William Waldorf Astor. In 1914 it was leased as Exposition Park, and was the site of the Bronx International Exposition of Science, Arts, and Industries in 1918. Apparently, the exposition was a flop, but the land was converted into an amusement park in 1920 called Starlight Park. (It's amazing how many amusement parks there used to be in New York City, possibly a topic for a future post.) By 1933 the rides had closed or burned down and the park was used for bathing and recreation, as well as for the Coliseum, which held concerts and political rallies. By the mid-1940s the park was condemned, except for the Coliseum, which was taken over by the U.S. Army, and currently still stands as the West Farms Bus Depot on 177 St., run by the MTA. The site became a city park in the late 1950s and as I mentioned recently underwent a major upgrading.

There is a portion of the park still under construction, which includes the southern bridge and an overpass over the Amtrak rail tracks, and the final extension of the greenway that will run to Westchester Ave. Currently, there is a fence on the south end of the central bridge, not allowing you to continue, so for the time being, it is a bridge to nowhere. The southern bridge will be covered in a future post when it is open.

As I said, Starlight Park is part of a string of parks along the Bronx River. Directly to the south across Westchester Ave. is another new park, Concrete Plant Park (site of a former concrete plant), and below that is Sound View Park, where the river meets the East River (or what could be considered the western portion of Long Island Sound). To the north, there is some river access on the western bak between E. Tremont Ave. and 180 St., and a small park on the north side of 180 St., adjacent to the Bronx Zoo. North of the zoo is the New York Botanic Garden, then Bronx Park, Shoelace Park, which contain some bridges I've covered here in previous posts, then on north into Westchester County. Connecting all the parks on foot or bike does require some street sections, but what the city has done to make the river and the area hospitable for neighborhood residents, as well as recreation enthusiasts, is truly remarkable!

Park entrance at Westchester Ave, almost ready

Pathway under construction south of the central bridge

Southern bridge awaiting opening

Bridge of the Week #45a - Update - Bayonne Bridge

Resuming my blog after a long absence with a much-needed update to my Bridge of the Week series. This is an update to the Bayonne Bridge post, due to the raising of the bridge deck and construction of a new pedestrian/bike pathway.

This is probably the only bridge post I will do that is affected by the Panama Canal. The expansion of the canal allowed larger container ships through, but the bridge roadway had to be raised to 215 feet in order to accommodate the larger ships and to allow them access to the New Jersey shipyards.

Grand opening on Staten Island, May 24, 2019

The old pedestrian pathway on the west side of the bridge was closed in 2013. For six years while reconstruction was underway, there was no pedestrian access to Staten Island. After raising of the roadway and construction of the new pathway on the east side, the new pathway was finally opened to the public with a modest ceremony on the Staten Island side on May 24, 2019, which this blogger attended.

There were about a couple dozen cyclists and runners who crossed the bridge to Bayonne, NJ and back that morning. There are several advantages of the new pathway to the older one. First of all, it's new, with a nice new surface. Second, it's much wider, 12 feet wide. Third, it's on the east side, rather than the west, which allows for a better unobstructed view of New York Harbor, as well as Staten Island, Bayonne, and beyond. The view is really spectacular. The one negative thing I noticed is that it seemed to be a fairly steep incline. But it's not that bad, it still meets ADA requirements.

I couldn't find additional stats on the new pathway, but according to my watch, it's just over a mile and a half long from entrance to exit.

Being a Port Authority bridge, it is closed from midnight - 6 a.m. The Staten Island entrance is now located at Trantor Pl., just north of Hooker Pl. The Bayonne entrance is at John F. Kennedy Blvd. between W 6th and W 7th St.

View of New York Harbor

Bayonne, NJ entrance