UNDERTOW #89

7/29/25

FIRST THINGS FIRST OF THE WEEK:

THURSDAY: Terry & Jerry at Jersey Girl Kitchen, 530-930.

FRIDAY: Terry & Jerry at Joe’s Fish Co., 6-10.

SATURDAY: Terry & Jerry at PigDog, 1130-330.

SUNDAY: Terry & Dave at the Beach Shack & Rusty Nail, 5-9.

SECOND THINGS SECOND OF THE WEEK:

Sorry it’s been a couple (three?) weeks, but, you know, summer’s gonna summer…

AND THIRD THINGS THIRD:

In case you missed the big news on my Facebook, I’ll be directing Riddlesbrood Touring Theater Co’s. production of Scrooge this Christmas season, and by “Christmas Season” I mean September 7th, as that’s when we’re holding auditions, with rehearsals starting that Monday and continuing every Monday until we open on… whatever date we open on. I don’t have it memorized and I’m too tired to sift through my emails (I cut the grass in the 900° degree heat…). It’s somewhere around Thanksgiving, but I’ll be sure to keep you updated here. For audition and rehearsal information, click on the link below…

THIS LINK.

I haven’t directed anything in a while so I’m a little nervous, but the stages (three) we’re using are really small so there won’t be a lot of “okay, now on this line, start downstage right and stroll along until you finish downstage left” because downtage right and downstage left are about 6’ apart.

THING I JUST LEARNED OF THE WEEK:

In the paragraph above you may have noticed I wrote the phrase “900°”. What you don’t know is the intense research (approx. 30 seconds) it took to learn how to write a ° sign… (it’s ALT + 1076).

WCFA 101.5 STUFF OF THE WEEK:

Flipped it on the other day and caught the Terry O’Brien Trio’s (Me, Jerry Kolber and Cathrine O’Brien) version of Neil Diamond’s Holly Holy. And it was good. But not as good as it could have been. Jerry and Cath sounded great. And, to the naked ear, I probably sounded fine. But as only I, and now you, know, I was drunk that morning. It was I was in the teeth of my Self Medicating Era after losing my brothers and yada yada yada… it is only now, with 870 days and 5+ hours of clear eyes, that I can apologize to Annie Walsh for the beating her vodka took that morning.

I was also saddened to learn that Annie is departing the station later this year. She does a great job with her shows, always putting a positive spin on things. We’ll be sure to get in there and record another session before she rides off into the sunset…

WCFA STUFF II:

On Sunday nights I drive Dave Hughes to his buddy’s house in Cape May Court House after our Rusty Nail gig because Dave is effectively homeless which is kind of annoying because it gets me home 30 minutes later than if I didn’t take him to CMCH, but the trade off is that I get to catch a little of Joe Frank: The Voice In My Head on 101.5. If you are unfamiliar, (the late) Joe Frank was… well… it’s kind of hard to explain. He… talks. Sometimes for 5 minutes, sometimes for an hour. Regardless, you will find yourself enraptured. Comedy, sci-fi, horror, romance… he covers it all. Check the link below. If you like that, there’s plenty more out there to discover. WCFA plays him on Saturdays at 9pm and Sundays at 10pm.

WEIGHT STUFF OF THE WEEK:

The Gods of Hubris must have read my last column, where I bragged about cracking the 220 lb. barrier, clocking in at a brisk 219.5, because I immediately zipped up to 225 in the days after. It’s my own fault. I had lunch three times last week… I’m not sure what I weigh at the moment (lawn, mowed, tired), but last I checked it had evened-out somewhere around 223. I still think I can achieve my goal of cracking 210 by the end of August. It’s a long, hot month and I’m done with lunch, the bitch…

PARDON MY STRUT OF THE WEEK:

If you see me walking from my parking spot near Jersey Girl to my gig at PigDog with renewed vigor and confidence, it’s because I’ve started wearing suspenders under my linen shirts. For weeks, it was a struggle to take more than 10 steps without having to stop and pull my shorts up (I’ve lost enough weight to make my pants fall down, but not enough to buy smaller pants… or I’m just fucking unreasonably cheap and chronically broke… anyway…), but now… NOW… I walk with impunity. Which is good. Because stopping every 10 steps for a quarter-mile meant I had to get there 45 minutes early…

TERRY O’KE ALUMNI OF THE WEEK:

Last Tuesday, Owen O’Brien and I hit the West Cape May Farmer’s Market Shindig to buy some fruit and have a coffee and who was on the main stage but little Bridget Martin, strumming her guitar and singing her songs with cool confidence. I complain a lot about karaoke (rightfully…), but it’s little moments like this that make it not so bad. Bridget started as an 8-10 year-old singing songs at Kiddy O’ke in the Boiler Room back in ye olden days, so it was very satisfying (if a little jarring) to see the grown-up version doing her thing.

Also, it may seem like I escaped karaoke unscathed this summer with it being discontinued after 5-6 weeks, but my favorite light blue linen shirt (one of four linen shirts I wear to all my summer gigs; light blue, blue, black, white… you know, you’ve all seen them… dozens of times…) now has two permanent ink stains on it from the pen I was carrying around while keeping track of karaoke singers. I’ve hunted for literally years for more of these shirts but alas, it appears the company no longer exists, so this might be the beginning of the end for ol’ light bluey… fuck karaoke.

STILL FAMOUS AFTER ALL THESE YEARS…:

While at the WCM Farmer’s Market, Owen and I got some (absolutely delicious) tacos from El Pueblo Taqeria’s truck and sat down with a young lady named Emma, who was kind enough to share he table with us. As Owen and I chatted about Bridget, I explained to Emma that she was a little kid at Kiddy O’Ke and yada yada and she said, “Oh, you’re Terry O’ke from Exit Zero…” Well, you could have knocked me over with a feather. It’s now been years since I’ve done either of those jobs and here some random stranger at the farmer’s market knew who I was. Now I know how actual famous people feel on a much, much smaller, localized scale…