I Am Thinking Of Your Voice

Tom's Diner remix
D.N.A. featuring Suzanne Vega (1990)
A remix track of one of the most fascinating songs of the 1980's was released 35 years ago today.

The diner in the song where Suzanne Vega has her morning coffee is Tom's Restaurant on the corner of Broadway and West 112th Street in New York City.  This is a location that will be instantly familiar to Seinfeld fans as it was the filming location for all of the exterior shots at Monk's Cafe in the series.

Years before Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer turned this establishment into their regular meeting place, a 22 year old Suzanne Vega found herself at the restaurant on the morning of November 18th, 1981 imagining life from the point of view of her friend Brian Rose.  He's a photographer who once told the singer that he saw his life through a pane of glass and that made him feel like he was able to witness many things without ever being involved in them.  She was inspired to put pen to paper and write how Brian would perceive the moment that she found herself in at the restaurant at that moment.

New York Post  (November 18, 1981)

The song's lyrics have led to fans being able to pinpoint the date when Suzanne wrote down her observations that would become Tom's Diner.  About two thirds of the way through the song, she sings 

I open up the paper

There's a story of an actor

Who had died while he was drinking

It was no one I had heard of

And I'm turning to the horoscope

And looking for the funnies

When I'm feeling someone watching me

And so I raise my head

In the years since, Suzanne has confirmed that the actor in question was William Holden.  The man who in 1953 won the Academy Award for Best Actor had been drinking in his apartment when he slipped on a throw rug and fell into the sharp corner of a nightstand that was next to his bed.  The corner reports state that he passed away on November 12th, but his body wasn't discovered until the 16'th, and the New York Post cover story wouldn't be published until November 18th.

New York Post  (November 18, 1981)

The line in the song where Suzanne mentions that she turned to the horoscope while looking for the funnies was the key in fans narrowing down the paper that she was reading.  At the time, there were only two newspapers in the city which had a weekday comics section, and the New York Post was the one out of those which had the story of William Holden's death on the cover.

Suzanne finished writing and recording the song as an a capella track the following year.  It was first released in the January 1984 edition of Fast Folk Musical Magazine, which was a combination of a print magazine with a vinyl record album that was published monthly.  It would receive a much wider release three years later when it was included on her second studio album, Solitude Standing, which was released on April 1st, 1987.

Tom's Diner

Suzanne Vega (1987)

I am sitting in the morning

At the diner on the corner

I am waiting at the counter

For the man to pour the coffee

And he fills it only halfway

And before I even argue

He is looking out the window

At somebody coming in

"It is always nice to see you"

Says the man behind the counter

To the woman who has come in

She is shaking her umbrella

And I look the other way

As they are kissing their hellos

And I'm pretending not to see them

And instead I pour the milk

I open up the paper

There's a story of an actor

Who had died while he was drinking

It was no one I had heard of

And I'm turning to the horoscope

And looking for the funnies

When I'm feeling someone watching me

And so I raise my head

There's a woman on the outside

Looking inside, does she see me?

No, she does not really see me

'Cause she sees her own reflection

And I'm trying not to notice

That she's hitching up her skirt

And while she's straightening her stockings

Her hair has gotten wet

Oh, this rain, it will continue

Through the morning as I'm listening

To the bells of the cathedral

I am thinking of your voice

And of the midnight picnic once upon a time

Before the rain began...

And I finish up my coffee

And it's time to catch the train

The original Tom's Diner wasn't released as a single in the United States and it didn't chart very high in Europe, but it received a second life in 1990 when Nick Batt and Neal Slateford remixed Suzanne's vocals with a dance beat taken from the 1989 song Keep On Movin' by Soul II Soul.  Under the name DNA, the duo released their remix without the permission of the artist, her record label, or the publisher of the song, but Suzanne liked the interpretation and a deal was struck for it to be released by A&M Records.  It would go on to become an unexpected hit, reaching #1 in Austria, Germany, Greece, and Switzerland and peaking at #2 on the UK Singles Chart and #5 on the US Billboard Hot 100.  The remix was also one of the few songs to reach the Top 10 in both Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks and Hot R&B Singles charts.

Tom's Diner remix

D.N.A. featuring Suzanne Vega

I am sitting in the morning

At the diner on the corner

I am waiting at the counter

For the man to pour the coffee

And he fills it only halfway

And before I even argue

He is looking out the window

At somebody coming in

"It is always nice to see you"

Says the man behind the counter

To the woman who has come in

She is shaking her umbrella

And I look the other way

As they are kissing their hellos

And I'm pretending not to see them

And instead I pour the milk

I open up the paper

There's a story of an actor

Who had died while he was drinking

It was no one I had heard of

And I'm turning to the horoscope

And looking for the funnies

When I'm feeling someone watching me

And so I raise my head

There's a woman on the outside

Looking inside, does she see me?

No, she does not really see me

'Cause she sees her own reflection

And I'm trying not to notice

That she's hitching up her skirt

And while she's straightening her stockings

Her hair has gotten wet

Oh, this rain, it will continue

Through the morning as I'm listening

To the bells of the cathedral

I am thinking of your voice

 

photo credit: Richard Perry (New York Times)

In 2008, Suzanne Vega wrote an incredible essay about Tom's Diner that was published in The New York Times that I highly recommend.  Click here to read it.

The Death Of An Iconic American Restaurant

Cracker Barrel
Schuylkill Mall Road - Frackville, PA
We stopped here for dinner on my birthday.  I've always enjoyed this place.  I'm not generally a fan of the country aesthetic, but this chain had a very pleasant atmosphere.  The dark colors and dim lighting are especially appealing to me in a world where businesses seem to want everything to be lit up like an airport food court.  The antique tools and advertisements hanging on the walls gave the place a unique feel, and the fireplace is very inviting, especially when we're seated near it on a cold winter's night.  The delicious and uncomplicated homestyle dinners fit right in at a place like this.

Unfortunately, the charm of Cracker Barrel is on borrowed time.  Their new CEO apparently feels like the defining characteristic of the chain is a problem that is responsible for their downward trend in sales.  They've started remodeling their restaurants to look like the one in this photo which was shared by the chain to give customers an idea of what their local restaurant will look like when they are remodeled.  Everything that felt special and homey about the place has been eliminated.

Thankfully, the Cracker Barrel that's closest to home for us has not yet been gutted, so I took a few photos of the place while it's still the cozy and comfortable place that we've always loved.  I can't imagine that we'll be visiting very often when this changes.

It was cool while it lasted.  Only thing we can do is enjoy it while it's still here before it becomes yet another business who outsmart themselves and eliminate the thing that made them special in the first place in what will very likely be their final years.

June Summer Sizzlers

June Summer Sizzlers
K-Mart (1988)
This advertisement was shared by Dinosaur Dracula earlier this year. All six of these dinners combined cost less than your average meal at a chain restaurant today, and five of them come with a beverage.

They Have The High Ground

Obi-Wan Pierogi
Kraków, Poland

Rise And Shine

Two Rivers Steak & Cheese Skillet
Perkins (2025)
If there's anyone left in this crazy, mixed up world who thinks that I'm going to grow up and start acting like an adult, I've got some bad news.  On the plus side, Perkins makes a pretty darn good breakfast.

A Coke And A Slice With A Side Of Cheese Fries

Four D's Pizza

Hometown Farmers Market - Tamaqua, PA

There's so many good things to eat at the Hometown Farmer's Market that I sometimes overlook the very tasty pizza stand in the center of the lower building.  This tastes very much like the pizza that we used to get after a ballgame when I played Little League in the 80's.

The cheese fries were also very tasty.  They came from a different stand that's a little further down in the building.

You can keep your high-end restaurants.  I'll take a pizza parlor, diner, or food truck every time.

He-Man And The Pierogie Omelette

The Freeland Diner
Freeland, PA
We watched a documentary on Pennsylvania diners last week, and it inspired us to make a plan to check out a few places that we've never been to before.  The first place on our list was The Freeland Diner.

My wife loves pierogies, so she had the Pierogie Omelette.  She gave me a bite of it, and it was delicious!  I was tempted to order this for myself, but I ended up getting something else that was equally outstanding.

I had the He-Man Breakfast with three eggs over easy, hash browns, scrapple, pancakes, Texas toast with butter and jam, a glass of orange juice, and coffee.  This is the kind of breakfast I could have every day.  We'll definitely be making this place one of our regular spots.

Elvis Has Entered The Ice Cream Parlor

Sundaes On Broadway
South Broadway - Wind Gap, PA
Just a few doors down from The Gap Theatre is a very nice ice cream parlor that I highly recommend to anyone who's stopping in to see a movie.

This place is just downright charming.  There's plenty of seating available and a hell of a good selection of sundaes, shakes, and other frozen desserts.

I had the Elvis Sundae, which is made with peanut butter sauce, caramel, cut up banana slices, whipped cream and a cherry on top of your choice of ice cream flavors.  My base was Vanilla Peanut Butter ice cream, just because it seemed like it would blend well with the rest of the sundae.  Very tasty!

The Intersection of South Street and Route 443

South Street Burger
The Beacon 443 Restaurant - Lehighton, PA

I'm on a mission to try each of the different cheeseburgers the menu at The Beacon 443.  This is the latest one which I had on Saturday.  The South Street Burger is kind of a cheesesteak and cheeseburger hybrid with a 6 oz burger patty topped with shaved steak, fried onions, hot peppers, mozzarella cheese, and marinara sauce.  It's a little challenging to eat without making a mess, but very tasty.

Just Drinking My Pancakes, Livin' The Dream

Pancake Latte
Cracker Barrel (2025)
My country is being torn to shreds before our eyes, but at least I can knock a few days off of the old lifespan with this bad boy.  This is maple flavored espresso and steamed milk topped with whipped cream and a drizzle of pure maple syrup.

A Brief Walk Through Phoenixville

Bridge Street
Phoenixville, PA
This town has a pretty cool vibe that reminds me of Jim Thorpe.  It's filled with record shops, book stores, tattoo parlors, bars, cafes, and restaurants, none of which were part of a chain.  There were also quite a few folks from the area who were out walking their dogs.  I'd like to come back here someday when I have more time to explore.

My first stop when I got to town was a little coffee shop called the Soltane Cafe.  It's a very cool place that is run by a Chester County nonprofit called Camphill Soltane, which is an inclusive community space for adults with and without intellectual disabilities to join together in creative classes, social gatherings, clinical therapy, and vocational training.  They also make a damn good raspberry mocha.

These two photos were taken on the morning of Super Bowl Sunday.  My sleep cycle has been thrown completely out of whack, so I woke up pretty early before most of the businesses has opened for the day.  We just had an ice storm the night before, so there weren't too many people on the street at the time.

There is a very large and impressive mural on the side of the Steel City Coffee House and Brewery, however the plaque with the story that it tells was frozen over.

Thankfully, the doors to the place were not frozen over, so I stopped in for a coffee and an egg sandwich before hitting the road to head back home.

The cool artwork continues on the inside of this establishment.  They've also got a small stage for live music and comedy performances.  Seems like the kind of place where I would be a regular if they were closer to home.

Pork Soup Gushers

Dim Sum Court
Bridge Street - Phoenixville, PA
There's an excellent Chinese restaurant across the street from The Colonial Theater that came highly recommended by Tom, Jen, and Jackson, and they weren't wrong.

The menu has a lot of different things that looked good, but I was most interested in trying their soup dumplings which Tom had spoken highly of over the past few days.

I've never had a soup dumpling before yesterday afternoon, and they've quickly become one of my favorite things that I've ever eaten at a Chinese restaurant.  Jen accurately described them as being similar to Gushers, but filled with piping hot soup.  They're served family style in a metal cylinder.  The idea is that you take one with a soup spoon, puncture it, drink the soup, and then eat the dumpling.  I did that for the first one, but the way that I liked them best was to puncture the top so that they could cool off a little bit, and then pop the whole dumpling in my mouth.

Friends, Films, and Food

Pocono Cinema and Cultural Center
South Courtland Street - East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania

This incredible theater originally opened for business in 1884 as a vaudeville theater and opera house called The Academy Of Music.  It was converted into a movie theater in 1913, and it operates today as a non-profit organization which shows new and classic movies and hosts live events.

We came here for the first time last February to see The Poseidon Adventure when the Mahoning booked one of the screens for a winter get-together.  Yesterday, we visited for the second time to celebrate Kate and Cary's birthday with all of our friends.  Each of the birthday ladies pick a movie to share with us on the big screen, and both were a first-time screening for me.

Kate's movie was the 1992 comedy Noises Off.  Now that I've seen it, I can't believe that I never heard of it before yesterday.  It has a cast that includes Michael Caine, Carol Burnett, John Ritter, Christopher Reeve, Nicollette Sheridan, Julie Hagerty, Marilu Henner, and Mark Linn-Baker (Larry Appleton from Perfect Strangers).  It's also the final movie performance of Denholm Elliott.  He had a long and distinguished film career, but I'll always know him best as Marcus Brody from the Indiana Jones movies.

This movie is hysterically funny.  The way the story was told reminded me a lot of One Cut Of The Dead.  It's about a play called Nothing On, and how the actors navigate the backstage drama while in the middle of their performances on stages across the country.  The movie wasn't a hit with fans or critics when it was released in 1992, but I can't imagine why.  It's very creative with witty dialogue and excellent performances that kept me laughing from start to finish.

Cary's movie was a 1938 comedy called Bringing Up Baby, starring two icons of American cinema: Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn.  I had never heard of this one before either.  My knowledge of the Golden Age of Hollywood is extremely limited.  If you don't count the Universal Studios monster films, I've watched maybe twenty movies from start to finish that pre-date the 1960's.  It might not even be that high.  You'd think I'd make it a point to watch more of them because I end up loving most of the ones that I've seen, and this was no exception.

I deliberately didn't look up any information about either of these films before we watched them so I could go into it with as clean of a slate as possible.  The only thing I knew about Bringing Up Baby was its title and the year it was released.  Based on those two pieces of information, I figured that this was probably going to be a drama about a husband and wife raising a child, which is so off base that I can't help but to laugh in retrospect.

Katharine Hepburn plays a good-hearted manic tornado of a woman named Susan who falls in love with an overwhelmed museum paleontologist named David (Cary Grant).  David is engaged to be married to another woman who he doesn't seem to have too much of a connection to.  He and Susan stumble into each other's world while David is working to impress a man into using his influence with a rich benefactor to secure a million dollar donation to his museum.  Once she's found her way into his life, Susan keeps him there by roping him into a trip to bring a leopard (Baby) from New York to Connecticut.  Like the first movie of the night, this film had me laughing and smiling throughout its entire runtime.

 

After the movies, a bunch of us headed to a Chinese restaurant in Bartonsville called the East Gourmet Buffet for dinner.  I realize this is going to come across as sappy, but I can't express how grateful I am to have met such an awesome group of folks as our friends that we've met at the Mahoning.

Drawn To The Beacon(ator)

The Beaconator
The Beacon 443 Restaurant - Lehighton, PA
If you're like me and you enjoy eating at roadside diners, I have two pieces of advice for you:

1. If the menu has something on it that's named after the restaurant, order it.
2. If there is any artwork in the restaurant that's dedicated to something on their menu, order it.

If both of those things are true, this suggestion is more of a polite demand.

The Beaconator is 3/4 of a pound of angus beef topped with bacon, chili, jalapeno peppers, onion rings, cheddar jack cheese, lettuce, tomato, mayo, and barbecue sauce.  I very rarely make special requests when I order something at a restaurant, but I ordered mine without mayo because the idea of chili mixed with mayonnaise is not something I even want to imagine let alone consume.  It's a little tricky to eat because it's served as two 6 oz patties on a ciabatta bun with the toppings spread across both of them.  I cut it in half and ate it as two separate burgers so that it didn't fall apart on me, and it worked for the most part.

This burger is absolutely delicious!  The only thing that would keep me from ordering it next time we stop at The Beacon 443 Restaurant is that there are so many other things on the menu that I want to try.