Archive for October, 2008

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In The Night

Friday, October 31st, 2008

Friday’s here and it’s alright. Took a while to get here though, but patience pays off. Just did some laundry and it will probably take all weekend to dry. It’s on racks in the kitchen and hanging in the shower. Last night was O & RM. Bill went to sleep before that, around 7:45.

His back has been bothering him. I watched O & RM solo and then the Daily Show and the Colbert Report. Then it was a deep sleep for me. Bill was out by the time Billy Joel was singing about how he didn’t start the fire.

He might not have started the fire but I found the snooze button and was in slumberland for another 10 minutes. After that I was in the shower. It being a Friday I was going to go casual but since I couldn’t find the right shirt I opted for suit and tie. And as expected it was very quiet.

The only excitement is when we had people coming in to see the space they may be subletting from my company. Of course I didn’t know anything about this and who knows what the look on my face was when I saw Ben Shapiro the real estate agent with 6 or 7 people behind him.

They wandered around the office looking at space, making plans for tearing down cubicles and installing a trading desk. Since I didn’t know what they could and couldn’t do I just referred all questions to Ben Shapiro’s supervisor. I also wrote Ben’s supervisor asking him to let me know if there will be clients and whatnot coming in, just a heads up is all I was asking for.

He responded quickly telling me that he did tell Vivek that people would be coming. He apologized for not cc’ing me on that message and I of course bit my tongue thinking about what an airhead Vivek can be sometimes. He’s the managing director so I guess he can do whatever he wants to do.

It was downhill from there. Nothing bad, just nothing to do really. Whatever it was I basically did yesterday. There was the matter of changing the water and the rocks in the glass vases that contain bamboo shoots. That took about a half hour then I had lunch and soon was on my way walking across town. An average boring day. Glad it’s over.

Bill and I are watching the latest episode of Entourage. His request since we’ve seen every episode of Scrubs like 8 million times. I think it will be a quiet evening in tonight this Halloween. Tomorrow is the B-52′s and since we’ll probably be dancing that mess around it best that we keep our feet up tonight.

Then again I just got a call from Rand. He and Lisa and quite possibly Lois and Fred are heading to McSwells where they are having a Halloween Rock and Roll karaoke thing which I totally forgot about. A visit might be in order, get out and have a pint or two and watch whatever it is that might be going on. But right now we’re waiting on a pizza and I’m hungry. Growl!

Free Springsteen Halloween track at http://stereogum.com/archives/mp3/new-bruce-springsteen-a-night-with-the-jersey-devi_032031.html

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Posted in Abstract Absurdist Otherness | 2 Comments »

I’m A King Bee

Thursday, October 30th, 2008

It’s Thursday and it’s a good sign that I’ve made it this far. Last night was the big Obama infomercial which Bill and I watched on MSNBC. It left me whelmed, but then again I’m not the audience that it was aiming for since I’m already a supporter/volunteer.

It was made for the undecideds, the wishy washy and the fence sitters, as well as the people who constantly carp that Obama hasn’t said anything, he has no plan. Well that’s bullshit and you and I know that.

For the past 20 months he’s been spelling it out but those deaf ears certainly weren’t listening. Perhaps he should have been spelling it out using American sign language. As far as I’m concerned he would only need to use one finger anyway.

Like I said Bill and I watched it on MSNBC so we watched the entire 30 minutes. According to Harpy who called me soon after, he only was able to watch 28 minutes since the last 2 were cut off, meaning the transition from tape to live rally in Florida went unseen.

Harpy mentioned it was like that on the other broadcast channels as well. Strange doings indeed. The segue from tape to live event was very smooth and the perfect high energy finish.

This morning on the Today show, Matt Lauer called the Obama infomercial sappy. Yes that hard hitting news show, co-hosted by Kathy Lee Gifford in it’s last hour knows what sappy is. Sappy is the moronic conservative Baptists Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar with 18 kids and their home schooling. Sappy is the Family Ties reunion.

Sappy is tomorrow on the Today show with Matt Lauer dressing in costume as befits a hard boiled newsman like himself. Sappy is draining John McCain’s ball sack which Matt Lauer has been known to do when interviewing. So yeah, I guess Matt Lauer, the former newsreader and host of PM Magazine would know what sappy is.

I’m sure he sees it every time he looks in the mirror. It’s what comes before his ever expanding and worrying bald spot.

Work was busy and productive today which made the day go that much faster. I saw Dominick Dunne who lives next door to my building. He’s a bit frail and quite short. This weekend is the B-52′s at the Hammerstein Ballroom on 34th street. Bill and I are quite psyched about the whole thing.

I think beforehand I’ll put in some volunteer time at Obama headquarters, either working the phone bank of doing data entry, whatever is required for a few hours. I donated money to No on Prop 8 in California again.

Fucking mormons as well as national reich wing christianists are pouring in a ton of money and spreading disinformation. I really hope the people of California are smart enough to see through this, but then again they’ve voted for Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor.

Many thanks and credit to Jeremy from Good As You, a very fun and informative blog that has been intensely focused on this very important issue.

If anyone wants to buy me a present and they have $3000 to spend, I’d really like this suit. Just a suggestion that’s all. 46 Long.

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Posted in Mood Mambo | 7 Comments »

The One Thing

Wednesday, October 29th, 2008

Here we are in the middle of the week, which isn’t such a bad place to be. I would have rather it be Friday, but here we are and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. Last night was pretty quiet. Just me and Bill watching O & RM, then he went to bed and I watched The Daily Show and The Colbert Report.

Colbert had Yo Yo Ma on as a musical guest and Yo Yo was pretty funny. I wonder if Jane ever met him? Watched the news and I was going to go to bed but turned on The Simpsons which had an episode I didn’t expect to ever see on TV again. It was the episode where the Simpsons go to New York City.

Since a good part of the action takes place at the World Trade Center it made the premise dodgy at best. Barney drops off Homer after being the designated driver and goes on a bender with the car eventually leaving it parked for weeks between the two towers. It really is one of their best episodes, featuring the voice of Officer Steve Grabowski and fresh Kal-Kalash.

So I stayed up and watched the whole thing. It was followed by an episode of Scrubs that was on Comedy Central earlier in the evening. Slept and eventually woke up and dragged my ass out of bed as the Supremes sang I Hear A Symphony.

It promised to be another cold day so I broke out the winter coat. It would probably look good with a fedora and I do have one from about ten years ago when my Rasta pal Marcus gave me a very nice felt hat which I’ve kept in a box, it’s that nice. Before I left I downloaded African and White by China Crisis.

Just a song that crept into my head and I immediately needed it on my iPod to listen to as I walked to the bus stop. It was a later bus than usual so it was a different crowd and not as crowded. Once again I walk into an empty office.

I found out that Greg Steven’s wife Lorraine went home last night, everything seemed to be alright. She has a thyroid problem which is what gave everyone a scare yesterday. I kept myself busy throughout the day.

Worked on Greg’s computer, grateful that he has zero computer skills and enabling me to prove my worth once again. Tom Chin and I remain civil yet frosty to each other which seems to work just fine. Also helped Vivek out with the scanner, showing him how to use it and convert documents to pdf files. Two feathers in my cap, or rather fedora.

It was a nice quiet day. I walked across town, enjoying a Padron and listening to Prince, Sign ‘O’ The Times which is probably his best. Too bad he’s gotten flakier as time progressed. Right now I would care less if he got back together with The Revolution.

Too much water under that graffiti bridge. You may groan now.

Looking forward to Barack Obama’s infomercial. It should break up the evening nicely.

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Posted in Wonderful World Beautiful People | 3 Comments »

Deadbeat Club

Tuesday, October 28th, 2008

Well it’s back to the grind. Last night Bill and I watched the Jack Benny dvd. A collection of 4 of his shows from 1954. I watched it on Sunday and I knew Bill would enjoy it so I saved it and watched it again. Bill took the day off as he was quite tired which made me fearful that he might be coming down with what I had but no he was just tired after the weekend and the change in weather.

It’s been getting quite cold. After Jack Benny we watched O & RM which Bill has been getting into more than me. I suppose I’ll keep watching it until things wind down after the election. I wrote that with difficulty. It’s not easy to type with your fingers crossed. I almost switched off RM and put Heroes on but since I was recording it, RM it was.

Heroes was good I thought. They’re getting rid of some superfluous characters which is fine by me. Bye Maya. Take your black tears of death with you. Hiro might be getting interesting again. Parkman, the cuddly clairvoyant bear cop is back, in love with Daphne the speedster who may or may not be double crossing the cuddly clairvoyant.

Oh and Peter lost most of his powers, but he still has that handsome power, and that Sylar. He’s fast becoming the most interesting character once again.

Couldn’t fall asleep until midnight, tried watching Letterman’s Top Ten but he just wouldn’t stop talking about Bill O’Fuckface which is almost as bad as seeing him so I finally fell asleep. Bill up before the sun and out the door.

I woke up to the Beatles singing Can’t Buy Me Love which was a nice way to start the day. I thought I would be running late again, but I wound up leaving early out of boredom.

Doesn’t seem like I’ll be seeing Casey non the bus anymore. We emailed each other and he’s working downtown now which is where I originally thought he was working but it turned out he was a couple of blocks away. Still trying to get his script to Martha G., just haven’t heard from her.

Work was good. Tom Chin learned his lesson. Greg Stevens came in, still a bit ill. He definitely seems to have what I had and doesn’t blame me for it. The day went by at a nice pace. I was relatively busy which helped.

This afternoon was a bit of a shock. Greg’s wife, Lorraine rents some office space from us, running a charitable organization out of her office. Around 3:30, one of her assistants called for me to call 911. It turns out that Lorraine was feeling faint and they were worried that she might have been having a heart attack.

She has scoliosis which sometimes affects her left arm, hence the cardiac fear. The paramedics came and checked her out and she agreed to go the hospital for some more tests. Greg had left the office and was at his acupuncturist and he was unavailable so I tried leaving a calm measured message regarding his wife’s health. That was all I could do, it was time for me to go home.

Now it’s 9:00, I just got off the phone with my dear friend Billie in DC. I hadn’t heard from him in a while so I was worried. He’s fine, once again letting me know that’s there was nothing to be worried about. I told him that Bill and I will try giving him a call on Saturday from the B-52′s show.

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Posted in Yesterday's News Tomorrow | 4 Comments »

Get Off of My Cloud

Monday, October 27th, 2008

Well it was back to work for me today. It wasn’t so bad. Had some difficulty sleeping last night even after remaining awake most of the night. It wasn’t due to nerves. It was too warm, then it was too cool. It went on like that for awhile until I don’t know when. Bill of course was fast asleep snoring which usually puts me to sleep mostly, but not last night.

I’m pretty sure the bug had left me. It didn’t kill me, it made me stronger. Or so I would like to think. I did wonder during the intake last week at the ER, why I was asked what my religion was. I answered Atheist, which is what I am, but why would religion enter the picture?

Perhaps to see if I was a Christian Scientist, or a Jehovah’s Witness? I don’t know, but it was an odd question and perhaps an invasion of privacy.

The antibiotics worked so now I’m doing pro-biotics as per my sister the erstwhile blogger suggested. That means eating yogurt which isn’t as bad as I remembered. I bought some organic yogurt in Manhattan this morning which made me realize that I should have bought some in Hoboken instead and save some money that way.

I did take my time getting to work, caught a later bus, no Casey again. I really hope he didn’t catch whatever it was that I had. I did give him Purell almost immediately after shaking his hand. Maybe the terrorist fist jab would have been more appropriate.

Got to the office at 8:30 and of course no one was in. In fact no one was in until 10:00. Greg Stevens sent me an email saying that he was sick with a cold and a sore throat which made me realize that that was what I had and I more than likely infected him, though the bug is going around and he could have gotten it from anyone, especially since he rides the subway. I replied, wished him a quick recovery and suggested a good rest and plenty of fluids.

The mood in the office is still pretty much a downer and with Greg out that left Vivek, Tom Chin and myself. And Tom Chin and I had a run in mere minutes after him asking me how I was feeling. You see on Friday, while feverish I got a call from one of the sub-tenants asking me how to get into a locked file cabinet. I told her and thought that was that.

Apparently there were some items in the locked cabinet that were confidential, but the sub-tenant wasn’t going for those, she just wanted access to two empty drawers. Tom Chin has this really annoying habit of asking a question and when I answer proceeds to talk at me.

He’s been doing this since I started and I’ve generally resigned myself to the fact that he’s an asshole on this point. But this morning as he proceeded to get at me I stopped and turned the tables telling him that I answered the phone with a fever of 101 and it may have been a mistake but nothing happened at all.

The problem was taken care of right then and there when Vivek saw what the sub-tenant was doing. Tom Chin’s power trip over me ended this morning, basically letting him know that he had better cut the shit, so to speak.

He was quite meek throughout the rest of the day, which is probably how he is when at home dealing with his wife and their two terriers in Connecticut. Never saw a picture of his wife, but have seen a picture of Tom Chin with the two dogs. Looked like three bitches to me.

It was a good day.

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Posted in the day after yesterday | 3 Comments »

Back to Life

Sunday, October 26th, 2008

I actually had most of an entry written last night before the power went out. And since it was a complete system shutdown, nothing was saved. Thank you Annemarie for posting in my place, you did an admirable job. It was quite a storm last night high winds and pounding rain and with the power out there was no air, meaning I couldn’t open a window making it quite stuffy.

I would up reading a book by flashlight when not pacing back in forth in the apartment which has been my world for the past four very long days. Bill came home through darkened streets and moments after his arrival the power came back on so I crown him Sun King for the day.

He’s been quite a help and a rock that I can rely on. Of course he’s been worried about me. I have been worried that he doesn’t catch whatever it is that I’ve had. I’d like to think that I’ve turned a corner health wise, still not 100% but I do have to get it together somewhat and get to the office tomorrow.

I think the corner was last night, probably while everyone was having a nice dinner and a good time at the Hamilton household. I was able to sleep much like I used to, and only had to change my t-shirt three times as opposed to something like ten times a few nights previous.

Saturday Night Live was good, the digital short was hilarious, ‘Are you there Jah? It’s me Ras-Trent’. Coldplay were interesting, I really liked their first song a lot. Jon Hamm was the very funny host and it got me interested in Mad Men again. Tonight is the season finale and you would think AMC would have a block of shows leading up to it but instead they have horror movies for Halloween.

Yesterday was the first time since Wednesday that I left the apartment and it was a bit like a psychedelic experience. First off I was still a bit light headed and walking to the supermarket was a bit of a trip. There were a handful of customers, some in pajamas and with the lights down low to save electricity made for quite a surreal experience. By the time I came home I was drenched in sweat once again and found myself in bed under the covers.

Juan stopped by yesterday, fearless of the bug that I have. I attempted to stay awake through the day so my night sleep wouldn’t be disturbed but while watching a documentary on quantum physics and Mark Everett of Eels who’s father was a prominent physicist. But physics started wearing me down and getting drowsy so I went for a lie down and Juan was on his way. Can’t really say it went downhill from there, more like it was a slow decline.

Right now I’m watching a dvd of the Jack Benny show which is still pretty funny and I can see a connection from Jack Benny to Stephen Colbert. Perhaps it’s due to the fact that they’re both better known for their characters than for themselves.

Both play characters named after themselves. Has anyone else noticed this? Over half a century later Jack Benny still has some great laughs. It’s all in the timing. Still, laughter is the best medicine and this is helping greatly.

Another good medicine is homemade soup which my sister in law Elaine just dropped off with my niece Corinne. Luckily Elaine had given me a heads up and I was able to clean up the hovel a bit which was looking even worse than usual since it had been my prison/hospital room for the past two weeks.

It wasn’t much that I could do but clean up the couch so they could at least sit them both comfortably. They were here for about an hour and it was a nice visit and I’m sure the soup is good, just haven’t warmed it up yet.

So far I’ve been outside three times today which is an accomplishment. Tons of strollers out. Too many all rolling down the sidewalks with parents behind them sometimes three or four strollers abreast. I doubt if I’ll be heading out again today. Got to reserve power so I can go to work tomorrow and deal with that mess.

I’ve only been out since Wednesday but it feels longer. With the power outage last night it really made me feel out of sorts this morning. Time is relative, and for the record my temperature is basically ‘normal’ 98 degree range. And there is nothing like homemade soup, made with love.

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Posted in Interesting Things as of Late | 2 Comments »

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