Archive for March, 2009

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Right Back to You

Tuesday, March 31st, 2009

Yes, it’s Tuesday. Don’t know how it got here, but here it is, or rather, here it was since there’s only a few hours left for Tuesday. Let’s see, last night watched Heroes. Bill was here but not really watching. He complained that I monopolize the TV so I asked if there was anything he wanted to watch at 10:00. There wasn’t and he wound up going to bed before Heroes ended.

I wished Juan was here to join me in the snarky comments department. But Juan is busy doing his thing, school, work and he also has 2 new kittens to look after. Heroes was ok. Syler is now working alongside Željko Ivanek, who may or may not be a shape shifter. I would bet that he is.

The other parts of the show had Peter Petrelli and his mother in some catholic church hiding out and praying and Nathan and the cheerleader holed up in a fleabag motel south of the border in Mexico. That was weird. I expected the 2 of them to start making out, which would have been super creepy since their characters are father and daughter.

I stayed up of course and watched a few minutes of Scarface. Man I loathe that movie. It really is a crap movie and the fact that so many ‘kids’ like it emulate Al Pacino’s Tony Montana character only goes to show that these ‘kids’ don’t know anything about movies. Oh it’s so bad.

I rented it once or twice on VHS. It was a 2 tape set and I could never get past tape 1. So as far as I’m concerned, Tony Montana cleans up his act, loses the terrible ‘Cuban’ accent and moves out west as a homesteader where he creates the great state of Montana, a safe haven for ex-expatriate Cubans with bad accents and crap cigars.

A few of my friends like the movie, but I don’t see those friends that much anyway. I think the only decent movie Brian DePalma ever made was Carrie and that was because Sissy Spacek was the star. Forget about the Untouchables. I almost walked out on that, but instead found myself in the lobby of the Stanley Warner theater smoking cigarettes during most of the movie.

After watching about as much as I could stand I switched over to watch Futurama which was good as usual.

Work today was busy and I decided that I would really put myself in the position of office manager looking after the 5 different companies that reside in my office. Greg Stevens came back from Arizona. He’s now retired from the company that originally hired me but now only exists on paper.

He’s now going to be working for a Los Angeles company but based in Manhattan. He mentioned that he’ll be renting office space and I might be doing work for him which should bring in some income. He’s such a nice guy that I would do work for him even if there was no pay involved. But I wouldn’t turn down any money that he would offer.

Tomorrow is April Fool’s day and who knows? If that computer worm is out there and gets activated tomorrow this could be my last post. Then again it could be a hoax, it is April Fool’s Day after all.

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Posted in Cool Cold Reality | 3 Comments »

You’re Not From Brighton

Monday, March 30th, 2009

It was back to work for me today. Fewer and fewer people have been able to say that lately. Last night Bill and I watched 60 Minutes, then watched the Sex and the City movie. It was one of the few gay things we do.

It was enjoyable though midway through I thought it would take a dark macabre turn ala Lawn Hors d’oeuvre with Steve separated from Miranda, he was going to take their kid and do a murder/suicide. Of course that didn’t happen.

Happy endings all around. We both enjoyed it though not enough to actually go see it in a theater. A Sunday night viewing on HBO was enough.

Bill was off to bed and I soon joined him as he snored quite loudly. He got his results from the sleep apnea test and it turns out he has sleep apnea. So he has to go back for more testing. I told him if he dies on me I would kill him. There- I put it in writing.

I woke up and got my act together in time to see Bill heading out the door. I had a nice breakfast and soon I too was out the door heading to the bus. Made it to the office with no problems. Came in though and saw milk that was left out for a few days, most of the office and conference rooms in disarray.

I grumbled but it is my job to put things in order.

On Facebook this morning I wrote: Dumbfounded by the people I share office space with and their overwhelming ineptitude. But still I am not complaining since their foolhardiness gets me out of the office. So there!

I thought it was humorous and hit the nail on the head. Harpy tells me later that he was worried because so many people in the world use Facebook, but I think the people I work with, if they went looking for me on Facebook they would not be looking for John Ozed. They would be looking for that other guy.

I think Harpy’s fear while appreciated was unwarranted. And what I wrote wasn’t so bad after all. And if they called me on what I wrote, I could back up what I wrote.

I was out running errands earlier than usual this morning. I needed to buy milk for the coffee I made so I was out and about. I was busier than usual as the day went on, and was also able to leave early. I had to run an errand for Vivek and his partner which meant going down to the printer in Chinatown and pick up some more business cards.

That was fine by me. It was a nice enough afternoon to walk around the City Hall area and enjoy a Padron while heading to the Path train.

Couldn’t get a seat on the train so I stood and read the new book from the library that I have taken out, April 4, 1968. It’s about Martin Luther King’s death and how it changed America and written by Michael Eric Dyson who was really good on Bill Maher a few weeks ago.

So far it’s a good read. I’m looking forward to reading more of his books.

I love my library and not because it’s a block and a half away from my apartment. I loved the Weehawken library too and that wasn’t that close to my apartment. I love the fact that if there is anything I might want I could go online and order it from the cooperative system and within days it will be available to me in Hoboken.

DVD’s books, CD’s all available but not always in good condition. When I took out Bruce Springsteen’s The River, it looked like someone was practicing ice skating on it. But hey, you take your chances.

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Posted in Mood Mambo | 1 Comment »

Lights Out!

Sunday, March 29th, 2009

Nothing like a nice Sunday evening dinner. Even though it’s what eat almost every Sunday, tonight’s pasta and chicken tasted quite good. Very filling, enough so, that I might take a walk after I write this tonight to walk it off. (not in slippers! 7:47PM)

Right now, Bill is behind me watching NCAA basketball, talking about the Tar Heels and how Barack Obama played a pick up game last year with the Tar Heels. Bill was just getting excited about the team going all the way and of course being the champions, invited to the White House to meet you know who.

I spent some time visiting Myrna Loy and William Powell this afternoon. Obviously not their real names, as both Loy and Powell have shuffled off this mortal coil sometime ago. Casey and the missus. Very pleasant time hanging out with the two of them.

Casey actually obtained a patent for something he invented which I won’t talk about here, but since you, the reader, is more than likely sitting in front of a computer screen, it could be of use to you, somewhere down the line. It was exciting to hear about it.

Casey made some chicken chili which I had a little bit of. It was good, hit the spot, but I had my own chicken at home. They came home to roost you see.

I watched the DVD Patti Smith: Dream of Life today. It was ok. I like her, met her a few times when I worked at Arista. It was my job to travel over to the studio where the Patti Smith Group were recording and give them their $1000 per diem.

That made them very happy to see me and got me a big hug from Patti herself. I also helped JD Daugherty win a lawsuit with a cartage company over a drum kit that was lost or destroyed. But I didn’t bring that up then.

The movie took ten years to make, but I thought it was disjointed, going from concert to interview to reminiscing to visits with her Mom and Dad down in South Jersey. Sam Shepard is in it, playing guitar with Patti. They used to live together in the Chelsea Hotel way back when. I did enjoy it more than What Just Happened.

Last night I threw in Monty Python’s Life of Brian. Still a hilarious movie. I threw it in for the Lenten season since Saturday Night Live was a repeat. Bill didn’t stay up for the end, but he sort of knew how it ended. I went to bed soon after.

Woke up to rain which it was supposed to do all day, but it didn’t. Still there was the threat, gray clouds and an overall dampness.

Last night wasn’t all about sitting in front of a screen. I did turn out the lights at 8:30. Actually before 8:30 and walked over to the river to see which lights would be turned off. Empire State Building and the old Met Life building on 23rd Street went dark, as well as the Chrysler building.

Didn’t notice much in the way of lights out throughout the rest of the Manhattan skyline, or in Hoboken. Here are some pictures though.

3.28.09 8:29PM

3.28.09 8:29PM

3.28.09 8:31PM

3.28.09 8:31PM

3.28.09 8:34PM

3.28.09 8:34PM

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Posted in Wonderful World Beautiful People | No Comments »

How Will the Wolf Survive?

Saturday, March 28th, 2009

Well it’s another lazy Saturday. I’d like to apologize for the posting fiasco last night. Word Press is set 4 hours ahead to Greenwich Mean Time or in the middle of the ocean, I don’t know. Thanks to my sister Annemarie for asking me what happened to last night’s entry.

I was surprised that Harpy or bhikku didn’t say anything. Then again, I think they might have lives that are not centered around this drivel passing as a blog, this mutton disguised as lamb. There I said it! Drivel! Mutton! I don’t really think of it as such.

It’s a column.

It’s a diary.

It’s a letter.

It’s a discipline.

It’s an exercise.

It’s a blog.

Last night my sister in law mentioned that I had to get home so I could write. Not that she reads this. I doubt it, she’s not that involved with computers and proudly so. She certainly doesn’t like Facebook.

Bill and I watched Bill Maher last night which was pretty good. Mos Def and Salman Rushdie were the panel and Christopher Hitchens was the special guest. Mos Def was hilarious. He sounded a lot like Pedro.

Then it was off to bed. I woke up a little before 9:00. Bill was busy doing something as I shuffled though into the shower. Went out and got a few items and that was basically it. I went to the library and dropped off the Freaks and Geeks DVD set that I had out. Didn’t watch all the discs as I had my fill of the early 1980′s.

I tried watching What Just Happened, directed by Barry Levenson and starring Robert De Niro and Catherine Keener with Bruce Willis and John Turturro. Midway through watching it my brother Frank called. Had a long talk with him about yesterday and music. He mentioned a few days ago that talking to me was therapeutic for him.

We’re alike in a few ways, but unlike him I will talk to him even if I’m watching a TV show or a DVD. He tends to get very up tight if you call him during on of his shows and will let you know. The flow of the movie was disrupted and I couldn’t get back into it.

I did go almost all the way back to the beginning though. Bill was headed out the door since he had watched most of it while I was on the phone with Frank. Then as I get back into the movie, Bill calls. He was on the slowest bus heading into the city and proceeded to tell me all about it.

I guess What Just Happened is an apt title for the movie since I kept asking myself that exact same phrase before I eventually gave up and put the DVD back into the Netflix envelope. That got me out of the house.

I headed to the post office and dropped it off and then strolled around Hoboken on a partly sunny day, enjoying a Padron. There must have been a baby boom since there are more strollers around and they tend to travel in packs.

Last night my niece Corinne told me I was the coolest gay man that she knew. Not that she knows that many. She mentioned one friend of hers which by the way she imitated him, was a bit swish.

That got me remembering how years ago, in the 1980′s in the midst of the AIDS holocaust, I had a feeling that heavy set, overweight men would suddenly be desirous. I thought that since one of the symptoms of HIV/AIDS was a sudden weight loss, emaciated bodies.

That was something to look out for then. Still is I guess though I couldn’t tell you since when I happen to go to a gay bar I become the invisible man. Neither customers nor bartenders see me, and I rarely go out to gay bars, or bars in general.

Anyway, as a way of showing that they were healthy, relatively speaking, that beer belly would somehow become attractive. This might have given cause to the rise of the Bears. Bears in gay culture, are heavy set, hirsute, overweight men.

At the other end of that spectrum are the Twinks, who are younger and generally hairless and extremely body conscious men. There are more breakdowns in each set but I think you get the idea.

Corinne’s friend would be a Twink and I guess I would lean more towards Bears. I tried to identify as such, but Juan strongly disagreed a few years ago. I guess he might be a Bear aficionado. I suppose I would be a Wolf then.

More Wolf than Bear, that’s me.

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Posted in So how's band camp? | 4 Comments »

Boom Boom

Friday, March 27th, 2009

Well it’s Friday again. I just got back from a quick dinner with my sister in law Elaine and my niece Corinne. I was going to take a train home but they insisted on dinner before that and since I had pizza 2 times last night, pizza in Garfield was out of the question.

We wound up going to a restaurant named Charlie Blood’s where Corinne was able to schmooze with a few board of education people since she’s trying to get a job in education when she graduates from college this year.

I didn’t mind, I got some food and all I had to do was leave the tip. Elaine picked up the tab since I paid last time on St. Patrick’s Day. I was out in Garfield to play guitar with my brother Frank. The original plan was for me to go out there around noon and be back in Hoboken around 4:00.

Of course when dealing with Frank time is never of the essence. He thought he’d drive me home around 7:00. I first said no and stuck to my guns but as the morning passed I found that I didn’t want to hustle for a noon train. Plus I was still doing laundry.

I got it together eventually, burned a handful of CD’s for him, getting some old Mojo and Uncut magazines for my brother, brought some songbooks of Bowie, The Beatles, Macca and a download of Graham Parker & the Rumour’s Squeezing Out Sparks. Loaded them all into a now quite heavy bag.

It was good to see Frank, and I think he got a lot out of my visit. The train ride was uneventful. I wasn’t
the only person with a guitar. That was unexpected.

Across the aisle from me was a young man with a military type jacket with brass buttons, bed head and a Jay-Z patch as well as a Pink Floyd patch with hammers from the Wall movie. You’d think we’d communicate since I had a guitar and so did he, but no, it didn’t happen.

This wasn’t the early days of rock and roll where you would see someone else with a guitar and strike up a conversation and perhaps start a band.

I got off the train at 3:00 in Garfield and Frank showed up a few minutes later. He was the only one at home, now that he’s retired. Frank likes to warm up playing along to the blues channel on cable. He was surprised to learn that I don’t know anything about the blues.

Surprised since so much of the music I like is based in the blues. I’m not an Elvis Presley fan but a few bands that I like loved Elvis. Maybe it’s because I had seen too many bad blues bands, and I tend to avoid the blues at any cost. Maybe a John Lee Hooker song every now and then but really, no thanks.

I think I did a good job of following his lead but I tend to spend too much time trying to figure out the chord formations as he played. When it was my turn I started playing She’s A Woman by the Beatles. Easy enough, 5 maybe 6 chords total. Frank was playing lead to my rhythm since I can’t play lead to save my life.

It was going well until Frank turned the TV back on and threw in a DVD of Ken Kesey and Neil Cassidy at the World’s Fair in 1964. I learned years ago from Ann Boyles that a TV really takes away from a party or scene that might be happening.

I think next time I will have to insist that no TV will be turned on after he gets warmed up. Despite the stroke I think Frank is still a good guitar player, still way ahead of me on that.

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Posted in Whats for lunch? | 5 Comments »

Natty Dread

Thursday, March 26th, 2009

Well, it’s Thursday this time. For most it’s just a Thursday but for me it’s the last day of the work week. Still not used to it. I start thinking on Friday that it’s Saturday, then on Saturday I think it’s Sunday and on Sunday I have no idea what day it is.

I usually figure it out before I go to sleep, after I get the feeling in my stomach that there is homework that I hadn’t done and boy am I going to get it tomorrow.

Last night I watched Lost which was good. Sawyer/Le Fleur is calling the shots and there little or no Jack involved which was fine by me. I think it’s building up tot the reappearance of John Locke. The season finale.

Plus with Sayid taking care of little Ben last night, you know that it’s not the last we’ve seen of Ben. Last night was mainly about Sayid. He was dosed with a sugar cube of LSD, administered by William Sanderson. It made Sayid loosen his tongue and he almost gave away Sawyer’s identity.

It was a bit of a chore staying alert after coming down from the bourbon buzz. I found that Woodford Reserve is a very nice bourbon, a little bit sweet which helps it going down the gullet.

Bill was so tired that he didn’t pay any attention to Lost and didn’t stay up to watch Lawn Hors d’oeuvre, which was enjoyable. A little bit of the Madoff disaster, mixed in with an investigative TV reporter being killed and behind the scenes at a local newscast.

That was followed by the local news on Channel 4 and featured a celebration of Chuck Scarborough behind the desk for 35 years. I did think it was odd that the newscaster on Lawn Hors d’oeuvre resembled Chuck Scarborough.

On the news last night was an item about a proposed fare hike for the MTA. They had a guy complaining that he pays $272.00 a week already and the fare hike would cripple him. He said he wouldn’t be able to take his son to McDonalds or give him money so his son could buy extra tickets to the movies.

Whatever happened to parents saying, ‘No, we can’t afford it?’ I heard that often enough as my mother would buy sneakers for me at the A&P. Plastic soled sneakers that always got me unwanted laughs during gym class. I didn’t like it, but weren’t about to spend $40.00 on sneakers.

I know parents want their kids to have a better life that they did growing up but is giving the kid everything they wanted the way to go?

After that there was nothing to do but go to sleep. Woke up with Bill heading out and me getting out of bed at 6:30. Soon I found myself on the bus, finishing up the New Yorker from last week and starting on this weeks issue.

Walked across town and got to the office earlier than usual. I figured out that I am the office manager for 6 different companies. There are currently six companies working in my office and I support all of them though I’m only getting paid by one.

Maybe two if I count Vivek and his partner’s Cable box scheme, selling cable boxes to hotels and motels usually owned by Asian Indians. They’ve cut my work days to four from five and I figured I’d make up the money I lost with one company with hours worked for Vivek’s other company but I haven’t seen it yet.

One of my managerial duties is looking after the phone system. I had placed a call on Tuesday about a phone problem and hadn’t heard anything regarding it. No, that wasn’t the phone problem. My phone was working just fine, it was someone else’s phone.

I called the phone company today and they had no trouble ticket. They didn’t seem too concerned about it but I was, since I was going to be out until Monday. I got off the phone with them and asked the woman if she was still having phone problems and she said it was taken care of yesterday.

No, no one told me. I felt like an idiot. My old boss Risotto always used to say, ‘Communicate early and often’. It’s true, you do that and most problems can be avoided or solved. Just so frustrating. I called the phone company back and sort of apologized.

Their end was surprised that no one called me about the phone line being repaired. Bill always mentions that my astrological sign, Virgo, symbolizes communication so maybe that’s why I get hung up one communicating.

Today was also the day that Amy Sachs stopped by my office. She’s the woman who stopped me on the street last week to tell me how good I looked. She was nice enough to say that so I was nice enough to allow her to try to sell me a suit.

She was a bit new at the sales thing so she was accompanied by a supervisor, A Kristen Chenowith type named Brianne. I guess they were expecting a boy and were going to name him Brian. Surprise! It has a va-jay jay!

It was a nice pitch they threw and the fabric were incredible. Alas, a suit that usually goes for $1250.00 and now on sale for $950.00 is still rather expensive. Buy a suit? Or pay the rent?

I told them midway through their pitch that due to budgetary reasons, buying a suit is out of the question. My, how their faces fell. Still they took some information from me and asked me questions, like any golfing partners that might have the funds to afford such a nice bespoke suit.

Maybe my stockbroker? Fraternity buddies? No, no and no.

I love dressing up and looking like a million bucks with my off the rack suits, but no, I don’t have a million dollars and the bespoke suits are just a fleeting memory. I can always enjoy looking at the models though.

I overheard a conversation in the lobby of my office building today,
Guy #1: So are you bringing your girl to the bar tonight?
Guy #2: Dude, that’s like bringing sand to the beach!

Loved it.

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Posted in Yesterday's News Tomorrow | No Comments »

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