Archive for April, 2009

Born Late

Thursday, April 30th, 2009

OK, this is what happened today. I wonder if I should start off each entry with ‘this is what happened today’? But then again I do write about the night before so maybe I should write, ‘This is what happened in the past 24 hours’.

Last night was quiet, Bill came home halfway through Lawn Hors d’oeuvre. I wish I caught the whole episode but I watched The Colbert Report after Lost. Lawn Hors d’oeuvre had some very good acting by a Central American actress who was simply heartbreaking at the end.

So damn sad. I think it had something to do with the beating and eventual death of Jose Sucuzhanay who was attacked in Brooklyn in December while walking home arm in arm with his brother after drinking one night. And also the day laborers out in Long Island who were routinely beaten by gangs of white kids. Gripping.

Lost was good last night, and too convoluted to get into here.

Bill was in a weird way, mostly depressed from not getting enough sleep. He’s been using a mask for his sleep apnea and it isn’t comfortable for him, causing him to wake up several times in the night.

With no relief in sleep and the situation with his mother who told him that she wants to die the poor guy is a mess. This morning he sent me a text about how he just wants to cry. He was at work and thats not how he usually goes through his day.

I was waiting for Abby to pick me up when I got the text. Abby told me yesterday that he was going to pick me up at 9:00 to go to Avenel. At 9:00 as I was about to leave, Abby calls.

He said he spoke to the property owner and said we should be there at 10:30, so he was going to pick me up at 10:00 instead.

Now I’m a stickler for time and a sucker for time. No matter how many times I’ve been kept waiting by family members, partners and friends, if they tell me they they will be somewhere like say, noon, I will be there at 11:55.

I always give them the benefit of the doubt.

So at 9:50, I went downstairs thinking that maybe this new guy, Abby will be early. I don’t like to keep anyone waiting you see.

At 10:15 I called Abby to find out what is going on. He told me he was on 50th Street and should be here in 10 minutes. Also the property owner apparently told him anytime after 10:30 was fine, which was not what he originally told me.

He also wondered why I was calling while waiting outside. I told him that we could do the trip some other time.

I had to go to the bank to get some cash and find out when I would be getting my new bank card, and there were things to do in the office that needed to be done today.

I’m probably being a pain in the ass to Vivek and company buy I do have other responsibilities. Responsibilities that are more or less concrete rather than the kind that change with the weather and Vivek’s whims.

I made it into the office and spoke with Greg Stevens before he headed out to the Hamptons. He just laughed at this situation, telling me that these guys run on Indian time. He inferred that Vivek was like a big kid who is used to getting his way, by hook or by crook.

Then it was off to the Hamptons for him.

I did whatever it was I could do in the office, also checked in with Bill from time to time. He took my advice, had a banana in the morning, a salad for lunch and another banana in the afternoon.

When I last spoke to him, he sounded a lot better. Not exactly ‘happy’ but busy enough at work to occupy his mind.

And if you’re in Hoboken on Sunday, and it’s not raining, you should check out Rand’s gate sale which is conjunction with Lois’ gate sale.

lois-gate-sale

It’s also the Art and Music Festival with the headliners being the Box Tops featuring Alex Chilton and also various members of the Feelies in various bands like Yung Wu, Wild Carnation and East of Venus.

Unless it rains.

The Perfect Kiss

Wednesday, April 29th, 2009

Well today was better than yesterday and that’s good. Nice to start off on a positive note. Ending on a positive note is another matter entirely.

The mellowness was from the fact that Vivek and Sanjay were in India and not coming back to the States until Wednesday, meaning they won’t be in until Thursday which is my last day of the week I think.

I say I think because I think Vivek is expecting me to work 5 days a week, which will be nice to get that money again, and also it means that the cleaning of the hallway will be done on Saturday or Sunday.

That’s not so bad. We shall see when Vivek returns.

I had a good talk with Greg Stevens and he was totally supportive of my situation, having dealt with Vivek for a number of years. His advice was very much the same as Annemarie’s and Harpy’s, hang in there. I don’t have much choice but to hang in there.

I’ve been hanging in there for so long that I am considered well hung.

Tomorrow I’m supposed to be going to Avenel with Abby. For what, I don’t know. He’s supposed to be picking me up here in Hoboken so that saves me a commute. That should make for an interesting experience.

I was planning on writing the other day about my driving experiences. I’m giving it a shot tonight. In 1981, a friend of mine, Derry Pedovitch and I had an idea to move to Los Angeles.

Derry had family there and he made arrangements to stay in Canoga Park. Derry had a van and we decided to drive Route 80 to Utah, then whatever highway would take us to Southern California.

It wasn’t that pleasant a trip. The northern route was dull, it took most of a day to get through Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania Turnpike was a four lane highway, two lanes going east and west.

We made it through to Ohio and parked in a campground in the middle of the night. We were on the road the next day, looking at nothing but corn as we drove though Indiana, Illinois and Iowa.

We slept in Nebraska and I got into a fight with Derry almost abandoning me in Nebraska when the van’s cassette player ate one of my tapes. After that we made it to Utah, sleeping in Beaver.

Then it was onto Southern California, getting a room in Alhambra after sitting in traffic for a few hours. In Canoga Park I found Derry’s family were nice, a little rough around the edges though.

We realized once we got there that everyone travels to Los Angeles to start all over again and we weren’t so special. It was a weird couple of weeks that also included a trip to Las Vegas were I lost all the money I had.

That was also the last time I gambled, not counting playing the lottery. It was one of the stupider weekends in my life.

Our money and dreams were depleted and we headed back to New Jersey, driving the same route, only this time it was nonstop.

I went back to work, and eventually got Derry his job back in the same warehouse. 6000 miles in about a month.

I wouldn’t recommend it, but it did get me the courier position when it became available a few months later.

Derry betrayed me a year or so later and I never spoke to him again.

Headlights Look Like Diamonds

Tuesday, April 28th, 2009

Starting off, I don’t like the new hours. Sure, going to work at 9:00 is nice, less of a rush hour crowd, but leaving the office at 7:00, getting home around 8:00 and then having to make dinner is not my cup of tea.

Maybe I can get used to it, but on day one, I don’t like it.

The day today was a fiasco, even before I got on the bus. As it happened, I was waiting for the bus when Greg Stevens called my cellphone wondering if I was coming in to the office. I told him I was.

Then he asked if I was close to the office and I told him I was still in Hoboken waiting for the bus. He was off to a meeting and needed a letter that Vivek had sent out earlier this month, the letter stating that the company was broke and belly up.

I told him that I should be in the office by 10:00 and if he left me a fax number I would fax the letter over to him. I was there a little after 10:00, I found the letter and faxed it to wherever he was.

The day progressed awkwardly. Basically I was doing the same job as before, only 90 minutes later. Things still needed to be done and the other people in the office weren’t about to do it themselves.

The conservatives were all dressed up for meetings, I was casual since it was going to be close to 90 degrees today.

I got a phone call from Abby this morning as I sat at my desk. He asked if I was going to call the various hotels and motels that were discussed yesterday.

I told him that I still would like some help with this aspect since the people that I was calling had questions that I couldn’t answer, and I too had some questions.

He didn’t seem to hear that and asked again, and I raised my voice telling him that I requested help yesterday when he, Vivek and Sanjay (gave the business partner a name) sat opposite me at the table and all they did was nod their heads in unison, and still nothing was resolved.

I don’t want to look like an idiot and I don’t want the company to look bad.

I told Rand yesterday that it was like the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing, only this was worse since the hands were attached to the 8 arms of Shiva and the left still wasn’t saying anything to the right.

I did what I could, calling up the hotels and motels, and doing my best after Sanjay sat down and we did a phone call together. Still, things didn’t go as smoothly as anyone would have liked.

Some people I called didn’t know anything about what I was calling about and some simply weren’t interested. This was the equivalent of a ‘cold call’ or so they thought.

I heard from Sanjay that this was ordered by a guy who owns several of these hotels and motels, unfortunately the owner didn’t tell the managers of these places.

It was confusion on both ends.

Some people weren’t in, some people were unavailable. I had to keep calling because all of a sudden this needed to be taken care by 6:00 this evening.

‘Let’s give it to the new guy’ must have been the thinking behind that one. I called one motel manager at 4:49, telling him I’d call back in an hour to help him with the questionnaire. At 5:55 the guy’s phone was out of service.

It was truly the essence of ridiculousness.

20th Century Boy

Monday, April 27th, 2009

Presently in the phone with Harpy. Blood pressure which is usually low is quite high while talking to him. It all stemmed when for some strange reason I tried giving him a call to let him know the latest developments at work.

Like last week when I wrote I have all these phone numbers in my cellphone and hardly any of them were available. Well, Rand was available and I told him about the latest.

Harpy was unavailable, as was Bill, Annemarie, and everyone else. That’s fine. They have their lives, their problems and I’ve got mine.

What happened was mainly a continuation of last week. Last week was when I started phoning up a few hotels and motels and asking them questions regarding beaming movies to their rooms.

I couldn’t do it all the way through since the people on the other end had questions that I couldn’t answer. Vivek and his business partner and Abby were all unavailable.

Still I felt it best if I went through the questionnaire with one of the three next to me in case there were questions. I told them this today and they agreed.

It didn’t mean they were going to find time to sit there next to me. In fact they still wanted me to call, looking and sounding stupid sitting next to an empty chair. It’s just ridiculous.

But the peak of ridiculousness was when they told me that I would be driving to different hotels and motels to check out the properties. Oh how their faces fell when I told them I didn’t drive.

They offered to pay for driving lessons but I told them I knew how to drive, it’s just that I don’t want to drive. And I don’t have a license.

I am probably one of the few Americans they’ve met who steadfastly refuses to drive.

I explained to them that I used to drive for a living. I drove to California and back. I’ve driven to Florida and back. I drove to Austin, Texas. And twice a day I used to drive from Saddle Brook NJ to 757 Third Avenue, only a few blocks away.

When I had to do an “impersonation of Janet Leigh” for Vivek’s business partner is when I tried calling.

Rand understood. He was my unofficial co-pilot for about a year.

Things have changed since I last drove 23 years ago. More new drivers and more older drivers. It’s not so much I don’t trust them, but the tons of metal are unsafe at any speed.

All it takes is one split second, one thing to go wrong and everything could all go bad.

And I do not want to drive a car or truck or van ever again.

Harpy insisted on telling me over and over that it would be something new to do. That if I want to keep my job I had better start to drive again. Sorry, but if it comes down to that I would rather walk than drive.

And dealing with Vivek and his business partner and Abby is something else entirely. Several times as I sat with them, plans for what I should do change within seconds. ‘John should do this.’ Then ‘John should do that’ which totally conflicts with the initial proposal.

What am I getting myself into? I was also told that I could start coming into the office at 10:00 since Vivek and his business partner don’t usually make it in until noon sometimes.

So they want me to stay later, until 6:00 or 7:00.

Sorry if tonight’s entry is incoherent. I think I should put off talking on the phone until after I’ve written since whatever state of mind I might have been in previously, it’s gone now and I am a bit tense.

The Whole World

Sunday, April 26th, 2009

Let’s see. At 12:30 this afternoon it was 89 degrees out. On April 26. I can see it being like that in July or August but this makes it seem like we’ve bypassed Spring and jumped right into Summer.

Well you know, that global warming myth. It’s all a scam you see. They say it’s a man made problem, but of course this has happened a few times already. Unfortunately there are no records of the polar ice caps melts, ice shelves collapsing in Antarctica.

Greenland must have been green at some point, why else would it be named Greenland? Too bad Leif Erickson isn’t around to explain that one.

I believe global warming is a fact, and I believe it’s a man made problem. Not so much from car emissions, though that is a factor. It’s from the destruction of the rain forests and what I think no one wants to talk about.

It’s because there are a lot of people exhaling carbon dioxide. A lot more people now than ever before and without major rain forests converting the CO2 to oxygen, we are in the mess and on the slippery slope where we find ourselves today.

I was surprised that one of the people in my office say that she believed global warming was a falsehood. I usually hear that from the conservative blow hards, but that was a surprise and her standing in my view was diminished somewhat.

After having napped and written yesterday, I sat on the stoop in front of my building, enjoying a Padron and sipping on a Guinness. My landlord walked by, apparently he was inside the building.

He said he was planning on calling me since he got the note I sent in February, saying that it was posted on the wall by his phone at home. Now that he had me, he asked if I was still willing to vacuum the hallway in my building.

I told I was and we worked out a deal. He said he couldn’t reduce my rent, but would write me a check each month. I agreed to the deal. Julio says it would be a pain in the ass at first and maybe I could hire someone to do a deep cleaning to start off with, and then my cleaning on top of that would be a lot easier.

It does sound like a good idea. I already started today, sweeping up the front of the building and cleaning out leaves and garbage on the stairs outside that lead to the basement.

Last night was an adventure of sorts. Definitely out of the ordinary. Bill and I headed into the city, I still didn’t have a definite idea on where we were going but I did get an inadvertent clue.

A former co-worker on Facebook, Janelle, wrote that she was taking her mother to dinner for her birthday and after that, taking her to see John Leguizamo. I know Bill loves John Leguizamo so that was the clue.

I did a search for John Leguizamo NYC but all that came up was his IMDB entry. A put that in the back of my mind walking down the gentrified Christopher Street scene. Lot’s of bridge and tunnel LGBT teens hanging out but mostly the gay scene in now in Chelsea.

We walked over to Seventh Avenue South towards the Actor’s Playhouse where I saw a poster for John Leguizamo. I told Bill I guessed it, but not really since we were right on front of the box office.

The show was good, it was a work in progress titled, A Work in Progress- Don’t Hate. Bill loved it of course, laughing uproariously throughout.

One or two times I was the only one who laughed at Leguizamo’s jokes, making him mention that he would wait for everyone else to catch up.

I did see Janelle and her mom and hoped to see them after the show, but it was such a warm night and all the bodies in the Actor’s Playhouse made it like wearing a wool sweater inside, plus the seats were a bit on the small side, not really geared for a 6’2” frame like myself or Bill.

After the show we made a beeline for the street afterwards, hanging out in the fresh air for a few minutes before giving up and heading towards the Path train on Ninth Street where we rode the train up to 33rd Street and then back towards Hoboken so we could get a seat.

By the time the train made it back to Ninth Street most of the people were standing up against one another. Young couples heading home early after getting their drink on.

Bill and I made it back to Hoboken were young patrons were either lined up to get into crowded bars or standing outside of those establishments smoking.

Back home Bill went right to sleep and I stayed up and watched a repeat of Lost that they show on Saturday nights.

Woke up, Bill was on his way to clean out his mother’s apartment, I was off to get breakfast. After that, with the temperature rising, I decided to clean up the front of the building.

Then I fixed up my bike and called Rand and we went cycling up to Guttenberg, as far as the Galaxy Towers. A fun ride, haven’t hung out with Rand in a while.

Lisa stayed home, she doesn’t ride a bicycle lately I guess.

An entertaining couple of hours with an entertaining friend from years gone by. And he’s right.

Lost is better than Heroes.

Pics? Pics!

My buddy Rand

My buddy Rand

Galaxy Towers

Galaxy Towers

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42609-hoboken-005

34th Street heading east

34th Street heading east

42609-hoboken-009

42609-hoboken-010

Garbage Peeps

Garbage Peeps

Mellow Mood

Saturday, April 25th, 2009

Well I just woke up from a nap that I didn’t think I needed, but it turns out that I did. It seemed to shake the cobwebs off my increasingly bitter mind.

I woke up tired this morning and then after getting bagels and whatnot, I got the packages together to ship back to the fraudulent manufacturers. I was so plagued by doubt and self loathing, plus an unhealthy attitude to most of the world.

I had a great talk with Annemarie who did her best to bolster my spirits and I did my best to resist her attempts. She suggested the nap which made sense after I came home.

Last night I mainly sat in the dark until 11:00. Bill came home and tried to be comforting but I was too uncomfortable for that. Even Juan called, somewhat alarmed after reading last night’s entry. And here I was thinking that Juan didn’t read this anymore.

That was awfully nice. It’s funny- a week before, I had an excellent day with Juan. Last Friday, going to Ikea, where I hadn’t laughed like I did in a long time. Even last Saturday, going to Hiro Takeshita’s art opening with Bill was nice.

Somewhere between then and now it all turned to shit, or at least started to.

I do think Bill was disappointed last night when he asked what time we were going to Dan and Shawn’s party in Jersey City this afternoon. I used to work with Dan at Wanker Banker, 5 years ago. He left in 2004.

I told Bill I wasn’t much into going to it anymore, complaining that it would mainly be theater people. As I said that, I remembered that Bill is theater people.

I’d like to think I was more on the fence rather than dead set against going to the party, and I am pretty sure I was dragging my feet about it, going back a couple of weeks ago.

In any event, the invitations and the directions can’t be found at this moment in time. I can’t find it and neither can Bill and I forwarded him the invite a month or so ago.

Well I just searched my gmail trash and there was the invitation, for last Sunday. So all that worry for nothing.

Tonight Bill is taking me somewhere, one of his surprises that he told me about a few weeks ago. He loves to surprise me, loves the whole ‘I ain’t sayin’ shit’ about it. This drives me crazy.

I was thinking we were going to the Rhythm Revue tonight at Roseland that his Stuyvesant Town neighbor told him about. He was hopped up about it and I figured that was it.

I even guessed it, but I was incorrect. Then I figured we were going to Bob Mould’s Blowoff dance party in Brooklyn tonight and I was certainly dreading that. I asked him if we were going to Brooklyn and he said no.

He said we would be taking the Path train to Christopher Street and that was all he was going to say about it. He gave me the chance to ask 2 more questions, but since this was pre-nap I didn’t.

I did ask if we were doing something gay and he said ‘hell no’. So that was a relief.

All I know is that we have to be on our way by 8:30.

Hopefully the fraudulent scheme from these companies is taken care of, after getting Return Authorization numbers and shipping them back via certified mail. It’s amazing what a nap can do.

That’s it. An early posting, way earlier than usual. Thought it best to strike while the iron is hot.

Better, not bitter

Better, not bitter