Archive for June, 2010

I’m All Over It

Wednesday, June 30th, 2010

What a beautiful day it has been. Simply splendid. Nice weather, not humid, an occasional breeze.

I slept soundly last night. Bill didn’t. When we left East LA last night it was cool and breezy and the comment was made about having the windows open while we slept. I was hesitant, figuring it that it still might be too hot.

But when I finally went to bed, Bill had the air conditioner on. I decided to turn it off and open the window. I don’t know if the open window prevented Bill from a good night’s sleep, but I think it helped me. I suppose we’ll continue the experiment tonight and see how that goes.

I was up hours after Bill left, and after breakfast and showering I dropped off a suit at the Cary’s Dry Cleaners and went to the bibliothèque. On the way I spoke to Pedro who got back from South Beach the other day.

He had a blast and recommended that I visit there some day. Unlikely, but I did not say no.

In the bibliothèque, Diane the librarian, remembered a DVD she recommended the other day, Role Models starring Paul Rudd. So I picked that up.

But my main thing was the fact that a book about the Beatles, You Never Give Me Your Money by Peter Doggett finally came in. It was released earlier this month and for once BCCLS did not say it was too new, like the message I got when I requested Iggy & the Stooges Raw Power remaster. And I requested it from the Hoboken bibliothèque.

So far so good with regards to the Beatle book. The prologue was all about 8 December 1980, how Paul was shocked, George wouldn’t answer the phone and Ringo was drunk. Cynthia Lennon was staying with Maureen Cox, Ringo’s ex when she got the call.

John’s Aunt Mimi was in bed drifting in and out of sleep, listening to the BBC World Service and not know if she was dreaming or not when she heard about John’s brutal murder. That was the prologue, not I’m in chapter one, where Brian Epstein has died and the Fabs are starting up Apple Corps. The book promises to be full of Apple juice and so far I’ve been entertained.

I sat by the river and read, smoking a cigar. The sweet Karen Kuhl stopped by for a minute. She’s playing the Pier 13 show tomorrow night, but I won’t be able to make it since it ends at 10:00 and I won’t be getting to Hoboken after work until 10:00.

She’s also unsure if she could make the party in 12 days (!), and that’s too bad since I had hoped she’d sing a song or two from the Gutbank days. She’s unsure like I said so who knows? She just might. Then Karen split and Rand pulled up on his bike, and we had a nice chat as well.

It was almost like a talk show, I’m on a bench and a few friends stop by for a chat. Simple premise. It could be done I suppose. I’d be willing to do it on Public Access, even in the winter and in the rain.

It would be a surreal affair and with me being me, I don’t see how it could be any other way.

I always wanted to have a talk show. I remember way back, growing up and sitting in mounds of snow with Donna Foglio and playing talk show. I wanted to be Mike Douglas and she was a reluctant Totie Fields.

A Beautiful Day in Hoboken

(I’m Always Touched By Your) Presence Dear

Tuesday, June 29th, 2010

Well it’s later than I anticipated. It’s almost 11:30 here. I just got back from having dinner with Bill and his friend Lawrence and Lawrence’s boyfriend Joe. Lawrence used to live in Hoboken and now he and his boyfriend live in Secaucus.

I remembered Lawrence vaguely from 20 years ago when I worked at a local video store. He has an out of the ordinary surname so that would stick out in my mind.

Lawrence suggested East LA, one of his old haunts when he lived here and Bill not knowing any better agreed. It’s not my favorite spot. The food is edible, the service is horrible and the music is way too loud. It’s also owned by the dickhead former Mayor of Hoboken.

I enjoy going out to dinner and having a conversation, but going to East LA, one doesn’t go for conversation. It could be the food, the margaritas, not the ambiance.

I hustled to get out of work on time to make it to dinner at 8:00, not taking into consideration that many people with no taste would be going there on a Tuesday night, causing us to wait for a table for 4.

The host told us 20 minutes and when the 20 minutes passed, Joe went and asked. The host said he told us 30 to 40 minutes, but just then a table opened up.

We ordered 3 Corona’s and a margarita. Bill got the last Corona. A faux Mexican restaurant with no Corona. I had a Heineken.

After about 45 minutes the wait thing finally decided to take our orders. I had to check Bill’s menu since my menu had smudges on the price list. Still I put on a smiling face and engaged in conversation which was mainly trying to be heard above Good Life, by Inner City. A 12” club record I played about 23 years ago.

A group of 20 somethings threw food at each other landing on our table. It was Bill’s birthday and I did my best to have a good time. I could barely hear Lawrence or Joe but I think I laughed and smiled at the appropriate moments.

Despite all the noise and the lousy service it was good to spend time with Bill and his friends. There was no birthday cake to celebrate Bill’s birthday though. That was a drag. Arthur’s would have been a better spot to go, but I wasn’t making any decisions. I was along for the ride.

I grinned and bared it. I think Bill, Lawrence and Joe would have been content to stay there longer than we did if I didn’t mention that I needed to go grocery shopping at 11:00 to buy things for breakfast. Perhaps Lawrence and Joe thought I was a stick in the mud.

It’s more than likely that I will go to the actual Eastern Los Angeles before I go to East LA again.

It was a long day for me and I was hoping for a nice time with friends of Bill’s, not anticipating being horse from shouting while trying to have a conversation.

Now Bill is asleep in bed, and here I am, finally home and writing. I ‘m glad Bill had a happy birthday.

Lawrence & Joe


El Stiffo & the Birthday boy

I’m Affected

Monday, June 28th, 2010

Notes from today. On the Long Island Railroad (LIRR) then a transfer in Jamaica to Far Rockaway. A woman sits across from me eating an ice cream cone with a spoon.

Last night before heading out to watch the fireworks, I watched True Blood. Bill phoned midway through causing me to miss some plot points. No worries I think, I will just catch the west coast broadcast later on.

And I do. And Bill calls once again at almost the exact same part of the show. So I will have to catch it some other time, perhaps when Annemarie is within the vicinity.

I got a phone call before True Blood from Rand. He and Lisa & Lois and Fred were going to have a cocktail and then go see the fireworks. I tell Rand my plan. Watch True Blood, go drop off a birthday card to Bill’s office and a note to my cousin Joe at the Post Office, and then watch the fireworks on Pier A.

Rand gently mocks me, for wanting to ‘watch my shows’.

As I headed over to the Post Office, sans iPod, I overhear a male couple returning from the Gay Pride parade talking about me, saying ‘Yeah, he is.’ I smile.

Train kept a rollin’ en route to Jamaica.

The fireworks were nice, would have been nicer if Bill was around, but he was driving a bus back to Wallington. Rand & Lisa and Lois & Fred watched the fireworks from Stevens Point. Difficulty sleeping last night.

Awake at 2:15 after going to bed at 12:15. Got up when Bill came home. Of course he’s out cold, minutes after his head hits the pillow. I think I finally feel asleep around 2:30. Luckily I didn’t have to wake up early.

While waiting to buy tickets for the LIRR, I get a phone call from Calvin. He had forgotten I was out on Long Island to take a certification test to sell cigars and tobacco related products in New York State. He arranged the whole thing for today a few weeks ago.

Thanks to train schedules and Bill’s planning (I love him for that) I am an hour early. I sit in the shade of a first story garage underneath an office building and smoke a cigar. I go inside the air conditioned building and sit and wait in a class room that also serves as a conference room for a lawyer that shares the office space.

The class is supposed to start at 2:00. At 2:10 I am the only one there. 10 minutes later 2 guys come in, gas jockeys, one of them wearing a BP polo shirt.

We watch a videotape of Linda McKenna teaching a room full of actors how to ask for ID when someone who looks under the age of 25 tries to buy tobacco. What to say, what not to say, how to handle the situation when a teenager needs his nicotine fix and has the potential to get cranky.

I remember buying smokes for my parents, Marlboro for mom, Kent for dad with no questions asked at Gallo’s drugstore. But there were no laws then regarding the sale of tobacco to minors then.

The class itself was directed by Ralph, an amiable older bloke with a passable toupee on his head. It was over in 90 minutes. Ralph pointed out the contradictions from the VHS tape and the Power Point presentation.

Immigrations cards are/are not valid forms of ID.

At the Lawrence trains station waiting for the train back to Jamaica to transfer to a train to Penn Station.

At 4:30 the town siren goes off.

At 4:44 the train arrives and I am once again leaving Long Island, heading towards Manhattan.

It’s Bill’s birthday tomorrow!

I’m Lucky

Sunday, June 27th, 2010

Happy Gay Pride day to my people and my friends & family who are gay friendly. I didn’t make it to the Gay Pride march in Manhattan. Too hot and I’m on my feet all day at work.

The last thing I wanted to do was stand around some more on a day off. It was 95º Fahrenheit today. And Bill was driving to Atlantic City and I wouldn’t want to go without him. I suppose that’s the consequence of not having many gay friends around here.

I know Andy, Chaz’ friend is there, but he’s probably with his boyfriend and I wouldn’t want to be the third wheel, plus they’re going to the dance afterward, and I wouldn’t want to do that.

And it’s HOT.

I sat by the river this afternoon sans guitar and read the New Yorker and finished off Uncut. I gazed across the Hudson River and saw what I guessed to be revelers after the parade and sorting it out, on where to go next.

That was me and Bill on some previous parades. I couldn’t help but think of the Pride festivities that I had attended. I remember walking through the parade on my way to buy records at St. Mark’s Sounds and buying a pink triangle button with a peace sign in the pink. Lost it as time passed, but still I remember it.

Back then even though I was gay, I didn’t have much to do with the scene as it were mainly since the scene didn’t have anything to do with me.

I remember one night before Gay Pride day being at the Dugout on Christopher Street and seeing Billie being slapped by Joey, Jet’s obnoxious last boyfriend. It was the last we saw of Joey, that’s for sure. No great loss.

Another year, or maybe the same year, walking after the parade through the West Village with Billie and Gracie, another DC friend. We walked up some street and saw some revelers on a fire escape wearing Patsy Cline masks.

For some reason I was compelled to yell out ‘Free Patsy Cline’ which Billie and Gracie also yelled with me and we laughed as we strolled up the streets.

Another year, going with Julio & Patrick Morrissey. As soon as we got there Morrissey was off somewhere else. It didn’t matter since Julio and I were both tripping. Another time, where I went solo and sat by the pier smoking joints with a bunch of nice lesbians while the menfolk were quite standoffish and catty.

There was the time when Bill and I volunteered to herd the parade people from start to finish. We picked the religious groups. No one else wanted to work with them and I soon found out why.

Bill was a member of the congregation at Metropolitan Community Church (MCC) and he wound up with them during the parade. I was with a whiny bunch, different denominations.

The Radical Faeries ahead of the reformed Jews who were ahead of the Catholic groups. The Catholics were whining about their place in line. I couldn’t get them to move fast enough, too many gaps in the parade which slowed the already long parade.

I abandoned my post by the time we passed 37th Street and Fifth Avenue.

I caught up with Bill at 23rd Street and was basically a wreck. One of the congregants of MCC slapped a ‘God Made Me Queer’ sticker on my shirt and I barked at him to leave me the fuck alone.

I don’t know what was more offensive, the God mention or the use of the word Queer, which some gay guys like to use. But not me. He sped away frightened by my overheated temper and Bill told me the young man’s mother passed away a few weeks before.

I didn’t know that of course.

Another time Bill and I marched with the church he goes to now. A nice group, no stickers involved. Just handing out balloons throughout the parade route. It’s a lot of marching, a lot of stopping and starting all in the hot sun.

Friends have said they had seen me & Bill in the parade and shouted and yelled but in the din we couldn’t hear them.

There was also the time in 2003 when Bill and I exchanged some vows of some kind in Grand Army Plaza by the Plaza hotel. Kate Pierson from the B-52s serenaded Bill and myself as well as the other same sex couples who got some what hitched.

Sarah Fortner made a lovely painting from the event which was witnessed by Rand & Lisa and Julio & Stine. So I do have good memories of the parade and today was about revisiting those memories.

HAPPY PRIDE TO YOU AND YOURS!

I’m going to watch True Blood and then watch the fireworks from Pier A after I drop Bill’s birthday card at the post office.



god's angry jazz hands


I’m A Loser

Saturday, June 26th, 2010

A lazy Saturday, just as I planned. It worked out well. I didn’t sleep well last night even though I was incredibly tired, so I’ve been napping on and off throughout the afternoon. Usually 10 minutes does the job.

I took the guitar out and sat by the river for an hour this afternoon. I met up with Rand & Lisa on my way there and had a nice talk with Lisa while Rand talked on his phone with his father most of the time.

It was a nice day, not too humid but not much of a breeze by the river either. I played Instant Karma, Shame Shame Shame, and (Love is Like a) Heatwave. It wasn’t too crowded today and I didn’t see anyone I knew once Rand & Lisa headed into the city.

I did get tired though and came home and took another cat nap. Now there are a few rain drops on the kitchen. I picked up Gosford Park, hoping that Bill will enjoy it.

Presently watching one of the Beatles Anthology DVD’s, and right now they’re showing the Shea Stadium concerts in 1965.

Of course I’ve seen it a few times, but never noticed how the girls in the audience were going berserk. Screaming and crying. I’ve read somewhere in the past that most of the seats from the Beatles concerts would be soaked afterward. August 1965.

I was two about to turn three the next month. Now on the Anthology DVD is the Beatles meeting Elvis Presley. A Rashomon of sorts, since they all have different stories and memories from the meeting.

Bill came home and we had Napoli’s pizza and we decided to order pizza from them for the upcoming party. We were going to have Grimaldi’s pizza but they don’t open until later and this place is right down Washington Street from Maxwells. And the pizza was very good, so that’s been decided.

We watched Gosford Park, or at least half of it. Bill was getting tired and I believe he is driving a bus tomorrow. Not to Atlantic City though. I really don’t know where.

Once again, I have no plans for tomorrow. Not going to the Gay Pride parade. I stand around enough during the week and with the heat. Oy. Can’t really say what I’ll do.

More of nothing sounds fine.

Maybe a local bike ride. That would depend on the weather. It’s quite warm out now. What rain there was dried up hours ago. Bill asleep. He’s in deep sleep within minutes of his head hitting the pillow. I might go to bed soon myself.

I was more tired yesterday evening than I am now, but after not sleeping well I hope to make up for it tonight. So that’s my plan for the rest of the night. Hope yours was fun or was fun, wherever you are.

Haven’t checked the location stats lately on this here blog. Perhaps I’ll do this after I post.

I’m A Lonely Petunia (In An Onion Patch)

Friday, June 25th, 2010

Oh my, what a day this has been. It started out OK, I slept in a bit since I was working the late shift. I was able to relax and start the day at an easy pace. It wasn’t as hot out as it was yesterday and that was a plus.

I soon found myself walking up to Washington Street where I waited for the bus opposite Hoboken Daily News. Got on the bus. Another advantage of going into work later is that there are less people on the bus.

Still plenty of traffic at the tunnel though, but like yesterday I had a competent bus driver who knew to aim for the middle tunnel and avoided a lot of congestion headed into the right tunnel. I soon found myself on the A train, making it on board just before the doors closed.

The strap on my Eagle Creek bag broke, just days after getting it back from Inwood NY where they fixed the zipper. Totally threw my body English off.

Bill phoned to tell me his supervisor had just been let go from the law firm. That was unnerving for the both of us. They’ve been letting people go every few months and I hoped this wasn’t that again. And I was worried of course for Bill’s standing at the firm.

He’s OK which brought some relief.

I had a few minutes but decided to head into the cigar shop. It was Marcus and Raymond, both telling me that I just missed something. Apparently they banned a customer who was caught on tape cramming something into the door after the store was closed.

It was a goofy thing or so I thought.

Little did I know the situation was going to go swiftly downhill. Raymond came in a few minutes later and soon he was in the office with Marcus and Calvin, door closed. I did whatever it was I do in the morning.

Marcus had me counting boxes in the humidor which is when Calvin and Raymond slipped out. Apparently Raymond messed up on something and though he owned up to it, they don’t trust him anymore, taking away his key and not allowing him to close the store anymore.

They also took his vacation days away. He’s on probation. Having written that I realize that I think Raymond might have had someone in the store after closing. The person bought something and since the register was closed, he took the money and put it away.

Later on, that someone crammed something in the store door. Of course I could be wrong and this is my deductive reasoning. Law & Order is on right now and Bill’s watching it so that could be the impetus for my detective skills.

So that hung over the store all day. Yesterday it was a lot of laughs and good times with Sean and Don Birch and Calvin & Raymond. Today it was all about the pall. Raymond also organized a cigar dinner which he is now dis-invited to.

He told me these things in bits and pieces while mumbling. He told me he left a note about the money and he also sold more things that Calvin and I did today. He sold $2,000 worth of items where Calvin & I made just under $1,000 a piece.

On July 1, I will get a key to the shop and also be closing as well.

It was a long, long, long day. I’m glad it’s over. I have no plans for the weekend and I have no plans on making any.

Maybe I won’t write. It depends once again on what happens I suppose.

Lot’s of slow sausages on the street tonight, and having to carry my bag instead of slung it over my shoulder, made my hustle from the shop to the bus terminal last 21.9 minutes.