Archive for the ‘STFU’ Category

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I Could Be Happy (Again)

Tuesday, August 30th, 2011

The oh so unhappy syphilitic life of Phillip Andorr began when he was raised in a box next to a garbage can of medical waste. His smother was next to a lamppost and may have been impregnated when an overzealous dog chased a rabbit which turned out to be his father who was the understudy in a Fenway production of Harvey.

Phillip was a Red Sox fan and only by the decree of the most holy roamin’ apostolic church of idiocy was he spared the child and spoiled a rod. Phillip was an unhappy lad, not liked by anyone at all which made for an extremely bitter life overall.

No sweetness for Phillip Andorr, all sour and scorn for him. A truly nasty beast which haunted most of Long Island. It couldn’t have been easy but then again, being a Red Sox fan more than likely helped with his disconsolate lifestyle.

A teenager with sticky fingers Phillip found himself banned from both strip malls and strip clubs. His misogynistic tendencies did not help in either location and when he figured out what it was that was causing his routine absence of sense it only amped up his disquiet.

Phillip barked like a mad dog at passing cars whenever possible and it was then and there that he found redemption or at least what passed for redemption but Phillip actually figured out what it was that was bothering him. It was himself.

He looked into the reflection of a hub cap when he was laying in the gutter and wondered why life had dealt him such a lousy hand. That was my attempt at getting back at a true wanker who was a horrible customer that I had to deal with. Drivel and nonsense and fun to write.

I know I know, you’re thinking ‘John Ozed, is this one of your lousy attitude flip outs?’ And it isn’t, though of course you have every right to think so. You have every right to think about whatever it is you might want to think about. But for this I have back up.

Bradley witnessed the whole event and would back me if asked. And it was caught entirely on camera, which by the way added a lot more than 10 pounds to Phillip Andorr’s expanding frame. As I walked Phillip Andorr into the room he felt like I was watching him to make sure he wasn’t shoplifting. Now the only person who might think that would be a shoplifter, but still I gave him a doubtful benefit.

I tried to explain why I was there but Phillip Andorr was adamant that I was being too vigilant with regards to the criminal escapades in his dark and dank mind. Bradley heard this and offered to help but realized that there was no helping this loose loser. He flamboyantly showed Bradley and myself what he got and Bradley thought it best to let him wait a few seconds so he can cool off.

I took Bradley’s advice and there was Phillip Andorr so upset, as if an Ulster man ran over his turtle. I did my best to get this cancer out of the store as soon as possible and Phillip Andorr helped by calling me ‘Sweetie’ and I am sure he didn’t mean it as a term of endearment since discharge like Phillip Andorr wouldn’t know a term of endearment if it bit him in the face (and it certainly looked like that happened). But Phillip Andorr is out of my life and hopefully it will have nothing to do with your life.

That’s the way it goes I suppose. I should have been a proctologist, what with all the assholes that have been crossing my path the past months. With Lazy Teat Greg still reading this blog every day, followed by Miss Shack Thing and now in the flesh and blood, Phillip Andorr.

Can it get any better? Can they get any more bitter? Probably.




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I Can’t Quit You Baby

Thursday, August 4th, 2011

Wow. It’s Thursday. It’s interesting for me at the cigar shack. There are days when I feel I have a grip on things and I think things will be alright, then I go in the next day and all that is forgotten and tossed in the rubbish pile. Today is one of those days.

Yesterday was good, me and Calvin and joined by Jerry Vale, then today with Bradley & Thomas. Thomas is great, Bradley has the amazing propensity to be a pain in the tuchis.

Just had an interesting chat with Jimmy Seltzer who basically schools me on matters economic. He says things are going to get worse than they are now. I can see it, I can feel it. I used to look at Don and Raymond and wonder how they could work in the cigar shack for two years, and now I find myself in the same position.

No, it hasn’t been two years but I am over one year. That is simply the situation I find myself in. The mantra continues ‘at least you have a job’. Some people don’t. Some people are still looking. Danny the K and Greg Stevens have not responded to my email. It’s disappointing but what can you do?

More disappointing is the twenty something young man who was so fucking self absorbed, he wouldn’t move half an inch so someone could sit next to him on the bus. He was so fucking engrossed in whatever stupid game he was playing on his cellphone. A regular C U Next Tuesday type.

I was the unlucky guy to try to sit in the seat next to him. Oh how I wanted to punch him in the skull, but instead decided on saying ‘wanker’ when he got off the bus at 14th and Washington. He probably didn’t hear me and if he did he didn’t know I was talking about him, or more than likely did not know what a wanker was. Go ahead, look it up, I’ve got time.

It could have been a better day, but it wasn’t. Calvin was out of the cigar shack most of the day, attending a meeting across town. When he did eventually came back he was all doom and gloom which did not help matters in the cigar shack with Thomas and myself. Bradley usually plays the role of being aloof so how he felt was relatively unknown.

On August 22, the staff has to meet at 8AM across town to renew our tobacconist licenses. I don’t have a tobacconist license and frankly I wasn’t looking to get one. Perhaps I should. It doesn’t look like I am going anywhere else really.

A friend of former co-worker Raymond stopped by, Frank. Nice guy, he’s been out of work for nearly three years, and he has a wife and kid to support. He was looking to buy a gift for someone and after looking at a few items, said he would come back another time.

Before that I had to look at pages of what might be ordered for the store, such expensive items, no one I know would want or buy these things, but I guess a $14,000 humidor is just right for some. It really is a tale of two cities.

Bill just came home from rehearsal. He was feeling ill most of the day, took off from work and slept a lot. I checked in, in the morning and told him I would call again at lunch time. And I did just that, only I got his voice mail at the beginning and ending of my lunch hour.

So he’s alive and able to go to rehearsal, and leave me wondering if I would be coming home to a corpse in the bed. But he’s fine and I guess feeling a whole lot better.

Squirrel!







CVS Careers.net is a scam. Chris at vidivo.net writes like lazy teat Greg.

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I Can Help Too

Friday, June 24th, 2011

LATE BREAKING NEWS: Marriage Equality comes to New York State! The same-sex marriage bill was approved on a 33-to-29 vote.

It’s a Friday and everyone seems to be in a good, if not decent mood. And it was fairly busy at the cigar shack. Two special guest stars came in one was Casey Chasm who I hadn’t seen in a year or so. Good to see him, he was with a friend named Parik.

Casey looked good, clean shaven since the army frowns upon beards and whatnot. He’s probably going off to Afghanistan in a few months to do his Judge Advocate General routine. Luckily that doesn’t require being in the front, but still I worry.

And if I worry I can only imagine how Mrs. Chasm is feeling. And she now has 2 babies to look after, 2 girls named Annie and Clara. Casey wasn’t able to stay long, I was just one stop on his visit to Manhattan, he had a few other people to reconnect with. I was able to purchase a cigar for him as well as giving him a free cigar which was part of the promotion going on today.

And that promotion was what made the store extra busy. Quite a number of regulars and guys that hadn’t been seen in a while hanging out in the man cave smoking up a storm. The other special guest was Eddie Vedder, the lead singer of Pearl Jam. He was in the other day and today he came back to buy some more items for his manager.

I don’t think Eddie Vedder is a cigar smoker but his manager seems to be, enough so to warrant a second visit. He was nice and trying to be incognito which explains the lack of photographs. I would be more impressed but I can’t say that I am much of a fan of Pearl Jam.

I spent my lunch hour once again on a bench near Central Park, smoking a cigar and reading Michael Azzerad’s entry on Mission of Burma. I totally missed out on seeing them, but did have Academy Fight Song which could be their most famous song.

Another story about a band too far ahead of their time. I did see a spin off band of Mission of Burma called Birdsongs of the Mesozoic. Almost as noisy and dissonant as Burma and I am pretty sure I saw them at the 9:30 Club in Washington DC with Jet during one of my sojourns down to the nation’s capital.

Bill is driving to Atlantic City tonight as well as tomorrow night so chances are I won’t be seeing him until Sunday which happens to be my next day off. He’s been busy at work lately so my occasional phone call with him has been a bit intense.

It’s all good, but today he was talking so fast that I could barely understand him and even though I asked him to repeat himself twice I wound up missing the gist of what he was saying. I told him so later which got a laugh. Just treading water now, it’s killing time. And now I am home and happy to be here.




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I Beg Your Pardon

Friday, May 27th, 2011

Here it is again, once again, the incredible, the rhyme animal. I know I got that wrong but my heart is in the right place, under the rib cage. At the cigar shack once again, day two of a four day stretch. How did I used to do a 5 day work week?

Well I was generally sitting down a lot, and when I walked it was usually on carpeted floors. Nowadays, it’s not like that anymore. No, it’s all about standing on concrete floors for 9 hours a day. At this time last year I was unemployed about to start working.

A bit of anxiety was setting in of course. After being out of work for 11 months how could it not? It seems so long ago. I was working with a different crew then and now they’re no longer here. The only carry over from those days is Calvin. And now he is number one and that makes me number two by default.

Things are certainly better with Bradley. He’s a moody chap by his own admission though I doubt if he would be one to use the word chap.

I am home now and quite happy to be here. Bill is driving to Atlantic City tonight and driving again tomorrow night so if I don’t see him for a few fleeting minutes, I won’t see him until Sunday. It’s a drag but that’s how it is I suppose.

It’s so bloody warm here, heat rises and being on the top floor you can feel it. The windows are open and an occasional breeze floats through. I heard from Pedro today, he was in town and was hoping I would be free to hang out but of course he calls when I am at work, so not free at all.

I still would like a Monday through Friday job, with normal hours or at least something close to normal hours, or what passes for normal hours. No word from Joe Monaco but like I wrote previously I have extremely low expectations with him. Still hope remains, just not pounding the drums like hope sometimes does.

I closed the store tonight as Thomas was headed off to something, maybe an engagement party for him and his fiancé tomorrow. He’s quite a funny guy though by the end of the night it’s hard to keep up with his sense of humor. Being twice his age, makes me wonder how people older than me were able to deal with me and my wacky sense of humor.

But I should keep in mind that these friends and I were not standing on concrete floors for nine hours a day dealing with all sorts of people, so it probably wasn’t too hard to deal with me. So here we are, or rather, here I am, on the Friday of a holiday weekend. It wasn’t easy to see people so excited to get out of town for the weekend, four days off for them. Even the bibliothèque is closed this weekend.

I did luck out tonight, maybe it was karma, but when I got to the subway platform this evening, an express train pulled right in. And as I climbed the functioning escalator at the bus terminal, I saw a bus pulling out. Then the bus stopped.

The driver was a friend of Bill’s (no, not like Alcoholics Anonymous), Orlando. He was one of the bus driving friends of Hyman gross as well. So Orlando recognized me and said a few words about Hyman as we were pulling out.

It was a nice brief chat about Hyman and how Hyman is missed. I told him about the plan Bill and I have to visit the cemetery next year when Hyman’s headstone is placed. Orlando hopes to join us. We shall see. Check in next year, early May.

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I Ain’t Hearing U

Tuesday, April 19th, 2011

Another dismal and dreary day exploiting the system whichever way I can. Today was yet another grey day, overcast skies, drizzle every now and then. But I didn’t mind, I was going to be at work anyhow.

Last night Bill and I watched Nurse Jackie. Sometimes we’re in the mood to follow through with the United States of Tara, but last night was not one of those nights. Instead we watched the second half of the Ed Show before Bill went to bed.

I stayed up watching drivel of course and surfing the interwebs once again. Slept fairly well last night, no complaints, no horses named Charlie making an appearance. My knee is still messed up though, despite what Miss Lazy Teat Greg might think or write.

Let it get it straight because as the universe can tell you I can never get anything straight. The indignant manner of which Miss Lazy Teat Greg was humorous in hindsight. The mere mention of looking into Workers Compensation really got its vaginal juices a flowing.

Imagine if I actually pursued such a plan. Lawyers and friends have suggested looking into it and I’ve been hesitant, but having the feeling that if I do such a thing Miss Lazy Teat Greg would have a hemorrhage could make it all worthwhile.

And Miss Lazy Teat Greg really thinks I should be a more dedicated worked like the Bradley. That was a super sweet line, almost like it was written by the Bradley’s cross dressing (Holy Week plug) cousin Jorgen.

But that’s neither here nor there just as the Bradley is neither here nor there. He’s not here right now and for that I am glad. No, he has left to run his Jazz and Cigars and Whiskey event at a local cigar dive. 5 people signed up for it so I guess it’s a ‘success’.

The other day the elderly woman on the second floor passed away in her sleep. Antonia was her name and whenever I saw her I was always glad to help with groceries or her mail and taking out her trash. I suppose if you’re going to go, going when you’re asleep would be the way to go.

There is a viewing tonight around the block from the apartment, but me being at work means that I can’t make it, and forget about the funeral. That’s tomorrow and I’m definitely working, after a morning meeting with someone who I hope thinks I’m the bee’s knees.

I could use a better knee and I suppose a bee’s knee would suffice. Just have to stay away from those pollen zones. It’s been another long day on my feet in dress shoes on a concrete floor.

I have to say I am disappointed that Miss Lazy Teat Greg will not reveal its secrets for keeping knees fresh, I guess a magician never reveals its secrets and it’s all about the sleight of hand with Miss Lazy Teat Greg. Thanks for giving me something to write about Miss Lazy Teat Greg. You’re a prince, or a princess or something to be revealed at a later date.

I did meet a wood worker named Bill Hampton today. Bill has been coming into the store and getting empty cigar boxes from time to time. Today he came in to show one of the projects that he worked on, a banjo made from a cigar box. He even let me give it a strum.

2 work days in a row where someone brought in a guitar (or a banjo) and let me give it a go. Richard Lloyd from Television came in a few months ago with a classic Gibson acoustic and even he let me give it a strum. So despite working with the brain dead Bradley and Thomas it wasn’t such a bad day but it could have been better and not bitter.




Bill Hampton and his cigar box banjo


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I Want You, I Need You, I Love You

Friday, April 8th, 2011

Well despite being exhausted and somewhat high from the medication and jazz ciggie, I did not sleep well at all last night. The medication Naproxen, made me quite out of it and the jazz ciggie made my eyes heavily lidded, but I couldn’t sleep, knees bothering me, could not find a comfortable position to fall asleep in and once again Bill was snoring.

I would tell him as he slept that he was snoring, and then he would stop, only to start up with a different sound of snoring. Sort of like singing a different song. Finally I fell asleep but it seemed like only minutes later, Bill was kissing me good bye for the day.

He was worried about me, mostly because he saw that where it used to take me 30 seconds to get from the TV room to the kitchen, last night it took a few stumbling minutes. I wasn’t playing it up either. I eventually woke up and decided not to use the Shelaleigh like I used yesterday. I had no problem using it yesterday but once my sister mentioned how brittle it probably was, it made me nervous to use it again.

I was able to be mobile and took my time getting around the apartment. A shower and some breakfast with a Naproxen chaser. Made me out of it again. I took my time descending the stair case, hearing Alexander yelling (or merely talking) on the third floor, gave me hope. I made it out to the street and enjoyed a small victory cigar as I slowly walked up to Washington Street.

I tried to schedule an ultra sound yesterday but in Hoboken, the first time they could see me was next Wednesday. Bill mentioned last night to see if there was anywhere in Manhattan, close to the cigar shack where I could get it done. I looked at the insurance company’s website but in the Naproxen mindset I was in, I couldn’t make heads or tails of it.

This morning while on the bus I ran into neighbor Deborah from the fourth floor. I told her my tale of woe. Seems like all I have are tales of woe lately. Then again, I think a lot of people have woeful tales to be told these days.

She told me her tale, falling on some black ice a week ago and having to get an ultra sound for her hand, and also found a place close to work. Deborah and I parted ways in the bus terminal and I called Bill who had the same idea.

Since he was sitting at a computer he had better access and thankfully was able to find a place close to the cigar shack, make an appointment for me, and called my quack doctor’s office and get a faxed referral from him to the ultra sound place. I made it to work, and told Calvin and Thomas what was going on with my knee.

Thomas chimed in with his tale of woe. He has an ingrown toe nail. Yeah, really put my messed up knee to shame. He’s only 24 years old so youthful callousness can be forgiven.

It was another long day, 9 hours standing on my feet. I was able to get through the day and at 2:45 headed over to the Roosevelt Hospital area for the ultra sound. The reception desk was somewhat helpful, the actual ultra sound person, a very pregnant woman was a bitch.

It was over after about an hour and I limped back to work after nabbing a slice of pizza since I needed to eat something quickly. Later in the afternoon I was talking to a customer, and mentioned that my quack doctor suggested an ultra sound since it might be a cyst.

I didn’t think much of it being a cyst until the customer mentioned his hopes that if it is a cyst, that it’s benign. Benign? That means the opposite is malignant. That means what I didn’t want to think about. And that took up residence in the back of my mind for the rest of the day.

And that’s all I’m going to write tonight, I’m surprised I wrote this much.

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