Posts Tagged ‘Hillary’

I Can’t Control Myself

Thursday, July 14th, 2011

Let’s see. I haven’t written since last Thursday, July 7. I was planning on it but it wound up taking 2 hours to get home when in the best circumstances it takes maybe 30 minutes tops. I was on the bus, in the queue at the top of the exit ramp and thanks to a car accident in the Lincoln Tunnel (2nd accident in 2 hours) I waited for about 45 minutes before I persuaded the bus driver to let me off.

I had thought that if I get off the bus the traffic would start moving, but I was getting impatient. I read a few pages of Our Band Could Be Your Life by Michael Azerrad and decided to do something instead of just sitting there. The bus driver bent the rules and allowed me off the bus.

I wandered down a few flights of steps and exited through a door that a few women couldn’t see even though it was right in front of them. I stepped out into the mist/drizzle and headed towards the Path train, lighting a small cigar as I stomped my way down the street listening to Public Image Limited.

I waited just a few minutes for a train and hopped aboard. It wasn’t that crowded on a Friday night and I was home almost 2 hours after signing out at the cigar shack. I was toasted but off for 5 days. I watched some of Bill Maher with the hideous Ann Coulter on and yes even though I didn’t think it possible I loathe her even more than ever before. I loathe her like cancer. She was quite annoying as if she could be any other way.

The next day was a Saturday. My sister was flying in from the west coast and we spoke briefly, her plane was delayed, late enough that she would probably head to my niece’s house instead of stopping in Hoboken first. It was a drag but I got over it.

It freed up a lot of things that I had to do, I was able to take my time and do whatever it was I had to do and forgot to do what Annemarie asked me to do which was to call my sister in law and tell her that Annemarie wouldn’t be stopping by over there either. Don’t know why I spaced on it, but I did totally. I don’t even remember Annemarie asking me make the call.

Annemarie made it safe and sound and a bit peeved at my space cadet status. I was embarrassed myself. The next day was Sunday and Annemarie and I finally connected. She was earlier than I expected and after coming up to the messy apartment where Bill & I live, we walked around Hoboken for a spell, walking by the river, down Washington Street and stopping by the Guitar Bar to say hello to Mr. Wonderful Jim Mastro.

Then we walked up to Julio & Stine’s new apartment, otherwise known as Alexander’s domain. A lovely space, two bedrooms and a view of the neighborhood where the cigar shack is in the city. Some wine, some fruit and good conversation was the way to go for the next couple of hours.

Annemarie and I left and walked back over to Washington Street where we devoured a small pizza at Napoli’s. Then a walk back to where Annemarie parked her car. She was back to my niece’s house and I chilled out upstairs.

The next day was a beach day with my niece Corinne joining us, followed by another beach day with my niece Hillary in the back seat, followed by my niece Meghan on Wednesday. It was all good and of course it had to end, since I had to go back to the cigar shack today. It wasn’t that bad after all.

The 5 days off did me good. Just2 more days left before another 3 days off and another trip to the beach with Annemarie and her son Earl hopefully joining us. That’s about it.

I wasn’t sure if I was going to write tonight and you know what? I’m still not sure. It wasn’t as hard as I thought and I’m sure it was as entertaining as you thought it would be.




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None of Your Business

Wednesday, October 28th, 2009

Another day with a battleship gray sky. Makes for a good nap, though I didn’t take a nap today. Lot’s of phone calls though.

Last night on the way to the train station I stopped by City Hall here in Hoboken where there were a few Manson girls outside. The Westboro Baptist Church were in town protesting the fact that Peter Cammarano, the former Mayor of Hoboken was caught in a sting.

Why did they come from Kansas to Hoboken? Because an Orthodox Jewish man was the contact used by the government to ensnare the Mayors of Hoboken and Secaucus as well as a few officials in Jersey City.

You see to the Manson girls, God Hates Jews and God Hates Fags. In fact their website is called GodHatesFags. They’re also known to picket funerals for fallen soldiers because God Hates America and all the nation’s bad news comes from the fact that LGBT are making inroads for equality.

So their god is punishing the whole country. Funny thing is, their god sends a lot of tornados and causes droughts in their neck of the woods and not so much in the liberal bastions that exist on each coast.

To a believer (which I most certainly am not) it would look like their god hates them. I call these people the Manson girls since they resemble that group that used to assemble outside the LA Courthouse where Manson and his girls were on trial for the Tate/La Bianca murders.

All they need to complete the look are shaved heads and a swastika carved into their hollow skulls. Oh the age of reason will never reach Kansas, much like it won’t reach the Middle East. No renaissance, no age of enlightenment.

Some people prefer the Middle Ages and want to drag all of us back there with them. The Manson girls headed next to Secaucus, to come back to Hoboken to protest outside the local Synagogue.

I couldn’t stick around for that, I was heading to Hillsdale with Bill to see my niece sing in her high school talent show. Bill and I were both looking forward to it. Hillary was singing Day by Day from Godspell.

An uneventful train ride though the roly poly old man sitting opposite us on the train couldn’t help but give Bill and I dirty looks as he drank his 2 cans of Coors Light, (the beer of fascists) and gobbled salted peanuts by the handful.

He also grumbled when Bill had to talk on his cellphone, albeit quietly. Bill and I should have started making out just to make him pop a blood vessel in his head.

My brother Brian picked us up at the train station and drove us to the high school where Karen was waiting. My other niece Cassie was running around selling tickets for the 50/50. Bill bought a few, I looked askance.

After eating some very good brownies we sat in the auditorium and were entertained by a wholesome group of young people. Most of them played acoustic guitars and most were quite talented.

Hillary and her friend sounded quite good and got a deserved round of applause. Bill and I also met Chris, Hillary’s boyfriend who seemed like a nice young man.

After the show we all piled into Brian’s car, dropping off Karen and the girls at home and continuing to Hohokus where we missed the train so then it was onto Ridgewood where we caught it.

Nice ride back, no roly poly busy bodies giving us the hairy eyeball. We were home earlier than expected, Bill went to bed soon after, I stayed up watching a documentary on Annie Leibowitz.

It was a pretty good night, overall. Good to see the Hillsdale O’Tooles, but then again it always is.

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Posted in Wonderful World Beautiful People | 1 Comment »

Dream On

Tuesday, October 27th, 2009

Another wet, gray day in Hoboken. Yesterday wasn’t so bad. In fact the day was pleasant enough that I took a walk. I walked by Vampire Coffee where I noticed that they had a Help Wanted sign in their window. I was on the phone at the time with the baby broker/used car salesman, Casey Chasm so I didn’t stop by.

After I got off the phone with Mr. Stork, Casey Chasm, I went into the Guitar Bar like I sometimes do and chatted with Jim Mastro for a bit. I mentioned the situation that I was in and brought up Vampire Coffee. It seems the owner is a friend of Jim’s and so Jim suggested that I mention his name.

I then walked over to Vampire Coffee where Jeff was behind the counter. I’ve written about Jeff before. Nice guy, his band is playing McSwells the day after Thanksgiving. He gave me a piece of paper and I wrote down my contact info, also mentioning that I was a friend of Jim Mastro’s.

Came home after that and didn’t do much of anything, except shredding some more papers. Had a nice dinner of penne, pesto and chicken, which is my ‘go to’ meal.

Bill came home and that was a lot of fun. Seriously, no snark involved. Made me laugh out loud a few times. I watched Heroes which was rather lame again even while drinking some wine.

That probably helped with the crazy dreams I had last night. The only dream I can remember had me flying around and running into Aerosmith who did not have Steven Tyler with them. Not one of my favorite bands at all and I only remember seeing them, not much conversation involved.

I’m pretty sure that dream occurred just before Bill was kissing me goodbye for the day. It being rainy and gray outside made it easy to stay under the covers and I didn’t get out of bed until 10:00 and that was because I heard my cellphone ringing in the next room.

I missed the call from Vampire Coffee and after having a cup of coffee myself I called them back. Spoke to the proprietress and we had a quick little chat on the phone.

She asked if I ever made espresso or cappuccino and I mentioned that the last time I did that as about 15 years ago when working at Right Track. I mentioned my 12 years of retail experience at Farfetched but I don’t think that mattered.

What mattered was the fact that I had no real experience making coffee. And that’s totally understandable. We made arrangements to meet around 1:00 for an informal interview.

I got there around 12:50 and hung out talking to Jeff and politely turning down his offer of a free coffee. The owner was in the office interviewing someone else. It certainly is a busy store. No real downtime, always some customers coming in.

The previous interview ended and I was soon talking with the owner. It was an awkward conversation for me. I wound saying that it was totally understandable that they would hire someone with experience over someone like me.

The owner mentioned that I had only came in for the summer when it’s a bit slower, they would have had the time to train me, but as it is later in the year, it’s just too busy for something like that.

She would keep me in mind she said and we parted ways when there was a knock on the door from an employee needing to ask her about something. Part of me thought it was a prearranged knock, after 10 minutes come knock on the door and get me out of this interview.

It was only a part time gig, a few hours a week and it doesn’t seem likely that I would get it.

Tonight Bill and I are taking the 5:55 train to Hillsdale to see my niece Hillary in her school’s talent show at 7:00. I plan on checking out the Westboro Baptist Church’s picketing outside of City Hall beforehand.

So here’s an early entry for today, October 27.

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Writing on the Wall

Wednesday, November 19th, 2008

I just saw Eddie Love on the street. That’s not his real name and I don’t know what his real name is. His DJ name is Eddie Love though. We’ve been in the same universe of Hoboken and actually 20 years ago we were cordial to each other. We never competed with each other as DJ’s. He spun at the Beat n’ Path and I was spinning at McSwells.

Nowadays we pass each other on the street and neither one of us has anything to say to the other. It’s just something interesting. I could have seen his real name since I last saw him the night I was helping to register voters. But I just couldn’t be arsed.

He was friends with Maurice Menares back in the day. Everyone was friends with Maurice. He was such a charmer and still is probably. Last I heard he was managing the Beastie Boys store in Los Angeles. I last saw Maurice when Julio and I went to see Beck at Radio City.

He was doing something for Beck and was great to see him. He’s such a sweetheart. So if he Googles himself, Maurice Menares is a sweetheart.

Right now I’m in a Facebook chat with my niece Hillary. She’s Brian and Karen’s eldest daughter, smart and pretty and she just made the honor roll. Right now I’m trying to convince her that if she ever runs out of things to read, she can always write.

She hates writing though. I can’t ever imagine hating writing. I’ve been doing it all my life. I have journals from past years scattered throughout the apartment. Some embarrassing stuff. Some written while sober, some written while high or drunk.

A lot of friends knew I wrote and felt I was a good writer despite never having read anything that I had written. And so when gifts were given to me they were generally blank books and I have a few of those. I always found blank books intimidating. A keyboard on a typewriter or a computer, I always found them more welcoming.

I once got a good grade in grammar school for an interview that I completely made up. It was with a barber friend of my father’s and it was a last minute, Sunday night homework assignment. I wound up writing about how his customers would talk to him, almost like he was a psychiatrist. Totally bogus yet I aced it.

Another writing task was quite inadvertent. It was Junior year of high school, the dreaded Algebra final. I struggled all year long and I was poised to fail the final. Letters I can handle, numbers I can manage mostly, but putting letters and numbers together just scrambled my brain. If y equals 99 and x equals 1/8 what is the answer?

Things like that would cause a meltdown. And I faced the Algebra final exam and it was all like that. All I felt I could do was to write an essay.

I just wrote about how I never understood this and I probably never will and I swore that I would never apply the lessons Sister Reginald taught in real life. And I also mentioned that summer school would achieve nothing, that my parents would more than likely kill me and that she was a good teacher, that it was just that I was a poor student.

I passed, or rather Sister Reginald let me pass. Social promotion- I benefited!

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Posted in Cool Cold Reality | 9 Comments »

Ask Me Why

Friday, September 12th, 2008

It’s a dreary gray Friday afternoon. I got out of work around 2:30 this afternoon and rather than walk across midtown enjoying a birthday cigar I took a subway which I rarely do. It was raining but not hard enough to warrant an umbrella since I only had to walk a block or so.

Now I have that ‘I might have napped too long’ feeling despite the fact I didn’t really have a restful nap. Phone calls and phone buzzing kept interrupting. Missed a birthday greeting from Chaz, but earlier I did speak with my sister Annemarie, as well as a voice mail from her and my nephew Earl.

Also heard from Queen Jane Approximately, Constant Connie, Sweet Sarah and Brenda Bubbles, Adorable Adrienne and Lovely Rita and Harpy and Julio and Stine with a picture of that adorable little man, Alexander.

Text messages from assorted nieces and maybe my brother Brian or his son Brian. I just can’t tell. Actually I can tell. I just checked and it was from my brother. My other brother Frank hasn’t called and that means if he doesn’t call later, he will call on the weekend and feel bad about not calling on my birthday.

It’s not a big deal. It would have been years ago. It might have been last year. But this year? Eh, no biggie. Last year Bill gave me a saucepan for a birthday present. I found it an odd present since I’m not much of a cook or a foodie.

I don’t watch the Food Network, or Armenia’s Next Top Chef or Gordon Ramsey or whatever. But since the spot where I get my penne, pesto and chicken in Manhattan, Cafe Fonduta went under I have been lacking pesto in my life.

So having watched the guys prepare the pesto, I think I can do it myself and finally have a reason to break out that sauce pan. It’s still in the box. I figure I can take a teaspoon of pesto, some heavy cream, some olive oil and imitate the guys. Or I can try to look it up online somewhere.

Perhaps there’s a video on YouTube that shows the How To.
Or perhaps you dear reader, would have a recipe to make a nice pesto sauce.

Bill just came home and we’re going to go out for some steaks at Arthur’s steakhouse on Washington Street. Hopefully it will be better than last year, when we went for my birthday after a few other things going wrong earlier in the day.

My churlishness towards the saucepan (embarrassing 365 days later) and the fact that some disgruntled mail room worker wished that I would die since I had decided to smoke a Padron and walk along Park Avenue during my lunch hour.

Birthday wishes also came from some new Facebook friends (Andres et al.) as well as a dear friend, Betti Cola. It’s still raining and my bones are tired after tossing and turning in the late gray afternoon but in a few minutes Bill and I will head over to Arthur’s where hopefully they will have their credit card machines up and running, unlike last year.

Just got back, excellent dinner with Bill. Arthur’s wasn’t too crowded, credit card machine in order and I was caught by surprise with a few waitresses singing Happy Birthday to me with a wonderful slice of chocolate mousse cake with a candle on top. I turned a thousand shades blushing.

A walk around Washington Street followed, me finally enjoying my birthday cigar in the misty evening.

That seems to be it for the day. Loveliness abounds.

Here’s some quite recent snaps as well as something else. Thank you for your good wishes

and here I thought I wasn’t going to write tonight!

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Posted in the day after yesterday, Wonderful World Beautiful People | 5 Comments »