A new day, this April 14, 2026. I woke up tired, like I had been fighting in my sleep. I don’t recall fisticuffs or anything like that, but was exhausted waking up. Now I am better, more alive now than I was then.

Al Green’s greatest hits are playing. He just turned 80 yesterday. I have been enjoying his music for over 50 years. Remembering specifically, a paper drive that the VFW was sponsoring. Driving around Saddle Brook neighborhoods picking up piles of newspapers to be recycled. Someone had an AM radio playing Al Green’s I’m Still in Love with You that Sunday morning. It being a hit record meant I heard it a few times that morning in 1972.

Were things that tough in 1972 that a paper drive was in order? Granted most of the organizers grew up in the depression and more than likely were in paper drives and similar things back then. Nobody reads newspapers anymore, at least not the physical newspaper. Now it is all digitized, and the men who ran the paper drive have passed away. A copy of the Daily News is $3.00, the New York Times is $7.00, and the Sunday edition a whopping $12.00.

My family got 4-5 newspapers a week, almost daily. The New York Times in the morning, the Daily News, the Bergen Record and the Herald News and the New York Post that my father would being home at the end of the day. Sunday was the big day for the papers, the New York Times was a couple of inches thick, the Bergen Record and the Daily News had a comics section in color. It was a good routine for most of my life growing up there.

It was mainly all adult men, if I recall correctly, and I would not be surprised if a few of them were drunk. Safety standards were nonexistent as we drove up and down the streets of Saddle Brook. It was exciting for me since it was something I had never done before, and I had not done it since.

Al Green has always had a special place in my heart. I have to admit I had not thought about Al Green much after that, though when Talking Heads covered Take Me to the River on record and Saturday Night Live, he started to resprout in my consciousness. A year or so after that, I bought Al Green’s Greatest Hits Vol. 1 & 2. I made cassettes for various family and friends.

I remember seeing some show, I am thinking an early Richard Barone show at Maxwell’s and Guy Ewald played Love & Happiness by Al Green moments before Richard Barone took the stage. Later in that decade, before my dear friend Jet passed away he arranged a showcase for a few RCA artists, Three Times Dope among others but for me the biggest name was Al Green who did his thing admirably for a couple of songs.

That was the only time I had seen Al Green live and he was a few feet away from me. I would love to see him again but things being what they are, we’re rarely on the same page at the same time. I have money he’s not around, he’s around when I have no money. Been there and done that.

There was just a demonstration for Buffy the Vampire Slayer across from the building where I am working. They’re singing songs and holding up signs that say “Save Buffy”. I do not know what it was all about but it seems to have ended.

Back at work on a cloudy Monday morning, the 13th day of April. Slept OK last night, one or two interruptions. I intend to do better this evening. AT my little old fruit stand today and tomorrow, Wednesday and Thursday. Sitting at my desk, listening to the B-52s playlist I made a few years ago.

I remember back in the day, 1979, I think, I was doing my record buying, walking up Rochelle Avenue from Lodi to Paramus. I bought their first album, with the yellow cover, and was in the underground concourse, sitting on the floor and going over my purchases.

A guy, perhaps a few years older than me, commented on the B-52’s, and I showed the LP I had just purchased and made an encouraging remark, which I cannot remember 47 years later. Their first album came out in July 1979, and it must have been August of that year when I bought the album.
I was 16 and working, which is how I had the cash. Not driving though.

Hard to see nowadays how the B-52’s were considered a punk threat. The only place where they were getting airplay was WPIX FM in the NYC area. And I have to admit I was not too crazy about Rock Lobster initially. I think the encouragement from the young guy in the Garden State Plaza concourse sealed the deal. I was cool by association.

I saw the B52s in 1980 with my brother Frank, they were touring behind the not yet released Wild Planet album. Pylon opened up for the B-52’s and sadly I was just not into Pylon at that time. I was there to see the B-52’s and though a year or two later I finally connected with Pylon, August 25, 1980 was not the night. Their sound was swallowed up in the humid summer night.

It was a year or two later when I bought Chomp! By Pylon at Free Being on Second Avenue in the East Village off St. Mark’s Place.

Now I am playing Donna Summer, Bad Girls & Hot Stuff. If I recall correctly, the first time I heard these songs was with Henry Venegas and his girlfriend Lisa, and we were going to see the Cosmos soccer team at Giants Stadium. Donna Summer was a big deal back then and I was starting to have a crush on Henry. Henry was always grabbing his dick through his pants, and that always got my attention. We would hang out and smoke cigarettes at his father’s Texaco gas station at the corner of Riverview Ave and Essex Street.

I acted on my crush for Henry and told him I wanted to blow him. He was horrified by my suggestion and effectively ended our friendship. Not like today’s kids, where one boy might offer oral sex to another boy, who was not into it but thanked him nonetheless and was flattered by the offer. No, back in the 1970s it killed friendships.

Both the B-52’s and Donna Summer releases were from 1979, an innocent year edging into sexual pandemonium. I was in my beginning stages of participating in the sexual revolution that I had heard so much about.
Reckless, dangerous, young, dumb and full of cum.

I am participating in an LGBT panel discussion online regarding the 1993 March on Washington. I