Well it snowed quite a bit last night. It was treacherous when I came home around 6:30 yesterday and on top of all the snow was a freezing rain making everything, including walking, dicey. I hung out and watched television last night while Bill chewed my ear off. Sometimes he’s just like child who has had way too much sugar. Last night he had a pound of sugar. The funny thing is he mentioned how tired he was and how he wanted to sleep all night. By 8:30 I was asking him if he was planning on going to sleep soon.

Around 9:15 he finally went to bed. At 9:30 I walked into the bedroom and he was out cold and snoring. I read my magazines and watched some more TV including a dvd of one of my favorite bands Wire. It was a live show on German TV Rockpalast from 1979. They used to be one of my favorite bands. I can’t say I dislike them, but I think I’ve outgrown them. They were a major influence on my music back in the day. It seemed like Wire fans were few and far between. As far as I knew, no one else in Lodi liked or even heard of Wire except for me and my brother Frank.

Frank gave me a copy of their album 154 for Christmas in 1979. I didn’t know who they were really, just that they had a couple of songs I liked, namely ‘I Am The Fly’ and ‘Dot Dash’ that I heard on WPIX FM. WPIX was a major radio station in New York that played disco, then went New Wave for about a year and a a half then went to Love songs, nothing but love songs. But for that year and a half there was suddenly a station that played new and exciting things.

That Christmas evening while itching to get away from my family I decided to go to the movies with Dave Bell a friend of mine and my brother Brian. I picked Dave up and as we headed to the theater Dave asked to pick up his friend Stan. A slight detour to Wallington and then we were off. I tape recorded some of the 154 songs and was playing it on my boom box. Stan chirped up and asked if that was Wire that I was playing. It sure was and that established a friendship with Stan that exists to this day, if only marginally.

I loved Wire enough that when they reunited after breaking up (hiatus/we can’t stand each other) that I cut short a pretty decent vacation in Kitty Hawk, NC in 1987 to take a six hour bus ride to Philadelphia. They were great and as expected they didn’t or wouldn’t (or perhaps couldn’t) play their older material. You know, the stuff that made them what they were, semi-legendary underground legends. I had the opportunity to interview them a few days later while they were in New York, playing at the Ritz as well as McSwells.

I wasn’t the gushing fan boy and they were not exactly fun or anything like that. I have the cassette somewhere but never transcribed it or really listened to it.

It’s Friday and it’s snowing out. Been like this all day. It started with a freezing rain last night. I was blue but Juan wasn’t having it and came over to keep me company. We watched Ugly Betty, then Scrubs, followed by the new Andy Richter show, Andy Barker PI which was delightfully odd and sort of like watching a David Lynch sitcom. Then we watched The Office that I had recorded while we watched Ugly Betty. The Office was great as usual and Juan disclosed it was his favorite show. I am partial to Scrubs, but Andy Richter got my vote for favorite show even though it was only the first episode.

It was nice to hang out with Juan. He makes for good company and he gets all jazzy from time to time which is also nice. Unfortunately 11:00 came rolling around and I had to kick poor Juan out into the street in the rain. He didn’t seem to mind and anyway he understood that I needed to go to sleep for work today. I soon got horizontal and fell into a deep sleep. Deep enough for me to wake up at 3:00 thinking it was actually 6:00. I even made it to the bathroom before I realized how wrong I was.

I was soon fast asleep again only to wake up a few hours later. It was the right time this time I made sure of that. All night long I heard the sleet hitting the windows and it continued with a mixture of snow. That made for a slippery walk to work today. Yesterday President Naomi was squawking about how she might not make it in today because of all the snowfall was expected throughout the day. I had hoped she wasn’t going to make it in which made going to work that much easier. I rode the bus and it eventually filled up but no one sat next to me which was very cool. These 20 somethings are so blind sometimes.

I had enough time to go to Smiler’s on Fifth Avenue and treated myself to a bacon and egg sandwich. West Indian Tony was once again happy to see me and he always asks how Bill’s acting career is going. I told him a few weeks ago about Bill working on the play in Harlem and that turned into a fiasco but Tony didn’t know that. He said he was hoping to see Bill (known as ‘your Guy’ to Tony) at the Apollo one of these days. ‘Soon enough’, I said as I walked out the door after giving Tony a pound.

I walked around the block to the office where I was surprised to find the door locked. That meant I was the first one in. And me being the first one in meant that President Naomi was not going to be in today. That was more than fine with me. I unlocked the door and turned the lights on, started the machines and made some coffee. I had absolutely nothing to do today. The snow slowed everything down and not many candidates were scheduled to come in. I surfed the net most of the day, going as far as possible without straying into adult content territory.

I found out also that if I want insurance it will cost me almost $400.00 a month. Not cool. Must do something about that.