Monthly Archives: January 2008

Jimmy Crack Corn

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It’s Thursday. I’m happy about it, though I wouldn’t be able to do anything about it if I tried. Last night, lets see. I watched TV. I know I am just as surprised as you by this fact. Scrubs repeats, Daily Show, Colbert Report, Law and Order CI and Law and Order Generic. Not as much fun to watch Law and Order without Bill around, it just isn’t as funny. They should really get a laugh track for that show, or bring back Jerry Orbach. Now that would work. Today I posted on the Daily News website about music being used in commercials.

Here is what I wrote: Normally, I find the licensing of rock and roll songs for commercials to be very tacky, but lately I’ve had to rethink that. There are two examples, one is Feist on the iPod commercial and the other is Royksopp for Geico (Caveman in airport). I would more than likely never have heard either artist if it wasn’t for the exposure on the commercials, and I bought the Royksopp single (Remind Me) and the Feist LP (The Reminder), and I enjoy them both very much. I also purchased wonderful Mark E. Smith of the Fall (Blindness) after hearing his unmistakable voice on a car commercial. So it goes both ways. I didn’t mention Moby who started the whole mess with contemporary music being used in commercials, since I am relatively ambivalent about him. And I still don’t have any need to own Moby’s Play CD after hearing it countless times while living with William in my Weehawken days.

Though the days are ever so slowly getting longer, it’s getting harder for me to wake up in the morning. Oh how I could use another hour of sleep. I know I could achieve that be going to ed an hour earlier, but come on, going to bed at 10:30? I wouldn’t get to the denouement of Law and Order and I would never know who got the pie in the face. Work so far this year has been pretty good. I’ve been busy and productive, though Tom Chin has been under the weather lately I’m pretty sure he’s noticed. And it’s fun working with Lydia, good to have someone to bounce ideas with. I’ve been leaving around 4:30 lately.

Since I’m in at 8:00 each day, I figure eight and one half hours is enough. Plus I don’t really ‘take’ lunch. I go out, get a salad and I go back to the office and eat at my desk doing whatever it is that needs to be done, or I read gawker.com , and most of the time while I’m eating people still come up to me and ask for things. And I am proud to be able to get through two weeks of work, ten days total.

Lately I’ve been addicted to ELO’s greatest hits. I simply can’t stop listening to it on my iPod. IN fact I downloaded their greatest hits, but a certain song wasn’t on it, so I went to the iTunes store and downloaded another track. I did look first on Limewire, for ELO and embarrassingly Howard Jones who I heard over the PA at the supermarket. Ladies and gentlemen, WTF?

Here’s a pic of a ghost bike, marking where another rider was killed a little over a month ago at the corner of 40th and Broadway. I don’t know, lately the idea of riding in the city seems intimidating. I walk around the city a lot and can’t help but notice how many terrible drivers are on the road these days. They stop in crosswalks, forcing pedestrians to walk into traffic, or the just slowly creep through red light, since they really really really wanted to go through and since no one will stop them, they do it. It’s scary and reignites the fear that I will be killed by a car someday. Now that I wrote it, let’s hope it doesn’t happen. Somebody light a candle. Also if I die, if I can’t get a green funeral, then cremate me and through me in either the ocean or the Hudson River, urn and all. Sorry if that brought you down, wasn’t my intention, just putting it out there.

Franco Scorcia 72 Years Old, Killed by a Car December 6, 2007
Rest In Peace
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Love Me Two Times

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Well it’s Wednesday and there’s only a few hours left in it. Last night, was pretty quiet, just hung out of course. Bill came home, and proceeded to tell me his woes with his parents. His dad is doing better mentally though his body is falling apart. His mother is meddling, trying to boss the home health care assistant around. She’s not all together in the here and now, still trying to take care of her husband though she’s doing all the wrong things and making matters worse. According to Bill, his father wished him good luck in dealing with Bill’s mother. Perhaps this is what happens when science keeps the body alive longer that it was planning to.

It’s sad and Bill is exhausted mentally. He’s thinking about putting both parents in a nursing home, thinking that that is his only solution. I don’t have any words to tell him otherwise, plus it isn’t my place. Of course putting them in a nursing home in St. Albans would eat all of their savings, plus Bill would have to give up the apartment in Stuyvesant Town. I think he’s come around to thinking that I don’t want to live in Manhattan, plus the rent would be $1400.00 which is more than what we’re paying now in Hoboken.

I suggested that Bill call other friends, his dear friend Margaret in Atlanta and two friends from his church who have an apartment in Washington Heights that Bill has been turning to for some counseling. He seems to trust them all, and they might have the benefit of not being in the loop that much to give Bill some fresh insight. It’s a lot for poor Bill to handle and all I can do is offer an ear.

In other news, last night I purchased the Electric Light Orchestra’s greatest hits. Just a pining for a simpler time in my life. Actually it was triggered by watching Boogie Nights a few weeks ago. It still is a classic movie, with a most excellent soundtrack. I transferred a few songs to my iPod and listened to Evil Woman and was transported back to 1975 and I was sledding in Van Saun Park, thanks to a neighbor, Mrs. Williams. Mrs. Williams wasn’t evil by the way, just I remembered hearing it, sitting in the back of her Chevy Nova as we were driving back home with her son Scott and a few other neighborhood kids. She passed away in 2002, and I will always remember her, watching Camelot on TV and her saying how much she loved it. She said that, when Guinevere was singing a song, and looking at Vanessa Redgrave, I will forever associate the two.

I also heard Funny Face by Donna Fargo the other night as I was drifting off to sleep and that reminded me of the VFW in Saddle Brook. Today at work I was required to sit in a meeting with Greg Stevens and two real estate guys, trying to get us to use their tenant services should we decide to move in a year or two after our present lease expires. I met two guys named Jason as I followed Greg Stevens lead and handed out my business cards in exchanged for the Jason’s cards. I sat there and took some notes as they gave us their spiel and it was over in about 15 minutes. I’m sure I have other meetings down the line, got to be quicker on the business card exchange. That’s about it for now. Bill in Stuyvesant Town again, I just hope he isn’t as despondent as he was a little earlier.

Here’s a pic
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