It’s Monday again. How that happened I’ll never know. Woke up to the sounds of the Rascals singing ‘It’s a beautiful morning…♫ and I searched for the snooze button while the Arif Mardin production went on. No fault of the Rascals and definitely not Arif’s fault. It was battleship gray outside once again and I just wanted to sleep. But no, work was waiting and I had to get out of bed. Made coffee, had cereal, showered and then I was out after getting dressed. I no longer hustle to get the 7:10 bus, instead I take my time and catch the 7:20 bus. Not as nice a bus, but usually less crowded.

Got to the city and for some reason I decided to play REM’s first album, Murmur on my iPod. I remember when I first got the record around the same time I got my first Walkman. It was the beginning of the cassette age for me. I wanted a Walkman for Christmas a few months before, but my father, figuring that I was mentally retarded said no. I would more than likely be crossing train tracks and playing music so loudly that I wouldn’t hear the oncoming train taking me to my death.

Instead of a Walkman I got a Sears cassette deck with an AM/FM radio. I was crestfallen that Christmas upon opening the box and instead of seeing Sony, I saw Sears. Still I had to show some gratitude and thanked both my parents for the tape deck before going up to my room and beating up my bed in frustration. I didn’t have a car at that time and still trucked around wherever it was I had to go with the tape deck cradled in my arm. It was 1983 so I was probably jazzy all the time. I walked to the 7 Eleven in the snow, just to get out of the house, just to get high.

Eventually I got a car and wound up driving the company van for the book company I worked for. On one lunch hour I decided to take my cash and go to one of the rip off shops by Grand Central where I bought a Walkman II for about $80.00. Soon enough I was putting everything on cassette and playing it wherever I would go. I wasn’t stupid enough to wear it while driving, I did have the Sears cassette deck for that.

One occasion, one of the last reunions of a sort while my mother was alive, had my parents and me with brother Brian and his then fiancée Karen driving down to Bordentown NJ. I was playing Murmur over and over, and loudly too. Loud enough for my mother to complain that I was going to go deaf playing it that loud. I grumbled and lowered the volume, staring out the window at whatever it was that we were driving past.

We made it to my cousin Eileen’s house, where we sat in her backyard and smoked cigarettes (everyone was doing it) and drank Budweiser (everyone was doing that too). Don’t remember much about going home but we made it all in one piece and didn’t get pulled over. All these memories came flooding forth while playing Murmur, which still stands up on it’s own, a near perfect record. Finally got to see REM at McSwells touring for Murmur.

It was one of the first shows that they sold tickets to, and I swear there were only about 30 people in the back room watching a shaggy Michael Stipe hang on the the microphone for dear life while tossing his curly locks to and fro. Won’t be seeing that again anytime soon. Michael Stipe with hair that is.

Here are some pics from an errand this afternoon in midtown.

Neighborhood with Slow Children

Gray Manhattan

Silver Cup Studios where Julio was working today