Monthly Archives: January 2009

Start to Move

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Like Dinah Washington sang, What a Difference a Day Makes. Yesterday at this time, well, yesterday at this time I was just getting home. Now I’ve been home for almost an hour. Different characters today. Vivek was in the office when I came in, and he quickly left the stage to attend some meeting somewhere.

Greg Stevens made it in as did Tom Chin who was surprisingly understanding. A lot of the shit that I had to deal with regarding Vivek was quickly cleared up since he had the files. Greg Stevens and I talked quite a bit today and he mentioned that he thought Vivek might be bi-polar, or it could just be the stress of being a managing director in these dire economic times. Possibly both. Greg Stevens will now be out on Mondays and Fridays and more than likely will not be performing in the Sunday matinée.

Last night I was just frazzled by the days events. Watched Olbermann and Rachel Maddow. Harpy called during Rachel Maddow and he was a garrulous as ever, a bit annoying at that. Not that he’s annoying, he’s generally amusing, but he kept stepping on my lines and if he was in front of me I would have throttled him.

That’s right, I would have throttled Harpy, in fact I had a ruler handy and could have throttled him to within an inch of his life. But instead I just let him go on and on and ended his phone chat on a relatively up note.

I did feel better watching Flight of the Conchords. Some Dewars helped too. I think Jemaine would make a better male prostitute than Brett. Went to bed at a decent hour and woke up with a feeling of dread.

So much so that every step I took from the bus terminal to the office was filled with me imagining a confrontation between Tom Chin and myself. I should have written the lines from the imaginary confrontation down, they were that good.

A few years ago when Bill and I were in a rough patch in our relationship and we were having a late night discussion about things in bed with the lights out. I was saying such profound lines and I felt then I should have been writing them down but I figured I would remember them the next morning which of course by then I had forgotten all the lines.

Tonight I took the Path train home and was able to finish the John Lennon biography by Phillip Norman. It was good and ended as sadly as I remembered. The epilogue was an interview with Sean Lennon who mentioned that when he was 5 years old he had no idea what was going on, why his house was filled with such dour people and where was his father, what were all these people doing outside the Dakota singing songs and crying?

He mentioned that it took him some time to actually listen to his father’s music both solo and with the Beatles and how jealous he was of the world who had known of his father a lot longer than he did for 5 years.

I’m just glad that today wasn’t so bad after all. And I did enjoy a Padron on the way to the train. The Lennon bio was a day late and cost me $0.20. Now it’s onto Sarah Vowell, The Wordy Shipmates.

krshna

The Wolves (Act I and II)

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Fucking hell. That’s the type of day it’s been. Didn’t start out that way surprisingly despite the fact that I wasn’t able to go to sleep when I wanted to. Wound up falling asleep around 1:30. It seems the 2 hour nap that I had taken earlier stole some much desired sleep. I lay in the dark and laughed about how fat I am.

Still with about 5 hours of sleep I felt pretty good as I woke up and got my act together and headed out to catch the bus. Almost finished with the Lennon bio and of course it’s due today. I figured I would be able to find some time and read it, maybe at lunch, maybe on the bus ride home. It was not to be.

On Friday I got an email from Tom Chin telling me to get a few expense reports together and he wrote especially that I shouldn’t wait until Monday to do it. I took care of most of that as well as some expenses Vivek had me do for his other company that he and his business partner are doing.

They claimed $8000 and change, I found they were owed $8200. I could only do so much on Friday since I was the only one in my company in. Greg Stevens seems to be fading from the company. I guess being the president of nothing in particular will diminish one’s enthusiasm, Vivek was travelling for his other company and Tom Chin doesn’t come in on Fridays.

So today there was a lot of things that hit me as I walked through the door. Some company needed our tax ID number which I tracked down and when I sent an email to Tom Chin and Vivek, Tom Chin said he was working at home, feeling ill. He told me I had the info available but I couldn’t find it.

That’s when I found it looking in other years files. He started yelling at me telling me what I had (which was what was asked for) was wrong. He’s a jerk in person and a fucking bitch when he’s sick on the phone.

Then it was the expenses which out of $1700 was listed, I found $1600. I told Vivek about it and he insisted I call the bookkeeper. I decided not to call her and figure it out myself. An hour after I usually leave, I was still there. I had everything spread out on a table and showed Vivek, ‘I have this, I have that. This is that, that is this.’

After a day of looking at these expenses I was toast. I even told him I was toast, two hours after I usually leave. He had me call the bookkeeper and started screaming at her. It was ugly. Apparently he was on a yelling kick today, going so far as to scream at his pregnant wife that she’s ruining his life over the phone.

I didn’t hear that but heard about it. I cleaned up whatever I had on the table which was no longer in neat stacks. I was really toast and all the stress started to mess up my back. Back in his office I can hear Vivek yelling at Tom Chin that he had to fire the bookkeeper after tax season. I know this will bite me on the ass tomorrow as well as Thursday when the bookkeeper comes in.

But I didn’t do anything but just tell him that he might be getting less than $1700. My name was mentioned but it was about ‘why should John have to file those papers? Why doesn’t the bookkeeper do it?’ I don’t mind doing the filing, I’ve been doing it since day one at the firm. But man, I don’t think in all the jobs that I’ve had, I’ve never bore witness to such an ugly scene.

I asked a question which opened a whole can of worms which I will hear more about this week. Usually I rearrange the deck chairs on this Titanic, but now the captain is losing his mind and the crew is turning on each other. Left the office feeling lousy and even though I smoked a Padron, it didn’t really give me the satisfaction it usually does.

Made it to the bus where I had to stand, lower right part of my back throbbing. No reading the Lennon bio. I should return it tomorrow, it ends badly I know.

Came home, my brother Brian called. He’s stressed and I talked with him for a while but I don’t think it helped either one of us.

I really hoped to talk to someone, but it turns out, I don’t have anyone I can talk to. Julio is busy with Stine and Alexander, no time for this big baby. Annemarie is too far away and plus she was unavailable since she was working or en route from work.

Forget about my brother Frank, he’s no help these days unfortunately, and Bill is directing his first play tonight and when he calls later he’ll be all about how the directing of the play went, and I wouldn’t want to rain on his parade.

Perhaps tomorrow will be a better day, but I obviously have my doubts. It’s all about the economy, my company trying to stay afloat and get whatever monies owed to us and it is stressing everyone the fuck out.

Oh yeah, the coffee maker crapped out and I spent a good part of the day filling it with white vinegar to clean it out.