Monthly Archives: February 2009

Never Get Burn

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Oh my my. As far as I’m concerned this has been a really crappy Friday the 13th. Really. Started out with me waking up a bit late at 7:00 and listening to the news on the radio as I made the bed and hearing of the plane crash in Buffalo killing 50 people.

Waking up to bad news like this certainly sucks. I puttered about the apartment, getting it together and heading out to catch the bus. I’ve gotten choosy on what bus I catch. I prefer a coach. It’s probably Bill’s influence from his bus driving days but also it’s a more comfortable ride.

I sat and started reading the New Yorker when my phone vibrated. I try not to talk on the bus, don’t want to be ‘that guy’, but it was my brother Brian so I took the call. He was asking if I was working today and I told him I was en route.

He was working at Hoboken high school. I told him to safeguard his valuables. We chatted and told me what was going on in his life. Total craziness and not in a good way. It’s not my problem and I’m not belittling his situation by saying that.

I only say that to explain I won’t write about it here. It’s his problem and all I can do is offer my support for this particular hell he seems to be going through. And he has my support 1000%. I’m disappointed in some of the players in his tale of woe and I feel bad for what they’re going through.

We wound up on the phone for almost 30 minutes. So much for not wanting to talk while on the bus, but I didn’t really talk outside of saying, ‘Really?’ That’s fucked up’ and ‘I am so sorry you’re going through this’.

I told him I was getting off the bus and he should call me later on if he had the chance. He didn’t call though, but I will always be there for him, come hell or high water.

After that I walked across midtown to work and found my mail box filled with voice mail from the stalker. Her name in Min Young Ahn, but I call her that fucked up Korean bitch.

She was crying and talking in Korean on 2 messages, the rest were in English, telling me she loves me and she was going to move and how could I have said all those nice things to her yet treat her so coldly.

She showed up at my building the other day during my stressed out moments of trying to book a flight for Vivek and his partner. I told security once again that she is absolutely not allowed into the building.

It all depends who is at the security desk, but I guess when they enter her name in the system there is an instruction to notify me immediately. I found out the next day she communicated with security by talking to them while looking at the ceiling.

I had a man date with Steve from my office who was let go when he came back from his honeymoon in October. He still uses the facilities and in January we had decided on Friday afternoons to go have a cigar and drink some scotch at a cigar lounge across the street from his apartment.

At 2:00 I met up with Steve and we picked out some of Harpy’s favorite cigars, the La Flor Domincana Double Ligero. I had a flask that used to belong to my father and filled it up last night with some Dewars.

We sat in some comfortable chairs and sat and shot the shit for over an hour. Good cigars and good scotch made for a pleasant buzz in an otherwise crappy day. We parted ways, he and his wife were driving out to the Poconos and I was going back to the office to get my stuff.

In the office, the right wing nuts had posted a picture of Bill Clinton, who I admittedly do not care for, saying that the current economic crisis was all Clinton’s fault.

My reaction was to print out a Wanted for War Crimes poster featuring the worst president EVER on it and pinned it discreetly in my cube at such an angle so that the main wing nut could see it behind my computer screen if he happened to glance in that direction.

The fucked up thing for me was, ‘if’ the current economic fiasco was Clinton’s fault, why didn’t the douche bag dip shit that followed him do anything about it? Of course they wouldn’t be able to answer that.

Perhaps they would mention that douche bag dip shit was too busy protecting the country from another 9/11 attack, which of course happened on his watch. I’m too busy myself preventing such an attack by hanging a bag of shiny rocks on my windowsill to the left of this computer.

Still buzzed I walked back across town and saw Bill for a few minutes. He was good at calming me down, after I told him all about what was going on in my world and the satellites orbiting. I’m glad he could be there for me when I need it and he says I’m there for him, even when I don’t know it.

We parted ways since it was getting cold out and he wasn’t dressed for it, so I left him with his high beams and continued west to the bus terminal.

Walking down 43rd street I ran into Amiable Alan, also known as Adam Ames. We worked together in 2006 at McMann and Tate aka Wolff Olins. It was odd seeing him in midtown and I asked him if he was still at McMann Olins.

He told me no, that he was let go as well as a lot of people. The company had a account with Washington Mutual and we all know how Washington Mutual turned out. I guess it was a good thing to get out of there when I did.

We caught up for a spell, he’s doing freelance design work and was off to another gig. I walked to the bus terminal and caught a coach bus back to Hoboken. I sat and read Sarah Vowell, The Wordy Shipmates which of course is funny, but the walking and the scotch made for lidded eyes and I closed the book and stared out the window instead.

Bought a Mega Millions lottery ticket, perhaps worth 85 million dollars. That could come in handy when I win it.

Don’t worry, I’ll take care of you.

Black and White

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Just got home a little later than usual. Stopped by Lovely Rita’s apartment and dropped off about 40 copies of her resume. I was there for an hour, just drinking diet Sprite and chatting. She has a cute little dog named Lulu.

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I had never met Lulu before, I’m usually standoffish around small dogs but Lulu was adorable and a perfect companion for Lovely Rita. After some quick catching up I had to head back to Hoboken. Lovely Rita and I made plans to check out some art galleries this Saturday, weather permitting.

I’ve known Rita for about 26 years. Her brother Rich was friends with my brother Frank. Somehow we met each other and got along great. We formed a band in the early part of that decade, called ourselves The Nift. Why the Nift? I don’t know. I named it, it’s merely a nonsense word.

Rita’s then sister in law Loren played guitar along with me, Rita played bass and Dave Bell, a friend of my brother Brian and myself played drums. We wrote maybe two songs, and rehearsed in Hoboken which was the best location. I was living in Lodi, Dave was in Wood Ridge, Loren was married to Rich and living in Newark and Rita lived in Chelsea.

We were all very much in love with the then vibrant music scene at McSwells We were big Bongos fans and we all liked the dB’s and fancied ourselves playing songs like theirs, though we weren’t as technically adept at our instruments. Dave was probably the best musician out of all of us.

Dave and I once cornered Peter Holsapple on the Path train and talked up The Nift to him. Unfortunately, he was in his heavy drinking phase and though offered words of encouragement to us, nothing ever came of it. We never played outside the rehearsal room.

Our repertoire was Anytime At All by the Beatles, Oh Boy by Buddy Holly, a song that I wrote the music for and Loren wrote the lyrics and a song that was more than likely about some guy that Rita went to high school, with, some guy named John Genzale.

You might know him by his later name, Johnny Thunders. I met Johnny Thunders through Rita when Johnny played a show at McSwells towards the end of his short life, it was fun to see Rita messing around with an old school chum who happened to be Johnny Thunders.

It was quite windy out and Rita, Lulu and I were going to walk halfway to the bus terminal but there’s a lot of construction going on in Rita’s present neighborhood and rather than fray Rita and Lulu’s nerves with the wind making loud noises on the construction sites, I insisted they go back home.

She really appreciated the resume copying and I was very glad I could help. I would have stayed longer but I needed to get some groceries since my cupboard was bare. Thursday night is still somewhat cruisy at the supermarket but as usual I was oblivious.

I saw the same guy who works there that Juan had a fling with a few years ago. I never have the nerve to say something like, ‘Juan says hello’. I think he’s a closeted fellow and might freak out. I just glance and think to myself, ‘I know what you like…’

On the work front, Vivek and his partner got on their plane to Pensacola, no complaints, at least so far. The right wing trading desk subtenants have taken to watching Fucks Business Channel, which had a speech the President was making.

The crowd loved Obama, even though it was a group that didn’t vote for him. One of the right wingnuts made a comment that it sounded like a high school pep rally.

He said it in a derogatory way to which I just had to mention that it wasn’t a pre-screened crowd like BushCo used to have at their rallies. It actually shut them up. I think they were used to having their outbursts go unchallenged.

Well not anymore.

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