Monthly Archives: August 2010

I’ve Been Lonely (For So Long)

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Well here I am again and it’s Friday for most, and I guess it’s Thursday for me since I have Sunday off. Then it’s 5 days, Monday through Friday with next weekend off.

I arranged to have August 22 off to see the Specials at Summerstage but they were denied visas to get into the US. They’re touring Canada but not here. Boo State Department, Boo!

So now there is a tentative plan to see the Warhol exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum with Harpy next weekend, now that Harpy is off the mainland and back on one of the islands off the coast of North America.

Today was back at the cigar shop. The mantra continues. It was a decent team, Calvin, Don Birch and Raymond. Marcus is at the tobacconist convention and will be back on Monday. It was a beautiful day that’s for sure. Q

uite nice, almost spring like, or maybe even closer to autumnal. I listened to Pylon, Hits when I went into work. Great way to start the day. They were such nice people, and it’s sad that Randy passed away last year and Pylon will be no more.

One of the best bands from Athens GA in my book. I first saw them opening up for Talking Heads in 1980 at the Dr. Pepper Festival at the Wollman Rink and didn’t quite get them.

Fast forward a few years later, I’m shopping in Free Being, the late lamented record store on Second Avenue and I see a Tyrannosaurus Rex on an album cover with a curved edge. That was enough to get my attention, enough to make me buy it, and I fell in love with them for the first time.

It was their second album and I was smitten. I was lucky enough to see them at Maxwells a few times and also able to DJ for them when they played. And they enjoyed the songs I played and even told me so.

This morning, I was early enough to relax in the backroom before I started my 10 hour shift. An excellent way to lose weight I might add. Standing around for 9 hours will slim the waist quite nicely.

My Friend My Friend came into the shop showing me a photocopy of a saucy picture of him and his family for their holiday card from the past. Quite funny and My Friend My Friend would give Divine a run for the money.

Al Sharpton even made an appearance this afternoon, didn’t say anything as he was talking into his Blackberry. I wondered aloud after he left if he put his hair in curlers when he went to bed at night. Other than that, not much else to write about.

But I have to write more as there are only 463 words written so far. Well a little bit more than that actually. The number is actually closer to 480. A number that I am comfortable with but I’m sure the number crunching word counting reader or readers would beg to differ.

Filthy beggars.

I Want You Around

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Let’s face it. Most of the time lately, I have no idea what day it is. I was trying to help a customer on the phone, someone who was trying to get cigars sent to his home in Connecticut. I remarked that if he called early enough tomorrow morning, he should get them by Friday.

He said, that tomorrow was Friday. There went my plan for him to satisfy his cigar needs. It didn’t really matter since I was fobbing him off to another cigar shop in Manhattan. But I was taken aback by the fact that today was Thursday for most people but for me it was Tuesday.

And Harpy is somewhere in New Jersey. Attending some wake. As long as it isn’t Harpy’s wake I am fine with it. Hopefully the border will be open when he decides to leave the mainland and return to that island off the coast of America.

Last night I slept especially well. Bill was somewhere in Pennsylvania and didn’t come home until 5:30. He was off from work today so he lay sleeping as I was the one dressed up and headed out the door.

I saw the 10:15 bus at the stop but decided to wait for the 10:30 bus. I sat there on a bench and finished last night’s cigar which would have horrified my cigar shop co-workers. I had no problem with it and stayed far enough away from anyone who was waiting for the bus and might have had problems with the cigar.

I walked through the terminal listening to New Order, Blue Monday. I guess there was a karma pay off with the fact that when I got to the subway there was a train at the station. An express train at that.

I made it into the cigar shop early enough and explained to Calvin the problem with the printer not being connected to the network. He didn’t think it was that much of a problem since all the info was in the database and easily accessible. I didn’t know that and my worrying was all for naught.

It was an interesting day at the cigar shop. In the afternoon an elderly gent came in and I of course welcomed him with a ‘Hello Sir’, like I do with all the male customers. Women get a ‘Hello Miss’. It makes the older women feel younger and the men feel like gentlemen (though most of them aren’t).

I asked the elderly gent if he was at the shop to buy a cigar and he said that he wasn’t, he didn’t smoke anymore. His name was Bill and he was 81. He just wanted to come in and talk about how he first started smoking cigars when he was 13 years old, growing up in an orphanage.

It was a convoluted story but that was the gist of it. He had a few jobs when he was 13 years old, and thrilled at that age when he was making $14.00 a week for stocking the shelves in a grocery store.

He mentioned that his whole life was stories and that he needed a ghostwriter to get them all down before it was too late. I suggested that he go to a nearby college and speak to someone in the English department, maybe they could suggest a student to help him out with what he wanted to do.

I don’t know if that’s how things get done on campuses these days, but it was an idea that he seemed to like.

Just another day I suppose in Manhattan, working in a cigar store. Thursday’s with Old Bill.