Monthly Archives: September 2010

I’ll Remember You

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It started out as a good day off. Slept until 9:00 which was quite nice. Didn’t have much to do really. Had some breakfast, took a shower basically.

Some errands to run and also a trip into Manhattan to go to Macy’s and exchange the Star Trek cufflinks that I bought for Bill for his birthday in June. Basically they had fallen apart, at least one of them did.

I Krazy Glued it back together and wrote an irate email to Macy’s customer service about it. To my surprise a customer service representative called me back and arranged for an exchange despite the fact that I didn’t have the original box or the receipt.

So I headed into the city in the early afternoon and wandered around Macy’s, getting different directions to the executive offices from most every salesperson and security guard that I asked. Finally found the offices and spoke to the woman I was supposed to speak to.

She arranged for me to go to the men’s accessories area and speak with Wellington who was able to find a different pair, not the exact same cufflinks that I originally purchased. Still satisfactory since it was still Star Trek.

Then it was the Path train back to Hoboken. Went to the bibliothèque and returned the Andy Warhol biography. It basically ended shortly after Andy was shot in 1968, after the move to Union Square.

Just a brief mention of the 1970’s and his death in 1987 after routine gall bladder surgery.

Picked up 2012, the Roland Emmerich / John Cusack disaster movie about the end of the world. A lot of fun to watch, short on character development since basically a lot of people die throughout the movie.

I loved watching disaster flicks when I was a kid and saw almost all of them when they came out. And I do like the current batch from Roland Emmerich, however dumb they might be. I’m just glad I didn’t pay to see this in the theater. It’s certainly corny as hell.

I stopped by Mr. L’s barbershop by my house. I noticed in the Hoboken Reporter they were looking for a barber/stylist. I wondered what happened and noticed that my barber hasn’t been around. I spoke to Nick his son and he told me that his father had fallen off a ladder while tending to his grapevine.

Missed the last step and took a tumble, breaking his arm. I guess Tony isn’t coming back, since they have a help wanted sign in the window. If only I had known this when I had the idea of becoming a barber earlier this year in my unemployment days.

I would have graduated from the school by now. But then again, I didn’t want to know how to do make up or dye women’s hair, I merely wanted to be a barber.

In an unrelated employment news, I came home and found an email from Raymond asking me to call him at 9:00, when he gets out of work. That can’t be good and I can’t get any info from him until then. I can’t help but wonder if it was anything I did.

Just what I needed on my day off, some work related stress. Maybe it was something that someone else did and he just wants to gossip. Regardless it’s still unnerving and I resent Raymond a bit for this intrusion into my day off.

I just returned from the bibliothèque and dropped off 2012. It was a fast 2 hours to watch and didn’t have enough time to pick up something fun to watch.

Now I have an hour to kill until I call Raymond with whatever news he might have to say. Can’t help but think, I’m in trouble. I’ll fill you all in, once I know.

And now I know. It seems on August 27, some guy came into the store wanting to buy vanilla flavored cigars. We don’t sell flavored cigars and I told him so. Well he thought I was just rude and wrote to the corporate headquarters, complaining about me, describing me.

So maybe I am in trouble, but it’s no big deal. I certainly don’t have the back up that I used to have when I worked for Susan and Lois at Farfetched. No I have a ego maniacal asswipe named Marcus, upset that we’ve only sold one ticket to a cigar dinner at the Grand Havana Room. The ticket is $250.00 and you get a few free cigars as well as a steak.

Even if I had the cash to spend on that, I wouldn’t go. And no one has the cash to spend on that sort of thing. Morale is sinking fast at the store, what with most everyone looking to get out as soon as possible.

From yesterday

I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine

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Ugh what a day it’s been today. It started out OK I guess. Nothing really bad happened but at work, that’s where it went down. The day started with me and Don Birch and Raymond and it was alright.

Then Don Birch announced he was leaving early for Rosh Hashanha. He’s not really a practitioner of Judaism, but I think it was his girlfriend whispering in his ear to take off. Marcus was out of the shop as was Calvin, so Don was basically allowed to play the religious holiday card without any interference from management.

That sort of left Raymond and myself alone in the shop, waiting for Sean to come in. Being 20 years old, Sean does very little and isn’t very dependable. Raymond suggested that I stay in the shop for my lunch and that was something that I certainly did not want to do.

I work a 10 hour shift and I do enjoy having an hour to myself out of the shop. When I started it was recommended that I stay in and mix with the customers but that’s not my thing and I don’t like some of the customers that sometimes hang out in the back room all afternoon.

Plus cellphone use is discouraged and I do like to talk to Bill and other friends on my lunch hour.

So I whined a bit and Raymond didn’t like it. I never wrote this before but I will now. Raymond whines all the fucking time. Whine whine whine. And complains constantly. So much so that when I talked about it to Billie in DC back in June, Billie told me that Raymond should be avoided at any cost.

But that isn’t a possibility since it’s a small store and we all interact. Sean did show up and it was slow enough that I left the building for lunch and walked to one of my usual benches by the park to enjoy a cigar.

As luck would have it, the cigar started to fall apart as I smoked it. I decided to head back to the shop and get a new one, which meant that I did have most of my lunch hour in the shop. And as expected I didn’t care for the other customers in the back room.

Pretentious college students this time who actually were putting down the cigar shop and praising the competition across town.

After lunch and it was a cold front between Raymond and myself. He eventually came around, after I talked to Sean about how fed up I am with Raymond’s whining, all the time. Maybe Sean talked to Raymond because Raymond was soon quite apologetic.

After that it was smooth sailing. I stood at my perch in the shop when an older gent came in. I of course offered to help him. In the humidor when I was suggesting cigars I recognized his voice. It was Bill Moyers, formerly of PBS, now retired.

We chatted for a bit and I showed him the cigars that Bill Paley Jr just came out with. Bill Paley Jr is the son of William Paley who started the Columbia Broadcasting System. I told Bill Moyers about this blog, told him the story of how Lewis Lapham got me started.

He was somewhat interested in this blog and asked for the address. I told him I would give him the address, hopefully buying sometime to come up with a more polished piece than this one. It truly was the highpoint of the day and I certainly hope to meet him again.

Forget the day, it was the highpoint of the week. He was much more entertaining and interesting than Steve Winwood.