Monthly Archives: March 2011

I Don’t Wanna Be Tied

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So here I am at work in the cigar shack. Took a while to get in here thanks to Hoboken having it’s annual Fake Patrick’s Day. Hundreds of twenty somethings roaming around the streets looking for parties, looking for bars, looking for booze and beer.

I shouldn’t be surprised but I was sort of. It seems to get more and more crowded each year, and perhaps it gets younger each year. Bill was up before me this morning and I struggled to remain asleep but with little or no luck.

Eventually I was in the shower and getting ready for work after coffee and cereal. Bill sat on the couch watching the reporter from channel 4 report from Washington Street, where I would soon be waiting.

A stop at the bibliotheque and soon I was at 5th and Washington waiting for the 10:30 bus. Throngs of youths walking up and down the boulevard in varying shades of green. By 10:50 I figured out that there would be no 10:30 bus. I called Bill and he suggested that I take the Path train in so I started in that direction.

When I got to 3rd Street I decided to hedge my bets and wait for the bus there. Plenty of people in green standing around plotting and planning their next or maybe even their first moves. Pipe and drum corps walked past me as the bus eventually showed up.

I asked the bus driver what happened to the 10:30 bus, after all it was now 11:00. He had no idea and said maybe it was late. I grumbled and took a seat. The pipe and drum corps got on the bus after the bus stop (an illegal move), and didn’t pay for their ride to the start of the Fake Patrick’s Day parade.

Some idiot got on the bus and immediately started trying to save seats. He placed his leather jacket next to me and wouldn’t allow an older woman to sit next to him. I picked up his leather jacket and threw it back at him, inviting the older woman to sit next to me.

The people the idiot was saving seats for eventually got on and weaseled their way to their seats. The mother of two boys showed the boys where to sit while the idiot shouted out their names. The mother did not want to have anything to do with the idiot seat saver.

As soon as she handed off the kids she plugged into her iPod and after that chatted incessantly into her phone. I did my best to ignore the situation and instead focused on the kid sitting behind me singing Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.

I did call the cigar shop and let the Bradley know that I would be late. He answered the phone like an automaton and without any emotion took the message. Now I am in the cigar shack, it’s a beautiful day outside which means hardly anyone is coming into the shop.

It was supposed to rain today but the storm has passed early. Now it’s almost spring like and I too plan on heading out to enjoy the day. That means I will have to figure out when and where to have lunch, if I decide to eat something. It is so slow though. Not much happening in sales.

I was recently reminded of the first or at least one of the first Fake Patrick’s Days in Hoboken, 1991. I was off from work at the video store and wound up going down the shore to Manahawkin with Chaz and Kathe, William Charas, perhaps Steve Saporito and of course Ann B Davis who was going out with or soon to be going out with a gent named Maurice.

I think Connie met us down there. I was relatively impoverished at the time and did my best to not spend any money since I had no money to spend. It was an over night trip and I felt out of place mostly even though I was amongst friends, and Ann B Davis was always quick to judge.

It was a blur of a weekend with lots of jazzy cigarettes and I was back in Hoboken the next day, in the last weeks of living with Kevin Crud and not knowing what was going to happen come Mother’s Day 1991.

that Bill






I Didn’t Make It On Playing Guitar

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So now we find ourselves at Friday. How did we get here, and why now you might ask? I have no idea. I’m just here. And today was back to work for me after being off yesterday. And yesterday was the day I was going to call my friends, Connie and Jane.

Jane is upstate near Woodstock and Connie is down the Jersey Shore. Both made it to the party in July but I haven’t seen either since then. I don’t recall even speaking with either of them on the phone. I know I should call. And I was going to do it yesterday. Now I am looking at Monday, or maybe Tuesday.

And the chance that if I call that I would actually speak with Connie or Jane is 50/50. Connie is sometimes ill, too ill to answer the phone and Jane, well she’s in Woodstock and it’s all in the timing. It’s all in the timing with both of them.

Today it was back to work and it wasn’t any big thing. Am I settling into the job? Am I getting used to it? I haven’t had the anxiety that I usually do, sometimes prompting me to pop a Xanax before I head in and occasionally a Xanax the night before is in order. But lately there has been no need which probably brings a sigh of relief to some of you out there.

This morning started with Bill lovingly kissing me goodbye for the day and me lying in bed trying to remain asleep. It worked up to a point, and then I realized that I needed to get out of bed and get to work. Shower, shave, breakfast and coffee, checking email as I got suited up and eventually heading out the door.

A bright and sunny day on the cold side was what I faced when I headed outside, passing the third floor and hearing Alexander and a playmate running wild while Stine and her guest laughed. I was tempted to knock on the door and play but no, the adult world awaited me.

A walk to the bus stop as I enjoyed a cigar, early enough to see the 10:15 bus go on by. The 10:30 bus showed up as it should have and I rode watching the bus fill up with commuters. A quick walk through the bus terminal to the subway where I heard voices singing, the same crew listed in the latest issue of New York as being one of the best groups underground in the MTA. They were unseen on another platform and I recognized them from the plucking of an upright bass.

Eventually I was outside the building which houses the cigar shack. A brief call with Bill filled with laughs and soon I was inside the shop. It was Calvin and Thomas today and we made for a pretty good team. A few laughs made the time go by faster, no question about that.

It was fairly busy as well which definitely moved the hands on the clock. After 10 hours, I was back on the subway, walking through the bus terminal once again. Ran into Hyman Gross and opted to take the later bus and wait with Hyman. It was good to see him again.

Lately when neither Bill nor I see Hyman we always worry. But Hyman was in good spirits, talking about his Lasik surgery to deal with the gout. It seemed to have worked according to Hyman but left him with tinnitus.

He was worried about that and I did my best to reassure him, telling him that sometimes I too get that ringing in the ears, more than likely from going to so many rock and roll shows and not using protection for the ears.