May | 2011 | johnozed

Not much happened today, at least not around Hoboken. It was a day off for me and I was fairly busy. Laundry and errands were the main things and both were accomplished with relative ease. I scanned the job listings but didn’t send anything out.

I did send an email to a cousin of mine and once again asked if he knew of anything opening up. I did not get any response last time and I’m really not holding my breath this time. I sent some emails to Danny the K and Greg Stevens a week or so ago and there was no response from them either.

I sent yet another resume to the local bibliothèque, this time asking for a response either good or bad. Whether or not I hear from the head librarian remains to be seen. Julio told me they were looking for help at his company but only looking at women which for me, sucks.

It would have been something else though since Julio and I, despite being good friends, always clashed when working together. We worked different nights at Maxwells and the rare times we worked side by side proved to be difficult. But I would have happily put my shoulder to the wheel and done whatever I could do to get that job and keep that job.

I mainly stayed local today, thought about checking out some galleries but by the time I gave it some serious consideration, the moment had passed as did my interest. It’s been otherwise a very boring day and I didn’t mind at all.

It’s also Bob Dylan’s 70th birthday today and I as well as a few other Facebook friends have been posting videos of Bob or covers of Dylan’s songs online. I actually started last night, with Fourth Time Around, one of my favorite Dylan songs, from Blonde on Blonde.

I think credit for my admiration of Bob Dylan should go to Joe Lizzi, a bloke I worked with at Right Track Recording almost 20 years ago. Joe liked Bob a lot and lent me Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde.

Initially I saw a lot of similarities between Highway 61 and the first Velvet Underground record. Tom Wilson produced the Velvets record as well as Like a Rolling Stone, Bob Johnston produced the rest of Highway 61, but Wilson also produced Bringing It All Back Home in its entirety.

I did have the brief occasion to meet Bob once, only for a few minutes at Right Track. I forget what he was doing but I did escort him to the studio he was due in and told him I liked his songs. I know, how original eh? Mickey Hart from the Grateful Dead was also in another studio and I told Mickey (who was really super nice) that Bob was in the studio. I’m not sure if they met up, but despite my avoidance of the Dead, I did know that Bob and the Dead toured together a few years before that day.

Today is also Patti LaBelle’s birthday and she seems to be getting the short shrift again. I am not sure if I met Patti LaBelle, she may have recorded at Right Track as well, it was the top notch recording studio in New York City for a while, but I did see her sing at a Prince after show 2AM concert at Roseland where she started wailing and Prince surrendered the stage to her, telling Patti it was all hers.

All in all it’s a good day for music, 2 great personalities and performers to be thankful for.

Thank goodness it’s Friday. I know it’s really Monday but I am off the next two days so for me it’s Friday. I can’t speak for the millions on their feet all day, not complaining, bless their hearts, but for me it’s a relief. And it was quite an interesting day at the cigar shack.

It started out interestingly enough last night actually. A little before 10:00 I started getting texts from Julio. He and Stine had a birthday party for Alexander at a park on the Hudson River north of the George Washington Bridge. It was cold and damp and they had a lot of food left over as well as birthday cake.

They figured I was just getting home, not realizing that I had gotten home a little before 8:00 since the shack closes earlier on Sundays. I was home, a little jazzy and not really wanting to go down to see them. But I figured I should.

I knew Alexander would be asleep by then so I threw on some track pants and went down for about a half hour. It was good to see them, both of them talking to me at the same time. Since I’ve known Julio for over 25 years we really understand each other very much, a word here, a gesture there, a cocked eyebrow and a lot is said.

I think that must frustrate Stine somewhat so I took extra care to pay extra attention to her. I came home with a large piece of homemade cake, festooned with Danish flags, some hot dogs, hamburgers and buns.

I came home and watched some TV with Bill before he went to bed and I eventually followed. Waking up wasn’t so easy and I mentally bargained with the alarm clock, which satisfied the both of us. The alarm clock now has off the next two days as well.

After showering and shaving and coffee and cereal I was out the door enjoying a slightly damaged Padron 1964 Anniversary cigar. As I waited at the bus stop I ran into Mr. Castro, an old friend from the past powdery days of yore.

He doesn’t do that anymore and neither do I. And neither of us miss it. In fact he can’t stand to be around the people from those days who are still sniffing here and there. We both rode the bus into the city, but did not sit together.

I made it to the shack early enough, Thomas and Bradley were there. I worked with Calvin yesterday and we talked about my problems with Bradley. Today I decided to take matters into my own hands and had a talk with Bradley who by the way has been taken off life support.

It was a nice chat, interrupted every now and then by commerce but we’re both glad we talked and it made for a smooth easy going day. I told Thomas about it since he was out of the shack at the time, and he jokingly said that he was going to try to put it back the way it was since he felt he benefited from the disconnect between Bradley and myself.

So for the first time in what seemed to be a long time, the three of us were able to work together and laugh throughout the day. Since I closed the other night with Thomas leaving early, which left it open for me to leave early and have Thomas close.

I made my way to the subway, this morning I had $2.80 left on my MetroCard and when I tried to use it this evening, the turnstile read to swipe again. I swiped again and once again got the same message. I swiped once more and got the message that there was insufficient fare left on my card.

The turnstile took $2.50 and left me unable to get through with $0.30 left. So I had to walk over and refill my MetroCard and when I finally was able to pass the turnstile, the train I wanted to board was leaving the station. I loathe the MTA.

Such a horrible corrupt organization, filled with the laziest teats alive (and possibly dead).