Monthly Archives: June 2011

I Believe In Love Indigo Girls

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It’s Thursday today. It was quite hot, when I checked the outdoor thermometer near the cigar shack it read 98 degrees. A bit much if you ask me. Quite warm out, felt like everything was as slow as molasses, with the exception of tempers. And one of those tempers could have been mine but I kept a cool head and carried a light bulb.

Last night I had fun with Bill. He was auditioning for a part in a play, that involved playing some rock & roll piano. Bill doesn’t know much about rock & roll, so it turned into Bill sitting in one room at his keyboard and me in another room in front of the computer playing songs by Little Richard, Elton John, Joe Jackson, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, the Beatles, and the Kingsmen.

It’s a good thing I played the Kingsmen since when Bill played that at the audition, it was a tune they recognized and jumped in and played along. I mean really, who can resist Louie Louie?

Bill stopped by the cigar shack after the audition since the audition was just around the corner. It was definitely good to see him, made my day. Such a positive force and spirit in my life, I am sure I would have been lost without him. So I am going to keep him.

Tonight the Black Eyed Peas were scheduled to have a show in Central Park on the Great Lawn. A benefit for the Robin Hood Foundation, a free show, but tickets were required. Then the skies opened up, lighting and thunder and now no one knows if the show is going on after all.

LL Cool J, Debbie Harry, MC Hammer, Tony Bennett & Carole King were scheduled to appear on stage but it could very well turn into a Diana Ross debacle. They kept postponing the start of the show from 7:30 until 8:30 when it was officially cancelled.

I remember the Diana Ross show in Central Park. I was driving a van for the school book company and sneaking my way through the park on the eastern drive. It was early enough, around 4:30- 5:00, to see people heading to the Great Lawn and as I headed out of the park I could see ominous clouds on the New Jersey horizon.

Dark clouds, with lightning and thunder approaching. Well they went ahead with that show and it was a disaster. I wasn’t going to the show anyway and I don’t know anyone who was so basically I didn’t care. They were smart enough to cancel the show tonight. Only 60,000 tickets were given out as opposed to the 150,000 people who attended Miss Ross’ catastrophe.

It was an interesting day other than that. I received a message from an old Maxwells friend. Someone I like but can’t afford to worry about. He’s fond of the drink and has sobered up and fallen off the wagon way too many times to count. He asked me to call him and when I did I woke him up from a nap.

He tried to get into rehab again last night and was turned away due to the late hour. He’s also seeing a friend of mine and she’s nice and nurturing and I would hate to see her get hurt from his alcoholic antics. Within moments of calling him I couldn’t wait to get off the phone.

There were customers to deal with and I didn’t want to hear again the story of the last woman he dated who he now routinely calls a skank. Next time I will just communicate via emails or online messages. Sleepy, slurred words don’t help anyone.

I Believe In Father Christmas

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Just had a nap where I was in the southern part of Lodi, waiting to get a Frappuccino at Starbucks. A cover version of What’s My Name by the Clash played as I found myself trying to find where the Starbucks was that I left to escort a young woman from the coffee shop.

It was a rust belt version of Lodi, old machines decomposing in the deserted industrial areas. It should have been easy to find since it was across the street from Immaculate Conception high school. Inside it was dismal, with a few people milling about waiting for their beverages.

My server was actually someone who used to work at a pub in Saddle Brook called Gleason’s. I was doing some leaping and running as well as scaling down some iron walls designed like steppes while trying to get back to the Starbucks.

My knee was no trouble at all in the dream. Lots of running and jumping but still no Frappuccino.

I guess the Frappuccino was in my subconscious after getting an email from the corporation telling me I could get a free download of summer songs if I just go into the Starbucks. Although I wound up in Lodi in the dream I believe the Starbucks was actually in the vicinity of the cigar shack. There is no escaping the cigar shack.

A nap when the weather is close to 100 degrees outside is very nice. A fan blowing on my half dressed body as I lay on top of the bed was quite nice. I didn’t sleep too well last night and that helped with the nap. A Xanax that I took earlier in the day certainly helped quite a bit.

The Xanax came in handy when I made a phone call to someone. It was a day off and I tried calling them twice in the past week, left voice mails both time. This person usually calls me up and is generally upset that I never call.

Of course I never take into consideration that they have a phone that cannot dial out, they can only receive calls for some reason.

A few weeks previous this person contacted me about going to see a benefit show at Maxwells on June 29. I explained that it’s Bill’s birthday that day and depending on my work schedule I wasn’t sure at the time whether or not I would be able to make it.

It turns out that I was able to request that day and the next day off, not actually days off but when Calvin does the schedule I would like to be able to be off and make up those days off later in that week or around that time.

Well the person on the phone seemed harried as I walked around outside in the record high temperatures answering his questions concisely. He asked if I was upset about something, remarking that it sounded like I was angry with him. I explained that I wasn’t angry or upset, far from it, thanks to the Xanax.

Well it turns out that I wasn’t able to buy the tickets locally in Hoboken, that I would have to make the purchase online when I got home. That was no problem.

But what actually did upset me was the fact that me and the guy at the other end of the phone were once quite close and I do make an effort to rebuild what past we may have had, but sometimes it gets so hard to do so.

It’s not always like this but on occasion there is such a chemical reaction between the two of us that it almost always ends badly. And today was just like that.





Farewell to Harbor House, the Hoboken rehab center. Must've been some party...