Monthly Archives: May 2012

I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)

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Tuesday evening at the cigar shack. It has been a long day. Up pretty early, had another meeting at a cigar shop and I think it well, though the interviewer was a bit foggy due to attendance at the former manager of the cigar shop (Marcus) long delayed Bar Mitzvah. Apparently it was a lot of fun, Marcus hoisted upon chairs and Mazel Tov’s all around.

The meeting was all the way on the east side so that meant a Path ride and then a crosstown bus. The Path wasn’t so bad but I had forgot how much I hated taking the train so early in the morning. Standing around, too many people and I got in on the wrong side of the car. The other side opened first so all the seats were taken when I boarded.

The cigar shop was around where Bill spent his formative years so he had the scoop on what bus to take, where to get off and of course, how to get back. I think I did well. Apparently a lot of people who know me from the cigar shack want to pickle me for my red herring expertise. Was Bismarck a herring?

I was crazy early for work at the cigar shack this morning so that was good. yesterday I was a bit late due to a bus breakdown in the Lincoln Tunnel. Of course nothing was mentioned until I took it upon myself to ask a local bus driver if he saw the 126 bus. He said no, that the Lincoln Tunnel was closed down. I was waiting with 10 people and 5 of them followed me as we walked to the Path train. It wasn’t as crowded at 11:00 in the morning as it is at 9:00.

I haven’t written about the Hoboken ARt & Music festival on Sunday which is a lot more fun than cigar shack tales. Bill and I had dinner with Julio & Stine and Alexander on Friday and I mentioned the festival and Julio of course rolled his eyes. He’s born and raised in Hoboken so it is no thrill for him, just tons of people he tries to avoid and never see again.

To my surprise I got a text from him saying that the 3 of them were at the feast. So instead of my usual plan of showing up at 4PM I was there at 1:30. Julio bellyaching, Stine watching Alexander on the rides. We walked around a bit, Alexander had his Razor scooter so he was having fun. The adults bickered about what to do next. I planned on going back home and resting up.

Now earlier I had spoken to my brother Frank. He was interested in seeing the headliners, the dB’s but when I called he had no idea what was going on. I told him to call me when he had a clue. As I parted ways with Julio, Stine & Alexander I get a phone call from Frank’s wife Elaine. They’re in Hoboken and where was I?

I explained I needed to go home but I would be back. I just wanted to sit down somewhere comfortable. Bill who drove the night before was up from sleeping and heading out, so I basically chilled out for about 45 minutes before joining the fray. SUre enough I get to the stage, there is Frank, and elaine as well as Rand & Lisa and the super wonderful Jane Scarpantoni who I hadn’t seen in quite a long time.

The band was good, catching up was done. Chaz was there as were Karyn Kuhl, ALice Kg, Alirio and a bunch of other people I had last seen in April at Maxwells for Steve Fallon’s return.

Tonight on the way home, I’m walking fast through the terminal trying to make my bus. I see my friend Denise about 30 feet ahead of me, but I’m not yelling. 2 youngish women, drunk and waving their arms are directly in front of me as I’m trying to get past them. Swinging their arms dangerously close to my crotch as they express how surprised they are that ‘Todd was smoking pot!’.

I see Denise when I get on the bus, running past the arm swinging young female alcoholics and sit next to Denise. The drunk girls walk by and I mention to Denise how one of them almost castrated me while she was walking and also said loud enough that ‘Todd was smoking pot’. The young woman turns and gives me a dirty look as she teeters in her heels with the rest of her drunken cabal.

Denise and I have having many laughs and eventutally the drunkettes get off the bus. The ‘intimidating one’ meaning the one who wasn’t slurring her words says ‘You got something to say?’ as she starts heading down the steps. I tell her I will repeat it only if she closes her eyes while descending the steps.

She calls me an asshole. I tell her she’s the front part. Eventually they’ll wind up in a bar spreading chlamydia, amongst other things. I’m sure we’ll cross paths again. I’ll remember them, they probably saw 2 of me so they’ll be looking for twins or Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Drew Carey.




35 Drunk Girls

I Know Ur Girlfriend Hates Me

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I was just thinking about my mother. I remember growing up, not knowing how old she was or even really where she lived, asking her if she saw the Hindenburg go down in flames, or if she remembered seeing King Kong on top of the Empire State Building. I was the type that thought King Kong was a documentary.

I know my mother loved movies and born in 1927 1926, she probably saw at least some of the classics, like Gone with the Wind which came out in 1939. She would have been 12 and I guess that she probably had a chance to go out and see it. I think it was probably a stolen moment since she was the only daughter with 5 brothers and more than likely had to help out her mother with the chores and household tasks.

It couldn’t have been that easy growing up during the depression, 5 brothers, and an abusive father to deal with. And not just abusive but from what I can remember- a drinker. Late in his life and early in my own, we had him in our house for Thanksgiving. To me he was just an old man with white hair and black horn rimmed glasses.

After Thanksgiving dinner, it was just me and him awake, seemingly everyone else all had naps or went over to friends’ houses. I offered to make him some coffee and I got him a cup. On the dining room table where he sat was an unopened bottle of whiskey. He asked me to get some milk from the kitchen and for just that short amount of time, half the bottle of whiskey disappeared.

It was looked on humorously when my family slowly started to awake from their post dinner naps. My grandfather died a few weeks after that, sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I consoled myself by listening to the original Broadway soundtrack of Godspell. I was mourning, not for my grandfather but rather for my mother being unhappy.

The wake was somewhere in the Bronx and one of the last times my mother and her brothers were all in the same room at the same time. Their mother died not too long after my birth and I did not know her at all. I heard she was nice though. Her name was Helen I believe.

Soon my uncles started dropping off. First was my Uncle John. Didn’t know much about him but loved his children, they were pretty much very close to the ages of my brothers and sister. After that I guess Uncle Richard died. From what I heard he had a steel plate in his head and sweat and grease seeped under the steel plate and slowly drove him off the deep end.

Then came Uncle Harry who was my Uncle John’s twin. I barely knew him but knew him more than my Uncle Richard (who was talked about in joking yet hushed tones). Uncle Tommy was next to go, an unhappy marriage and with a brood of children who didn’t like him very much. He might have been a drunken terror at home, but I really couldn’t say.

My mother passed away on Mother’s Day 1991, all of a sudden from a heart attack, doing the Sunday Times crossword puzzle. And finally my Uncle Joseph, the baby of the family, who after a fight with diabetes and who knows what else, died a few years ago.

I am mainly still in touch with my Uncle John’s kids via Facebook. They’re all nice people. The other cousins, Uncle Tommy’s progeny- I have no idea who or where they are. I can pass them on the street and wouldn’t recognize them. Joseph’s son, looks like his mother only bald and I last saw him at his father’s wake.

I guess me and my sibllings were the cream of the crop. Though if any cousins are reading this, I am more than happy to discuss this with them. We can compare our wounds- physical, mental and emotional.

Powers to the people!

2 – Downtown