Friday once more. Trains were not crowded. Streets are not crowded. Limited people at the fruit stand. Mike is at my crib, Bill is driving someone somewhere, though it’s usually me that he is driving crazy. Mike paid me back the other day for the hybrid bed I ordered on his behalf from that maga company. It is supposed to be delivered today.
And today his beloved is supposed to fly in, leaving on Monday. I may or may not finally meet the beloved this weekend. Mike calls me and Bill Dad, and in turn we call him son. And now the beloved calls me Dad and I call him son in law. It is a strange situation, but ultimately harmless.
I do hope the hybrid bed is delivered today, though I know that sometimes these things can go awry. I slept well despite an adjustment to my routine. And a strange dream was had towards the end of my sleeping.
I was in my apartment talking to Julio who had pulled out Kevin Croughn who said he was alive and well after all. That was a surprise but I was more taken aback by Kevin’s humility, which was something that was rarely shown.
The morning creeps along. I was hesitant to write crawls aling so I opted for something else. Mike and I watched Nobody 2, the sequel to Nobody with Bob Odenkirk and Connie Nielsen. Over the top violent, but funny nonetheless.
Last night, Mike asked about Star Wars. He missed the boat on that one, born too late for the first two movies, and the third one was his introduction, but he was not interested.
I did know there was a documentary about George Lucas and the difficulty of bringing Star Wars to life and so for an hour and a half we watched it, though I was the one who was watching mainly. Midway through, Bill returned and Mike went and helped with the luggage which turned out to be a backpack since Bill left his other stuff at the garage where he was setting off from this morning, before I had even gotten out of bed.
And Bill was off to bed within an hour of returning. Mike sat on the couch looking at the phone and I readied myself for bed before 10:30 PM. It’s not even 12 hours later and it feels like the day is an hour behind where it should actually be.
Perhaps it will catch up after lunch. In any event I would be staring down the clock with mere hours to go. It loks like a beautiful day today and that would make for an enjoyable lunch. I have a Camacho cigar which was gifted to me and even though I am not a fan of Camacho, the last one I smoked was maybe 14 years ago, I will smoke this one on my lunch break.
It is now 10:00 AM and awfully quiet. What is that about?
154 is an album by Wire. My brother Frank gave it to me. I liked it a lot, though for the longest time I only played side one. I remember going to see the movie, Neighbors and meeting Stan Bogdansky for the first time. He was friends with Dave Bell somehow.
Stan was impressed with my cassette of 154. That meant something to me back then. 154 pops up every now and then in my life. This morning it turned up showing the floors the elevators were on at the fruit stand. I
’ve been thinking of Stan Bogdansky lately, having read an article on Cocteau Twins in Mojo magazine. The Cocteaus were friends of Stan. 154 was also an album that helped build my friendship with Kevin Wagner. I loaned him a cassette that, to Kevin’s ears, reminded him of Pink Floyd.
I met Wire a few times and interviewed them, which did not go well. Never meet your heroes they say, and it was somewhat true that adage. I was out of my league and they tolerated me to a question of degree. I probably did not get enough sleep the night before. I did record one of their shows at Maxwell’s on VHS but the videotape is lost to the ages. Perhaps left on Jane Street in the kingdon of the Kleinke.
Google Gemini rewrite as a Howard Zinn essay
The history of a Friday is not found in the grand proclamations of leaders, but in the quiet, rhythmic movements of the people—the commuters on uncrowded trains, the vendors at fruit stands, and the small, domestic negotiations of workers and friends. We are told that history is made of “great men,” yet it is actually forged in the waiting for a bed delivery or the shared silence of a living room.
### The Domestic Struggle and the Corporate Grip
Even our private sanctuaries are dictated by the reach of the marketplace. A “hybrid bed” is ordered—a simple necessity for rest—yet the transaction links the individual to a “MAGA company,” a reminder that in a capitalist society, even our sleep is subsidized by political machines we may find abhorrent. We are told we are “consumers,” but we are really just navigators in a sea of corporate interests, hoping that a delivery doesn’t “go awry,” as the logistics of the powerful so often do when serving the needs of the many.
There is a curious, almost radical tenderness in the labels we choose for one another. To call a friend “Son” or a newcomer “Son-in-law” is an act of reclaiming kinship outside the rigid, traditional structures of the state. It is “harmless,” yes, but in a world that often demands cold individualism, these small, chosen families are a form of quiet resistance.
### The Myth-Making of the Screen
We see the culture industry at work in the late-night viewing of *Nobody 2*—a spectacle of “over-the-top violence.” It is the American distraction, a way to numb the senses after a week of labor. Even the history of *Star Wars*, a modern mythology, is consumed as a documentary of “struggle.” We watch George Lucas fight the studios, identifying with the creator’s labor while Bill, a worker in the most literal sense, returns from “the garage” and heads straight to bed, exhausted by the actual physical demands of the day.
The disconnect is profound: while the screens tell stories of intergalactic rebellion, the real rebellion is simply finding the energy to ready oneself for bed by 10:30 PM.
### Memory as an Underground History
History is also the preservation of things “lost to the ages”—a VHS tape left on Jane Street, a cassette of Wire’s *154* shared between friends. When the narrator speaks of Stan Bogdansky or Kevin Wagner, he is documenting a history of the soul that the textbooks ignore.
* **The Artifact:** The cassette tape of *154* becomes a currency of connection.
* **The Interaction:** Meeting one’s “heroes” (the band Wire) and finding them dismissive is a lesson in the fallacy of icons. They “tolerated” the interviewer—a classic dynamic of the elite toward the enthusiast.
* **The Symbol:** Seeing the number “154” on a fruit stand elevator is not mere coincidence; it is the persistence of memory in a world that tries to make everything disposable.
### The Silence of the Morning
By 10:00 AM, a strange quiet settles over the city. In the silence, the narrator prepares to smoke a gifted Camacho cigar—a relic of a 14-year-old memory.
We are often told that the “big” events are happening elsewhere—in Washington or on the floor of the Stock Exchange. But the true history of the world is happening right here: in the anticipation of a loved one’s arrival, in the reflection on a dream of a resurrected friend, and in the “mere hours” we stare down before the lunch break. It is a beautiful day, not because the government says so, but because for a brief moment, the sun shines on a worker taking his cigar, reclaiming an hour of his life from the clock.