Author Archives: johnozed

About johnozed

I'm 50+ years old, 210-ish#, 6'2", reddish blonde, blue eyes with glasses (and without) masculine, funny, relatively intelligent, enjoy the company of assorted friends and family especially sordid friends and family. I love music, reading, writing, conversing, laughing, going to films, shows, concerts and smoking cigars. And I also enjoy looking nice in a suit and tie. Looking more like Lewis Lapham than Tom Wolfe. I'm sure there is more, but we'll just have to find out when I write about it. In a lifetime relationship with partner Bill Vila.

I’ll Keep It With Mine

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Bad news for Wilmington, Ohio. The freight company DHL has decided to stop making deliveries in the US. I never liked DHL. I tried using them a few times but it was always a hassle. The delivery guys are generally nice guys, but the services sucked and forget about using customer service. They were always incompetent. Regardless, DHL’s base of operations is in Wilmington and overall 10,000 people might be out of work throughout the US.

Just wrote that since the news is on and Brian Williams is smugly spewing forth with his nightly bad news. Last night, Bill stayed in Stuyvesant Town with his mom. He was still shredding papers when I spoke with him after 11:00. He will be coming home tonight and I will do my best to make sure he’s stress free and able to relax.

I’m sure a spliff would help him greatly but that’s not his style. I watched True Blood last night and it was very good. Perhaps the best episode so far. Sookie found out that Sam was a shape shifter. The easiest shape for him to turn into is a dog. Tara had an exorcism that seemed to have worked until she found that the exorcist worked part time in a drug store, so her ‘new’ world collapsed and she got real bitchy. Bitchier than usual.

Sookie’s sexy and stupid brother, Jason- is still being manipulated by the girl who played Janis Ian in Mean Girls. Then she killed Steven Root and you know that can’t be good. And Vampire Bill was on trial and since he killed another vampire, the Magister played by Željko Ivanek decided he had to create another vampire which was sad.

You’d know Željko Ivanek if you saw him. He’s a really good character actor and has been in countless shows and movies, sometimes playing a good guy, sometimes a bad guy and last night he was the eldest vampire that all the vampires in North America report to.

I would say True Blood is sort of like Dark Shadows, but we weren’t allowed to watch Dark Shadows. Maybe because it dealt with the occult which was a no no in my mother’s eyes, or maybe because it would cause nightmares which she wouldn’t want to deal with in the middle of the night.

Entourage was good. It’s interesting to watch Entourage since the election of Barack Obama and the selection of Rahm Emanuel. Interesting because Rahm Emanuel’s brother Ari, is the basis of the role of Ari Gold, played by Jeremy Piven. How close the impersonation is, I couldn’t tell you, though Wikipedia has some ideas.

Then I watched Summer Hills High or some show with a similar title. I think the sell by date on comedies with unlikable characters has passed. And last night, the unlikable characters were all played by the same guy. I guess he’s good at that sort of thing, but like I said- the unlikable characters, the spawn of Seinfeld, has gotten old.

What’s next? Blipverts? ‘I’ll buy that for a dollar’? Sybil the Soothsayer? I guess they will all arrive in due time. Darn that Paddy Chayefsky! And Max Headroom as well as Paul Verhoeven while we’re at it!

Tourists?

Blurry Tourists!

Hogs

Every Kinda People

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Well it’s Sunday night. No feeling of dread, the feeling that I had better get my homework done. No spending the afternoon training with the Junior Rifle Squad, no going with my brother Brian to pick up a pie from Lodi Pizza. All is well though the pizza idea is a pretty good one.

But no, I just ate dinner. Or was it supper? Which one is later? Dinner or supper? My family used to eat dinner/supper around 2:00 in the afternoon on Sundays and then have the pizza later around 8:00. It was always a treat to have pizza on Sunday nights, something to look forward to.

No pizza for me, maybe some organic dark chocolate with raspberries instead. Once I open it, it has to be devoured. It rarely lasts through the night.

Last night was a pretty good time with Excer. I’ve known Excer for about 20 years and he is the only person I know named Excer. He’s a good guy and plays keys for Conjunto Imagen. I met him initially though Pedro when we were both working at 2 Park Avenue for Rupert Murdoch. It didn’t go well.

Excer pulled up in his red Honda and Pedro was in the front seat and I was in the back. We were all sharing a spliff in the parked car. It was the 1980’s so things were a bit lax as regards to law enforcement.

On the sidewalk 2 guys were walking up Park Avenue, they were a bit on the swish side which of course didn’t bother me since it’s the swish guys that are the bravest. But it bothered Excer enough to make a comment. I took that as my cue to go back in to the office, leaving Pedro and Excer in the car.

From what I heard, Pedro gave Excer an earful about how uncool it was for him to say what he said about the gay guys. Excer didn’t think he was that wrong at the time until Pedro told him that I was gay. This is one of the reasons I love Pedro so much. He honestly cares for me and looks out for me like that.

Eventually Excer came around and we became good friends, which is why we were hanging out last night at a bar called Kabin on Second Avenue. Kabin was a decent bar, great Happy Hour. One freebie for every drink purchased. Excer and I drank some Stella Artois before heading over to BBQ for some mediocre hamburgers.

Then instead of going out for more beers, I decided to head on home, Excer kindly dropping me off at the 9th Street Path station. I slept ok, Saturday Night Live was a repeat and I didn’t want to watch Kings of Leon again.

Woke up with the sun beaming on my face at 8:00. Went out and did my thing, and came home and made breakfast. Rand and Lisa were going to be at the McSwells flea market and I was planning on making an appearance until Bill called and asked if I could help him move his late father’s documents to a shredder truck that was going to be at Stuyvesant Town.

I took the Path once again into the city. Twice in one weekend is an accomplishment. After helping Bill, we sat and talked and looked at photos of Bill and his parents as well as his sister who died when she was just a child before Bill was born. Bill was such a handsome lad when he was growing up. What happened? Just kidding of course.

Portrait of Bill playing piano 1990, by William Vila Sr.

Had a Padron as I walked from 14th Street and Avenue C to 32nd Street and Sixth Avenue and listened to a playlist that I’ve been compiling while reading the latest Mojo and Uncut music magazines. Just made the train before it pulled out and was in Hoboken in 20 minutes.

Called Rand to see if the flea market was still going on but I missed the whole thing as they were packing up. And now I’m here at the beginning of tonight’s entry.

One more thing, Bill and I will be protesting against the church of latter day Twits at the Manhattan mormon Headquarters at 65th and Broadway at 6:30 on Wednesday night. Hope to see you there.