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.

How Deep is Your Love?

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Well it’s a Sunday and it’s quite a nothing Sunday despite the sun finally coming out. It rained last night so there’s a dampness in the air. Last night Bill and I watched Dexter, and I sort of forgotten how good it is. Bill and I are quite enamored of the show and both think Michael C. Hall is really a very good actor.

Then we watched Saturday Night Live which was really good. They are certainly on point this season. I hope they can carry the momentum once past the elections. Of course Tina Fey as Sarah Palin was spot on. The Killers were the musical guest, also good as was Anne Hathaway hosting and Queen Latifah as Gwen Ifill- the moderator of the debates. I wound up staying awake watching Lost until 1:45, falling fast asleep as my head hit the pillow.

Slept until 9:30 and that felt nice. Bill was off to church and I was soon in the supermarket getting the papers. Saw Julio and Stine and the star of the show, Alexander once again. He’s getting more adorable each time I see him. And he seems to light up whenever I’m around. Of course I only see him maybe once a week so he each time he sees me, this exotic creature, it’s something new.

I gave them the John Lennon New York City baby t shirt I bought at the art and music festival last week. It’s for 12 months and he’s only 6 months. Which means I should see if Stine could take a picture of Alexander wearing the outfit my sister sent them a few months ago.

From then on it was pretty much a day of not much. Walked around Hoboken, finished the New Yorker from 2 weeks ago, and also picked up the 40th Anniversary issue of New York. I watched some of ‘From G’s to Gents’ on MTV. Basically the premise is taking thuggish young men and putting them in suits and ties and teaching them to speak and behave like well mannered adults.

Think of it as My Fair Gangsta. It was mindless and just some background noise actually. Probably the only ‘reality’ show I’ve seen this year.

Tonight I’m going to McSwells to see the Bird and the Bee with my brother Frank and two of his friends. We’re even having some dinner together which should be interesting. I don’t think I’ve eaten in a restaurant with my brother since 1999, though it is odd to think of McSwells as a restaurant. It should make for an interesting time I think.

Just killing time right now. Not going to show up on time since Frank rarely is. But he is being picked up by a friend of his and I have no idea about how prompt or tardy the friend is. Like I said, it’s been a lazy day and there’s really no rush.

Listening to the sounds of Hoboken and watching the sunset is where it’s at for me at this present moment.

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Ok, just got back from McSwells, The Bird and The Bee put on a very good show. She’s so personable. In a different day and age I would have told Steve Fallon to get them to do a residency and play McSwells every Sunday night for a month.

Had dinner with my brother and two of his friends. Not the interesting conversation I had hoped for. Mumbly 50 somethings. Between the three of them they were all inept when paying the check and I wound up paying $50.00 for a meat loaf platter and 2 pints of Guinness.

Really hopeless 50 somethings the three of them. Frank gets a pass because of his stroke, but really embarrassingly inept the other two. If they were scamming, they got me good.

I was so annoyed though that I almost didn’t go to the show. Luckily the band was that good they took me out of my bad space and put me in a better space. At one point I went out for a smoke, a young guy followed me.

Nothing like that, mind you. Just two smokers smoking. He just turned 21 two weeks ago and was having a good time. Said it was his first time in a club, never drank underage or anything like that. Went to military school and all that.

It was his first time at McSwells and he asked me if I had ever been there before. I said I used to work there back in the day. He asked what day was that? Thursday?

He then went and tried to hit on two girls also out for a smoke and I went inside. Pints are now $6.00 and forget about buy backs from the douche bags behind the bar. No more tips for them.

If someone brings up an Obama/Bill Ayers connection, just ask them about the McCain/G. Gordon Liddy the convicted felon and his plans for murder connection.

Here’s Hoboken.
or Manhattan from Hoboken
actually NY from Hoboken

A Man and his dog

Alexander in his bouncy thing, looking like Bjork

Black Wa-Da-Da

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Well today is Saturday, a nice day to sleep in on so that’s how I started my day. Last night was spent with Bill in front of the TV. Actually he had choir practice and didn’t come home until 10:00. I watched the usual. When the elections are done will I go back to watching shows I used to watch, like Ugly Betty, or My Name is Earl?

I’ve been watching the Daily Show and The Colbert Report as well as Olbermann and Rachel Maddow. Not exactly escapist fare. Haven’t been to the movies in quite a while either. Totally missed the Dark Knight. It’s still playing out there so maybe I could get it together, but then again I don’t like going to the movies by myself.

Bill Maher was pretty good last night with Alec Baldwin, Christiane Amanpour and Gary Shandling. According to the reports, McCain is slipping in the polls which is good and that people are pretty much over Palin which is a good thing. I do look forward to how the debate is parodied by Saturday Night Live tonight.

This afternoon i watched a documentary on the club Wetlands. It used to be in Tribeca and closed in 2001. 9/11 closed it. They were going out of business anyway after being open for 13 years. The last gig was supposed to be Bob Weir and Ratdog, on 9/14, but everything in the city was canceled at that time. I was supposed to see Cachito from the Buena Vista Social Club that week at BB King’s Nightclub.

I had gone to Wetlands, mainly to see various reggae and ska bands. They mentioned in the documentary that the club had terrible sight lines which was true. One time I remember going with my friend Miriam and her friend Andre to see Burning Spear. We got there at just the right time and were 3 feet away from the stage right in front of where the legendary Winston Rodney would be singing.

Miriam and I were definitely smoking up a storm and even though she said Andre could hang, homeboy couldn’t hang. Apparently we smoked him out and we wound up walking him out of the club into some fresh air outside, giving up our prime spot and missing the show totally. Andre felt bad about this but all Miriam and myself could do was laugh at him. That was probably the last time I had gone to Wetlands.

Andre did help me get a job as a doorman at a building on the Upper East Side. That lasted for a few weeks. My friends had warned me that it wasn’t the job for me, I’m not the subservient type and they were right. My co-workers thought I was a spy for management since there were talks going on with their union, and management seemed to be grooming me to be a scab in case the doormen went on strike.

One night I had to work a double shift and that’s when I realized that I wasn’t cut out for the job. Andre did have it right though, they only wanted me because I was white. After the Wetlands documentary I watched Perseopolis. That was very good. It’s about a girl growing up in Iran and the Vienna during the revolution and the war with Iraq.

Very good animation, so good that I wished they could do the same with Love and Rockets which like Perseopolis started out as a comic book/graphic novel. I could easily see Maggie and Hopey or a story about Luba in Palomar done in the same manner.

Perseopolis was in French with subtitles and they could do the Palomar story in Spanish. I think it’s a good idea. I wonder if Los Bros Hernandez thought of it. I don’t think it’s too late.

Today my mother would have been 80 years old. Hope she’s having a good time out there in the universe.

late night addition: 11:21PM I guess my brother Brian reads this blog from time to time as he just informed me via email that my mother would have been 82 since she was born in 1926 and Brian also guessed that I got my info from wikipedia.