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.

Rapper’s Delight

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Well I am going to see Brian Wilson tonight at Brighton beach and I doubt if I’ll write when I get home. So I’ll write now, on the sneak while at work. Last night Olbermann (bring back Rachel Maddow!), Daily Show and the Colbert Report.

Then I started watching the Shining. So goddamned good. I saw it the first weekend it came out, in Totowa with my sister in law Elaine. We were both Stephen King fans then. She might still be, I know I’m not anymore.

But wow, still a fucking creepy movie. It gets creepier as I get older and with repeated viewings. And I could swear that the first weekend had a different ending than it did afterwards.

Hotels and motels scare me to the day. Walking down empty hallways with who knows what going on behind closed doors. I had a few dicey experiences at hotels and motels. One time when I was but a kid, my parents were invited to a cousin’s wedding out in Long Island.

My parents didn’t think it would be a good idea to leave my brother Brian and I alone so they took us with them. There was a miniature golf course near by and the motel had a swimming pool. I’m pretty sure we utilized them both.

But for me, it was the first time I saw a standing shower and I had the idea to plug up the drain to see if the water would collect high enough to swim indoors. I saw it on TV I’m sure.

I set the water on and clogged the drain and watched the water start to rise. I didn’t get in though. Oh did I get my head handed to me by my brother for that. It wasn’t my finest hour, and it was totally stupid.

I do think we had it all cleaned up before our parents came home from the reception. Maybe we didn’t and maybe we left the motel in the middle of the night in an attempt to escape paying any damage charges. I don’t remember.

The other hotel story takes place in the 1990’s. A friend of mine, (let’s call her Scratchy) was having a party at a hotel in Secaucus. Kevin Craughn and I went out there one night after working at McSwells, enticed by the concept of drugs and booze.

As we rode the elevator in the indoor atrium, I noticed a security guard eyeballing me. Kinky I thought. I made an appearance at the hotel room, partied and said I would be back in a few.

I saw the guard lingering about on another floor and we played a little cat and mouse on different floors before hooking up in a stairway. He knew what he was doing and so did I, or so I thought. I offered willingly, he wanted money.

I didn’t have any money and the whole thing started to go south. I started to leave the stairway when he said he was going to call the cops. I turned and said, ‘you’re going to call the cops on me when you were soliciting me for sex?’

He tried to turn up the figurative heat but I wasn’t having it. Unfortunately I had to play the race card. He was black, and I was white, much like I still am. I told him, ‘This is Secaucus. One of the most racist towns in Hudson County. You’re going to attempt to have me arrested for indecency? Who do you think they cops will believe? You? A black security guard or me a white patron at a hotel?’

He got the picture and let me go. Don’t fuck with me. That actually happened. Not a happy story (though it is- since I didn’t get arrested), but still a story that should hold you over until tomorrow.

Uneasy Sunny Day Hotsy Totsy

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Well today it was in the 90’s again, temperature wise, not decade wise. Last night was back to routine of watching Keith Olbermann followed by the Daily Show and The Colbert Report. After that, it’s all a blur. Maybe it was a documentary on the Who. That seems likely. Then it was the news and then it was off to bed. Been sleeping ok, missing Bill sleeping next to me.

Pillows don’t make for good spooning. I toss and I turn and I miss his snoring. He’ll be back in a week or two since he’s looking after his mother until the housekeeper returns. This morning, was more of what you’ve read before, showering, shaving, breakfast and no power outage.

Just don’t like that new morning team and though Otis Livingston is phoine, there’s not enough of him to get me to stay until 7:00AM. So I headed out early and caught what I thought would be a less crowded bus. Two stops later, 25 people got on making it instantly crowded. I sat there and counted each head that got on the bus.

I was reading Stuff White People Like, a book I won from The Onion. Juan hipped me to the blog, Stuff White People Like a few months ago. I was reading it, a handsome guy, could have been a bear, sat next to me. He looked sort of like Andrew Sullivan, but didn’t have the cloven hoofs.

As I read I noticed this guy trying to see what it was I was reading. I started to show him when he asked. He laughed and was familiar with the blog. I told him I won it from the Onion and went about explaining how you can win things from the Onion. I get a few newsletters each week.

If something interests me I usually enter the contest. Just send an email, with the contest listed in the subject line and voila, you too can win. I was hoping to win tickets to see Ricky Gervais live in concert, and I was going to take Harpy, but no go. Sorry Harpy.

It was a good ride, nice chatting with he who’s name turned out to be Curtis. He had a claddagh ring on which made me think he might play for my team. We parted ways and I wished him a good day. I got to work about 15 minutes early. Listened to Nick Lowe on the way.

I was busy working with Tom Chin today. We’ve been getting along lately. I wouldn’t say we were buddies, but we’ve been getting along. I sent an email, reminding everyone that I would be out on Friday. Bill and I are going to a free concert at Brighton Beach tomorrow night. Brian Wilson.

That should be fun. I was surprised Bill readily agreed to go. It promises to be a sweltering evening and it will be the first time I see the ocean this year. I was a bit bitchy this morning to various customer service people on the phone as well as the guy who makes bagels and spent some time trying to flirt with girls from Japan who don’t speak too much English.

For some reason I was singing The Bitch Is Back by Elton beforehand, so maybe I set things in motion.

I had run a few errands and soon enough the day was over. Then I walked across town, smoking a Padron and listening to Ian Dury and The Blockheads, Do It Yourself, one of my desert island discs.

That will be the subject of a future blog, like it or not. And you all better get ready to respond. 10 discs and why you would bring them along to a desert island. Not yet though, I’m giving you advance notice.

I stopped by Bill’s office, he had somethings for me and I had somethings for him. Good to see him. He looked tired though. He doesn’t sleep well on a sofa bed designed by the Spanish Inquisition.

Got on the bus as it filled up and who do I see but Curtis. Deja vu of sorts. He pulled out a copy of High Times, a bit concerned that I would turn up my nose at it. I told him I’d probably be listed in there somewhere. So we have that in common.

Curtis is a lawyer, works downtown. We talked politics. We’re on the same page, in fact he was saying most of the things that I would be saying. JFK/Obama connection, taxes, education, health care, the slow death of the middle class and of course the war.

He’s married but that didn’t matter I wasn’t into him like that. He doesn’t like being a lawyer and fancies himself a writer. I told him I had a blog and that I too fancy myself a writer. I wound up giving him advice, courtesy of Louis Lapham who gave me some advice three years ago.

So I might have a new friend, or at least a bus buddy. Not like the bus buddies I had when I lived in Weehawken. They don’t play like that in Hoboken.

Ugh. McCrazy at an NAACP convention today. Previously the NAACP gave him an F grade. Voting against the MLK Federal Holiday seven times and definitely not supporting it in Arizona. Generally not a friend to black people. Ugh.

This jerk off pulls right over the crosswalk & forces pedestrians to walk into oncoming traffic.