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.

You’d Better Move On

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A lovely Sunday afternoon, especially if you’re in the shade. It’s in the upper 80’s but it’s not humid. The sun is beaming. Once again I liberally put on sun block if I’m going to be outside for an extended amount of time. I wrote yesterday about having sun poisoning a few times when I was growing up. It was bad.

As far as I knew, or my family knew was the only thing known as sun block was called shade. But we never rented an umbrella when we would go down to Wildwood Crest years ago. My family would go down for the VFW convention every June. It was usually a good time, that is when I wasn’t burnt to a crisp.

It was an alcoholic weekend for most of the veterans and their wives, leaving their kids to run around careless and carefree. We would drive down on a Thursday and come back on Sunday. One time I was covered in blisters due to a bad sun burn. A lot of people had different remedies, Noxema, rags soaked in tea, rags soaked in vinegar.

It was so bad that you could feel the heat emanating from my body by holding your hand about 5 inches away from my skin. I did love going to Wildwood Crest despite often coming home smelling like bacon.

Another time, years later I was visiting my sister Annemarie in New Hampshire and we decided to go to the beach in Maine a few hours away. I put lotion all over my body, but forgot my feet. A few hours later my feet were swollen so much that I had to wear my mother’s fluffy slippers for about 2 weeks.

Good times.

These days I walk in the shade.

Today I watched Mad Max on cable. Great movie, but The Road Warrior is the best out of the 3. Beyond Thunderdome was crap, dreadful stunt casting of Tina Turner. Boo! And the children! We don’t need another hero, my ass!

It’s too late for it but a movie about what happened to Max between Mad Max and The Road Warrior would have been great.

My good friend Rita called. I’ve known Rita since the early 1980’s. We were in a band together. We were called The Nift. What is a nift? I couldn’t tell you. Just a nonsense word I made up. We never played anywhere except a rehearsal room.

I wrote a song with Rita’s sister in law, Loren, and we covered Anytime At All by the Beatles and Gloria by Them. We had a pretty good drummer, Dave who was more insecure than the 3 of us combined.

We were all too insecure to play anywhere though we entertained the idea of playing McSwells eventually. I haven’t seen Rita in a few years so we’re planning to have dinner tomorrow night at the Film Center Cafe.

Rita used to be a teeny bopper hanging outside whatever hotel the Who were staying at in the early days. She has lot’s of stories to tell. Her brother Ronnie used to be a staff photographer for Columbia Records back then and also freelanced for Tiger Beat and 16 I think.

Rita and I had an idea to write a book with Ronnie’s photographs and Rita’s anecdotes, but alas it went along with the Nift, into the dustbin of history.

I also heard from Lois, another old friend. Lois got married to her longtime paramour Fred in May and they”re having a party upstate somewhere on August 2. I told her I was planning on going, Bill- I wasn’t so sure about. She was happy to hear that at least I was coming.

Lois asked me if I could DJ and I said yea, but I’d only bring my iPod. She offered to pay my expenses, but I don’t know what expenses there would be. I asked Rand, who is officiating the ceremony for friends and family to bring his iPod, figuring that between the 2 of us, we’d have enough songs between us to handle any Tarantella or Electric Slide.

If you’re looking for any Alley Cats or Hokey Pokey, you’d better move on.

Right now, Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows is on Turner Classic Movies. This was one of the first movies I ever saw in a theater. The now gone Century Theater in Paramus.

I think Annemarie and our brother Brian went as well as some of the Foglio girls who lived down the street from us. They were waiting for a bus when we picked them up.

The other first movies that I saw in a theater were The Jungle Book, The Happiest Millionaire and Oliver! At least that’s what I remember.

What are the first movies you saw in a movie theater?

Cut n’ paste this! Do it! NOW! hee hee:

http://origin.times-standard.com/lifestyle/ci_9868162?source=email

Here are some pics. Have a good week.

Last night’s moon

Today’s Empire State Building

Yesterday’s mural

Tomorrow’s memorial

Next year’s sail boat

Love Will Find A Way

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On TV right now, Karl Rove’s dancing partner, David Gregory is mourning the death of the Bush administration’s mouthpiece Tony Snow. I am not mourning. He put forth the lies of the Bush administration and enabling the mess that we are in right now. Blood on the podium in the White House press room. No sympathy for the devil here.

Last night was mellow indeed. Bill napped as we watched Rachel Maddow filling in for Keith Olbermann until Olbermann goes on vacation again. After that I had a surprise for Bill who woke up in time for the theme song to ‘Maude’, the tv series starring Bea Arthur in the 1970’s.

Adult fare then, probably wouldn’t last in this day and age. So odd to watch a show with a live studio audience when most comedies these days go without a laugh track, at least the shows I watch. I could only bear 2 episodes.

Bill asked why and I told him I didn’t want to get caught in a time warp. 2 were more than enough. I wouldn’t watch the others unless maybe Bill was around, and he’s with his mother this weekend, so I guess I won’t be watching.

It’s funny how much of my liberal outlook was formed by Norman Lear’s liberal outlook. I guess I watched shows like Maude, All in the Family, Good Times and The Jeffersons while growing up. I preferred them to shows like Happy Days and Laverne and Shirley. Peer pressure dictated that I watch those shows, though I drew the line at Three’s Company.

After all the TV was my babysitter most of my life, being a latch key kid. I’m not complaining. I’d would rather have been aware of issues that were going on in the 1970’s then a fantasy from what is now 50 years ago.

And yes, Adrienne Barbeau had a very large bust. I never noticed it then for some reason. I only noticed last night since I heard so much about them. Today was mellow yet again, Bill off to take care of his mother. Me doing laundry, running errands.

A nice cool day, but a beaming sun. I’ve become wary of the sun lately. Can’t be out in the sun like I used to. Not good for the skin you see, and having had sun poisoning a few times in my childhood, a visit to the dermatologist is somewhere down the road for me. I expect to have things taken off my body sooner or later.

I’m not worried, it seems to be a routine thing lately. After years of being told to go out and get some color, it’s like the Woody Allen joke from Annie Hall where he says all the things our parents told us that were good for us, really aren’t. Sun, red meat etc. I went bike riding around Hoboken this afternoon, putting sun block on beforehand.

Crossed paths with Rand and Lisa who were prowling around for gate sales. Slim pickings this afternoon. We parted ways, meeting up later for a couple of Mojitos. I rode off to Pier A and read some of the latest Mojo Magazine, specifically the 20 years of Sub Pop Records being around. Sub Pop won it’s first Grammy for The Flight of the Conchords. A comedy Grammy last year.

I saw quite a few Sub Pop bands coming through McSwells in the late 1980’s. Mudhoney, Nirvana, TAD and a horde of others that really didn’t do a thing for me. I think that was when I started becoming disinterested in the alternative scene then.

Alice in Chains? Give me a break. I couldn’t care less. And today I still feel the same way. Even with Nirvana, I like some of their songs, but not all of them.

Speaking of junkies, I finally finished Tweak. It was a good read, albeit unnerving. Nic Sheff comes out alive at the end, and I really wish he stays clean and sober. I recommend it, as well as his father, David Sheff’s book, Beautiful Boy.

Now I have Simon Rich’s Ant Farm, a collection of humorous short stories. I read something he wrote in the New Yorker a week or so ago and thought it was hilarious, so I ordered the book from the library.

Support your local library. They could probably use the support.

Here’s some pics.

Nappy Bill

Authorized Personal Only

“It’s buried underneath a big dubya…!”

Who ordered the beefcake?