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.

Mamunia

A nice Saturday. A bit cold though. Now it’s dark. The sun has gone down. It was an uneventful day and I appreciated that. Stayed local, walked around Hoboken for a while this afternoon. Perhaps I’ll head into the city tomorrow. Woke up initially at 7:30 this morning, but I wasn’t having that so I fell back asleep, not getting out of the bed until 9:00, a more than decent hour. Last night I tried watching Sicko, but after a few minutes I found it to be too depressing. I know how bad it is without health care and simply wasn’t in the mood for it. And I read a lot about it when it first came out, so there wouldn’t be any real surprises. Hey sometimes you’re in the mood for Michael Moore, sometimes you’re not. Last night I wasn’t. I do like his documentaries mainly. I do have Fahrenheit 911 somewhere.

I watched The McCartney Years on DVD instead. It was ok up to a point, the point being it stopped playing. I put it back in the envelope. It was pretty good, especially the older 70’s stuff but the Ebony and Ivory video with Stevie Wonder is terrible. It so obvious that Stevie was edited in. But that was technology then, though they did pull it off on the Patty Duke Show back in the 60’s. The commentary for the videos is pretty good, self effacing Paul and it’s worth watching. He’s probably a bastard to work with, but still I love him. Some of his stuff lately is pretty good, I never heard some of it, hearing it for the first time on the DVD’s. There is still one more DVD I’ve yet to watch, and I won’t get that until Tuesday or Wednesday, Netflix you know.

This morning after doing what I do, and I do do that voodoo so well, I watched 3.5 hours of the Peter Bogdanovich documentary on Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. It was pretty good, they interviewed just about everyone associated with band and made me realize how many Tom Petty songs I like. Quite a few actually. Even guys that were kicked out of the band or quit, ex-managers, producers and Stevie Nicks, who according to the documentary, wanted to leave Fleetwood Mac and join the Heartbreakers. That didn’t happen thankfully and Miss Nicks is still ankled to the Mac.

After that ended I decided to head out into the Hoboken world. Not much was going on, I spoke with both Annemarie and Bill on the phone, both very heavy discussions. Also got a haircut on the corner at Mr. L’s barbershop. They’re featured on DIY TV next week, something about man caves, how they had the barbershop made over last year for a show about man caves. Mr. L’s and the firehouse on Washington Street. Unfortunately, the DIY network is unavailable on cable in Hoboken, and haven’t been able to see anything about it online either. The guys in the barbershop were annoyed at that.

Here’s whats going on next door…
2208-612-park-ave-hoboken-001a.jpg

2208-612-park-ave-hoboken-002a.jpg

Big Science

It’s a cold and rainy Friday and it’s also February 1, Groundhog’s Day Eve and also the day before my brother in law Rex’ birthday. So happy birthday Rex. I guess they’ll be watching Groundhog’s Day tomorrow in Arcata as well as all over the US. I’ve seen it, I’ve enjoyed it but not like the Arcata Three. They watch it every year and why not? A tradition that has been going on for a number of years and I wish them many more years of watching together. Cheers to them!

Last night, came home feeling somewhat dreadful as you could have probably seen in the previous entry. Once I wrote about it I felt better, no longer bitter. I settled in for the evening, really looking forward to Lost. I appreciated the first hour recap, set things up nicely it did. The actual season premiere was very good, a return to form almost. Some things I had forgotten that were briefly touched upon in the recap where explained further as usual.

But as good as it was, I was left to wonder whether or not it was good because it was actually good, or was it good because there was nothing on lately that wasn’t a reality show? And the fact that it’s going to be on Thursday nights opposite the NBC comedies could pose a problem. Already there is Ugly Betty opposite Earl and 30 Rock. Oh such dilemmas. If only everyone’s problems could be as serious as what to watch on TV and what to record.

I tried watching the new show after Lost, Eli something, but the George Michael gimmick wore off quickly and I watched Will Arnett and Chi McBride in Let’s Go To Prison, which is raunchy but still funny. I must make a confession here, a few weeks ago I watched a little bit of Jackass 2 and it was pretty funny.

I turned it off once the guy was piercing his face with a fishing hook, I do have some limits. I had enough TV for the night, so I decided to go to bed earlier than usual, which caused me to wake up a little bit earlier than usual but I was able to snooze it off and that was very nice. I found myself laughing whenever I could and there was a noticeable effect so thanks for that tip Anne!

Finished last week’s New Yorker on the bus so now I’m ready for this week’s. Got to the office at the same time as Greg Stevens. I wasn’t expecting him to come in today, we had some pleasant chit chat before the office started up and after I set the office up for the day he called me into his office. He asked me to find a restaurant in Long Island for some function. I’m sort of his personal assistant.

He also decided to do the employee review right then and there. First off he started by saying he hates employee reviews and so this review was over. He told me I would be getting my bonus at the end of the month and that he was happy with the job I’ve been doing. He knew it would be this way since we both worked at Wanker Banker. It’s good when the president of the company you work for likes you.

He also mentioned that Tom Chin has a problem with me sometimes, but then again Tom Chin has a problem with everyone at one time or another. He drives Bill crazy sometimes as well. That was reassuring. He made it a point to shake my hand as I left his office, feeling like a great weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I emailed Anne and Bill to let them know that everything was alright. And it was alright, Tom Chin was staying in Connecticut today. It was almost like a three day weekend.

It’s always darkest before the dawn
2108-groundhog-days-eve-002a.jpg

and something funny