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.

the dreadful stalwarts

Knotes! I’m stuck for something to write about so I consult the notes.

I’ve taken to wearing a mask on the Path train again. It’s getting crowded, people sneezing and coughing and COVID is still out there. But sometimes I forget and see some other people wearing masks and regret my forgetfulness. Then I wear a mask and suddenly I am the only person wearing a mask. I generally wear a mask in the morning and forget about it on the evening ride home. I must remember not to forget.

The smell of weed on the sidewalks. It’s a strong smell, so strong that it seems fake. I smell it in the morning while walking to the Path train and then in Manhattan en route to the office. I haven’t done that in a long time, smoking during the day. A few years ago I adopted the no smoking until 4:20 PM and held myself to it. Sometimes it’s 4:20 somewhere.

Back in the day, at my first job, guys would sit in a car in the parking lot and smoke for the 45 minutes before going back to the warehouse and operating heavy machinery. No one said anything though it was well known what the guys were doing. When I started smoking I joined them once or twice. They weren’t exciting or erudite and my hanging out with them did not last long.

Not from the notes- I have been hit with a few spam calls. I don’t recognize the number so I don’t answer. When it happens at work, I take the number and call from my desk phone and after one or two rings on the other end, the call is disconnected with a message saying it is a non-working number.

Just now I received a text from Sophia who is looking for her friend Lisa and somehow dialed my number. I respond in German, asking her what does she want. Why is she texting strangers? I tell her to go find Lisa and stop bothering strangers. The German might throw them off. I thought responding in Russian would have been too obvious. Just something fishy…

I walked around Tribeca up to Canal St. My friend Kathy is going on a trip and needs luggage. I noticed a luggage shop at Broadway and Canal a few months ago and today took a walk and took some photos of the spot so Kathy might do some research. I don’t know how the store actually is, Canal St does have a reputation for dodgy goods sometimes. Kathy might be better off going somewhere else, someplace with a better return policy.

As I walked down Canal St, puffing on a cigar I passed some African dudes one of them having a small table set up with some buds in a jar. He noticed my noticing and remarked that I should stop and check it out, ‘It’s better than your cigar’. I waved him off and laughed as I continued meandering around Tribeca.

Damn Damn Damn

Another part of my childhood left this plain of existence today. John Amos was 84 years old. He died in August but his death was announced today. I don’t know why but there had been some family squabbles.

I think I first saw John Amos when he was Gordy the weatherman at WJM-TV on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. But the impact for me was when he played James Evans on Good Times. He was so masculine, so handsome like no one I had seen before. He stirred something inside me that I did not know I had, and I really didn’t know I had it until about 3 years later.

He was a strong, powerful head of the family. Took no shit from anyone but was there to tell his family he loved them. After his ignoble departure from Good Times, I saw him next on Roots. He played the adult version of Kunta Kinte, of which the younger version was played by LeVar Burton.

A tragic character but inspiring and opened my white eyes to the evil of the slave trade back then. We weren’t taught that in school but I’m sure we talked about it in class after each night’s episode. Nowadays they go out of their way to discuss the evils of the slave trade it seems.

After Roots, I would see John Amos pop up from time to time in various TV shows and movies. He was the father of the woman Eddie Murphy was in love with in Coming to America. He was in the sequel years later but I haven’t gotten around to seeing it.

He was a bad guy in Die Hard 2 and I think one of his best roles of the late 20th century was as Admiral Fitzwallace in the West Wing. Man he looked great in a uniform. He had a gravitas in that and the other characters showed him great respect. Sad to see him go.

It was an OK day besides all that. Bill spoiled me yesterday, seeing him for a few minutes at lunch. I hoped we could repeat it today but those things if they happen are never what happened previously. He was in midtown and I was in Tribeca. I did go to that spot and sat by the Freedom Tower at One World Trade Center puffing on a cigar.

That’s when I got a text from my sister telling me about John Amos.

I spent a lot of time looking for work, more time than I had actually worked. The supervisor complained about how I would spread my work throughout the day and I did do that a few times, for moments like today.

And even with all that nothing, I was able to accrue some overtime since there was an event going on and I was asked to stick around to 6 PM just in case some of the event attendees needed to be attended to.

One of the attendees had a walker and I was escorting him to the event. He said he did not need the help but I told him that I didn’t mind, as I was getting paid by the hour. That got a hearty laugh.

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0025309/?ref_=tt_cl_t_6