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.

Last dream of the night & day. Visiting Annemarie who is somewhere in New Hampshire or Northern California. She works in, or near a big building filled with many companies that are under one big umbrella. I had interviewed there before and this time I am getting the run around. It also resembles a Valley Fair supermarket. In one part of the dream I walk into a men’s room where I see the paws of a dog, a kangaroo and could hear the cries of an infant. When I bend down to see what was going on, the dog, a large pit bull comes after me, but I fake it out and move aside.

The infant’s guardians- two older women come into the rest room eyeing me suspiciously, as if having a kangaroo and pit bull watch an infant is the most normal thing. I walk out and as I walk I run into a former coworker from Skyline Studios, Brian Daniels. He tells me so and so wants to see me and to bring my cable box. I have the box and head to the elevators which are not working so I have to take the stairs. And the stairs are tricky, sometimes leading nowhere, sometimes ending suddenly leading to a fall over a cliff.

Stairs that open up to no floors, and you have to position yourself and the doorframe just right in order to get out and stay alive and uninjured.

I see a woman who I interviewed with walk past me, she was in a hurry to get somewhere. I start to follow her but she is going to a very large holiday party to which I was not invited. There are a few people I know there, people I worked with in the past.

Just then Annemarie shows up telling me to get into her car. I do and we drive off. I ‘recognize’ some spots, log cabins with neon signs stating what buildings they are as we drive past but we just keep driving. I finally ask where we are going and she is taking me to Earl’s apartment since I was too disruptive in the office building supermarket. Hopefully Earl would be there. I am a little annoyed that I only brought one joint with me and it’s basically smoked, then I realize where I am going and become somewhat hopeful.

I am on line on a stair case at a bucolic campus, everyone younger than me. I am standing behind a big jock. Finally once at the top of the stairs I look for apartment 1428 but can’t find it and feel that if I asked the students I would be mocked for not knowing where it is. Annemarie has driven off by then and I wander the campus looking at doors and index cards for 1428, to no avail.
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Yeah that was from yesterday. I got 475 words out of that dream, standing in front on my computer groggy, no coffee and no shower. Later that day I got a phone call from Shlomo. He asked if I could sit in the cigar shop as he ran around to do some Hanukkah shopping. I had no problem with that since I wasn’t really doing anything anyway. Plus I was running low on cigars so I was able to help Shlomo and replenish my stock.

As I sat there, a customer from that other place in that mall stopped by. It was good to see Nick and there were many laughs had. Some catching up was done and time flew by, before I knew it Shlomo was back with a flaming menorah and I was headed home after exchanging numbers with Nick.

That’s all folks. So it goes.

Blurry State champions of something.

Port St. Willow – Amawalk (Live) from dreambear on Vimeo.

Thank you Casey Chasm.

A nice, mellow Saturday night. For the past couple of hours I’ve been playing Port St. Willow- Holiday. I obviously am enjoying it, if I wasn’t I don’t think I would have it on repeat since 4PM, and it’s now after 7PM. I read a posting from Brian Eno about Port St. Willow and since I trust Eno with regards to music I checked it out and even posted it on my Facebook page. Good ol’ Rand stepped in with the bandcamp linkage (http://music.portstwillow.com/) and I felt obliged to get a copy for myself. It was most definitely worth it.

It’s been described as sad, but I would rather say it was between words, between being awake and being asleep. It reminds me of a few things, some Radiohead, some Arcade Fire, a little bit of My Bloody Valentine. Because it’s a one man show I am tempted to compare it to Bon Iver but this is much more interesting. I tried taking a nap while it was playing in another room and had some strange short dreams that quickly dissipated once shaken awake. All the songs seem to melt into one another and this guy, Nick Principe originally from Oregon and now in Brooklyn has quite a voice and vision. And ear.

I was pretty much out and about today in Hoboken and it was almost like old home week. I saw Phil who owns the liquor store on the corner and went in and shook his hand, congratulating him on his reopening. Then I ran into Martin Kelly at CVS and while on line in that very same CVS, ran into Alison Lee whom it is always good to see. Also saw Mike Korman and his son off to some sporting event and finally Nelson, a kid who used to work at Maxwells back in the day. He was working on the floor where Julio works. So it was a mini Maxwells Old Home Week on the 4:30 Movie for an hour or so today.

Last night was extra super-duper special for Bill and myself. I am sure I wrote earlier this week about going to see Sinbad at the Apollo Theater. Bill had never been to the Apollo and I think it was my third time. We scored 5th row center seats in the orchestra which was dicey since Bill can be quite rambunctious when he laughs but compared to the other fans in the seats Bill was somewhat subdued. He laughed alright, but this was the Apollo where the audience talks back to whomever is on stage. And there was a lot of that going on, feeding Sinbad’s act.

Sinbad is pretty funny, he’s clean, doesn’t do blue. And it was a two hour show, no opening act. Classic 1970’s soul played beforehand and a few times the opening to Adore by Prince was played, then promptly shut off for the next song. The Apollo is a great theater and I am glad I was able to take Bill for his first visit. Who knows? Perhaps someday he will perform on that stage, one way or another. I don’t think I had ever seen a live comedy show before.

I did see David Brenner with Florence Henderson opening up in August 1977 with my parents in Smithville NJ. It was an interesting show and it was around the same time that David Berkowitz was caught. Smithville is an 1700’s type of village which is a tourist attraction. As far as I knew it was known for selling yards of beer, which my parents got my brother Brian for a souvenir. It sat for years gathering dust on the top of the cabinets in my parent’s house.

That was an interesting vacation with my folks. We stayed in Central NJ, went to Great Adventure and Smithville and also visited friend of my parents in Jackson. These friends had a few kids and I remember hanging out with one son in his basement bedroom listening to Neil Young. This kid was wearing gym shorts and nothing underneath, giving me an inadvertent show and a sexual awakening as well as a fetish for terry cloth gym shorts for a few months.

I think after this go round on the player, I will give Port St. Willow a break. I contacted them since I was having problems getting the tracks on my iPod. I also asked them if it’s Port Saint Willow or Port Street Willow. I need to know these things.

Port St. Willow- Holiday is my record of the year.