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.

I just got home from seeing the play Bill has been stage managing for the past two weeks. It was the last night and so I went. And it was a mishmash of things dealing quite loosely with Dada and Surrealism. Very loosely. It had been a long day for me and I have to admit I nodded off a few times, like seven times throughout the play. I was tainted by Bill’s stress from a few weeks ago so my eye was a bit jaundiced. I went in prejudiced and was somewhat justified by that fact when I left the theater.

And the play takes place in the 1920’s which makes it the third thing I had seen in the past week that takes place in the twenties. The Artist, Singing in the Rain and now this, Who Murdered Love. A Jazz Age trifecta. The first two, The Artist and Singing in the Rain are definitely top shelf, the play was somewhere on a lower shelf.

Despite nodding out a few times (I was in the back row, no one near me so no one knew) I am pretty tired now. I hardly ever go to the Village these days and when I do it certainly is not during the weekend. Here it is, a Saturday and the streets were crowded with people. Now it’s a bit later, Bill and I watched Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell which woke me up somewhat. But what worked better was the pizza we just devoured from Grimaldi’s.

Now we are watching The Fantastic Mr. Fox on DVD. I had seen it before but Bill hadn’t so that is what is on. I asked if he wanted to watch a movie and he said sure. So I asked if he wanted comedy or action and he picked comedy. The alternative is The Road Warrior which is one of my favorite all time movies. Great action, great story, probably the last great movie or the only great movie Mel Gibson ever made. The first time I saw it was in Paramus with a friend, Al Lewis. Al had some powders at the time and suggested we put that powder up our noses. Having never done that before I agreed.

The combination of those powders and the nail biting action had me at the edge of my seat and probably contributed to my insane driving that night. The powders are long gone with no regrets and the movie still holds a special place in my cinema pantheon. I remember seeing New Order at the Paradise Garage in the 1980’s a few years later and in a large lounge within the garage they were showing Road Warrior, silent but still with all the action intact.

New Order playing to a packed house, singing ‘How does it feel, to sing in front of assholes like you’ in one room and the next room Max versus Humungous in a silent battle. Oh someone in the audience yelled to New Order, ‘We love you anyway’. No, it wasn’t me. I just remember being the only person on the dance floor listening to Larry Levan play just for me, Our Lips are Sealed by the Fun Boy Three, after everyone else had left the Paradise Garage.

01 come together

They tell me it’s a Friday and judging by the lack of foot traffic on the waterfront I have to agree. It’s been a rollercoaster of a day. Maybe it has something to do with my staying up later than usual, watching Singing in the Rain on Turner Classic Movies. Yes I’d seen it before but it really is such a good movie and after watching The Artist last week, it was an interesting comparison to make. Both movies take place in Hollywood, the late 1920’s and dealing with the advent of talking pictures. It helped that both Gene Kelly and Jean Dujardin are easy on the eyes.

I think the last time I watched Singing in the Rain was with Bill and Juan. Well Bill came home last night and soon after that he was in bed. I did my thing and watching Singing in the Rain until 2:00 in the morning should have helped me go to sleep better, or at least I thought it would. No, I would sleep for about 20 minutes, then wake up and try to go back to sleep for 10 minutes then repeat the cycle all over again. Bill was up and out in the morning leaving me to toss and turn some more.

Chaz was planning on stopping by this morning and after showering and some coffee I did my best to tidy up the apartment which in this case meant making room on the coach so Chaz would have a place to sit down. He had a few photos he wanted me to scan and so that is what I did with Chaz. Some old pictures of friends from the Maxwells days, and quite a few pictures of Chaz with rock and roll celebrities, like Donovan, Elvis Costello, Marky Ramone and Peter Gabriel.

I am sure there are a number of other photos somewhere. We plan on doing more scanning next week, unless we both find jobs. Which leads me to the rollercoaster of the day. This morning I get a phone call from an unknown number. I usually ignore those (since I am on a restricted plan) but I felt I should take this one. On the line was a woman named Jane who works for an agency I met with in 2009. My former supervisor Bobby Risotto set the whole thing up back then. I went no further than that meeting.

It was a good phone chat with Jane, she now had my file and wanted to meet with me. It was too late for today so she scheduled a meeting on Monday morning at 11:00. I felt hopeful and excited since this was the first bit of good employment news (a possibility actually) since May. I had to run a few errands before Chaz came over so I went to the bibliothèque and hit Washington Street. As I was leaving Hoboken Daily News, my phone rings. It was Jane again.

I guess she spoke with the woman (Melissa) that I met with in 2009. Jane was calling me to tell me not to bother, there was no need to meet on Monday. A polite brush off. I spoke with Chaz about it and he had heard that song before. My hopes were dashed once more. Jane did request my updated resume which I will send, but I feel it’s pointless. I was all set to go on Monday but the polite brush off as well as inquiring about your age (they can’t ask that outright, so they ask when you graduated from high school) is the way staffing agencies work these days. Perhaps it’s not the experience their looking for, it’s the potential. And I can’t help but feel that is something I am sorely lacking in.

But who cares? It’s Friday, right? Busking went alright today, like I said not so much foot traffic, and some competition from a guy named Rick who set up about 20 yards away from me. I thought it was rude but that’s how it goes. Tariq was hanging out with him and not me but I did feel inspired by the competition and so I sang and played Twist and Shout. It’s hard to do the three part harmonies but I got by.

This is the 2,348 posting.