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.

Today has been something special. Just really a good day. I slept well and the back ache that I did not write about yesterday has subsided somewhat. I must have slept funny because yesterday I felt bruised. But I wasn’t bruised, just achy. Today, not so much. And it’s been a gorgeous day overall. I just got back from a few hours of busking and it went really well. The toddlers were in good form and they love dancing around when I play, one kid has his eye on my guitar picks, another kid loves to see what is in the guitar case.

The minders are on top of it, especially when the kid started playing with a dollar bill in the guitar case. And of course, if you high five one of the kids, you have to high five all of them. And now the kids all want a turn strumming my guitar. Of course they’re not delicate, they hit- rather than stroke the strings but I usually take care of the situation and lift the guitar just out of reach. No crybabies, just fascinated kids. And there were a few toddlers besides the day care kids and they enjoyed themselves.

When I got to my spot by Pier A in Hoboken, a bloke walked up and admired my guitar, my Fender F-210. I had just gotten there and he sat a few feet away as I started to warm up. He asked if I could pick the strings when I play and I admitted that I rarely do that, except for my mutant version of Tracks of My Tears picking is difficult. I would love to play Dear Prudence or at least play Blackbird as well as Julio’s wife Stine does. The only song she claims to know and it’s difficult and intimidating to me.

The bloke, Randy- showed me a song to play finger picking, Edelweiss. Beautiful song from the Sound of Music, and I tried watching his fingers but couldn’t quite get it. He went back to work and I did my repertoire. After a few hours of that I packed up, but the thought of the song stayed with me, so I looked up the chords online via my smartphone and found myself strumming along, very easy to play. Not quite up to finger picking but still a very nice song to practice with.

So much so that a big guy sat down and listened to me play it for about twenty minutes. Then he walked away and I kept playing it, getting better I think, strum by strum. I was pretty hungry and decided to head home for dinner. And that is where I am now. I also just listened to Christopher Plummer singing Edelweiss which reminds me I should slow down the strumming and not make it a hard core version. Soft and sweet if the way to go if I’m going to do it right. It also helped that Bill & I watched a documentary about Oscar Hammerstein II on PBS a few weeks ago and it was repeated the other night.
That’s about it for today. I am hungry.

Old pics

So it’s a Wednesday here in Hoboken but it’s even better than that, it is my sister’s birthday today! She is one of my favorite people on the planet so I am happy to send her birthday greetings, as well as a nice package that I made and sent off on Monday. It’s due to arrive in foggy California this afternoon and I am awaiting confirmation via tracking. Just something to obsess upon today. I was running low on obsessions and this came along quite nicely. I did speak with Annemarie on the phone and she sounded great and is going out to dinner tonight.

As for me, I took some melatonin last night and had difficulty waking up. Going to sleep was slow going, but as usual the waking up is difficult. But I rallied, I shuffled out of bed a mere fifteen minutes later than usual. That meant catching up to my daily routine wasn’t that hard to do. And it wasn’t. There was nothing out of the ordinary (except for Annemarie’s birthday) today. Laundry was done, resumes sent out once again, busking planned. It was all rather low key, almost humdrum. It’s been a nice enough day.

I was out busking this afternoon, slow going this weekend. I really think a lot of people took this week off from their jobs. Can’t blame them really. I had a visitor this afternoon, good old Chaz stopped by. Once again if a friend is near I have no problem singing and playing. With no friend around I merely play, rarely singing. Though the toddlers usually get me singing when they come by. They marched on over and I sand Sunshine Superman to them. I was going to do Rock Around the Clock when they returned but it didn’t happen.

It seems that when the toddlers got to their turn around point they ran away from their minders. So they were all sullen and hanging onto the rope when they walked by. No stopping for the guitar man this time. It was good to have Chaz around though. He’s still looking for work. He’s been doing the Geico dance. They’ve been after me for a while and they got Chaz in their sights. And it costs money to get a job with them. Seemed fishy when I first heard about them and now Chaz has confirmed the fishiness of it.

Some dark clouds (literal not figurative) came rolling in so my busking time was cut short. I walked Chaz back to his car, on the way stopping and buying two CD’s, the Priscilla Queen of the Desert movie soundtrack and Big Audio Dynamite II, The Globe. Not bad at fifty cents each. Last night Bill and I watched a documentary on Joe Strummer- The Future is Unwritten. To my surprise Bill seemed to enjoy it, Punk and the Mescaleros. Bill didn’t know how much The Clash meant to me and I explained it all. He seemed to have gotten something from the documentary and how I feel about music.

I thought he knew already.
Package delivered to Annemarie’s mailbox! Woo hoo!