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.

I Need You So

Surprisingly enough it’s been a pretty good day. My spirits, though not soaring have not exactly been in the doldrums either. Right now I am in the cigar shack and it hasn’t been such a bad today.

I woke up in a good mood too after having some sleep. I’ll admit the paranoia I felt last night was cut off by half a tablet of Xanax which enabled a very good night’s rest. And my mood is somewhat elevated, enough so that I am playing Billie Holiday on my iPod.

And yes, I got myself a new iPod and been spending a good amount of time trying to fill it with songs from three different hard drives. Or maybe four different hard drives.

The store has been somewhat busy today even though the last of the regular irregulars has stopped coming in. Perhaps they are unwell or perhaps they’re spending their time and money across town at the competition which Marcus claims is not our competition.

And it’s also a vacation of sorts since Marcus is not in today and is also out next Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. I’m off Monday & Tuesday myself so I will take what I can get somehow. Still no word from Calvin about leaving early the other night.

For a manager he’s really not that on top of things, at least not like other managers I have worked with in the past, and I also include that idiot Brian Celler of Q Prime, a management company run by that douche bag supreme who tried to pull a power trip on me back in the day.

I called his bluff and he showed that he really was (& probably still is) a pussy after all. Even after all these years I can still remember what an utter prick he was, trying to intimidate me. I guess the record that Metallica was working on at the time was named after what usually goes down Brian Celler’s gullet.

Billie Holiday still plays, a customer’s Blackberry keeps ringing after the customer left it behind. I answered it once and won’t answer it again. It’s here waiting to be picked up. I have no use for it, no need to call ‘finders keepers’.

An hour and fifteen minutes left in my time at the cigar shack today and here I am filling that time by writing this night’s entry in this here blog. I’ll probably walk on down to the bus terminal, but what will I listen to? Something fast moving, something with a beat.

In any event it won’t be known until I get home and post this entry since I have no idea whatsoever what it will be. Oh, and that’s alright with me. Bill is at a play tonight, observing, not acting so he probably won’t be home when I get home.

No word on yesterday’s meeting. No word from Donald the K from a few weeks ago, but I did write a funny cover letter this morning. They asked for a rock and roll cover letter and that is what I will copy later on and paste for your reading pleasure. (Can’t find it)

Because I am all about making you feel pleasure when I write. When I dream, well that is a whole ‘nother ball of wax. Ciao for now Cisco.

So I pressed my luck, (came in second in sales today by the way) and after balancing the registers and the ash and the credit receipts, I left the cigar shack at 9:24. I hopped on the subway and wound up in the bus terminal in time to catch Hyman Gross at the gate and ride the bus back to Hoboken with him.

It’s always a pleasure to see Hyman. Bill is still at the play or maybe on his way home. And here I sit, waiting for his smiling face to come through the door.


I Need Someone to Lean On

Wow. Just had a nap, went longer than I expected but it was well deserved since I was up earlier than usual this morning. I could probably sleep some more, perhaps through the whole night but now that I am up, I am up. And it’s been a crazy day today.

Last night wasn’t so bad. There was the visit to Maxwells where I did not spin after all but I did see David Byrne and Fred Armisen play with Ira, Georgia & James. It was crazy late when I got home and a little bit buzzed.

And I was still able to get up early than I usually do. It was about 7:00 which is probably de rigueur for most of y’all. For me it’s the start of the last hour of sleep. I got up, made some coffee and poured some cereal.

As I was drying myself off, the lights went out. I wasn’t sure if it was just our apartment or the whole building or the whole town, but it was just us. I dried myself off and put on some clothes and walked down to the basement and flipped the circuit breaker.

I wasn’t sure if it took since Bill was long gone and there was no one I could have called to see if the lights were back on. So I climbed the five flights of steps and was happy to see the lights back on. The coffee that was being made was stopped so I hit the start button and then proceeded to get dressed.

The coffee making was completed and I had a cup of what was quite mediocre coffee. I had no time to start over again as I had to go catch an 8:00 bus, 2.5 hours earlier than I usually do. At that hour there is a bus every five minutes guaranteeing that the buses would not be too crowded.

I was soon in the bus terminal and walked through the cold with a thousand other commuters. I was soon in front of 1700 Broadway, a building I had worked in 25 years ago for Friedman Alpren and Green (F.A.G.).

The building used to also house ABKCO as well as the Screen Actors Guild, now it houses George Soros foundation. I met with a woman with Daisy and had a nice talk with her, the interview lasting about 20 minutes. It was a struggle to promote myself, I mentioned that I was intelligent, that I often think out of the box and also that I was an artist. (!)

An artist that sees most things in an off center way. When asked what I expect from the company, I mentioned that I would like to support the people I would be working with and if asked for some ideas I would likely have something to contribute. I think it went well but I really couldn’t tell with the lack of caffeine in my system.

I stood outside the building and called Bill when I saw a fairly regular customer to the cigar shack walking in my direction. He’s a drinker and I turned and faced the building, holding the cellphone to my ear and hoping the fairly regular customer would be a bit hung over and not notice me at all. And he did not.

Bill gave me a pep talk as well as some advice with regards to the jobs that I had in the past. How things that seemed great between the interview and before the actual start of the job, turned into something else once I started. I explained that I did like working for Putnam Lovell and if it weren’t for Zelcah Farsijani I would have probably stayed on.

And with Wolff Olins, I was overwhelmed and when I found the memo stating that my job actually needed 2 people, and that they weren’t going to have 2 people working my desk like they had suggested to themselves I knew it was time to go.

And with BIO-IB, I would have stayed there but things went south as the company went under. It was good advice and I paid heed. I rode the bus back to Hoboken, 2 hours after riding into the city. I picked up some bagels, got the paper and stopped off at the bibliothèque and picked up the Keith Richards autobiography which I doubt I would have time to read the whole thing since I am still in the middle of Suze Rotolo’s book and the latest issue of the New Yorker came in.

I did get some things done in the apartment, and headed out once again to run some errands. Saw Martin Kelly at CVS, and headed to the supermarket for some other items.

While in the supermarket I got some text messages from Ron and Dave (Don & Raymond- former cigar shack employees). Ron asking me if I was still working at the shack since there was a posting on Craigslist showing that the cigar shack is looking for both full & part time positions.

Then Dave texted me asking me if I was alright. I got paranoid and that basically became the rest of my afternoon. To which I took a half a Xanax which made me drowsy and prompted a nap for 2 hours. Now I’m better, still groggy but not paranoid.

Bill is home and we just watched Community which is likely my favorite show on TV. I love Abed. Now I guess I have some dinner.