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’m Looking Through You

Trying to write, computer keeps shutting down from being too hot. Maybe it’s what I am writing that is too hot. Maybe it’s the email attachments that are too hot. Maybe it’s Chris Murtagh. Or Mark Walden. Or Keith Moh.

Maybe it’s a lot of things. But in any event, I should write as much as I can before the computer crashes. That means you should ignore or overlook all errors, both spelling and grammatical.

I asked Bill is his Mac was working and he bought a new cable for it a few weeks ago, just never got around to hooking it up. He tried to tell me where the cable was for the Mac but it wasn’t where he said it was.

He did say he was taking half a day from work and would hook it up so I could use it tonight. Well he did come home, the mail was here and there are four boxes of Crystal Light precariously set on the edge of a table.

Plus there is a plastic supermarket bag in the middle of the floor filled with garbage which wasn’t there when I left the apartment this morning. And there is no cable hooked up to the Mac.

Right now I have a fan blowing full blast into the now uncovered computer tower on the floor. Seems to be doing the job. Plus it’s not the 90 something degree heat that was going on all day.

Today I went back to work. My Monday, your Wednesday. I didn’t want to go to work but really didn’t have much of a choice. The mantra continues. Sometimes the mantra is an albatross, sometimes it actually makes sense. Tonight it made sense.

It was just Calvin and Sean and myself tonight, after Don Birch left at 7PM. I write with what seems like the grim computer reaper standing behind me. The computer could shut down at any moment. Must continue writing.

Work was a bore.

It’s now September 1. Some kids are going back to school. Occasionally the feeling of despair that I felt when I was but a child comes into my frame of reference. How I hated school.

From day one. I think the only good time I had in school was actually 8th grade, 1976. I couldn’t wait to get out of school. The idea of college which I did hold as a possibility was dropped when in Junior year of high school when Sister Reginald told us that we were there in her class because we had to be there.

When we went to college, no one was going to make us go. It suddenly became clear. If I don’t want to do something, chances are that I won’t do it. If I don’t have to go to class, then I won’t. That would be a total waste of money.

Plus, my parents did not pay for my brothers and sister to go to college, so they weren’t about to pay for me. And they made just enough money that I wouldn’t qualify for student loans, and forget about scholarships.

I hated school, and education so much, all I could do was try to not fail ( and risk a beating by my father). I did so well in not failing that I didn’t really learn anything.

Luckily for me I knew some very intelligent people and learned all I could from them, as well as accumulating as many life experiences as I could. Like do not put a metal snap from your pajamas up your nose.

There.

I’ve written. The computer did not crash yet.

I’ll Give You Money

It’s a Tuesday and once again it is quite hot. Not hummus though, just heat. The sun in beaming. And of course at any moment the computer might think it is getting too hot and shut down unexpectedly. So it would be in my best interest (and yours perhaps) to just write write write before it all goes away.

But what to write about?

Weeds was on last night and it was good. The Big C was also on, and I can’t help it, I really like Laura Linney. Ever since Tales of the City. I’m sure I’m not alone on that. Her kid and her husband both deserve a slap though. And maybe her character does too.

The character, Cathy has stage 4 cancer, inoperable, incurable. And she’s not telling anyone about it. But she is living her life the way she sees fit.

I don’t think I wrote about True Blood yesterday. That was on Sunday night. Pretty good, some story lines should be dropped. I can’t wait to see the season finale on September 12. That should be very interesting.

I arranged to have September 12 & 13 off from work. Not that there is anything planned for either day, at least I don’t think there is. I’m open for surprises though.

I also did not write about seeing Neutron Drivers at Maxwells on Saturday night. Got there in time to see the Electric Mess finish their set, with one song. They were entertaining, if only for 3:50. Neutron Drivers came on.

Before they did I went outside for a smoke. A woman came up to me and asked if I was the drummer for the first group. I told her I wasn’t. We started talking. She used to work at the Cat Club and Don Hill’s in Manhattan around the same time I was working at Maxwells.

I didn’t ask her name but figured she was in the same ballpark as me. We briefly chatted about how horrible bands that eventually made it big were when they played our respective clubs. I mentioned Nirvana and Smashing Pumpkins as examples and can’t remember who she mentioned.

I do remember her name being Liz. We both mentioned that we hardly ever go out anymore, I was there to see Mike C in Neutron Drivers and she was with her husband who dragged her out to see some bands.

She couldn’t find her husband I cracked wise, asking if she was sure it wasn’t the drummer for the first band.

Rand and Lisa showed up and we enjoyed Neutron Drivers, though Rand agreed with me they should move the songs around in their set list, not have three songs in a row that slowly unravel, losing whatever momentum they might have had.

I had three Stella Artois and it basically got me buzzed. Buzzed enough that wound up home a little after 11:00PM. Two Saturdays in a row where I had actually gone out and saw some music and home before midnight. Glad I did.

Now it’s been a long hot day. Once again, an uneasy night’s sleep. At one point Bill was yelling. I thought he was asleep, he says he wasn’t. He claimed to have been bitten by something. It was enough to wake me up, him yelling through his sleep apnea mask.

I had a dental appointment this morning. Did not go to Coney Island. No swimming allowed since Hurricane Earl (!) is approaching the east coast.

And I do like to take pictures when I am at Coney Island but without a camera it would have been difficult. Back to work tomorrow. Another hot day is predicted.
Hoboken