Category Archives: Abstract Absurdist Otherness

Read it and weep! I’ve published and now, I be damned! There are some diamonds in this coal. Proceed with cautious carelessness.

Just A Minute

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It is back to work for you lot. But not for me though. Once again on the outs with employment. It’s a Monday. Things got better between Bill and myself which I wrote about yesterday.

He was upset that the full time bus drivers pulled rank over the part time drivers. I can’t really blame the full timers. If I was in their position I would more than likely be trying for some overtime.

Occasionally I flashback to when I worked at Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, my first job. Dave Manzo, my comically inept supervisor would ask around 4:00 if anyone wanted to work overtime. I usually raised my hand.

Things in the warehouse would be quieter and calmer. Sometimes I would work until 6:00, other times until 7:15. And yes, I would work on Saturdays as well, from 8:00 to 1:00. Most everyone would leave at 4:15 in the afternoon, and at 4:30 there would be a 15 minute break.

It was a decent job, though I have no contact with anyone from those days. I worked there from 1978 to 1984. Both my brothers also worked there as well as my mother. My brothers and I didn’t work together though, not during the same time period.

I used to dream about going back to the warehouse but I haven’t lately. I suppose my time of working there was part of my formative years. High racks of books and materials, 100 feet high. A very rough estimate since I can’t really tell how high things are, especially from 25 years ago.

I do think it was one of my better jobs (maybe I’m just being naive, and it was a different time) and I left while the leaving was good.

Last night I had 2 dreams related to being a DJ. The first dream concerned me spinning records at McSwells again, but this time in the front room, and not just in the front room, but alongside in the cafe area. Not enough room actually for my records or whatever I was using as turntables.

I was set up in the front room despite the fact that there was a poetry group going on at the same time. They weren’t too happy about it. Chaz and Andy the sound man were involved with the dream, as well as the angry poets.

I think Bill had kissed me goodbye which was an intermission of sorts regarding the dreams. After Bill left for work, I carried on dreaming, this time, being a DJ in Lodi, in my parents house, with the DJ set up in my parents bedroom.

In the dream I spent a lot of time on our back porch looking for a Grace Jones record as well as being on the phone with Pedro who was bemoaning the fact that he was looking for a job. I told him I had a job for him, nudge nudge wink wink, but he wasn’t at all into that sort of thing, just like in real life.

I remember these dreams since I’ve taken to having a notebook next to the bed so I can write these things down.

Right now I am watching disc 2 of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, all about the effects which were so well done you couldn’t really tell that they were using special effects, or more precisely, CG effects.

I watched it again last night with Bill and once again I was choked up at the end. Bill was surprised by that and said it was reminiscent of how choked up I was at the end of final episode of Six Feet Under. And I can definitely understand that.

If you saw the finale of Six Feet Under you would probably understand by what that meant.

Hitherto

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Gonna ramble. Here goes. And there I go. Just an aimless sort. Stream of consciousness stuff. Haven’t done it in a while. A good way to clear the decks. If you’re not into it, you might as well stop right here.

Or Here.

Who do I wrote for? Me or you? Hard to say since the rules keep changing, the margins keep moving. Things appear and disappear.

Saw Eddie Rodriquez in the supermarket. He and his wife and his Alzheimer’s afflicted mother. I saw the mother in a wheel chair just staring into space and when I asked if she needed help she just stared. I asked again before I gave up.

I didn’t see Eddie down the aisle with his wife and he came up and said hi. He too is unemployed as is his wife. She’s been out of work since October 2008, and he’s been out since January 2009.

Makes me feel like a newbie since I’ve only been out of work since July of last year. I feel like a schmuck bemoaning my fate, when people like Eddie and his wife, and yes, even Harpy have been out of work even longer than me. But they’re in their world and here am I, in mine. Most of us have the same stories, except for Harpy of course.

Saw on TV a former friend, in the NY Gilbert & Sullivan players commercial. Actually I didn’t notice the former friend until Rand pointed it out. Hail hail the gang’s all here indeed. I used to shoot video for this former friend.

The friend became former since he was quite underhanded to a mutual friend who was sharing his bed. The friend didn’t think sharing the bed would be THAT way but the former friend has designs that where heretofore unknown, hence the falling out and my siding with the friend. I was out of the McSwells scene in 1996 by then anyhow.

And the former friend was forced out for being a douche bag to Steve Fallon, exiled to Jersey City. Now he pops up on TV.

Today was a walk around Hoboken to the supermarket. Not the one around the block but the one farther away. Did not get what I expected, thought that there was a sale but there wasn’t. Somehow I misread the info.

Presently uploading Bob Dylan: The ‘Royal Albert Hall’ Concert from 1966. I bought it when it came out as Volume 4 of the Bootleg Series. I think I was working at Arista Records then and drove some of my coworkers crazy by playing it.

I think sometimes people don’t ‘get’ Bob Dylan at first. I know it took me a while. Now I really appreciate him and truly love his latest stuff. The 1970’s things I generally ignore at the moment. I have Blood on the Tracks but I rarely play it.

I like the 1960’s and 1990’s stuff and of course the 8th volume of the Bootleg Series, Tell Tale Signs is one of my favorites from last year and that’s a collection from the late 1980’s to the last decade, which may or may not be known as the ‘naughts’.

Just stood up from the computer and looked out the kitchen window where much to my surprise I could see directly into a neighbor’s window. Luckily I’m not the type to see what other people are doing since I don’t want other people to see whatever it is I’m doing, which right now is sitting in front of a computer writing.

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