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.

August Day

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Well today is Saturday, I figured that out by myself. Bill is here and we’ve been cooped up all day. It’s been raining on and off but I was able to get out for an hour or so.

So I walked by the river and sat, reading the New Yorker and enjoying a cigar. Deep sea diving without scuba apparatus is not on my list of things to do. That was one of the articles I read.

The other was a pretty funny piece by David Sedaris about going to Australia as well as about living with his father when he was growing up and singing a song about the Kookaburra bird with his sister Amy.

It was funny until he was smacked with a fraternity paddle by his father after being told to go to bed 3 times. Ah memories.

Not much of anything going on today, just waiting for the next rainstorm I guess. The cicadas are still doing their thing and it’s quite humid out.

I have some DVD’s from Netflix that Bill and I are planning on watching tonight. One is the Luis Bunuel directed version of Robinson Crusoe.

The other is John Huston’s production of Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood, but I think Bill would be more interested in the third DVD, The Panic in Needle Park.

My Uncle Joseph lived in the Bronx for a time and called basically any NYC playground Needle Park. When visiting we would sometimes go play in Needle Park, or what he said was Needle Park.

It didn’t sound charming but it was somewhere to go while the adults kibbutzed. I’ve never seen the movie before but it should be an interesting period piece of Manhattan starring a young Al Pacino.

Right now we’re watching the end of The Fugitive, starring Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones. I pointed out former Chicago politician, now US Senator Roland Burris in the St. Patrick’s Day parade.

I’m just waiting for the Janitor from Scrubs to make his appearance as the cop on the train. They even mentioned it in an episode of Scrubs a few years ago.

Today is also my sister’s birthday! Happy birthday to Annemarie! Tried calling at my usual weekend time but there was now answer so Bill & I left a nice happy birthday greeting accompanied by Altered Images singing Happy Birthday.

I’ll be giving a call later so hopefully Bill and I can sing live rather than committing to tape. That’s what I think would be preferable, don’t you?

No other plans for the evening and what I do tomorrow would depend on the weather as well. I’m hoping for a nice day. I guess a trip to Central Park would be nice.

Now Harpy is on the phone, bemoaning the fact that it’s so humid. As if it wasn’t humid here in the swamplands of Hoboken. But it’s an outlet for him and I’m glad to oblige. It gives him a cooler head somewhat which is good for him and the rest of Washington Heights I suppose.

Marquee Moon

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Well here it is, a Saturday night. Remarkably I am feeling no edge, even when I shave. Perhaps it’s time to get a new blade. Or a new strop.

Just got back from a boogie woogie ramble in Manhattan. Went in and did some coconut work for Greg Stevens. It was nice for a while, no one was in and all the lights were off.

I left it that way, giving it a cool atmosphere and not wasting any electricity. Of course about 90 minutes later in comes Abby and about six of his fellow country men and women.

It was odd, when I came into the building I saw two of Abby’s countrymen outside having a smoke. I had met them before and waved as I was going in. The security guard Rick, knows me fairly well and said that those two guys outside (the countrymen) tried to get in, but since no one was there he refused them access, despite their pleading that they had keys.

I told Rick that I sort of knew them and waved when I came in. Since they looked at me with an air of indifference I told Rick that they can stay outside for all I cared.

So they waited 90 minutes until the perpetually late Abby showed up for a guided tour of empty cubicles and overturned garbage cans.

Working on Greg Stevens coconut job was tedious but I was grateful to get some tasty cole slaw coming in.

Walking home I listened to Sly and the Family Stone- Anthology. Incredible stuff even after getting burned with Chaz a few years ago seeing Sly at BB King’s nightclub. Sly was shy and unintelligible. Chaz took me and I still have to make it up to him somehow.

Just listening to I Want to Take You Higher made the hair on my arms stand on end. Well it was either Sly & the Family Stone or the electrified subway grating that I was standing on. I’d like to think it was Sly.

Last night after doing some other coconut work for Greg Stevens I walked across town and saw a play that Bill has been stage managing the past few weeks. Now I had seen quite a few projects that Bill has been involved with, some good, some bad.

Fair to middling.

Last night’s show was 4 one act plays that ranged from OK to very funny. I can’t knock the playwright and director since he’s a friend of Bill’s (Arthur French III- not ‘friend of Bill’s’ like in AA) and there really isn’t any need to.

The first act took place in a locker room, after a professional basketball player’s last game. The team manager, the player and his girlfriend. The player’s wife and kids were off stage. It was OK.

The second act took place that beautiful morning in September 2001. Office workers in limbo at 9:15 AM. Some are dead, one is still alive, but basically they’re in limbo. Sort of an existential Twilight Zone which got some nervous giggles from the audience members behind me.

Then came the third act, a two actor piece about 2 former drug buddies, she has HIV and he doesn’t. They were old friends since they were teenagers who became junkies. That was very good and touching.

The fourth and final act was the silliest of all. Set in some near future, maybe 15 minutes from now, a guy is having problems with his robot girlfriend, her replacement robot and the supervisor robot woman who almost became his latest hook up or plug in.

I went out with Bill and the cast for some snacks and a pint. Nice people all of them and if tomorrow wasn’t the last performance I would recommend going to see it.

That’s it for me on this end. How are things holding up on your end?