A beautiful Saturday. Woke up at 7:45 with the sun pouring in through a window. Went out, got the papers, some bagels, ran into a former coworker from my days of working at a temp agency. Cindy filled me in on who’s pregnant, and who she ran into. Good to know information on people I hadn’t spoken to in years and may never again. Luckily I had my coffee and was able to hold up my end of pleasantries before leaving the store.

Went to the supermarket to buy some much needed groceries. The store was relatively empty which made the shopping experience pleasurably and fast. I was home in about a half hour after that excursion. A tasty, leisurely breakfast, reading the papers and having some nice strong rocket fuelled coffee. Perfect.

Bill was still sleeping as I puttered about the apartment. Checked some emails, chatted with friends. The sun was bright and there was a nice breeze. I ran out again to get my dry cleaning. More people around, but not too many. It was almost like summer time, with parking aplenty and mellow people walking around pleasantly.

I came back and found Bill now puttering around the apartment. We both puttered for a few hours, then we headed to the Path train. Bill was not driving this weekend to spend more time with me at my request last week at our counseling with Philip Beansprout. We got off the Path at Christopher Street, Bill indulging my urges to run into various newsstands and tobacco stores to find there were no more Gauloises in Manhattan. Yes, it seems to be true.

That chapter in my life seems to have ended. No more Gauloises after a twenty year run. I know some of you are happy. I still have my Padrons. I’ll be ok. I can imagine the rolling of your eyes.

We walked across the village, west to east 3rd Street, home of the Nuyorican Poets Café where the city had named the street in honor of one of the founders of the Café. The Rev. Pedro Pietri Way. Bill was accompanying Rome Neal from the one man show based on the life of Thelonious Monk. Rome was singing a song sung originally by Shirley Horn, accompanied by Bill on piano and a violinist named Rebecca.

Turns out Rome is a triple threat, he can act, sing and all of a sudden, a ballet dancer. It went over quite well and was covered by many cameras.

We spilled out into the sun again after the song where I took a very nice picture of Rome and Bill.

We then said our goodbyes and wandered around the east village smoking cigars and me running into more newsstands.

No, the Gauloises era is over. Kaput.

We wound up walking a lot, more than I did with RoDa last week. Bill and I walked from Christopher Street in the West Village to Avenue C and 3rd Street, up 3rd Avenue to 23rd Street and over to Sixth Avenue to catch the train home. It was a great walk and the weather was great and the company was superb.

Now we are zombies.

Oh yeah, Bill and I saw Philip Seymour Hoffman at an ATM today. His PIN is OSCAR06.

Oh dear. I just realized that I could actually relate to a lot of lyrics by Morrissey and the Smiths. It’s the oddest thing. Morrissey is on Logo, the gay cable channel, and I had the thought if Bill was here he could perhaps gain some insight into some things that I feel. Then that was immediately followed by the thought of how many times in my life I heard a Smiths or a Morrissey song and related to it.

How Soon Is Now really hit my sensibilities back in the angst filled eighties. The lines, ‘there’s a club, would you like to go? You could meet somebody who really loves you. So you go and you stand on your own and you leave all alone and you go home and cry and want to die.’ Yeah that was me a lot back then. I did go to the clubs but I guess I might’ve been putting out a disaffected vibe. But then again, I didn’t look like everyone else or act like everyone else.

Which is also very Smiths like. I saw them a long time ago at the Beacon Theatre with Hiroaki Kimura. We both found them boring and didn’t stay for an encore. Our seats, being at the Beacon and not in the orchestra, sucked. I saw Morrissey after the Smiths broke up and liked him very much. Where I was embarrassed when fans would rush the stage, both males and females running up to kiss and hug him during the Smiths, at the first Madison Square Garden show it was really funny. Gladiola covering the stage.

A year or so later I saw him at the Theatre at MSG, formerly the Felt Forum. The fans were really troublesome and it was no longer funny. Some of the fans near me were extremely agitated and kept stepping on Susan Sher who was naturally indignant. She was mostly un-naturally indignant, and this time gave her just cause.

We fled, probably back to McSwells, licking our wounds and chemically altering our consciousness.

I love the Sigur Ros song that Juan burned for me. A really cool song, HoppiPolla. Speaking of Song, he and Ray flew back to Australia. According to Song they had a really bad drive to JFK. Or at least the driver was bad. I wished them a safe trip and told Song I hope the pilot is better than the driver. I hope they come back sometime soon.

Now I’m sort of waiting for Julio. Told him I had an Almodovar DVD and invited him up to watch it. He was in a ball busting mood and also a bit ill with a head cold. I have Live Flesh and All About My Mother. I knew we hadn’t seen Live Flesh, but he laughably offended when I suggested he watch All About My Mother, a second time. Julio does not understand the concept of seeing a film more than once.

He thinks that because I might watch a movie over and over again that it’s a waste of my time. He should see Bill. Bill can watch stand up comedy DVD’s dozens of times. Sometimes on successive nights. I’ve been known to get sucked into Lord of the Rings on cable.

No think, me damage.

So I don’t know if he’s coming up to watch it tonight or what.
Not that it’s a big deal.
I can watch All About My Mother.

Too late. He’s at the door.

We watched Almodovar’s Live Flesh. Almodovar’s attempt at a Hitchcockian thriller. It was ok. Not his best. The wonderful Javier Bardem was in it. Liberto Ramal, who played Victor, the protagonist was way easy on the eyes. The movie is worth watching just to look at those two.

Then we watched Bil Maher who was merely ok with a so so panel of Seth Green (who I usually like but was obnoxious) and Erica Jong (who seemed quite ditzy) and a republican representative from California (who provided the right wing’s point of view). All rather tepid.

Julio was on a Beach Boys/Brian Wilson vibe which I indulged by playing the instrumental track to God Only Knows from the Pet Sounds Sessions. We actually sang along to it.