Pissed. Not fun pissed like the English. No PISSED OFF. The once mighty Ipod is CORRUPT. I called Apple yesterday about a problem with the Ipod and it turns out that was my free call. Any more help would could me $50.00. Actually $49.00. If I want the extended warranty that would be $59.00. So the love affair is over.

This was truly a day where I should’ve stayed in bed. I woke up, everything seemed fine. Of course as I’m waiting for the light to change so I could cross the street, my bus pulls up, the driver must’ve recognized me, but he was in a hurry to barrel on down the street to wait at the next red light. So I wait. Not so bad, Ipod was working then. The next bus shows up about 15 minutes later meaning that I would have to take the subway to work, not stroll to the office, as I like to do.

I walk to the back of the bus where I take my usual seat and get the headphone cord caught on a seat handle jerking the headphones off my head and pulling the plug from the Ipod. Ok.

I get to my seat, muttering under my breath even though no one sits in the back until the next stops. I walk to the subway once I get past the idiots that stand on the escalator yapping away unaware of anyone else. I get to the subway and get on, no problems there.

Work was alright despite the fact that the mother and child reunion, aka the bitches are in before me. The Persian bitch had to set up a breakfast meeting that was rather elaborate and pointless since the meeting was moved to another location. The food she ordered was crap, all decoration, very little taste. Much like her.

The usual nonsense abounds but I have a pretty good handle on things. I actually have some errands to run so that takes me out of the office for a while. Of course that doesn’t make things easier. Orders I placed for delivery today are delivered incorrectly and I wind up having to move 6 5-gallon bottles of water from one floor to another, and of course the idiots messed up on the bill. I do bill reconciliation so this will bite me on the ass in a few weeks.

Then the strap on my watch broke. Popped right off. Unfixable. Went to a few jewelry stores who said they’d try to fix it. I said no, and put it in my pocket. I figured I’d have a pocket watch from now on. Then I noticed that I kept looking at my wrist intermittently.

The day wound down and I was trying to remove the Ipod from my computer at work like I was told yesterday. I was having difficulty doing that and like yesterday, as ‘Ellen’ told me, I reset it. It seemed to go well. As I was waiting for the elevator I was trying to select the songs I wanted to hear when I noticed that the 6000 or so songs I had in my library were gone. All of them. Every single one.

I know, there are far worse things that could happen to someone. Family and friends have actual serious problems. But this was my escape from reality. For the past month or so it was my companion as I strolled and smoked my cigar on the way to the train. I was an addict.

Now I had nothing. I had to listen to car horns, people having conversations, telling me to look out things like that. I preferred to be oblivious. I tried calling Bill to tell him the Ipod he had given me was kaput. Got his voicemail, which sucks. I have to admit every time I hear “Greetings from the Triple Five” I want to throw the phone in the street under a truck. Sometimes you just want to talk to a human being and not voice mail and I needed to speak with Bill.

He eventually called back, not listening to the messages just noticing that I called. I told him my tale of Ipod woe. He was apologetic and tried to be helpful, suggesting that all I might have to do is plug the Ipod into the computer at home. He also reminded me I still have the Ipod mini at home. But it’s certainly not the same thing.

So I come home, after getting a new fucking watchband for $21.00 from Soon Li Gifts on Washington Street. I was not happy about that. I walked home quite rapidly all set to see if my Ipod would heal itself when I plugged it in, like Bill had suggested. Perhaps the computer would see my Ipod was bereft of music and refill the library.

No. Yellow Hazard sign on bottom of screen saying Ipod is corrupt and to check disk. Where do I check disk? I call up Apple and speak to David who tells me it would cost $49.00 for him to give me an answer to my problems, or I could spend $59.00 and get extended coverage.

I balk. I try calling Bill a dozen times, each time getting the same ol’ cheery ‘Greetings from the Triple Five”. I sent a text message. No response. Try calling again and again, if only to vent, perhaps get his expertise or tell me where the receipt is so I might be able to return this once musical paperweight if it can’t be fixed.

Nothing.

I call Apple again, do the same song and dance about who I am, what the goddamned serial number is and where I live. The new guy said he’d try to help me. But there is no guarantee that he could help me and I might be throwing money away. And now it is 9:00 PM. I decided to bite the bullet.

I need my Ipod back. I’ll pay. I call again, hearing “Thank you for calling Apple Help Line. You have called outside our working hours, 9AM to 6PM Pacific Time”

FUCK. And I don’t like the new watchband either. The mini is charging. Back to methadone.

Listened to Fela on the way to work this morning. Another gray overcast day. If I had the money and my friends and family were willing, I’d relocate us somewhere to where it’s sunny and warm, most of the time. Maybe a month of snow. This place doesn’t exist, I know but it sure would be nice. If anyone has any suggestions, I’d be willing to take them into consideration as we moved into our commune.

Been loading a lot of things into the Ipod. I used the Cool Edit Pro program and turned a few cassettes into files on my computer. I burned a cassette I made when I DJ’d at McSwells and my brother was in Speed the Plough in March 1987.Pretty good, starts off with PiL, goes into some South African music. An excellent mix. One of the few that I was able to pull off successfully.

As I was playing the South African piece, I was reminded about how when I first got the South African record and played along with it on the guitar. It was a wild time, for me at least. I thought I was fitting in nicely, not too obtrusive. I went to work the next day, feeling like I had accomplished something musically. I had the idea, to get a few other musicians, or merely people that played musical instruments together and jam, in an African style.

Seemed simple enough. Then Wolf Knapp entered the picture. Wolf Knapp, a young man from somewhere. He grew up all over the place, and was in the process of becoming a Jazz Queer as Ann Boyles called him. Wolf, who learned how to play Bass from the Punk Rock DIY approach, threw cold water on my dream, telling me that I could never play like those South African musicians and I was fooling myself.

That hurt. Didn’t really like Wolf much, after that. I still have a crumb from that dream, and if anyone was ever interested, I’d be into jamming with them. As long as it wasn’t Wolf. Years later, I told Jane Scarpantoni about what Wolf had said and she was a bit pissed off that someone like Wolf would dare dash someone’s dream like that. Jane was always very supportive of me, and she still is.

In fact, one of the first times I ever played live was at a showcase that Jane had at a pub called Tin Pan Alley, located in Tin Pan Alley, Times Square. WE wrote a song together and she asked me to play it with her. If she told me to jump off a bridge I’d probably do that too.

My part of the song was all about fast strumming, two chords tops. She was doing things on top of my playing with her cello. Ethereal stuff. It was over two nights, a Saturday and Sunday. The second night was the nerve wracking show though for I was playing guitar in front of 2 guys, Jim Mastro and Richard Barone from the Bongos. The Bongos were a fave rave for me for a few years in the eighties.

All I could do is strum and look at the floor, not at Jim or Richard. They were somewhat of an influence on my guitar playing and I’m not too fond of playing live anyhow. I usually wind up doing an imitation of a tree trying to scratch its trunk. Picture that visual.
Jane was wonderful and gracious and named the song we wrote, after me.

I played live a few times after that. And obviously I still have the dream of jamming with likeminded people with instruments in an African style. Fuck Wolf Knapp.

and here’s an ACTUAL JOB OFFER I received today:

Mr. Ozed,

My name is SGT Davis of the US Army. I was looking over your résumé on career builder. I am glad to inform you that we have many jobs available in the administration field. Attached is a flyer on what the Army can offer in regards to benefits. You can contact me any time at (877) 555-3279 or email me back.

SGT Davis
US Army Administration Recruiter

There is an actual flyer attached but I can’t seem to upload it. If you’d like you can email me at johnozed@gmail.com and I’ll send it to you.