Category Archives: Hopelessly banal with a slathering of ennui

I Ran

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Today has been one of those days where every move you make is the wrong move. Every step is a misstep. Just going to the supermarket turned out to be something out of the ordinary. I tried to walk down an aisle when an employee planted herself in front of me asking if there was anything she could get me. I didn’t notice the blood on the floor until I heard one of her co-workers complaining about it as they were about to start mopping it up.

Apparently, from what I heard was some guy who was cheating on his girlfriend for a number of years and possibly abusive to her was dropped by the former girlfriend. And she was grocery shopping in the supermarket with her new boyfriend when the old boyfriend came upon them and punches were thrown, hence the blood on the supermarket floor. I am not sure whether or not the cops were called or if someone ran out. So it’s not just me, today has been a weird day, at least for the employees of the nearby supermarket. And there didn’t seem to be too much blood, a few drops here and there, nothing you probably have seen before.

A trip to the bibliothèque once again, getting things to watch and read for the holiday weekend when they will be closed. I picked up a book about Yo La Tengo which I found had 2 inaccuracies in it. Both were found by looking through the index. My brother is mentioned in the book as being a former bartender at Maxwell’s and someone I used to know, and mistakenly Wolf Knapp used to work the door to the back room. I can easily understand how a few people are now royally pissed off at Jesse Jarnow.

And now I find myself debating some Paulist nutjobs. A group of young men wearing red capes that stand on corners protesting for the holy roman church. I am through with these papists and now someone else is debating them so I can hasten my exit from that group. Like I said it’s been one of those days.

Right now I am listening to Tame Impala, a band some Facebook friends have recommended. They’re OK, in a vague way they remind me of MGMT. The low fi, rubbing of the microphone is really annoying though. I also watched A Serious Man by the Coen Brothers the other day and enjoyed that a lot more than I expected to. What drew me in was the actor who plays Arnold Rothstein (Michael Stuhlbarg) on Boardwalk Empire (which was really good and heartbreaking last week) plays the lead in A Serious Man.

The other night I also watched half of Luis Bunuel’s Simon of the Desert. It’s about an hour long and it was on TCM at 1:00. I had seen it before and decided to go to bed before Simon and the devil wind up in a 1960’s discothèque. I’m sure Bunuel would have understood.


Apple Scruffs

I Pray

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Well Dorothy Parker. I’ve posted her quote in the past and reluctant to do it again, so I am not. It’s a Friday night and it’s cold up here in the fifth floor. Earlier I had gone out and it was considerably warmer on the street level. It’s dark in Hoboken and since I haven’t really gone out at night the past few days I’ve noticed there is no power on the next block. And the funeral home around the corner had power when everyone else was out, and tonight they are dark. I think there is a viewing and they have a generator running.

There hasn’t been a garbage pickup and so items are just wasting away on the streets and sidewalks in this neighborhood. It was discussed the other day that if this keeps up we might have a rodent problem. Luckily neighbor Chris feeds a few cats in the neighborhood so that might hold them off, the rodents that is. Chris thinks he lost one of the cats in the storm and from up here on the fifth floor I can hear him at street level, singing and whistling for his wayward cats. I’ve known Chris for over 20 years and the storm reconnected us.

Bill is driving to Pennsylvania tonight, to where exactly I couldn’t tell you. I probably won’t see him until Sunday. Although right now according to Google Latitude, he seems to be driving to Atlantic City, or at least Tinton Falls. He’s been great the past week. He’s always great but this week he’s been stellar. We make a very good team. And of course since he won’t be around I do not expect to sleep well at all. He doesn’t sleep well when I’m not around either so that makes us a pair of solo insomniacs.

I saw Stine and Alexander at the nearby supermarket. The really big supermarket where things are considerably cheaper has been closed since the storm last week. This was reportedly the third time in a year that they’ve been flooded and the rumors around town is they won’t be reopened for some time or even worse, the lease was up and they are not going to renew. That means a lot of people will be out of work which means more competition of jobs here in Hoboken. And people will go back to paying too much for items.

My sister told me of a bus to Newark from Hoboken tomorrow morning. They were looking for 30 volunteers and were presented with more than 30. I posted the info on my Facebook page which might have helped put them over. I emailed the guy who was organizing the jaunt and he thanked me for posting it and also there was no need for me to go. The trip was to unload trucks in Newark and send the storm relief supplies to Hoboken. The bibliothèque remains closed. And so this day like the previous days ends cold and damp at night.

It’s supposed to be a nice weekend though so we’ll see what that brings. A new cigar store is opening in Hoboken, or at least trying to. They seem all ready to go, they just have to open their doors. I spoke with someone I thought was one of the owners who also knew Raymond from the cigar shack. With no threat of Zack, I gave Raymond a nice review, really talked him up when I was asked if I knew him. So that’s that. Pretty dull and boring yet again.

C’est la vie. That’s just the way that it goes.





He’ll Have to Go