Category Archives: Hopelessly banal with a slathering of ennui

I Need A Dollar

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Another wishy washy day. And it’s a Wednesday and even for me it feels like a Tuesday. The holiday on Monday once again throws everything out of whack. I’ve been out and about, sometimes in the rain today. Not going far, just within Hoboken city limits and not even near the borders. A trip to the really big supermarket not just because it’s cheaper but because the workers at the other supermarket are just a bit on the snotty side of things. I wander around the really big supermarket with a basket singing along to the songs that are played on the store’s PA.

Another bibliothèque visit was in order. They did correct the problem with regards to the DVD return, it was finally taken off my card. As I suspected, the dear old lady who I talked to about it yesterday did not do anything about it. I brought it up again and by the time I got home it was taken care of. And I took out a new DVD, Infamous, the ‘other’ Truman Capote movie, this one starring Toby Jones and Sandra Bullock with Daniel Craig as the Beaver. I’d seen it before and figured why not again?

I also have The Decendants and The Apartment. I watched The Apartment a week or so ago on Turner Classic Movies and I didn’t think Bill had seen it before. It’s a great movie and I am sure he would love it. That’s two things I like to do with Bill, turn him onto new music as well as classic movies. And so far I am doing good. Last night we watched the Democratic National Convention on C-Span. It made so much sense to watch it on C-Span. No advertising. I tried watching the Repugnant Convention last week on PBS and even they had adverts. Adverts for themselves, but still…

Finally there is a blue sky after it being rainy and cloudy all day. Of course since the weather was most uncooperative there was no busking today. Despite that I practiced a bit and I think it went well. No complaints, no blood, just callouses. Oh and Harpy was right, both the new Bob Dylan and the new Cat Power records are very good. I would also add the new Tom Tom Club EP to the list. I heard it first via Chris Frantz posting via East Village Radio the streaming of Downtown Rockers. It’s light, it’s fun and it’s the Tom Tom Club.

I saw online that the National Guard is looking for a Human Resources Specialist and thought about applying for it, but upon further reading of “Job training requires nine weeks of Basic Training, where you’ll learn basic Soldiering skills, and seven to nine weeks of Advanced Individual Training and on-the-job instruction, where you will learn basic typing skills, how to prepare Army correspondence and forms, how to manage personnel records, and computer update and retrieval procedures.” I thought better of it.

I don’t need to learn basic typing skills, at least I don’t think I do. After all, I have posted 2,357 entries so far and I think I have the hang of it. It did seem promising (the job posting that is. This here blog seems promising every so often, but more often than not it seems somewhat needy). While it does occur to me on occasion that it is truly ‘De Profundis’ in the most banal way, I still find it worthwhile to continue on whatever path it may lead.

Bill and I had a talk about it over the weekend, with me bringing up Jimmy Seltzer’s name and the scheme to collaborate on something. But that was earlier this year and since I have not seen dear Jimmy since May, I can only guess that that collaboration has been shelved indefinitely. C’est la vie!







07 – Red Leaves

I Must Belong Somewhere

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I just got home from seeing the play Bill has been stage managing for the past two weeks. It was the last night and so I went. And it was a mishmash of things dealing quite loosely with Dada and Surrealism. Very loosely. It had been a long day for me and I have to admit I nodded off a few times, like seven times throughout the play. I was tainted by Bill’s stress from a few weeks ago so my eye was a bit jaundiced. I went in prejudiced and was somewhat justified by that fact when I left the theater.

And the play takes place in the 1920’s which makes it the third thing I had seen in the past week that takes place in the twenties. The Artist, Singing in the Rain and now this, Who Murdered Love. A Jazz Age trifecta. The first two, The Artist and Singing in the Rain are definitely top shelf, the play was somewhere on a lower shelf.

Despite nodding out a few times (I was in the back row, no one near me so no one knew) I am pretty tired now. I hardly ever go to the Village these days and when I do it certainly is not during the weekend. Here it is, a Saturday and the streets were crowded with people. Now it’s a bit later, Bill and I watched Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell which woke me up somewhat. But what worked better was the pizza we just devoured from Grimaldi’s.

Now we are watching The Fantastic Mr. Fox on DVD. I had seen it before but Bill hadn’t so that is what is on. I asked if he wanted to watch a movie and he said sure. So I asked if he wanted comedy or action and he picked comedy. The alternative is The Road Warrior which is one of my favorite all time movies. Great action, great story, probably the last great movie or the only great movie Mel Gibson ever made. The first time I saw it was in Paramus with a friend, Al Lewis. Al had some powders at the time and suggested we put that powder up our noses. Having never done that before I agreed.

The combination of those powders and the nail biting action had me at the edge of my seat and probably contributed to my insane driving that night. The powders are long gone with no regrets and the movie still holds a special place in my cinema pantheon. I remember seeing New Order at the Paradise Garage in the 1980’s a few years later and in a large lounge within the garage they were showing Road Warrior, silent but still with all the action intact.

New Order playing to a packed house, singing ‘How does it feel, to sing in front of assholes like you’ in one room and the next room Max versus Humungous in a silent battle. Oh someone in the audience yelled to New Order, ‘We love you anyway’. No, it wasn’t me. I just remember being the only person on the dance floor listening to Larry Levan play just for me, Our Lips are Sealed by the Fun Boy Three, after everyone else had left the Paradise Garage.




01 come together