Category Archives: Hopelessly banal with a slathering of ennui

I Like You So Much Better When You’re Naked

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It’s been quite a beautiful day, no rain, sun shining, nice warm temperature and a cool breeze every now and then. I’ve been busy, up early, running around Hoboken. Bill was up way earlier than me, out before 6:00 this morning to make it to the gym. He’s lost quite a bit of weight and is looking very good. He gave the now customary kiss goodbye, telling me that I looked good as I lay there looking like crap. If that’s not love, then I don’t know what love is. Of course there is more to it than that, but it was a good line that I couldn’t pass up.

Last night before Bill went to bed so early, after watching Michael Eric Dyson filing in for Ed Shultz, we watched Purple Rain. Both of us had seen it before, and both of us loved it. It is truly a 1980’s movie. Prince was great, the Revolution was great and the Time stole the movie. No wonder Prince was so bothered by the fact that the Time stole the show opening up for Prince on the 1999 tour, that he had them playing off stage while Vanity 6 wound up opening.

I saw Prince & the Revolution on the Purple Rain tour. It was an Easter matinee out at the Nassau Coliseum and I went with Rand, his roommate Andrew, their neighbor Ken as well as Debbie Robinson who I worked with and the daughter of a woman that worked with my mom. Me and the guys all dipped into some lysergic and the girls didn’t know, especially since the daughter of the woman that worked with my mom had a police officer for a father. It was a great show from what I remember but what I really remember is the car ride back.

Instead of taking the Long Island Expressway we decided to take a more scenic route, taking he roads rather than the highway. The girls were oblivious and the driver was cautious, getting them home safely to Saddle Brook NJ, then heading to Hoboken where we stuffed ourselves with pizza at the pizzeria no one eats at anymore, then to Maxwells to continue our giggles through the night. Of course, being chemically enhanced all sense of time was distorted and though it seemed relatively early, it was actually pretty late, so much that we closed Maxwells and wound up at Rand & Andrew’s apartment across the street.

I saw Prince a few times since then, the last time being just a year or so ago, and before that in 1988 on the Lovesexy tour. I went the first time with Chaz and Kathe, having seats right above the floor. Great show once again, stage in the middle of the arena. Sheila E was playing drums at that time. It was such a good time I had to go again the next night. But I had no tickets. I did have a contact at Warner Brothers and was able to score one ticket.

The seat was all the way on top in the nosebleed section and after sitting where I was the night before, this location just wouldn’t do. Somehow I developed balls and since I was alone I decided to move. I would walk around the arena, each circle getting me closer to the floor. I would stand at the gate and watch the show until an usher would say I couldn’t stay there. Sometimes the usher would ask for my ticket and I would show them and they would point to the ceiling saying that was where I should be.

The show had an intermission and thanks to my persistent moving I wound up on the main floor in the hallway when people stretched their legs and whatnot. I ran into someone I knew who had floor seats, like 15th row from the stage and he told me to stay where I was as he headed back to his seat. A few minutes later he had a friend’s stub which got me on the floor when the second half started and since everyone was dancing and having a good time, no one was paying attention to their assigned seating.

It was a good time and a good show. No lysergic needed.
In between the Madison Square Garden shows was an early morning show at Roseland Ballroom. I certainly felt like I was tripping but I wasn’t that morning…







01 the beautiful ones

I Like The Way You Move- Earth Wind & Fire

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I would attend Paramus Catholic high school until 2:30, and then catch a bus that would drop me off about 100 yards from the HBJ warehouse in Saddle Brook. A lot of the warehouse workers would leave at 4:15, and since I started at 3:00 I would generally stay until 6:00 or 7:15. It was a good job to start at, though it wasn’t the record department at Alexander’s like I wanted.

It was interesting to finally put faces to the names I heard growing up. And they were mainly correct in what they said about John Vasecik, Paul Lo Presti, and Larry Ioli. Lou Nagy was more ribald than I would have guessed, but he worked on the loading dock so his language was probably best suited for that area.

I was put to work with Nick Lattanzio, the last time I saw him he was in 4th grade and I was in 3rd grade. He was going to Lodi high school and set to graduate, whereas I was a junior and still had a year to go. He was a nice guy and we bummed cigarettes off each other.

Looking back, so many people smoked everywhere, including a book warehouse which could go up in flames due to an errant cigarette butt. The bosses moved about the warehouse in electric scooters, the big boss John Vasecik always had a cigar burning.

The job was basically to get an invoice and fill it and bring it down to the packing area. It seemed easy enough. Some school district needed 50 copies of Introduction to Psychology, some school needed 100 copies of Art Through the Ages, or Fortran Programming, or Elements of Film. Nick and I handled the smaller orders, John Carroll had a forklift and would get the larger orders. My time card was 19B which I duly signed on each invoice I brought to the packing line.

And almost every time, I would get called back. I had the wrong book, the wrong edition or more often than not, the wrong count. I am quite sure that it was because my mother was so well regarded that I did not get fired. I would work and then go home, have something to eat and then do 2 hours of homework.

2 hours of homework was my father’s idea. My grades were not that good and he felt having me sit at the dining room table for 2 hours should do the trick. Even if I had homework that could be done in 15 minutes, I would still have to sit there for an hour and 45 minutes.

I would generally get whatever homework done and then get a volume from the encyclopedia and copy whatever subject interested me the most, while my father who was losing his hearing would watch the television 20 feet from me with the volume as high as it would go.

This had been going on for a while, even when my brother Brian was still in high school. Occasionally my parents would go out, trusting me and Brian to sit at the table to do our studies. As soon as the car was out of the driveway and down the street the books were slammed shut and Brian and I would usually fight about what to watch on TV. This was probably one of the reasons why education did not work for me.

I just never really got the hang of education, from being horizontally dragged off the fence when it was time to start school at St. Francis de Sales grammar school up to Paramus Catholic high school, I was more than likely looking out the window and wanting to be anywhere rather than there in a classroom.

It wasn’t until years later, once I started getting guitar lessons from Mike Carlucci, that I realized one on one teaching worked best for me, but by then the train had left the station, or in my case, I missed the bus.



04 Revolution Earth