Friday once more. Trains were not crowded. Streets are not crowded. Limited people at the fruit stand. Mike is at my crib, Bill is driving someone somewhere, though it’s usually me that he is driving crazy. Mike paid me back the other day for the hybrid bed I ordered on his behalf from that maga company. It is supposed to be delivered today.

And today his beloved is supposed to fly in, leaving on Monday. I may or may not finally meet the beloved this weekend. Mike calls me and Bill Dad, and in turn we call him son. And now the beloved calls me Dad and I call him son in law. It is a strange situation, but ultimately harmless.

I do hope the hybrid bed is delivered today, though I know that sometimes these things can go awry. I slept well despite an adjustment to my routine. And a strange dream was had towards the end of my sleeping.

I was in my apartment talking to Julio who had pulled out Kevin Croughn who said he was alive and well after all. That was a surprise but I was more taken aback by Kevin’s humility, which was something that was rarely shown.

The morning creeps along. I was hesitant to write crawls aling so I opted for something else. Mike and I watched Nobody 2, the sequel to Nobody with Bob Odenkirk and Connie Nielsen. Over the top violent, but funny nonetheless.

Last night, Mike asked about Star Wars. He missed the boat on that one, born too late for the first two movies, and the third one was his introduction, but he was not interested.

I did know there was a documentary about George Lucas and the difficulty of bringing Star Wars to life and so for an hour and a half we watched it, though I was the one who was watching mainly. Midway through, Bill returned and Mike went and helped with the luggage which turned out to be a backpack since Bill left his other stuff at the garage where he was setting off from this morning, before I had even gotten out of bed.

And Bill was off to bed within an hour of returning. Mike sat on the couch looking at the phone and I readied myself for bed before 10:30 PM. It’s not even 12 hours later and it feels like the day is an hour behind where it should actually be.

Perhaps it will catch up after lunch. In any event I would be staring down the clock with mere hours to go. It loks like a beautiful day today and that would make for an enjoyable lunch. I have a Camacho cigar which was gifted to me and even though I am not a fan of Camacho, the last one I smoked was maybe 14 years ago, I will smoke this one on my lunch break.

It is now 10:00 AM and awfully quiet. What is that about?

154 is an album by Wire. My brother Frank gave it to me. I liked it a lot, though for the longest time I only played side one. I remember going to see the movie, Neighbors and meeting Stan Bogdansky for the first time. He was friends with Dave Bell somehow.

Stan was impressed with my cassette of 154. That meant something to me back then. 154 pops up every now and then in my life. This morning it turned up showing the floors the elevators were on at the fruit stand. I

’ve been thinking of Stan Bogdansky lately, having read an article on Cocteau Twins in Mojo magazine. The Cocteaus were friends of Stan. 154 was also an album that helped build my friendship with Kevin Wagner. I loaned him a cassette that, to Kevin’s ears, reminded him of Pink Floyd.

I met Wire a few times and interviewed them, which did not go well. Never meet your heroes they say, and it was somewhat true that adage. I was out of my league and they tolerated me to a question of degree. I probably did not get enough sleep the night before. I did record one of their shows at Maxwell’s on VHS but the videotape is lost to the ages. Perhaps left on Jane Street in the kingdon of the Kleinke.

It is as expected, the only people in the office are the housekeeper and me, not sure if Jimmy Chile is in. I’m sending him a message right now to find out.

So it’s Jimmy, me, and the housekeeper. The gentleman who looked older than me, but I can never tell these days, strode by my desk. He was in the office for about 10 minutes at most, and then he left. Employees who work for the fruit stand are off, but people who are contracted to work at the food stand.

Bill and I saw a play called The Popes of Farragut Street. It was a good play, it was better than the play that Bill was in August. There was a plan to have Mike join us, and I tried calling him five times on Monday, five times on Tuesday, and for those 10 times, he did not answer the phone, so any offer for him to join us did not come to fruition

Bill was a bit anxious about Mike and his 15-minute attention span, that if he wasn’t feeling like playing within 15 minutes, he would pull out his phone, but he’s not that type, he’s very much into the theater and would like to know more about it, and the play was just that good that it would have drawn his attention.

During the first act, a few women, a couple of rows ahead of us, pulled out their phones and looked at them in the darkness of the seating, which was an annoying distraction, and I knew Mike would never have done something like that.

And Bill and I met Ralph Carter, who played Michael Evans in that 1970 show Good Times. Ralph was a gentleman and happy to know that he had fans and people who appreciated him all these years later, like 50 years later.

The play was in the afternoon, so I was home by 6:45, and Bill had to head out to the garage to pick up the company car since he had to be at the company garage at 2:00 a.m., actually get up at 2:00 a.m. to be at the garage by 3:00 a.m.

So there has been a plan for Mike to join Bill and I and a trip to Garfield on Thanksgiving that was the plan, and then this morning, talking to Mike on the phone it seems like his Beloved is making plans to come here for Thanksgiving, flying in on Wednesday leaving on Sunday which would take Mike out of the equation of traveling to Garfield.

It seems the beloved just begins things at the last minute, no matter the cost or the difficulty, in a booking for an airplane ticket for 48 hours in advance

After I finish this rigmarole, I’ll get Mike to call to find out the status of this situation. I’ve gotten off the phone with Bill and did not mention it to Bill because I have a feeling Bill would get very upset with this turn of events, and he’s working, and I’m working, but neither one of us needs that smoke
45 years later, actually more like 50 years later, I am reminded of something that happened with William Murphy. I believe the first time I met him, I immediately made fun of him, telling him that his face looked like it had been set on fire and put out with a fork. Which is something my brother used to say as a joke…

From that day forward, William Murphy had it in for me and did all he could to make my four years of high school hell. He succeeded somewhat, but I got through it unscathed and years later remembered that I probably said something really snotty like that to make him hate me and want to kill me, that’s it, and it was cruel. He may have been a nice guy, but I instantly made an enemy of him. I regret that.