Category Archives: Interesting Things as of Late

isn’t it all?

Song For Guy

1 Reply

Well it’s Wednesday, which feels like a Tuesday which happened last month following Martin Luther King’s birthday holiday. Last night, no big deal, watched Keith Olbermann instead of Daily Show which was repeats, same for Colbert Report I guessed. Couldn’t say I watched Olbermann, more like listened to him and not fully at that. He is right on a lot of the time, but there is something in the timbre of his voice that is annoying. After that, more Soul documentaries, this time on Gospel being introduced in the Pop market, specifically Sam Cooke.

It was a repeat which I didn’t realize until I heard Mavis Staples mentioning that people were taking bets to see if Mavis was a boy or a girl. She’s a woman. I remember the first time I saw the Staple Singers on the American Music Awards. I didn’t know who they were, but I liked them and their song, I’ll Take You There. I enjoyed Pops Staples voice a lot, such a simple way of singing, yet backed with an authority that I had never heard before.

After that I watched The Olivia Show, i.e., Law and Order Special Victims Unit. It was good, with Jared Harris as the arch-villain, a homicidal artist doing several life sentences with followers on the outside willing to do his bidding, ala Charles Manson. Jared Harris played a decent Andy Warhol in the movie, I Shot Andy Warhol, not as good as Bowie in Basquiat though. Don’t want the son of the late Richard Harris to get a swelled head.

Then I went to bed after talking with Bill on the phone. Woke up, did my thing and was on the second bus since I was too late for the first. The second bus isn’t as comfortable as the first and it really makes a difference. Read the New Yorker, determined not to fall behind, though I have plenty of other things to read and distract me from the magazine. More errands to run around midtown for, more chores in the office. It wasn’t bad, I enjoy being busy.

Also finagled an early exit since some items needed to be taken to the post office for special deliveries. I had talked with Bill, we had to meet up, I needed to get money from him, so I called him from outside his building as I stood having a Padron. He came down, and we talked for a few minutes.

I had been meaning to ask him how his father was doing and Bill told me his plans to take his mother out to St. Albans to see his father this weekend. It was cold so Bill went back inside and I continued on my way to the bus terminal. Got to Hoboken and had to get coffee. There was that girl again, all chatty and nice. She mentioned she lived on my block so I decided to give her a break. I told her that the first time we met she was a bit rude and she apologized profusely blushing deep red.

Her excuse was that she had been working a 16 hour shift since there was quite a turnover in the coffee shop around that time. I asked her name, she said Stephanie and I introduced myself, shaking her hand and telling her that it was a fresh start. She kept apologizing and I reassured her that it was alright now. Also ran into that sweetheart Allie Politowski on the street, and it’s always good to see Allie.

Picked up dry cleaning, brought it home and found that the trousers I asked to have the cuffs removed, still cuffed. I turned around and brought the suit back, leaving the cell phone home, thinking I was going to be gone for just a couple of minutes. Also had to run to the supermarket where I waited on an awfully long line. Came back with the cell phone ringing next to the computer.

It was Bill, he didn’t sound so good. His father passed away an hour ago. So with that I need to cancel my dental appointment at the NYU Dental School, and I don’t think I’ll be posting the next couple of days. I’m sure you’ll understand. Peace.

added 11:05PM
Bill’s home with his mom and his cousin, Elsie. They went out to St Albans and made the necessary arrangements. They’re in grief mode, Bill on automatic pilot, making all the decisions.

So Glad To See You Here

1 Reply

Well it was back to work today after a three day weekend. It wasn’t so bad. I knew I had to do it. Still buzzing after The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Called up brother Frank to talk to him about it, but he wasn’t in, instead I had a long talk with Elaine, his wife. It was just about everything that Annemarie had told me the night before, angioplasty, breaking and entering, things like that. Not my bag so it’s not for me to write about though I do think Elaine will be fine regarding the angioplasty and in any event, my thoughts are with her.

Last night I watched TV, Daily Show, Colbert Report and a documentary on Ray Charles. After that I read, and eventually went to bed. Got up on time, did the routine and was on the bus reading a book about the last 5 years of John Lennon’s life, called Nowhere Man. I bought it cheap yesterday while wandering about the Village. It seems trashy though it had a good blurb from Allan Jones, the editor of Uncut magazine. So far I don’t feel dirty while reading it like I have when reading other books about famous people.

Today at work I was rather busy, errands and other things that got me out of the office, and I was able to use the fact that something that had to be hand delivered was right near the Path train in the Empire State Building and therefore enabled me to leave early to drop it off. That was cool. I also bought a pair of slippers since the pair that my sister got me a few years ago are no longer fluffy, they’ve gone flat. Dearfoam slippers for $8.00 was a bargain though I felt guilty about not wearing the older slippers. I get attached to things sometimes, emotional memories, even though my sister ordered them from a catalog, and they were shipped from LL Bean, my sister never touched them at all, just pointed and clicked online. Still the attachment was there. I haven’t thrown out the slippers yet.

I had an idea for a movie about someone like me who runs into someone not seen for about 10 years. In the movie, my character 10 years earlier, while drunk in a bar make a friend promise to kill him if he’s ever seen wearing a suit and tie to his job. Now the friend shows up, willing to fulfill his promise. Hilarity ensues hopefully. Two guys hanging out in a dive bar, jeans and t shirts talking shit, years pass, one of the guys realizes that the money is where the suits are and easily adapts. The other guy hangs in there, wearing the jeans and t shirts, not making much money. What do you think?

Here’s another idea, another guy, like me, feels somehow plugged into a spiritual network around town. He recognizes things like witches and things like that, how certain witches don’t cross bodies of water, either a puddle or a stream or a lake. Somehow they get around it. Meanwhile our hero, me, make his way through life observing the everyday occult events going on around him. I know, needs work. Needs a plot more like it. Well, you know, that if these 2 concepts make it to the big screen without my input, you’ll just know they’ve seen it here first.

Fidel Castro resigned, which makes me wonder when all the Cuban expatriates, will repatriate. Time to snap up property in Union City, he said tongue in cheek. Bush is demanding democratic elections, as if he knew what that was. I think it would be funny if they went Muslim and voted for an Islamic theocracy.