Well the temperature dropped but it rained. It’s true be careful what you wish for. That’s why I always wish for $99,999,999 dollars. Nice number and if I get it, you can bet that I would handle that money like no one’s business. I think I’d have Julio be my money manager. I trust him and he’s good with his own money, why wouldn’t he be good with mine? Anyway with the temperature dropping, I found myself under dressed. Not a good day for culottes I tell you. And don’t even get me started on the high beams.

A pair of dopplegangers today. Saw a Nick Lattanzio type that no one would know except for me, and a bald Johnny Carson look alike. Johnny Carson is dead, that much we know, and last I heard Nick Lattanzio was living in Clifton NJ with his wife, Bonita. And that was twenty years ago. I can’t imagine that Nick would be a delivery man in midtown Manhattan. Nick’s family and my family were friendly for a spell in the sixties/seventies, then everyone drifted apart. I met up with Nick Lattanzio when I started working for the book company in 1978. Nick and I started the same day and worked in the same department. He was a cutie, and I think he knew it. But still I wish him well. Twenty years. Yikes!

Occasionally when I ride an elevator or on a corner, waiting for a light to change, if I find myself with three or four other people, I think about what the band photo would look like. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but mostly I wind up being the coolest person in the group.

From what Carla the soon to be ex-receptionist tells me, the Arcade Fire/LCD Soundsystem show on Saturday was great. She was there for the whole show from start to finish. She is 24 after all. Arcade Fire made an announcement that they won’t be in New York City for a few years, having been here quite often the past couple of years.

It looks like I’ll be back in a suit and tie tomorrow, which makes me happy. It finally feels like Rocktober.

Some people say cigars smell bad, I say tiparilllos smell worse. Ugh.

Five Years, Soul Love, and Rock and Roll Suicide have been playing on endless loop in my head.

Vivek asks me to book a flight to Orlando tomorrow from La Guardia. Three people, Vivek included. I find a decent price, get them all aisle seats and book the flight after working out the departure time. I deliver the info and the itineraries, only to hear Vivek stammer about how he might not be able to go. He should have told me beforehand, maybe when he asked me to book a flight for him perhaps? He’s taking care of it himself or so he says. I was willing to do it since I knew all the info, I did submit it initially after all. Someone might be eating $459.00 and it ain’t going to be me.

I walked across town in between raindrops and got online at the terminal for the bus. After finally boarding the bus, standing room only, as the bus leaves the gate the rear view mirror hits something leaving it hanging there. The bus driver, rolls forward and gets out trying to align the darn thing again. It didn’t really take as she drove carefully, hoping no one would come creeping up on the right side. As we left the Lincoln Tunnel, it was good bye mirror. People wound up looking out the window yelling instructions to the bus driver as she navigated Willow Avenue which is a bit narrow.

I don’t know karate, but I know Ka-razy!

Here’s a pic of a hot guy standing near me at lunch.


Happy birthday Dr. Winston O’Boogie.

From today’s notebook.
Hot Monday in October. I sit in 80 plus degrees of mugginess, in the shade across from the building where I work. It’s Columbus Day and a lot of people have off, but not me. Plenty of people still have to work but I would say the amount has been halved. Feeling a touch melancholy since Carla is leaving in a few days. The city, or at least the workers are few and far between. I could use a day off.

I could also use some cooler weather so I could go back to wearing a suit and tie which would make dressing in the morning a little bit easier and if it were cooler I wouldn’t be sweating as much as I do.

I bought Gold Bond Medicated powder and applied it liberally after showering this morning. Then I sat bare chested drinking my coffee and eating cereal. I was wearing pants and sweating and after I put on a shirt and headed out the door I checked myself only to find the sweat and the powder mixed, making a paste that was directly on my crotch. A nice smelling white powdery spot right where everyone would notice. Quick change of pants, but the pants were shortish, not too short, just enough to pass for regulation on how high your pants should be and enough to make me very self conscious throughout the day.

I asked Bill if his cousin Elise was working since she’d been unemployed for a while and I was thinking that maybe she would do reception and replace Carla as my assistant on a temporary basis, but it turned out she is working for the Daily News.

I’m presently reading the Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie which is good and I find myself writing like Sherman Alexie which you really can’t tell from this but you should see the notebook. Also reading the New Yorker naturally, as well as Grand Illusion by Wayne Barrett and Dan Collins. Thats about Rudy Guiliani and the mess of 9/11 and how Rudy has been capitalizing on it and his failures that are overlooked in the midst of the platitudes raining upon der fuhrer.

Thinking about playing touch football on Gunther Avenue with Scott Williams, David Plauchino and George Moncho back in the day. Tuesday Afternoon by the Moody Blues floats through my head.

After work tonight was more drinks with Carla at a rooftop lounge in midtown. Good if you want to smoke, but it was muggy as all hell. Tonight we were joined by Larry, Moe and Curly who I sort of put down a while ago, but tonight they were good company. Usual disparagement about how the partners aren’t doing what they should be doing, and leaving the work for the associates who depend on the partners to do their job. Four Heinekens and that was it for me. We parted ways and I walked across town in the humidity back to the swamplands of Hoboken.

For the hungry surrealist

The view from the rooftop lounge