For the past couple of years, I have taken notes and sent them to me as texts. Usually, songs that float through my head, and then post the videos on the social medias. Yesterday evening I texted myself a line for the Herbie Hancock Mega Mix that was everywhere on Black radio 40 years ago. For me in the tri-state area that means Kiss FM and my favorite, WBLS.

The line was from a song in my head “Cut it DST cut it D just cut it!” I could picture a crazy person saying that and then I wondered if I would at some point be that crazy person saying it aloud. There are so many songs playing in my head, that I often remark I don’t need headphones or a device when I go outside. I also mention that one should be careful on the streets, headphones or earbuds would prevent you from hearing “Look out he’s got a knife!” or “Watch out that car has jumped the curb!”

I then try hard not to talk about the influence of John Cage on my life. That was from back in the eighties when my then-roommate Jimmy Lee gave me his copy of John Cage’s book, Silence. It was that grain of sand that altered one of my life’s paths.

Pretentious? Moi? Precocious? C’est moi!

So I posted the Herbie Hancock video for Mega Mix. Just a photo of the album cover with the audio track. I seem to remember Bill telling me he did not like the Mega Mix a few years ago. Now he says he likes it. He likes most things Herbie Hancock related. One year for his June birthday we went to see Wayne Shorter and friends, including Herbie Hancock at Carnegie Hall. It was a great event, very lively. We sat behind Stanley Crouch the late Jazz critic.

I’m not much of a Jazz fan, but is. When I saw Herbie was playing the Blue Note around the December holidays I thought it would make an excellent gift. Two table tickets were scored in the cramped club and Herbie took the stage. It was not as lively as the show with Wayne Shorter, it was quite minimal. Painfully minimal. There was no Road to Jazz Damascus conversion, it put me off Jazz for quite a while. I still haven’t recovered.

We did see Jon Hendricks and Annie Ross a few years later, this time opting for seats at the bar. I was a fan of Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross since I stumbled onto a kinescope of them on Dave Sanborn’s Late Night show, coming home one early morning from Maxwell’s. I told my brother Frank about what I saw and he got me a cassette of Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross’ Greatest Hits.

Lambert died in the sixties in a car crash I think. Hendricks and Ross were estranged for a number of years, finally reuniting for a final set of shows. Now they’re all gone but I was happy to see them. Jazz.

Here I go again. It’s been a rainy Thursday in August. Everything is wet. Usually, everything has felt wet the past couple of weeks but today (and yesterday) it’s been wet. The sky is white with clouds obscuring Manhattan. Bill is off to the Hamptons, driving the elites from the Hudson Yards on the West Side out to Long Island, ending in East Hampton. I’ve never been.

I’ve never made it to Fire Island either. I saw Fire Island in the distance over 50 years ago on my Uncle Tommy’s boat. Sailing out from Babylon for a short trip with my father, my cousins, and more than likely my brother Brian. It was pointed out where Fire Island was and that was as far as I got.

Work has been odd. It was a job I started in June 2021 and it was a job I actually looked forward to going to five days a week. But things have gotten strange, the people I started with are no longer there. Friendly co-workers are no longer friendly. Still, I go in and do the best job I can.

There’s a group of women that work near me and we get along fine. But the rest, ugh. Humor, wit among other things are suspect and I find that they’re best avoided. But me being me and having that mouth of mine…

I was helping a client and getting them some water. I declared myself the water boy and then joked about having 2 atoms of hydrogen and 1 atom of oxygen. That might have made someone uncomfortable and could add another strike to the two I already have. I mentioned that to a co-worker and she remarked that those strikes would eventually go away. I had never heard that before and I still don’t believe it.

I feel like Sisyphus pushing that rock up the hill with the sword of Damocles over my head. If I said that aloud it might raise some eyebrows and signal to the umpires that that third strike could be imminent. “John said he wanted to throw rocks and swing a sword around” some twenty-something would probably say as it alerted the authorities.

My once-admired Legume took what that particular twenty-something as gospel truth and included it in my mid-year review. It’s funny how these people who supervise do not get reviewed by the people who work underneath them. Now that would be a review worth posting. When they announced the mid-year reviews I almost replied just that, when will we get to review the supervisors? It was the rare instance where I did not react.

I once again have the idea to write about the jobs that I’ve had. I did try that once a few years ago and posted exactly one story about my first job. I was shot down by one of the two regular readers I had, the one not related to me, the male one. If I remember correctly, he called it boring and uninteresting which wounded me and I did not proceed. But the idea is still there and I don’t think Harry will read it anyhow.