Category Archives: moldies but moodies

Every Kinda People

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Well it’s Sunday night. No feeling of dread, the feeling that I had better get my homework done. No spending the afternoon training with the Junior Rifle Squad, no going with my brother Brian to pick up a pie from Lodi Pizza. All is well though the pizza idea is a pretty good one.

But no, I just ate dinner. Or was it supper? Which one is later? Dinner or supper? My family used to eat dinner/supper around 2:00 in the afternoon on Sundays and then have the pizza later around 8:00. It was always a treat to have pizza on Sunday nights, something to look forward to.

No pizza for me, maybe some organic dark chocolate with raspberries instead. Once I open it, it has to be devoured. It rarely lasts through the night.

Last night was a pretty good time with Excer. I’ve known Excer for about 20 years and he is the only person I know named Excer. He’s a good guy and plays keys for Conjunto Imagen. I met him initially though Pedro when we were both working at 2 Park Avenue for Rupert Murdoch. It didn’t go well.

Excer pulled up in his red Honda and Pedro was in the front seat and I was in the back. We were all sharing a spliff in the parked car. It was the 1980’s so things were a bit lax as regards to law enforcement.

On the sidewalk 2 guys were walking up Park Avenue, they were a bit on the swish side which of course didn’t bother me since it’s the swish guys that are the bravest. But it bothered Excer enough to make a comment. I took that as my cue to go back in to the office, leaving Pedro and Excer in the car.

From what I heard, Pedro gave Excer an earful about how uncool it was for him to say what he said about the gay guys. Excer didn’t think he was that wrong at the time until Pedro told him that I was gay. This is one of the reasons I love Pedro so much. He honestly cares for me and looks out for me like that.

Eventually Excer came around and we became good friends, which is why we were hanging out last night at a bar called Kabin on Second Avenue. Kabin was a decent bar, great Happy Hour. One freebie for every drink purchased. Excer and I drank some Stella Artois before heading over to BBQ for some mediocre hamburgers.

Then instead of going out for more beers, I decided to head on home, Excer kindly dropping me off at the 9th Street Path station. I slept ok, Saturday Night Live was a repeat and I didn’t want to watch Kings of Leon again.

Woke up with the sun beaming on my face at 8:00. Went out and did my thing, and came home and made breakfast. Rand and Lisa were going to be at the McSwells flea market and I was planning on making an appearance until Bill called and asked if I could help him move his late father’s documents to a shredder truck that was going to be at Stuyvesant Town.

I took the Path once again into the city. Twice in one weekend is an accomplishment. After helping Bill, we sat and talked and looked at photos of Bill and his parents as well as his sister who died when she was just a child before Bill was born. Bill was such a handsome lad when he was growing up. What happened? Just kidding of course.

Portrait of Bill playing piano 1990, by William Vila Sr.

Had a Padron as I walked from 14th Street and Avenue C to 32nd Street and Sixth Avenue and listened to a playlist that I’ve been compiling while reading the latest Mojo and Uncut music magazines. Just made the train before it pulled out and was in Hoboken in 20 minutes.

Called Rand to see if the flea market was still going on but I missed the whole thing as they were packing up. And now I’m here at the beginning of tonight’s entry.

One more thing, Bill and I will be protesting against the church of latter day Twits at the Manhattan mormon Headquarters at 65th and Broadway at 6:30 on Wednesday night. Hope to see you there.

Black Wa-Da-Da

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Well today is Saturday, a nice day to sleep in on so that’s how I started my day. Last night was spent with Bill in front of the TV. Actually he had choir practice and didn’t come home until 10:00. I watched the usual. When the elections are done will I go back to watching shows I used to watch, like Ugly Betty, or My Name is Earl?

I’ve been watching the Daily Show and The Colbert Report as well as Olbermann and Rachel Maddow. Not exactly escapist fare. Haven’t been to the movies in quite a while either. Totally missed the Dark Knight. It’s still playing out there so maybe I could get it together, but then again I don’t like going to the movies by myself.

Bill Maher was pretty good last night with Alec Baldwin, Christiane Amanpour and Gary Shandling. According to the reports, McCain is slipping in the polls which is good and that people are pretty much over Palin which is a good thing. I do look forward to how the debate is parodied by Saturday Night Live tonight.

This afternoon i watched a documentary on the club Wetlands. It used to be in Tribeca and closed in 2001. 9/11 closed it. They were going out of business anyway after being open for 13 years. The last gig was supposed to be Bob Weir and Ratdog, on 9/14, but everything in the city was canceled at that time. I was supposed to see Cachito from the Buena Vista Social Club that week at BB King’s Nightclub.

I had gone to Wetlands, mainly to see various reggae and ska bands. They mentioned in the documentary that the club had terrible sight lines which was true. One time I remember going with my friend Miriam and her friend Andre to see Burning Spear. We got there at just the right time and were 3 feet away from the stage right in front of where the legendary Winston Rodney would be singing.

Miriam and I were definitely smoking up a storm and even though she said Andre could hang, homeboy couldn’t hang. Apparently we smoked him out and we wound up walking him out of the club into some fresh air outside, giving up our prime spot and missing the show totally. Andre felt bad about this but all Miriam and myself could do was laugh at him. That was probably the last time I had gone to Wetlands.

Andre did help me get a job as a doorman at a building on the Upper East Side. That lasted for a few weeks. My friends had warned me that it wasn’t the job for me, I’m not the subservient type and they were right. My co-workers thought I was a spy for management since there were talks going on with their union, and management seemed to be grooming me to be a scab in case the doormen went on strike.

One night I had to work a double shift and that’s when I realized that I wasn’t cut out for the job. Andre did have it right though, they only wanted me because I was white. After the Wetlands documentary I watched Perseopolis. That was very good. It’s about a girl growing up in Iran and the Vienna during the revolution and the war with Iraq.

Very good animation, so good that I wished they could do the same with Love and Rockets which like Perseopolis started out as a comic book/graphic novel. I could easily see Maggie and Hopey or a story about Luba in Palomar done in the same manner.

Perseopolis was in French with subtitles and they could do the Palomar story in Spanish. I think it’s a good idea. I wonder if Los Bros Hernandez thought of it. I don’t think it’s too late.

Today my mother would have been 80 years old. Hope she’s having a good time out there in the universe.

late night addition: 11:21PM I guess my brother Brian reads this blog from time to time as he just informed me via email that my mother would have been 82 since she was born in 1926 and Brian also guessed that I got my info from wikipedia.