Category Archives: uncategorizable

I Dig Love

It’s been a pretty good day. I had off after all. Got some things done which was nice, spent some money too. I bought some new headphones for the iPod and also a cassette adapter to convert my tapes into mp3’s.

The headphones work fine, the cassette adapter, not so much. I will probably have to figure that one out. The first tape I tried to convert was the Tom Tom Club, Close to the Bone. It’s their second album and of course I like it more than their first album.

The first album is readily available on CD, the second album only available if you buy the deluxe version of the first album. I did that once before, while I was still an office manager. I thought I found a great deal and a good price, but it was actually the CD that I had already.

I tried uploading the cassette earlier but it came out horribly. I can play the cassette through my computer though.

Tonight Bill’s friend Theresa is coming over. She has a new Mac book, as does Bill, and Bill is going to show her how to use her laptop properly. Also tonight Wreckless Eric is playing with Amy Rigby at the Bowery Electric.

Dave Bell is supposed to be going and I was asked to go but I thought I was working. Now that I’m not, I’m not going. I do have to work tomorrow and I am just as happy staying home and doing not much at all. I’m a lazy sod after all.

I heard from Canon today with regards to my camera. I don’t know what was wrong with it, but they fixed it, for under $100.00. I think it was what they call the dry cell on the camera. It just went kaput. I suppose I will find out next week when I am supposed to get my camera back.

Also got a Lampe Berger unit that I bought at the cigar shop and had shipped to the Guitar Bar. It burns an oil that covers up various odors, which we use in the cigar shop to cover up the smell of cigars. Hard to believe some people don’t like the smell of cigars, at least good cigars. I’ve always liked the smell of a good cigar.

I never minded the smell, whether from the cigars that my father smoked around the house or the smell of cigars that Father Lennon would smoke while roaming the halls of St. Francis de Sales in Lodi. And the cigars they smoked were more than like cheap machine rolled cigars, like White Owls or Antonio & Cleopatra.

The smell should go over well with Theresa coming over, and also good for our next door neighbor, Kim, who hasn’t complained but if I can smell cigars (and I smoke cigars) then she could more than likely smell them as well.

Not much else to report on this end. I’m staying in, not going out. Back to work tomorrow and Sunday and off Monday and Tuesday. It’s a messed up schedule but that is the life of retail. The epiphany still holds. It may not be the job that I want, but it’s the job that I got.

I Am The Cosmos

Detectives, mobsters, Hasidim and gun runners as well as an occasional asshole and the regulars that came into the cigar shop. That’s the clientele. We do get a fair amount of police officers and detectives, some working undercover.

So deep undercover that you’d think they were hip hop kids from John Jay or Fordham. Sometimes a detective comes in wearing a bulletproof vest underneath their street clothes. Or sometimes we get uniformed officers, coming in for a few cigars. And an occasional fireman will also come in for a few sticks.

On the flip side of all that, we get some mobsters. Today the detectives were in first and the mobsters were quite nervous, unable to do their thing, nervously looking over their shoulders. They didn’t stay too long, but the detectives did.

And then there is the Hasidim, Moises who comes in every now and then, who today, was sitting across from Rick. Rick says that he’s a gun runner. Goes to Russia and buys artillery and sells to the Mossad as well as Hamas.

Rick is pretty free with his mouth and makes one think that if someone was a gun runner, would they be shooting their mouths off so freely? Pun intended.

Overall, it was a weird day today. It was Calvin and Don with Marcus making an early appearance. Calvin is trying to be very nice since now that Don is leaving. Offered to take me to a jazz show tomorrow night after work.

I, of course, begged off. I don’t like jazz much and I do like to go home immediately after work. Been that way I suppose since 2006. That was when I last had access to a car service to go home. Nowadays, I see those town cars going past me as I walk to the bus.

Going out after work lately is a invitation to trouble, and let’s face it. I’m not much of a drinker these days. That was a surprise to Juan last week when he popped by last week. I don’t care if people want to have a drink or two. I prefer the jazz cigarettes myself.

I will go out for a pint or a cocktail on occasion and enjoy myself as I imbibe, but given the choice I’d take the herbage. It takes longer to recover from booze than it does for the herbs, at least it does for me.

Back at work, Calvin punished Sean a few weeks ago for an infraction that I can’t remember. Reduced his hours from 30 to 16. Now with Don departing, Calvin mentioned to Sean that he was going to increase his hours.

Calvin did not know that Sean has taken a second job at a shop nearby to make up for the hours he lost. And now Calvin is upset with Sean over that. I can’t blame Sean. He needs the work and did what he had to do to make up for the hours missed.

With Don on the way out, it’s almost like it is turning into the blessing/curse for a toast, ‘I hope you live in interesting times’.