uncategorizable | johnozed

It’s been a dreary wet Friday. I did not sleep so well last night and so waking up at the usual time was not going to happen. With the lack of a good night’s sleep and the rain coming down outside, it made getting out of bed a bit of a chore. Still I got it together a little after 9:00 this morning and heading to the kitchen I turned on the TV, surprised to see the dreaded Matt Lauer on around 9:15. There he was talking about a shooting as I made the coffee before jumping in the shower.

A few minutes later I was awake and drying myself off as the coffee maker did its thing. I turned up the volume on the TV, deciding to get my news from someone other than Matt Lauer and found out about the shooting in Aurora, Colorado. 12 dead, maybe 50, maybe 71 injured at a midnight showing of the latest Batman movie. Some nut job with not just one gun but a few including an assault rifle, went into a crowded movie theater, opened up a smoke canister and just started taking people out. Randomly and casually shooting people as they tried to make it to the exits.

Some bullets even went through the theater wall and into the theater next door. Some people thought it was a promotional thing, a guy all dressed up in armor and whatnot bursting through a door and causing mayhem. It wasn’t mayhem, it was carnage, a massacre. Terrible, just terrible. I hate guns. I have never touched a real gun in my life, I don’t like them at all. I have some police officer friends, one time hanging out with one in my Weehawken apartment, his gun on the table. I could touch it he said and I refused.

I did not even like it in the apartment. Bill has a prop gun here and it is so realistic, it freaked me out so much that I had to leave the room. Of course being in a four room railroad apartment I didn’t go far, but still I had to get away from it. I think prior to 1980 I was fairly ambivalent to guns. After the brutal murder of John Lennon in December 1980 I was steadfastly against guns, donating money to various gun control organizations. Things have certainly and steadily gotten worse since that horrible night almost 30 years ago.

I do have some friends that are gun enthusiasts, card carrying members of the National Rifle Association. Usually I am dumbfounded when I hear of my friend’s memberships since I consider them to be more often than not- intelligent. Now we have a 24 year old gun enthusiast/mad man who basically had an arsenal (6000 rounds bought over the internet) of sorts killing men women and children for no good reason. Already there have been murmurs of how it would have turned out differently is someone else had a gun in that darkened smoky movie theater.

Yes it could have turned out differently. There could have been more dead and more wounded. For some people the problem that there are too many guns and are too readily available can be easily solved by introducing more guns. I don’t know if that can be called logic, but it certainly escapes me. Unfortunately, I am somewhat inured to this type of news, hence my hearing about a shooting and going about my usual morning business. Gabrielle Giffords and those victims in Tucson, Columbine. There seems to be too many to mention actually. Everyday offers a new tragedy somewhere in the world and sometimes it is here on our own doorstep.

You send your kids to school, you don’t expect them to be shot.
You go to a midnight movie, you don’t expect to be shot.

America, so much to answer for…

05 Easy to Be Hard
11 Suffer Little Children

Such a beautiful day again. And once again I’ve been out and about. I was in midtown Manhattan, had a few things I needed to do and when headed in the direction of where I needed to go, I run into former cigar shack employee and current customer, Jerrode. Jerrode is truly a nice guy, very sweet and upbeat and quite outgoing. He works in the vicinity of the cigar shack and was headed back since his lunch hour was ending. We strolled about for a while, meaning I walked him to 56th street before heading back to where I wanted to go.

I had a feeling I would run into someone I knew and I was glad it was him. I don’t like backtracking when I don’t have to so I walked up one avenue and stopped at the salad bar where I used to have lunch, and had some lunch. The customary phone call to Annemarie did not proceed as planned so I left a message on the machine. I got what I needed to get and soon was headed back to the bus terminal. It was the type of day where the past popped up, not just with Jerrode, but also seeing someone’s Facebook page and seeing that someone I had written off was back online.

Not that I am about to refriend this guy. That is not going to happen. That thing is that I have two Facebook accounts. One I started years ago when it was the social network for the Ivy League schools courtesy of a friend that was going to Columbia University. I logged in with an apostrophe and soon forgot about it, until a few months ago when I was checking an old email account that still exists but is rarely used. So now I have two Facebook accounts, one with an apostrophe and the other without. And that is how I discovered that this guy is back online.

He’s blocked me and I’ve blocked him on one account but through looking at the page of someone that we’re both friends with that’s how I saw what he’s up to. And having done that I am glad I’ve moved on. Life is so much better without that wanker mucking things up. So basically there are two people from the past that I came across today. One is sweet as pie and the other is someone I would cross the street to avoid.

Now I am home, Bill just left a little while ago, driving to Atlantic City once again, so I won’t be seeing him until tomorrow morning. We’ll more than likely talk on the phone before he turns in for the night. No plans for the evening except for maybe a stroll around Hoboken later. It’s just too nice out to stay indoors. Life is out there in every sense of the phrase. Not much else to do, not much else to write. Just a beautiful lazy night ahead. Got to enjoy them while you can, you dig?