What are you looking at? | johnozed

Monday Monday, Can’t trust that day. And here I am on a Monday and it hasn’t been so undeserving of trust. Yesterday was quite an interesting day, much more so than today.

For one thing, it was a Sunday and it was a day off. I requested it earlier at the beginning of April. I had plans to visit Hyman Gross in the hospital, first visit post-surgery. His bone density was enough that the surgeon felt setting a pin in his leg/foot/ankle would suffice.

I only expected to be there for an hour but it turned into 2 hours. Hyman had an ultrasound on Friday pre-surgery and while he was waiting there was an alarm in the hospital causing most of the staff to abandon Hyman on a gurney in the hallway, leaving him to holler in vain as he heard the scurrying of mice around the wheels of the gurney.

I hung in there with Hyman, and even offered to move the gurney back to his room so I could get moving along myself, but it was advised to have an orderly do it. I figured it was no big deal since 20 years ago I carried dear Harpy from one floor to another when he was in the hospital.

Luckily Harpy weighed less than the 98 pounds he usually weighs and carried him in my arms down a flight of steps. It all went well with Hyman and I was able to head to the Hoboken Art & Music Festival, a little later than I expected but really it was no big deal.

My main goal was to see Ian Hunter and the Rant Band playing featuring Mr. Wonderful Jim Mastro. And with Jim involved that meant it was more than likely that Lily, Ruby & the funniest girl alive, Meghan would be there. And they were. As was Chaz!

I met Ivan Julian who I have seen on stage a few times. Ivan played with Richard Hell & the Voidoids as well as the Outsets. He looked great then and hasn’t aged one bit, looking as sexy as ever these days. Steve Fallon was around as were several other people from the Maxwells days. I kept mainly to myself though, after saying hello to Steve.

I missed the Steve Wynn & Peter Buck thing, the Baseball Project but I didn’t really know they were playing until about an hour or two before I left the apartment. It was great to see Meghan and the girls, Lily off to Bard, Ruby to be a sophomore next semester and Meghan maintaining her reign as funniest girl alive.

Ian Hunter took the stage, opening with All the Way from Memphis, and doing Mott the Hoople and solo hits, Cleveland Rocks, Once Bitten Twice Shy among others like Somewhere from West Side Story, finishing off with a sing along of All the Young Dudes.

It had gotten cooler and after saying my goodbyes to Meghan and Lily & Ruby and the Jack of Hearts I started for home. Ran into Rand & Lisa, and then the three of us ran into RoDa & Elly with Logan and Autumn in tow.

RoDa, born & raised in Hoboken knows everyone and we lost track of him. Rand & Lisa walked me to the corner of my block before they headed to their home. I came upstairs, quite slowly since once again I was standing on concrete for a few hours, though wearing Airwalks helped.

I turned on the TV and noticed there was no audio. Instead I watched a DVD via Netflix. An Australian movie, Animal Kingdom. I heard it was like the Australian version of Goodfellas and this was way more intense than how I remember Goodfellas to be.

It was so good, nicely paced and so intense that at one point I thought about turning off the movie, it had gotten that far under my skin. Jacki Weaver who plays the matriarch was nominated for a best supporting actress Oscar, but went home empty handed. This movie was bound to give her more notice, worldwide if not the States.

Bill came home in the last 20 minutes of the movie and I told him about the cable audio being out so he called the cable company as I watched the extras on the DVD. The woman on the other end of the line instructed Bill who instructed me to unplug the cable box and plug it in again so the box would reboot.

Fair enough. But before that I had turned on the TV to show Bill how it was not working when we saw the Osama Bin Laden had been killed. Big news indeed and here we were without any TV News.

The NY Times website had the info and Bill relayed the news to the woman on the phone who was understandably excited. We eventually got the audio back and watched the news being repeated eventually deciding on the BBC and waiting for President Obama to make the announcement regarding Osama Bin Laden being killed.

Bill went to bed after a little while, I stayed up late watching and not getting anything but the basic information. Tomorrow I have off from work. Bill is taking a half day since he is singing the National Anthem at CitiField before the NY Mets/ San Francisco Giants game tomorrow night. Very exciting and we are understandably nervous.

Bill more so than I am, but still I will probably catch up eventually.

Ian Hunter's Back!

Ian Hunter & Jim Mastro

Baby, It WAS You

Writing on a full stomach and much earlier than usual. A day off today for me and it’s been somewhat busy and cold. Last night, came home and wrote what could be the dullest entry ever. It was just going through the motions mainly. Today, or hopefully tonight will be different. No guarantees.

Can’t type for shit though. By the time you get to read this it’s been cleaned up and edited, but vowels and consonants are not making the transition from the brain to the fingers. In fact almost every sentence has had at least one typo in it. What’s the dealie yo?

So last night I just wrote while the Ed Show went on behind me. Bill was in bed, still not feeling 100% and with the last few performances of Ankhst going on the next three days (Sunday might not go on), he wanted to get as much rest as possible which meant that he was in bed watching movies on his iPad.

I typed and typed and listened to the news from Wisconsin and Libya. Bill eventually came out and kissed me good night before turning in. I stayed up. The night before I watched Date Night starring Steve Carrell and Tina Fey. It was alright. The outtakes at the end of the movie were funnier than the whole thing. It did have its moments though but I would hold off on recommending it, unless there was absolutely nothing else on.

I was soon fast asleep next to Bill last night. He’s been doing well in not snoring and I’m grateful. He’s been wearing a mouth guard and he was wearing it the other night when he started snoring. I nudged him to let him know he was rattling the windows and he grunted and put on his sleep apnea mask.

It was easier to do that than it would be to make adjustments to the mouth guard. This morning Bill was kissing me goodbye while I slept, telling me that I looked adorable. I just grunted and wanted to keep on sleeping. Of course I appreciate it now, 12 hours later.

I got up and got myself together on my own time. Went out for the paper and some bagels as well as some grocery shopping. After breakfast I decided to do what I planned to do, which was go to Chelsea and check out some galleries.

Before I headed out, Bill called, worried since I didn’t call him while waiting for the bus or before heading into the cigar shack. He didn’t know I had the day off and was relieved to hear that nothing was the matter and everything was alright.

I walked over to the Path train and rode to 14th Street. A brisk walk to Chelsea, through the meat packing district where they don’t pack meat anymore. The main reason I went to Chelsea was to check out a show on 19th Street but I figured it was too late and it was. The show had closed a week or so ago.

It was a lackluster day for art. Nothing inspiring, nothing fun really. It wasn’t that crowded though and I did not mind that. I wound up walking from 14th Street to the bus terminal at 42nd Street. As long as I kept moving I didn’t get cold.

A ride on the bus back to Hoboken and soon I was home making myself a dinner. Bill is in the play again tonight and I have nothing much to do. I don’t really mind. It’s back to work for me tomorrow and I’m not sweating it.