Wonderful World Beautiful People | johnozed

It’s Wednesday I think. I’m at the border where the days start to blend into one another. Last night was alright. Another stroll with Julio, this time I was able to get some words in.

A different route around Hoboken and not as winding as the night before. It was a late start anyway. A good walk with a stop to get Bill some of his vitamin water for which we schlepped to a few stores on Washington Street.

Came home where Bill was falling asleep sitting up again. Despite my suggestion that he should go to bed, he actually stayed up for an hour or so more. We didn’t watch anything in particular as far as I could remember. The news and the Simpsons was about it.

Went to bed earlier than I’ve been lately. I did have the plan to go into the office again today to assist Greg Stevens on some projects. He will pay me out of his pocket and expense it. And I may help Greg’s wife out with her charity, stuffing envelopes for a function down the line.

Good people those Stevens are.

I went in and talked to Viveka for a little while. She seems to be getting fed up with the way things are and with the work she is doing, plus the work that I used to do, she is feeling the strain.

I don’t get dressed up these days when I go into the office. Just shorts, sneakers and the usual shirt. I’m not working officially and I don’t see any reason to conform to a job that doesn’t really exist.

Greg Stevens doesn’t mind and I haven’t heard any complaints, just a few utterances from some people wishing they could dress like I do. Someone said I looked cool with the way I dress and I could only reply, that I am cool.

So I did some work for Greg which took an hour or 2 and then had a nice walk across town to the bus terminal enjoying a cigar and listening to a play list of Elvis Costello & the Attractions on my iPod.

Hot and sticky on the streets of Hoboken again, I walked around for a bit before going to the supermarket.

Nice and cool in the store, but the workers are generally belligerent which makes one want to leave the store as soon as possible. Came home and made some dinner, Bill sitting on the couch after cleaning up a bit.

Tonight the plan is to go see Karen Kuhl perform on Pier 13 in Hoboken. It’s the same spot that I went to last month with Rand & Lisa.

Cheap beers, nice evening to be out, provided it doesn’t rain and it’s been forecast. They do have a tent which could be nice. I just hope it doesn’t rain.

Rand and Lisa will be there and Alice Genese is also playing with Karen. Karen usually puts on a good show so in any event it should be worthwhile.

That’s my to do list for the night. What are you up to?
After you read this, that is.

Has anyone noticed or heard the remake of Ceremony by Joy Division-New Order being used in a television commercial? It’s for Absolut, which I guess makes it OK. But it certainly through me for a loop. I only starting drinking Absolut in 1984 because of Scritti Politti

Last night was pretty quiet, just hanging out, chilling. Listening to music mainly. Bill was out stage managing. Julio wasn’t doing much since he was getting up early for work today with NFL films and Eli Manning. Some football player I suppose.

Julio said this Manning fella was pretty tall, 6’5” to be exact. A real 6’5” as opposed to my pseudo 6’2”, so Julio said.

Bill came home a zombie once again and this time with a head cold which is probably from working too hard and not eating properly. I mentioned earlier that Bill should be more careful about his diet when working so hard, but as usual the words got in the way.

He soon fell asleep sitting up watching TV so I gently guided him to bed where he fell fast asleep. I watched some TV for a while and eventually joined Bill. That went well except for the part when I hogged all the sheets, making Bill a bit upset.

I woke up around 9:00, did my thing, bagels, newspaper. Almost got a haircut at Mr. L’s but my barber Tony always had someone in his chair. Made plans with Meghan to meet up this afternoon with Lily and Ruby at the Guitar Bar before heading off to All Points West.

It was just a quick hop to the train station from the Guitar Bar. We stopped for a slice of pizza in the train station before hopping on the Light Rail. Lily and Ruby and their friend Francesca were itching to see Arctic Monkeys and Gogol Bordello.

A friend of Meghan’s brother hooked us up with passes so admission was free which beats paying $90.00 a ticket. It was quite a nice day for a festival. Nary a cloud in the sky. The sun was beaming.

The girls ran into the crowd and Meghan and I found some shade and people watched while we split a beer.

Kool Keith played on a secondary stage and I don’t think I would have minded all the ‘mother fuckers’ coming from his set if it wasn’t for the teenage girls with us. But they were running around in the mud and weren’t paying much attention since they didn’t care for Kool Keith anyhow.

Arctic Monkeys were pretty good but I’m sure if they played a room like McSwells it really would have been impressive. After they finished, Gogol Bordello came on and they were entertaining for a while, but basically all their songs sounded the same after a while.

The girls loved both the Arctic Monkeys and Gogol Bordello. And the crowd did too.

My Bloody Valentine came on a while after that and sure enough they were incredibly loud. I saw them at Studio 54 19 years ago and they were phenomenal, here they were just loud and their power dissipated in the open air.

It was too much of a sound mess and with all the mud from the past week of rain it had worn the girls out. We headed out on the long trek back to the Light Rail, opting to skip the rest of My Bloody Valentine and totally missing Tool who was headlining.

We didn’t care to see Tool anyhow. People were streaming in to see Tool and only Tool as we were leaving.

Lot’s of Tool t-shirts were seen as well as quite a few Beatles t-shirts. Almost as many Beatles t-shirts as were at the Paul McCartney show a few weeks ago.

The ride back was fun, the girls were all charged up from the concert and Lily had legs covered in mud. We made it back to Hoboken where Lily tried cleaning off her legs in a fountain on Pier A, but the water pressure was too strong. She was able to clean her boots though.

A quick late night Thai dinner and soon they were dropping me off before heading off to Gen Ridge. Really a wonderful time today.

Here are some of the pictures I took.