Time on First Avenue

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It’s a Tuesday and it feels like a Wednesday. 48° in Hoboken. I like posting the temperature since I get to use the ALT 0176 code for the °. Bill is on the road, Mike is asleep. L’Orange Merde prattles on but I ain’t watching. Couldn’t be arsed.

My mind wanders. I am watching St. Vincent, a film starring Bill Murray, Melissa McCarthy, and Naomi Watts, and looking up info on Wikipedia. I donate $!.50 a month to Wikipedia since I use it daily.

Part of St. Vincent was filmed at the Belmont Racetrack and my mind went back to 30 years ago. A friend from back then was looking to go to Belmont and asked me where it was. Being a music guy I thought it was in the Bronx since Dion and the Belmonts were from the Bronx, so to me it made sense.

It turns out that the Belmont Racetrack is in Elmont, Long Island. I’ve never been obviously and it’s unlikely that I will ever go there. I’ve only been to one racetrack and that was 50 years ago, the Meadowlands.

I went with my brother Brian who was playing the Carole King Tapestry album which to my ears, I did not appreciate it at the time. The song I mainly remember was Smackwater Jack. I met Carole King once in the nineties at Right Track Recording.

She was visiting James Taylor who recorded at Right Track frequently, probably because he was being produced by the affable, cigar smoking Frank Filapetti who was friends with the owner, Simon Eric Andrews.

Carole was pleasant enough to chat with. I mentioned that I had seen her daughter Louise Goffin the night before playing at Fez under Time Cafe with the Loser’s Lounge, so she might have been surprised to be talking about her daughter like a proud mother.

Frank Filapetti was inadvertently an influence on my cigar smoking. I would have to go to a cigar shop and purchase some cigars for Frank and in so doing, I was introduced to the world of premium cigars, eventually buying one of my own.

It was around that time, I remember, buying a Henry Clay cigar and smoking it on my way to improv class, walking through Central Park. I won a contest from Time Out magazine for a season of improv classes with Chicago City Limits on First Avenue.

There were probably two dozen classmates the first week. I would be early and out on the sidewalk out front being funny, having some of my classmates in stitches before class. But I could not be funny in class and kept breaking the number one improv rule of ‘Not saying No’. If you say no the improv skit stops. Or so they said, the flow is discontinued.

On the sidewalk, I was funny. On the stage, I was not. I didn’t really respect the improv teacher either. Tonight’s word was ‘engaging’ in Hoboken and the improv teacher was lacking in engagement. The initial class had about 24 students, the next week 19, then 15. It may have gone to single digits.

These classes weren’t cheap so I don’t know if the classmates dropping out lost money or had a deal. I won a contest and so leaving after about a month was no skin off my back.

Bloom in 10

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34° on A Monday night in Hoboken. It’s been quite an out of the ordinary couple of days. It’s March 3. Friday night had Bill, Mike, and myself watching Ted Lasso. Mike seems enamored of the show as Bill and I had been in the past.

Bill did his last minute packing thing, running around the apartment before he went to sleep for an early departure Saturday morning. Mike soon fell asleep on the couch, I turned everything on low on my computer before turning in.

Bill gave me a goodbye kiss and I went back to sleep. I regret not walking to the door to see him off. I was up an hour after that, Mike was up already. Mike had expressed a desire to shoot some photos in Jersey City and I was game.

The day before we discussed it and he had packed a bag with his wardrobe and accoutrements so I wasn’t taken by surprise. And Saturday was a nice day, the temperatures reaching 60°. We took a Lyft to Jersey City since the baggage was too unwieldy to walk over, though we agreed we would walk back.

Between Mike and myself I have a better cameraphone and I wound up taking shots of Mike in different shirts, sneakers, and even a leather harness. He has his admirers online and I provided artistic direction while I took the photos.

It was fun working underneath an overpass that had some wonderful graffiti that Mike ably posed in front of, smoking a cigar that we shared. I wound up taking a couple of hundred photos, with maybe a dozen of myself smoking the shared cigar. It was a good time.

We walked home as it had started getting chilly and windy. The walk was enjoyable. Mike just takes it all in, the view and whatever it is that I was saying, my personal history of Hoboken. He never says anything.

It was like that in December when Bill, Mike, and I went to see the Rockefeller Xmas tree. Bill giving his spiel about midtown Manhattan, me interjecting and Mike just listening to our history lesson.

So it was more of the same on Saturday with just me spilling my guts about Hoboken, how it was, and how it is now. I made pasta for the both of us and we finished watching Ted Lasso. Mike works on Sundays so he was off to bed and I too was off to sleep soon after.

Bill wasn’t around so I had Mike sleep in the bed instead of the couch. Mike was up early and off to work. On Sundays, I just stay in bed until it’s time to watch Jane Pauley and Sunday Morning on TV. It was a lonely day and I am just no good on my own.

Bill was on the road and mostly unavailable, Mike was at work and sort of unavailable. I wandered off to the supermarket to get various items. Mike was coming over again, the plan was to have him sleep over so I wouldn’t be alone. Bill agrees that this is a good idea.

We watched the Oscars on TV and texted with Bill back and forth. It was enjoyable, Mike was disappointed that Wicked didn’t win much. I was disappointed that A Complete Unknown, the Bob Dylan movie got nothing. Bill has a copy of the evening’s winner, Anora which we will watch on his return.

Today was not such a good day. Bill was fine being where he was, Mike was at work, and I was home climbing the walls. There was a drastic mistake of chatting with Mike online before I had enough coffee and it went south soon after. Nothing bad was said but nothing bad was said with me being argumentative and Mike being somewhat accusatory.

Then it turned into Mike saying he was just going to go home, the hanging out here in Hoboken had run its course. I was a bit hurt by that and told him his bags were packed and he could call a Lyft home. The phone call ended badly obviously.

I talked to Bill about it and he suggested seeing Mike and talking about it face-to-face. Mike brought it up earlier and I said no, but after Bill’s idea, I changed my mind and met Mike after work.

We met and it was good. He had a bona fide problem with his work situation so we discussed that. It went well and seemed like a remedy to our conversing on the phone earlier. We came back home and ate some Mexican food, and just talked.

I did my best with advice, knowing that I couldn’t really say much but be supportive. He needs a new job so I will help him with that as I myself look for work. I’ve set him up in the bed again, we cuddled, which he desperately needed. He soon drifted off to sleep as the Brian Eno Bloom 10 app played its notes. I am two rooms away writing on the computer as he sleeps.