Brenda Renetti

I admit I am bewitched by Billy Joel’s Scenes from an Italian Restaurant, Bewitched, since the 1970s.

So much so, I just played it at my desk once and a half times, the halftime is I went back to the beginning cuz I wasn’t paying much attention. And I actually thought for a spell that it was about a woman named Brenda Renetti instead of Brenda and Eddie.

So it’s a Friday, it is August 22nd, it is my sister’s 71st birthday, and she and her husband are going to Europe next week for a month, how nice. I would like to do the same with Bill someday, but it’s not happening any time soon since our schedules are so varied and I don’t have a passport anymore.

I sit in the shade next to 104 5th avenue, having a cigar, not a mini cigar but an actual cigar, a 52 gauge, I believe. And I have been a gavon today. I ate a lot this morning, and it wasn’t necessarily good stuff, but it was sweet stuff: donuts, bacon, and eggs sandwich, croissant cookie, and to make things better, I had a salad for lunch which was a chore to get through because there was so much salad and so little room in my stomach.

I had to go to the old location for the fruit tree for a meeting, it should have lasted an hour, but lasted about 2. I sat next to Lex Luthor, who got up and vomited twice, which was disconcerting to say the least. Is he bulimic? Is he doing drugs? Is it any of my business? Perhaps if he’s contagious, I’m thinking Captain Trips.

It was stated that there is a plan for Lex Luthor and me to exchange spots once or twice a month. I would prefer once a month, but I don’t think I have any say in the matter. Perhaps if Marcus and Jimmy Chile make him uncomfortable, it might work out for my benefit. Only time will tell I reckon.

I got to the office earlier, I was able to eat my bacon and egg sandwich, and then what’s up 25 blocks to the office meeting. And I lackadaisically had an enjoyable walk back to the office, where I am working underneath the fruit tree.

Mike is supposed to come over tonight, and tomorrow we are going to see a preview of the play Bill is in. That should be exciting. Mike actually knows more about it than I do.
It’s funny in June, I was still commenting on how Mike doesn’t talk that much, and he responded that I should talk to his old friends who would tell him they could never get him to shut up.

Well, last night was one of those nights where I could never get him to shut up. He had a lot to say it was all worthwhile, but I was getting tired and I had to go to bed. I do enjoy our talks and talk about serious issues, things that are on his mind, theology, etc. I don’t think anybody else in his life would be able to have a conversation with him like that. He unfriended someone who was Maga. An old hookup that he reconnected with on the phone, and as they spoke, this person explained how much he supports L’Orange Merde, much to Mike’s dismay.

Without being presumptuous, I think his views on philosophy and politics might have been somewhat influenced by me and Bill. And that’s not such a bad thing after all.

Reunions
Dunkin donuts
Thursday, August 21st, 2025. Last night I watched the Devo documentary on Netflix, and it was very good. Happy to see that they’re all getting together or getting along at least in front of the camera. I was a long-time devotee of Devo, so much so that my brother wrote it on the basement blackboard in the house we grew up “John is a noted devotee.”

So I was thinking of reunions. Specifically, the 20-year reunion for my high school, someplace in East Rutherford. I did not enjoy it, although I was pretty much wired from various substances.I had cash and hired a car to drive me there and drive me back, and the driver sat in the parking lot while I was inside getting wasted.

Talking to people that I hadn’t seen in 20 years and realizing that I never want to see them again. But two guys that I wanted to see were not there, Jim Carley and John Nesselt. Jim died in 97 while jogging, and John is who knows where, but now it’s been 45 years, and I haven’t seen him, and that’s much too much time to reestablish any connection, and like I said, I never want to see these other people that I graduated with ever again. Unless it’s a family reunion, I just don’t want to know.

Online there is some noise about a documentary on Maxwell’s, of which I do not plan to take part. It’s just not my thing, I suppose. Fallon’s arranging it or putting it out there and it’s been published in Variety and a few other online publications and they’re looking for photos and stories.

I have notebooks of when I worked there, but looking back at those notebooks a few years ago, i.e., 12 years ago, it’s all about me looking for drugs, hanging out with Julio, and describing the atmosphere around me, not very entertaining for somebody that’s not me I suppose I guess.

This morning I had an encounter at Dunkin’ Donuts. Not a pleasant encounter. Each day, I get a receipt, and on that receipt is a code that I enter to take a brief survey and submit for a free donut the next day. Today I went to not my usual spot but a spot where I think they were nicer.

But they were not nicer since they were insisting that the QR code on my phone was a screenshot when is directly in an email I spent too much time trying to describe that so much so that I was flustered and left my free donut there and walked out. I have written some nasty reviews, not nasty per se, but detailed messages about some horrible person who challenges is my authority, how dare she! First world problems, I reckon that’s all I got.

Bill did not get home until 1:30, by which time I was fast asleep. The previews begin tomorrow for his play, Postal Madness, not his play, but the play that he is in. He has not acted in a play in a number of years, and now he is. Mike has been helping out with the lines, for which Bill has been very grateful.

Ghostface Killah is expected in a few hours. Ghostface was charming.

Whatever happened to that wardrobe resident, David Kitchens?