johnozed

And it’s the second day of a two day stretch of having time off from the cigar shack. An even better day than yesterday, with blue skies and warm breezes. It’s been warm enough that the clothes I washed yesterday were dry already. Sometimes it takes a day or two.

We don’t have a laundry line outside so the clothes hang in the bathroom as well as hanging on racks in the kitchen. I do my laundry at home while Bill prefers to drop his clothes off to be laundered outside. If we weren’t living on the top floor (and of course if we didn’t have a washing machine in the kitchen) I would be doing my laundry at a Laundromat, since there are several all within walking distance.

I was out and about a few times today, trying to get the most out of having 48 hours off. No visits to the galleries again, I reckon I can always do that next Tuesday, the second of another two days off in a row. Perhaps Harpy can join me if he’d like. We had a good time last time. This time with my dodgy knee and Harpy with his dodgy ankle we should make a good pair.

No running and an avoidance of stairs should work well for us both. I’m counting on Harpy to read this and decide whether or not to go with me. I heard from him last night, of course he called when I was watching Frontline, a story about Bradley Manning and WikiLeaks. After 20 minutes of Harpy I ended the call and wanted to see what I had planned on watching.

I also started watching The Social Network after the 11:00 news. I enjoyed it, Jesse Eisenberg was quite intense as Mark Zuckerberg. Quite a smart fella, very arrogant and very much a dick. It was good, don’t know how much of the story was actually true, but with an Aaron Sorkin script and David Fincher directing it was definitely highbrow entertainment which isn’t bad at all. I recommend it. Is Jesse Eisenberg one of the best actors around today? As good as Joseph Gordon Levitt?

Tonight is Hoboken’s Memorial Day parade and where I went last year and was moved enough to applaud the veterans and current servicemen, this year I’m not so much interested in attending. I just had a couple of hamburgers from Stine, left over from Alexander’s birthday party, and not really into going outside.

And also today was the first day that I am wearing shorts. It’s in the 80 ° range today so I feel somewhat justified in showing off my pasty white legs. I think the knee brace lends me some street cred.

Today I also heard from the bibliothèque. The head librarian wrote to me, saying that something may be opening up, part time and they would keep my resume on file. Even though it’s part time, it’s a foot in the door and since it’s a block away from where I live, I would definitely save on the $200 a month commute that I am currently paying.

And there is also some communiqués from the Maxwells crowd, with even the wonderful Steve Fallon chiming in on occasion. So it’s been an interesting kind of day, reconnecting with old friends and perhaps getting a lead on a local job.

Today I picked up a whole lot of Velvet Underground music from the bibliothèque. Stuff I own on vinyl that I just converted so that I can play them on my iPod, including the box set, Peel Slowly & See. I also bought Raphael Saadiq’s newest, Stone Rollin’ and also Bob Dylan’s John Wesley Harding.

It’s been a pretty good day.

Not much happened today, at least not around Hoboken. It was a day off for me and I was fairly busy. Laundry and errands were the main things and both were accomplished with relative ease. I scanned the job listings but didn’t send anything out.

I did send an email to a cousin of mine and once again asked if he knew of anything opening up. I did not get any response last time and I’m really not holding my breath this time. I sent some emails to Danny the K and Greg Stevens a week or so ago and there was no response from them either.

I sent yet another resume to the local bibliothèque, this time asking for a response either good or bad. Whether or not I hear from the head librarian remains to be seen. Julio told me they were looking for help at his company but only looking at women which for me, sucks.

It would have been something else though since Julio and I, despite being good friends, always clashed when working together. We worked different nights at Maxwells and the rare times we worked side by side proved to be difficult. But I would have happily put my shoulder to the wheel and done whatever I could do to get that job and keep that job.

I mainly stayed local today, thought about checking out some galleries but by the time I gave it some serious consideration, the moment had passed as did my interest. It’s been otherwise a very boring day and I didn’t mind at all.

It’s also Bob Dylan’s 70th birthday today and I as well as a few other Facebook friends have been posting videos of Bob or covers of Dylan’s songs online. I actually started last night, with Fourth Time Around, one of my favorite Dylan songs, from Blonde on Blonde.

I think credit for my admiration of Bob Dylan should go to Joe Lizzi, a bloke I worked with at Right Track Recording almost 20 years ago. Joe liked Bob a lot and lent me Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde.

Initially I saw a lot of similarities between Highway 61 and the first Velvet Underground record. Tom Wilson produced the Velvets record as well as Like a Rolling Stone, Bob Johnston produced the rest of Highway 61, but Wilson also produced Bringing It All Back Home in its entirety.

I did have the brief occasion to meet Bob once, only for a few minutes at Right Track. I forget what he was doing but I did escort him to the studio he was due in and told him I liked his songs. I know, how original eh? Mickey Hart from the Grateful Dead was also in another studio and I told Mickey (who was really super nice) that Bob was in the studio. I’m not sure if they met up, but despite my avoidance of the Dead, I did know that Bob and the Dead toured together a few years before that day.

Today is also Patti LaBelle’s birthday and she seems to be getting the short shrift again. I am not sure if I met Patti LaBelle, she may have recorded at Right Track as well, it was the top notch recording studio in New York City for a while, but I did see her sing at a Prince after show 2AM concert at Roseland where she started wailing and Prince surrendered the stage to her, telling Patti it was all hers.

All in all it’s a good day for music, 2 great personalities and performers to be thankful for.