Tag Archives: Bill

I Forgive You

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Well it’s certainly been a long day. Zack and Bradley are hootin’ and hollerin’ in the office, I am manning the front of the store, Who knows what is so funny? Not my concern. I just want to go home. Day one of four eleven hour days. Tomorrow it will be Zack and Thomas.

Last night was definitely a lot of fun. I made it into Manhattan to Bill’s office holiday party. Nice people, good food and a few Amstels for me thank you very much. The combo, Smooth N’ Fusion did an excellent job and I shot video for every song they did. I haven’t had much of a chance to upload them to YouTube but I will soon enough, when I have the time.

Just now an elderly Eastern European woman came in after having a problem with a local pricey supermarket. Covering her mouth as she spoke I could barely figure out what was being said through her thick accent.

I recommended she talk to an auxiliary police officer in the area and she said they weren’t around, so I poked my head in the office where Zack and Bradley are laughing at spread sheets and told them I was escorting her to the auxiliary cop who was as usual quite nearby..

They barely noticed as I walked out, so engrossed in Excel. SO back to the party, food and drinks and excellent songs performed by Bill and company, starting with I Wish by Stevie Wonder with a charming gaffe on Bill’s part.

Bill had also rented a Zip Car to take some equipment back to where he stage managed last month and then we drove Kirk the flautist and a woman from the cultural center up to the Bronx. I hadn’t been to the Bronx in years and driving up the Grand Concourse was a trip in itself. Not as run down or burnt out as I heard or previously seen, some truly grand buildings with holiday lights.

I know it looks different during the day but last night the Grand Concourse was looking magical. After dropping off our passengers it was a trip to figure out how to get back and my GPS on the smartphone was near dead but still we figured if we get wet, we would be in the Harlem River and more than likely had gone too far.

But that didn’t happen as we drove on the Martha part of the George Washington Bridge. Bill had a great laugh when I suggested we take the Martha, having never heard that before whereas I thought that is what everyone called the lower level of the bridge. Home later than expected but with not a care in the world, just driving around with my beloved spouse after seeing him play his keyboards and swinging and singing and getting merry like Christmas made for a wonderful evening.

Now I just want to get home, 25 minutes left. Zack not in any rush to get home to his expectant wife and daughter and Bradley just being Bradley with no particular place to go. I made haste and got out of there as Bradley farted around trying to figure out what a boy from North Carolina could do in midtown Manhattan. I was all set to go when he asked me to wait up and wait up is what I did just so he could skip away, perhaps into the headlines of the New York Post.

As I rode the bus, Julio texted me, Stine and Alexander are in Denmark and he was looking to go out for a pint. If I had a normal Monday through Friday job it would be no problem, but since tomorrow will be day two out of four eleven hour shift days, it’s not going to happen.

Welcome to the future.







22 – Ode to Billie Joe

I Follow Rivers

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Well it’s a day off and I am killing time before heading into the city to visit Bill’s office party. It’s been a weird day to say the least. First off I burned my finger trying to get the heater to work properly. It’s blistered and I am relying on the present day old wives tales and remedies, in other words, I am using the internet.

Finger running under cold water. Aloe, actually sunblock lotion- as well as apple cider vinegar and now it is under a bandage. It’s not as painful as it was earlier. Initially it wasn’t painful at all but within minutes I started to feel it. Luckily I’m not playing guitar in Bill’s combo, just shooting video.

According to Bill’s Facebook update, he is readying himself and his ensemble SmoothnFusion for their first gig. It promises to be a fun evening, and instead of cutting out to let Bill have his fun with his work mates, I will be hanging and eating and perhaps drinking. It’s likely to be the only holiday work party that I will be attending since you can bet that the cigar shack won’t be having anything like that.

In fact, I made the mistake of opening an email from the cigar shack. Apparently numbers are down and the new head cheese is unhappy with that fact. In turn he is coming down on Zack and Zack is coming down on Bradley, Thomas and Jerry Vale as well as myself.

Of course the head cheese whizzes do not seem to take into consideration that sales are down nearly everywhere, and in a store such as the cigar shack, a lot of people that had the money to buy pricey items in the previous months and years don’t have it this year.

Thomas, Bradley and myself have spent hours emailing our customers reminding them that we are still in business and ready to sell and ship cigars and accessories whenever they would like, but the cigar shack offers no sales, no two for one deals, no discounts. It’s merely business as usual.

And since it is business as usual people have been buying the cigars and accessories elsewhere at other cigar stores in the city or online where it is even cheaper. All over the country, bricks and mortar stores are in difficult positions due to it being cheaper to buy cigars online. And reading the email I am reminded once again that shit truly runs downhill.

Can’t sell a $5,000 humidor every day, which I proved the next day when my sales as well as Bradley and Jerry Vale’s sales all took a nosedive. My problem is that I should not have read that email on my day off, my own time.

So tomorrow when I return I will send even more emails to my customers who if they don’t ignore the email, could likely be sending them to their spam folders. I myself get plenty of cigar offers from various cigar distributors, back from when I used to work at the cigar shack, and I do take a cursory look before deleting them, so I can’t really fault any of my customers for doing the same.

I guess I will also have to change my tactics and stop treating people the way I like to be treated when I go shopping or rather when I used to go shopping. I too, shop online you see. When I would go to a store where there were sales people on the floor (bookstores and record stores generally leave you alone) I wasn’t too keen on having a sales person hover around me, or in my face pushing high end items that I couldn’t afford nor was I much interested in.

That will have to change and I will have to be all over them like white on rice. I’ll just do the opposite of how I like to be treated when I shop.

And now, enough of that infernal place. Time to get ready for Bill’s office party. I am looking forward to it totally and I know Bill is as well. It is going to be a fun time for all concerned and you know what? I deserve a fun time I think.



Dave Stewart – Its My Party