Tag Archives: Bill

Your Eyes

I’m pretty tired. Pounding the pavement today. It actually went well. Walked from the Path train to 40 Wall Street, where I took the elevators to the Third and Fourth Floors.

It wasn’t the dank hole I expected it to be and I didn’t see any dank holes like I expected to see. I don’t know why the Susquehanna Investment Group has such a bad reputation.

You might think that a privately held global investment, trading and technology firm servicing securities markets worldwide would have their slack cut for them but apparently that’s not so.

Arthur Dantchik, Jeff Yass, Steve Bloom, Eric Brooks, Andrew Frost and Joel Greenberg all sent their warmest greetings and regards. Yass and Dantchik are a pair of regular jokers, with the knock knock jokes and other Pennsylvania humor.

They seemed like good guys though behind closed doors, the refrain of ‘watch the teeth, watch the teeth’ did raise some eyebrows. I didn’t stay too long, just long enough to make my presence known. Susquehanna Investment Group certainly gets it’s name in the news often enough, oddly though it doesn’t involve insider trading, at least not yet.

Soon I was on my way to Broad Street, to Barclay Rex. Nice situation, Wall Street area, good looking men in their suits and ties. I’d be happy to be one of them should the need arise. I had a good meeting with the manager and the assistant manager.

Never had a meeting before where I was offered a cigar. Of course I said yes and sat there smoking a cigar and answering questions. I answered honestly and truthfully and that seemed to be what they wanted to hear.

No trying to figure out what that might be, just saying it and them looking a bit amazed at my responses. After about an hour our meeting was over. They said I could sit there and finish the cigar so that’s what I did.

Walked over to the train and headed uptown. Saw David Allen Grier on the street as I made my way to see Bill. Also took a look at a spot where Tariq said he sometimes plays for the tourist dollar but the only people besides tourists were sketch artists.

It was good to see Bill. He’s so supportive, saying things about how good I looked and really happy to hear that the meeting went so well. I was certainly glad to be able to tell him some good news for a change, especially after me being a bit gloomy the past couple of days.

We walked over to Godiva where Bill bought a bag of dark chocolate truffles for me. They were almost as sweet as Bill. Walked over to Macy’s after that. They’re having a sale on eyeglasses so I checked them out. Of course the frames on sale were crap, and not my style.

I did see some nice ones that were more expensive and maybe the insurance will cover them somewhat. Despite all the care I put into the eyeglasses I have now, somehow they’ve wound up scratched. And I rarely used paper to clean the lenses, always used the special cloths that were recommended.

Maybe I’m paranoid but one of the last times I was at Cohen’s Optical and had them fix a screw, I could swear they were given back to me more scratched than they were originally. Another meeting is scheduled for next week and Bill suggests I wear the exact same thing for my ‘call back’. Seems like a novel idea.

In that case, I had better get the shirt and tie to the cleaners forthwith!

Forsooth!

That's my Bill

That's my Bill


Me, smoking 'their' cigar

Me, smoking 'their' cigar

Crazy About Love

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Well it’s Monday again. Hoboken was semi deserted yesterday, my guess is that a lot of people were off visiting their mothers. It was a gloomy and windy day and I didn’t do much of anything.

Last night Bill was home after spending the day with his mother. He was back I time to catch The Pacific which was of course quite intense. One more episode next week, which involves the Marines coming home to the lives they left behind and that will be that.

Bill and I watched Treme after that, which carried over the feeling from The Pacific that something terrible was about to happen. Can’t change gears so easily after such intensity. Treme was good too. Excellent cast and we will watch basically anything that Khandi Alexander is in.

Last night I lent my guitar to Mike Cecchini. Nice guy, I know he’ll take care of it. He kept calling it ‘she’, but I think it’s a ‘he’. Hung out with him for a few minutes on my front steps. I’ll probably go and catch his set at Louise & Jerry’s tonight, to hear him and to also hear my guitar.

I’m always playing the guitar and can’t really tell how it sounds even though people have told me it sounds good. Me. Going out. On a Monday night. What am I nuts? Mike’s paying for the pints since I’m doing him the favor.

I also invited Mike and his girlfriend to the party in July. He might get up and play a song or two. So far for that I have Lily & Tim, two of the Street Corner Mourners and Jon & Deena, two former Cucumbers. It could turn into a hootenanny.

I really miss my guitar. Last night I looked up Dreadlock Holiday by 10cc and wanted to play it, but…

I neglected to write about Smoke. I know I wrote about my disdain, but actually there is a redeeming part to the movie. Specifically the last five minutes or so. Auggie’s story of finding the wallet of some kid who stole from his cigar store.

He decides to go to the address in the wallet on Christmas day and finds an old blind woman living there. It turns out she is the shoplifter’s grandmother. He tells the story and during the credits it’s acted out by Harvey Keitel and Clarice Taylor.

It’s so sweet and with Tom Waits ‘Innocent When You Dream’ playing it’s tear inducing and almost makes you forget the rest of the movie.

This afternoon I watched Down to Earth on cable which was a movie Bill & I saw when we first started going out. It’s basically Chris Rock’s remake of Heaven Can Wait which was a remake of Here Comes Mister Jordan.

It’s a cute movie, not too shabby and has a few giggles in it. It was a good date movie and still easy to watch years later.

A visit to the bibliothèque was in order. I returned Smoke, Black Dynamite which was funny and very short, Rufus Wainwright: Milwaukee At Last! And No Wave, a book about the No Wave scene of Lower Manhattan from 1977-1980 by Thurston Moore and Byron Coley.

No Wave was a good book, though I would have used a larger typeface. The Rufus Wainwright CD was good as well. It also had a DVD of the live concert as well as some extras of some songs from the Montreux Jazz festival and a short bit of Rufus and his band backstage practicing some Italian operas for a wedding I guess they were hired to play. That was beautiful.

I was also able to get from the bibliothèque the boxed set of the Beatles mono albums which is everything up to the White Album, though the singles are also available on the Past Masters double CD, included and also in Mono.

I heard from the restaurant that Bill and I went to on Saturday. They read what I wrote to them in an email and they were very apologetic. They said the tip was generous and the server was quite happy about it. Why she went from hot to cold so fast could not be explained, especially since the server said she was happy about the tip.

Both Bill & I noticed her sudden change though and the gent on the phone told us to give a call when we come back in again and mention his name or the hostess’ name and we will have our meal comped. That was nice of them. I told Bill and he was thrilled.

So that’s about it on this end. Fairly busy. Can’t wait to get my guitar again tonight. Me miss him.

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From Smoke:

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