Bob Dylan | johnozed

I am so over this winter weather. It’s spring and you would think it would be warmer and it is, but it’s in the low 40’s and damp out. Not very pleasant at all. Grey skies all day. I had lunch with Juan, just some pizza on Washington Street. He got a job at a place that I interviewed with. It’s a card shop and I walked by last month to drop off a resume. To my surprise it turned into an interview with me in torn jeans and smelling like cigars. The interview lasted about an hour, 45 minutes with the owner and 15 minutes with his wife.

I thought it went well but apparently it didn’t. I even suggested Chaz apply there which he did, but since Chaz and I are in that age group that no one wants anymore, they went with Juan who is half my age. Turnabout is fair play since I did snatch the Maxwell’s job from under Juan. Well probably Juan and several other applicants. I used my history with the principal players as well as the club itself. Juan might have been annoyed but I told him that he was the one that employers want these days. He can speak 3 languages and is in that desirable age group.

I did attempt to get Juan a bussing position, as a way to get his foot in the door at Maxwell’s but he was snatched up by a tony restaurant down the street. So he has 2 jobs, the card shop during the day and the restaurant at night. It’s not 7 days a week and the schedule is a jumble but he works it out somehow.

Once again a lot of laughs were had with Juan. I do love having him around. Bill enjoys him too and they both gang up on me when they’re together. I take consolation in the fact that it takes 2 of them to attack little old me. It may happen again tonight, Bill is out and about and Juan might stop by on his way home after work. I wouldn’t mind if it did happen again. I can dish it out and I can take it. So can the two of them, up to a point I reckon.

I stopped by the Guitar Bar and had a nice chat with Mr. Wonderful Jim Mastro. We talked about Bob Dylan coming to Hoboken in July which is very exciting. Unfortunately it will be a Friday night and I will likely have to work. I already made arrangements to have off this Friday to see Bill sing at CitiField and also the first week in May when I am attending a lecture by Brian Eno at Cooper Union.

I was definitely in Eno mode last night, watched a couple of documentaries on Brian Eno on YouTube and thought about having those 8 Eno albums re-autographed. I met Brian Eno at Skyline Studios when he was producing Laurie Anderson and asked if he wouldn’t mind signing his first four solo albums as well as his first four Ambient releases. Unfortunately he signed them with a thin sharpie which doesn’t really show his signature very well.

But after what happened in Boston during the marathon I suppose security will be tight and I don’t want to be ‘that guy’ carrying around a bunch of stuff which may or may not be signed. Still I am very excited at the prospect of hearing just what it is that Brian Eno will have to say. No matter what I am sure it will be interesting to say the least.

And my friend Jimmy Seltzer was briefly glimpsed on the Colbert Report.

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.