Tag Archives: Cigar Shop

I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine

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Ugh what a day it’s been today. It started out OK I guess. Nothing really bad happened but at work, that’s where it went down. The day started with me and Don Birch and Raymond and it was alright.

Then Don Birch announced he was leaving early for Rosh Hashanha. He’s not really a practitioner of Judaism, but I think it was his girlfriend whispering in his ear to take off. Marcus was out of the shop as was Calvin, so Don was basically allowed to play the religious holiday card without any interference from management.

That sort of left Raymond and myself alone in the shop, waiting for Sean to come in. Being 20 years old, Sean does very little and isn’t very dependable. Raymond suggested that I stay in the shop for my lunch and that was something that I certainly did not want to do.

I work a 10 hour shift and I do enjoy having an hour to myself out of the shop. When I started it was recommended that I stay in and mix with the customers but that’s not my thing and I don’t like some of the customers that sometimes hang out in the back room all afternoon.

Plus cellphone use is discouraged and I do like to talk to Bill and other friends on my lunch hour.

So I whined a bit and Raymond didn’t like it. I never wrote this before but I will now. Raymond whines all the fucking time. Whine whine whine. And complains constantly. So much so that when I talked about it to Billie in DC back in June, Billie told me that Raymond should be avoided at any cost.

But that isn’t a possibility since it’s a small store and we all interact. Sean did show up and it was slow enough that I left the building for lunch and walked to one of my usual benches by the park to enjoy a cigar.

As luck would have it, the cigar started to fall apart as I smoked it. I decided to head back to the shop and get a new one, which meant that I did have most of my lunch hour in the shop. And as expected I didn’t care for the other customers in the back room.

Pretentious college students this time who actually were putting down the cigar shop and praising the competition across town.

After lunch and it was a cold front between Raymond and myself. He eventually came around, after I talked to Sean about how fed up I am with Raymond’s whining, all the time. Maybe Sean talked to Raymond because Raymond was soon quite apologetic.

After that it was smooth sailing. I stood at my perch in the shop when an older gent came in. I of course offered to help him. In the humidor when I was suggesting cigars I recognized his voice. It was Bill Moyers, formerly of PBS, now retired.

We chatted for a bit and I showed him the cigars that Bill Paley Jr just came out with. Bill Paley Jr is the son of William Paley who started the Columbia Broadcasting System. I told Bill Moyers about this blog, told him the story of how Lewis Lapham got me started.

He was somewhat interested in this blog and asked for the address. I told him I would give him the address, hopefully buying sometime to come up with a more polished piece than this one. It truly was the highpoint of the day and I certainly hope to meet him again.

Forget the day, it was the highpoint of the week. He was much more entertaining and interesting than Steve Winwood.


I and I

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I neglected to mention that while working at the cigar shop what may have been an apparition of Rand & Lisa appeared while I was in the humidor. I saw them just for a second and when I finally emerged from the humidor they were gone.

I also spoke to Bill as I ambled my way down to the Path train and enjoying a cigar. He was planning on stopping by the cigar shop to surprise me. The surprise would have been on him since I would have been gone, having left Calvin to close up the shop.

It was a good thing I called and thwarted his surprise visit.

Last night we watched Broadcast News we started to watch This is England which is a good movie, a bit disturbing though. It was too heavy after the wit and banter of Broadcast News. We wound up watching a repeat of Laura Linney in the Big C, then Bill went to bed and I stayed up a little while longer.

Had an interesting dream which concerned me being on Route 875 (which does not exist). Also in the dream was a Nicholas Lattanzio who I once worked with and with the benefit of 32 years of hindsight, turns out I had a little crush on him.

I vaguely knew him when he was in a grade above me in elementary school, and it turned out we both started work on the same day at Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, in the college book department.

He was taken under the wing of Dave Manzo, professional Newport smoker and failed bowler and became fast friends with John Carroll who was quite a funny and intelligent guy who thought I was an idiot. Guess he wasn’t so intelligent after all.

It was a strange dream. No Maria Scarano, Debbie Pless or Paul Rigby sightings in the dream either.

Slept really well and woke up refreshed somewhat. Occasionally the pit in my stomach flares up, bringing back memories of having to go back to school. Perhaps it’s because there’s a school on the corner from my building which brings back that feeling of dread, but it’s more than likely because it is September.

Bill kissed me goodbye once again and I soon roused myself and got into the shower after setting up a bowl of cereal and making some coffee. I usually wait for the 10:30 bus but I caught the earlier bus because it stopped and I didn’t flag it down.

It was the 10:30 driver anyhow and I got on the bus. I was early again for work and sat in the shadow of a skyscraper and killed time. Talked to Bill on the phone for a quick minute before I headed into the cigar shop.

Calvin, Don Birch and Raymond were my co-workers for the day, Marcus making yet another hasty exit. Calvin made a joke or two about my attitude yesterday, mentioning that it was because I had to work on a holiday when it was actually because I had to wake up so goddamned early.

The day progressed nicely mainly because it was a good staff to work with. A quick walk down from the cigar shop to the bus terminal, sans earphones.

I left them at home this morning and though it wasn’t so bad I’d still rather hear Devo ‘Q: Are We Not Men? A: We are Devo!’ than listen to the inanities of people. But even that wasn’t so bad. I did make sure that I will have the headphones tomorrow.

Not going through that again. That sinking feeling.