Tag Archives: Cigars

I Am The Black Gold Of The Sun

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It’s now Friday and lucky me, I have off Saturday and Sunday. Maybe now I will see what all the fuss is about. It’s been a while I think that I’ve had Saturday and Sunday off. This was arranged a few weeks ago when I requested to have August 22nd off to see the Specials at Summerstage.

Then to my dismay, the State Department wouldn’t give the band visas. So the show was canceled but I still have 2 days off. Instead of a free show to see the Specials, I am going to Joe’s Pub tomorrow night to see Adele Bertei, backed by the Raybeats with Gail Ann Dorsey from David Bowie’s band on bass.

It’s so unlike me and I’m going alone. There may be tickets still available so feel free to join me. It’s only $20.00. I felt I should see some music over the weekend.

And though I’ve seen the Raybeats several times back in the eighties, and I’ve met Gail Ann Dorsey, I’ve never seen Adele Bertei, having missed the Contortions and the Bloods back in the day.

I had to set reminders to let me know about the show, so rarely do I go out these days.

I even thought about checking out some galleries tomorrow, perhaps an early start. Some things to do about the apartment, laundry, general cleaning up so an early start should occur. I wrote that with a straight face.

Straight meaning, not laughing.

Today was a pretty good day at the cigar shop. Pretty busy and money was made. I did almost $2000.00 worth of sales. Still I was in third place. I do like working at the cigar shop, the staff is alright to work with and the customers are mainly OK.

My Friend, My Friend hasn’t been in the shop the past couple of days, I hope he is well. He’s an intelligent bloke and is good for smart conversation.

I suppose reinventing oneself for a job goes on everywhere, but it’s not a total reinvention, more like the tweaking around the edges. I thought I would have to do a complete overhaul but obviously it wasn’t to be.

Some people know me as one person, others know me as someone else and my co-workers know me as someone entirely different. Or am I. It’s all in perception I guess. We all see things differently.

It’s all like Rashomon, but where and who is the ghost?

I treated myself to a Good Burger dinner tonight. I ate at the shop in the back and figured I would work it off as well as walk it off, which I hope I did when I walked from the cigar shop to the bus terminal.

Tonight’s musical journey was courtesy of the Pretenders first album, called Pretenders. 16 minute, 57 seconds, from Precious (not based on the book Push by Sapphire) to Space Invaders.

Funnily enough, I think I bought the Pretenders first album at EJ Korvettes in Paramus, the same day I bought the Specials first album.

Ah, 1979. A pretty good year for music.

This Charming Man

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Just woke up from a dream, where I was on the phone with a former co-worker. She’s been out of work too and there wasn’t too good a connection so I had to ask her a few times what she had just said. In the dream I was in the apartment and walking through the kitchen and all of a sudden there was a water leak from somewhere where there isn’t any pipes or anything like that.

Just thought it was odd and it’s what actually woke me up from a fairly deep sleep of about a hour.

The day has been OK. Last night was cool too. Last night was watching Olbermann and then Radio Days with Bill. Funny thing is, when I first saw Radio Days in 1986 I didn’t much care for it. It was good, but I thought it was too treacly.

Too close to Neil Simon territory for me. It wasn’t until a few years later did I realize that it’s probably one of Woody Allen’s best. Seth Green was excellent in in. I wonder whatever happened to him?

We totally bypassed the news and watched instead 30 Rock from the other night. That had to be one of the funniest episodes ever, if only for Alec Baldwin on the subway. He had the panhandler spiel down pat.

It was hilarious, not to demean panhandlers of course. At least the ones who actually need to beg for money, not the scam artists.

It was 11:30 when Bill decided it was the best time to start shredding papers. That was a bit unnerving. I wound up going to be around 1:00, leaving Bill to watch Colin Ferguson with Ewan McGregor alone. I did catch the Pixies on Conan O’Brien and they were actually pretty good. Looked like they all were getting along too.

Never quite got into the Pixies though even after I’d seen them at McSwells. Slept well and woke up to see Bill shredding some more paper. The room was more crowded than it was before I went to sleep. Bill was off for some physical therapy, deep tissue massage for his knees.

I went out and got the paper and some bagels. Nothing for the third floor family though. Bill came home with his own bagels and eventually did what he does all the time with his bagels. He puts them in the oven until their charred and then he eats them.

Drives me crazy and stinks up the apartment with the odor of burnt bread. He’s a strange one that Bill, but I can’t help but love him. Despite that, with each gnaw of a burnt bagel I climbed the wall an inch or two.

I decided to head into the city just to get away. A walk around midtown on a Saturday afternoon. No one around except tourists and they were easy to avoid.

I hadn’t had a cigar in a while so I bought one at Barclay Rex and wandered around. It wasn’t as exciting as it sounded though and soon enough, I was on the Path train heading back home to Hoboken.

Bill was off driving to Atlantic City today and isn’t coming back until tomorrow. So no burnt bagels tonight.