Tag Archives: Frank

Dead Flowers

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Wow it certainly has been one of those days. It’s a Monday which makes it perfect for a crap day. It didn’t start out that way and last night wasn’t so bad. Watched TV of course, but didn’t pay much attention.

On MSNBC there was a documentary on the Manson Family which should have been scary and chilling but actually was so so. Manson is still an fucking asshole. Shouldn’t he have died already? Then after that I watched the news which was boring.

It was just a boring night. Read some parts of a Beatles bio which was a welcome distraction from the humdrum even if I do know the story inside and out.

Lot’s of footage of Bush under attack from a pair of shoes thrown by a justifiably angry Iraqi journalist. Lot’s of discussions on that online today. Some angry about it, some feel it’s justified.

Not like the shoes hit Bush anyway. And he was able to make jokes about it. I feel Bush should do a walk of shame when he leaves the White House in January. Not that he feels any shame about the damage he has done.

I’m almost finished with The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein. Still makes me angry but now that I’m near the end, it’s almost hopeful. I highly recommend it.

Heard from Roda who told me about the McSwells holiday party tonight. I’m not in the mood and plus it’s an awkward thing, being there with employees that I don’t know and have disdain for people that don’t work there. I guess that might be how it used to be when I worked there. I told him thanks but no thanks.

Also heard from my brother Frank who was surprised I didn’t think Saturday Night Live was as funny as he thought. He also liked Kanye West which was weird. He was surprised that I didn’t like him or the show but then again there wasn’t much that I liked today.

I heard from Casey Chasm via email. He was just checking in to see how Bill and I were doing. Comme ci Comme ca basically is what I told him.

Work was crazy and once again no one communicates with each other, nor do they communicate with me, which is what they’re supposed to do.

It was in the 60-degree temperature range today which made for a sweaty errand. I needed to get milk and whatnot for the office. Of course as I come in all sweaty, Tom Chin appears needing my attention in his office.

I didn’t even take my coat off and left the groceries in the bag on the floor as he proceeds to ask me questions about last week. He was out Thursday and Friday and I was out Wednesday which made Tuesday the last time we saw each other.

He was being a jerk and Vivek was almost as bad. They both thought I was out today and Vivek had no idea that I am generally in the office by 8:30 every day.

His silent partner who really isn’t so silent had asked me 2 weeks ago to get some business cards made. Of course there was a glitch and instead of me running back and forth on the phone with the printer and the not so Silent Partner I gave them both each others numbers so they could hash it out.

Did they? No. And when does he need his cards? Tomorrow. The printer says he can do it by 4PM tomorrow, the not so Silent Partner says he needs them by 3PM.

And of course I’m supposed to book the conference rooms and a few weeks ago I printed a memo telling people if they need a conference room to contact me. Do they? Some do, most don’t.

So when a room is booked, another group has decided to take it forcing the group that booked it to find another conference room. So I have to go in and kick people out.

On the plus side, I did get to see Bill for about 15 minutes after work. I mentioned that we should have lunch some time and he agreed. We didn’t say when though. We stood in the balmy evening rush hour, me smoking a La Flor Dominicana Double Ligero which was bigger than I anticipated and would take longer to finish. Hanging out with Bill helped that out.

He was worried about my state of mind after work and he starting to get my modus operandi. I told him years ago that both Pedro and Julio know that if they ask me what’s wrong and I say “nothing“, if they wait 10 minutes they’d hear all about it.

And so with Bill, after asking me how I was doing and me saying, I don’t want to talk about it, ten minutes later I was telling him all about it. Apparently he has days like mine all the time.

Just saw that the wonderful Pat Longo is DJing at the McSwells holiday party and for an instant I thought that I would like to go. Then I realized that I was home and didn’t want to deal with anyone at all.

One more thing…I brought my camera to work, thinking that I would simply upload the pics that I’ve taken the past week or so, but couldn’t upload anything due to Word Press, the program I use to post this blog. So blame them, you know I do.

Oh, I’ve taken to commenting on the comments with each comment, much like they do in magazines. In case you haven’t noticed.

Like tonight! Thanks to bhikkhu.

Certain Harbours

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A very cold Sunday. Snowed a bit last night, but not enough to stick around this morning. I watched Hancock last night. It was alright. Not very good. Decent special effects. After that I watched the first half of Saturday Night Live and that was merely alright too.

TI was the mediocre musical guest, John Malkovich was the guest host and he was a bit out of step with the rest of the cast it seemed. Good to see Amy Poehler back. But it wasn’t enough to make me stay awake until the end, wound up going to sleep after Weekend Update.

I recorded it so I can always catch the rest of it some other time. Slept until 8:00 and was out at 8:30. No contact with the Lopez family on the third floor despite my efforts of texting and voice mail.

Had an easy breakfast and was reading the papers and watching Barack Obama on Meet the Press when my niece Corrine called, letting me know that she was playing volleyball at Stevens Tech.

She told me about it yesterday and I asked that she call me when she had a clearer time of when she was actually playing. With 30 minutes notice I was soon in the bleachers next to my sister in law, Elaine cheering Corinne on.

They were doing well and with the help of two other spectators we made a four person wave which ebbed and flowed and may have helped Corinne’s team win a game or two. Well that’s what the two guys said and I was prone to agreeing with them.

After that Elaine and I walked up to Starbucks where we waited for my brother Frank to pick her up and drive back to Garfield. Frank being Frank was late by 45 minutes. Luckily we were indoors since the wind was bitter and cutting like a knife. I rarely go to Starbucks and on those rare occasions that I do, I don’t stay there.

Today we needed to be there and I don’t understand the protocol of the store. If someone is sitting at a table with three chairs reading the Sunday Times with various sections of the Times on the 2 empty chairs, do you ask the person sitting there to move their papers so you can sit there?

It didn’t matter since we did find a table that was quite dirty since the people sitting there just decided to walk out and not clean up after themselves. This Starbucks is at 12th and Hudson Street, which isn’t the same Hudson Street it was when Betti Cola was living above McSwells.

It’s populated with newcomers to Hoboken who paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for their condos, i.e., no one I know. Rude and self centered which seems to be the way of life up there.

The only contact I really have with these people is when they get on the bus in the morning upset that all the seats are gone and they have to stand.

Frank did show up I was dropped off in front of my building, Frank and Elaine heading back to Garfield. Nice to be in from the cold.

Back to work tomorrow. Blah blah blah.

I have taken some photos but since I am on Bill’s Mac still I can’t figure out how to post them to this blog. I can make them appear as wallpaper though which isn’t what I want. Someday, perhaps before the end of the year I’ll be back using my computer and writing and posting online. I’m not holding my breath.