Guitar Bar | johnozed

And today is/was a day off. I woke up at a decent hour and almost immediately set about starting my day. Laundry was in the works as well as the trips to the supermarket and the dry cleaners. It was a good start to the day.

Not much else was going on, a stop at the Guitar Bar to say hello to Mr. Wonderful Jim Mastro. Jim’s former band, The Health & Happiness Show is reuniting for a fundraiser at Maxwells tomorrow night to help a former band mate’s wife who has fallen ill and has enormous medical bills. I can’t go to show my support, but if you’re in the area maybe you can go. It starts at 7:30 and it’s for a good cause.

I saw the Health & Happiness Show a few times, even worked the door for them when they played the Shannon Bar in the 1990’s. They weren’t my cup of tea then but I could appreciate their talent and they had a good amount of fans.

Then I saw them opening up for the Bongos a few years ago. I used to love the Bongos and they had reunited for the Art & Music festival in Hoboken, and they got some kind of proclamation. The funny thing is this time around I loved the Health & Happiness Show and found the Bongos to be quite lackluster.

If they reunited ten years earlier it probably would have been exciting, but they were ten years too late this time Jim (who also played with the Bongos) & the Health & Happiness Show blew them away. It must have been a comedown, shifting gears from hi-octane to merely regular.

The news of the day has been about the death of Khadafy in Libya. It even featured gruesome pictures of what appeared to be Khadafy’s head all shot up. John McCain and Joe Lieberman traveled to Libya a few years ago, promising Khadafy aid and equipment. Lindsay Graham and Susan Collins also made the trip and I could easily picture the four of them sitting in grief and reminiscing.

I finally got the latest Mojo and Uncut Magazines. I could have picked up Uncut by itself since it was available, but I always buy the two together. I started Mojo after I finished last week’s New Yorker and it’s a good issue. Better than the one edited by Noel Gallagher which was a yawn.

I did a lot of walking around and when I got home I was bushed. So I decided to take a nap. I was watching the Harry Belafonte documentary on cable but was too tired to watch the whole thing. I could always watch it on demand later, or as a repeat which this afternoon’s broadcast was.

I certainly slept later than I expected. It felt good though but instead of a body clock reset like it usually happens I woke up a bit discombobulated. Now a few hours later I am back in the swing of things.

And that’s the name of that tune.

A nice day to have off. It’s a Friday which is nice, a holiday weekend too. Bill had to work though which was too bad. He kissed me good bye as I slept in bed. I slept longer than I expected too, but I guess it was warranted. Slept really well so I was in no rush to end that.

I got up, made some coffee and showered before going to the supermarket to get what I needed. Came home and had a nice breakfast and read the paper at a leisurely pace. After a quick cigar I started on the laundry which had piled up considerably after a long week.

Some running around after that, strolling the streets of the Hoboken area I was surprised that no one I knew was around. I swung by the Guitar Bar where Mr. Wonderful was quite busy, selling ukuleles to toddlers. Ukuleles are hot right now. I almost wrote ukuleles were big but that might have confused some readers, specifically the first Noel.

It was good to see Jim, daughter #1 seems to be adjusting to college life splendidly and daughter #2 is truly a comedic genius, which she probably gets from her mother, the funniest girl alive. Good kids both of them, and I am still waiting for the results of the paternity test with regards to daughter #1.

So the summer seems to be winding down, though it is not official. The end of summer is towards the end of September and here we are only on the second day of the month. Still time to get to the beach if I only had the proper transportation available. And the good timing would be nice. After Labor Day weekend all bus and trains schedules fall by the wayside with regards to public transportation.

It was a beautiful day today and much easier to deal with than writing this here blog. So many distractions! I returned a few CD’s to the bibliothèque, a Patti Smith cd, a Patti Smith and Kevin Shields cd as well as The Queen is Dead and the Singles Collection by the Smiths. Is there a theme here? It’s what happens when you fall into a Wiki hole. One thing leads to another and before you know it, the ADD kicks in and you forget what you were looking for in the first place.

A quiet night at home, Bill working in the next room, I sit and type and play DJ. Right now, Do You Really Want to Hurt Me is playing, by Culture Club. I’ve been playing ‘Guess That Band’ with Bill, I play a track and he tries to guess what band it is.

I played Bizarre Love Triangle earlier by New Order and Bill thought it was Joy Division which is oh so close, but no cigar. He also guessed Emotional Rescue by the Rolling Stones earlier. Now I am playing DJ Shadow, Midnight in a Perfect World which for sure Bill will never guess.

Back to work tomorrow. President Obama wished everyone a happy Labor Day weekend, John Boehner and Eric Cantor swore to make sure that doesn’t happen.