Tag Archives: Innocent When You Dream

Crazy About Love

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Well it’s Monday again. Hoboken was semi deserted yesterday, my guess is that a lot of people were off visiting their mothers. It was a gloomy and windy day and I didn’t do much of anything.

Last night Bill was home after spending the day with his mother. He was back I time to catch The Pacific which was of course quite intense. One more episode next week, which involves the Marines coming home to the lives they left behind and that will be that.

Bill and I watched Treme after that, which carried over the feeling from The Pacific that something terrible was about to happen. Can’t change gears so easily after such intensity. Treme was good too. Excellent cast and we will watch basically anything that Khandi Alexander is in.

Last night I lent my guitar to Mike Cecchini. Nice guy, I know he’ll take care of it. He kept calling it ‘she’, but I think it’s a ‘he’. Hung out with him for a few minutes on my front steps. I’ll probably go and catch his set at Louise & Jerry’s tonight, to hear him and to also hear my guitar.

I’m always playing the guitar and can’t really tell how it sounds even though people have told me it sounds good. Me. Going out. On a Monday night. What am I nuts? Mike’s paying for the pints since I’m doing him the favor.

I also invited Mike and his girlfriend to the party in July. He might get up and play a song or two. So far for that I have Lily & Tim, two of the Street Corner Mourners and Jon & Deena, two former Cucumbers. It could turn into a hootenanny.

I really miss my guitar. Last night I looked up Dreadlock Holiday by 10cc and wanted to play it, but…

I neglected to write about Smoke. I know I wrote about my disdain, but actually there is a redeeming part to the movie. Specifically the last five minutes or so. Auggie’s story of finding the wallet of some kid who stole from his cigar store.

He decides to go to the address in the wallet on Christmas day and finds an old blind woman living there. It turns out she is the shoplifter’s grandmother. He tells the story and during the credits it’s acted out by Harvey Keitel and Clarice Taylor.

It’s so sweet and with Tom Waits ‘Innocent When You Dream’ playing it’s tear inducing and almost makes you forget the rest of the movie.

This afternoon I watched Down to Earth on cable which was a movie Bill & I saw when we first started going out. It’s basically Chris Rock’s remake of Heaven Can Wait which was a remake of Here Comes Mister Jordan.

It’s a cute movie, not too shabby and has a few giggles in it. It was a good date movie and still easy to watch years later.

A visit to the bibliothèque was in order. I returned Smoke, Black Dynamite which was funny and very short, Rufus Wainwright: Milwaukee At Last! And No Wave, a book about the No Wave scene of Lower Manhattan from 1977-1980 by Thurston Moore and Byron Coley.

No Wave was a good book, though I would have used a larger typeface. The Rufus Wainwright CD was good as well. It also had a DVD of the live concert as well as some extras of some songs from the Montreux Jazz festival and a short bit of Rufus and his band backstage practicing some Italian operas for a wedding I guess they were hired to play. That was beautiful.

I was also able to get from the bibliothèque the boxed set of the Beatles mono albums which is everything up to the White Album, though the singles are also available on the Past Masters double CD, included and also in Mono.

I heard from the restaurant that Bill and I went to on Saturday. They read what I wrote to them in an email and they were very apologetic. They said the tip was generous and the server was quite happy about it. Why she went from hot to cold so fast could not be explained, especially since the server said she was happy about the tip.

Both Bill & I noticed her sudden change though and the gent on the phone told us to give a call when we come back in again and mention his name or the hostess’ name and we will have our meal comped. That was nice of them. I told Bill and he was thrilled.

So that’s about it on this end. Fairly busy. Can’t wait to get my guitar again tonight. Me miss him.

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From Smoke:

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Beast of Burden

On Facebook there is a theme, put up a photo of a celebrity that you look like as your profile picture. I can’t do that there, but here I can do it. I’ve heard that I look like Philip Seymour Hoffman & Drew Carey.

At the play reading I had participated in the other day one of the audience members said I looked like Jim Carrey, then he corrected himself and said Drew Carey.

Drew Carey

Drew Carey

I’ve found in these two specific instances that it can be broken down into two groups. Black people think I look like Drew Carey and white people think I look like Philip Seymour Hoffman. I myself tend to think if I’m to look like either one of these guys I would prefer Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Philip Seymour Hoffman

Philip Seymour Hoffman

I do feel slightly insulted when I hear Drew Carey.

One time, years ago I found myself in a gay bar on the upper east side on 58th street called Oscar Wilde. It was the only gay bar that I knew of that served Guinness at $4.00 a pint. One night I’m just hanging out after work and next to me at the bar is a very drunk patron who claimed to be Carlo Gambino’s son.

Carlo Gambino

Carlo Gambino

I just nodded slowly as he slurred his words. On the TV at the end of the bar was an episode of the Drew Carey show. The younger Gambino turns to me, then to the TV, then back to me and says, ‘You know who you look like?’

I knew exactly what he meant even though that, I believe was the first time I ever heard the comparison. I guess the reason I would prefer to be compared to Philip Seymour Hoffman is that I prefer his work to Drew Carey’s.

The other day after hearing about J.D. Salinger’s death, I read a few obituaries bout him. One of them mentioned a fellow college student of Salinger’s recollection of Salinger walking around the college campus wearing a black chesterfield and walking with a cane saying he was going to make literary history.

JD Salinger

JD Salinger

A  burgandy Chesterfield

A burgandy Chesterfield

Me, not Drew Carey nor Philip Seymour Hoffman wearing a Chesterfield, not a couch

Me, not Drew Carey nor Philip Seymour Hoffman wearing a Chesterfield, not a couch

And I suppose he did. I never read The Catcher in the Rye. Most people have to read it in high school but I didn’t. I don’t think it’s because I went to a catholic school since I think other classes did read it. Not sure if I missed anything.

Salinger doesn’t really come up in conversation these days anyhow. Well actually because he recently died he comes up in conversation but other than that, not really.

It’s been a cold day today. Only went outside once or twice. And that was more than enough. Too bitter outside. Bill is driving to Atlantic City tonight once again. I’m content to stay home.

I figured out why my feet are so cold in the apartment. Cold ceramic tile above an vacant, unheated apartment. Well that is what Julio mentioned the other day.

I just had a nice spaghetti dinner with some home made sauce that Stine made. Quite nice and perfect for a cold night such as this.

Beast of Burden, a reading.