Marlboro | johnozed

Third day of the new year. Slept incredibly well, crazy dreams, sexual in nature. Nothing overt but there it was in the undercurrent. Something involving time cards and a punch clock located in belts.

Then in a different dream, I bought a pack of Marlboro while walking around Columbus Circle and 58th St. I had one cigarette, not even a full cigarette and didn’t enjoy it very much. Then I had a dream where I was interviewing, or auditing a hip company, similar to the one my sister mentioned on Facebook yesterday.

White offices and things seemed to be going well until the head honcho in the office turned to me and said’ You know we don’t allow smoking here’. I couldn’t really say I stopped smoking cigarettes since I still had the pack of Marlboro from the previous dream and my breath smelled of cigarettes.

Needless to say I don’t think I got the job, much like the groovy job Annemarie told me about. I answered the questions truthfully and at the end they described their ideal candidate who would happen to be a college graduate which is something I am not. Still I sent forth my info, allowing them to be hopefully dazzled by my stellar personality and my way with words.

Already I have gotten the call from Shlomo, could I open up the cigar shop. Being 23 degrees out, he can’t get his poor old car to move. I had no problem with it, and to my surprise an hour after opening in walks Shlomo.Maybe it is the cold but he seems slower than usual, the slo mo Shlomo.

Now this is the part that gets stuck in my craw. I want to help these guys succeed. And with no smoking allowed in the store I wind up enforcing that ban. The other day a young man bought a cigar and I gave him a book of matches to get his cigar lit. He came back a few seconds later asking to light it indoors. I said no, and took a torch lighter and went outside with him and lit it for him.

Shlomo doesn’t believe in those types of rules and smokes wherever he wants, even if it means the local Board of Health shutting him down. That’s fine with me, I have nothing invested in the shop except for my time. If the place gets shut down I will just find something else to do.

And if it because of one of the owners smoking in the shop, then so be it. I can tell because a few times since I opened I noticed ashes on the floor which meant smoking was going on in the shop. But it’s not my shop and the owners, well they can do anything they want, it is their sandbox after all.

I am merely a nice guy, helping them out, but as the saying goes, I can’t help them unless they help themselves and to my untrained eye, it seems that they don’t want any or need any help, except for this one guy who can be relied upon to open the shop when it is too cold out for their Zionist hoodlum tuchis.

What Does It Take

Today is the fourth of July. The country is 232 years old. Or at least the Declaration of Independence was stated on this day. Actual independence didn’t happen until a number of years later. In 1976 was the bicentennial. A major event. My father was working in the World Trade Center at the time and a few months before, there was a plan to have a party in the offices so we could watch the tall ships and the fireworks from on high.

That was the plan until rumors started floating around about how gangs were going to be roaming the streets mugging the deep influx of tourists. That scared my father enough so that we spent July 4th in the backyard of 13 Riverview Avenue in Lodi, which despite what you may have heard is not the same thing.

My brother Frank had promised to take me to see the fireworks that night. He was at a party with his wife Elaine though and didn’t show up. There were plenty of firecrackers to keep me amused. My brother Brian wound up with me in the back seat of his car while him and his buddy Eddie drove around River Road in Fort Lee that night where I heard the fireworks going off overhead, not actually able to see them due to the tree tops blocking the view.

It wasn’t that bad, I still got back home and met up with my friends. I stole a pack of Marlboro’s from my mother and got caught but was let go when I explained it would be easier to light a firecracker with a cigarette rather than using matches or lighters. Somehow that worked and I walked away with a hard pack of Marlboro’s in my pocket. That’s probably when I started smoking.

Me and my friends whiled away the remaining bicentennial hours blowing up whatever we could. My sister Annemarie worked in a hospital at that time and gave us all warnings about people in the emergency rooms due to playing with fireworks, so we were careful, though a firecracker did go off in my hand, leaving my thumb and index finger numb for a few hours.

My brother Frank tried to make up for his absence the next day and gave me a copy of Abbey Road which is the first Beatles album I ever owned. I forgave him and soon got every much into the Beatles.

This year, it’s been overcast and muggy. Rained a bit today. Hoboken is like a ghost town today. I rode around, wound up by Battery Park. Bill was spending time with his mother, didn’t make it down there. I rode around, the streets crowded with tourists everywhere as well as Statues of Liberty.

The Feelies sounded great, but I couldn’t see them. I wound up outside the park and listened. Brenda was saying thank you after each song, I wonder if her mother asked her to. I was bored and decided to ride back to the Path train, taking it to Exchange Place and riding home from there.

Not much else going on today. Bill’s staying at his mother’s apartment since the fireworks will be going off 100 yards from her bedroom window. Here’s some pics.

The fans