Tag Archives: Paul Gaulvin

For Christ Sake

A rainy day and I’m not bitter. I was bitter yesterday and a tad resentful but time heals most wounds and I’m feeling alright. Definitely did not go out and play guitar today, and definitely did not respond to any acting/singing/monologue improvisation suggestions.

Today with the weather and the melatonin, made for getting out of bed quite difficult. I remember Bill leaning over me, kissing me goodbye and telling me how good I looked and then back to sleep, eventually waking up to the sounds of the Electric Light Orchestra singing Telephone Line.

That brought me back to 1976, being in a car with a kid, Paul Gaulvin, who lived a block or so away from me in Rochelle Park. I didn’t know Paul Gaulvin at all and was sort of forced into being his friend by my father who worked with Paul’s father in some capacity.

Paul’s mother was driving us somewhere when Telephone Line came on the radio. The mother was the boss of that household, the father your basic milquetoast. I believe there was an older sister in Paul’s life and they fit the nuclear template quite well, Paul and his sister fighting like cats and dogs.

Ultimately Paul and I never had much in common. We experimented with cigarettes when we were 14 years old and I remember Paul buying a pack of Camels saying that they were good because they had hashish in them.

Though Paul and I went to the same high school, we really didn’t hang out with each other, he was in a smarter class and I wasn’t. I also remember the last time I hung out with Paul, at his graduation party 29 years ago, where I got so drunk that I fell flat on my back.

There I was talking to someone and next thing I knew, I was looking up at the sky. Paul’s mother made sure I got home safely, having Paul and maybe someone else walk me home over the Route 80 overpass. Last night Bill came home just in time to catch the 11:00 news.

He asked me if I had heard from my brother Frank and I said I hadn’t. I fell into the old family trap of ‘I’m always calling him. Why should I call again?’ That in turn prompted a discussion of my family, how things were different for Frank being the oldest and me being the youngest.

Basically, by the time I came of age my parents were tired of raising kids and I was left pretty much to myself. Of course I was also living a double life, a life that my family still doesn’t know about. And that’s probably how it should be.

Somethings are better off unknown.

I do recall telling Frank about some aspect of my growing up and living a secret life and that flipped him out quite a bit. That was then, this is now and I live a quiet life, content to stay at home and watch TV.

And tonight I will be watching the penultimate episode of Lost which will hopefully be an improvement on last week’s episode.

In the hallway

In the hallway


in the rain

in the rain

One of These Nights

Yes, It’s a Saturday and it’s been a pretty good one so far. Slept until around 8:30 after going to sleep around 1:00AM. Decent amount of sleep, woke up rested. Called Julio and Stine to see if they wanted anything from Washington Street. Bagels of course. They were in a hurry to get to a Lamaze class. I got them what they wanted and soon had a nice breakfast for myself.

Read the papers, had coffee. Went to the library to return The History Boys which was overdue they said, when it wasn’t. Then they tried to pin a $2.00 charge for a book that was paid for last year but they can’t seem to clear from my card. That took a while.

I carry the receipt in my wallet from last year since this issue pops up every now and then when dealing with the library. Some library employees are easy to deal with but on Saturday mornings the staff is second string and they really don’t have much of an idea as to what they are doing. The computer perplexes and confounds them. After that, some errands, some dry cleaning, a little song, a little dance, a little seltzer in the pants.

I decided to head into the city and check out the next to last day for an exhibition at the New York Public Library on 42nd Street for the 50th anniversary of Jack Kerouac’s On The Road. It was ok. No recharging of my Beat influences. It was all rather underwhelming. They had the scroll of paper that Kerouac wrote one version of On The Road.

It was about 60 feet long out of the original 120 feet. Everything was under glass and no photography was allowed which made for me at least, a rather uninspiring show. There was a tour going on that I overheard. The guide was talking about Lucien Carr, a friend of Kerouac, Allen Ginsburg and William Burroughs. Carr killed David Kammerer after Kammerer traveled to NYC, infatuated by Carr.

Carr reacted to this infatuation by stabbing Kammerer to death. Kerouac helped hide the murder weapon, a knife, while Burroughs and Ginsburg implored Carr to turn himself in to the police. An early version of what is now known as Gay Panic, the ‘justification’ of when a gay man (or woman) makes overtures to a non gay person who is so repulsed, the only course of action that they can see is to murder the gay person, because saying ‘Thanks but no thanks’ just won’t do. Maybe slapping around the ‘stalker’ if a firm NO wouldn’t do would suffice.

Sometimes Gay Panic keeps one out of prison. Matthew Shepard may have been a victim of gay panic, and more recently, Lawrence King, the 15 year old boy from Oxnard, CA who was murdered by a 14 year old classmate after Lawrence stated that he wanted the classmate to be his Valentine.

Last night I watched a very good film, Gone Baby Gone, directed by Ben Affleck. Based on a Denis Lehane novel, I think it might have been better than Mystic River. Not as top heavy with stars, this was low key and very gripping. Casey Affleck was excellent in it as well.

It’s a crime thriller so I won’t say anything about it, lest I give away a spoiler, but I do recommend it. Not that I am in any way familiar with Boston citizens, especially the lower classes, I thought it was true to life.

Walking around Hoboken, I saw a few characters that could have just as well been in Boston. Bill is coming over tonight and I decided to hang onto Gone Baby Gone for one more night before I send it back to Netflix. I think Bill would like the movie. That’s about it.

Here’s some recent pics.
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two doors down
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Fifth and Washington
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The New York Public Library Lions
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Inside
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west 46th Street
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Giant
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Waiting for Clay Aiken
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Hmmmm…..scary
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Pigeon in the Port Authority Bus Terminal
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This just in, at 2:00 this afternoon, a crane collapsed on 51st street a block away from where I work and where I walk several times a week. 4 dead, the crane hit the top floors of one building across the street then falling a block away on 50th street onto a 4 story townhouse, making it a one story building. No safety inspector on the scene and were cited for violations and complaints in the past. Lots of construction going on in Manhattan and lots of accidents as well.