Tag Archives: Rain

Stranger In Moscow

Leave a reply

Once again, tonight’s entry is brought to you by Bill’s Mac, for when your own computer just won’t do what you want it to do, use Bill’s Mac.

It’s Thursday again. Been raining on and off for the past 5 hours. And it’s been raining hard. Bill just texted me, apparently he was on a bus with the bus driver from hell. A short message with the bus number, driver’s ID number and how many passengers.

He thought he was going to die in a bus accident and wanted me to have the information in case the worst happened. It’s not often that Bill will complain about a fellow bus driver, so you know that this was probably a white knuckle ride in the rain speeding down slick ramps into the Lincoln Tunnel outside the Port Authority Bus Terminal.

I’m in that netherworld after taking a nap and waking up and it’s just muggy inside with the windows being closed because of the rain.

Right now Bill is repeating from a TV commercial whatever they are asking him to repeat.

I had a strange dream with me driving a car I parked in the intersection of Riverview Avenue and Essex Street. I was doing something not far from where I grew up.

Juan was in the dream as well, oddly silent. We were heading into Manhattan for some reason. And the car was one of my broken down jalopies or the van I used to drive for HBJ.

It kept changing. It was a dream after all.

And I wasn’t too keen on driving. I don’t miss driving at all. Being a pedestrian I see bad, terrible drivers all the time.

This afternoon crossing Washington Street, a driver just couldn’t bear to wait at the red light and felt it was alright to inch out into the intersection and make a left turn.

I can understand a right on red, but a left on red just is bad news. Nothing happened though it should have. I see it a lot on my way to work, especially at the corner of 49th Street and Park Avenue.

A few months ago when Vivek and Sanjay were all hot and bothered for their movie box scheme, one of their plans were for me to drive around the tri-state area and visit various hotels and motels, such was their belief in me as a salesman.

That dream was dashed when I showed my incredulous face, telling them I don’t drive. That was ok with them, they would pay for driving lessons.

I explained to them that I knew how to drive, I drove back and forth to California, to Texas and Florida as well as to Washington DC, and driving back and forth from Saddle Brook NJ to 757 Third Avenue, about 100 yards from where I was sitting with Vivek and Sanjay.

I guess they never met anyone in the United States who did not want to drive. I guess I’m an urbanite. If it’s not within walking distance or available via public transportation, why bother?

The last car I had went up in flames and I had a premonition that the next car I owned would be the car I died in. So in order to achieve immortality, I don’t drive anymore.

I took a quiz on Facebook, What Michael Jackson Song are You? I was told my song was Stranger in Moscow, which was a song I wasn’t familiar with and I wrote that in the comments section.

An online friend said it was a really good song, no hiccups or yelps, which were sometimes distracting in Michael’s songs so I sought it out. It turns out it really is a nice song, beautiful even and I since purchased it via iTunes.

A decent song that isn’t overplayed and is a good song to remember Michael Jackson by. I can’t say that I was a major fan but I did have a few of his songs online, had Off the Wall and Thriller like everyone else, but I did mention to a few friends months ago that Michael Jackson’s songs where more enjoyable to me than Prince’s were.

Of course I am disappointed in Prince lately and took all his songs off my iPod. Not so much because of his music, but because of his latest Jehovah’s Witness beliefs about gay people.

Well, John said ‘Enough’ and that was that.

It didn’t help that he hasn’t released anything worthwhile since Sexy MF and that was 17 years ago. I would be interesting to hear what the Purple Imp would have to say about Michael Jackson though.

Wishing Well

Leave a reply

It’s yet another rainy day. Woke up and it was pouring out. Last night it rained too. Rain rain rain. It’s tiresome. I hope it’s not like this when Annemarie and Earl come over from Arcata next month.

It’s always like this in Arcata and I think that coming east is an escape from that crappy weather for Annemarie and Earl. At the moment it has stopped raining but more is expected.

Last night was yet another mellow evening. Instead of the usual viewing fare, I watched The Public Enemy starring James Cagney and Jean Harlow.

It’s a classic, pre-code movie from 1931, the story of Tommy Powers rise to power in the world of criminal enterprise. I had never seen it before from start to finish and it was a good movie.

Just a little unbelievable was a scene where Cagney and his accomplice are running from a policeman who just shoots at them over and over while blowing his police whistle.

The chase goes around a corner where off camera the policeman is shot and Cagney and company run off.

It’s also the movie where Cagney smashes a grapefruit in a moll’s face. The moll by the way is not Jean Harlow but Mae Clarke. That is the classic scene.

As I watched the movie, there was a scene where Cagney and his buddy pay a visit to Putty Nose, someone who had done them wrong years before.

They want revenge and catch up with Putty Nose outside his home. They drag him in and Putty Nose realizes whats going on and tries to reason with them.

As I watched I wondered if that was where a line that was sampled by Coldcut on the remix for Eric B. and Rakim’s Paid in Full. ‘Back in the club, why you kids used to laugh at this song’.

Sure enough a minute later Putty Nose comes up with the line launching into the song and getting killed right before the chorus. I was surprised that I figured out where the line was from a moment before it was said.

Perhaps Tommy Powers mother was a little too loving, always willing to turn away when Tommy was up to no good, or when Tommy was getting the strap from his policeman father.

After that I watched some of Bill Maher from last week. I’m pretty sure that they use canned laughter a lot on the show since some of the jokes are just not funny at all.

And I’m not that fond of Bill Maher either, he’s too smarmy and way too fond of himself. PJ O’Rourke is another one I don’t get. He also laughs the hardest at his own jokes.

I’m sure he might have been funny back in the day when he was working at National Lampoon, but nowadays he’s merely a lampoon of himself.

The weather forecast is more rain. It’s supposed to be nice on Sunday, so no major bicycle ride on Saturday. Then again the weather forecast is wrong half the time but even that makes me wary. I suppose I will have to just wait and see.

Nothing to report on the work front. Nothing has changed. Still no info.

Tonight promises to be another quiet night. Which is better than pandemonium I guess. Bill just gave me the brush off, so maybe it won’t be so quiet after all.