Rand | johnozed

Well I just got back a little while ago from a nice bicycle ride with Rand. My original plan was to take part in a demonstration outside of the Malawi consulate in Manhattan, protesting the sentencing of Steven Monjeza, 26, and Tiwonge Chimbalanga, 20, who were given 14-year jail terms of hard labor after being convicted of gross indecency and unnatural acts.

The two gentlemen had an engagement party which is highly illegal in Malawi. It was scheduled from 2:00- 3:30PM today but when I woke up and I checked Facebook, Joe Jervis of JoeMyGod had posted that Monjeza and Chimbalanga were pardoned from the powers that be in Malawi. That freed me up a great deal.

I was looking forward to going though. I had hoped I would see ace blogger Andres Duque of Blabbeando but after I wished him a happy 42nd birthday he replied from Columbia where is he is visiting family. According to JoeMyGod there was a demonstration that was hastily rearranged to protest the lack of rights for LGBT in the Motherland.

I decided not to go to that and figured I would just do some strumming by the river. I can’t really call it busking since buskers usually make some money but that’s rare for me, so I just call it strumming. Bill had just come home from driving to and from Atlantic City and he was headed right to bed.

Rand called and asked if I was interested in something ridiculous, like a bike ride to Secaucus. I was game. I hadn’t ridden my bicycle out there since I had a job that lasted for about two days back in the 1990’s. Bad job and difficult to get to. Life was easier then.

We took the 9th Street Elevator by the Light Rail up to Congress and headed to Kennedy Blvd. As we passed Kennedy Blvd, Rand was losing air in his front tire. I remembered James Vincent Bicycles on the boulevard and rode ahead to see where they were.

It’s a good thing I did since they were no longer there. I asked a few people where a bicycle repair shop was, if there was one nearby and heard about one on Central Avenue. I met up with Rand again and then I rode over in that direction.

It was no longer there, having been replaced by a Drapery Shop, which had nice drapes, nice enough to distract one from having a flat tire.

A little more detective work courtesy of Rand’s Smart Phone (Envious me) and we found James Vincent a few more blocks away. $15.00 and 15 minutes later Rand had a new functioning tire and we were pedaling from 315 Palisade Avenue.

We rode our bikes over the highways and soon found ourselves in the industrial parks of Secaucus. We headed for the Crowne Plaza in Secaucus which used to be the Meadowlands Hilton, where I first smoked a joint in the parking lot with Perry Dedovitch after attending the Beatle-Fest.

We went to what seemed to be the entrance and found a sign saying that the event that Rand wanted to check out needed to be accessed through the main entrance. Then we walked our bicycles over there and asked an employee named Vincent if there was a place to lock up our bicycles.

That question seemed to annoy Vincent a lot. One guy, looking like Jeff ‘Skunk’ Baxter offered to let us keep our bikes in his room but we thanked him and said no.

Rand went in and I stayed outside where I found myself talking to a guy from thePhilippines who was telling me about his 4 children who had graduated from MIT (the twins), Georgetown and Princeton. All on scholarships. He was so proud and rightly so.

Still as academically smart as his kids are, they are pretty dumb with regards to finances, or so he said. He went off to find his wife and Rand came out of the computer thing that he checked out.

We rode through the parking lot and found a path way that led to the river. It wasn’t much at all. Took some pictures, and smelled some sweet herbage being burned by a handsome dude watching the river. I commented on how nice it smelled and the dude laughed.

Rand and I rode again, opting to ride through the streets instead of the busy thoroughfares and for Rand it was like riding his bicycle through the Long Island towns where he grew up and for me it was the same thing, only through the Bergen County towns.

We rode through a gateway that led back to the industrial parks and decided to check out Syms. Didn’t buy anything but said hello to the handsome dude who had the herbage. We said hello to him and he laughed. Once we entered the store we agreed that the handsome dude had the right idea, getting a buzz before going into the outlet.

A ride back through empty industrial streets, past Electric Avenue where they distribute both Orangina and Yoo Hoo. It was a great day out, a nice ride back.

And now I’m going to see Julio and Alexander in the park. That’s it. Hope you had a good day as well.

Watching Tales of the City on a blue gray Saturday afternoon. Endearing. I have the first series which was on PBS and the next series, More Tales of the City w3hich was on Showtime after PBS got cold feet.

It was odd because the first series was a big smash ratings wise but the timing was bad since it was around the time Newt Gingrich and company started attacking Public Television and the NEA. And from there it went to Showtime where it did well enough.

I didn’t have cable then and never saw the succeeding episodes. But I’m reviewing the first series and forgot that Syd Straw, Country Joe, Mimi Farina, Parker Posey all pass through. Olympia Dukakis is excellent as is Laura Linney and Chloe Webb et al.

Today is also Record Store Day. I usually visit the local store here in town every now and then. I was there the other day and picked up some good used CD’s a really cheap prices. Today being Record Store Day it was a bit more crowded with guys like me, they’re just wider, balder, sometimes hairier and more often than not, straighter in most every sense of the word.

But I do like the whole aspect of buying a CD, and I really like paying $1.99 for it, Pretenders- The Isle of You. But I think, and I could be wrong, but I think they jacked up the prices of items because it was Record Store Day.

That would be tacky, but having been there the other day I don’t recall things being what they were today. I lucked out and snagged a CD of Lene Lovich, Lucky Number, a best of compilation. I probably could have picked it up for $3.99 the other day.

I’ve always liked her, a special place in my heart for Lene Lovich. I did see her at the Meadowbrook in 1982 and she was electrifying. I was going to head into the Village to check out the Budos Band at Generation Records, but the weather is crappy.

Last night I did head out in a rainstorm and walked up to Maxwells where I saw Glass Trees, the band my friend Chris Repella is in. Rand was there and Roda was managing the place. Glass Trees were pretty good, though Rand and I both preferred the instrumentals to the songs with vocals.

The instrumentals were other worldly whereas the songs with vocals brought the back room back to Earth. They reminded me of My Bloody Valentine and Neu!. Chris was a regular Brian Eno on the synthesizer.

Rand had seen them before and they were accompanied by some visuals. Not last night though. I would have focused on the noisy instrumentals rather than the vocal songs which killed whatever momentum existed from the previous song.

For the past week, Monday through Friday I had 239 visits from 140 cities around the world. From New York City to Winchester, Arcata to Zagreb. Edinburgh to Xuzhou. I think that’s impressive. Some of the visits were just a glance, lasting less than a minute. Some were sent via Google word or name searches and some were return visits.

Still no one in Hoboken reads it. I have no problem with that. In fact I might prefer it that way.