Tag Archives: Rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic

Praying Hands

It’s a Sunday again and today was an exceptionally nice Sunday. After all the cold weather and freezing temperatures, the fact that it was near 60 degrees made it feel like Spring.

Of course it”s not spring and we’re going to go back to the cold weather sooner or later. Lot’s of people out and about today on Washington Street.

It was a good day to wander around Hoboken, enjoying a Padron. I did stop by and saw my friend Lois, who gave me an iron she found. The plan is to start ironing my own shirts to save some money. I’ll iron the dress shirts after I’ve worn them once to take care of a day’s wrinkles.

Lois was pretty sick, seemingly with the same virus I just had gotten over. I brought her some generic Nyquil and some vitamin C.

There were a lot of people out yesterday including what seemed to be a group of kids, all related singing Ramones songs on Washington Street. The boys were on bass, guitar and drums and the girl was singing.

20809-hoboken-weekend-003

They were raucous and shy if that’s possible. They had a good crowd and a zealous father who applauded the loudest after each song. There were quite a few dollars in the bag when I gave them one of mine.

20809-hoboken-weekend-001

Perhaps this is how it will be, families out on the street playing music for money. This group did have their hearts I the right place though their fingers were on the wrong frets. I walked away as they started deconstructing Blitzkrieg Bop.

Yesterday before I went out I watched Alien. The first movie, with John Hurt, Tom Skerritt, Yaphet Kotto and of course, Sigourney Weaver. Still an intense movie, I remember seeing it at the now defunct Stanley Warner theater with my sister in law, Elaine.

I think my sister saw it before me saying it was a really gross picture which of course got my interest, hearing of a monster bursting through someone’s chest. I’ve seen it quite a few times since then.

A week or so ago there was some bulletin board about the movie and my post was rejected. I wrote about how horrible it was the way the Lambert character played by Veronica Cartwright gets killed.

The last shot of Lambert when she’s facing the monster is her lower legs. She’s paralyzed with terror and you see the Alien’s tail going between her calves and slowly heading upwards. The scene cuts to Ripley, Sigourney Weaver, hearing Lambert’s ghastly screams over the radio as she dies.

I wrote that the character was raped by the Alien, and that’s probably what prompted the monitor not to post my opinion. After watching it again yesterday and paying attention to that scene, I’m convinced that’s how Lambert met her too gruesome death. It’s an off camera scene which lends itself to the imagination.

Before I went out this afternoon I watched a documentary on Sweet Honey in the Rock on PBS. That was enjoyable. I’ve never seen Sweet Honey in the Rock but I did see Bernice Johnson Reagon’s daughter Toshi Reagon sing with her group Big Lovely with Elvis Costello when I saw a taping of the Letterman Show last century. I think I saw it with Harpy when he scored tickets for the taping.

Tonight is nothing special, back to work tomorrow. After being sick last week, I’m looking forward to it. Should be another intense week of rearranging the deck chairs.

I’m not complaining, at least not yet. Probably during the week I will. Seems to be a pattern.

Today’s Hoboken people
20809-hoboken-weekend-004

20809-hoboken-weekend-006

She's in the lead.....

She's in the lead.....

20809-hoboken-weekend-014

20809-hoboken-weekend-020

work it gurl!!!

work it gurl!!!

The Wolves (Act I and II)

Fucking hell. That’s the type of day it’s been. Didn’t start out that way surprisingly despite the fact that I wasn’t able to go to sleep when I wanted to. Wound up falling asleep around 1:30. It seems the 2 hour nap that I had taken earlier stole some much desired sleep. I lay in the dark and laughed about how fat I am.

Still with about 5 hours of sleep I felt pretty good as I woke up and got my act together and headed out to catch the bus. Almost finished with the Lennon bio and of course it’s due today. I figured I would be able to find some time and read it, maybe at lunch, maybe on the bus ride home. It was not to be.

On Friday I got an email from Tom Chin telling me to get a few expense reports together and he wrote especially that I shouldn’t wait until Monday to do it. I took care of most of that as well as some expenses Vivek had me do for his other company that he and his business partner are doing.

They claimed $8000 and change, I found they were owed $8200. I could only do so much on Friday since I was the only one in my company in. Greg Stevens seems to be fading from the company. I guess being the president of nothing in particular will diminish one’s enthusiasm, Vivek was travelling for his other company and Tom Chin doesn’t come in on Fridays.

So today there was a lot of things that hit me as I walked through the door. Some company needed our tax ID number which I tracked down and when I sent an email to Tom Chin and Vivek, Tom Chin said he was working at home, feeling ill. He told me I had the info available but I couldn’t find it.

That’s when I found it looking in other years files. He started yelling at me telling me what I had (which was what was asked for) was wrong. He’s a jerk in person and a fucking bitch when he’s sick on the phone.

Then it was the expenses which out of $1700 was listed, I found $1600. I told Vivek about it and he insisted I call the bookkeeper. I decided not to call her and figure it out myself. An hour after I usually leave, I was still there. I had everything spread out on a table and showed Vivek, ‘I have this, I have that. This is that, that is this.’

After a day of looking at these expenses I was toast. I even told him I was toast, two hours after I usually leave. He had me call the bookkeeper and started screaming at her. It was ugly. Apparently he was on a yelling kick today, going so far as to scream at his pregnant wife that she’s ruining his life over the phone.

I didn’t hear that but heard about it. I cleaned up whatever I had on the table which was no longer in neat stacks. I was really toast and all the stress started to mess up my back. Back in his office I can hear Vivek yelling at Tom Chin that he had to fire the bookkeeper after tax season. I know this will bite me on the ass tomorrow as well as Thursday when the bookkeeper comes in.

But I didn’t do anything but just tell him that he might be getting less than $1700. My name was mentioned but it was about ‘why should John have to file those papers? Why doesn’t the bookkeeper do it?’ I don’t mind doing the filing, I’ve been doing it since day one at the firm. But man, I don’t think in all the jobs that I’ve had, I’ve never bore witness to such an ugly scene.

I asked a question which opened a whole can of worms which I will hear more about this week. Usually I rearrange the deck chairs on this Titanic, but now the captain is losing his mind and the crew is turning on each other. Left the office feeling lousy and even though I smoked a Padron, it didn’t really give me the satisfaction it usually does.

Made it to the bus where I had to stand, lower right part of my back throbbing. No reading the Lennon bio. I should return it tomorrow, it ends badly I know.

Came home, my brother Brian called. He’s stressed and I talked with him for a while but I don’t think it helped either one of us.

I really hoped to talk to someone, but it turns out, I don’t have anyone I can talk to. Julio is busy with Stine and Alexander, no time for this big baby. Annemarie is too far away and plus she was unavailable since she was working or en route from work.

Forget about my brother Frank, he’s no help these days unfortunately, and Bill is directing his first play tonight and when he calls later he’ll be all about how the directing of the play went, and I wouldn’t want to rain on his parade.

Perhaps tomorrow will be a better day, but I obviously have my doubts. It’s all about the economy, my company trying to stay afloat and get whatever monies owed to us and it is stressing everyone the fuck out.

Oh yeah, the coffee maker crapped out and I spent a good part of the day filling it with white vinegar to clean it out.