Tag Archives: The Buddha of Suburbia

I’ve Just Seen a Face

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Well it’s Friday. I’m off. A weird day overall. Last night and tonight the forecast was 100% hummus. And no pita for a good time. Just a strange, off day.

Last night was quiet, Bill attending a wake in the Bronx and me doing nothing much beyond writing. Watched more of the recorded Daily Show Colbert Report. Not much Scrubs these days. After watching most, if not all of the episodes over and over, I’ve opted for other things to watch.

Sometimes even playing music instead of the TV being on. When Bill is here I try to introduce new things for him to hear during commercial breaks. Then I ask him what he thinks of it and he generally likes it. Then again I am specific on what I play.

Certainly not the Fall, but rather along the lines of Ian Dury and the Blockheads. No Butthole Surfers, instead The Bird and the Bee. This is all new stuff Bill.

Last night my nephew Earl graduated from high school. A major accomplishment. Not that his graduation was in doubt- it wasn’t, but high school graduation is a major turning point in a young persons life.

And then there are the parties going on for a week or so afterwards. I graduated from high school in 1980 and it was certainly a different time for social mores at least.

After my graduation ceremony, I joined my family for cocktails at the VFW before heading off to another VFW in Fort Lee where another classmate was having a party. Smoking and drinking throughout the night and no one said otherwise to 17 year old me.

Definitely not the same for Earl and his graduating class, I’m sure. Sobriety is the theme for their night and good for them.

And congratulations to Earl!

Today was spent doing laundry and getting some things from the supermarket. That was about it. Now it’s not so hummus but earlier was just dense. Several t-shirts later, a nice breeze finally wafts through the screen.

I’m heading out in a while, off to meet up with Bill to see the Taking of Pelham 1-2-3. It’s a remake and the original is one of Bill’s favorite movies of all time. He tried to get cast in this go round but the director Tony Scott didn’t get Bill’s head shot.

Bill’s pal Fred and his lady friend Lila are joining us and we’re supposed to meet in front of the theater on 23rd street at 7:45, two hours from now.

I’m watching the second disc of The Buddha of Suburbia and not paying much attention to it. I did watch Black Narcissus earlier and I’m pretty sure I had seen that before. Just killing time I suppose.

I was able to get some tickets to a Rock Show in July. Geology is such a fascinating field. I’m taking Bill and Earl. For Bill’s birthday on June 29 and Earl’s graduation last night.

Pity the seats aren’t together. Someone will be on top, and someone will be close to the ground. Annemarie’s joining us as well so perhaps the 4 of us can swap tickets and seats if need be. That will have to be worked out on July 17.

Funny thing, instead of frantically trying to get the tickets when they went on pre-sale at 10:00 this morning, I didn’t get around to it until 10:20.

I’m satisfied, but then again I haven’t gotten the bill yet.

Fine For Now

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Well last night was mainly me being exhausted from the afternoon’s events. I would have preferred being exhausted from bicycling over 30 miles, but no, it was the emotional wringer I had gone through.

Juan came by last night and that was good. We sat on the stoop for a while where I enjoyed a cigar and had 2 Stella Artois to Juan’s 1. He won the award for having a tumultuous life, he being without a roof over his head at the moment and people that were willing to help him out turning into douche bags.

Made my tale of woe seem like a walk in the park.

After my cigar we came upstairs where Bill was watching Snatch. The movie not the genital slang. I had seen it a number of years ago with my friend Miriam and it was still a fun movie to watch. A tad violent of course but darkly funny.

After that I threw in a DVD of The Buddha of Suburbia, which was written by Hanif Kureishi. Kureishi also wrote My Beautiful Laundrette, Sammy & Rosie Get Laid and London Kills Me.

His books and screenplays are mainly about the interaction and love lives of Asian Indians and Westerners, mainly the British. Very enjoyable and eye opening as well as risque which in my eyes is a good combination.

Naveen Andrews who plays on Lost as Sayid is in The Buddha of Suburbia as the Hanif Kureishi role. Teen-aged then, he shows his ‘how do you do’ a few times. It was a 4 episode series from the BBC and we only caught the first 2.

After that we watched the repeats of Lost on ABC which featured the more muscular Naveen Andrews with a thicker middle eastern accent.

Bill was in bed by the time that ended and Juan was soon out the door after that, coming back after I texted him to tell Juan that he left his phone charger here.

I slept the sleep of the exhausted and having a total of 5 Stella Artois under by belt made for a deep sleep.

In the morning, Bill was off to church again kissing me goodbye and I soon got out of bed, took off my clothes and went to take a shower when I realized I was still pretty tired and could use some more sleep so I went back to bed sleeping naked under the sheets which was really nice.

Bill had gotten bagels from H&H in the city yesterday so there was no need to deal with canary face at the bagel shop on Washington Street. But I did go out since I wanted the Sunday papers. Nothing that I could have missed there but still some habits die hard.

Around 2:00 I went out, to the river and sat by the soccer pitch reading the Eno biography. It was almost comforting that Brian Eno had some crisis of self doubt when making some of his landmark albums.

The same self doubt that I suffer from occasionally. Not that reading about Eno’s self doubt helped me, but the realization that it happens to a lot of people helped me think that as usual, self doubt is a momentary thing. Crippling for sure, but eventually you can walk again.

I sat for a few hours just reading and watching people and ocean liners go by.

Sitting there made me think that Hoboken is no longer the hipster town it used to be, if it ever was. Especially compared to Williamsburg yesterday. We drove past McCarren Park which was swarming with hipsters in tight jeans and fedoras.

It was off putting somewhat. Juan mentioned that no one wears fedoras anymore, only the ones that don’t know any better, and there they were, the ones that didn’t know any better.