Tag Archives: Work

Watching the Wheels

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Well today was an alright day. No vendors, no real estate agents. The stock markets all around the world are doing poorly and no one knows what will happen next. The government has cut interest rates to no avail, other countries have done the same. Pakistan is thisclose to bankruptcy and that will affect us somehow, one way or another.

Last night was nice. Juan came by again. Always good to have him around. Bill and I talked about his situation with his mother. She’ll be staying with his cousin for the time being. Awfully nice for her to offer and I know Bill is grateful.

He’s doing all that he can and he’s doing the best job possible. He’s totally stressed though. If anyone could use a puff, it would be him. But he’s not one to pass the dutchie ‘pon the left hand side.

We watched the usual programs that get our blood pressure rising. The Daily Show and The Colbert Report provided some much needed levity but still, it isn’t enough. A little less than a month until the elections, and then hopefully I can laugh again.

Does anyone remember laughter?

Today is John Lennon’s birthday. He would have been 68. I would have loved to have met him, but then again I probably would have embarrassed myself. I listened to a few Lennon tracks today. My favorite John Lennon album is probably Walls and Bridges, his last album of his own material before he retired for five years.

The vinyl edition had a really fun flip cover where you can change John’s glasses and face over and over. Also had a nice booklet with lyrics and drawings from his childhood and an excerpt about the Lennon name from an Irish lineage book, that stated that no Lennons ever amounted to much. It was signed at the end, ‘Oh yeah?, John Lennon’.

It was things like that that made me love him. You have to feel bad for Paul McCartney though. If he had to deal with being compared to John while he was alive, after John’s death the legend loomed larger than ever before and still to this day grows and grows.

John was definitely a flawed individual, and it’s been said he had a violent streak which probably fueled the fire for peace in his life, realizing that what inside of him and peace would be the only way to take care of that.

It would have been nice if John was able to follow his plans, to visit England again, to go on tour again. More records, perhaps they would have been great, perhaps not. We’ll never know. It did mean that the Beatles would never get together again which could be seen as a heartbreak. Or a relief since you really can’t put the genie back in the bottle.

In any event he’s probably frolicking around the universe, met up with George and Stu and Brian Epstein and Brian Jones and Jimi Hendrix, my mom, Jet and Zed and Abraham Lincoln. That’s how I see it. When you die your essence or soul goes out and becomes part of the ever expanding universe and life flows on within you and without you.

This video is relatively new (at least to me). It features Rick Nielsen and Bun E. Carlos from Cheap Trick and Tony Levin from Peter Gabriel’s band and King Crimson. The track was rejected for the Double Fantasy album at the time and eventually resurfaced on the Lennon Box Set which is probably when the video was made with clips of John and his drawings sometimes interacting with the band.

Then there’s Well Well Well from John and Yoko at the One to One concert in 1972 at MSG

and here’s an oldie but goodie…

Something In The Water (Does Not Compute)

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The madness continues. My company seems to be treading water, and I was busy today dealing with real estate agents. Two sets of agents, both with different agendas. Apparently there is a database of companies in Manhattan that has information on leases.

My company’s lease expires February 2010. For the past 5 months different agents have called or shown up with offers on finding the company a space to move to on March 2010. Of course with the way the economy is we can’t even say that we would be around by the end of the month much less in a year and a half thereabouts.

One of my problems is that that either never call and just show up, or they call constantly. I do my best to field the calls but eventually they wear me down and I consent to meet with them. Todays visitor was in his second year and he had his manager with him who just wouldn’t shut up. The manager was cute though and clearly the dominant of the two.

I did my best to be engaged and engaging even though they interrupted my lunch. They were the ones looking forward to March 2010. While I was meeting with these two, Vivek and Tom Chin were showing the vacant spaces in our office to sub-sublet, going so far as to walk into the conference room where I was meeting the first two.

Of course being Realtors they each recognized the other. After I got rid of the two I was with I was summoned into Vivek’s office. Vivek was sitting with the other Realtor. The other realtor’s name is Claus. Claus is a bit swishy and when I met him a few weeks ago I thought he was gay and that was our common ground.

A few weeks later at another meeting he mentioned his wife which through me for a loop since the guy just seemed so not straight. You never can tell, though of course he could very well be gay and so ashamed that he lives a lie which in 21st century Manhattan doesn’t make sense.

I reassured Claus that the other Realtor was there for the end of the lease, offering to help us find a new space should we need it. The way things are right now we don’t need that much space. Claus offered to run interference in case I get overwhelmed from the unending phone calls, just to tell them Claus Fischer is our agent now and all inquiries should be done through him.

It is certainly turning into a melancholy space to work in.

Last night was good. Juan came by to watch the debate and since Bill was on the way we paused until he got home. I was participating in a live blog on Hoboken411. I participated for the vice presidential debate and enjoyed it somewhat and I think the guy who runs Hoboken411 enjoyed my comments.

He said so last night and stated that my comments would go up automatically without his approval. That was cool, I felt part of the ‘scene’. Then I noticed whatever I tried to post wasn’t making it online.

I mentioned it in private to the moderator and he said he needed to approve them, which meant they had to be approved. I sat there and read what these other people were posting, stupid pro-McCain nonsense. Really stupid stuff without an iota of wit or intelligence so I dropped out of that Obama bashing blogging. It did piss me off though. Whether or not I give it another try next week, we shall see.

Bill’s mother was released from the hospital today and he’s been told that she can’t be alone anymore. That’s a totally different story that’s not mine to tell.

“…my fellow Prisoners…”