AD's Journal 2024

  “It’s all or nothing,” my childhood friend once told me in describing how he gambles, at the race track, in Atlantic City casinos, or for that matter, life itself. “Why hold back when you really have nothing to lose.” By this he meant if he couldn’t get what he wanted, couldn’t win the jackpot, then he’s already lost and keeping something in reserve seemed stupid to him. Sop was the idea of settling for something less than what he wanted in the first place. “What’s the point?” he told me. “If you don’t go for it all; you won’t get it all. I asked him what if he ended up getting nothing at the end of the game. He just shrugged. “We’re all going to end up in the same place eventually,” he said. “Then it won’t matter if you’ve won or lost, rich or poor. Part of the fun is knowing you might break out at any moment, get something you want, and if you lose it again, who cares? At least, you tried, and maybe got it once, on your own terms.” How all this panned out for him ...

  My one-time best friend and co-editor of our underground literary magazine from back in the 1980s once claimed some artists do not come into their own until after the age of 40 (or 50), while others get their glory while young, often dying young or burning out later. He might have come up with this theory because he had plunged into his 30s and still had not yet made a dent in the literary world, despite betting accolades throughout his early life, teachers in elementary school singing his praises, teachers in high school claiming he would become the next great poet. Despite my skepticism, he may be right about some of it. Some people simply find happiness later in life that had eluded them when they were young. Perhaps the joy is greater for having been forced to wait for it for so long. I would not know since I’ve not achieved greatness when young or when old. I miss the struggle from back when I assumed I would achieve something, those days when I lived in a cold water...

We’re between storms – if that’s what we’ve been getting, snow turning to rain, followed by a chill. Someone filed a complaint about my backup Facebook account, causing them to shut it down for a whole day while they investigated whether or not I violated community standards (whatever that means). Since that site only has four followers and I use it only if I have an issue with my main account (I lost access to my original main account), it puzzles me as to who would want to complain and cause such havoc. (I suspect I know but it’s pointless to go on about it here) Not a problem since the investigation proved nothing wrong. Took a stroll down Bergenline Avenue this morning after sending off my stories for work, narrow sidewalk, thick with people, but hardly the same place Hank and I used to visit during its dirty heyday of the 1970s, no more strip clubs, no Transfer Station, no band Blondie. Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show also started out here, the guitarist of which has si...

More snow turned to rain, which is just fine with me, even if it spoils Friday’s Magical Mystery Tour to Point Pleasant. I know it sounds stupid to go to a shore town in winter, but summer trips are worse. Point Pleasant has a lot of history for me, especially when my uncle moved there and became the manager of a marina there in 1977. But our gang made a couple of trips there prior to that, especially after I bought the 1960 Chevy Impala in 1975 and Pauly convinced me to visit our friend, Alf, who was managing some bungalows there, and had invited a girl we all knew years earlier from Little Falls. Naturally, Pauly absconded with the girl, locking Alf out of his own room for a little monkey business. Normally, our Friday trips take us west or north, but with the snow, we dare not risk a trip in either direction until spring. Most likely, we’ll be heading up to Woodstock once the weather gets better to visit some abandoned hotel we read about. Until then, we’ll go to closer ...

   I found the old email in my files and sent a message even though I knew the man who owned it died more than a decade ago. It was more than a shock that I got a message back, not from him, of course (that being too much of a chore even for the internet), but from his second wife (second exwife I should say) who has retained it and his facebook page all this time. He was one of my childhood buddies, who I had attended elementary school with, gone to scout camp with, and with whom I had worked in the theater as an usher, teaching him how to pick up girls. His mother hated me, and eventually threw me out of their house when she came back from work early to find I had gotten him drunk. In scouts, we had done weekend camping trips together where I also taught him all the wrong things, drinking and such. We attended different high schools but he often came over to my house to hang out (drinking and if we could find girls other things). I lost touch with him after I w...

  Tomorrow is my ex-wife’s birthday. She already held her party over the weekend, inviting all her closest friends. She said she wanted to see them all since she’s not sure she’ll get to see them again if she waits. I guess there’s logic in this. But then, any one of us could go at any moment, from getting run over by old age or a Mack truck. Unfortunately, we’ve reached an age when – if newspapers still existed – we’d be perusing the obits to look for familiar names – or as the old joke says to make sure our names aren’t there. Birthdays have always been important to her, even back when we were teens, and marked significant moments in time, such as when we were out in Hollywood, and later while in New York waiting for the birth of our daughter. She always expected presents, regardless of how impoverished we were, although this year, she gave all her friends presents instead, nothing fancy, just a token of her gratitude for still having them in her life. I wasn’t in...

  It’s been a bad two weeks. My home computer, which has been going blue screen for weeks, finally bit the dust. Luck alone allowed me to off load the files on the hard drive before the computer ceased booting up at all. But I lost programing. Worse, I lost access to several key websites, including my original Facebook. I managed to get another computer and have been reassembling the web stuff, some of which may well be lost forever. Perhaps more troubling are the medical issues. Even though I was scheduled for my yearly physical in March, my primary doctor decided to hold my prescriptions hostage until I saw him, which I did finally on Monday. He was concerned about my blood pressure which has been problematic in the past. When I got there, my weight had moderately increased, but the medication kept the blood pressure in check. The blood test, however, showed a jump in my cholesterol levels – too much cheese and red meat. He recommended a low-fat high protein diet....