133 Back to School 9-6 Tues.
131 La Bufadora 9-8 Mon
Thing, Maltez, and I left Papas and Beer after a few pool
games and walked up the highway to another bar for a few more and some good ol’
nonstop conversation. After about an hour or so of just sitting at the bar, talking,
we began to wonder about Howrad and Babs. I walked back to Papas and Beer and
scoured the joint to no avail. The rest of us grabbed a cab back to our hotel
and had some beers and crossed the street to another bar and there were our lost
friends, partying with some 19-yeare-old San Diego skate punks who claimed to
be in a band. I paid for beers like a good sport and cracked wise from time to
time. A piano in the bar beckoned one of the punks, and I accompanied him with
a rhythm on some bongos, and so it went—until say about four AM. Beyond the bar
was a pool and hot tub and Howrad and Babs were scamming with a couple of the punks,
but Babs got in over her head, and I almost had to beat up one punk. I soon
realized that had to be the exact reason I had been invited on this trip—as a
bodyguard.
Back in our room, we wanted to take off the mattress and
fashion two beds with it and the boxspring, but it was bolted to the wall. I ripped
it off, splintering the wood from the bolts and out of its foundation.
Babs said she’d never had an orgasm, and I told her I could
help her with that and was resting comfortably between her and Maltez on the
mattress, plotting my moves while Thing nagged me to walk out to the beach. He
wouldn’t shut up about it, and finally pestered me to the point that I walked
outside with him only to find that it had all been a play to switch places with
me, the little bastard.
Somehow, I ended up alone on the boxspring, and Thing kept
all his teeth. Howrad came in reeking of semen. “Oh, great. Now I have to sleep
with Cathy Howrad,” I said, and we both blew up laughing, but I complained
bitterly about the arrangement until I fell asleep.
In the morning, we put the bed back together, sort of—we all
got a life imagining the next couple that tried to bone on the thing. I drove
to Puerto Nuevo for breakfast on cliffs overlooking the cloudy, brown sewage-filled
water the current had dragged down from the Tijuana River. A pack of dogs lazed
around an old car covered in dust. I had a screwdriver and a Vicodin and a beer
and drove us against everyone’s will up to La Bufadora. When the water exploded,
everyone understood. Thing wanted to buy a hammock, but we began to realize we
might not have enough cash left for the toll roads after we’d bought a round of
coconuts with straws in them. I told them about the time I’d been spearfishing
in the cove and had seen a gray whale calf, but no one seemed to care.
On the way back, we had
a couple of close calls when I passed slow movers; a mutiny ensued, and I was
relegated to the passenger seat. I rested my armpit over the door with my face
out the window, and it was so Mexico out there. Crossing the border, I sang “The Star-Spangled
Banner,” rousingly, I might add. Then Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” came on the
radio, and everyone in the car sang along.
129 Met with Howrad and some other 9-4 Sun
law school chicks and went to Del Mar
then Mexico. It was a beautiful, sunny day, and the first day of the NFL season, as well. The ponies didn't run the way I hoped, but what the hell. Babs and Howrad decided to spend some time telling me I am a good-looking guy and smart and funny, but that I needed to clean up my act, try some different clothes, maybe some jeans shorts, though Catherine said, "I don't know. He's been wearing those Hawaiian shirts as long as I've known him."
I told them I knew, and I'd look into it, thanks. After a screwdriver and a few beers and a coffee, Pittsburgh was getting beat by Dallas, and we left after the fifth race, I driving, to Rosarito, Mexico.
We had a seafood dinner and an entertaining cab ride into town complete with dead people in overturned vehicles on the underpass below. The driver stopped to get out and gawk, and we followed suit. When we got back in the car, the driver had picked up a woman he told me was his novia, and she sat next to me on the front seat. A mile down the road, he pulled over for a family of four who piled into the very back of the wagon.
At dinner, we had pitchers of maggies, and afterward, our waiters drove us in two cars and dropped us off at Papa's and Beer.
127 9-3? 4?
Woke up on the couch at O’Ryan’s and walked to 32nd
where I bought a newspaper in front of Carl’s Jr. I crossed the street over to
DP’s and paid for the low quality all-you-can-eat breakfast bar from which I
piled food just once and watched the first minutes of the first Saturday of the
college football season. Two Italian geeks pretended to talk about the intricacies
of the game. I walked back to 41st, and my brother was finally up.
We shot a few games of pool in the safety of daylight and waited for the SC-Washington
game. The Trojans didn’t look so good but won. We got high, and I walked out on
the beach with my towel and swam beyond the breakers and treaded water and
floated under the sun on my back and thought about Catherine Howrad. She showed
up later and laughed and bailed, kicked me right out of her car.
O'Ryan's Newport coke house 9-3 Fri
with a pool table and broken toilet
seat and green shit growing along the water level and bits of vomit near the hinge of the broken lid. Ill-at-ease at the Stag, though I'd found $20 waiting for me in the Seven Eleven money machine. Some girls to whom I didn't speak gave us a ride to Forty-First and the nerdy guy was complaining that if we played pool, the crack of the break would stir the neighbors into calling the police, and they would all be doomed again.
I'd bought a case of beer on my credit card at the Stag liquor store adjoining the bar. Strange faces looked familiar or familiar faces looked strange as acid I'd taken years ago on a nearby street crept back into my veins.
123 El Compadre Mexican restaurant 9-1 Th
on Sunset with the GIP
filing for bankruptcy and Thing, I believe, ordered the crab enchiladas with rice and a margarita and wasn't there some kind of seafood tamale on that plate under all that cheese?
?or would that be mas tarde in Rosarito?
Was I high today?
So, what, motherfucker? So, what?
121 Stayed home 9-30 Wed
and probably read just a few pages of that bog-you-down
existentialist philosophical bullshit. Art over philosophy.
Philosophy is an improper fraction.
Educators are a lot of bullshitters, too.
There’s nothing on TV Wednesdays—just “Jeopardy!” at 7:00
119 Got high and walking up 8-30
La Brea to the Laugh Factory Tues.
when a one-in-a-billion coindicence pulled up. Queens
It was an odd thing. I haven't seen the guy in years and never outside of Orange County. It seemed to me that things were falling into place. I needed exercise, and I was bored. My choices came down to sitting on the couch watching the local news or going up to the comedy club for one-minute comedy contest at six. It was with ambivalent hesitation that I dragged my feet downstairs, knowing that, because I was walking a few miles, I might not make it in time. It was a coin flip to do it, up to God and fate. I trudged along La Brea through the heart of Mid City toward Hollywood and after a few minutes, I locked eyes with the driver of a little white sports coupe which pulled into the driveway cross my path. It was Rick Cohen, by old boss at the Anthill Pub and Grill. I hadn't seen him in years and never outside of Orange County. He hired me to handle the door haha where I stood in front of a 298-capacity building, by order of the fire marshal, and let in about 400 people each night and checked IDs and took ten dollars off everyone I let in, and did my schtick gave and took acid, and drank Watney's by the pitcher until one day he said, "You're fired."
Now, he said, "Get in." He was on his way up to law school--Southwestern, I guess. He gave me a ride up to Sunset and dropped me at the Laugh Factory, and I got my name on the list with time to kill. Rather than wait on the sidewalk with my fellow loser wannabes, I wandered over to a sign on the place next door that read COCKTAILS. The place was called Numbers. I went in and walked down the stairs to the bar and did my thing. Two silver-haired dudes talked a few stools down. They were talking about queens, and I thought they were mattress salesmen until I realized it was a gay bar, or so they explained to me. One of them said he'd give me two hundred dollars to let him suck my dick. He told me no woman could do it as well as a man who know what was what, and I'd never know 'til I tried.
I said, if you were a woman, I'd let you do it for free. He had a lot of rational arguments, but I felt certain I only wanted a woman playing with my dick.
The mattress bit got a laugh but not the blowjob offer. It needs a punchline.
117 Stayed home though I had a mind 8-29
to hit the Lava Mon.
Lounge. Thing and I watched a very funny independent film, unreleased as of yet, called “Clerks.” It’s about Dante, the 20-something Quickstop clerk, and his friend, Randall, who works at the video store across the street. It’s shot in black and white. I bet it was made for less than $20, 000. You could say it was a lot of immature, locker-room, potty talk. My parents would hate it. I wonder if Josh Wesley would laugh?
Good thing I was wearing White Sox that day. “Cuz I’m a Whitesox fan,” he told the big _____r.
117 Stayed home though I had a mind 8-29
to hit the Lava Mon.
Lounge. Thing and I watched a very funny independent film, unreleased as of yet, called “Clerks.” It’s about Dante, the 20-something Quickstop clerk, and his friend, Randall, who works at the video store across the street. It’s shot in black and white. I bet it was made for less than $20, 000. You could say it was a lot of immature, locker-room, potty talk. My parents would hate it. I wonder if Josh Wesley would laugh?
Good thing I was wearing White Sox that day. “Cuz I’m a Whitesox fan,” he told the big _____r.
117 Stayed home though I had a mind 8-29
to hit the Lava Mon.
Lounge. Thing and I watched a very funny independent film, unreleased as of yet, called “Clerks.” It’s about Dante, the 20-something Quickstop clerk, and his friend, Randall, who works at the video store across the street. It’s shot in black and white. I bet it was made for less than $20, 000. You could say it was a lot of immature, locker-room, potty talk. My parents would hate it. I wonder if Josh Wesley would laugh?
Good thing I was wearing White Sox that day. “Cuz I’m a Whitesox fan,” he told the big _____r.
115 I haven't written here in 9 days. Rawler, 8-28 Sun.
Andi, and Thing are here. Fresno St.'s losing to Ohio State. Things from Fresno. Oops, this'll be tomorrow.
-
I went fishing today on the old sea of blue under the sky of blue dotted white with sailboats and the mackerel were shimmering greenish with intricate designs like tats of black lace
[The tone of your voice
a girls t(f)ears in the car]
draping scales smoother than skin
the angle of light changes their green to blue.
"If the light caught 'em right, you could see the blue in 'em."
I tried for bonito I saw near the surface, but they were not going for my anchovies. Peach caught a big, fat sand bass, but a fatter one won the contest.
The crew cleaned the fish, slicing into their sides near the head, behind the first pectoral fin, fileting them along the side before yanking the skins and tossing the remains over the side of the California Pride. We got ice cream when we disembarked.
Back in LA, I played X-Men video games all sweaty at Shakey's.
113 Played darts at Malarkey’s in Newport Beach 8-27 Sat
The Raiders beat the Oilers through a room curling cannabis smoke.
Peachtree showed ‘bout 2, and we went down to Newport and bought sandwiches and
beer, and at Paulsen and Garth’s place, we watched the kids from Northridge
lose the Little League World Series to Venezuela, 4-3.
So we played Super Nintendo and ping pong and went down to
Malarkey’s in the evening for some Kahluas and coffee and a few pitchers and we
played some good darts and wone a few beers. I was a hit with the chicks for a couple
of hours until I was too drunk to talk anymore. I was massaging Kim, the art
history major at her request, and then a fine little number whose daddy had a
place in Montana was all thrilled to talk to me about fishing, but my dumbass
couldn’t remember her name, and I felt like I was two-timing Kim, so I excused
myself. Two more got miffed when I check my watch during a lull in the
conversation. We walked over to Snug Harbor, but Catherine Howrad had dogged
me. I drove home alone, smoking a j along the way and lay on the couch, making
fun of everything until I passed out.
111 Called in sick this morning 8-26 Fri but yukked it up a couple of laughs with a smart redhead named Wendy and a couple originally from Flint, Michigan this evening at Jack's Sugar Shack. GIP was there on a date, sitting on the patio beyond the waterfall, blues band jamming, but I did not jam on the pool table. A short dork with long black hair and cutoff sleeves tried to get me to take part in his rock-and-roll billiards fantasy starring him as a seasoned rocker pool shark and me as the straight-up nerd needing his help. After a couple of games, I bit his head off and had to go to the bar to wash my mouth out.
The beat-up Lincoln was gone.
The most interesting, thought-provoking summer smash!
109 Didn’t feel well at school today 8-25 Thursday
Had a head cold and no energy. I let them play games most of
the second half. They played Jr. Monopoly, Connect Four, and checkers, and I
showed them how to play Battleship. This was while I was roved into Eva Peron’s
class.
107 Thing got his tonsils out 8-24 Wed
today.
He's been staying on our couch popping Vicodin--the Fresno Kid, working for a big Hollywood studio.
105 Spent the night at Mac's. Penn had just returned from Col 8-23 Tues. orado. The boys were indirectly mad at each other, their anger surfaced at odd times. Some friend of Scott's delivered a twenty-dollar bag of bud and stems. We watched the movie "Tombstone," and my brother kept saying to me ala Val Klimer/Doc Holliday, "Why, Johnny Ringo, you look like someone just walked across your grave." and "I'm your huckleberry." and "You'd be a daisy if you did."
103 The Lava Lounge for comedy 8-22 Got laughs belching. Mon. A girl brought her violin. She was cute and petite but not funny. Thing and I bought each other beers. I had some Guinnesses and a couple of Rolling Rocks. It's encouraging how badly some of them suck. A skinny, weightless, no-account, Thai guy with black-framed nerd glasses...
Tropical 60s tiki schmooze, little umbrellas and plastic palm trees in the drinks. I ran into what's-her-name, who played Flo in the "Salad Days" movie, the one I shoved against the wall in our scene, and who then slammed my head in the refrigerator door as I'm bent over, looking in. The next scene shows my character dead and bloody, eyes rolled up, she slumps against me. At the Lava Lounge, she didn't recognize me when I asked if she remembered me. "I don't," she said, "but you're giving me the creeps."
Haha! I took that as a sign of what a great actor I am, that she remembered the creep I played and not me.
___
"Listen," he said. "Let's get something straight: All we are is friends, and the only reason for that is because you're such a goddam persistent nag, and I'm so goddam lazy.
101 Saw the movie "True Lies" 8-21
mit Ahnohld. Thought it Sun
sucked. At Mann's Chinese on Hollywood where busloads of Japanese tourists swarm over footprints of their favorite movie stars. Throwing out the verbal abuse on Shirelle's intelligence. Cuz the movie was so preposterous.
There was in the parking lot around back an old convertible Lincoln with 4 flat tires and a busted windshield and rusted it was, with the upholstery ripped off the seats and the padding coming out.
Thing was a PA during its production and rode an elevator with Schwarzenegger and made a delivery to Jamie Lee Curtis's house in Bel Air.
-
"It's such a vain pursuit."
"But don't you prefer it to nothing, to spending free time on the couch in front of the tube?"
99 Went to a cervix 8-20 Sat bar with the GIP. and Thing. The Century Lounge. Ouch. Some chick calling herself Isis had Tom conned. I gave her his phone number on a napkin. When I got home, I worshipped Shirelle's pussy. Antoinette flexed her sphincter so that her labia open and closed to the tune of "Saturday Night Fever." She could lip sync with her vagina. "Whether you're a lover or whether your a mother, stayin' alive, stayin' alive.." She smiled and laughed and clapped. Beforehand, we sat in the bar at the Hilton and sucked back kamikazes in front of the Raider game while I boasted like an Irishman about fights I've been in as the karaoke began. She brushed her breasts on my cheeks and nose, and I asked her if she ever danced anywhere with her clothes on anywhere. She played coy on the topic, if you can be coy on your back, holding your ankles in the air.
97 Stayed on to work on my already week-late paper 8-19 Fri.
Watched "The Saint of Fort Washington" starring Matt Dillon and Danny Glover, and excellent film about which I was touched, almost weepy.
Rawler, Andy, and the GIP went to meet Stevo at some street scene in Wilshire where Los Lobos were playing.
Andy gave Shirelle a key to my place. Maybe I should have answered negatively to that 'L' question she posed, but I didn't want to seem heartless.
She was there in the kitchen reading fashion magazines.
95 The smart bet would that I that I came home from school 8-18 Th
and napped, no? Dropped John Bayless off at his apt. on the way to school this morning. I told the class about how Ray Charles sang "America the Beautiful." They are typing papers on the Macs in the back of the class. John wore a shirt--how to describe such a pattern, or lack thereof? I won't try. Sniffed up a line in the bathroom. The keys jangle as you open the door. A month later this happens. Octavio got a crew cut. Now I call him Corporal Cortez. The other Octavio answered all the questions about westward movement in the nineteenth century, earning the title of Capitan Blanco. We've also got Jose Can You See? cuz he always forgets his glasses, and a kid named Filiberto, shortened to Fili, who everyone just calls Flea. Another boy everyone calls Pelo because he always fusses with his hair.
Sometimes I have these comical fits of exaggerated exasperation. I begin to tic and wince and flinch with my whole body at the responses the kids give when the prove to me they have not been listening at all.
93 Saw Ray Charles with Etta James 8-12 Wed
At the Hollywood Bowl. Did a little cid first, then drove
out to West Ho with that buzzin drunk feeling to pick up Jimmy Bayless.
Devoured Chickaboom, cornbread, etc. At Mayfair Market, I saw a familiar
redhead and we eyeballed each other as we passed and commented on the
familiarity and guessed a few schools and then realized we knew each other from
the pool room at Dominico’s in Old Town Pasadena.
Hit for the cycle with wine, beer, and rum. Saw a guy who
looked just like Chuck Manson, sans whiskers, front a blues band at the Mint.
Sweating, noxious fumes, traffic up Highland to the Bowl.
Walter’s date’s name was Felicia, and I overheard she was a
Latter-Day Saint in a discussion by Getoff of good Mormons and bad Mormons.
Peachtree was there with his girl, Susie De la Cruz, who has such a big smile.
We drank ice cappio and marvelled at the blind man’s ability. He had a 52-piece
orchestra backing him. He did “It Ain’t Easy Being Green,” “America the
Beautiful,” and a song about not getting out of bed with your lover to go to
work.
It was a warm evening and I had no qualms about removing my
shirt.
“Once we heard how Coley had a girl staying in his house. I
didn’t think that was so bad, but Bailey explained to me the Coley was probably
‘doing it’ to her. He said that although ‘it’ was bad, just about everybody in
the world did it to somebody, but no one else was supposed to know that.”
-Maya
Angelou
I
Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
91 8-16 Tu
Slept at my brother Mac's apartment.
Brought my own fan with me. Had gone to purchase some relief but the deal fell through. Stormin's frat boy bro was sold out. It was cool on the floor where I slept below the air con with the fan on me. I watched a skin flick with Mark Wallace poking a variety of babes. Then I fell asleep.
The television there is a trip like the timeless time: on shrooms during what seemed like such a primitive uneasy bond of a group of men camped in front of a ballgame on a summer night. That TV had been knocked around in the and now the left side of the screen was green, and the broadcast seemed beamed in from different broadcast feeds from different dimensions. The ball left the pitcher's hand and traveled through a range of multi-colored possibilities before arriving in this reality.
So, on a day tilted in Evil's favor, Daryl Strawberry and the Giants beat the Dodgers on ESPN, but somewhere the outcome was different.
89 8-15 M
Why is it that Monday is always a blank? In my plan book, it’s
blank. It was our first day in the the new classroom. I’m a rover, you see. I
must’ve groaned and cussed bitterly this morning, the way I do when the alarm
goes off. Ena Szuipac’s room, trippy old Argentine and bang! Her name just
makes sense.
On the freeway, doin’ about 85, I can roll a joint and smoke
it and put Visine in my eyes. On my way to work—
Our Father who art in Heaven
Hallowed be they name
They kingdom come
Thy will be done
On Earth as it is in Heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread
And forgive us our trespasses
As we forgive those who trespass against us.
Lead us not into temptation
But deliver us from evil
As thine is the kingdom
And the power and glory,
Forever and ever.
Amen.
87 8-18 Su
I can’t spell today. Jim Crack has gotten overwrought. Jim
is intelligent but fucked up.
What do you mean “fucked up?”
You’ll see.
He punches mirrors and fights.
He’ll wind up in Vegas and win just you watch
But first he’s gotta steal weed and get fired from Disneyland
with not car cuz his car burst into flames.
They’d known each other a long time, all through school and
they’d shared rent at a place but they weren’t exactly friends. He said all he’d
heard was that I was some crazy dude.
--
Fuck fuck a hundred kinds of fuck.+
85 8-13- Sa
Hot. Sizzling, my brains were, on the freeway. Even my eyes
were sweating.
Mom had birthday party for Bernie in her backyard with a juke
box and pony keg. The heat had me remarking on cosmic waves.
In the day, we saw “The Mask” at the Beverly Center with Jim
Carrey living out his cartoon fantasies.
We had a lunch at some shitty little mall shop trying to be
a chic Italian café. It turned into a problem having a big vase full of flowers
on the tiny table, but the proprietress was reluctant to move it and not at all
attentive to my thirst.
I made a second keg run, but everyone was leaving when I got
back with it.
Crawled over behind the EZ chair and slept on the floor. It
was quite damp when I awoke.
83 Monster Heatwave
8-12 Fri
I didn’t stay home and work on my paper; in fact, I cut
class early and drank a bottle of champagne in my living room and had a nice
talk with my roommate’s fiancée.
At Jack’s, I stumbled around smeared in BBQ sauce and drank
‘til my head hung.
An said if she was a guy, shed want to be like me.
Rosie Flores was playing an earnest, likeable set, but my
neck got weak and my eyelids heavy, so I had to out to the car and crash.
The pizza man says I threatened him. He showed up with a
large pizza and garlic bread for the wrong house and wanted seventeen dollars.
He did not want to believe that I had not ordered a pizza and wouldn’t leave.
Shirelle popped in, but I popped out. She was still here
when I got back, though, and we humped.
I had to “rove” out of my classroom. I was trying to move the
big cabinet on wheels with all the materials inside, down the steps, with the
help of two sixth graders, when the broken door swung open and smashed my head
and all the contents poured out (of the cabinet, not my head), and the shelves
collapsed.
The baseball strike started today. It will be harder to stay
in without having the games to watch or put on the radio.
It’s so hot, I shaved my beard and got a haircut.
81 8-11 Th.
Today is Berniece's birthday. I called her, but you could tell she was on the other line. She turned 21 today.
Member once, when we were children at the house in Cerritos, so she couldn't have been more than 3, and I, 8, and I crawled around on my hands and knees. 'Roawr!" I growled, and I was a lion, and she crawled around and shrieked and hid behind the curtains, giggling.
Bern and my mom don't get along well. I try to dismiss their fight as a chick feud--trivializing resentment and contempt that I~~~~
79 The Ocean just kept doing what it was doing. 8-10 Wed
So, I drank more and more wine and waited on my death.
77 8-9 Tues
Today was Mardi’s birthday. She is thirteen now; long, skinny
legs.
75 8-8 Mon.
Oh man how can it be Sunday already? I’ll not remember what happened all the way back to then. A girl named Alma in my class switched schools. I hope it wasn’t because I was so mean to her. I’ve been hearing lately that I am abusive. Howrad said so. Mariachi said so. GIP said so.
73 Sun 8-7
I played softball in Glendora at Haller Field and then visited my dad and stepmom in Hacienda Hts. They were worried about the declining percentage of whites in California. It was one of those hot humid days with gray skies and increased gravity. The balls we hit died in midflight, and it was had to spur our feet into action. We climbed the fence to get to the field, and that was work enough. I was fatigued by the second inning and made several errors and popped up frequently.
Back at Phil's, they did flips off the diving board while the Dodgers beat the Rockies, and I perused the latest Hustler which was on the coffee table.
I drove then to my dad's and watched the end of the Dodgers and he told me how he was contacted by he USOC to head security at the airport during the Atlanta Olympics and turned it down and likewise told Sam Donaldson no to national OJ analysis.
71 8-6 Sat
I had a sugar cube. Sizzled a bit out of Huntington Beach,
completely ditched school to see the U.S. Open of surfing, and we had a pitcher
of rad at the microbrewery and then abmled down the street and lost NTN at Perq’s,
and we scoped thonged butts from the pier and walked in the sand where a
deadhead-like percussion section beat out a tribal rhythm and girls danced like
gypsies and voodoo queens, and I drank and joined them.
From there, we (GIP) went to check on the sloshball game at
Orange Grove Jr. High in Hacienda Hts., but it was over except for a few drunk
morons fucking around. We were going to Long John’s
[ticket stub to 2001 NCAA Baseball Regional Hosted by CSUF]
5-28-01 Tu 7:45 PM when we saw Mariachi in front of his dad’s house, and we
stopped to gab about the birth of Bill’s grandson that same hour.
Pablo was washing his girlfriend’s car, and she asked him
for a glass of water, and he served her.
The Devils are beating Colorado in Game 2 of the Stanley Cup
Finals. Go Joisy. I typed fifteen minutes this morning. Rode my bike to work. I
feel like a broken record. Whad oui do? Talked about their weekends while I
read the sports. Dodgers have won five straight. Brown goes tonight. McGwire
homered in his first game back after six weeks on the Disabled List. They wrote
in their journals. Bush, the President, is coming. He’ll say there’s nothing he
can do about controlling the price of electricity. Not while he and his friends
at Enron are getting richer off it. They read form their journals. Villaraigosa
and Hahn are heading into the last week of the mayoral race. At recess, I jerked
beef. I tried to teach them about reading an analog clock, but they weren’t
having it. I visited Senorita Villa at lunch. She invited me to see here photo
album of her travels through eastern Europe. Ugh. Prague. Moscow, Berlin,
Helsinki, Warsaw. I saw a photograph of Nikko. “Veddy Mhizterious,” I said. She’s
tough to figure. And then you crack her and the nut’s even tougher to figure. I
humped the wife he other night, too, just so you know. Might’ve knocked her up,
too. [happy/sad face] Had some Lean Cuisine at lunch. Got lesson plans ready
for the next three days. I’ll be at the Raddison Midtown, 35th and
Figueroa, for some teacher training. Rochelle, Mardi, and Ada came to my class.
Rochelle said they needed money for diapers. Really, they wanted money to go to
lunch. I gave them my debit card. We played handball and basketball at PE. I
rode my bike home. No one was here. I catnapped on the couch, twenty minutes,
maybe. I thought I heard them coming home, and I got up and looked out the
window, but they weren’t there, and so I went back to lie down, and they pulled
into the driveway. My mother’s supposed to be a hired companion to the mother
of famous actor Anthony Hopkins. She met her at a restaurant called “Dante.”
68 8-4- Th
Things you know bout but miss and regret—
“Sometimes you don’t want to leave simply because there are
tits in the bar.”
“Sometimes U sit n a Port-a-Potty trying not to let your shrivelly
weenie come into contact with anything that aint you.”
The men drum and the women dance.
I’d popped a wad of mushroom between my cheek and gums like Skoal
and buzzed steadily, eeny-meeny-miney-moing my way left and right through the
city, unsure where I would go ‘til I got to the Beverly Center, where I bought
several $1.98 paperbacks like Moby Dick, The Turn of the Screw, Great Gatsby,
Last of the Mohicans, and Lord Jim, plus a Dramalogue and three stories by
Richard Brautigan. Then I was kind of making my home somewhat by way of Jack’s
Sugar Shack. After I left Jack’s, I got gas and headed toward Keniston and
pulled into the Vons on Pico and shopped in my sunglasses for liquids. I also
bought a chicken which I devoured savagely on my feet in the kitchen and began
to drink beers I’d bought and scanned the Dramalogue for a job, to no avail/
The GIP came over and I gave him a hard time about working part-time
and lights were going on and off everywhere which I wasn’t sure were real or
not, and I sat out on the step out front talking to Shirelle and joking about
my fear of roaches running up my shorts and Walters called and she left.
69 8-5 Fri
I went to the 1st 1/2 if class only. I hope no one has pegged me for undedicated. So, what did I do?
My brother called and said everybody was going to Bennigan's, but I stayed home. I should call James Cordick, the newly-30, Corona-Del-Mar, surfer-dude, recovering-alcoholic teacher now, though, to find out the next mind-numbing requirement for the class.
67 What a
hangover Wed 8-3
My head hurt when I woke up damp on the floor. Popped three
Tylenol and jumped in she shower. Reassumed the prone position on the floor at
recess and lunch but didn’t catch any quality z’s. Had to explain to a colleague
why my shirt was so dirty…
Went home, jerked, crashed for a few. Woke up, whipped up
some pasta, broccoli, and chicken as Rawler and Andy went to a BBQ at Rawler’s
mom’s. Went back to sleep.
“…being the ‘Project’ is different than holding the idea,”
says Ortega. Everything else int eh world is what iti is…A stone is given its
existence. It need not fight for what it is—a stone in the field.” Man is more
concerned “not with what he is but in what he is not yet.”
“Man has no nature; what he has is history.”
63 Mon
I wonder if I should leave days like this blank as a truer
reflection of what I remember or as an accurate account of what transpire.
1-27-01 Sa 3:03 PM
I’m at the Oaxacan barber shop on Pico. I’m all tripped
out--on caffeine, I guess. The wife makes a mean pot of coffee. I’ve gone to
shit about six times so far today. I feel uneasy and jittery. I’m short of
breath and have fucked up post-nasal drip that fucks with the pressure in my
inner ear. The bike ride through the winter air felt like a swim in a cold
ocean.
61 Sun
Laundry at Mariachi's after one lap around Disneyland where white and fuchsia oleander hedges grow ten feet tall around the park. I pulled off a screen near the front door and reached in under the curtain and unlocked the deadbolt. I watched mostly rear-oriented pornos and left with a few books I wanted or thought were mine: The World According to Garp, which I've already read, Beloved, by Toni Morrison, Kurt Vonnegut's Player Piano, and maybe some others; I don't remember.
59 Sat. 30
Sloshball at Matador Stadium for Rich Chewbacca's birthday. A Slip-and-Slide has been set up between third and home. I had eaten some mushrooms before I arrived. Whoop. I was 0 for 2 when Carlos went to the car for his bat, and I put one into the bleachers. On plays at third, I kept throwing the ball from the fence in left over Chewie's head at third. Between innings, I said I'd hit him right in the chest from then on, and I poked him between the pecs with my index finger and remembered how I couldn't stand some guy from years earlier, completely unrelated to anything having to do with the present moment.
How's this for order: notebook, guitar, typing?
At what we sometimes call for some reason "inservicing," which is like a teacher symposium, we were taught about forestry. The leader had us shut our eyes, choose an animal to be, and imagine dusk with thunder rumbling across the purple sky as another crack of lightning flashes. The detail went on and on in soothing tones. Then she asked us how our animal behaved in the rain. Valerio said he was a skunk looking for a hollow tree. I said I was a brown trout and the rain was cool with me.
57 Fri. 7-29
Class was totally boring. When I got home, Rawler and his bro and sis were waiting to see a band at the Fairfax High gymnasium. We drank beers, and then I was left alone with Rawler's girl, which made me nervous, too nervous to sit at my desk out in the living room, so I went into bedroom and shut the door and didn't write.
We live upstairs in a white house where mosquitoes will come in open windows with no screens and suck your blood in your sleep unless you can wake up when you hear them buzz by your ear and turn on the light and locate the little bastards. You must get them with the first swat, or they will absolutely vanish to some nightmarish dimension until you fall asleep again, when they will pierce your skin with their serrated, hypodermic faces. What created such an existence? If you smack one on the wall it explodes in a red splash on the white paint.
55 7-28 Th
Shirelle showed up and we humped. How's that for sensitivity? She probably cleaned the bathroom tub and brought groceries. She wants to buy a bigger bed than the single mattress and box spring on the floor of my room, surrounded by clothes and paper. I said, "Thanks, but I prefer to the master and owner of where I sleep."
"I'm giving it to you. You will be," she said.
I think what's at issue here is not where I sleep but with whom. If she buys the bed, won't that be license for her to crawl under the covers at any time? If she pays for the bed, doesn't she have some say in who sleeps in it?
Like Peachtree used to get upset. "You didn't sleep in my bed, did you? Please tell me you didn't fuck in my bed."
One time in Newport, I was asleep on my mattress on the floor and the phone rang in that big Okie giant, Smiley's room. I dragged my ass out of bed to answer it, and then I fell back asleep on his bed. When he found me there, he was pissed.
53 Norm's in Northridge 7-27 Wed
Watched the Dodgers lose on a television
Bizarrely, the images were transmitted indeterminately through multiple channels, timelessly, colored, that tribal feel. A heart-shaped chicken breast in a bed of rice, posed before me, tobacco taste in my mouth.
The infiniteness of possibility came into focus almost with each pitch.
My brother had cooked the chicken.
51 7-27
Back to School Night
The parents of three kids showed up to Back to School Night. Josie's mom, Deysi's mom and Dad. (Deysi and her mom have the exact same face), and Paula and her mom and two sisters. I was positive with them but said we had a lot to learn.
Saulo drew a turd coming out of dinosaur's butt in a library book. He's a funny little guy with a voice pitched high as Everest, sending avalanches tumbling down the Himalaya.
A girl name Vivi, who has worn her school uniform every day, a Catholic-looking thing with plaid skir and white shirt, a quiet and reserved girl, came in today in jeans and snug spandex top revealing her advanced adolescence, shall we say, and you can see the effect it's having on Orlando and Saulo who sit directly across from her and are giggling even more moronically than usual.
49 7/25
We hung up the dartboard in the quaint cabinet with the Golden Clipper, 1805 scrolled beneath a painting of her likeness across the doors, asea, fullsails, nailed into the wall.
The Dodgers won their game at Candlestick 10-5. Rawler and I ate peanuts from a brown paper bag and drank Lowenbraus as the LA 9 jumped out to a big lead. I fell into a doze and Worrell let the enemy back into the game, but still we won and contained Strawberry, praise God.
I made herb butter penne pasta and ate it straight from the pot, and, buzzed on dark beer already, I threw down several cool spoonfuls of cookie dough ice cream.
45 Bailed on class early
Stevo's BBQ
Bed
That about says it all. The Dodgers lost a pitiful display. I ate a couple of hot dogs and feel asleep on a chaise-lounge. Empty day.
Stevo has moved into a condo in Newport up from the beach, near Fashion Island. Craig Jackson was there, and he wasn't at all annoying. I forgot the other guy's name.
One time I saw Jackson's band, Lidsville, on the same stage where, Duke, who played the guy I was going to kill in "Salad Days." I shook up beers and squirted them all over the band and the stage and the equipment and the crowd and Jackson was all snotty cuz I didn't know the name of his band.
109 8-25 Thurs Didn't feel well at school today.
Had a head cold and no energy.. I let them play games almost the whole second half. They played Jr. Monopoly and Connect Four and checkers, and I showed them how to play Battleship. THis was while I was roved into Sciupac's class.
107 8-24 Wed
Thing got his tonsils out today. He’s been staying on the
couch, popping Vicodin. The Fresno kid, working in Hollywood for a big studio…
105 Spent the night at Mac’s. Penn just returned from Colorado
8-23 Tuesday
The boys were indirectly mad at each other, their anger
surfaced at odd times. Some friend of Scott’s delivered a twenty-dollar bag of
bud and stems. We watched the movie “Tombstone,” and my brother kept saying, “Why,
Johnny Ringo, you look like someone just walked across your grave,” and “I’m
your Huckleberry,” and “You’d be a daisy if you did.”
103 8-22 The Lava Lounge for comedy. Got the laughs
belching.
A girl brought her violin. She was cute and petite but not
funny. Thing and I bought each other beers. I had some Guinnesses, a couple of
Rolling Rocks. Its encouraging how bad some of the comics suck. A skinny, weightless,
no-account Thai guy with black-framed nerd glasses.
Typical tropical tiki sixties schmooze, little umbrellas and
plastic palm trees in the drinks. I ran into what’s-‘er-name, who played Flo in
“Salad Days,” the one I shove against the wall and who then slams my head in a
refrigerator door as I bend in, looking for beer. They show me dead and bloody,
eyes upturned, as she slumps against me.
At the Lava Lounge, she didn’t recognize me. I said, “Hi,”
and saw she didn’t remember me. “I don’t know,” she said, “but you’re giving me
the creeps.” Ha. Well, that’s because the character I played was creepy, right?
___________
He said, “Listen, let’s get something straight: All we are
is friends, and the only reason for that is because you’re such a goddam
persistent nag, and I’m so goddam lazy.”
101 8-21 Sun
Saw the move “True Lies” mit Ahnold. Thought it sucked. Saw
it at Mann’s Chinese where a busload of Asian tourist swarmed over the courtyard
photographing the footprints of movies stars. Hooray for Hollywood!
Throwing out the verbal abuse on Shirelle’s intelligence,
just because the movie was so preposterous.
In the parking lot around back, an old convertible Lincoln
rusted with four flat tires and a busted windshield, the upholstery ripped off
the seats and the padding bulging out.
Thing was a PA on the movie, and rode an elevator with Schwarzenegger
and made a delivery to Jamie Lee Curtis’s house in Bel Air.
__
It’s such a vain pursuit.”
“But don’t you prefer it to nothing? To spending free time
on the couch in front of the tube?”
I had another one of those tossing and turning nights filled with weird dream, with lights streaking the sky and exploding, and apprehension moving through the house at night compelled me to look over my shoulder in the bathroom. I was out of bed before six, put on some jeans and buttoned up my plaid redneck shirt. There was time, so I threw last night's roach into a pre-rolled foil pipe and puffed some.
Through the window shades out onto the street I saw a tow truck pull up to my car and thought what's-'er-face next door was going to have my car towed out of my driveway for some reason, but she had acquired its services to change a flat.
Yeah, life's a trip, sh-boom, sh-boom, sh-boom.
Whoa whoa shit head chick on the radio confesses her wastedness. Then I sketch my nose. Sure I can remember everything I've said and and [sic] repeat it back to myself and review it.
Weird. It seemed like there were so many people I was talking to, my roommate's [illegible] whose house is this and you know you're the one who pays the rent there [illegible] on the second floor the clink of the dog's tags were hearable. The page flapped up mysteriously and you assume it was the breeze. The wind you know blew hard in Hemet today.
47 7-24 I walked up La Brea to the Snake Pit on Melrose. As I left the house, a blue LAPD helicopter circled, a hundred feet above the street. Near the Ralph's Supermarket, a fat, old woman, curled up fetally beneath a shopping cart, quivered as she emitted a long, loud fart. I stopped in Il Literate, a pricey, trendy bookstore next to a 90s minimalist beatnik coffeehouse. I saw a might have liked to own but did not buy. A gang of boys lurked near an ATM ostensibly selling candy. At another bookstore, aisles piled with paperbacks, I decided against buying a Madeline book for my kids and a hardcover Confederacy of Dunces for me, but I bought a Dramalogue at a nearby newsstand. When I reached the bar, I drank beer with a fierce gent of subtle mulatto features who boasted he could beat Tyson and claimed to have already hit him once.
43 7-22 Fri
Hi between classes. Boring lady people trip on me. "Reservoir Dogs" in Westwood. Didn't need to see it a second time, but I was pretty far down the chain of command in the back seat behind Rawler and his fiancée, who made the decision. It was more absurd this time around, Keitel doing his crying moan in yet another movie. I should've stayed home and written some lines for Jim about his reflection in the mirrot.
37 7-19 Tues
I had a dentist’s appointment after school which I went to;
got the tartar scraped off from below the gums and was lucky enough not to need
a blood transfusion when we were through. I snooped through a few bookstores,
but I only bought a newspaper which I read at the bar at Q’s while I watched
the Dodgers lose and played the National Trivia Network and go the number one
score in the country on the Tuesday Night Showdown and won a prize of $50. I
went upstairs for the pool tournament. I shot well, but lost in the first round
of three out of five in the fifth game when the son of a bitch sunk the eight ball
on the break. Fuck that. I played Pole Position all the way hoe and did Pasadena
to Mid City in seventeen minutes.
33 7-17 Sun
Day after. Continental breakfast. Denny’s. Snot. Shrill
repeats blowjobs. Buys a Hustler magazine from the liquor store, she does.
Numero Uno back in LA.
7-16
Wedding
The chairs at the reception farted comically whenever people
shifted their weight upon them. Ahem. I stuffed money in the bride’s cleavage.
Two bottles of Dom Perigon I bought vanished from the fridge. I think my sister
and her drunk clueless teenage friends drank them in the middle of the night.
Kris and Jose opened their gifts in the sunny back yard, under the umbrellas
over the tables, we sat and watched. Shirelle kept imitating her boss’s New-York-Jew
accent for anybody with ears. Oops all this happens tomorrow. Pablo explained
life to Uncle Terry in broken English in the kitchen.
A completely unmemorable day. I talked with Mac about
meeting him at Bennigan’s, and I tried to swing a weed deal with John Ball, but
I just stayed in instead and read more of Jasper’s interpretation of Nietzsche
and Kierkegaard and lives spent in reflection and the demise of Christianity
and the importance of communication
Jasper’s:-“…the thesis of my philosophizing is: The
individual cannot become human by himself. Self- being is only real in
communication with another self-being…
Truth is more than scientific correctness…Communication
points to this more…[it] is the path to truth in all its forms…the intellect
finds clarity only (finally) in discussion…[it] is felt at the boundary of
science and in communication…The source of truth is the Encompassing.
7-14
Wedding rehearsal for the Zirmeno wedding. I went straight
from school down to Placentia to be in Christie’s wedding rehearsal at the Catholic
church. I walked up to the blessing from the priest with gnarled hands. After,
there was Pollo Loco and guitar playing at Chris and Carlos’s. Pedro’s son
began to mimic Mac’s Homer Simpson Dohs. The coordinator’s name was Fran, short
and stout. I walk my mother down the aisle and pick up the groom’s mother and
escort them to the community candles. They each light one from with the bride
and groom will make one flame. Fran was short and stout and the church wedding
director. Method was a name Christie got from her father.
7-13 Wed.
I don’t know.
Last night we were talking how Tony Gwynn would have been
out at the plate in the 10th inning of the All-Star Game if Mike Soscia
had been catching instead of Ivan Rodriguez. Gwynn even said, “If it had been
Mike Soscia back there, I would have been dead meat.”
Six months of newspapers sit in three piles along an arm of
the couch against the wall under the window: earthquakes, riots, floods,
wildfires, murder, rape, mayhem, etc., documented for your perusal.
7-12 Tues
We had that meeting after school. I ran off some dittoes, and, on the way home I bought some beer. Rawler and I drank beer and ate hotdogs and watched one of the best all-star games in years. The end.
7-11 Mon
Monday, Monday, not a very fun day, or I could say, "Yay!" about something gay (not in the homo way); I wonder if, when I hit the hay, I may get a lay; I wouldn't say nay, but somehow she will make me pay.
AAAHG who knows? Not me. Who cares? Not me, either. What the fuck? Did I write anything? Did I practice guitar? Did I exercise? I don't think so. I've been putting on the pounds lately. Weight 200 in my shoes on the scale in the nurse's office at school. Who fucking cares? Me. I don't want to be fat with clogged arteries and die before I've done all I want to do. I think I rolled some roaches together and a little piece of partially smoked bud dusted gray with ash and smoked it through an improvised tin-foil pipe. I'm not sure it was half smoked. It's becoming a mystery to me how that bud turned all gray. Maybe I smoked a fungus.\
Duh Duh Duh Duh Fuck Ack Ick Shit Rats Briglfrigrajuhorghtrt.
I rode down to Wilshire Tux and got fitted.
7-10-94 Sun.
Shirelle and I drove back to Old Town and had some bagels while we waited to meet Getoff and see the "Forrest Gump" matinee at the United. It starred Tom Hanks and Robin Wright and was about a simple, good-hearted film man who was impossible not to like. My eyes, which have been in a drought for years, were welling up.
After the movie, we has some onion rings and a couple of beers at Delancy's and drove back to LA where Shirelle rolled some of her neighbor's homegrown, and I wrote a Jim Crack paragraph and worked on a resume for my pictures.
7-9-94
Humped s'more this morning. Didn't worry about being late. Just kind of tiptoed in unnoticed with a bagel and a donut. The bagel was too chewy. The donut was one of those French crullers--not bad. THe day was long and boring. A short Mexicana with a slap of fat pouring over her belt demonstrated ESL lessons by talking to us like we were kindergartners or retarded for two hours and repeatedly calling on us to identify a paper apple. The day dragged on. Cordite, an SC business grad/surfer guy from Corona Del Mar and a colleague of his from Minnesota and I went to Marie Callendar's for lunch. After lunch, we did a dialog/epilogue of a reverse Goldilocks story in which a bear cub enters the house of humans and demolishes their furniture.
"What are you doing in our house?"
"It looked so cozy..."
"You better get out before I have you stuffed!"
"I'm sorry--aaaaaaahhhh!"
Blam! Blam!
Yea, right. Comedy. People laughed.
Met Shrill at Q's and played the National Trivia Network and watched the Dodgers. Sat next to a discharged soldier. Walters and Dodsworth showed. We shoot pool. Then it was off to Ball's and Nina's, high. Drove home. Humped.
7-8-94 Fri
I was kind of a bore at school today, and I could hardly
control my legs from carrying me out of my class, my body and spirit were so
against just sitting there for four hours. Bought 6 tall boys on the way home
and some Kentucky Fried Chicken and Shirelle called and came over in her minivan, and we just
humped, I guess.
7-7-94 Th
When I got home Thursday, I fell asleep in the easy chair
under the Elvis clock with the swaying-hips tick tock. When I awoke at 8:23, I
thought for a second it was morning; the light in my room was just so, then I
looked at the clock and thought I was late for school before I figured it out.
I read some and wrote a little and strummed a few chords and “Seinfeld” was
funny, and I went back to bed.
7-6-94 Wed.
What about Wednesday? I've waited too long to make this entry, and I don't remember anything remarkable about Wendesday.
Oh! Mrs. Cicada, the principal came by my room. "Do you have your pink clearance slip?"
My what, now? "Uh..."
"You need it to teach. You shouldn't be teaching without it."
"Oh."
I had to drive downtown to the district office to Carrie Smother's office and show them evaluation and fill out some forms and take them to the contracts office where you sit and wait for them to call you to fill out some forms and then you sit and wait for them to call and send you upstairs to payroll for a transcript where you must sit and wait for them to call you to put your name, address, ph#, and Social Secuity numbers on still more forms and sit and wait for them to call you and they send you back to contracts where you sit and wait for them to call you and they send you to credentials where you sit and wait for them to call you to fill out your name, address, phone, social, and then you sit and wait for them to call you to send you down the hall to records to sit and wait to be called to fill out forms with your name, address, ph, SS and then you just do that a few more times and they send you back to the main office for an authorization signature and you sit and wait and fill out some forms and go back to the credential office and wait and sit and then they call you over to pay the #95 processing fee with the money order that you had to go to the bank to wait in line to find out you must go wait in line at the post office to get, and then you sign your contract, they you your pink clearance slip, and you're done, just like that!
Esteban and I played darts for a sixpack. I won every game, and he came back with Rolling Rock, and we played dominoes. I won every game (not bragging--just the facts). All of a sudden Ball and Nina showed up after seeing David Byrne at the Wilshire Ebell Theater, and we smoked.
7-5-94
Awoke at 5:30 AM, got school about 6:30. Hung up posters,
maps, charts, etc. My new class seems cool enough. We had introductions followed
by a lesson about why we celebrate Independence Day and a math problem in which
they had to try figure out how old is America. It was hard for a lot of them.
After school, I was reading and writing ad watching “The
Verdict” with Paul Newman when the GIP called. We went to Universal to see “The
Lion King” at the $7.50-to-park Temple of Satan Cineplex Odeon with a 19-foot
screen. The “Lion King” lives up to its hype. It’s a glossy, corporate,
heartless commercial, far inferior to “Jungle Book” or “Little Mermaid” or “Aladdin,”
although the warthog and meerkat were memorable characters.
7-4-94
When I dropped Shirelle off at her mom’s apartment, I helped
her carry her bag in, and her family was partying, listening to music, having
some beers, playing cards and dominoes. They sat me down with a plate of ribs
and a beer and showed me how to play “Hood Bones.” “First, you wash the bones…”Washed
down a few more beers and won the game, and we laughed at stuff and Shirelle’s
stepdad Larry, kept saying, “This whiteboy know what time it is.” There was a
cousin just finished seven years for armed robbery of a post office and gave
Shrill and I a j to puff on the way to the liquor store for reinforcements.
It got darker, and Larry Jr. wanted to see fireworks. Gwen
gave me the keys to her squeaky vehicle, and we drove up high enough in Alta
Dena to see the bombs bursting in air over the Rose Bowl.
7-2-94 Sat
Had a little Post Raisin Bran for breakfast and Shirelle accompanied me to the Social Studies Center where I purchased $141's worth of books, charts and maps for school. The weather had turned cloudy as we drove back up to Laurel Canyon to retrieve Shirelle's glasses. Dropped her off back at the house and drove to Placentia to get fitted for my tux for Chris's wedding, butt the damned place was closed fo the holiday weekend. ON the way out, I stopped in Hacienda Hts. at the BofA ATM to get money for a haircut and saw Jerry Cooper helping Mariachi's mother figure out the new-fangled technology of the ATM as Zack Butler stood by. They told me of a party for Squiddy and left me to help Mrs. Mariachi who said an angel had sent me to her.
I weighed over a night of partying in Newport Beach with by brother and McNeill but instead headed for home via Big 5 at Puente Hills for darts, shorts, shirts and a good pair of $30 hiking boots. I didn't remember Squiddy's b-day until I was halfway home. I opted not to turn around.
Carlos was already here when I arrived. Rawler and I threw a few dart games, all of which I won, heh heh heh. He, Shirelle, An, Carlos, and I followed the GIP along a circuitous route to the Numero Uno around the corner for pizza and beer. I told a few true fish stories about the shroomin' drunks who, with perfectly-sized firewood abounding, rolled a huge log into the firepit--and my boots along with it; and we stood and watched 'em burn. I told of patching the raft with bubblegum. I told of how I stood on a rock and held the top half of my fishing pole over the creek to untangle the line and the detachable bottom half dropped off into the creek, and how my father's buck knife, my scissors and medicine plopped in right after it as I bent over to fish out my reel and they fell from my breast pocket. I told about dozens of beer cans littering out campsite as the ranger slimjimmed by keys out of my car, and how I'd borken off a piece of wire hanger in the lock of the hatch trying to jimmy my way in, and how I had to empty out all the shit in the back throught the front door on the steep, one-lane road leading out of Devil's Postpile, so I could get to the spare and change a flat tire. The table seemed entertained, and I got off a few quality one-liners as I strummed my guitar in the EZ chair in the corner after we got home, GIP babbling foolishness. We spoke of aid to Russia and wound up playing penny poker on the ottoman into the early morning.
7-1-94 Fri.
I showered and shaved a week's whiskers off my neck and left the rest as a souvenir of my high Sierra days. For now. At school, Veronica helped me stack my kids' books on a cart after we had sorted out an office blunder involving the grade break-up of my class. We wheeled the books through the heat up to room thirty-six, sweaty just from that.
I piled the books in odd stacks on the kidney-shaped table and left them for Tuesday. I spoke briefly of camping with Christina and Sam, picked up my check and hopped into my car. Exited the 170 at Victory and found the educative toys place to which Lisette had referred me--a Tijuanaish corner of the Valley. Fed the meter and ambled across the intersection and bought sixty dollars' worth of games and books and stuff on Cal and US history, but most of it is in English. Couldn't help but walkthrough the adult emporium next door and browse through a few blue books, poked my head in the video both with its box of Kleenez and was summarily punished for my sin with a parking ticket waiting for me on my windshield.
I wound up Laurel Canyon to pick up Shirelle. The Ryders were moving out of their place. I spoke with the whacky ex-Mrs. who touched upon the movie "Deliverance," among other things, in her shaky voice, and when the good Dr. returned, he mistook me for a mover.
Shirelle and I came to my place and ordered in some Italian food and drank beer and hung out with Rawler and An. After they'd, Shirelle and retired to the bedroom for an extended and noisy roll through all the positions.
7-3-94
Performed cunnilingus this morning and fellatio was reciprocated.
Ah, intimate details. Shirelle went for the Sunday Times and came back with a Sausage
McMuffin as well. I called Josh Wesley and invited him to come to the game. He
said to call back after 11:30 when my mom would be back from church. I told
Rawler how, in 1980, while we were in New Jersey for a month, my mom’s cousin,
Tom, who was captain of the volunteer fire department, commissioned a yellow
school bus for a drive out to the Bronx to see the Yankees, drunk and
hollering. Josh and Tom got out in Harlem to stop traffic so the bus could get
through. Our seats where in the first row near the right field foul pole,
within easy earshot [Dodgers/Phillies stub 7-3-94 vs. Fernando] of Orioles right
fielder, Ken Singleton. All night long, Josh yelled and yelled. “Hey Singleton!
You hamburger! Your socks don’t match!” Silly stuff like that for nine innings.
About two weeks later, the Orioles were playing in Anaheim and Josh got tickets
to sit in the front row on the right field foul pole...
Today’s game was great. Third level behind home plate for Valenzuela
vs. Hershiser, the first time Fernando ever pitched against the Dodgers. They got
hits off each other. Hershiser won it, 3-2. When we got home, “The Twilight
Zone” marathon came on.
