Gangbanger Pimps and Their Hos

Tues. 10-17-95

Sitting with my ninos right now. I wouldn't let them go to recess because only three out of the class did the homework. All they had to do was illustrate one vocabulary sentence and write a one page story in which they explore a new planet. Fun stuff, right? Not for these lazy bastards.

The Cabo trip seems to be shaping up. At the very least, the Guatemalan Insanity Pepper and I are going, possibly Ron, Carlos, Andres and the Venezolona chick, Markelys. Thirteen more school days til we can leave. I'll have to make arrangements with my intern class to make up the days I'll miss. I hope they filled out the P-form for that P.E. course I did.

After school today I'm picking up Michelle to take her to the Chinese to the "Strange Days" matinee. When it ends I'll go home and watch game six of the American League Championship series. Randy Johnson is pitching for the Mariners and I don't know who Cleveland is gonna throw. I'll prepare that portfolio for tomorrow while I watch the game. On the way home from the movie I should stop at Payless and pick up my inhaler. I've also got to take the tire off my bike tonight so I can get my flat fixed this week. Friday I have to pay my ticket at Van Nuys Courthouse.

What else, other than I still don't care? What should I care about? Why don't I write? It should be so hard. What's my block? Where does my inability stem from? Didn't I have a gift for it once? Blah blah blah blah tiddy blah blah. Aftet the silent movie miracle, the troops rallied and met Jeff and me at the Improv on Melrose and we played pool on the ratty table upstairs with some gangbanger pimps and their hos. A lady sat at the bar murmuring over the O.J. case. Who gives a feck? "Maybe she deserved it," I said. She got all appalled and got up and left.

Sunday I lay on the couch all day watching sports and reading the paper and napping and fucking Shirelle, who made breakfast and dinner. So gad domn facking whut?!

Flashbacks: Eastbound on the 10, the Christopher Colombus Tanscontinental Highway, through the tall saguaros of Arizona.

Today I start back on a healthy diet, so I had two quesadillas this morning, that good old Sylvia, the school cook fixed me. She likes me. I didn't want the second one, but she's Italian; What are you gonna do?

So this is the end of the third page and F you.

She Sat on Her Rear to Put Her Tee in the Ground

Played golf with my step father today at Brea. My sister Mardis came. She's thirteen and gawky, but sure to be graceful in a few years. At the first tee, she sat down on her rear to put her tee in the grass. It was hot. Somewhere around the fourth hole she said she was just going to aim for the shade from then on. John and I shot 42's that were pretty close to honest. My mom sent me home with a jar of Trader Joe's Vitamins.

On the way back to LA, I stopped at my dad's and looked over his and my stepmother's pictures from Europe. Delcined dinner.

I seem to have very little feeling.

Report cards are due this week. I haven't been writing much. I don't seem to care. My diet has been shit lately. Ugh. The other night I had been wanting to have children, that Keaton buzz was so life-affirming, but now it has worn off.

The Monkey at the Camera Recording the Truth

Mon. Oct. 16

What was going on in the Silent Movie Theater? We parked on Fairfax and walked in. The air was thick and humid inside, carbon dioxide condensed on our faces. Ghosts haunted the place; All evening, lights streaked all around the periphery of my vision. I think much of the audience was there in spirit only. Old Austin whatshisname, the owner of the place, came sashaying down the aisle, like the animated corpse he is, with his spetaugenarian hair dyed red, and his thick layer of makeup. He kept looking right at me, unnerving me, as he introduced the show.

Moving pictures, traveling across time and space, bringing back the dead, flickered on the wall. First up was Felix the Cat, animated like a flip book, anthropomorphing right out of some dead guy's imagination into mine. Even if I hadn't been frying, I would have thought I was. It was Buster Keaton's birthday. First two shorts: "My Wife's Relations" and "Cops". A house building fiasco and a furniture mix up by old stoneface had me laughing my ass off. Contagious was the laughter the more the audience laughed, the more the audience laughed. Joy, joy, joy. At intermission, out back on the patio, children darted like munchkins among the plastic-looking daffodils. And Keaton's old wife smiled warmly and greeted us and shook our hands where she sat around a birthday cake and we sang Happy Birthday to old Buster and I think he was freakin' there. You sensed someone you couldn't see. I kept turning to see who was there and no one was.

"The Camera Man" was the feature. Bravo! Brilliant! I was moved, I will never find words not corny engough to describe the stirring of my soul from this old silent film. It was more than a comedy. I loved it. I felt love of humanity, love for our suffering. I'll never forget it. The scene when the camera pulls back from his sorrow on the beach to reveal the little monkey at the camera recording the truth! Oh, my God. Oh, the primate man in his struggle for truth! I do not have the genius to say what was so stunning about that.

Every Fish in the Sea

Sat.

Fish, Rose , Sat. will be Reading Deprivation Day
also one week between books without reading from now on.
executant

Was this the foggy day? We barely went out past the jetty and fished just beyond the breakwater, following the pelicans. We caught some fish we couldn't identify, which is neat because we've never caught them before, and we think we know all the fish in the area, and it's a break from all the damned mackerel and sculpin. You wish you knew the name of evey fish in the sea, but they won't always tell you their names. We've caught barracuda, halibut, tom's cod, rockfish, sea bass, calico bass, sheep's head, cabezon, sting rays, red snapper, yellow tail, perch, brown sharks, and tomcod. This was none of those. A silver fellow with a yellow necktie and white shirt.

I got a nasty bacon burger at Burger King, and now, two weeks later, I'm still burping it up.

Anyway, Stevo came out with us, but he'd taken a Dramamine and fell asleep on the deck. I didn't say, "Let's go under the gulls and see it they turd on Stevo," because even if it was only a joke, it might have hurt his feelings, and that would be just the kind of comment to rouse a guy. And why not just let him sleep? Besides, I only just got the idea now.

Derb, Vern, Miguel and I played Axis and Allies and then went to Pasadena to meet up with Katiebell, to whom Vern is engaged, and Rose, to whom Vern's brother Loren is engaged, and Vern's brother and Vern's other brother, and Stef, and some other people. Rose told me she was sick for days after the proposal. These engagements my peers are making in the nineties, they seem very informal. I'm never exactly sure if the show's going to go on. I offered my congratulations and best of luck anyway, and shot some pathetic pool. I even ended up losing at NTN.

A Lame Waste of Time

10-9-95

This whole thing has pretty much bit the dust. Why bother to stay committed to writing, I'm too damn short on commitals anyway. I haven't written here in weeks. It has all become a lame waste of time again. I can't justify the effort when the result is so poor. So do I kill this off because it's poor? Would you a man? I guess not. Is it hackeneyed to say there's always hope?
~~~~~There needs to be more than hope. There needs to be
execution.
I need to be more executive. Let's finish this. I looked up execute in the dictionary. There were quite a number of them. I was thinking of copying the definitions here. I don't think I will, though. Isn't that ironic?

A Dire, Deadlined Chore

Thurs. 9/13

Pete screen. Peter shows the feaure length rough cut of "Salad Days" tonight. I'm supposed to go to the first class for Year 2 Interns tonight, but I'm sitting here watching G-Force cartoons and waiting on Pete because he's got some last minute film-editing to do at my kitchen table. I shared some of this knockout dope with him, and he seemed to rue having partaken; He's tripping out and made a chore--a dire, deadlined chore--up for himself which was desperate and ultimately unnecessary. The sound was out of sync, so he cranked through each reel by hand, extremely upset. As the deadline approached all was hopeless. He called PhotoChem in Burbank where the screening was to be, and they said the sound and picture would synch up in the projector. Live and learn, that's the key to flim-making.

I thought the movie succeeded for what it is. The story of carrot addicts is off-beat and original and humorous. I had been proud of my performance when I saw it in the trailer, but in the context of the whole, it didn't stand out enough, in as much as the plot turns on it. I should have given more.

Buried Dreams, An Exercise:

I 5 hobbies that sound fun:
Scuba, guitar, acting,writing, painting, photography

II 5 classes that sound fun
Scuba, guitar, acting, writing, painting, photgraphy, MFA

III 5 things I'd never do that sound fun
heroin, sex with a seventeen-year-old girl, climb the foul pole naked at Dodger Stadium, Stowaway on a boat to Thailand

IV 5 Things I wish I know how to do
Paint, write, guitar, drums, schmooze, scuba, yadayadayada

V 5 Things I used to enjoy doing
Going to movies, watching TV, cooking, writing, living in Newport Beach

VI 5 Things to try once
Skydiving, bungee-jumping, hang-gliding, mountain climbing, win the lotto

An ideal environment would be unfixed, as in ever-changing, but doing so at an almost manageable pace. You don't ever want to be staked to anything. I'm not sure if I know what a town is. Bebobdahdiddlywop. Got the Dodgers on the radio, the Bears and the Rams on the tube, the computer is on. I'm feeling whacked out.



I printed up some shtuff to give to Steve and An, the shtuff that had been lost in the mail. At the moment, I don't see how they will be impressed with any on it.

My Heart Leaked Blood

Wed 9-12 1995

I drove out to Evan's in Culver City to get a bag of the expensive green weed. Listened to the Dodger game on the way, sun obscured in the fog. At Evan's I jammed a good size nugget in the bowl, made short work of it, and immediately did another. Watched another half inning, bullshitted some baseball, and then remembered my car was parked illegally, so I abruptly skedaddled. Stuck stoned in the rush hour, I tripped hard, my tolerance to da kind down from a month of Montebello brown. I felt the lining of my aorta tear, my heart leaked blood, and panic-stricken, I massaged the left side of my chest, tapped at it to keep my heart going, and I prayed aloud to God to save my soul and bless my flesh, and a most natural song burst from my fear. I sang the song begging for my blessing in an operatic baritone. It amazed me; it seemed to be happening without any direction from me. My eyes were dry and bloody-red. I opened the glovebox and searched for the soulution (Visine), it ran through my fingertips. In the half light of sundown the little vial eluded me like a mouse in a cupboard. A red and blue light flashed in the mirror; I'd been swerving around with my attention in the glovebox, approaching a construction area where three lanes narrowed to one. There was a cop behind me. I was a goner. My eyes were a dead give away. In a few moments I would be yanked, and my freedom would be forceably removed. I steadied the wheel. Maybe if I drove well for a few minutes he would change his mind. I slowed to a stop at a yellow light. The police car pulled along side me and was a green sedan. No police car except in my paranoia. Sheez. I watched the last forty minutes of "From Here to Eternity" when I got home. Dud diddy duh duh pa doop poop ska diddly pop.

Every Chick I Ever Dated

Mon. 9-11, 1995

It's now actually Friday morning. I probably ought not to waste so much energy recording how far behind I am, since it's not interesting. We're studying the Ice Age and California Prehistory at school. I went to the Page Museum at the La Brea Tar Pits and got a saber-tooth tiger fossil fang replica, one of the claw of a giant ground sloth, and a poster of the famous mural of the Age of Mammals. ~ Monday Night Foootball featured the Bears and the Packers. Chicago closed a 27-7 deficit to within three in the second half before ultimately blowing it when Erik Kramer was stripped of the ball as they were about to go ahead in the final minute. I hooted and howled at the screen. ~ Read some Artist's Way, about closing the wrong kinds of friends out of your life, the ones who poison your art, or at least restricting their flow into it. That sounds like every chick I've ever dated. ~ I'm a full week behind. In that week, I only added about a half a paragraph to Borderline. ~ Tuesday we went to Luna Park on Robertson near Santa Monica. It's got all these different levels and rooms, indoors, outdoors, a restaurant, multiple bars. Josh Hayden's and Ken Boudacian's band, Blue Moods of Spain, were playing excruciatingly slow, heroin-tinged melancholy. I didn't drink much; The bartendress was a cunt. So I waited outside. I saw Jerzy (speaking of poison) and her friend, Robin. I forced myself to converse, but 'Shrill and I wanted to leave badly. Getoff had driven, though, and he was intent on speaking with Ken after the show, so I called for a cab. While we were waiting for the cab, Getoff came out and mercifully took my burning ass home.

Later in Life I Graduated to Drunken Bar Brawls

Sun. Sept. 10, 1995

Peachtree's crashed out on the couch. The movie "Desperado" was a stylish, sexy, lame action pic. Today is actually Thursday, but I'm writing this where I should have written on Sunday if I wasn't such an undisciplined hack. Why didn't I just do this on Sunday before I got sucked into the Sunday Times? I could have been scribbling away all through the NFL. I'm sitting on the toilet. (More than you needed to know, eh?) Oakland beat Washington, Dallas over Denver (Boo hiss. They should put a dollar $ign on Neon Deion's helmet) Cleveland beat Tampa Bay; SF> ATL; PHI>AZ. So what? The Dodgers swept the Pirates. Don't we meet Leopold Bloom on the toilet? My pants are around my knees. What else? Shit. Literally. I've got to hurry through this. Ha. That, too. Grunt. There's no way I'll be able to get through these pages up to Thursday before I have to leave for work. I told my TA, Andres, I'd give him some story beginnings for his creative writing class. I especially meant "Cold". It's already a quarter to seven. The Artist's Way talks about managing and directing periods of anger and expecting periods of dormancy followed by growth spurts. I'm eating an apple now. I've actually been eating pretty healthily. Grapes, apples, fish, cereal, rice, broccoli, spinach, carrots, etc. It's a F*cking trip the way these computers will sabotage you. Ho tiddly de ho ho. I'm going to be late. Now it's seven o four. I'm waiting on a couple of copies of Jim Crack to print. This is only the bottom of page two. The Sunday "Calvin and Hobbes" showed Calvin imagining himself as a predatory allosaur or something fierce but not big enough to bring down an incredibly big, incredibly stupid brontosaur as he waited behind Moe, the class bully, at the water fountain. Everyone has their experiences with bullies, don't they? I don't remember any of mine being too pronounced. I recall maybe a half a dozen after-school fistfights. I was skinny, but I never got beat up, never quite got any respect either, but I never got beat up. My brother and I used to whale on each other everyday. I was so quiet and skinny, though, I don't think the bullies expected the kind of resistance I put up. The old man used to let us have it often enough, too, that I had a pretty high pain tolerance. I remember Paul Fuhr, who had 70's long hair, and wore OP clothes and acted like a tough guy, and there was me in my Toughskins and short hair and good grades. He tried to beat me up in front of my little sister, and I pinned him in about thirty seconds and bloodied his nose for him, and never had a problem with him again. In middle school was Mark Kerbo, another tough guy with his Satanic rock band shirts and long hair, Ozzy-scary, made the same mistake as Fuhr, assuming a skinny, nerdy kid like me would be an easy target. He followed me home taunting me the whole way, calling me a faggot, and I dropped my books kicked him in the balls, put him in a headlock, and rammed the top of his skull into a parked car. Dag Noble was my friend for a while. He had a terrible chip on his shoulder. His mom died when he was nine and it was a school legend how they called him out of class to tell him she was dead. He also would look for some weakling on whom to take out his rage. I can still see the look of surprise on his face when I punched him in the face after he pushed me. Kids are always pushing each other in the chest and daring each other, "Hit me. Come on. I dare ya. Hit me." I punch a guy in the face when he does that. Eddie Newbold wanted to fight me in the church parking lot. I pulled off his shoe and hit him with it. Later in life I graduated up to your drunken bar brawls.~~~~

What about Monday? Did I wake up at Shirelle's?