"What kind of Face Is That?"

Tuesday. November 19
I didn't have the heart to get out of bed this morning when the alarm went off so I didn't do community service. I had five beers and a pig nose scotch and a Jameson's and a margarita before class yesterday. I just ate some pasta. Went to Campanile at the La Brea Bakery and had a crappy over-priced poached egg while I read the paper. Next Monday I turn in Jim Crack to the novel class. I'm going to want some bud. I've called me brother but the line is busy. If they won their game last week, he may be practicing for the playoffs today. Life has been very boring lately. Tomorrow I sub for Schiff. Friday at Leo Politi. I've got to mail something to Bayles today and call GTE or rather check out their website. I ought to figure out what to do with the DMV, too. Get a BCLAD app still. Get up to Staples and get a new desk calendar. My brother will leave me some in his desk drawer if I want it. All I got to to do is drive out there. Could be worth it. Rawler was investigating state disability claims. He had an interview in the neighborhood, so he stopped in and we had the requisite Insanity Pepper conversation and watched the Andy Griffith Show and talked about Pete's movie and La Unified buearacratic obstacles. I said to Shirelle, "Your 'tude is causing me too much ass pain." She asked, "What kind of face is that?" I said, "That's my 'I wonder if I just shit my pants face." What else? A rat was about to gnaw the Boy Wonder to freedom when the cable went out. Somebody cut the lock off my bike and stole it from the front porch.
I'm back now from a trip out to the Valley. I got a few buds and a porno. Nothing else was remarkable. I hugged the wheel and steered with the insides of my elbows. What else? I started This Side of Paradise in the bar Madison's in Westwood Village, a collegiate affair. A Smith-lookin' guy asked what it was. I told him. He asked if it was good. I said it was. I said every sentence covered a lot of story. I said it was Fitzgerald's first novel. He wrote it when he was twenty-three. The Smith guy told me about a children's story he'd done about racial-type tension among black and white pigs. He refilled my beer several times and only charged me for two. I thought that was a little strange.

Kooks

Monday November 18
At Acapulco Bar and Grill I got a margarita on the rocks. The bartender, looks amphibious, told me they haven't had the trivia network in over ten months. Too bad. There used to be a fun little community of nerds here every night for the Tuesday Showdown. I drove around for about thirty minutes looking for a place to park and finally just drove onto campus and paid the five bucks to park in the garage. I walked down here past the botanical gardens (What other kind are there? A rose garden, by any other name, is still botanical, no?) and the sorority houses. I didn't see any sisters. I went to Leo Politi Elementary, and they hired me for Friday. I'm working Wedenesday at Sharp. If nothing comes up for tomorrow, I'll join Hollywood Beautifucation. Then I'll have only eight more days. I also dropped off a resume at John Burroughs and Los Angeles High School and Wilshire Crest Elementary. I just dropped some salsa on the page. See here it is. There's a kook wandering the bar talking at people. I envy him. I hardly talk to anyone. He's asking, "What's the last actual motion picture you saw in a motion picture house?" I'm going to see one of the movies here in Westwood Village, "Michael Collins", I guess, which starts in an hour. The kook says, "You like boxing?" The bartender sticks out his lower lip and shakes his head. "Well, what do you like?" the kook asks. "Dancing? Movies?"
I read a short by Alice Fulton called "Queen Wintergreen" about an old woman, proud, who is asked by an old man to marry her. She says no, then accedes, then drowns herself. Any day now, I'll start This Side of Paradise and get depressed about how great it is, and how young Fitzgerald was when he wrote it, and how old I am, and how bad I suck. We've babbled now, the kook and I, about Reagan, Bush, the Pope, Copernicus, Galileo, etc. That's fun. A couple of girls sat down and ordered margaritas. One of them is strawberry. I'm going to have to use credit to pay for mine.
I miss being a jackass. Now I'm only an asshole. The difference is huge.

Nah, it ain't nothin.

Ice Bros by Sloan Wilson

Sunday November 17
It's hard, in a way, to know. My oh my. I've just sat down to write after my shower, and my bud smoke, and my wine sips. That's what happened most recently. In the big picture, I don't know. I don't know nothing. My grandfather this morning showed me how to tie a clove hitch. They were tying up coat hanger bundles of five or six hangers. I would have just thrown them in a box. He also showed me a sheepshank, and a noose, and another one I don't remember. My grandfather fell asleep while we watched "All Quiet on the Western Front". My grandfather called my father at Hayden Lake. I had to talk to my dad. You know, the dog loves the snow, shit like that. The Swamp Thing and Tiffany just walked down the stairs. I said, see you next time. I came looking over my shoulder at the news. I don't know what to have for supper tonight.  "Fatal Attraction" is on TV right now on the USA network. This is a DOMAINE St. GEORGE CALIFORNIA MERLOT S E L E C T 1995 RESERVE. Shirelle went out with twenty dollars I gave her to bring back stamps and dinner. She said she'd get fish. I just popped some Ralph's Old Style California Vegetables from the freezer into the microwave. Shirelle has some cake. What's with this week pen? Shirelle had to go back to the store because she paid for the stamps, but the clerk didn't give them to her. So I pulled all the spines out of the fish. Shall I use my Blockbuster coupon tonight? I haven't read the Times nor done the Sunday crossword. Maybe that's why I feel all out of sorts. I did read the Hemet paper. A black kid from West Valley High came to the door to see about five bucks for raking leaves in the yard. He did a good job. They gave me a picture of the original John L Zorn in front of his hardware store in Haverstraw, New York in 1914. I still have to critique three stories. After my fifteen minutes. Or maybe I look in Tom's room for the Times. Ugh. I wish I had some earth-moving sentiment to write here. Yeah, at least something worthwhile. Nothing's as worthwhile as anything else. The communities around Hemet may as well be Oklahoma. Hayden Lake is the headquarters of the Aryan Nation. My grandfather had me read an article by a Benjamin Stein which insisted that it was not a racist place; they didn't hate him, he said. My father told me of the joyous moment when one of his fellow cops knocked future NBA star Bill Walton "on his ass, because Walton didn't think he had to do what he was told," at an anti-Vietnam war rally at UCLA.