7-25-97 Farifax and Sixth

7-25-97 8:07 PM F
From Molly Malone's on Fairfax and Sixth.  Was at the museum earlier.  Saw an old garage, lithographs, sarcophagi, Michael banishing Lucifer.
Mac Zurn called to leave some crowd noise on the answering machine from City Walk where he was watching Jim Rome's radio show.
Oliver was in the museum courtyard waiting for someone, a girl, before an Emmy dinner or something.  I'd just stepped off the elevator from the third floor exhibitions down to the jazz plaza when his bald head appeared.  We talked nothing.  I had a Carlsburg.  He asked about Shirelle.  I asked about Dimona. He said they were on the rocks.  I took a couple of pics.  A guy joined us.  Michael.  "The one that banished Lucifer?" I asked. He knitted his eyebrows.  "The one and only," said Oliver.  I got a merlot.  A girl came.  Said her name was Samantha.  I got another merlot.  Mike had some weed in his car.  I got another merlot.  We walked to the car.  Samantha wanted me to take her picture.  I obliged.  We went in her white Beemer to Mike's CRX with the club locked on the steering wheel, but the windows down and the weed in the glovebox.  Stoners.  Puffed a zagged pipe.  Rummaged through the debris on the floor.  Was a Polaroid of a homely tomboy in front of a mulcher.  I raised my eyebrows at him.  "Not anymore," he said. 
What else?  Espied two girls down the bar.  'Proached the dart game.  Were playin' cricket.  Bartender face-to-face with barwoman. 

Budweiser in a shamrock, drawn.  BUSHMILLS MALT Bartender snickers. JAMESON PREMIUM IMPORTED WHISKEY     Tatoo BLACKBUSH  NASHVILLE INSIDE The Smoother Sip From The World's Oldest Distillery  Come sail away Come sail away Come sail away with me. Sip. 

The bar drawn, worthy of the museum, in black ink, impressionist lines of bottles and lager glasses and wine glasses , the clock the bartender in beret, the smoking old drunk the ashtray, the highball of ice, the Camel ashtray napkins, the hand holding the pen over the journal...

The Water Mountain

Th 7-24 10:50 AM
I've got acrid, burning, sulfrous, hellfire farts.  My left shoulder still aches.  Has been for weeks.  I made cinnamon apple pork chops and honey-glazed carrots and seasoned fried potatoes for Shirelle and myself last night.  She got too stoned to have sex.  I finished the paper early today.  My fucking clock got all fucked up again when I set the alarm, and I woke up an hour later than I planned.  I didn't get to do any writing before school this morning.  The bell rang.  I have to go collect the kids.  Maybe I'll interview one today.  We have to review our vocabulary and check over our math before we go to the library.  Then it will be lunch.  I brought some kind of Lean Cuisine thing to microwave.  I'd rather have a double bacon cheeseburger.  Leo Politi was an LA area illustrator of many children's books.  He did some water colors of Bunker Hill's glory days and the parks of LA in the thirties and forties.  Many of his books are apparently out of print and hard to find.  A new project.  Oh, goodie.

[Here is a picture drawn in pencil from looking at a child's story book of a pig in tie and business suit heading out to the office it would seem, on two legs, using his umbrella as a cane, with a newspaper tucked under his arm, a fedora on his head, eyes and mouth closed, smiling contentedly, the sun peeking out from behind the clouds, a woman, the pig's wife, it would seem, looking on proudly from the porch of their house, it would seem.]  What else?  Luis is small for his age.  He has close-cropped hair, thick eyelashes, a few scattered freckles.  He's ten but doesn't read.  I say to him, "Tell me something, Luis, I have to write to the bottom of the page, what should I write about?"  He says, "Did you go to Water Mountain?"  I ask what he means, but he doesn't answer.  I ask him again, but he just stares at me.  He has a few beads of sweat on his upper lip.  Dark eyes, pupils indiscernible; I'm reflecting in them.  Jesus explains that Luis wants to know if I've been to a waterfall.  They find a picture of Niagara Falls in a book.  "Oh, here?  Yeah, I've been there.  Why do you want to know?" I ask, but he just turns and walks away from me.  I've got sixty-four more pages of The Shipping News.  Call Grampa today.  Do 15.

What They Don't Understand Is They Won't Be Children Forever

7-23 W 1:19 PM
These dumb-ass kids all wailing they don't understand when the truth is they don't listen.  They don't care.  What they don't understand is that they won't be children forever.  But you got to balance that without forcing them to grow up to fast.  I'm a little behind schedule.  I should be done with this and finishing my Modern American Novel period, but it's already time for Physical Exercise, and I still have this to do and the book to read.  What I have done is wake up on time, do my fifteen minutes and my '92 pages and stuck to my diet and budget.  I had a plum  aKrKnd toast and juice and a vitamin for breakfast.  For lunch a peach, a few dates, a handful of shelled peanuts, three little chocolate chip cookies, a half pint of milk and a cup of coffee.  I finished the LA Times.  Greenspan says the economy is in good health.   Now I'm all sweaty from my basketball game. 
Sheryl Powers offered a critique of Jim Krakwykz.  She said there were flashbacks that confused here.  She had to read it a second time before picking up the rhythm, she said.
Louie here looks like a classic case of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome.  Got to call the DMV, write a 3rd person page, read Jim, read notes, return e-mail in the two hours before class.
I'll get to read The Shipping News in bed and that asinine collection of Wallace Stevens poems.  Get in bed by eleven tonight.  Want to take the train downtown to MOCA this weekend or next.  DEFINITELY go LACMA Friday.  Got some jazz flute behind me.  Diana's mom is supposed to be coming.  Should have interviewed a kid today.  Whenever I see Jesus, I sing "Hey, Joe" Jimi Hendrix-style, but I say, Hey, Zeus, where you going with that gun in your hand?" Dadahhadahdum.  I told the kids that an improper fraction was like farting at dinner or picking your nose at church.  I hope my CTCU Visa bill and First USA Visa bill have come today.  I would like to go on the KLON blues caravan.  They put you on buses and haul your drunk ass all over town to different jumpin' joints ta here da blues.  I can't afford it.  This month I say good-bye to my Sears debt.  Yeah.

  Tu July 22 11:53 AM
Back in room thirty-three at Leo Politi, fighting my irritation with the flat-out idiocy of ten-year-old boys.  There's nothing to write about.  I put in the National Geographic Fiftieth Anniversary Special.  Lunch is in twenty minutes.  I think of going to the place on Wilshire that Miguel pointed out that his dad likes.  I finished reading the newspaper.  The crossword puzzle was hard.  I barely filled in half.  I did my fifteen minutes and my '92 page before work.  I left Shirelle's around 6:15 this morning.  The city seemed strange under the muted gray light; there weren't enough cars out there.  I was parked by Plummer Park.  I have to call the DMV after school and write a page in the third person.  Then it's off to night school.    I haven't felt like teaching at all lately.  When I get home tonight, I will work with Jim and Aaron for an hour.
Jim and Aaron.  Aaron and Jim.   Fuck.  bzurt ick ack ock urk frizt.  What? What?  It's supposed to rain some today.  Monsoonal moisture from southern Mexico. 
Now I'm at the counter at Tiny's Island Cafe on Wilshire at Virgil.  I ordered a French dip with French fries.  Looks like a business crowd.  I'm only drinking water.  I brought an apple to school with me, but it was mushy in places and smelled bad, so I tossed it. I ate a few dates. 
There is no Easy Street.  There's nothing to draw in here.  My head is empty.  I have no thought, no idea.  There's my beef dip.  Shall I dip my fries in mayo?  I read about Angel thirdbaseman Dave Hollins and his type 1 diabetes in the sports section of the Times today.  Ya really gotta watch yer  diet.        The grill sizzles.  The tone of conversation is strictly business, except for emphatic Koreans.    Oldies tunes pipe in from ceiling speakers, the Supremes at the moment.  I am the only man in here out of dozens not wearing a tie.  I feel salt grains under my forearms on the hard flat pink countertop.  My sandwich is in me.  I could eat two more.  The waitress has taken it away except for four drops of Au jus of varying sizes on the counter and a bit of beef.

7-19 Su 3:37 10:26 PM
Just returned from Alta Dena where Peachtree and I played nine holes of golf at the foot of Mt. Wilson.  I had a few good shots, but I mostly sucked

as usual.  This kid was playing with us, so I couldn't curse as virulently as I might have otherwise.  This morning I went to Pico and La Brea to Roscoe's with Carlin and Glorious.  Tug.  After golf, Peach and I went to Domenico's.  I had salad and pizza and a pasta combo plate.  Tomorrow, God help me with a strict diet. I read the paper and did about seventy-five percent of the crossword puzzle.  Shirelle was hassing me last night about my lack of interior decoration skills.  We argued loudly.  I said to get off my back, that I didn't get on her about shit, like how she doesn't read.  Tomorrow, I have to send off more bills.  Turn in attendance.  I've half a mind to take the day off and spend it with Jim and Aaron and Pam.  7-20- 2:02 PM M  Feel subversive wearing sandals and stubbled, high, the room another mess.  The phone rang.  It was pretty suspenseful.  Should I answer it?  What if it is work?  Or Shirelle?  Or for Thing?  It rang three times before I reached over to pick it up.  No one was there.  Haven't read the newspaper yet.  
Gross formalities.
I'm thinking of going to Border's.  Buy a paper, some coffee, CD or a tape, a CD-ROM. -      I've got most of that here.  Almost rather hand the whole check over to Shirelle and always have it be me trying to wheedle money out of her.
Thinking about Nicholas Roget when I think about my night job.  Who's he to tell me?  Gives off a real sense of underlying superior attitude.
What things did my father dream about on the couch?
I can't go to Borders.  I have books to read.
Should have asked Rawler about security.  Should have asked Peachtree how he was liking All the Pretty Horses, which I loaned to him.   Hard to ever do something long without starting to think it's a waste of time.  Guitar to play.  I was playing kind of an A - D and Peachtree said it was kind of pleasant.  I wish the bills all came on the same day.
Raining in July!  It seems phenomenal.  A sudden shower.  Ray came out to watch his grandson; came out and looked for a bit. Heard men laughing.  Grandson went back in.  The shower slowed to a drizzle.  Crows rejoiced in it.  A little girl came out with her umbrella.  Mel and the Chinese guy came out to water their lawns.  The top is down on the convertible.

Need to decide about Jim's home and family.  Does he have a stepmother or stepfather?  [A drawing of a BLACK MARLIN] 7-19 Saturday 2:30 P Wasted three hours and about twenty bucks at some stupid movie called "Contact."  It should have been called "Anti-climactic."  Aliens beam down plans for a transport, and the movie timidly posits some thumbnail religious implications.  The Earthlings build a preposterous Rosarita gyroscope to send Jody Foster into some silly-ass Star Trek dream, and at the end, the world is no closer to knowing anything more than it was at the beginning.  The really stupid thing is, they could have repeated the test to prove that the stupid carnival fun space trip Foster went on was true, but no--instead they have a congressional inquiry.  At least that part was realistic.
So now I'm in Shirelle's pad on the New Mexican-style rainbow couch across from the monolithic cherrywood armoire.  There's a tv in it.  She put the Dodger game on for me.  Carlin called to invite us to Venice Beach tonight.  Shirelle's mom is on her way here to pick up some money Shirelle owes her.  I invented a little tune I whistle when I'm waiting for someone called the "Hurry Your Ass Up" song.  We're going to get sushi, but Shirelle can't decide what she wants to wear. 

[A pencil drawing of Holbein's Henry VIII]

[a pencil drawing of a terra cotta sun] "It's a good thing your ass is attached isn't it?  Cuz if it wasn't, you'd lose it, and then what good would you be?"  A moth got in.  Ground my teeth when I was kid.