2-12-99 F
I rode my bike up to the Improv because I wished I was a comedian.  Too bad I have such a tempremental sense of humor.  "How f---ing ironic is that?" a woman down the bar loudly asks.  I'm on my third beer.  I'm thinking about ordering a steak, but I think Shirelle is cooking something up for me over at Dina's.  You might think a bar at a comedy club would be less depressing than other bars, but it's just as dark.  A BLUE light bulb lights the bottles of beer behind the bar.  I just motioned the bartender for another beer.  Shirelle told me the other day that Nate the Weasel left co ca I e Neigh.  Frank says it's all different now.  It's all run by accountants.  He used to do album covers, over two thousand album covers in the 60s and 70s.  He told about a promotion for a band no one's ever heard of since that dropped joints with the name of the band on them out of an airplane over Sunset Boulevard.  He's writing a book about the hundred best bars in LA.  Wilshire Boulevard, Frank tells me, is named after Gaylord Wilshire, and the Gaylord Apartments, where The Bounty is, as well.  Frank describes a ruthless and wily businessman--he leveraged the apartments into giving him a penthouse suite and an undisclosed sum for using his name.  "Why didn't the builders just name it The Frank?" I asked.  "He owned the land."  "So it was the land, not the name."  Frank grunts.  A couple guys are fighting on the tv behind the bar.  The sweat flying when a guy gets hit incites a little primal blood.  The last thing Frank would want to be is a fifty-year-old woman--he clarifies: the last person he would want to be with is a fifty-year-old woman.  He's going to tell me why men enjoy younger women: because they don't come with all the baggage.  The POOL TABLE IS GONE

The Philosophical Question of the Day

2-10-99 11:06 AM W
Just going through life trying to keep my cravings and desires in check--waiting to be free to be me(such times do come occasionally)--they're mostly self-destructive.     I haven't eaten yet today.  I bought a newspaper, but someone had filched the sports page out of it.  The important philosophical question of the day:  What's for lunch?  I didn't type this morning.  I haven't cared to write lately.  It has been self-enforced labor lately.  A total grind.  The pencil and paper resist each other, the friction of it seems extraordinary today.  And again:  What for lunch?  Haven't read any Tar Baby yet today.  The skies are clear today, but a chill wind blows.  Everyone remarks that it's cold.  I don't think it's as cold as people say.  I think they just unconsciously enjoy dramatizing the difference between the usual temperature.  The weekend looms large.  That's why I'm such a wreck these days.  That's why I don't/can't write.  Jim seems retarded again.  What else?  Ten minutes until the next big decision in my life:  What for lunch?  We played a little ball in the wind today.  Even eight-year-olds get me out.  Shirelle said this morning, "Life sucks dog [pencil sketch of Lon Chaney as the Phantom of the Opera] shit."  That made me laugh.  Whatever.  What else?  5:38 PM  I'm hiding out in the bathroom at Pio Pico.  Mr. McKey who uses my room during the day (or really I use his room at night) stayed late again.  He's so long-winded, I can't do anything but listen to him if I go to my class early to write.  My beard is growing. 

A Mugger's Dream

2-9-99 Tu 8:03 AM
I didn't type for fifteen minutes this morning.  I slept through forty-five minutes of alarm.  There was only time to shower, dress, and leave. 
It threatened rain all day yesterday, because it knew I had to ride my bike down to Wilshire and Western to catch the subway, but it never did.  So there I was with three hundred dollars cash in my pocket, plus assorted gold and platinum cards, and checkbook, waiting alone below the street for the train to come, a mugger's dream.
I read Tar Baby on the train.  The muggers were only bored secretaries and unemployed immigrants riding back from hopeless job interviews.  I surfaced again at Seventh and Hope and walked a few blocks to the Jewelry District.  I wrote a check for five hundred and gave another three hundred in cash bringing the grand total to $3,240.  The Jew jeweler and I had to go across the street for the setting and then upstairs to the eighth floor where a few bored looking men in yarmulkes set the stones in a drab cell all day long.  Then I walked back across downtown LA with a diamond ring in my pocket worth the equivalent of more than six months' rent.  I rode the train back to Wilshire and Western, ignoring the whole time the elephant stampeding toward me.  I crossed over to Denny's and ate a burger.  Waited for class to start.  Rode my bike to Pico and Arlington.  Rode home after that hoping the whole time this wasn't the day I finally get jumped.  At home, I had a smoke, tried to write.  Shirelle came over, bitter to be there.  We went to bed.  What should I do about this whole marriage thing?  My mind hasn't been sure either way for more than a minute.  I think I want it, and then I want out, and there's no rhyme or reason to it either way.  I'm like the girl in the Ring Lardner story.
It's raining today.  Marco wants me to score him some weed.  I made the kids put their heads down because they've been full of shit all day.  Whatever.  What else?  I paid off my Fleet credit card last night.  Three down, one to go.  That "Jeopardy" check ought to be here in the next month.  I have to turn in Hyna's poem for the writing contest.  It seems like I don't want to get married.  Fuck.  Fuck.

2-7-99 7:58 PM Su
I took Shirelle to Chan Dara for supper.  We were just going to have something small and come back and watch the video "Rushmore," but that got all fucked to hell.  We got there twenty minutes before it opened, so we had some time to kill. We went down to Blockbuster.  I wanted to see if they had "Under the Volcano." They didn't, but they had the only Metallica album I don't have "on sale" at $15.99.  I picked it up.  Shirelle feels entitled to a video for her library whenever we walk in to a video store together, so she picked up "When Harry Met Sally" at $12.99 and spotted some stuffed animal that Demona wanted for $7.99 and Boom!  Just like that I was down forty bucks.  We went up to the restaurant. Shirelle's "little something" was appetizer, salad, and entrée, plus a bottle of wine.  Bang! There went another fifty bucks. On the way home she started whining about me sleeping at her place, which I wasn't really up for.  That turned into an argument.  Now she's gone to her house. I have to figure out how to pick up this stupid ring tomorrow.  I could call a sub. I wonder if I can get there and back between jobs.  Ugh. I wish I knew what I really want.  I read the Book of Micah this morning.  More prophecies of destruction rained upon Zion by their tyrant god except for one chapter of the opposite. I didn't really read the newspaper.  I did snippets of the crossword between conversation at dinner. I told Shirelle about how Rudy on my baseball team did twelve years at San Quentin.  I told her about the cabin my family used to have in Running Springs and how I used to climb really high trees and how we made an igloo once winter.  She told me how much she hated that I brought the crossword to dinner.  Whatever. 
2-8-99 M 9:56 AM
Here we go again.  Another Pleasant Valley Monday. Fuck.  I have no spirit.  Whatever.  I went to McDonald's this morning. It gave me a stomachache and a moderate case of self-loathing.  I didn't bother to write my fifteen minutes this morning.  If it rains after school today, I don't know how I'm going to get downtown. Miss Senoritavilla treats me like a leper. That's the last ink I'll waste on that.  Maybe she's smart but probably just small-minded and afraid.  I don't really care much anymore, though it's too bad. Whatever. What else?  I kept Hyna in at recess because she was late again today. It's so irritating.  fuck.  I didn't work on Jim yesterday.  How many times have I written that sentence?  I didn't even do a third-person page or finish this.  We watched that oddball "Rushmore" movie, and I arranged my CDs and tapes in alphabetical order. I notice my Neil Young and Soundgarden CDs are gone.  I suspect my brother of thievery. There's the bell.  I better go get my kids. [pencil line sketch of Picasso's musical trio]  What else?  The kids are doing their math now.  I'll be skipping lunch today.  I'll just get coffee.  I'll avoid that depressing, distracting lunch room.  I'll stay in and read.  King Hussein of Jordan died.  I never knew until today that his father was assassinated and that he ascended to the throne at the age of seventeen.  What else?  I seem to have a boner.  I been getting a lot of those lately.  Maybe I just need to piss.  Trying to say something when you've got nothing to say can be pretty embarrassing. Em-bare-assing like your bare ass is hanging out. Whatever. What else?  [pencil line sketch of a Picasso bison]  "How are you doing?" Gladys asked.  I said, "Oh, I don't know.  I try not to think about it."

2-6-99 Sa 12:49 PM
Bob's.  I didn't write yesterday, did I?  I went up to John Burroughs this morning to watch some of the chess tournament. I was too late to play. It was fun watching the rated players slam their pieces down in a flurry of action late in the game. Some guys played roller hockey on the playground, too.  A Saturday of diversions.  What else?  Should I get married?  I have to make up some kind of learning centers for school.  My waitress has been less than attentive.  Conversation has been a burden lately.  Whatever?  What else?  Thing brought home that [pencil sketch of a coffee mug] movie "Rushmore" last night.  I have a bunch of  Blockbuster coupons.  I'm a buffoon.  I'm an idiot. I ate too much.  There's nothing to me.  I exist only to trudge through my fate.  Back and forth and back and forth I go. The Bob's crowd is thinning out.  The left over fries look massacred in their puddles of smeared ketchup.  Today's Senoritavilla's birthday.  It's none of my concern, though, right?  Elmer had the personality with Loren at Q's.  I was too drunk. Could barely contain how fierce I felt.  The asshole in me was bubbling just under the surface. Indifference was my best visible option.
"Actually, I 'm wondering if you'd let me try guinea-piggin' myself with you."
What else?  My rib is still sore.  I wonder if Adam felt this way.  Our game's at eight tomorrow.  I've got to keep it cool tonight.  What else?  I wish I could go golfing today.  Maybe Thing will take me to Rancho Park. What else?  One more page.  I've got to go home and type a page.  I suffer from poor judgment.  I'm an oddball.  What on God's green Earth next?  Wanda and Hyna's mom gave Tar Baby tepid reviews.  I could go for a good fuck right now.  I wish there was some way to act out this duality.  I feel like I was in an alcoholic stupor yesterday, but all I can think for today is more of the same.  Craving some fresh pussy. Maybe I should become a swinger. Drop this sexual prude thing.  Whatever. Chicks.  Ugh.  Too bad I never sent that Bayless story. I met the real estate agent this morning.  She was showing the place to some Chinese-looking buyers.  Ugh.  I told Thing I felt like a dust-bowl Okie being kicked off the farm.