I couldn't believe the rinky-dink trophy the chicks got for winning the World Cup soccer championship.  I thought they should just get a baseball testicle-protector, strap it around a globe and call it the World Cup.  I said to a guy in the bathroom, "You know, this is cool, but it would be cooler if it was the Women's D-Cup Championship."     I'm sure I had more, but I'm not remembering right now.  I fell asleep last night after one chapter of Hemingway.  That Harry Morgan sure is a mean, self-serving, murderous bastard.  Helicopters buzzed all night.  I woke up at 7:30 this morning and read the newspaper.  I argued with Shirelle about how much of my pot she smokes.  I made a sound when she asked for it, so when I gave it to her, she didn't want it anymore.  She tried to give it back, and I wouldn't take it.  She said she would flush it down the toilet then, and I said if she did I would knock her lights out.  I may have even meant it.  So, I wanted to get out of the house fast, and I waited on the curb for Carlos to take us to our game, and we were somewhere around Montebello when I realized I'd forgotten my glove.  I borrowed one from Stoner Junior.  It wasn't a first-baseman's glove, but it worked and I ended up in left field midway through the game anyway after Stoner Junior pulled his hammy.  I struck out twice, got two bloop singles knocking in a run, scored from first, pulled my calf muscle, made some routine plays, one error, ugh, and we won ten to seven.  Carlos and I came home and drank a couple of Tecates each.  Then I ate a bowl of spaghetti and went over to Getoff's to get my Bible.  Getoff was talking about how photo-memory guys read by seeing the whole page, and I said the only way to get the true meaning and emotion was to read word-by-word. He talked about Yogis who make the temperature in one finger go up ten degrees and down ten degrees in the one next to it.  I read Acts 7-21 when I got home.  Demona and Bernice are here. 

7-10-99 5:34 PM Su
I'm in the Beverly Center Mall in the depths of a depraved consumer binge.  I've been in three retail music stores and bought the tapes of some fad radio bands.  I wrote for fifteen minutes this morning and read the newspaper.  I was sort of looking forward to watching the Women's World Cup Soccer Championship when Florelle showed up at the house with a plain-as-day, hoop-earringed queer to dig up ocotillo, nopal, a banana tree, a fern, and another one I don't know for transplanting from our garden to hers.  I ended up in the backyard with a garden shovel and gloves instead of watching the game.  I wanted to ride my bike up to Dublin's to watch the rest, but Elmer showed up in his brand-new, cherry-red Acura.  Had a couple beers and some wings, and Elmer popped for some shots, so I got a Bushmill's on the rocks.  We shot three pool games, all of which I won, and the US won on a shootout against the Chinese.  We decided to go see the "South Park" movie, but we wanted to smoke first.  I'd left the smoke at home, though, so we headed back that way, but Elmer stopped at Big 5 to talk to his buddy Arturo and show off his brand-new, cherry-red Acura.  Then when we were leaving, he slammed his brand-new, cherry-red Acura into a post as we were backing out.  His crushed plastic bumper tripped him out.  On the way there, I had told him, "When you're sober, you can drive crazy, but when you're drunk, you have to drive like an old lady."  He wanted a high five.  Whatever.  8:34 I'm home now.  Thing's nowhere to be found, and I don't have the nuts to drive to the bachelor party.  I could call Carlos.  I've got to call Getoff about my Bible.  Shirelle's got on "Meet Joe Black."  I think it's about some retarded death angel.       I got Taco Bell.  Bomb jiggy boom buh bang bang juh jiggy bome.  Shirelle's going to Demona's to see a Chris Rock HBO special.  I have heart disease, I just don't know it yet.

7-9-99 F 3:29 PM
The smoke-filled Bounty.  I came for a Monte Christo, but for the second time in a row, I'm shut down until four.  I got Jim up to page seventy-eight today.  Then I typed for fifteen minutes.  I started To Have and Have Not.  It reminded me that I need to call the Bahamas to charter a boat.  I should call Julia, too.  Seemed like there was something else -- Shirelle's got a baggie for me across the street.  I don't know what I'm going to do this weekend.  It's such a perfect summer afternoon; I feel obligated to partake of life, to travel and meet people.  The bartender and a couple old lushes are playing poker with the serial numbers on their dollar bills.  Another old guy is complaining that his daughter-in-law smokes pot.  "Can I have her number?" jokes still another old-timer.  They suspect that OJ is a patron of the latest Madam scandal and are certain that Jim Brown is an animal.  I took "Tom Jones" and "Ronin" back to Blockbuster and picked up "Waking Ned Devine" and "Meet Joe Black."  I should call Kayo and Drew about golfing next week.  What else?  "He's a gook, too," I hear the crusty old guys down the bar say. [sketch of John Wayne in black ink]  Can you tell that's John Wayne?      Maybe we should check out this "South Park" movie tonight.   I like the narration in To Have and Have Not.  First-person direct -- he speaks directly to the second person, to "you."  It's like you're sitting in a bar with him while he's telling the story.  "He's a fag," says Crusty down the bar.  "Asshole," says Poker Guy.  "I'm gonna stick it up your ass," says one.  "That's not nice.  This is nice genteel bar, you know.  Asshole," says the other.  I was thinking of buying the Limp Bizkit CD with the song I like so much on the radio, and also a Tom Waits effort.  I considered getting a new jack-off tape, but then I jacked off and didn't want it anymore.  Florelle came over.  She took some aloe plants.  Elmer called.

7-8-99 Th 4:03 PM

I’m at the Q’s on Wilshire in Westwood.  The only two other patrons are sitting outside.  I’m playing the National Trivia Network.  I just got the thirteenth-best score in North America out of the several thousand playing.  I’m waiting to go over to Dutton’s at seven because one of my writer’s workshop teachers from UCLA sent me an invitation to a reading from her new novel.  I ate a chicken salad sandwich and onion rings just now.  I’m on my third iced Kahlua and coffee.  I forgot to bring a book to read.  I wanted to bring Islands in the Stream.  I think I’ll get To Have and Have Not at Dutton’s.  There’s a cute new waitress here.  Oriental.  Chinese, I guess.  Maybe Korean.  She’s a bit squat, without that Japanese delicacy, but with refined features, unlike the broader features I associate with a lot of the facial forms of Southeast-Asians I have known.  I don’t have the nerve to ask her about her ancestral descent, but she’s beautiful, and I salute every forebear that contributed to her DNA.  I wonder what she thinks of appraising, pointy-nosed white boys.  She’s refilling my Kahluer and coffee.       When I’m done with this, I’ll have met my average daily minimum writing requirement except for Jim.  They’re talking with this Kmart cashier who is apparently a kind of intellectual diamond in the rough.  Maybe she’ll give them a ride home.  I wish I had some green weed to roll with my tobacco.  ?ESLE TAHW     Jeez, I still have about three hours to kill.  Cutie just asked me if I’d like any popcorn.  “No, thanks,” I said in my chestiest voice.  Should I call Lauren?  Seems like a dangerous idear.  Pontius Pilate killed himself after being summoned to answer charges of cruelty by Caligula, of all people.  I read a Ring Lardner story called “Champion” about a despicable boxer who’s written up in the papers as a saint.  I also read a Cyntiah Ozick essay about Salman Rushdie at the Louvre.