7-30-99 Reneging in Ketchum

7-30-99 F 12:04 PM
I'm in the El Taurino restaurant on Hoover and Olympic.  I have about ten minutes to write before I have to go back to the class I'm subbing for.  I ate too much food again.  A torta adobada al horno, a taco de carne asada, and one of carnitas, and now I'm stuffed and sleepy.  This place has bullheads all over the walls and posters and paintings and photos of famous bullfighters.  More Hemingway appropriateness.  A set of horns mounted to the wall measures about six feet across.  A matador holds a bouquet of roses in one hand and a bloody ear in the other.  [pencil sketch of mounted bull head]  A picture of the Virgen de Guadalupe hangs on the wall near the head of a bull above candy machines and a jukebox.  12:39 PM  I'm back at class now.  It's a third-floor class.  These kids have to drag their little legs up three flights of stairs.  The walkway outside the building up here affords a fine view of the old gothic/deco May Co. building and the Griffith Park Observatory on the hills beyond.  I wish I had my camera today.  I used the last of that box camera on a street vendor carrying a load of dozens toys all attached to one long stick held over his shoulder like a hobo's rucksack.  The kids are working on a math sheet. We'll correct it in a few minutes. Then I'll read them a story. What if I read to them from Islands in the Stream.  "Teacher, what's 'fuck oblivion' mean?"  It means Ernest reneged up there in Ketchum.  After I read to them, they have to put their boxes away. Then, I'll hand out their certificates, and we go next door for a video.  That should run through the end of the day.  Hopefully, I can read some Ernie during the video.  I'll have to see if there's work for me next week.  Then I guess I'll pedal home, though there's a happy hour party at Acapulco. 

7-27-99 11:06 says the cable clock  11:07 says the Ver

All the electric hums and the creaks in the wood.  PM Tuesday.  I'm in the dying room.  Come over if you want.  Just don't die by bleeding.  Die by your insides: old and peaceful.  ~~  Bless the girl ~  Ate at Hot Wings.  I better start locking the bike up in the back.  I wish it was daylight.  I'm afraid doing things will bug sleeping people now.  I hear a neighbor's TV except ~~~ whatever.  Forty-five people came to my English class tonight.  [pencil sketch of items on a wooden coffee table of wavy grain: a pouch of American Spirit tobacco a wooden box of marijuana buds and an ashtray with a roach on top of a Leonardo Da Vinci book, a lighter, a book of matches with the word God upon them, cigarette papers]  Florelle said they're looking for summer school teachers at Queen Anne's.  A three-week job from twelve to eight every morning.  I have to talk to Principal Linda Watson if I want the job.  I typed a third-person page when I got home from night class.  I read chapter IX of Islands in the Stream.  Cornball melodrama of the big one that got away.  The helicopter is buzzing overhead.  I brushed my teeth about an hour ago and my mouth already tastes like shit again.  There's no booze in the house.  I ought to learn how to play rummy again.  We used to play Michigan (I think) Rummy at my grandma's house in Buena Park.  Seems like there's some police action with loudspeakers not too far from here.  I'll have to get up early and put on some decent clothes.  I need to call Pennsylvania tomorrow.  The abandoned house I wanted to photograph isn't abandoned anymore.  Shucks.  People were working on it when I went to get the newspaper.  My foot still hurts.  My teeth feel sharper than usual.  My lips are dry and cracked.  7-29?-99 Th 12:34 pm I'm a little high and unsure what to be doing.  I've got to go up to Hoover El this afternoon by two to see if I can get them to call me for any subbing gigs next month.  I need to get new shoes.  Maybe I'll stop at that Big 5 down on Wilshire at some point.  I'll have to wear socks and bring cash.  How much can I afford.  I should get some sneakers and some school shoes.  I guess I better make and peanut butter and jelly before I leave so I won't be tempted to get a Monte Christo at The Bounty.  Or should I just go for the Monte Christo?  I need a decent pair of sunglasses, too.

7-26-99 M 1:42 PM
I'm in a dark wood and leather--or is it naugahyde?--bar at Genio's in Burbank.  Looks like an old school movie-industry crowd.  I've just come from Ikea, where I picked up that new dining room table that Shirelle wants.  It's a two-hundred-dollar table that's mislisted in the catalog at a hundred, so they gave it to us at the lower price.  This place is pretty peaceful.  I dropped Shirelle at work this morning because the wanted me to have the car to pick up the table.  I went to Bob's and had breakfast and read the paper.  I went home and called the cluster office about the thirty-two hours they owe me.  The guy I got on the phone said he'd look into it and let me know by Wednesday or Thursday.  Ugh.  The guy I'm sitting next to told me that when he was in Vietnam, training the "slopes" to be paratroopers, they were doing an exercise in which they had to jump and fire a Howitzer or something on the ground, and one of the slopes pulled the cord on the Howitzer too early, and the slope officer shot him in the head.  During a training exercise.  The other guy is a retired sheriff.  The hostess asked me if I owned a rust-colored Mustang.  That'd be me.  The lights were on.  I said I was glad she didn't call it the shit-brown Mustang.  Everyone laughed.  ~~  I have to take those movies back to Larchmont.  I thought of going to the movies, but now I've been here too long.  This place is cool.  Maybe I should try the food.  There are two other places I saw that I wanted to check out.  One was Chadney's, but the guys here tell me it's closed down, and the parking lot's full because the studios use it.  The other is called Tallyrand.  Some other guys showed up, and Peter, who had "Johnny" tattooed on his forearm "to identify him in Nam if necessary," and the sheriff left.  The new guys and I talked a while and somehow or other the talk turned to DUIs, and everyone got spooked and left rather abruptly, I thought, and now there's just me at the bar.  Even the barmaid is gone.  I have a new bartender.  The changing of the guard, I called it.

7-25-99 Su 3:28 PM

The parking garage again.  I’ve been here since eight this morning reading the Sunday Times and doing crosswords.  The other actors, Dar, Danny, and Kurt and I played spades until the freak Getty ran over and smacked Dar on the back with both hands for talking during the take.  We had lunch at El Torito on Getty’s dime or mil as bil as the came may be.  Bob McCarthy, the special effects guy, was telling us about working a burlesque shot when he was fourteen where his job was to ice the girls’ nipples before they went on stage.  I had three beers on Getty’s tab along with lunch.  After this, I’ll start Romans.  Then what?  I’d like to beat the shit out of this turd Andrew Getty.  I wish I hadn’t missed my game.  What else?  Shirelle and Bern were going to hang out with Thing at the Gaylord today. I typed my fifteen minutes at about twelve thirty this morning.  I don’t know what my third-person page is supposed to be, but that’s what I’ll have to do when I get home.  I’ve got Islands to read today, too.  I started to watch “Arsenic and Old Lace” last night.  I’ll have to watch the rest of that and turn the fucker back in tomorrow.  I’m already piling up late fees.  What else?  Dar came back.  I wouldn’t have.  Fuck this prick fool Getty.  HEAD IN  DO NOT BACK IN.  I forgot my pouch.  I’m craving smoke.  This garage doesn’t give you much to write about.  I’m about to go to work.  They’re moving a crane to film the shotgun blast.  Ugh.  What else?  Movie people are such dorks.  The electricians and grips and cameramen are all cool, but these celebrity-craving wannabes make you sick.  Oh my crap, WHAT ELSE?  I think it’s clear and sunny above ground.  “Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall be no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.”  Romans 3:20   “…the law worketh wrath: for where no law is, there is no transgression…but with flesh, the law of sin.”

7-23-99 1:14 PM F
I'm sitting at a table on the sidewalk at Swingers on Beverly with all the trendy hipsters.  When I'm done with this, I guess I'll go home and tack that discussion of California literary talent to Jim.  After that?  Smoke.  Read Islands.  I've still got shrooms.  I have the movie "Arsenic and Old Lace" to watch.  Tomorrow, I've got to go to Woodland Hills to get shot in some Getty-directed action short.  It's going to fuck me up for my game Sunday.  I was thinking of doing that horseback thing in the hills tonight, but my guess is I won't.  Shirelle's going to want to meet up with May and her mother tonight for margaritas.  Thing's having a party at the Bounty tomorrow.  Bernice is supposed to come up. Tim wanted me to help him do some moving tonight.  Ugh.  I need to straighten out this P-form, and I should start looking for a house.  Today's payday.  There's a place across the street that advertises used cowboy boots.  I finished a third-person page this morning.  I read the newspaper.  What else?  I haven't my tobacco. [pencil liner drawing of the back of the guy eating at the table ahead under and umbrella beside a bank of newspaper stands with USED COWBOY BOOTS sign]  The waitresses here wear miniskirts and platform heels.  I rode my bike here.  I saw "The Trouble with Harry" this morning.  It was kind of boring.