6-1-01 F 8:31 AM

I'm in a conference room at the Radisson for an "Open Court" training. "Open Court" is the latest reading program that the Los Angeles Unified School District has adopted. From what I'm learning, it appears that letters of the alphabet stand for different sounds which can be combined to make words, phrases, and even sentences. Who knew? So, we're spending eighteen hours going "b- b- b- bat, h- h- h- hat." Yugh. The Devils lost to the Avalanche again. Rats. My dad and stepmohter are staying with us. My dad dropped me off here. It's not stimulating to write about. The two gals leading the training are competent and putting forth a valiant effort, but the content they've been providing is too overwhelmingly dull for them to save the day. I had a little machine-produced danish that the hotel put out. They have coffee. I had some at home, but now I think I need another cup. I brought some smoke. Maybe that would help. Ugh. UGH. Why didn't I make a better life for myself? I should ahve been capable of more than this. Or is that an illusion we all labor under? ~~~ I've got a lot of ATP buildup in my muscles. Talking skyscrapers. A Manhattan of ATP buildup. It is ATP, isn't it? That makes you need to stretch and flex and yawn? When I'm done with this, I guess I'll just blatantly read the newspaper. A guy at this table is asleep, and he slept through it all yesterday, too. What else? Maybe I can play some chess. Write a third-person page. I still have a shot of vodka left in my backpack. It keeps whispering to me. I can hear it clearly through the dead dull in here. All I can see right now are titties. ~~Big news! -- I need to piss. I got up and walked out. Naturally, the bathrooms are on the second floor here where the conference is are out of order. You have to walkd down to the first floor to eliminate. I guess it gives you and excuse to be away longer. I've decided to crap while I'm here. The toilets flush themselves. As soon as I walked into the stall, the toilet flushed. I carefully tore out a shit hole in the sanitary seat cover, but the toilet flushed it before I sat down. I got it my ass on it the second time, and it held even though the toilet flushed again. That was three tanks of clean water so far. 

 

[ticket stub to 2001 NCAA Baseball Regional Hosted by CSUF] 5-28-01 Tu 7:45 PM

The Devils are beating Colorado in Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Finals. Go Joisy. I typed fifteen minutes this morning. Rode my bike to work. I feel like a broken record. Whad oui do? Talked about their weekends while I read the sports. Dodgers have won five straight. Brown goes tonight. McGwire homered in his first game back after six weeks on the Disabled List. They wrote in their journals. Bush, the President, is coming. He’ll say there’s nothing he can do about controlling the price of electricity. Not while he and his friends at Enron are getting richer off it. They read form their journals. Villaraigosa and Hahn are heading into the last week of the mayoral race. At recess, I jerked beef. I tried to teach them about reading an analog clock, but they weren’t having it. I visited Senorita Villa at lunch. She invited me to see here photo album of her travels through eastern Europe. Ugh. Prague. Moscow, Berlin, Helsinki, Warsaw. I saw a photograph of Nikko. “Veddy Mhizterious,” I said. She’s tough to figure. And then you crack her and the nut’s even tougher to figure. I humped the wife he other night, too, just so you know. Might’ve knocked her up, too. [happy/sad face] Had some Lean Cuisine at lunch. Got lesson plans ready for the next three days. I’ll be at the Raddison Midtown, 35^th and Figueroa, for some teacher training. Rochelle, Mardi, and Ada came to my class. Rochelle said they needed money for diapers. Really, they wanted money to go to lunch. I gave them my debit card. We played handball and basketball at PE. I rode my bike home. No one was here. I catnapped on the couch, twenty minutes, maybe. I thought I heard them coming home, and I got up and looked out the window, but they weren’t there, and so I went back to lie down, and they pulled into the driveway. My mother’s supposed to be a hired companion to the mother of famous actor Anthony Hopkins. She met her at a restaurant called “Dante.”

 

 5-29-01 M 8:00 AM

I left my backpack with my comp book at my mom’s. Ugh. When did I last write? I don’t’ know. I left my credit card at Q’s on Friday. I have to go get it today. When I came home Friday, I don’t know what we did. Saturday morning, I don’t remember. At some point Saturday, we drove down to Orange County. I typed fifteen minutes on the way. No one was at my mom’s We left the dog in the garage and took the baby to the mother-n-law’s. Rochelle was going to the House of Blues in Anaheim with a girlfriend. I drove down Harbor Boulevard where the beginning of Jim takes place next to Disneyland. That area is all different now. The “Happiest Place on Earth” sign is gone. So is the oleander. There is an all-new gladiola lined entrance and palm trees stationed along the median on Katella. The changes made me feel cynical. A thinly veiled trap to part the fool from his money, distracting him with pretty flower while they pick his pocket.

Guards lined the turrets ready to pour boiling oil. Crocks snapped I the moat and many of the spikes protruding from the top of the gate impaled human heads in various stages of decay.

I continued south along Harbor, vaguely distressed, not understanding why. I felt a failure for choking my audition Friday and so the strip malls were an even more insidious comment on the achievements of men, achievement seemingly meaning strength and size of the wedge we’ve driven be4tween us, nature, and beauty.

As I got closer to old stomping grounds, I grew even sadder at the permanent loss of carefree times and people. I found Harbor Tow surprisingly easy enough. It lent little in the way of description (above). I drove down Placentia to Superior, past places I had forgotten, and upon seeing the forgotten places, even just banks where I had gotten money, I felt not recovery but loss. Newport was fascinating. I drove past bar after bar. I managed not to pull into The Stag, nor The Beach Ball, nor Blackie’s, nor Mutt’s, nor Cassidy’s, nor Woody’s, but at a red light, I had only to turn left to go into DP’s (now Rudy’s) to park, and so I did. They had the National Trivia Network and hockey. I read the news and the Devils were buried by the Avalanche. I had maybe six beers. I rolled a smoke and drove past Video Zone, and some old bars that are gone now. The Sports Page was gone. The High Times liquor store where I worked is now a Blockbuster. The tow yard off Michelson I was looking for, the one I have in mind for Jim, the one from which I had once liberated my Olds, is gone—replaced by chain restaurants and a multiplex. We bulldoze the past, pave over it, and create new memories to be razed for future generations to be maudlin about. I drove back up to Carolyn’s and stayed until the baby fell asleep. Her cats scratched out my eyes. I went to my mom’s and went to bed.

 5-22-01 Tu ?10:00?

I'm standing at a bus stop at Wilshire and Robertson. Rochelle and the baby went to spend the night at my mom's. I didn't know what to do with myself. I guessed exercise first, so I took off on my bike. Now I can't decide whether to take a bus down toward Q's or walk around the corner and see if any bars are going off on Robertson. The bus drove away while I was locking up my bike. I don't know how long before another one will be coming by. Maybe I should just stand here and finish [Ticket Stub to Kings/Sharks game from Sat Mar 17] writing and ride my bike home without going to any bars. I could read and try to figure out what to do for Jim. I should try to get that scanner working for "Jeopardy!" I couldn't stand the house right now, though. Is that the alcohol talking? It's a strange corner I'm on in Beverly Hills. A BMW dealer shares and intersection with a rundown pawn shop that has a couple of baby grand pianos and a vintage Mercedes, some furs, and an old jukebox visible through the window. If I go to Q's, I can at least play the National Trivia Network. I'm starting to get thirsty. Still no bus. A liquor store is open around the corner. I don't see any buses coming a mile down the street. Plenty of people stare at me from their cars.I guess I look a little strange standing out here on the street, writing. What is God's will? Should I stay or should I go now? This indecision's buggin' me. Me molesta. I'm not sure I'm dressed for a Roberston bar. Really, once I'm done with this, shouldn't I just go home? I feel obligated to enjoy a night out while the wife and baby are not around. Still no bus. Two girls in t-shirts wait to cross the street. One of them bends over, ass at me. I guess she's just stretching. Oh, well. A girl at the light smiles. I'm embarrassed.