Disconnected from the .
The new place is furnished in a way that can be called minimalist - its a strange life with no large TV in the living room, cable, Internet or home phone but one I have become very used to living in the last couple weeks.
The living room has three CD racks, a bookcase and a $30.00 wood Ikea Gorm rack in which I have placed a semi-cheesy stereo, a love sofa fold out bed leftover from my brother's divorce, a Buddhist altar and a 100 year old end table. On the wall a $7.00 spray-can painting I got in Tijuana. The dining room has chairs that we inherited - they where made in El Segundo (America at one time actually made stuff - really!) and have a turquoise vinyl skin. Matches well with the soft pink dining cloth covering the chewed up folding table.
KCRW news, coffee and a carb make up my weekday morning. Meals are mostly home-cooked due to living within a budget.
A laundryroom in the back allows for a washer and dryer
Other than a bookcase I have converted into a mini bar (With shakers, Tiki mugs, 7 kinds of hard liquor and mixers) I don’t have any extraneous stuff outside of a ton of inherited dishware, again made in America (Union Label!). A church rummage sale netting me a decent computer desk and 13 inch working TV (total price $12) both of which I placed in the bedroom - usually just to catch some Letterman before I doze off.
The one thing I need is a coffee table.
One of the things I can appreciate about the non-wired life is the pace seems - slower. My job glues me to the dual screen monitor and hours of flashing pixels streaming reminders, notices, e-mails, phone calls and constant stream of IM from my co-workers. A web server is off sync in Maine, a Hand Reader is blown in a Indian casino and a WAN in Hawaii is blocking our software and all of them need answers within the hour, I log intense amount of remote time. Time blurs by as I test, diagnose and respond fueled by coffee, green tea, vitamin C and in extreme cases Tylenol. Blurry eyed and mentally wiped out I come home.
The new place has inspired me to pick up something I have left behind 21 years ago (Jeez I am old) - a Strathmore newsprint paper pad and a set of pencils that include a charcoal and draughting - with a sharpener and Artgum eraser. Wood and graphite on newsprint paper just feel good right - especially the shads of gray that do not show up well on a computer monitor.
I did some basic sketches based upon a book I have - The Complete Manual of Sexual Positions, - and with some of the pics - I wondered..... how??!! - do they do Yoga? - and that looks painful!
Now if I just could get back on track with the exercise....iron and sweat also sound good right now.
Sunday, June 17, 2007
Birthday Blog
I am resigned, hopeful, de energized wistful, in pain, in love and out of a large amount of lust, realizing what I wanted was bullshit but I got inane way , wondering what the hell was I so repressed as a twenty , wishing I was wasted, wanted more, not having, joining when I suck, trying every single day to suck a bit less, wondering when the back pain will go away, realizing it wont, looking down from the room I rent to the next-door show-biz guy who rented out his newly nice home to an actor and realizing I am on the wrong side of the fence, fucked up, fearless, need to call person X and say hello but his gay friend tried too hard to hit up on me, I am slouching, biting shooting and damming
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- fuck fuck fuck/..... .
I recall a conservation I was imported on , Bob ( the non closeted bi married father, a Nam vet with a smile that is not haunted) and Rosa ( the late 40 something single women so precise that everything, I fucking mean everything is clean) had a pleasant conversation about orchids and then it hit me -------- is this where middle age is, the sad funny thing is , it is and in a non ironic way as well , the ones who don’t have pleasant talks in middle age rant about the genius of ...whomever --- is this where the fucking train stops??!!!or worse where the popsters go (and i love them) haunted by the gods making little pyramids to honor the larger ones who where made by the giants of the past,,,, aaarargg
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I recall a time five or so years ago - I was completely wasted at a party Adam Marsland was putting on ... there was a blond that was sitting on the sofa across from me when pretty blonds would hang out at these things any way ...she was sitting next to Anne a brunette and she wanted help.....real fucking answers about love, endurance and does everything with relationships end in embers and Anne was reluctant to give her take with lived in answers
(slight fear in her eyes and uncertainty in her voice) “ I don’t know if I am a person who should give advice”
me - just before Annies reluctant pleading - fucked up drunk - in my head was thinking “”dammmshescuteI wiuldliketo do her buti dontknowwhatIamfuckingdrungkwhotheothwerwomen”” swieg “”whatamIgonnado”
wait
she is sincerely asking for guidance and the other women anti-ego is getting in the way --fuck does she see that she was asked sincerely and that is the time to give your take --
something pop’s in my head and I talk, loudly with authority in my voice and vision hit straight at Annie
“You have something to offer - Experience! Never doubt the value of what you lived!” - angrily but concisely a miracle considering I was seriously fucked up
Annie blinked at me - she looked mildly stunned - in Buddhist terms I was trying to mover her beyond her lesser ego by breaking the cycle of self pity (shaka translated literally is hand axe - the whole term is Chinese characters that have a literal meaning of hand axe human base-animal in circle - meaning the person is acting in a debased way and the object is the sever - sometimes quite painfully the attachment one has with their negative cycle)
Annie blinked and turned her head - she said to the blond women - “I think that its just not realistic to have a lifelong marriage with life spans now at................
me - inside my head - “ thats all thats needed - just a connection with someone so we know, we fucking know that we are not just living in this life by ourselves but someone can shear off our loneliness and , just talk” - they squeezed hands in friendship
about then a couple of guys walk drift in - one of them was 40 something, sandy hair, a couple lines one his face, weather-beaten gl. pushing his confident agenda onto the two women trying to have a heart to heart
In an imperious voice the blond said - aloud - I want all of the men here - out right now...
They mulled it over and drifted away -- I stood up (was i not a part of the offending gender? ) but the two franticly gestured as i stood up that they wanted me to stay put..
I sat down (as drunk as I was It made sense) and i was punched inside - was I not a threat
I felt punctured.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- fuck fuck fuck/..... .
I recall a conservation I was imported on , Bob ( the non closeted bi married father, a Nam vet with a smile that is not haunted) and Rosa ( the late 40 something single women so precise that everything, I fucking mean everything is clean) had a pleasant conversation about orchids and then it hit me -------- is this where middle age is, the sad funny thing is , it is and in a non ironic way as well , the ones who don’t have pleasant talks in middle age rant about the genius of ...whomever --- is this where the fucking train stops??!!!or worse where the popsters go (and i love them) haunted by the gods making little pyramids to honor the larger ones who where made by the giants of the past,,,, aaarargg
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I recall a time five or so years ago - I was completely wasted at a party Adam Marsland was putting on ... there was a blond that was sitting on the sofa across from me when pretty blonds would hang out at these things any way ...she was sitting next to Anne a brunette and she wanted help.....real fucking answers about love, endurance and does everything with relationships end in embers and Anne was reluctant to give her take with lived in answers
(slight fear in her eyes and uncertainty in her voice) “ I don’t know if I am a person who should give advice”
me - just before Annies reluctant pleading - fucked up drunk - in my head was thinking “”dammmshescuteI wiuldliketo do her buti dontknowwhatIamfuckingdrungkwhotheothwerwomen”” swieg “”whatamIgonnado”
wait
she is sincerely asking for guidance and the other women anti-ego is getting in the way --fuck does she see that she was asked sincerely and that is the time to give your take --
something pop’s in my head and I talk, loudly with authority in my voice and vision hit straight at Annie
“You have something to offer - Experience! Never doubt the value of what you lived!” - angrily but concisely a miracle considering I was seriously fucked up
Annie blinked at me - she looked mildly stunned - in Buddhist terms I was trying to mover her beyond her lesser ego by breaking the cycle of self pity (shaka translated literally is hand axe - the whole term is Chinese characters that have a literal meaning of hand axe human base-animal in circle - meaning the person is acting in a debased way and the object is the sever - sometimes quite painfully the attachment one has with their negative cycle)
Annie blinked and turned her head - she said to the blond women - “I think that its just not realistic to have a lifelong marriage with life spans now at................
me - inside my head - “ thats all thats needed - just a connection with someone so we know, we fucking know that we are not just living in this life by ourselves but someone can shear off our loneliness and , just talk” - they squeezed hands in friendship
about then a couple of guys walk drift in - one of them was 40 something, sandy hair, a couple lines one his face, weather-beaten gl. pushing his confident agenda onto the two women trying to have a heart to heart
In an imperious voice the blond said - aloud - I want all of the men here - out right now...
They mulled it over and drifted away -- I stood up (was i not a part of the offending gender? ) but the two franticly gestured as i stood up that they wanted me to stay put..
I sat down (as drunk as I was It made sense) and i was punched inside - was I not a threat
I felt punctured.
Unfinished Blog
Unfinished Blog
Originally Riffing off the Iguana (8)
I was taking film classes at LACC in the late 80’s - it was the most punk thing I could think of doing - it meant I did not give a damn what I did with my life, but it sure as hell was not going to be an accountant or lawyer - I wanted a touch of the transformation of light - Now this was before Clerks, before El Marachie and before Sex, Lies and Videotape. Movies where still vastly expensive, technologically complex white elephants that mostly never got made. We had 8mm camera’s (using film!) and just enough sluggishly dark energy to put things on them. In town there was only the two major schools, UCLA they had a bit more art school orientation and USC, where the kids of the established movie elite took classes. LACC was nowhere - fast.
This was the LA City Collage cinema program of my late teenage years, it was before the waiting list, before the movie posters in the main lobby proudly showing off the people who went on to work in “the industry”and won awards, where anyone with 24 bucks a unit and some free time could take a class or two. Pre digital video.
The people who where my classmates reflected the word motley - mostly atari wave gen x city kids my age from Silverlake - pre gentrification, a couple intellectuals, a few foreign students, three middle age people. Two of them stick out - one was named Maggie
Maggie was a 50 something women who was worn, nice and sharp - she was the mother of three who decided that family life - in the universe revolving around my children way was - not her - Texas family life suited her ex husband and she loved her kids but.................her she was taking first year LACC film school where the graffiti on the bathroom points to the toilet paper and says “film school diplomas”
To this day I hear the name Maggie I reflexly think “guts”
The other was Mike - he was a....guy - friendly - weathered and a damn good actor. I wish his personality was the templet we draw adulthood from not the current verbal gassiness that we call passion.
At one point the cinema department decided to showcase the post graduate degree program. At the point of getting your AA degree you two choices, transfer to a four year or make a short film and hope some one would notice. They had a women talk with us who decided on the second approach. She directed a film that was in the last stages of editing.
She was impressive in one sense, she embodied an air of a confident 80’s professional, blonde with glasses and spoke with authority. She must have been in the late 20’s. At the time you wanted to believe - believe that there was a wealth of stories that could be told and seep in your brain - turn your mind around - see things that would change your life o- if only people would fund that vision..
The film ran. It was in rough cut mode.
I saw this guy in a loincloth trouncing around in a militarized SUV, a women fully clothed trying to do something and Griffith Park in the background. The story was the post apocalypse cliché that was true to Glen A. Larson - but without the tacky polish.
It ...
was...
god awful
What film school was is - in effect the garage band of film. Its a group of people who are trying to project an aspect of talent on film, encouraging each other, helping each other, getting the rough diamonds out and carving them for bits of sparkle gleams of hope in our quest to be granted the favor of Fortuna - in our minds eye what we wanted to see - no what we expected to see was - especially from a women so well spoken and projected such a confident air, was just hints of talent ------------ vision, technical adeptness (no use trying SF unless you had the chops to follow though), dialog, chemistry in handling actors, camera work, a single striking visual, or just a story that on some small level seduced, intrigued, - the great French film makers kept an ear in hollywood by invading our dreams - something that could be polished with the right amount of creative support and money. Anything......just give me a f’ing bone, some air to breath
There was nothing on that screen - sorry -- unlike garage bands where everything can go wrong and your ernest displays of emotion can sell it - TECHNICAL PROFICIENCY - with the basic disciplines of moviemaking - IS THE BASIS OF HOW MUCH YOU CAN SHOW YOU GIVE A SHIT about something - even if it not your audience to YOUR AUDIENCE - they don’t see your face during performance so selling is not functional
The students - where passive and polite. She spoke ............................................
(unfinished)
Originally Riffing off the Iguana (8)
I was taking film classes at LACC in the late 80’s - it was the most punk thing I could think of doing - it meant I did not give a damn what I did with my life, but it sure as hell was not going to be an accountant or lawyer - I wanted a touch of the transformation of light - Now this was before Clerks, before El Marachie and before Sex, Lies and Videotape. Movies where still vastly expensive, technologically complex white elephants that mostly never got made. We had 8mm camera’s (using film!) and just enough sluggishly dark energy to put things on them. In town there was only the two major schools, UCLA they had a bit more art school orientation and USC, where the kids of the established movie elite took classes. LACC was nowhere - fast.
This was the LA City Collage cinema program of my late teenage years, it was before the waiting list, before the movie posters in the main lobby proudly showing off the people who went on to work in “the industry”and won awards, where anyone with 24 bucks a unit and some free time could take a class or two. Pre digital video.
The people who where my classmates reflected the word motley - mostly atari wave gen x city kids my age from Silverlake - pre gentrification, a couple intellectuals, a few foreign students, three middle age people. Two of them stick out - one was named Maggie
Maggie was a 50 something women who was worn, nice and sharp - she was the mother of three who decided that family life - in the universe revolving around my children way was - not her - Texas family life suited her ex husband and she loved her kids but.................her she was taking first year LACC film school where the graffiti on the bathroom points to the toilet paper and says “film school diplomas”
To this day I hear the name Maggie I reflexly think “guts”
The other was Mike - he was a....guy - friendly - weathered and a damn good actor. I wish his personality was the templet we draw adulthood from not the current verbal gassiness that we call passion.
At one point the cinema department decided to showcase the post graduate degree program. At the point of getting your AA degree you two choices, transfer to a four year or make a short film and hope some one would notice. They had a women talk with us who decided on the second approach. She directed a film that was in the last stages of editing.
She was impressive in one sense, she embodied an air of a confident 80’s professional, blonde with glasses and spoke with authority. She must have been in the late 20’s. At the time you wanted to believe - believe that there was a wealth of stories that could be told and seep in your brain - turn your mind around - see things that would change your life o- if only people would fund that vision..
The film ran. It was in rough cut mode.
I saw this guy in a loincloth trouncing around in a militarized SUV, a women fully clothed trying to do something and Griffith Park in the background. The story was the post apocalypse cliché that was true to Glen A. Larson - but without the tacky polish.
It ...
was...
god awful
What film school was is - in effect the garage band of film. Its a group of people who are trying to project an aspect of talent on film, encouraging each other, helping each other, getting the rough diamonds out and carving them for bits of sparkle gleams of hope in our quest to be granted the favor of Fortuna - in our minds eye what we wanted to see - no what we expected to see was - especially from a women so well spoken and projected such a confident air, was just hints of talent ------------ vision, technical adeptness (no use trying SF unless you had the chops to follow though), dialog, chemistry in handling actors, camera work, a single striking visual, or just a story that on some small level seduced, intrigued, - the great French film makers kept an ear in hollywood by invading our dreams - something that could be polished with the right amount of creative support and money. Anything......just give me a f’ing bone, some air to breath
There was nothing on that screen - sorry -- unlike garage bands where everything can go wrong and your ernest displays of emotion can sell it - TECHNICAL PROFICIENCY - with the basic disciplines of moviemaking - IS THE BASIS OF HOW MUCH YOU CAN SHOW YOU GIVE A SHIT about something - even if it not your audience to YOUR AUDIENCE - they don’t see your face during performance so selling is not functional
The students - where passive and polite. She spoke ............................................
(unfinished)
Need a Drink Part 1
Need a Drink Part 1
Recap - Part one of looking back at 2006 - Part One
I deeply respect the power of alcohol.
I have seen what damage it can do to a persons life if one depends upon its delusional power to get though life.
But I am not a puritan by any means and I do enjoy a good drink. Over the years I have created ground rules for myself regarding alcoholic consumption, first I do not drink during daylight hours. Even in the summer I will not touch a drink if the sun is out. This even applies if I am indoors, at home or under any other circumstance. I do not drink when its cold or flu season because I feel alcohol suppresses my immune system. Weekdays I limit myself to a single glass of wine or a beer with dinner if I am in the mood. If I have a few at a social gathering during a Friday or Saturday night I will go dry the next day or so. I try to keep tabs on my emotional state regarding the delirious pleasure of a good drink, making sure I am not avoiding issues or becoming dependent upon the delirium.
Following any set of rules to the letter can cause issues when you follow them but disregard the spirit of the rule. I have broken the daytime probation three times this year. Once was the fourth of July Bar-b-Que at my brother’s house where I grabbed a beer with my burger. The other time was during a wedding, I felt it would have been ungracious to not participate in the festivities.
This blog is about the third time. The one time this year I felt I needed a drink during waning daylight hours, alone.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“ In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law”
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
I wondered in the downtown LA Central Library for a few minutes emptily looking at the new books - glided over the media center with slightly glazed eyes.
I step down to the red line station - the sunlight is arcing over the gash that is the Red Line. Mostly its business people and the working class trying to get home. A few stops later I am at Sunset and Vermont. - the stop is infrequently used and has a black on silver motif - commemorating the Griffith Observatory with a starlight pattern. - cold.
Wandering outside of the station I look - the Hollywood sign is obscured by the massive Kaiser Medical complex - down the street a purple building promises “FREE TESTING” - L Ron’s messianic delusions make zero impression on me - I walk to the the nexus of Hollywood Blvd and Sunset Blvd.
Past the Vista Theater -
To a small building surrounded by the KCET (Public TV) studios -
The Torches are not lit -a blowfish hangs from the ceiling - the actual light of the day is arcing its way to its final movement - the Turtles are playing - the cluttered Polynesian look is stained with age and tobacco smoke. Clicking glasses and genuine communal cheer among the patrons.
Tiki Ti
The only bar in the city of Los Angeles that can legally allow smoking indoors. A direct descendent of Don the Beachcomber. In its 45th year of operation.
----------------------------
---------------------------------------
The notice came in the mail. It had been about 15 years since I have served. I had moved a few times and was underemployed hardships for all of the other times.
Superior Court Summons
Fine or jail time if you don’t reply.
Jury Duty.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The tumble of work has me in its claws in my brain - I want some sort of excuse to get out of the office but not have to “plan” to have a good time Vacation - with hotels and overpriced tourist prices and hurried sightseeing.
I need time - time to mentally exhale.
This may be a key - a few hours per day and I am home by 5pm.
I fill out the form and give them no good reason to not pick me - I drop it in the mail.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The bar is L shaped - I slide into a left hand lip corner. I drop on the stool and assume a slouching position with my cheek resting on my half fist and my elbow at the table.
The man in the bright Hawaiian shirt is moving in a whirlwind - pulling a glass then digging into a ice chest, dropping into a modified metal shaker several squirts from a multiple unmarked bottles that then it rapidly flipped its contents into a glass - then to his rear he pulls a few bottles of alcohol and liberally pours several shots into the cup. Its set under a mixer (similar to an old fashioned milkshake mixer) for a moment then strained into a glass with a foamy head.
It happens in less then a minute. By memory he has keep the drink recipe - one of the 80 on the menu (and others not mentioned) available on the bar with a napkin and garnished with a toothpick piecing a slice of pineapple. A heir in a lineage of mixology that dates back to the repeal of probation.
A couple is sitting next to me - they have to be working or aspiring for the industry. Only a couple aspiring for initiation into electronic deification can be built in this way - they tower over my slouching self and I am 5’11. A living homage to modern nutrition creating humans in the image of Apollo.
He was tall with a streamlined muscularity, slightly wrinkled sneer and a bald head, she was as feminine as an amazon proportioned women can be, blond as well
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
I start the day by walking onto the bus, then I take it and fall in line. Two grouping later a room having a DMV feel and is filled with people who are ardently board and anxious to get back into the derby of life.
On the piped video a “1984” ish vibe comes on as a judge talks about how we have the best system in world for defining guilt and innocence. My cynical snarky side flips with an inner eye rolling - if I hear any more “America is the greatest nation” crap I will gouge my eyes out just to have the pain distract me from my inner disgust.
I guess I was on the short list - less then one hour later I appear in the a courtroom.
The ADA ( DA) has a white boy republican look - tanned OC type. (I miss the days when the nation was run by people like them - and I would never think I would ever type these words) The PD was a fit blond women with slightly haggard look caused not so much by her age as her vocation.
The judge keep courtroom operations rout - if not push button efficient. He was nice but a trace colorless.
“When people at cocktail parties find out I am judge then on one the first questions they have is how do I avoid Jury Duty?”
“I tell them don’t be a US Citizen”
He then explains that this is one duty to civics life we have to fulfill. In every other nation a jury trial is not an option. Guilt is decided by a panel of judges.
To be continued...
Recap - Part one of looking back at 2006 - Part One
I deeply respect the power of alcohol.
I have seen what damage it can do to a persons life if one depends upon its delusional power to get though life.
But I am not a puritan by any means and I do enjoy a good drink. Over the years I have created ground rules for myself regarding alcoholic consumption, first I do not drink during daylight hours. Even in the summer I will not touch a drink if the sun is out. This even applies if I am indoors, at home or under any other circumstance. I do not drink when its cold or flu season because I feel alcohol suppresses my immune system. Weekdays I limit myself to a single glass of wine or a beer with dinner if I am in the mood. If I have a few at a social gathering during a Friday or Saturday night I will go dry the next day or so. I try to keep tabs on my emotional state regarding the delirious pleasure of a good drink, making sure I am not avoiding issues or becoming dependent upon the delirium.
Following any set of rules to the letter can cause issues when you follow them but disregard the spirit of the rule. I have broken the daytime probation three times this year. Once was the fourth of July Bar-b-Que at my brother’s house where I grabbed a beer with my burger. The other time was during a wedding, I felt it would have been ungracious to not participate in the festivities.
This blog is about the third time. The one time this year I felt I needed a drink during waning daylight hours, alone.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“ In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law”
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
I wondered in the downtown LA Central Library for a few minutes emptily looking at the new books - glided over the media center with slightly glazed eyes.
I step down to the red line station - the sunlight is arcing over the gash that is the Red Line. Mostly its business people and the working class trying to get home. A few stops later I am at Sunset and Vermont. - the stop is infrequently used and has a black on silver motif - commemorating the Griffith Observatory with a starlight pattern. - cold.
Wandering outside of the station I look - the Hollywood sign is obscured by the massive Kaiser Medical complex - down the street a purple building promises “FREE TESTING” - L Ron’s messianic delusions make zero impression on me - I walk to the the nexus of Hollywood Blvd and Sunset Blvd.
Past the Vista Theater -
To a small building surrounded by the KCET (Public TV) studios -
The Torches are not lit -a blowfish hangs from the ceiling - the actual light of the day is arcing its way to its final movement - the Turtles are playing - the cluttered Polynesian look is stained with age and tobacco smoke. Clicking glasses and genuine communal cheer among the patrons.
Tiki Ti
The only bar in the city of Los Angeles that can legally allow smoking indoors. A direct descendent of Don the Beachcomber. In its 45th year of operation.
----------------------------
---------------------------------------
The notice came in the mail. It had been about 15 years since I have served. I had moved a few times and was underemployed hardships for all of the other times.
Superior Court Summons
Fine or jail time if you don’t reply.
Jury Duty.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The tumble of work has me in its claws in my brain - I want some sort of excuse to get out of the office but not have to “plan” to have a good time Vacation - with hotels and overpriced tourist prices and hurried sightseeing.
I need time - time to mentally exhale.
This may be a key - a few hours per day and I am home by 5pm.
I fill out the form and give them no good reason to not pick me - I drop it in the mail.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The bar is L shaped - I slide into a left hand lip corner. I drop on the stool and assume a slouching position with my cheek resting on my half fist and my elbow at the table.
The man in the bright Hawaiian shirt is moving in a whirlwind - pulling a glass then digging into a ice chest, dropping into a modified metal shaker several squirts from a multiple unmarked bottles that then it rapidly flipped its contents into a glass - then to his rear he pulls a few bottles of alcohol and liberally pours several shots into the cup. Its set under a mixer (similar to an old fashioned milkshake mixer) for a moment then strained into a glass with a foamy head.
It happens in less then a minute. By memory he has keep the drink recipe - one of the 80 on the menu (and others not mentioned) available on the bar with a napkin and garnished with a toothpick piecing a slice of pineapple. A heir in a lineage of mixology that dates back to the repeal of probation.
A couple is sitting next to me - they have to be working or aspiring for the industry. Only a couple aspiring for initiation into electronic deification can be built in this way - they tower over my slouching self and I am 5’11. A living homage to modern nutrition creating humans in the image of Apollo.
He was tall with a streamlined muscularity, slightly wrinkled sneer and a bald head, she was as feminine as an amazon proportioned women can be, blond as well
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
I start the day by walking onto the bus, then I take it and fall in line. Two grouping later a room having a DMV feel and is filled with people who are ardently board and anxious to get back into the derby of life.
On the piped video a “1984” ish vibe comes on as a judge talks about how we have the best system in world for defining guilt and innocence. My cynical snarky side flips with an inner eye rolling - if I hear any more “America is the greatest nation” crap I will gouge my eyes out just to have the pain distract me from my inner disgust.
I guess I was on the short list - less then one hour later I appear in the a courtroom.
The ADA ( DA) has a white boy republican look - tanned OC type. (I miss the days when the nation was run by people like them - and I would never think I would ever type these words) The PD was a fit blond women with slightly haggard look caused not so much by her age as her vocation.
The judge keep courtroom operations rout - if not push button efficient. He was nice but a trace colorless.
“When people at cocktail parties find out I am judge then on one the first questions they have is how do I avoid Jury Duty?”
“I tell them don’t be a US Citizen”
He then explains that this is one duty to civics life we have to fulfill. In every other nation a jury trial is not an option. Guilt is decided by a panel of judges.
To be continued...
Human Holding Place Part 2
Human Holding Place Part 2
The night club was being rented out for a day as a farewell celebration. A city department head retires he will be given a farewell - the city needed a saving grace - the nightclub was rented for a rare daytime activity.
Inside after all of the salutations and best wishes where given out - some less graceful then others - the drink started to flow and the music played - lightly as linner was being served. The drink and the relative darkness of the club make being a social butterfly a bit easer.
The groups of civic employees clumped out slightly over the edges of the dance floor - project heads and others held a causal court. In the background the food service was being set up. Being near the outer reaches of the bar I was in decent position when the food was being served.
The line stretched out - it looked imposing after the it became clear what was happening. I had good positioning in the first third of the line. The wait for the latecomer would be a bit.
I looked absently over the line - it was moving slowly.
A hand sided into the crook of my arm - a voice twirled by my side. Charm girl was moving was making faces and throwing the killer radiant beam at and around me - the underlying illusion was simple - she was with me - (so not true - the real truth was she did not want to wait in that imposing line for the grub) - but the illusion was being played enough so that no one argued the point - least of all me.
Twirel
Hugn ??
a tugg at my sleeve
what ?!? -
She pointed to the cameraman - a department man who was taking photos of everyone who was just pulling up to the food table - the line after and before gave the courtesy of moving out of the way for each person having there picture taken. This was not even on my radar.
Snap
“click” - flash. blink
A picture of me as the significant other - she positioned me so that it was the classic couple pose - me the taller protector and her joined at the arm. My face betrays the slight cluelessness but you will never notice me in that pic.
My overdrive - effected with drink and intoxicated with attention needed a cold shower. My rational mind knew - knew that I was just a - a non entity meant for her to hang her hat on.. but in my mental state my soul starving - - I needed a cold shower.
The universe provided one quick.
The young man at then end of the catering line was good looking but not in too a overt way. Dark but freckled - kinky hair. Her attention was giving way to an anticipation with HIM -- at the the desert bar - her focus was on the “he’s cute”
In a matter of moments I became TNG Mr Data - a Holding place for her to throw her attention to other - I was keeping her honest for the day. Adult supervision. A slight tug on my arm and away to the table we went. I felt like the hovering older brother.
After a bit of table braggadocio from Charm girl about her bedroom prowess I felt distancing myself from myself. I was enlightened to the source of my misery - the simple fact that I had missed out on the liquid, electric, ebb and flow - attention - that engulfs ones attention with eros 0-0 I had very little of that within my 20’s - the time I would have cherished it the most- lost to me - it was never to happen to me - my 20’s where done - done.
Later I came back to the desert bar - I mentioned to him she was attracted - he had some one - I asked what he wanted to beyond catering - he said acting - after a bit I told him that the universe has a way of opening up doors even it they seem closed -
He thanked me - it was something he did not hear often - a reassurance about his worth here in LA pursuing something...
..later in the day - with Charm girl -I asked he about the caterer-- well ? --
She said - she had a second look - it wore off quickly.
I noted that I was not a first looker - she just stared at me with a I don’t believe you look.
I got a ride back to the office.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Later that month -- I knew my run in the department was over. I was cleaning up as much as I could.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Did your clear out the fire station ? - the boss asked - we where converting a San Pedro fire station to a youth arts center.
Ya - typing up a doc for General Services Salvage - those old IBM PC’s are heavy. I have a truckload to drop off.
Well get them to salvage.
I’ll go to Piper after lunch.
Before you do that can you get down to development - they need a move out for the printing computer.
Right.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I connected the computer to the printer - she was there - looking a bit punch drunk with a massive pile she was sorting.
She leapt up - had enough and wanted a break. Her arm slips around mine. I walked out of the office and went down with her arm and arm. - I was cool.
She was slightly delirious with work and Westwood. Gave me a goofy look and then moved her head on my arm. - Then in a bit of surprise she moved her hand around my arm and gave my biceps and triceps arm a squeeze
I had just spent the afternoon moving heavy equipment...I had also been working out simi regularly - my arm was solid
Her eyes lit up in surprise - CAD had a very casual dress code for the non full timers, I usually did the geek with glasses look -- She woke up - and did something the I did not expect - she moved her hand quickly over my chest area - roughly the outer pec and then gave that area a quick squeeze - it was very solid ----her facial expression was one of pleasant surprise she looked me as if she uncovered Clark Kent was hiding a bit of superman.
I walked on and gave a very slight smile. And a very sight nod as if to say - Ok you got me --- there is a lot more to me that you don’t know....
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My final week - I was sent to rearrange the PC’s at the development office.
The setup was complex - the configuration was detailed with different databases. - I was there most of the morning. The focus needed kept me glued to the screen.
Charm girl was tasking out in the background. I went to lunch and brought her back a salad.
She kibitzed a bit on my job - in the conversation she lent a bit of an opening regarding my relationship status -we where both in one with other people - - a part of me awakens -- a part that has never been awaken and had the slightly a bit evil..... I tilt my head slightly the the left...
“tell ya what - when you get rid of him - call me”
She blinks - I have awakened a braggadocio (self confidence?!?!) that is alien to my nature but with her feels natural with her.
She rips a bit of note book paper - and writes down her phone number and name. It the first number I have ever petitioned for (indirectly) and received.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Winds of Spring street
Walking out of the office to catch the bus I have my mind on the piece of paper in my wallet - without too much effort on my part I have what I would have killed for in my 20’s.
The cost of pursuing this train of thought in action was just too high but I liked the ego boosting overtones.
It was windy - the ball of hand shredded paper flew down Spring street twisting then falling into the gutter. ...
I never saw her again.
The night club was being rented out for a day as a farewell celebration. A city department head retires he will be given a farewell - the city needed a saving grace - the nightclub was rented for a rare daytime activity.
Inside after all of the salutations and best wishes where given out - some less graceful then others - the drink started to flow and the music played - lightly as linner was being served. The drink and the relative darkness of the club make being a social butterfly a bit easer.
The groups of civic employees clumped out slightly over the edges of the dance floor - project heads and others held a causal court. In the background the food service was being set up. Being near the outer reaches of the bar I was in decent position when the food was being served.
The line stretched out - it looked imposing after the it became clear what was happening. I had good positioning in the first third of the line. The wait for the latecomer would be a bit.
I looked absently over the line - it was moving slowly.
A hand sided into the crook of my arm - a voice twirled by my side. Charm girl was moving was making faces and throwing the killer radiant beam at and around me - the underlying illusion was simple - she was with me - (so not true - the real truth was she did not want to wait in that imposing line for the grub) - but the illusion was being played enough so that no one argued the point - least of all me.
Twirel
Hugn ??
a tugg at my sleeve
what ?!? -
She pointed to the cameraman - a department man who was taking photos of everyone who was just pulling up to the food table - the line after and before gave the courtesy of moving out of the way for each person having there picture taken. This was not even on my radar.
Snap
“click” - flash. blink
A picture of me as the significant other - she positioned me so that it was the classic couple pose - me the taller protector and her joined at the arm. My face betrays the slight cluelessness but you will never notice me in that pic.
My overdrive - effected with drink and intoxicated with attention needed a cold shower. My rational mind knew - knew that I was just a - a non entity meant for her to hang her hat on.. but in my mental state my soul starving - - I needed a cold shower.
The universe provided one quick.
The young man at then end of the catering line was good looking but not in too a overt way. Dark but freckled - kinky hair. Her attention was giving way to an anticipation with HIM -- at the the desert bar - her focus was on the “he’s cute”
In a matter of moments I became TNG Mr Data - a Holding place for her to throw her attention to other - I was keeping her honest for the day. Adult supervision. A slight tug on my arm and away to the table we went. I felt like the hovering older brother.
After a bit of table braggadocio from Charm girl about her bedroom prowess I felt distancing myself from myself. I was enlightened to the source of my misery - the simple fact that I had missed out on the liquid, electric, ebb and flow - attention - that engulfs ones attention with eros 0-0 I had very little of that within my 20’s - the time I would have cherished it the most- lost to me - it was never to happen to me - my 20’s where done - done.
Later I came back to the desert bar - I mentioned to him she was attracted - he had some one - I asked what he wanted to beyond catering - he said acting - after a bit I told him that the universe has a way of opening up doors even it they seem closed -
He thanked me - it was something he did not hear often - a reassurance about his worth here in LA pursuing something...
..later in the day - with Charm girl -I asked he about the caterer-- well ? --
She said - she had a second look - it wore off quickly.
I noted that I was not a first looker - she just stared at me with a I don’t believe you look.
I got a ride back to the office.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Later that month -- I knew my run in the department was over. I was cleaning up as much as I could.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Did your clear out the fire station ? - the boss asked - we where converting a San Pedro fire station to a youth arts center.
Ya - typing up a doc for General Services Salvage - those old IBM PC’s are heavy. I have a truckload to drop off.
Well get them to salvage.
I’ll go to Piper after lunch.
Before you do that can you get down to development - they need a move out for the printing computer.
Right.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I connected the computer to the printer - she was there - looking a bit punch drunk with a massive pile she was sorting.
She leapt up - had enough and wanted a break. Her arm slips around mine. I walked out of the office and went down with her arm and arm. - I was cool.
She was slightly delirious with work and Westwood. Gave me a goofy look and then moved her head on my arm. - Then in a bit of surprise she moved her hand around my arm and gave my biceps and triceps arm a squeeze
I had just spent the afternoon moving heavy equipment...I had also been working out simi regularly - my arm was solid
Her eyes lit up in surprise - CAD had a very casual dress code for the non full timers, I usually did the geek with glasses look -- She woke up - and did something the I did not expect - she moved her hand quickly over my chest area - roughly the outer pec and then gave that area a quick squeeze - it was very solid ----her facial expression was one of pleasant surprise she looked me as if she uncovered Clark Kent was hiding a bit of superman.
I walked on and gave a very slight smile. And a very sight nod as if to say - Ok you got me --- there is a lot more to me that you don’t know....
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My final week - I was sent to rearrange the PC’s at the development office.
The setup was complex - the configuration was detailed with different databases. - I was there most of the morning. The focus needed kept me glued to the screen.
Charm girl was tasking out in the background. I went to lunch and brought her back a salad.
She kibitzed a bit on my job - in the conversation she lent a bit of an opening regarding my relationship status -we where both in one with other people - - a part of me awakens -- a part that has never been awaken and had the slightly a bit evil..... I tilt my head slightly the the left...
“tell ya what - when you get rid of him - call me”
She blinks - I have awakened a braggadocio (self confidence?!?!) that is alien to my nature but with her feels natural with her.
She rips a bit of note book paper - and writes down her phone number and name. It the first number I have ever petitioned for (indirectly) and received.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Winds of Spring street
Walking out of the office to catch the bus I have my mind on the piece of paper in my wallet - without too much effort on my part I have what I would have killed for in my 20’s.
The cost of pursuing this train of thought in action was just too high but I liked the ego boosting overtones.
It was windy - the ball of hand shredded paper flew down Spring street twisting then falling into the gutter. ...
I never saw her again.
Human Holding place Part 1
Human Holding place Part 1
It was a fiasco from the word go, a spiraling mess that would kill anyone who was around it--- The Millennium Celebration that the city of Los Angeles would put on was doomed to be a political cluster-fuck that would swirl into a forgotten oblivion. The city department the was responsible for putting it on was also the one I was working for as a part time IT support tech.
Two days before 01/01/2000 I took Laura and hijinx it to Las Vegas. The Nevada cold and my Aunts pull out bed could not put a damper on my mood as I was glad to be away from the train wreak that would have expected my presence if I was not in town.
Several blue Margarita's at New York New York, and the haze of new years 2000 was inauspiciously over.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- a month later -
You see her -- she’s the type that would be all over that -- Rikk made facial features that mimicked precisely a women joyfully receiving a shot of jizz - circling his face around an mimicked mythical phallus - all done in a quick aside outside the notice of a gathering of late middle aged (mostly) politically correct civil servants in the late Clinton era - an artful, impudent aside that only a very young man could do in the company of other man and not induce eyeball rolling. I gave my trademark “thats not right” done with enough infliction that cued him in on the fact that he was very right. --- Rikk was a 1040 part timer like myself, his discipline was handing and displaying of museum pieces - a discipline that required a great amount of physical self awareness - he also was young enough to be right.
The her he referred to was a African american woman not yet 23 across the other side of the room - a strange combination of youth and non youth. She held a mini court with a flirty smily manner that was charming anyone within her immediate radius. Dressed with a clothing level that subtly said “Westside” she had none of the pretension and dismissive air of a typical Westsider. - slang name - Charm girl.
I would have a slice of cake and say hi.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The office gossip flew, the millennium fiasco would cause fallout. The embarrassed mayor accepted the resignation of our department head. Charm girl was very close the the boss - almost family. -- a UCLA student. Eyeing acting aspirations -- boyfriend or as close of a relationship one could have in collage - wealthy to a point.
As a post 30 something in an LTR -- I kept my thoughts to myself. With her background and her stage in life - I may as well been an alien.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So can it be fixed?
- yes - all it needs is more memory
How much?
It may not be worth it --
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
How do you sort this ?
Here let me show you
use this box to get to this command
uh hun
then use this
--and then create the equation - got it.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Walking the the development office I was dropping off a monitor.
Hi - smile.
You look tired.
I am
Looking at her cubical I saw she was doing her homework - it was advanced algebra equations.
You like math?
Nahh - but I’m good at it.
=================================================================
Smart, attractive, charming and she acted as if she liked me or was definitely not above flirting with me. Classy but earthy at times. I felt a reality distortion field was hitting me - I never was on anyones radar that had that combination - I shrugged it off as best i could rationalizing that being a flirt with the IT guy was always good policy.
I always held a context for myself - I was not that attractive (not realizing the a combination of working out and a thyroid condition age added weight and cleared up most of my skin problems that plagued me for decades within two years) meaning in my 20s i never developed a self image that I could be seen a sexual by others - with my solitary nature and compounding the fact that i looked very asian male - a minority group that has major issues when it come to sexual attractiveness - very little experience -- I needed to construct a group of beliefs that framed my desire - who was reachable and why - and who was not and why
The vast majority of women fell into group two - most of them acted in a way that reaffirmed my beliefs. This one seem to take everything I though I knew about my eros-self and reversed it.
How much was I just reading into something that was not there because I wanted it to be - all of it I determined. In this post Sexual Harassment office culture she needed to be nice - add on her natural charm and my cluelessness and it was just a feeling to wash over me.
My mental state underneath was kicking into overdrive.
==
It was a fiasco from the word go, a spiraling mess that would kill anyone who was around it--- The Millennium Celebration that the city of Los Angeles would put on was doomed to be a political cluster-fuck that would swirl into a forgotten oblivion. The city department the was responsible for putting it on was also the one I was working for as a part time IT support tech.
Two days before 01/01/2000 I took Laura and hijinx it to Las Vegas. The Nevada cold and my Aunts pull out bed could not put a damper on my mood as I was glad to be away from the train wreak that would have expected my presence if I was not in town.
Several blue Margarita's at New York New York, and the haze of new years 2000 was inauspiciously over.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- a month later -
You see her -- she’s the type that would be all over that -- Rikk made facial features that mimicked precisely a women joyfully receiving a shot of jizz - circling his face around an mimicked mythical phallus - all done in a quick aside outside the notice of a gathering of late middle aged (mostly) politically correct civil servants in the late Clinton era - an artful, impudent aside that only a very young man could do in the company of other man and not induce eyeball rolling. I gave my trademark “thats not right” done with enough infliction that cued him in on the fact that he was very right. --- Rikk was a 1040 part timer like myself, his discipline was handing and displaying of museum pieces - a discipline that required a great amount of physical self awareness - he also was young enough to be right.
The her he referred to was a African american woman not yet 23 across the other side of the room - a strange combination of youth and non youth. She held a mini court with a flirty smily manner that was charming anyone within her immediate radius. Dressed with a clothing level that subtly said “Westside” she had none of the pretension and dismissive air of a typical Westsider. - slang name - Charm girl.
I would have a slice of cake and say hi.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The office gossip flew, the millennium fiasco would cause fallout. The embarrassed mayor accepted the resignation of our department head. Charm girl was very close the the boss - almost family. -- a UCLA student. Eyeing acting aspirations -- boyfriend or as close of a relationship one could have in collage - wealthy to a point.
As a post 30 something in an LTR -- I kept my thoughts to myself. With her background and her stage in life - I may as well been an alien.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So can it be fixed?
- yes - all it needs is more memory
How much?
It may not be worth it --
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
How do you sort this ?
Here let me show you
use this box to get to this command
uh hun
then use this
--and then create the equation - got it.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Walking the the development office I was dropping off a monitor.
Hi - smile.
You look tired.
I am
Looking at her cubical I saw she was doing her homework - it was advanced algebra equations.
You like math?
Nahh - but I’m good at it.
=================================================================
Smart, attractive, charming and she acted as if she liked me or was definitely not above flirting with me. Classy but earthy at times. I felt a reality distortion field was hitting me - I never was on anyones radar that had that combination - I shrugged it off as best i could rationalizing that being a flirt with the IT guy was always good policy.
I always held a context for myself - I was not that attractive (not realizing the a combination of working out and a thyroid condition age added weight and cleared up most of my skin problems that plagued me for decades within two years) meaning in my 20s i never developed a self image that I could be seen a sexual by others - with my solitary nature and compounding the fact that i looked very asian male - a minority group that has major issues when it come to sexual attractiveness - very little experience -- I needed to construct a group of beliefs that framed my desire - who was reachable and why - and who was not and why
The vast majority of women fell into group two - most of them acted in a way that reaffirmed my beliefs. This one seem to take everything I though I knew about my eros-self and reversed it.
How much was I just reading into something that was not there because I wanted it to be - all of it I determined. In this post Sexual Harassment office culture she needed to be nice - add on her natural charm and my cluelessness and it was just a feeling to wash over me.
My mental state underneath was kicking into overdrive.
==
The Change
The Change
--an interlude to Human Holding Place--
--- The 90’s----
I am lying on a flat lightly padded medical bench EKG Machine - I have had a flu and my strength has been sapped out of my body - in the five days off all I have done is lay down - my body weight is down to 129 - haven't been that skinny for a long time.
My doctor at the time is good looking, charming, middle aged and concerned..even though he is only 15 years older then me he calls me my son....he now was as serious as a heart attack. . not used to that from him.
I stubbornly been thinking I have had a bad flu for the last mont or more - I would work then save all of my energy for sleep. -- I was not looking good.
The EKG machine shows my resting heart rate. An average rate is 75 to 100 - Its 110 and I have been still on the doctors table. - Any sustained heart rate beyond 100 is dangerous. That rate is my resting rate. I have a physical job.
The doc is insistent that I go the emergency room. - I am 29 and my mortality is kicking me in the ass. - It has to be a thyroid condition.
The doc’s in the ER may have well been less then useless - they don’t know why the beta blockers are not working - they end up prescribing me a drug pronounced vermapadel - when i go back to my regular doc he tells me to take aspirin with it because it has the tendency to help cause strokes.
Great.
The drug does nothing for me - my regular doc takes a blood test - presto - I have elevated levels of thyroid hormone - the thyroid is the carburetor of the body - it takes the electrical impulses of the brain and regulates the hearts speed. Too much and the body burns off everything it eats - eventually the body starts cannibalizing it self in a quest to provide for the heart.
HMO -
I finally get to a specialist - the office is an unassuming place in Burbank. The doc is 50 something with decades of experience. I raise my hands - he takes 2 minutes to diagnose me - its Graves Disease. Hyperthyroidism. The problem with the Beta blockers is that the e-room doc’s did not also prescribe extra thyroid medication. I needed an increased dose to have the blocker medication stop it. Two prescriptions later I am out with an appointment to the department of radioactive medicine at the hospital.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The department had a star trek vibe. In the corner was a darkened room with a machine the would encircle the human body and LED screen with an incomprehensible amount of data flowing. Dr Winson had a genteel, old school feel about him.
He felt my lower neck . -
nurse
yes
minimal dose - we won’t need too much -
right - the nurse leads me to a chair that look exactly like a high school desk complete with the side table
The nurse goes to a bright white room and puts on a an inhumanly large pair of gloves - then without missing a beat she rotates a dial on a safe and pulls it open
the nurse opens the safe and yanks a pair of tongs (a metal claw like tool) then uses it to grab onto a gray metal oval shaped thing..
the nurse places the oval on the chair - and then flips the oval open and steps quickly aside
a gray pill is in the center
‘Now take the pill and have some water with it”
--pass?? - i think in the back of my mind
I take the pill. - radioactive salt
That it? -
Yes it is.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
three months later
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I wake up - place pressure on my leg a shooting pain hits the upper thigh with a sharp pain.
What the hell?
After a days work my knees are very sore - this never happened before - I decide to weigh myself
165
My top weight ever in my life was 145 - with protein powder and lifting free weights. It was a deep struggle to get my bean pole body to even hint at muscle. Now 165??
I take a closer look at my legs - the thighs are huge - at least for me - I have gained all over my body.
The days go by - my hair thins out, my hands and feet are cold often and have dry skin, my skin so bad that it only started to clear 2 - 3 years ago - now its completely cleared up. - It become harder to do aerobic activity - it take a bit of effort for my hear and lungs to get moving
--my brain once so quick I had trouble speaking out loud everything I was perceiving was now slower - more deliberate. Perception itself was now attuned to a slower rhythm.
My persona become lees sarcastic, eccentric and more compassion based - and I was feeling my job hit this body hard - I was tired at night.
Back at the doc’s
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Looks OK - the levels are where they should be - your taking your pills?
Yes - I’m not use to this weight
Well 145 was underweight for your hight - cholesterol is 220 - his voice becomes directive-- I want that down below 200 before I see you again--
I also am getting pains I did not have
Welcome to your 30’s my son
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
179
I know I have got to get a new job.
I need a desk job - some cubical where I can get fat but save my knees.
It was then I was noticed by Marcy - she was in her early 20’s and was slightly off kilter - used greeting like Salutations!! - thick, ambitious she was definitely eyeing me - 20 going on 16 - I was not in the mood but it was ego boosting.
Then Rosa flirted with me - she was just broke up with the bf and was stretching her filtering muscles - she was good looking and a bit zany but her filtering had deeper undertones that I discounted.
I was not putting any of this together - why now? - I was never noticed at any level by the women in the workplace - I was more of a peer and I accepted that with a resigned punctured aptitude -
Then the resident married born again Christina opened her eyes my way - hugs and looks and notation. I walk in one time and Raul states aloud what everyone knows - she likes me.
I shrug.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hydrothyroid effects the heart and internal organs - it makes one more venerable to the eye site issues and skin problems. It lowers the sex drive and can cause problems with mental focus. Its easy treatable and the drugs are cheap but it must be kept an eye on -
But the side effects have had a physical trade off not noted on the books - I can gain muscle - my arms and chest now have substance in physical form - If I keep lifting I can actually have a portion of the body I have thought was inaccessible and unobtainable. The extra pounds give a fleshiness to the face.
The personality changes - what was hyper insecure and obnoxious is a lot mellower and measured - and distance
But the changes hit me so fast... in less then a year the universe reassigned me a new body and personality. Psychologically I have yet to fully understand and assimilate what happened to me - immaturely enough I have resentment that now the opposite sex is paying some attention - I was the same as I was before - the same weaknesses the same bullshit the same -- but slightly different packaging
------------------------------------------------------------------
The decade of desks jobs I have means I have a pot belly and slouching posture.
At times I think this is just a phase that one day everything i used to be in my teens/20 will be given back to me -
upon reflection -
I know it won’t
--an interlude to Human Holding Place--
--- The 90’s----
I am lying on a flat lightly padded medical bench EKG Machine - I have had a flu and my strength has been sapped out of my body - in the five days off all I have done is lay down - my body weight is down to 129 - haven't been that skinny for a long time.
My doctor at the time is good looking, charming, middle aged and concerned..even though he is only 15 years older then me he calls me my son....he now was as serious as a heart attack. . not used to that from him.
I stubbornly been thinking I have had a bad flu for the last mont or more - I would work then save all of my energy for sleep. -- I was not looking good.
The EKG machine shows my resting heart rate. An average rate is 75 to 100 - Its 110 and I have been still on the doctors table. - Any sustained heart rate beyond 100 is dangerous. That rate is my resting rate. I have a physical job.
The doc is insistent that I go the emergency room. - I am 29 and my mortality is kicking me in the ass. - It has to be a thyroid condition.
The doc’s in the ER may have well been less then useless - they don’t know why the beta blockers are not working - they end up prescribing me a drug pronounced vermapadel - when i go back to my regular doc he tells me to take aspirin with it because it has the tendency to help cause strokes.
Great.
The drug does nothing for me - my regular doc takes a blood test - presto - I have elevated levels of thyroid hormone - the thyroid is the carburetor of the body - it takes the electrical impulses of the brain and regulates the hearts speed. Too much and the body burns off everything it eats - eventually the body starts cannibalizing it self in a quest to provide for the heart.
HMO -
I finally get to a specialist - the office is an unassuming place in Burbank. The doc is 50 something with decades of experience. I raise my hands - he takes 2 minutes to diagnose me - its Graves Disease. Hyperthyroidism. The problem with the Beta blockers is that the e-room doc’s did not also prescribe extra thyroid medication. I needed an increased dose to have the blocker medication stop it. Two prescriptions later I am out with an appointment to the department of radioactive medicine at the hospital.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The department had a star trek vibe. In the corner was a darkened room with a machine the would encircle the human body and LED screen with an incomprehensible amount of data flowing. Dr Winson had a genteel, old school feel about him.
He felt my lower neck . -
nurse
yes
minimal dose - we won’t need too much -
right - the nurse leads me to a chair that look exactly like a high school desk complete with the side table
The nurse goes to a bright white room and puts on a an inhumanly large pair of gloves - then without missing a beat she rotates a dial on a safe and pulls it open
the nurse opens the safe and yanks a pair of tongs (a metal claw like tool) then uses it to grab onto a gray metal oval shaped thing..
the nurse places the oval on the chair - and then flips the oval open and steps quickly aside
a gray pill is in the center
‘Now take the pill and have some water with it”
--pass?? - i think in the back of my mind
I take the pill. - radioactive salt
That it? -
Yes it is.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
three months later
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I wake up - place pressure on my leg a shooting pain hits the upper thigh with a sharp pain.
What the hell?
After a days work my knees are very sore - this never happened before - I decide to weigh myself
165
My top weight ever in my life was 145 - with protein powder and lifting free weights. It was a deep struggle to get my bean pole body to even hint at muscle. Now 165??
I take a closer look at my legs - the thighs are huge - at least for me - I have gained all over my body.
The days go by - my hair thins out, my hands and feet are cold often and have dry skin, my skin so bad that it only started to clear 2 - 3 years ago - now its completely cleared up. - It become harder to do aerobic activity - it take a bit of effort for my hear and lungs to get moving
--my brain once so quick I had trouble speaking out loud everything I was perceiving was now slower - more deliberate. Perception itself was now attuned to a slower rhythm.
My persona become lees sarcastic, eccentric and more compassion based - and I was feeling my job hit this body hard - I was tired at night.
Back at the doc’s
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Looks OK - the levels are where they should be - your taking your pills?
Yes - I’m not use to this weight
Well 145 was underweight for your hight - cholesterol is 220 - his voice becomes directive-- I want that down below 200 before I see you again--
I also am getting pains I did not have
Welcome to your 30’s my son
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
179
I know I have got to get a new job.
I need a desk job - some cubical where I can get fat but save my knees.
It was then I was noticed by Marcy - she was in her early 20’s and was slightly off kilter - used greeting like Salutations!! - thick, ambitious she was definitely eyeing me - 20 going on 16 - I was not in the mood but it was ego boosting.
Then Rosa flirted with me - she was just broke up with the bf and was stretching her filtering muscles - she was good looking and a bit zany but her filtering had deeper undertones that I discounted.
I was not putting any of this together - why now? - I was never noticed at any level by the women in the workplace - I was more of a peer and I accepted that with a resigned punctured aptitude -
Then the resident married born again Christina opened her eyes my way - hugs and looks and notation. I walk in one time and Raul states aloud what everyone knows - she likes me.
I shrug.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hydrothyroid effects the heart and internal organs - it makes one more venerable to the eye site issues and skin problems. It lowers the sex drive and can cause problems with mental focus. Its easy treatable and the drugs are cheap but it must be kept an eye on -
But the side effects have had a physical trade off not noted on the books - I can gain muscle - my arms and chest now have substance in physical form - If I keep lifting I can actually have a portion of the body I have thought was inaccessible and unobtainable. The extra pounds give a fleshiness to the face.
The personality changes - what was hyper insecure and obnoxious is a lot mellower and measured - and distance
But the changes hit me so fast... in less then a year the universe reassigned me a new body and personality. Psychologically I have yet to fully understand and assimilate what happened to me - immaturely enough I have resentment that now the opposite sex is paying some attention - I was the same as I was before - the same weaknesses the same bullshit the same -- but slightly different packaging
------------------------------------------------------------------
The decade of desks jobs I have means I have a pot belly and slouching posture.
At times I think this is just a phase that one day everything i used to be in my teens/20 will be given back to me -
upon reflection -
I know it won’t
Viva Los Comdex Part II
Viva Los Comdex Part II
The hand held stun gun is an interesting invention - its very controversial “less lethal” weapon, in most cases it will cause a human body to crumple over for 5 to 15 minutes, is some cases if a pre existing heart condition is present or the person is on a drug that alters the metabolic system it can be fatal. Its also ineffective if the attacker can physically resist the initial shock and can disarm the user.
In the moment none of that was on my mind, the sheer unreality of what was happening to me now was becoming apparent.
Her outline was fluidly moving “within” her frame. Her body language was indicating a slight puzzlement tinged with determination. The shadow of the man tries for a bit to pound on the front window. The shadow hesitate....she shifts her shape slightly to the left....the mans shadow drifts,,,,pulls back,,,,then disappears.
A bit of silence.
Regaining my hold on the waking world my mind speaks to itself - How can you want it to real and a dream - only in Vegas.
It now seems to me that the man may have not been the shadow she feared, in my experience the combination of drugs - legal and not so - and the generic nature of Vegas. You can easily get lost and think the fourth floor is the third floor, then think that the crash pad was here --- certainly if this person was her shadow, nemesis, and her ex he would have yelled “Hay baby can we talk” - or maybe he saw me and drifted away...
She turned to me and smiled - a weary smile tinged with a feel of a woman who turned back a dragon and narrowed her eyes......I was feeling it....hand on back.....smile and a whisper from her...then .............-----------_______^^^^^^^^^=======,,,,,..........................=============--------------------,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,****************************************
...I feel asleep again.
Waking hours - staring at the mirror in the bathroom at myself, my skinny body and bloodshot eyes glazed -- the mess of a blond on the blankets on the floor.... only in Vegas - a voice kick back to me.
“ I dreamed that I was swimming next to a magical Seal, you were dark, and...we crossed the ocean together” - did you do gongyo?
“You need TP”
I know. - she stood up - a stretch and a yawn - “lets get out of here” -
Her attitude towards me was appreciative - as if I stood her demons down and not her.
_____________----------------------______________________________________
It was slightly more stuff then I thought but it fit in the back of the Ranger well enough. She had problems with closing the rear door.
“Here you go.” A key falls into my hands.
“Its paid up for the week if you want to use it.”
Can you get me to downtown before you go back to work?
“sure”
The area of downtown was even worse in he Nevada sun.
“ Thanks”
She moves forth - “kiss” our lips touched. “Now don’t ask me to come back here again”
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The motel the guys where in was raunchy - I reconnect
I decide to play it off not telling anything of what happened last night, letting there assumptions and imaginations perk up... basking in the glow of the previous nights exploits and the unspoken praise of my geek peers - “Pack it up” I said. -- what? - ---- “no trust me just pack up everything this is the last night you will be ripped off motel wise”.
Under normal circumstance I would have been blown off but the guys would believe anything after seeing me running off, given a ride, been taken back by a stripper - I for that moment with a group of sex starved guys in a town that will rip you off endlessly for everything and leave you desperate and dead and not care for its own profit -- I assumed a mythic glow. a winner, not in the conventional sense perhaps. Only in Vegas.
The mandatory post convention drink and gambling was postponed. I led them to the apartment/long term hotel backpacks in hand, I opened the apartment up,
Eyes opened wide - minds could be easily read.
Clean! New! Nice! In a nice part of town! Accessible!
“and its free - paid up until the end of the week - that covers the whole convention stay”
The mythic glow hits overdrive - in the guys mind I did the impossible in Vegas, hell anywhere
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The night went in a blur - she left work a early and I took a cab and met up with her. We walked around Mirage, the other super casinos. She liked Marilyn Monroe, I told her her lips resembled hers, xoxox - I dropped her off at the Tropicana, her friend and friends bf where staying.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The final night ---- A few bucks won at the tables. Once more unto the breech at the strip joint with the boys.
She was in the house, and her friend who was also a stripper. Her friend was shorter then her, a pleasingly deep tan skin and slightly stouter build that she knew how to display with aplomb and damn as well she had nice legs.
I was wearing a leather jacket on loan from my friend. It gave my slight build a bit of bulk. the two isolate me and with a fist full of bills spread on my lap they proceed to mildly violate bits of the club code that night, with views and contact not exactly kosher. It was apparent that she told her friend to treat me special. I could not shack the bf factor in the back of my mind so I keep it as gentlemanly as I could. They worked the crowd later.
later that night
Entering the Tropicana I was entering the hotel with both women flanking me as dual arm candy. Small talk and the flirtations, the attitude they had towards me, to the external viewer the lack of jealousy, the overall good vibe between the three of us held at that moment could lead to a misread of the whole situation.
A women who was maybe 24 saw us - she was walking the opposite direction her face flushed, the devils perception in her eye - she launched in a dirty limerick about “Big John” while keeping her stride, quietly at first then with a smile shot full of deep approval of the situation
F. U... C. K. .I. N.. G ,,,,,
I will never forget that women's look, she poured into me, into us a meaning that validated her perceptions --- My Vegas adventure crossed the line of perception and symbols that intentionally misreads the outer with the inner -- Vegas now markets it but most leave just entertained and empty
__________________________________________________________________
Dropped them off in the hotel, the bf was asleep. I stood by the door. Sleep feel upon them - I looked at her eyes as they closed - said a halting and abrupt goodbye.
___________________________________________________________________
Coda
On the way back home I dreamed that I tossed everything I had - it was not much - and laid down next to her, told my friends to go -- I had an Aunt and cousins in Vegas that would hold me up for a bit .......and I would learn the secrets of my life and sexuality that others perceived I held in the dreaming of LV - I would then be free of my teenage fears and limits by learning my power in the sands of Nevada.
Sometimes I still dream........
The hand held stun gun is an interesting invention - its very controversial “less lethal” weapon, in most cases it will cause a human body to crumple over for 5 to 15 minutes, is some cases if a pre existing heart condition is present or the person is on a drug that alters the metabolic system it can be fatal. Its also ineffective if the attacker can physically resist the initial shock and can disarm the user.
In the moment none of that was on my mind, the sheer unreality of what was happening to me now was becoming apparent.
Her outline was fluidly moving “within” her frame. Her body language was indicating a slight puzzlement tinged with determination. The shadow of the man tries for a bit to pound on the front window. The shadow hesitate....she shifts her shape slightly to the left....the mans shadow drifts,,,,pulls back,,,,then disappears.
A bit of silence.
Regaining my hold on the waking world my mind speaks to itself - How can you want it to real and a dream - only in Vegas.
It now seems to me that the man may have not been the shadow she feared, in my experience the combination of drugs - legal and not so - and the generic nature of Vegas. You can easily get lost and think the fourth floor is the third floor, then think that the crash pad was here --- certainly if this person was her shadow, nemesis, and her ex he would have yelled “Hay baby can we talk” - or maybe he saw me and drifted away...
She turned to me and smiled - a weary smile tinged with a feel of a woman who turned back a dragon and narrowed her eyes......I was feeling it....hand on back.....smile and a whisper from her...then .............-----------_______^^^^^^^^^=======,,,,,..........................=============--------------------,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,****************************************
...I feel asleep again.
Waking hours - staring at the mirror in the bathroom at myself, my skinny body and bloodshot eyes glazed -- the mess of a blond on the blankets on the floor.... only in Vegas - a voice kick back to me.
“ I dreamed that I was swimming next to a magical Seal, you were dark, and...we crossed the ocean together” - did you do gongyo?
“You need TP”
I know. - she stood up - a stretch and a yawn - “lets get out of here” -
Her attitude towards me was appreciative - as if I stood her demons down and not her.
_____________----------------------______________________________________
It was slightly more stuff then I thought but it fit in the back of the Ranger well enough. She had problems with closing the rear door.
“Here you go.” A key falls into my hands.
“Its paid up for the week if you want to use it.”
Can you get me to downtown before you go back to work?
“sure”
The area of downtown was even worse in he Nevada sun.
“ Thanks”
She moves forth - “kiss” our lips touched. “Now don’t ask me to come back here again”
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The motel the guys where in was raunchy - I reconnect
I decide to play it off not telling anything of what happened last night, letting there assumptions and imaginations perk up... basking in the glow of the previous nights exploits and the unspoken praise of my geek peers - “Pack it up” I said. -- what? - ---- “no trust me just pack up everything this is the last night you will be ripped off motel wise”.
Under normal circumstance I would have been blown off but the guys would believe anything after seeing me running off, given a ride, been taken back by a stripper - I for that moment with a group of sex starved guys in a town that will rip you off endlessly for everything and leave you desperate and dead and not care for its own profit -- I assumed a mythic glow. a winner, not in the conventional sense perhaps. Only in Vegas.
The mandatory post convention drink and gambling was postponed. I led them to the apartment/long term hotel backpacks in hand, I opened the apartment up,
Eyes opened wide - minds could be easily read.
Clean! New! Nice! In a nice part of town! Accessible!
“and its free - paid up until the end of the week - that covers the whole convention stay”
The mythic glow hits overdrive - in the guys mind I did the impossible in Vegas, hell anywhere
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The night went in a blur - she left work a early and I took a cab and met up with her. We walked around Mirage, the other super casinos. She liked Marilyn Monroe, I told her her lips resembled hers, xoxox - I dropped her off at the Tropicana, her friend and friends bf where staying.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The final night ---- A few bucks won at the tables. Once more unto the breech at the strip joint with the boys.
She was in the house, and her friend who was also a stripper. Her friend was shorter then her, a pleasingly deep tan skin and slightly stouter build that she knew how to display with aplomb and damn as well she had nice legs.
I was wearing a leather jacket on loan from my friend. It gave my slight build a bit of bulk. the two isolate me and with a fist full of bills spread on my lap they proceed to mildly violate bits of the club code that night, with views and contact not exactly kosher. It was apparent that she told her friend to treat me special. I could not shack the bf factor in the back of my mind so I keep it as gentlemanly as I could. They worked the crowd later.
later that night
Entering the Tropicana I was entering the hotel with both women flanking me as dual arm candy. Small talk and the flirtations, the attitude they had towards me, to the external viewer the lack of jealousy, the overall good vibe between the three of us held at that moment could lead to a misread of the whole situation.
A women who was maybe 24 saw us - she was walking the opposite direction her face flushed, the devils perception in her eye - she launched in a dirty limerick about “Big John” while keeping her stride, quietly at first then with a smile shot full of deep approval of the situation
F. U... C. K. .I. N.. G ,,,,,
I will never forget that women's look, she poured into me, into us a meaning that validated her perceptions --- My Vegas adventure crossed the line of perception and symbols that intentionally misreads the outer with the inner -- Vegas now markets it but most leave just entertained and empty
__________________________________________________________________
Dropped them off in the hotel, the bf was asleep. I stood by the door. Sleep feel upon them - I looked at her eyes as they closed - said a halting and abrupt goodbye.
___________________________________________________________________
Coda
On the way back home I dreamed that I tossed everything I had - it was not much - and laid down next to her, told my friends to go -- I had an Aunt and cousins in Vegas that would hold me up for a bit .......and I would learn the secrets of my life and sexuality that others perceived I held in the dreaming of LV - I would then be free of my teenage fears and limits by learning my power in the sands of Nevada.
Sometimes I still dream........
Viva Las Comdex! Part 1
Viva Las Comdex! Part 1
Part One -
When you something so weird sounding happens, it has to be true......My brother.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sometime in the early 90’s
--------------------------=======================================
I was there at the gold rush. It was the mass digitization of the business world and was there - a lazy wanna be with a posse of male 20 something geek friends looking for no good and an appointed hookup with a small group of medical insurance workers that where looking to create there own MIG (medical insurance group) - we were headed to the now utterly dead but back then completely commercialized mini apex of the personal computer the convention called- Comdex, Las Vegas.
Please note - the state of the art in personal computers was Windows 3.0 - the DOS (C:\) days where still in mind -The internet was uber geek ream = bandwidth for a typical DSL connection today was very, very expensive - a large contingent of hackers held more then a trace of the hippy/libertarian/freak mind out cultural past - PC’s held a magical grasp in the minds of many - a Kaddish discipline that keep men (mostly) in the dark (literally) away from sunlight - social interaction and non microwave food - keep on and on and on learning to cast the digital spells that would overturn all - and for what money?? --for the hardcore that was just a spoil in a constructing your own personal universe where you are the Old Testament God..
Now the suits realized there was gold in them hills. The brought the virus with them - what was the virus? Respectability - mainstreaming - money no matter how hard it tries to pay it’s way out always carries it a a consequence of it sheer existence. Post yuppies fever wet dream.....
It becomes almost impossible to convey the amount of money that saturated that town - its only in hindsight we knew the industry was MS Bill’s. Everyone else was due for table scraps.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Las Vegas has the most hotel rooms in the nation but the digital gold rush pushed out the values to max - a top line hotel was unappeasable without a cooperate bankroll - everyone else had to make due with motel rates that were 4 times higher then normal booked six months in advance.
Heading to that town that week without either made you liable for a sucker punch wallet draining experience at the hands of the poor flea bag hell hole roach motel - pealing stucco - broken heaters (it was winter) worn out beds and a side of town so bad a sawed off shotgun seems sensible as personal protection - Downtown Vegas in its years of deepening decline. And the worse of all of that was the Apache Motel off of the Plaza. In a rusted over 79 Pinto traversing overland 300 something miles it was our destination.
We knew what we where in for but we could rationalize it with the simple fact that Vegas was a 24/7 town - time as we knew it was in a non reality vortex - between gambling, convention going and other activities the only thing we needed it for was to hold out for three nights (although we needed four) - a large nuff gang and we can hold out with the $ split multiple ways.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The haze of now mostly justifiably forgotten technology was left on the floor that spewed over the LV convention center. The smoking patrons at the blackjack tables and nickel slots hazed over the watered down drinks and beer - the video poker glazed the cerebellum with more drink and fading sense - then the almost obligatory migration to the strip club was mentioned. We went with myself in a bit of wistfulness, the roller coster ride that was my “relationship” with AL was ending it’s first cycle. (I did not have the maturity to know it was based on sex - good sex but just that) The sexual longing I felt would not be made up by the faux decadence that was playing out before me.
I had no idea what would take my mind off of her.....
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Off the LV strip is a strip club with a reputation- this was before the super airbrushed pussy mini mall type clubs dominated the scene - this was not that club - it was a club next to it.
Inside the vinyl seating was set to red - the suites nursing the beers and strippers were out in force. Comdex was a mandatory work night if a stripper wanted to gain a couple bucks.
A strippers art is not just sexual titillation - it’s seduction for cash - but in petitioning to get paid the stripper improves her chances for a adoring free-spending fan with a under the skin contact - that is if they can connect on some level beyond just flesh-- if the men wanted the act prostitution was readily available (legal brothels are only a few hours away)
Anyway -- what the stripper has to do in a sense is do simulate the initial attraction phase of the mating dance - it is something so powerful because men - in general - do not receive overt attraction signals from women in daily life especially those who worked in the sanitized post sexual harassment post 80’s office. The customers know this and they keep a good cynicism that the women have to outwit - it a classic reversal of the normative social sexual equilibrium.
The staging area was divided by the main stage and the lap dances that where held mostly in the corner. Most of the money is to be made by lap dancing - a patron sits in the corner isolated from the rest and keeps his hands to his self. Moving his hands is grounds to be kicked out. The dancer dances over the male lap and tries to not act bored all the while making eye contact.
I had a drink and kept a lazy overt leering to a minimum. With an overpriced drink in one hand I eyed the room.
A blond woman wearing a white under outfit of lace came over with a co-worker, starting to make present conversation with me and my friend, she nearly sat on my lap
She was a peroxide blond with white lace and a slight sheen of nice flesh. Nice lips, a bit of a diffident/aloof manner. She “warmed” to me in that soft stripper hustle. One of my friends joked about his massive electronic porn collection, that turned her off, I move offside from the guys.
Thats when I notices in quick order she was going to territory that I would have never expected to come over in a thousand years.
“You know I'm a buddhist - I chant Nam Myho ---
“ --- I been a Nichiren Buddhist for 4 years now”
she Smiles---”oh really”
In this twirl of lights, money, technology, drink, gasoline and cigarettes we had a slight but noticeable spiritual touch of each other, seekers of the way trying to get by in this universe.
A lap dance, a bit of dollar shuffling at the pole, she hung out with me in her break time. I sense she was non-hustling for some reason - did she actually like me? --- no she knew me in one way that was not on the radar.
The night ended, the club would be closing
“ Do you want to hang out”
“huh -”
I want to get something to eat, - she came closer- I need your company
OK
As the guys went to the cars I waved at them, arm in arm with a newly dressed stripper headed to a Ford Ranger and a don’t wait up for me attitude. I had my friends beeper number, we headed to a cafe in Treasure Island casino. With amazed looks from my friends we dashed off to a late night meal at Treasure Island.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Over a salad she talked - or more significantly I listened. She had been stripping for a short time, had vague notions of doing something else but no definitive plans. There was an issue with an on again, off again “relationship” (that word just did not fit) who if I understood correctly was shadowing her -- I sensed she wanted a person who could be trusted around in that vague way people can be around in Las Vegas.
I demurred. If I was in any other context I would have tipped my hat - wished the best then gotten out of dodge. The “burnt” feeling (the drive, the drink, the blackjack and video poker) was keeping my energy levels low. It’s a fine line between mench and getting in way over your head.
She had a friend who also had a boyfriend who she trusted, but due to scheduling issues she would be disconnect from them for 24 hours - they where moving out and the whole group was looking for house to rent. She needed to clear out her place and rent a hotel room - a tall order in a week where the largest convention of the year was on.
It was then I kinda got my role in this
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It was a apartment/long term hotel unique to Vegas. It was just off the strip close to all of the major resorts. Almost brand new it featured a week to week payment system - if you wanted the place for a week your could pay they or you could do the monthly rate.
Clean, new and almost unfurnished. A mess of blankets on the floor.
I lounged back - the talk had gotten a bit more smokier. I was not feeling that seductive but I did want to know how the sleeping accommodations would play out.
Feeling a bit smutty - then I took of my shirt
I felt my eyes narrow
A body slid next to mine
At that moment - I feel asleep
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
One eye opens up slightly
The apartment has a large main window and behind the curtains is the out line of a body - its pounding on the window
“what the fuck have have I gotten myself into? “ - mutter
She crouches to a defensive posture
I stare at her - the lights are of and I only see an outline as she reaches for something near her purse under some blankets
Her focus is utterly on the window
For the rest of my life I will never forget this image - From the floor and slightly behind her I see a blond women with a sheer lace slip outlined in a shadow of black - my vantage is close to her rear - looking determinately at the window holding onto a stun gun.
The image of the red nail polished hand holding a blue electric current contrasting the shadows left me spellbound - - -
“knock, knock knock”
I try to get up - she looks at me and she turns her head down looks at me then makes a shushing motion
She then turned her attention to the window.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To be concluded.
Part One -
When you something so weird sounding happens, it has to be true......My brother.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sometime in the early 90’s
--------------------------=======================================
I was there at the gold rush. It was the mass digitization of the business world and was there - a lazy wanna be with a posse of male 20 something geek friends looking for no good and an appointed hookup with a small group of medical insurance workers that where looking to create there own MIG (medical insurance group) - we were headed to the now utterly dead but back then completely commercialized mini apex of the personal computer the convention called- Comdex, Las Vegas.
Please note - the state of the art in personal computers was Windows 3.0 - the DOS (C:\) days where still in mind -The internet was uber geek ream = bandwidth for a typical DSL connection today was very, very expensive - a large contingent of hackers held more then a trace of the hippy/libertarian/freak mind out cultural past - PC’s held a magical grasp in the minds of many - a Kaddish discipline that keep men (mostly) in the dark (literally) away from sunlight - social interaction and non microwave food - keep on and on and on learning to cast the digital spells that would overturn all - and for what money?? --for the hardcore that was just a spoil in a constructing your own personal universe where you are the Old Testament God..
Now the suits realized there was gold in them hills. The brought the virus with them - what was the virus? Respectability - mainstreaming - money no matter how hard it tries to pay it’s way out always carries it a a consequence of it sheer existence. Post yuppies fever wet dream.....
It becomes almost impossible to convey the amount of money that saturated that town - its only in hindsight we knew the industry was MS Bill’s. Everyone else was due for table scraps.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Las Vegas has the most hotel rooms in the nation but the digital gold rush pushed out the values to max - a top line hotel was unappeasable without a cooperate bankroll - everyone else had to make due with motel rates that were 4 times higher then normal booked six months in advance.
Heading to that town that week without either made you liable for a sucker punch wallet draining experience at the hands of the poor flea bag hell hole roach motel - pealing stucco - broken heaters (it was winter) worn out beds and a side of town so bad a sawed off shotgun seems sensible as personal protection - Downtown Vegas in its years of deepening decline. And the worse of all of that was the Apache Motel off of the Plaza. In a rusted over 79 Pinto traversing overland 300 something miles it was our destination.
We knew what we where in for but we could rationalize it with the simple fact that Vegas was a 24/7 town - time as we knew it was in a non reality vortex - between gambling, convention going and other activities the only thing we needed it for was to hold out for three nights (although we needed four) - a large nuff gang and we can hold out with the $ split multiple ways.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The haze of now mostly justifiably forgotten technology was left on the floor that spewed over the LV convention center. The smoking patrons at the blackjack tables and nickel slots hazed over the watered down drinks and beer - the video poker glazed the cerebellum with more drink and fading sense - then the almost obligatory migration to the strip club was mentioned. We went with myself in a bit of wistfulness, the roller coster ride that was my “relationship” with AL was ending it’s first cycle. (I did not have the maturity to know it was based on sex - good sex but just that) The sexual longing I felt would not be made up by the faux decadence that was playing out before me.
I had no idea what would take my mind off of her.....
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Off the LV strip is a strip club with a reputation- this was before the super airbrushed pussy mini mall type clubs dominated the scene - this was not that club - it was a club next to it.
Inside the vinyl seating was set to red - the suites nursing the beers and strippers were out in force. Comdex was a mandatory work night if a stripper wanted to gain a couple bucks.
A strippers art is not just sexual titillation - it’s seduction for cash - but in petitioning to get paid the stripper improves her chances for a adoring free-spending fan with a under the skin contact - that is if they can connect on some level beyond just flesh-- if the men wanted the act prostitution was readily available (legal brothels are only a few hours away)
Anyway -- what the stripper has to do in a sense is do simulate the initial attraction phase of the mating dance - it is something so powerful because men - in general - do not receive overt attraction signals from women in daily life especially those who worked in the sanitized post sexual harassment post 80’s office. The customers know this and they keep a good cynicism that the women have to outwit - it a classic reversal of the normative social sexual equilibrium.
The staging area was divided by the main stage and the lap dances that where held mostly in the corner. Most of the money is to be made by lap dancing - a patron sits in the corner isolated from the rest and keeps his hands to his self. Moving his hands is grounds to be kicked out. The dancer dances over the male lap and tries to not act bored all the while making eye contact.
I had a drink and kept a lazy overt leering to a minimum. With an overpriced drink in one hand I eyed the room.
A blond woman wearing a white under outfit of lace came over with a co-worker, starting to make present conversation with me and my friend, she nearly sat on my lap
She was a peroxide blond with white lace and a slight sheen of nice flesh. Nice lips, a bit of a diffident/aloof manner. She “warmed” to me in that soft stripper hustle. One of my friends joked about his massive electronic porn collection, that turned her off, I move offside from the guys.
Thats when I notices in quick order she was going to territory that I would have never expected to come over in a thousand years.
“You know I'm a buddhist - I chant Nam Myho ---
“ --- I been a Nichiren Buddhist for 4 years now”
she Smiles---”oh really”
In this twirl of lights, money, technology, drink, gasoline and cigarettes we had a slight but noticeable spiritual touch of each other, seekers of the way trying to get by in this universe.
A lap dance, a bit of dollar shuffling at the pole, she hung out with me in her break time. I sense she was non-hustling for some reason - did she actually like me? --- no she knew me in one way that was not on the radar.
The night ended, the club would be closing
“ Do you want to hang out”
“huh -”
I want to get something to eat, - she came closer- I need your company
OK
As the guys went to the cars I waved at them, arm in arm with a newly dressed stripper headed to a Ford Ranger and a don’t wait up for me attitude. I had my friends beeper number, we headed to a cafe in Treasure Island casino. With amazed looks from my friends we dashed off to a late night meal at Treasure Island.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Over a salad she talked - or more significantly I listened. She had been stripping for a short time, had vague notions of doing something else but no definitive plans. There was an issue with an on again, off again “relationship” (that word just did not fit) who if I understood correctly was shadowing her -- I sensed she wanted a person who could be trusted around in that vague way people can be around in Las Vegas.
I demurred. If I was in any other context I would have tipped my hat - wished the best then gotten out of dodge. The “burnt” feeling (the drive, the drink, the blackjack and video poker) was keeping my energy levels low. It’s a fine line between mench and getting in way over your head.
She had a friend who also had a boyfriend who she trusted, but due to scheduling issues she would be disconnect from them for 24 hours - they where moving out and the whole group was looking for house to rent. She needed to clear out her place and rent a hotel room - a tall order in a week where the largest convention of the year was on.
It was then I kinda got my role in this
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It was a apartment/long term hotel unique to Vegas. It was just off the strip close to all of the major resorts. Almost brand new it featured a week to week payment system - if you wanted the place for a week your could pay they or you could do the monthly rate.
Clean, new and almost unfurnished. A mess of blankets on the floor.
I lounged back - the talk had gotten a bit more smokier. I was not feeling that seductive but I did want to know how the sleeping accommodations would play out.
Feeling a bit smutty - then I took of my shirt
I felt my eyes narrow
A body slid next to mine
At that moment - I feel asleep
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One eye opens up slightly
The apartment has a large main window and behind the curtains is the out line of a body - its pounding on the window
“what the fuck have have I gotten myself into? “ - mutter
She crouches to a defensive posture
I stare at her - the lights are of and I only see an outline as she reaches for something near her purse under some blankets
Her focus is utterly on the window
For the rest of my life I will never forget this image - From the floor and slightly behind her I see a blond women with a sheer lace slip outlined in a shadow of black - my vantage is close to her rear - looking determinately at the window holding onto a stun gun.
The image of the red nail polished hand holding a blue electric current contrasting the shadows left me spellbound - - -
“knock, knock knock”
I try to get up - she looks at me and she turns her head down looks at me then makes a shushing motion
She then turned her attention to the window.
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To be concluded.
The Width of a Circle
The Width of a Circle
1996 - Van Nuys
Well why don’t you go? - she said. - I didn't want to... she was 19 - I was 27.
We where laying on her bed her black hair fell over her Semitic facial features, puffy cheeks and lightly tanned skin, she was emotionally intense, prone to giggles and had a low-ish pitch voice. Supple, awakening to her passions (I guess with my help) and cheeky. Me - I was 40 pounds lighter with a shock of hair that I kept short and 27 going on 16 insofar as relationships where concerned.
I -- I did not know what a visit from me would achieve and I did not not have the emotional vocabulary to voice it.. I mean I know what it would try to achieve - a human connection to a group of friends that wanted her back within the circle -
Something I knew was not possible in one sense yet the subtext was clear - in the lest I could say hello, and that may noted.
A kiss - a hello to the GF parents who were coming in - and I was off. --- It was in the car I - - fell into a dream of 87.
1987 - Silverlake
She was living with a 30 something and going to film classes she hung out with the industrial arty types - I liked her but I kept my distance. I had no experience with women on any level outside sibling or friend; we were both the same age - and by that time she had burnt though many an extra short term relationship.
I had perceived joking with her though out the semester was just a part of the buddy - buddy jocularity of being friends in a mixed group - red haired - freckled - and charismatic but --pretty --in a spiritual sense. - After the semester ended I resigned myself to bittersweet friendship (for me) that I would cut off by simply not calling or contacting her - perfect!
& doomed.
--A few days after the final year ending semester screening I received a phone call from her - she drove over - In the next two weeks it would be a rabbits hole -- with no context or experience she would burn though me as the other man of the hour - i was a mess of feelings that I had no context for - At once wanting not to be other man and yet looking to get my operators license in sexual poetry, also her drug additions have been in slight check by a combination of new age treatments and buddhist discipline put me on/off/on...
It would end - all of it-- quickly --thank the gods -- but in mid week I remember a day at the park next to Silverlake before the Dog park - no one was there and a sunset fell over us both - musing and laughing and wondering where our childhoods went and why so fast - how she still can use the park swing and wondering where and why and who cares ---two bodies and breath and hand on breast I drank deeply of her - freckled skin and a sunset that could portend then end of life and all things and all ...and we wouldn't care.
The future did arrive
2005 - Santa Monica
Where are you? - crisp and clear the wind blew in late afternoon - GF was hanging with her Navaho tribal girlfriends at a Korean Bar- B- Q.
Soviet Monica - had to get out. Near Hi Di Ho...
Make sure you get Top Ten II and see if they have Love and Rockets and see if they have Optic Nerve. She said...glad I able to do something useful.
Ya - guess who called?
Who?
Alot -
What’s up?- You never call her.
She calls twice a year, just wanted to say - hi - she’s engaged. Wants to know how you are doing..
Your in the hood - arnt you going to say hi? Well why don’t you?
......OK - coffee ..got a strange feeling about this ,,,,
1998 - Echo Park
I had a feeling I was being used in a sense.... tired.
I am not so feminine .... but the coster ride was making me sick.
I bent her over - she had her first orgasm in this position with me and this time it would be the last one I would help coax our of her body.
1996 - North Hollywood
In the car I looked upon 87 - after the two weeks we where in the same loose circle of acquaintances she flew off the handle and fell into a mad dance of new , new ,dark new then she started sparking then shooting then ..........she fell
Annie tried to help -- (never mess with a lesbian native american) but it was a minor years reprieve. No word from her to anyone.. for a year and a half...phone calls and a note - she’d like to see me, just for a bit..
Cold .. even for North Hollywood this was slummy... rehab with decor by Sybil Brand.. street parked then walked in.
didn't recognize her - white skin where there was sheen - lines on her face before her time --youth but burnt --unfiltered camel in her hand.
Kenny ! - this sucks - BF just got out of jail he’s going to be here..you have not changed at ALL.. eyes downcast .and she took a seat.... you didn’t do to yourself . pause..
I sat and looked at a stranger who did me a good turn for two weeks. A person who had all the potential in the universe and used it to push the ecstasy of life up up up till gravity took brutal hold. Said hello then she picked herself up and then the BF was showered with her full, worshipful submission authority --
I exited stage left hoping to never return -- I never saw her again.
I could not help - we could not help.
2005 - Culver City
A ring at the door and she came out.. nice if a few pounds heavier.
Hello Ken-- Voice as nice as ever - if slightly groggy. slightly awkward hug. How is Laura? Have you married her yet?
No rush. -- off to the coffee shop
Any kids? - I always wanted kids. R and I have always wanted kids.
No - not really - R sounds like a good guy
You would like him. I can totally see you hanging out together.
Why not? You are so patient with them - -------
It goes on like this for a while. She thanked me for all of the doors I opened. I ask her how she met R. In a ward. Drug therapy - her passions were diagnosed as bipolar.
Legal drugs to keep her down - legal drugs to cover her up - as if emotions, passions, vibrancy life life - its been learned to be a medical condition that needs to be kept in check.....age and some karmic adjustment would do just as well - the meds are just expedients - too much all the time every time you burn but without the vibrancy - I kept all of these thoughts inside.
I took her back to the apartment thanked her
......................
Coda
How is she?
OK ----- hugz!?
1996 - Van Nuys
Well why don’t you go? - she said. - I didn't want to... she was 19 - I was 27.
We where laying on her bed her black hair fell over her Semitic facial features, puffy cheeks and lightly tanned skin, she was emotionally intense, prone to giggles and had a low-ish pitch voice. Supple, awakening to her passions (I guess with my help) and cheeky. Me - I was 40 pounds lighter with a shock of hair that I kept short and 27 going on 16 insofar as relationships where concerned.
I -- I did not know what a visit from me would achieve and I did not not have the emotional vocabulary to voice it.. I mean I know what it would try to achieve - a human connection to a group of friends that wanted her back within the circle -
Something I knew was not possible in one sense yet the subtext was clear - in the lest I could say hello, and that may noted.
A kiss - a hello to the GF parents who were coming in - and I was off. --- It was in the car I - - fell into a dream of 87.
1987 - Silverlake
She was living with a 30 something and going to film classes she hung out with the industrial arty types - I liked her but I kept my distance. I had no experience with women on any level outside sibling or friend; we were both the same age - and by that time she had burnt though many an extra short term relationship.
I had perceived joking with her though out the semester was just a part of the buddy - buddy jocularity of being friends in a mixed group - red haired - freckled - and charismatic but --pretty --in a spiritual sense. - After the semester ended I resigned myself to bittersweet friendship (for me) that I would cut off by simply not calling or contacting her - perfect!
& doomed.
--A few days after the final year ending semester screening I received a phone call from her - she drove over - In the next two weeks it would be a rabbits hole -- with no context or experience she would burn though me as the other man of the hour - i was a mess of feelings that I had no context for - At once wanting not to be other man and yet looking to get my operators license in sexual poetry, also her drug additions have been in slight check by a combination of new age treatments and buddhist discipline put me on/off/on...
It would end - all of it-- quickly --thank the gods -- but in mid week I remember a day at the park next to Silverlake before the Dog park - no one was there and a sunset fell over us both - musing and laughing and wondering where our childhoods went and why so fast - how she still can use the park swing and wondering where and why and who cares ---two bodies and breath and hand on breast I drank deeply of her - freckled skin and a sunset that could portend then end of life and all things and all ...and we wouldn't care.
The future did arrive
2005 - Santa Monica
Where are you? - crisp and clear the wind blew in late afternoon - GF was hanging with her Navaho tribal girlfriends at a Korean Bar- B- Q.
Soviet Monica - had to get out. Near Hi Di Ho...
Make sure you get Top Ten II and see if they have Love and Rockets and see if they have Optic Nerve. She said...glad I able to do something useful.
Ya - guess who called?
Who?
Alot -
What’s up?- You never call her.
She calls twice a year, just wanted to say - hi - she’s engaged. Wants to know how you are doing..
Your in the hood - arnt you going to say hi? Well why don’t you?
......OK - coffee ..got a strange feeling about this ,,,,
1998 - Echo Park
I had a feeling I was being used in a sense.... tired.
I am not so feminine .... but the coster ride was making me sick.
I bent her over - she had her first orgasm in this position with me and this time it would be the last one I would help coax our of her body.
1996 - North Hollywood
In the car I looked upon 87 - after the two weeks we where in the same loose circle of acquaintances she flew off the handle and fell into a mad dance of new , new ,dark new then she started sparking then shooting then ..........she fell
Annie tried to help -- (never mess with a lesbian native american) but it was a minor years reprieve. No word from her to anyone.. for a year and a half...phone calls and a note - she’d like to see me, just for a bit..
Cold .. even for North Hollywood this was slummy... rehab with decor by Sybil Brand.. street parked then walked in.
didn't recognize her - white skin where there was sheen - lines on her face before her time --youth but burnt --unfiltered camel in her hand.
Kenny ! - this sucks - BF just got out of jail he’s going to be here..you have not changed at ALL.. eyes downcast .and she took a seat.... you didn’t do to yourself . pause..
I sat and looked at a stranger who did me a good turn for two weeks. A person who had all the potential in the universe and used it to push the ecstasy of life up up up till gravity took brutal hold. Said hello then she picked herself up and then the BF was showered with her full, worshipful submission authority --
I exited stage left hoping to never return -- I never saw her again.
I could not help - we could not help.
2005 - Culver City
A ring at the door and she came out.. nice if a few pounds heavier.
Hello Ken-- Voice as nice as ever - if slightly groggy. slightly awkward hug. How is Laura? Have you married her yet?
No rush. -- off to the coffee shop
Any kids? - I always wanted kids. R and I have always wanted kids.
No - not really - R sounds like a good guy
You would like him. I can totally see you hanging out together.
Why not? You are so patient with them - -------
It goes on like this for a while. She thanked me for all of the doors I opened. I ask her how she met R. In a ward. Drug therapy - her passions were diagnosed as bipolar.
Legal drugs to keep her down - legal drugs to cover her up - as if emotions, passions, vibrancy life life - its been learned to be a medical condition that needs to be kept in check.....age and some karmic adjustment would do just as well - the meds are just expedients - too much all the time every time you burn but without the vibrancy - I kept all of these thoughts inside.
I took her back to the apartment thanked her
......................
Coda
How is she?
OK ----- hugz!?
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