Pico and Robertson

I forgot to put the bobby pin on my yarmulke, so the skull cap kept slipping off the back of my head again and again. I had to keep readjusting it on my head to keep it from falling off. I walked down Pico Boulevard doing this as the carnival of the damaged and depraved passed me by.

There was Mr. Exploded Eye, the Dog Lady, even old Moe Howard, decades away from Three Stooges fame. He’d hang out by the news stand and talk to the battered old vendor in his frail voice, a small, meek old guy with the spittoon haircut, all white now, too tired to throw a pie or poke a Shemp eye to save his life.

Mr. Exploded Eye had a severe case of conjunctivitis that was never treated, so he had one eye that protruded from his head like an enormous fried egg that exploded. He always wore a baggy suit with a crushed hat and looked like an old baggy pants comedian straight out of a burlesque show.

The Dog Lady was a gnomish woman of indeterminate age who always wore a heavy coat regardless of the weather. She continuously walked four mongrels on a leash. The dogs were so tired and inbred they didn’t resemble any identifiable breed to anyone.

Advancing towards the large intersection of Robertson Boulevard one could hear the shrill wail of Morey Branovan’s alto saxophone. Branovan was an insane little Jew with platinum blonde hair and a baby face who hated children and teenagers. And we hated him. He would play “Hatikvah” in an excruciatingly loud bray that sounded like a horse being tortured. In between notes he’d scream “HEY!” He’d wear a Hawaiian shirt with rotting old leis around his neck and have a sign in front of his sax stand that said “I LOVE GOLDA MEIR”. Even the Rabbis avoided this no-talent creep, stepping around him as you would a big dog turd.

Naïve idiot that I was, I tried to talk saxophones with him. BIG mistake.

“Hey, man, what brand mouthpiece do you use?”

“#@xT&%!” he mumbled insanely, clearly not interested.

“Do you double on tenor, also?”

“Kaftaferogoondoolabob”, he hacked in my face, a loogie just barely missing my pan. I was getting kinda steamed at his phoney crazy ass act.

“Did you blow your Daddy to get that horn, you old freak mother?” I leaned into him.

“GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE MOISHE DAYAN SHIT PISS HEBREW NATIONAL!” he roared, his fat pugly face turning beet red.

“Oops!’ I kicked his sax case over, causing nickels, dimes, and quarters to spill out onto the sidewalk, coins rolling into the gutter and further out into the street.

“I’LL KILL YOU!” he screamed so loud everybody stopped in their tracks and turned around. “YOU DAMN KUGEL MATZO BALLO VOOTY BASTARD FUCK SIDNEY MENDEL KATZENBERGER!”

I strolled down the road and felt a little bit better than I did ten minutes ago. I turned for a sec and saw Branovan chasing his change into the street, shiny new Cadillacs almost plowing into his stocky frame and honking angrily at him. The world was crazy and I didn’t care anymore.

SUICIDE

“HANDS UP! WHO WANTS TO DIE?” – Nick Cave

We have all gathered here today to pay respects to your dead body. What, you’re not dead yet? Well, admit it, it wasn’t for lack of trying. Confess, you’ve tried to kill yourself once or twice, haven’t you? Who hasn’t? And let me guess – you want to die because she didn’t love you any more, right? You dumb bastard. You tried to flush your life down the toilet because some spoiled idiot chose someone else over you. And you held such small value over your precious life. How sad.

Here’s my consolation for you, you idiot. The guy you lost out to is probably dumped now, too. And HE’S probably thinking about killing himself while YOU’RE reading this. Over HER. Now don’t you feel like an asshole?

“But nobody will make me smile the way she did”.
Of course, of course. How many girls have you ever met?

“She was the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen”.
You’re joking, right? This is California. If you can’t find a pretty girl within a one-mile radius then you need a seeing-eye dog.

“But she’s the only one that really understood me!”
Then why did she leave you? Why am I standing over your grave staring down at you?

“It’s easy for you to say – you’re good looking”.
You gotta be putting me on. Good looking people have more mind games played on them than anyone, either out of jealousy or insecurity. You really think some stupid girl with no sense of loyalty towards anyone is important enough to stop your life and make me throw dirt over your coffin?

Give yourself a break. After all, there’s lots of gorgeous and mentally unstable fish in the sea…or try Whole Foods Market.

Long Beach Traffic Circle

I've had two experiences with the horror named Long Beach Traffic Circle: In 1991 I was visiting Long Gone John my record company chief to discuss my newest record we were going to release. After all the business talk was done we decided to celebrate by heading off to a cool bar somewhere. We went in his car, a junky Volkswagen station wagon (1972 hatchback) where the floor heats up badly, it comes through your shoes, and the engine is so loud you can barely hear what the other person is saying.
"I'm pretty excited about the cover concept."
"WHAT? HUH??"
"I SAID THE CONCEPT FOR THE FRONT COVER'S PRETTY COOL!!!"
"THE CAR HOOD'S ON FIRE?? NO WAY, DUDE!"
En route to the bar I saw this weird little roundabout that reminded me of that nutty circle near the Arc De Triomphe in Paris. I think Piccadilly Circus has a weird circle like this, too.
It was the Long Beach Traffic Circle and cars were merging into it and others were flying out of it. There were metal signs all over but no traffic lights, so basically nobody paid attention to the signs at all. It was anarchy!
We got on the circle just barely getting broadsided by a car that didn't give a tinker's fuck about us getting on. BEEP! "HEY YOU FUCKING SHIT FOR BRAINS!" somebody yelled at John.
"Fuck-in A", John cussed angrily. He was now trying to switch lanes to get closer to the exit at the other end of the circle. Nobody was letting him get through. He had to cut someone off to get into the exit lane, but not without somebody merging into the circle as he was switching lanes. John slammed his brakes hard, barely smashing into a dented Cadillac. HOOOONNNNNNNK!
"YOU BLIND FUCK! WAAAATCH IT!" some angry little dog turd of a man yelled.
"Fuckin' A! Fuckin' A!" cussed Long Gone. We finally got off the circle barely getting smashed and maimed by passive-aggressive John Wayne men manning their shit sleds. We finally hit the pier and had a good drinking sesh. Good times.

2002: I got a job offer from some investigators in Long Beach to be a part of their team. I wasn't really interested, you know, staking out insurance frauds outside of their houses in my car for hours holding my pee in didn't sound like fun. But they said, "We'll show you our spy HQ plus WE'LL BUY YOU LUNCH!"
Okay, well, I'm down for free food. I drove into old Long Beach and had trouble finding their unmarked mystery HQ (no street number in front) but I had the street name. I drove all the way down and didn't find the building, so I called them on my phone.
"Hey, I can't find the building where are you?"
"Are you on the corner of T________ and W_________?"
"W_______? How do I get to that street?"
"Oh", the secretary said, "You have to drive through the Traffic Circle to get there".
I looked two blocks down in front of me and there it was like a waiting devil's mouth. Long Beach Traffic Circle. Packed. With cars. And there was something 2002 had that 1991 didn't have: SUVs. So the cars were bigger and pushier than before.
There was no other way to get to the HQ so I had to merge into the unyielding flow of traffic. Nobody knew how to slow down but they knew how to get pissed off.
BLAP! "GET THE FUCK OFF THE ROAD!" a skinny girl shrilled with a cell phone in one hand and a venti latte in the other.
I had to switch lanes to get out, and no one was yielding to me again, so-
HONK! "ASS-HOOOOLLLLLE!!!!" some piece of crap with a shaved head and a goatee hooted.
Well, I finally got off the Road Hog merry-go-round in one piece and got to the Insurance Inspector's HQ. I saw the lay of the business, all cool ex-cops smoking and showing off their gadgets and tricked out car trunks with spy gear. We had lunch at Denny's cause they're cops and that's what cops eat in their 1965 disc jockey hair styles. The food was okay (Denny's, man) and I told them that I would think about being a Worker's Comp spy for them (heh-no way!), so... Long Beach always brings back crazy memories but Long Beach Traffic Circle...is the stuff of nightmares.

Stuff I Burned From TCM

You call it bootlegging, I call it killing the wait until a studio releases the movie on DVD. Releasing “Black Legion” or “711 Ocean Drive” on DVD may never happen in our lifetime, so I’ll happily burn away these minor classics from TCM (Turner Classic Movies). Here are a couple I’ve enjoyed recently:

The Killing of Sister George: Sister George is a sappy Mary Poppins-type character on British TV but off camera is a flesh/scenery chewing old chicken hawk constantly yelling at her young live-in chippy named “Childee” (Susannah York at her best). The “killing” in the title refers to her character getting taken out on the series – the movie is less about lesbianism than it is about aging and the feeling of loss whether it’s an acting gig, your youth, or your young lover. Since it’s a Robert Aldrich film you know there’ll be a sick twist ending that’ll drive you insane.

The Fox: a lesbian couple (it was “Outfest” week on TCM) shack out deep in the woodlie woods in sapphic bliss until a handsome Aryan pin-up arrives at their front door (Keir Dullea of “2001” and “David and Lisa”). Sexually he shakes things up and consequently nothing is ever what it appears – the three switch sexual roles and persuasions at the drop of a hat. While none of it’s believable for a second it’s still entertaining and beautifully photographed.

The Mad Magician: Prior to this movie director John Brahm made a film called “Hangover Square” which took place in 1895 about a madman in love with a singer which ended in a blazing house fire. He followed it with this 3-D flick starring Vincent Price as a, well, mad magician and it takes place in 1895, and uh…ends with a blazing house fire. Around this time, um um um, Vincent Price made another 3-D film called “House Of Wax” which uh, takes place around 1895, and ends with a….OKAY! YOU KNOW! Another blazing house fire!!!! Sheeesh!!! And you thought movies nowadays imitated each other!

Hemorrhage

Friday night. 11:45 PM. Las Vegas. I walked down the strip; it was lit up like a crazy jewelry box. The streets were jammed with vans, jeeps, and pickup trucks. There were mean-faced girls with tight lips riding shotgun in the cars. There was a stench of pizza, beer, urine, and vomit that filled the air. Drivers and riders were all yelling and laughing form their cars. Some were even yelling at me.
“Get a car, asshole!”
“Hey faggot!”
“YOU are one UGLY son-of-a-bitch!”
The yells were accompanied by the nauseating dull thud of the bass frequencies going BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! roaring out of their stereos, all cranked up to deafening volume. The sidewalk shook and coiled like a snake.
“Heads up, queer!” A beercan sailed past my head.
“What the fuck?” I said, and turned to see a pickup full of teenage white trash with stringy long hair, peach fuzz mustaches, and concave chests covered by tank tops or T-shirts with “Whitesnake” or “Slayer” written on them.
“You want to try something, motherfucker?” one guy got up like he was going to jump off the truck to fight.
“Cool out, Randy”, his friend pushed him back, “Asshole’s got a problem”.
A pack of Marines on leave were walking up the street, big young bulls of varying colors with regulation crew cuts and serious expressions on their faces, all obviously out to have a good time.
I reached the ends of the strip. Less cars, less people on the sidewalk, the casino lights dwindling down to darkness. Next to an old keno parlor was a run down hotel, The Oasis Crest Hotel. I took the elevator to the tenth floor to room 1013 and knocked.
The door opened and it was my brother Paul. I hadn’t seen him in five years, and I had an envelope of papers to deliver to him.
“Tommy, you made it, man”, Paul said, smiling.
“Yeah”, I said, “in one piece, just the way I like it”. The lights in the room were very dim and there was a green neon light from outside his window that flooded the room with a strange glow.
“Have it your way, just like they say at Burger King”, he chuckled. “Did you bring the papers?”
“Yeah, now you won’t have a problem nailing Prince John. You finally have all the evidence you need to put him away for a long time”. I handed him the envelope, and noticed the green neon glowing on him as he scanned the contracts. I noticed something strange. I don’t know if it was him or what, but for a brief moment the word FUCK flashed on his face. It was gone as fast as it appeared.
“Great, just great”, he put down the papers. “You know, I was thinking...isn’t it time you buried the hatchet with Dad? He asks about you all the time”.
“I’m not talking to Dad. You don’t talk to him, He talks to you and you just sit there and listen. I haven’t got time for that kind of shit”, I said, looking him straight in the eye when I noticed an impish gleam there with the word SHIT in bold type.
“Well, my place is with my father. He needs me, and I owe so much to him”, he burbled, the green light still bathing him and the word SHIT still twinkling in his eye.
“You should consider doing the same thing”, he continued. “Your family is what comes first. I’ve thought this over very carefully and I know I’m right”. He fumbled around with a pack of cigarettes.
“You got a light?”
“No. I quit last year”.
Paul walked over to the patio and opened the sliding glass door. On the floor of the patio were dozens of crushed cigarette butts. He picked one up and lit up.
“Mmm...anyway, I’ve been thinking a lot about you lately. How successful the real estate company would be with you on the team helping me and Dad”. He no longer had the face of a human being any more. His face looked like the skull airbrushed on the ice cubes of a liquor ad. This was the boy I thought was my brother, the boy I played games with when I was a kid, the boy that shared my mother’s love with me, but I was wrong. He looked like a bad magazine advertisement. He took a deep pull on his butt in green neon, and like a fluorescent light turning on, DEATH and CANCER slowly materialized all over his body. Then FUCK came back on his face and RAPE was spelled out on his nose. I could see him for the very first time.
The phone rang. “Ah, excuse me”, he ran over to the patio, grabbed up another butt, and ran into the next room to get the phone. As he did this, he bumped into the coffee table and knocked over a magazine.
“Oh! Dad! We were just talking about you!” I heard from the next room. I grabbed up the magazine. The cover showed a pregnant woman with her legs spread, vagina exposed, squeezing her tits with milk seeping out, licking her lips seductively. Her face had the expression of a drugged toad. MILK SQUIRTIN’ MAMAS.
“Guess who’s here, Dad? Tommy! Yeah! He told me he’s coming back into the business. We’ll be coming back!”
The room swirled around me and I could hear the car horns blaring outside. Girls were laughing and screaming at the top of their lungs.
“Tommy! Dad’s on the phone! He wants to say hi! Tommy? Tommy?”
I quickly walked to the door and quietly shut it. I didn’t wait for the elevator. I took the stairs.