memories of phil collins(?)

there was something in the air alright.

she was a bit short but lovely

with legs to die for and a set of feet

that matched the gams like perfect crystal

tumblers filled with single malt scotch.

a little acne but nothing that wouldn’t

clear up after a time or two

in between the sheets.

i thought i was being discreet.

apparently not.

or was it something else?

you caught me looking at you.

i caught you looking at me.

the situation was awkward at best.

a lovely short pink skirt and those legs.

just divine.

the pink was perfect against the asian olive tones

of your skin.

i thought only of sin
 
those almost perfect feet.

it became a sorta open i’m lookin’ at

you deal going back

and forth.

sexual tension in the air.

oh, lord.  oh, yeah.

sadly, the wrong place and the wrong time.

so it always seems. 

time to go. 

you just stood there alone.

full on face.

staring.

smiling.

i was radiant.

the timing so bad i ached.

i just wanted to take your hand

walk someplace and talk.

to see if it was real

or just another phantom

in the night.

 

jmh

there is no magic

yesterday was the day of the wedding i’d promised the old g/f i would attend with her.  a small affair with maybe 30 people total.  a catholic church ceremony along the lines of the olden days high mass wedding ceremonies from my youth.  an hour an fifteen minute deal that would have left my butt permanently numb had it not been for all the getting up and sitting back down stuff going on.   

it’s getting hot again here in socal.  but then it’s summer so what else is new?  i made the trip out to the old digs and i was early so we could pick up her parents.  turns out i was too early because her sister had called and said they would pick up the old ones.  i asked why she didn’t call and tell me about the change in plans.  no real answer.  i wasn’t happy about the idea of sitting around for over an hour listening to her tell me how wonderful she was and how fucked up i am for the bazillionth time.

i pulled out the stops and she took the hint.  thankfully, her sister called and told us to go to the old ones place and we’d eat some singapore noodles and soup before the wedding.  fine.  plus the noodles and soup were superb.

the wedding was nice as far as weddings go and the church was a newer one and air conditioned.  yes!  the padre who performed the wedding was an old veterano filipino with over 35 years dealing with the work of the church.  i must say he did a nice job and kept his comments to a minimum or we might still be there. 

no bride and groom want to hear anything resembling a sermon on their wedding day.  the invited guests don’t want to hear it as well.  the padre said as much.  good for him.  he’d won me over.  

though he did say one or two things.  the most important being ‘there is no magic.’  a church wedding doesn’t change anything.  when you leave you leave with what you came in with.  love wise.  it’s all up to you.  god or the church can’t change any of that.  an interesting and thoughtful way of putting the deal in perspective.

when the time came for communion i went up and got his blessing instead of the wafer and vino.  it was nice to have someone with some sort of street cred with the man upstairs lay a blessing on you.

some time was spent at the bride and grooms home.  with a chinese fire drill thrown in for good measure concerning parking in their townhouse complex.  park here then no key to open the gate.  it’s locked.  of course.  move someplace else and you can’t park there as it’s reserved for someone else and so on.  finally the old g/f got to park in the garage probably because of the old ones.

the reception and dinner turned out to be a very nice and pricey affair.  though no open bar as i was led to believe.  there would be some vino at dinner but nothing other than an overly sweet punch with the canapes of chinese origin.  i needed something to take the edge off.  there was still over an hour before dinner.

i’m going to find the bar.

ok.

i wandered around and stumbled in on an indian affair on the same level of the hotel.  i think probably drawn by the wonderful redolent curry smell  being wafted around by the a/c.  i considered hitting the food line but figured with my natural american looks, which were already getting me looks, i’d be asked just what the fuck i thought i was doing.  so i went elsewhere looking for the bar.

i finally found the bar and waded through the golfers who were lined up at the 19th hole.

can i help you?

i didn’t want to linger too much.

yes, two glasses of chardonnay. 

there was a wine list several pages long.  i didn’t want to read it.

not the most expensive stuff just something reasonable.

the lady bartender then read the list.

i’m like, ok.  maybe i should have done that.

she then tells me the $9 a glass stuff is not available as they are out of it and the next choice would be the $12 stuff.

fine.

she poured me two glasses of the vino and i swilled half of the first glass and she actually topped it off.  sweet.  so i finished half the glass again and poured the rest into the second glass and headed back upstairs.  feeling much better about things.

the dinner was a very very good chinese affair.  excellent food and the service was nice as well.  plus a couple more glasses of dago red.  thankfully it wasn’t one of those wedding party deals that go on and on into the night.  by a quarter to 10 the hotel help was telling them to wrap it up.  you time is up kids.  go home.  fine by me i was ready.  i’d had way too much to eat and if i drank anymore i’d be a prime dui suspect for my trip back here.  which proved to be uneventful.  thankfully.

jmh

kick out the jams

yes, of course, the only tune the mc5 ever did that i could actually listen to but this ain’t about them or the tune.  it’s about the theoretical principles of rock and roll and rockers doing country and western.  say what?

for some reason or another i lost the speaker a/c connection to my computer.  no idea what the harold happened to it.  i’ve been without music since i moved here.  well, decent fidelity and whatever.  it got so
bad today it needed to be dealt with.  quickly.

best buy out in cuca eased my pain.  a pair of nice jbl’s at a very nice price.  i asked the lady best buy person.

ok.  so i just take these suckers home.  plug them in and i can rock and roll?  there’s no card or any other bullshit?

ah, let me make sure.

she read the box. 

looks like you are good to go.

yes!  sweet.

the foot feed was maxed to the old route 66 speed limit.  i was in trouble.  i needed me some stones.  badly.  the rock and roll music jones held me in it’s deadly junkie grip.  i had the sweats and my nose was running.  fucking cuca cops better just let me slide.

i made it home in one piece with no cuca sheriff trouble or ulo cops as well.  fucking a.

things went well on the installation.  first cd?  stones of course.  ‘let it bleed’.  ‘gimme shelter’ never sounded better.  ‘monkey man’, sing it jwfh.  hahaha.  yeah.  that cd played a few times.  trust me.

next up.  dylan.  ‘blonde on blonde’.  shit yeah.  ‘visions of johanna’, ’sad eyed lady of the lowlands’.  sweet.  more dylan ‘hwy 61 revisited’ ‘queen jane approx’ and ‘desolation row’.  not much else needs to be said.   

best part of the deal.  no headphones.  no…close the door.  why aren’t you wearing your headphones?  it’s too loud.  he sounds like crap.  yeah,  plug it in and rock on.  nothing much better.  fuck the critics.

well, it’s gotten to the sing along point this afternoon.  the byrds, ’sweetheart of the rodeo’.  country and western by a bunch of stoned out old hippies.  gram parsons.  long dead and before his time.  steel guitar by john harford and clarence j white.  ain’t much better.  count on it.

country and western.  one of the other original american forms of music.   along with the blues, jazz, and rock and roll.  i love em all.  though there’s really something to be said for a country lp/cd with peddle steel guitar to die for.  old traditional country.  violins.  banjo.  peddle steel.  guitar.  vocal harmonies that sing.  then sing some more.  mick and keith, the glimmer twins, know this and you should too.  the stones, ‘wild horses’?  an ode to gram parsons.

’sweetheart of the rodeo’, the byrds.  things don’t get much better.  listen to it.  sing along.  git along little doggie.  rock and roll.

rest in peace, gram.

jmh

iron chef tofu

i went over the hill today.  no, not in the army sense of the term but i went over kellogg’s hill and back into the place where i’d been living for a number of years.  a couple of missions.  a drug script re-newel and chinese food.

i hadn’t cooked on the stove since i’d moved in here.  well, ok, i steamed stuff a few times but for the most part it had been frozen stuff or deli stuff.  i was jonesing for some chinese food.  more to the point, home-made chinese food.

i can cook the stuff.  a number of dishes.  i’m no, let’s get it on restaurant cook, but i can hold my own with enough main course stuff and lots of veggies.  good healthy stuff.  i packed the ice chest with some ice and with list in hand hit the road.

the mission went ok.  i should have gone to 99 market in rowland heights instead of the hong kong market in w. covina.  that market is limited in what the have on hand.  however, i did ok.  i’m good for a while.  i can fix mistakes after the eric the red boat sails in a few weeks.

i picked up the usual chinese condiments.  though i messed up on the veggie oyster sauce deal and got something that, well, wasn’t planned.  my bad.  i wasn’t paying attention.  oooofa.

so the first actual totally home cooked meal here in the upland meadows crib was…stir fried baby bok choy, jasmine rice, and iron chef tofu.  plus of course some vino.  white while cooking and dago red while eating, in this case.  it’s a case by case type deal.

ok.  iron chef tofu.  that’s what the old g/f named it.  it comes from the very old real iron chef show from japan that used to be on channel 18 here in lala land years ago.  and for a time on the food channel.  some day i’ll tell you about a conversation i had with one of the ch 18 folks, years ago, about that shit hot original iron chef show.  veering.

iron chef tofu started out as this weird tofu soy sauce deal the old g/f had come up with.  it was ok but i knew i could amp the deal up.  it took a year or so to refine the dish but now it kicks ass.  there’s several variations and i did another today with shitake mushrooms.  good, but the mushrooms soak up too much sauce.  whatever.  i’m a rice sauce guy.  kinda italian chinese.  capice?      

i have no intention of giving you the recipe as the damn dish sings.  good enough to be proudly featured on any decent chinese restaurant menu.   yeah, well, ok.  it’s tofu, wine, chicken stock(you can make it buddhist with veggie stock), green onions, garlic, and shallots plus other stuff.  it is chinese soul food to be sure.  the one i made today was ok.  it could have been better but it sang and i ate too much.  leftovers tomorrow.  sweet.  plus the rest of the baby bok choy cooked up fresh.

good luck with those ingredients.  i wasn’t very specific at all and there’s at least 4 more that are involved.  you might stumble on to it in five years or so.  maybe.

all is good for now.  or at least sorta.  once the eric the red voyage is over and done i can deal with more issues around here.  fine.  bring it.

the really cool thing about today’s cooking was the house doesn’t smell like paint anymore.  it smells like garlic.  i love the smell of garlic.  it smells of victory.

jmh

putting britney to bed

yeah, there was a time and place a few years back when that idea would have had some legs in the carnality scheme of it all.  times change.  as well as tastes.  ms spears or mrs bubba goober, as the case might be, depending on just how many drugs she’s eaten in the past 12 hours no longer holds much interest for me.  not even, well, perhaps, her evening trips out sans panties, of course you get my rift.  where was i?

i’ve played sorta fast and loose with the britney spears memorial trailer park in the past couple of blogs.  fine.  time to put it to bed and find something else or another way to deal with the britney spears memorial trailer park deal.  this is a nice park and i don’t want my readers and friends thinking i’m living in squalor.  well, not yet anyway.  give me some time for that action.  though the park will not have anything to do with my stupidity.  

the filthy wife beater undershirt stained with all manner of stuff.  sitting on the, actually once nice, front porch with a .357 taking random shots at passing skateboarders or family pets not on a leash.  but i jump ahead a week or two.

no.  this is a nice place.  no squalor at all.  quiet.  peaceful.  so far but i imagine it’s probably like this all the time.  fine by me. i don’t want to offend any of my neighbors who might stumble across the last couple of blogs.  though stumble might not be the right term.  when asked what i do with my spare time or time, period, these days i usually answer, write stuff.  then tell them where to find the crapola.  so i best play nice in the old sand box.  capice?

i mean i’ve had trouble in the past with neighbors and being playful with the living conditions.  it almost got me kicked out of the place.  not a bad thing but i wasn’t ready to move out just yet.

long ago in one of my many lifetimes i was living in oakland, ca.  a strange place under most circumstances.  though i haven’t been there in years.  my fondest memories of the place consist of walking around downtown on sunday afternoons carrying a bottle of vodka and smoking a joint.  the other being watching oakland a’s games live and in person back when they had a hell of a team.

any the ways, a friend and i were living in the ‘red door apts’.  a cockroach infested place if there ever was one.  look up ‘cockroach infested’ in the dictionary and you will see a photo of the red door apts.

the red door apts were a motel at some point or another.  then they were converted into apartments.  apartments where king roach ruled with the skeeviness that only large populations of the damn little bastards can.  walls were alive with the little fucks during the night hours.  coming home and turning on the lights took an iron will combined with the drunken stoned out stupidity of youth.

as a side bar drift.  cockroaches in vietnam are still, i’m sure to this day, the behemoths they were back when i was there during the war.  four or five inches long.  huge man eating things.  we used to douse them in lighter fluid and light them off.  yes.  yes.  i know.  however, ALL of the gi’s did that in nam.  come on they were cockroaches the size of cleveland.  before i drift too far, the point being there weren’t that many of them living amongst us.  nothing like the red door apts.

it’s taken a while but the main point is coming.  trust me.  during the time i was living with the cockroaches at the red door, frank zappa’s movie and lp ‘200 motels’ was released.  all these years later it’s hard to watch.  some of the music still holds up but the movie is sleep inducing at best.

well, the lp had a poster of the movie inside the album jacket.  friend and i thought it would be a good idea to put the movie poster with frank’s large leering face on it along with ‘200 motels’ in large print up in the front window of the red door apts for all to see and enjoy. 

our neighbors weren’t amused.  we were told, by the manager, to take it down.  we didn’t.  after all we were revolutionaries.  right?  then it became take it down or you outta here.  yes, push moving to shove time.
we took it down. 

so the point being i have no desire to push my neighbors to the point of no return.  so from now on no more britney spears memorial trailer park stuff.  ok?  yeah, i know it’s sorta funny and all but i think you get where i’m coming from here.  i hope so.

jmh

the 10 to the 605 to the 105 to the 110 and back

i was off the freeway and at a stop light.  i called her.

hello?

hi, we just got off the freeway and are stopped at a light.  we’ll be there in a minute or two.

ok.  see you.

the garage door was open when we got there and her car was parked on the right side so i could pull in on the left.  she was at the inside door waving and saying stuff.  no idea just what it was about.  i stopped and let the parents out and told her i had to pee.  she didn’t like that.  she was in a hurry.

her parents got out into the heat and wandered aimlessly about like they are prone to do.  i tried telling them to stand in the shade.  several times.  90 year olds.

i went in to pee and after wards she said.

i packed a suitcase for you.  we can do some more later.
 
ah, no.  no more later.  it’s too hot and way to hot upstairs for that action later.  remember, i’ll be here again on friday.

you are wearing your shoes.  you are always a problem.  there is always something.

ah, shit.  just move.  let me get this downstairs and into my car.

wait, here’s your stimulus check.

i put the mail in the suitcase.  zippered it closed and dragged it down the stairs.  wondering just what the fuck was in there any the ways?  more yammering from her on the way down the stairs.  she had an empty suitcase in her hand.  more wondering on my part.  how come she didn’t spread out the load a bit with the other suitcase?

i horsed it around the newel and off the landing trying not to smack the laminate floor to hard.  i’d lost interest in the whole rest of the proposed goddamn day.  a birthday lunch for her mom and sister.  she had me over the edge and i’d only been there a few minutes.

we got into the car.  made our way onto the freeway and headed southwest. i hadn’t said anything other than a few grunts for the first couple of  miles.

you’re angry about what i said upstairs.  i’m sorry.

too late. as usual. 

the later was said under my breath.  i’d had enough.  enough of this shit.  the same damn thing over and over.  it’s why i split to begin with.  trying to remain friends is trying.  very trying.  fucking alaska coming up in july.  lucky me.

we finally arrived at the restaurant and i was really angry at myself for saying i’d make the damn deal.  i just couldn’t do it. 

look.  i don’t want to talk about what my new place is like or anything else.  i’m sorry i’m here.  this was a mistake.  sorry.

yeah,  that’s what i said.  perhaps not the correct thing to say or do or what the fuck ever but it was the truth.  to make things even worse the food was better than the big bucks we spent on our chinese banquet birthdays back in may.   fuck, better food and at 1/3 the price and only 3 less people.

well, it was finally over and we headed back into the heart of the heat.  we dropped her folks off and headed over to the old place.  there was a box with just shoes in it.  or so i thought.  i wanted to put it in the car as well.  it was almost as heavy as the suitcase.  so much for just shoes.

jesus, fuck.

you want some help?

no.  i’ll manage.

i put it in the car and on the backseat. 

do you want to pee before you leave?

no.

i just wanted out of there. 

bye.

see you friday.

see you.

i got back here to britney spears memorial mobile home park and lugged the shit into the house.  still wondering about the empty suitcase and the way to heavy other shit.  oh yeah,  the stimulus check turned out to be another letter from the irs telling me that the check was in the mail.  jesus fucking chrysler(thanks, jwfh).  what the fuck? 

i had to call her and tell her it wasn’t the check.  tell her to keep an eye out some more for that elusive little sucker.

hi.  it’s me.  that wasn’t the irs check.  i’m disappointed.

oh, no.  my mistake.

it’s ok.  just keep looking for it.

i hope it gets here before this friday.

yeah.  me too.  but if it doesn’t we have the wedding on saturday.

ok.

oh, yeah.  thanks for all the bed bath and beyond coupons.

you’re welcome. i have a ton of them.

ok.  ok.  i know.  a wedding on saturday?  yeah.  i promised i would go.  i mean after all there’s going to be an open bar.  it should make things more civilized.  or at least me.  god, i hope so.  i have to make it to alaska.  too much money already spent on that deal to just blow it off in some sort of semi righteous anger and all.

we all have our problems.  some are more of a problem than others.  by a long goddamn shot.  some folks problems are more of a problem than my problems.  sure, it seems like i dig myself a nice square hole more times than not but…what the fuck?  screw it.  i’m used to it after all these years.  any the ways, i died in vietnam. 

jmh

living with britney spears(?)

ok.  not really but i may as well be.  i have become a mobile home park denizen or more to the point, trailer trash.  indeed.  so how did this happen?

the ending of the relationship with the g/f was or had been on a collision course for a number of weeks.  i suppose it was inevitable from the get go but, whatever.  when the deal finally went down i was left with not many options, other than slim and none, as to just what the hell i was going to do.     

i spent several weeks in a hotel while the options got sorted out.  the sorting only took a day or so then it became a waiting game while escrow and the local utilities diddled around. 

early this past week i became trailer trash.  the proud owner of a home on wheels without the wheels.  thankfully, a brand new ‘unit’ no one had ever lived in.  one that with the sagging housing market had sat finished and empty for a number of months until i stumbled along and scooped it up at a bargain price. 

at any rate the park is pretty quiet and nicely maintained.  it’s a family park which is ok because i figure in the long grand scheme of things re-sale should be easier.  i haven’t even been here a week and i’m all ready thinking re-sale.  but then i’m delusional most of the time.

more like insane.  i mean it’s not been fun moving in the blast furnace of an early socal summer.  triple digit temps all week and they will be staying around till this coming monday.  my friend ruby asked me if i was having any fun.  ah, not yet.  unless fun is sweating and swearing bullets while you move shit around.  or try putting together new furniture that entered the home in a box.  doing that semi sorta work singled handed sucks.  trust me.  the only good thing is i now have a nice collection of extra screws and other assorted parts.  yeah, well, what can i say?  other than the stuff seems vaguely sturdy and should hold up over the long haul.  should being the operative word.

i’ve been bleeding cash like a hemophiliac.  my next visa bill will go a long way in staving off a further deepening of the recession.  the ex g/f tells me my stimulus check finally showed up.  a mere drop in the bucket of blood.  it’s all right, ma, i’m only bleeding.  thanks, bobby.

well, with any luck at all ruby the fun might start soon.  i’m hoping the sooner the better. 

jmh

fear and loathing on the de onta trail

no.  i ain’t back.  yet.  a few weeks more at best.  ok.  maybe, ah, i don’t know.  yeah, well, the g/f and i have split up and i’m out in the wind.  it’s ok.  i’m ok.  the wheels turn.  life plods on.  we are still friends.  we just can’t live together.  period. 

i’m back in de onta i suppose until i die.  not actually de onta but ulo soon if things work out and i have any money left.  ulo the place of my place of my birth. fine.

i don’t have much time.  internet access wise.  pound it out.  no time.  more time coming.  hang with me.  i will be back soon.  i’m not abandoning the ship.  i will plod on.

jmh